Many of the early console and PC games were only solvable by finding answers in published magazines. Nintendo was notorious for this - they had their own magazine called Nintendo POWER and a hotline you could call to get tips. A few that come to mind:
Blaster Master / Goonies 2 / Mad Max / The Kings Quest games / The Black Caludron
On arcades, you’d get fucked by asshole difficulty. At home, you’d get fucked by asshole difficulty and purposeful lack of information. Took me a while to put 2 and 2 together and realize how “predatory games” have been around for a very long time. Can’t sell the game twice, but you can sell information.
Minimetro and Cultist Simulator are my go to “comfy” games, but cultist simulator really does get you feeling like you’re chasing a mad eldritch horror when playing at times. It’s deliberately obtuse and odd, and then a revelation of the truth takes you over and you push on beyond your wildest expectations.
Slay the Spire and Hollowknight have both been mentioned enough in other posts in case anyone reading this is somehow unaware of either of them.
Faster than Light and Into the Breach are both excellent games. FtL is rng mitigation and crisis control par excellence. ItB is basically chess, and you play out the turns as best you can. It’s rewarding, but once you get good you need to ramp up the difficulty somewhat to keep it fun.
I want to like Into the Breach but it’s too stressful. Like, when I fuck up in FTL and the crew dies it sucks, but when I fuck up in Into the Breach and all those civilians die? Oof. They were counting on me!
But once you’ve finished a run once or twice, you’ll get more options and be able to turn it essentially into Sudoku or some other solitaire puzzle and do most levels perfectly once you know what’s going on and having a few more options.
I’ll have to go with Selaco, it’s not even finished (in fact it’s approximately half done) but it feels more complete than any mainline Halo game after H:Reach. Looks better too.
Currently playing through Rainworld for the first time, and “where the fuck do I go” has definitely crossed my mind more than a few times.
I will say I’ve mostly been enjoying just exploring, but it has been frustrating at times trying to figure out what to do or where to go when my little in-game helper suddenly decides to play coy at another crossroads.
I haven’t seen it mentioned and feel like it should count, since it really just had a solo programmer working with a graphic designer and musician, but RollerCoaster Tycoon and RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 took a big chunk of my gaming time.
Most of my picks have been mentioned already, but I had a blast with Mullet Madjack. A tongue in cheek riff on 80s anime in a boomer shooter where you have 10 seconds to live, but each enemy kill gives you 2 more seconds of life.
Most recently it’s Clair Obscur Expedition 33. There’s an actual overworld map but you need to get your bearings in area maps and dungeons because there are none. You’ll have to use local landmarks to get around, find clues for hidden areas, and the direction you actually need to go. I’ve spent hours in single areas just getting lost admiring the design and artwork.
So far for me the game has done a great job of having recognizable landmarks at least. I might not always know where I am, but I’ll frequently come across something that orients me again.
I despise being lost in video games, but claire obscure has been fine because I never feel like I get lost for too long. Just long enough to appreciate the gorgeous and very weird world I’m in.
I still sometimes wish there was a map but it would probably be a net negative.
I haven’t played Marathon, but I did get into the ARC test. This will mostly be some ramblings…
I’m still waiting to play ARC with some friends. I only did some solo stuff.
I’m coming from this as a big Hunt Showdown player (1,200+ hours) and someone that’s played a bit of Forever Winter (~20). I still like Hunt better; I think it’s the only extraction shooter that didn’t take a ton of influence from Tarkov.
I wasn’t crazy about the marathon art style, but I’m not ready to pass judgement on it until I’ve been in the world.
ARC’s art style I found beautiful but also perhaps too sparse. There were so many wide open spaces … I just don’t see that being a good thing for an extraction shooter. The world felt vast and empty … I prefer Hunt’s more cluttered and dense design.
ARC does seem to have a lot of potential in like how it’s designed its AI, Hunt’s is very primitive in a lot of ways and kind of secondary. I think the AI is going to be a bigger deal in ARC.
Third person also feels worse to me than first person. I hope they add a first person mode to ARC, but I kind of doubt they will.
I definitely agree that ARC felt like it was being set up to tell a story and felt very cinematic at times.
The UI also felt like the best extraction shooter UI I’ve ever encountered.
I’m concerned about the long term health of ARC. The progression system seems like it will certainly lead to established players dominating newer players. The lack of a primary objective that’s shared by all the teams on the map … I’m not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, it may lead to a more relaxed experience, on the other hand, it doesn’t curate players towards each other like Hunt does; it seems looting and crafting are the primary motivators instead.
The fights that I did get into, they lacked the complex environment and buildings in Hunt so I didn’t find them nearly as engaging, they were much more straight forward gunfights than leveraging the map to use it to my advantage. I think that aspect will ultimately hurt the game as it makes it feel like a bit of a generic shooter.
Overall ARC felt very middle of the road from what I’ve played of it so far. I had a similar feeling about The Finals. Embark seems like a talented studio and I wish them the best as they go up against Bungie and Crytek.
Yeah for me, it’s the variety of tales that you author. Every game feels a bit like a new adventure, after a while similar to ones you’ve been on before, but still new.
ARC has those elements, but something feels off so far for me…
Also typically the progression is in terms of variety (Roguelike) instead of straight power (Roguelite). That keeps things fair because even a new player, if they trade the aim, can pose a real threat to a seasoned player of similar FPS skill. ARC seems like it’s decided to go for a sort of Roguelite experience and that seems risky.
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