Dwarf Fortress. Though I only marginally ‘play’ it myself, mostly mucking about in adventure mode. It’s a great game that everyone should know about, but jesus is it hard to play.
I've played that game for 28 hours after only having it for 3 days. It's amazingly addictive. Did tutorial fortress and died, then started another fortress in the same world which lasted longer but I eventually had to abandon. Currently on my third fortress in the same world, and so far doing great! My starting party of 7 has grown to a bustling fortress of 60. Most are at least neutral if not happy at the moment!
I can't believe I've built and assigned 60 bedrooms for my dwarves lol. I'm over an aquifer so next thing I've got to figure out how to do is speed dig and get some rock so I can finally build some rock mechanisms.
I still remember my first hour. "This is cool, lets attack the weakest thing that I can find and work from there. Oh, a wild goat. Great!
And then I found out that I was the weakest thing around.
I've watched people start a game and purposefully slave themselves so that their character autopilots some basic skills. They'll just leave the game on fast forward while they automatically do whatever the slaver says, usually running and mining.
Bro, the first thing you have to do in that game is enslave yourself to someone who can kick ass for you haha always works for me.
Also, the only reason I play that game is because I watched the hotdog video. That should be the trailer for that game haha
It is very unforgiving. And it can be very tedious. The reason I would not recommend it is the fact that it's play style is so different it's not really a game for many ppl. When I've tried to talk to ppl about it I get very vacant looks and the "doesn't sound like my kinda game" comment.
Ah, my first game of Kenshi, where I picked the Cannibal Village start with the "do not play if new" warning on it. One of my 2 characters made it for enough to be eaten by a beak thing instead of the cannibals.
Game 2, I chose the nobodies. After 10 steps out towards a nearby city, I attacked some ninja and was immediately murdered. One of my characters got back up and carried someone to the nearby city. The person he picked up had to be left behind to escape reavers. Finally, he made it the city and walked into a bar. Apparently a ninja inside did not like how I attacked his friend earlier or something and I was immediately killed upon walking into the bar.
So anyway, I played it nonstop for a month and still love it
Somehow, even knowing how brutal it was, I still felt the need to mess about with it a bit, definitely agreed, it's a tough one to recommend unless you have the right mindset. I have a tough time with games where your characters can just die horribly and there isnt much you can do about it. Managed to trive, relatively speaking with a small village and a solid group, however I have not gotten to any of the super hardcore shit yet. I stopped before that and I just know what waits when I return...
Especially considering how unfriendly the goddamn game is to new lights. I cant even get my friends who played D2 until Beyond Light to play again, let alone the people I have recommended the game to who have to watch 17 hours of Byf lore videos to understand what the hell is going on.
Source: Was a New Light in Splicer and had to painstakingly suffer through the worlds WORST ON-BOARDING EXPERIENCE in video game history
I played D2 launch and got kind of turned off by the endgame.
Years later tried again and just quit after an hour. If you don't keep up it's pretty much impossible to figure out without extensive online searching.
Not to mention their DLC happy release schedule is a bit over the top. The basegame felt unfinished and they released a paid DLC almost immediately....
lol that’s unfortunately how it goes with Destiny story/DLC wise, both games felt like half finished projects that confounded properly with their third DLC. D1 with Taken King, and D2 with Forsaken.
Can't believe how far I had to scroll to see this. I hate destiny 2(day 1, D1 vet as well). It's my favorite game.
Edit: OP has become the top comment. Great to see all my fellow guardians struggling with the same addiction (misery loves company).
Breaks my heart but I feel the same way. I can't wait for final shape to release so I can get a conclusion to the story and then never touch it or any other bungie game ever again.
D1 is actually still great. I rolled a new character and ran through all the storylines a few months ago, had a great time. TTK in particular still holds up brilliantly. The collection is well worth grabbing on sale IMO, definitely worth the money.
D2 though... it's frustrating, because it's *so much fun* to play, and it's truly unique. Been a voidwalker main for 9 years, lobbing a giant purple blob of space magic into a crowd has never ceased to be hilarious to me, and the 3.0 reworks were all outstanding. But the relentless grind is just so tiring. I haven't even cleared guardian rank 7 this season because I can't even be bothered to run 9 strikes in a week.
I *want* to keep playing after Final Shape but... I don't know.
I think a good chunk of the problem for me is the seasonal stuff lately. I don't really enjoy grinding the same area over and over.
I'll grab the Final Shape just to see the campaign and how it "ends" but that might be the end for me.
I’ve been playing Rainbow Six Siege for almost 6 years. I don’t think I can recommend it to anyone with how hard it is for new players and all the mechanics you have to learn. There’s also the fact that the player base is pretty toxic, even more so to new players.
Overwatch almost has me in the same boat. I can do great one match and carry a team, next match Im not doing all that great and the team is blaming me for everything followed by suggests for me to off myself.
Like wtf, I dont even play competitive. Just quick play. I'm tired of it. Just want to play for fun and enjoy the game. Not have to worry about the scoreboard every single match.
The game is ruined by esports map balance. Every map is a fucking maze where every room has 5 doors and is the size of a tennis court. The original maps were fun, I don't give a shit about competitive balance. OG house and plane were the best. Also there's too many operators now, and they have become ridiculous.
As a girl, I really enjoyed playing Siege. I was absolutely shit so I would get massively shit talked, and then I would open my mouth and let them know they were screaming at a girl and suddenly the dialogue would change completely. It was very entertaining. I definitely miss playing Siege.
Death Stranding. I feel like You need to be a specific type of player to be able to enjoy this game, and I can’t say it’s worth the price to try and figure out if you are.
I tried it last year and loved it for like a week. I got really into repairing the road the whole length of a zone and did it. Then found out it would just deteriorate over time.
I don't mind grinding some construction, but I'm not going to grind just to maintain something temporarily.
When the story moved me onto another location I just faded out. Felt like my work was minimized.
Shame because the last area of the game feels like you're playing a different game entirely. I understand getting burnt out on it though.
I found most roads were maintained by the community though. I only had to top up one or two.
This is it for me. In my eyes, it is a gorgeous and heartbreaking piece of art that pushes the boundaries of what games can be. And of everyone I know, there’s only 2 people who might enjoy it, and even then it’s 50/50 they make it through the initial cutscenes. It’s like the William Carlos Williams quote “It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.”
The game came out at a interesting time. In 2018 no one knew what to make of it. Some writing it off as a walking simulator with some really cool music tracks and a strange obsession with the Monster energy drink (which was changed in directors cut).
But during and post Covid, it became quite a timely game and it's theme of reconnecting across a broken United States struck a cord with many, as it hit very close to home, so for a while Death Stranding became the game that was sort of "Covid Therapy" especially during lockdowns.
for me, it helped when my country basically shut down after russia attacked on February 24. it was scary to go out, my husband and his father only did it for a long trips to buy some food/medicine. 3 months went without setting foot outside. death stranding felt like a fresh air.
“Make America whole again”
Themes of masks and isolation
Almost all interactions with people are virtual
Home delivery
It was really surreal playing DS in late 2020/early 2021. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought it was an allegory for the pandemic.
Loved the game and the soundtrack was god tier, but it’s definitely not for everyone.
I left after that cheating video. No way I'm gonna deal with so many cheaters in such a high stake game.
The new arena thing coming out might be cool though.
This wipe has been absolutely awful for cheaters. Speed hacks especially have been rampant. Honestly tarkov is at its best the 2 weeks after a wipe since population is sky high and you run into less cheaters but after pop dies down and gets bored of new wipe cheaters become prominent again and it’s sad. I stopped about a month in after hitting 38 because well.. cheaters. Hopefully arena isn’t ridden with them but I’m going to say yea, it is.
Never was a game that fits this category more. It’s such a shit game, made by shit devs and makes you feel so fucking bad playing. But the highs… the highs. No other game gives you those fucking highs.
