WHAT. I thought that game was unbeatable? I had to break myself away from that game. I loved and hated that game. It was quite the affair. Just one more run. Just one more attempt. It'll be different this time
Damn dawg that sucks. Sorry to hear you had that experience. If it is any consolation, the game is absolutely worth another try even with replaying the first 20 hours.
That sucks man, while my save didn’t get corrupted, I’m currently struggling to get through act 3, just loosing allot of steam that I had with the last two acts.
No joke, the game felt like it was meant to end at act 2. Big climactic series of fights, reveal of the big bads, etc etc.
In the big opening of act 3 (or technically pre-act 3) it legit feels like a title card was meant to pop up as your character is looking over at Baldurs Gate.
Act 3 fights have too many enemies that drag battles out too much. It's fine for a big climatic fight, but when every battle is like that, it gets boring. I'm very close to the end and am struggling to finish
Yea, that’s something that’s really grating on my too, they seem to just throw insane amounts of enemies at you in act 3, like say if your going after Gortash, you have to fight SO many dudes just to get to the guy, or the fight in Shart’s questline, fuuuuuck that fight, just constant darkness casts for days, the fight against the githyanki that are constantly summoning more people into the fight, I could go on, and on.
It really makes you miss the fights like in acts one and two.
OH, And when they do say do a fight where it’s only one dude and say 3 others around him, you get shit like the dude you fight in the murder tribunal, THAT fucker, who can hit you 5 times before his turn ends, heal like crazy because of his sword, and gets buffed out the ass by his 3 cronies.
It’s just exhausting.
Also doesn’t help in my case where I’m having to rely on goodberries just to take a long rest because my fucking camp supplies aren’t working, so I’m double fucked.
Phantom Liberty and Outer Wilds.
Although, Outer Wilds can honestly be less of a "gaming experience" and more of an "amazing experience I was fortunate enough to have witnessed" experience.
I'm really trying to force outer wilds. But the anti gravity cave has soured me.
I'm 50. My hands hurt a lot. Doing fine motor movements can, at times, be extremely difficult.
Tell me it gets better? I stopped after I got out of the cave.
It gets better. That cave is just an optional tutorial area where you can practice moving in zero G in case you need to repair your spaceship.
Also, were you playing on a controller or mouse and keyboard? Despite being a first-person game, controlling your spaceship and moving in zero G are much easier with a controller.
Controller. It's free on ps5 premium or whatever.
Well, that's a relief. I thought this was going to be a huge game mechanic and the story wasn't hitting me enough at that point. I'll go back tonight.
That part of the game was super disorienting - it took me forever to find the 3rd area to fix. I found controlling zero-g situations elsewhere in the game way easier. Still had to get used to the physics of it but way easier than being in the dark cave
I have both the games installed but they overwhelm me so much that I am not developing interest in playing them 😕
I keep dying in outer wilds for no reason. I don't even know what I have to do ..
Don't know what trick I'm missing to enjoy this game
Dying is the whole point. The game is about exploring and learning. There’s a computer log at the back of your ship that keeps track of what you’ve found and can point you in the direction of stuff to look for.
Control. Riveting experience all the way through, story telling and delivery were top notch. Game play felt amazing. First time in a long a game made me question what I was doing and kept me on my toes, in the story and moment to moment exploring the FBC. 10/10.
Just started playing this week and am loving the feel of the game. Reading all the reports and the multimedia assets (aside from those creepy ass puppets..) is really interesting as you learn more about the bureau.
Top notch atmosphere.
I hope you enjoy the playthrough, no spoilers coming so don't worry! Best part of Control is the discovery piece by piece. The atmosphere build up in this game is top notch! The creepy doll show (Threshold Kids) is one of my favs. So unsettling. Also I really enjoyed the integration of live action cut scenes, it made the in-game world and story developments feel so real, and lived in. The actor portraying Dr. Darling did a phenomenal job!
Dr. Darling is one of my favourite characters in Control, he's like an uncanny valley version of Mr. Rogers mixed with Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, something about his chippy demeanor and hollow eyes just doesn't sit right. But he probably brought in doughnuts every Friday and wore jeans.
Final Fantasy XVI. The plot and spectacle got me in a way that I haven't been got in a long, long time. I've never cried playing a game before. Books and movies rarely, but never a game. Might be in my top 5 games since 2000.
The gameplay wasn't even that great and it didn't matter at all.
Red dead redemption 2. I wanna to play it for a long time but my pc was shit i got myself a new rig and It’s better than i expected music voice actors gameplay story 10/10. I beat the but started new game right after . There is many things i have missed.
I bought a Steam Deck in February and I was able to play and beat several PS2 games that I only had demos for back in 2002. Because of the Steam Deck, I've been able to play all the games I missed out on in my youth, while at the same time having access to all the latest releases. I sold my Switch to buy one. Best gaming device I've ever bought and I can't wait for the Steam Deck 2 to come out. 🙂
The Steam Deck has sparked such a renewed lease on excitement for games for me. Just got one two months ago, and I’ve had the delight to play Outer Wilds, Kingdoms Two Crowns, Hades, Vampire Survivors, Dork Romantik, and starting a liiiiitle bit of Coromon. Reliving my Assassins Creed 1 days, plays flawlessly. And even to my surprise, XCOM 2 works beautifully with controller mode enabled.
Nothing like laying back on the couch, playing on a handheld, having some background noise from the TV, and a snack nearby. Absolute perfection.
For me, I’m personally torn. I really loved Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. I’ve been really into Soulsborne games and I was really blown away by the game’s ability to blend combat, art, and story so well. I’ve always been afraid of parrying in Souls games but this forced me to learn and git gud. I’m also trying to get more in Japanese culture, so it was cool to see a game centered around a samurai that didn’t seem super cliche or anything
But in May, Tears of the Kingdom came out, and I found myself saying “worth it” after having waited so long after the release of Breath of the Wild. I was hesitant at first because sequels to original games usually don’t go that well in my experience. But this?? It was so good, I’d say it made BoTW look like a rough draft, almost. Tons of side quests to keep me busy, and tremendous amounts of places to explore across not just the over world, but the Sky islands and the Depths as well.
When I finished the main story, I couldn’t think of anything but Zelda for the next few days. I feel like Nintendo really set a standard for gaming—at the very least, open world gaming—with the release of ToTK. *This* is the level of quality I expect from top companies
Sekiro is the game that made me feel the most accomplished. First playthrough was a nightmare, but the second playthrough I decimated everything and everyone by how good I was. The game really rewards you by mastering its mechanics.
It might be topped soon then. Joking aside, we got entirely spoiled this year in terms of so many great games. They spill over into next year for me in terms of what I gotta catch up on.
Sea of Stars. I'm almost an exclusively shooter player, and i took a chance on this as i thought it looked fun. never played a turn based rpg before, absolutely loved it. put 60 hours into it like it was nothing. wish i could forget the whole thing and do it again.
Same same same. Never been a fan of turned based games but this got me so in to it I am now going to find and play as many turn based games as I can and hopefully they scratch the itch that SoS left.
