Lego Island was one of my first PC games, and I spent absolute ages in it. Still have my CD. As an adult I find it a little too zany and wacky for an in-depth revisit, but as a young imaginative ADHD boy it was an amazing little sandbox to run around in. So many different ways to interact with things, ways to customize your island through different characters changing stuff when you clicked on it, and just enough mysterious things to keep the imagination going.
I’m looking forward to the decomp that MattKC is working on for it.
Outside of that, I played a TON of the old flash and shockwave games on the Lego website. I felt so cool knowing extra lore around the mask of light movie because I had been playing the Bionicle flash game. They also had a lot of neat puzzle games.
The concept of the programmable Spybots, and the K’Nex programmable kit really jump started my interest in programming as a kid too.
I’m currently playing Lego City Undercover on my steam deck, which is only as crashy as the switch version, and it’s great because my 10 year old is also playing it on the switch, as is my 4 year old. Obviously we all play it differently but it’s been a fun couple of weeks all playing the same game.
Doom 1 is the one that will always hold a place in my heart. The family PC back then only ran at 25MHz and Doom required 33 so my Dad would bring his work laptop home for me to play on. No headphones but it didn’t matter, it was such an impactful experience for me as a kid and I’ll always remember it fondly.
I got to meet Jon Romero a few years back too - they say you shouldn’t meet your heroes but he is definitely an exception. Super nice dude and he blocked out a full hour on his calendar to just chat with me.
Can you play the first two chapters without ending at a cliffhanger? Have been thinking if I should wait for all of it to release or play the free chapters now.
Up to you, though from the last info we got it seems like things are moving along nicely development wise. The full game should be done by later next year I feel.
Stardew Valley is the game that keeps on giving. At this point, I wish there was just more. More towns to visit, more activities, more everything.
The only thing that does kind of suck is that after year 1 I feel like I’ve kind of mastered whatever I was attempting to do. I’ve heard some people say after year 1 is where they enjoy the game the most, but idk I feel like by that point I’m making more money than I need and the only thing left to do is collect stuff or attempt the skull cavern.
But man. That first year is a blast. I’ve been thinking I should try out more mods or possibly a jojamart run at some point
Thank you for keeping these up. I enjoy seeing these threads a lot.
As to stardew, I’ve only played a little bit, never past the first season pretty much. I’m not one to play it solo and group session always die very quickly. When most of my friends are unemployed or don’t work full 9-5, it’s hard to coordinate with them.
That all said, I love this game and it does so much right and Dev is awesome. This game feels to me like a lot of what game companies should strive to be.
Earthbound was probably the first game I was ever really enamored with. Even today, it’s definitely one of my favorite games ever. And it’s probably the first JRPG I ever played, and it’s what started me down a long path of JRPGs.
My parents got me a subscription to Nintendo Power magazine, and I remember reading about the game there and wanting to play it. They didn’t buy it for me when it came out, but I did rent it from Blockbluster a few times. And they did eventually buy it for me for Christmas. It even came with the strategy guide!
Everything about the game was great. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but it was insanely accessible, even to a then 7-8yo kid like me. JRPGs tend to be darker and complex (though not always). But Earthbound still had complexity, but it wasn’t darker. Yes these kids were having to save the world from destruction, but the story was told in an upbeat, fun way. And it was just the right amount of complexity.
Earthbound is also probably the first game I ever beat. Certainly the first JRPG.
I did try the fan-translation of Mother 3. I didn’t end up finishing it. I got close, but it was far too depressing and different from EB. The game was beautifully done (as was the player-made strategy guide!), but I just couldn’t really get into the story and characters. Just wasn’t for me.
That was someone's insane interpretation of the ending of the first Mother game (a.k.a. Earthbound Beginnings). It's not as out there as the guy who filled the Silent Hill wiki with claims that it was all symbolism for circumcision trauma (yes, really), but it's still kinda nutters.
It’s certainly a fan theory, but that’s not a confirmed thing by any means. The location of the last battles does look the inside of a vagina, looking towards the cervix, but that’s supposedly only a coincidence.
Ah that’s a shame about Mother 3, I really loved it. Seeing the gradual decay of a town affected by tragedy after tragedy (& a heaping dose of capitalism) become a shadow of itself was so beautiful. The pacing of the game is a bit odd at times, but overall I was surprised how much it resonated with me.
I’ve only played mass effect 1. I completed it around five years ago and absolutely loved it. I always have difficulty completing games, but for this one I read all the codex entries, completed all the quests I could find and really absorbed it all.
The opening is so memorable, it immediately gave me this epic sense of scale and importance and this lasted throughout the game.
I’m thinking of maybe playing it again as femshep and then continuing on with 2 and 3, although I’m not sure if it will match my original experience.
Out of the 2D metroids, I think Super Metroid still takes the cake. Dread and 2r are still pretty good but there is a reason why super metroid game design gets taught in college game design courses. One of the best games of all time probably, still trades blows even with good modern metroidvanias. I played it for the first on in the Wii back when I was in high school so this isn’t even nostalgia talking, I even played it after the Prime games.
For the 3d ones, both Prime and Prime 2 are classics imo. Just the sheer immersion is something you don’t find too often in video games. Prime 2 gets a lot of flak for the ammo system and dark world constant damage, but I think those were useful improvements to balance the game since Prime 1 is quite an easy game. They do add a decent amount of friction to traversing the world and makes the dark world feel actually dangerous to be in. Prime 3 was a bit more forgettable but still not a bad game.
Have to disagree with you on echoes - I loved the game, but it IMO it was much easier than Prime 1 - the most difficult boss was the probably the boost guardian midway through rather than any of the endgame bosses. The ammo system made the standard power beam too centralising which was boring, and the dark world damage just served to slow the player down, since the light fields regenerated your health.
The ammo system rewarded you with ammo for the opposite color of beam you were using, so you are actually totally free to ignore the power beam most of the time without running into supply issues. Even when you wanted to only use one color, like the light beam when you’re on Dark Aether, use the one you don’t want in combat to shoot crates and plants and stuff to farm good ammo for the fights.
Ooh, I remember emulating it a long time ago; when I finished the last stage, Super Mario appeared, said “Thank you so much-a for to playing-a my game” and sucked my dick. Wanna play the original arcade cabinet eventually; some of my acquaintances who played it said that it was supposed to be Abraham Lincoln instead of Super Mario
Kirby’s Adventure: Nightmare in Dreamland for the NES is my favorite entry. The sprites are excellent, I love the overworld between levels, the music is top notch, and it’s one of the few NES games with an autosave and progress meter.
Kirby Superstar for the SNES revisited the game, but it dropped the overworld, the music isn’t quite as good, and the powers don’t really feel right. They did include some newer abilities and co-op, which is nice, but it feels more disjointed than the original.
Kirby’s adventure feels really modern for an NES game, still holds up great to this day. The difficulty is also closer to what people are used to nowadays, compared to the punishing difficulty of many NES games. One of the few NES games I played through completely.
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