Surprisingly, Baldur’s Gate 3. I absolutely love D&D, but I tried playing through the Pathfinder video games, Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin 2, and nothing stuck with me. I just wasn’t a fan of the CRPG genre, despite me playing in-person tabletop RPGs multiple times a week.
I bought BG3 thinking I probably wouldn’t get hooked, but I didn’t want to miss out when literally every one of my friends is playing it. Well, I am absolutely hooked and have 40 hours in the game and will likely do multiple playthroughs, and I kind of “get” the genre now. I know PoE, PF, or DOS2 may not be as good, but I feel a lot more confident at the prospect of playing them now.
I’m in the same boat, I’ve been playing Death Stranding and a few other indie games once every weekend or two… or three. Now every one of my friends and coworkers are talking about hundreds of hours in BG3, I’ve bought and downloaded it last night to catch up.
The genre itself appeals to me, but the amount of time and concentration it takes me to get into a game nowadays, maybe this gets a kick start.
I'm on Linux, so if I buy from GOG, I don't get cloud saves or automatic updates. If we had Galaxy on Linux, it would be my default store. But it's not on Linux, so I shop on Steam.
Neither are guaranteed by the seller though. They could change their API tomorrow and break compatibility. Unlikely though that is, if they want my sale, they can do the work themselves rather than relying on an unofficial project with hooks into their store.
Lots of weird incorrect answers in the comments. MS 100% has changed CPU architectures and needs to emulate old games. The 360 was basically a PowerMac.
My guess - the Xbox One’s launch catalog was trash, and MS doubled down on emulation to build it out. Then they never stopped. They kept plugging away at it, and now they have a giant asset for GamePass.
MS got a head start because they were desperate for good games in the early days on the One.f
Piracy is effectively legal in Canada, for downloading. ISPs can’t share your private details without a warrant from the courts, and the courts have rejected mass John Doe lawsuits to unmask users.
Plus, infringement for private use has a maximum penalty of $5000, but could easily be set by the first case creating court precedent at 3× the retail price of the pirated media (punitive damages are usually capped at 3× the value of the good, in Canada.)
That means that going to court would be incredibly expensive, could only target single individuals, and would likely set a precedent that they can only get $60 in damages for a $20 movie. Not going to happen.
So, piracy is effectively legal in Canada, for private use. Just don’t be stupid and profit from piracy.
Check out Clone Hero! I’m away from my computer, but there are archives that let you import all of the Rock Band and Guitar Hero songs. You can use/mod old controllers or even 3D print your own.
You might be surprised to hear that Konami, famed for focusing casino machines, was actually mistranslated on also focusing on arcade machines. There’s still a whole rhythmgame scene, but unfortunately it’s mostly centered around Japan. That’s where DDR, beatmania, Gitadora (the series Guitar Hero/Rockband ripped off) are, including newer series like DanceRush and Maimai and whatnot. If you ever visit the higherscale independent arcades, you might find some unsanctioned imports with some even emulating the online functionality (with gacha, ofc…). Otherwise, your only hope in the states is Round1, which host official imports, and D&B which only has DDR.
To add on to the other commenter, check out Osu!, ADOFAI, Rhythm Doctor, Hifi Rush, and a whole bunch of apps if you don’t want arcades.
Or puzzles that are completely esoteric or unintuitive. Just replayed some of the Myst games, and it’s like “oh ok I was stuck on this for 30min because the lever was on the other side of the map and there was literally no indication that it was related”. That’s just artificially inflating your game’s difficulty, and it’s lazy puzzle making. Boooo
I love fast travel, warp gates, teleporting and anything that makes it easier and faster for me to get from Point A to Point B.
“Scenery is pretty.” Don’t care.
“Look at the extra content.” I’ll look if I want to. Don’t force it.
While I enjoy casual and relaxed games, taking forever to walk to where I want to go is neither casual nor relaxed. I wanna be where I wanna be in game and don’t pad on the gameplay hours with slow transport options.
I hate when folks ask for this and assholes say “people will just use this to save scum, don’t cheat.” As if working adults with children should be able to dedicate a whole hour totally uninterrupted.
Also, who cares? It’s your game; play it however you like. I mean, isn’t the whole reason why people play video games is to have fun? If save scumming is your idea of fun, I say scum away.