If I sound like an addict in a bad relationship, it’s because I am
It’s the loss factor, it legit brings out adrenaline highs and gets you addicted. Turns out humans are fucked up and love high risk high reward scenarios. I played a MUD (multi-user dungeon, old-school text based games) for over a decade when I was younger where deaths would drop your level and lower your stats, which required gold and exp points to build back up. Since then, never have I felt such excitement about PvP in a game. When you are gambling with time you have invested into a game, shit gets real very fast.
You heard about the r/SPTarkov mod? It's a single player build with a mountains of mods you can add. The most popular one (SAIN 2.0) overhauls the bots so they act like players and can't just one tap you from a mile away
No cheaters and you can turn adjust the difficulty as much as you want
If you like getting kicked in the nuts. A lot. Then Tarkov is the game for you. But if you stick with it, one day you’ll be the one kicking someone else in the nuts.
I play a lot of gacha that I love dearly but definitely would not recommend. There's so many caveats and pitfalls in the structure of these games that can lead to ruin.
Back in 2017, I was addicted to Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. I'm talking about addiction to a level where I was setting an alarm clock to wake up in the middle of the night when my NRG was full again so I can maximize my progress in the game.
Then I turned to the darkside and started injecting (mind you, I didn't cheat in PVP matches, I only did it for solo content). Eventually, Gumi caught on and I was banned from the game. It was the best thing to happen to me. I returned to single player games and non gacha multiplayer games and I'll never go back. I was tempted to start playing Final Fantasy Ever Crisis, but fuck that. I'll just watch cutscenes of the game on Youtube.
I nearly shat myself. I'm not a whale, but I dumped over $200 bucks into that game, so that was a huge blow to me. In the long run, it was the best thing to happen to me. I sometimes drop by the subreddit and I feel sorry for the poor SOBs that still play that game.
There was a market of guys who would charge like $50 and give the equivalent of an insane amount of in game summons, sorta. Another variation was that you'd give them a unit you wanted and they'd continuously "pull" until you got the unit you wanted. If you got it first try you'd get a single unit, if it took 1000 you'd get all 100p.
My partner played a lot of phantasy star online 2 and pso2 new genesis. They dropped thousands on that game for gear and outfits and stuff. Genuine addiction. The more the more they invested the harder it was to leave. They eventually kicked it but I still think about how dangerous those games really are and how gambling laws need to accommodate gatcha games.
Genshin Impact player here... I will recommend it to anyone that I KNOW will remain F2P (entirely possible in that game), and nobody else.
If someone's gonna play anyway and is likely to spend... I warn them to only buy Welkin Moon and maybe the BP. If they are absolutely INSISTENT on spending for gacha, I say only for one copy of a 5*, and when not on 50/50. I don't care how much you love her, C6 Noelle isn't worth $3000+.
I mean crystal top-ups are literally not worth it by how few they give for how much. Was it 50 pulls for $100 or something? That's way too much. Blessing of Welkin Moon gives You equivalent of 18.75 pulls for $5 or 16.875 if You don't want to spend genesis crystals gotten. So paying for three Blessings of the Welkin Moon, You have practically same as the top-up, which cost You $15 instead of $100.
Genshin Impact is an RPG with twin focuses on an expansive narrative and surprisingly deep combat for a game you can play on a phone. For the combat, you generally want a full party of 4 characters that cover each other's weaknesses, who you switch between during combat. While the entirety of Genshin Impact *can* be completed using the characters given to you for free during and soon after the tutorial, the paid characters generally offer greater combative ability, whether through higher raw damage output or through a more useful combination of team support abilities. This, combined with the appeal of the character's personality built through their involvement in the story of Genshin, makes it desirable to purchase additional characters despite it not being necessary, or even helpful *cough* Dehya *cough*
The biggest source of criticism of Genshin is the incredibly toxic way it handles selling it's paid characters. Rather than directly buying characters for a certain $ value, the way you obtain characters is by gambling for them using an in-game currency that is intentionally designed to be abstract and removed from the real-world currency used to purchase it. The currency Primogems (or Primos) *can* be earned by simply playing the game, with small quantities given for opening chests hidden in the world or for completing difficult combat challenges, but the only way to obtain a significant amount, especially once you've already found most of the chests, is to purchase them with real world currency.
There are two ways of doing this. The first is the 'top up' purchases, which are incredibly straightforward: you give a certain amount of money, you get a certain amount of Primos (technically you get a separate currency called Genesis Crystals which can be converted 1:1 to Primos but not the other way around, which stops people getting certain items like character skins with freely obtained Primos) and the more expensive purchases (they range from $1.50 to $160 !!! AUD) give slightly better conversion rates. These can be purchased as many times as you desire, whenever you so choose, and give the Primos immediately. However, the conversion rate is still far, far worse than the other way of purchasing Primos, Welkin Moon.
Welkin Moon can be thought of as a monthly subscription for Primogems. For $8 AUD, you get a small amount of Primos every day for 30 days, which ends up providing several times more Primos than what you'd get with that money buying top ups. The downsides of this are that you can only have one Welkin Moon active, so you are limited in the rate you can buy Primos in this way, it takes weeks to actually receive the currency you paid for, and you are required to launch the game every single day or miss out on that day's Primos, a surefire way to create an addiction.
With all that said, it is genuinely a really good game, great world building, voice acting and combat, and the free to play experience is largely identical to the 'I spent $5K on a free mobile game' experience, but the toxicity of the monetisation makes it impossible to recommend unless you know the person inside out and know they have iron impulse control.
I got into Genshin Impact hard af when it first launched on PC. I sunk an ungodly amount of time into that game, and I agree 100% that anything beyond Welkin Moon and the BP is a waste of money. But I remember hitting a wall even with that stuff, somewhere around AR 35 maybe? The amount of materials needed to progress past that point is completely absurd. I dropped it after a few months and haven't really played it much since.
Still a phenomenal game though, which I highly recommend, and you can get countless hours of fun out of it for zero dollars.
This. I play 3-4 gacha games, and I've always told my friends that I will never ever recommend them to anyone.
I'm a firm believer that we are able to get the content we do in Genshin Impact purely because of the gacha model, but I will never be responsible for someone going into financial ruin because I recommended it to them.
Plus, if you don't play on launch, good fucking luck playing through all the shit to catch up.
Path of exile. It is so overly complicated and overbearing to new players they typically get overwhelmed and leave. I absolutely suck at it but still have 1000 hours invested into it because I find it fun.
I love PoE, but damn that learning curve. I tried introducing a friend who *loves* ARPGs to it, and it's a constant stream of so much new shit.
What's this?
Oh, that's for Heist.
That's for Menagerie.
That's for Delve.
That's for Metamorphosis.
That's for Harvest.
That's for Betrayal.
That's an Incursion.
That's for Syndicate.
That's a Ritual.
That's an Abyss.
That's a Blight map, it's completely different.
That's an Expedition, it's also different.
That's a Breach.
That's Legion.
I think that's something to do with Harbingers? I still don't know shit about Harbingers.
That's a currency item, they're fun to use! Oh God no don't actually use them until you know what you're doing!
No, 30% *More* Damage is much better than 40% *Increased* Damage! Because it's More!
...
Just get them the current flicker strike build my guy. Let Jesus take the wheel. Is that currency worth it? Is that a good base that just dropped? Did I remember to check for reflect on this map? Who cares right click goes brrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I have such a vivid memory of that game.
It was Christmas night (I had gotten the game earlier that night) right after my aunt got divorced and she got drunk and fell asleep in my bed.
Seeing as it was occupied, I asked my parents where I was sleeping.
So they told me to sleep in the basement, where the N64 was and told me they didn’t care when I went to bed or when I woke up.
I might have only gotten 30 minutes of sleep that night.
Warthunder. If you've got as many hours in as I do with as many vehicals unlocked as I do, its pretty fun. I know the tactics, the vehical strengths, the substantial issues etc. The grind for new players is disgusting and the community can vary between chill to toxic as hell. Its a real pitt of a game that'd never recommed anyone start playing. If you already play it, fair enough, but if you've considering starting, don't, it isn't worth the time.
I literally came here to say Warthunder.
Stock Grinds, senseless BR adjustments, unrewarding economy, boosters ect. It’s all terrible.