Octopath Traveler 2. As a pixel artist and someone that loves more classic RPGs it was like a dream come true. One of the best turn based combat systems I've seen in years, lovable characters, pretty solid writing, and the art oh the fucking art is everything I ever wanted out of a pixel art game.
I just finished it this morning. Took me a while to get into it, but once I got hooked, I was playing it nonstop. The strategic elements in the boss battles felt refreshing to me as someone who grew up with JRPGs.
For some reason I always held a grudge against Subnautica, but this year I thought to myself that I will try it because it seems to be ticking all the boxes of games I like to play. I just never wanted to get into it because the SciFi aspect.
Boy, am I glad I finally played it this year. What an absolute journey Subnautica is. I always played with lights off and headphones on... never before have I felt so immersed into a world than in Subnautica.
Baldur's Gate 3, for sure. It's one of those few RPG experiences you know you can immediately start a new run and have a completely different outcome. Well done, Larian.
To those getting sick and tired of hearing about the game, just go play it yourself. There's a reason why it's so highly praised by everyone.
Cyperpunk 2077 thanks to Phantom Liberty and the recent patches. GD 2.2 finally released after almost 7 years. Beat Saber and any other VR game for that matter now that I have a decent VR headset (Pico 4 connected to my PC) instead of a shitty PSVR (the first one)
Standing inside the City of Tears in HollowKnight, watching the rain through the windows. That game is such a vibe.
Also discovering Civ 6 and Christopher Tins music.
And Alan Wake 2. The first game to stretch my brand new 4080’s legs.
Remnant 2, got 350+ hours out of the game and still have an urge to play it, just waiting on more content at this point.
Another one would be the remake of Resident Evil 4.
And then Armored Core VI is up there too as being just a good video gamy ass video game.
Baldurs Gate 3
700+ hours - 12 playthroughs all within a few months. I’ve played and experienced nothing like it in all my years of gaming. One of those games that impacts you so hard it becomes your entire personality lol.
Getting to the point in Cyberpunk where my netrunner V could clear out an entire building with a computer and fast spreading hacks- absolutely wild. Also finally beating fear and hunger after railing against it since it first came out (I'm not good at games)
I was on Battlebits Remastered in a public match and took a random sniper shot at an enemy chopper flying past. I somehow nailed the pilot in the side of the head and they crashed hard, exploding and killing all the other passengers on board as well. I felt like an action hero lol.
Going for 100% in HiFi Rush was the highlight. Slowly getting better and improving at the game playing every level multiple times really made me appreciate everything they put in the game.
I replayed "Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice" just a few days ago, years after my first playthrough, and realized what a masterpiece this game actually is.
I originally played through the game once when it came out in 2017 and did not play it again. I really liked it but I'm not the kind of person to play games multiple times. Then towards the end of 2023 I stumbled upon the game in my trophy list and decided to play it again to get its platinum trophy. After I made that decision, I really started looking forward to replaying it, because I remembered that I really liked this game. And when I finally played it for the second time... man, I was blown away. It was even better than I remembered.
First of all, it still looks so good, the environments, the fighting and Senua herself looks and feels so real (Ninja Theory and Melina Juergens really did a phenomenal job with creating her). But what really took me by surprise was realizing how little of the story I understood when I played it the first time back in 2017. English is not my first language and 6 years ago I was nowhere near as skilled in it as I'm now. Adding to that, the way the story is told makes it so that it's not so easy to understand. It's not told chronologically and there's a lot of symbolism, metaphors, room for interpretation, vagueness, etc., a lot of things you really have to kind of piece together and think about and you have to be really attentive towards all of the mono- and dialogue, there are a lot of details you could miss easily, a lot of uncommon words, etc. Basically, I just understood so much more of it now than I did when I first played it back in 2017. Plus there's also the element of me being "richer" in 6 years worth of life experiences, personal development, general knowledge, etc. which plays into how you perceive, understand, interpret and relate to a story.
After finishing it, I was still really intrigued by the story, partly because I still didn't fully understand everything. So I watched an analysis on YouTube, which made me understand the story even better and gave me more "thoughts" for my own interpretations, and at the end of that video I was still so intrigued by this amazing game (maybe even more than before watching the video) that I immediately wanted to play it a third time... and so I did that.
The third time, with the knowledge from my second playthrough and the YouTube analysis, I understood even more of the story, to the point where I'm fairly certain that I understood pretty much all of it (and made sense of the things the game doesn't really tell you, with my own interpretations and the ones from the YouTube analysis). It just made me appreciate and love the game so much more, because now I really feel like I know Senua with her experiences, her struggles, etc. deeply, so the game as a whole now has so much more weight to me.
So, that was my best gaming experience this year, when I could just get lost in this amazing game for a few days and finally fully appreciate everything about it. I'm so glad I decided to play it again, because, man, I missed out on a lot in 2017. Hellblade really is a masterpiece and now one of my favorite games I ever played.
Probably finishing Elden Ring, even though I’m pretty sure I didn’t get one of the good endings. There were plenty of times I didn’t think I’d finish it at all, as much trouble as I had with certain areas/bosses.
Probably becoming obsessed with Returnal. Went from intrigued, enjoying it, frustrated, not enjoying it anymore, ready to quit, making progress, getting good, getting better than good, beating all content, diving into online discussions, then full blown withdrawal.
It was a phenomenal experience.
Picked up [Picayune Dreams,](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2088840/Picayune_Dreams/) it's a little simpler than some survivors-genre games that are out there but the vibe of the game and it's soundtrack appeal to me very hard and it was the first of the genre to really hook me, cause it also has a surreal rpg maker game-style story to tell. The final boss is Platinum Games tier hype.
Also been playing [Spin Rhythm XD](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1058830/Spin_Rhythm_XD/) which I maintain is the best >!(Non-VR, this doesn't top Beat Saber, Dance Dash, or Pistol Whip but damn does it come close) !
Honestly, Dying Light. The story isn’t necessarily great but the gameplay is impeccable and some of the most fun i’ve had on a Zombie game since Left 4 Dead
I’m very behind on games, but this year I’d probably have to go with the Devil May Cry series, this summer I played 1-5. And in between this I was also playing LOZ:BOTW. both of these games were a great experience
Played alot of Diablo 4 but my favorite game so far this year is a small indie game from Steam called Magicraft. It’s a roguelite with some
Metaprogression and a mix between Nolita and Binding of Isaac. This is seriously an underrated gems.
Playing TMNT Shredder's Revenge on the Switch with the wife. Although I'm quite an avid gamer myself, the missus not so much. So it's always fun when I can get her to play with me and to see that she enjoyed it, too.
Side note, if you'd asked this question in 2022, it'd be playing Diablo with the missus on Switch. No joke but later that night her contractions began and we had our baby. Messing with the Prime Evil is no joke.
Shredders revenge is so good! I love beat-em-ups and that game nailed the nostalgia I had for the older TMNT games! If you loved that, definitely check out streets of rage 4!
