Aby game that you heard about and thought “meh it’s just another xyz style game. How good can it be?” But you gave it a go anyway and it turned out the game was really good.
Hellsinker.
I kept hearing it’s a “one-of-a-kind shmup” and it’s a “shmup that somehow plays like an action game”, so I tried it twice and couldn’t see why it’s praised.
Third time I was like “OK, ima read the manual, read guides, and give it one final shot.” and holy shit, what a game. I’ll probably be playing it forever, TBH.
Up there with Crimzon Clover World EXplosion for me now.
Minecraft.
I usually hate creative builder games with a passion, I joined fairly early in the alpha process and fell in love with the blocky design.
Then when i thought the game couldn’t get more engaging, forge was released for it and mods started being made and it opened a whole new universe that I’m /still/ playing today.
Also was Minecraft for me, but different story.
Back in 2011 or so someone told me it was a game where you could do anything: build anything anywhere, craft, fight, explore an unlimited world… But without mentioning the graphics and that it was made with cubes. I was a kid back then, so I believed it would be realistic graphics. Imagine my disappointment when they showed it to me.
But I actually watched some videos after and tried it myself and absolutely loved it.
Space Engineers. Little space ship building game, why not.
1500 hours later…
I’ve just been reading the bobiverse books and wondered about it as a game and this looks perfect. Thanks
Yeah, btw what really got me into it was the Scrapyard mod set. Splitsie has a series on YouTube about it, and also some very good tutorials.
Mad Max
Could have been just movie tie-in garbage but is a solid top 20 game from last gen.
That game was so much more fun than reviewers made it out to be.
Die Hard (for the NES)
Warning: You MUST read the manual!
At first glance it might look like a simple top-down scrolling shooter like Commando or The Chaos Engine, but it’s so much more. It’s very free and open, with seven floors to explore, and once the in-game timer ends you must go to the 30th floor for the final showdown. The thing is that there are a few ways both to pick off the terrorists singly or in pairs, and to extend the time limit. If you just hide in some corner of the building and wait for the timer to run out, you’re going to get mown down by 30 armed terrorists in a fairly small space. But if you’re good you can use that time to wipe out almost all of the terrorists, leaving only the leader Hans himself to face you, which is much more manageable.
Die Hard wasn’t high on my list at all when I first played it in the 1990s, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s still one of my all-time favourites. But ever since AVGN did a video on it, it’s become popular to dump on it.
Most “complaints” that I see about this game either show that the person hasn’t actually played it for themselves at all, or are solved by reading the manual. Funnily enough, in that AVGN video he even says something like “Maybe this would make sense if I read the manual, but f*** that, who reads manuals?”
The only negative thing I have to say is that IMO the “foot power” meter, which affects movement speed, runs out a bit too quickly even when you walk everywhere instead of running. That being said, I’ve only noticed it on later replays, and I don’t recall it being a problem the first time I played it all those years ago.
Thank you for posting this. I’ll have to check this out - I slept on this for all this time. You don’t see many scenario-style games… ever? The fixed timer and resources sound like quite the challenge.
who reads manuals?
In the 90s, everyone who wanted a shot at understanding what was going on. Games didn’t have a ton of text, so the manual was the way to learn the controls, get backstory, and even some hints for obtuse puzzles.
If you’re going to play an old game, you need to embrace the way people played back then, which was the manual and sometimes a paid guide book.
And social media wasn’t a thing, nor YouTube, nor forms for sharing it really known. Reading the manual on the way home, getting excited to play it was part of the experience.
Super Mario 64 was, by memory, one of the first to have tutorial-like directions and informational instructions in game with more in the first few levels. Even then reading the manual still helped. I was genuinely shocked when Skyrim just omitted a manual entirely compared to the thick booklet Oblivion came with.
Yup, I remember reading the manual on the toilet while my sibling was playing so when it was my turn, I’d have a leg up. We would take turns, cheering each other on as we got past a difficult part, and sharing secrets that we found.
