For me, it’s games in the immersive sim genre. The Dishonored series and Prey, both made by Arkane studios, I can replay over and over, enjoying every moment of them, exploring alternate paths I haven’t tried yet. Deus Ex is another one that fits, especially Deus Ex Human Revolution. These games often go well below $10 during sales - here are their historical lows:
Dishonored: $2
Dishonored 2: $3
Dishonored DOTO: $6
Prey: $3
DXHR: $3
I also loved every second of The Witness - the puzzles are ingenious, hidden things are super enjoyable, and the community made a randomizer that generates new, harder puzzles to add more content to it. The Witness is at $9.99 now, its historical low.
I know a few people who love factory-building games, optimizing the production and even creating spreadsheets to calculate the perfect production rate. But the two major games in this category don’t fit your price criteria (Satisfactory is $15 right now, and Factorio $35 and won’t get any lower).
I have Dishonored 1 and 2. Will look at Death of the Outsider. I’ve started playing Thief series (not the remake) which I want to play a fair bit before playing Dishonored. Prey and Deus Ex Human Revolution weren’t ever in my consideration before so I’ll check those.
What are good starting points for the Deus ex series? I’ve got the original on Steam, but haven’t really gotten into it yet, feels very intimidating every time I start. Should I just push through or are there other entry points?
Btw, I loved dishonored 1 but somehow stopped playing, thanks for reminding me to get back to it :).
I completely understand that! It throws you into a mission right from the start, with no easing in. And from the very beginning you can see that the game allows you to choose - do you kill? Do you sneak around? Do you shoot the leader? Do you let him go? What are the consequences of your actions? It’s not all clear from the start.
I played the original Deus Ex around 10 years ago. Once you accept the aged visual side of it, the world, characters and plot can easily immerse you till the end. I’d say play the original (maybe with some modern visual mods), then skip to Human Revolution, then Mankind Divided.
I didn’t bother with Invisible War and The Fall. I tried them for a moment, but the bugs and clunkiness put me off.
There’s also Deus Ex Go, a mobile game that’s actually a really good puzzle with fantastic music.
The ugly comments are fucking hilarious. She’s a perfectly attractive older woman at this point, and quite honestly, if I’m going to be forced to take up her mantle as the player character, I’ll have a much easier time identifying with a hardened older woman as a Witcher than a young adult girl with perpetually running mascara.
I didn’t enjoy playing the Ciri bits at all in TW3, but this version of Ciri is about as palatable as it could have been, and I’m open to it. Especially if I can customize her playstyle like I could Geralt, so that it’s not just fast, whippy, lightning zippy-zappy whatever-the-fuck that was in TW3.
With you on this, regardless of the method used, no app has any business running or snooping outside of the container that it was set up in. And this doesn’t just apply to desktop operating systems, mobile and entertainment consoles too.
I’d even take it a step further, that nonsense shouldn’t be on my machine in the first place.
Want to run anticheat stuff? Run it on your own crappy servers at your own cost and processing power. Live detect it through packets that are sent to you and are being processed, be it voice or input.
Whatever happens on my machine is none of your business.
I bought Hollow Knight for €7,50 long while ago and it was such an amazing game. Loved every second of it. The characters, story, world-building, it’s all immensely well done and you can notice it’s done with their hearts-content.
Another game that I bought on sale, that was below the €10 were the Ori games. The story was incredibly good (especially of the first game), got me teared up at the end lol. and liked the platforming too. Preferred the combat of the second game though.
Quantum Break is another one I bought on sale below €10; The story was decent but got me thinking ‘‘imagine people found an actual way to do this’’.
I played Morrowind multiple times in past, mostly aimlessly, only recently I decided to give it another go and actually focus on main questline. This way I beat Morrowind + Tribunal + Bloodmoon (TES III GOTY edition in Steam) in 96.4 hours. I don’t remember the price but IIRC I got it on sale very cheap. All those hours were very rich and enjoyable. I played with few dozens of visuals improving mods though, used this guide: wiki.nexusmods.com/…/Morrowind_graphics_guide
I tend to play without expansions and mods the first time. The second time, with expansions. Later, with any mod I specifically want.
