Tonight we kick off Episode 18 of the weekly Guest Post series: Medium Cool with BGinCHI.
In case you missed the introduction to the series: Culture as a Hedge Against this Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We’re Living In
You can find the whole series here: Medium Cool with BGinCHI
Tonight’s Topic: Let’s Talk About Video Games
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Take it away, BG!
For this week’s MC, let’s talk about video games.
I’m not a gamer. I spent plenty of time in the arcade as a youngster, and I played a lot of pinball in bowling alleys, but I never owned a game console. I’ve always preferred film and reading. But I constantly feel like I’m missing out on something. Clearly there’s a complex, enormous world out there of people doing all manner of shooting and exploring and driving and shooting.
I’m curious what your relationship is to this world, and how it has impacted your cultural life. So let’s talk video games and gaming.
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BG will get us started and will pop back in later. We also invited commenter eddie blake to weigh in on the thread and help provide color commentary.
Reminder: Medium Cool has moved to Wednesday evenings at 6pm during the summer. BG warned me when we started that Sunday evenings might not work well during the summer, and his prediction turned out to be correct.
~WaterGirl
eddie blake
so yeah, this can be a discussion about console games, PC’s, pong, hell, if you’ve got pleasant memories of donkey kong you wanna regale us with…
have at it!
Baud
Is it Sunday already?
Baud
I only like doing things I’m good at and I was never good at video games.
eddie blake
@Baud:
things have gone all wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey since the plague started.
eddie blake
@Baud:
most modern ones take that into account and have difficulty sliders. they want you to enjoy the experience, as most AAA games clock in at around sixty dollars.
Baud
@eddie blake:
Cool. I’ve heard of God mode on games, but I didn’t realize they have a Dipshit mode nowadays.
J R in WV
Pinball in clubs, bars, hotel diners in the high country… I love me some pinball. Pinball is more physical than video games. I did do some video games in bars back in the ’80s, but it never took hold on me. Pinball, tho, was and is a great game.
And of course, if you want to buy and have a pinball machine at home, you need to become a maintenance guy for your specific pinball machine! Unfortunately, I’m more of a software guy than a pinball guy as far as maintenance goes. Is there a good computer game you can play on a plain old laptop?
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Same here. I think I’ll give this one a miss.
eddie blake
@J R in WV:
there are tons. it really just depends on what you’re into. while a few want you to use a joystick or some other peripheral, most just use the keyboard.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Medium Cool has moved to Wednesdays for the rest of the summer.
Baud
@WaterGirl: Is it summer already?
Dorothy A. Winsor
There was a time when I played a lot of video games, starting with old Infocom games and up to Myst and Sam and Max. The ones I see now need more eye-hand coordination and aggression than I have. My son plays a ton of games, mostly joining with two friend he’s had since he was 8. One of them is in this area and the other in CA. They team up and I’m glad the games give him the ability to do that.
Xantar
Even if you don’t like video games and don’t consider yourself good at them, I encourage everyone here to give Animal Crossing a shot.
For one thing, it involves no skill and has no goals. It’s basically a digital dollhouse and like a real dollhouse, you can arrange it to be whatever you like. Except this one has way more items than a physical dollhouse could ever have and you can trade stuff with people on the internet.
I’ve sunk 250 hours into it already.
piratedan
think it would be great if we can stop glorifying all of the crime challenges and 1st person shooter games (although I do understand that they are a way to get rid of your aggression allegedly) and see more puzzle solving games, games that promote learned experience and teamwork (although we see that with WoW and call of Duty and the like). Maybe that makes me a snowflake, but I would much rather work on the challenges of something like Crash Bandicoot and Little Big Planet or even solving crimes via clues, evidence and analysis rather than wiping out zombies and stealing and wrecking cars.. but ymmv.
to be honest, I thoroughly enjoyed my CIV games, but even then violence is an undercurrent in even those world building affairs.
Lucas Trask
Modern video games — like Witcher 3, Alien: Isolation, and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey — are artworks of incomparable depth and beauty. Everyone should play them. (Conan Exiles is up there too.)
Today, video games are as much of a cultural currency as long-form television, and are increasingly *more* culturally-significant (in an everyday-shared-experience- and-conversation sense) than movies or music.
Edmund Dantes
@piratedan:
Mainly because Gandhi loves him some nukes.
https://youtu.be/YOg-V4OBZc0
oatler.
Pachinko
Xantar
@piratedan: if you want a teamwork-based game with no violence, may I recommend Overcooked? It’s one of my favorites.
piratedan
@Xantar: will give it a look, tyvm
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Destroy All Humans!: What’s Been Added in the Remake – IGN Expo
Destroy All Humans! (2020) – Official Release Date Trailer
Destroy All Humans is getting a re-release this July! It was an amazing game in 2005 and the 2020 version looks incredible!
Emma
Hah, grew up with Windows ’95 and whatever the predecessor was. Put-Put Saves the Zoo. Busy Bee Goes to the Airport. Worms. The weird bundle game that I had to start from the command screen that had Tangram and Tetris. Oregon Trail 2, after I moved to the US. Good times.
Not to mention the Sega Genesis and, later, the Nintendo 64. Mega Bomberman, the version that wasn’t released in the US. An X-men game based on the ’90s cartoon. Contra, the Japanese version. Also good times. And I never knew until last year that pretty much all my games were from my dad busting pirating operations and being given the pirated games after the trials. Still have all those pink CDs. They run just like a normal game, those pirates knew their stuff. Pokemon Stadium and Pokemon Snap for the N64 were also awesome, those came later. It’s criminal that there’s no equivalent for them these days. (Curse you, Nintendooooooo)
geg6
I played some Pong back in the Dark Ages. And solitaire when I’m well and truly bored (many times in zoom meetings lately). But that’s about it. Like it seems true of a lot of other jackals, my game was pinball. And I was good. Had a machine at the bar I worked in college that was a KISS machine (and I hated that band, but it was a great machine) that everyone knew was mine. Regulars wouldn’t play with me on that machine. So I’d prey on the newbies and out-of-towners, playing up my being a girl and small and skinny to reel them in and then never pay for another drink the rest of the night.
dm
One weekend night as we wandered campus my housemate said, “The lights are on in the PDP-1 room!” He knocked on the door and pleaded with the graduate student to let us play Space War.
“I’m supposed to be working on my thesis ….but…. Okay!”
