They say word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective form of marketing. What games did you (not) enjoy that came well-recommended by friends to you, and why did they recommend it to you?
Feel free to replace "friends" with "anyone you know in real life" or even online groups you trust or are close with.
"They":
and my own personal experience; most games I have bought in the past 10 years have been off of recommendations from r/gamingsuggestions before Reddit went to crap and Lemmy came into existence; and even moreso when it is a personal friend recommending things to me.
Mods, feel free to nuke if this feels too close to advertising or better-suited for ![email protected] (my own community); I mean it more as a discussion piece but I don't run the place.
EDIT: The "not" in the title is optional; I'm asking about both successful and failed recommendations.
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Dark Souls
It's not for me, honestly. I want to feel freedom from a game, but Souls-like games make me feel trapped.
Some people are saying DS is free. I agree with them, but also there are issues.
For example, early players who are struggling should go down into the catacombs, because they can unlock The Rite of Kindling, allowing you to get even more estus at a bonfire if you're having a hard time. However, almost every guide will say not to do this, and I agree. It's at the bottom of a giant pit with enemies that are more annoying than you'll have faced before. If you get a divine weapon than it's probably fine though, but getting back out will still not be trivial.
Dark Souls is all about giving players options, and giving them the tools to deal with problems. The issue is you need to pay attention to the world and read. The problem with the example above is the necromancers revive enemies, unless they're killed by a divine weapon. This isn't obvious though, and it also isn't obvious where you might find a divine weapon, or where to unlock the ability to upgrade a weapon down the divine path.
There are just too few signposts to guide new players who are getting frustrated. There's plenty for people enjoying their time, reading, and exploring. For the people who are slamming their head into a wall on a boss trying to brute force it, like most games would require you to do, there's not enough to guide them out of this tactic.
I’ve played many Soulslikes, and found pretty much all of them fun…EXCEPT for the ones by FromSoftware. All others branch out into a lot of exploration, they just don’t put 8 paths square at the beginning of the game and then slap you down for 5 of them.
Interesting. How far in did you get? I think maybe if you looked up a getting started guide you might be able to assuage that trapped feeling, because Dark Souls and Elden Ring manage to feel like some of the most "free" games in my experience. But there's definitely a crushing learning curve.
If I looked up a getting started guide, I’d feel constrained by its arcane instructions. “Go this way, take the third door, but DON’T talk to that NPC yet…”
Fun games are open to the player exploring, without massively disproportionate punishment for it.
I mean, dying in Dark Souls just isn't very punishing at all. Idk, not every game is for every person, after all.
That is...ABSOLUTELY false.
People frequently point to the idea that if you collect an item like a Soul of Lost X, or a weapon, and then die, you get to keep the item. But the game also has consumable items used to make tons of options easier within the world. Things that enhance your weapon temporarily, give an extra health boost, or give you souls. Players that use these without making much use of them, or even misuse them due to nebulously archaic descriptions, will have nothing given back to them later on, making a venture even harder than the first few go's.
Plus, you're likely not to get as many level ups due to lost souls, meaning you're going to get even more of a difficulty ramp than other players.
I'm sorry - it's just juvenile the way people who obsess over this game will defend every issue with "it's not for every person" - especially when indie devs that have TWEAKED the formula, and FIXED the issues, end up making for very fun games. No one is playing them and complaining "Man, I wish I'd accidentally spent an hour going the wrong way at the start!"
The games can certainly be punishing in key areas, and it's better that newer entries and other soulslikes make an effort to make learning the games be more friendly. Death is punishing, sure. Losing consumables, fighting through the same enemies again, or even just having to run back to a boss - these are all sources of friction in this genre. Up front, I do wish these games had accessibility options, I do want more people to experience what they have to offer. But death really just isn't as punishing as a lot of people make it out to be. Dark Souls isn't that hard, in most cases. There's certainly bullshit, and it takes time to learn enemy patterns, and dying can be bad feeling. I think that without the friction, if you could overcome every location and boss on the first or second try, these games would just kind of suck. So it's a balance.
What exactly do you see as a punishing death? Erasing someone’s save file? The only other thing I can think of besides permanently taking consumables that won’t be restocked is sending you back a long distance to redo a bunch of fights again - and DS does literally that. DS2 even lowers your max HP as an additional Fuck You.
You’re not the first person to say dying is “not so bad” in those games and I still can only view those as the ritualistic statement of an insane person. Every other action game I play, I rarely die, and when I do it just has me retry the singular thing I was attempting in that past minute. Even other hard games, like Super Meat Boy or Ori and the Blind Forest, don’t force large area repetition, or take away items as punishment. The mastery of completing 18 tasks perfectly in succession is for speedrunners - it’s not something I or most players are interested in, and it’s solely a source of stress, not excitement.
Heck, Tunic had the money-loss system during development. The dev took it away before release (you just lose a paltry amount and can still get it back) and the game was still great.
Dark Souls 2 gives you a very large amount of human effigies that can restore your max HP, and in a very early game area there is a ring you can wear that limits how low your max HP can go. It's in a chest in a very early game area that you will walk by and see guaranteed in order to progress. What I think is more interesting is how you think it's the norm and expected that you should be able to play through an action game and rarely die. It's okay to enjoy power fantasy games, where dying means you fail - and you just get to retry the part you failed. But that doesn't mean that enjoying the process of learning an enemy patterns and overcoming adversity is insane. Those games are not power fantasy action games, you are supposed to feel weak. Because when you feel weak and then you kill that damn boss anyways, it's one of the best feelings ever in gaming. On top of that, a lot of the consumables that you're talking about you can buy infinite of. Like I said, the games aren't that hard, enemy patterns are usually pretty simple with only a few attacks, and as you move through areas you learn what gimmicks the enemies are going to abuse and can just adapt to them. Most enemies can be easily parried, or you can kill problem enemies with poison arrows or magic from a distance. Often I think that the people who are convinced that souls games are brutal and not fun are people who try to play them like they are some kind of action hero instead of taking advantage of the tools the games give you to use, especially the summons.