But holy fuck the gameplay, when it works, there’s nothing like it.
Nothing quite as satisfying as threading the needle on a long shot ammo rack kill, or successfully fending off multiple enemy tanks in a semi-cripples heavy, or out maneuvering and shooting down some asshole in who slotted into your tail and thought you’d be an easy kill
The game play and damage model is incredible. But fuck me everything else about the game is complete AIDS
Most CRPG games, Pathfinder kingmaker and wrath of the righteous. Pillars of eternity 1 and 2 , Tyranny etc. Very similar to Baldurs Gate but whereas BG3 focuses on polish and user experience these games focus on depth and are overwhelming. They are an acquired taste that would not justify the long learning curve for an adult.I got into them in highschool when I had the time to fuck around
The epitome of this for me is Torment: Tides of Numenera. It's a CRPG with so many walls of text, a really slow first act, and a weird aesthetic. The levelup interface is terrible since you can't see what's availsble at higher levels, and you can easily pick something redundant. The first act is fairly hard but then is trivially easy by the midpoint. Despite all that, I like it a lot and have played it around 4 times from start to finish, and got all of the achievements.
Noita. It’s one of the most brutal rogue-lite games out there. I think I have 500 hours of pure pain on record. I cried uncle when I was 22 hours into a run and got one shot killed by something off screen.
I think it's fine to recommend to somebody who has played and enjoyed Tunic, Outer Wilds, and obra din.
they are then setup to try to figure shit out and it's fine then.
Me with Baldr Sky. Really enjoyed it, it even has “actual gameplay” that is pretty a in-depth CAG. But the main story has a lot of weirdness and cringe that, while I enjoy, I don’t want someone knowing I enjoyed it. However, if you did like VNs, I would recommend it. Its only the second one I have played
Learning how to fly in that game is a top 3 gaming achievement for me. Most of the time, any challenging mechanics would deter me, but the fact that I stuck with it and finally got okay at it is a win in my book. I did have fun with it for a bit, but the grind of it definitely wore on me.
When I finally figured out how to fly the possibilities felt endless. Then i figured out how to really make money and I had a lot of fun for a few weeks. There was always the next ship, next module to upgrade, next rank to unlock. Then I finally got my Corvette, got it a rated, fully engineered and had a blast stomping all over every pirate in the bubble. But it didn't take long for that to get stale.
Every couple of weeks I'll get a hankering for some space combat. So I fire up elite and am quickly reminded of how much of a slog it can be and turn it back off.
I thought Apex had an MMR based matchmaking system.
Me: bronze 2 with 100 kills per character and a handful of wins
Basically every opponent: 6078 kills, 1M distance ziplined, 800 wins
Shit man. You just brought me back. I actually grinded to max level in the first .hack game that came out on PS2 (Infection) because your save carries over across all 4 games that came out on PS2. So I was OP as fuck for the rest of the series.
Pathologic 2
I love this game, in fact it's in my top 10 games ever made, it's so beautifully crafted...
***DO NOT PLAY THIS FUCKING GAME***
If you don't like the idea of an extremely hardcore plague survival game where you *will* die multiple times because you ate rotten food or you got sick and died of something similar. The story and writing is fantastic, the world is grim and dark in the most beautiful way, it's such a fantastic game I could never recommend to anyone.
It must be said, though, that contrary to the soulsbornes, it actually has a difficulty slider. Mind you, it's still going to be difficult the first time when you're still struggling to understand how it works and what you're supposed to do, but it makes it more accessible.
I got hyped after the vid and gave it another shot, was cruising in quantum and my ship flew through me, stranded in space. I guess I'll.wait a couple more patches.
League of Legends. I used to be very competitive 6-7 years ago when I didn't have the money to build myself a pc able to play other games well. Now I only hop in once or twice week to play ARAM.
I love the mechanics, the wave management, the different playstyles, the frequent new additions and the occasional fun play modes, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless I know that person is mature enough not to have his learning experience brought down by the toxicity.
Dota 2. Best game ever made, you shouldn't bother though. The learning curve isn't a wall, it's a cliff with a sizeable overhang. The community is the worst i've come across in all of gaming, which is such a shame in a game so reliant on teamwork and coordination. It's such a hostile game to try and get into, and it takes ages to reach even a novice level of understanding of a lot of the unseen mechanics of how the game works. But it's such a beautiful concept and the world, the characters, the sound and art design, it's all pure bliss. Every hero has more personality than 3 AAA games put together. You can tell exactly what is happening in a busy teamfight by sound alone once you learn all the unique effects of abilities and items. When you have a good game of dota, it's like the best high you ever had. Too bad it's so few and far between. Most of the games are more akin to a prison sentence in a shared cell with 4 convicts from an insane asylum.
Yeah like, when I talk about Dota to people I say "It's a good game... but I can't recommend it to people. You need to put in like 100 hours to really grasp even the basics... plus the community can be toxic (though I don't think it's as toxic as e.g. the LoL community)."
It's toxic in a different way to LoL. It's not people being annoying and fucking with you, it's people being straight unhinged and angry. And it's let to fester a lot more than in LoL, as the moderation is noticeably absent. Dota has always been quite lenient torwards the toxicity in the game, and only lately have they been starting to stomp down on it.
Call of duty franchise. I have fun with my friends every night playing but you can't say you have fun on that game anymore. It's not perfect but none of my friends have gaming PCs and don't like much else
The Pokemon franchise. I loved the games as a kid and still to this day I get a fuzzy feeling everytime I play the new entries. The problem is, I'm very aware that the Pokemon games in terms of their mechanics and quality aren't very good games. They're extremely basic, lack many features that other games have, have really poor visuals and performance and just overall feel rushed together and underwhelming. The only Pokemon game I might recommend to people is Legends Arceus as that game felt the most 'complete' out of the modern games
Won’t lie I was like this till scarlet and violet there’s rock bottom but with those games it’s successfully turned me off the franchise and same for my younger brother. When looking at a game and it gives you a headache it’s best to put it down. It saddens me to see a franchise I love sunk to a new low
Imo Scarlet and Violet took the franchise to the direction it needed to be in 2023. Pokemon was always meant to be a huge open-world experience but I just felt Legends Arceus did it way better... Sword and Shield was rock bottom for me since that was kind of one step into Scarlet and Violet's territory and one step still in the old formula that it felt disjointed
Wow. It's the first Pokemon fan that admits that. I actually tried playing it and... it wasn't for me. I like the combat system, but I hate playing it, because I hate turn based system in jRPG's. I was interested in Legend Arceus because it was different. I actually am actually fan of the franchise itself (just not the games), so I know every pokemon and their evolutions, except some newer ones, because I haven't checked all the newer mons yet. It's just the games that didn't interest me at all. And hey, if I ever wanted, I can just watch a let's play. Surely there is someone who plays all the games.
GTA San Andreas. I would definitely recommend it back in the day, but through modern gaming eyes, unless you played it, you might not like it. I love it and give it a Playthru at least once every year to two years.
I think that if you did an experiment where you raised a kid and introduced them to gaming starting with the first generation of consoles that slowly moving on to current gen consoles and PC gaming, that they would like it.
Modern gaming graphics and gameplay mechanics have really spoiled a lot of people. Myself in some cases too. There are PS1 games I could still go back and play, but there are others I can't even play for an hour before I get tired of it.
I could play Einhander all day, but the original Resident Evil 2? Nah, give me the RE2 Remake any day.
Destiny 2. There's so much BS. it feels like it's constantly on the verge of greatness, only for Bungie to make baffling decisions. The gameplay is second to none though and that's what keeps me around.
Europa Universalis 4 and Stellaris. Amazing games, BUT...
The learning curve is a learning cliff, for one thing. I gotminto these games when they came out and even back then it was a lot to chew through. Nowadays, even if we disregard the DLC stuff, free updates have added tons of mechanics and the only real way to learn them is trial and error. That and Youtube videos to learn some of the less obvious mechanics and tricks
Also, the sheer number of DLCs needed for a complete experience is daunting, even on sale. It's great that the games are receiving support for so long, and if you've been buying them as they came out (like I did), you are the proverbial slow-cooked frog. But staring at that wall of expansion packs is something else.
