By John Walker on July 19th, 2012 at 7:00 pm.
Sometimes RPS gets accused of being too grumpy. We like to think of it as standing up for gamers’ rights, and campaigning against what we see as wrong or unfair in our fair industry. Potatoes, portaloos. But the reality is we’re actually very cheerful and enthusiastic. It’s why it matters to us so much when that happiness gets pooped on by evil corporations like Big Poop. But right now, right this moment, it’s time for unbridled positivity. We want to know: what about gaming have you thought is just great recently?
For me, most recently, it’s been the simple pleasure of becoming completely involved in a text adventure, and all the accompanying reminders about just how potent and powerful gaming can be with the simplest interface, and that magical ingredient of interaction. I’ve also been playing Scrabble on my phone, and Avadon on my Android tablet, and just revelling in the way gaming can follow me around, and so engrossingly absorb spare moments.
Also today, I got an email from someone who’d just played To The Moon for the first time, after I linked my review from the post about Richard & Alice. I’ve never received so many emails about a game, and certainly not so many from people writing just to thank me for having brought it to their attention – that’s not normal in this job. So as I did with all the previous emails, I replied asking if it mad him cry. He replied saying it had, five times – more even than me! – explaining just how amazed he was that he could care so much about a fictional character. What a fantastic thing to hear, and what a fantastic game to hear it about. And talking of Richard & Alice, I’m telling you now to start getting enthused for that one.
But what about you? Did a game recently surprise you in a superb way? Have you been taken aback by a moment you weren’t expecting, that raised your expectations? Did you go back to a game you’d almost forgotten, and discover it’s still just as great?
Your uninhibited positivity below please. (Anyone who comes in being a grumps will get appropriately edited!)
19/07/2012 at 19:02 OJSlaughter says:
Grumble Gr- I love flowers and rainbows and flowers under rainbows! – Ed
19/07/2012 at 20:05 Henson says:
I guess someone fed you some Bait.
19/07/2012 at 20:26 Fumarole says:
It’s a secret to everybody.
19/07/2012 at 19:04 bglamb says:
I’m excited by the emerging possibilities of the cloud.
Like arcades in the old days when they would build specialised and dedicated hardware that could do things far in advance of home computers, soon games will be running on super-machines in company headquarters and we’ll just dial in.
It makes computational advances possible that reach far further than we could otherwise expect from our computers.
19/07/2012 at 19:42 LionsPhil says:
Between this and Diablo 3, you’re on fire with the deadpan humour today.
19/07/2012 at 19:46 bglamb says:
Haha. Well I’m gonna take that as a compliment anyway, but I don’t get what’s funny about this post! It wasn’t meant as a wry take on the state of DRM.
Soon you’ll just have a kick-ass monitor and a 10Gig pipe (or whatever) and all the graphics and AI will be taken care of server side! I’ve not really heard anyone else espouse this theory yet, but I don’t see why that’s not where we’re headed. The cloud is the future!
Listen again to that talk Gabe gave about Valve making hardware and consider that if they build specalised PC hardware to run awesome next-next-gen games (because consoles won’t and PC development is sabotaged by piracy), why on earth would they put them in individual boxes and into people’s homes at massive expense and risk to everyone involved? Valve would just build a load of supercomputers back at HQ and stream games to you real-time! The tech’s already half-way there, and I expect Valve to be the first to take the next step (though give them another 5+ years maybe).
I can understand why people wouldn’t want to take me seriously about D3, but what’s not to love about this one?
19/07/2012 at 20:01 Stiletto says:
If it were only that simple… but ’tis not.
Sorry to say, but you’re being a little bit too optimistic about that sort of gaming service.
Afterall, who doesn’t like have their own gaming(not only) rig at home to do just more than running games? If I only needed a darned monitor and a hyperspeed internet connection, I’d be a very limited person in terms of possibilities.
Edit: Missed something there.
19/07/2012 at 20:05 bglamb says:
Well……you wouldn’t chuck your PC out obviously. This would be an extra tier of gaming that PC and console owners alike could access.
Like how maybe if your PC isn’t up to scratch today you can just OnLive a game, well it’ll be like that. Some new ‘must have’ game will be dropped by Valve and it’ll play on their hardware via the cloud. Maybe being Valve they won’t charge a subscription, but I can’t see any reason why this wouldn’t happen, and more will follow.
19/07/2012 at 21:05 HothMonster says:
Yeah, when the pipes get big enough we are going to be doing everything but the most basic tasks on VMs. Why buy a 1000$ gaming pc and pump a couple hundred a year into keeping it top notch if you can get better performance buying a 100$ one of these ? Obviously you’ll want a local machine for some stuff but I think virtual machines are going to become a lot more prevalent in the next 20 years.
20/07/2012 at 00:43 tnankie says:
what is not to love? Living in Australia and hence a ping of 200ms to the best American servers and 300+ to anything European. No matter how big the pipe is the ping time is unlikely to massively improve and thus anyone who happens to live somewhere a bit remote will suffer regardless of their bandwidth.
Playing DayZ locally (Sydney) gets me a 15-30ms ping, WoT the best I have ever had is 220ms; it isn’t unplayable, but I wouldn’t try DayZ at 230ms And I certainly wouldn’t want to play a single player game with a 230ms ping.
20/07/2012 at 02:53 Jason Moyer says:
Why would you be using servers in the US and Europe? Valve serves Steam content from servers in Australia, why wouldn’t they do they same with cloud gaming?
20/07/2012 at 14:37 Tams80 says:
Only when broadband services get better. I don’t see where I live getting anything above 5mbps for a reasonable price anytime in the next decade. Maybe I should just move…
Anyway, there’s more to streaming than just bandwidth (which is not up to scratch in most places). Latency is a serious issue, as is availability (access to the service). Cloud gaming has a long way to go. At the moment it is laggy and the resolution rather ‘muddy’ (though it works on the whole). The major problem at the moment though is that it is overpriced (especially when you consider the need for a fairly decent broadband connection).
20/07/2012 at 16:03 wodin says:
Srever side AI and running the game..have your played RO2??? You have to compensate for latency when you fire for god sake. I want my rig at home with all the hardware I bought for it.
Also do you really think there are going to be the same type of graphic advancement…when no one needs to buy a new graphics card???? People not buying new cards will mean less money going into research for the cloud based graphic cards..which will mean stagnation. Oh no cloud based gaming will totally finish of the PC is a viable gaming platform. It will be cloud based TV boxes..you think things are bad now…wait till everyone is having to play games with ancient graphics tech for 5 or 6 years because a ATI and NVIDEA most likely one wont be in business anymore and two they’d be selling so few cards it’s doubtful they will have resources to put into new tech. Cloud based gaming is going to be a restrictive nightmare for gamers.
How about this aswell. Once it all hits the cloud what do Indy developers do??? They can’t make great looking games because no one has the hardware in their rigs to play them, if they can’t get on a “cloud” they’ve had it.
Cloud based will mean only the huge corps will make games and run their clouds..Choice will go out the window. Also no you won’t be able to not go the cloud way because as I said it’s very unlikely new cards will be coming out and I doubt the Indie game business will be so big it could fund the hardware business enough to keep the graphic cards being made.
Oh dear a positive article has now lived up to RPS standards and has dropped into depressing negativity ;)
19/07/2012 at 19:04 Brun says:
Emergent Gameplay (in a variety of games, such as Skyrim, Stalker, etc.). Bought the Stalker pack for $10 yesterday on Steam and I’m loving the emergent gameplay elements there. That’s what should be the future of gaming.
19/07/2012 at 19:19 HicRic says:
What are some of your favourite examples of emergent gameplay in Skyrim and Stalker?
19/07/2012 at 19:27 Shazbut says:
For me, in STALKER, it was when I had to do a fetch mission for some guy, but halfway through the mission I failed for seemingly no reason. I later found out it’s because he just so happened to have died in an ambush. When I reloaded an earlier save, he managed to survive.
That is the real fucking deal, right there.
19/07/2012 at 20:23 noom says:
I have, for some reason, one very small and largely insignificant event in STALKER CoP that really stuck with me. Not long after arriving in Pripyat itself, I set out into the middle of a thunderstorm, and found myself walking past a children’s play park. Swings/slides/etc. as well as a little statue, like a little cheerful bear or something. Can’t remember exactly what animal it was. Just so happened that as I took a moment to glance at said statue, a flash of lightning hit, and for just a split second its smiling face transformed into, to my perceptions at least, some kind of grinning skull mask.
Not precisely an example of emergent gameplay as such, and had it been scripted or happened in a film or some such I would probably have dismissed it as rather trite imagery, but the fact that it was pure chance, and happened in such a way that really resonated with my feelings playing the game at that precise moment, did lend it a peculiar salience.
19/07/2012 at 20:38 Sarganym says:
Nice, thanks for sharing Noom.
19/07/2012 at 21:28 LennyLeonardo says:
Ooh! Yeah, great story.
I love it when stuff like that happens in games. Something not necessarily programmed into the game itself, but arising from the state of mind the game puts you in – especially games with complex systems with good scope for emergence.
It’s like when I briefly thought that friendly count in Mount and Blade was trying to shove me towards the enemy on purpose for political reasons.
20/07/2012 at 03:40 mnx61545 says:
Yes, John certainly has the biggest grump in the business.
http://www.bungie.net/News/Blog.aspx?mode=news#cid32146
20/07/2012 at 13:46 VelvetFistIronGlove says:
I’ve had the exact same experience! Though I’m sure it’s not intentional, as the bear statue is based on a real one.
20/07/2012 at 08:14 Inglourious Badger says:
I’ve had a bit of a second wind with Skyrim this last week and been picking up all my unfinished quest lines my lvl37 stealth elf reached. The thing that strikes me with Skyrim is not so much how emergent the gameplay can be, Besthesda keep quite a tight leash on everything despite the free roaming dragons, but how they occasionally nail that feeling of emergence in a story based quest. Primary example being that Markarth quest that starts with you witnessing a murder. It seems such a passing random act that when a bystander draws you in to the quest to investigate it I didn’t expect it to go anywhere. So when, (SPOILERS) a good hour or so later, I’m busting out of prison and leading a riot against the corrupt authorities, it felt like I’d done it. It FELT emergent even though it’s clearly just a well written, setpiece-laden story. To my mind nailing that feeling in a story is a more impressive feat than a sandbox world that once every few hours throws up something neat.
19/07/2012 at 19:04 Beelzebud says:
I’ve recently been playing through Deus Ex Human Revolution, and holy living shit did they nail that game! That team really knew what made Deus Ex so damn fun, and they actually delivered. I’d put it right up there with Deus Ex, and I never thought I’d be saying that after the lame 2nd game. Here’s hoping they keep that team together, and let them make more Deus Ex games.
19/07/2012 at 19:14 Shazbut says:
I’m playing the DLC right now for the first time and it’s reminding me how brilliant it was. A really incredible acheivement by them considering the pressure they were under.
19/07/2012 at 19:23 BenLeng says:
Me Too! I spend all my free week being a cybernetic Ninja and can’t stop obsessing about it. Great design, really smart about basically everything.
19/07/2012 at 19:26 AJ_Wings says:
I absolutely loved the Missing Link DLC. Not from a story perspective because I think if I was more into the Deus Ex lore I would’ve aprreciated more, but dear me did they nail level design and atmoshpere in that DLC. Seriously it’s 9-10 dollars on steam now, go grab it people! (Unless it gets discounted further more).
19/07/2012 at 19:33 TheApologist says:
Hear hear! Loved this game. I got this over my Christmas break and spent two or three very happy days working through it. It was engrossing, well written, brilliantly designed, and the first time I glided down from a great height with electricity coming out of my hands felt frickin’ brilliant.
19/07/2012 at 20:21 dogsolitude_uk says:
Oh yeah, Deus Ex:Human Revolution. It’s Deus Ex designed by Habitat (RIP).
I’m replaying it now, and by God it was just so much fun. Even the little meta-touches, like the email on one of the terminals telling users that their email accounts were now universally limited to three emails per person per inbox, and the SWAT guy at the end of the first level doggedly kicking the unopenable door.
Edit: forgot to mention: it also features one of my favourite paintings: ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicholas Tulp’ by Rembrandt, and the music is just brilliant too.
Definitely my game of 2011, I’m going to be coming back to that time and time again.
Really hoping for more of this.
20/07/2012 at 01:02 Urthman says:
I’ve just been playing DX:HR myself. Last night I arrived in China for the first time and was knocking around. I was amazed at how much everything feels exactly like Deus Ex. It’s almost like a re-make of the original game, with all new locations and lots of details that are different but still in the same spirit. And it looks and runs great on my 5-year-old computer.
I think it’s the best next-gen sequel since Tomb Raider Anniversary.
Also, I know the party line is that the bosses suck, and the first boss fight and related cutscenes were pretty stupid, but I found a way to easily beat him using some of the particular skills I’d been focusing on (arm strength and tasers), and that felt pretty good.
20/07/2012 at 16:04 wodin says:
I tried to get back into it. However I fail to see what people love about it. I found it rather dull and boring. Not sure why, I can’t put my finger on it.
