Mad Max

Could have been just movie tie-in garbage but is a solid top 20 game from last gen.

Spiritfarer

Was not ready for that emotional rollercoaster from a "cozy" game.

Thomas Was Alone.

I suck at platformers, and don’t like playing them. But this game, and most especially its narration, made me fall in love with quadrilaterals.

I won’t say more, but if you haven’t tried it please give it a chance.

Minecraft.

I usually hate creative builder games with a passion, I joined fairly early in the alpha process and fell in love with the blocky design.

Then when i thought the game couldn't get more engaging, forge was released for it and mods started being made and it opened a whole new universe that I'm /still/ playing today.

Space Engineers. Little space ship building game, why not.

1500 hours later...

Ixion

Thought it was another generic fun little city builder.

And it is only it has some absolutely unique mechanics that are fun, a really good approach to unlocking through research, and a genuinely beautiful setting.

Seriously, the music, the story and the voice acting make it a genuinely rich experience.

I was a teenage exocolonist

I thought it was a pretty cute narrative game but the amount of love, story, mechanics and possible outcomes blew my mind and no week goes by that I don't wish I could play it again for the first time.

Die Hard (for the NES)

Warning: You MUST read the manual!

At first glance it might look like a simple top-down scrolling shooter like Commando or The Chaos Engine, but it's so much more. It's very free and open, with seven floors to explore, and once the in-game timer ends you must go to the 30th floor for the final showdown. The thing is that there are a few ways both to pick off the terrorists singly or in pairs, and to extend the time limit. If you just hide in some corner of the building and wait for the timer to run out, you're going to get mown down by 30 armed terrorists in a fairly small space. But if you're good you can use that time to wipe out almost all of the terrorists, leaving only the leader Hans himself to face you, which is much more manageable.

Die Hard wasn't high on my list at all when I first played it in the 1990s, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's still one of my all-time favourites. But ever since AVGN did a video on it, it's become popular to dump on it.

Most "complaints" that I see about this game either show that the person hasn't actually played it for themselves at all, or are solved by reading the manual. Funnily enough, in that AVGN video he even says something like "Maybe this would make sense if I read the manual, but f*** that, who reads manuals?"

The only negative thing I have to say is that IMO the "foot power" meter, which affects movement speed, runs out a bit too quickly even when you walk everywhere instead of running. That being said, I've only noticed it on later replays, and I don't recall it being a problem the first time I played it all those years ago.

Balan wonderland. It looked like a dumb kids game graphically, and I never saw it cost more than $10 new. How good could it actually be?

Picked it up because why not, $10. And it’s actually a great little platformer with cute and engaging mechanics.

I wish the clock did something if you complete it; spawning the kings is a gigantic pain and very confusing for something that does nothing at all, but it’s a very cute little side project, so it should have had a purpose. The use of consumable costumes sucks. It should just be an unlock thing rather than needing to farm the level, since farming is just standing next to the spawn point, which is tedious and dumb. Other than those two minor complaints, it is really engaging and a lot longer than I was expecting. Lots of hidden stuff, great level design, and just complicated enough to make you think without being overly frustrating.

CrossCode.

I picked it up on sale cause it looked like something I would like. It sat in my steam library for years before I played it on a whim.

What I didn't expect was an incredible story that would have me gripped till the end. Absolutely an awesome game.

Bioshock. It was expected to be just another FPS but with an interesting “magic” system. What it turned out to be was a narrative played from the first person. My room mate played it as a standard run and gun, and was rightfully unimpressed. Taking it slow, exploring, and passing attention to all the little bits of story made it amazing.

No Rest for the Wicked

Reviews were pretty harsh and videos did not make it look that great. It's been my main squeeze for about 100 hours now, having me put other games on hold only to return to it every evening after work.

Not even done yet, but currently, it's a very solid EA game.

The whole "don't look anything up before playing it" genre of cryptic puzzle-ish games where saying nearly anything about it is a spoiler. There's not all that many of them, but somehow they're all games where people go in with no expectations and either love it or bounce off of it really fast. The entire internet can scream at you to play Outer Wilds, but nobody wants to tell you why.

Out of the ones I played, I had the lowest expectations/highest payoff for Void Stranger; on the surface it looks just like a pretty average sokoban with gameboy-styled graphics and a surprisingly good soundtrack. And that's pretty much what it is, except the sokoban isn't really why you play it, even though you're gonna be playing a lot of it.

Epistory

I found it on Steam and thought it looked interesting. It’s a typing game and I’m pretty good with typing, so I picked it up. I played games, but not much and usually it’s just World of Warcraft.

Once I started, I played that game for 12 hours straight. It had me hooked immediately. The visuals are absolutely beautiful, the story is intriguing, and the gameplay is so much fun. I do not finish games very often, but I finished that game in a single weekend.

Headlander

I don't usually like Metroidvanias, having played a bunch of mediocre ones, but Headlander really sucked me in for some reason. Basically, you're a head without a body and steal other bodies to use their abilities. In a sense it took everything I knew DMT about the genre and flipped it on its head (pun begrudgingly intended).

Strange Horticulture.

I expected some entertaining puzzles for an afternoon, but I really liked everything about it.

I regret this post now. So many games I want to try now. Folks, there's only so many hours in a day spare for gaming!

Probably Slipstream. I just bought it cause cheap and it turned out to be an absolute vibe.

Also, Far Cry 3. Turns out I don‘t mind putting checkmarks on collectibles and just find it oddly relaxing.

Westerado: Double Barreled

It has a good charm and humor. Easy to play on a whim and easy to stop and come back to (like at work :p ). Is fairly short but has decent replayability.
I played on Deck.

Hellsinker.

I kept hearing it's a "one-of-a-kind shmup" and it's a "shmup that somehow plays like an action game", so I tried it twice and couldn't see why it's praised.

Third time I was like "OK, ima read the manual, read guides, and give it one final shot." and holy shit, what a game. I'll probably be playing it forever, TBH.

Up there with Crimzon Clover World EXplosion for me now.

Rollercoaster Tycoon.

It’s just a game on a cereal box how good can it be?

25 years later…

People Playground.

Peak

I played half of shore solo. Gave up. "This is too easy/simple"

Tried again with friends. Took us 3-4 attempts to final get to the top. A lot more fun that my first impressions.

Bounced off voices of the void the first time, couldn't get through the tutorial. Had a friend recommend it again, have done multiple play thoughs and is now any favourite vibes game.

Fields of Mistria.

Saw it recc'd here on the indiegames community as a new version of Stardew Valley. I figured it would be fun as I'm a fan of cozy games, but I didn't realize how fun it was going to be.

It's still in early access and Ive got 100s of hours logged and I'm eagerly awaiting the next update. The characters and idle dialogue is fantastic, and it solves a lot of the things that frustrate me about SDV (as a SDV lover of course).

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