Last game I ever bought was minecraft, back in 2012(?) for $15. Played it non-stop for a decade before the community imploded. Got my money’s worth. Haven’t bought a game since. No point unless they have a similarly active multiplayer community. It’s a pirate’s life for me.
Somewhere in that neighbourhood, yes. That’s how much I’m willing to pay. My old carrom board lasted me two decades, and it was $30 (with discs). That’s the yardstick I measure games by.
It is to be noted that that $30 does not account for the amount of powder used to lubricate the board or the replacement discs. Just as I did not include the cost of upgrading my PC to run minecraft 1.18, the dogshit optimization update.
It is also to be noted that I bought minecraft only after I was sure that I would enjoy it. That’s why I played the cracked version for 3 years before my purchase.
That does seem a little out of bounds. I think my personal is about 30 cents per hour. My favorite games are probably in the realm of 1-5 cents per hour.
The ones I look back on and cringe are MMOs. Those were surely pushing 50 cents or more per hour. Maybe if I had been a hardcore dungeon/raider and sank 12 hours a weekend into them they would be alright, but my filthy casual ass didn’t put more than a few hours a week into them. It’s honestly why I still avoid any subscription to this day. It’s always the other side gambling you won’t use their product, and that always strikes me as setting up bad deals.
My usual thought process is going to the movies sets you back maybe 10-15 for two hours. If the game is under that it’s usually fine by me, they are usually way under that even though I tend to move on from most games rather quickly.
See, that’s wild to me. I would buy a movie for that price, and it would be watched multiple times over my use of it. I don’t go to the movie theater because, aside from the experience often being ruined by other people, why would I leave my house to have the same experience I could in my house? The other people don’t add to it, the overpriced snacks don’t add to it, and the accumulated filth on the floor and chair definitely don’t add to it. Having a larger screen to look at doesn’t really do all that much. In my memories, the fact that I watched it on a 50 inch screen or a 50 foot screen doesn’t even show up. I remember the story, not the method of input.
Uh, but back to the point. I think most of my movies that I own have been watched at least 4 times, which means give or take $12/6 hours. That’s almost too high, which is why I don’t buy movies much anymore. Netflix was fine for a while, since it was probably a couple dozen hours binge for the month subscription, then cancel it again. I really don’t like ‘moving on’ from games quickly. A short one with a story is alright, but I want 50 hours of enjoyment, minimum, out of a game. Otherwise I could just find another game that I really enjoy for that long.
It’s a lot of fun to play through. It’s nice having a game that supports multiple playthroughs and isn’t extremely long. Though, for people who don’t like multiple playthroughs i imagine such a short game hurts the experience
Oh for sure, when I’ve recommended it to people I mention “if you’re only gonna play once don’t bother”. I don’t think I’ve ever thought this about a game before, but this one needs more than one playthrough. At minimum at least 2 to understand the base general story.
I’ve a dual boot with Linux + Windows, my games are isolated on Windows where I’m not logged in anything important. I can just encrypt my Linux partition for a possible vulnerability. But I really think that it’s hard to happen, at least it never happened to me, I’ve pirated before a few times.
Also it’s allowed to pirate on my country, it’s just not allowed to redistribute it, so I don’t need a VPN.
Just download from trusted sources and it’s fine. At this point I’d rather to trust the community providing pirated games than big companies harvesting my data.
I didn’t have a good experience with Linux, I tried twice, I’ve a laptop wit hybrid GPU AMD + NVIDIA, and NVIDIA is painful on Linux. I loose a lot of performance playing on Linux, tried Fedora last time, OpenSUSE before that.
Thats why you usually use a VM / dedicated computer to download / check pirated software. Its annoying… But less annoying than the shit that ubisoft / EA does…
Using a VM to check pirated software, but then running it on your main pc if you don’t notice any malware (I think that’s what you are saying?) is not safe.
Running untrusted software only on a vm or machine that you don’t care about with zero personal info is safest.
At least from Lutris you can run your games (pirated our otherwise) genuinelly sandboxed with something like Bubblewrap or Firejail, which as far as I can tell you can’t do in Steam (unless you sandbox Steam itself, which is problematic if for example you want to deny networking to some games but not others).
IMHO, if you sandbox them it’s actually safer to run pirated versions of games in Linux than running the official versions from Steam with no sandboxing, at least for AAA games since pretty much all those companies have done or do abusive shit.
Gaming in a vm is possible, high end multi-player game in a vm is more complicated because of the performance penalty and the anti cheat (again the same problem) honestly I don’t know how good this solution could be
Final fantasy isn’t a continuation from game to game, they are new stories each time. Final fantasy is more like a feeling than a specific place or group of people.
All that said I really think you should consider trying Final Fantasy 10, it has fantastic cinematics and is a very emotional game.
