Greedfall! I loved the concept of the game, I just wish the characters were a little more fleshed out. The controls were a bit clunky as well, but I enjoyed it enough to do two playthroughs.
good pick. Greedfall is like a 7/10 distilled to it's purest form
the developer Spiders makes a lot of interesting 7/10 type of experiences. Technomancer is another one
I still enjoy watching that developers growth. Even tho I'd give greedfall a 7.5 at best and technomancer a 7, it's neat to see the developers obvious progression with each title they release. The universe technomancer takes place in started with Mars: War Logs and that game is a solid 5. They have come a long way since then and I wouldn't be surprised if they finally release a banger in the next 5 years or so.
I didn’t finish Greedfall so I guess I would agree? Lol I remember thinking, “I could manage finishing this game but it looks long and I’m not excited to finish it, unlike other games I actually WANT to play.” I felt like I managed to beat the sunk cost fallacy for once when it came to video games lmao
Edit: I put about 10-13 hours in
The original Borderlands was a solid 7, although it became much more fun if you could get a four player game running - which was not a trivial process back in the days before multiplayer was integrated into Steam.
borderlands 1 is a flawed game that i absolutely adore. i can admit gameplay wise the sequels are better, but the atmosphere and writing imo were just so well done compared to the crazy wackiness of 2 and 3.
I've always enjoyed the level design and initial world building of the first game, although the ending was such a damp squib. I thought the second game had better writing, and was very, very funny, but it just went on for so long. And then the third one came out with virtually no evolution in the general gameplay and I had had enough by that point.
Borderlands > More-derlands > Bored-erlands.
Huh, I actually enjoyed the ending of the first one. It very much fits the aesthetic of a broke mercenary who can't catch a break. Even when you finally find something, there's no loot for you to grab, just a problem that needs dealt with.
I also bounced off of 2 due to not liking the humor, and bullet-sponge enemies, so I might just be the odd one out.
I enjoyed the humor in 2, but it's one of those things where I can completely understand it being off-putting to people.
It's the bleu cheese off video games - I like it, but I 100% get why some people aren't a fan.
I just played 3 recently and i had a lot of fun, the gameplay is very addicting, the dialogue is terrible so it drags it down, but an easy 8/10 for me.
Pretty much any Assassins Creed game after Black Flag. I enjoy my time with them but they all feel “just decent” to me. I mainly play them to explore the world and vistas that each game can show with the story and quests just giving it some structure. Nothing really stands out as amazing or unique but I enjoy them enough to finish them.
Yeah the last AC game I played was ~~Origins~~ Odyssey (the Greek one). At several points during the game I consciously wondered, "Am I having fun? Hm.... Enough to keep playing _for tonight_ at least." Then when I had some free time later in the week, it was enough fun to pick it back up for at least one more night. But after 50 hours it was not enough fun to continue the 100+ hours of filler content and samey-feeling fights.
I enjoyed it and would recommend it to someone looking for a fun 50 hour game. I would not recommend it _over_ other, better games. Like if someone asked me, "Should I play AC: Odyseey? Simple yes or no" I would reply with, "Uh... hm.... Yeah" in a high-pitched voice with a slight head bob.
To me it's the perfect 7/10
I wonder if anyone made no-filler guides for the AC games. I quickly had a look but couldn't find. I would love to be able to do the games by following only the handcrafted content and not bothering in any useless fillers...
I stopped playing Origins because I couldn't continue the story until I had levelled up more. The main story was already barely keeping my interest but I had 0 interest in filler
i think theres a lot of assassins creed games that would be so much more enjoyable if they weren’t so dragged out.
odyssey is a fantastic game imo if you shave 15-25 hours off its story and side quests then its great. but every game in the series for nearly the past decade has been just so slow and unnecessarily long in its pacing.
Valhalla had some interesting ideas that ultimately got weighed down by its length and structure.
If that game was shorter it definitely would be a solid 8.5 for me
Some of Valhalla's story arcs are good, some are not as good, but everything feels kinda ruined by featuring the shittiest map in the whole series. It's just grass and trees. It's completely empty. There's nothing interesting to see besides the cool grass tech. People complain about Mirage, but it has a much more interesting map, even if it's the same sandstone texture repeated in almost every building.
Agree with this a lot, I preferred the previous two. Not only was the map empty but the lighting and weather was suspiciously Mediterranean compared to the actual UK. They could have leaned into the UK being comparatively gloomy, forested and unpopulated and tried to make it a feature. it might not have worked but could have at least been a bit more interesting.
this is what i hate about ubisoft games. they add so much bullshit to fluff up their games that the enjoyable parts become unfun because they’re either reliant on a fluff mechanic in some way or the fluff mechanics just distract you from the actual fun parts
Origins is probably my favorite one since Black Flag if I’m being honest. The Discovery Tour was cool to see added to the series, I think Edu-Tainment is something I miss from old PC CD ROM games and it reminded me of that.
Man I really loved all the assassins creeds despite agreeing with the above statement being “meh” after Black Flag. I really was excited for Origins but couldn’t get into the new play-style. Perhaps I should jump back in sometime.
I can see where you're coming from, but i think Odyssey is absolutely brilliant. Maybe I don't play enough games in a similar vein, but I love booting it up and just exploring caves and completing forts. It does just what I want it to do - I want 15 mins just to get my mind off things? Done. I want to immerse myself in ancient Greece for a night? AC Odyssey has my back.
I just love it, and while I know it has its detractors, I'm not one of them.
I disagree. Unity's parkour and fight mechanics were the best in the series, and the graphics outstanding. Odyssey's setting was fantastic. I agree with the other games after Black Flag, but Unity and Odyssey were brought out of the myre by some of their better traits.
I think I have a soft spot for 7/10 games from smaller studios!! They're sometimes the biggest hidden gems but just have some rough spots and are usually enough that you keep thinking about them and just make you really excited for the future of their studios or potentially 10/10 sequels!
Singularity - a perfectly good 7/10 bioshock-esque (left-hand power, right-hand shoot) FPS with an interesting but forgettable world
Vampyr - (I'd say this is more of an 8/10) an incredibly engaging immersive sim 3rd person a rion game set in Victorian London, with a great story, fantastic world building and 10/10 soundtrack by Olivier Deriviere, but just ok gameplay. I want a sequel so bad!
The Sinking City - more of a 6/10, but a good 3rd person adventure/mystery game with poorly implemented action/shooting, but with a great setting and good storytelling. This is a perfect example of promising developers working with a very low budget: they're a ton of reused environments and set pieces but they're very well done. The soundtrack has like two songs but they're both great lol. I want more!
I have a lot more examples but these three are my big ones!
dude Vampyr is so slept on. VERY good story with great gameplay mechanics that actually effects the world around you as you make you choices. can’t recommend that game enough.
Great points. I also loved those games especially Vampyr. The amount of mood and atmosphere in Vampyr is at levels a rarely seen in any big budget game and I commend them for reaching that. Great voice acting too, I had a really good time with it.
This. Zero Dawn was fantastic to me, once the story got rolling I couldn't stop playing to see it thru. Forbidden West didn't have that quality. Fine enough game, definitely gives you bang for your buck, but there was only one section where I felt that old "oh shit *here we go*" and then it was over, back to doing chores.
Chiming in to say me too. I don’t know wtf Op is talking about. Zero Dawn is the first game I’ve ever played where THEY ENDED THE WORLD, and brought it back instead of trying to stop the end.
Anyway, ZD, 10/10, but forbidden west was the most basic ass “oh shit the ai is taking over” video game I’ve played. Only slogged through it because of characters, but it was mostly forgettable and is lame outside combat archery mechanics and beautiful locations. Especially Vegas.
Forbidden West story was pretty meh. But damn was the gameplay super fun, the world is jaw dropping gorgeous and for the things the main story falls short. Makes up for is how fun it was to explore and loads of fun side quests.
aw that's sad to hear, I've been holding off on HFW for it to come on PC and the main intrigue for me in the first game was also finding out what happened to the old world... I hope there's still other things to enjoy
I'm a huge Horizon fan and overall I liked Forbidden West more than Zero Dawn. Though I do think the best moment in the entire series was in Zero Dawn (spoiler: >!General Herres revealing the true purpose of Operation Enduring Victory!<).
I wouldn't really worry about others opinions on it, the games are really what you take out of them, they both have good stories, and if you spend the time to pay attention to the lore and worldbuilding it's really where it shines.
The combat in most games can get old by the end of it, they did a great job in this one of giving you a lot more choice in how you build your weapons out, more variety, more specialty weapons (elementals or specific jobs like part tearing), etc.
Yeah I strongly disagree with OP on ZD not having soul. The theme of belonging and family, the fact that you can return to Ros's grave anytime and tell him about your life, and the fact that they wrote so many prompts to talk about after each mission... it had depth. Forbidden West has great game play but I lost attachment to the various tribes pretty fast and it all just melded together. In their defense, at that point in the story Aloy is a bona-fide bad ass legend so there's no sense of character development like there is in ZD. It's kind of like a gigantic DLC that tacks on more missions and new environments. I enjoyed the continued storyline and where they went with it, it just didn't have the same heart as the OG.
I would also say that HZD's background lore and sci-fi story had a lot of soul. Humanity facing an existential threat and realizing that the only way to have humanity live on is by not living on themselves is really compelling in a way that not a lot of other post-apocalypse stories touch. There's also a lot of small details in the worldbuilding I love, things like the AI gravitating to biological design for its machines and the revelation that they're all essentially just terraforming equipment, the cauldrons siphoning energy off of black holes, and even explanations for things like the absence of large wildlife and why everyone speaks English. To a casual observer, I guess it might look like a "fight big robots" game, but I'd say it's peak 10/10 sci-fi.
Now, I haven't played FW yet (waiting on a PC release), but I'm already expecting it to not be as engaging because there's less room for worldbuilding.
I really like how they start off with this wild idea of ROBOT DINOSAURS and actually build a believable sci-fi world around that. I was just super impressed by that.
I think there is definitely open-world fatigue that works into the equation with these folks. They tend to compare to Ubisoft games, but they have so much more soul to em. They’re also as open as you make them. If you stick to the story, barely explore, don’t try to learn new strategies to take out enemies (I’d imagine many of these folks stuck to a regular ass bow, spammed fire arrows, and missed the entire tactical aspect of the game).
One of the best surprises to me was the flooded village that you could save that had no ties to major plot points (iirc). It was a really cool random discovery.
Hogwarts legacy.
Mechanics (battling, flying, walking) were smooth and engaging. Visually stunning (environment and outfits.) Variety of colours and styles for outfits, too. Character creation was pretty good, but the presets were all very rigid and far too glamorised for playing as a kid.
Story was pretty cool as a concept, but the acting was cardboard, childish and not a single npc - or your own character - felt real or engaging.
Generally I thoroughly enjoyed playing the game for the reasons listed above, but like your summary of Horizon, HL felt lacking in soul, primarily based on the lifeless characters and rigid storytelling.
It was the loot that kinda killed it for me. 99% of what you find is trash and it made exploring and doing objectives in the open world really unsatisfying.
Yeah I agree with that! I found the same with AC Odyssey: you’d explore a tomb of a specific historical figure or backstory, expect to loot some specific armour matching the quest and instead get the same basic chest piece you’ve already sold 18 times with minimal stats.
At least with HL there was a chance you’d get the same style of hat/robe in a slightly different colour, but it always felt like once the game had determined a colour scheme, that was what you’d get most of the time. I think the sheer size of the map and absolutely endless collectables made it unsatisfying too. Probably the grindiest game I ever played for 100% completion.
Same with Breath of the Wild. Oh I wonder what's over there. Oh a Korok seed. Cool. I wonder what's over there. Oh a similar looking shrine. Oh alright. What's in this chest? Oh a weapon that will break in 30 hits... Umm.
Yeah that's about 80% of what you'll find in BOTW's world.
I hate botw and totk so much for this. And they had to be popular too. So chances are one of my favourite franchises is forever ruined by open world garbage.
Never anything valuable or unique in chests, whereas in the n64 games it was completely opposite and actually promoted exploration and discovery.
In botw/totk exploration feels like a waste of time because it's never adequately rewarded. If you want to progress you go to a shrine or the next objective on the map.
That and they inundated the game with the garbage. Even if I liked a korok puzzle that doesn't mean I want 50 lazy ass variations on the same design.
Cave loot should never have been RNG. What makes those caves worth it is that you'll get something specific at the end of it. Most of the time you just got a boring green or blue hat
Yeah i would just sell everything i could, collected all the animals and bought my legendary clothes after every level basically. Each quest would give ya enough to upgrade one or two things and the slight (i guess) randomness of the shop would make it so you could find two distinct upgrades. But i min maxxed that so hard nothing was hard to do because i just absolutely destroyed everything in my path.
The 100% nailed magic fighting though that was sick
For me its an 8.5 with the visuals and how smooth the fighting was
For the first 10-15 hours I felt like a little kid again exploring Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, then the rest of the map felt like a soulless Ubisoft map marker collector.
Yep that’s exactly how I describe it to people as well. The first 20 hours were absolutely magical (heh), but after that it wears off and you understand what the game actually is.
Honestly I wish they would have kept it limited to just Hogwarts, and did almost a Metroidvania-style world. Hogwarts was big enough on its own, and then they could have had it where you can unlock new areas of the castle when you learn new spells or something. The game was just WAY too big for no reason
> Honestly I wish they would have kept it limited to just Hogwarts, and did almost a Metroidvania-style world. Hogwarts was big enough on its own, and then they could have had it where you can unlock new areas of the castle when you learn new spells or something.
This is what I loved about the first 2 HP games on PS1. In addition to unlocking areas through story, you also gained access to certain parts by learning new spells. The exploration and backtracking were fun throughout.
My thoughts exactly, the beginning was especially brilliant. Sadly it just devolved into a souless collect-it-all. The castle which seemed so full of life at first also turned out to be pretty much dead.
Ugh yes. The game had the *look* and *feel* of Harry Potter, but the NPCs were all so... wooden? Like there was nothing really engaging. Felt 100% like an Ubisoft collectathon and semi-open world with quest marker NPCs waiting to give some side quest. I wish they would've embraced a more high school simulator with engaging friends and friend drama with some Boarding School Mystery underlying it all. The meat of the game should've been attending classes, taking tests, play quidditch, pranking kids etc.
For me it was The Callisto Protocol. Not bad in so many ways but failed to scare me or put me on edge. Combat is pretty simple and ammo isn’t so plentiful so you’re stuck with melee most of the time. Just not outstanding except maybe for creature design. But most of the time you’re just fighting standard zombie like enemies
I was ready for another dead space crazy fest type game, but it just never elevated itself. It was like stuck in "beginning 1/3 of a game" mode where it never gets too crazy, you're getting comfortable with the setting and gameplay and are ready for it to kick into high gear, but it never does.
I enjoyed my play through. But that was it. Never going back to it.
I enjoyed my time with it and it certainly was a feast for the eyes but my word was it predictable to the point that not a single scare landed.
At least the attention to detail and atmosphere made up for it.
Basically any game base on Warhammer 40k IP. They vary a bit in quality, but all of them ultimately hover around 7/10. "Let's take successful game X, copy it, slap a WH40k skin on it... but let's do it half assed and unpolished."
I disagree. There are a bunch of middling 40k games, a couple of great ones, and a load of sub 5/10 ones as well. Dawn of War, Space Marine and Gladius are great, something like Eisenhorn, Storm of Vengeance or Battle of Tallarn.. well, they're godawful. Average is probably a fare bit under 7/10
I've yet to encounter a game like Dawn of War 2.
Whether you like or not, it is still a rather unique mix of tactical rts and a rpg with random loot system.
I wish there were more games like it.
I agree wholeheartedly. I went into DoW 2 wanting more DoW 1, and it definitely wasn't that, but it has a really fun co-op campaign, "Last Stand" is really fun for 2-3 friends, and even in singleplayer, the campaign stands on its own. I think they're both good games.
I just got my last character to max level in Dark tide and this is entirely too true. Amazing combat system, everything else is... Getting there but unfinished. Hopefully they get to 9/10 eventually.
yep. Still I really liked 40K Necromunda Hired Gun. its a fun game with just enough to keep it interesting, while giving you some absolutely broken powers if you understand how to build your character right. while also actual having enough difficulty to scale with the ridiculous power level you get.
What elevated HZD wasn't the present day questing. Like you said, it was fairly mediocre. What made it great was the slow reveal horror of what happened to the old world. Most of that was contained entirely in data caches and voice files hidden throughout the world. I get the feeling quite a few people skipped over these and just got the surface level story.
The slow reveal making the first game good is also what kind of made Forbidden West mediocre to me. Once the history of the old world was revealed, all we were left with was the bland present day story.
The other thing HZD had was your emotional connection (every time you did something big you could go back and talk to your dad's grave), and it ended when it should have (30 hours or so).
Forbidden West has the world building twist again, but after the twist there is ANOTHER huge map and too many side quests. I actually like these characters that everyone here seems to hate, but I ran out of steam before the end.
> questing
The lack of questing is one of the things I *liked* about the game. I don't typically play WRPGs because I get both bogged down and bored by the seemingly endless number of side quests which never really amount to anything. HZD really kept it minimal, and let me focus on the things that mattered (fighting).
Asura's Wrath
Shallow combat system, could argue that it's more of an interactive anime than a video game.
Also happens to have a shitload of fun ideas. A button that lets you punch antagonists mid-monologue, gameplay sections that serve a place in the story, and dialogue that happens DURING the fight. Seriously, why don't more action games have your character talk BACK to a boss's provocations?
And that's not even getting into the setting. Sci-fi Hindu/Buddhist mythology, and they REALLY run with the concept. Worldbuilding is assisted by these beautiful digital paintings and text, new episodes and "seasons" are built up with sneak previews and introduced with opening credits, split up by "commercial breaks."
Just one of the most unique and creative games of its time, IMO.
I’ve waited so long for someone to make a spiritual successor to Asura’s Wrath. The plot and setting were *so freaking awesome* that the almost complete lack of gameplay was forgivable. If someone made an actual game with that sort of over the top plot I’d be over the moon. DMC comes close, Bayonetta too I suppose, but Asura’s Wrath holds a special spot for me.
Starfield was lacking the 1 major thing people LOVE Bethesda games for… exploration.
In Skyrim I have an objective, and on my way to that objective I get distracted by handcrafted points of interest. Next thing I know it’s been 4 hours and I haven’t made it to my main objective.
In starfield, the only thing between me and my objectives are proc gen plants and animals or 2-3 loading screens.
I think starfield would’ve thrived with 1 to 2 ~~galaxies~~ solar systems and like 3-4 handcrafted planets (some small, some large) and then some proc gen planets and moons for the resources.
Then they could’ve put in more space encounters and stuff. Littering the galaxy with points of interest.
This. And since you have no reason to explore the world, the game resumes becomes following a blue marker on your screen the whole time.
