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Gaming was like breathing. It was the biggest part of my life as a teenager, one of my priorities as a college student, and eventually one of my most expensive “hobbies” as a young professional.
Then all of a sudden, after thousands of hours spent playing across genres and platforms, boredom hit me hard for the very first time in my early thirties. Some of my favorite games soon gave me the impression of being terribly long. I couldn’t help but notice all the repeating tropes and similarities in game design between franchises.
I figured it was just a matter of time before I found the right game to stimulate my interest again, but time continued to go by and nothing changed.
Is it that games have failed to innovate, or that real life is ultimately more engaging?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Monday January 07 2019, @10:03PM (7 children)
Fortnite sucks, because Fortnite sucks. It took me a while to realize it, but Fortnite and Call of Duty, etc. Generally attract the type of gamer I avoid. I.E. loud mouthed, obnoxious, and toxic players. Though perhaps, it's just me that's tired of 10 year old kids screaming obscenities into their headset. Though, I might still recommend Call of Duty: World at War. (The first one.)
I usually bounce around genres of game, if I get bored. Mostly, I've played multiplayer games with a friend, but that friend got a wife that's a control freak. So, not playing with him anymore. We'll just say he wen't off the deep end and leave it at that. I have a steam buddy that I play 7DTD (7 Days to Die) with.
Great games that have come out in the last few years, you may have missed.
Best if played with a friend, but still great games:
Terraria, hands down a great game. It may not be for everyone, but the sheer amount of depth to the game is staggering. People who call it a flat Minecraft clone have no idea what they're talking about. I've tried Minecraft and Minecraft is boring by comparison. Terraria can be as easy or hard as you want. I even got my wife to play many, many hours of that game with me. (1k+ Hours played.)
Sanctum, the game that got me to like Tower Defense games. The first Sanctum is much better than the second, it relies a lot more on the strategy you develop in the creation of your maze and a lot less on the FPS aspects. (10 to 30 hours worth of game play to complete.)
Dungeon Defenders, possibly the best Tower Defense game. It's a TD/FPS/RPG game. There's not that many people playing it multiplayer anymore, but it's still one of the best games of all time. (Several hundred hours played.)
7 Days to Die, a great survival game. It's in perpetual Early Access, and they recently updated the engine. So, there's still plenty of bugs, but so far it's a really fun game. (1k+ hours played)
Great Single Player Experiences:
Fallout 4 / Fallout 4 VR. It's just plain fun. I've played it both ways. I've only get 30hours or so on the normal version and switched to VR instead. I heard bad things about it at the start, so I didn't play this one anywhere near launch time. I should have ignored all the bad press about it. You can literally create your own space in the Wastelands. I wish a few things were different and probably can be fixed by the right mods, but definitely a great game.
I would say, get Fallout 4 if Scifi/Dystopian future stuff is your thing. Otherwise, if Fantasy is your thing, go for Skyrim.
Skyrim / Skyrim VR, is great as well. I've played it both ways now, and seriously there's not much more fun that can be had. VR mage is stupid fun. You can shoot Flames from one hand and lightning from the other, what's not to love? Yes, it has story, blah, blah, blah, Crispy Fried critter is where it's at. I just wish there was an Armageddon spell like in Ultima VII.
( ) Insert Roller Coaster VR game / program / sim here.
Age of Wonders 3, strategy game, like Civ. So much fun here, it's possibly the best in the series, but hampered by DRM. Also, who in their right mind makes play by email an achievement for a game . . . Other than that, it's a truly great turn based strategy game.
X-COM / X-COM 2, the new ones. I played through the first one, but haven't really gotten to the second one. It's a great addition to the X-COM universe. (There's "multiplayer" available.)
Mount and Blade: Warband, this is the best one. This is a "FPS" game with Bows, Swords, Maces, Lances, Knives, Crossbows, etc. I say FPS, but it's also a strategy game, and Kingdom Building Sim. Being a Trader is also a viable strategy to building yourself up. Eventually, you'll want to go smash some skulls, though. Warband is more balanced than Fire and Sword. It improves on the original, and doesn't have some of the shortcomings of "with Fire and Sword." Mount and Blade: With Fire and Sword, suffers from instakillitus. They can instakill you 'cause firearms, which is a huge change / annoyance compared to Warband. After spending a couple hundred hours playing Warband, then going to a Fire and Sword, it's just not as fun at the start. Then, once you get sufficient armor, the game becomes a whole lot easier. Sure, the same can be said of Warband, but it's not like it went from Come get Some to Who's your Daddy? difficulty. (Here's hoping for Mount and Blade 2 to be more awesome.)
There's probably others, I'm missing, but 'meh.
You can also try out GOG, it's great for building yourself a library of games you want perpetual access to.
Titles such as these:
Terraria
Sid Meier's Civilization IV (Arguably the best.)
Sid Meier's Pirates (The newer 3D one.)
Ultima VII (The best one. Do yourself a favor and use Exult to play it.)
Master of Magic (Stupidly good Fantasy style Civilization clone. I still actively play this along with Civ IV. I hope they release a fixed/updated Civ II on GOG, but not holding my breath.)
Roller Coaster Tycoon I & II (Don't forget to go ahead and download the open source project that combines the two and adds multiplayer. I believe it's called Open RCT.)
(This is where I would have inserted Duke Nukem 3D, but the stupid publishers took it down. They did the same thing to the Steam version. I have a copy through GOG though, before they stopped selling it. They stopped selling it when they released the new "remastered" piece of junk.)
Wolfenstein 3D (The one that started it all, more or less.)