19/07/2012 at 19:05 Clavus says:
Technically not PC titles but a few months back I picked up and played the ICO and Shadow of Colossus bundle on my PS3. I heard they were great titles but I didn’t expect them to be THAT amazing. Some of the most wonderful gaming experiences you’ll ever have.
19/07/2012 at 22:15 McDan says:
Damn right, two of the finest games ever mace. I still keep my ps2 around to play on them, as well as persona 4 which I highly recommend to everyone.
20/07/2012 at 06:07 mashakos says:
Technically it’s PC as the original PS2 discs can now be played on an emulator at HD resolutions, with a mouse and keyboard if you like (bad idea!)
20/07/2012 at 12:36 paterah says:
The ps3 bundle looks better than the ps2 game on an emulator because they actually improved the graphics though
21/07/2012 at 21:20 mashakos says:
not really. The game art and assets were untouched. The PS3 version is the same PS2 version running at 720p. Meanwhile on my system: it’s running at 2560×1600 mwahahaha!
EDIT: Would like to add that I was also pleasantly surprised when I picked up the collector’s edition of SoC at a bargain bin and ran it on PCSX2 3 years ago. That was the highlight of my gaming experience since the PS2 era. For one thing, I finally felt good about buying a high end cpu and wasting hours in overclocking it, in addition to being blown away by what is essentially a puzzle game. Last time that happened was with the original Lemmings, almost 20 years ago.
19/07/2012 at 19:06 Two Sheds says:
Everything about Spec Ops: The Line pleasantly surprised me. Well, not “pleasantly” necessarily, but you know what I mean. What I thought was going to be just a boring old military fist-bump manshooter turned out to be so much more. The ending put an expression on my face that I’m not sure any other game has left me with. Just terrific.
19/07/2012 at 21:14 liquidsoap89 says:
I just finished that game last night, and I LOVED it! The fact that they even partially managed to make me feel bad about what I did was a huge achievement in game storytelling I think.
20/07/2012 at 02:58 mouton says:
Believe it or not, in certain fields, this is one of the best games I ever played. Storytelling, insanity, war trauma.
When a soldier at the end asks “how was it?” I started laughing hysterically. For a second I understood how veterans feel, after they come back from war and no one can possibly relate to them.
20/07/2012 at 16:06 wodin says:
A game that again for me shows why well made linear games can give a far better experience than an open world one.
19/07/2012 at 19:07 mrwonko says:
Recently replayed Psychonauts and it’s still great as ever.
19/07/2012 at 19:07 mire says:
I’ve been repeatedly surprised by The Secret World. Most fun I’ve had in an MMO in years. Great writing, music, animation, settings, design, and progression system.
20/07/2012 at 13:04 tumbleworld says:
Yes, the writing and voice acting are fantastic, and the lore / mysteries / puzzle intertwining makes for a glorious experience. The skill wheel is fabulous. The combat however is really annoying — protracted and brutally unforgiving — which is spoiling my enjoyment, but I’m still totally hooked, and really optimistic that it spells the beginning of new trends in MMO design.
19/07/2012 at 19:07 Vinraith says:
Well done, well done. It’s easy to forget that the whole reason things piss us off so often is because they’re screwing up the amazing fun that games can so often provide. So yes, we should focus on said amazing fun for a change!
I’m playing Mass Effect 3 right now. I must admit that the mechanical changes in 2 made me a bit of a grump, but I’ve been honestly thrilled to see what they’ve done with this one. Weapon variety without an annoying inventory, real skill decisions, weapon mod and upgrade decisions, I actually feel like I’m playing a (very light) RPG again. Awesome! Honestly I’ve subsequently grown to like 2 for what it was, but this is a beautiful middle ground, and I can’t tell you how rare and wonderful it is to see a developer move away from excessive simplification. Maybe there’s hope after all!
19/07/2012 at 19:24 AmateurScience says:
I hesitated about mentioning my recent time with ME3 because of all the internet grump, but holyflirkingschnit did that game get under my skin! I can’t think of another game that’s subjected me to such a wide gamut of emotions: moments of pure melancholy and pathos, times where I’ve actually whooped with joy and raised a fist into the air (that has NEVER happened to me playing games or watching a film, and only once when reading a book), I could go on. And (for me) it was mechanically pitch perfect, loved it. And of course a lot of that was to do with the preceding games too, certainly some of the greatest moments in gaming for me. It was the first game since Grim Fandango where I had a hollow feeling inside for a day or two after I finished, because it was over. Yay for Mass Effect!
19/07/2012 at 21:15 westyfield says:
The Mass Effect series has been the most emotional work of fiction in my life – more so than any book or film. I’m replaying ME3 at the moment for the Extended Cut and I’ve still been affected by those moments. I’m not looking forward to the ending though… partly because you know why, and partly because it’ll really be the end then. No more reason for me to play it through again – I have no desire to roll a male Shepard, or a full renegade/full paragon Shepard, or to romance, sacrifice, etc. someone else. It’ll be the end of my Shepard’s story, which for me will be the end of the only Shepard’s story. If that makes any sense.
Anyway, them’s good games. Play ‘em!
19/07/2012 at 22:04 AmateurScience says:
Spoiler free but the last few scenes before the grand, controversial denouement are some of the most genuinely gutwrenching moments I’ve ever had (outside of actually real gutwrenching moments ofc), just a really difficult experience – but in a good way if that makes any sense.
I have tried replaying from the start as a more renegade character – not arbitrarily picking renegade options, but definitely a hell of a lot tetchier that Mr (mostly) Lawful Good Hero Sniper Doug Shepard*. Both to try out a new class (vanguard seemed appropriately…impatient), and to hear Jennifer (I do *all* the voices) Hale’s performance. It’s been fun so far, but I’m under no illusions that it’ll be as impactful as the first time through. And it’s difficult to avoid gaming the system to manipulate the future.
*I thought Mr Meer’s (no not that one) performance was fantastic btw, but I can see why Ms Hale’s is lauded.
19/07/2012 at 21:17 liquidsoap89 says:
ME3 is the game I was going to mention as well. I think for me the moment with Mordin (you know which one), and the decision I made with Legion and Tali were 2 of the most powerful moments in the entire series. I know the game gets a lot of flak for the last 10 minutes (10 minutes of which I didn’t mind), but to me, those bits throughout the whole game are the ending to me. The whole of ME3 is the ending to Mass Effect, not the god child bit; and THAT is why I really think ME3 was incredible.
19/07/2012 at 21:24 Ross Angus says:
Amen, brother. What surprised me about Mass Effect 3 was how emotional it was to get the team back together again. Something about time passing in the real world, but also in the game world.
At several points, I had to stop myself, and just feel so lucky that all of this great content was created, just for me to wander about in.
Plus I really liked Cortez. He was the best new character by far.
19/07/2012 at 22:25 stryker619 says:
I’m replaying ME3 as well, having just replayed 1 and 2. It’s the only game that’s ever made me feel like I’d just been punched in the gut. I’ve also never had a game make me this angry. But not at the developers, at the bad guys. At Mr. Plot Armor who I wanted to kill so badly that I actually had to stop and calm down. And SPOILER Dr. Eva, who I thought was going kill Ashley after I’d already sacrificed Kaidan to save her END SPOILER. I think I actually yelled at the screen. The only thing that comes close for me was when Alyx got wounded in Episode 2.
19/07/2012 at 23:20 westyfield says:
Ugh, plot armour dude made me so angry. The mocking email he sent after the fight had me slamming my fist on the desk. I immediately went and spoke to Joker, he made a dumb joke (as is his wont) and I yelled at him. From then on, whenever I went to chat to him, he would always respond in a colder manner than before. I genuinely felt bad – for losing the fight (even though it’s scripted I still felt like I’d failed), for taking it badly, for yelling at Joker – and his growled ‘Commander’ was a constant reminder of that.
The renegade interrupt with the sword was one of the most satisfying moments in any game, ever.
19/07/2012 at 23:43 AmateurScience says:
‘That was for *redacted*’
Definitely a moment of pure catharsis. Like the whole of Taken boiled down to one well timed left click.
20/07/2012 at 00:10 stryker619 says:
I was playing a complete paragon. That was the only renegade interrupt I took in either ME2 or 3. Didn’t even know what it would do, I just reacted because I wanted him to finally be dead. So worth it. One of the best moments of the game.
19/07/2012 at 22:16 jalf says:
Oh yeah, that!
I’m not currently playing through ME3. I played it before the Extended Cut, and I plan to play through again to see the new endings (And probably also replay ME2 if the DLC *ever* gets offered at a sane price).
But until then, I’m watching a Lets Play of ME3 on Youtube. And that’s a pretty great experience too. It is a very emotional game, and as fun as it is to experience it all yourself, it’s also very fascinating to watch someone else experience it for the first time.
What else? Been having a lot of fun playing Civ 5 against a friend. Oh, and some Diablo 3 with a couple of other friends. On hardcore. Just finished normal difficulty.
Oh, and FTL. Damn, that game is addictive!
Oh yeah, and I dug up the World of Goo soundtrack to listen to at work. Show me a person who can stay in a bad moof while listening to that, and I’ll show you a person who has no soul…
20/07/2012 at 09:17 NathanH says:
Mass Effect 3 was five minutes away from being one of the best games ever made. They found the perfect level of simplicity: the first game was too bloated and the second was too streamlined. In ME3 it’s just right. It’s nice to have a story-based game where the actual gameplay is also really fun. Not many games get even close the managing that.
24/07/2012 at 21:32 Alceste007 says:
Up to the last five minutes Mass Effect 3 was by far the best game I have played this year. I am still enjoying playing multiplayer with some buddies. I was really leery of multiplayer in Mass Effect 3, but adding a coop horde mode turned out well.
20/07/2012 at 21:03 Damien Stark says:
I rarely comment on RPS, because by the time I read a story I can just scroll down to see that Vinraith has already said whatever I was thinking.
But I’m glad RPS posted this, as the pile of (usually legitimate and well written) criticism does tend to build up into a giant ugly pile of negativity, when really things are fantastic.
Generally, games are cheaper, more accessible, more varied, and of better quality than they have ever been. Specifically, Mass Effect 3 made my year. For me, the characters, story, and world were some of the best in any series of any media. But not just that – as Vinraith says, ME3 feels like they finally mastered the mechanics of it.
Even the conversation mechanics – I love that people on your ship move around now, both to different spots on the ship or to recreational spots on the Citadel. I love that when you don’t have a new conversation available with someone, you don’t have to “go into conversation mode” and click the same investigation wheel items looking for new dialog in a menu, but rather they just say a quick line seamlessly.
I love that Infiltrator + sniper rifle with concentration mod makes me feel like an easymode god, except then I hear a Banshee and I’m scared out of my wits, running and leaping over barriers to flee. Hell, I even love the multiplayer, and I never thought I’d say that.
Now that I’ve gone wall of text on ME3, I want to throw in that Bastion was way shorter, but also exemplary and still gives me a warm feeling just thinking about it.
19/07/2012 at 19:07 Batolemaeus says:
Eve Online. Nearly everything I have done in there.
The most awe inspiring moments would be seeing people of all nationalities playing together to achieve a common goal, bridging language barriers by having a few people translate back and forth, and succeeding. And at the side of those huge operations, you see people from all over the world conversing, sharing experiences and talking. I’ve heard someone from Serbia put on old records for everyone to hear and reveled in incredibly terrible slashfiction involving Eve’s e-celebrities.
19/07/2012 at 19:08 tlarn says:
After many years with an old PC, I’ve finally gotten around to updating it. Spent a lot of time going through games on my Steam list that I either could barely run or couldn’t run. Much of that weekend was spent marvelling at how I could run new games on maximum settings with little to no drop in a framerate I wasn’t used to having so high. I actually have to relearn how to play PC shooters; I’m so used to adjusting for low framerate and dropped frames.
Then I got around to playing older PC games in my collection. I installed my physical copy of STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, patched it, then downloaded the Complete 2009 mod collection I’d heard so much about.
It really does change the game drastically. It felt like such a different game, and yet it was still so very familiar. Had a large smile across my face.
The pistol you start with is still horrid.
19/07/2012 at 19:08 McDan says:
Those are crazy staring eyes, a new tag for “mega staring eyes”! I’m still quote enjoying all of my games, recently though I’ve been playing child of Eden on the playbox and that’s pretty great. So yeah, happy times actually, though I do prefer my RPS with a bit of grumpy, just saying.
19/07/2012 at 19:08 Chakawi says:
I’ve read that blog post about the Bungie people watching Indie Game the movie all together at their studio theatre room. And just the kinship and the whole “we’re on the same team even if we think we’re not” feeling, make me feel really good about the gaming industry. Not because of business direction, but just because of the lovely people making it’s wheels turn.
Here’s the article: http://www.bungie.net/News/Blog.aspx?mode=news#cid32146
19/07/2012 at 19:09 HexagonalBolts says:
Starcraft 2. It just always blows my mind how incredibly neat and intricate it is, there are so many clever counters, strategies, tactics, new ways to be surprised, new combinations to play with. Every time you play it’s like opening up a watch with 100,000 gears inside and that just never gets old for me.
I also love emergent game play, I wish more games would do it, the only one that has ever got it right in my opinion is Dwarf Fortress where there are such a huge number of factors that every single game can be extremely different. I do love it, but even minecraft doesn’t do it succesfully: it’s the same terrain formations, the same ores, the same enemies repeated endlessly like some bizarre patchwork that eventually becomes a soulless grind.
19/07/2012 at 19:09 Brun says:
Also, anyone else find it funny that this article is posted by John Walker, who (at least in my experience) is the grumpiest of all RPS writers?
19/07/2012 at 19:46 LionsPhil says:
He’s only grumpy because he cares.
19/07/2012 at 21:15 Defiant Badger says:
Yes, John certainly has the biggest grump in the business.
20/07/2012 at 01:43 Arathain says:
Really? I think of the current crop of RPS writers John is the most effusive when he finds something he really loves. He’s the most active writer in the field of consumer rights and media portrayal, so he tends to be the writer on a lot of those more stern articles, and he can take apart a bad game better than anyone in the business, but he exudes so much joy for the his favourites.
Kieron and Quinns could edge him out in that regard, but not by much.
20/07/2012 at 04:23 lordcooper says:
Yeah, impassioned would be a far better choice of word.
19/07/2012 at 19:10 The First Door says:
For me it was playing L.A. Noire after buying it in the Steam sale.
Was the first game in ages where I’ve started it up, played through and had a constant grin on my face until I realised I was late for meeting a friend because four hours had utterly vanished. Everything from the music, to the voice acting to the lovely open world which is just there to enjoy as you drive between different parts of the mission is perfect.
I felt like a proper detective when I cracked the first big case, I did!
19/07/2012 at 19:21 reggiep says:
That’s kind of a dark game to be smiling through. You’re a little twisted, aren’t you? It’s a fantastic and original game, don’t get me wrong, but definitely dark. After all, it is Noire.
19/07/2012 at 20:35 The First Door says:
To be fair to myself, there were several different types of smile throughout the first mission. A happy smile at how good the driving felt, a smug smile when I worked out what the mystery was about quite quickly and a geeky smile at how good the face capture tech is. Anyway, I just can’t help smiling when I’ve been attentive and worked something out, it’s why I watch crime dramas in the first place.
19/07/2012 at 19:11 Stepout says:
Just bought Fallout New Vegas from the Steam sale a few days ago. From the moment I started blasting geckos in the face with my varmint rifle I thought, why didn’t I buy this a long time ago? Love all the faction stuff.
19/07/2012 at 20:19 Torgen says:
I *just* (as in 20 minutes ago) bought the NV Ultimate Pack for $10 on the Steam sale. Looking forward to it while I wait on Borderlands 2. Speaking of Borderlands, I lost all my saved games in a hard drive reformat (stupid invisible folders in C:/User) so cooked new characters with a mod file who are the same level as my old ones, and revisiting old area to re-unlock the achievements.
19/07/2012 at 20:52 Smashbox says:
That game really is a thrill.
I love the first several hours, when you’re a relative weakling walking around with beat-up hunting rifle, constantly looking over your shoulder. You just FEEL the environment, the desert walk, the nervous helpless paranoia, the desperation around you *rustle* “What the fuck was that!?”
20/07/2012 at 09:07 Outright Villainy says:
Agreed, I love that early level feeling from both 3 and Vegas where you feel seriously threatened at every encounter. A lot of that thrill goes away later on when you get power armour and a million stimpacks, but I still love the characters and dialogue from Vegas so it’s still great.
Speaking of which, I only started playing Old world blues yesterday, and it’s just fantastic. Really funny.
19/07/2012 at 19:11 MiniMatt says:
The Honest Hearts DLC for Fallout NV. Contains an incidental back story of a survivalist’s tale over many decades. Amazing bit of characterisation for a char you never even meet, who never speaks and who’s noteven alive.
19/07/2012 at 19:11 Malky says:
Can I just say how fantastic ALL of gaming is right now?
I’ve been playing Tribes: Ascend for months. It’s great. Flying at high speeds, shooting discs, it’s all I ever really wanted from life.
Yesterday I started playing Wizorb. Fantastic fun! Tribute Games brought back a genre I never thought I’d play again.
Bee was a stunning text adventure game. It took me two days to play through it (Varytale is great, but loads very slowly) and I was utterly obsessed. I don’t even like text adventure games very much, but the story of a homeschooled girl’s quest to win a spelling bee somehow spoke to me. Stunning stuff.
Noitu Love 2 was the action game of my dreams. I would replay it dozens of times if my Steam list wasn’t so overcrowded.
I bought The Real Texas last night and I can’t wait to play it. I’ve already watched the trailer four times today.
What other titles do I have at my fingertips? Sword and Sworcery, Crusader Kings II, Natural Selection 2, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, Terraria, Far Cry 2, Dear Esther and Analogue: A Hate Story.
Damn.
19/07/2012 at 19:13 lowprices says:
I finally got around to playing To The Moon recently. I’m appalled that none of you strapped me to a chair and forced me to play it before, because it’s absolutely wonderful.
And, since this is a positivity-only zone so this won’t spark a riot, let me just say: In spite of all it’s flaws, I love Dragon Age 2. Replaying it now, and enjoying it plenty.
19/07/2012 at 19:26 AmateurScience says:
Testify!
19/07/2012 at 19:13 Evernight says:
Steam sale is pretty sexy and I must admit – I was feeling super down after D3 kinda kicked me in the balls. But now I have Max Payne 3, Bastion, Crysis 2 and a few others to play.
Hooray for games.
19/07/2012 at 19:20 The First Door says:
Damn, I totally forgot about Bastion! I just finished that game and it is brilliant right to the end! Thanks for reminding me I need to go play New Game+ mode.
19/07/2012 at 19:51 LionsPhil says:
Bastion is one those games that was so good that I eagerly played it to completion even though I don’t really like the genre much.
19/07/2012 at 20:17 MikeBiggs says:
Heck yes on the Bastion front. It’s the only game that has gripped me so strongly for a long time. I very much look forward to forgetting enough of it to complete another runthrough of it!
20/07/2012 at 17:12 soco says:
I was just saying to someone yesterday that Bastion was my pick for game of the year last year.
Man, I loved that game. The visuals, the story, the narrator, the music everything was so good.
I have a hard time remembering a game where each weapon felt as good as it did in Bastion and you never had to make the choice of; “Well I like this weapon, but it is just so underpowered compared to this other one.”
19/07/2012 at 20:37 Clavus says:
Ah Bastion. I remember going on holiday thinking I could take a break from gaming and daily life. Instead I played through Bastion’s campaign, new game+, and all challenges in just a few days. By the time my holiday was over I had all achievements.
19/07/2012 at 19:14 iGark says:
I bought Torchlight and am having a blast.
19/07/2012 at 22:06 serioussgtstu says:
Mod the hell out of that game if you haven’t already.
19/07/2012 at 22:40 lowprices says:
There is only one mod you need for Torchlight, and that’s the one that turns your pet into a Ferret.
The ferret wears goggles. GOGGLES.
19/07/2012 at 19:16 TillEulenspiegel says:
From a slightly different perspective, have a gander at this delightful Tiny Game Design Tool. It’s just a simple booklet that you can print out, accurately described as “part design tool, part motivational tool, part silly experiment”, but it instantly inspired me to start sketching out ideas.
19/07/2012 at 19:16 Screwie says:
The next Guild Wars 2 beta weekend starts tomorrow :D
19/07/2012 at 19:33 djbriandamage says:
Even better news – the LAST Guild Wars 2 beta weekend starts tomorrow!!
My wife and I played the crap out of the original GW. When we were dating we’d play from our parents’ basements, and I’d often lug my PC (PC monitor and all) to her place. Now we’ve been married 5 years, have our own place, and we share a table with our PCs side by side. We’re stoked for this game to finally come out!
19/07/2012 at 19:16 iLag says:
the last thing that made me a happy gamer was Deus Ex HR. that just worked on so many levels and made me think about good game design and stuff.
the last thing that made me a happy person was watching my 7-year-old son play Botanicula without needing much help from me. both of us were totally delighted, and I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have had that much fun playing it alone. so yeah. rainbows and mushrooms.
20/07/2012 at 00:37 Skabooga says:
Botanicula as well makes me tremendously happy about gaming. It is more than I could ask for that such a game should be made, a game which can make me feel deep despair and boundless elation in the same sitting, all without the use of words.
19/07/2012 at 19:16 magnus says:
Just finished Just Cause 2 and I was smiling all the way through the last mission.
19/07/2012 at 20:04 Chaosed0 says:
Oh, man, when they pulled out that title for the last mission… So clever, even if I should have seen it coming.
19/07/2012 at 20:17 InternetBatman says:
Just Cause 2 was the perfect surprise. I loved that game. Never could get the wrecking ball achievement though.
19/07/2012 at 20:48 LionsPhil says:
Except for the camera, which spits pure malevolence, that game is a pretty astounding continual sequence of all the best bits of action movies.
Still getting all the faction missions done before I take the agency one where I have to pick sides.
19/07/2012 at 19:16 disperse says:
On Tuesday I was stuck in an airport for a 2 1/2 hour layover. I found an airport bar with convenient outlets and a local amber ale and played Dwarf Fortress on my laptop. It was great fun, even when goblins followed the human caravan to my fortress and started slaughtering everyone.
19/07/2012 at 19:32 Altemore says:
Dwarf Fortress for me too. Started it up after not having played for about a year and after jerkily finding my footing I have had so much fun; Losing control of water I’m channeling into the fortress, trying to contain dwarves in secretive moods and a necromancer assaulting me with reanimated hens, horses and yaks, to name a few examples.
19/07/2012 at 19:18 Sakkura says:
It’s been quite a while since I’ve had to tweak my autoexec.bat just to run a game. That’s nice.
19/07/2012 at 19:19 sonofsanta says:
Just how much of gaming there is right now. I played a single game for months on end when I was a child, because there was nothing else to play. I’d sit for an entire weekend repeating the same level of a demo over and over, or eeking out every gold medal (Pilotwings 64) or cheat (Goldeneye) or whatever other time trial nonsense. Now there is just an enormous, generous wealth of absolutely excellent and varied games and I am still constantly delighted and surprised by them all.
Any time you need cheering up about videogames, all you need to do is sit back and think: holy shit, if I could travel back in time and show this to my 9 year old self, he would not fucking believe it. It’s become so incredible in so short a time. <3 videogames.
19/07/2012 at 19:20 Faldrath says:
Racing on Pikes Peak with a Celica in Dirt 1 yesterday evening was an absolute blast. More long term, playing Endless Space, that “one more turn” feeling that no other media comes close to providing, and the feeling that yes, the game is flawed, but hey, this is a PC game, the devs can improve and probably will…
Games are pretty great!
19/07/2012 at 19:20 Milky1985 says:
Recently its been playing Starcraft 2 multiplayer with a couple of mates, a good bit of fun in 4 v 4, the last ditch defense and the moment when the attacking plan comes together.
Also loving the hell out of saints row 3 and its dlc, sooooo much to do , multiple times i have started up the game, done nothing but explore and do side missions, then realised i should have been in bed half a hour ago.
Console wise spent a lot of time on tales of the abyss on the 3ds, that was exquisite, but a little too much backtracking!
19/07/2012 at 19:20 Shazbut says:
I wasn’t that interested in Skyrim before I got it, but when I first started playing and you finally get let out into the open world with all the possibilities and things to discover, I welled up with emotion.
I love that PC games are cheaper than they’ve ever been in my experience and that there is a resurgence in immersive sims. It’s one of the best times to be a PC gamer in history, I think, and I was one of the people who was most vocal about PC games dying a horrible death a few years ago. (Although, whilst I was wrong, I think it was a close call)
19/07/2012 at 19:24 reggiep says:
It wasn’t close at all, actually. While pre-built PC sales have gone down and leveled off, sales of parts are up and increasing. That means more people are building their own PCs and it’s an industry worth 10s of billions of dollars. Gaming certainly drives a part of that.
19/07/2012 at 23:12 MattM says:
Building your own is pretty easy these days, you need knowledge about compatibility and cooling but the only tool you need is a screwdriver.
19/07/2012 at 19:22 Eddy9000 says:
Waiting for Dishonoured, best fun I’ve had for ages.
19/07/2012 at 19:22 Captain Hijinx says:
Dota 2 for me!
750+ Hours of awesome entertainment and it has cost me nothing. I feel like i’m mugging someone
19/07/2012 at 19:41 Yosharian says:
Pretty much, 901 hours here
19/07/2012 at 19:23 Pobb says:
I’d have to say that the last game to bring me unbridled joy was, weirdly enough, Super Meat Boy. There are only four inputs.
Left.
Right.
Run.
Jump.
The game is often sited as a brutal and punishing 2D retro platformer, but every time you die you know exactly why, and it was always your fault. The cut scenes in between different worlds are all call backs to 80′s 90′s games and the “warp zones” found in various levels are all themed from different eras or indie games.
The fact that the game is so simple on the surface, yet so challenging, really made me happy that this type of game can still find mass appeal :)
19/07/2012 at 19:25 HicRic says:
Just endlessly, pointlessly skiing in Tribes:Ascend. Wheeeeeee, down the hill, whoooosh, up the hill. Sorry teammates, I don’t care about the flags, I’m too busy going fast. Wheeeee! (I do actually contribute to objectives most of the time, but it’s so easy to get lost in the moment and just keep skiiing!)
19/07/2012 at 19:29 djbriandamage says:
Thanks for this article, John. :)
My wife and I play WoW together. Our greatest achievement so far is killing the Lich King with the guild we helped found.
We spent months and months working our way through the Ice Crown Citadel raid at the end of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion a couple of years ago. Many guildies came and went during that time but we maintained a core raiding team that became closer and closer over the months. At long last we killed the penultimate boss, a tough dragon named Sindragosa, and our success felt so near it was palpable.
The Lich King is a big fat meaniejerk. We wiped and wiped and wiped. He’s a real toughie. The fight is about 15 minutes long and a single error by any of the 10 raiders is catastrophic. We spent 3 nights a week for 4 weeks making incremental progress, and sometimes regressing backward, doing our very best to topple the fiend. At long last, after about 35 hours of combined attempts, we had a fight where everything went our way. We were well-practised and at the top of our game. We fucking did it.
http://d.demodulated.com/kingslaya.jpg
That’s a month of camaraderie, perserverence, supportive encouragement, talent, and hard bloody work encapsulated in one screenshot right there. That moment was so tremendously impactful I was numb. I mean it. It felt wonderful but I was incapable of feeling it all at once – it came to me in waves over the next day or so. All our avatars wore their “Kingslayer” titles with pride after that, let me tell you.
That guild is no more and most of that team doesn’t play the game anymore, but those men and women have my great respect. My wife and I keep in touch with some of them, and we drove 5 hours to meet a couple of them who served us lunch and introduced us to their kids.
That’s some video gaming right there.
19/07/2012 at 21:58 Yar says:
Mila Kunis died in that jpeg. Fail. She’s too purty to die.
19/07/2012 at 19:30 pilouuuu says:
I finally got into Fallout New Vegas and I’ve been enjoying it so much!
I am also playing The Book of the Unwritten Tales. It’s a great adventure game, with lovely graphics and I’m glad that the puzzles make sense.
19/07/2012 at 19:30 SuperNashwanPower says:
I found Malukah’s cover of the Skyrim theme on youtube – that was awesome, that a game inspired that (and the whole IGN / community reaction).
On a similarly prodigous (though inauspicious) note, I discovered someone made a mod that puts actual fisting into Skyrim. You dress as a prostitute, and then offer sex to people. Which you get to see, accurately rendered in third person perspective. This itself does not please me, but the act of predicting that someone, somewhere HAD to have been depraved enough to do it, gave me a warm glow of smug superiority.
19/07/2012 at 19:30 DanPryce says:
I liked the Pyrovision Update for TF2, or as I like to call it, the Realism Update.
19/07/2012 at 20:14 LionsPhil says:
Everyone loves handing out candy and rainbows.
19/07/2012 at 19:30 AmateurScience says:
Veni Vidi Vici.
To steal a Gillenism: I’m not sure whether I want to shake Terry Cavanagh’s hand, or punch him in the face.
19/07/2012 at 19:58 Petethegoat says:
I (as I incessantly tell anyone who’ll listen) beat those levels in front of Terry. Never have I felt so much unbridled hate melt away into joy.
19/07/2012 at 20:06 AmateurScience says:
You sir, are all kinds of awesome.
19/07/2012 at 19:58 Lambchops says:
I’d go for both simultaneously, whereupon I’d imagine he would do a Veridian sadface before instantly starting grinning again!
19/07/2012 at 19:33 Tyrone Slothrop. says:
I fucking love the soundtrack of Max Payne 3 and I hold it to be a masterpiece of game scoring, I love the gameplay and the incessant Chandleresque quips “They shot me in my second favourite drinking arm and the only way we were going to get Fabiana back was in instalments.” I cannot wait for Dishonored and Bioshock: Infinite. Eidos-Montreal in basically one glorious debut have become one of my favourite studios and I savour even rumours about Thief 4, the three aforementioned immersive simulators heralding a return to a genre I thought was increasingly sparse. Comparably over the horizon I salivate over the prospect of Watch Dogs, GTA V, the inevitable Deus Ex 4 with the next generation of hardware and of course, CDProjekt’s Cyberpunk.
19/07/2012 at 19:33 Durkonkell says:
Mods! I’m obsessed with Skyrim at the moment, which means I spend about half of my time playing it and the other half of my time meddling with it via mods. Actually, I probably spend more time on Skyrim Nexus than I do playing the game! I really love the ability to modify and extend a game beyond what it was originally able to do.
19/07/2012 at 19:35 TheIronSky says:
Don’t forget about fixes! Those are important, too.
19/07/2012 at 19:41 SuperNashwanPower says:
Also the prostitution / fisting mod. Which oddly, you won’t find on Steam.
19/07/2012 at 19:33 Chimpyang says:
2 of my fave gaming moments have come from RPS recommendations: To the Moon and Unity of Command. The former was a joy to play due to its engaging storyline and the game graphics brought memories playing early RPG adventure games (Final Fantasy, Chono Trigger). For unity of command, after a series of disappointing and unchallenging RTS game AI (for many years now), I spent turn after turn praying that the computer would not find the weak spot in my line, and even had many surprises from the AI battering weak spots that I had not even identified! A properly hard and satisfying strategy game which I am still striving to master and outwit.
These 2 games have shone in what has been for me an otherwise quite barren period in gaming (I find quite a lot of current games very meh – but positivity ho!). Honourable mentionsmust go to CKII, which provides unending amusement. Football Manager 2011, for its simple addictiveness which keeps me coming back for hours upon hours lost in a haze of management bliss and finally to Wargame European Escalation, which had provided some of the most entertaining and thoughtful online gaming for quite some time.
19/07/2012 at 19:33 MythArcana says:
PC games are great when you take the time and money to discover an entertainment investment which lasts for years. Now, the other Play-N-Toss games I can’t vouch for whatsoever as they seem like obvious time-killers with no real purpose.
19/07/2012 at 19:34 TheIronSky says:
I’m actually feeling the opposite right now. I’ve been grinding out yet another Mass Effect playthrough (5th or 6th time? Doesn’t help that I compulsively have to do every single quest, every single time) and I bought Diablo 3 about four days ago. I already have a level 34 Demon Hunter and a few hardcore characters.
And even with all these non-Steam games, I still find the time to keep my Steam rating at a 10, somehow.
Gaming right now is a grind, but I’m doing it because I can, so I guess that’s good.
Yes, games are great, but I might need to do some real work soon to take a break from all my break-taking. Or something.
19/07/2012 at 19:35 thesundaybest says:
I came to games quite late, having never had either a PC worthy of gaming or a console. I didn’t even start gaming until I bought a PS2, ten years after it launched. So pretty much I find everything about gaming great. Except always on DRM. That’s just shit.
19/07/2012 at 19:35 barelyhomosapien says:
I went back to Warlock and found that something in the patches really changed my opinion of it.
I will also say the continued weekly patching of Sword of the Stars 2, while a testament to how half baked the initial release was, also warms my heart with the determination some developers have to keep going to get their game right.
19/07/2012 at 19:36 Man Raised by Puffins says:
TF2 (Pyrovision optional) + Alcohol (sufficient for moderate tipsification) + Call Me Maybe on repeat = Yes.
19/07/2012 at 19:40 TheIronSky says:
That sounds like jolly lovely – Ed
19/07/2012 at 19:38 Tei says:
Games that recently surprised me: Dead Island, BF3, Legend of Grimrock, APB (even on the current sad state).
19/07/2012 at 19:38 TheApologist says:
I enjoyed almost all of my 111 hours in Skyrim. That really is a great game. Sure, I hit a ceiling where my character wasn’t developing, and I felt like I had seen most of what the game had to offer. But that was after FOUR AND A HALF DAYS of solid fun. It’s an amazing achievement, and I loved the Steam integration, Steam Workshop, and hi-res textures. Well done them.
19/07/2012 at 19:43 TheIronSky says:
I just hit 210 hours and realized that I have a whole bunch of quests left to do from the Mages Guild!
And I have a new character in a new class!
And preparation for Dawnstar!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
19/07/2012 at 19:38 DiamondDog says:
Starting up Crusader Kings II for the first time, seeing that wonderful map of Europe and realising I could start as anyone, in any little corner, and make my own story. It made me giddy.
Nothing else beats the feeling of being given a world, some tools and then left to your own devises. It’s why I find Football Manager so compelling, and it’s why I’m going to love CKII.
19/07/2012 at 19:40 BreadBitten says:
I’ve just been marveling at the amazing amount of detail packed into Red Dead Redemption, the world seemingly comes alive in a big and beautiful enough screen! On the PC front, my love for StarCraft II sort of got reignited last night (at 12:47AM, while waiting for the Company of Heroes demo to download), the game’s campaign really is amazingly thought out even though it’s nothing special.
19/07/2012 at 19:42 daphne says:
I’m still playing Diablo III quite often (I liked it enough to clear Inferno pre-nerf), it drew me back into Action RPGs in general, and I recently had the pleasure of rediscovering Diablo II with the addition of the Median XL mod. It completely reinvents the game and renders it fresh and very rewarding, far more so than Diablo III’s current state. Extremely enjoyable.
19/07/2012 at 19:45 Erelenus says:
Max Payne (1 & 2). I’m playing the first one for the first time right now and all I can think while I play is “WARFACE! NEEDS MORE BULLETS! WARFACE! WARFACE! BULLETFACE! MOTHERF&*(ERS DON’T KNOW ABOUT MY BULLETFACE!”
Honestly, I’d normally be bored by a game like this, but looking at it from this perspective, I’m loving it. Always nice to come across a new feeling after years of gaming.
BULLETFACE
19/07/2012 at 20:00 Petethegoat says:
I finished Max Paynes one and two for the first time very recently. Really fantastic games.
Picked up three in the summer sales, and thus far I’m not disappointed.
19/07/2012 at 19:47 Greggh says:
Bought Borderlands GOTY on steam for about three dollars one of these days. BY FAR the biggest fun per $$ I had in my entire life – not to mention that blowjob in third grade, erm…
BURN SKAG, BURN MWHAWHAWHAWHA!!!
19/07/2012 at 19:48 db1331 says:
Currently playing through Psychonauts for the first time, and I catch myself grinning like an idiot from time to time. Such a charming and refreshing game.
19/07/2012 at 19:48 toomian says:
F2P revolution!
Tribes and Super Monday Night Combat are far too good to be free. My current self would have been LAUGHED at in my own face if I told my past self I am playing F2P games on a regular basis. And this past self would only have to be from like 8 months in the past, where it would be more like seeing a twin.
Planetside 2 is already looking to consume me. And Dota2 is even starting to get my hooked.
I can’t even put myself in a mood to do a story driven game right now. Sitting and waiting/watching just make me restless. I could have gotten a flag capture (or 2) in the course of this one cutscene in deus ex.
And i’m not even a competitive gamer – which is crazy!
19/07/2012 at 19:49 Noi says:
Downloaded the Torchlight demo to my rubbish laptop thinking it will probably be just another game that I can just about not run, or can just about run but can’t bloody play because of framerate.
Then I saw the “Netbook mode”. : ]
19/07/2012 at 19:51 Cyrius says:
For me it has been Dark Souls. Game is brilliant. I know it isn’t PC (yet) and I hope they don’t ruin it in the port, because this game is truly something special.
19/07/2012 at 19:56 squareking says:
I am sad that this is the only “be happy!”-tagged article on RPS.
I’m just happy that I have a buttload of great games to play, as opposed to when I was a kid and couldn’t afford secondhand console games.
19/07/2012 at 20:00 Lamellama says:
Quake2 at Rezzed, it has been a while since I’ve played it. Very nostalgic and I owned some little kids who had never played it before.
It was nice to hear them talking so highly of it after and jumping straight back in the queue.
19/07/2012 at 20:02 Lambchops says:
I finally got around to downloading Residual so I could see if Grim Fandango would work. Not only did it work but it is (of course) still absolutely brilliant.
Got a new laptop so I was able to indulge in the shiny newness of Max Payne 3, diving around in cinematic style will always be a good time.
Also playing the beta of FTL has given me a warm glow, not only because the game is excellent but because it shows that Kickstarter can deliver and it can deliver big. One of its events references The Princess Bride and Breaking Bad in the same sentence, it can’t fail to make you smile (at least until your ship is blown to smithereens once again!).
19/07/2012 at 20:03 JB says:
At the moment I’ve gone back to TF2 and Frozen Synapse and I’ve having heaps of fun with both.
And I’m excitedly waiting on Card Hunter, so I’m a happy, happy bunny right now!
(And regarding mobile gaming, I love being able to play Summoner Wars against my friends on my phone!)
19/07/2012 at 20:05 InternetBatman says:
I just played Metro 2033 for the first time two weeks ago. It’s a great game, really what a shooter should be. There were so many nice little touches that surprised me, but what really got me was the dialog you overhear:
“I still remember the spires on the Admiralty and the girls’ laughter in the night air. What a wonderful world we blew up.”
Orcs Must Die was also a really nice surprise.
19/07/2012 at 20:06 Sixtoe says:
Saints Row the Third, got it not knowing quite what to expect and it made me laugh out loud more times than I can remember, I was literally crying with laughter in the Z rickshaw escape chase scene :)
It’s also got that “it’d be cool if they did th….OMGTHEYJUSTDIDITLOL!!!111oneleven”
And I cried like a baby in Mass Effect 3 at the at the Salarian bit on Tuchanka, great game, I love it even tho’ it’s not cool to (but I gave up even attempting to be cool 20 years ago)
19/07/2012 at 20:07 Reapy says:
Sadly d3 release actually. I randomly took off work spur of the moment, downloaded and played it like non stop for a few days. It was pretty awesome. Though I haven’t touched it in a month and now it tastes like ash, still was a good run.
That, and watching my son (<3 years old) figure out that pushing A on the 360 controller makes the guy in braid jump. That for some reason hit me somewhat fierce, I guess watching him discover the joy in gaming that got me through so many hard things.
Otherwise I feel like an addict looking for another high, but my system is mostly immune.
19/07/2012 at 20:08 TsunamiWombat says:
Batman: Arkham City is a towering inferno of compelling gameplay (except that bullocks DLC HQ’s revenge)
Truth be told though i’m just really fucking burnt out and swamped by Steams summer sale, I must’ve blown a hundred bucks in increments of 3-5 dollars this week. My bank account is nearly empty.
19/07/2012 at 20:12 Sixtoe says:
This.
I actually thought “I AM BATMAN!” playing it.
19/07/2012 at 20:09 Chaosed0 says:
Spacechem. Oh, I love just saying the name. SPACECHEM! spaceCHEM. CHEMISTRY… in space. I’m a computer science major, too, so it tickles me inside.
My top games right now – they change erratically, sometimes – are still Bastion and Dustforce. I still have a go at some of the harder levels in Dustforce, occasionally.
Also, just started my Hardcore Ranger playthrough of Metro 2033. I don’t even know what it is about that game, it’s just pretty dang awesome.
19/07/2012 at 20:13 Plivesey says:
Spacechem is fantastic, and it’s also fantastic that the artist is working on Prison Architect! Yaaaaaaaaaay!
19/07/2012 at 20:20 Lambchops says:
SPACECHEM!
19/07/2012 at 22:55 Petethegoat says:
I was absolutely enjoying a ranger hardcore playthrough of Metro 2033 until I hit the stupid blob things in the military base. They’re stupid bullet sponges and I hate them.
20/07/2012 at 09:34 Outright Villainy says:
SpaceChem is brilliant in that I feel like a complete idiot at every single new challenge, and the smartest person who ever existed when I beat it. And then repeat. Every puzzle feels like a grand undertaking at this stage, I play it so seldom, but when everything comes together it’s hard to beat that satisfaction.
19/07/2012 at 20:10 Plivesey says:
Prison Architect looks fantastic. I’m a bit of an Introversion fanboy, ever since I came across a demo of Uplink many years ago. In the Rezzed talk, Chris was certainly correct when he said “Bullfrog-style management games died off too soon”, or words to that effect.
It’s my most anticipated paid-Alpha of the year!
19/07/2012 at 20:12 AJ_Wings says:
Recently, I’ve been playing Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. Such an absolutely phenomenal stealth game. It has so many intricate and detailed little touches, I’m still blown by the fact that it came out in 2005. It’s gameplay easily stands up and even surpasses most modern AAA games. Also, Michael Ironside is the Mother-Effin Man!
19/07/2012 at 20:15 Eight Rooks says:
Unbridled joy? Hmmm, nothing specifically on PC, but – Dragon’s Dogma, best game so far this year – all the wild untamed adventure of Skyrim but better designed, with better storytelling and with combat so gloriously fluid and over-the-top I couldn’t stop giggling like a lunatic every five minutes. Juniper’s Knot (oh, I guess technically that’s on PC) just a simple visual novel but one of the few games in the past five years where the writing moved me close to tears and sent chills down my spine (and no, To The Moon wasn’t one of the others). Project 83113 – what’s that? You can’t do rock-hard, lightning-fast old-school platforming on a touchscreen? La la la la la can’t hear you, too busy mainlining pure adrenaline. SSX 2012 – no other arcade racer is so endlessly, thrillingly inventive and bursting with white-knuckle neon-tinted god damned cool (the quake effect when you land a super trick is one of the finest pieces of visual feedback any developer has ever created), and it makes me very sad I can’t play it or anything like it on PC (since I’m getting rid of my console).
Though I am very happy with the Steam sales – while none of the games I’ve bought have floored me with their magnificence or anything I’m pleased my old quad-core rig runs nearly all of them surprisingly well, and that the entire haul cost me so little. Maybe that’s crass, I dunno, but getting so much bang for the buck is one reason I keep coming back to PC gaming.
19/07/2012 at 21:07 Scilantius says:
I really have to agree with Dragon’s Dogma – very very inspiring and awesome game, I only wish it had been on PC. But it is truly a game I had wanted for so long and didn’t even know it. And so much atmosphere! I really like the ye olde speak of the game as well, but that’s probably just me. The only gripe I have with it is the fact that you can have only one save game,… Sure, I thought, that’s not a problem, I’m only playing one game anyway, and it’s sort of like persistance or something. Then my save got corrupted as I was around level 40 and about half-way through the game (I think). And I raged a bit, having to restart. But even restarting, which I thought would be a chore, felt properly amazing again, weird as that is.
Anyway, I ought to stop talking about that,… cheers for mentioning Juniper’s knot though, I ought to go take a look at that!
19/07/2012 at 21:38 LennyLeonardo says:
Yeah! If Skyrim is Lord of the Rings, then Dragon’s Dogma is Arthur and the Knights of Justice. It’s all crazy heroics and awesome moves, and the intro screen song is terrible/amazing. Plus, the vocation switch-out system is inspired.
20/07/2012 at 15:41 symmetrian says:
I consistently reply fail, so I’m sure this is going to be in the wrong place, but I logged in to agree with Dragon’s Dogma enthusiasm. Just recently gave it a shot and although I believe Skyrim is the objectively “better” game, Dogma has been a pantload of fun.
More games need to do the “wandering in the dark” thing. If Skyrim were proper dark and had Dragon’s Dogma’s lantern system (attatching it to the belt) it would be moodier/cooler.
19/07/2012 at 20:15 Shooop says:
The Witcher 2 is still the very best RPG I’ve ever so much as looked at.
And Blacklight Retribution isn’t at all terrible once you get into a server that isn’t lagging and get a decent map. First pleasant surprise in the FPS world I’ve had all this year.
19/07/2012 at 20:16 Drayk says:
I am playing Batman Arkham Asylum.
The combat system is one of the best thing i ever played. It feels tight and controled and the result on screen are amazing. I just fought Ras al Ghul and I think it’s my favourite boss so far.
19/07/2012 at 20:16 Malleus says:
Just now I went back to Bioshock. I really didn’t like this one when it came out, in fact, it was the biggest disappointment for me that year. But playing it now … it’s actually quite good. Some stupid things about it, and, well, it’s not System Shock, but it’s fun.
I also replayed Arma 2: Harvest Red, and just like back then, I was blown away by it. It’s just brilliant, BIS’ magnum opus, right there. I just love how they combine tactical shooter gameplay with RPG like branching story and decision making and multiple endings. We need more Tac Shooter RPGs, clearly. :)
19/07/2012 at 20:17 Barnaby says:
Day-Z is the coolest thing I’ve played in a hot minute. While Arma II is probably one of the clunkiest games I’ve played, the mod still makes the game shine.
Also Mount and Blade Warband with the Prophesy of Pendor mod is too much fun. I will get buried in that game, look up, and 3 or 4 hours have passed. I’ve got 2500+ renown, and like 470 Archery skill (if that gives you some idea how much I play it)!
For one last game that blew me away, I got to play the Just Cause 2 Multiplayer test last weekend, and wow. When I first loaded up, I was like “ok, so what do I do”. After an hour or two messing around I was hooked. I can’t wait for that to be released.
Yaaaay positivity!
19/07/2012 at 20:17 karthink says:
Deus Ex: Punch Punch Revolution. Oh my god, they nailed it. This game is sheer, augmented glee. The DLC was pitch perfect, as well. They even let me punch everyone I wanted to by the end of the game!
I am downloading Witcher 2 right now, and I am so glad games like these two are still being made today.
John, your niece is adorable.
20/07/2012 at 00:53 Skabooga says:
I’m totally with you on the facepunching. I was even thinking to myself, “This guy doesn’t deserve death, but that sure as hell isn’t going to stop me from punching him in his smug bastard face.” Then I punched him in the face. The game let me do that under my own agency. It was so satisfying!
19/07/2012 at 20:20 Durandir says:
Been a great day for gaming! I managed to mop up the last few percentages in “Lego Star Wars III”, I finally beat “Superbrothers: Swords & Sworcery EP” and I did the few last things I had left in “McPixel”. “McPixel” is something everyone should play!
Realizing that I still love the hell out of Diablo 3 also made me happy. Life is too short to be grumpy about stuff.
19/07/2012 at 20:21 Det says:
I’m really glad that the translation project for baldr sky is going well and will definitely result in a full translation, as according to the translator himself.
19/07/2012 at 20:26 Squirrelfanatic says:
I just finished “Dark Messiah of Might & Magic” which I bought during the first days of the Steam sale.
The story might be a bit rubbish and the endless hordes of spiders (eeeh!) and undead (meh!) are tedious to fight through, but there is something about the game design, the way that you can find secret routes and hidden treasures everywhere that makes it SO satisfying to play.
And the kicking! The lovely kicking. I kicked goblins into fires, orcs down beautiful sunlit cliffsides, and I even managed to kick a Lich boss into the abyss below his tomb. I love this game.
19/07/2012 at 21:31 Ross Angus says:
It’s cracking, isn’t it? Played it through twice. Have you seen how similar the “feel” of the movement in Dishonoured is? There’s something very visceral about the way you get about.
19/07/2012 at 22:59 Petethegoat says:
I really need to try and finish Dark Messiah, but last time I played it I hit a wall with horrible, horrible slowdown. I had to save and load every three (i’m not exaggerating) minutes to try and avoid the slowdown, but after a certain point it’d be slow even after loading and it was just unbearable.
It’s really annoying, as I loved everything about the game, it just didn’t work even slightly well for me.
20/07/2012 at 01:09 Urthman says:
It’s right up there with Deus Ex as my two favorite explore-and-find-all-the-secrets games. The level design is so good, and it does a great job of doling out just the right amount of rewards for your exploration.
20/07/2012 at 06:49 Squirrelfanatic says:
Very true. Sometimes the reward is just a Magic Mushroom (no, really), sometimes it is an alternative route that lets you sneak by some enemies. And sometimes you find weapons or other equipment that you would normally only get much much later (for example the lightning shield).
The best reward I got from exploring was this though: As I was sneaking through a temple ruin, I found a crack in a wall (ok, it was pretty big) that led to an alcove high up above a huge hall. As I rummaged through that alcove, suddenly a powerful enemy (I won’t spoil it here) appeared down in the hall. Had I taken the usual route, I would have had to face that guy in melee. But now I was able to safely rain arrows and magic attacks down on him. This felt so satisfying and was definitely one of the best moments in the entire game for me.
19/07/2012 at 20:28 helpleo says:
I just finsihed Darwinia, It was great! Now I’m playing the first Mass Effect, which is good as everyone said (i’m even liking the car-tank bits), along with Bastion, which may or may not be my new favourite game of all time! All along while playing two great games in two genres I used to loathe (MMO and visual novel) (DC Universe and don’t take it personally, babe), and having a great time! I’m even making a game now, which is totally a disater, but unlike anything the world has ever seem! And sometimes I even write on the internet about games. And I’m think i am doing great at it!
But them I read people comments about games.
The moral: games are allright. The problem are the gamers.
19/07/2012 at 20:28 jhng says:
Yes they are!
The one I’ve fallen in love with most recently is Rayman Origins — absolutely stunning game! I can’t remember the last time I played something that nailed gameplay, aesthetic vision and slick execution so well. It was also the first game in forever that my very ungamey wife was interested enough to come and watch.
I also finally finished Stacking which was charming and thoughtful, have begun returning to strategy after a decade long hiatus (Sins of a Solar Empire and Crusader Kings II), dipped into all kinds of weird indie stuff (I blame the RPS mind control rod) and started learning some simple games programming on my commute (it’s proving slightly easier than learning X-COM which is the other option on my netbook).
Games are great!! (But John’s grumpiness is very impotant too…)
19/07/2012 at 20:48 Shazbut says:
“John’s grumpiness is very impotant too”
I love the ambiguity here. Really you could say the same about all grumpiness
19/07/2012 at 21:09 jhng says:
Unintentional! But I won’t edit it, and John will never know if he was being praised or dissed… hee hee…
20/07/2012 at 17:24 Leandro says:
I am finishing a game of SIns of a Solar Empire rebellion right now, before I move to Endless Space. I was going to start a new game of GalCiv 2, but I have RPS to thank for showing me Endless Space. It’s sitting here in my HD, waiting for my “new game ritual”. I’ll take a bath, put on some comfortable clothes, have a snack, ensure I have plenty of free time, and then sit back and boot the game… it’s awesome.
19/07/2012 at 20:34 Nalano says:
Saints Row 3 has given me so much sheer unbridled glee in the last few months that I can’t help but squee about it.
19/07/2012 at 20:40 x1501 says:
Saints Raw 3 was fantastic in co-op. I can’t believe I almost decided not to touch it even after receiving a free copy as a gift.
19/07/2012 at 20:37 x1501 says:
I was quite surprised with Terraria when I played it about 6-8 months ago. From the look of it, the game seemed to be complete garbage (sorry, not a big fan of indie games), but we ended up wasting more time with it than with any other recent title. Too bad the developer just abandoned it after getting his truckload of cash. The potential for expansion was enormous.
20/07/2012 at 10:53 Magnusm1 says:
Your ignorance sickens me. If you would have been there from the start, you would know that the devs released TONS of FREE content.
Comments like these make me mad.
20/07/2012 at 17:37 jimbobjunior says:
I bought Terraria twice; I felt bad at the amount of content I was getting for free after barely spending more than a pint on the game to begin with.
19/07/2012 at 20:38 Totally heterosexual says:
Whoops first post was accidently a reply to someone.
*Ahem*
Max payne 3 is the best shooter in years. Some of the most organic and addictive gunplay in a loooooooong time. Slowly but surely working my way trough New york minute and it is a blast.
19/07/2012 at 20:38 Raziel_Alex says:
I finally got Skyrim on the Steam Sale. There’s something wrong with it. It obsesses me, it started pervading many other moments of my so-called real life. No, it’s not perfect, the cities especially feel so empty sometimes. But the freedom, the visual beauty and meditative quality, the possibility to enjoy it in so many ways… truly something magical.
20/07/2012 at 09:26 Outright Villainy says:
I find the actual game part of skyrim (i.e. Everything about the combat and talking) to be pretty boring, but for just exploring, it’s brilliant. The world seems really alive, and the subtle soundtrack really adds a lot to just wandering around.
I wonder if there’s a mod to take all the combat out…
20/07/2012 at 13:02 Raziel_Alex says:
I, on the other hand, like the combat a lot and don’t mind the talking. Although on my current playthrough I try not to murder anyone (I already did it to some necromancers, sadly) by mostly using magic and Conjuration.
For me, the cities don’t seem that alive, that’s my main problem and big parts of the wilderness are annoyingly empty. But it’s still a marvel and i have to be careful because I’m already missing some work and sleep because of it.
19/07/2012 at 20:40 MOKKA says:
So much stuff, not only recently but also over the course of the last few years. This year it was playing the alpha of Xenonauts and learning that a simple strategy game can involve you on an emotional level simply because it always let’s you feel responsible for what’s happening. Then there was Botanicula which was just a few hours of constant smiling. Carving up huge rocks in Tiny & Big was also fun. And I recently bought Stacking which I also find amazing (it also makes me smile a lot).
Oh and I played Bastion, which was also great.
It’s always sad that people tend to concentrate more on the negative parts of gaming, instead on the moments of enjoyment they have. And somehow I think most things that make us ‘grumpy’ are not essentially related to the games themselves, but to the ‘industry’ that exists around them.
19/07/2012 at 20:41 Sarganym says:
I’ve been amazingly impressed with some of the fantastic indie talent that can now grace our own harddrives thanks to amazing platforms like Steam and Desura. My game of the year last year is Dungeons of Dredmor, followed by Skyrim and Deus Ex HR.
I also love League of Legends and Terraria, such good hits.
19/07/2012 at 20:44 dogsolitude_uk says:
After playing and loving Skyrim for hours and hours, I bought Eschalon: Book 1.
Eschalon is almost the opposite of Skyrim, with its turn-based combat, isometric graphics and proper inventory system. It has loads of bits of text to read as well, stats and numbers and all the old-school RPG stuff.
It made me so happy. I went out and bought Book 2 shortly after. And you can get it for Linux as well. A wonderful game :)
19/07/2012 at 20:45 elderman says:
It’s a great pleasure to share a brilliant game with a friend who falls in love with it. I recently introduced a friend to Braid. She hadn’t played computer games or video games of any sort for a long time, but after a couple of screens of Braid, she was hooked. It became a piece of pleasure for her during a tough period of her life.
I did the same recently for my nieces with Machinarium. They loved the animation and worked together beautifully to solve some of the puzzles together. Before I left, I bought them a copy.
On a different track, each day, I build Crawl from the master branch of the git repo. I love how an entertaining, carefully crafted game gets a little better every day. It’s not ‘done’ but it’s been there and developing for years. The chance to be a witness, even a participant in a creative process like that, is special to gaming and really very cool.
19/07/2012 at 20:49 Blackseraph says:
I like kittens!
I am having fun replaying Vampire:the masquarade yet again. Last good proper rpg imo with lot’s of options for talking your way out of trouble.
19/07/2012 at 20:58 mickygor says:
Hope I don’t get too much flak for this, but I’m obsessed with SongPop at the moment, lol. It’s become a talking point in social situations. I’m playing with friends I’ve never played games with before, and it’s even put me back in contact with my uncle’s ex. Never was one of those people that bemoaned social gaming, but I’m well on the way to becoming an advocate now.
19/07/2012 at 21:01 dogsolitude_uk says:
Another thing I’ve thoroughly enjoyed has been going on (mis)adventures with J’Zargo in Skyrim. Once he’d been modded to use proper weapons and spells we had a ball out there, engaging in many Picaresque Khajiiti Adventures, travelling from town to town killing monsters and generally being a Magey-feline A-Team.
I’d make sure we’d always stop off at a pub afterwards and have a beer each. I found myself really roleplaying and doing ntotally unnecessary things in the game: e.g sleeping and eating, travelling by cart from town to town rather than quick travelling etc.
In STALKER, it was that awesome feeling of getting into an utterly terrifying situation in an underground lab, or out in the middle of nowhere, running for your life in the darkness, out of ammo, and seeing a campfire in the distance. As you approach, the four Stalkers round the fire put down their guitars and Vodka, whip out their guns and take out whatever the f*** it is that’s been after you. It’s a harrowing game in places, with some very dangerous environments, but that feeling of relief you have when you finally get to safety: never known anything like it in a game.
With Deus Ex: human Revolution, pretty much everything about that game made me happy. The art direction, the story, the sneakiness, the Rembrandt, the music… I played it over Christmas. It restored my faith in the games industry, and I now no longer fear Thief 4 being rubbish :) If they can get Christian Bale to play Jensen in the film, and get it directed by David Fincher, we could be onto a winner…
19/07/2012 at 23:04 Petethegoat says:
I love Stalker, but I had serious issues with it being too easy last time I played it. I was playing it on master difficulty or whatever, with the Stalker Complete realistic guns mod, and I still found it way too easy to win almost all firefights.
I’m also glad that someone else liked the Rembrandt style painting in Sarif’s office.
19/07/2012 at 21:04 cyrenic says:
I love the minimalistic design of DayZ, with a focus on player interaction as gameplay. Also I love the financial response the gaming community has given DayZ, because it means we should see more games along that line.
19/07/2012 at 21:05 Atalanta says:
I’ve been sucked back into Fallout: New Vegas. There are a lot of things to like, but a big one for me is the modding community — the fact that the Two Bears High-Fiving mod exists at all is great.
I’ve also been slowly ushering my dad and baby sister into the gaming fold — my dad’s now finished Portal and Portal 2, and he’s started Bioshock. He’ll call me occasionally to give me updates on where he is and how he’s doing, and it makes me super happy that he’s been really enjoying the games I’ve been recommending to him.
19/07/2012 at 21:06 Serenegoose says:
I’ve been playing costume quest! And it’s so simple, charming, and just makes me really happy. Which is what games should do, eh?
19/07/2012 at 21:34 icarussc says:
>> simple, charming, makes me happy
Yes! You have summarized Costume Quest to perfection! O, that there were more games of this kind!
20/07/2012 at 20:46 soco says:
I just played Costume Quest last weekend and I completely agree. Fun, cute, and got a genuine chuckle out of me from time to time.
Also, the first time your character goes into battle and transforms into from little kid to mega-creature…man that is a great feeling.
19/07/2012 at 21:20 JackDandy says:
Lately, Xseed has shown more and more signs of bringing Falcom’s classics to Steam. I’ve played Oath in Felghana again after finishing it on the PSP, this time on Nightmare.
It’s just as fun.
I honestly don’t know any other game that made me say “Damn this was fun, let’s try it again on a harder difficulty”.
19/07/2012 at 21:30 Kefren says:
When GOG started selling modern games, I smiled. Then I found myself buying even more games I won’t have time to play for years, just because I want to support a DRM-free enterprise.
I recently replayed (and completed) some favourite Amiga games on an emulator. Wicked was such a blast from the past (evil moon space RTC-type game). There’s no way I could have completed it without save state. Epic for the music and sound effects and tense, scary atmosphere. For anyone who’s never seen it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHUimB8HPWU
19/07/2012 at 21:30 LennyLeonardo says:
Dear John, thank you for this post. I find all the grumpiness on the internet a bit tiring sometimes, so it’s good to see you going for the yays.
19/07/2012 at 21:33 icarussc says:
The little girl is just adorable. Does she belong to one of you guys? She looks like she’s just a little older than mine is (3).
Right now I’m loving Magic: the Gathering Duels 2013 on my PC for it’s awesome mill deck and loving King of Dragon Pass on my phone. My goodness, the things they’re doing with text adventures these days!
20/07/2012 at 01:12 John Walker says:
That’s my niece. She turned four a couple of days after that was taken, last week.
19/07/2012 at 21:39 Brise Bonbons says:
DayZ. It captured everything I once loved about World of Warcraft in a way I wasn’t sure was possible anymore, and in the process proved that I hadn’t become jaded to virtual worlds, but instead most virtual worlds became shi — WAIT. STAY POSITIVE. It started when I just ran out into a field and got lost in the forests of Charnerus, and only gripped me stronger as I learned to survive a little better with each death. The first time I got robbed at gunpoint sealed the deal, for the simple reason that he let me run into the woods safely rather than just shooting me. Honestly, I don’t even know if he had a gun. In my current life I crawled for an hour to find morphine in a hospital, and on the way out of town found a silenced SMG in a downed chopper; what I’ll do next I don’t even know. Repair a car? Head to the NE airfield? Hunt bandits?
Second most exciting event has been Crusader Kings 2, which I got into a few months late. The emergent narrative in that game is second to none, in my opinion, and has completely changed how I look at both strategy and RPG games.
There are so many amazing games around right now, it’s hard to make a list. A Valley Without Wind, while it is still a work in progress, has huge potential, and like AI War is a real gem of design. I finally learned Dwarf Fortress shortly before picking up CK2, and that was another big moment in emergent narrative gaming. Frozen Synapse deserves to be on there too, somewhere… The list just keeps going on.
On top of all that, there are events on the industry and community levels that are immensely exciting: Crowdfunding, the flourishing indie scene, the increasingly sophisticated conversations about the broader potential of games as narrative and creative vehicles. It’s all very exciting, and I don’t think we realize yet just how lucky we are to be here to see it.
19/07/2012 at 21:43 Vhaele says:
I finally finished the Witcher. Loved it. Mass Effect 3 gave me a kid I never cared about and then expected me to remember him. The Witcher gave me a kid I could care about and then made me shove a sword through his chest.
19/07/2012 at 21:44 Caileus says:
Finally got around to ‘playing’ Dear Esther this evening and there were plenty of times I thought wow. Especially when something I thought that was there turned out not to be… hoping you understand if you’ve seen it, I don’t want to spoiler anything!
20/07/2012 at 20:52 soco says:
I just picked up Dear Esther on the Steam sale, so that will be part of my weekend. I’m really interested in what this is going to be, it looks so great and everyone that mentions it can’t say a damn thing about it so they won’t give any spoilers, so it must be something interesting.
Along the same lines about positive PC gaming…STEAM! Damn I love Steam. I know it is DRM, but they do it exactly right, making the DRM something positive for your customers.
19/07/2012 at 21:48 Gasmask Hero says:
Proteus. Standing on a mountain at nightfall, and watching the stars parade across the sky, and the stormclouds roll in from the sea.
Also CK2. One of the few games to make me laugh out loud when I discovered my marshal was possessed by the devil. And that was just in the demo. That made it my fist full price purchase in three years.
