It’s not super old, but the original BioShock is one of those games that you can point to and say “this is art”. It’s an amazing exploration of Ann Rand, capitalism, addiction, art, deregulation, unions, and greed, all with the most beautiful art deco levels. The mechanics of the powers you get are tied into the themes and your choices of how to acquire them are in themselves a statement of the self vs others. It’s well thought out from the ground up, from aesthetic choices to narrative ones, and one of the few games that absolutely nails it.
I enjoy the gameplay of the second one even better, though I feel the attempt to explore collectivism doesn’t fit as well by using the same motifs as the first one, the dlc Minerva’s Den has the most tragic exploration of identity and the singularity out there.
The third is fun to play but I think they were trying to explore too much of everything at once, between America, racism, classism, quantum states and everything else, and unlike the first two, the mechanics of the plasmids didn’t really lend anything to the story. The dlc is fun, but rewrote a poignant lesson from the base game and watered it down.
I’ll add that while the remastered version of BioShock looks and plays somewhat better, the “improved” lighting completely destroys the original atmosphere. Keep that in mind if you’re trying this game for the first time.
Xenogears for the PS1 had one of the best combat systems I’ve ever played. Tied with Star Ocean 2 for the PS1. There’s a remake which I think they overhauled the combat system, so I’m not sure if it still is as good as the first edition, but the customizability was amazing.
After that Grandia was fun, but I played it far less than the aforementioned, so have less to say. Chrono Trigger was very good for what it was, and IMHO was only matched by FF6 in that category (heavy turn based combat systems). Chrono Cross is an honorable mention in that category as well.
Lastly, very recently the Sea of Stars game had a very good combat system.
Ultimately these games have great stories, and that’s all I really cared about, but the combat systems could either make or break the monotonous grind to get to the plot points, so they had to be at least decent to make the games playable.
I highly recommend any of these games. Chrono Trigger in particular is highly regarded as possibly the greatest JRPG of all time, and personally I’d put Xenogears at 2nd place, with Star Ocean 2 at 3rd. But I might just be nostalgic.
There is one I remember hearing about a while back and I want to find it again that was really dope because it was a full on simulator and had a easy to use builder to build your own tables. People were recreating actual tables for it, though only those in the public domain.
Space Cadet was one of Maxis’ Full-Tilt Pinball tables. Afaik it’s not in the public domain, Microsoft licensed it from Maxis. However, I’m not sure EA would actually enforce the copyright unless someone was making a lot of money off it.
I played the crap out of the OG Warcraft games, and thought online play would be fun, but I realized that I play at far too chill of a pace to stand a chance, but strictly turn based tactics games are teeth-grindingly slow, and even if I’m enjoying them, I still eventually get bored and quit.
The new Terminator RTS can be pretty difficult but you can just smack space to pause and asses the situation, issue orders, and then in pause. It’s got a little jank to it but it’s a really good RTS with some survival/scavenging aspects and some branching objectives.
Yeah, Ringleader’s Evergaol was rough, took me over 30 tries. I was a bit under-leveled when I first found it and after getting my ass handed to me for 10 or so attempts I decided to mark it and return later, went back after leveling up a bit and died another 15 times or so. Came back a 3rd time after defeating Mohg on my 4th attempt and finally cleared the evergaol after about 8 more attempts.
I’ve never had so much fun staring at the screen for minutes on end without doing anything. Calculating my next move. Great game, but definitely not one you can just play mindlessly.
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