A number of the best games of all time are quite cheap:
Tetris (pretty much any version)
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 (use OpenRCT2 to run it well on a modern PC)
Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic 2 (use The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod to add back in the stuff the devs had to cut for time, otherwise the ending is disappointing)
Balatro ($9.99 on mobile or $19.99 when bundled with Slay The Spire on Steam)
Slay The Spire
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead (free and open source)
DOOM (the original, not the 2016 game, very cheap and there are literally millions of mods and community made maps)
I had just come off of FFX while running through all the FF games that I could. With FF12, I got to a point where I had a solid amount of freedom and did a bunch of side quests and stuff. Then the next portion of the story takes you to this mountain, and I thought, ah cool, this looks like “new base” material. They lay out new information about the plot and then the next stop is to assault an air ship.
Kick ass, I think. This is probably roughly the story equivalent of the assault on Bevelle from FFX, you go in, fight your way through, a cinematic happens and the thrust of the story changes, new info drops, motivations change and are renewed just like in FFX.
Nope. You get to the boss on that ship, it’s some dude you have little to no investment in fighting. You kick his ass, he transforms, easy fight, and the game just ends.
I sat in actual open mouthed disbelief. There was no way the game ended there, at what I felt was dramatically and game time wise to be the obvious mid point. And yet, there the credits rolled.
I haven’t played since the original release, but I vaguely remember feeling the same way. If I remember correctly you get to the boss and he is practically like who are you guys. I felt so let down there was no build up between the boss and your characters.
And then Square repeated it with FFXV. Whole time I was like why do I care about this villain? Apparently you had to play some side game or read a story to understand why you were meant to care.
With the decision that we needed to play the Kingdom Hearts mobile game to fully understand KH3, I’m starting to not like Square telling us we need to play so many different games to get how KH plot was
Maybe you’re not coming across them regularly but they’re well known outside the corporate world - not to the extent of Microsoft but it’s not the last time they’ll be in the spotlight.
Indeed, not regularly. I only had the pleasure of hearing about them when I had a job that mandated it. They are explicitly targeted at business users.
They literally just urgently requested that everyone update windows 10 and 11 the other day because they found a zero day. Cloudstrike is only unknown if you don’t pay attention to anything privacy related.
The only people who are triggered are you guys. You’re dealing with trolls who only say that shit to get your goat. They don’t give a shit that they’re playing as Ciri. They’re not even racist for real. They just wanna hear you do your hardest to lash out right back at them for their lazy input.
Yeah they play the loser and we play the woke angel, it’s kind of win-win because they get whatever it is they get, and we get to feel smart and superior.
AI has kind of taken the fun out of it, though… like for real, convincing sounding, dog whistle sprinkled, trollish duck speak is so easy to generate, I struggle to care about interactions on main socials. I mean I don’t go there, but if I did…
Maybe not the length of the main campaign, but good luck 100%ing Cartherine, holy shit. Nevermind Full Body. There's like 8 endings combined + insane challenges and 64-stage game within the game. +100 hours easy, if not more.
First thing’s first: you’re allowed to play on easy mode if you want. Took me too long to realize this.
Emulators let you save anywhere, so if you wanna play Crono Trigger or Donkey Kong Country, go for it!
Holocure is a free bullet heaven with lots of characters to unlock. Recommend boosting your coins first.
Terra Nil (it’s like an anti Sim City) is only as stressful as you make it. Clean the planet and max out the flora and fauna, or just vibe. It even has an appreciation option once you’ve cleansed the area, zooming in to certain sections and letting you see the animals.
Try some cozy games, like Animal Crossing, or any of the dozens of other farming / crafting games. If you want 3D, Slime Rancher is a good option in this category.
Destide has already mentioned Stardew Valley, which is also a great choice.
You can also try some not-difficult side-scrolling game, like Rayman Legends, it has some difficult levels, but most of the game is very chill.
I tried playing it last night, and I really reaaaaally wanted to play through it. It’s really fun and original, but boy, does it stir up some primal fear in me when the fog rolled in. Also, it doesn’t help that murky water and things in said water just absolutely fuck me up. So, needless to say, I can’t play it unless I have people around me because my anxiety goes from 0 when I’m fishing and 100 when it gets spooky.
I was thinking of getting it, what’s up with Stalker 2?
I don’t know about the GoTY thing, this year has not been that great with games.
I’d go with either Satisfactory or Slay the Princess, despite neither of them being real 2024 releases, they both got their most recent actually complete edition released this year, and they are better than anything else I’ve seen that was actually released this year.
Maybe MSFS 2024, but it’s niche and also, fuck MSFT.
Best game I bought myself this year is Hearts of Iron 4.
I was thinking of getting it, what’s up with Stalker 2?
