Space Station 14. The absolute best multiplayer experiences I’ve had since the heyday of Planetside 2 (not that the two games are even remotely similar, just thinking broadly about multiplayer enjoyment).
But it’s been a good year for other games too. Silent Hill 2 was excellent. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was excellent. Monster Hunter Wilds had some damn good looking monsters (but was not excellent).
Space Station 14 sounds interesting. What kind of multiplayer is it? I.e. is it one where the typical experience is to play with randoms via matchmaking, or is it a game best enjoyed with friends?
I have discord server full of nerds who I played games with during COVID (and its aftermath), and this might be a good excuse to see if I can reawaken that server for games
Kinda sorta like if Rimworld was set on a space station, but players control a single pawn, and servers are in the 50, 80, 150+ player count depending on server and time of day. The vibe is pretty similar to Among Us, just vastly, vastly more deep and complex than Among Us.
You join a server, create a character, pick a job ranging from janitor, bartender, musician, botanist, cargo, medical, security, research, and so on, then you join and try to keep the space station running smoothly by focusing on your job and working with other departments.
Or, you can, if you want, get a chance at being an antagonist with various goals ranging from stealing stuff to killing specific people, becoming a zombie and spreading the infection, or even blowing up the whole station with a nuke.
It’s incredibly deep, and it being a highly social game with some degree of roleplay focus, it’s crazy and fun and nothing else out there is quite like it, aside from space station 13 which came before it.
To answer your other questions - no matchmaking at all, you join a specific server and whatever job you end up with is determined by which jobs you have unlocked (by playtime in specific roles), which jobs you’ve set for yourself that you’d like to work, and which other players have also chosen those same jobs. Playing with friends can be challenging if servers are full.
And you absolutely must NOT communicate outside of the game unless the server specifically allows it. That includes Discord, that’s considered “metacomms”, so go in knowing you’ll have to use text chat for everything - it’s how everyone teaches and learns anyways, so it’ll come naturally
That sounds like a space version of Eco, with the roles stuff. In Eco, it’s impossible for one person to acquire all skills, so people on a server have to specialise.
I started out as a miner, to honour my late best friend who was a dwarf at heart and would definitely have been a miner if he’d been playing with us. Then I branched out into masonry to make use of the absurd amounts of stone I’d been mining. If I wanted something made of wood, I had to go flutter my eyelashes at my friend who had started out as a logger and branched into carpentry. I enjoyed having a domain that was my own, and a clear way to be useful to the server. Other players had some level of mining and masonry skill by the midgame, but for anything serious, they had to wait until I was online.
It sounds like Space Station 14 is far more hectic than this, but in an interesting way. I wonder if it will scratch the same itch that Eco did wrt being useful in a clear role
Honestly sounds and looks quite different at first glance, but if you enjoyed working a particular job and getting better at it over time, that’s for sure an itch that SS13/14 scratches well!
take botany for instance. can be as simple as planting seeds in hydroponic trays and harvesting fruit and veggies for the kitchen and for the chemistry department.
But one can go so much deeper than that - tired of onion plants only yielding two onions when harvested? well, cocoa trees drop six pods when harvesting, so you can rub a cotton swab on the cocoa tree and then rub it on the onion plant to deposit a random genetic trait from the cocoa tree, and if you’re lucky or if you repeat enough times the right way, you can end up with an onion plant that drops six each harvest! or, maybe just end up with onions that contain theobromine.
There’s also mutation of plants, which can add various traits (like offgassing tritium, or making the plant scream in pain when harvested, or making the produce so slippery that people slip and fall if they walk over it), and of course those traits can also get swabbed over to other plants.
there’s even an illegal “gatfruit” that produces a high powered revolver when eaten, tho those aren’t easy to come by
I should play more Space Station 14. I use to play quite a bit of 13, and it was quite fun to deep fry everything. I hope more things are added to 14! Otherwise I’ll just have to continue my escapades of “I only know how to make banana bread, botany boss, thanks!”
14 is in a really good state right now, I think! Wizden, being the upstream/vanilla can seem a little sparse compared to, say, the Starlight fork which adds a lot, or the dozens of other forks out there.
I’ve spent probably most of my time as botanist, with cargo/salvage a close second and musician a close third.
Definitely play more, especially if it’s been some time since you last tried it, the development of it is quite active and ongoing. Hell, wizden’s test server has been trying out a complete rework of the medical system, so they’re definitely not afraid to throw some huge changes out there and see how well the community responds to it.
When I played I was a chef! Often I just ghosted though in order to learn more. Follow people around, see what they do. Helped my autistic brain so I felt better about fucking shit up.
Loved my chef knife. Stupid mice eating my banana bread!
