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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: 2) by stretch611 on Tuesday January 08 2019, @01:04AM (5 children)
Go here: https://steamdb.info/graph/ [steamdb.info] or here: https://steamdb.info/stats/gameratings/ [steamdb.info]
That is a link to the games with the most concurrent players followed by the ones with the highest ratings.
By default, they only show the top 25 and you can page to the next 25. Also, you can change it to a higher page count.
(note: SteamDB uses statistics from steam, but is not an affiliate of steam. They also have a record of how low individual titles go on sale for.)
Now, these are pretty good ideas on what are the best games, but do use some common sense. Some of the most played are the current fad. Some of the highest rated might refer to a previous revision before a controversial change might have happened. BUT, it should give you a good starting point.
I actually saw Civilization III, IV, V, and VI all in the top 250 currently being played yesterday. That shows how well the series has been received over time. (Personally, I though III was ok, I enjoyed IV, really liked V, and really don't care for VI.)
Some very good indie titles are in that top 250 as well... I noticed Factorio, Oxygen Not Included, Transport Fever, Darkest Dungeon, Hollow Knight, 7 days to die, Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together(multi-player version) And these are games I recognized that I personally play. I also noticed Terraria, and Kerbel Space Program.
Right at this moment, it takes about 1,000 people playing the game to be in the top 250. Weekends are higher. But especially some older games, if you have a few thousand people still playing your games years after release, you did something right.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 5, Interesting) by stretch611 on Tuesday January 08 2019, @01:13AM
I forgot to mention... I am a gamer, but the last 10 years only linux has been installed in my house.
In my parent post, every single game I mentioned except for Civ III & IV are playable in native linux. (I believe that both III and IV can be played in WINE, Civ V and VI both have native linux builds.)
As a matter of fact, the linux gaming site that I frequent, just had an article yesterday: 132 of the 250 most highly rated games on Steam support Linux, even more when counting Steam Play [gamingonlinux.com]
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:44AM (3 children)
If you're on steam, check out Portal. Great FPS concept without the actual shooting. Well, you get a portal gun, but you don't blow things up with it. Very clever concept and great gameplay.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Tuesday January 08 2019, @10:07AM (2 children)
Actually, I noticed Portal 2 on the top 250 games currently played.
I bought both Portal and Portal 2 during a steam sale at least 2 years ago for less than $5 for both. However, I have more games in my library than I actually have time to play and have yet to get around to playing either Portal.
Yes, I am a gamer and I have a problem...
According to Steam... 437 games (371 native linux games), 556 DLC.
GOG... 128 games (does not break it up by OS, but many of these are old DOS and Windows Games.)
and Humble Bundle where I probably bought 90% of my library through "pay what you want" bundles does not give counts, and I am not about to try and count them manually.
According to my Steam Playing Time stats: (in order)
RimWorld
Factorio
Prison Architect
Oxygen Not Included
Civilization V
Transport Fever
Rise to Ruins
I do recommend those titles... especially if you like colony management/base builders.
However, I am better off not admitting to how many hours I actually spent on those titles... I do acknowledge my problem even though I refuse to do anything about it. =)
As long as I am making recommendations, nowhere near the amount of time as the others, but probably destined to make it there eventually:
Don't Starve and the multiplayer version Don't Starve Together (Survival, top down)
Rise of Industry (logistics management, similar to OpenTTD, but quite different)
Sky Force Anniversary and Sky Force Reloaded (Arcade type shoot-em-up, will never hit the amount of hours, but a nice change of pace)
7 Days to Die (Survival, FPS, Zombies)
I actually reviewed 10 titles on Steam [steamcommunity.com],
Positive reviews for: Rise of Industry, Oxygen Not Included, Titan Attacks, Factorio, Creeper World III, Rise to Ruins
Negative reviews for: Railway Empire, Poly Bridge, Master of Orion (remastered), Q-Bert: Rebooted
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Webweasel on Tuesday January 08 2019, @11:02AM (1 child)
Hmm, that's at least 4 of us playing Factorio. Anyone up for a Soylent multiplayer server?
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Tuesday January 08 2019, @09:58PM
I'd be willing to play multiplayer.
Despite Factorio being an indie game, and the fact that Soylent News probably isn't in the top 100 websites, I think we can probably find more than 4 people. :)
The fact is that Factorio is one of those games that just draws the technical crowd in. ( My Factorio Review on Steam [steamcommunity.com]. )
If you are one of the technical types that reads Soylent News regularly and you do not have Factorio, get it...
https://factorio.com/ [factorio.com] or
https://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/ [steampowered.com] or
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/factorio [humblebundle.com]
It does not go on sale. The developers have stated this plainly. (and the steam forum has a complaint thread from some moron during every sale event.)
So it will cost $30 now, and $30 during the next big steam sale as well. That is half the cost of most AAA titles from large publishing companies and you get a game that you will spend a lot of time playing.
The only way I know how to get a discount is if you subscribe to the Humble Monthly and get 10% off every game. (Or, invent a time machine and go back 6 months before they raised the price from $20.)
There is a demo available. (Though I'm not sure how all the recent tutorial changes have affected the demo.)
There are a ton of youtube/twitch streams on Factorio as well. (Current Factorio version is 0.16 though 0.17 is due out in a month or two; but even older version are relative for gameplay; recent versions have mostly added better graphics, nuclear power, and artillery weapons.)
AND FACTORIO WORKS ON LINUX TOO!!! (quite well actually.) It even works on Macs. (though they were looking for a new Mac developer in the last month after their existing one took a different job.)
Right now, I have 1,234.5 hours of gameplay on Steam. I was going to wait for 0.17 to play more, but I am willing to play multi-player in the meantime. Hopefully those other two people will join, and maybe some lurkers and new players as well.
(I know this sounds like a paid advertisement... but it isn't. No affiliate links used either, I get nothing out of this comment other than the possibility of introducing people to a great game, and maybe the chance to be a part of some network play with others,)
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P