Apart from Flight Simulator 2020 and DCS, I absolutely love games like Euro Truk Simulator 2 and Snowrunner. I put ungodly amounts of hours into those. Especially ETS 2 is incredibly relaxing. No pressure, just a lovely drive. It’s definitely not for everyone though.
These days I just assume nothing’s playable offline. It’s not like my PS5 is ever offline anyway, so it’s not really a point of concern for me.
The actual reason I like physical games is because they’re generally cheaper when they just release and get discounted far sooner than digital games.
For example: Armored Core VI costs 69,99 euros on PS Store.
An online game store here sells it for 19,99 brand new. That means I can buy a copy for myself, I can gift you copy, buy a third one to light on fire as a sacrifice to the gaming gods… and still have money left over for two frozen pizza’s.
It’s not the price point. Most of the people who’d be in the market for one wouldn’t buy it because it doesn’t take discs. When I bought my PS5, I specifically bought the disc version. So I’m not going to ‘upgrade’ to a machine that doesn’t have one and only really offers ‘improved performance’ as its main selling point. It just doesn’t make sense.
If you’re new to the platform and are used to buying only digital, it might be more palatable. But as someone who’s been with Sony since the very first PlayStation: I’m gonna pass.
I am aware of that excellent video, yes. And indeed I’ve played literally every game he shows there. I really like some of them, but none have that charm that actual Outrun has.
Outrun. The last one we had, Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, was fucking awesome. I literally bought that for every system they released it on. It’s one of my most played games.
I’d absolutely love a new Outrun in that same vein. There’s been a few half decent clones over the years, but none match both the gameplay, proper branching paths and overall vibes.
SEGA has long since stopped selling it because they no longer have the Ferrari license for the cars. But as a car guy, I’ve easily got dozens of suggestions what to replace them with. Ferrari’s are nice… but I’d also love an Outrun with Lamborghini, Porsche or a whole pack of Japanese cars like NSX, AE86, RX7, Miata…
Borderlands is a straight up dopamine injection for my brain. You shoot someone, damage numbers go up, brain gets all happy. It’s dumb, but I fucking love it. I also love the writing, the characters, the level designs… it’s exactly the type of gaming comfort food that I enjoy.