Roller Coaster Tycoon 1. (2 was weaker without OpenRCT2, the real masterpiece, but idk if unfinished projects should count or not)
Quake 3 Arena, Unreal Tournament 1999 GOTY, Worms Armageddon, SimCity 3000 Unlimited, Forza Horizon 2 / Motorsport 3, Need for Speed Underground 1, Clonk! Rage, Metal Gear Solid 1/2/3, Ace Combat 4, Okami, Tokyo Jungle, Zelda BOTW, Mario Odyssey, Sven Co-Op, Killing Floor 1, Final Fantasy 7, LISA: The Painful, Everhood 1, Deus Ex 1, Left 4 Dead 1/2, Portal 2, Battlefield Bad Company 2… Champions of Norrath and Return to Arms, Diablo 1, Baldur’s Gate 3 makes the list…NIER both games. Planet MiniGolf.
I’m playing World of Goo, a physics game from 2008 that I bought in a Humble Bundle forever ago.
I tried it again on a lark and it holds up, I got sucked in. Classic physics game. One level takes me less than 15 minutes to complete, but it varies significantly.
There are interesting conflicting pressures in the game: you want to build with as little as possible, because the building material are your little dudes you’re trying to get to safety. Gravity exists, and weight distribution matters: sometimes you must harness this fact to win.
Some levels are about building methodically, carefully choosing where to use the corpse of a sacrificed little dudes, because it is an immutable choice.
Other levels are about dynamics and timing, and you can get tantalizingly close to saving your entire team in these levels.
Its old, its cheap, it should run on most things1. Strong recommend.
1: not android: NetFlix did one of their closed market acquisitions making “free” games here
I’m taking this to mean games that stand out in or define their genre, are widely considered to be excellent, are timeless, and there’s very little if any fat to trim.
Super Mario Brothers - NES
Super Mario 64
Dark Souls - maybe Elden Ring takes over?
Return of the Obra Dinn
Half Life 2 - honorable mention: Left 4 Dead 2
Diablo 2
Doom
Tetris
Chrono Trigger
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Portal 2
Little Nightmares - honorable mention: INSIDE
GTA SA
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2
These aren’t necessarily my favorite games, but games I think are well respected. I probably missed a bunch.
I was playing Mafia, and it’s a pretty cool game, then suddenly they drop in an F1 racing level where you need to grab first place against a bunch of AIs that never make a mistake.
The worst bit is, in the previous mission you did a lot of work to sabotage the rival’s car ahead of the race. So you shouldn’t even need to drive all that well to win against him, but it just forgets that.
I just never beat the race, so the game came to a halt for me.
shouldn’t even need to drive all that well to win against him, but it just forgets that.
His car breaks down right at the start, which ironically makes the mission harder as you have to dodge the car as everyone passes it.
That said, the hard part was not tipping over, you could get quite a few places by just not giving a shit and flying over the chicane after the first turn.
That’s like game design 101 – if you’re introducing a new gameplay paradigm that isn’t part of the core experience, make it really really easy.
Maybe I’m misremembering, but I recall the Warthog escape sequence at the end of Halo getting this right. It felt epic, but was actually very doable based on the limited driving skills required by rest of the game.
That’s why many of us are so fond of the warthog. Many games at the time introduced a vehicle and suddenly the game is ludicrously hard (… That fucking BattleToad battle bike…). But the Warthog is introduced as a helpful aid, and then it actually does it’s job with minimal fuss.
Earth Defence Force. Basically, you are participating in a B-movie scenario, with UFOs, kaiju, giant ants, flamethrower clams, and winged frogs. It is quite a good time, and the higher difficulties require genuine skill and cooperation.
EDF 6 is the best in the series from a gameplay standpoint, but is far weaker than 4 or 5 when it comes to the level design + narrative. Still, the QOL pushes the game to the next level, especially if you got pals to tackle the missions. There many different weapons, not just in power, but also shot pattern, reload style, knockback, and so forth. Also, there WILL be hundreds of enemies on onscreen at any given moment. Each of the four classes have very distinct characteristics when it comes to loadout, mobility, and purpose, so you should be able to find a good match for yourself.
I’m not really sure EDF 6 is the best entry point to the series, as it’s a direct sequel to EDF 5. I think it will get really confusing story- and missionwise, more so than it already is. EDF 5 was a soft reboot and is also a bit cheaper.
My friends and I really liked the WORLD BROTHERS 2 spinoff too, if someone is looking to play with a young player that might be a better starting point than the mainline games. The rest of the series spinoffs have not really done it for us.
I always loved ARC - Attack, Retrieve, Capture - originally from Hoopy Entertainment and then PopCap. You joined an ad hoc team and piloted a little flying saucer around a maze, shooting at the other team’s saucers. It was super simple to learn and wonderfully addictive. Probably not around anymore. I knew the two guys who created it.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne