The saints row series is pretty good. It was kind of a GTA knockoff but was much sillier and let you actually keep and upgrade/paint cars. It really lets you make the game yours. In… Number 3 or 4 the player gets movement abilities that make using a car actually slower so that really killed the vibe, but the ridiculousness was higher than ever so it kind of balanced. I’d recommend playing them in order or at least watching YouTube videos because the story is sort of linear.
Someone else said morrowind which really is the ultimate “do whatever you want” game. You’re basically never locked out of anything by not doing the main quest, and nearly every npc is killable, even essential ones (though the game will tell you if you do this so you can reload a save). There’s no vehicles really so I don’t know if that’s the vibe you’re going for, but it really is a blast if you can accept the painfully outdated graphics and mediocre combat system.
Valheim is a survival crafter exploration game that can be surprisingly cozy, and sailing around is fun. Also not the vibe I think you’re looking for but I love it so I shill it when I can.
Cyberpunk is actually a damn decent game now, and the world has SO MUCH crammed into it you can just wander and do whatever activity you run into for ages without getting bored. Even the smallest side story has lore that illustrates a tiny piece of night city and I find that really cool.
I think saints row probably best matches what you’re looking for without being a sequel to a game you already mentioned. Cyberpunk too, probably.
Only in single player games and typically only when it’s too challenging like that mission/quest that is just really frustrating.
Or if I’ve already beaten the game and lost progress and just want to quickly get back to where I was.
Other than that, not really much. Maybe once in a while just to fuck around, but that’s about it for me. I don’t think it should be that big of a deal for single player offline games and you’re not trying to hit a leaderboard. It’s annoying seeing those on some games’ leaderboards and it’s obvious they’re there just because they cheated.
Everything should be controllable. Give me all the options. Every graphical feature, every UI element, even gameplay mechanics. If it is as simple as adjusting a number or selecting something from a table, give me the option to control it myself.
Now that’s a game I haven’t thought about in a while. I backed the game in 2013 and played it for 100+ hours in beta, but dropped it shortly after 1.0 because I didn’t like many of the fundamental changes they introduced. Last played September 2016 apparently. How is the game these days? Maybe I’ll join and give it another try.
I just wrote some detail on this into another reply here, but suffice it to say that the game with mods these days is nothing like the original game.
Out of the hundreds of games I’ve played, I’ve never seen a community put so much effort into modding a game. It’s turned a game that held my groups attention for 2-3 weeks into a half a year endeavor.
Developers should spend effort vouching for a launch without startup logos. Even if supporting libraries/publishers are credited some other way, startup movies take up a lot of time when gamers launch the game many times.
Trails in the Sky has a feature where you can choose to launch the game directly into your most recent save game rather than ending up at the menus. This would be a boon for many singleplayer games, especially those with densely animated menus.
Too many games are “survival” games now which really means they will make you do a bunch of chores to get to the sub par shooter or adventure game the chores gate you from. No, I don’t want to chop wood and get rope or whatever for the 50th game that never innovates on any of these mechanics to get to the “good part”
Also lots of fun games seem to be ruined because they are battle royales.
Excessive reliance on audio recordings and written text for storytelling / world building. Oh look another game where I’m alone in this world and I have to listen to a ton of audio recordings or collect snippets of text throughout the entire game to learn anything about this world and what happened to it!
If anything, let it be audio, not text, I’m tired of reading through often very subpar writing, I just glaze over it. Better yet, have actual (skippable) voice actors read any text out loud. Ideally, weave all that info into the game’s main storyline or side quests, and have it communicated to the player via interesting NPCs. Also, use environmental storytelling more than info-dumps. Show, don’t tell.
Text/in-world notes/memos/books and found audio recordings have a place but don’t let that be the main way of learning about the world or my place in it.
I understand it’s also a budget issue, so I’ll cut indie games some slack.
I agree on everything except the audio over text bit. If it has to be anything, let it be text. Let me be able to skim it if I want, don’t make me sit through an audio file to get background lore.
If it isn’t gonna be presented through the actual storytelling of the gameplay, put it in a text file.
Yeah I get it, but I like having the option of having a voice actor narrate the text to me rather than having to read everything. Especially as I mostly game on a TV that was not meant for reading.
Not really. It’s less to do with hearing/perception and more how the human brain processes regular speech; neurodivergent people, like those with ADHD and/or autism like myself, process these things differently.
The brain processes singing differently than regular speech and the issue with audio processing disorder is that how we process regular speech makes it hard for us to hold conversation. Like I need people to repeat things a few times occasionally and if I’m not paying direct attention to the person speaking then voices are basically like “whomp-whomp” from Peanuts, so if someone calls for me while I’m doing something I straight up won’t know I’m being called for.
So needing to listen to an audio log takes forever cause I need to replay it a few times to fully process the words being spoken. Especially if they have audio effects like distortion added over the voice.
That’s normal. The brain isn’t able to process multiple sources at the same time, it has to bounce around and eventually too many inputs means nothing gets processed.
For those with APD, even a single input is a struggle.
I see. Happens to me too that I lose focus while listening to an audio recording. But not to the extent you describe. Have always had difficulty separating voices from background noise though, like when a few people talk in parallel or when loud music is playing in the background. I don’t remember what that’s called, but I remember a long time ago reading that it’s a thing. Doesn’t affect my gaming much though if at all. Anyway I’m always interested in things having to do with auditory perception, thanks for sharing.
I’d prefer text over audio, so long as I can skip the text when I am done reading. (Grr argh to the games that have both, but won’t let me skip because the NPC isn’t done speaking.)
Being able to choose either as the primary information delivery would be fantastic.
True, reading is faster. Narrating I find more pleasant, more engaging if done well. But that’s personal opinion. So having an option would be great. And yes to making dialogues or narration skippable. I think most games do that nowadays. To be honest, if I am really immersed and interested and the voice acting is top notch I may not skip at all. But that should be left to the player to decide.
If you havent played the sequel I would recommend it. It definitely is not the same as the original but is still really solid and hopefully there will be further games
Its my no.1 genre… i have played A LOT of them. People have already hit on the “big three” - hollow knight, super metroid and castlevania SOTN… heres lesser mentioned gems… sure, they’re not as incredible as those 3 genre topping master pieces, but theyre super super good and worth a play.
alwas awakening
tunic*
hyper light drifter*
hob*
Another Metroid 2 Remake (AM2R)
Metroid Dread
castlevania dawn of sorrows/aria of sorrow
axiom verge
metroid prime
castlevania 3
metroid zero mission
SM: ancient chozo**
SM: Ascent**
9 Sols
*yes, there could be called “zelda-likes” instead of metroid vanias, but i always felt those two game designs were kissing cousins… if you like one you might like the other.
** these are romhacks…,very very good ones. You need a rom of super metroid and emulator to play em.
but i always felt those two game designs were kissing cousin
I see them as the same genre. You have this “pushing the map’s frontier” mechanic, along with some power or item progression to enable that. The rest is find-and-seek to connect all those dots. IMO, the only major difference is a side vs top-down perspective.
Its true… i think the fundamental formula is that it makes you an explorer first- turns you loose with a very vague objective and lets you discover… map, traversal, sequence skips, w/e and gives you “clues” while letting you feel empowered to do things in your own order/way/time… thus making you feel clever.
Zeldas, you could say, are more linear, more “adventure” in progression than exploration… but its not black n white and each title has varying degrees of freedom
I’ve seen recordings of people playing this before in stream VODs a couple times before the player fired up another game, and, well, this post finally got me to try it.
The on-ramp for new players trying to make sense of it is, uh, not great. Trying to make an account on the website tells you to download the game. Okay… Trying to make an account in the game then sent me back to the website!? (Why not just let me register on the website in the first place?)
The basic idea of the circle mode is easy enough to understand – although I doubt I will ever get very good at this, at least with a mouse, and I’m still not quite sure on whether or not I’m supposed to hold a key down/click-and-drag or just click and then follow the motion? – but there are other modes that it threw me in (mania?) when I tried loading another song from the catalog and it was rather difficult to even figure out what keys I was supposed to push. (The diagram on the wiki was not helpful – I spent a while confused thinking I was supposed to use ASDF for a “4K” when it seems like it’s actually DFJK for some reason?) Probably all makes sense to someone who’s been playing it for years, but, yeah… Pretty UI, but the on-boarding could use some work.
Might be fun to poke around at for music discovery though.
Anyway, that’s my 2 cents worth from giving it a try.
In Osu! (Standard, so the circle clicking mode) you can, by default, use Z and X aswell, instead of the mouse buttons. Standard is a long learning process, and if you do decide to maybe play it again, my personal recommendation would be not to get stuck on PP (performance points), it could really ruin the fun of the game, when you play the same song and map for the 100th time in a row.
Mania, I haven’t really played so I can’t really help with that.
A tutorial song and map should’ve immediately downloaded after installing Lazer, but if it didn’t, I recommend downloading it, cause it does help with the basics of Osu! Standard.
Also settings has keybinds and you can change anything to anything pretty much. I would recommend clicking around it.
I did do the tutorial (after fucking up the first time through the initial setup and only getting the recommended songs and going “?!?!?!” for a moment) so I know about Z/X but what I mean is it’s not entirely clear if I’m supposed to keep holding them while dragging. The UI’s clear enough if I missed entirely, but if I kind of got it, I’m not really sure if I’m doing it right. With the reversals and the circle closing-in timing and a lot going on on the screen visually, it’s a bit much all at once. TBF, it’d probably make sense if I spend more time poking at it; those were my initial impressions.
Thanks for trying to help me, btw, with your comment; always appreciated.
Sliders you are supposed to hold until the slider ends, so as soon as it ends, you can let go. Reverse sliders (so the ones that have arrows and go backwards) you hold the same way and keep holding when it hits the arrow and goes back to the beginning, then you can let go.
Starting off, it is a lot to focus on, but you do get more and more comfortable with it the more you play. It’s the first game where I’ve really seen that play more to get better, because theory doesn’t help much.
If you do keep on playing, then more power to you. Top players are insane, so I’d recommend looking at someone like mrekk or Ninerik on Youtube. If you don’t then at least you tried it.
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