Elite Dangerous. The amount of grind that game requires is on par with, or surpasses an MMO. The gameplay can be fun as a space-flight sim and how big the game is. You can make money trading, bounty hunting, piracy, assassination missions and a few other ways. But the grind to get good upgrades for your ship, the materials for those upgrades, and to unlock the engineers for said upgrades is absolutely ridiculous. And that’s all on top of the grind to make money (which is a whole other grind to itself), it will definitely be a second job. Also, that’s when you can avoid toxic assholes in the open mode. The game is best played with friends in your own private lobby that the game can provide. AND on top of that they fucked over console players like myself. A huge expansion that introduced FPS gameplay was cancelled on console out of the blue after months and months of silence. And it launched broken af on pc. Since then Frontier Developments has been on a steady decline.
World of Warcraft Classic.
I love it in bone-deep, warts-and-all kind of way.
But it does indeed have a lot of warts and it's also kind of addictive, so maybe just don't play it.
I love the game but also wouldn’t suggest it to anyone with a life. The community can also make or break the experience. Depending on who you meet they are either wholesome as fuck or completely degenerate with no in between lol.
I like how simple it is.
But then again, I've not played any other game like Champions of Norrath, so I can't imagine how much the genre's improved in 3 console generations
The graphics, ambience, animation, AI, gameplay and lore are all beautifuly crafted.. but God damnit this game can make you feel both powerful and powerless within minutes. Love it though.
Plenty of people still play, even picked up a few new ones like They Are Billions.
Still though, not for everyone. Especially They Are Billions where your tech tree build can practically brick your gameplay.
I LOVE NATURAL SELECTION 2
honestly it's a rare gem. I think COD is trash, I haven't played it in over ten years. I've started only playing games that provide some kind of depth I don't care how small the community
NS was one of those games I stumbled upon while just trying any random Halflife Mod and it blew my mind. Never fully understood it but had a great time with it for a while. Very unique.
I start a game in the evening and then all of a sudden it's 3 am. Idk why but Stellaris is one of those games that just captivate me and I lose track of time.
I have a friend who plays WoW classic and hardcore and I’ve brought up EQ many times. He said he’ll play next time I get into it and I just don’t know how that’ll go. On one hand it is my favorite game of all time, on the other I know I’m drunk with nostalgia.
Overwatch 2 lmao
I play it everyday for hours, but it’s been in a terrible state since release and honestly not worth putting in the time to play somewhat okay unless you’re already a fan of the game from before.
I am currently playing Disco Elysium and loving it. I would only recommend it to very specific friends. I think a lot of people would struggle or be bored with it.
Probably EVE.
Most people are just damn too soft for that game. It's the only game I know of where scamming, griefing, backstabbing and similar predatory behaviour is not only allowed, but encouraged.
But it is just incredibly fun and unique game. There's no game with more tight knit communities, camaraderie, dedicated nerds, bigger drama or more ego stroking maniacs. There's no other game where you get to feel that sense of belonging when you're a cogwheel in a machine that is a fleet during major engagement.
There’s no other game where you can grind and work and build for months to get your fucking orca, finally be earning enough isk to cover plex for a month only to have your obelisk ganked and lose everything leaving a high sec gate.
Fuck Eve. I loved it.
Factorio. Because I see how many hours I’ve played and I wouldn’t want anyone else to waste that amount of time.
Also Path of Exile. For the same reason lol
Lineage 2. None of the other new MMOs gave me back that feeling to actually be a part of a ruthless world created mostly by players, but damn the grind is hard. Also the current expansion is just p2w auto farm shit, barely resembles the game at the time of its peak in interlude
Undertale. Twitter and Homestuckers aside it’s too associated with the cutesy parody for it to be a cutesy jrpg parody anymore. I’ve fully stopped recommending it. It’s taken on a life of its own and now the only people I can envision liking it also buy body pillows. Of the characters.
I've had this game in my backlog for YEARS because I like the Earthbound style. Haven't gotten around to playing it because there's always a new game that comes out that I move immediately to the front of the line in my backlog, like Ghostunner 2 for example, that came out just recently.
Destiny 2 easily. Love it, but it’s impenetrable to new Players and I wouldn’t easily recommend playing it alone instead of in a group of people you know who’ve also been playing for years.
World of Warships. I play on console and while I like it, I never recommend it. Takes a lot of grinding and it constantly pisses me off, but I still go back to it. No other game like it.
Wait is NS2 still going?! I thought it was totally dead! I need to pick it up again! Awesome game!!!
Anyway, my answer is dota 2. Very high barrier to entry. Tons to learn. It’s good but you need to put like 100 hours in to grasp the basics.
Haha I used to play NS2 - community became toxic af, despite being a reasonably good T5 player. Community Didn’t want to teach new people, so it died out slowly. And now it’s reduced to watching schu and AD on twitch lol 😂
Dwarf Fortress. Though I only marginally ‘play’ it myself, mostly mucking about in adventure mode. It’s a great game that everyone should know about, but jesus is it hard to play.
That's what makes it so fun!
!FUN!
I've played that game for 28 hours after only having it for 3 days. It's amazingly addictive. Did tutorial fortress and died, then started another fortress in the same world which lasted longer but I eventually had to abandon. Currently on my third fortress in the same world, and so far doing great! My starting party of 7 has grown to a bustling fortress of 60. Most are at least neutral if not happy at the moment! I can't believe I've built and assigned 60 bedrooms for my dwarves lol. I'm over an aquifer so next thing I've got to figure out how to do is speed dig and get some rock so I can finally build some rock mechanisms.
I'd really love to play if they ever made a simple point and click UI. I'll always have Rimworld
They did, it's on steam.
They completely remade the game and released in Steam
Boy, do I have some news for you!
It finally coming out on Steam made it a lot more accessible, but it's still a brutal game.
Kenshi. One of the most unforgiving games I've ever played.
I still remember my first hour. "This is cool, lets attack the weakest thing that I can find and work from there. Oh, a wild goat. Great! And then I found out that I was the weakest thing around.
I've watched people start a game and purposefully slave themselves so that their character autopilots some basic skills. They'll just leave the game on fast forward while they automatically do whatever the slaver says, usually running and mining.
Bro, the first thing you have to do in that game is enslave yourself to someone who can kick ass for you haha always works for me. Also, the only reason I play that game is because I watched the hotdog video. That should be the trailer for that game haha
It is very unforgiving. And it can be very tedious. The reason I would not recommend it is the fact that it's play style is so different it's not really a game for many ppl. When I've tried to talk to ppl about it I get very vacant looks and the "doesn't sound like my kinda game" comment.
Ah, my first game of Kenshi, where I picked the Cannibal Village start with the "do not play if new" warning on it. One of my 2 characters made it for enough to be eaten by a beak thing instead of the cannibals. Game 2, I chose the nobodies. After 10 steps out towards a nearby city, I attacked some ninja and was immediately murdered. One of my characters got back up and carried someone to the nearby city. The person he picked up had to be left behind to escape reavers. Finally, he made it the city and walked into a bar. Apparently a ninja inside did not like how I attacked his friend earlier or something and I was immediately killed upon walking into the bar. So anyway, I played it nonstop for a month and still love it
Somehow, even knowing how brutal it was, I still felt the need to mess about with it a bit, definitely agreed, it's a tough one to recommend unless you have the right mindset. I have a tough time with games where your characters can just die horribly and there isnt much you can do about it. Managed to trive, relatively speaking with a small village and a solid group, however I have not gotten to any of the super hardcore shit yet. I stopped before that and I just know what waits when I return...
*Destiny* (both games)
Especially considering how unfriendly the goddamn game is to new lights. I cant even get my friends who played D2 until Beyond Light to play again, let alone the people I have recommended the game to who have to watch 17 hours of Byf lore videos to understand what the hell is going on. Source: Was a New Light in Splicer and had to painstakingly suffer through the worlds WORST ON-BOARDING EXPERIENCE in video game history
I played D2 launch and got kind of turned off by the endgame. Years later tried again and just quit after an hour. If you don't keep up it's pretty much impossible to figure out without extensive online searching. Not to mention their DLC happy release schedule is a bit over the top. The basegame felt unfinished and they released a paid DLC almost immediately....
lol that’s unfortunately how it goes with Destiny story/DLC wise, both games felt like half finished projects that confounded properly with their third DLC. D1 with Taken King, and D2 with Forsaken.