He got out the controllers (there were four — one switch for propulsion, and one to fire torpedoes (press both at the same time for a hyperspace jump)), and booted up the program from tape. The display was a big green phosphor tube, like an old radar screen, the ships were little line drawings.
I first looked up from the display about six hours later as it started getting light outside.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@J R in WV: Pinball drives me Fucking crazy. I don’t think I’ve ever pulled back that damn lever without losing the ball in less than 3 seconds. Deaf, dumb, and blind I am not.
Redshift
I also had a great time in the golden age of arcade games. I only quit playing Asteroids when I started seeing them floating across my field of vision when I closed my eyes to go to sleep. ?
I played some PC games – Populous, SimCity. The last one I really got hooked on was Civilization II (“I’ll just play a few more turns… wait, is it getting light outside?”) I also enjoyed Angry Birds, but found it kept me awake at night.
If be interested in some suggestions for immersive non-shooty games. I think I would have enjoyed Myst from what I’ve heard, but I never tried it out.
J R in WV
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
By Trump, Co, right?
Way too much like the news feed today!!!
Sorry, can’t do this right now, with the president on the wrong side!!!
Emma
Nowadays, I play anything from XCOM 2 to Stardew Valley to Divinity Sin: OS2 to Banner Saga. I remember going into a mini-depression in 2013 when EA-Bioware first revealed their shit-tastic ending to the Mass Effect trilogy. I waited 7 years for this goddamn bullshit! I have hopes for Dragon Age 4 that will be horribly dashed, I’m sure, but the original Dragon Age remains my favorite game ever, I think.
*sotto voce* “Swooping is baaaad.”
eddie blake
@Emma:
my genesis is in a trunk in the closet.
discog
I’ve played a ton of games, mainly role-playing games of various natures. I am not that great at the shooters and the like, but there is something about developing a character through a story, seeing them get stronger and more competent, that appeals to me. It’s a good distraction when you deal with depression to feel like you are progressing in some context, although I am trying to turn that energy outward into the world more recently.
debbie
@geg6:
Yay, someone else loves pinball!
Other than Pong, I’ve played Death Pedestrian and some of the goofy games they make for little kids. They’re about my speed.
dmsilev
@Edmund Dantes: Introducing generations of fledgling programmers to integer wrap-around bugs…
eddie blake
@Redshift:
i just finished playing assassin’s creed: odyssey. it takes place in greece, during the peloponnesian war. RIDICULOUSLY immersive.
(and though you wouldn’t think it, neither assassins nor a creed are to be found throughout the game)
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: The only video games I play are the ones that come free with Windows. I am not much into comic books either.
BTW the point you made about white people being extra pessimistic was spot on. I sometimes feel that way about Modi and the BJP his base is upper caste people (family and many friends). I had to join Twitter to find people like me who are not Modi fans.
piratedan
@debbie: Pinball is totes awesome… cut my teeth on 8 Ball Deluxe and The Black Knight back in the day, but favorite game is Creature From The Black Lagoon… shoutout to the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas that keeps a wonderful selection of games viable from the 30’s thru the modern day.
eddie blake
@Emma:
OMG. yeah. mass effect 3.
that ending was….PAINFUL.
Emma
Also, the earlier Halo games were pretty much the only way my brother and I could bond in our childhood. Other than those times, we hated each other’s guts. So the current remastering (or whatever the term is these days) of the entire series for PC is honing our ability to cooperate and not stick each other with plasma grenades. Or kill each other with energy swords. Sometimes.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Emma:
Can’t say I ever played any Humongous Games myself, but I watched a play though of one by one of the TFS guys, Scott, here
Did you ever play any of the Sonic genesis games? I bought some through a Humble Bundle last year and have them on Steam
Emma
@Redshift: someone above mentioned Overcooked, definitely fun if you have someone (ideally multiple someones) to play with. Here are a few single-player non-shooty games that I enjoy:
Stardew Valley
Banished (lots of mods to customize your experience)
This War of Mine (not happy, it was conceived as a game to help people understand the refugee crisis. But definitely well-made and immersive.)
Two Point Hospital (spiritual successor to Theme Hospital, lots of funny jokes)
Planet Coaster (spiritual successor to the Roller Coaster Tycoon series. My gosh, RCT, that’s another game I loved and forgot about.)
khead
A little late, but I pretty much grew up with the video game industry. Someone mentioned pinball at the bowling alley… did a lot of that. But I got an Atari 2600 for Xmas in 1977 when I was 8 years old and I was off….
Pong, Atari 2600, Arcade games, Atari 400/800, IBM PS/2 (for college but it was used for games), Nintendo, Sega Genesis, PC gaming ……slight break….. more PC gaming, XBox360, Playstation 4…. now an iMac.
Never been a multiplayer guy so I never got full use out of the consoles. Love strategy games. Sid Meier almost caused me to fail a semester of college. Cole turned me on to a Civil War game called Ultimate General and I wasted WAY too many hours on that game a little while back.
Would love to have just some of the quarters back that I put into these two machines.
Darkrose
One of my favorite t-shirts. Also, one of our cats is named Alistair because he’s a ginger, very cute, and not very bright.
I still haven’t gotten around to playing Inquisition; while I loved my male mage Hawke, DA2 annoyed me so much that I was kind of done with the franchise after that.
joel hanes
I play on a PC. WASD keyboard/mouse sublime; I’ve never been able to play well with joysticks.
Played Fallout 4 until I knew every corner of the map by heart — IIRC, I got to about level 310 before I started over.
Then in late February, started playing Skyrim Special Edition. My god it’s huge and beautiful, and the music is perfect. Didn’t like anything about the included Dawnguard DLC, and hurried through that storyline as quickly as possible. It’ll take me until September to achieve satiety.
But I’m not really an RPG guy; came up through Unreal/Quake/Wolfensteine/Half-Life/Halo/Painkiller shooters. Microsoft has _finally_ released a PC version of Halo 2 — prior to this year, the only way to play Halo 2 was on the Xbox, so I did, but I’m no good with joysticks, so it wasn’t much fun. I’m looking forward to playing it again WASD.
Most fun I’ve every had gaming was a year of 2-person LAN parties with my friend, chasing each other through hundreds of downloaded levels of Unreal Tournament playing Capture The Flag. Hall Of Giants FTW. Other than that, I don’t do multiplayer at all, so the gaming world that accords with my preferences keeps shrinking.
Tried Destiny 2 — I’m old, not a good enough fast-twitch shooter to enjoy it.
