I like the old Tomb Raider games. Have a dedicated box just for playing them. Partly nostalgia, partly just for tinkering with them, trying out new custom levels, using downloaded savegames where I can jump to my favorite parts of the game. I'm talking TR1, TR2 & TR3. TR4 for the ability to create custom levels using the TR4 level editor. Modern Tomb Raider games bore me to death. I think the old TR games by Core Design are the best, and they're hackable too. Plenty of mods can be done, like changing textures, and some tools even allow you to customize Lara and give her new attire.
They're all reasonably good IMO. Though honestly I find the controls from the mid-oughts and later much more approachable. Original engine games required so much anticipation, timing, and pixel perfect execution they feel sluggish and tedious now. Still the original was a tech marvel, running reasonably well when on Saturn.
Have you actually played the reboot of tomb raider made in 2013? Having played the original games when I was younger, the reboot is indisputably better in almost every respect: graphics, exploration, storyline, camera, controls, etc.
Like all games that attempted photo realistic graphics to approximate the real world, the original tomb raider has aged about as poorly as the graphics in goldeneye for the Nintendo 64.
Portal 2 is my all time favourite game and the most fun I've had playing multiplayer.
All the aspects of the games gel together so wonderfully to make a really immersive experience. I just loved how the backstory was unveiled as you went through the game (especially Portal 2). Plus Stephen Merchant as Wheatley is iconic.
If I had to choose a favorite among the 20 or so contenders, for me nothing matches the original X-Com: UFO Defense. The graphics and UI were utter trash even for the time, but the tension created by that game was unreal.
The Witness - a masterpiece of puzzle and level design. Nothing in that game is frivolous. Might be a little confusing at first, but if you explore and experiment its rules will become clearer to you.
The Outer Wilds - a technical masterpiece and a game where you can beat the game very quickly if you know what to do, but you have to put in about 10-15 hours of exploration all across a solar system to gain the knowledge of what you need to do in order to beat it. An excellent creepy, puzzly, and deadly mystery.
Persona 5 Royal - The combat can get a little samey in this game, but the style, soundtrack, and world is amazing. Also love how you have to decide what activities you spend your free time on, as you can only do a few at a time.
Danganronpa series - Bonkers murder mystery graphic novel that stretches across multiple games with an extremely creative story.
Civilization series - masterpiece of 'just one more turn' gameplay. I don't play it too many times in a year, but whenever I do sit down to play it again, I tend to lose a weekend to it.
Baba Is You - clever puzzle that requires you to change your thinking entirely to solve its puzzles, as by pushing together and breaking apart pieces of sentences you can change the rules of the level in very surprising ways.
Super Mario Odyssey - tons of fun with lots to find and collect, and figuring out for the first time what all you can possess with Cappy and what new creative abilities it grants you is super fun.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild - a huge world to explore that just barf a bunch of icons on the map and tells you to go there to do some minigame thing like Ubisoft does. You see something that looks different and interesting in the distance? Go there, and you will likely be rewarded. Also tons of interesting physics puzzles.
God of War - great story, feels like you're playing a movie at times, gorgeous visuals, super fluid combat (actually tried going back to breath of the wild after a playthrough of this and BOTW's combat felt pretty boring in comparison), and even some clever puzzles thanks to being able to throw an axe that freezes things that you can recall from anywhere.
Into The Breach - Clever tactics game that helped refresh the formula by telling you exactly what the enemy is about to do on their next turn, so it becomes a puzzle in figuring out how to minimize or redirect their targets/movements and/or who needs to be eliminated most this turn.
Hades - clever rogue-like game where the story advances between runs, and people react to how far you progressed in that run. and within the run, you're given lots of choices of how to grow and expand your character each level, by choosing from multiple exits that tell you the type of reward you'll get for clearing it, and even the rewards themselves giving you multiple options within each type. I do wish it had a bit more variety in the level structure itself, though, but it's fun enough to play I still managed to sink 20 hours into it, which is probably the most I've ever put into a rogue-like.
Nier Automata - amazing soundtrack I listen to in the background all the time (even went to the concert), interesting mash up of ideas and genres and multiple perspectives storytelling together.
I've been playing Hades the last few weeks. Easily one of the best games in its genre.
I just wish the boons weren't mutually exclusive so that you could get more interesting, emergent kits like you can in The Binding of Isaac.
With Binding of Isaac, there's always a more ridiculous kit out there which makes it addictive to play again and see what unfolds. You can pick up lasers, bouncing bullets, and homing upgrades, and now you have homing, bouncing, lasers. (The code to make every upgrade synergize with every other upgrade must have been a real feat.)
With Hades, you just get to choose between the same few boons that don't stack with each other, so the game never really changes.
Your attack causes frost damage or it crits or it pushes enemies away or it reflects projectiles or it weakens enemies, but—dual boons aside—you never get to have fun mixing them together.