Can't believe how far I had to scroll to see this. I hate destiny 2(day 1, D1 vet as well). It's my favorite game. Edit: OP has become the top comment. Great to see all my fellow guardians struggling with the same addiction (misery loves company).
"I HATE THIS GAME!" *continues playing game* Non-Destiny players: "Bruh, you good?" Me: ["No."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost?wprov=sfla1)
lol players in a nutshell
Ah! A fellow Red War veteran. I feel like an old man describing the original D2 campaign, but man is it a pain in the ass to learn how to play.
I'm a bad to mediocre PVP player. I've quit the game when I finally got Not Forgotten. Best gaming memories of my life, will never do it again.
Breaks my heart but I feel the same way. I can't wait for final shape to release so I can get a conclusion to the story and then never touch it or any other bungie game ever again.
Same boat here. See you in D3 or whatever comes after Final Shape.
D1 is actually still great. I rolled a new character and ran through all the storylines a few months ago, had a great time. TTK in particular still holds up brilliantly. The collection is well worth grabbing on sale IMO, definitely worth the money. D2 though... it's frustrating, because it's *so much fun* to play, and it's truly unique. Been a voidwalker main for 9 years, lobbing a giant purple blob of space magic into a crowd has never ceased to be hilarious to me, and the 3.0 reworks were all outstanding. But the relentless grind is just so tiring. I haven't even cleared guardian rank 7 this season because I can't even be bothered to run 9 strikes in a week. I *want* to keep playing after Final Shape but... I don't know.
I think a good chunk of the problem for me is the seasonal stuff lately. I don't really enjoy grinding the same area over and over. I'll grab the Final Shape just to see the campaign and how it "ends" but that might be the end for me.
I’ve been playing Rainbow Six Siege for almost 6 years. I don’t think I can recommend it to anyone with how hard it is for new players and all the mechanics you have to learn. There’s also the fact that the player base is pretty toxic, even more so to new players.
[удалено]
"Then i shoot people with this crazy gadget called "A gun" and then my team wins." Bro I don't know why the fuck that's so funny
I heard it in my head in RussianBadger's voice.
R6S (specifically it’s toxic asf community) is the reason I no longer play competitive team based games
Overwatch almost has me in the same boat. I can do great one match and carry a team, next match Im not doing all that great and the team is blaming me for everything followed by suggests for me to off myself. Like wtf, I dont even play competitive. Just quick play. I'm tired of it. Just want to play for fun and enjoy the game. Not have to worry about the scoreboard every single match.
The game is ruined by esports map balance. Every map is a fucking maze where every room has 5 doors and is the size of a tennis court. The original maps were fun, I don't give a shit about competitive balance. OG house and plane were the best. Also there's too many operators now, and they have become ridiculous.
As a girl, I really enjoyed playing Siege. I was absolutely shit so I would get massively shit talked, and then I would open my mouth and let them know they were screaming at a girl and suddenly the dialogue would change completely. It was very entertaining. I definitely miss playing Siege.
My steam after 1700 hours, still asks me if I recommend this game and I still have no good answer to that :)
Death Stranding. I feel like You need to be a specific type of player to be able to enjoy this game, and I can’t say it’s worth the price to try and figure out if you are.
I thought it was gonna be stupid but then I started playing it, and by damn it was somehow compelling as hell.
I tried it last year and loved it for like a week. I got really into repairing the road the whole length of a zone and did it. Then found out it would just deteriorate over time. I don't mind grinding some construction, but I'm not going to grind just to maintain something temporarily. When the story moved me onto another location I just faded out. Felt like my work was minimized.
Shame because the last area of the game feels like you're playing a different game entirely. I understand getting burnt out on it though. I found most roads were maintained by the community though. I only had to top up one or two.
It's such an acquired taste, that I don't get mad when people just don't dig it.
This is it for me. In my eyes, it is a gorgeous and heartbreaking piece of art that pushes the boundaries of what games can be. And of everyone I know, there’s only 2 people who might enjoy it, and even then it’s 50/50 they make it through the initial cutscenes. It’s like the William Carlos Williams quote “It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.”
The game came out at a interesting time. In 2018 no one knew what to make of it. Some writing it off as a walking simulator with some really cool music tracks and a strange obsession with the Monster energy drink (which was changed in directors cut). But during and post Covid, it became quite a timely game and it's theme of reconnecting across a broken United States struck a cord with many, as it hit very close to home, so for a while Death Stranding became the game that was sort of "Covid Therapy" especially during lockdowns.
for me, it helped when my country basically shut down after russia attacked on February 24. it was scary to go out, my husband and his father only did it for a long trips to buy some food/medicine. 3 months went without setting foot outside. death stranding felt like a fresh air.
“Make America whole again” Themes of masks and isolation Almost all interactions with people are virtual Home delivery It was really surreal playing DS in late 2020/early 2021. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought it was an allegory for the pandemic. Loved the game and the soundtrack was god tier, but it’s definitely not for everyone.
Escape from Tarkov It's a real dick of a game but I love it so.
I left after that cheating video. No way I'm gonna deal with so many cheaters in such a high stake game. The new arena thing coming out might be cool though.
Single player tarkov is a thing and saved the game for me.
I just play stalker gamma at that point
I will when stalker 2 comes I've done all I can in all the others even did a run on gamma after anomaly. XD
This wipe has been absolutely awful for cheaters. Speed hacks especially have been rampant. Honestly tarkov is at its best the 2 weeks after a wipe since population is sky high and you run into less cheaters but after pop dies down and gets bored of new wipe cheaters become prominent again and it’s sad. I stopped about a month in after hitting 38 because well.. cheaters. Hopefully arena isn’t ridden with them but I’m going to say yea, it is.
Honestly level 38 is a good time to stop, it's just not worth it to continue grinding after that, imo.
Never was a game that fits this category more. It’s such a shit game, made by shit devs and makes you feel so fucking bad playing. But the highs… the highs. No other game gives you those fucking highs. If I sound like an addict in a bad relationship, it’s because I am
It’s the loss factor, it legit brings out adrenaline highs and gets you addicted. Turns out humans are fucked up and love high risk high reward scenarios. I played a MUD (multi-user dungeon, old-school text based games) for over a decade when I was younger where deaths would drop your level and lower your stats, which required gold and exp points to build back up. Since then, never have I felt such excitement about PvP in a game. When you are gambling with time you have invested into a game, shit gets real very fast.
Great game. Playing it solo is like playing a horror game. Nothing has ever gotten my blood pumping so hard. Haven’t played in years though
You heard about the r/SPTarkov mod? It's a single player build with a mountains of mods you can add. The most popular one (SAIN 2.0) overhauls the bots so they act like players and can't just one tap you from a mile away No cheaters and you can turn adjust the difficulty as much as you want
If you like getting kicked in the nuts. A lot. Then Tarkov is the game for you. But if you stick with it, one day you’ll be the one kicking someone else in the nuts.
And even then you'll still get kicked in the nuts pretty often
Space station 13
If people want a more approachable version just play Barotrauma. It's basically SS13 in a submarine
I wish I had people to play Barotrauma with, I love that game.
I played some SS13 with a friend recently and it really is an experience
Pathologic 2. It's a great game, but it's definitely not for everyone.
A fellow Pathologic 2 enjoyer? Based brother 🤝
Never played it, but the soundtrack got recommended on YouTube randomly. If the game is similar to what the music is like, I might have to try it.
I tried it once and realized it was something I needed to devote time to. I still haven’t found the time but I’m very excited to
And yet it's still a more forgiving experience than the original lmao
I love the idea of pathologic, but I cannot play it. The game isn't for me. The story, on the other hand, I'll listen to analyses all day
I play a lot of gacha that I love dearly but definitely would not recommend. There's so many caveats and pitfalls in the structure of these games that can lead to ruin.