With the internet, I can just look up a walkthrough pretty soon after the game launches, so I have no reason to look at the manual (if there is one) or talk to anyone else.
I think that’s why competitive MP has taken off. People want that social experience, and that’s filling in for what used to exist. I remember PvP being a thing, but I also remember helping each other out on a SP game being a thing, so both were social activities (if it wasn’t a sibling, it was a friend or coworker).
Bounced off voices of the void the first time, couldn’t get through the tutorial. Had a friend recommend it again, have done multiple play thoughs and is now any favourite vibes game.
I regret this post now. So many games I want to try now. Folks, there’s only so many hours in a day spare for gaming!
The whole “don’t look anything up before playing it” genre of cryptic puzzle-ish games where saying nearly anything about it is a spoiler. There’s not all that many of them, but somehow they’re all games where people go in with no expectations and either love it or bounce off of it really fast. The entire internet can scream at you to play Outer Wilds, but nobody wants to tell you why.
Out of the ones I played, I had the lowest expectations/highest payoff for Void Stranger; on the surface it looks just like a pretty average sokoban with gameboy-styled graphics and a surprisingly good soundtrack. And that’s pretty much what it is, except the sokoban isn’t really why you play it, even though you’re gonna be playing a lot of it.
Peak
I played half of shore solo. Gave up. “This is too easy/simple”
Tried again with friends. Took us 3-4 attempts to final get to the top. A lot more fun that my first impressions.
No Rest for the Wicked
Reviews were pretty harsh and videos did not make it look that great. It’s been my main squeeze for about 100 hours now, having me put other games on hold only to return to it every evening after work.
Not even done yet, but currently, it’s a very solid EA game.
Absolutely amazingly beautiful game. The cutscenes…
makes me think of Arcane every time I load it up.And then, it turns out it’s got solid gameplay, if you like Dark Souls type of games. It’s got that oomph to the fighting. That visceral feel that really makes the fighting enjoyable, although brutal. It’s got room for improvement for sure, but they keep polishing it and every time I come back it’s better. It’s hard to believe it’s only a fraction of the full game, too!
Headlander
I don’t usually like Metroidvanias, having played a bunch of mediocre ones, but Headlander really sucked me in for some reason. Basically, you’re a head without a body and steal other bodies to use their abilities. In a sense it took everything I knew DMT about the genre and flipped it on its head (pun begrudgingly intended).
Probably Slipstream. I just bought it cause cheap and it turned out to be an absolute vibe.
Also, Far Cry 3. Turns out I don‘t mind putting checkmarks on collectibles and just find it oddly relaxing.
Just finished Far Cry 3 (and 4) in the last year. Excellent game(s). Taking a little pause b4 the last two
Funny enough, 5 hasn‘t really clicked for me yet cause there‘s no icon spam on the map I can checkmark LOL. Hope you‘ll have a good time with em!
Haha I hear that! Well, I suppose there must be some good elsewhere in the chaos of 5??Thanks, I’m excited for when I get there haha
Bioshock. It was expected to be just another FPS but with an interesting “magic” system. What it turned out to be was a narrative played from the first person. My room mate played it as a standard run and gun, and was rightfully unimpressed. Taking it slow, exploring, and passing attention to all the little bits of story made it amazing.
Yes, same exact experience here with that game.
Epistory
I found it on Steam and thought it looked interesting. It’s a typing game and I’m pretty good with typing, so I picked it up. I played games, but not much and usually it’s just World of Warcraft.
Once I started, I played that game for 12 hours straight. It had me hooked immediately. The visuals are absolutely beautiful, the story is intriguing, and the gameplay is so much fun. I do not finish games very often, but I finished that game in a single weekend.
I picked it up on sale cause it looked like something I would like. It sat in my steam library for years before I played it on a whim.
What I didn’t expect was an incredible story that would have me gripped till the end. Absolutely an awesome game.