19/07/2012 at 21:49 Jimbo says:
My amazing mustachioed striker / playmaker / defensive midfielder, Santiago Sanchez, single-handedly getting Mexico to the World Cup Final in New Star Soccer (iPad) at the first time of asking.
Unfortunately, we lost to Germany on penalties, because it went to extra time and Santiago Sanchez had run out of energy drinks and had to be subbed. But we still had a fun time! Yay!
19/07/2012 at 21:51 felisc says:
Strongest experience this year has been DayZ. As everybody, I have tons of great anecdotes, but one that sticks is when I started playing with a friend recently. He’s a bit of a loner and always criticizes everything.
After getting shot by players for the third time (we were cautious but would never open fire first), my buddy started to get really angry and told me the next player he saw, he would just kill him from afar.
I disagreed as I didn’t want to be added to the mass of player killers.
We actually argued hard and it got to the point of me telling him that he was too violent in real life anyway and he should do effort to be nicer with people he meets. We had a long serious discussion after that !
I wanted to tell him that for a while now, and thanks to a game it came out.
19/07/2012 at 21:54 JP says:
Just played “Thirty Flights of Loving”.
That is all.
19/07/2012 at 21:58 Ateius says:
Getting back into Skyrim with a new character using new skills, and piling on fantastic innovative mods to make the experience prettier and deeper than ever before.
Also, Saint’s Row 3. A big stupid game full of big stupid things, but it’s enormously entertaining in a big, stupid way.
19/07/2012 at 22:14 serioussgtstu says:
The lord of the rings mod for Medieval 2: total war makes me happy. There’s something about commanding an army of tiny, bearded grumpy men with axes that registers with me on a primal level.
19/07/2012 at 22:37 hamburger_cheesedoodle says:
I’ve been playing the source mod Dystopia again. Valve have broken something with master server support for most Source mods, but there’s a pickup games group, and they still play regularly. It’s incredible just how right that game got multiplayer game balance. It’s the Starcraft of FPS: hard to pick up, a bit antiquated, but perfectly balanced, technically challenging, and always a blast to play.
19/07/2012 at 22:42 MondSemmel says:
I’m a cynical person, but I approve this message.
Games I enjoyed tremendously in the past ~three months (I _highly_ recommend all these games if you haven’t played them yet):
- I enjoyed Smiles HD a lot. It’s a casual, match-3 game and probably initially solely developed for mobile devices. Yet it was an amazing game, demonstrated the concept of “juiciness” (mentioned on RPS some time ago) perfectly, and was a perfect port. And while I expected the tediousness of a game intended for “casual” players, I instead experienced a very, very smart game.
- Noitu Love 2: Devolution
- Escape Goat
- PixelJunk Eden: An art game that understood both parts of that description.
- 1000 Amps: I approve of the way the RPS WiT suggested everyone buy this game :) – it was as good as promised.
- Defender’s Quest: If you don’t like Tower Defense games, you will probably still love this one. And if you _do_ love TD games: This one is the best of them all. And it’s about to become even better soon – the 1.0 update is not far off.
Oh, and all these games are indie games.
And most of them also have amazing soundtracks. In fact, I now own tons of amazing music (whereas I essentially owned no music two years ago), most of which comes from games.
And finally, there’s the current Steam Summer Sale, and I’m currently stocking up on new, amazing (exclusively small) games for my summer holidays.
So, that’s enough positivity/optimism for a few months…
19/07/2012 at 23:07 jaheira says:
Surprisingly awesome: Bulletstorm! Bought it ages ago and only recently tried it. They nailed the crap out of that game. Utterly beautiful and consistently hilarious with great shooting and bonus Jennifer Hale. Why the hell didn’t it sell?
Unsurprisingly awesome: Mass Effect 3. You know what I like? Slowing down time and putting a bullet exactly through the viewing slit of the shields the Cereberus guys carry. That’s what I like. And Liara sitting on my knee. I like that too.
19/07/2012 at 23:22 Samuel Bass says:
Being have a really good time with games recently…
- Grabbed the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. pack off of Steam yesterday, having shamefully avoided it forever. Just scratched the surface, but it’s excellent (and really unsettling) so far.
- Played through Dear Esther in a single concentrated (but very relaxed) play session. Lovely, just lovely.
- About 20 hours into Skyrim and loving every second of it.
- Using Saints Row III as a way to unwind with 30 minutes of anarchy after a long, “serious” gaming session.
- Dying a bazillion times in I Want to be the Guy Gaiden.
- Getting super excited for Dishonored
- Really excited about Richard and Alice, haven’t had time to play yet.
- Playing my own, as yet unreleased game…it’s got the fun!
20/07/2012 at 01:02 Berzee says:
Mr. Bass — I wondered were it had all gone. I urge you not to be selfish, and to release some of the fun into the wild once again; I need some for my game too.
Thank you for your time,
– Mr. Berzee
19/07/2012 at 23:34 SoggySilicon says:
I don’t always play with dressed up skinner boxes for very long… but when I do… I make it Phantasy Star Online 2 Open Beta… :D
19/07/2012 at 23:44 Selifator says:
Digital A Love Story, absolutely marvellous game that shows how games can be awesome.
19/07/2012 at 23:48 Solidstate89 says:
I’m excited about all the new games I purchased in the latest Steam Sales and how I can’t wait to play them. But I can’t because I still have to play through all of the other games I’ve purchased through all of the other Steam sales and GOD DAMNIT!
19/07/2012 at 23:52 Kadayi says:
Enjoying the darkness of spec ops the line.
19/07/2012 at 23:55 Roshin says:
Sniper Elite 2. Not much of a game, to be honest, but those slow motion x-ray kill shots? Aww yeah, I could do that shit for hours.
20/07/2012 at 00:03 I_have_no_nose_but_I_must_sneeze says:
Something positive? The ongoing success of this site, which gives me the opportunity to enjoy uniformly excellent writing and discover all kinds of fascinating games. You guys make PC gaming so much better.
Of the games I’ve enjoyed recently, I can safely pick out Botanicula as a pure joy to play. So much wonder and whimsy at the tip of my cursor. Binding of Isaac is another highlight. A game that cost so little is still devouring hours from my life, months after I bought it, and I haven’t even touched the expansion yet. Hours of screaming at a mocking monitor, ever returning for more abuse. Now that’s a positive image for you.
Mass Effect 3 is showing me that my Shepard is still a vivid, living, breathing character that I’m invested in, which is a testament to Bioware’s design and Jennifer Hale’s powerful vocal presence. The Mass Effect franchise is certainly not without its flaws, but the fact that every player’s Shepard effortlessly becomes the One True Shepard is an exciting accomplishment.
I also completed Dear Esther for the first time today. I was a little hesitant at first but then it won me over with its persistent melancholy and gentle confusion. That was a lovely way to spend an afternoon.
20/07/2012 at 20:58 soco says:
Of course! Binding of Isaac, how has no one mentioned this yet. So twisted, so random, so fun.
20/07/2012 at 00:24 pakoito says:
Only one more month until I go back to my gaming rig :) I bought a lot of games that doesn’t work on my netbook and I’m eager to play!
20/07/2012 at 00:27 Mungrul says:
I too have been replaying the wonderfully no-nonsense Just Cause 2 recently, and it’s just brainless, exploding fun.
I also finally got around to completing Dark Souls, which as many have written, is utterly stupendous. I think it loses something when compared to Demon’s Souls (Demon’s Souls feels tighter, hard to say why), but that still doesn’t stop it from showing a huge amount of other game developers how it should be done.
I recently replayed Driver San Francisco, and rarely has a game given me so many belly laughs. I can spend hours just jumping from car to car in order to find unique characters.
I’m obsessed with GW2, which has cast a long shadow over my gaming in recent months, with it’s utter brilliance making everything else seem so much more drab in its absence. I’m excited for this weekend, but frothing at the mouth for the end of August!
Going back and playing older MMOs that follow the WoW design document to the last letter has reinforced my opinion that this form of MMO will fall by the wayside with the ascendance of GW2.
And I never, ever thought a game could make me love autolevelling after Bethesda brutalised the concept, but ArenaNet have proven it’s the most sensible way to ensure content never becomes completely redundant.
Games are great :D
20/07/2012 at 00:30 RPSRSVP says:
No, RPS is not grumpy. RPS is brilliant. As rare as it happens nowadays, I like reading truth, no matter what the subject at hand is. The piece you guys wrote on hardware used at E3 2012 was elucidating. Exposing the shenanigans of console controllers and console like screen prompts used to show off E3 demos was a great piece of gaming journalism.
20/07/2012 at 00:48 Vorphalack says:
What is best in gaming? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you…..
Nah, really it’s the moders and code monkeys who put their own time and effort into un-breaking the old classic games, like Thief, so I can play them on Windows 7 without it looking like arse or crashing every 5 seconds. The real heroes keeping the best era of PC gaming (my opinion, subject to individual interpretation) alive today.
20/07/2012 at 00:49 jellydonut says:
No, I’m sorry. No positivity here.
The only game I’m enjoying is a game that is constantly, and I mean day-in day-out broken, still in alpha, and probably not going to be any better any time soon. (yes, you guessed it, DayZ)
EVE was kinda entertaining me as well, but the skill training system and my corp which is in summer stagnation mode keeps me from logging in any more than the time I need to add skills to my queue.
20/07/2012 at 00:56 Berzee says:
Playing Orcs Must Die for the first time recently; I only bought it because it was cheap and I’d heard good things, but it was against my independent inclination. 10 minutes later I was cackling like a maniac, and twenty minutes later my wife had borrowed my computer and was doing the same. =P
It’s been at least a little while since I played a game that would make me cackle.
20/07/2012 at 01:12 ColOfNature says:
I’ve been playing the original Syndicate (from GoG) and Cannon Fodder (Amiga version on UAE – I have the GoG one, but it doesn’t have That Tune). Oh my, they don’t make ‘em like they used to…
edit: which isn’t to say that modern games aren’t good – I don’t want to fall afoul of the Cheerfulness Police – it’s just that those two games defined gaming excellence for me for a long time.
20/07/2012 at 01:21 Urthman says:
Minecraft is a phenomenal achievment. The survival mode offers an amazing wealth of emergent events, exciting stories–fun to tell your friends–that nobody wrote. All from a fairly small and simple toybox. And creepers are one of the greatest new video game enemies in I don’t know how long.
And then you can leave all that aside and look just at the multiplayer building servers and find a literally endless parade of the most amazing creations in any video game ever. Minecraft is a microcosm of everything that’s great about the internet.
That both of these things are the same video game is unbelievable. It’s like STALKER and LEGO decided to team up and fight boredom together.
20/07/2012 at 01:27 Torgen says:
My favorite Minecraft player-built contraption is the giant “launch tower” that used massive numbers of TNT blocks in an attempt to put a pig on Minecraft’s Moon.
20/07/2012 at 02:16 Metalhead9806 says:
For me it was a game i expected to be a one off. Basically something I played with a few friends after a night of drinking then I would uninstall it. The game? Payday: The Heist. Basically Left 4 dead with bank robbing instead of zombie killing but Oh MY GoD is this game bloody fantastic!!!
I can’t stop playing it, its such an insanely tense experience that i can’t help but laugh and smile on voice with my buddy’s. So underrated and I love it.
20/07/2012 at 02:33 Phantoon says:
I hate happiness, therefore I hate your niece.
Also I hate video games. I am only here to be mad, all the time.
20/07/2012 at 03:19 particlese says:
The short: Journey is an absolutely wonderful game.
The long: Someone else mentioned that the fact there are so many good games available is itself exciting, and I thoroughly agree with them. I’ve finally begun in earnest my trek through Skyrim (O, the mods! Oblivion was delayed for four years because of the things), and I’ve recently dipped my toes into Minecraft and Day Z, and there are many others I’ve enjoyed in the last year alone, but Journey is the only game in existence that I’ve loved as much as (though differently from) the original Deus Ex.
The first time I played Journey, I did so offline and without anyone else around, allowing myself to be completely sucked in like I usually do with Elder Scrolls games. Reviewers of this game tend to at least mention how it runs through the gamut of emotions. The whole idea of triggering emotions by interacting or observing the world is all well and good, but poorly-matched dialogue, sound, or music can sometimes kill it. In this game, the dialogue was wonderfully absent, the sound was…also wonderful, and the music was absolutely PERFECT, in my mind. After my first time through the game, I avoided it for fear of somehow spoiling the magic. And multiplayer with strangers (the only multiplayer it has) was out of the question. Lack of communications be darned, I was sure someone would find away to spoil it.
Then one night, after watching one episode each of of Blackadder and Top Gear (you guys seriously have the best programming over there), I booted up Journey to mellow down before bed. To my horror, I found I had a companion when I entered the second level: My Amazon video-watching had signed me on to the Network of Playstation. My companion was boring and refused to go anywhere, so I happily continued on without him after some futile, wordless coaxing. When I entered the next level, there was another companion waiting, but this one was actually interactive! We finished the game together, and it was completely wonderful. “Awesome” feels like too harsh a word for it; it was just wonderful. I never thought I could say that about multiplayer with strangers.