Lol you called me juvenile because you personally don't like one of the most objectively popular games of all time? Yeah... anyway, sorry. Skill issue. Get good.
That is kind of wild to me because Souls game are some of the most free-form action games I know. You can often tackle areas in an order of your choice, use a build of your choice, even kill NPCs if you so please.
KotoR. It doesn't matter how great the story or characters are if I have to grind terrible gameplay to get to them.
Upvoting because this fits the thread perfectly, but a little bit of me died inside reading this, you heathen lol ;)
These days I feel like an outlier saying I love kotor combat. It's like Disgaea games to me. The joy is watching the animations and building your character to see big damage happen and/or make your character a defensive/health monster. Like on rare occasion I'll play an ARPG like Victor Vran solely just to mow down monsters at ease. That's the joy by the end of kotor 2. In the academy just force jump mowing down enemies
Yeah! I really like the combat in KotOR. It's like a normal turn based CRPG, but faster.
I wish more games adopted kotors combat. To me its the perfect casual streamlining of a turn based CRPG. It feels faster to me than traditional real time with pause games. Talk about kotor remakes and how the combat has to change.
To me the only need in modernization of the combat is adding more cool animations to cycle through and more abilities that possibly chain together animations that react a bit with each other. That's the mainstream hook, cool animations you wouldn't get with real time combat. Uncharted 4 sold huge numbers and that's not very heavy on gameplay mechanics. It's a spectacle. Kotor style combat can be a spectacle without being a QTE and cutscene battles festival
I agree combat shouldn't change with a remake. However, how the player interacts with it I think should, at least for PC. The UI/UX is not great, and we've figured out better ways to do things since then, even for controllers.
Nah I liked it too. It took some getting used to but it is strategic and it really gets absorbing.
On the other hand, the graphics can be ASCII if the gameplay and story are good enough.
I feel that, for sure.
I very much enjoyed both KotOR games, but I agree with you. That's why whenever I recommend it to my friends I flat-out just tell them to cheat with a save editor to max out your character off the bat. Trivialize the combat so you can enjoy the world and character interactions
OMG, it's so boring 🫠 I got like halfway through and concluded nothing could make me keep going.
Did you at least do the Sith planet? Thats where the game peaked other than the finale.
This was years ago so I'm not sure, but I remember I got to a sand planet.
There's a 21-hour full playthrough on YT by a channel called Lacry, I got to hour 8~9.
I watched all the Star Wars movies and I actually enjoy them, but I'm not a die hard fan so a lot of the lore was not interesting to me. My biggest issue was the combat though: it did not grip me at all.
I prefer much faster paced games overall.
If the announced remake is a fast-paced action game, I may give it a shot.
Stray.
Like, it looked cool and the whole concept was great.
It ends up just being a game of "go here get this come back". Yawn fest.
Fuck you, meow.
I mean I still beat it, meow.
Meow
If you're yawning, there's a great bookshelf in a library in the game that you can curl up and take a little nap in. Being a cat was great and made me want less of the rest of the gameplay. ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
I agree with you, it was too much walking Sim for my liking.
Little Kitty Big City is a much more fun cat game in my opinion. Slight mix of collectathon, platformer, puzzle game that does a good job of making you feel like a cat.
This comment has prompted me to but this and will be playing it later tonight. I still loved Stray but as a void keeper, this looks right up my boulevard.
Funny I had exactly the opposite reaction. It was far too short in a tiny area, I spent far more time battling the controls than solving puzzles, not that the puzzles were hard. I hated the experience unfortunately. There was so many times I thought, why can't I do X, I'm a cat, but the game was locked into it's traditional platforming. I did have a good bit of fun making people do their phones and run away with them, best bit of the game.
I saw promotional stuff to it and thought it looked interesting. Then a watched gameplay and there really isn't gameplay. You just walk from one place to another, but you're a cat. I'm fine if other people enjoy that, but I know it's not for me. I'm fine with walking Sims too, but the whole point of those is they're telling a story while you play. Stray technically has a story, but it seems very minimal and not engaging. They're giving you so little to do so you can think ideally. It shouldn't just be a meaningless story that doesn't engage you if the gameplay also doesn't engage you.
I think thats a game where previous expectations play a big role. I was okay with it being a simple platformed with an interesting story.
I mean it's barely a platformer. it's like, the illusion of being a platformer but it requires no real skill or precision like a platformer would. Also, it's not even open enough for you to just platform to wherever. The "platforming" aspect of the game is completely locked down to contrived paths they need you to take.
I often watch other people play games and they look like a lot of fun but then I buy them and try playing them myself and don't like them. For example:
Kerbal Space Program
Baldur's Gate 3
King of Dragon Pass
Subnautica
Man, this is nearly every mainstream game for me: Fortnite, Minecraft, RDR, GTA, God of War (2018), Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Valve's The Orange Box, Insomnia's Spiderman, any From Software game except maybe Bloodborne, and I could keep going.
And I'm not saying any of these games are bad, they just never grab me enough to want to beat them or play them for extended periods, so I concluded they're not for me.
If it's not for the immense joy I get out of Japanese action games, fighting games, and shmups, I'd probably not touch video games at all.
I don't have a term for it but it sounds like you fall into a specific group of gamers. They enjoy gaming but they thrive on the difficulty curve. The curve is the draw no matter what it's wrapped in.
Fighting games, easy to pick up, unbelievably hard to master.
Shmups: easy to pick up but unbelievably hard to master.
Certain rage games like Bennet Fodey or the Trials series or musical games like DDR which, again, have a crazy difficulty curve.
I'm in the same boat although I do enjoy the other games. They just aren't nearly as good as people hype them up to be if not outright bad. In my experience, it is entirely the difficulty curve that drives our obsessions with these types of games.
So it's about the skill ceiling, or just the shape of the difficulty curve, or..? I definitely don't fall into that group, so I'm curious.
It sounds like you may not like slow or self-guided games. That's fine though. I'm curious, do you like The Outer Wilds?
Probably not entirely on topic, but I ignored Dark Souls for a long time even with tons of recommendations from people I know share my tastes because the main thing they all said was that it was super hard.