Blake Stone
X-COM (The Classics, UFO Defense and Terror From the Deep. Probably 3 also, but I never got into that one.) Still play 1 & 2 from time to time.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Kell on Monday January 07 2019, @11:39PM (1 child)
I agree with enough of your picks to say I want to try the ones that I haven't played. And you're spot on with MaB:WB. It's a hugely underrated gem of genius that most people never play deep enough to understand how addictively compelling the later stage modes can be. I've wasted as much time on it as I have on KSP (which isn't on your list, and which you really should try). I too, still fire up X-COM, the original, from time to time. I found Xenonauts to be a worthy successor in ways in which the more recent editions are not.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:34PM
I think I got KSP at some point, but haven't given it a real try. Xenonauts looked ok, but I think the other spiritual successor to the original is better. (I forget it's name, but there's a "gold version.")
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:20AM (1 child)
I quit the Ultimas after 6 proved unplayably buggy. They came out with a patch, but I didn't feel like starting over like I had to do in Ultima 5 because I entered the final dungeon without a crucial item, only to discover it couldn't be exited. Wouldn't have been a big deal, but couldn't have multiple save points either, and I saved after entering the dungeon. Oops. Heck, I didn't even solve Ultima 3 the kosher way. Got tired of the needle in the haystack problem of looking for the Mark of the Snake, and hacked the character disk to give myself the mark. Gave the Ultimas one more shot with Ultima Online, but that was a PVP killfest. 7 is the best, huh?
I played MoM, and yeah, it's mostly a clone of Civ, with a fantasy skin. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. Played the original Civ and Civ 2 as well. The same guys who made MoM also made Master of Orion, did you miss that one? MoM is good, but MoO is better. There's a MoO2 as well.
One of the great classics is M.U.L.E. Multiplayer alien colonization and economics game. 4 people could crowd around one Atari 800 or Commodore 64 to play it.
In recent years, I have had to confine myself to games that I can break away from in an instant, and not come back for several hours, so that pretty well kills off arcade games, unless they have a pause key. Totally kills the MMO stuff. I really enjoyed SpaceChem, a nice puzzle game.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:55PM
Master of Orion should be on my GOG list, but isn't. It's a great strategy game. Though, I think Master of Orion 2 is the better one, if I remember correctly.
Yes, Ultima VII is the pinnacle of the series. The interface is acceptable from a playability point of view even by today's standards. Multiple save points and Exult (Hobbyist engine recreation.) backports some of the features in pt2 to pt1, like the key ring, and things like that. It also makes it a breeze to setup and play on a Modern OS. Sure, GOG sort of does that already, since they preconfigure DOSBox for you, but Exult is still better. You are missing out, if you skipped Ultima VII. Ultima VIII was a disappointment and Ultima IX I never even gave a chance. I played on an Ultima Online PvE Shard (Unofficial Server), but that eventually died. After that I swore off anything with a monthly subscription. The shard was only monthly donation, for extra characters, but it was "worth it" if you were into it. Which I was.
I may give M.U.L.E. a look.
Give Ultima VII a try, you won't be disappointed. You can generally pick it up and put it down at a moment's notice. Yet, it has a huge and rich story, compared to 99% of the RPGs released in recent years.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pipedwho on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:33AM (1 child)
Excellent list.
Here are some of the games that captured me over the years amongst many that I played a bit and were bored before I got anywhere near to completing them:
On my C-64 back in the day:
Old school arcade style that have an actual ending: Impossible Mission, Fort Apocalypse, Lode Runner, Jump Man, and many others I've long forgotten
Old school RPG: Ultima IV, loved the music and play in that game, it was the first of those games I played.
Text: Zork, and heaps of others that I remember the plot line but not the names of. Zork wasn't even my favourite, but it's the only one I remember the name of
On my PC:
Old school with graphic adventure: King's Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Zork Grand Inquisitor
FPS: Wolfenstein, Doom, Duke Nukem, played others, but they were more of the same and I got bored before I finished them. I might have finished Half Life
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
Modern: ----> Portal <---- this one is awesome, a 'FPS' without shooting, look it up if you haven't heard of it. (Portal 2 lost the magic of the first one)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
IPAD/phone:
Oceanhorn (love this game - very much like a really well done version of Legend of Zelda (which I never played as I never had Nintendo)
Robot Wants Kitty - platform shooter/jumper (I know it sounds lame, but some of the levels made by players are awesomely clever - most are crap though)
A Dark Room - text adventure with some clever game dynamics
Swordigo - another platform game with puzzles and an ending.
You might notice the complete absence of online games. I never liked the idea of being tied to the computer in world that I could 'pause' for a break. And I much prefer adventure/quest type games in this genre. I love actual real life role playing (D&D, etc), but that is harder to get going as you need to plan ahead and coordinate a decent block of time with other players.
My best gaming memories have been this non computer based RPGs (AD&D, Gamma World, Traveler, and MANY non-rules based DIY adventures).
And if you missed Portal above, go look it up on Steam and give it a go. The concept of the portal gun allows a whole new class of game based problem solving that is totally different from any other FPS out there.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday January 08 2019, @04:01PM
Ah, yeah, Portal and Portal 2 are stupendously awesome. Though, possibly the most fun I've had on VR is the Portal Stories mod for Portal 2. It's literally more Portal 2 in VR. Slightly different mechanics, but stupid fun. Really short, but it gives me hope that Valve might possibly do something really fun with VR.
King's Quest was the one series I really played much of in that style. It was quite fun. Text wise, there was Humbug, Hugo's House of Horrors, and Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (If I remember correctly, though I think I played a shareware version.).
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Tuesday January 08 2019, @10:51AM
You should have a look at Factorio.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956