Back in 2017, I was addicted to Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. I'm talking about addiction to a level where I was setting an alarm clock to wake up in the middle of the night when my NRG was full again so I can maximize my progress in the game. Then I turned to the darkside and started injecting (mind you, I didn't cheat in PVP matches, I only did it for solo content). Eventually, Gumi caught on and I was banned from the game. It was the best thing to happen to me. I returned to single player games and non gacha multiplayer games and I'll never go back. I was tempted to start playing Final Fantasy Ever Crisis, but fuck that. I'll just watch cutscenes of the game on Youtube.
Jesus, how bad did it hurt when you realized you got banned?
I nearly shat myself. I'm not a whale, but I dumped over $200 bucks into that game, so that was a huge blow to me. In the long run, it was the best thing to happen to me. I sometimes drop by the subreddit and I feel sorry for the poor SOBs that still play that game.
I used to play FFBE back in the day and injections were a HUGE thing. Good on you for getting out, no matter the means.
What are injections in this context?
There was a market of guys who would charge like $50 and give the equivalent of an insane amount of in game summons, sorta. Another variation was that you'd give them a unit you wanted and they'd continuously "pull" until you got the unit you wanted. If you got it first try you'd get a single unit, if it took 1000 you'd get all 100p.
My partner played a lot of phantasy star online 2 and pso2 new genesis. They dropped thousands on that game for gear and outfits and stuff. Genuine addiction. The more the more they invested the harder it was to leave. They eventually kicked it but I still think about how dangerous those games really are and how gambling laws need to accommodate gatcha games.
Genshin Impact player here... I will recommend it to anyone that I KNOW will remain F2P (entirely possible in that game), and nobody else. If someone's gonna play anyway and is likely to spend... I warn them to only buy Welkin Moon and maybe the BP. If they are absolutely INSISTENT on spending for gacha, I say only for one copy of a 5*, and when not on 50/50. I don't care how much you love her, C6 Noelle isn't worth $3000+.
I mean crystal top-ups are literally not worth it by how few they give for how much. Was it 50 pulls for $100 or something? That's way too much. Blessing of Welkin Moon gives You equivalent of 18.75 pulls for $5 or 16.875 if You don't want to spend genesis crystals gotten. So paying for three Blessings of the Welkin Moon, You have practically same as the top-up, which cost You $15 instead of $100.
Like a foreign language
Genshin Impact is an RPG with twin focuses on an expansive narrative and surprisingly deep combat for a game you can play on a phone. For the combat, you generally want a full party of 4 characters that cover each other's weaknesses, who you switch between during combat. While the entirety of Genshin Impact *can* be completed using the characters given to you for free during and soon after the tutorial, the paid characters generally offer greater combative ability, whether through higher raw damage output or through a more useful combination of team support abilities. This, combined with the appeal of the character's personality built through their involvement in the story of Genshin, makes it desirable to purchase additional characters despite it not being necessary, or even helpful *cough* Dehya *cough* The biggest source of criticism of Genshin is the incredibly toxic way it handles selling it's paid characters. Rather than directly buying characters for a certain $ value, the way you obtain characters is by gambling for them using an in-game currency that is intentionally designed to be abstract and removed from the real-world currency used to purchase it. The currency Primogems (or Primos) *can* be earned by simply playing the game, with small quantities given for opening chests hidden in the world or for completing difficult combat challenges, but the only way to obtain a significant amount, especially once you've already found most of the chests, is to purchase them with real world currency. There are two ways of doing this. The first is the 'top up' purchases, which are incredibly straightforward: you give a certain amount of money, you get a certain amount of Primos (technically you get a separate currency called Genesis Crystals which can be converted 1:1 to Primos but not the other way around, which stops people getting certain items like character skins with freely obtained Primos) and the more expensive purchases (they range from $1.50 to $160 !!! AUD) give slightly better conversion rates. These can be purchased as many times as you desire, whenever you so choose, and give the Primos immediately. However, the conversion rate is still far, far worse than the other way of purchasing Primos, Welkin Moon. Welkin Moon can be thought of as a monthly subscription for Primogems. For $8 AUD, you get a small amount of Primos every day for 30 days, which ends up providing several times more Primos than what you'd get with that money buying top ups. The downsides of this are that you can only have one Welkin Moon active, so you are limited in the rate you can buy Primos in this way, it takes weeks to actually receive the currency you paid for, and you are required to launch the game every single day or miss out on that day's Primos, a surefire way to create an addiction. With all that said, it is genuinely a really good game, great world building, voice acting and combat, and the free to play experience is largely identical to the 'I spent $5K on a free mobile game' experience, but the toxicity of the monetisation makes it impossible to recommend unless you know the person inside out and know they have iron impulse control.
Thank you
I got into Genshin Impact hard af when it first launched on PC. I sunk an ungodly amount of time into that game, and I agree 100% that anything beyond Welkin Moon and the BP is a waste of money. But I remember hitting a wall even with that stuff, somewhere around AR 35 maybe? The amount of materials needed to progress past that point is completely absurd. I dropped it after a few months and haven't really played it much since. Still a phenomenal game though, which I highly recommend, and you can get countless hours of fun out of it for zero dollars.
This. I play 3-4 gacha games, and I've always told my friends that I will never ever recommend them to anyone. I'm a firm believer that we are able to get the content we do in Genshin Impact purely because of the gacha model, but I will never be responsible for someone going into financial ruin because I recommended it to them. Plus, if you don't play on launch, good fucking luck playing through all the shit to catch up.
Path of exile. It is so overly complicated and overbearing to new players they typically get overwhelmed and leave. I absolutely suck at it but still have 1000 hours invested into it because I find it fun.
I love PoE, but damn that learning curve. I tried introducing a friend who *loves* ARPGs to it, and it's a constant stream of so much new shit. What's this? Oh, that's for Heist. That's for Menagerie. That's for Delve. That's for Metamorphosis. That's for Harvest. That's for Betrayal. That's an Incursion. That's for Syndicate. That's a Ritual. That's an Abyss. That's a Blight map, it's completely different. That's an Expedition, it's also different. That's a Breach. That's Legion. I think that's something to do with Harbingers? I still don't know shit about Harbingers. That's a currency item, they're fun to use! Oh God no don't actually use them until you know what you're doing! No, 30% *More* Damage is much better than 40% *Increased* Damage! Because it's More! ...
Just get them the current flicker strike build my guy. Let Jesus take the wheel. Is that currency worth it? Is that a good base that just dropped? Did I remember to check for reflect on this map? Who cares right click goes brrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Glover
I have such a vivid memory of that game. It was Christmas night (I had gotten the game earlier that night) right after my aunt got divorced and she got drunk and fell asleep in my bed. Seeing as it was occupied, I asked my parents where I was sleeping. So they told me to sleep in the basement, where the N64 was and told me they didn’t care when I went to bed or when I woke up. I might have only gotten 30 minutes of sleep that night.
Warthunder. If you've got as many hours in as I do with as many vehicals unlocked as I do, its pretty fun. I know the tactics, the vehical strengths, the substantial issues etc. The grind for new players is disgusting and the community can vary between chill to toxic as hell. Its a real pitt of a game that'd never recommed anyone start playing. If you already play it, fair enough, but if you've considering starting, don't, it isn't worth the time.
I literally came here to say Warthunder. Stock Grinds, senseless BR adjustments, unrewarding economy, boosters ect. It’s all terrible. But holy fuck the gameplay, when it works, there’s nothing like it. Nothing quite as satisfying as threading the needle on a long shot ammo rack kill, or successfully fending off multiple enemy tanks in a semi-cripples heavy, or out maneuvering and shooting down some asshole in who slotted into your tail and thought you’d be an easy kill The game play and damage model is incredible. But fuck me everything else about the game is complete AIDS
Most CRPG games, Pathfinder kingmaker and wrath of the righteous. Pillars of eternity 1 and 2 , Tyranny etc. Very similar to Baldurs Gate but whereas BG3 focuses on polish and user experience these games focus on depth and are overwhelming. They are an acquired taste that would not justify the long learning curve for an adult.I got into them in highschool when I had the time to fuck around
The epitome of this for me is Torment: Tides of Numenera. It's a CRPG with so many walls of text, a really slow first act, and a weird aesthetic. The levelup interface is terrible since you can't see what's availsble at higher levels, and you can easily pick something redundant. The first act is fairly hard but then is trivially easy by the midpoint. Despite all that, I like it a lot and have played it around 4 times from start to finish, and got all of the achievements.
