Not “bad” but disappointing: No Man’s Sky. There’s a lot to be liked here but as someone who has played Elite Dangerous everything is just so incredibly dumbed down.
Fighting is trivially easy, just hold S, shoot and grab a snack while doing it.
There’s absolutely no consequences for anything. It doesn’t matter how much fuel I have because I can just find new fuel anywhere or teleport somewhere completely different. Doesn’t matter where I log out because the game will just throw me to the same system as my coop partner anyway.
Doesn’t matter if the authorities want me, just fly into a station and all is forgotten. Got contraband? Just tell them to get lost and fly away casually. No bounty on my head, no nothing.
Don’t get me wrong, Elite is definitely way too hardcore for casual play but at the same time the only thing No Man’s Sky has done is make me want to play Elite again.
I wanted to like "No Man's Sky," when it was finally available on the Switch (my PS4 had just died when it came out) I was elated to play it. After a couple hours of playing, I wanted those two hours of my life back. An ugly game with very little color, and absolutely no direction as to what you're supposed to be doing, I wasted those two hours trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I absolutely hated it - the only game I ever asked for a refund on.
I’ve often described NMS as Minecraft in Space. The “story”, such as it is, is completely pointless and superfluous. You just fly around, mine minerals, build stuff, and that’s about it. And it wears thin really quickly.
Same here – I’ve been doing exploration exclusively in Elite, and it got kinda samey and boring. Yet, somehow playing Elite was so mentally taxing, it quite often felt like having a second job. So, I decided to try out NMS, after hearing about its redemption so much.
The story of NMS was kinda neat, even though it was presented in a very dry way. The visuals were also not bad. Looking at planetary landscapes sometimes felt like stepping into the world of The Sand Sea and the Plateaux of Mirrors, which is a very good thing imo.
The actual gameplay just wasn’t engaging enough, though, and super janky (making gas/mineral farms sucks). Like, it’s very hard to find meaning in whatever you’re doing in that game. In contrast, doing exploration in Outer Wilds was very fun, because it felt like you were exploring an actual living world. In NMS, you get the same prefab randomly generated building and a sliver of lore. No environmental storytelling, no anything. So, it’s very difficult to connect to NMS’s world.
I can’t actually think of anything off the top of my head. After I stopped buying AAA titles from the obvious scummy companies, pretty much everything has been at least as good as expected.
If you're talking video (not board) games, I think most the games I played were kind of a mix of good and bad. I mean they usually start out pretty well but then end up being repetitive and boring. If I ever have to play another farm sim where I'm required to craft things in some convoluted way that makes no sense, I'll chuck my game system out the nearest window. Why does "Stardew Valley" get it totally right, and the rest not get it right at all? OK yes I play mostly casual games, but the real "gems" are few and far between. Still waiting for another good sim that isn't more work than it is fun.
You say that like it’s something to be ashamed of. “Casual” is an underrated genre, because sometimes, it’s nice to just take your time and enjoy the experience. Life has enough complexities that escaping to a world of simplicity and calm can be truly rewarding.
Well to be truthful, it feels like people DO put casual gaming in sort of a "not really serious" category. And that's somewhat true; I don't like overly complicated games that have tons of drop down menus you can't even read onscreen (tiny fonts). I've always been more into puzzle or even sim games because there is no platforming usually (I SUCK SO MUCH AT PLATFORMING!). I love casual games because they usually are easy going, I can play for 20 minutes or an hour, it's up to me.
Oh, for sure. But so what if it’s “not really serious?” Isn’t that kind of the point of the Casual genre? Play the games you like; don’t listen to a bunch of tryhard, self-important gatekeepers.
That's a good point. I mean, why should games not be as unserious as possible? That's one thing that always kind of bothered me about video game evolution. At first, it was this little square dot you swatted with a white "paddle"; my family bought that system and I was about eighteen.
I've been a video game addict since and probably have owned every system at one time. But I really hoped to see it grow in the direction of fun but other the top sim games and casual but engrossing puzzle games, not so much in the direction of let's go shoot people and kill as many other sim-humans as we can.
Not that's there's anything wrong with that! I mean, I have a special love for the God of War games, but to me those are so crazy with mythological creatures and stuff that it really appeals to me more than, say, GTA type games.
That's so true! It's kind crazy to me how many new games are in the jagged style of old arcade games (pixelated). I think the old and new all have a place in gaming, but -- I can't keep up with all the new consoles. I mean, I really don't want to have to get a PS5. But - i don't want to be left in the pixelated dust of yesteryear either!!
