Black Mesa is an obvious recommendation, since it’s a modern take on the original Half-Life. Another game that I thought was similar to Half-Life in progression and physics emphasis was Prey (the 2007 Native American one)
Ooh, I remember emulating it a long time ago; when I finished the last stage, Super Mario appeared, said “Thank you so much-a for to playing-a my game” and sucked my dick. Wanna play the original arcade cabinet eventually; some of my acquaintances who played it said that it was supposed to be Abraham Lincoln instead of Super Mario
Planet Robobot is awesome; True Arena is insane, though. Planning to eventually tackle Super Star. The spinoffs are also surprisingly fun (Pinball Land, Block Ball)
Mata Nui Online Game is a classic in the Bionicle community. I also remember playing Bionicle Heroes for GBA. Liked it when I was young; not so much today
As for other games, I have discovered LEGO Island relatively recently; Brick by Brick is a certified banger
Subnautica. Beautiful, frustrating, thalassic. The Freedom mode (no hunger or thirst) is nice. Searching for specific materials is frustrating.
WIldfrost. Roguelike deckbuilder set in a frozen wasteland. Cute, but deceptively difficult (especially for a newcomer to the genre). Apparently simpler than most “roguecards”. The art style falls under the category “I can’t believe the main artist doesn’t draw smut”.
I treat Deep Rock the same way I treat rogueli*es and arcade-style games – I can just hop on when I’m in the “dwarf mood”, play one or two missions and be done with it for the day. It’s very good for short sessions like that. Also, you can play solo no problem – you get a drone instead that can mine and shoot things.
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.
Well, they are still here, just sometimes in a different form. For example, shmups are still a thing – RagingBlasters is a prime example.
As far as platformers go, Shantae games are my overall favourites. Ever since debuting on GameBoy Color, I don’t think they ever strayed too far from their roots. Another honorable mention from me would be Blaster Master Zero – a remake of the original Blaster Master on NES.