Tried Metro Exodus — very dark, very bleak, very short on ammo.
Tried Far Cry 5 — too redneck.
cokane
A game that I think non gamers and even hardcore gamers would enjoy of the recent generation is Hollow Knight. Became kind of a big deal but folks might have missed it. It’s a pretty easy style to pick up, sidescrolling action game like the classic Mario, Zelda, but most especially like Metroid. Single player game.
Absolutely gorgeous and unique art style, gorgeous soundtrack, sound effects. Great characterization. Great exploration of some subtle themes in its somewhat absurd, nonsensical story. An enormous, diverse world to explore. And in a way it’s sort of greatest hits of many gameplay elements from its predecessors, a great fusion of game ideas.
Subsole
@Emma: Was it just me, or did it feel like they were sorta going off the rails in ME2 with the whole Collectors thing? Like, I LOOOOVED it when it came out, but in hindsight the loyalty mechanic/intercharacter relationships really saved that game’s ass. Would have rather seen them put the Batarians in place of the Collectors, put the Arrival DLC in the main game, and go from there.
And yeah, I still mad about 3. I turbo mad.
The Citadel DLC rocked balls, tho.
Emma
@Emma: More non-shooty single-player games:
Magical Diary series (visual novels)
The Confines of the Crown (another visual novel)
Choice of Magics (and other games from that developer, if you like long text adventures.)
Crusader Kings II (a million DLCs and slow performance because of that, but undeniably immersive. I have 784 hours on file in Steam)
Invisible, Inc. (espionage strategy game)
Long Live the Queen (famously, the Dark Souls of visual novels)
Papers, Please
Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale
SEGA Bass Fishing (one of my favorite arcade games that got onto Steam, hahah!)
Unholy Heights (bought this for the heck of it last summer, but god it’s cute)
The Wolf Among Us (for those who like the Fables comic series)
joel hanes
@Emma:
I loved playing the Humongous Entertainment games with the kids. I can still sing the theme for Putt-Putt Goes To The Moon. And although my son is now 30 years old, we still quote Pajama Sam in some circumstances.
dmsilev
Video games have matured and diversified a lot, especially in the last couple of decades as the minimum cost of entry for making and selling games has gone way down. In other words, if your tastes run to elaborate shooters or whatever, that’s fine, but if you want puzzles or extended philosophical maundering or an open sandbox or a guided tour through a made-up world, there’s something that will fit the bill.
A few suggestions
Villago Delenda Est
Most first person shooter types don’t excite me too much. The exception being the Jedi Knight games, which are about 10% first person shooter and 90% first person lightsaber. Which rocks.
I’m a huge Civ fan, and I’ve played them all. Along with some obvious Civ offshoots like Galactic Civilizations III, which are just set in space.
RPGs are lots of fun, too, if you find the right one, which is a combination of a first person shooter and a make your own movie game. I highly recommend the nearly 20 year old Knights of the Old Republic.
Subsole
@Redshift: Speaking of Civ II, did you ever try Civ: Alpha Centauri? It very much had that “one more turn” factor, wrapped up in one of the most fascinating Sci Fi universes I have ever played in.
joel hanes
@debbie:
I had a $10/week pinball habit through high school — there was a simple but truly difficult machine in the pizza parlor where we hung out.
Those in the SF Bay Area should know about this place:
https://www.pacificpinball.org/
khead
@dmsilev:
Terribly addictive. Bought it for $3 during a Steam sale.
discog
@Emma
Mass Effect is still one of my favorite game series, even given 3’s ending. I think the characters were really well developed for the time.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
I’ve been a gamer since the early 80’s (Apple ][), and have run the gamut from shooters to MMORPGS, and others, and still play a bunch of games.
One type that I’ve been playing for the past few years are survival/ building games I guess? But with a heavy slant to independent games. Things like Kerbal Space Program, Factorio, Space Engineers, Rimworld. My time at Portia and things like that.
PAM Dirac
From a pretty early age my son played all kinds of games and, in my wife and I’s opinion, played too much and too them too seriously. It led to much conflict in his teen years as he did not pay much attention to school work. We would constantly tell him that no one was going to pay him to play video games. The low point was when he flunked out of college. He did, however, go to one of those for-profit IT schools and did much better, including getting an internship at a major game developer. He did well enough to get a full time job with decent pay and benefits. Sometimes parents don’t know shit.
Darkrose
I love Skyrim. I haven’t played since I got my new gaming laptop, because I’m dreading having to reload all 300+ mods. It’s an amazing game, especially for the replay value.
Villago Delenda Est
@Subsole: Alpha Centauri is abbreviated as “SMAC”. You know, like heroin.
Subsole
@eddie blake: Ooooh. I never got into the AC games, but I looooves me some Thucydides.
Please tell me it doesn’t get all slobbery over Le Manly Alpha Super Badass Spartans like game devs always seem to.
Emma
@eddie blake: someone who feels my pain, thank you XD the expanded ending was only slightly better.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Dear lord, now I have to watch this guy’s Putt-Putt let’s play just to see what the hell a functioning adult gets out of it XD I remember being inordinately fascinated by the animation of Putt-Putt eating peanuts. Also, getting paint jobs. I did play some Sonic games, but I don’t have any real memories of them. Not my preferred game, for whatever reason.
@Darkrose: yaaayyyy! Although I argue that he’s not dumb, just naive. He’s what, like 22 years-old in DA:O? But yes, I LOVE Alistair too. I didn’t much like DA2, because I didn’t love any of the characters, but DA:I is worth it just for Iron Bull and Dorian. Also sets up DA4, which will take place in Tevinter. Although I really wish there was as much attention paid to the south as to the north. Korcari Wilds and Chasind barbarians, anyone???
LeftCoastYankee
My Time at Portia. It’s mostly a game about building stuff, and “building a life” in this pretty town. You can make friends, date and marry, improve your house, get pets (although I haven’t actually seen “the dog” yet). Lots of building projects, and exploring the amazing landscape.
It’s pretty mellow, and builds slowly, but stays interesting. It has that “wow, it’s gotten that late” kind of effect when you get into it. Good fun on a rainy day.
MomSense
@Baud:
I was never very interested which probably explains why I wasn’t good at them. When I was a kid my dentist had pong in the waiting room so I played twice a year!
I think my sister got an Atari console with the frogger and Pac-Man games. I played it occasionally when she insisted, but never got into it.