It wasn't being hard that made me ignore it but that from watching it, I knew it was just pattern recognition, which--to me--isn't all that hard.
But now it's my favorite genre. Because, yeah, it is pattern recognition in a 1v1 fight; but the layout of a room, the placement of the enemies and traps, and what those enemies snd traps are make so much more of a difference in the difficulty. It's so much more satisfying somehow to learn the whole game and conquer it than just memorizing when to dodge and attack bosses like many games prior and similar to DS were like.
"It's just pattern recognition!" Bestie, you just described the only thing the neocortex does.
...I'm being real sarcastic for a guy who couldn't beat DS1 without playing a sorcerer.
Try big hammer. Lizard brain and monkey brain meet.
I was the same with the Dark Souls games. I just had no interest in them because they just looked way too punishing.
Then I discovered the lore. I'm a huge lore nerd. I mean I absolutely love Warhammer 40k and I've never played it and don't know how to play it. I don't have any of the minitures but man the lore for that is awesome. It was the same for the Dark Souls games. I just stumbled across a video by that VatiiVidya guy and I was hooked. Now I wanted to play and just pick up everything and read the tiny bits of lore attached to every item in the games and then piece together this universe.
Dark Souls 3 being my favourite. That story once you discover what's REALLY happening is amazing. The lore for DS3 really turns the whole playing experience on its head. Suddenly you go from thinking you're the good guy trying to save this fucked up world to realizing that "wait, am I the baddie?" Like you have to return these guys to their thrones but you begin to understand WHY they don't want to sit on their thrones and in the end you honestly don't blame any of them for abandoning their task.
I totally agree. It isn't that hard, and honestly I think the players ruined the game for a lot of people with that idea. A lot of people will hit a boss they can't defeat and resign themselves to trying to grind out a win, hearing the game is hard and this is just the way it is.
In reality, the game provides all the tools you need to win. You just have to pay attention and find them. If you're struggling with a boss you aren't supposed to grind it until you win. You're supposed to go and get stronger. Level your player and gear, and find new items to help you. Maybe even find a path around them.
The game is easy, but struggling players think they're struggling because the game wants them to, because of the reputation. It doesn't. It wants you to explore.
These people don't seem to learn the lesson the game teaches you right from the start by having the asylum demon stomp your ass until you figure out you should try a different path.
Counterpoint: Dark Souls is hard, because it gives a lot of options from the get go, and no information on which ones will be approachable or not. NO other major Soulslike I’ve played does this in the way DS did.
It also relies very hard on death alone as a teaching tool even when it says nothing. Players don’t see “You died. This boss is too tough! Maybe you should go back and upgrade your weapons.” They just see “You Died.” and interpret “Should have dodged that 87th swing!”
Worse, it has BAD lessons through the lost souls system. It makes sense as a pressure tool to make you fear death, but it teaches new players the wrong thing: For players to immediately beeline for the spot of their death without considering exploration, build changes, etc.
I disagree with this. I think Dark Souls does tell you which are approachable or not. It's just not as obvious as other games. Some games will have a sign for the player that says "this path is dangerous" but DS doesn't. It has characters talk about venturing into the catacombs. It has characters point out the aquaduct is the path to the first (and at the time the only you know of) Bell of Awakening. It tucks the elevator into New Londo behind the bonfire, where stuff will be later but you won't see yet. It also tells you a lot about locations in item descriptions.
I'll also say the only bad path is The Catacombs, because the climb out is so bad. I think there's leftover stuff indicating a different start, so maybe it's a fluke it's this big an issue. Every path has a benefit though. New Londo is easy at the start, and has the first blacksmith you can get access to. The Catacombs has the Bonfire Ascetic. The Aquaduct has the Bell of Awakening, and is the critical path. None are that hard when entering. You just get pushed out of getting deep into most.
Most games talk to the player. FS talks to the character almost always. It's less obvious to the player, but it makes the world feel richer. It doesn't hold the player's hand though.
Yeah, I don't know how to fix this without speaking to the player. I guess they could take the typical Crestfallen Warrior character, but instead of getting depressed and dying he upgrades his kit and talks about how upgrading helped him overcome a challenge?
I agree with this. I think the need to have an infinite homeward bone item from the start. There should be a way to return to your bonfire once you recover, because yeah, sometimes people get stuck in FOMO mode and can't give up a few souls. Once you're used to the games it becomes obvious the souls are next to worthless and to not worry about it. You can always farm more. But for the struggling new player I agree, it re-enforces a playstyle.
That's...false.
The very first NPC you find at Firelink Shrine tells you there are two bells - one above, and one far below. It strongly implies both are equal options. There are at least 3 ways out of Firelink Shrine; one happens to go below, just like your friend the NPC said, to New Londo.
For players still acclimating to the basics of the combat, New Londo is a terrible novice experience. It requires perfectly tight positioning on teensy platforms barely visible through the water, and relies on limited items to even make a single attempt through the ghost-ridden area. That is a ton of mechanics that would be fine to slowly introduce players to, but it's like putting the "Allspice Turducken while in a tornado" level of Overcooked first.
Then you're talking about the Catacombs? The area whose entrance has infinitely respawning skeletons? Give up, man.
Dark Souls' failure isn't talking through NPCs - dozens of games that give your character a radio do just that. It's from literally lying to you with misleading tripe and having no interest in any form of teaching - be it Half-Life 2's nonverbal teaching or any verbally direct form. I had to play games by other devs, imitating the better parts of their formula, to learn FromSoft is just uniquely TERRIBLE at it.
Like I said, Ne Londo has the first blacksmith you can get to, so going there isn't bad, and that's before the ghosts. Yeah, you're going to need to back out once you get to the ghosts. If you try to force your way through that then yeah, it'll be bad, but that one is really obvious you shouldn't be doing it.
I talked about the Catacombs a lot, in how it failed. I think you ignored it. It's supposed to be approachable for new players, but it failed, mostly in the escape. The necromancers are solvable with a divine weapon. They can't revive skeletons killed by them. You're supposed to back out of it at the very start, but return once you get a divine weapon. Again, it failed at what it was supposed to do, but the goal was for struggling players to go there are get the Rite of Kindling. That's why Pinwheel is such a joke. He's supposed to be fought early.
