Shall we take some time to look away from the dumpster fire of modernity and embrace our roots with a bit of vidya discussion? I’d love to have some recommendations of what’s good, and I’m sure others would as well.
I honestly probably already have enough games, but it’s hard to turn down a good sale. So tell me, what should I keep an eye out for?
The whole Yakuza series is now on Steam and they are all excellent games. Start with Yakuza 0. Yakuza 0 has arguably the best story and it has really fun gameplay with tons of content.
I would also recommend Hades. It is a really fun roguelike action game with top tier presentation values.
I’ve been meaning to get into the Yakuza games, so I’ll have to be sure to grab one then.
0 really is great. Disco, Pocket Circuit Racing and Hostess Management are highlights.
That dude's yakuza 7 in a nutshell video is so goddamned good, some spoilers in it though.
I love yakuza though, games are emotional rollercoasters.
I could not get into Pocket Circuit Racing. Tried it, didn't like it, then skipped the rest. The only property I didn't own.
I have tried 0 on the recommendations here, and it was indeed great.
I recommend that you start with Yakuza 0!
You won't regret it, its a fantastic franchise that somehow managed to pivot from brawler type combat into RPG type combat perfectly.
And as others have said, the side stuff is always worth doing, the subplots are major highlights in each game, main meat and potatoes is great but theres some looney tunes tier shit tucked away in the streets whereas most of the main storyline is super serious the subplots are crazy shit usually. Some are pretty sad, most are dumb shit though, like kiryu trying to sneak into an alleyway to get a dirty mag for some kid from a vending machine while dodging gossipping office ladies, or getting into fights with old ladies over spots in line.
Love Hades. Honestly I love everything that Supergiant has put out; one of the only developers who I will immediately buy from.
I loved Hades and Transistor. I thought Bastion was good as well.
Thanks for reminding me that I need to pick up the only Supergiant game I don't have yet: Pyre.
Pyre is gorgeous. The gameplay is way to simplistic and seemed tacked on to the rest of the product.
Pyre is great. Gameplay is a change up from their normal style; it honestly feels the most experimental of their games, but the story is pretty well written and the characters are all pretty endearing. Good stuff.
I bought Pyre and have played it for a few hours.
The characters are cool and there is a lot of worldbuilding which I always like.
The game is fun so far.
Brigador - $8.99, sleeper hit that had another cowardly tranny shakedown last year. Support cancelled devs (if they're actually good)
Suzerain - Unfortunately, probably made by communists. Surprisingly interesting so far. Who knows. I'm only about two hours into it. Caveat emptor if you're concerned about giving money to communists with little payoff (still feel burned on Disco Elysium)
Surviving Mars - Great soundtrack. Space colony sim. Doesn't quite hit the mark and is somewhat shallow but I still got my dozens of hours in and my money's worth. Get the terraforming DLC.
Endless Space 2 - Stellaris but more accessible. Nice music and prettier art. A little lewd and racy and French. Get the vaulters DLC.
Mobius Front '83 - Zachtronics' take on turn based tactics.
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead - Highly atmospheric roguelike with all the post-apocalyptic cliches from zombie media of the last few decades. Not even on steam. Free. Get the CO.AG soundpack and use the UNDEAD_PEOPLE tileset. Manages to be more compelling than Fallout to me.
Ace Combat 7 - No explanation needed.
Project Wingman - The best ace combat 7 fan game ever. Get if you're done with AC7 and are still hungry for more.
With Wingman, I'd buy it for Prez alone. Get the mod that unlocks all weapons on mounts then fly the F-15MTD and use multi rail basic missiles against a plane. They can turn out of one missile launch but not when there's 2 dozen fired at once. And the ammo type stacks so you have 300 multi launch missiles you can use against Crimson for instance. It's great.
