I literally just posted about a few of these in another thread. :)
Decent: Freespace and Freespace 2 are the best Space Fighter - Dog-Fighting Tactics games I’ve played. They still hold up to this day. And the voice-acting is great.
Dungeon Keeper and Dungeon Keeper 2 are also solid games, although more in the silly corner. Dig out a dungeon, build rooms to attracts creatures of the dark, train them and go to war against the foul knights and kings of the overworld.
The OG Fallout games are always worth a mention. Fallout and Fallout 2.
If you’re into old disturbing point and click puzzle games Sanitarium is a classic.
Or a bit more laid-back storytelling with mysteries, maybe? Then Oxenfree is worth looking into.
In the FPS category I recommend the Metro games. Well, the two first ones anyway. Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light. Stealth is optional, but advised. :p
I’d also be amiss not to mention Soma. It’s a scary game and a solid mindfuck at the same time. Approach with caution.
That’s my list for now. I hope there’s something in there you can use. :)
GOG’s version works for me straight out of the box. Other than that, there’s the High-Res patch and the general Patch. They are quite important on modern machines.
If you play on Windows, make sure both patches are installed. Then screw around with the High-Res patcher a bit, hopefully you can find the right setting. It will probably take a few attempts.
If you play on Linux, I sadly can’t help you as I never got Fallout to work in it. :/
If you’re thinking about the Fallouts, don’t forget all the Infinity Engine games (Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, Icewind Dale 1 and 2, Planescape Torment), and Neverwinter Nights, and Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2.
And Shadowrun (Returns, Dragonfall, Hong Kong).
There’s a universe of amazing isometric RPGs out there.
Battlebit has replaced Mordhau (for now) as my brainless relaxation game. The FPS mechanics are surprisingly solid and it’s just good, chaotic fun. I do think the netcode feels a little last-gen, but you’re not playing this game to be a CS:GO master.
It looks pretty fun! I’ll look more into it but I l’ll probably buy it! My main problem is that I read somewhere that they are planning to use faceit and I use linux and as far as I now faceit doesn’t work on linux.
Their definition of “classic” is rather contrived in my opinion. “Classic” means both old and influential. They ditched the influential part. From their in-depth article:
It’s hard to define exactly what a “classic game” is, but for the sake of this study, we looked at all games released before 2010, which is roughly the year when digital game distribution started to take off.
Our random list of 1,500 games was taken from MobyGames, a huge community-run database of video games.
I can’t feel sorry for the slow disappearance of some Wii Shovelware from 15 years ago. Time is ruthless to all mediocre media.
Thank god LostWinds didn’t die with WiiWare. (Though playing it with a mouse isn’t really the same, admittedly.) I was so glad when I saw it pop up on Steam.
A lot of trash doesn’t have a reason to be rereleased, for sure, but I think you’re maybe underestimating how many genuinely cool titles get neglected for a heap of dumb, business-related reasons.
I should add that it isn’t perfect, it’s early access so expect some weirdness albeit a whole lot less than you’d think.
My favourite, for example: if you’re hiding behind cover make sure it is THICK, else a body part might clip through the model making it able to be shot. Mostly happens when prone making legs and feet stick out.
I could never get into Bioshock for some reason. I started playing it twice, but just never felt super engaged or intrigued. Which seems really weird to me because I love a compelling story and that game has a reputation for being a great story. Maybe I just haven’t been in the right mood and need to give it another shot.
Depending on how many hours you played, you might not have reached the point that gave it that reputation. I absolutely loved the story already, including the characters and the environment of Rapture, but there’s a certain point in the story where it gets taken to a new level.
If we are talking about the original Bioshock I can provide a competing perspective. I found the story to be extremely mid at its peak, and actually mind numbingly poor at the great moment of reveal. I literally fell asleep multiple times trying to get through the game. So if you are not vibing with it in the first 1/3 of the game I think there’s a good chance you just won’t.
I’m really glad that so many people loved this game. There are many different kinds of stories that work for many different kinds of people and this one works for a LOT of people. It has an amazing aesthetic. But it didn’t work for me.
Appreciate the perspective. Maybe it’s just not for me. But I may also give it another shot at some point since I’m not inclined to spend a lot of money on games these days and that one’s already in my Steam library.
The villain would have won, if he’d just had the good sense to NOT BE OBVIOUSLY EVIL FOR LIKE HALF AN HOUR. You could have just celebrated your victory over the first bad guy while you let the hero meander back to the surface and fuck off forever. But NO, you have to be like “HAHAHA I’M EVIL SO FUCK YOU!” and now the hero has literally no choice but to stay and kill you. It was so lazy, and so stupid. Up to that point, it was good, and I loved the twist, and then he had to go completely ruin it with a boneheaded move that made 0 sense except to show how evil he was.
Then Bioshock 2 fucking did the same thing again. Let these meddling interlopers get on the submarine and go away, and you’ve won, all your goals are complete, Rapture is yours. BUT NO, we have to show the reader how EVIL the bad guy is again.
Then Bioshock Infinite did it fuckingagain. Great, we’ve won, the revolution is a success, the good guys are triumphant, oh, shit, did we make these people too sympathetic? Better have them suddenly become bloodthirsty child-killers for no reason so you feel ok fighting them instead of fucking off back home! By that point, though, it was kind of a Dead Dove: Do Not Eat situation; I don’t know why I expected anything different after the previous two times.
To be honest, I don’t remember 90% of that story. The opening is great (but that’s more the setting than story) and the final twist is amazing, but everything else is a blur.
Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox. It made an agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Switch. And it entered several agreements to for the first time bring Activision’s content to several cloud gaming services.
And what are the potential consequences of not living up to these commitments? Call me cynical, but I don’t think a pinkie swear is worth much.
Instead of BF, I would try out BattleBit. It’s an Indie game that’s very similar to BF and got very popular recently.It’s supposed to be BF but actually good.
This got recommended to me the other day. Interesting, but damn was there a lot of filler in this script. I get that he’s trying to get across how these spaces feel to him, but like… it’s a long stairway dude.
Jacob Geller is one of the best video-essayists on YouTube. The thoughtfulness with which he approaches games as pieces of art is rare, the sleek, striking way he presents his theses is rarer still. There are youtubers that I find more entertaining (HBomberguy, Folding Ideas) but no one that I find more engaging.
“Who’s Afraid of Modern Art: Vandalism, Video Games, and Fascism” in particular had a profound impact on me (also loved the one about Golems). Being able to watch the better version of his videos (without the butchering to avoid YouTube’s copyright strikes) is like 80% of the reason why I got a Nebula subscription.
Word of warning: systematically classifying video games is HARD. It’s a bit like classifying any form of creative media: music, cinema, visual arts, etc. It’s hit-or-miss. RPG forums routinely fall into that rut and the infamous corollary: [insert game here] is (or is not) an RPG.
If you’re dead set on this endeavour, I’d suggest identifying main features and tagging games with a number of them. Try and pick required ones if possible. Or don’t, because gate keeping sucks. If you know how to code, this is sort of the Composition over inheritance mindset.
I agree with this methodology, and it’s reminiscent of how traditional roguelikes are defined here. I’ve used a similar approach in my own endeavor of defining incremental games - define a canon, find the qualities they share, and indicate which ones seem most important to have.
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