I haven't played it, but I've watched it. I think Demon's Souls actually probably does a better job. It's very similar, but less ambitious without a connected world. Obviously Elden Ring also does it better, but it makes it somewhat boring too. It's almost trivial.
+1 for dark souls. It just felt like playing Space Ace all over again
Deus Ex.
... the original.
Kid at middle school just burned it onto a CD-R, gave me a post it note with the install key.
He kept saying this game wasn't like anything else, it was a 'roleplaying shooter'.
I just had to provide him the blank CD-R to burn, and I think a brownie, or cookie, at lunch.
I never even owned a legit copy untill it came out on Steam like a decade later.
So uh yeah, that's how I originally played 'the most important videogame of all time'.
Beyond the gameplay and game mechanics, uh, we are currently now more or less living in a world that more and more resemble's its canon storyline everyday.
Back in 2001, pre 9/11, it was a wild sci-fi/cyberpunk concept for... the entire internet to be routed through a centralized system for surveillance and archiving, for digital privacy to be wholly nonexistent.
Now that building just exists in Utah and is run by the NSA, and... well you have to be exceptionally tech savvy to maintain any kind of what was 25 years ago the norm of digital privacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
It was a wild concept to imagine the US being defined by external and internal terrorism, both real and as a widespread rhetorical accusation against your political opponents, to imagine the US basically being a dystopian economic nightmare defined by homelessness, paramilitarized police, openly and brazenly corrupt governments, corporations nakedly and obviously superseding the government.
Now uh... well, uh, yeah, look outside, look at the news.
It was a wild concept for a prototype AI to tell you:
So uh, yeah, that's... basically currently happening, we sure are at least really trying to build a true, general intelligence AI, and more and more people are falling in love with AI bfs/gfs, tiktok/instagram/facebook/social media are the precursor data-mining algorithms that most people these days are addicted to, to feel observed and be judged, more and more people relinquish their cognitive abilities to some kind of 'AI' to just do all their thinking, their critical evaluating for them, their judgement formation.
Anyway, 9/10 game, pretty good but kinda janky in spots, lol.
Deus Ex and the Metal Gear Solid series both have some shockingly prescient plot points. In 2025 playing these is a trip.
Yes, particularly MGS 2 was absurdly prescient with the entire concept of... the vast majority of the internet being unordered and uncontextualized noise and chaos, and... there needing to be a way to structure it, but also, there is essentially no way to do that that is not also going to manipulative/exploitative.
We also now do pretty much live in PMC world, it just isn't as... stylish? I'm gonna use that word.
Our world is agruably at least as absurd as the MGS plotline, but in different ways.
Basically... our technology has indeed surpassed the ability of the average person or government to understand it and use/regulate it responsibly, we are now addicited to it more so than intentionally using it, and that is all being driven by the capitalist machines that profit from it, and every day, they more and more overtly oversee the maintenance and direction of the torment nexus.
EDIT:
i will also throw in as a sort of esoteric lore detail:
Shadowrun particularly predicted that coffee would become an unaffordable luxury good, as economies and climate collapse.
Uh yep, thats happening, coffee prices are up 40% in the US, just this year.
I am glad I quit my coffee addiction a few years ago.
Friend of mine who doesn't play much recommended this poker game called Balatro to me. Damn is it fun. This was well before all the hype around it.
Take a look at Ballionaire and Cloverpit if you enjoy Balatro.
Thanks! I'll have a look!
Half Life 2. Wasn't a big fan of the first one, but the second had tons of hype, so I gave it a shot. The physics stuff was cool, but the gameplay, story and characters were boring and flat. And the "revolutionary" storytelling method of locking you in a box to talk at you rather than making a proper cutscene still sucks.
Damn, that is a hot take.
Honestly impressive for a 20+ year-old game to still inspire hot takes.HL2 remains undefeated.
Fuck yeah!
Because I can't help myself from countering:
HL2 has better, more realistic and detailed and believable mouth and facial animations than many current AAA games, they just have higher res textures and fancier lighting.
That's not to say no game has exceeded it, thats not what I mean, some clearly have.
But... the other side of this is that a lot of modern AAA games, with 20 years of improved/new tech... still can't figure it out.
AAA games that market themselves as being very graphically detailed/realistic/immersive.
I'm not trying to say waaagh how can you not personally have thought HL2 was amazing!
I'm trying to say that the technical advancements it made, which you do not find compelling, well, a good deal of game devs still haven't even reached that level from 20+ years ago, when they say they are trying to.
This game was what pulled me into PC gaming, but when I’ve watched novices return to it even with all the time I spent listening to their commentaries on good teaching…players don’t learn the things they want well, and I can’t blame them on reflection. Even things like where to go are tough for reasons they shouldn’t be.
Back when I was first getting into gaming and learning about this Steam thing a friend told me I needed to play the Half Life games. I snagged them on sale started playing and every one I tried I ended up putting down pretty quickly because I'm just not a shooter fan.
Funnily enough I actually like more combat-oriented games more now but I've played too many newer games that were at least partially inspired by Half Life so I have a feeling I'll go play it and find it's too unpolished and not aged too well
I watch Freeman's Mind and wanted to play. Yeah totally not my cup of tea.
The Witcher 3 felt very sloppy to me, controls wise. I felt like combat had me sliding all over the place. Blocking, parrying, and dodging didn't feel satisfying or responsive.
Just couldn't get into it at all because of it.
I ended up running around and talking to everyone I could, then realize there's a ton of combat stuff to do and nobody else to talk to and I just turned it off
Maybe you'd prefer Monster Hunter or Elden Ring combat.
I love elden Ring! I've played through and beaten it several times.
I got it for free, installed it and got into the tutorial. There I soon realized that the combat system wasn't my bag.
and just feels mushy. eh
Recently started playing it and yeah, the combat feels pretty wobbly
I’m not a console gamer, so the day Horizon Zero Dawn was released, I bought Mass Effect: Andromeda. It was meh.