I think of it as an RPG ruleset, like DnD. Most of FF games follow similar mechanics, class systems, sometimes there’s the same monsters, and sometimes there’s crystals that do stuff.
The original Fatal Frame trilogy are some of the best horror games I’ve played. Not only are they genuinely scary without using a lot of blood, but they have difficulty that connects well with the scariness.
It occasionally feels “unfair” and makes you feel vulnerable, but is still relatively doable so that you don’t get overwhelmed. At times you’ll be retreading old ground just trying to solve a puzzle when another ghost will come at you out of nowhere.
I just finished up a playthrough of SSX3 about a month ago, and I used PCSX2 for the playthrough. With the resolution unlocked and better texture filitering, the game’s graphics hold up nicely. Locked 60fps (except for one level), and just a really stylized grahpical presentation that still feels modern.
In terms of gameplay, the controls definitely have a learning curve with having to preload jumps and sheer amount of button combinations the game expects you to use and remember, but boiled down you are usually just holding dpad for a spin and then your modifier button + a trigger. The game isn’t particurally hard unless you are going for Platinum medals, and I found the soundtrack pleasant enough to listen to as it ebbs and flows with how well you are doing on the course.
I definitely spent way more time with SSX Tricky as a kid, but after playing through SSX3 as an adult, I would definitely say 3 is a much more polished and approachable game than Tricky.
One of my favorite eras to live through and emulate!
Aside from Dark Cloud 2, mentioned already, I also really love:
Katamari, but on Deck the native version is better and includes the sequel.
The Jak and Daxter trilogy, simply amazing games! The first or the second are usually the favs. 1 is a solid mascot platformer. 2 also is, kind of, but adds guns and cars and a slightly GTA inspired open world. 3 is also fun but leans harder into vehicles and generally isn’t regarded as highly.
Odin Sphere. All the VanillaWare games are great, but OS is one of the most beautiful games ever drawn, and has really fun brawler\rpg combat. GrimGrimoire is another of theirs, also good, kind of a side scrolling RTS.
Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 are both a lot of fun, especially if you love Disney or SquareEnix games. If not, they’re still pretty fun and have an… interesting, if convoluted, lore. I probably wouldn’t recommend if you dont care for Disney though. Probably worth playing Final Fantasy 7 first as well. It’s referenced quite reverently and is a great standalone game (and PS1 still counts I think, haha).
Devil May Cry 1 and 3. You can skip 2, even the fans and creators don’t care about it, and 3 is a prequel. DMC1 is a landmark game, and is required playing in my opinion for being both important and incredibly fun. It can be quite hard though. 3 is arguably the best in the whole series, and holds up really well near the top of the genre to this day.
God of War 1, 2, and 3. They’re fantastic action games, and pretty influential still. I dont like them as much as DMC, but they’re still pretty fun.
There were actually a lot of pretty mediocre DMC clones on PS2, like Gungrave or Bujingai. If you love the genre, they’re neat and OK fun. God Hand is quite funny and kind of unique, probably the best of the 3 listed here.
I see Okami in there and I approve! Although I think the remasters released on other platform more recently are a better way to play. I also preferred the Wii version back in the day.
The Sly Cooper games and the Ratchet and Clank games are also both really excellent series. I liked Jak more, but they’re distinct games with their own neat elements. Sly’s particularly unique as a mascot stealth game.
Metal Gear Solid series and the Tony Hawk games are obviously excellent, but you’ve got so many other ways to play those I’m not sure they’re worth emulating.
Zone of the Enders, 1 and 2. ZoE 1 is infamous as being the game that came with the first MGS2 demo on it. The game is fine but short, and mostly serves to set up ZoE2, which fucking rules! You pilot a badass mecha and it just has a really fun plot, great music, and good action. An underrated gem!
Not your jam I’m sure, but I’d be remiss if I didnt mention the many hours I spent playing Capcom vs SNK 2. Still one of my favorite fighting games, legendary roster and soundtrack.
If you’d like a roguelike, I’d suggest Baroque or (PS1) Azure Dreams. Both pretty fun, quite long games with lots of replay value. Baroque is uh… well titled, kind of challenging to get into.
Ah, there were so many good games in that era. Truly one of the most stacked console lineups ever.
Good catch, my bad, I thought it was just the trilogy collection on PS3. It’s probably been since it first came out that i played it.
I went general on MGS because I couldn’t remember which game premiered on which console generation without looking it up either, but it’s 2 and 3 for PS2 (and 1 from PSX).
I don’t know if its the age or perhaps I unconciously became sick of the practices OP describes, but the games I genuinelly enjoy playing the most nowadays are mainly AA or Indie. And ofc, I don’t mind paying full price for them.
A non-exhaustive list of those I loved:
Outer Wilds (became my favourite game of all times)
bin.pol.social
Aktywne