Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is one of my favorite indie games of all time. The city design really captures the feeling of wandering around an unfamiliar, large, bustling place. The diary mechanic at the end of the day is a great way to get in character, and I like that you can decorate the apartment. I did some light data-mining (mostly item info and dialogue strings), and I even have fridge magnets of some of the pixel art!
Depanneur Nocturne is also a great evening’s worth of exploration and vibes, but I mention it because it has a reference to Spaceport Janitor and it made me SO happy when I realized that. :)
I officially hate everyone who preorders digital games. There is absolutely no justification for it. If you preorder, youre the reason modern gaming sucks.
I literally don’t get it either. “BuT It lEtS me DOwNlOaD iT iN AdVanCE” but like are you really that impatient you need it the second it’s released? And before seeing if it’s actually a good game or not?? It’s like people have learned nothing from the constant shitty releases time and time again
Keep in mind that there are different schools of thought on what makes a good open world game.
I love exploration and discovery without much guidance, so point-of-interest markers and repetitive copy/paste events (as found in Horizon and Witcher games) bore me. Responsive controls and good user interface are also important to me, so Red Dead Redemption 2 was a miserable experience that drove me away, despite the great environments and character building. Some people consider those games masterpieces, though, so I have to assume their priorities are different from mine.
Subnautica is an outstanding example of what appeals to me. Beautiful world, unconfined exploration, excellent soundtrack, a story told through discoveries rather than exposition, multiple ways to accomplish things, and a departure from the usual “kill everything” approach to success. Fair warning: it is a first-person game.
Skyrim shares some of these strengths and can work pretty well in third person with mods like True Directional Movement and TK Dodge RE. Be aware that modding Skyrim is a deep rabbit hole that can quickly become a full time job. One way to solve this is using the Wabbajack tool to semi-automatically install a well-tested mod collection.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits looks like it shares some of its design with Breath of the Wild / Tears of the Kingdom, which is encouraging. I haven’t played it yet.
This have looks fabulous to me, but there’s no way I’m preordering. I don’t have a lot of experience with Bethesda, but I thought the overall picture painted was a pretty gorgeous one. Hopefully they can deliver. That being said, I just started playing Fallout76 about two weeks ago, so I don’t mind waiting until they work sone things out. Overall though, what they are promising looks incredible. Probably too good to be true :)
I don’t really care that people throw away their money like this. Because I am now always looking forward to the always very entertaining youtube clips of how much off a disaster the lastet AAA videogame release is.
Vampires, The Masquerade: Bloodlines. The whole vibe of the setting, the story, the locations, and then when I finally understood what the plot was really about. Masterpiece of a game, couldnt stop thinking about it.
I hate it I try to always avoid always online drm but sometimes it’s really impossible, i’m gonna be honest and say that i got some issue with my steamdeck for them. (f u ubisoft btw) So if i find that a singleplayer game needs an always online drm i just don’t buy it.
For me, I enjoyed D4 as a nice campaign. Played through a few times, once with my partner and another solo.
D4 pros: Impeccable game feel, moment to moment combat, graphics and even some nice storytelling. Enjoy the QoL features for alts and the myriad of endgame loops; Helltides are a lot of fun.
D4 cons: Dungeons are boring to me. Builds that feel fun and powerful are limited to 0-2 per class; a big letdown. Weird network / instance lag which stands out among the otherwise polished aesthetic. Middling open world re: exploration to reward ratio.
PoE pros: Deeeeeep. Hardcore. Aspirational? Still haven’t cleared the campaign despite getting closer each league. Lots of builds and skill variety.
PoE cons: Feels like the oldest baguette ever to exist. Wildly stiff gameplay. Ugh its such shit compared to D4. Like DMC vs Skyrim level of difference. Disparate, cheap feeling UI and tacked on storytelling. Exudes HardXCore__Statzz.xls energy and feels practically impossible to navigate a viable build without a guide.
In the end I think Grim Dawn outplays both D4 and PoE. Check it out if you love ARPGs
I haven’t seen any incremental games get posted. They aren’t exactly traditional games, but so many of them are open source like Antimatter Dimensions or Synergism. Bitburner is a unique one as an incremental hacking sim, since it relies on actual scripting to grow and automate tasks.
I’ve been playing for the last three seasons now. I was going to break my F2P status to get Ghost-Spider but the decisions made by the developers the last month or two made me decide full-out against putting any money into the game if they don’t pull their heads out of their ass.
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