If you don’t want gaming to feel like work, maybe stop playing labor simulators. Like, isn’t the point of those games to make you feel like your working whatever job they’re “simulating”?
Oh sure go and be all logical about it. :/ You're right though, and I do try to stay away from labor simulators (which is a better name for them than gaming simulators, since there's not much fun in them if you ask me). Even Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing get very tedious doing the same chores every day all day long - maybe it's just my adult ADHD acting up.
Me too! And why after all this time, isn't there a Stardew 2? I know he's busy with Haunted Chocolatier, which makes me salivate for many reasons - but I dunno if I'll ever live long enough to see it come out for realsies.
Why does “Stardew Valley” get it totally right, and the rest not get it right at all?
I think it’s because Stardew has a lot of RPG elements. Developing relationships with the townspeople (romantic and friendship), figuring out the lore, etc. Lots of games that try to replicate Stardew do the farming / labor stuff and call it quits. I know there are probably some people that go into that game only doing farming, but most people I’ve met who are fans of it like the lore stuff.
That's one thing Stardew does right. But also, it gets the "labor mechanics" right; there aren't a ton of drop down menus to navigate through, your tools are right there on the bottom tab. And also, amazingly - and astonishingly - it GIVES you the basic farm tools you need right off the bat! You can start a farm without much explanation and zero aggravation. If you need upgrades, you just pay for them and yes, there's some material gathering to make buildings, but someone else does the actual construction. To me that's great because then I can go fight blobs in the mines or fish or visit the other residents.
Why does “Stardew Valley” get it totally right, and the rest not get it right at all?
I am not an expert on SDV, but my wife plays basically every HM-like out there, and her take is that Barone focused so heavily on the ‘economy’ balance in SDV that all of the activities feel like they’re worth doing, so it doesn’t become “only farming”, or “only adventuring”, etc, like many others do. Even just picking up wild plants feels worth it when you drop them in the sale bin in the evening.
I think that's true and one reason I like SDV so much. There isn't a lot of time spent on material gathering, and you don't have to craft your own tools or make your own buildings. I think those things COULD be fun if they weren't so complicated in so many sim games - I could not make heads or tails out of the crafting mechanics in "My Time at Portia," for example. I think if you're goingg to task the gamer with those things, they should be very easy to do, because most people don't want to waste time on mundane chores and drawn out searches for rare materials or who knows what the game requires (in many cases I simply have no idea what the game is wanting from me!).
I think MTaP and to a lesser extent MTaS both really carried over a lot of the complexity from Planet Explorers, Pathea’s first game they released internationally. It’s a survival crafting game, with a LOT of complexity (e.g. manual, voxel-based weapon and vehicle designs). I don’t think it worked well in combination with other systems like farming being very underdeveloped (in MTaP especially).
Oh OK - sheesh, I shoulda known that. I've seen My Time at Sandrock and it's available on Switch, but I'm afraid to check it out because I hated MTaP so much.
Thanks for letting me know, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't. Instead I'll end up wasting my money on something else that looks good and then I end up hating : (
Alrighty it’s been some years since I’ve played but a lot of the answers here don’t get the full picture.
Everyone talking about toxicity isn’t wrong, but that’s more often at the high level/ranked levels of play. It can happen in random lobbies of course, but it’s far less frequent. What I suggest here is cautiously eyeing the mute all chat. Sometimes it can be helpful to type messages, sometimes people say awful, awful things. From the former, sometimes you can learn. From the latter, it’s pointless to even bother to try.
I would suggest keeping in game chat turned off.
Use online build guides - the meta of the game changes pretty consistently based on updates and nerfs to the characters. Your best bet for consistency is picking one character to learn - I suggest going by what feels most fun abilities wise.
Another thing here to keep in mind is there are roles in this game, top is often tanky, mid is often AP heavy, and bottom is often ADC and healer. (may have changed since I played).
Until about level 10 - tanks will be on their own a lot at the beginning, mostly just trying to survive being team-attacked (a gank) and planning with the team when to come in to help.
Mid keeps an eye on top and bottom lane, mostly keeping the other mid-laner occupied. Once in a while you go up top to 2v1 or down bottom to 3v1. Sometimes people come to you, but I wouldn’t expect it.
Bottom has to be watchful for ganks, and you need to work with your healer to make sure you get minion kills. You two are pretty much on your own as the only paired teammates, however occasionally a teammate will come down to help push.
