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:
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Deadeus - a 2D horror game that someone recommended on this thread
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Final Fantasy Tactics funnily enough, I never played this! I did enjoy the GBA version a lot though.
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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’d be glad to finish something (anything) from the list:
- Black Mesa
- Pillars of Eternity
- Witcher 2 (replay before 3)
- Witcher 3
- Wasteland 2
- Bioshock
And about 100 more :-D
Going to try to do more patient gaming this year after last year a certain popular RPG grabbed me for hundreds of hours. I’ve got Atelier Ayesha on deck and thinking about Tokyo Xanadu.
Also considering:
- Horizon Zero Dawn: the Frozen Wilds
- Live a Live
- Midnight Suns
- Ys IX: Monstrum Nox
Plus a VN, I think. Either Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice or Higurashi (which I started but hasn’t grabbed me yet). And here’s hoping OP that you starting Final Fantasy Tactics manifests a remaster finally.
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.
For Final Fantasy Tactics, if you’re playing the PSP release, install CFW on your PSP (check reddit for a comprehensive guide on that) and then make sure to look up the patches for the game.
The PSP port made the questionable choice of stretching graphics from the original 4:3 aspect ratio into the PSP’s 16:9 screen ratio, and it looks rough. Also, there’s some sort of coding issue that makes most moves with particle effects slow the frame rate to a crawl.
There’s patches available to fix both of those issues, with no bugs or tradeoffs.
Factorio, Mindustry
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.
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.
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
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.
I don’t really plan things out like that, but here are a few I’ve been putting off for one reason or another:
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Mass Effect Legendary
- Xenoblade Chronicles
- Witcher 3
I also have a lot of IRL obligations, so I usually end up playing shorter indie games instead. I love those games, but I also enjoy longer stories, but they’re a bit harder to get into.
I’ll probably also play some classic Nintendo Switch games, like Kirby and Mario (haven’t played any this gen aside from Mario Kart 8).
Even speaking as a big fan of Xenoblade, it is a typical JRPG with an extremely expansive story. I hope you like it and then play the second part which is my personal favorite.
I’ve already started it (got to the invasion part), and I can already tell it’s going to have a great story. Just need to make the time to finish it.
And yeah, I hear the rest of the series is great, so I’ll be playing in order.
Nothing directly. I’ve seen my backlog of 70 or so games, and now my goal for 2024 is to just let go of the feeling that I need to complete games, and just play what I want, when I feel like it.
That being said, I’m trying out Cassette Beasts! Pretty fun so far, though I’m only around an hour in.
Also not a patient gamer for this one, but it’s free so I hope it counts: Fallout: London is a release I’m looking forward to.
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.
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Factorio. This game will probably be on my list every year because it’s so good. I’m currently going for all achievements, but after that I want to try to make a Bob’s+Angel’s megabase, or start the K2 and/or Space Exploration mods. And then the DLC should be coming out this year, with a slew of new stuff to play with and legions of QoL features for all players regardless of if they have the DLC.
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Pokémon Legends Arceus. I bought the game but I wanted to finish Scarlet first. Now I’ve finished Scarlet (although I might want to go back to it for the postgame). I’ve already started Arceus, but I’ve barely made it out of the Tutorial.
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Cities Skylines II. I already have 28 hours in it, but the planned roadmap for the game this year is quite exciting.
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The Legend of Zelda, Link’s Awakening (GB emulator). I wanted to game on my new daily driver, Ubuntu, and didn’t want to reinstall all my Steam games because I’m dual booting Windows, so I decided to go into emulation and try the Zelda franchise. So far I’ve beaten level 1 and am having fun.
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Cassette Beasts. Pokemon-like but with more ambition and innovation put into it. On my wishlist.
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Palworld. Same as above, but also has elements of Factorio in it.
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Dyson Sphere Program. Bought the game on sale. Never played it. Will get to it eventually. (I said that last year as well)
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Kerbal Space Program. Same as above.
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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
Yeah it’s pretty crap right now unfortunately. I’ll be waiting at least 3 more years before I give it another try
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?
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.
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.
At this point:
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Spelunky (play more, not start playing)
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Dwarf Fortress (play more, not start playing)
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Enderal (and maybe beat it this time)
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Minecraft (my kids are waiting for me to set up a family & friends server)
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Of the ones I have:
- GTA V campaign. It’s low on my priority list despite being the first one written here.
- King’s Bounty series (new ones). Finished The Legend and am halfway through Armored Princess. Not sure when I’ll finish it though.
- XCOM series (new one). Starting a 2nd wave marathon. Not sure I’ll reach Chimera Squad.
- Halo collection. Wanna go through the entire Master Chief campaign in one go. Maybe in summer.
Other random stuff depending on the craving.
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.
