I don’t know if Gothic 1 and 2 qualify as true cult classics or not, but clunky controls and interface aside, these are two of the best games I have played in my life. Gothic 2 especially. The games offer an atmosphere like nothing I’ve ever played. The soundtrack, themes, and overall color pallete provide this rich and stirring ambience that always manages to make me feel as though I’m exploring an ancient pine forest on a dark, rainy day. See for yourself.
You can feel the spirit of the entire franchise contained within the first two minutes of that audio track, perfectly encapsulated. It was an entire world apart and years ahead of its time. If it resonates with you, then these games are absolutely worth the initial difficulty of figuring out those ridiculous keyboard controls. But if you’re really struggling with them, just read up on the Gothic 1 storyline and then skip straight to Gothic 2. It picks up right where the first leaves off. You won’t miss a tremendous amount, and the controls and gameplay are infinitely improved. However, sticking G1 out long enough to figure out what you’re doing will make G2 far more rewarding when you reunite with various characters and revisit previously explored areas.
A studio is remaking Gothic 1, but everything I’ve seen of it so far is about as faithful to Gothic 1 as The Dark Tower movie was to the books. They’ve massacred it. So stick with the originals.
To latch on to this: the first Elex, a game by the same studio as the Gothic series, is, despite the average reception by critics, THE definition of a flawed masterpiece! So many things to criticize (too difficult early in the game, bad cut scenes, flawed combat) but the main focus of the game, the open world filled with tons of monster and people to interact with, is just great! I loved how exploration is encouraged and rewarded, how there are meaningful desicions and characters that can be killed off. The world is huge and all though the general atmosphere is post apocalyptic, the developer somehow managed to fit a middle age type fraction and a science fiction type (Clerics) fraction in to the game. Also smaller groups you can’t join.
Elex has a very special place in my gamer heart and all though I can’t flat out recommend it to everyone I would say if you have a soft spot for open world games that do not play like the average Ubi game and don’t hold your hand the whole time, I say: check it out, it’s pretty cheap in most places!
The Age of Decadence is CRPG set in a post-apocalypse ish, in which an analogue to the Roman Empire ruled most of the world until the collapse of civilisation, now it’s mostly city states struggling to survive and reclaim the old magitek of the empire.
Underrail: Life on earth’s surface has been made inhospitable ages ago, and the remains of humanity now live in the metro system called underrail and the caverns around it.
Both are isometric, turn based games that focus on combat and exploration. And they are hard. Builds are incredibly important, almost min maxing but they have a wide range of viable builds, especially the first one where you can play the entire game without fighting a single battle, all through alternative solutions and skill checks.
Have you played Colony Ship, by the same devs as Age of Decadence? I’ve been keeping an eye on it for a while and looks to be real close to its 1.0 release, but I’ve not heard or read a lot about it.
Even if you don’t mind the online only part, ignore this abomination. They botched the D4 campaign. It’s too easy and almost impossible to die during the regular campaign. It takes roughly two minutes to beat a world boss on the first play through.
That doesn't bother me. What made me gravitate to Diablo was how they did the story. The plot of evil vs good and angels vs demons in a eternal conflict is cliche and overdone. But I liked how Blizzard handled it and I've been glued to it for a while. Mephisto is my favorite character overall and damn they're having an expansion coming soon, that revolves around him, so my temptation will be even greater.
So no it doesn't bother me that it's "too easy" or "almost impossible to die", because my idea of fun is not to have a very frustrating experience.
There’s like a boatload of really classic Xbox 360/One era games that I’d love to play on PC.
Problem is they were made by Ubisoft or EA. Repurchasing them is already dubious from the get-go, but chances are the versions in Steam, if they’re still there at all, are old neglected buggy builds. And things are not much rosier on the Uplay or Origin! They may have gotten a patch or two, but old shit’s janky. These need the GOG treatment.
I did get the Mass Effect trilogy rerelease for a pittance. Also found out I somehow had Dragon Age Origins already. These should keep me occupied for a while, as (to paraphrase a certain video game villain) at this very moment, EA burns.
There’s so many Nintendo games I wish I could play but I haven’t had a Nintendo console since the Wii U and I can’t really convince myself to buy a switch (1 or 2) especially now that the Steam Deck exists.
I’ll probably emulate at some point. But there’s so many games out there that I’m kinda just fine never touching Nintendo again. Especially with how they are as a company.
Most Switch games run well on the Steam Deck; I just wish someone would fix Starlink: Battle for Atlas emulation so that I can play as Fox, which can’t be done on the Steam version.
I’m addicted to DOTA 2, but I sometimes will play other single player games. I bought and downloaded Witcher 3, Cyberpunk and RDR2, but I can’t get into them. If I’m not playing with other people, it just seems kinda… lonely? I like games where I can log on and chat/communicate with other players. I’m alone enough in my real life, so anytime I can spend with even just virtual friends is something I value.
I dunno, I started the cyberpunk game, was going the street kid route, and the guy it puts you with… The guy put a gun to you, and all of a sudden we’re friends? No. I’m from a shitty family and that shit gave me mad anxiety. I got into the tutorial level, stopped to do something else, came back, and every time i try to load the game back up to play, it crashes.
