For the first time in forever I am playing multiple games at the same time.
Lands of Lore: Throne of Chaos. I had that game as a kid but I don’t think I ever got any further than the first enemy. And it’s amazing! The whole game is dubbed. And it has four protagonists to choose from, each with their individual voice lines about basically any situation or item you come across. And all the NPC’s lines match them and they address you by name.
And the graphics are super beautiful. Pixel graphics but with great details and animations. Like when you get your spellbook you get a super elaborate T-1000-like animation of some droplets forming a scroll.
X-Wing via XWVM: The old X-Wing game with updated graphics and quality of life improvements. Just awesome! It’s still an alpha but basically plays like a beta. I have hardly any bugs, just occasional crashes, and none are game breaking. And supposedly they are already pretty far along with TIE Fighter compatibility. Can’t wait to play that. TIE Fighter TC is nice and all, but stuffing everything into the X-Wing Alliance engine feels pretty clunky while XWVM just works.
Cyberpunk 2077: My son bought it on sale and I wanted to try it as well, although I don’t really like cyberpunk. Too realistic. But the game is great. Plays like a combination of Deus Ex and GTA. I’d say it feels more like the original Deus Ex than the newer Deus Ex games. Maybe with slightly less open levels. But not much.
Limbo: The game is about to be delisted from GOG so I got it quickly. It’s chill to play which suits me well. Love it so far.
I recently discovered Celeste and love it so far. It’s a skilled platformer that doesn’t seem as punishing (edit) compared to other platformers that I’ve played, but still challenging enough to be satisfying. (edit: And the base story difficulty is not as bad as some other platformer games). The story is also really nice (overcoming depression and mental health stuff), not something I usually play but I was really engaged with it, and communicated in a nice simple way (not a ton of cutscenes like story-heavy games). edit: Celeste is similar to Hollow Knight, though I got stuck at a part of Hollow Knight and haven’t picked it back up in a while. Celeste is much easier than N++ and Super Meat Boy, IMO.
(I had intended to play it on my 4k TV, but I found that it has a significant delay that makes it hard, and I somehow didn’t notice it in other games. It’s much easier to play on my PC).
Also RE the OP’s mention of simple phone games, I really like “Simon Tatham’s Puzzles”: iOS, Android on Google Play and F-Droid. It’s a collection of simple puzzle games that I enjoy idly playing for a few minutes at a time.
Isn’t Celeste supposed to be rather difficult? Or is that the Ori games? Or both? Regardless, I don’t think I’ll ever play these games sadly as I’m not a god gamer, and I especially suck at platforming. Same reason I don’t think I’ll ever attempt Hollow Knight either.
It is fairly difficult, but there are a few reasons why I found the difficulty more pleasant:
pacing: the most difficult parts you’ll first encounter are optional bonus objectives (strawberries) that you can skip and come back to later. So you can take your time and get them as you go when you feel like it, and if you get frustrated you can continue with the main storyline for a bit (this happened to me a few times when I was playing, so it was basically continuous enjoyment)
very forgiving: in Hollow Knight, it’s like Dark Souls where if you die, you lose your in-game currency and need to make your way back to your corpse to recover it, and if you die again then you lose it completely. But in Celeste, you get a checkpoint at every “screen”, so it’s very forgiving to experiment new techniques and just keep trying over and over again. There are some longer patches so that it doesn’t feel too easy, but overall I really liked it
most of the storyline is accessible without having to do much extra. There are some more challenging levels at the end that require finding some hidden unlocks earlier in the game, and beating some tougher challenges that I’m going through now.
But fair point, even the base storyline is quite challenging, especially if you don’t love this genre. I’ll edit my comment to be more clear. They do add some “assist mode” to make it easier if you want to enjoy the story, but I’m not sure if it’s still fun to play it that way.
I remember seeing these ads as an impressionable young gamer and getting the idea that Playstations had games that were scary and weird, and Nintendo games and handhelds were for boys. Generally the ads told me “this is not for you”. Because I only ever saw ads for specific PC games and never for PCs themselves, (they were aimed at adults, not in the kind of magazines and comics young me was perusing) even though I was still not the target market it clicked more with me. I think that might be a part of why I’ve only ever really gotten into PC games over the years. I knew there were games I’d like and games I wouldn’t, and never got the same platform level messaging.
I remember seeing an ad for Thief and thought it looked cool, and I remember being super grossed out by that Quake 3 ad, but I never felt unwelcome or out of place playing PC games. In contrast, the focus on marketing to young males is really obvious in those console ads.
Examples of some PC game ads I remember working for me and led to me getting them:
Kolanaki linked it above. It’s a disgusting crusty gamer den implying the game is so addictive you’ll live in filth. I remember that image being on the first couple of pages of a PC Gamer issue from the late 90s or early 00’s.
You put your finger on it. Most of the ads say, “this is not for you,” to a young girl.
Old ads for cars, alcohol, cigarettes etc. were like that as well. They’re aimed at the hotshot guy who has a chick he’s treating poorly, or more accurately, the guy who wants to have chicks throwing themselves at him. They have nothing to offer a woman or girl, because why would she want to be ignored arm candy?
I guess the one with the woman holding a controller in the bathtub may be an exception.
I’m sure a lot of boys and men were weirded out by these ads too.
man those Tribal GBA SPs. yeah I remember when Nintendos advertising in the US was way more edgy. like when the GameBoy Pocket and GameBoy Color came out the commercials for those were dark.
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