DOTA 2 is my primary time waster, have over 3000+ hours on it. It’s endlessly entertaining, because there is so much variability in the games. You have 4-8 spells depending on the hero, with 6 active item slots, which means once your team has leveled up, team fights can be a burst of seconds, or a 5+ minute long affair, with each tank employing different survival strategies to block damage, heal, or escape, just to heal and get right back in it. There are multiple different game modes, but are a little challenging to find and play. Still, it is the one game I play with the steepest learning curve. I don’t think I saw myself as “good at the game” until I was around 1000 hours in 😶
Smite is the only other game I have 1000+ hours in. I started playing it as a break from DOTA 2, and as a way to connect with my little brother. It’s a lot like DOTA 2, but far more simplistic. Each god has 4 spells, with no active items. Instead of left-clicking for movement on a map, you use WASD to maneuver your god. It’s fun, and you can pick it up after like 30 hours. The different game modes are a lot easier to navigate than in DOTA, but it’s also a lot less engaging. The updates and quests are all very simplistic. I was going to try out the new Smite 2, but after watching some game play, it looks… exactly the same as Smite 1.
Good news is if you have the DLC you can skip the first act. The DLC start puts you in front of the Church in Pacifica after fighting Placide.
I like Cyberpunk a lot but replayability is shallow like you say. Sometimes I just boot it up to punch npcs though. Make a gorilla arms build and go ham. It’s pretty cathartic.
Started playing the first Watch Dogs for the first time in six years after learning about the wide variety of mods. As a Linux gamer I of course had to do a bit of tinkering. Ubisoft Connect would only make a black screen and take me to the login screen. I read that had something to do with Wayland and Proton not handling Electron apps really well. After switching to Wayland I could finally use Ubisoft Connect and download the game.
Performance-wise the game does well. After setting geometry and LoD levels to High instead of Ultra, the frame rate stays above 60 FPS. This may be mainly due to me using Linux and the game’s optimization as hardware is well above the recommendations.
Modding is currently annoyingly janky, as I had to create an XML file for each zipped mod for Disrupt Manager. Still I couldn’t get that working, as I got a weird error message. Interesting to know if that tool works all well on Windows. I resorted to installing The Worse Mod with Living City, so the game’s graphics get overhauled and more randomness and chaos is added to the game world. The graphics get more closer to the infamous E3 2012 demo, but as a downside the depth of field effect is closer to the player, as if Aiden Pearce were near-sighted.
I always felt like the game was originally never meant to be an open-world game, it’s as if they were going for a mission-to-mission corridor kind of game and wrapped up a world around it to walk around in at a later phase. And many things in the game actually reinforce that idea.
I played the game at launch and the game was absolutely infested with stupid and annoying bugs, so eventually I just skipped all side stuff and just wrapped up the main story, I think that was about half-way through. Back then the open-world most definitely felt like an afterthought.
No events were happening in the world, there were entire parts of the city that were dead and empty. There were even areas blocked off by doors that were “locked” and implied there was something behind it, but some of those places I could just clip through and fall through the world because there was literally nothing behind the door.
There were few things that made it seem like an actual living world, NPCs were just wandering aimlessly, doing nothing. Just making a cool looking area and then dropping a load of copy/paste NPC clones in there doesn’t make a good open-world. If you comitted a crime the police would just spawn behind you, wherever you were. While in contrast some of the story areas seemed more detailed and have more “scripted” things happening, which is part of why I think the game wasn’t originally open-world.
Gameplay wise it was not that special either, gunplay was okay, melee felt quite unsatisfying, and outside of combat there was practically nothing to do other than just driving around. The choices you make at the beginning of the game don’t ever felt like they mattered, like they make it appear it’s a huge backstory thing that would play a role throughout the game. Nope, after the first 15 minutes it’s never mentioned again. The whole cutscene thing with Jackie after the intro feels like it was supposed to be actual gameplay, but was just cut out and changed to a cutscene to skip time.
Also the skill tree barely mattered, there were even skills like being able to breathe underwater longer, even though there wasn’t any underwater content, aside from one Judy mission I believe (which I didn’t get because she wasn’t accessible as a romance option to my character).
The only saving grace of this game was that parts of the story and characters were somewhat interesting, I liked the concept and style of the game. But it felt like a bad game when it came to actual gameplay. And some characters barely got any time to actually become interesting enough to care about.