I love playing board games and strategy games with my kids. The times we have played Cards Against Humanity have been some of the funniest I’ve ever experienced. We still have some inside jokes from that game.
They all play D&D and I think they play it online now. They also play a bunch of games, but I confess to tuning out when they talk about them.
Frankensteinbeck
Armok help me, I’m a Dwarf Fortress player.
I will also note that it’s still in early beta and needs a lot more variety, but there’s a new game called Hardspace: Shipbreaker that’s about junking spaceships. You get in there with your cutting torch, take them apart, and send the bits off to be resold. It’s bizarrely satisfying.
Emma
@Subsole: you know, I never really thought about whether the Collectors were a good or bad idea. You’re definitely right about the characters being the best part of the game, although the gameplay was probably also the best out of the series.
@joel hanes: hehehe I didn’t have Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon, but that sounds like it would have been fun too!
@discog: I think the characters were really well-developed, period. The fandom and fan-fiction community is still very strong, despite the immense screw-ups (as we can see in this thread :D). Shepard and Garrus *chef’s kiss
Subsole
@Emma: Lord, my friends and I would spend HOURS on original Halo after our shift at the bar. Kind of lost track of the series after 3 tho. I have heard…exceedingly distressing things about 4 and 5.
NobodySpecial
I play a pretty good variety of games, none of them well, and I frequently rotate stuff in and out of my playlist depending on time. (Time is very hard to find for me, as an essential worker)
Most games anymore are only ‘shooters’ in the loosest possible sense. Yeah, the Call of Duty games are still big, but other than Overwatch, darn little has come out in the shooter category that rates. Every so often someone comes out with something guaranteed to be an “Overwatch killer”, and it just plugs on.
For those who want puzzle games and haven’t been around video games for a long while, try Portal and Portal 2. Incredibly simple mechanics, very engaging storyline. If you want newer puzzle games, try something like The Talos Principle or (in a funnier vein) Human: Fall Flat. Hidden Folks is also good for those who like the idea of a Where’s Waldo? game.
For myself, if I had time for it, my addiction is Paradox grand strategy games – Crusader Kings 2, Stellaris, and for the super detailed, Europa Universalis 4. Hideously detailed but rewarding.
Oh, and for platformers, I really enjoyed Guns, Guts, and Cannoli 2. Hilarious storyline and no brain required.
Darkrose
@Emma: I went into DA2 expecting to romance Anders. That lasted until I ran into a certain glowing elf voiced by Gideon Emery. *swoon*
If you like story-driven games, you might like Final Fantasy XIV. It’s an MMORPG, but it plays more like a single-player game for the most part, and the story is excellent, especially in the expansions.
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
I bet you find lots of folks here who aren’t Modi fans — even me!!
debbie
@joel hanes:
That’s a lot of quarters! Mine was here. I couldn’t find a photo of the pinball machine. Nothing describes this place better than the notation in the review: “Website: LOL”
Emma
@PAM Dirac: Glad he landed on his feet :) does he still work at a game developer/publisher? There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about getting better working conditions (e.g. getting rid of “crunch” periods, “stress casualties”), so if he’s a videogame developer, hope he’s taking care of his mental health.
Subsole
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
What do you think of them? I never got a genesis, it was pretty much NES/SNES among my friends.
How do they stack up against the older Mario games? Like MB3 or SMW?
BGinCHI
Glad to see all this enthusiasm for gaming!
And thanks to eddie blake for riding herd. Good stuff here.
Lee
@Redshift: Try Stardew Valley.
I’m 54 and I’ve played computer games since I was 16. Online I’ve played Evequest, World of Warcraft, every Battlefield (even the original), Elder Scrolls, Star Wars:Galaxies, War Birds, a tank one which name escapes me, many of the Modern Warfare releases. I can still place in the #1 spot in a round of first person shooters.
Single player, witcher 2 & 3,Skyrim, Civ 2,3 & 4. Age of Empires 2 & 3, Warcraft 2 & 3, Doom, Duke Nukeum.
The first game I remember being absolutely hooked on was Bard’s Tale 2. The next was Empire.
Those are the ones I can readily remember. If I were to commit to a genre as my favorite would be Real Time Strategy.
Both my daughters are gamers as is my wife. All 4 of us would play Toontown online together (which is still around).
So you could say I’ve got a long rich history of gaming. Is it part of who I am? Probably.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I don’t want to derail the thread, so can we have a thread in which we can say how much Judge Sullivan rocks?
VeniceRiley
My first console was a Fairchild. I could freeform color with it, or let the set color on its own. Nintendo came out shortly thereafter and killed it. I played pong and tank on it too. After that, it was to the arcade for Tempest and Ms. PacMan. Lost interest for a long time. Had a roomie with a playstation 2 and I only liked Hot Shots Golf, which I finished. Had to run cheats to get the clubs, but I did finish. Nothing else interested me because I hate the standard game controller with a passion of fire. Finally the Occulus headset with the Samsung phone setup I had nearly had me hooked. Very cool VR but it steamed inside and overheated the phone. If they come up with something that I can still have my eyeglasses on and wear comfortably without fog that doesn’t fry the phone, I’ll shoot spaceships for days on end.
Subsole
@joel hanes: I never played it, but I heard a lot of people say Far Cry 5 reeeeaallly pulled some of its punches on the Totes-Not-Koresh militia-cult.
Frankensteinbeck
City of Heroes, probably the best MMO ever and a major inspiration for me, has been brought back by fans in a project called ‘Homecoming’. I love it and just wish I could get my friends to play it more with me, because I don’t play MMOs alone. It understood what people want most of all playing superheroes and supervillains: Style, customizing a character to look and feel like the OC in their head.
Emma
@Subsole: yeeeees, I think my brother has heard those same things about 4 and 5….. I think 3 was where we stopped too, so whoop-de-doo, can’t wait to see the prettied-up version of 4 next year…
@Darkrose: Hahaha, Fenris was too angsty for me! Can’t remember who I romanced in my one play-through. Basically, I’m always Alistair or Zevran (so sad that Zevran is basically never returning to the series) in DA:O, unless I’m exploring other story-lines, like Morrigan’s. Then it’s gotta be Cullen for DA:I. The problem is that DA:I takes so damn long to play that I want to explore the other romances, but I already wasted one campaign with Blackwall and can’t be bothered yet to boot it up again.
eddie blake
@joel hanes:
“i was once an adventurer like you, then i took an arrow in the knee.”
skyrim was VERY impressive. i disappeared for a few weeks when i first got my hands on that game.