Spectating is fun! I haven’t done much of it but recently I followed a musician avali for their whole shift, and it ended up being really interesting. They found a spear and were told to get a permit for it, which they did, but then someone stole the permit and they got arrested for carrying a weapon without a permit despite being issued one, despite the sec officer being told about the theft, and the thief standing right in front of the sec officer at the time.
then they later got arrested for the same thing by the same officer.
they eventually tried to sue the security department, and the trial was about to start, but was interrupted by the jury room getting bombed, and when they tried to hold the trial in the hallways of course chaos broke out and they had to evac, and didn’t bother trying the trial at centcomm.
Ravenswatch came out at the end of last year, but it’s an incredibly satisfying multiplayer roguelike. Really scratches that asymmetrical gameplay itch.
Split Fiction is a master class in game design. It creates these awesome storytelling moments that could only be created in this exact way.
UFO 50: holy shit this one came out of nowhere for me. It’s like digging through a retro collection for diamonds in the rough, but there’s more diamond than rough. It has honestly changed the way I approach video games and gaming in general. Also, Party House is so good.
Hades 2 is pretty much exactly what I was hoping it would be. No notes.
I also played Clair Obscur, DK Bananza, Mario Kart World, and Silksong. Those are all good games, but none of them hooked me.
Most of those games are ones I’ve never heard of before, but you’ve really sold me on them, especially Split Fiction and UFO 50
(Mini tangent, but I find it interesting how, in this age of algorithmically driven slip content, I cherish the opportunity to find little snippets of meaningful connection with my fellow humans. Like, I don’t know you, or anything really about your preferences or tastes in games, so what reason is there to put much weight in your recommendations? You’re just a random person on the internet, after all. But no, your recommendations feel meaningful because you’re a person who cared enough about these things to write about them, and matters to me (especially in our current climate))
If I was going to try out Split Fiction and UFO 50, which would you recommend I start with?
I fully understand what you mean. I got turned on to UFO 50 the exact same way, from a stranger’s recommendation online. They referred to it as “a master class in game design”, and I was like, that’s exactly what I was just saying about Split Fiction!
I think how we say things is important to how we connect.
Anyway, Split Fiction requires two players. The whole game is in split screen, even if you play online. But you only need one copy of the game to play online - I think your partner can just download a special version of the game for free. But if you have someone to play with in the same room, I recommend that.
A bit more about UFO 50 if you haven’t already looked it up: it’s a faux-retro game collection from a fictional, defunct 80s game developer called UFOSoft.
Fifty is an insane number of games, and it’s got so much damn content. There are space shooters, side scrollers, a wild west Final-Fantasy-style RPG, a roguelike, a soccer game inspired by Bubble Bobble, at least three golf games, and then whatever the hell Mooncat is. There’s also a dark meta-narrative hidden between the games that describes why the company went under.
So UFO 50 is a deep dive. You may want to start there first, because it’s something you’ll likely bounce off of and come back to. Luckily you have literally 50 games to switch between if you get frustrated.
When it does get frustrating, it’s so rewarding if you power through it. Several of the games are in the style of those ridiculously punishing 80’s arcade games, except it mostly is just a style. If you keep an open mind and look for what the game is trying to show you, you start to see that there are modern design conventions underpinning everything that make the games more fair than they appear. (Except Caramel Caramel. That game is bullshit.)
That’s part of what I meant when I said it changed how I approach games. I realized I can spend so much time on my own expectations that I don’t see what’s in front of me. Learning to approach these games with an open mind has been a defining moment for me.
This year I unsubscribed from FFXIV. Speaking only for myself, Dawntrail was a massive drop in nearly all aspects after Endwalker. The music and environment were great, I was positively giddy when I reached Solution Nine… but the characters are unlikable, the antagonist is boring and one-dimensional, there is hardly any payoff for setups, one of the most significant conflicts gets resolved with a fucking pep talk, most of the first half of the main story only exists to extol about how much of a chad the current monarch is. Somehow the second half gets even worse with multiple contrived plot points relying on characters being idiots and the player being a passive observer, including the reintroduction of a high profile issue that had been present for the entire DECADE of the game’s existence and resolved in a high profile way in Shadowbringers. Wuk Lamat was fine. Overused and dumb as a pair of boots, but fine.
I got to the final region, got the “I will now genocide the multiverse because my obviously unsustainable economy is running out of resources” monologue, and just stopped playing. Unless 8.0 sees some massive improvements, I have no plans to finish Dawntrail.
On the completely different end of the spectrum, Warframe is in the best place it’s ever been. The last four major updates (1999, Isleweaver, Vallis Undermind, and The Old Peace) have been fucking phenomenal, both in terms of story and gameplay. The Old Peace (released literally a few days ago) also contains the most valid crashout in history. Rap tap tap, little piggy. The new gamemodes are fun, fast-paced, and so far haven’t outstayed their welcome, although like always, I’m worried about their longevity since they’re essentially content islands.