I see that Hitman: Blood Money is on sale for $2.49. A fair price for a 15 year old game. If you like the post-Absolution Hitman games, this is its main progenitor and an excellent game in its own right if perhaps a bit dated. But it is my favorite game of all time that I wore out a PS2 playing, so I am perhaps biased.
Hitman 2 is also on sale, which I will probably pick up since I don't have it and now have a Windows PC powerful enough to run it.
One thing to research before you buy the newer games: there are countless editions and Hitman 2 & 3 have editions that include the earlier games (1 & 2). IIRC there are also upgrade editions if you have some part of the earlier games. And of course each one of them has half a dozen stand-alone editions with and without DLC, special editions, etc. It's ... a mess. Hitman 1 (2016) was pretty good though.
Yes I noticed all the various editions when I was looking at the Steam page for the game. Just figuring out exactly what I want looks like it will be quite the affair. Fortunately I have a couple weeks to sort it all out.
I have Hitman 1 and agree it's a pretty good game. Which also means I don't need to buy the levels again if they're part of some Hitman 2 bundle.
It's not gonna be on sale, but Factorio's great.
Also not stream but if you can enjoy minecraft graphics and gameplay Vintage Story is a lot of fun https://www.vintagestory.at/
Start in the stone age knapping knives and axes and reed basjets, go through the bronze age with smelting copper and alloys, preserve food to survive the winter
The have hosted servers if enough ppl are interested to make a community villiage
How is Vintage Story? Mostly looks like modded minecraft. Is it on a pace where the feature set would eclipse a moderately modded minecraft experience?
I haven't played minecraft since release so I can't really compare but the play feels really good. The knapping stone tools and making clay pots voxel by voxel is kind of a gimmick but at the same time that level of detail helps the immersion.
Crops grow over several game days and you need to rotate them because each type deletes specific soil nutrients (which are thankfully displayed). Leather requires making tannin by soaking oak logs, and limewater which requires crushing limestone, chalk or borax. Then it takes multiple game days of soaking the hides in the solutions, scraping them, and eventually you get leather pieces.
There is a system of mechanical power where your windmills drive axles which transfer along gears and eventually to a tool.
Its like all survival games where there is an initial learning curve but imo it really shines in multplayer. I've only played it with one other person but working together makes the game much more fun.
Vintage story is made by the people behind the Terrafirmacraft mod, so its foundation is modded minecraft. Loved terrafirmacraft (very unlike most minecraft mods) but never played vintage story.
I'll second The Forest and Rad Rodgers from Lurker404. Both games are out of my normal type of games and I enjoyed both. Yakuza as well. I'm on Yakuza 3 right now. Put about 30-35 hours in each so far to complete story and as much of the side stuff as I feel like doing. Don't skip the substories, some of them are good for a laugh and never take long. It's been a couple years though, I go through spurts.
I recently finished Maneater. Fun game, you're a shark, swim around, munch on people, fight fisherman hunters, etc. There's a story but not much to it. Not super long and the combat is basic, but I don't care I enjoyed it. Probably still a little expensive for me at $23.99 but I'm a cheap bastard.
Ten year old stuff is a lot more my thing, so here's a bit of what I've been playing lately that's on sale:
Binary Domain - Yeah, it's a almost ten year old third person cover shooter. Take it for what it is. I like games like that and I don't care if they are stale or whatever. Made by the Yakuza game people, not woke, and it's cheap at $3. Bastion - I actually liked more than Hades but they share similarities.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - I think I finished it in January. Lot of game for $7.50. Similar to old PS2/3 era God of War games, but longer with a little more story.
Check prices on https://isthereanydeal.com/
Steam sales have largely been coasting on reputation and hype instead of good prices like they used to in the beginning. There are so many game stores there's basically a "Steam summer sale" all year round.
I'll always shill Hollow Knight
Hollow Knight really didn't do much for me. It's clearly a very well put together game, both mechanically and artistically but something about it just utterly failed to hook me.
Same. I think the downer atmosphere just turned me off of it.
