|
An Actual Princess posted:7. Super Mario Wonder this one gif comparison encapsulates the entirety of why i was let down when i plunged into super mario bros u on my dust-collecting switch expecting to revisit the glory days of super mario bros 3 from my youth. it just felt lifeless. i hesitantly decided to give wonder a try and was immediately hooked. i still haven't played nearly as much of it as i want/intend to but it feels so fresh and thoughtfully crafted. i might carve out some time today to dive back in and see if i can kick it a few notches higher on my own list.
|
#
¿
Dec 6, 2023 21:59
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 11, 2024 09:21 |
|
|
you guys need to number your lists
|
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2023 10:09
|
|
|
dear ascending list posters: why?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 9, 2023 23:52
|
|
|
whenever i put on a movie i watch the ending first to see if i'll like it then i rewind 15 minutes at a time to make sure it's good before i actually start it
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2023 02:48
|
|
|
i literally have no idea what minecraft even is as a game at all. it's been out forever and there's a south park about it and one of my friends like 20 years ago showed me something he built in it. and i've seen people online make, like, recreations of real buildings? and made like machines that work realistically? but there's also zombies and underground lava caves? wtf is minecraft
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2023 07:25
|
|
|
Honorable Mentions
The Top Ten 10. Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (2017)  as i mentioned in the honorable mentions section for vampire survivors, this is the year i got a new laptop that could run anything with decent performance. i had seen so many youtube clips of getting over it and every single time i felt intrigued to see what all the fuss was about. couldn't be that hard, right? i've played a majority of the souls games, how hard could this stupid platformer be? turns out it's loving absolutely ridiculous to the point of being nearly (and probably definitely) bullshit at times. or most of the time! or maybe the whole game is bullshit! but i haven't felt this captivated by a game in a long time to try and prove it wrong. and it's the first game i played with a mouse in probably 20+ years, which made me feel like a kid again. i didn't finish it, but i got far enough where i feel satisfied that i gave it a fair shake. i may go back to it, but i might have a heart attack trying to pass my sticking point. i love that it's a platformer that makes me more afraid to make any move just like dark souls makes me afraid to take the next step down a new corridor in an uncharted dungeon. eventually you make a wrong move that launches you all the way back to the start and you just sit there staring at the screen in disbelief at what just happened. should you give up and call it for the night? should you keep going? and a lot of the time when you keep at it, you wind up flying past sections that you inched through on your first try. the whole idea behind the title and the gameplay mechanic of "getting over it" and starting over in times of adversity or whatever is a gimmicky but cute and i think it works. i'm excited for the upcoming ps5 game by bennet foddy which i'm sure will be ridiculous. 9. Inside (2016)  this was the first game i started and completed this year when i finalized my backlog spreadsheet to rank games based on metacritic score and time to beat from howlongtobeat.com. inside is highly rated and short enough that it wound up at the top of my list so i dove in one weekend and finished it that evening. i played limbo years ago on my phone, i think, and it was nice to see this more fleshed out experience from the same team. i love the beautiful art design and character movements. the setting is grim, dreary, and imaginative. it might not have much in the way of a deep narrative, but like other games on my list, my preferred style of game is one that doesn't hold the player's hand and just provides compelling gameplay where the story exists in the background for you to either engage with or not. glad to have finally crossed this off the list and kickstarted my journey through my immense backlog. 8. What Remains of Edith Finch (2017)  after inside, edith finch was next on the backlog, and i knew less about it going in and felt like it would be a lesser experience due to being first-person and what i figured was going to be a walking simulator. turns out it's a really innovative way to tell various overlapping stories of a family through a series of mini games. the bathtub section is like a gut punch. it's sad but beautiful and so expressive in just like 4 minutes of gameplay and achieves so much more emotionally than some 60+ hour epics do. the fish factory section had me continuously surprised as it evolved into newer styles of play while maintaining a particular theme. i've really never seen gameplay implemented like this before and it was delightful. i'll be thinking about these two sequences for many years. 