WaterGirl
@PAM Dirac: Predicting the future is hard!
Decades ago my partner and I got into a back-and-forth one night about the VW bug that was supposed to be for sale but still didn’t have a for sale sign on it after sitting idle outside the house for a couple of months.
I said what, do you think someone is just going to knock on the door and say “hey, I’d like to buy your VW bug”?
The VERY NEXT EVENING, someone knocked on our door and said they would like to buy our car, would we consider selling.
Sigh.
Emma
@NobodySpecial: I love CKII just for being able to cheat constantly. I’m basically the god of eugenics when I play strategy games. You’re having babies with this woman because she has the “genius” trait, even if I have to type in the console command, and that’s final!
eddie blake
@Villago Delenda Est:
KotOR’s TWIST!!
hot damn. yeah, THAT was a good game.
khead
So, yeah, this game along with Starflight had to be wiped from my hard drive at one point so I could get work done during a semester in college. We actually played Starflight as a team working in shifts. Then came Railroad Tycoon 2 and Civ…
Steep learning curves, but worth it.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I have been away from the news for the past few hours. I must have missed something.
I just put up your thread, though it could use a little more meat in it. :-)
Subsole
@discog: The characters were exceptional. Looking back, they pretty much carried 2 and 3.
Bioware always had killer writing though.
I still flat out chortle at some of the shit you can do in that game.
“I’m Commander Shepard, and THIS is my favorite shop on the Citadel.
Don’t go in the others. Seriously.”
cain
I started off with Pong -> Atari 2600 -> Nintendo and hten did PC gaming and I got a Wii after a long period of time again. I’m not into console games so much unless it is like the Wii Fit.
In PC gaming – I usually do strong story driven games – adventure games, although I don’t have the time to play them like I used to. Prefer reading! But here are some good ones:
There are some other games that have literally put people into tears because of the story:
There are some other really short 15 minutes one. You don’t have play games that have violence – deeply engaging stories that make you think.
ETA – The latest Star Wars: Dark Order is really good too.
Seanly
I’ve been playing Civ VI – a buddy who is even a bigger fan than me of the Civ franchise hated VI and went back to V. Mostly, he couldn’t stand the zones added to the cities.
On the console, I play mostly Destiny 2 with my little brother and Rainbow Six Siege with my brother & some Xbox Live friends. R6S drives us nuts as we’re older with slower reflexes. You often get killed by someone with an angle through a door or window that no one could make in real life.
Besides the games themselves, having XBL friends is a new cultural phenom. I play with a group when there is enough of us on. We chit chat like guys do (aka, don’t go too deep into feelings). I am even FB friends with a few of the folks, but have never met them in real life.
Lawrence
I have many, many hours on CIV 2-6. People say 5 is the best. Not sure myself. I really enjoyed Strike Commander back in the Win95 days. Wasn’t terribly good at it. Didn’t like LOMAC so much because the flight physics engine was more realistic and I didn’t have the patience for it. Loved the old Lucas Arts SW games. Played tons of XvT, solo and online. Really liked Dark Forces 2 and Jedi Academy. Can’t get past the first level in Outcast (yes I could find a walkthrough online). And liked KOTOR2. I’m Gen-X so I remember arcade games. I would still drop a quarter for Space War. And I was pretty good at Galaga (still got it, local Dave & Busters has one). But not much else. For consoles, I have many hours with old friends I never see anymore in PS2 Tekken 2-3.
Emma
@Villago Delenda Est: Yes, KOTOR is awesome! The sequel is supposed to be as good once you download the giant mod that fixes all the bugs.
eddie blake
@Subsole:
no, actually takes the piss out of both the spartans AND athens. there’s a BIT of history-bending to make the narrative work, and they gave sparta a giant fleet to match the athenian one, but iit REALLY lets you run amok across the length and breadth of classical greece.
Subsole
@Villago Delenda Est:
“Don’t go. The drones need you. They look up to you.”
LeftCoastYankee
Europa Universalis… I lived to play EU2 back in the day. I think I learned more about European history playing that game than in school.
I did a lot of “let’s pause this why I Google that person/event”. I found the later versions to be improved, but more than I wanted to commit to.
It seemed like the Europa Universalis games and Civilization games started at different ends of a spectrum and slowly “borrowed” concepts from each other. I think EU3 and Civ 4 made me switch teams.
Steam has an update version of EU2 called “For the Glory”. Still with all the improvements in graphics it’s hard to go back.
Logan Brown
@Edmund Dantes: One of our favorites in the family. A simply great game and a major time suck.
Subsole
@Emma: So many wonderful characters in Inquisition.
Also, the judgments were hi-larious.
“You shall be jester to the Inquisition. In flat shoes.”
dmsilev
@eddie blake:
I wouldn’t say it came completely out of the blue; they were foreshadowing it, but it was still quite the moment when it happened.
PAM Dirac
@Emma:
Yes, he is still there. He has had some mental health issues, but he has done a really wonderful job addressing those and his employer was very supportive. There are certainly high stress times when the publishing deadlines get closer, but they do seem to make sure there are down times as well.
Frankensteinbeck
@khead:
The procedural generated planets are still awe-inspiring. I loved the way they handled the communications system, as well. Eerily flexible for such a simple system.
Star Control 2 was the obvious successor to the Starflight games, and of course is a classic. Star Control Origins is actually a worthy successor to that. The Mowlings are so wonderful. How soon is too soon to tell your kids about Jeff?
Emma
@Subsole: I’m a creeper that hunts for all the fun side-conversations that NPCs have in ME. The elcor and asari conversation in one of the shops in ME2 is maybe my favorite.
“Politely: continuing to ask will not cause me to suddenly know.”
God, I love the elcor.
I have also spent valuable hours visiting all the locations in Dragon Age that start party banter. Such good writing. Sten is another character that I’m sad is basically gone.
Emma
@PAM Dirac: That’s good!
Edit: Ok, I have to go now, because I was about to go on a Costco run RIGHT before I saw this thread lol. Talk to you all later!
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
When I was four I asked my “imaginary friend” Mildred to bring me a cat. The next morning a stray orange tabby was on our porch meowing. CeeCee was my constant companion.
My parents insist Mildred was imaginary, but we lived in an old parsonage that definitely had some spirits hanging around. Fortunately my grandmother believed me.
Subsole
@Frankensteinbeck: I had some friends who loved that game. Glad to hear it’s coming back.
PAM Dirac
@WaterGirl:
Ha, Ha!
Your story reminds me of my mother’s cousin. My mother moved down to DC when she was young (on her own, no husband, the horror!) and she worked in the Pentagon. Her cousin’s husband had to go down to the Pentagon for a work meeting. Cousin tells her husband to say hi to J. if he sees her. Her husband tries to explain how absurd it was to just run into a particular person in a huge building with many thousands of people. Of course when he gets to the Pentagon within 2 minutes of entering the building he runs into my mother. That story was told for years.
eddie blake
@Emma:
it’s…it’s really not. it’s like they rushed it out the door to capitalize on the success of the first while forgetting what made the first one work.
Villago Delenda Est
@Dorothy A. Winsor: He does. Those two Federalist society goons can stuff it.
Subsole
@Emma: I was more of a Josephine fan. But Cullen was ADORABLE at the ball…
“Did…did you just grab my bottom?”
“I AM A WEAK MAN!”
Villago Delenda Est
@khead: Agreed on Paradox. The games are very complex, very detailed, and the learning curve is killer. But once you are past that, they’re just fantastic. I once built a British Empire that included much of Mexico and South America, along with the traditional places. Oh, and the breadth of the Sunda Islands. And Holland. And East Prussia.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: They say that kids with imaginary friends have superior intelligence! :-)
Villago Delenda Est
@eddie blake: It has its moments (the crafting mini-game is first rate) but so much of it was obviously rushed.
WaterGirl
@PAM Dirac: Fun story!
dmsilev
@eddie blake: KOTOR2 had a complicated development saga, but the short version is that yes, it was published before it was really finished. Most apparent in the final planet, which is a confused mess held together by the computational equivalent of duct tape and chewing gum. Dragon Age 2 had a similar issue, though not quite as bad (just how many reused dungeons were there in that game?).
Subsole
@eddie blake: Oh, thank Olympian Zeus. I may have to give it a look then.
Does Alcibiades make an appearance, perchance? Would love to see how they handle him and Socrates.
dmsilev
Some other strategy/building games: Railroad Tycoon (and descendants; I think Railway Empire is the most recent entry in that genre). SimCity and descendants; Cities: Skylines is the current favorite there.
The modern remake of XCOM is great fun. Combination of strategic game (building your resources and tech and personnel) and squad-based tactical, getting down and dirty with the evil aliens invading Earth.
eddie blake
@Subsole:
both certainly play large roles in the game.
schrodingers_cat
@J R in WV: Yes I do and I am glad for it. But on Twitter I have found Modi non-fans who I can speak to in Marathi!
Subsole
@Emma: God, Sten. The ONLY character to give Morrigan every bit as good as she gave.
Well, him and Zevran. But Zevran took the piss clean out of everyone.
BretH
@joel hanes: early 2000s, in a startup company that survived the crash we spent wonderful nights after work playing Unreal Tournament on the LAN. Heck, I even built a level that wasn’t horrible.
Being an oldster I dumped a ton of change into a Defender arcade at a local 7-11 and got pretty good at it.
Spent a fair amount of time in Planetside but nowadays I noodle at CSGo. My son tells me to try Civ and I just might.
Darkrose
@Frankensteinbeck: I’ve poked around at Homecoming, but I find that the CoX graphics didn’t age well, and it actually makes me a little dizzy trying to play now.
I will never forgive NCSoft for killing that game.
Darkrose
@dmsilev: I blame EA for many of the Dragon Age 2 problems: they insisted on rushing it out, and it showed.
NotMax
Was heavily into pinball and Skee-ball when a tyke. (also playing pool, but that’s another tale.)
When it comes to computer games, don’t have much of a taste for shooters. Although the story of Mass Effect 2 pulled me in and did enjoy that.
Found both Life Is Strange and Life Is Strange 2 engrossing. Also the quasi-prequel to LIS2 (free!) The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit.
A few other titles wasn’t disappointed to have discovered:
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (Redux version)
The Shapeshifting Detective
Late Shift
Murdered: Soul Suspect
Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth
and the classic King’s Quest holds up well.
khead
Bummed that Cities: Skylines no longer works on the Mac due to a graphics glitch of some kind and Railway Empire is not even offered.
Martin
So, wish I had known this was coming up. I’ve been gaming since the early 80 and still do today, so I’ve seen pretty much the full evolution of the field. Along the way I’ve held records and earned some noteriety, and I’ve done some game development myself. In fact, that might be part of my retirement plans.
I would note a few key inflection points in gaming.
So, some games I think that really deserve attention:
dmsilev
@khead: Cities seems to run ok on my machine (2016 MBP running Catalina). Of course, gaming on the Mac is going to be …interesting once Apple starts that transition to their own CPUs they announced on Monday.
NotMax
Oh, since we’re on about computer games, like the look of both Eastshade and Trüberbook. Anyone played either?
Westlake
In this pandemic moment, it is a pleasure to aimlessly roam the populated streets of Kamarucho and Sotenbori in Yakuza 0. The game is filled with delightful little details (the varieties of buns and rice balls you can buy at the convenience stores, for example) and the substories open up that world in funny and unexpected ways.
Just before Yakuza 0, I finished Horizon Zero Dawn, another expansive world rich in detail, but resonant to this moment in a different way: it’s set in the remains of a world after a civilization-ending apocalypse! There was more than a few moments in the middle of that game when I took a break to look out the window and wonder how things would go for us …
Most games won’t resonate this way for me, and they don’t have to! Observing and cracking patterns in gameplay and enjoying the style and story of a game are usually enough to feel like I’m not wasting my time (although wasting time on video games sometimes also feels good)
Martin
Another area that is worth exploring is games as frameworks for conventional media. For example, Half Life, a quite old game, had a youtube series some years ago called ‘Freemans Mind‘, where the author plays the game but narrates throughout what Freeman might be thinking. As you can imagine these tend to be humorous but really there’s quite a bit of potential in any direction. That was recently pushed a step further in the series ‘Half Life but the AI is Self Aware‘ which sort of plays the game, but here various real players act out the roles of the in-game characters using VR controls, so they can move the character however they want and say whatever they want. This allows them to completely re-act the game and re-imagine the story completely. It presents an interesting look in how cinema may go, using a game engine and environment but human actor analogues.
Related somewhat to this is the technology used to film the Mandalorian. Rather than conventional green-screen sets, they created one which was more like a holodeck from Star Trek, with video screens for walls. They drove the video screens from a video game engine, building the environment in the game engine. One thing this allowed was they could take feedback from the camera to drive the video game engine to re-render the background in real time to create accurate perspectives. There’s a rather good article showing it at work.
So, video game and traditional media are steadily getting closer together, and I expect we’ll more and more see games as a traditional artistic medium. They certainly have the budgets to do that – a top AA game will now have a development budget of $100M-$300M, exceeding that of many top movie releases.
Lee
@joel hanes: try FarCry 4. In just about every way a better game. Basically skyrim with guns.
Emma
I’m back, with hot dogs!
@eddie blake: Aw. Poop. Good thing I never actually bought it, then.
@Subsole: haha, yes!! (And to your Sten/Zevran comment too)
@Martin: Would love it if you spent your retirement coming up with interesting stories. I’m so over the types of developers saying things like how The Last of Us 2 is the gaming equivalent of Schindler’s List, or trying to convince people that Detroit: Become Human is super deep. (Even if it was, the racism against robots angle has been done to death.)
Martin
Stardew fans may like Graveyard Keeper.
Rise to Ruins is a wonderful game. Part city builder, part tower defense, part god game.
KSP, Factorio, Rimworld already mentioned – all great. KSP players, check out the Restock mod – my son is one of the leads on that project.
Oxygen Not Included is another wonderful game from the developer of Don’t Starve.
The Long Dark is a great indy survival game.
Emma
@Martin: Urgh, too slow typing with ketchup-y fingers. I was going to add that your bit about Freeman’s Mind reminded me of Red Vs. Blue. Not sure which came first, or if one influenced the other, but I remember Rooster Teeth being the only ones I knew back in the day that were creating whole seasons out of multiplayer maps.
Martin
@joel hanes: I did a ‘Don’t leave Sanctuary Hills until level 100’ challenge. That was kind of fun. It’s also my permadeath game as a result. With no legendary drops farming in that way, no explosive combat shotgun to constantly kill myself with.
You might like Witcher 3. Great world and story. Basically all sword fighting so reaction times good for those of us that are slowing down.
Martin
@Emma: Red vs Blue came first, but check out those two series. They’re very funny.
Martin
Two of our favorite Youtube series
Monster Factory: abusing RPG character creators.
Unravelled: unravelling video game lore. Ever wonder which of the 337 books in Skyrim are worth reading, he’ll tell you. Every wonder which levels in Super Smash Brothers have the most OSHA violations?
joel hanes
@Martin:
explosive combat shotgun
It took me a long time to learn how to use the explosive guns judiciously enough. I didn’t so much mind killing myself, but I hated accidentally taking out my settlers when a settlement was under attack. Kinda the same problem with long edged weapons.
Always a rifle guy anyway, even in close quarters; never much used the shotguns in FO4
Emma
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): wow, KaiserNeko’s let’s play is indeed bringing back all the memories. The food cart was definitely another part of the game that I was obsessed with. Like, the whole idea that I can get as much junk food and hot chocolate that I want for free??? I really liked watching the animations of Putt-Putt bingeing on hot chocolate in particular. I was a strange child.
Brachiator
Sorry I missed this earlier. I will read through it later because I enjoy reading about what things other folks enjoy.
I am ancient, and used to play pinball machines in the college dorms for relaxation. Later on, some friends and I would occasionally play arcade games at lunch.
But I have never been much interested in video games, but I certainly cannot dump on people who enjoy them. Some of my co-workers at my last job were huge gamers, and would invest a good chunk of change in dedicated machines. A couple of them similarly invested bucks in customizing cars. Getting the rig right was just as important as getting the best games.
And it’s been interesting watching dedicated video streaming channels devoted to certain types of gaming.
I note that in the past, porn helped drive innovation in computing. Games originally primitive. In college, people would go down to the computer lab to play various games. And today, innovations in faster processors, better detailed screens, etc., seems to help drive general innovations in computer technology. So I guess these tangential issues are more interesting to me than anything directly related to gaming.
BTW: For the most part I think attempts to turn computer games into movies is one of the biggest creative dead-ends in the history of cinema.
Also, I watched video stories about some new super detailed technique for rendering(?) the background and worlds for video games. It was impressive, but I hope/presume that creative types will get into this stuff and customize it for specific games. Because to me even though what I saw was very detailed, it was visually boring, especially the monotonous POV of a character moving forward through the video game landscape.
BretH
@Martin
WesterosCraft is insane
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
So, with so many gamer people here, do we have a discord server? Might need to be invite only though….
Emma
@Martin: watching Freeman’s Mind now, you’re right, it’s funny! I’ve never played Half-Life and don’t know any of the story, so this is also acting as a delightful substitute to actually playing the game. Will get to the other series sooner or later…
eddie blake
@Emma:
half life is good. half life 2 is GREAT.
E
Had virtually every video game system from the 70s up until the early 90s. Pong, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, ColecoVision, Bally, Vectrex, Intellivision, Intellivision 2, Nintendo, Sega Master System. Then at some point in my early twenties just simply stopped playing. Don’t really know why but just totally lost interest in video games and haven’t played since.
joel hanes
@eddie blake:
half life 2 is GREAT
It is known.
Ivan X
The timing of this thread is apropos. After 38 years of on and off playing since the age of 12, this pandemic has finally given me the opportunity to solve the infamous Apple II adventure game Time Zone, notorious in its size (12 disk sides, and close to 1200 locations), and expense ($99.95 in 1982). I finished last week. I now need a new life purpose.
jame
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is beautiful and engrossing, and a complete escape from reality for me.
Martin
@joel hanes: Explosive combat shotgun is basically god gun once you upgrade all of the associated perks. You’ll 2-shot anything in the game, and 1-shot yourself. And it doesn’t even matter if it’s in range, the explosive is 100% effective at any range. You can clear out the Prydwen quite efficiently using it.
My preferred guns are Overseers Guardian, which I normally rush at start. I can get it at level 3 or so, and then steadily modify it into a sniper. Deliverer simply for dealing with ghouls (leg disable). Old Reliable lever action from Far Harbor. Throatslicer from Nuka World for a melee.
Miserybob
@Westlake: Horizon Zero Dawn is so good. That’s really the game that got me back into gaming. So big and gorgeous and fun! (And the Frozen Wild DLC is awesome) I’m thrilled that part 2 is coming next year for PS5.
I’m currently playing Last of Us 2, which seems to have been specifically written to piss off the gamer bros. It’s pretty great!