When Horizon came to PC and I played through it for the first time, I was stunned: the graphics, story, and gameplay were so much better than Andromeda’s. I’m still not a console gamer, but Horizon had me considering a PS4 (and later 5) for a while there.
I legit got a used ps4 for to play WipEout Omega, Gravity Rush 1/2, Horizon ZD (also later FW), God of War (also later Ragnarok).
All four are some of my most beloved games. For the hundred bucks I paid for it, amazing deal.
Still waiting for Omega and Gravity Rush to come to PC...
Seriously, the Wipeout games are incredible. I’ve been thinking about buying another ps4 for that game alone… Sony is doing that ip such a disservice.
Have you played Ballistic.NG and Redout 2?
Redout 2 has the most insane track layouts, hull management, and handling. It’s divisive, but I think that a lot of the hate the game gets is from people who pick it up as their first AG racer.
I set up ![email protected]. I've maxed out my skills, and currently working up the speed classes again, but with double speed turned on.
Also, get that PS4. Omega (or rather 2048 which is included) is IMO the best WipEout ever made. The way the ships in 2048 handle always feels barely controlled, and it adds so much to the sense of speed. The airbrakes on my favorite the Pirhana Speed, are the most violent in the game (save the prototype) and using them you get thrown around sideways, and you just have to learn to deal with it.
Redout 2 was a disappointment for me. I love the first game, it struck a balance between speed a technicality. (Basically a merging of WipEout and F-Zero). Redout 2 went too far into speed, with wider more sweeping tracks, rather than twisty and narrow with the occasional full hairpin. New tracks stopped being interesting very quickly with little to learn. It also has a worse soundtrack IMO.
Thats Not a very high bar that andromeda set though
I was at peace with the final result of the ME3 clusterfuck and wanted to give ‘em the benefit of the doubt. Big mistake.
My cousin's talked me into giving CoD 'one more try' like three times now. It's never worth it. The game is always worse and my cousin also tends to just not play for months after a handful of gaming sessions, so I don't even get the benefit of hanging out.
Generally stopped trying to game with him anymore. Just too flaky.
Grim Dawn. "hey remember Diablo 2,the best ARPG ever? This is that but better!"
No it's not. It's not bad, but it just doesn't click.
TBF a good portion of the appeal is finding the combination of skills and equipment that tickles you the most at the moment
The rest of the game is pretty much just the xp you need to level up and the training dummies to determine how effective your build is
Yeah, i remember being so bored of it because i literally just click the enemy and everyone explode, and only occasionally spongy enemy. I also remember i can't progress much in that 8 hours i put in, thing feel and play the same for that long. It just wasn't my thing.
Have you tried Path of Exile?
Yes! I played Grim Dawn for about 8 hours before i quit, and according to Steam, i dip in a whole 30 minutes before i uninstall it. I can't remember about the game at all and why i quit, i assume it has the same issue with Grim Dawn.
Weird, path of exile is pretty much as close as you can get to diablo 2 and it still being a new game.
I got one! The very first Assassin's Creed when it came out!
My childhood friend would NOT shut up about it! He would talk over and over again about the lore, show me extended cutscenes, videos, sent me lore theories, it was a whole thing!
Years later I finally get to play it and holy shit, what a disappointment… the entire game is just the same 3 missions over and over again… like no effort into hiding anything… literally the same 3 missions copied and pasted ad nauseum with different enemy names. I'm still shocked he sat through all of this bullshit to get to the awesome lore he went on and on about for weeks.
Bonus story with the same friend: we were talking about Devil May Cry and he said "I wish I could find another game like it…" and I noticed he said "game" and not "games" or "franchise" so I asked "Did you play the sequels? DMC3 is incredible!" and he goes "What sequels? I'm sure it's only one game…" and I swear I screamed at the realization he's talking about the reboot DmC: Devil May Cry and had no clue the original franchise even exists 😂 That was right after DMC5 came out too, which's wild.
I recommended starting with DMC5 because the story isn't great anyway and DMC1 or even DMC3 may feel a little dated. He ignored my advice because he wanted to experience the story from the beginning, picked up the HD collection, hated both DMC1 and DMC3 because they felt too stiff, and never touched the franchise again.
I agree, but the main problem is the “years later” part of your experience. Assassin's Creed had many gameplay innovations with (for the time) amazing graphics that shaped certain game mechanics for years to come, but gaming has evolved...
That's why many of these former “innovations” have lost their shine and sometimes even became annoying (e.g. climbing a tower to unlock parts of the map).
"years later" does not matter in my case because it wasn't that many years later—l probably played it only 3 or 4 years after release, and I don't play western action RPGs or stealth games. I think the first Assassin's Creed is the only Ubisoft game I played, for example, and it surely did not influence any of the games I actually play: Bayonetta, The Wonderful 101, Hellsinker, or Guilty Gear.
Pretty sure I would've had a problem with it on release because it's shitty repetitive design.
Yep it absolutely was a problem on release.
I enjoyed playing ac1 back then but it was very repetitive.
Time was cheap back then.
I got several, I've found that some people really think about what I like in a game and nail a recommendation and some people just recommend things they liked, regardless how I feel on them.
The big ones would be Breath of the Wild and Helldivers 2.
For me it‘s Darkest Dungeon. I just don‘t enjoy „scraping by,“ I like to take care of and connect with my party, and that‘s just not the kinda game it is. It‘s just bleak everywhere, by design and fully intentional; and just not my thing. Saw a lotta friends play it and thought I should try it.
Yeah that game was just too much of a grind for me. I really wanted to like it but there was just something that didn't catch me about it. Super popular, highly recommended by my friends, just not my bag, baby
Yeah, I was put off by about everything in that game.
The only one I can currently think of is Gris - and I say that because I can't recall buying a game that made me want to get my money back upon finishing it.
Gris is very highly rated across the board, so clearly there's something I'm missing as to why. I enjoy walking sim games every now and then, but it'd be hard for me to even call this one a game. People point to the story as being beautiful and deep, but it felt like nothing new and, for me, a bit trite. There was nothing engaging about this game to me. The worst part? It's like 3 hours long.