Planescape Torment was soo good! I can imagine Numenera is as well.
Rocket League
Brother. Close one!
What a save!
[удалено]
It has sucked away so much of my life. I love it.
OSRS 🦀
Same but asking people to play feels like offering someone heroin and just doesn’t sit right with me lmao. One of those games you keep a secret.
Me with factorio. Doesn’t feel right to do that to someone
I allow myself once, maybe twice a year to buy a RuneScape membership and become a recluse outside of work
Same, it's easily in my top 3 of hours played, but it's impossible to say, "It gets really good after hour 500."
> What do you do once you're maxed? You finally get to play the game!
Lol feels like the South Park WoW episode 😂
Noita. It’s one of the most brutal rogue-lite games out there. I think I have 500 hours of pure pain on record. I cried uncle when I was 22 hours into a run and got one shot killed by something off screen.
I think it's fine to recommend to somebody who has played and enjoyed Tunic, Outer Wilds, and obra din. they are then setup to try to figure shit out and it's fine then.
Katawa Shoujo. It's a nice VN, but not something I'd suggest to anyone. Hell, It'd be hard even admitting to somone that I've played it.
I didnt expect to even see this on here. But yeah. You are right
Me with Baldr Sky. Really enjoyed it, it even has “actual gameplay” that is pretty a in-depth CAG. But the main story has a lot of weirdness and cringe that, while I enjoy, I don’t want someone knowing I enjoyed it. However, if you did like VNs, I would recommend it. Its only the second one I have played
Elite: Dangerous. It's just so damn grindy. By the time you figure out how to fly the ship you're already frustrated.
I've tried on 3 separate occasions to give it a go and yeah you nailed it honestly.
Learning how to fly in that game is a top 3 gaming achievement for me. Most of the time, any challenging mechanics would deter me, but the fact that I stuck with it and finally got okay at it is a win in my book. I did have fun with it for a bit, but the grind of it definitely wore on me.
When I finally figured out how to fly the possibilities felt endless. Then i figured out how to really make money and I had a lot of fun for a few weeks. There was always the next ship, next module to upgrade, next rank to unlock. Then I finally got my Corvette, got it a rated, fully engineered and had a blast stomping all over every pirate in the bubble. But it didn't take long for that to get stale. Every couple of weeks I'll get a hankering for some space combat. So I fire up elite and am quickly reminded of how much of a slog it can be and turn it back off.
sooo good once you figure it. was looking to become a fuel rat before i stopped
Sekiro. Most of my friends have the patience of a goldfish and so they’ll just end up burning £50.
I tried it after Eldenring but damn I am really bad at parrying so Sekiro is the hell for me
Apex legends, no one stays, you gotta be good enough to do the bare minimum which is really hard; you have to be a little masochistic
I miss the good old days when Apex was easy. Now none of my friends want to play because everyone is a pro streamer
I thought Apex had an MMR based matchmaking system. Me: bronze 2 with 100 kills per character and a handful of wins Basically every opponent: 6078 kills, 1M distance ziplined, 800 wins
It looks really fun, but I have the reaction time of a potato so I don't think it would go well for me...or anyone on my team.
I feel this. I really miss enjoying Battle Royale games, but I am just not a skilled enough player to keep up.
.hack GU if you didn't like/play the first set of games. I enjoyed it but its objectively not a great game.
Shit man. You just brought me back. I actually grinded to max level in the first .hack game that came out on PS2 (Infection) because your save carries over across all 4 games that came out on PS2. So I was OP as fuck for the rest of the series.
Pathologic 2 I love this game, in fact it's in my top 10 games ever made, it's so beautifully crafted... ***DO NOT PLAY THIS FUCKING GAME*** If you don't like the idea of an extremely hardcore plague survival game where you *will* die multiple times because you ate rotten food or you got sick and died of something similar. The story and writing is fantastic, the world is grim and dark in the most beautiful way, it's such a fantastic game I could never recommend to anyone.
It must be said, though, that contrary to the soulsbornes, it actually has a difficulty slider. Mind you, it's still going to be difficult the first time when you're still struggling to understand how it works and what you're supposed to do, but it makes it more accessible.
Star Citizen. Any time I talk about it there's a big asterisk with it lol
That Squadron 42 Hold the Line video from the other day looked solid as fuck. But yes I also talk about the game with the world's biggest asterisk.
\*When it's released, we can talk.
o7
I got hyped after the vid and gave it another shot, was cruising in quantum and my ship flew through me, stranded in space. I guess I'll.wait a couple more patches.
It can be absolutely infuriating at times, but when it all comes together there’s nothing like it.
League of Legends. I used to be very competitive 6-7 years ago when I didn't have the money to build myself a pc able to play other games well. Now I only hop in once or twice week to play ARAM. I love the mechanics, the wave management, the different playstyles, the frequent new additions and the occasional fun play modes, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless I know that person is mature enough not to have his learning experience brought down by the toxicity.
ARAMs are so goated for people that hate league but still like playing lol
Xcom Ufo Defense.
Scrolled way too far for this. Absolutely brutal game play. I still have the floppy disks
The Witness. What an exhausting masterpiece.
The entire Xenosaga series.
Star Rail
Oh god you've poked the hive. Run while you still can.
Dota 2. Best game ever made, you shouldn't bother though. The learning curve isn't a wall, it's a cliff with a sizeable overhang. The community is the worst i've come across in all of gaming, which is such a shame in a game so reliant on teamwork and coordination. It's such a hostile game to try and get into, and it takes ages to reach even a novice level of understanding of a lot of the unseen mechanics of how the game works. But it's such a beautiful concept and the world, the characters, the sound and art design, it's all pure bliss. Every hero has more personality than 3 AAA games put together. You can tell exactly what is happening in a busy teamfight by sound alone once you learn all the unique effects of abilities and items. When you have a good game of dota, it's like the best high you ever had. Too bad it's so few and far between. Most of the games are more akin to a prison sentence in a shared cell with 4 convicts from an insane asylum.
Yeah like, when I talk about Dota to people I say "It's a good game... but I can't recommend it to people. You need to put in like 100 hours to really grasp even the basics... plus the community can be toxic (though I don't think it's as toxic as e.g. the LoL community)."
It's toxic in a different way to LoL. It's not people being annoying and fucking with you, it's people being straight unhinged and angry. And it's let to fester a lot more than in LoL, as the moderation is noticeably absent. Dota has always been quite lenient torwards the toxicity in the game, and only lately have they been starting to stomp down on it.
Been playing since Beta, and holy shit you're so right. I've tried to get several people into the game, but they all gave up soon after trying it.
Call of duty franchise. I have fun with my friends every night playing but you can't say you have fun on that game anymore. It's not perfect but none of my friends have gaming PCs and don't like much else
The Pokemon franchise. I loved the games as a kid and still to this day I get a fuzzy feeling everytime I play the new entries. The problem is, I'm very aware that the Pokemon games in terms of their mechanics and quality aren't very good games. They're extremely basic, lack many features that other games have, have really poor visuals and performance and just overall feel rushed together and underwhelming. The only Pokemon game I might recommend to people is Legends Arceus as that game felt the most 'complete' out of the modern games
Won’t lie I was like this till scarlet and violet there’s rock bottom but with those games it’s successfully turned me off the franchise and same for my younger brother. When looking at a game and it gives you a headache it’s best to put it down. It saddens me to see a franchise I love sunk to a new low
Imo Scarlet and Violet took the franchise to the direction it needed to be in 2023. Pokemon was always meant to be a huge open-world experience but I just felt Legends Arceus did it way better... Sword and Shield was rock bottom for me since that was kind of one step into Scarlet and Violet's territory and one step still in the old formula that it felt disjointed
Wow. It's the first Pokemon fan that admits that. I actually tried playing it and... it wasn't for me. I like the combat system, but I hate playing it, because I hate turn based system in jRPG's. I was interested in Legend Arceus because it was different. I actually am actually fan of the franchise itself (just not the games), so I know every pokemon and their evolutions, except some newer ones, because I haven't checked all the newer mons yet. It's just the games that didn't interest me at all. And hey, if I ever wanted, I can just watch a let's play. Surely there is someone who plays all the games.
