Disco Elysium is a fantastic one. There are an insane amount of choices that shape how you go about the investigation of the hanged man and ultimately what happens beyond that investigation. Choices of who to side with, how to side (openly or playing multiple sides, etc.), choices that ultimately define what kind of detective you are (by-the-book boring, superstar douchebag, violent tough guy, Sherlock Holmes-esque genius, etc., including my favorite: Twin Peaks Lynchian detective that bases their decisions off of dreams, intuition and imaginary conversations with the dead body), and even how failing or succeeding at something can lead to progress in very different ways. If you fail to hit that person you tried to punch, or miss that shot with your gun, or utterly fail to convince someone to help you, you progress through in very different ways so that failing your way to the truth is just as satisfying and entertaining as succeeding your checks to get there.
And of course Fallout: New Vegas. Whether you choose to support the New California Republic, Caesar’s Legion, Mr. House, or a truly independent New Vegas, none of them are perfect. Each succeeds in an ideal society in some ways but completely fails at others, leaving you to decide which imperfect system you feel is the right one for the world instead of shoving an obvious answer in your face.
Baldur’s Gate 3 has a lot of really hard hitting decisions, and I’m in awe at how they’re able to make the story work with just how many choices there are.
Ehhhh, it has a lot of decisions, yes. But in the end: do any of them matter at all? I feel like 99% of my decisions never made any kind of difference whatsoever at the end.
I did a whole bunch of stuff with Shadowheart and she wasn’t even in my ending at all. Totally missing. I did even more crazy stuff with Karlach, and in the end I was given zero dialog or options or chances to do anything with her, the game forced her to say “I’m getting too hot” and fall down and explode and die. I did by far the most stuff with my primary character Astarion, and in the end I got zero options to do anything with the woman he loved and he ran away to hide in a cave.
So… Yes there are lots of options to make decisions one way or another. But none of them matter at all whatsoever in the end. So, don’t be too in awe, because the way they make the story work is just totally ignoring anything you ever did.
You made choices and got the results of those choices. The alternative results are different.
!There are multiple endings where Karlach survives in different ways. Shadowheart’s story has at least three possible outcomes, maybe more that I haven’t seen. This goes on and on for each origin character. Even NPCs you encounter in Act 3 are shaped by your choices earlier in the game.!<
Frankly, based on your description, it sounds like you made a bunch of lame decisions. There’s neat endings and then the middling one you got.
Civ Beyond Earth has the neat approach that it replaces the old “build a spaceship to alpha Centauri” with three different technological endings each with different moral implications. The game is about human transcendence so any ending is going to be about changing humanity.
The problem is that the game itself is not one of the better entries in the Civ series otherwise.
I find games that have genuine path branching to be most satisfying for me in the “choices matter” department. Some games that come to mind for this are Tactics Ogre Reborn (or the PSP version), The Witcher 2, Triangle Strategy, and Baldur’s Gate 3.
There are others that have interesting decisions (especially ending/late-game ones) like Deus Ex, The Witcher 3, and Life is Strange, but I’m not sure if those quite have the scope you’re looking for.
In addition to this there is also occasionally the case where playing an extremely popular game right at launch lets you participate in the zeitgeist in a way you can’t really do if you wait a year and a half for a sale. I imagine whether this matters to you is extremely subjective, but I remember this being a big thing for me with both Elden Ring and BG3; being able to participate in discussions and discovery at the point in time when not everything about the game has been mapped out. Watercooler talk or chatting on Discord with others and sharing your respective findings during that early time when the Wikis aren’t filled in yet.
While that’s true, specifically avoiding the zeitgeist (read: hype) is the stated goal for patient gaming communities (at least the ones on Reddit and here on Lemmy at !patientgamers). It’s why people pay too much for games that are released unfinished in the first place. And there’s always a popular game out or right around the corner.
Owning physical editions of games can be a problem for patient gamers. As digital distribution continues to expand (even in previously resistant markets such as Japan), we’re again getting to a point where pre-orders may be necessary if you want a physical copy for small releases.
NIS America has also increased prices on their games, although, unlike Factorio, they have sales. Also unlike Factorio, they don’t spout nonsense like “inflation” for the increase. That doesn’t track on a game that already has virtually zero marginal cost and sunk development costs now that development has moved to a paid expansion. Dude would have been better off just announcing the increase and keeping his mouth shut on the rest.
I just wish Valve wasn’t pulling a Nintendo and not aiding the fans of a game they care about, instead of just sitting on it and claiming they are doing all they can for it.
How long has it been since we were promised a major update after Jungle Inferno? How long since Valve promised community fixes? How long since Valve delayed it with “we’re working hard on making it next update”? How long did Valve say they heard the community loud and clear about the bot crisis?
TF2 is my all time favorite game, but it’s no longer really playable in 2024. Casual servers are infested with bots, and there’s been no major changes to the game since 2017. I wish Valve cared about the game as much as the community still does dozens of years later.
They most certainly made a decision based on priorities and TF2 wasn’t a big enough one for them to jump on. If there were enough users who would pay clamoring for it, they’d move.
Making a Portal mod is much different than possessing and using the original source code of a game. I don’t understand why they thought they could get away with such a high-profile title as TF.
The specific game that gave me the idea for this post was Freedom Planet 2. I remember getting the original as part of one of the early Humble Bundles, and enjoyed it, but never felt compelled to try the sequel.
Something I’ve been missing is having more game stories with fully “melodramatic” character acting - where character A is gasping in tears over the injuries to character B, and won’t ever forgive ruthless villain Y. That was something I remembered FP1 for, for better or worse, and apparently from reviews they improved their craft a bit for the sequel.
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Aktywne