SPOILERS //Though not really, because it’s all about the journey, amiright?
What topped it all off was that, as I died near the end of the game, a message popped up on my screen that my controller battery was about to die. I don’t play the PS3 much, so I had completely forgotten where I put the charging cable. When the cutscene hit, I ran around frantically, looking for the cable, and when I finally got back and plugged it in, the cutscene was just ending. I managed to turn the controller back on JUST after I was brough back to life and the action started again.
END SPOILERS
Console game, yes, but completely unforgettable.
20/07/2012 at 05:18 lordcooper says:
Agreed. Journey and To The Moon have been hands down the greatest games I’ve played this year.
20/07/2012 at 04:07 Mr. Something says:
As far as I’m concerned, games are all great! – Ed
20/07/2012 at 04:11 9squirrels says:
Thanks to the wonderful Steam Sale, I picked up the Arkham Franchise pack, and last night started to play Arkham Asylum. I was always a fan of Batman as a kid, but had held off picking up the game for some reason (cost and lack of time due to having kids of my own now and a raging TF2 addiction being chief among them).
This has made me all kinds of happy, and I’m itching to get back home to play, despite knowing that tonight I’m going to a friends 40th birthday so won’t actually be able to play it tonight. I got 83 minutes in last night according to Steam and it was 83 wonderful minutes. It captures what I love about Batman, the lurking in the dark, the insane Joker (who really reminds me of the version from The Killing Joke) the movement feels good, although I have to say, walking as The Batman just doesn’t feel right.
So, in short, the Steam Sale has made me happy and Batman has made me happy.
On top of this, playing Minecraft with my Dad (who is in England and I’m in Australia) a while back was great, and playing it with my nearly 4 year old son on my lap has also been great… Now if I could just get them both in a game at the same time… :) I think that this is what is going to make me happy in the future, the ability to play games with my family, wherever they are.
20/07/2012 at 05:00 BKindRewind says:
I’ve been playing through Trine 2, Borderlands, and Blacklight: Retribution…all of which are great!
20/07/2012 at 05:05 Freud says:
Finding a hatchet in DayZ and finding a player for some axe to mouth action makes me happy.
20/07/2012 at 05:33 Enikuo says:
I’ve only recently discovered that I love aRPGs – I missed the Diablo series altogether. After tromping around in Torchlight 2 beta, I was hooked. Now, I’m clicking my way through Titan Quest and anxiously awaiting the release of all the various aRPGs on the horizon. It’s delightful.
20/07/2012 at 07:00 Ernesto says:
I discovered Dungeons of Dredmor. All those silly items and even sillier names… And recently I didn’t even die on the first floor :)
20/07/2012 at 11:15 RegisteredUser says:
Try unarmed + berserker, top it off with shield and master of arms. Hold two good shields for epic protection, kick people in the nuts and spin kick them away at leisure with raaaage for far more damage than with a good sword.
Mix and match with whatever else you enjoy(smithing probably isn’t a bad idea as it gets strength upgrades e.g. and you can craft shields eventually I guess).
I combined with dodge, as it has a counterattack skill right as skill nr 2.
20/07/2012 at 07:06 Corrupt_Tiki says:
ArmA 3 and DayZ! Yay!
Also, Steam summer sale YAY!
20/07/2012 at 09:03 frenz0rz says:
[PSYCHONAUTS SPOILERS]
The last level of Psychonauts. I’d played the game before but never completed it, having foolishly given up on the Napoleonic level due to a frustrating platforming section. Playing it through again was a brilliant experience – what a game! – but the last level… oh my.
Many hated it. Many still hate it. During the worst of the fiddly, frustrating, noticeably rushed platforming sections, I was very close to hating it. But I felt so much for that poor little boy. Call me sad, but I love rabbits. I’ve looked after my sisters rabbit for years and he’s a clever old chap, and enjoys a good cuddle. Of course, rabbits have been a food source for centuries, but the sheer thought of a parent taking their child’s pet, killing it, cooking it and forcing them to eat it… now thats fucking grim. Thematically, it was one of the best levels I’ve ever played.
20/07/2012 at 09:10 bit.bat says:
I’m currently playing Fez and I do find it pretty amazing. Saying anything more would really be spoiling the game, its best if you go in with almost no prior knowledge.
I do think it is also a game that the PC community would embrace so fingers crossed!
20/07/2012 at 09:15 NathanH says:
This week I married my uncle, was thrown in prison in Paris, and just arranged the murder of my half-brother, which was unfortunately discovered, probably because I invited a drunkard into the plot.
It really doesn’t get any better than this.
20/07/2012 at 09:19 Outright Villainy says:
I know I’m well behind the times on this, but I only played Cave story for the first time this week when I picked it up in the sale. It’s such a brilliant game, and almost perfect aside from the annoying unskippable dialogue before every boss battle. (why would you ever do this, whyyyyyyy)
But yes, other than that, pretty much everything in that game had me grinning like a loon: The charming graphics, extremely catchy music, exploration rewarding level design, and the sheer elation of overcoming a difficult challenge. Wonderful.
21/07/2012 at 05:20 The Random One says:
Every once in a while I’ll get a tune stuck in my head and then realize it’s Cave Story’s title screen tune. I played it once, when it was free, maybe five years ago.
20/07/2012 at 09:27 RaveTurned says:
After about a year’s worth of gradual nudging and cajoling, I finally have a group of friends who play online together fairly frequently. Initially just TF2, then the odd smattering of Magicka and Terraria, and now Sanctum thanks to a four-pack in the Steam sale.
Gaming with other people is good (mostly). Gaming with people you know, and being able to talk about shared experiences outside of the game? Feels really great. :)
20/07/2012 at 09:28 JamesPatton says:
Slightly unrelated, but I’ve recently started learning Actionscript 3. So for me, the most wonderful thing about games right now is that I can make a little man move around the screen using nothing but Flashdevelop and my keyboard (and lots and lots of help files). THIS IS WHAT GOD MUST FEEL LIKE.
20/07/2012 at 09:43 Belua says:
Even before the Steam sale, I had more games in my backlog than I can hope to finish in the next couple of years. There are some really, really, awesome games that I am ashamed for not having finished yet (Dragon Age: Origins, The Witcher 1 (!), Deus Ex HR) and then some I haven’t even started. I have all STALKER games now, and haven’t even started one.
Currently, I’m playing Max Payne 3 and after some ‘meh’ reviews, I’m pleasantly surprised at how much I like it. Although I’d wish modding was still as supported as with the first two. Max Payne just needs the Kung Fu and Matrix mods! Oh, and no limits to how many guns I can carry – my one major gripe with the game so far. Also, you just know that someone, somewhere would rebuild the entire first two games in the new engine, which I understand would probably be too awesome to exist and thus had to be censored preemptively by the universe.
Edit: Oh, and don’t get me started about the millions of awesome indie games we have. There’s just too many of them to keep up. I’ve wasted more hours in Dwarf Fortress than in a lot of so called AAA titles. And I really enjoyed the few weeks I spent with Minecraft, even if I pretty much stopped after a particularly emotional rage quit. And now I find myself kickstarting, preordering and alphafunding more games than can be considered healthy for me and my wallet.
I know, it’s the hip thing to say “everything was better in the good old days”, but I can’t agree with that while being thrown through emotions by Mass Effect 3, having insane fun with Saints Row 3 and Just Cause 2, being the goddamn Batman in the Arkham games, roaming through the worlds of the Witcher and Skyrim or listening to the voiceover from Bastion.
20/07/2012 at 11:10 RegisteredUser says:
I liked that something as small and simple as Defender’s Quest could become something to look forward to to conclude the evening with. With a small, but dedicated team behind it, simple, but loving graphics and a pinch of that “level me up!” taste, it was pretty much just right, and at <80 MB made so many 8+ gb games pale in comparison in terms of worth my time / engaging myself with it.
I like that gaming has that potential of opening up a really particular niche and serving it oh-so well, with folks still daring to do stuff that's weird, different or just plain new.
SPAZ was pretty cool, too, and Dungeons Of Dredmore.
20/07/2012 at 13:16 Eddard says:
Homeworld. Got it when I was in high school. Repeatedly read and reread the manual/strategy guide. Loved the universe. My favorite game ever. It’s not recent, but I had to mention this anyway.
I never beat it.
20/07/2012 at 13:22 iainl says:
Picked up Civ V in the Steam Sale. Lost myself in it for hours; it feels like original Civ did all those years ago.
20/07/2012 at 13:37 Ghoulie says:
Don’t worry RPS, I love you guys because you’re a bunch of grumpy, cantankerous Brits.
20/07/2012 at 13:50 tumbleworld says:
Dwarf Fortress makes me happy.
Yes, it’s insane. The learning curve makes Eve look casual, the visual interface is reminiscent of the Operators’ Consoles in the Matrix — I use a tile-set, which helps — and it’s got more bugs than Charles I. You’re setting out out a very specific stall when you have “Losing is FUN!” as your welcome mat.
On the other hand though, it has three strengths that make it utterly compelling. Firstly, it’s deep. It is so ludicrously detailed that it makes uber-roguelike Nethack look Mazogs (which was crammed into 1k on the ancient ZX81). Mine out some stone, haul it to a workshop, make a pot out of it, have a brewer claim the pot and turn it into a barrel of hooch, and then store the booze for a year or two — and if a dwarf who eventually gets a drink from the barrel has a particular fondness for the type of rock you mined the stone from, he’ll enjoy it that little bit more, which genuinely might be the difference between everything going well, or the entire fortress dissolving into a death-spiral of hissy-fit tantrums, and all because a rabbit accidentally slipped and fell into some magma. The emergent game-play that arises from this depth is often jaw-dropping.
Secondly, it’s brutal. Utterly brutal. A depressed Dwarf — down, perhaps, because he can’t find clean socks — might decide (entirely on his own accord) to murder a colleague, drag the corpse to a workshop, and turn it into a skull-topped spine-bone scepter, complete with little decorative carvings of the socks he can’t find. He will be celebrated for this achievement. It might even cheer other the victim’s bereaved spouse up. Mothers have been known to go into battle wielding their own newborns as particularly hideous bludgeons. Entire Dwarven forts have been slaughtered by undead clam-shells. Please don’t ask about the Giant Sponges of Doom, flaming elephant madness, commemorative gold statues of the King of the Dwarves lying in a fetal position surrounded by sneering cockroaches, or the Circus.
Thirdly, it’s actually a really satisfying building and maintenance game in its own right. It’s a bit like Caesar IV in that respect. Only utterly unhinged. There are dozens of different possible directions you can take your constructions. Only a couple of production systems are functionally mandatory, and many are profitable for trading, so you can try all sorts of options out. There’s a rudimentary power system available, so you can create devices that Heath Robinson and Rube Goldberg would have marvelled at. These frequently involve lava. Some people construct fractal bedroom complexes — I know, I’ve seen them — and they look stunning.
There are easy ways into Dwarf Fortress. The Lazy Newb Pack is an alternate download that helps make installation straight-forward and provides tile-sets and vital tools. Youtube Dutchman Captnduck has a series of vids entitled DFVIDTUTS2012, and the first five or six will teach you enough to get started and feel comfy experimenting a bit. There’s a wildly over-detailed wiki. There’s even an O’Reilly book now, Getting Started With Dwarf Fortress — “Learn to play the most complex video game ever made!”.
I totally understand that you shouldn’t need to buy a goddamn book just to get through the initial set-up screen of a free computer game. Dwarf Fortress really _isn’t_ for most people. You have to be really quite anal, patient, imaginative and blood-thirsty. But if you are those things, then do yourself a favour and go watch Captain Duck. Dwarf Fortress is waiting for you, and there is truly no game experience like it.
20/07/2012 at 15:08 Kleppy says:
Im playing through Trine 2 and it makes me feel like a kid reading a fairy tale. I have no idea how such a gorgeous fantasy world can even exist. Those guys at frozenbyte are unbelievable.
20/07/2012 at 15:55 Strangerator says:
Recently going back to Skyrim with a bevy of mods. The steam workshop system of modding was extremely easy and appears to not be breaking my game so far (no CTDs yet). It’s a whole different game with fast travel disabled, horses just a bit faster, and wagons added to store excess loot. Expanded spell list helps a lot as well.
20/07/2012 at 17:33 Weed says:
Liking the spit and polish on indie games:
Frozen Synapse
FTL
Looking forward to The Banner Saga. It’s good to see fresh ideas and great execution mix it up with the larger studio heads.
All of these seem to implement or execute great ideas that add great depth. They are very affordable.
For bigger development projects, I am looking forward to XCOM in October, and I will probably try Torchlight 2 and hoping they implement other novel and cool game play mechanics.
And today as much as ever, I tend to buy/play games based on recommendations from someone I actually know.
[Edited out the grumpy bits]
20/07/2012 at 19:55 BubbaNZ says:
Total War Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai. Got all its bits in sales. Saving money always makes me smile and better still the little iMens have splendid hats! And the game works! And machiney guns, takka takka takka takka. I love me some takka takka takka.
21/07/2012 at 04:11 nemryn says:
Hooray for videogames!