The exception was Daggerfall because Arena was pretty bad with a few bugs. However with Daggerfall Unity I didn’t install additional mods. I did look for additional bug fix mods, didn’t find any. That makes sense since if an external modder makes fixes, the Daggerfall Unity maintainers would make those fixes too eventually. I need to look again though.
I’ve managed to get a few deals over the years that sort of fit the bill.
Hollow Knight when it was on sale, for example. But I abandoned at 98% (it goes to 113%, right?). There are a decent number of other Metroidvania-style games that are frequently discounted and are wholly enjoyable (the Shantae series, Iconoclasts, etc.).
Stardew Valley I found new, in box, for PS4 with audio CD for €8.50 and bought it based on the description without any knowledge of what it was.
Many shmups are meant to be overplayed and remain enjoyable. Radiant Silvergun comes to mind, and there is a bit of a story to that one as well.
I’ve not played vampire survivors or survivor likes. I could try it to see myself. Dwarf Fortress too I have had an eye on but it shows many situations which would be obviously frustrating (I enjoy some permanent death games which label themselves as roguelike/roguelite, without frustrating elements). I’d had a look at the ASCII version of Dwarf Fortress a while ago, I find those visuals more appealing in comparison to the steam version. I’ll add these to the list of games to play.
I read this and all I can think of is that voice line from the first area (outside visima) where the little girl asks “can girls become witche’s too?”
I guess it doesn’t really fit within the story of the original, but if they make a new story with new themes I don’t see much of a problem. But no one really likes ret-cons
The canonical answer to “can girls become witchers” is no one properly knows. Citi was raised and trained by them but they didn’t do the other stuff (the mutagens, trial of grasses or special diet) because they both didn’t know what it would do to a girl because it had never been done to a girl and because even if it worked exactly like it would for a boy it causes sterility and she’s the last member of the royal line of Cintra.
But the time of The Witcher 3, she’s already older than it’s normally done, so any attempt to do it would additionally have unknown results because presumably they usually start changing them from childhood for a reason, rather than taking in adult trainees.
The order that they appear in MCC, which is pretty much release order. I would 1000% get the ODST and Reach campaigns as well, as those are top notch too.
CE, 2, 3, ODST, Reach. You can play 4 if you want so you can see how it started going downhill, and it has its moments.
Just play 1, 2 & 3 chronologically and if you want more play odst. I, personally, wouldn’t recommend halo 4. They’re also great games for co op if you have a friend you can convince
Spoiler-free TL;DW: Halo 4 was controversial because this was the first new mainline Halo game by 343 Industries, who changed things up from previous Halo titles.
But aside from questionable changes to the franchise in order to appeal to the CoD audience, there were a few genuine issues with the campaign (in my opinion, as a player who never finished Halo 4’s campaign).
In terms of gameplay:
The sandbox was absolutely destroyed through many changes to older weapons, to encourage you to use the new 343 weapons. The weapons were either nerfed into the ground to make them unviable, greatly reduced in ammo/availability, or outright removed. This meant that you would constantly be forced to replace your weapons, or you’d have to use the newer weapons, which still ran out of ammo. This greatly limited your options when playing the game.
The enemies would act in a way that greatly limited your options when fighting them. The most common weapons (plasma pistols and needlers) were both were used in a way that forces you to methodically take them out from a distance. Melee attacks were undodgeable instant deaths, forcing you to take them out from a distance. Then, the Promethian knights have stupid health, shields that recharge almost instantly, and the ability to fucking teleport to recover their shields (or hit you with an undodgeable melee attacks).
The result is that you are basically limited to only using long-range weapons to take out enemies. Hope you enjoy hours of Light Rifle gameplay!
In terms of other parts of the game, this is more subjective but:
The story felt incoherent, especially considering that it is a sequel to Halo 3
The sound design completely changed the iconic sound effects, and the music felt off
The characters were bland and forgettable, only Master Chief and Cortana were anywhere near fleshed-out
Overall just a poor experience compared to older Halo titles.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne