The storyline and level design on those games is amazing. They were a ton of fun the first time through and I find myself picking them up again every few years and I still enjoy them.
Agreed! I love how different you can play each level as well. Although I generally end up murdering everyone after I mistakenly alert a guard …
It’s also one of only a few games I spent the time to read all the fun “flavor text” notes and books. That and “Control” - both have solid extras that actually add to the story and make you feel immersed in the world.
Hah, I also failed many times and alerted the guards and ended up having to kill everyone. Getting through some of the levels while maintaining stealth can be really tricky.
I still need to check out Control. I agree that the readings in Dishonored were pretty interesting.
I just bought Nier: Automata but it’s not my cup of tea. There are several games, though, with great deals. Had Guardians of the Galaxy, Dishonored 2, Sid Meier’s Civilization VI, the Mafia Collection, Sekiro, Elden Ring and Spider Man begging me to buy them, but I don’t know what to buy. Maybe I’m too old for this.
I enjoyed the original The Last of Us and story-driven games, but I’m not strange to the Souls games (loved Bloodborne), or even strategy games like Xcom. GTA-like games are attractive to me too, particularly Red Dead Redemption. Any thoughts, recommendations?
How far into Nier Automata did you get, may I ask? It could be worth sticking through past the credits. It’s one of those games where the side quests actually add to the experience, as well, so if you’re not doing those you’re missing some of the philosophy.
I know that’s a lot of work to enjoy something, though, and that’s not everyone’s cup of tea!
Sekiro is like the best sword fighting game. Like other fromsoft games it expects you to meet it on its terms. Unlike their other games you can’t really level your way past problems. Some people don’t like that. I love it. Mastering the boss fights is incredibly satisfying. The first serious boss fight took me all day the first time, but now I can do it without getting hit.
Elden Ring is very big and open, but has many options to make it easier. Leveling up, summoning help, summoning NPC help.
Not really into playing online, so I guess Elden Ring will be fine. One day for the first boss may be too much for my patience and time. In the end, I’m just trying to have some fun.
Disco Elysium is a great story, so long as you enjoy reading/listening to lots of dialogue because there’s not much other gameplay. Baldur’s Gate 3 is technically on sale, but it’s only 10% so eh; maybe Divinity Original Sin 2?
Souls games
Both Sekiro and Elden Ring are fantastic, my only caveats would be that Sekiro doesn’t really have character customization so if you love that part of soulsborne it might fall a bit flat, and Elden Ring can start to drag if you have a completionist mindset and go out of your way to complete every little side dungeon.
strategy games
I’ve heard decent things about Midnight Suns which is on a pretty deep sale. The Total War Warhammer games are good fun, though there is a fuckload of DLC, and the third game apparently has major issues.
GTA-like games
Mafia 3 is close, but 1 and 2 don’t really have much to do in the open world IIRC. The Saints Row games are hella cheap (do note that 2 needs a mod to be stable and even then it’ll crash occasionally) EDIT: Don’t get the newest one, just called “Saint’s Row”, it’s terrible. Cyberpunk 2077 maybe qualifies?
Doesn’t fit any of those categories, but I will always recommend Outer Wilds, a fantastic exploration/puzzle game that I wish I could play again for the first time.
Lastly, piracy is always the correct thing to do, but if you insist on paying for games, at least consider using piracy as a demo.
Thank you for the thorough reply. About Outer Wilds, I will look into it, but I prefer real puzzles instead. On piracy, yeah, why not? It’s just that Steam is playing fair with Linux, so I don’t mind spending some money with a good discount.
Hades is a steal at 5$, if you’re into more casual gameplay vampire survivors is also a steal at 3.50 (includes all the dlc), if you want something in between brotato has been a wonderful purchase for me. If you want more of the frantic play style, but shorter sessions and less RPG decision making elements, 1 finger death punch is only a buck.
All of the source games are on sale, I recommend portal> portal 2 /half life 2 > left 4 dead 1&2
Slay the spire for < 2$ is an absolute steal, if you think you might like deck builders that’s one of the o.g’s. another most excellent deck builder, monster train, is also less than 2$, I cannot recommend them both highly enough.
The room is an excellent puzzle game, especially for 75 cents, not personally sure about it’s sequels but I’ve heard they’re equally good.
Don’t starve for 2.50 is amazing, but if you’re at all multiplayer inclined, get ‘don’t starve together’ (I believe it comes with a second copy you can give to anyone)
Hexcells, hexcells 2, and lyne are great if you like puzzle games (everyday genius square logic is also great, but not on sale and no longer supported by devs) delete is also good, and on sale, but it’s much more once over it’s done game (like the room)
Doom (2016?) Is a great first person shooter at 4$, and fallout new Vegas is a great first person RPG at the same price.
FtL at 2.50 is amazing, and after you’ve sunk a hundred hours into it, download the ‘across the multiverse’ fan made expansion, and sink another thousand hours into the game.
And if you’re considering Diablo 4, I plead with you to give path of exile a fair shake first, it’s free to play, only cosmetic micro transactions, and so much more fleshed out of experience.
I stand by each of the above games, if you give any of them a fair shot and walk away considering it an actual bad game, hit me up, let me know what made it bad, and I’ll toss you a game key (of my choosing) of equal or greater value (than the sale price of the game you thought was bad)
Edit, not sure where the hell I got those prices from, I think it may have been showing me "complete the bundle"prices on games I already owned that had bundles with everything else I also owned? I’ll go through and change my reviews based on the prices I find, it’ll definitely change a couple of my “absolutely must have at this price”
Don’t Starve no longer gets updates since the studio only focuses on Don’t Starve Together now. So I would recommend Don’t Starve Together even if you don’t want to play multiplayer.
My friend who loves the game told me about it when they stopped adding content to DS a few years ago. You can see it on the steam updates. DST gets content updates all the time but DS only gets the occasional bug fix update.
Regarding your comment on Diablo 4… Is that really the case? I played Diablo 2, skipped 3 and then played Diablo 4 a few weeks back during the free weekend on Steam. I’m admittedly a casual player, but I enjoyed it a lot. I didn’t love it, though I like it. It was familiar with clear improvements, and I was able to jump right into the game and had an enjoyable experience (I’m aware others could have a different experience especially end game). Gameplay was smooth, UI was simple to navigate while chilling on the couch with a controller, story was interesting, fights were satisfying, and the choices I made for skill progression and weapons all made for a decent experience in the 6-7 hours I played till the level 20 cap. I don’t care about character customization with cosmetics, and have never/will never spend money on mtx especially in a game with this hefty price tag. With all that in mind, the trial was enough to make me consider buying it on sale, and am now considering it again.
But I’m frugal, and have heard from sources online and friends that Path of Exile is Diablo but much better, so I tried it. I gave it 2 hours, and I was personally lost. Not sure if it was the UI which felt clunky and unfamiliar, or the story that didn’t draw me in, or the fact that it felt almost expected to read through wikis to be able to get a decent build, but after two hours I didn’t have fun and uninstalled it. Is it worth it to try again and see if it will scratch the arpg itch?
Path of exile is a love letter to diablo 2. It also has materia from ff7 and the sphere grid from ff10 turned up to 11.
It is also deep as fuck, and thus easy to get lost in. There’s tons of side projects in the game (mining, heists, hunting, just to name three I remember). The skill grid is huge. The in game economy is complicated.The core game is huge and then there’s a huge end game about exploring maps that has its own skill grid. It’s like a decade of content.
You can play it casually. Just go and click on monsters , pick good sounding stuff on level up, and have fun.
You can also look up a guide for your build. You’ll probably do better, but then you’re following a guide.
If you want a game that has a lot of depth, it’s fantastic. If you want something shallow but fun, it can still work but it’s possible you’ll hit parts where your character is built poorly and struggles.
That’s cool, yeah I can see that it can be as deep as you want it to be.
I gave it a shot again last night, and enjoyed it more. Watched a short beginner video that clarified some of the clunkiness I felt with the UI, and my controller worked this time. It crashed 7 times in 2 hours, which is 7 times more than Diablo 4, but it’s a free game so not complaining. Each time the UI would stop responding for 4-5 seconds while the game kept going, then it would show a frozen start of the GGG intro, then crash to desktop. Last time I played it didn’t do that. Meh.
I do find the economy very complicated, and am finding it a little hard to identify the worthwhile loot so that I’m not going to Nessa to sell a few random pieces every 5 mins.
I do also find the fights somewhat repetitive, but that could just be my uneducated witch/necro build. Minions do the tank duties, while I sit back with chain lighting, lobbing fireballs at everything moving. Pretty satisfying, though I feel it could get tired soon. I think I only used a health potion 4x and mana 3x while playing last night, getting up to level 10, doing the main and side quests up to “The Way Forward”.
That’s weird that it crashed so often for you. I don’t think it’s crashed 7 times in the 300 hours I’ve played. Did you do the usual “update your drivers and os” stuff?
You can get a loot filter that will make it more obvious what items to pick up. www.pathofexile.com/item-filter/ladder/follower . Some items sell for more valuable currency (like an item with all 3 color sockets linked together, or one with six sockets, etc).
The game does pick up as you go farther. You get more sockets on your equipment so you can add more support gems and skills. The beginning is pretty easy, though.
There are also other potions you can slot in for like more speed, resistances, and such.
There’s a lot of depth. More than I really know in detail.
Now I’m thinking of downloading it again :thinking:
I loved diablo 2 and 3 but 4 was very meh for me. Path of exile was very confusing to me so I dropped it. You should give grim dawn a chance. It’s so good.
Game often goes on sale along with the dlc. If you decide to give it a chance, check out grimtools for fun builds, calculators, and many more tools. The game is actively being developed after so long, and it’s just so fun to play. It’s what diablo 4 should have been.
Run that shit loud and proud, like a man. Keep it running 24/7 and pin it as your favorite game. Write a review at 50,000 hours and make all your other games private so people don’t realize you are actually just playing Divinity:OS2 and Frostpunk all evening. Gotta set the bar low!
Just picked up the Legendary Edition Mass Effect Trilogy for £4.99 to play on the Steam Deck. Read a few guides online which made it sound pretty complicated to get set up but actually just doing the initial load of the game in desktop mode and logging into EA there has meant it now works through the standard deck mode without a hitch. Great game for the deck and (touch wood) performance seems pretty solid.
steam
Hot
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.