7. Disco Elysium (2019)  this actually wasn't even going to be on my list until the playstation year in review thing came out and reminded me that i played a good chunk of this somewhere around Q2 of 2023. i tried playing it last year (or the year before?) and it didn't really stick. games like this are tough for me because i'm typically much more about an interesting gameplay mechanic than narrative, but i feel it in my bones that there's something here if i put in the work to extract the goodness out of it. i gave it another shot this year, and i wound up dying at the end of day two. i was flabbergasted that the game actually let me die! i was stunned. pissed. in utter disbelief. but, it stirred up something in me that very few games, if any, ever do: genuine fear. i scrambled to find a way to not lose and destroy my progress, i went into survival mode, i got through obstacles i had shied away from earlier because i needed to. unfortunately, my attempts were in vain and i was met with a game over screen. i posted angrily in the ps5 thread about it. i couldn't believe a modern game would allow this to happen and that i would have to start all over. but then it dawned on me... how many games actually make you deal with the consequences of your actions? almost none that i can actually think of. i started to feel impressed by the size of the game's balls. i usually don't like narrative games because i never feel properly immersed. but what could be more immersion-solidifying than actual consequences? maybe i'm a noob who is painfully unaware of similar games that treat the player the same way. idk if i'll have the motivation to go back and start from scratch any time soon, but i definitely know i need to give it another go at some point. also - the game over screen i got at the end of day two resulted in me getting one of the most rare trophies the game offers, apparently. i think it's neat that i tried hard to not get it, but when i looked up the trophy i saw posts on reddit and steam where people were having a hard time intentionally getting it. idk what that says about my competency but it's a neat side effect of the experience. 6. The Finals (2023)  controversial brand new entry in my list. i legit woke up like one week ago to a text from a friend of mine back on the east coast that said "yo. you know i hate fps games, but trust me, download the finals and lets play." 20+ hours later and it's dominated my time over the break from work. playing with my buddies back home and getting a local friend of mine to play has been a blast. the barrier of entry to a new game like this is super low and it doesn't feel convoluted or gatekept like call of duty or overwatch or whatever else is out there. bouncing around, zip lining, leveling buildings to the ground with an rpg and fire canisters with c4 attached to them is absolute chaos at its most fun (and frustrating in the best way) i've had with an online game in a very long time. the finals joins the ranks of competitive games i've had a blast with and didn't completely suck at like quake 3 arena, uncharted 2, killzone 2, and warhawk. 5. Diablo IV (2023)  my most played game of the year and fourth most played game on my list of games on my psn profile. this isn't a masterpiece by any stretch, but it was a really great way to pass time playing through the campaign and nightmare dungeons with some friends from back home. i loved playing as the barbarian and optimizing my character with loot and abilities that made dungeon crawling super satisfying. there's really nothing like leaping into a crowd of enemies that smashes the ground into an earthquake, taking huge swipes at a horde of those stunned enemies to inflict bleed damage, then launch them into a nearby wall with a super powerful kick that also happens to instantly recharge your leap so you can leap back into the crowd you just yeeted away from you, and chain a bunch of nasty attacks over and over to feel true berserking bliss. as soon as we all hit a certain level, my friends and i dropped off pretty hard bc the gameplay loop starts to lose it's luster, but for the time i invested i had a lot of fun. and it's hard to beat the aesthetic of bloody skeletons and demons in hell with character that exhume corpses and swing huge axes. the most metal game on my list for sure. 4. Neon White (2022)  this game was on my list last year after i dipped my toe in toward the end of the year, and i put in a good amount of hours this year as well. i still haven't finished it, and there's something about the game that prevents me from wanting to put in too much time at once. i'm really savoring the experience, and every time i jump in, i do 1-3 levels at a time where i'm finishing them, going back in to increase my score, then going back to get all the collectibles, then going back again to get an even better score. the narrative and characters are all absolutely bonkers weirdo poo poo, but it somehow works and isn't overbearing. it's all completely ignorable/avoidable, but it has a tongue in cheek charm that helps compliment the fast paced gameplay. i really enjoy precision platformers, and celeste is one of the best i've ever played. this game makes you feel truly godlike in your ability to get through levels at breakneck speeds. there are some other goons in the ps5 thread who shatter my records, but i still hold my own and it feels amazing when you're in a flow state of knowing you're going to break your previous record because you have the mechanics and level layout down in your head. 3. Lies of P (2023)  played the demo of this, and it felt pretty good to play. i enjoyed how different enough it felt as opposed to being a 1:1 souls clone, but i was also nervous that the parry mechanic would be too high of a barrier to entry for me. so after the demo, i just kinda forgot about it and didn't think about it after that. then, the positive reviews and sentiment started pouring in both here and on youtube. the real motivator, embarrassingly enough, was seeing one of my favorite youtubers putting out a video praising it for being a masterpiece. about 5 min into the video, he mentioned to not watch any more bc of spoilers and to just play the game bc it's "that good" and then come back to watch. so i did just that. breezed through the entire thing in just under two weeks, which is lightning fast for me. my experience with souls game helped make me feel right at home with a lot of the mechanics, and the stuff that was new wasn't too hard to figure out. and i wound up mostly ignoring the blade/handle mechanics anyway. that's to the game's credit that it allows for multiple ways to engage with the combat while not needing you to engage with all of it. i might have had an easier time with some bosses if i used more items/mechanics, but it was also nice to challenge myself to play the game mostly "raw." like any good souls game, some of the boss fights felt like absolute horse poo poo nonsense, but with enough perseverance and memorization, i was able to perfect block some insanely timed attacks and get through to the end. it didn't end too soon, and it also didn't overstay its welcome. there was enough variety to its story, characters, environment and mechanics to not feel like a total ripoff, but it retains enough of the souls formula to feel like it could have been made by fromsoft. eagerly anticipating the sequel (and/or dlc), and this time it'll be a day 1 for me for sure. 2. Cocoon (2023)  serendipitous that i wound up starting my year with inside since the same devs wound up forming their own studio (or one of the guys? idk) to make cocoon as their debut game. the night it came out i purchased it right away and just sat there playing it wordlessly until it was over and i had the platinum trophy. it only took a few hours, but it was pure enjoyment the entire time. the puzzles aren't so difficult that you need to stop and scratch your head for too long, but they're not so simple that you breeze through it feeling like there's not enough challenge. i love love a game that introduces its gameplay to the player without text boxes or little helper fairies floating in your face telling you what to do next or whatever. that poo poo kills me. this game has a single button and tells you basically nothing the entire time. you just play and figure it out and it's all the better for it. there are little musical cues when you solve a puzzle hinting that you've progressed, but other than that there's no "hey you've been stuck here for a bit do you need help?" or anything like that. just use your brain and figure it out and have a good time. the art direction is beautiful, the soundtrack is fantastic, the gameplay mechanic is interesting and forces you to think in ways not many puzzle games that i've played force you to. eagerly awaiting whatever comes next for this dev team. whether it's an add on or a sequel or something else entirely, i'm all in. 1. Unpacking (2021)  who woulda thought that such a simple game about taking poo poo out of boxes and putting them on shelves and walls would be so unbelievably captivating to me? unpacking is maybe close to a perfect game for me. like cocoon and inside, it doesn't tell you anything. just a game screen and a cursor. occasionally the game will throw you a hint on the cursor that you can rotate objects, and once a level is over it hints that some things shouldn't go in certain places/rooms, but that's it. there's an option in the settings to disable that mechanic, but i think that's the only real flaw of the game because that aspect adds so much to the unspoken narrative the game has to offer. i do understand, though, that some people might want to play on ultra chill relax mode and put whatever they want wherever they want, and the flexibility for that is nice. not only did i play this all the way through, i got two of my friends to buy and play through it and i sat and watched with them as they did either entirely or partially. then i went on twitch and youtube to watch other people play. how fascinating it is to watch someone else click on a box to see what the next item is and sit there wondering (almost always out loud) where to put it, or what it might be. and then watch their brain gears turning to see how they would either fold a shirt or hang it or throw it on the floor first to unpack the rest of a box, etc. a common theme when watching people play was hearing them say something like "why is toilet paper in the box in the bedroom with the shirts and pants? who would pack like that?" and it's hilarious because it never failed to illicit that reaction, but it was so satisfying to know that it was the developer "telling" the player that, in later levels, there's more than just one room without actually telling them. you play through a few levels with a single room, then, you unpack a roll of toilet paper and discover that there are more rooms to cycle through. you could have done that from the beginning if you were perceptive, but even if you weren't, the game gives you a reason to start looking around at more stuff. call me simple-minded or easily impressed, but that's the good stuff right there. without getting too negative, there are a bunch of triple-A games that constantly beat you over the god drat head with dialogue boxes and pop-ups and poo poo that hold your hand through mechanics. granted, some FPS big action games have mechanics that are much more deep than putting asswipe paper in the toilet room, but still! also there's a mode where you can replay a timelapse video of you going through a level and it's just bliss. also hilarious to watch as you picked up and put down the same mug in like ten different places in succession because you were unsure where to put it, or you put it somewhere then needed to move it to make room for something else. what a brilliant little addition that the devs absolutely didn't need to put in the game but it makes it so much more fun that it's there. the amount of thoughtfulness that went into this game overall is so enchanting. i love this game so much. basically everything about it, the way it reveals its mechanics, the way it tells a story without saying a word, the way different people will interact with it in different and unique ways, and how watching other people with different life experience will look at common objects and have different reactions to them, it's all just a joy and such a cool understated experience. ----- i'm terribly sorry to anyone who actually reads the above. it's total thought vomit and probably incoherent as hell. but yeah.. GAMES!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 29, 2023 23:34
|
|
|
Tempura Wizard posted:No need to apologize, I and others love reading all of these. 🙇♂️ ColdPie posted:Hell yeah, this is my kind of list. it was really fun getting through some of these really great little games that have been sitting in my backlog for way too long i still have plenty more to get through. i just started chants of sennaar and i already know it's gonna be a really lovely experience. still need to take another crack at jusant, as well.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 30, 2023 00:41
|
|
|
Wittgen posted:
hold me back
|
|
#
¿
Dec 31, 2023 09:35
|
|
|
BeanpolePeckerwood posted:welp i missed it all and it's 14º outside. am i in hell? i just woke up and wondered why people in the ps5 thread were all probed. i missed it too! ugh
|
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2024 20:21
|
|
|
Jordan7hm posted:I’m glad the game from 2023 that I most connected with (Lies of P) also connected with other people. It rips off From style games in the way that all great art rips off previous art, by taking what makes those games work and adding its own innovations. The weapon mixing system and the last flask regain system are both phenomenal and flat out improve the gameplay of the genre vs what From has done before. last flask regain is my poo poo. i can see how some people might think of it as a copout to mitigate difficulty? but it was so invigorating to know that if i stayed alive a little longer and played my cards right that i would get a fighting chance to keep going against a boss i was banging my head against. it almost made me feel even more skilled than if i didn't have that chance bc i would on the fly get more strategic during those moments. the more i think about it the more happy i am with the experience overall. someone else said the game is blatant plagiarism which... idk maybe. everyone keeps saying it's a souls game that they'd be convinced from themselves made, but i think there's *just* enough different to make it an excellent entry in the top tier souls games but still unique. also im very curious to see if from winds up borrowing any concepts or changing up their own weapon systems to have mix and match attributes. when you think about how uncharted started out as basically modern tomb raider, and then tomb raider evolved into being an uncharted clone with some of its own mechanics, i think it's a good thing that good ripoffs/homages exist. regardless of anything else, it's just fun as hell to play, and that's really all that matters.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2024 22:50
|
|
|
Grapplejack posted:pizza tower got robbed. fuckin goons are too goddamned old to play good games now, it's why everything is an RPG now!!!!! the devs robbed themselves by not releasing it on anything except a computer people use to send email and look at spreadsheets and not an actual video game console i would love to play it but not being on a single console really limits its audience
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2024 01:25
|
|
|
i did. but only for a few hours before bouncing off. i'll get back around to it, but when i only have about an hour or so to play a video game each night after work, it's not really satisfying for that entire time to be taken up by a single combat encounter and a few conversations. it's a game i need to reserve like a full saturday for so i can get really immersed in it.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2024 01:29
|
|
|
