It certainly wasn’t incredible, but for Sonic a 6-7/10 is basically a 9/10 to hardcore Sonic fans. That’s okay, and it means the game inherently isn’t for everyone. It’s got lots of issues, but I think if you can look past the surface level details it has a lot that it does right too.
It’s definitely, from the position of a jaded fan who tried it after years of ignoring (and occasionally playing because they’re so bad) Sonic releases because of the poor quality, the best release in a long time.
You have to understand, it’s sonic fans claiming its a good game. They’ve been left starving for something actually fun for so long that their standards couldn’t really get any lower.
The fact they did something new while also creating a game that some sonic fans find fun is astonishing.
A big one for me is Fallout 1. I only played it for the first time a few years ago and it is one of the only games where as soon as I finished it I wanted to start it again. The only reason I didn’t was to play Fallout 2. There is an extremely valid argument that Fallout 2 is better, but the pacing of 1 is so good. It opened up a whole (niche) genre of games I thought I didn’t like, isometric crpgs, especially ones with turn based combat, relatively low player power, and serious consequences.
The other game I could replay over and over again was Metal Gear Solid 1. In my opinion it is the best in the series relative to its time of release, if that makes sense.
Same. Project Brutality makes the old Doom games quite enjoyable as well. It’s a bit edgy but it’s kind of a mix of modern Doom with the old ones. It’s the perfect kind of game to just turn your brain off and shoot some demons without having it be too difficult.
Doom Eternal is too much of a dance to play, you have to swap weapons all the time and carefully juggle ammo, chainsaw, dashes and a bunch of other buttons to play optimally.
Mischief Makers for n64! its a puzzle platformer by treasure, its controls are a little unintiutive at first, but the games grappling/boost mechanics are so much fun once you get it down.
“I have looked into the genre of roguelikes, however the basic premise of these games are that they start all over again from each session, which is what I am trying to avoid.”
…Except this isn’t true of what we’d traditionally call rogue-lites, which is really most roguelikes these days. The vast, vast majority have a lot of meta progression systems to the point where people actually expect it these days.
Tetris (Game Boy/TI-83) and Nokia Snake. Those were my main mobile games for many many years. I don’t think I need to say anything about the games themselves. You all know what’s up 😆.
Warcraft 2. (I played this before Warcraft 1.) (Un)holy fuck. Everything about this game at the time was so metal. Started my lifelong bias for playing as Orcs in video games. Art and music are 😘👌 classic.
Deus Ex. I won’t call it a masterpiece, but it’s an iconic piece of gaming. I thought the “solve the missions however you want!” aspect was a bit oversold but replaying it during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic just made me realize how good the story and lore writers were. Music was great too, and it’s a good source for memes.
Lots of people will keep saying it was good until the next announcement at which point they’ll admit that it was bad but the new one actually looks good
But my favorite is Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, which was made by some of the people who created Fallout and has a LOT in common with it. It’s an open world, a combination of classic fantasy with elves, dwarves, and halflings with a rising steampunk technology that competes with magic. There are many schools of magic and technology, as well as social, stealth, and combat skills. The graphics are very crude by today’s standards, but the gameplay is outstanding.
You know, I never tried Diablo 1 even though I grew up religiously playing Diablo 2. Also love the original fallout games, I definitely need to make time for this.
Diablo 1 has the same gameplay as the other games but in terms of scope and concept it’s much more self contained, it’s a different experience. Good game, but d2 is what the sequels have all tried to recreate, so it will feel quite different.
Thanks for the warning, but I don’t mind different; different can be good. I’m excited to see the beginnings of my childhood game, I think it’ll be worth the patience. Though, having a hard time finding it, it’s not on the blizzard downloads list. I’mma do more digging tho, it’s gotta be out there somewhere.
Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, all of these still hold up, and are totally worth a play even if you never played them back in their day.
Also, Alpha Centauri has SUCH a great narrative. Each faction has a strong identity, each leader has a fitting personality, the whole package is great.
It really deserves a remake to update the controls and UI, it still plays really well if you can get past that though.
I do think Valve not being publicly traded allows them to be different in some ways such as the flat structure (“enshittification” as defined by Doctrow doesn’t apply to Valve because there are no shareholders to please) but there’s nothing “left” politically about Valve. Some of it I think is just not having to look good to shareholders allowing Valve to make actual good business decisions.
Valve’s support of free software is because during the Windows 8 era Newell gained the fear that Microsoft would phase out Win32 in favor of UWP, cutting into Steam’s business big-time. Microsoft definitely isn’t going to pull that now that Windows Phone and the Start Screen concept both died and they’ve stated they no longer see UWP alone as the future, but I do think Valve administration still thinks it’s best for their business to not rely on Microsoft’s whims.
Every Star Wars fan owes it to themselves to play Knights of the Old Republic, at least once. And if you play it once, you’ll want to play it through again, as a different character class. And if you play it twice, you’ll want to play it through again, as a dark-side Jedi. And if you play it thrice, you may be tempted to play it through again, as a Droid.
It’s a wonderful story, that feels like Star Wars (which, for those of us older Star Wars fans, who at the time were suffering through the cumulative disappointments of the prequel trilogy, became our salving solace), with plots and settings and characters and ships and light-sabers and action and betrayals that were (and still are) as rich as any of the movies or shows.
The people who run the franchise keep teasing canonicity, so play it soon, so you’ll gasp like we do when Darth Revan makes an appearance.
gaming
Newest
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.