Sorry if whomever reads this really likes Gris. I'm glad you could enjoy it. To me, it's one of the worst recommendations I've ever received.
It was recommended to me not as a game, but like an interactive movie. As more art than game. Going into it with those expectations is probably why I loved it so much. I can definitely see how someone might get a very different experience with very different expectations.
I can definitely see that if you're not expecting it to be a game, it'd be a lot more enjoyable. It's been a couple of years, so I think all I really knew about it was that it was highly rated and a platformer.
All I can say is that I'm glad I got it on deep sale, as I'd be even more furious if I paid the local price of $20 for this game.
Yeah I absolutely adored it but I love artsy games like it. I played it by candlelight and it was pure delight
Gris is a hard game to recommend because, while it is a game, it doesn't really do anything particularly unusual for a game. The platforming is passable and there really isn't a narrative in the sense of the game telling you what is happening. If you go into it expecting a game it will be disappointing or at least just ok.
Instead, if you go into it expecting a visual and audio journey through the emotional prossessing of grief, and growing to move forward, it is incredible. Especially if you happen to play it while working through your own grief.
People who recommend it need to provide a caveat that it is less the game mechanics and more the emotional journey.
I have good memories of Gris, but it is a game about grief. It was kind of janky but I was in the right mood for it I guess, having lost someone earlier. I completely agree that it is not for everyone. I enjoyed it but I certainly did not have fun (what a weird thing to say about a game!).
I agree with you, the game seems mediocre at everything it does (platforming, puzzles, etc.) and there are much better "games as art" out there.
http://www.gorogoa.com/ always comes to mind (although it's definitely a "harder" puzzle game).
One of the most emotional gaming experiences I ever had was Iji, a freeware game I happened upon while looking for something else. I did not expect that.
Prepare yourself for two playthroughs :)
Oh god, I actually played this year's ago. Great game!
Assuming the (not) is optional, I loved both Soma and Subnaitica. Two great recommendations
The not was absolutely intended as optional! I'm wondering if other people are seeing it as required judging by the count of responses talking about negative experiences I got…
Breathedge has the subnautica kinda feel to it, though it might be tuned a bit on the pain in the ass side (I'm still early in to it and haven't yet decided if I like it, but it has that feel).
Or for a game with more of a crafting/building emphasis, Planet Crafter also gives some of those vibes.
You might like Astroneer!
Witcher 3, rdr3. I know they are popular games and all my friends who also like single player rpgs love them but I just can't with the fixed personality main characters who act in ways that frustrate me. I mean last of us was good but that was more where the player character being forced to be a dick is the main plot point, instead of a thing we are meant to ignore.
Weird to say that of Rdr2 (i think you meant 2) because as the main, like, its fairly big arc that the whole game takes. I can get on board with that being an issue in Witcher3, but like, idk, to some extent is this because as an open world game they cant "force" you to play in a linear evolution?
I never played RDR2 because I played 1 and GTA 4 and I just don’t like how Rockstar games play.
Admittedly I only did the tutorial area and first town after before I lost interest. I did definitely have it pitched to me as a fully open world game which it really isn't as I would define it. I have been told since that Arthur has a good arc and growth potential but....I guess it just took too long to get to that. It seemed to rely a bit on past game context too that I didn't have
It is a big and slow arc, and the game is.. just.. massive. Its a long game.
Same. I reached the first town with no idea what to do, cumbersome controls, and a lot of apathy by this point.
Dark Souls 2. A coworker gave me a steam code for it after I told him I wasn't really a big fan of games where you just have to memorize opponent movesets. He said he'd gift it to me if I gave it an honest try, and I did.
And I didn't like it. Didn't understand the hype, didn't have any idea what was going on with me dying and transforming or something, or why there were weird ghosts of other players all over the map. Maybe it makes sense if you know the genre but I didn't like the gameplay and didn't get any lore/story, so I ditched it.
Don’t crucify me, but Control.
I absolutely love creepy atmospheric games that aren’t outright horror. If you’ve ever played the Playdead games (Limbo and Inside) you know what I’m talking about. BioShock does it a bit too. Anyway, due to this being my absolute favourite type of media to consume, and not at all knowing how to find more of it, I made a post on here a couple years ago asking for advice, as well as a few friends and other communities, and Control was the overwhelming majority suggestion. So obviously I gave it a shot, but I just didn’t enjoy the way it, ahem, controlled. Not sure how well to describe it other than that, but movement just felt off to me. Maybe I’ll have to give it a try again in the future, but I couldn’t put in more than an hour or two without getting annoyed. It looked pretty neat, and I’ve seen screenshots of later points in the game which look pretty awesome, but for whatever reason I couldn’t get past the movement. It’s not an issue I’ve had in any other game and I’m not sure why it bugs me so much in this one.
This is probably my pick too, and it frustrates me. Because like, look. I love Remedy games. I love Alan Wake 1 and 2 to death. I just bought a 200 dollar book about Alan Wake. I really vibe with Control's aesthetic and setting. Ahti is great. I have beat Control before, but ever since then, whenever I think "oh, I should go back and replay Control" I get about five hours back into the game before I just sit there and think man, I am not having any fun. Just about all of these characters feel like cardboard cutouts with neutral faces drawn on them, the plot is kinda dull, when it bothers to show up, and if the game can't really get excited about itself I'm not sure how I'm supposed to. I'll always love launching a forklift at some Hiss at 200mph but it doesn't take me far enough.
That being said, yes, I will still be playing Control 2 day one. Even if it's garbage, Remedy will always deserve the chance for me.
I found the combat to be incredibly repetitive, and the story was unsatisfying to me. Have you tried Soma? That sounds like it would scratch your itch, but I haven’t played it.
I haven’t. It’s on my wishlist though, so maybe on the next sale I’ll pick it up.
This is sort of how I felt about Pikuniku. The controls pissed me off into not gaming for an entire year.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Man, I put a good 20 hours into that game and the gameplay loop just wasn’t for me.
When you want a trpg and end up with a weird school Sim.