I cannot recommend Outer Wilds enough. It is a game-defining game. There's a little caution in the recommendation: some people complain a bit about the controls (they're a bit realistic and therefore unforgiving), and it's playable with keyboard and mouse but a controller makes things a lot easier.
A lot of the value in this game comes from discovering things for yourself, and it is easy to get spoiled. If an exploration game (in the true sense of the term--not the "we have a big world and will send you on pointless fetch quests" you see often) where the only inventory you have is your own knowledge sounds anywhere near interesting to you, you should play and also not spoil yourself with reviews that might tell you critical concepts that are best to discover yourself.
> and it's playable with keyboard and mouse but a controller makes things a lot easier.
I actually disagree with this. There is exactly one way in which a controller is better in Outer Wilds[0] and it isn't, in my opinion, enough better to make up for its shortcomings everywhere else.
[0] People who have played the game know where and why, and it doesn't actually help that much.
Phase 10 and Five Crowns. Card games. They both have defined lengths, as opposed to set scores for a game to end, which is nice for the pacing of a games night. And they are both engaging enough to be fun, while simple enough to focus on the people you are playing with.
Not much of a gamer but I absolutely loved playing Inside a few years ago. It's a platformer that takes place in an apocalyptic setting and you should solve interesting puzzles in the form of clearing obstacles to move forward. I thought the sound design really captured the mood well.
If you like that, try Limbo, built by the same indie studio. Similar concept but I liked Inside better.
I guess I'll post what I call my 'top 5'[0], because the term 'favorite' is difficult to apply to anything so broad as all of games. They are presented here in no particular order.
- X-COM: UFO Defense [aka Enemy Unknown] (Strategy and Tactics)
- Outer Wilds [with Echoes of the Eye DLC] (Space exploration, micro edition)
- DOOM (The FPS that broke the world)
- Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (Interactive essay on the nature of frustration and difficulty)
- Subnautica (The only good Survival Craft-em-up)
- Undertale (90s Kid RPG: The Movie: The Game)
These days I play a lot of The Long Dark. An unforgiving survival experience in the Canadian North. It can be very stressful and intense, but also very relaxing and calming.
Another great game I played recently is Subnautica. More exploration/crafting than survival, but still great. That's the one game I wish I could erase from my memory to start over.
Some odd ones: Euro/America Truck Simulator. Very relaxing games.
I also have a fairly big library on GoG, my all-time favorites:
* The Tomb Raider series (up to the 5th). The Legend/Anniversary/Underworld trilogy is also not bad, but I really don't like the latest reboot.
Three top single-player story action games: Prey (2017), Horizon Zero Dawn, and Control. Each of those three is a masterpiece of worldbuilding, a deep touching story, and has awesome feeling gameplay.
I'd add Dishonored and Deathloop to that list. It helps that they too have somewhat open worlds, cleverly gated. So there's a feeling of progression without feeling like you're on rails.
I like reasonably-paced RPGs and strategy games. Some of the recent good ones I've played:
1. Civilization 5 (I know it's not too recent but I haven't gotten around to trying Civ 6 yet.)
2. Pillars of Eternity 1&2 - a party-based RPG with a great storyline and several hours of gameplay.
3. Darkest dungeon - turn-based RPG with really challenging and very different gameplay. Mindless slashing and magicking won't get you through this one.
Sometimes I also go back to the console-era classics of the RPG genre. My favourites - Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger and the Shining Force series.
I've recently sunk a lot of time into Slay the Spire. It's a deck-building rougelike that's fairly simple to get into but has a lot of depth. No two runs are the same and once you start learning how enemies attack you can plan your moves more strategically. I'm not the fastest, my runs take at least an hour, but I'm slowly getting better. Third most-played game of mine, after Rocket League and Fallout 3.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 86.7 ms ] threadLike all games that attempted photo realistic graphics to approximate the real world, the original tomb raider has aged about as poorly as the graphics in goldeneye for the Nintendo 64.
Portal 2 is my all time favourite game and the most fun I've had playing multiplayer.
All the aspects of the games gel together so wonderfully to make a really immersive experience. I just loved how the backstory was unveiled as you went through the game (especially Portal 2). Plus Stephen Merchant as Wheatley is iconic.
The Outer Wilds - a technical masterpiece and a game where you can beat the game very quickly if you know what to do, but you have to put in about 10-15 hours of exploration all across a solar system to gain the knowledge of what you need to do in order to beat it. An excellent creepy, puzzly, and deadly mystery.
Persona 5 Royal - The combat can get a little samey in this game, but the style, soundtrack, and world is amazing. Also love how you have to decide what activities you spend your free time on, as you can only do a few at a time.
Danganronpa series - Bonkers murder mystery graphic novel that stretches across multiple games with an extremely creative story.
Civilization series - masterpiece of 'just one more turn' gameplay. I don't play it too many times in a year, but whenever I do sit down to play it again, I tend to lose a weekend to it.
Baba Is You - clever puzzle that requires you to change your thinking entirely to solve its puzzles, as by pushing together and breaking apart pieces of sentences you can change the rules of the level in very surprising ways.