The problem being that a lot of people don’t actually know what it is that will make them happy. Winning is good, right? Yeah, but not if it’s too easy. Being to save the game state at any point makes a lot of games much too easy to be any fun. And while you might argue “well just don’t save all the time,” people are also bad at creating their own handicaps to increase fun.
Yes, there are exceptions to every generalization (see: OSRS Ultimate Ironman) but by and large there’s a reason why the most popular kind of games are set up the way they are.
You ever play Monopoly Go? Straight-up not fun because it’s basically impossible to lose.
Winning is good, right? Yeah, but not if it’s too easy
That’s how you feel about it, though, not an objective thing everybody feels the same about. I absolutely cheat whenever I’m finding a game too difficult, and I assure you, I’m still enjoying the game. I don’t know what people get out of what I find to be the extremely infuriating act of repeatedly failing over and over until I finally get it right, but I have not ever felt the sense of accomplishment I’m told I should feel after finally beating something I struggled with. I feel angry and like I wasted a bunch of time when I could have been enjoying something more fun.
I’m just trying to have a good time, not compete with myself or prove that I can learn just the right way and right time to hit certain button combos or whatever.
The too-easy levels of notfun are very far away from the too-hard levels of notfun.
Different games are for different styles of fun and for different people. Heck, some games are more like walk-through stories than actual games. If the game is too hard for you to enjoy, then that game just isn’t for you, that’s all. Let other people have their difficult games and find a different one to enjoy. When I played Monopoly Go and found it boringly easy, I didn’t complain that they should make it harder so I could enjoy it, I just recognized that I wasn’t the kind of player they were targeting and found something else to play.
These are subjective statements though and different people want different things. And difficulty variation can broaden the audience while not really changing the game. Sometimes I love a fight. Sometimes I want a story. Sometimes I want to couch coop with my youngest kid and he struggles with some games that he otherwise loves (looking at you Cuphead) that an easier mode would totally fix. And he absolutely loves Sonic, but the originals would be unplayable for him if not for modern saving and non permadeath. Or emulation with save states and cheat codes.
Why are you trying to convince people that if a game is too difficult or long periods between saving doesn’t work for them then it is their fault and not that of the game design. That’s a weird stance to take. If someone designed a car that was generally very nice but with the gear shift next to the passenger seat door, would you say that is just a car for people with super long arms or would you say that was a poor design choice that is going to massively limit an otherwise nice car?
This is more like you complaining that some cars don’t come with automatic transmission options. Sorry buddy, some of us like sports cars and having an automatic transmission option would devalue the very concept of what that particular car is.
I still haven’t beaten Super Mario Brothers. I’ve gotten very close, but I choked on the final Bowser multiple times. I’m not mad at Nintendo for that. I’m not even mad at myself for that. I had loads of fun playing Super Mario Brothers and being able to save would lower the value of the game.
I don’t understand why you’re insistent that all games need to cater to your desired difficulty level. Some games are made for you, some games are made for other people. Chasing the widest audience possible is how you end up with bland art, be it games, movies, social media platforms, or any other thing people enjoy.
Look, you said it yourself. Different people want different things, and what some people want is fundamentally incompatible with what you want. So, you get a different set of games than they get.
This seems to act like games and their default difficulty options are commandments carved in stone when they’re not. If I find a game to difficulty to enjoy and then find it enjoyable by cheating, that’s what I’m gonna do.
I know what will make me happy and it’s not being forced to sit for a full hour through a rogue like just because of whiny goobers complaining to the devs so they don’t implement save and quit.
Dishonored was the first thing that came to mind when I read the title, too. OP, if you haven’t played it, check it out!
As for others…
Skyrim and Fallout aren’t exactly deep stealth games, but stealth is hands down the most popular and arguably most fun way to play. Sneaky archer is a freaking meme.
Far Cry games all favour stealth as well. While you’re totally allowed to go in guns a blazing and it’s frankly more effective sometimes, the game does reward stealth and is clearly designed with it in mind. Silencers are magic, you can distract enemies, can lure wildlife to attack, smoke bombs, knife combos, “death from above”, etc.
The Metro series isn’t entirely stealth, but a lot of human enemy sections are meant to be done with stealth and I recall it being actually very difficult if you’re not stealthy (you die fast). I also recall the stealth feeling more realistic in terms of detection time. Finally, there’s something extra fun about being stealthy in a very dark post apocalyptic subway tunnel. Much better atmosphere for it!