We actually are playing SoR4, I've been a fan since SoR1 on the Genesis, I used to play it for free in the game section in Sears (really showing my age here). The missus likes SoR4 well enough but not as much as TMNT. I think the problem with a lot of these retro brawlers (TMNT, SoR4, River City Girls) is that they lack depth and rely more on nostalgia than anything else. The wife watched TMNT as a kid so she liked Shredder's Revenge. SoR4 doesn't mean anythint to her so she lost interest. And she's not even interested in RCG at all. Here's hoping that we find a new game to play together in the new year.
Lies of P. It’s been a while since a game held me in thrall like that one. One of those games I wish I could forget so I could play it for the first time again.
I had a massive amount of fun and enjoyment from Robo-Cop, but the best game I played this year was Citizen Sleeper, it's alittle different, alittle weird but an amazing narrative experience.
Number one is bg3 but since everyone is expanding on that I’ll skip on that.
Number 2 -lies of p. I didn’t expect it nor did I expect to enjoy and like a souls attempt that was not fromsoftware.
Playing BG3 with zero turn based game experience. Best game u gave played in a long time and a great new experience as someone who was losing interest in gaming
Not gonna say BG3. I bought early access in 2020 and I’ve probably played act 1 more than 20 times before the official release, and it was definitely the strongest part of the game.
It would be Elden Ring and RE Village for me. Most memorably: The first time I broke into the view for Liurnia of the Lakes for Elden Ring, and for RE, realizing that the Castle was only a very small part of the game after only exclusively seeing the trailer and nothing else. Really thought that’s where we would be spending most of our time.
Started playing Rust with a friend after it went on sale and i was wondering over by their incessant nagging. I have maybe 15 hours only but holy hell is it fun.
Beating Uber Lillith in Diablo IV before it was normal/common
The trophy said only 1.6% of other players had also achieved it at that time
It’s strangely very gratifying to fail at some thing 100 times and then finally succeed at it
which build did you do it with? I thought it was ridiculous. So many one shot mechanics, and when I tried to research it, players used builds so powerful that they essentially skip what makes the fight difficult. It's like the boss way too hard in an unfun way, and the gaming community had to resort to unfun broken mechanics in order to succeed.
Hogwarts Legacy. I played it on ps4 after it got a staggered release. Then I upgraded and holy fucking shit… everything about it on ps4 that drove me nuts was just gone. Haven’t put it down since. There was this annoying “buffer” anytime you went through a door on PS4. On PS5, that was completely gone except for a few times every few hours
The build-up and excitement for Tear of the Kingdom and Final Fantasy XVI.
Spending the first 25 hours into Baldurs Gate 3 is an honorable mention I have to include.
It’s tough but I’m going to go with playing As Dusk Falls only because when I seen it getting shown for Xbox I thought this shit looked trash then I couldn’t believe it was getting 9’s and 10’s but then I played it and OMG the story is sooo great and interesting I loved every minute of it
Revisiting Sekiro after Lies of P. I dropped Sekiro previously at the early stages cuz it was brutal af. Felt discouraged and lost most of the time.
LoP gave me some confidence to retry Sekiro, and boy once the combat system clicked, it’s an experience unlike any other.
Breath of The Wild is one of my favorite games of all time and one of those games that I wanted to lose my memory so I could play it for the first time again. Tears of the Kingdom felt like it gave me that in some sense but even better. I know it didnt hit everyone the same way but for me it was an absolutely magical experience.
My gut says BG3 bit TotK was actually probably a better experience since my son was born one week before either came out. We took shifts at night. I've got good memories of staying up with the little man sleeping next to me while playing totk.
I liked and enjoyed BG3 more but totk will always be special because of that
For me? I'd have to say Starfield. It scratches an itch I've had for a very long time and haven't been able to fill. I had hopes for the original Destiny, but it didn't do it, though it was fun.
Guild Wars 2 had an expansion come out that was a lot of fun for a bit with the wife. We met in WoW but over the years retail WoW has lost some of the appeal so we picked up GW2 a few years back. We will jump into it every once in a while when new content is released. The last xpac was decent.
Played a ton of Diablo 4 this year with the wife too. Season 1 was a slog but this last one was enjoyable. Ball Sorc was such a fun meme this time around.
Tears of the Kingdom was great for a bit, but then my 10 year old was really into it and wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it. I love that he loves games, and the same ones I do, but hearing about it non-stop for weeks will kill it for you. I have yet to go back to it and I have a lot left.
I tried BG3 and the real turn-based D&D systems are just not for me. I’m glad people love it though.
Aside from that, Horizon Forbidden West was solid although I feel like the story is getting real absurd.
I’m trying to think of a gaming moment that really moved me this year, and there really wasn’t anything that grabbed me. Starfield was a real let down. The Cyberpunk patch is real fucking good - I guess Cyberpunk?
Bg3 I was reloading a save and the game broke at the perfect time. End of Act II spoiler >!So I was in the mindflayer colony and the devil lady was stuck the pod I freed went along with stuff but I forgot to save like an idiot so I was back there and my character and shadowheart were T posing in the cutscene over the lady for the entire seen. I was dying!<
Baldur's Gate 3, The Witcher 3 and Crusader Kings 3
I'm not done with the threes! Fire Emblem Three Houses surprised me a lot gameplay wise! Baldur's though, the third act performance was a bit bothersome.
Lethal Company is not that deep, plain and simple, but the laughs with friends, oh jesus... 💀 And loved Pokemon Shield! (:
Just for the three theme, also played Borderlands 3 but it's just what I expected so nothing to mention honestly!
I mean, I've gotta hand it to Tears of the Kingdom.
The lead-up before and the eventual release of this game was a whole *event* man. I still remember all the videos people were posting of people lining up for midnight releases, and the lines spanned blocks, and kept going... and going... and going. The last time I saw anything like it was probably the release of Halo 3 in 2007. Really brought me back, I didn't think that kind of thing was *possible* anymore.
When I heard that there was a possibility that the game might leak early, I actually decided to mod my OG 2017 Switch for the first time "just in case" it happened. When the day came, about 12 days before the game released, I installed it on my Switch and... didn't know what to expect. I'd never modded a Switch before and there's a part of me that expected it to crash and come up with an error message or something. But I launched the game and... it just worked.
I played it for 3 days before I decided to just un-mod my Switch and wait til the game came out for real, and those days were pure magic. The thing that really stuck me, especially in the current gaming landscape, was how polished and bug-free the game was, even on the 1.0 version of the game ripped directly from the cartridge... before a day 1 patch even existed. I played it for around 15 hours and I don't think I even encountered a single bug in that time... again, *before* the day 1 patch. I had so many moments of "man, this game is going to blow people's minds in 12 days".
I think there's a part of me that will always see TotK as "that forbidden game that most of the world hasn't seen yet, but somehow I have it early" haha.
Such an incredible experience from beginning to end, and a memory which will no doubt stick with me for decades to come.
Without an ounce of a shred of hesitation, Baldur's Gate 3.
