I never played horror games when I was a kid, but Dead Space and Amnesia: The Dark Descent were the two games that really solidified what I wanted out of a horror game. Having the ability to defend yourself instead of running is still something that makes or breaks a horror game for me.
I had played other horror games before it but the first one I became obsessed with was Resident Evil 4. I think I mostly just enjoy survival horror type games for the challenge, because other horror games have never really held much of an interest to me unless they have some kind of survival aspect.
I only played Days Gone and it was ok, but kind of glitchy and exploitable. It was one of those games where the boss battles have basically nothing to do with the regular gameplay loop which was super frustrating. Got stuck on the mega zombie boss fight and stopped playing.
Glitchy and exploitable how? And I’d say the boss fights fit perfectly in the regular game loop because every time you’d come to something like a boss fight it was really just introducing you to a new regular enemy type.
I remember the first time I fought the breaker, roid rage freak, and I burned through my entire stock of ammo and molotovs. And I never wanted to see one of those things again. But then they were added to the regular enemy spawns. Driving around at night, oh shit it’s a breaker. Cleaning out a nest, fuck it’s a breaker. The game kept the tension of exploring and fighting high by continually adding new challenges and as long as you kept going you’d get new ways to deal with those challenges.
That, or really anything that you were exposed to at an early enough age to influence your tastes or how you contextualized the themes it explored later in your life.
It turns your units against you. Sure the ROF is low, but damn. Plus, given how the controls worked (or didn’t) back in the days, this caused utter havoc not only with the unit control but also other unit’s pathing.
Tetris Effect: I was sure it would be a nice, relaxing game I could play casually to calm down. Nope. While I enjoyed the aesthetic and the dynamic music, the way it speeds up at times and the way the difficulty scales makes it a remarkably stressful game, to the point that I still felt stressed out hours after playing it. If you’re a Tetris god, you’ll probably think differently about it, but I’m not. I ended up digging out a classic Tetris clone from over 20 years ago instead, Zetrix, which still looks nice, plays just fine on modern hardware (except for resolution support) and, crucially, isn’t even remotely as stressful. I wish it had a hold function though.
Proun: An abstract racing game from 12 years ago. It still looks fantastic, has outstanding track design and controls exceedingly well. Neat concept, near flawless execution, just as much fun as I remember it being.
Game Dev Tycoon: No matter what you click, no matter what you choose, no matter how many points your game has, you can never predict how well your game ends up scoring. It’s just an RNG clicker. You as the player might as well not even be there. Everything about it is meaningless.
Looks like there’s Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 units that are below $900. I’ve heard good things about that line. Make sure to watch/read plenty of reviews before pulling the trigger though
Should probably try to set a few more parameters to narrow your search, like RAM and storage. I’d recommend an SSD and if you like large games opt for 1 TB or more
I picked up Slime Rancher for Switch this weekend (on sale: $12 (not a bot /corporate shill I just love it so much)) and have not been able to put it down. It’s so darn cute and addicting. It plays like Risk of Rain 2 met a farming game. Build an empire from selling different flavor slime poo at fluctuating market prices; find fancier slimes, fancier poo, fancier upkeep tools: profit and repeat. Plus some exploration.
If your into the space vibes Empyrion Galactic Survival is a great one that goes from mining by hand to mining vehicles to asteroid mining with huge ships!
I had a gigabyte gaming laptop and overall it was a great value… after I fixed the graphics card drivers and updated the motherboard bios. Nothing worked right out of the box new.
If you’re just using the laptop as a browser/ ms office machine for school or something I can’t recommend the Microsoft surface tablet line enough. I’ve used a surface 3 for years for that purpose.
After more than a hundred hours (and probably also 50+ crashes) me and my friends managed to finish our co-op Satisfactory session and completed the (for now) last stage of the space elevator. At the end of the game everything was slowly falling apart though. No means of transport was reliable anymore due to the lag. Trains were acting weirdly, hypertubes cannons were very dangerous, standing on drones was a quick trip to the void, and even normal hypertubes had random glitches where you’d randomly fall out of them and get completely desynced. But the factories were impressive, and it was a cool experience.
Now we’re kinda filling the void with some older games. Playing some Splitgate again, which was quite fun despite the low player counts. And also playing some Mario Kart etc via Dolphin. Yesterday we also played Barony for the first time. I didn’t have a full idea what was going on, but one friend had some experience already. We managed to get like 6 floors deep on our second run before saving the game and calling it a night, which felt quite good.
In single player I’m picking up Cyberpunk 2077 again in preparation for Phantom Liberty. My build seems completely messed up tho, and the SPT Grad sniper that I relied on seems to be nerfed and can no longer shoot through walls it seems. Nevertheless the changes seem like an overall improvement to the game, I had a lot of fun with the police already.
Dont give up too quickly on SF6!! It’s not as hard as it’s made out to be. You can get away with quite a lot with very little intentional play/very little knowledge, and mashing the rest of the time. The other concepts you can pick up as you go once you’re comfortable!
Thanks for the encouragement! I’ll keep trying, I just feel like there is a very steep curve until I reach the point of not having to use 110% of my brain power. As things become muscle memory, they’re becoming easier and more enjoyable.
The joys of learning something complex. :) First its just a hassle to get the moves you want when you want them, but that comes quick enough. Then its recognizing the importance of anti-airs and how to do those and land those. But soon enough you figure that out too.
Just stick to one thing at a time, drill it and enjoy the small W’s. Once you’re comfy you can explore more. There’s always a new thing to explore no sense in trying to do all of them right away.
That’s definitely my issue, there is so much to learn that I’m trying to learn too much at once. I’ll try focusing on one thing at a time. Thanks for the tips!
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