Warframe’s music is exceptional. I’ll always appreciate the works of Keith Power (he gave us We All Lift Together and This Is What You Are), but the current composer Matt Chalmers has elevated the game’s music both in quality and variety. Starting with 1999, there are no songs that I ever want to skip, and that includes the virtual boy band. Even if you have no interest in the game, you shouldn’t skip the music: TennoConcert 2025 (Matt is the eternally chilled out dude who sings From The Stars), Tethra Jahrak, Lullaby of the Manifold, and (potential spoilers) Roses from the Abyss.
In terms of smaller games, I fell off the wagon and had several all-night benders in Factorio. If you’re anywhere near the spectrum, that game is like crack cocaine. I had a lot of fun in Project Wingman and the biggest furball in history, I replayed Star Wars: Republic Commando, and rediscovered my appreciation for games where the player is not the Chosen One. Against all wisdom, I finally played The Mystery Of The Droods. Even knowing what awaited me, I was unprepared for the absolute jank.
Hollow Knight with the release of Silksong I figured I should probably finally play this. Great game and deserves the praise it gets. Didn’t get anywhere near 100% completion on it but I am OK with that
Strangers of Paradise played on PS5. Once I figured out the battle mechanic I fell into a rythem with this game and really liked it. Ended up getting the platinum for it because I wanted to keep playing.
Iron Meat finally got a chance to play this. Really fun if short contra style shooter game. Ticks all the right boxes.
Lately I have been playing some classic games and getting retro achievements for them. Fun way to experience my old favorites again with new challenges. I recently played Zelda LTTP and got all the RAs for it. Some fun challenges for the game
Honorable mentions: Cyber Shadow, Firewatch, Mario & Luigi: Brothership
I replay games I’m intimately familiar with so I can just autopilot and chill.
I am more likely to watch a movie or binge a show when I’m sick than play a video game though. Sometimes I read a comic book if my eyes are OK or listen to an audiobook.
It’s a game where you place tiles to build a map and you get scored based on how well the placed tile matches the rest of the tiles. Extra score comes from additional goals which usually mean finishing a certain area.
It’s my go to game when I’m burnt out and can’t think or I’m so sick I can’t focus on anything, because the game is perfect when you’re low energy. There is no clock, there is no mental overhead of keeping track of something. The game gives you all the information you need and you can play one tile at a time. The music is calm and the tiles you place create this idyllic world that’s pleasing to the eye.
Warframe as well. And Star Trek Online, if only for the ships. Gonna go back to Neverwinter for a spell.
Might hop and jump into the Fallout series, with New Vegas coming to mind.
Even Mount and Blade has me ride from time to time.
if I were sick, I’d probably play some RimWorld, or whatever open world RPG I have going, but those are probably more involved than it sounds like you’re in the mood for.
Heh, I remember travelling to Proxima Centauri from Alpha Centauri in Elite Dangerous… around 80 light days, one of the longest in-system distances in the game (for inhabited systems), using in-system engines because that’s too close to jump through hyperspace… last time I looked the record was at around 26 minutes, most ships probably did it in around 30 to 45.
Good trip to just set the cruise speed, grab a book, and relax…
When I’m sick I often get nauseated, almost like vertigo. So my answer is none of them.
If I’m not nauseated, any of them. I play a lot of low-impact, easy games. Animal Crossing on the Switch is both of those, until you see a knee-high tarantula! (They are in the game and are big because they’re not to scale, like most of the bugs. They run away from you though… unless you have a net out, in which case they will attack! You can’t die in AC though, they just knock you out and you wake up in front of your house, no harm no foul.)
I play Blue Prince on Mac and on Xbox (it’s also on PlayStation and PC). It’s a puzzle game, kind of a deck-building (but not really) building game (also not really). It’s pretty unique. I absolutely suck at it, but I like taking a run every other day or so. It’s fun to fail at. You have to get to the 46th room of a house, but its 9x5 grid resets every day, and as you come to a door, you choose the room to “build” (or blueprint, the name is a pun) and when you run out of moves, you call it a day and try again the next (in-game) day. It’s weird but it’s pretty chill. There’s one scene where you think there will be a jump scare, but it never happens (entering the Security Room).
Thanks for offering! Let’s see what you come up with!
I really enjoyed Hyper Light Drifter but not sure I would be into hardcore soulslikes. I do like roguelites though, I liked playing Wall word. Spelunky was also good.
— I got Trinity Fusion! Looks like something for me for sure! Thanks again!
If you like arcade twin-stick shoot-em-ups, Sektori is one of the best the genre has seen. Hard though: if one doesn’t know the genre, play Waves and Assault Android Cactus first.
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