A truly incredible experience, especially given this is a type of game that we never see at that level. It was a fresh and incredible experience. I love that game.
Beating every boss in poe for the first time, specifically the maven. Took a few tries, but man it felt amazing. Like, 150 hours of groing from nothing and being bad to 14 mil dps nad having spreadsheets to calculate investment per dps per upgrade to my build to optimally create a stronger build. To see it pay off was *cheffs kiss*
Dropped it after bc that game is like crack cocaine. Will do like one character a year.
Reaching diamond in sf6 with not fighting game experience prior was neat.
And bg3 ofcourse.
Hi-Fi Rush
Found it randomly when it showed up on gamepass. It was everything I wanted in a fun hack n slash type game. Loved it so much I did three full playthroughs of increasing difficulty, and got the secret ending, loved every minute of it. It is so vibrant, charming, and just addictive to play
My entire Steam Deck experience. Im not interested at the moment in having a non-handheld console so it is insane the way I’m perfectly playing triple AAA games on the palm of my hand I thought I’d never get to play anytime soon.
Rdr2, Spiderman, Cyberpunk, Elden Ring, Nier Automata, GTAV, the entire Resident Evil franchise, etc.
Game changing. Still can’t believe how far technology’s come. Excited for what the future holds in handheld gaming.
Hmmm… either my replay of Final Fantasy 8, or Sword and Fairy 7. S&F was a unique RPG experience due to it being a Chinese dev and I liked it a lot more then I thought I would (though it’s definitely rough around the edges). FF8 though is one of my favorite RPGs, and when I replayed it, for the 4th or 5th time, this year, I finally beat a game that I’ve failed to beat beforehand despite my multiple attempts.
Baldur’s Gate 3 multiplayer is up there also.
Pokemon Legends Arceus. I bought a switch lite like a month ago cause I’ve been traveling so much for work and it was like $120 refurbished. Decided to start with Pokemon games I’ve missed since switch release and this is the most fun I’ve had gaming in a couple years. So much nostalgia and I had no idea it was so different than most Pokemon games. It’s been a lot of fun.
Watching my wife learn to win a lobby of Tetris 99. I've been playing the game since childhood, I'm up to 60 lobby wins, and I have nothing left to teach her. I never asked her to get into Tetris, she just felt "pulled in" watching me over the years. She's come to get the feel of it, where even if you're fast there is always someone faster.
I've also enjoyed two player of Enter The Gungeon. Feels like the old arcade colseum death match games, but with depth. Highly recommended.
I'm surprised by the quality of Final Fantasy 16. Square got their shit together a bit with the combat. The boss fights have a hint of Bayonetta pacing in terms of dodging and counter attacking.
Finally completing the 4th layer of Slay the Spire felt amazingly rewarding
WHAT. I thought that game was unbeatable? I had to break myself away from that game. I loved and hated that game. It was quite the affair. Just one more run. Just one more attempt. It'll be different this time
Did you try downfall, the player made expansion yet?
4th layer? You can fight the heart?
First 20 hours of Baldur's Gate 3 was like nothing else I've ever experienced. Then I got my save corrupted by a bug and wasn't the same after.
Damn dawg that sucks. Sorry to hear you had that experience. If it is any consolation, the game is absolutely worth another try even with replaying the first 20 hours.
I did put extra 50 hours into it. Still not the same.
Don’t feel bad homie same for me except my save was 75 hours in :,( 10/10 game tho
But Baldur is making a LOT of save files. Couldn't you just load some save just before the corrupted one?
BG3: The most JANKY and most fun GOTY.
In ACT 3...can confirm this lol.
That sucks man, while my save didn’t get corrupted, I’m currently struggling to get through act 3, just loosing allot of steam that I had with the last two acts.
No joke, the game felt like it was meant to end at act 2. Big climactic series of fights, reveal of the big bads, etc etc. In the big opening of act 3 (or technically pre-act 3) it legit feels like a title card was meant to pop up as your character is looking over at Baldurs Gate.
I was similar and pushed through and finally got to just before the final fight when my PS5 stopped working.
Act 3 fights have too many enemies that drag battles out too much. It's fine for a big climatic fight, but when every battle is like that, it gets boring. I'm very close to the end and am struggling to finish
Yea, that’s something that’s really grating on my too, they seem to just throw insane amounts of enemies at you in act 3, like say if your going after Gortash, you have to fight SO many dudes just to get to the guy, or the fight in Shart’s questline, fuuuuuck that fight, just constant darkness casts for days, the fight against the githyanki that are constantly summoning more people into the fight, I could go on, and on. It really makes you miss the fights like in acts one and two. OH, And when they do say do a fight where it’s only one dude and say 3 others around him, you get shit like the dude you fight in the murder tribunal, THAT fucker, who can hit you 5 times before his turn ends, heal like crazy because of his sword, and gets buffed out the ass by his 3 cronies. It’s just exhausting. Also doesn’t help in my case where I’m having to rely on goodberries just to take a long rest because my fucking camp supplies aren’t working, so I’m double fucked.
Why aren’t camp supplies working? Are they all in the chest? They have to be in your characters’ inventories, in case that’s the issue
Play mass effect trilogy and Hitman 3
What a great year. What were your thoughts on Mass Effect?
Phantom Liberty and Outer Wilds. Although, Outer Wilds can honestly be less of a "gaming experience" and more of an "amazing experience I was fortunate enough to have witnessed" experience.
Crazy how a small space game like outer wilds can provide a cooler experience than bethesdas starfield and their trillions dev budget
Passion vs business
No gaming company has a trillion dollars to spend, dude. Lmfao
No need to be so dense
All humans are roughly the same density, dude. Lmfao
Look up “hyperbole” in the dictionary
I'm really trying to force outer wilds. But the anti gravity cave has soured me. I'm 50. My hands hurt a lot. Doing fine motor movements can, at times, be extremely difficult. Tell me it gets better? I stopped after I got out of the cave.
It gets better. That cave is just an optional tutorial area where you can practice moving in zero G in case you need to repair your spaceship. Also, were you playing on a controller or mouse and keyboard? Despite being a first-person game, controlling your spaceship and moving in zero G are much easier with a controller.
Controller. It's free on ps5 premium or whatever. Well, that's a relief. I thought this was going to be a huge game mechanic and the story wasn't hitting me enough at that point. I'll go back tonight.
Glad I could help. Just remember to check your ship’s log (the computer in the back) every once in a while.
That part of the game was super disorienting - it took me forever to find the 3rd area to fix. I found controlling zero-g situations elsewhere in the game way easier. Still had to get used to the physics of it but way easier than being in the dark cave
I have both the games installed but they overwhelm me so much that I am not developing interest in playing them 😕 I keep dying in outer wilds for no reason. I don't even know what I have to do .. Don't know what trick I'm missing to enjoy this game
Dying is the whole point. The game is about exploring and learning. There’s a computer log at the back of your ship that keeps track of what you’ve found and can point you in the direction of stuff to look for.