$10 clip + a used xbox controller + your phone and you have a gyro capable (your phone) mobile gaming system with probably the best gamepad ever.
I don’t think this takes the place of a gadget like the Brick Hammer but I do HEAVILY recommend going this route first as you likely already have an adequate phone and xbox controllers are cheap and plentiful on the used market (and their only real achilles heel is they don’t have gyro… which your phone solves).
notethis clip uses the model 1914 xbox controller to be precise, xbox controller names are so stupid… but also this clip is $10, who cares, fold some post-it notes/cardstock up a bunch and jam em in there and you can make a different controller work if it is a similar shape and size
Agreed but battery life is clutch with mobile devices. Dead phone batteries don’t facilitate travel. Or waiting for your car to get fixed and having this in the glove box … I mean your argument is basically against all retro handheld devices.
Yeah it depends on how much you’d use it I guess. I remember playing some old titles on a GBA emulator app back during highschool breaks, but it kinda got old quickly. Would be pointless to buy something specifically for it unless you’re really into it, but if so something like this that’s well integrated would be pretty neat to have.
I can get immersed in incredibly simple games, like Baba Is You. I have simple rules to follow and a world that conforms to those rules. I can tune out reality and immerse fully in the game.
The main thing is that I don’t need hi-res realistic 120 fps graphics for this to work, I don’t know if this is because the way my brain is wired or because I was raised in the 8 bit era and imagination was a significant part of that immersion.
All of my systems are Linux, launching Windows games on Linux is not trivial, Steam takes away almost all of that complication. It also provides an excellent ten foot interface for me to use on my TV and buy/install/launch games from my couch without any hassle. Speaking of controller usage, Steam provides excellent support to remap controllers even if a game doesn’t support it, and provide amazing features at that (for example multiple layers, gyroscopic mouse)
Games getting updated automatically is a great feature, I still remember having to download patches and applying them one by one after a fresh install. Similarly Steam also provides a workshop that allows you to install mods and keep them synced across different systems automatically.
Finally, the convenience of cloud saves for someone with multiple systems or who uninstalls a game and reinstalls it later is not easy to achieve without a launcher (I still have a saves folder backed up somewhere from before).
Besides all of that Achievement and other social features are important for some people. And for some games being able to easily play online with friends is amazing (if you’re not old enough to know what GameSpy is you don’t know what it was back then), although I don’t play too many online games so this one is not that important for me, but when I need that feature it is very handy.
In short there are many reasons, but if you’re playing old single-player games with mouse+keyboard on only one windows PC, then none of my reasons apply to you. Still I would argue that buying games on steam is easier than pirating them, so there’s the convenience factor still (e.g. at a friend’s house and they mention a game, open my phone, and in 5 min with a very intuitive flow I have the game downloading on my home PC so when I come back it’s ready to play).
I too prefer to buy from GoG, but I often add my GoG games to be launched through Steam as non-Steam games so I can take advantage of features like Proton and Steam Input.
If I want to take advantage of certain features Steam only offers to games you buy through them, I will buy through Steam instead of GoG. Usually when I do this it’s for multiplayer or save file syncing reasons.
Steam features you can use with non-Steam games:
provides SteamInput which allows me to use any game controller in any game with a lot of configuration options. It’s the best tool for that purpose I’ve ever seen.
provides Proton for playing Windows games on Linux (and I do 99% of my gaming on Linux these days)
provides VR headset drivers and tools for using different VR headsets with games not designed for them
provides a TV and controller optimized interface (“Big Picture” mode)
Steam features exclusive to Steam games:
updates games automatically
backs up my saves and syncs them across devices
provides multiplayer server infrastructure making it easy to play with friends
provides modding infrastructure, although not all games use it
provides tools for managing which version of a game you have installed
The biggest thing is the updates. If the game can update itself or is no longer getting updates I don’t care about it having a launcher. If I have to go to their website and download a new .exe every time they do an update it is annoying. Steam does provide a lot of other QOL features as well though.
Oh hell ye. I‘ve been eyeing this game for a long time. Imma ask you how you like the game once you‘ve clocked in more hours. Are you planning to 100% it?
I picked up a steam deck just before the holidays and this was one of the first few games i played on it and across 4-5 weeks i put nearly 50 hours into it. It’s so fun/addicting i couldn’t put it down.
One of the best parts, for me, is under accessibility settings you can turn off damage and magic drain making you immortal wth endless magic in the combat side of things. As someone who isn’t the biggest rogue-like fan this was perfect. As couple stress free dives for resources and advancing the story then right back to my silly little farm for hours.
I was considering 100%ing it, at least as far as Steam Achievements are concerned. I find they’re a good metric to measure whether you’ve explored all the interesting sides of a game, at least when they’re done right. I saw though the DLC achievements are bundled in with the main game. It’s trivial but it has kind of put me off 100%, at least until i get the DLC that is
Yeah, that DLC thing is custom for Steam, they‘re ALWAYS bundled with the main game, there’s no way for devs to not to, it‘s the biggest downside to hunting on Steam.
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