I’ve been trying to get back in the game a couple of times, but it often just feels so lifeless and lacks any depth.
I always felt like the game was originally never meant to be an open-world game, it’s as if they were going for a mission-to-mission corridor kind of game and wrapped up a world around it to walk around in at a later phase.
That’s my take on it too. The story they wanted to tell does not mesh well with an open world game, but since the people loudly wanted something like “RDR 2 but Cyberpunk” they felt obliged to attempt to shoehorn it in.
The whole cutscene thing with Jackie after the intro feels like it was supposed to be actual gameplay, but was just cut out and changed to a cutscene to skip time.
Completely agree. I think having you play through that part would have made a huge impact on how you connect with Jackie. Maybe they felt it would have pushed the Keanu introduction too deep into the game?
I’ve been trying to get back in the game a couple of times, but it often just feels so lifeless and lacks any depth.
They’ve added some touches to the open world, but I think it was too fundamentally broken to be easily patched. The new skill tree from 2.0 is actually good though and I think the combat is pretty fun in its current state, even without going to mods.
Maybe they felt it would have pushed the Keanu introduction too deep into the game?
I was thinking that too. I think during development it might’ve shifted, since I think Keanu originally wasn’t in the game, and they wanted to make him part of the game quite early on.
I would’ve liked if they had extended the Jackie chapter and moved the Silverhand arc to a later act. It would’ve meant that people would just be dropped in the game and let them explore the world carelessly before the story kicks up to next gear. But they probably realised that the game wasn’t good enough to pull off the open-world part, so they decided to get on with the main story right off the start.
Could be, could be. I think your suggestion would make for a better game with less conflict between what the main story is saying and what the game is presenting in the open world. Having the story emphasize how fast V is dying, only for the player to then fuck around with car races and random merc contracts and whatnot really doesn’t work all that well as far as immersion goes.
Jackie’s death would have also been much more impactful if we’d have spent all that time with him playing through those six months.
There is no chance it wasn’t meant to be an open world. The witcher 3 was a very successful open world they made.
Also, CP77 actually is in the style of elden ring that was praised for it, but CP77 came long before it. Most critiques of CP77 missed that part because the game doesn’t throw it at your face.
I think the “breath underwater” perk in a game with literally no missions where you need to touch water except one - where you have a divesuit anyways - is the best example of how shallow the game is.
I played launch version which had it. I didn’t unlock all perks this time around. There really isn’t a major diff between launch and current when it comes to the things discussed in my post except for the insane number of bugs removed.
I’m almost 100 hours into my new space age save, and I’ve played nearly 1k hours since I bought it 5ish years ago. By far one of the most enjoyable games I’ve ever played and I highly recommend it to everyone who enjoys sandbox games
im replaying the game in vr rn, usinf luke ross real vr mod. it bringsnonly barebones vr capabilities, you still need kbm or controller, but honestly, the open world complaint simply disintegrates in vr. a world this perfectly crafted is simply a joy in vr. since vr is generally slower, the dialogue parts also feel way less slow and tedious, and when modded appropriately difficult, you really start roleplaying to your charavters strength. starting off as a weak ass meatbag, having to stealth everything, chroming up more and more to the point where you go from dying in 4 shots to being able to go beserk bring a real sense of progression to it. currently modding via the new nexus app, as vortex doesnt work on linux, so i cant make a collection yet, but once i have it, i will definitely share it. i have 680 hours rn, 300 of them in vr (120ish i the current run) and i’m enjoying every minute of it
I haven’t played Cyberpunk, but I already felt that way about The Witcher 3, to some extent. CDPR makes nice looking games with seemingly vibrant and populated worlds, but I feel like interaction with the world and NPCs is pretty thin and boring.
Man, Witcher 3 is an amazing game and a lot of the secondary quests had a pretty alluring story. I read the books too, but the game is really great. Just the combat system is a bit tedious but apart from that the game world and the story was absolutely beautiful
Just “finished” Factorio’s new Space Age expansion. Just a few more achievements to collect, but I need to start a couple new runs for those so I will be continuing on with that until Path of Exile 2’s early access in December.
I’ve started playing through some classic SNES and GBA games.
Chrono Trigger – Oh man, this one’s good. The soundtrack is on fire, and the game does a good job at making you feel like your actions make a difference.