I've had games purchased for me, but I'm not really into first person shooters, especially competitive ones, and especially especially on a console where I'm stuck using a controller.
So Black Ops III and the Master Chief Collection may be awesome for lots of people, but that's not my jam.
I don't know about mcc but I will always maintain that black ops 3 still has value in zombies
I love MCC, but I don't like competitive FPS games at all. I'm in it exclusively for the campaign, and occasionally custom games. That said: playing any FPS with a controller is an incredibly frustrating experience. I know what I want to happen, but my hands can't make it happen.
Last of Us.
When the first one came out everyone was ranting and raving over it so I picked it up for my PS3. Granted the beginning of the game was an absolute gut punch and I thought I was hooked, I was not. I found the rest of the game so damn boring. I didn't like the story, I felt it was forced fed to the player, and honestly I just never bothered finishing it. for me it wasn't fun.
For me it suffered from "show, don't tell" problems. There are numerous weeks long skips between scenes and you're just supposed to understand that Joel and Ellie became close during that time. But as a player, you're basically being asked to babysit someone you've known for 10 minutes. It was basically one long escort mission and the "OMG SO AMAZING SCENE" is.... giraffes walking by. Like really? That's what it takes to wow people? Some giraffes walking outside the building????
The world was a generic apocalypse setting, the "story" can be described in a few bullet points, and the big "emotional gut punch" at the end is so cliche.
I'll die on the hill that it didn't do a single groundbreaking thing. Nothing about the game wasn't already done before and better. It's the equivalent of a summer blockbuster movie: a fun mindless take on an idea but otherwise generic.
I ended up giving up at one of the clicker sequences.
The game lore says they’re blind and navigate by hearing. The game code does not.
Hotline Miami. Frustrating and tedious.
I generally don't take gaming recommendations from people I know because I've been burned too many times.
I loved the fast and rather unique gameplay but it definitely isnt for everyone. For me personally I didnt mind the trial and error and really liked how the Game presentation.
There's a lot of games people recommend me based on cozy things which is good cause I do like them.
Then they get confused when I'm going deep into the Warhammer or the rogue likes/lites cause those are not very cozy.
And I do not like visual novels despite being in the demographic.
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines I didn’t get around to playing this game until about a decade after its release, and I seriously don’t understand who could find that game enjoyable except 13yo edgelords.
I played it and had a great time a few years ago and I'm certainly no 13yo or edgelord. Vtmb has a very unique setting, good writing and a great soundtrack. The gameplay is probably the worst part about it though, it's also quite unfinished in the later parts. Don't open it.
I mean most of the people shilling it probably were teens at the time they played it. It's like Neon Genesis Evangelion: teenage drama that's "deep", but when you watch it as an adult it just doesn't hit.
Undertale was zero fun. Interesting story and I liked the graphics and music but the combat got extremely annoying, and I say this as someone who plays 8 bit (heck even 4 bit) combat games. I quit it.
I beg to differ. It was a lifechanging game for me. I can trace a half a dozen major life decisions and events to the people I met through the Undertale fandom. It has some deep personal sentimental value, too.
There are definitely lots of things in life that I personally fail to see any value for myself in; but that I respect specifically because I know it brings lots of other people happiness.
Oh sure. By all means play what you enjoy. Just wasnt what I enjoy.
This is kind of tangential to the question, but an incredibly irritating former friend would not shut the fuck up about Elden Ring for months after it came out and kept telling me to get it. I told him I didn’t like souls-like games and he said ER was “different” without explaining how. I still haven’t played it, even with recommendations from other people I trust. Same guy ensured I’ll never play Death Stranding, too.
Both of these games are very well made, but they both cater to a special type of gamer.
Elden Ring being incredibly well designed as an introduction to souls-likes, it still has the mechanics and difficulty like most of From Software's games, with slight variation. If you're not a gamer who likes overcoming a challenge, the game is likely not for you.
Death Stranding I think is quite the unique game, but much thanks to its weirdness. It has a lot of curious elements to it, but its incredibly story heavy. With different difficulty options you can make it a very casual experience, but it can be quite slow at times still. If you don't like several dozen hours of cutscenes, the game might not be for you.
I don't understand why people keep saying Elden Ring is so different from Dark Souls, because it's really not different at all. I say this as someone who enjoys these games: if your issue with Dark Souls was the base gameplay loop and not the map, Elden Ring will not fix that.
I personally see Elden Ring as the second-most "Dark Souls" game after Dark Souls 1. It's the first of the FromSoft soulslikes with an open world afaik, and while Dark Souls 1 doesn't have an "open" world, exactly, everything is so well-connected that it feels like an open world to me.
I'd consist Dark Souls 1 open world, there just isn't a lot of open space and you have to fight to get anywhere.
Everyone seems to love Alan Wake. I played it recently, but didn't enjoy it.
I feel like I'm missing something.
I think artificial scarcity in survival horror is kinda annoying. A flashlight burning through batteries as if it was a battery-powered oven is just an eyroller to me, the dude having the stamina of someone who‘s just woken up from a decade long koma doesn‘t help my enjoyment either. It just makes it annoying to me to play. I know it’s meant to make me feel weak and scared but I’d prefer if they could realize that in other ways.
The story was alright though IMO. I enjoyed the town sections the most.
It’s funny that tastes diverge so much. I love artificial scarcity, as a way of rewarding my exploration. Spotting out a trove of batteries wouldn’t feel so rewarding if I already had 5 and they last an hour.
Alan Wake is a game that should be right up my alley.
Unfortunately, the gameplay left me wanting. I enjoyed the story for the most part, but the pacing of the game overall was strange, and other than getting light grenades, the gameplay doesn't really change much or shake anything up from the beginning to the end.
I enjoyed the world a lot more than the actual game, but I've been told it's sequel fixes some of my issues with the first game.
Dragon’s Age Origins. Had a friend tell me how it was their favorite franchise and that specifically was the best game, such amazing lore, gameplay, etc.
Couldn’t even make it past the first quest before I hung it out.
When did you play it? I liked the game when it came out, but I tried to replay it recently and the mechanics did not age gracefully. It's pretty clunky by modern standards.