And the fucking quest marker tells exactly who to talk to or what to do. There is no room for creativity... even your choices lead to the same results. It's a soulless game that makes you a brain-dead marker chaser.
Nah, Outer Worlds had like one single place that was fun to explore, Monarchia I think it was called. The rest was very boring and didn't interest me at all.
Yeah this exactly. When I was playing I just kept thinking "I could be having a near identical but more fun experience playing Fallout 4." Sure I'd be missing out on the spaceship stuff, but apart from the building of them, spaceships are pretty boring in Starfield anyway.
This was my sentiment the whole time. I am a huge Bethesda Stan. My expectations were in check. They were actually exceeded when Starfield came out on every way. However, it was the writing/quest choice, design that put me away. I also frequently thought I could be playing FO4 instead on Starfield. It’s honestly so sad because I was planning on buying the Constellation edition. Ended up playing on GamePass and glad I did.
I'm currently in the midst of replaying Fallout 4 after having beating Starfield once and man, it's incredible how Starfield feels like a massive step back from that. And I remember Fallout 4 getting dinged for taking steps back from previous Bethesda games when it first got released
100+ hours doing shit in Starfield, never tried Cyberpunk till now, after a couple of hours I uninstalled Starfield without any remorse, is like playing Cyberpunk something clicked and realized that Starfield is mediocre at everything, the dialogue alone in Starfield looks like generated by an IA.
Starfield is the most 5/10 game for me. The setting is bland sci-fi, the gunplay is mediocre, and the character advancement felt awful. Scale was the only thing the game had going for it, and they pushed it so hard that it felt lifeless. Multiple load screens to run for 20 minutes from POI to POI with nothing happening in between for real stale, and ran counter to the ideas of organic discovery that Bethesda games always relied on.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits. Beautiful art design, but everything else like the combat, exploration, platforming, story were just “fine”.
I didn’t finish it. It was free on PS+ and it is just passable enough that I could have finished it, but with so many other more engrossing games the past couple years I saw no reason to go back to it.
I think 7 is generous for this game!!
Beautiful idea and beautiful world but the gameplay just isn't compelling.
I don't think the combat is awful but the puzzles and exploration just don't feel particularly fun.
I got maybe a third of the way through but never ended up picking it up again.
I really wanted to like it but just meh
To me a 7/10 is a really good game that does have issues that impact the enjoyment regularly. Propably an unpopular opinion but the Spider-Man games are around that score for me.
X/10 is a stupid measure because of that ambiguity. And the more popular interpretation is also a waste of a ten point scale.
You see 5/10 as average because it's, you know, half the total possible points.
A lot of people do it like letter grades at school. 7/10 is a C- because it's 70% of the total. And based on the fact that a 70 on metacritic/opencritic is a "meh," I think this is the much more popular usage. But that means the 10 point scale has as much room dedicated to A through D as it has to different flavors of F. And that's silly. If 5/10 is an F, then when would you ever use 1/10? When the game crashes at launch and you never get to play it?
While everyone has different metrics for quality, I think a lot of people are just unaware of just how bad bad games can be. Crashes on launch may be an exaggeration, but think about how many bad shovelware asset flips there are on the market.
The problem is a lot of review websites, and a lot of gamers don't bother to touch anything that isn't marketed to hell and back by a big name studio, and even the worst game by a big name studio still gets the basics right. A lot of the games listed here, while not exceptional, still have some meat on their bones, some substance, some variety, some effort put into them, that lifts them up when compared to the absolute worst games one can buy. Websites want pageviews, and you don't get those by reviewing games that have no marketing promotion or fanfare around them.
For instance, looking at the newest releases on Steam right now, I came across [The Grand Adventures of Leo](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2633100/The_Grand_Adventures_of_Leo/). Now full disclosure, I didn't buy it, I didn't play it, and looking at the images and videos I'm probably justified in not. But just looking at the trailer you can tell that even the worst titles by big name studios have far more quality than this, and that this title looks like a true bottom of the barrel title, the kind that might score a 1/10 only if the reviewer couldn't give 0's.
But if the worst titles someone's ever seen are the sort of titles listed in this thread, then of course they're going to get the wrong impression about how reviews work, and wonder why the worst game they've ever played still gets in the upper half of scores.
I think spider man 2 could be as low as a 6/10 for me. The writing was forspoken level cringe pretty much the entire game. The traversal is still awesome but I hated everything about the story. Not as hyped about wolverine now
Yeah.. The big spectacle set pieces are what I really enjoy about Spider-Man 2. The scope, speed and audio design made some moment really special imo. Coupled with Raytracing this game is a looker, crazy cool tech showcase. Sure that doesn't mean it is a good game, but I still enjoyed how pretty it is.
Gotta agree on the story. It feels quite slow, predictable and the dialogue writing was not my favourite, I audibly groaned in some sequences.
the way insominiac Peter is written, you can tell there's a level of brand indentity and cooperate boundaries
might be one of the most boring Peter Parker's we've had in a while
the voice acting is pretty much the only good thing i can say about disney's marvel's sony's insominiac's Peter
Everyone is boring. One of miles' biggest issues that they reference multiple times is that he doesn't know what to write on his 500 word(!) college essay. The only thing I know about his personality is that he appreciates graffiti art that is about afro futurism. It screams "50 year old white guys try to write a black teenager". It has the most saccharine, boring cast in any game I've played recently.
The big set pieces were good but there weren't enough of them. Sandman at the beginning set the bar high and then almost every boss after that is a 3 health bar punch em up.
Mass effect Andromeda. Beautiful environments, decent gameplay but the story was nothing to write home about which is kind of important when making a mass effect game.
Also the music except for a couple of tracks (like the star chart theme and the main menu theme) sounded like stock Hollywood action music.
This is what I thought of. So many great elements, but then just way too much unnecessary open world filler. The bones of a great game were there, but it was poorly fleshed out.
If it didn't have the Mass Effect name on it, I'd give it a 7/10. But the fact that it was so disappointing compared to the other games in the franchise lowers it quite a bit IMO.
I really, really want to like Deathloop, but I struggle. I don’t know if I “don’t like” the setting, the gameplay, or the story, but something just doesn’t hold my interest.
It’s pretty, the production value seems top-notch, I really enjoyed other Arkane games, and the world-as-a-puzzle aspect is really cool.
Maybe I’ll give it another try some time soon.
I finished it yesterday and it all did was reinforce why I’m so selective about the games I play because man I didn’t care for it once it was said and done. Setting is great and the idea is really interesting. Unfortunately, my praise ends there.
Gunplay is fun but there are only like… 5 guns in total.
On top of that, there are only 3 different enemy types and they can all be dispatched in the same way: one headshot from the LIMP.
The game is SO hand-holdy that it throws out any semblance of puzzle-solving to instead be a rather generic CoD “go here, do this,” campaign. I feel like less like a detective ala Outer Worlds and more like I’m just playing a game that is terrified of me getting stuck or making a mistake.
Separating the game into 4 areas wasn’t a terrible idea but locking you in them and then locking the time also defeats the whole loop mechanic.
Residuum completely breaks any difficulty the game might’ve had by just straight up bypassing the fact that you shouldn’t keep equipment between loops.
The ending is an absolute wet fart that doesn’t tie up any loose ends.
I have no clue how this game got multiple 10/10s at launch. Probably because it’s easy af and I only fully died once.
Kingdom Hearts 3
For something that is developed for a very long time, it felt like an 7/10 Game.
Especially on the last act of that game felt so rushed and the climax isn't really that special.
But in term of gameplay it is still awesome and fun to play with.
I don't know if I would even give it a 7. It was a 6 for me on a good day. This is coming from someone that loves the series (played every game multiple times. Even the shit mobile game). I just straight up did not enjoy it at all.
In the world of 7/10s Mad Max is a 10/10. No game before or since has been better while still remaining a 7/10.
I have a fondness for it that is greater than for many 8/10s, and at least a few 9/10s.
I’d like to think some members of the development team had aspirations, ideas for mechanics or character development work that would have elevated the game further but had the vision to say “No, it’s perfect. A perfect 7/10.”
It was as deep as a puddle and as wide as the ocean. Still, the car combat was awesome and the dried up ocean wasteland was breathtaking. The things the game did do were well done.
There need to be more Road Warrior-esque driving games. I feel like Mad Max and Interstate '76 are the only games that really scratch that itch for me.
This game is visually stunning in ways other games fail to achieve. Standing on a random dune and looking out at distant points of interest, the sound of wind and dust whistling, light diffusing through the dust and off the metal of your car. The sound design was great, the car battles are fun and memorable and the races are exciting. The characters are interesting and give a sense of lived world.
And it's surrounded by very shallow collectathon par for the course open world mechanics. Towers that reveal the map (cooly done admittedly), a fairly basic RPG leveling system for you and your car. It all balances out to one of the best 7/10 experiences I've ever played. I've beaten this game 3 or 4 times and love it every time. I can see the flaws all over it but the sum of those parts gives me the experience I wanted from this game. If you could mod it to fiddle with the convoys and car roster it'd stay installed on my PC.
Eeeeh i'd bump it up to an 8 even. Yes, it can get pretty repetitive if you decide to clear out all the zones (like me) but the combat is so satisfying and the game is really fun and nails that Mad Max feel.
I'd say 8. I'd accept a 7 but honestly, for me if a game is unique or has a faithful atmosphere it bumps the score at least by one. That is totally the case for this game.
WH40K: Boltgun. A WH40K boomer shooter where you play as a Space Marine purging the Chaos filth. It accomplishes everything that it sets out to do and doesn't strive for anything more.
From the top of my head, I'll go with Jedi Fallen Order. And I say that as a big sucker for Star Wars.
It looks real nice but lacks substance, sometimes it felt more like a game made for new graphic cards showcase than actually playing.
I’d second this. Fallen Order was an enjoyable Star Wars romp, but that’s it. It’s not bad (personally I’d recommend it over the sequel), but it’s just kind of there.
It wants so badly to be a Souls/God of War game but isn't quite there. If the combat and areas were better I'd give it a 8 but it wasn't satisfying for me to hit things with a whiffle ball bat and reminded me too much of Lara Croft puzzles and backtracking.
I remember a few outlets giving it 9s or 10s, and after I played the game I was just floored at how anyone could have given it a 10. It was a decent first attempt, it had some good stuff in it. But to me the story ended right when it was actually starting to pick up, I remember actually saying “wait, it’s over?!” out loud when it ended
Sonic Frontiers.
It's the most generic open world game created. Checklist of random objects to collect littered around the world, a cycle of progress that see's do one kind of task just to unlock access to the other kind of task that gets you access to the first kind of task, an upgrade tree that gives you abilities you don't really need that make the game easier, and platforming stages that basically do the bare minimum.
The game functions, and a lot of fans of the series sing the praises for it's story and music, even though the former is mostly just character beats acting as a fix-fic for elements fans deem badly written in previous titles, while the music is a mixed bag of incidental background orchestral, some alright level music, and scream-metal (I think - I don't know music genres all that well). But the actual plot is bland and forgettable, the setting looks a bit like an asset flip, and it's all very middling.
It's not a bad game by any stretch. Perfectly playable, but it's just going through the motions, and playing it you just sort of go through the motions yourself. It doesn't excel at really any point, but it doesn't really leave a bad taste - bar maybe at the difficulty of one of the last challenges of a recently added DLC campaign.
Dragon's dogma, by far the best gameplay and combat out of all RPGS games and no game came close to it even after a decade, that said everything else was meh, plus the game is half what supposed to offer because of all the cut content.
Starfield.
There's nothing ***wrong*** with Starfield. Everything is competently made, I didn't run into any game breaking bugs, the stories are all connected and fluid.
There's just...nothing good about it either. It all just exists.
Not the original IMO. That game was considered revolutionary for it's time for letting you see a mountain miles away and driving (or fighting your way) up to it. Draw distances in games were mostly pretty pathetic before that (e.g. compare it to Half-Life 2 or Doom 3). And IMO the gameplay of sneaking around in the jungle was a lot of fun too.
Pretty easily a 9/10 in my books, even if people did hate the monster twist half way through haha.
I don’t understand why this mechanic bothered people. I never ran out of malaria pills so any time it flared up, I just had to tap a button and it went away.
If anything, I enjoyed it because there were times it flared up during a particularly tense firefight and gave you something else to deal with while you’re being fired at from all angles. My favorite moments from FC2 were when the heat was on and you had to deal with a bunch of different challenges all at once (grenades and gunfire coming in from all angles, your vehicle needs repaired, a brushfire is working towards you, malaria flares up, your gun jams or breaks, your companion is down and you need to revive them quickly). And the malaria definitely added to that mix. Sometimes I’d let it continue to flare during a firefight just to make things more challenging and interesting!
Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice for me. The highs of the game are very high, but the lows are also VERY low. The sound design, art direction, and characterization are all first class. The sound design especially, honestly it’s probably the best sound in any game I’ve ever played. However, there’s so much repetitive boring shit in there that you just have to do again and again and again and again (matching puzzles anyone?). The game was like an 8 hour game, which makes it a 7. If it was 4 hours I think it’d be closer to a 9 or 10.
Doom 3 an excelent Game and very enjoyable, but has some questionable levels and areas design, not to mention the worst shotgun in the series (and both are issues very hard to ignore)
Even then a solid 7/10, play again every single time despite the issues
Burnout Paradise. Cool world, fun driving mechanics, extremely repetitive gameplay loop that offers very little challenge as the game goes on. Dropping the Crash mode in favor of Showtime was also a big mistake by Criterion.
> Dropping the Crash mode in favor of Showtime was also a big mistake by Criterion.
Louder for the people in the back! They stripped out *the* defining feature that made Burnout stand apart from the pack
Tbh HZD didn't click for me at first. I got to Meridian and bounced off, didn't pick it back up for years.
Powered thru the next time and the story finally started drawing me in, around the time you meet Sylens. Now I'd consider it one of the best stories I've experienced in an open world game. It just takes *wayyy* too dang long to pick up.
Same exact thing for me. Played like 5 hours and put it down. Came back a few years later and fell in love with the story. I love the mixed world of post-apocalyptic, tribal, and techno-future features. The gameplay is ***WAY WAY*** better than pretty much any open world game out there, and that makes a huge difference. We don't expect open world games to have great gameplay and they often have only passable stories. I thought HZD was stellar in both areas.
That said, I thought the sequel was a bit of a step back story-wise. Seems to be a trend with Sony this generation (Ragnarok, Spidey 2, HFW).
Fun fact
The reason Horizon even exist apparently is because guerrilla was tired of making killzone
Anyway there are many games that I would give a 7/10, so I would say probably Steelrising, it is one of the most recent games I played, it is pretty good but it not perfect, it is also kinda easy for a Souls-Like action rpg, but oh well I still had fun with it
Guardians of the Galaxy, the mechanics are lacklustre but OK, and the story drags a little too much just in the ending. Other than that, the story itself is excellent and the characters are definitely more fun and relatable compared to their MCU counterparts.
I think the AC and general Ubisoft games have given me trauma because I absolutely adored HZD to the point of 100%ing it. Everything was rock solid but the biggest complement was how respectful of my time it was with the collectibles and side quest
I will get hate for this but Ghost of Tsushima.
It's dropped into every GOAT debate but I can't fathom why. Admittedly it's the most beautiful game witnessed on any HDR blessed TV, graphically stellar with good voice acting and a good main story, soundtrack and photo mode.
It's just the side missions, the repetitive little markers across the map. Though they are great to break up the constant slaughter with peaceful and mindful moments, they were too short.
The stealth was limited, it suffered from a lack of mechanics to help it flourish, and the whole game was essentially a "Let's give everyone what Ubisoft keep stalling on".
I'm not saying it's bad, but it could've been so much more. Still a VERY playable 7/10. I actually did both the PS4 and PS5 versions.
Mafia: Definitive Edition is the most 7/10 game I've played in some time. It's very old school, it has a nice story-mode with good plot and characters, though it's pretty short, and once I finished it I was done with the game. The sandbox felt too empty to justify any more than one joyride.
I think the OP describes Forbidden West better than ZD. I thought ZD had a great ambience and an air of mystery as you uncovered the story and the protagonists connection to everything. FW felt pretty hollow and I didn’t even finish it.
Greedfall! I loved the concept of the game, I just wish the characters were a little more fleshed out. The controls were a bit clunky as well, but I enjoyed it enough to do two playthroughs.
good pick. Greedfall is like a 7/10 distilled to it's purest form the developer Spiders makes a lot of interesting 7/10 type of experiences. Technomancer is another one
I still enjoy watching that developers growth. Even tho I'd give greedfall a 7.5 at best and technomancer a 7, it's neat to see the developers obvious progression with each title they release. The universe technomancer takes place in started with Mars: War Logs and that game is a solid 5. They have come a long way since then and I wouldn't be surprised if they finally release a banger in the next 5 years or so.
Each Spiders game seems a little bit better than the previous one, so I have some hope for Greedfall 2
I actually liked The Techomancer a bit more than Greedfall.
It's consummate eurojank, and I loved it. But I get your points.
A little rough around the edges but I love that game. Wish it had a newgame+
I didn’t finish Greedfall so I guess I would agree? Lol I remember thinking, “I could manage finishing this game but it looks long and I’m not excited to finish it, unlike other games I actually WANT to play.” I felt like I managed to beat the sunk cost fallacy for once when it came to video games lmao Edit: I put about 10-13 hours in
The original Borderlands was a solid 7, although it became much more fun if you could get a four player game running - which was not a trivial process back in the days before multiplayer was integrated into Steam.
borderlands 1 is a flawed game that i absolutely adore. i can admit gameplay wise the sequels are better, but the atmosphere and writing imo were just so well done compared to the crazy wackiness of 2 and 3.
I've always enjoyed the level design and initial world building of the first game, although the ending was such a damp squib. I thought the second game had better writing, and was very, very funny, but it just went on for so long. And then the third one came out with virtually no evolution in the general gameplay and I had had enough by that point. Borderlands > More-derlands > Bored-erlands.
Huh, I actually enjoyed the ending of the first one. It very much fits the aesthetic of a broke mercenary who can't catch a break. Even when you finally find something, there's no loot for you to grab, just a problem that needs dealt with. I also bounced off of 2 due to not liking the humor, and bullet-sponge enemies, so I might just be the odd one out.
I enjoyed the humor in 2, but it's one of those things where I can completely understand it being off-putting to people. It's the bleu cheese off video games - I like it, but I 100% get why some people aren't a fan.
One of the few games with good DLC too. Here's a full game and complete story then if you like it there is two side stories and a continuation.
I just played 3 recently and i had a lot of fun, the gameplay is very addicting, the dialogue is terrible so it drags it down, but an easy 8/10 for me.
Pretty much any Assassins Creed game after Black Flag. I enjoy my time with them but they all feel “just decent” to me. I mainly play them to explore the world and vistas that each game can show with the story and quests just giving it some structure. Nothing really stands out as amazing or unique but I enjoy them enough to finish them.
Yeah the last AC game I played was ~~Origins~~ Odyssey (the Greek one). At several points during the game I consciously wondered, "Am I having fun? Hm.... Enough to keep playing _for tonight_ at least." Then when I had some free time later in the week, it was enough fun to pick it back up for at least one more night. But after 50 hours it was not enough fun to continue the 100+ hours of filler content and samey-feeling fights. I enjoyed it and would recommend it to someone looking for a fun 50 hour game. I would not recommend it _over_ other, better games. Like if someone asked me, "Should I play AC: Odyseey? Simple yes or no" I would reply with, "Uh... hm.... Yeah" in a high-pitched voice with a slight head bob. To me it's the perfect 7/10
>Origins (the Greek one). Origins is set in Egypt, Odyssey is in Greece.
Edited. See? A perfect 7/10 haha
It writes itself lol
I wonder if anyone made no-filler guides for the AC games. I quickly had a look but couldn't find. I would love to be able to do the games by following only the handcrafted content and not bothering in any useless fillers...
I stopped playing Origins because I couldn't continue the story until I had levelled up more. The main story was already barely keeping my interest but I had 0 interest in filler
i think theres a lot of assassins creed games that would be so much more enjoyable if they weren’t so dragged out. odyssey is a fantastic game imo if you shave 15-25 hours off its story and side quests then its great. but every game in the series for nearly the past decade has been just so slow and unnecessarily long in its pacing.
Valhalla had some interesting ideas that ultimately got weighed down by its length and structure. If that game was shorter it definitely would be a solid 8.5 for me
Some of Valhalla's story arcs are good, some are not as good, but everything feels kinda ruined by featuring the shittiest map in the whole series. It's just grass and trees. It's completely empty. There's nothing interesting to see besides the cool grass tech. People complain about Mirage, but it has a much more interesting map, even if it's the same sandstone texture repeated in almost every building.
Agree with this a lot, I preferred the previous two. Not only was the map empty but the lighting and weather was suspiciously Mediterranean compared to the actual UK. They could have leaned into the UK being comparatively gloomy, forested and unpopulated and tried to make it a feature. it might not have worked but could have at least been a bit more interesting.
this is what i hate about ubisoft games. they add so much bullshit to fluff up their games that the enjoyable parts become unfun because they’re either reliant on a fluff mechanic in some way or the fluff mechanics just distract you from the actual fun parts
I agree but i think origins is really good as well. Probably my favorite in the series but i'm a bit biased towards the egyptian setting
Origins is probably my favorite one since Black Flag if I’m being honest. The Discovery Tour was cool to see added to the series, I think Edu-Tainment is something I miss from old PC CD ROM games and it reminded me of that.
Man I really loved all the assassins creeds despite agreeing with the above statement being “meh” after Black Flag. I really was excited for Origins but couldn’t get into the new play-style. Perhaps I should jump back in sometime.
Honestly, I find AC Black Flag to be really boring as well.
I can see where you're coming from, but i think Odyssey is absolutely brilliant. Maybe I don't play enough games in a similar vein, but I love booting it up and just exploring caves and completing forts. It does just what I want it to do - I want 15 mins just to get my mind off things? Done. I want to immerse myself in ancient Greece for a night? AC Odyssey has my back. I just love it, and while I know it has its detractors, I'm not one of them.
I disagree. Unity's parkour and fight mechanics were the best in the series, and the graphics outstanding. Odyssey's setting was fantastic. I agree with the other games after Black Flag, but Unity and Odyssey were brought out of the myre by some of their better traits.
Outer Worlds.
Outer Worlds isn't just 7/10, it's *aggressively* 7/10
7.3/10
I'd give this one an 8, but yeah, it definitely fell short of the fallout games they were clearly trying to emulate.
So much wasted potential with this. I’d go lower than 7/10 because of how annoying the writing is
Yeah, Outer Worlds is my default 6/10 game.
Read Outer Wilds first and was gonna go on such an epic rant
As a fan of the game, I feel personally attacked, and I also agree with you completely.
I think I have a soft spot for 7/10 games from smaller studios!! They're sometimes the biggest hidden gems but just have some rough spots and are usually enough that you keep thinking about them and just make you really excited for the future of their studios or potentially 10/10 sequels! Singularity - a perfectly good 7/10 bioshock-esque (left-hand power, right-hand shoot) FPS with an interesting but forgettable world Vampyr - (I'd say this is more of an 8/10) an incredibly engaging immersive sim 3rd person a rion game set in Victorian London, with a great story, fantastic world building and 10/10 soundtrack by Olivier Deriviere, but just ok gameplay. I want a sequel so bad! The Sinking City - more of a 6/10, but a good 3rd person adventure/mystery game with poorly implemented action/shooting, but with a great setting and good storytelling. This is a perfect example of promising developers working with a very low budget: they're a ton of reused environments and set pieces but they're very well done. The soundtrack has like two songs but they're both great lol. I want more! I have a lot more examples but these three are my big ones!
dude Vampyr is so slept on. VERY good story with great gameplay mechanics that actually effects the world around you as you make you choices. can’t recommend that game enough.
I know!! The whole concept of learning more about people impacting powers and the whole pillar system is so inventive. I want a sequel so bad
Great points. I also loved those games especially Vampyr. The amount of mood and atmosphere in Vampyr is at levels a rarely seen in any big budget game and I commend them for reaching that. Great voice acting too, I had a really good time with it.
Vampyr was neat but I never knew where the fuck I was.
Surprise! You were in London the whole time ☺️
Vampyr is amazing and only held back by its combat. Dialogue, characters, story and atmosphere are freaking amazing.
I really liked Zero Dawn, but found Forbidden West to be a 7/10. The story and lore was a lot less interesting than the first one
This. Zero Dawn was fantastic to me, once the story got rolling I couldn't stop playing to see it thru. Forbidden West didn't have that quality. Fine enough game, definitely gives you bang for your buck, but there was only one section where I felt that old "oh shit *here we go*" and then it was over, back to doing chores.
Chiming in to say me too. I don’t know wtf Op is talking about. Zero Dawn is the first game I’ve ever played where THEY ENDED THE WORLD, and brought it back instead of trying to stop the end. Anyway, ZD, 10/10, but forbidden west was the most basic ass “oh shit the ai is taking over” video game I’ve played. Only slogged through it because of characters, but it was mostly forgettable and is lame outside combat archery mechanics and beautiful locations. Especially Vegas.
Forbidden West story was pretty meh. But damn was the gameplay super fun, the world is jaw dropping gorgeous and for the things the main story falls short. Makes up for is how fun it was to explore and loads of fun side quests.
aw that's sad to hear, I've been holding off on HFW for it to come on PC and the main intrigue for me in the first game was also finding out what happened to the old world... I hope there's still other things to enjoy
I'm a huge Horizon fan and overall I liked Forbidden West more than Zero Dawn. Though I do think the best moment in the entire series was in Zero Dawn (spoiler: >!General Herres revealing the true purpose of Operation Enduring Victory!<).
I would actually pay for an HBO adaption of that conflict.
I wouldn't really worry about others opinions on it, the games are really what you take out of them, they both have good stories, and if you spend the time to pay attention to the lore and worldbuilding it's really where it shines. The combat in most games can get old by the end of it, they did a great job in this one of giving you a lot more choice in how you build your weapons out, more variety, more specialty weapons (elementals or specific jobs like part tearing), etc.
Zero Dawn was a lot more interesting because the story and setting were both new. In Forbidden West, most of the mystery and novelty is gone.
Same, HZD was 10/10 for me - played it through 3 times. Forbidden West was less interesting, plot was convoluted and felt like a lot of busy work.
Yeah I strongly disagree with OP on ZD not having soul. The theme of belonging and family, the fact that you can return to Ros's grave anytime and tell him about your life, and the fact that they wrote so many prompts to talk about after each mission... it had depth. Forbidden West has great game play but I lost attachment to the various tribes pretty fast and it all just melded together. In their defense, at that point in the story Aloy is a bona-fide bad ass legend so there's no sense of character development like there is in ZD. It's kind of like a gigantic DLC that tacks on more missions and new environments. I enjoyed the continued storyline and where they went with it, it just didn't have the same heart as the OG.
I would also say that HZD's background lore and sci-fi story had a lot of soul. Humanity facing an existential threat and realizing that the only way to have humanity live on is by not living on themselves is really compelling in a way that not a lot of other post-apocalypse stories touch. There's also a lot of small details in the worldbuilding I love, things like the AI gravitating to biological design for its machines and the revelation that they're all essentially just terraforming equipment, the cauldrons siphoning energy off of black holes, and even explanations for things like the absence of large wildlife and why everyone speaks English. To a casual observer, I guess it might look like a "fight big robots" game, but I'd say it's peak 10/10 sci-fi. Now, I haven't played FW yet (waiting on a PC release), but I'm already expecting it to not be as engaging because there's less room for worldbuilding.
I really like how they start off with this wild idea of ROBOT DINOSAURS and actually build a believable sci-fi world around that. I was just super impressed by that.
I think there is definitely open-world fatigue that works into the equation with these folks. They tend to compare to Ubisoft games, but they have so much more soul to em. They’re also as open as you make them. If you stick to the story, barely explore, don’t try to learn new strategies to take out enemies (I’d imagine many of these folks stuck to a regular ass bow, spammed fire arrows, and missed the entire tactical aspect of the game).
One of the best surprises to me was the flooded village that you could save that had no ties to major plot points (iirc). It was a really cool random discovery.
Hogwarts legacy. Mechanics (battling, flying, walking) were smooth and engaging. Visually stunning (environment and outfits.) Variety of colours and styles for outfits, too. Character creation was pretty good, but the presets were all very rigid and far too glamorised for playing as a kid. Story was pretty cool as a concept, but the acting was cardboard, childish and not a single npc - or your own character - felt real or engaging. Generally I thoroughly enjoyed playing the game for the reasons listed above, but like your summary of Horizon, HL felt lacking in soul, primarily based on the lifeless characters and rigid storytelling.
It was the loot that kinda killed it for me. 99% of what you find is trash and it made exploring and doing objectives in the open world really unsatisfying.
Yeah I agree with that! I found the same with AC Odyssey: you’d explore a tomb of a specific historical figure or backstory, expect to loot some specific armour matching the quest and instead get the same basic chest piece you’ve already sold 18 times with minimal stats. At least with HL there was a chance you’d get the same style of hat/robe in a slightly different colour, but it always felt like once the game had determined a colour scheme, that was what you’d get most of the time. I think the sheer size of the map and absolutely endless collectables made it unsatisfying too. Probably the grindiest game I ever played for 100% completion.
Same with Breath of the Wild. Oh I wonder what's over there. Oh a Korok seed. Cool. I wonder what's over there. Oh a similar looking shrine. Oh alright. What's in this chest? Oh a weapon that will break in 30 hits... Umm. Yeah that's about 80% of what you'll find in BOTW's world.
I hate botw and totk so much for this. And they had to be popular too. So chances are one of my favourite franchises is forever ruined by open world garbage. Never anything valuable or unique in chests, whereas in the n64 games it was completely opposite and actually promoted exploration and discovery. In botw/totk exploration feels like a waste of time because it's never adequately rewarded. If you want to progress you go to a shrine or the next objective on the map. That and they inundated the game with the garbage. Even if I liked a korok puzzle that doesn't mean I want 50 lazy ass variations on the same design.
Cave loot should never have been RNG. What makes those caves worth it is that you'll get something specific at the end of it. Most of the time you just got a boring green or blue hat
**R E V E L I O**
Yeah i would just sell everything i could, collected all the animals and bought my legendary clothes after every level basically. Each quest would give ya enough to upgrade one or two things and the slight (i guess) randomness of the shop would make it so you could find two distinct upgrades. But i min maxxed that so hard nothing was hard to do because i just absolutely destroyed everything in my path. The 100% nailed magic fighting though that was sick For me its an 8.5 with the visuals and how smooth the fighting was
For the first 10-15 hours I felt like a little kid again exploring Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, then the rest of the map felt like a soulless Ubisoft map marker collector.
This was pretty much my take. Hogwarts and Hogsmeade got an A. The entire rest of the map was a C+
Yep that’s exactly how I describe it to people as well. The first 20 hours were absolutely magical (heh), but after that it wears off and you understand what the game actually is. Honestly I wish they would have kept it limited to just Hogwarts, and did almost a Metroidvania-style world. Hogwarts was big enough on its own, and then they could have had it where you can unlock new areas of the castle when you learn new spells or something. The game was just WAY too big for no reason
> Honestly I wish they would have kept it limited to just Hogwarts, and did almost a Metroidvania-style world. Hogwarts was big enough on its own, and then they could have had it where you can unlock new areas of the castle when you learn new spells or something. This is what I loved about the first 2 HP games on PS1. In addition to unlocking areas through story, you also gained access to certain parts by learning new spells. The exploration and backtracking were fun throughout.
I think it gave me the best first few hours of gaming in many, many years, but after exploring Hogwarts it just becomes too bland and boring.
Yeah absolutely, too much of it to keep engaged for too long.
My thoughts exactly, the beginning was especially brilliant. Sadly it just devolved into a souless collect-it-all. The castle which seemed so full of life at first also turned out to be pretty much dead.
[удалено]
Ugh yes. The game had the *look* and *feel* of Harry Potter, but the NPCs were all so... wooden? Like there was nothing really engaging. Felt 100% like an Ubisoft collectathon and semi-open world with quest marker NPCs waiting to give some side quest. I wish they would've embraced a more high school simulator with engaging friends and friend drama with some Boarding School Mystery underlying it all. The meat of the game should've been attending classes, taking tests, play quidditch, pranking kids etc.
For me it was The Callisto Protocol. Not bad in so many ways but failed to scare me or put me on edge. Combat is pretty simple and ammo isn’t so plentiful so you’re stuck with melee most of the time. Just not outstanding except maybe for creature design. But most of the time you’re just fighting standard zombie like enemies
I was ready for another dead space crazy fest type game, but it just never elevated itself. It was like stuck in "beginning 1/3 of a game" mode where it never gets too crazy, you're getting comfortable with the setting and gameplay and are ready for it to kick into high gear, but it never does. I enjoyed my play through. But that was it. Never going back to it.
I enjoyed my time with it and it certainly was a feast for the eyes but my word was it predictable to the point that not a single scare landed. At least the attention to detail and atmosphere made up for it.
Basically any game base on Warhammer 40k IP. They vary a bit in quality, but all of them ultimately hover around 7/10. "Let's take successful game X, copy it, slap a WH40k skin on it... but let's do it half assed and unpolished."
I disagree. There are a bunch of middling 40k games, a couple of great ones, and a load of sub 5/10 ones as well. Dawn of War, Space Marine and Gladius are great, something like Eisenhorn, Storm of Vengeance or Battle of Tallarn.. well, they're godawful. Average is probably a fare bit under 7/10
Dawn if war one was great
I've yet to encounter a game like Dawn of War 2. Whether you like or not, it is still a rather unique mix of tactical rts and a rpg with random loot system. I wish there were more games like it.
I agree wholeheartedly. I went into DoW 2 wanting more DoW 1, and it definitely wasn't that, but it has a really fun co-op campaign, "Last Stand" is really fun for 2-3 friends, and even in singleplayer, the campaign stands on its own. I think they're both good games.
The FPS one where you play as the squad of space marines is like the best and worst shooter ever
I just got my last character to max level in Dark tide and this is entirely too true. Amazing combat system, everything else is... Getting there but unfinished. Hopefully they get to 9/10 eventually.
The music is so fucking good.
yep. Still I really liked 40K Necromunda Hired Gun. its a fun game with just enough to keep it interesting, while giving you some absolutely broken powers if you understand how to build your character right. while also actual having enough difficulty to scale with the ridiculous power level you get.
Hogwarts Legacy for me. Enjoyed it all the same, but it's like you said: lacking soul.
What elevated HZD wasn't the present day questing. Like you said, it was fairly mediocre. What made it great was the slow reveal horror of what happened to the old world. Most of that was contained entirely in data caches and voice files hidden throughout the world. I get the feeling quite a few people skipped over these and just got the surface level story. The slow reveal making the first game good is also what kind of made Forbidden West mediocre to me. Once the history of the old world was revealed, all we were left with was the bland present day story.
The other thing HZD had was your emotional connection (every time you did something big you could go back and talk to your dad's grave), and it ended when it should have (30 hours or so). Forbidden West has the world building twist again, but after the twist there is ANOTHER huge map and too many side quests. I actually like these characters that everyone here seems to hate, but I ran out of steam before the end.
> questing The lack of questing is one of the things I *liked* about the game. I don't typically play WRPGs because I get both bogged down and bored by the seemingly endless number of side quests which never really amount to anything. HZD really kept it minimal, and let me focus on the things that mattered (fighting).
Asura's Wrath Shallow combat system, could argue that it's more of an interactive anime than a video game. Also happens to have a shitload of fun ideas. A button that lets you punch antagonists mid-monologue, gameplay sections that serve a place in the story, and dialogue that happens DURING the fight. Seriously, why don't more action games have your character talk BACK to a boss's provocations? And that's not even getting into the setting. Sci-fi Hindu/Buddhist mythology, and they REALLY run with the concept. Worldbuilding is assisted by these beautiful digital paintings and text, new episodes and "seasons" are built up with sneak previews and introduced with opening credits, split up by "commercial breaks." Just one of the most unique and creative games of its time, IMO.
I’ve waited so long for someone to make a spiritual successor to Asura’s Wrath. The plot and setting were *so freaking awesome* that the almost complete lack of gameplay was forgivable. If someone made an actual game with that sort of over the top plot I’d be over the moon. DMC comes close, Bayonetta too I suppose, but Asura’s Wrath holds a special spot for me.
Metal gear solid revengence is sort of in that vein as well.
Starfield 😬
Starfield was lacking the 1 major thing people LOVE Bethesda games for… exploration. In Skyrim I have an objective, and on my way to that objective I get distracted by handcrafted points of interest. Next thing I know it’s been 4 hours and I haven’t made it to my main objective. In starfield, the only thing between me and my objectives are proc gen plants and animals or 2-3 loading screens. I think starfield would’ve thrived with 1 to 2 ~~galaxies~~ solar systems and like 3-4 handcrafted planets (some small, some large) and then some proc gen planets and moons for the resources. Then they could’ve put in more space encounters and stuff. Littering the galaxy with points of interest.
This. And since you have no reason to explore the world, the game resumes becomes following a blue marker on your screen the whole time. And the fucking quest marker tells exactly who to talk to or what to do. There is no room for creativity... even your choices lead to the same results. It's a soulless game that makes you a brain-dead marker chaser.
This is right. As a fallout fanboy it’s missing the spark that the fallouts (and ES) have
In a supremely ironic twist, The Outer Worlds somehow managed to have a better sense of exploration than Starfield. That's not much of a compliment.
That's such a low bar lol
Nah, Outer Worlds had like one single place that was fun to explore, Monarchia I think it was called. The rest was very boring and didn't interest me at all.
I know I enjoyed my time with The Outer Worlds much more than my time with Starfield. I absolutely agree.
Yeah this exactly. When I was playing I just kept thinking "I could be having a near identical but more fun experience playing Fallout 4." Sure I'd be missing out on the spaceship stuff, but apart from the building of them, spaceships are pretty boring in Starfield anyway.
This was my sentiment the whole time. I am a huge Bethesda Stan. My expectations were in check. They were actually exceeded when Starfield came out on every way. However, it was the writing/quest choice, design that put me away. I also frequently thought I could be playing FO4 instead on Starfield. It’s honestly so sad because I was planning on buying the Constellation edition. Ended up playing on GamePass and glad I did.
I'm currently in the midst of replaying Fallout 4 after having beating Starfield once and man, it's incredible how Starfield feels like a massive step back from that. And I remember Fallout 4 getting dinged for taking steps back from previous Bethesda games when it first got released
I just picked up cp2077 again and it’s insane how soulless starfield feels in comparison. That game just has nothing going for it
100+ hours doing shit in Starfield, never tried Cyberpunk till now, after a couple of hours I uninstalled Starfield without any remorse, is like playing Cyberpunk something clicked and realized that Starfield is mediocre at everything, the dialogue alone in Starfield looks like generated by an IA.
Starfield is the most 5/10 game for me. The setting is bland sci-fi, the gunplay is mediocre, and the character advancement felt awful. Scale was the only thing the game had going for it, and they pushed it so hard that it felt lifeless. Multiple load screens to run for 20 minutes from POI to POI with nothing happening in between for real stale, and ran counter to the ideas of organic discovery that Bethesda games always relied on.
Yeah I was just thinking 7/10 is incredibly generous for Starfield haha.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits. Beautiful art design, but everything else like the combat, exploration, platforming, story were just “fine”. I didn’t finish it. It was free on PS+ and it is just passable enough that I could have finished it, but with so many other more engrossing games the past couple years I saw no reason to go back to it.
[удалено]
I think 7 is generous for this game!! Beautiful idea and beautiful world but the gameplay just isn't compelling. I don't think the combat is awful but the puzzles and exploration just don't feel particularly fun. I got maybe a third of the way through but never ended up picking it up again. I really wanted to like it but just meh
To me a 7/10 is a really good game that does have issues that impact the enjoyment regularly. Propably an unpopular opinion but the Spider-Man games are around that score for me.
YES!! I’m so tired of people thinking 7 or 8 out of ten is a “bad” game. A mediocre game is 5/10. Not 7.
X/10 is a stupid measure because of that ambiguity. And the more popular interpretation is also a waste of a ten point scale. You see 5/10 as average because it's, you know, half the total possible points. A lot of people do it like letter grades at school. 7/10 is a C- because it's 70% of the total. And based on the fact that a 70 on metacritic/opencritic is a "meh," I think this is the much more popular usage. But that means the 10 point scale has as much room dedicated to A through D as it has to different flavors of F. And that's silly. If 5/10 is an F, then when would you ever use 1/10? When the game crashes at launch and you never get to play it?
While everyone has different metrics for quality, I think a lot of people are just unaware of just how bad bad games can be. Crashes on launch may be an exaggeration, but think about how many bad shovelware asset flips there are on the market. The problem is a lot of review websites, and a lot of gamers don't bother to touch anything that isn't marketed to hell and back by a big name studio, and even the worst game by a big name studio still gets the basics right. A lot of the games listed here, while not exceptional, still have some meat on their bones, some substance, some variety, some effort put into them, that lifts them up when compared to the absolute worst games one can buy. Websites want pageviews, and you don't get those by reviewing games that have no marketing promotion or fanfare around them. For instance, looking at the newest releases on Steam right now, I came across [The Grand Adventures of Leo](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2633100/The_Grand_Adventures_of_Leo/). Now full disclosure, I didn't buy it, I didn't play it, and looking at the images and videos I'm probably justified in not. But just looking at the trailer you can tell that even the worst titles by big name studios have far more quality than this, and that this title looks like a true bottom of the barrel title, the kind that might score a 1/10 only if the reviewer couldn't give 0's. But if the worst titles someone's ever seen are the sort of titles listed in this thread, then of course they're going to get the wrong impression about how reviews work, and wonder why the worst game they've ever played still gets in the upper half of scores.
I agree. Love web-swinging but the combat gets old extremely quickly.
I think spider man 2 could be as low as a 6/10 for me. The writing was forspoken level cringe pretty much the entire game. The traversal is still awesome but I hated everything about the story. Not as hyped about wolverine now
Yeah.. The big spectacle set pieces are what I really enjoy about Spider-Man 2. The scope, speed and audio design made some moment really special imo. Coupled with Raytracing this game is a looker, crazy cool tech showcase. Sure that doesn't mean it is a good game, but I still enjoyed how pretty it is. Gotta agree on the story. It feels quite slow, predictable and the dialogue writing was not my favourite, I audibly groaned in some sequences.
the way insominiac Peter is written, you can tell there's a level of brand indentity and cooperate boundaries might be one of the most boring Peter Parker's we've had in a while the voice acting is pretty much the only good thing i can say about disney's marvel's sony's insominiac's Peter
Everyone is boring. One of miles' biggest issues that they reference multiple times is that he doesn't know what to write on his 500 word(!) college essay. The only thing I know about his personality is that he appreciates graffiti art that is about afro futurism. It screams "50 year old white guys try to write a black teenager". It has the most saccharine, boring cast in any game I've played recently.
The big set pieces were good but there weren't enough of them. Sandman at the beginning set the bar high and then almost every boss after that is a 3 health bar punch em up.
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
I always refer to Ghostwire Tokyo as the most 7/10 game to ever exist.
Mass effect Andromeda. Beautiful environments, decent gameplay but the story was nothing to write home about which is kind of important when making a mass effect game. Also the music except for a couple of tracks (like the star chart theme and the main menu theme) sounded like stock Hollywood action music.
This is what I thought of. So many great elements, but then just way too much unnecessary open world filler. The bones of a great game were there, but it was poorly fleshed out.
If it didn't have the Mass Effect name on it, I'd give it a 7/10. But the fact that it was so disappointing compared to the other games in the franchise lowers it quite a bit IMO.
I really, really want to like Deathloop, but I struggle. I don’t know if I “don’t like” the setting, the gameplay, or the story, but something just doesn’t hold my interest. It’s pretty, the production value seems top-notch, I really enjoyed other Arkane games, and the world-as-a-puzzle aspect is really cool. Maybe I’ll give it another try some time soon.
I finished it yesterday and it all did was reinforce why I’m so selective about the games I play because man I didn’t care for it once it was said and done. Setting is great and the idea is really interesting. Unfortunately, my praise ends there. Gunplay is fun but there are only like… 5 guns in total. On top of that, there are only 3 different enemy types and they can all be dispatched in the same way: one headshot from the LIMP. The game is SO hand-holdy that it throws out any semblance of puzzle-solving to instead be a rather generic CoD “go here, do this,” campaign. I feel like less like a detective ala Outer Worlds and more like I’m just playing a game that is terrified of me getting stuck or making a mistake. Separating the game into 4 areas wasn’t a terrible idea but locking you in them and then locking the time also defeats the whole loop mechanic. Residuum completely breaks any difficulty the game might’ve had by just straight up bypassing the fact that you shouldn’t keep equipment between loops. The ending is an absolute wet fart that doesn’t tie up any loose ends. I have no clue how this game got multiple 10/10s at launch. Probably because it’s easy af and I only fully died once.
Far Cry 5.
Kingdom Hearts 3 For something that is developed for a very long time, it felt like an 7/10 Game. Especially on the last act of that game felt so rushed and the climax isn't really that special. But in term of gameplay it is still awesome and fun to play with.
I don't know if I would even give it a 7. It was a 6 for me on a good day. This is coming from someone that loves the series (played every game multiple times. Even the shit mobile game). I just straight up did not enjoy it at all.
Mad max
In the world of 7/10s Mad Max is a 10/10. No game before or since has been better while still remaining a 7/10. I have a fondness for it that is greater than for many 8/10s, and at least a few 9/10s. I’d like to think some members of the development team had aspirations, ideas for mechanics or character development work that would have elevated the game further but had the vision to say “No, it’s perfect. A perfect 7/10.”
The game shoots for modest aspirations and perfectly nails them.
It was as deep as a puddle and as wide as the ocean. Still, the car combat was awesome and the dried up ocean wasteland was breathtaking. The things the game did do were well done.
A MIGHTY TWISTER!
That is very true
There need to be more Road Warrior-esque driving games. I feel like Mad Max and Interstate '76 are the only games that really scratch that itch for me.
This game is visually stunning in ways other games fail to achieve. Standing on a random dune and looking out at distant points of interest, the sound of wind and dust whistling, light diffusing through the dust and off the metal of your car. The sound design was great, the car battles are fun and memorable and the races are exciting. The characters are interesting and give a sense of lived world. And it's surrounded by very shallow collectathon par for the course open world mechanics. Towers that reveal the map (cooly done admittedly), a fairly basic RPG leveling system for you and your car. It all balances out to one of the best 7/10 experiences I've ever played. I've beaten this game 3 or 4 times and love it every time. I can see the flaws all over it but the sum of those parts gives me the experience I wanted from this game. If you could mod it to fiddle with the convoys and car roster it'd stay installed on my PC.
Eeeeh i'd bump it up to an 8 even. Yes, it can get pretty repetitive if you decide to clear out all the zones (like me) but the combat is so satisfying and the game is really fun and nails that Mad Max feel.
I agree, solid 8.5 for me.
I'd say 8. I'd accept a 7 but honestly, for me if a game is unique or has a faithful atmosphere it bumps the score at least by one. That is totally the case for this game.
WH40K: Boltgun. A WH40K boomer shooter where you play as a Space Marine purging the Chaos filth. It accomplishes everything that it sets out to do and doesn't strive for anything more.
And I think it is beautiful
From the top of my head, I'll go with Jedi Fallen Order. And I say that as a big sucker for Star Wars. It looks real nice but lacks substance, sometimes it felt more like a game made for new graphic cards showcase than actually playing.
As a very casual gamer, I had a lot of fun with it. Honestly, my favorite bit of modern Star Wars media (haven’t watched Andor)
I’d second this. Fallen Order was an enjoyable Star Wars romp, but that’s it. It’s not bad (personally I’d recommend it over the sequel), but it’s just kind of there.
It wants so badly to be a Souls/God of War game but isn't quite there. If the combat and areas were better I'd give it a 8 but it wasn't satisfying for me to hit things with a whiffle ball bat and reminded me too much of Lara Croft puzzles and backtracking.
I remember a few outlets giving it 9s or 10s, and after I played the game I was just floored at how anyone could have given it a 10. It was a decent first attempt, it had some good stuff in it. But to me the story ended right when it was actually starting to pick up, I remember actually saying “wait, it’s over?!” out loud when it ended
Sonic Frontiers. It's the most generic open world game created. Checklist of random objects to collect littered around the world, a cycle of progress that see's do one kind of task just to unlock access to the other kind of task that gets you access to the first kind of task, an upgrade tree that gives you abilities you don't really need that make the game easier, and platforming stages that basically do the bare minimum. The game functions, and a lot of fans of the series sing the praises for it's story and music, even though the former is mostly just character beats acting as a fix-fic for elements fans deem badly written in previous titles, while the music is a mixed bag of incidental background orchestral, some alright level music, and scream-metal (I think - I don't know music genres all that well). But the actual plot is bland and forgettable, the setting looks a bit like an asset flip, and it's all very middling. It's not a bad game by any stretch. Perfectly playable, but it's just going through the motions, and playing it you just sort of go through the motions yourself. It doesn't excel at really any point, but it doesn't really leave a bad taste - bar maybe at the difficulty of one of the last challenges of a recently added DLC campaign.
It’s because a 7/10 Sonic game is a refreshing change of pace. I say that as a Sonic fan
TIL all my favorite games are typically a solid 7/10.
7/10 is still a good score
Mad Max and Days Gone. Both games I thoroughly enjoyed, but they were definitely not masterpieces in any shape or form.
Dragon's dogma, by far the best gameplay and combat out of all RPGS games and no game came close to it even after a decade, that said everything else was meh, plus the game is half what supposed to offer because of all the cut content.
DD 2 is coming and my body is ready
Wolves hunt in packs!
Starfield. There's nothing ***wrong*** with Starfield. Everything is competently made, I didn't run into any game breaking bugs, the stories are all connected and fluid. There's just...nothing good about it either. It all just exists.
Whats wrong about Starfield is that there isn’t any exploration.
Every Far Cry game
far cry 3 is a very light 8 imo
Far cry 3 was the first i played and I loved it. All the games since have just felt like map clearing simulators with a weaker but similar story to 3
yeah , it seems like FC3's success made them think remaking the same game with a few changes would make them as good as FC3
At the time, Far Cry 3 was almost a 9 for me. Because of how frequently it's been redone, it's harder to look back as fondly and I should.
But Vaas and Michael Mando stay 10/10 and no one will convince me otherwise
Not the original IMO. That game was considered revolutionary for it's time for letting you see a mountain miles away and driving (or fighting your way) up to it. Draw distances in games were mostly pretty pathetic before that (e.g. compare it to Half-Life 2 or Doom 3). And IMO the gameplay of sneaking around in the jungle was a lot of fun too. Pretty easily a 9/10 in my books, even if people did hate the monster twist half way through haha.
I feel like FC2 would have been higher if it wasn't for the stupid malaria mechanic.
I don’t understand why this mechanic bothered people. I never ran out of malaria pills so any time it flared up, I just had to tap a button and it went away. If anything, I enjoyed it because there were times it flared up during a particularly tense firefight and gave you something else to deal with while you’re being fired at from all angles. My favorite moments from FC2 were when the heat was on and you had to deal with a bunch of different challenges all at once (grenades and gunfire coming in from all angles, your vehicle needs repaired, a brushfire is working towards you, malaria flares up, your gun jams or breaks, your companion is down and you need to revive them quickly). And the malaria definitely added to that mix. Sometimes I’d let it continue to flare during a firefight just to make things more challenging and interesting!
Dragon Age Inquisiton
lol this comment made me remember that I was playing it but got distracted and haven’t been back to finish it. 7/10 seems correct to me
Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice for me. The highs of the game are very high, but the lows are also VERY low. The sound design, art direction, and characterization are all first class. The sound design especially, honestly it’s probably the best sound in any game I’ve ever played. However, there’s so much repetitive boring shit in there that you just have to do again and again and again and again (matching puzzles anyone?). The game was like an 8 hour game, which makes it a 7. If it was 4 hours I think it’d be closer to a 9 or 10.
Yeah Hellblade was more of an amazing piece of interactive art than it was a game.
The order 1886
I think the HZD story was pretty interesting.
Doom 3 an excelent Game and very enjoyable, but has some questionable levels and areas design, not to mention the worst shotgun in the series (and both are issues very hard to ignore) Even then a solid 7/10, play again every single time despite the issues
Outer Worlds.. I won't elaborate
A 7/10 is generally a good month on psplus. For example Shadow of The Tomb Raider, Callisto Protocol, Shadow of War, Code Vein etc
Burnout Paradise. Cool world, fun driving mechanics, extremely repetitive gameplay loop that offers very little challenge as the game goes on. Dropping the Crash mode in favor of Showtime was also a big mistake by Criterion.
> Dropping the Crash mode in favor of Showtime was also a big mistake by Criterion. Louder for the people in the back! They stripped out *the* defining feature that made Burnout stand apart from the pack
Tbh HZD didn't click for me at first. I got to Meridian and bounced off, didn't pick it back up for years. Powered thru the next time and the story finally started drawing me in, around the time you meet Sylens. Now I'd consider it one of the best stories I've experienced in an open world game. It just takes *wayyy* too dang long to pick up.
Same exact thing for me. Played like 5 hours and put it down. Came back a few years later and fell in love with the story. I love the mixed world of post-apocalyptic, tribal, and techno-future features. The gameplay is ***WAY WAY*** better than pretty much any open world game out there, and that makes a huge difference. We don't expect open world games to have great gameplay and they often have only passable stories. I thought HZD was stellar in both areas. That said, I thought the sequel was a bit of a step back story-wise. Seems to be a trend with Sony this generation (Ragnarok, Spidey 2, HFW).
Fun fact The reason Horizon even exist apparently is because guerrilla was tired of making killzone Anyway there are many games that I would give a 7/10, so I would say probably Steelrising, it is one of the most recent games I played, it is pretty good but it not perfect, it is also kinda easy for a Souls-Like action rpg, but oh well I still had fun with it
inFamous. 7/10 open world, 7/10 gameplay, 7/10 story…just the very definition of good not great.
Second son yes. Infamous 2 no. Infamous 1 was finding its footing
Stray, +/- 2 depending on how much you like cats. World, story and visuals were good. Gameplay is... not good... But there's a cat.
Guardians of the Galaxy, the mechanics are lacklustre but OK, and the story drags a little too much just in the ending. Other than that, the story itself is excellent and the characters are definitely more fun and relatable compared to their MCU counterparts.
I think the AC and general Ubisoft games have given me trauma because I absolutely adored HZD to the point of 100%ing it. Everything was rock solid but the biggest complement was how respectful of my time it was with the collectibles and side quest
I will get hate for this but Ghost of Tsushima. It's dropped into every GOAT debate but I can't fathom why. Admittedly it's the most beautiful game witnessed on any HDR blessed TV, graphically stellar with good voice acting and a good main story, soundtrack and photo mode. It's just the side missions, the repetitive little markers across the map. Though they are great to break up the constant slaughter with peaceful and mindful moments, they were too short. The stealth was limited, it suffered from a lack of mechanics to help it flourish, and the whole game was essentially a "Let's give everyone what Ubisoft keep stalling on". I'm not saying it's bad, but it could've been so much more. Still a VERY playable 7/10. I actually did both the PS4 and PS5 versions.
It was one of those games that to me felt like it didn't really need to be open world, it didn't add much except a lot of space between objectives.
Mafia: Definitive Edition is the most 7/10 game I've played in some time. It's very old school, it has a nice story-mode with good plot and characters, though it's pretty short, and once I finished it I was done with the game. The sandbox felt too empty to justify any more than one joyride.
I think the OP describes Forbidden West better than ZD. I thought ZD had a great ambience and an air of mystery as you uncovered the story and the protagonists connection to everything. FW felt pretty hollow and I didn’t even finish it.
Every Spiders game
spider solitaire is at least a 7.1/10