During all of this, the first 9 levels or so (may be less, again it’s been a while) you will be placing vision items on the ground to avoid being ganked and setting up the items for your late game build. During this You’ll want to avoid being killed and major risks. You’ll just be following what the build guides say, but it can be helpful to learn what aspects of what you are affecting. In brief, there is magic damage (AP) and physical damage (AD). The ADC class mostly uses AD, but there are characters who can use either/both. The other surrounding stats matter in other ways, but those two are the main focus.
So for example, your ADC character picks items that increase their speed, attack speed, and damage. But now the enemy has an item that mitigates physical attack damage, so you can decide to buy an item that ignores a % of armor.
These items eventually are bought into bigger versions of it, so the item you start with sets you down a path, the other items you choose supplementing what you’re missing.
Around level 10 the individual dynamic begins to fade and you begin to group together as a team. During team fights you’ll want to stay together with your team, really the best thing overall is to be there when it happens. Around the next 5 levels and depending on the circumstances, your team may go find the monsters who give buffs - there’s the dragon which gives the whole team money, and the baron which gives the whole team a buff. These you have to go a little out of the way for, but they can be very strong strategic choices. You can also witness the enemy team fighting these, and attempt to steal the kill for it, giving your team the benefits instead.
Finally, I would say get comfortable with one character of each role. You can’t always be _____, sometimes people just pick first. Other than that, just do your best to have fun with your son. Don’t worry about min/maxing if it isn’t fun, don’t worry about other teammates complaining if you are legitimately trying, and for the love of all things don’t spend money on this game - it will only unlock characters you can unlock for free or give you visual aesthetic skins that don’t actually affect anything. They don’t need your support and you don’t need their offerings.
319 games in my Epic library, of which I’ve bought 4 or 5. In total I’ve played maybe 20 and finished about 6. I’m sure I’ll get to it one of these days…
If that’s all you’ve played from the free Epic giveaways, you’re missing out!
Subnautica
Fallout New Vegas
Enter the Gungeon
Breathedge
Dying Light
Dishonored
Sable
Bioshock: The Collection
Borderlands 3
The vanishing of Ethan Carter
Prey
2064: Read-Only Memories (not everyone’s cup, but it’s unique and the soundtrack has some bangers)
Metro 2033/Last Light
20XX Elite Dangerous
Hitman
I’ve had less free time in the last few years than I would have liked, but you’re absolutely right. The last couple years have had some awesome titles given out for free.
Yeah, it’s high on my list. Along with a half dozen other AAAs from the last decade. I think Cyberpunk is next on my list, though there’s a Fallout languishing on my Deck I keep meaning to go back to.
I just picked up Cyberpunk, Jedi Survivor, and a few others on Steam’s Cyber Monday sale. Cyberpunk 2077 like playing a movie. It is incredible. I’m trying to finish up BG3 before I start into it, but it’s difficult not to
I was going to say Digital Illusions but for Motorhead, the racing game. The OST for that game has been in my music rotation for decades and it’s still in my top 3 of all time.
They seem to consider only massive franchises like GoW and TLoU and Horizon worth their time… But most gamers need variety outside the mainstream game genres, so I don’t see why they are shutting down anything with a smaller fanbase.
Probably an unpopular opinion, but- The ending of Starfield.
Edit: I guess Boost’s spoiler tags dont work? This is pretty spoiler heavy, so avert your eyes if you don’t want Starfield spoilers! If anyone can suggest how to fix the spoiler tags it’d be much appreciated.
Ending/story description:
spoilerThroughout the game you collect pieces of an ‘Armillary’- once it is complete you can use it to ‘The Unity’ which transforms your character into a being of energy that can traverse universes, getting to exist across the multiverse in many alternate timelines. You cannot control the Universe you end up in when entering the Unity, and as such you can never return to your original universe. This also acts as New Game Plus, where you lose all your equipment and companions and have to start from scratch, retaining knowledge and skills you’ve acquired to give you a better start in the next universe. This also lets you skip sections of quests you’ve done before, as your character already knows where items are and what they do, by giving you additional dialogues in conservations that other characters acknowledge and treat you differently because of. Lastly, there are also other people who have achieved Unity, and they are exemplified by two that generally try to block you from reaching Unity, so they can steal your progress. One of those shows a lot of disregard to Universes, treating them like a game they can mess with and move on from with no lasting consequences.