Maybe that was it. World's gloomy enough already and subconsciously I just rejected more gloom in my recreational time.
Out of curiosity, how far did you get? The game was pretty mild for me until after the first boss in Greenpath where it began to pick up steam. By the time I beat the Mantis Lords, I was hooked 100%
I don't even recall at this point. I think I was two or three maps deep but I don't know. None of it really stuck with me.
The whole time I played hollow knight I was just bummed that they chose to build this otherwise awesome world and lore around bugs
Have it. Wonderful game all around
If you are into slow, odd, indie arsty games with atmosphere and reading up the ass check out Cultist Simulator. The dude who runs it made Sunless Sea and was the reason it was good, and was then railroaded by his team due to bullshit allegations, so I like to support him. And I really do like Sunless Sea and Cultist Simulator.
Let's see. Me being the Weeb I am. Dang It Ron Paul is like $10 each, that's pretty good. Get V1 and V2, V3 is troll game and haven't touched it.
Valkyria Chronicles 4 is $20, I need to replay that . It's good. First VC is $8, is kinda rough considering the port and all the features 8 adds but still good. Ah, Lynn, your full HP recovery and Extra action during a turn is always good. Grab a mod that re-balances progress, that will make it more friendly than having to scout rush.
100% OJ, pretty neat party game if you have friends. Like 3 bucks. Has some DLC for characters and such but it's fun in bursts.
EDF 5 is $35 is a bit pricy but EDF 4.1 is $14. That one is still good and still has multi.
Digimon Cyber Sleuth and Akiba's Trip are $20 each. Both are pretty good exploration games set in Tokyo.
Recettear is $5. Lucy is also $5, if you want a android VN.
Forgotten Anne is $10, decent little platformer.
Lobotomy Corp is $15. Steal at that price. Prepare for the Pain Train. That is no joke with this game.
40k Mechanicus is $14. Project Hospital is $17.
Xcom 2 is $20, grabbing that for mods is worth it.
And that's all for now. You'll find something for sure.
Cuckhold simulator
Isn't Battlefield V on Origin?
Project Wingman - basically AC7 with better enemy AI and a better story IMO. Also better soundtrack and better post-game content.
Ender Lilies - I'm only a few hours in, but so far it's a pretty good metroidvania-lite platformer. Combat encounters are well designed and the game has a solid pace. My only issue so far is the english translator sprinkled they/them pronouns where they don't belong. In addition to being cringy, some of the text gets confusing due to the use of a plural pronoun referring to a singular entity.
I bought The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel series I've also noticed Vanquish is on sale if you do not have it.
Guilty Gear Strive has been a good time but I wouldn't expect to see it on sale since it just dropped.
Legend of Grimrock is still a fantastic game if you haven't tried it yet. The genre isn't for everyone but it does what it sets out to very well and there's plenty of custom dungeons to explore if that's your jam.
It doesn't suck but it is a very different experience. I'm currently bouncing between Strive and Xrd and enjoying both. They're just different beasts.
Imagine bothering to switch the voices to English rather than leaving everything in Japanese.
Yeah I'll give you that one.
You're fucking retarded if you think the game is for casuals. It's just not the same as old Guilty Gear games.
You are incapable of distinguishing between something that is bad and something that you don't like. Your opinion is of absolutely no worth and you should be scorned.
I recently finished The Forest and enjoyed it a lot. It's a survival/crafting game. Unlike almost every other one of these games out there it's actually finished and not stuck in perpetual early-access hell.
Two great resources if you plan on playing it:
https://theforest.fandom.com/wiki/The_Forest_Wiki
https://theforestmap.com/ (world map, obviously with spoilers)
If you're more into strategy games Driftland The Magic Revival is pretty good. You slap floating rocks together, build your city on them and then destroy the enemy with your army.
I'm not usually into platformers but Rad Rodgers is a blast from the past. Lost of old-school video game references and adult humor.