I know we’re already in February, but what are you looking forward to playing this year?
I am currently limited to my PS4 and an older laptop as far as big-screen gaming is concerned, and I am going to be playing some sequels:
- The Witcher II - The 3rd part is more famous but I hear 2 has the better story. I am also one of those who really enjoyed part 1!
- Pillars of Eternity 2 - the first one was so good I can’t wait
- Red Dead Redemption II - which I got for my birthday. It is absolutely HUGE. RDR1 is in my all-time favorite games list.
As for handheld gaming, I have recently gotten a Nintendo DS Lite and a PSP so I will be playing some:
-
Deadeus - a 2D horror game that someone recommended on this thread
-
Final Fantasy Tactics funnily enough, I never played this! I did enjoy the GBA version a lot though.
-
Jeanne D’Arc apparently it is one of the PSP’s best titles.
As someone with a lot of IRL obligations, I will be very happy if I make it through this list.
What is on your list?
I’m trying to play through Control, finally. It’s been sitting on my to-do list for ages. Not nescessarily a projet for the whole year, but it’s what I got on my plate at the moment.
Playing on PC, with the unofficial patch (improves RT, texture streaming, stability, newer dlss… all the good stuff) and settings cranked. It’s pretty dope tbh. I definitely suck at it, but the accessibility options (extra damage/health/regens etc) are pretty nice to scale the difficulty to my level.
Got to enjoy the SCP vibes and brutalist architecture. And Ahti, ofc.
Dude. I never even considered there would be a community patch for Control. You just blew my dumb mind. For some reason I always just considered it one of those It’s Done! games that magically didn’t need anything else. (Not that there are any of those games these days).
“community patch” is technically wrong, (AFAIK & IIRC) a remedy dev made it on their free time and got permission to release it as a mod (I suppose this is so remedy doesn’t need to test/validate/etc it for different platforms or such).
But, yea, the patch is great! Also, linky for those interested: https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/2581-control-hdrultrawidedlssrt-patch/ or https://www.nexusmods.com/control/mods/90?tab=description
That’s wicked cool. Thank you
I started with Alan Wake 2, then went back to Control.
Both really great, unique games, and Remedy are now up there with FromSoftware for my most anticipated games.
Control was absolutely great, but they really hit another level with AW2 imo.
I keep hearing AW2 is great, but… tbh I didn’t much care for the first AW (and haven’t played the dlc/expansion?). Kinda found the combat really annoying to deal with, but I was interested in the story. Does the sequel do combat any differently?
I know what you mean about AW1, the sequel is different mechanically and much more refined.
You still make use of the flashlight, but now it’s a bit more developed and for the most part it feels like a modern horror game.
You get a lot of tense situations where people are running at you and you have to hold them off with the flashlight and weapons.
I can’t really put the differences in to words, but it is just much better imo.
welp, sounds like I have to check it out at some point. Thanks!
I’ll check some gameplay video and wait for discounts & it releasing from epic-jail
AW2 is classic survival horror combat. Limited resources and such.
I don’t like survival horror gameplay to begin with, but even setting that aside, I really think it clashes with the story at times. It’s better in Saga’s sections, at least.
Star Wars: Outlaws. Looks really promising.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty. I played through the base game twice, so I’ll need a bit more distance between the playthroughs.
Starfield, but only if there are significant updates, upgrades and expansions. I finished it twice back to back, so currently I’m a little tired of the game.
Any other single-player (action) RPG, that I stumble upon.
Is Starfield really as dull in some sections as some people make it out to be?
I’m hoping a DLC or update helps
Yes, it is, I’m sorry to say. At least for now.
I have a few dozen hours in Starfield, and while I wouldn’t call it extremely dull, it’s not not dull on a regular basis. The game has an uncanny talent for reducing space travel, planetary exploration, and crafting down to a series of nearly-identical nested menus. Crafting and world interaction feel like a step down from Fallout 4 in some ways, particularly how most of the junk is just useful for decoration.
It excels at giving you less when you’re expecting more, which makes it easy to overlook what it does well. There’s still a lot of fun to be had in it; it feels tighter and more polished than Bethesda games generally do, and it’s not a bad alternate take on NMS, which also isn’t exactly a 100% compelling experience even after the work it received. (I had fun in Starfield way faster than I did in NMS, for what that’s worth.)
I don’t regret my time in it at all, but it’s kind of perfect patientgamers material. Not playing right away keeps you from burning out on it before it figures out what it wants to be.
Do you think updates could fix it though or do you think it’s deeply embedded in the game and would either take a substantial amount of work or reworking chunks of the game to do?
I guess what I’m asking is how long do you feel it will be until we see noticeable improvements?
Your guess is as good as mine, honestly. Waiting for an expansion to come out and then checking in makes sense, IMO.
A lot could be improved, either by modding by Bethesda. Fallout 76, whatever else one could say about it, is in a vastly better place than it was at launch, so there’s recent precedent.
Yeah it’s pretty crap right now unfortunately. I’ll be waiting at least 3 more years before I give it another try
Unfortunate. I feel like this is a repeat of my experience with Cyberpunk. I only ended up playing it with the release of the Phantom Liberty DLC
It depends. I’ve put over 200 hours into Starfield and didn’t experience any dull or boring parts. But I noticed them.
It’s an old-school game with decades old mechanics, which happened to push all the right buttons with me. But others find it’s boring.
What mechanics do you mean?
Loading screens for nearly every door. In New Atlantis you can jump from the highest building and glide with your jetpack back to your ship. But taking the elevator and the train gets you two unnecessary loading screens. That’s just not 2023 game programming.
Not at all IMO. I love Starfield and few of the reasons people give for it being bad are objective or even true. It is a great game but people misunderstand it and get mad about it not being what they want. And so much of the hate is just pure stupidity and ignorance. People not understanding basic concepts and how things work.
What basic concepts are you referring to? Why do you think it’s misunderstood?
At this point:
-
Spelunky (play more, not start playing)
-
Dwarf Fortress (play more, not start playing)
-
Enderal (and maybe beat it this time)
-
Minecraft (my kids are waiting for me to set up a family & friends server)
-
As a guy with a lot of real life commitements, I’m hoping I’ll get through:
- Death Stranding
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Half Life: Alyx
- Titanfall 2
… and some recent shorter indies. But if I even finish one of the abovementioned games, I’ll be happy.
I would recommend starting with Titanfall 2. The story is linear and doesn’t take a super long time to complete but you get a strong consistent feeling of progression that’s quite rewarding
Haven’t played Alyx but thought all of the others were excellent. Should be able to get through Titanfall 2, it’s pretty short!
So I’ve heard! Waiting for that kind of Sunday, so I can sit down and do a focused play through. How long do you reckon it is?
howlongtobeat.com says 6 hours for the main story, which sounds about right to me. Maybe on the low end.
I’ve started Death Stranding a few days ago. I played ~ 10 hours and it’s pretty fun.
Yes! I’ve done the opening mission where you head for the incinerator, and there something about this game that makes me bot being able to stop thinking about it.
I don’t think I’ll be able to drop +30 hours into it, but I’m very keen to play it some more.
- Jeanne D’Arc apparently it is one of the PSP’s best titles.
Can confirm. It was the main disc I kept in my PSP most of the time. It’s great if you like Final Fantasy Tactics type games
Because Cities Skylines 2 is such a letdown I’ve been trying Timberborn and wanna start Songs of Syx. City builders are my staple but it’s been years since I’ve caught the same high as when I played Sim City 4. CS1 was great but SC4 is still the best city builder game ever made IMO.
Tekken 8. I love fighting games too. Street Fighter 6 is great but I fell off that game hard. Capcom is way to slow to do anything with the game. It’s really easy to get bored with it.
After that I really wanna go back and finish BG3. I spent a lot of time in act 1 and barely touched it after that. I don’t know why I dropped it. I was having a blast. I guess that’s ADHD or something.
Have you tried Open TTD? It’s retro AF, and the UI is from 1872, but it’s multiplayer and free.
Yeah, I put many hours into it. It’s a blast.
I wanna platinum Monster Hunter World which might just take all of 2024 alone…
Half the stuff I’ve posted on [email protected] since summer but haven’t got round to playing yet! I’m actually very keen for Cursed to Golf, I think it was an Epic xmas freebie and I just love the concept of a roguelike golf game.
I want to play games that are already in my library, but I have never played:
- Finish RDR2
- a short hike - everyone says it is great
- To the Moon - a story driven adventure RPG
- Yooka Laylee - a worse banjo kazooie, but it seems like a nice relaxing game
A short hike is so good! And it’s not a very long game, so it’s a small commitment but so worth it
I’m finally getting around to Mass Effect. So far I’m really enjoying it. The first time you get to explore what I assume is the main hub, it’s pretty cool.
I also enjoyed The Witcher 1 a few years ago, but was thoroughly disappointed with 2.
Last year I played Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 and enjoyed both, though I prefer 1.
The Mass Effect Trilogy is a masterpiece. You’re in for a wild ride!
I played quite a ways through PoE 1 but didn’t finish, but somehow I went through 2 much later and beat the whole game and haven’t been able to beat 1 since, despite restarting the game a bunch. Wish I’d’ve beaten it originally.
There’s no way I’m finishing them all in 1yr, but these are currently on the list (PC/Steam Deck):
- Totally Accurate Battle Simulator
- Subnautica
- American Truck Simulator
- Fallout: New Vegas
- Stardew Valley
- The Witcher 3
- Slay the Spire
- Terraria
Be careful with Subnautica. I lost 75 hours of my life in the blink of an eye to that game. It’s easily one of the best survival horror adventure games ever made.
Terraria is also up there. Once you play it you never really need to try another side scrolling 2D Minecraft like game again.
I’m about to finish F:NV soon. Took me a while and was a great experience so far. Except for Old World Blues DLC which I really disliked and Honest Hearts (the Zion one) which kept crashing constantly for me so I had to skip it. Otherwise really good and really better than bethesdas F3, true to what everyone said.
I got NV modded up through the Viva New Vegas guide, so hopefully that fixes the crashes for me. Figuring out how to mod it on linux was surprisingly easy too, thanks to the MO2 linux installer on github.
Ratchet and Clank Up your Arsenal. I recently beat a rift apart and loved it and I’ve never beat up your arsenal but started it a dozen times as a kid
WarTales is on sale through May on GOG last I checked so I might pick it up. I’m currently midway through Shadow of War and Fallout IV, but I feel like I’ve hit a wall with motivation to play FO4 at least. Oh and trying to finish my Oblivion playthrough. Maybe one day.
I’ve just picked up Resident Evil 2 Remake for cheap, that’ll be the first one. Then I think Last of Us, not played those yet.
Takeshi’s Challenge made it to smartphones. Maybe it’s time for me to try it finally after 38 years.