I'm sure that to a lot of people this is likely sacrilege lol
Hi, me, I'm a lot of people.
I cannot agree with it being clunky, at least not any more clunky than any other game in the genre. What are you referring to specifically? The combat or something else?
I enjoyed it but the character arc resolutions were extremely rushed.
I'm your reverse. Friends with some big Dragon Age fans, they wanted me to join, it worked for me too! The Dragon Age train crashed when I had to free up space on my PC for more important real life things sadly, but when I finish that I'd like to finish my playthrough and maybe replay with fight-skipping cheats, or hit up the rest of the series.
I never made it out of the first zone. I was honestly shocked by how little I cared for it considering I made it through Jade Empire, but Origins just felt like Knights of the Old Republic and that game bored me too.
It flopped hard for me too. The gameplay was clunky, especially on console. It also felt like you needed meta knowledge depending on the character you picked in order to build a functional party, the game gave you choices, but didn't tell you enough about them to make correct choices.
Have a friend who is obsessed with the borderlands series. Played through the pre-sequel with him. Was not a good time
He wanted to play through 3 with me after, and I noped the hell out
I was the main marketer for "weird, different games" to my friends, back in school. I was the one that first found out about Harvest Moon on PSX and recommended it to another friend, he loved it - mind you, this was back in 2004. In 2006, I got 3 into World of Warcraft, I even printed a "beginners' guide" I made myself just to help them understand the game.
Two games that I experimented from word of mouth were Tibia and Ragnarok Online. The former I gave up the same day - there were like 10 players for each rat in the sewers, the respawn took forever and you were supposed to grind them until you reached level 7, which would take over a week of real playtime at that rate.
RO was an interesting situation, the dude who first started it was bragging about having lots of hours to play, when I disdainfully replied "Why pay when you can just play for free"? He didn't like the reply, but we didn't get along anyway, so I took every chance to jab him, and he did the same to me. Anyhoo, I went online, looked around for a private server and started playing, free of charge. The others didn't join in.
During school and college, none of my friends were interested in RTS or even turn-based strategy games. I already knew about Civilization thanks to my dad. In the internet years, I always lurked around some talks about strategy games and that's where I found Supreme Commander, which is still one of my favorites. Total Annihilation is still on my "to-play" list.
Time for some more word of mouth (potentially): have you tried Beyond all Reason? It's more or less a modern open source remake of Total Annihilation. Runs like a dream even with tens of AI players and tens of thousands of units in-game.
Compared to SupCom I would say there is more unit diversity but less wacky experimentals, and the commander unit cannot be upgraded. There are currently only 2 factions, that basically map to UEF and Cybran from SupCom (or rather SupCom derived those two from the 2 in Total Annihilation). The dev team is currently working on a third faction that, from the previews, seems to me to be a mashup of the Aeon and Seraphim from SupCom: Forged Alliance.
I have, both it and Zero-K ;)
Everyone kept praising Baldur's Gate 3. I even watched gameplay of it.
It was buggy on the supposed release, especially with a quest that had been part of the beta FOR YEARS rendering itself incompleltable and stealing my items in the process.
Then I got sucked into a party wipe, and a fight I had beaten earlier suddenly became an impassable slogfest.
$90 AUD for 3 hours of gameplay and a piss poor character creator. Because orcs had fuckall compared to the other races.
I am never trusting popular opinion again.
My friend said it was the best D&D experience he ever had. I love D&D and also had hundreds of hours in Solasta. I immediately bought 2 copies of BG3 so I could play with my SO. BG3 sucked for me. It's like pretend D&D, with the whiniest, most burdened companions they possibly could have created, and a terrible UI to boot. We tried it again after the 'final' patch (still buggy, but better). Ended up pretending it's not D&D and tried to ignore all the terrible nonsensical gameplay mechanics. Made it all the way to Act 3 before giving up again.
I love BG3; used to love D&D as well.
Anyone that says it's like playing D&D is just not correct. It's a fun game that can simulate some of the rules and mechanics pretty well, but never does it feel like actually playing D&D.
I love the studio for their behavior towards players, but I hate their games and their terrible combat mechanics. Every goddamn inch is some kind of trap or environmental hazard designed to ruin your experience
I tried really hard to like Fall Guy for the sake of one friend a few years ago, but it's just so bad and monetised.
I hate Mario. The physics of the game sucks.
Btw everyone check out expedition 33. It's the only game that should even be considered for goty and it's not even close. Don't @ me.
Damn and I was going to post in this thread that my friend BOUGHT this game for me even though I said I wouldn't enjoy it, and lo and behold, my girlfriend and I have barely enjoyed outside the prologue of Expedition 33. I'm most of the way through act 2 I think? And I just dropped it. I'll finish it someday to finalize my feelings but they are pretty negative, and everything i've heard from other people is not improving my opinion. Just not my type of game I guess
Yeah, probably just not your game. Not everyone loves every masterpiece. shrug
Silksong
Not. Even. Close.
I’m not far in Silksong - have not actually been stopped by difficulty yet - but even the obstinately unguided exploration is getting to me. And I do worry about the reports of it being too hard by others.
I never actually beat the final boss of the first game. Gave it a few tries, decided something as hard as that being a two-phase where the second hits harder is bullshit, Just decided to YouTube the ending.
I loved the difficulty of silksong, and the movement is so much better than it was in the first game. There is one boss I hated but it is not required to beat the game.
The unguided exploration was a refreshing change of pace for me. So many games just devolve into following a line on a map and it’s refreshing to have an opportunity to really explore. And there are so many nooks and crannies to the world that I was amazed I kept finding new stuff.
That being said, Team Cherry are sadists and it’s apparent in the game design. I understand the game is not for everyone. If you find yourself frustrated, do not shy away from online guides or tips!
Yeah, I haven't played Silksong myself, but it was obvious from it being the most highly anticipated game of the year to getting a bunch of mixed reviews and then basically fell off the radar. Like I'm sure it's a great game, but it doesn't seem like it's even going to be a contender.
I bet I can play this on my iPhone 3GS.