Why it made me cry (Includes some spoilers, but trying to avoid explicit descriptions of story events):
spoilerI get really attached to my equipment and companions in RPGs. I spend a lot of time getting the best items I can and enjoy building ships, romancing companions and generally building a comfortable environment to exist in. As such my first new game playthrough took about 80-90 hours, I had the best guns and ship, all the crafting and ship perks, and I had romanced Sam Coe (Getting attached to his daughter, too) and took him with me everywhere. We were the best Ranger team in the galaxy. Finishing up the last few quests, I was getting worried since you do get warnings you’ll lose everything if you go through to NG+ (It’s not immediately apparent it is NG+ so the warnings are needed). As such I was thinking about all my equipment and having to get a new ship, and what not. I finished the penultimate quest and Sam asks to talk. He talks about going into NG+, how he wants to go through it with me, and wants to bring his daughter too. I was of course enthused and set everything up so us three were the only ones on board my ship, then we flew around the Universe taking a bunch of pictures in photo mode at cool locations, with Grandma on her ship, with my parents, etc, before finally activating the item that takes you to NG+ And Sam and his daughter aren’t with me. I was happy that he wanted to join me, and I didn’t really realise we’d be split up. I just kind of thought that because we entered together that we’d go to the same universe. So in this new universe I’m not only alone, with none of my equipment, contacts or bases, but I also just got separated from my people. And then I realise that if Sam and I are separated, that probably means his daughter is by herself too. So I burst into tears. Looking back, I think I was mainly distressed by the mechanical impact- I have crappy guns and armour, I’m spec’d mainly into making my equipment better so I’m kind of overleveled compared to my combat perks, and the ship you get from NG+ is significantly worse than my old ship. However, I think when the story gut-punch hit, it just pushed me over the edge and made me cry- it was the realisation that I couldn’t go back (I don’t want to load old saves) and see the people I’d grown attached to and the things I’d accomplished that really hit hard. So the loss of mechanical advantages that I’d spent a lot of time acquiring, and the loss of my long-time companions (and that I’d maybe caused a child to be cast into the wide multiverse, alone) was very emotionally charged to me. So the ending really worked for me.
Post-ending enjoyment (mechanics and different perspectives):
spoilerI kept playing, of course. I love the game, honestly. But playing through NG+ really made me realise how a lot of things people dislike about the game are often more geared towards being experienced over many playthroughs, and how necessary some of the more grindy components were to the powerful story ending I experienced. Skills aren’t meant to be grinded out so you can get the best guns and armour straight away, you’re not supposed to complete every companion’s story in one playthrough, and you aren’t supposed to be a god on your first playthrough. You’re supposed to be a god in your second, third, fourth, etc, playthrough. If you could reasonably do everything in one normal-length playthrough then why sacrifice all you accomplished to start again when there is no mechanical advantage in doing so? So, I think it loosely ties together mechanical progression with story progression, but still allows people like me to hyper focus into one niche if we want. Which brings me to the one thing that made the story really click into place for me: The Hunter. As mentioned in the first section, you do meet other characters in their own ‘NG+’. The Hunter is one who rarely considers the feelings of others and who will shoot up a city because he wants to, as there are no consequences. He can’t truly die, and can also go into another NG+ cycle, so he treats everything like a game. He acts like a player. He doesn’t care about any one universe because he just moves on. He exploits and attacks on whims and is only concerned with his own progression. He wouldn’t help people because he’ll never see them again. He treats your starting universe like a sandbox and kills someone you care about. He is who most real players will become in their own NG+ cycles. Just look at how so many people play Skyrim- kill Nazeem because he’s mildly annoying, steal anything useful not nailed down because you’re the important one, and only do the quests you must do or that give good loot. So, I keep telling myself ‘Every universe is someone’s only universe’ because otherwise I’d be like the Hunter. So what if this random radiant quest, that gives shit rewards from some no-name character, isn’t important? It is to them. It’s their universe; Even if I’m going to move on someday, they aren’t. They’re stuck with my decisions. The story got me good, in the end. I help the NPCs because I’ve bought into the story and because an NPC, that acts like a player, treated me like a no-name NPC.
TL;DR: It loosely ties story and mechanics such that I got really invested in the mechanics. When the story hit me hard, it also gave a massive mechanical impact that was particularly impactful given my play style. Those combined were overwhelming and made me sad, but also gave me a better appreciation for how some systems were designed to support the story, rather than oppose or ignore it. Overall, I really enjoyed it.
Oh, and Presentable Liberty. You can see the ending coming, but it makes you so dependent on someone then takes them away from you right before you can show your gratitude. It’s concentrated dependence and a great short game.
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