It’s very buggy and an absolute mess from a technological perspective. The NPC simulation has been restricted to a tiny radius around the player, so you can for example see snipers spawn in when you get close to their towers. Even with that limited distance, the game is very CPU bound and performance takes a huge hit in populated areas. In general the NPC AI is pretty braindead and much worse than previous Stalker games. I’ve had to reload earlier saves a couple of times due to NPCs randomly getting hostile, the conversation UI staying permanently on screen and other progression stoppers. The graphics completely rely on TAA or DLSS and look like a checkerboarded mess without them. Despite all that though, I think it’s a pretty fun game and a remarkable achievement given the circumstances of its development.
I haven’t played Stalker 2 so I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but it’s very politically charged and has Russian state sponsored disinformation campaigns running against it. I’m not sure that you can get a truly accurate read of it online.
The developers are Ukrainian, and development had to be paused because their office literally turned into a warzone. The fact that the game came out at all is extremely based, and that certainly adds to the mythology around the game. But again, I haven’t played it, and gameplay-wise that doesn’t actually indicate anything about the game.
I want the game to succeed because of the developers’ existential struggle. The people causing that existential struggle want the game to fail. Neither of us have actually played the game, so again, there’s all this bias around it and we haven’t even looked at gameplay yet.
Well of course the victim is going to play the victim. That’s just good marketing - and what is marketing if not propaganda?
Your comment reads as though the invading state’s actions aren’t propaganda. This is the whole reason why I came here to warn people to be skeptical of what they read online.
Again, you should be skeptical of what you read online. In a vacuum, I’m inclined to believe the victim of invasion. In reality, I know that the situation is more nuanced - although the credibility of the aggressor is extremely suspect.
For what it’s worth, my impression on the game is that it’s yet another over-hyped game that couldn’t possibly live up to its expectations. The developers are financially incentivized to deflect that criticism through any means available to them. But that doesn’t mean I don’t acknowledge that malicious actors are also trying to discredit the game.
I’ll buy the game in a year when most game breaking bugs have been corrected. I’m a fan of GSC and own the three prior games. My favorite is Call of Pripyat, it was so revolutionary that I was able to identify pripyat in film. I love these games. That said, that whole “Russian campaign” to discredit S2 is complete and utter BS. As soon as you start digging there’s literally no credible source for that info. It was a clever marketing ploy, good on them. It still doesn’t make the bugs not exist and the fact they sold their souls to MS and had to release a broken game because Ms likely refused to concede any further extensions is the real news there, but, of course, the marketing machine had to redirect from the fact MS is to blame for the state the game released in. The head of GSC tweeted the could not further delay the game. Anyone can read between the lines. Fuck MS.
I’m not into or even a fan of the PC vs console war, but watching a franchise I hold at such high regard release with missing complex features like A-Life, and simplified AI in general, going for an 80meter spawn radius with messy cool down timers which spawn enemy AI on a loop.
Other things like the over use of lip service through iconic mutants turning up way too often also using the same spawn loop system which repopulates every few minutes.
Loot balance, in the original medkits were very necessary but were in short supply meaning when going out the player would do everything to avoid damage making for an even tenser atmosphere, stalker 2 however the player will find medkits, bandages, a sausage and a bottle of vodka every 10 metres. Things like body armours and weapons are thrown at the player through out the main story negating any sense of achievement.
Difficulty, in the original trilogy the game loop was cautious but in combat act fast, moving from cover to cover as the enemy was unpredictable, they would retreat and push as well as flank, now in stalker 2 enemies always know the players location but no fear as the player is a walking pharmacy and combat has turned into shoot get hit use meds and repeat, essentially its very hard to die in stalker 2 while also having laser accuracy for AI but its no issue as the abundance of meds negate that issue.
Then there’s the bugs, its alpha build. Bugs that block main quests, bugs which put random items in inventory, and bugs that make anomalies invisible.
Its also missing little touches that I have come to expect, no AI companions for quests, no mutant parts making hunting and even fighting mutants a thankless task, the flash light sucks, no NVGs, no roaming NPCs, blind dogs don’t retreat when one is injured, bloodsuckers are missing their glowing eyes, unkillable enemy AI with snipers to stop the player from progressing, factions feel like a gimmick whereas they were the bread and butter in the original trilogy, no tiredness out side of the debuff effect from certain enemy’s, limited NPC dialogue, lack of consumable variation, no buff debuff icon/timers apart from bleeding. and so on.
Most of the people who enjoy the game seem talk about it as a predecessor to fallouts franchise or measure it against other major AAA games open world games, which tbh its in that realm now, I wouldn’t call it a stalker game but maybe in a year after modding tools are releases it will be a successor to one of my favourite franchises. Currently though its locked down by console hardware and made by a studio thats lost teach.
Anyway I have played 120 hours and I think for any one new to the franchise they should wait another 6 months so they can get a better idea of the zone. For old timers give it a go to scratch the itch but don’t expect to be blown away.
I just finished The Pristine Cut of Slay the Princess, and I fully agree that it should be the GOTY.
It’s amazing how different it feels when you play a really excellent game. With most games I regularly pause and tab out, to browse the web. With Slay the Princess I did not. It completely absorbed me, even though it was my second play-through.
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