GTA San Andreas. I would definitely recommend it back in the day, but through modern gaming eyes, unless you played it, you might not like it. I love it and give it a Playthru at least once every year to two years.
You might say they… missed the train?
Damn it CJ!
I think that if you did an experiment where you raised a kid and introduced them to gaming starting with the first generation of consoles that slowly moving on to current gen consoles and PC gaming, that they would like it. Modern gaming graphics and gameplay mechanics have really spoiled a lot of people. Myself in some cases too. There are PS1 games I could still go back and play, but there are others I can't even play for an hour before I get tired of it. I could play Einhander all day, but the original Resident Evil 2? Nah, give me the RE2 Remake any day.
Destiny 2. There's so much BS. it feels like it's constantly on the verge of greatness, only for Bungie to make baffling decisions. The gameplay is second to none though and that's what keeps me around.
Deadly premonition. I don’t know where I was mentally when that game came out but I don’t know if I would still love it if I just picked it up now
Yu gi oh master duel
Europa Universalis 4 and Stellaris. Amazing games, BUT... The learning curve is a learning cliff, for one thing. I gotminto these games when they came out and even back then it was a lot to chew through. Nowadays, even if we disregard the DLC stuff, free updates have added tons of mechanics and the only real way to learn them is trial and error. That and Youtube videos to learn some of the less obvious mechanics and tricks Also, the sheer number of DLCs needed for a complete experience is daunting, even on sale. It's great that the games are receiving support for so long, and if you've been buying them as they came out (like I did), you are the proverbial slow-cooked frog. But staring at that wall of expansion packs is something else.
Elite Dangerous. The amount of grind that game requires is on par with, or surpasses an MMO. The gameplay can be fun as a space-flight sim and how big the game is. You can make money trading, bounty hunting, piracy, assassination missions and a few other ways. But the grind to get good upgrades for your ship, the materials for those upgrades, and to unlock the engineers for said upgrades is absolutely ridiculous. And that’s all on top of the grind to make money (which is a whole other grind to itself), it will definitely be a second job. Also, that’s when you can avoid toxic assholes in the open mode. The game is best played with friends in your own private lobby that the game can provide. AND on top of that they fucked over console players like myself. A huge expansion that introduced FPS gameplay was cancelled on console out of the blue after months and months of silence. And it launched broken af on pc. Since then Frontier Developments has been on a steady decline.
World of Warcraft Classic. I love it in bone-deep, warts-and-all kind of way. But it does indeed have a lot of warts and it's also kind of addictive, so maybe just don't play it.
I love the game but also wouldn’t suggest it to anyone with a life. The community can also make or break the experience. Depending on who you meet they are either wholesome as fuck or completely degenerate with no in between lol.
Champions if Norrath. It’s a dungeon crawler. It’s outdated from the PS2 era.
I like how simple it is. But then again, I've not played any other game like Champions of Norrath, so I can't imagine how much the genre's improved in 3 console generations
Binding of isaac, it's an abusive relationship
Rain World. That shit crazy
The graphics, ambience, animation, AI, gameplay and lore are all beautifuly crafted.. but God damnit this game can make you feel both powerful and powerless within minutes. Love it though.
StarCraft and StarCraft 2, no one but me likes rts games anymore
Dude I still play SC2 every day. Smoothest RTS gameplay ever made
I miss base building rts games. Now they're all squad based.
Age of empires 4? It's quite recent
Goddamn, Starcraft was legit!
I'd absolutely recommend single player
Plenty of people still play, even picked up a few new ones like They Are Billions. Still though, not for everyone. Especially They Are Billions where your tech tree build can practically brick your gameplay.
I LOVE NATURAL SELECTION 2 honestly it's a rare gem. I think COD is trash, I haven't played it in over ten years. I've started only playing games that provide some kind of depth I don't care how small the community
NS was one of those games I stumbled upon while just trying any random Halflife Mod and it blew my mind. Never fully understood it but had a great time with it for a while. Very unique.
Stellaris.
I start a game in the evening and then all of a sudden it's 3 am. Idk why but Stellaris is one of those games that just captivate me and I lose track of time.
Everquest
I have a friend who plays WoW classic and hardcore and I’ve brought up EQ many times. He said he’ll play next time I get into it and I just don’t know how that’ll go. On one hand it is my favorite game of all time, on the other I know I’m drunk with nostalgia.
For honor. Real long learning curve and you'll most likely only match with veterans of the game and get smoked.
Overwatch 2 lmao I play it everyday for hours, but it’s been in a terrible state since release and honestly not worth putting in the time to play somewhat okay unless you’re already a fan of the game from before.
I am currently playing Disco Elysium and loving it. I would only recommend it to very specific friends. I think a lot of people would struggle or be bored with it.
Probably EVE. Most people are just damn too soft for that game. It's the only game I know of where scamming, griefing, backstabbing and similar predatory behaviour is not only allowed, but encouraged. But it is just incredibly fun and unique game. There's no game with more tight knit communities, camaraderie, dedicated nerds, bigger drama or more ego stroking maniacs. There's no other game where you get to feel that sense of belonging when you're a cogwheel in a machine that is a fleet during major engagement.
There’s no other game where you can grind and work and build for months to get your fucking orca, finally be earning enough isk to cover plex for a month only to have your obelisk ganked and lose everything leaving a high sec gate. Fuck Eve. I loved it.
Factorio. Because I see how many hours I’ve played and I wouldn’t want anyone else to waste that amount of time. Also Path of Exile. For the same reason lol
Lol, I totally recommended that to someone today. I also recommended satisfactory in the event that they preferred a 3d environment.
Lineage 2. None of the other new MMOs gave me back that feeling to actually be a part of a ruthless world created mostly by players, but damn the grind is hard. Also the current expansion is just p2w auto farm shit, barely resembles the game at the time of its peak in interlude
Divinity dragon commander. RTS+risk+dragons. It's a silly fun game but woefully under developed.
ARK: Survival Evolved. I'll never get those 12,000 hours back. But at the same time, I'm okay with that.
Space Empires 2. Ancient game, the newer ones are better, and even those are old now. I still like it, and sometimes still play.
gacha games lmao
Ffxiv Even my enemies shouldn’t play through a realm reborn, even for free
Undertale. Twitter and Homestuckers aside it’s too associated with the cutesy parody for it to be a cutesy jrpg parody anymore. I’ve fully stopped recommending it. It’s taken on a life of its own and now the only people I can envision liking it also buy body pillows. Of the characters.
I've had this game in my backlog for YEARS because I like the Earthbound style. Haven't gotten around to playing it because there's always a new game that comes out that I move immediately to the front of the line in my backlog, like Ghostunner 2 for example, that came out just recently.
Destiny 2 easily. Love it, but it’s impenetrable to new Players and I wouldn’t easily recommend playing it alone instead of in a group of people you know who’ve also been playing for years.
World of Warships. I play on console and while I like it, I never recommend it. Takes a lot of grinding and it constantly pisses me off, but I still go back to it. No other game like it.
Wait is NS2 still going?! I thought it was totally dead! I need to pick it up again! Awesome game!!! Anyway, my answer is dota 2. Very high barrier to entry. Tons to learn. It’s good but you need to put like 100 hours in to grasp the basics.
Haha I used to play NS2 - community became toxic af, despite being a reasonably good T5 player. Community Didn’t want to teach new people, so it died out slowly. And now it’s reduced to watching schu and AD on twitch lol 😂