Super Mario Odyssey - tons of fun with lots to find and collect, and figuring out for the first time what all you can possess with Cappy and what new creative abilities it grants you is super fun.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild - a huge world to explore that just barf a bunch of icons on the map and tells you to go there to do some minigame thing like Ubisoft does. You see something that looks different and interesting in the distance? Go there, and you will likely be rewarded. Also tons of interesting physics puzzles.
God of War - great story, feels like you're playing a movie at times, gorgeous visuals, super fluid combat (actually tried going back to breath of the wild after a playthrough of this and BOTW's combat felt pretty boring in comparison), and even some clever puzzles thanks to being able to throw an axe that freezes things that you can recall from anywhere.
Into The Breach - Clever tactics game that helped refresh the formula by telling you exactly what the enemy is about to do on their next turn, so it becomes a puzzle in figuring out how to minimize or redirect their targets/movements and/or who needs to be eliminated most this turn.
Hades - clever rogue-like game where the story advances between runs, and people react to how far you progressed in that run. and within the run, you're given lots of choices of how to grow and expand your character each level, by choosing from multiple exits that tell you the type of reward you'll get for clearing it, and even the rewards themselves giving you multiple options within each type. I do wish it had a bit more variety in the level structure itself, though, but it's fun enough to play I still managed to sink 20 hours into it, which is probably the most I've ever put into a rogue-like.
Nier Automata - amazing soundtrack I listen to in the background all the time (even went to the concert), interesting mash up of ideas and genres and multiple perspectives storytelling together.
I just wish the boons weren't mutually exclusive so that you could get more interesting, emergent kits like you can in The Binding of Isaac.
With Binding of Isaac, there's always a more ridiculous kit out there which makes it addictive to play again and see what unfolds. You can pick up lasers, bouncing bullets, and homing upgrades, and now you have homing, bouncing, lasers. (The code to make every upgrade synergize with every other upgrade must have been a real feat.)
With Hades, you just get to choose between the same few boons that don't stack with each other, so the game never really changes.
Your attack causes frost damage or it crits or it pushes enemies away or it reflects projectiles or it weakens enemies, but—dual boons aside—you never get to have fun mixing them together.
A lot of the value in this game comes from discovering things for yourself, and it is easy to get spoiled. If an exploration game (in the true sense of the term--not the "we have a big world and will send you on pointless fetch quests" you see often) where the only inventory you have is your own knowledge sounds anywhere near interesting to you, you should play and also not spoil yourself with reviews that might tell you critical concepts that are best to discover yourself.
I actually disagree with this. There is exactly one way in which a controller is better in Outer Wilds[0] and it isn't, in my opinion, enough better to make up for its shortcomings everywhere else.
[0] People who have played the game know where and why, and it doesn't actually help that much.
Also CS. It's a nice game in which i can focus 10 minutes a d that's it. No bullshit
If you like that, try Limbo, built by the same indie studio. Similar concept but I liked Inside better.
Different games but also spectacular:
N++ is a minimal but challenging jump and run, very barebones style but flawless game
Hotline Miami I+II Brutal top-down Action Game, Great Game Play, Stories and Music. Nice 80ies style, like old gta vs drive/nightcrawler
https://www.themanaworld.org/
Last Epoch: A Diablo 2 like game.
All in all I love to draft out heroes and see how they work out.
Another great game I played recently is Subnautica. More exploration/crafting than survival, but still great. That's the one game I wish I could erase from my memory to start over.
Some odd ones: Euro/America Truck Simulator. Very relaxing games.
I also have a fairly big library on GoG, my all-time favorites:
* The Tomb Raider series (up to the 5th). The Legend/Anniversary/Underworld trilogy is also not bad, but I really don't like the latest reboot.
* The Broken Sword series
* The Myst series up to Revelation
Civilization series.
XCOM series.
Fallout New Vegas (RPG)
Knights of the Old Republic (RPG)
Dishonored (Infiltration shooter)
Divinity Original Sin (RPG)
there is also a 4 version gameplay which is fun
1. Civilization 5 (I know it's not too recent but I haven't gotten around to trying Civ 6 yet.)
2. Pillars of Eternity 1&2 - a party-based RPG with a great storyline and several hours of gameplay.
3. Darkest dungeon - turn-based RPG with really challenging and very different gameplay. Mindless slashing and magicking won't get you through this one.
Sometimes I also go back to the console-era classics of the RPG genre. My favourites - Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger and the Shining Force series.
* Raft: Also relaxing, sounds, environment, you have to keep yourself alive, also good with friends. Similar as above but different theme
* Magic the gathering on Steam: Card game, with light story, and ready decks
* The Talos Principle: Puzzle game like Portal, and an interesting story
* Soldat: Quite old 2d shooter, but very funny, fast play for a quick break at work
2. Final Fantasy - RPG for the original NES
Get off my lawn!