veni veni veni posted:if you guys are gonna keep talking about me I'm gonna at least say my piece. i only brought up that the word was used and specifically didn't quote your post bc i didnt want it to seem like an attack on you, which it wasn't. i just did want to make an argument against the notion of what you originally said. i can def understand being offput by a product that so closely resembles something else you enjoy. i kinda sorta felt similar, but then also figured it wouldn't hold up or be nearly as good. then i heard a bunch that it was kick rear end and im just really stoked i went ahead and gave it a shot bc i loved it. i think it's a great problem to have that another company emulated or ripped off or whatever the style of souls games enough to the point that i'm now eagerly anticipating not only the elden ring dlc but now the lies of p sequel as well. games
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2024 06:18
|
|
|
going to brush up on my creative writing skills all year so i get quoted more in the next thread
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2024 07:17
|
|
|
BeanpolePeckerwood posted:Shooga made the very 1st movie version SA MOTY last month and plans to do it again next year! Join us, just as with the once humble SA GOTY... every year the beast will grow! 🥹 thanks for sharing the link! happy to see there's interest from outside the CineD forum. i'm happy to do it again at the end of this year regardless of the number of people who participate, but it will be even more fun with even more people! Rarity posted:Very excited to welcome a new member to the *OTY Thread family thanks for all you do/have done towards making the games one such a special forums event! and of course huge thank you to VG for the work that went into this year's thread. the unique photoshop treatment of the winners inspired me to go from 0 knowledge to... a tiny little more than 0 knowledge in PS to try and make the movie thread winners somewhat visually interesting.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2024 23:45
|
|
|
abraham linksys posted:i've got spreadsheets for planning because i'm a dork   it's ugly and unfinished but useful
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2024 01:09
|
|
|
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2024 01:21
|
|
|
obviously you can't start a game until you spend the length of time it would take to finish a short game on your backlog to actually create a spreadsheet with formulas to determine which game(s) you actually should be playing and in which order, etc. don't you know how this works
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2024 01:26
|
|
|
Epic High Five posted:Shooga have you ever played a Zachtronics game never heard of that. should i?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2024 01:31
|
|
|
DMCrimson posted:Your system wants you to prioritize playing NORCO, Super Mario Wonder, and A Short Hike. It is perfect. it prioritizes shorter length * higher metacritic score to primarily help knock out the smaller indie games on my list that keep piling up. it works for me  Epic High Five posted:Someone else will have to confirm I'm correct or flame me for being wrong, as I only play cozy or Souls games anymore and don't have the brains for them, but as I understand it they are meticulously crafted games for the narrowest possible audience of people who make elaborate spreadsheets for no reason beyond the love of the game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj689znjxpg this looks super interesting but you are giving me too much credit in the smarts department. i would love to be able to play a game like this but idk if i have the logic prowess to pull it off. also i only have a ps5/switch and an M chip macbook.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2024 02:02
|
|
|
HopperUK posted:Give it a try! Opus Magnum is so satisfying and you don't have to do well, it just has to work. if the internet is to be believed it should be compatible with the m series macbooks so i might give it a whirl
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2024 02:49
|
|
|
Microcline posted:ShoogaSlim this is rad! i absolutely will be playing sekiro at some point, most definitely after enjoying the parrying in lies of p. i'm on the fence about death stranding but will eventually get to it just to see all of the whacky stuff in kojima's brain and maybe psyche myself up for the sequel. i own all of the suggested games and either started or intend to start all of them except star wars squadron which is kind of a wildcard suggestion. i looked it up on youtube and it doesn't really feel like my cup of tea s/o to Party Boat who i'm their closest match and haveblue who is my closest match. HopperUK posted:Yay! i bought it on steam and just played a few tutorial levels and i think i'm going to have a lot of fun with it. i'm cautiously excited/optimistic. i feel like it's going to be a blast but also going to tickle the part of my brain that gets really aggravated when i can't figure out some missing piece of a puzzle. as much as i like spreadsheets and data/instructions, i tend to lose my grip on sanity when parts become unclear. then i hyper obsess and fixate until i fix the error and i'm extremely relieved, lol.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2024 09:06
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 11, 2024 09:21 |
|
|
sick stee nine
|
|
#
¿
Jan 18, 2024 00:56
|
|