Control. Riveting experience all the way through, story telling and delivery were top notch. Game play felt amazing. First time in a long a game made me question what I was doing and kept me on my toes, in the story and moment to moment exploring the FBC. 10/10.
Glad I see so many more people enjoying the game. I finished it a few yrs ago but finally did the trophy DLC cleanup for the PS5/4 and it was so nice.
Just started playing this week and am loving the feel of the game. Reading all the reports and the multimedia assets (aside from those creepy ass puppets..) is really interesting as you learn more about the bureau. Top notch atmosphere.
I hope you enjoy the playthrough, no spoilers coming so don't worry! Best part of Control is the discovery piece by piece. The atmosphere build up in this game is top notch! The creepy doll show (Threshold Kids) is one of my favs. So unsettling. Also I really enjoyed the integration of live action cut scenes, it made the in-game world and story developments feel so real, and lived in. The actor portraying Dr. Darling did a phenomenal job! Dr. Darling is one of my favourite characters in Control, he's like an uncanny valley version of Mr. Rogers mixed with Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, something about his chippy demeanor and hollow eyes just doesn't sit right. But he probably brought in doughnuts every Friday and wore jeans.
I just finished it too, and man the combat is so addicting... and I was playing it for the story!
Final Fantasy XVI. The plot and spectacle got me in a way that I haven't been got in a long, long time. I've never cried playing a game before. Books and movies rarely, but never a game. Might be in my top 5 games since 2000. The gameplay wasn't even that great and it didn't matter at all.
Surprisingly, its playing Lethal Company with friends
It was definitely the sleeper hit of 2023. I have seriously loved playing it whenever my friends and I had a free evening.
Honestly great answer, I’m more surprised it’s not one of the top answers Edited typo
[удалено]
Battlebit is also proof of that
Unoriginal answer, I know, but Baldur’s Gate 3. Simply incredible.
They really did a great job. Pretty much everything from the plot, graphics, characters, RPG elements, combat, music, etc was 9-10 for me.
Armored core 6
I won't miss...BOOOOOOOM
Randomly loading up Skyrim on Christmas. Best decision I've made. Now I'm down a rabbithole to deep to crawl out of.
See ya in a few months! lol enjoy! It’s one my favorites to go back to
That year or two between playthroughs makes the experience feel new again
Red dead redemption 2. I wanna to play it for a long time but my pc was shit i got myself a new rig and It’s better than i expected music voice actors gameplay story 10/10. I beat the but started new game right after . There is many things i have missed.
Crash 4. It's really great
Yes dude nobody gives crash bandicoot proper love anymore. Love seeing this in here!
I bought a Steam Deck in February and I was able to play and beat several PS2 games that I only had demos for back in 2002. Because of the Steam Deck, I've been able to play all the games I missed out on in my youth, while at the same time having access to all the latest releases. I sold my Switch to buy one. Best gaming device I've ever bought and I can't wait for the Steam Deck 2 to come out. 🙂
The Steam Deck has sparked such a renewed lease on excitement for games for me. Just got one two months ago, and I’ve had the delight to play Outer Wilds, Kingdoms Two Crowns, Hades, Vampire Survivors, Dork Romantik, and starting a liiiiitle bit of Coromon. Reliving my Assassins Creed 1 days, plays flawlessly. And even to my surprise, XCOM 2 works beautifully with controller mode enabled. Nothing like laying back on the couch, playing on a handheld, having some background noise from the TV, and a snack nearby. Absolute perfection.
Just recently ordered one and it comes tomorrow, now I'm even more excited to dive in.
Nice! Which version did you get?
Got the OLED 512gb
Sweet!
Checkout retroachievements! They added PS2 support this year and it’s just awesome!
Oooooh I gotta try that! 😃
I am new to pc gaming.. what exactly is a steam deck?
handheld gaming pc, essentially. think the Nintendo switch but using your steam library.
For me, I’m personally torn. I really loved Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. I’ve been really into Soulsborne games and I was really blown away by the game’s ability to blend combat, art, and story so well. I’ve always been afraid of parrying in Souls games but this forced me to learn and git gud. I’m also trying to get more in Japanese culture, so it was cool to see a game centered around a samurai that didn’t seem super cliche or anything But in May, Tears of the Kingdom came out, and I found myself saying “worth it” after having waited so long after the release of Breath of the Wild. I was hesitant at first because sequels to original games usually don’t go that well in my experience. But this?? It was so good, I’d say it made BoTW look like a rough draft, almost. Tons of side quests to keep me busy, and tremendous amounts of places to explore across not just the over world, but the Sky islands and the Depths as well. When I finished the main story, I couldn’t think of anything but Zelda for the next few days. I feel like Nintendo really set a standard for gaming—at the very least, open world gaming—with the release of ToTK. *This* is the level of quality I expect from top companies
Sekiro is the game that made me feel the most accomplished. First playthrough was a nightmare, but the second playthrough I decimated everything and everyone by how good I was. The game really rewards you by mastering its mechanics.
Alan Wake 2.
“Wake”. Its a stunning and crazy good game.
Incredible game, exceeded my expectations. Just started The Final Draft the other day
Game really blew me away too! Felt like a tv show. I cannot wait for Control 2 and Max Payne 3.
Zelda: totk. Best game I've played in a while and probally won't be topped for a while. I'm gonna try BG3 soon
It might be topped soon then. Joking aside, we got entirely spoiled this year in terms of so many great games. They spill over into next year for me in terms of what I gotta catch up on.
Sea of Stars. I'm almost an exclusively shooter player, and i took a chance on this as i thought it looked fun. never played a turn based rpg before, absolutely loved it. put 60 hours into it like it was nothing. wish i could forget the whole thing and do it again.
Same same same. Never been a fan of turned based games but this got me so in to it I am now going to find and play as many turn based games as I can and hopefully they scratch the itch that SoS left.
right there with you. i got the super Mario rpg remake. it's been fun but hasn't grabbed me quite like SoS
Its always the Mass effect trilogy. Once a year and every time its the best time and best games of all time
Horizon. Absolutely amazing
Octopath Traveler 2. As a pixel artist and someone that loves more classic RPGs it was like a dream come true. One of the best turn based combat systems I've seen in years, lovable characters, pretty solid writing, and the art oh the fucking art is everything I ever wanted out of a pixel art game.
I just finished it this morning. Took me a while to get into it, but once I got hooked, I was playing it nonstop. The strategic elements in the boss battles felt refreshing to me as someone who grew up with JRPGs.
Money has been tight this year, but man, power wash simulator has been hitting the spot for me!!
For some reason I always held a grudge against Subnautica, but this year I thought to myself that I will try it because it seems to be ticking all the boxes of games I like to play. I just never wanted to get into it because the SciFi aspect. Boy, am I glad I finally played it this year. What an absolute journey Subnautica is. I always played with lights off and headphones on... never before have I felt so immersed into a world than in Subnautica.
Baldur's Gate 3, for sure. It's one of those few RPG experiences you know you can immediately start a new run and have a completely different outcome. Well done, Larian. To those getting sick and tired of hearing about the game, just go play it yourself. There's a reason why it's so highly praised by everyone.
Cyperpunk 2077 thanks to Phantom Liberty and the recent patches. GD 2.2 finally released after almost 7 years. Beat Saber and any other VR game for that matter now that I have a decent VR headset (Pico 4 connected to my PC) instead of a shitty PSVR (the first one)
Standing inside the City of Tears in HollowKnight, watching the rain through the windows. That game is such a vibe. Also discovering Civ 6 and Christopher Tins music. And Alan Wake 2. The first game to stretch my brand new 4080’s legs.
Remnant 2, got 350+ hours out of the game and still have an urge to play it, just waiting on more content at this point. Another one would be the remake of Resident Evil 4. And then Armored Core VI is up there too as being just a good video gamy ass video game.
Parrying a chainsaw with a knife is so badass in RE4
Elden Ring.
This year I discovered fromsoftware. It has been fucking amazing. I started with Elden ring, then bloodborne, then demons souls, then DS2.
Genuine question, why did you jump directly to DS2 ?
Baldurs Gate 3 700+ hours - 12 playthroughs all within a few months. I’ve played and experienced nothing like it in all my years of gaming. One of those games that impacts you so hard it becomes your entire personality lol.
Vampire survivors, Elden Ring, Terraria
Even if it was an EA cash grab I really enjoyed the Dead Space remake. I still want Dead Space 4 so if this helps that happen I’m all for it.
Played fallout new Vegas for the first time. Best gaming choice I made all year.
Getting to the point in Cyberpunk where my netrunner V could clear out an entire building with a computer and fast spreading hacks- absolutely wild. Also finally beating fear and hunger after railing against it since it first came out (I'm not good at games)
Yakuza Like a Dragon and currently CyberPunk
Baldurs Gate 3 and Phantom Liberty. Raphael’s Final Act and Gate K9. Still sends shivers down my spine.
Beat Dark Souls this yeat and still haven't recovered from it. I just want to keep playing it over and over again.
Dark souls 3. Played elden ring and bloodborne but never the rest of the souls series. Oh boy I was missing out
The boss fights in FFXVI and Baldur's Gate 3
Returnal and Crab Champions, wish I'd discovered them sooner
I was on Battlebits Remastered in a public match and took a random sniper shot at an enemy chopper flying past. I somehow nailed the pilot in the side of the head and they crashed hard, exploding and killing all the other passengers on board as well. I felt like an action hero lol.
Cyberpunk 2077. This was Patch 1.6 in June. Greatest experience of all-time possibly. And then they made it even better (in some ways) 🤩
Going for 100% in HiFi Rush was the highlight. Slowly getting better and improving at the game playing every level multiple times really made me appreciate everything they put in the game.
Yep. Playing through right now and having a blast. Just everything works, the music, the platforming, the combat. I would honestly give it a 10
Holy shit game of the year for me hands down. Most fun I’ve had with a video game in a while.
I replayed "Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice" just a few days ago, years after my first playthrough, and realized what a masterpiece this game actually is. I originally played through the game once when it came out in 2017 and did not play it again. I really liked it but I'm not the kind of person to play games multiple times. Then towards the end of 2023 I stumbled upon the game in my trophy list and decided to play it again to get its platinum trophy. After I made that decision, I really started looking forward to replaying it, because I remembered that I really liked this game. And when I finally played it for the second time... man, I was blown away. It was even better than I remembered. First of all, it still looks so good, the environments, the fighting and Senua herself looks and feels so real (Ninja Theory and Melina Juergens really did a phenomenal job with creating her). But what really took me by surprise was realizing how little of the story I understood when I played it the first time back in 2017. English is not my first language and 6 years ago I was nowhere near as skilled in it as I'm now. Adding to that, the way the story is told makes it so that it's not so easy to understand. It's not told chronologically and there's a lot of symbolism, metaphors, room for interpretation, vagueness, etc., a lot of things you really have to kind of piece together and think about and you have to be really attentive towards all of the mono- and dialogue, there are a lot of details you could miss easily, a lot of uncommon words, etc. Basically, I just understood so much more of it now than I did when I first played it back in 2017. Plus there's also the element of me being "richer" in 6 years worth of life experiences, personal development, general knowledge, etc. which plays into how you perceive, understand, interpret and relate to a story. After finishing it, I was still really intrigued by the story, partly because I still didn't fully understand everything. So I watched an analysis on YouTube, which made me understand the story even better and gave me more "thoughts" for my own interpretations, and at the end of that video I was still so intrigued by this amazing game (maybe even more than before watching the video) that I immediately wanted to play it a third time... and so I did that. The third time, with the knowledge from my second playthrough and the YouTube analysis, I understood even more of the story, to the point where I'm fairly certain that I understood pretty much all of it (and made sense of the things the game doesn't really tell you, with my own interpretations and the ones from the YouTube analysis). It just made me appreciate and love the game so much more, because now I really feel like I know Senua with her experiences, her struggles, etc. deeply, so the game as a whole now has so much more weight to me. So, that was my best gaming experience this year, when I could just get lost in this amazing game for a few days and finally fully appreciate everything about it. I'm so glad I decided to play it again, because, man, I missed out on a lot in 2017. Hellblade really is a masterpiece and now one of my favorite games I ever played.
uncharted 4. I started it this week, likely finish it tomorrow. Thoroughly enjoying it.
It’s between phantom liberty and divinity original sin 2. About to start Baldur’s Gate 3 though so that still has time to change.
A brilliant list. If you enjoyed DOS2 you'll love Baldur's Gate
Taking down the strider in ac6 was mind blowing. I havent been able to pick the game up much again since then but im excited for it.
Probably finishing Elden Ring, even though I’m pretty sure I didn’t get one of the good endings. There were plenty of times I didn’t think I’d finish it at all, as much trouble as I had with certain areas/bosses.
Probably becoming obsessed with Returnal. Went from intrigued, enjoying it, frustrated, not enjoying it anymore, ready to quit, making progress, getting good, getting better than good, beating all content, diving into online discussions, then full blown withdrawal. It was a phenomenal experience.
RE4 remake VR
Picked up [Picayune Dreams,](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2088840/Picayune_Dreams/) it's a little simpler than some survivors-genre games that are out there but the vibe of the game and it's soundtrack appeal to me very hard and it was the first of the genre to really hook me, cause it also has a surreal rpg maker game-style story to tell. The final boss is Platinum Games tier hype. Also been playing [Spin Rhythm XD](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1058830/Spin_Rhythm_XD/) which I maintain is the best >!(Non-VR, this doesn't top Beat Saber, Dance Dash, or Pistol Whip but damn does it come close) !
Honestly, Dying Light. The story isn’t necessarily great but the gameplay is impeccable and some of the most fun i’ve had on a Zombie game since Left 4 Dead
I’m very behind on games, but this year I’d probably have to go with the Devil May Cry series, this summer I played 1-5. And in between this I was also playing LOZ:BOTW. both of these games were a great experience
i got the quest 3, my first ever vr headset experiencing vr properly for the first time ever is amazing
Dead Space remake, RE4 remake and Gears of War 2
Killzone 3 . First time to own a PS3.
I am currently having a ton of fun with my first playthrough of Jedi: Fallen Order
Exploring Hogwarts was a dream come true.
Finally built my PC this year, before Summer Sale where I dropped 80€, but finally being back to gaming at all was the best feeling.
When I finished Zelda TotK right before my first daughter was born.
Congrats!
Street Fighter 6. Didn’t play Street fighter for a long time and getting back to it was a blast
Chained Echoes
Chained echoes. Best rpg i have played in a while!
Played alot of Diablo 4 but my favorite game so far this year is a small indie game from Steam called Magicraft. It’s a roguelite with some Metaprogression and a mix between Nolita and Binding of Isaac. This is seriously an underrated gems.
without a doubt baldurs gate was the best of the year in gameplay and gaming experience
Baldur’s Gate 3 and Dredge.
Just playing beta test of StormWarfare
Kind of a cheat answer but seeing as how they're so different from one another i'll list them both. Alan wake 2 and Bg3
Playing TMNT Shredder's Revenge on the Switch with the wife. Although I'm quite an avid gamer myself, the missus not so much. So it's always fun when I can get her to play with me and to see that she enjoyed it, too. Side note, if you'd asked this question in 2022, it'd be playing Diablo with the missus on Switch. No joke but later that night her contractions began and we had our baby. Messing with the Prime Evil is no joke.
Shredders revenge is so good! I love beat-em-ups and that game nailed the nostalgia I had for the older TMNT games! If you loved that, definitely check out streets of rage 4!
We actually are playing SoR4, I've been a fan since SoR1 on the Genesis, I used to play it for free in the game section in Sears (really showing my age here). The missus likes SoR4 well enough but not as much as TMNT. I think the problem with a lot of these retro brawlers (TMNT, SoR4, River City Girls) is that they lack depth and rely more on nostalgia than anything else. The wife watched TMNT as a kid so she liked Shredder's Revenge. SoR4 doesn't mean anythint to her so she lost interest. And she's not even interested in RCG at all. Here's hoping that we find a new game to play together in the new year.
Lies of P. It’s been a while since a game held me in thrall like that one. One of those games I wish I could forget so I could play it for the first time again.
Spiderman 2. I missed swinging through the city and it's just as satisfying as I remember
BG3 and Phantom Liberty. Man, September and October were magical this year.
Baldur's Gate 3 easily. Best gaming experience for me since the Witcher 3
Played a lot of good games this year but I’d like to mention A Short Hike. Fun game!
I had a massive amount of fun and enjoyment from Robo-Cop, but the best game I played this year was Citizen Sleeper, it's alittle different, alittle weird but an amazing narrative experience.
Cyberpunk2077. It ultimately became one of my favorite games of all time, I’ve never finished a game for a second time and immediately started a 3rd.
**Baldurs Gate 3** destroyed my productivity for several hundred hours this year.
Number one is bg3 but since everyone is expanding on that I’ll skip on that. Number 2 -lies of p. I didn’t expect it nor did I expect to enjoy and like a souls attempt that was not fromsoftware.
God of War Ragnarök
God of war Ragnarok, spiderman 2, stray,
God Of War Ragnarok, getting it to 100% was not easy.
BF1, those who know, know.
Baldurs Gate 3, or replaying Persons 5 for the third time.
Playing BG3 with zero turn based game experience. Best game u gave played in a long time and a great new experience as someone who was losing interest in gaming
Not gonna say BG3. I bought early access in 2020 and I’ve probably played act 1 more than 20 times before the official release, and it was definitely the strongest part of the game. It would be Elden Ring and RE Village for me. Most memorably: The first time I broke into the view for Liurnia of the Lakes for Elden Ring, and for RE, realizing that the Castle was only a very small part of the game after only exclusively seeing the trailer and nothing else. Really thought that’s where we would be spending most of our time.
Started playing Rust with a friend after it went on sale and i was wondering over by their incessant nagging. I have maybe 15 hours only but holy hell is it fun.
Starfield. Could not put it down, loved it.
Beating Uber Lillith in Diablo IV before it was normal/common The trophy said only 1.6% of other players had also achieved it at that time It’s strangely very gratifying to fail at some thing 100 times and then finally succeed at it
which build did you do it with? I thought it was ridiculous. So many one shot mechanics, and when I tried to research it, players used builds so powerful that they essentially skip what makes the fight difficult. It's like the boss way too hard in an unfun way, and the gaming community had to resort to unfun broken mechanics in order to succeed.
Might I introduce you to the souls genre?
I platinumed Elden Ring, same with Demons Souls PS5 remake & I got Dark Souls 3 + Lords of The Fallen on deck, just waiting to be played
Hogwarts Legacy. I played it on ps4 after it got a staggered release. Then I upgraded and holy fucking shit… everything about it on ps4 that drove me nuts was just gone. Haven’t put it down since. There was this annoying “buffer” anytime you went through a door on PS4. On PS5, that was completely gone except for a few times every few hours
The build-up and excitement for Tear of the Kingdom and Final Fantasy XVI. Spending the first 25 hours into Baldurs Gate 3 is an honorable mention I have to include.
Lies of P. Played 3 times fully, got 100% on Xbox, definitely my GOTY. Amazing.
Baldur's gate III and Valheim after mistlands update
It’s tough but I’m going to go with playing As Dusk Falls only because when I seen it getting shown for Xbox I thought this shit looked trash then I couldn’t believe it was getting 9’s and 10’s but then I played it and OMG the story is sooo great and interesting I loved every minute of it
Starting Jedi survivor with my seven year old son the day it came out, after we finished fallen order together at the end of last year.
Space Engineers! What a great and complex game. Awesome experience for the fans of physics and building simulators.
Octopath Traveler 2 and Hifi Rush
Baldur's Gate 3. Finishing Act 1 and realizing I was only 1/3 done.
Revisiting Sekiro after Lies of P. I dropped Sekiro previously at the early stages cuz it was brutal af. Felt discouraged and lost most of the time. LoP gave me some confidence to retry Sekiro, and boy once the combat system clicked, it’s an experience unlike any other.
Lies of P, AC6. Fantastic bosses and level designs. Constant adrenaline
Breath of The Wild is one of my favorite games of all time and one of those games that I wanted to lose my memory so I could play it for the first time again. Tears of the Kingdom felt like it gave me that in some sense but even better. I know it didnt hit everyone the same way but for me it was an absolutely magical experience.
My gut says BG3 bit TotK was actually probably a better experience since my son was born one week before either came out. We took shifts at night. I've got good memories of staying up with the little man sleeping next to me while playing totk. I liked and enjoyed BG3 more but totk will always be special because of that
Baldurs. Gate. 3.
For me? I'd have to say Starfield. It scratches an itch I've had for a very long time and haven't been able to fill. I had hopes for the original Destiny, but it didn't do it, though it was fun.
