I’m famously a World hater, so yes, absolutely. Until Icebourne released, I was extremely disappointed with World, even for a pre-G Rank release.
Though, all of the titles since Generations have had the problem of being released with a portion of the planned content missing. I was more forgiving of it before, though I am having a hard time pinpointing why.
I still have the CD in a box somewhere. It was loaned to me by a friend and I never gave it back. Hilariously, I still see that friend, so that might make for a fun conversation.
Friends and I downloaded it, prompted by this post. There’s a little bit of awkwardness and animation jank, but man, does the game get the core concept right.
Space is not flat, the ship feels like a near arcane contraption, rail guns should feel like they’ll punch a hole in a small planet, and grappling hooks always feel good. These guys know what I’m looking for. The only thing I could genuinely ask for is a more true to physics flight model, but ultimately, I’ll be too busy taking down fighters using a rocket launcher while gravity-booted to the nose of my ship to care too much.
It’s “simple economics” to attack people trying to make art and entertainment for having the gall to ever consider increasing their prices, knowing full well that the cost of living has increased drastically? You’re going with “that’s just the market telling them they’re charging too much” while ignoring the reality that rent has doubled - and in some cases tripled - food costs have gone up 50%, and wages have barely improved? It’s the fault of video game developers that you have relatively less money and cannot afford to purchase their product around the other products you need or are expected to purchase?
If your wage increased with the cost of living, you would not see this price as “too high.” But because some price increases are on necessary purchases, we attack the unnessecary ones, like good little capitalists. Adam Smith would be proud.
I hate that you get downvoted for pointing out the reality of the situation.
Relative to the price of everything else, $80 for a AAA videogame is actually reasonable. The problem is that rent has gone up drastically, food has gone up drastically, and our wages have stagnated. Getting pissed off at Gearbox for charging $80 for Borderlands 4, and then paying $15 for a burger and fries without an equal reaction just doesn’t seem sensible to me.
Everything is awful, and videogame devs aren’t the ones stealing all our buying power.
I’d hardly call $50 games “budget titles.” Is paying $30 for a meal at a steakhouse a budget meal just because that high-class $50 a plate reservation-only place exists?
I agree that price doesn’t equal quality, but I don’t feel so good about trying to normalize AAA $50 games as “budget titles.” And the link to the article is broken, so I am not sure what the greater context and points of the article are.
That’s an interesting take. I found them to be very different people. Two different flavours of cliche’d anime protagonist, sure, but very different people none the less.
My partner and I make a point to occasionally play through a couch co-op game as well. Here are some of the things we enjoyed.
Phogs - Currently playing this. It’s a cute, dog-themed puzzle game thing, where you play as two heads of a single long dog-thing. We’re enjoying it, but we’re not particularly deep in, and I do wonder if it’ll get Ibb and Obb samey, but it’s worth checking out imo.
Cassette Beasts - Couch co-op, Pokemon inspired, adventure RPG with great storytelling, fantastic music and a retro aesthetic. The world is very Zelda-like in exploration and puzzle solving, while combat is Pokemon double battles. Highly recommended, just be aware that one player gets to be the player-made protagonist, while the other is one of an interchangeable series of partner characters.
Sea of Stars - The co-op update did a lot of good for this game. A Chrono Trigger inspired, faux-SNES era, indie RPG. There’s a lot of unvoiced dialogue, which I could see as being a barrier to enjoyment as a multiplayer game, but the game is paced quite well, so I don’t think it’s a huge problem. Also, players do take turns inputting commands, but everyone is responsible for the timed hits/blocks, and you each control a character of equal agency in the overworld, so it avoids the largest co-op turn based RPG folly of having one player and one half-watching “follower.” There are a ton of accessibility options/features (difficulty is VERY malleable), and as an added bonus, there’s a free story DLC coming on the 20th.
Children of Morta - This is perhaps the most “hardcore” of my list, but the girlfriend, despite explicitly not enjoying “hard” games, really really enjoyed this one. An action-RPG with some very light roguelike elements, Children of Morta has you play as a family of hunter-gatherer-warrior types in a fantasy world, working together to stop a malevolent power from corrupting the physical world. Each family member has a different playstyle, their own skill tree, and a lot of personality. The game is very story driven, with a few moments being taken between each run for the fantastic narration to drip feed the narrative, slowly teaching you more about the world, the characters, and their family dynamic.
These are the ones that came to the top of my mind, either because they were particularly good or, in the case of Phogs, is ongoing. If I see anything else worth mentioning when I look at my Steam list next, I’ll add.
This thread is actually huge, so apologies if this has already been recommended, but take a look at Against the Storm. It’s an indie city-builder with a bit of a rogue-like spin. You can usually get it on fairly deep sales, and the rogue-like elements combined with some meta-progression gives it a real play length, even though a single city-building session is a ~45-60 minute experience.