Other faves have been Days Gone – an open world Zombie shoot out and Generation Zero – a mostly plotless and NPC-free open-world sandbox (set in Sweden) where you run around and blow up killer robots.
Darkrose
I started gaming in the late ’80’s/early ’90’s with NetHack. I mostly played simulation and strategy games like Sim City 2k, Civ II and Alpha Centauri, and The Sims, because they ran on my various Macs. After I finally broke down and bought a Windows machine in 2001, I mostly focused on various RPGs including Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age, and Skyrim, as well as MMOs like City of Heroes, Aion, RIFT, and Final Fantasy XIV.
There are three games that genuinely changed my life:
Final Fantasy VII and VIII: These were the first games that became an obsession, to the point where I’d get so involved that I’d forget to eat. FFVII was the first time I got a dedicated gaming system; I got a Playstation to finish it after starting on the Mac emulator.
Baldur’s Gate 2: I played the first one, but never finished it. The second seemed more interesting, so I picked it up and soon became deeply interested in the world and the characters. I got so into it that I started writing fanfiction about my character and posting it on Usenet, which is where I met the lovely and talented Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism, almost twenty years ago now.
Final Fantasy XIV: I started six years ago because several of my co-workers played; As of right now I’ve played just over 6,320 hours. The writing is one of the best I’ve seen in an MMORPG, on par with some of the best single-player games, with a story that’s gradually unfolded over seven years, detailed worldbuilding, and characters who grow and change–including the player character, for all that you’re a silent protagonist. There are 17 combat classes and 11 non-combat professions that can all be played on a single character, each with their own storylines. In addition to dungeons, raiding, crafting, and gathering, collecting cool outfits, and decorating your house (if you’re lucky enough to get one), there’s an in-game casino where you can play a trading card game, mahjong, arcade games, scratch tickets, and even race the giant chicken-like birds that are a Final Fantasy staple.
The community is pretty good, and by gamer standards, relatively progressive. I’ve only had to report someone for saying something homophobic once, and the in-game GM’s were very responsive. I’m a member of one of the largest and most active guilds in the game. A couple weeks ago we had our annual Pride event; this year we dyed our gear and had a march through one of the starting cities. At the end point, we paused for 8 minutes and 42 seconds to remember George Floyd and the other victims of police violence.
Even the meta story is kind of amazing: the first version was a disaster that nearly destroyed the franchise; it was so bad that the company president had to publicly apologize to the shareholders. They fired the director and replaced him with Naoki Yoshida (“Yoshi-P”), who convinced them to let him shut down the game and completely rebuild it…and it worked.
TL; DR: Final Fantasy XIV is a great game and you should totally try it. You can trust me.
lol chikinburd
Disadvantage of working the schedule I now do is showing up so many hours late for threads like these. Just putting in a good word for indie and mid-sized publishers, and particularly for titles that run for much less than the sixty dollars most AAA ones do. Terraria and Stardew Valley are both pushing triple digits in total hours per dollar for me, and I’m heartened to see so much mention of the latter here.
I can second Oxygen Not Included and My Time At Portia, though I haven’t played either in a dog’s age. MTAP is just heartwarming; any design flaws or annoyances it has just get drowned out by the good will. Builders generally have been displacing grand strategy for me. I was a bigger Paradox fan before Imperator: Rome, but still play Stellaris from time to time. Some of Civ 6’s mechanics were just nonsensical and immersion-breaking, like agendas; I’ve yet seen nothing about a 7.
A game I can recommend that I haven’t seen here is GRIS. It’s a platformer, and short, but so worth it for the visual, dialogue-free emotional storytelling. I got Journey for free on the Epic store but haven’t played it yet; GRIS draws comparisons to it.
I think I’m done with MMOs, now that I’m done with that one company.
joel hanes
@Martin:
Overseers Guardian
First really good gun available. Splattercannon from Nukaworld is my favorite.
Agree about Throatslicer, but somehow I’ve ended up using the Lucky Disciples Cutlass.
I put Nukaworld hand-built sniper rifles and Disciple blades on all my two-dozen-plus provisioners. Pleasingly effective.
Clear the Prydwen
Never tried that. Reluctant to kill Scribe Neriah, and the young boys in the crew. I did once gear up, assassinate Elder Maxson on the bridge, run for the flight deck and jump off, and use the choke point where the buses obstruct the airport road to mow down every BOS who came after me, just to see if I could do it. Continued the game from an older save. Would also have derived considerable pleasure from taking out Proctor Teagen, but haven’t done that.
Reluctance to cause Scribe Halen’s death was instrumental in my decision to pursue a Minuteman ending with the Institute destroyed but the BOS/Prydwen and the Railroad still operational. Have never allowed construction of Liberty Prime.
I suspect, but have not verified, that there are at least two ways to destroy the Prydwen — field artillery, or the nuclear-armed missiles from the Chinese sub.
I did clear the raiders of of Nukaworld in about five very intense minutes. Gratifying to get the slave collars off the traders.
I live at Red Rocket because Jun and Marcy Long are too depressing to be around on a regular basis.
joel hanes
@Martin:
Witcher 3
I’ve looked at it a couple times, but haven’t bought it yet. Visually superb and detailed. Before FO4 and Skyrim, I pretty much ignored melee, but maybe I’m ready to try it.
Lee
@joel hanes: you won’t be disappointed with Witcher 3. If the combat holds you back just drop it down to the easiest level and enjoy the story.
Westlake
@Miserybob: High 5!
The Last of Us is one of the few games I have played a second time, so I’m looking forward to playing the sequel once its price drops into my cheapskate comfort zone or I just cave in to my curiosity. I will keep an eye out for Days Gone! Thanks for that recommendation
Buzz N. Skeeter
No love for Commodore computers?
Once I took an extracurricular class in computers during elementary school, my parents could justify getting me one of those versus a console. So I got a C64 and later an Amiga. Both were very popular in the U.K., and the Amiga in particular had games that showed the different sensibilities of the designers compared to their U.S. counterparts.
For those of you interested in playing on those platforms via emulation, I direct you to the Lemon64 and LemonAmiga websites to help you track down the most beloved games for each system.
As far as life-changing? I guess in 1982 I achieved complete nerd synergy with TRON the movie and the arcade game, even wrapping up quarters in those bank-issued paper tubes and labeling the outside accordingly. Even though from that point on I spent the rest of my life around computers, I never immersed myself in the more demanding IT careers