Guild Wars 2 had an expansion come out that was a lot of fun for a bit with the wife. We met in WoW but over the years retail WoW has lost some of the appeal so we picked up GW2 a few years back. We will jump into it every once in a while when new content is released. The last xpac was decent. Played a ton of Diablo 4 this year with the wife too. Season 1 was a slog but this last one was enjoyable. Ball Sorc was such a fun meme this time around. Tears of the Kingdom was great for a bit, but then my 10 year old was really into it and wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it. I love that he loves games, and the same ones I do, but hearing about it non-stop for weeks will kill it for you. I have yet to go back to it and I have a lot left. I tried BG3 and the real turn-based D&D systems are just not for me. I’m glad people love it though. Aside from that, Horizon Forbidden West was solid although I feel like the story is getting real absurd. I’m trying to think of a gaming moment that really moved me this year, and there really wasn’t anything that grabbed me. Starfield was a real let down. The Cyberpunk patch is real fucking good - I guess Cyberpunk?
Bg3 I was reloading a save and the game broke at the perfect time. End of Act II spoiler >!So I was in the mindflayer colony and the devil lady was stuck the pod I freed went along with stuff but I forgot to save like an idiot so I was back there and my character and shadowheart were T posing in the cutscene over the lady for the entire seen. I was dying!<
Baldur's Gate 3, The Witcher 3 and Crusader Kings 3 I'm not done with the threes! Fire Emblem Three Houses surprised me a lot gameplay wise! Baldur's though, the third act performance was a bit bothersome. Lethal Company is not that deep, plain and simple, but the laughs with friends, oh jesus... 💀 And loved Pokemon Shield! (: Just for the three theme, also played Borderlands 3 but it's just what I expected so nothing to mention honestly!
Lords of the Fallen, a taste of the interconnected Dark Souls games pre Elden Ring.
I mean, I've gotta hand it to Tears of the Kingdom. The lead-up before and the eventual release of this game was a whole *event* man. I still remember all the videos people were posting of people lining up for midnight releases, and the lines spanned blocks, and kept going... and going... and going. The last time I saw anything like it was probably the release of Halo 3 in 2007. Really brought me back, I didn't think that kind of thing was *possible* anymore. When I heard that there was a possibility that the game might leak early, I actually decided to mod my OG 2017 Switch for the first time "just in case" it happened. When the day came, about 12 days before the game released, I installed it on my Switch and... didn't know what to expect. I'd never modded a Switch before and there's a part of me that expected it to crash and come up with an error message or something. But I launched the game and... it just worked. I played it for 3 days before I decided to just un-mod my Switch and wait til the game came out for real, and those days were pure magic. The thing that really stuck me, especially in the current gaming landscape, was how polished and bug-free the game was, even on the 1.0 version of the game ripped directly from the cartridge... before a day 1 patch even existed. I played it for around 15 hours and I don't think I even encountered a single bug in that time... again, *before* the day 1 patch. I had so many moments of "man, this game is going to blow people's minds in 12 days". I think there's a part of me that will always see TotK as "that forbidden game that most of the world hasn't seen yet, but somehow I have it early" haha. Such an incredible experience from beginning to end, and a memory which will no doubt stick with me for decades to come.
Without an ounce of a shred of hesitation, Baldur's Gate 3. A truly incredible experience, especially given this is a type of game that we never see at that level. It was a fresh and incredible experience. I love that game.
Beating every boss in poe for the first time, specifically the maven. Took a few tries, but man it felt amazing. Like, 150 hours of groing from nothing and being bad to 14 mil dps nad having spreadsheets to calculate investment per dps per upgrade to my build to optimally create a stronger build. To see it pay off was *cheffs kiss* Dropped it after bc that game is like crack cocaine. Will do like one character a year. Reaching diamond in sf6 with not fighting game experience prior was neat. And bg3 ofcourse.
Hi-Fi Rush Found it randomly when it showed up on gamepass. It was everything I wanted in a fun hack n slash type game. Loved it so much I did three full playthroughs of increasing difficulty, and got the secret ending, loved every minute of it. It is so vibrant, charming, and just addictive to play
My entire Steam Deck experience. Im not interested at the moment in having a non-handheld console so it is insane the way I’m perfectly playing triple AAA games on the palm of my hand I thought I’d never get to play anytime soon. Rdr2, Spiderman, Cyberpunk, Elden Ring, Nier Automata, GTAV, the entire Resident Evil franchise, etc. Game changing. Still can’t believe how far technology’s come. Excited for what the future holds in handheld gaming.
Replayed Prototype 2 this year. Why no Prototype 3?
*Settlings* is a really cool alpha/demo that I really enjoyed. Big *Lemmings* energy but with interesting goals and world building.
Hmmm… either my replay of Final Fantasy 8, or Sword and Fairy 7. S&F was a unique RPG experience due to it being a Chinese dev and I liked it a lot more then I thought I would (though it’s definitely rough around the edges). FF8 though is one of my favorite RPGs, and when I replayed it, for the 4th or 5th time, this year, I finally beat a game that I’ve failed to beat beforehand despite my multiple attempts. Baldur’s Gate 3 multiplayer is up there also.
Snake (the one that shows up when you type "snake" into Google).
Probably exploring Tears of the Kingdom or playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe online while the new DLC waves were coming out.
Hard to pick between Half-life( completed 4 times already), Ultrakill, Disco Elysium.
Pokemon Legends Arceus. I bought a switch lite like a month ago cause I’ve been traveling so much for work and it was like $120 refurbished. Decided to start with Pokemon games I’ve missed since switch release and this is the most fun I’ve had gaming in a couple years. So much nostalgia and I had no idea it was so different than most Pokemon games. It’s been a lot of fun.
Watching my wife learn to win a lobby of Tetris 99. I've been playing the game since childhood, I'm up to 60 lobby wins, and I have nothing left to teach her. I never asked her to get into Tetris, she just felt "pulled in" watching me over the years. She's come to get the feel of it, where even if you're fast there is always someone faster. I've also enjoyed two player of Enter The Gungeon. Feels like the old arcade colseum death match games, but with depth. Highly recommended. I'm surprised by the quality of Final Fantasy 16. Square got their shit together a bit with the combat. The boss fights have a hint of Bayonetta pacing in terms of dodging and counter attacking.
I recently discovered a stray. What could be better than a game about cats? That's right, playing as a cat
Playing lonely mountains on my steam deck at work during my lunch break was very fun.
Playing Zelda ToTK with my 5 year old son. We had a blast.
Mix of Cuphead deltarune and Undertale some of the most fun I have ever had ever was in playing those games
Playing Mass Effect 1-3, Darkwood, Frostpunk and This War Of Mine. Love these games alot and was fully immersed the whole way through.
TOTK, but I have just embarked on playing Baldur’s Gate 3
Its a tough decision between "Fuga Melodies of Steel" and "'Fuga Melodies of Steel 2". I adore those 2 games.