As a final side note, the way OP described assassin’s Creed sounds like the older games. They might like some of the “middle” games like Unity more. The games that came just before Origins (Origins and later are very fun games, but the stealth is no longer the focus).
I don't quite remember how I played Metro 2033, but I do know that I played so much with Metro Last Light to get that stupid 'kill no humans' achievement that whenever I play it now I can practically zoom through most areas with stealth. Same way with Dishonored. Both great games, I love revisiting them from time to time.
With dishonored I wanted to be the ultimate ninja that leave no trace and had a lot of fun doing a clean hands ghost run. So challenging though, since I didn’t know if I had been detected until the end of each stage when they show you your performance.
I disliked Dishonored because the game tells you not to kill too many people or bad things will happen and then proceeds to make most of the items and abilities for killing people. You can kill some people, but it’s not clear exactly how many each level. I wasn’t really interested in spending tens of hours playing a game only to be told that I was a bad person who gets the bad ending. As a result I kept killing to a minimum and missed out on or barely used a huge portion of the items and abilities. Seemed like questionable game design.
Prey was great though. Not sure if I’d call it a stealth game, however.
The game doesn’t really want you to spare enemies. It’s just that there are 3 different ways to play the game and 3 different flavors of the story : low, mid and high chaos. I think you should feel free to massacre everyone, and then maybe start over a new game and try lower chaos !
Something to remember is that CTR came out three years later than MK64. That was a lot of time for that generation of games.
That said, I remember not liking CTR as a kid because while it had more depth, the friend who had it had put a ton of time into the campaign so I had no chance of keeping up with him trying to pick it up casually through the occasional multiplayer match.
Appreciate that! I don’t recall there ever being anything explaining that in the game - I played through it and unlocked all the characters, beat the Tropy ghosts and some of the Oxide ghosts, but never heard of this stuff the entire time.
The Pokemon game that locked features and Pokemon behind paid DLC released alongside the game revitalized the franchise? Fuck that. I’ve bought every Pokemon game since Red and every console to play them on, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I give them more money when they’re just going to use to sue smaller developers and while letting fascists co-opt their music and imagery.
I don’t think a Switch 2 emulator will come out any time soon, but I do respect the hustle. I myself am probably only gonna get anything Switch/Switch 2 related from resellers and/or used.
It’s already available, has been for a week or so. I don’t think the Switch 2 version is different enough to really matter; obviously, if you’re buying it and have a Switch 2, you’re going to want the extra performance, but if you don’t have a Switch 2 or are otherwise acquiring it, might as well just get the Switch 1 version.
PLA is definitely the better Legends game. PLZA is absurdly dialogue-heavy for a game that doesn’t have well-written dialogue, and they took out the damned Linking Cord, one of the best parts of PLA.
Also, there are scores of dialogue options, and the only ones that matter are your name and a handful of “are you ready to battle” ones; most have two options that mean exactly the same thing.
To be fair the “DLC” isn’t actually available until 2026, what they have released now is basically a pre-order, still scummy but not as bad as you’re implying. Edit:for clarity, they didn’t cut anything out of the game, they just have a pre-order for the DLC.
If before you’ve even finished a project you’ve already decided part of it won’t be included in the original project unless the user pays extra, that’s the definition of scummy.
Man, I need to play crosscode again. I think of all the games I have played in the last 40 years, that has been the best one. Feels like it was made specifically for me.
I love the story, the characters, the combat, and the puzzles! The combat is multi-faceted, difficult and rewarding.
Two complaints I have are navigating through certain areas is a chore (you basically have to memorize the ‘puzzle-like’ pathways to get to some places), and sometimes I felt the dungeons were too puzzle-heavy. Just room after room of very difficult timing puzzles. Thankfully there are accessibility options to make those easier!
P.S. Radical Fish Games just released a demo for their new game: Alabaster Dawn.
Hehe yeah, unfortunately the things you didn’t like are also on the pro side of my pro/con list.
I like that you basically have a good reason to practice all the zones until they feel like tony hawk levels, you know all the lines and how to trick across all the gaps, hehe.
Stringing one combat across every enemy in the zone, getting that multiplier way up. Nothing to really spend the money on, but still fun to do.
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