I was so angry when Battlefield 2042 came out in 2021. SO MAD. I’d waited years for that game, and the state it was released in was downright embarrassing. Just not even in the universe of finished or playable - it was a joke.
I was so furious because I’d convinced my friends that it was going to be amazing. Thankfully we all signed up for EA Play for a month rather than buying a copy for $90AUD.
We all went and played call of duty for 2 years instead, but it fractured the group.
Recently BF2042 went back on sale for $20. A friend sent us all some youtube videos and convinced the whole squad to give it another run as they had been actively working on the game for the entire two years. I’m so glad he did!
We have had some absolutely epic 128 player matches the last 4 months. So much fun, it has felt like the old days.
One friend has put in the hours and learned to be a pretty competent chopper pilot. We have had a couple of games with a full squad in the chopper repairing and gunning and managed to stay alive the entire match without a single death. Absolutely legendary.
We’ve had others jumping between vehicle and ground play and basically turned the tide of battle just with our little squad. Man we’ve had some fun! It’s the first time in years that I’ve regularly managed to field a full squad all on voice comms and it’s just been so great.
Project Diablo 2 Season 7: If you’ve been meaning to check out the Diablo series, or you’re not impressed with Diablo IV, then this is the variant of the game you have to try. Of course, Diablo 2 is a classic and PD2 is a well received mod, but Season 7 adds some much welcome graphical QoL changes - 60FPS and HD text rendering that looks pretty good even on 4K monitors. Of course, the graphics still doesn’t compare to Resurrected or other modern games, but if you can look past that, you’re in for a helluva ride. This is hands down, the best ARPG, IMO.
Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds: If you’re a Star Wars and an Age of Empires fan, you have to check this out. On the surface, it’s just a reskinned AoE 2, but calling it just that wouldn’t do it justice. You can have fleets of X-Wings and Tie Fighters, little R2 units as your villagers, destroyer droids, Jedi Knights as priests, bounty hunters, and of course, stormtroopers. All your classic Star Wars character types, all the familiar SW locales like Tatooine, campaigns based on movie plots, all of it accompanied by original soundtracks by John Williams from the movie - and you’ve got a winner. Unfortunately, this game never received the official HD treatment like AoE did, but thankfully, the Expanding Fronts mod exists - it adds much needed QoL fixes, plus new civilisations, units, maps and music from the movies. You may want to pair it with the cnc-ddraw patch for better graphics btw. I’ve been playing this game almost every single day with my friends using ZeroTier and it’s been sooo much fun.
0 A.D.: This is another RTS that every AoE/RTS fan should check out. It’s a cross-platform open-source game that’s been under development for a long time, and whilst still technically an “alpha”, it’s reached a state where you can genuinely enjoy campaigns and multiplayer games without any major issues. A couple of things that stand out for me is a) the music, which is really, really well done, matching the civilisation you’re playing b) the details on the buildings - you can zoom in super close and appreciate all the details, in fact, it’s not just the buildings but the attention to detail in general stands out in so many ways, for instance, even your farms look different with different civilisations c) the AI is really well done - even on “easy” mode it can pose a bit of a challenge and isn’t a complete pushover (unlike AoE’s easy AI), and you can also customize their behavior as well (per civilization) when starting your game (you can choose between defensive, aggressive, balanced etc) - which greatly adds to the replay value and d) you can have effectively unlimited population and very large battalions with lots of different formations, for some epic battles (provided your system can handle it of course). The only thing I miss are the keyboard shortcuts from AoE, but it’s not a big deal since you aren’t playing any ranked games or playing with randoms. Overall, the quality of this game, especially for an open-source game, is amazing, and makes it must-try for every RTS fan.
Oh the sudden wave of nostalgia, I had no idea Galactic Battlegrounds received that many mods or fan patches! I’ll have to check those out, cheers for that :)
I really don’t get the hate for it. In an FPS for example, it allows you to quickly aim between far-apart targets by moving the mouse fast, and then home in on them by moving the mouse slow. The same principle applies to pretty much anything that needs accurate, non-consistantly-spaced clicks.
I enjoyed Cassette Beasts. I was talking to a friend about how remarkable it is that the game simultaneously feels like just a reskin of Pokémon, yet still has its own distinct personality. It’s a difficult balance for any game that’s taking inspiration from such an iconic game series, but it did great
Scorn was worth a shot if you’ve already played Soma and RE. The mechanics are… Fine. The art is jaw-dropping. It’s like Amnesia if H. R. Giger had been the art director.
Street Fighter 6 taught me to enjoy fighting games again.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s about Time showed me (again) that rebooting a franchise is worth it. There is so much to do and I haven’t been challenged like this since Hollow Knight. The levels are gorgeous and creative. Plus, the game is teaching my son that it is OK to lose and that persistence pays off.
Definitely a tie between Broke the Investigator (for the ending I got) and Beyond The Edge of Owlsgard (because I like the story and characters for the most part from how far I have gotten).
Also for a single moment in BTEOG where the English voice actor for the main character goes on what was an unscripted rant about something that leads to a death in game.
The Blaster Master Zero series is a trip down memory lane and a fun romp. Excellent nostalgia feels if you ever played the original.
The horizon games have been good for both storytelling and gameplay.
Firewatch, while much too short, tells a moving story about the isolation that loss brings.
The Stanley Parable is one giant Easter egg with I finite replayability.
I’m a huge fan of “sky children of light” when I’m stressed out.
The free just cause games on PlayStation are kinda meditative in their own way, allowing you to fly across the countryside in a wingsuit.
I’ve also played BOTW, but am fairly disappointed in the lack of challenge. TOTK however, I am looking forward to.
Finally, Control. It has sweet gameplay, a cool story, a creepy as hell atmosphere, and links all the Remedy games together, all of which is love for the same reasons as I love Control. Of all the games I am looking forward to, Remedy is giving me the most antici…
I reckon it’s gotta be Disco Elysium ; that game changed my life. I just came to it at a particular point in time where some of the messages of the game hit especially hard.
A friend was recently telling me that it seems like it’s exactly their kind of game in many respects, but that their impression is that they would find it too depressing to play. Whilst it is true that the setting is pretty grim, I also found it to be one of the most hopeful games I’ve ever played.
If anyone isn’t familiar with Disco Elysium (DE), it’s a RPG where you play as an amnesia cop trying to solve a murder. It’s very introspective and quite heavy on the text, which I personally loved. It’s a very grey world where there isn’t a clear right answer in anything and it’s so well executed that it made things feel real.
As an example, one of the things DE is known for is its creators thanking Marx and Engels when receiving an award for the game, leading many to view DE as “that communist game”. However, although you can play as a communist, the game pulls no punches for any of the ideaologies, especially communism. It was made by an Estonian game studio, and it never feels overly idealistic - this particular kind of sad wistfulness towards history is something that only a post-Soviet country could pull off, I reckon.
Additionally, many newer games use Denuvo which is known for making your games run slower. Sometimes the pirated copies not only take up less space, but also perform better.
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