Metroid Fusion – If you told me this was made in 2024, I’d probably believe you. It has a sense of pacing and suspense that I wasn’t expecting for a metroidvania.
I haven’t gotten very far in either, but so far it’s looking like they’ve aged like wine.
Popped in to Diablo 3: Season 33 for a little bit. Chose the Crusader this round, but I'm not feeling super motivated to get through the season quickly.
Finally got through the final boss in Quantum Break. I really wish there was a sequel. Beth deserves the best.
I'm not sure how canon Alan Wake's American Nightmare is for the overall Remedy Universe (the game itself says it's kind of a alt reality, like a dream within a dream), but, like with Quantum Break, there are references to it in Alan Wake 2, so here we are lol. Besides, it's a fun, short game, so why not. I was a little sad I couldn't re-pick up documents (as I've played this a couple times before), but going back through them there is a surprisingly large amount of lore that's dropped if you do consider this canon. Overall, I'm glad I played it.
Currently working through Control, and I've made a surprisingly large amount of progress story wise. It might be a bad idea that I am doing a replay, since I'll want to collect every single little thing again, and that might take a while, but I love this game, so I won't complain too much. Also, I absolutely forgot that they straight up mention Mr. Door. When I first played this game, it was before I played Quantum Break, so when "Mr. Door" popped up I was very confused, and by the time I got to Quantum Break I had forgotten the comment, I didn't make the Door/Hatch connection. So it was a cool light bulb moment that makes me glad I'm going through the Remedy games again.
Twinsen’s Quest (Little Big Adventure 1 reamke) and Fallout London.
Twinsen’s quest is great, but… it has a lot of bugs that need fixing, the subtitles don’t always match up to what is being said and in some places there is no indication of what needs to be done leaving the player (me) feeling and being stuck.
Fallout London is great but for some reason in some areas it just… crashes to the desktop without so much as a warning, just closes completely.
I’m a weird critter and play things differently from most, I think 😅 My greatest fun tends to be alting hard, trying nearly every imaginable build. Beat up the same jerkwad thirty times just to try out all’ the toys, that kind of thing :3 I did get annoyed at having to wait for the map to open up but I replay beginnings so many times anyway… 🤷 I wanna go back to CP77 pretty badly, too 😅 Am stuck on a laptop that I can’t imagine running it playably but even just driving around was fun for me. Helped me through a rough patch a night or two, actually.
Also liked how well-done the story bits felt, though maybe that’s partly because I was told they’re really good and just expected them to be 🤷 I do remember some bits fondly, though.
Honestly the fact that the game puts such an emphasis on customizing your character and then is 1st person all the way through annoyed me to no end. Thanks for the recommend, didn’t know there was a mod that changed it
Yep! The only thing is that when V talks their mouth doesn’t move.
I do notice that V’s mouth will move during the radio which is bizarre and interesting that V is the audio source of the radio
It’s a shame Jali can’t be reversed engineered to get V to speak
It can be a bit janky during platforming though and interacting with items. But with the Hyst body mod that’s not really something that’s a deal breaker
Another mod recommendation: Virtual Atelier. Thousands of customization from fan mod and you can “buy” them right on the store tablet that you can buy cars with
EDIT: IMMERSIVE FIRST PERSON. there is a mod that improves the FOV of the first person view and angles the camera to be more realistic of looking through V’s POV.
Yeah if I ever give it another go I’ll definitely check it out even if it’s a little janky. I liked the intro but after the first few missions I gave up. The POV thing was such an unreasonable thing to be a deal breaker, but I really just couldn’t get immersed after spending so much time making my character and then not seeing them as part of the world
Powered through Beastieball over the past week, a creature collector/"sports" game from the devs of Chicory and Wandersong. I had fairly high expectations because I enjoyed the devs previous work, but it turned out even better than expected. Lots of cool creature designs, music is Lena Raine's usual standout stuff, story kept my attention.
The sportsball system is surprisingly complex, if a little hard to learn. I went through multiple types of team setup and felt like a lot of different setups were viable in the end. Every match is a 2v2, every offensive turn is 3 actions worth, and you get a defensive turn too. You really have to build a team with good synergy between them and be smart about swapping in and out.
Only real downside is it's still early access and a decent chunk of creatures have placeholder art or don't have the full set of animation frames yet. Most are reasonably finished but there's a couple that are a little jarring.
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