Mine are Half Life and Morrowind.
I feel like back when I didn’t have a massive game library I would have spent so much time replaying Half Life and exploring every inch of the maps and trying to find exploits to break the game. The massive modding community likely would have kept me playing for years.
Morrowind probably would have gotten me a lot more into RPGs and fantasy games. I do love RPGs but still struggle to immerse myself in fantasy settings. I assume this is because I mostly played SciFi games growing up.
What about you? Is there an MMO or something you maybe tried and gave up on to soon?
Careful, if you play Morrowind and the other Elder Scrolls games, a lot of other RPGs won’t feel nearly as satisfying to play.
There aren’t many games where you can see a thing and just walk to it, or go into a random house and see (and interact with) all the shit they have from forks and plates to baskets and books. Speaking of books, how many other games are there that have actual books you can read in-game, that explain lore and have poems and plays like we have IRL?
And that’s not even getting into builds and play styles. You can be a tanky heavy weapons expert who just steamrolls everything in a couple hits, or you can be a glass cannon archmage blasting dudes left and right; you can also be an entire mix of all the things if you want. Be a magic tanky stealth archer that takes what they want when they want. Also you can kill essential NPCs in Morrowind (in the later games they just get knocked out).
I love the Elder Scrolls games, jank and all. They’re absolutely fantastic at putting you in an atmospheric world that feels lived in.
Yeah, they get alot of shit for how buggy they are, but they are trying to do a thousand things well. They probably have literal millions of bugs along the way, but only manage to solve the 999000 easiest, quickest, or most obvious ones before launch.
There is a reason they are still consistently best sellers.
DotA and Counterstrike for sure.
I tried the first but it was unapproachable, the second I think I had to pay for so it was a no-no.
To expand a little I’ve been playing moba for more than a decade now, but I wish I played them for even longer (and not waste time on that slob that is wow), and I like CS, but played it very little because I’ve never played anything fps and so I can’t enjoy it the way I’d like to.
I’d like to also say Dwarf Fortress but I’m afraid I would have turned out even weirder than I am.
Almost any, but I wish I had played Star Wars Galaxies in its prime. But any, really. I was not allowed to play almost any video games growing up. Except for Detective Barbie: Mystery of the Carnival Caper. And Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. Of, and Oregon Trail 2! Not 1. 2.
I played SWG as a kid, and I can tell you that it sucked. I think it would have been more fun if I’d played it as an adult.
A girl who have me a spork told me how her friend played the game and he was a hair dresser in game and once watched a battle between two jedi, when I asked her if I could be a chef in game.
I might have liked it, back then, but my tolerance for things was very high. Paying for a subscription was very veery low, being a young teen.
I’ve read this a few times and my brain just cant process what you’re saying. Do you write for Eric Andre?
I do not write for Eric Andre, but it sounds fun.
I am recounting an event that happened when Star Wars Galaxies was around.
A friends of mine comes to me and we start talking about Star Wars Galaxies. She tells me about her friend who plays, and the character he has who is a non combatant because I ask if I could be a chef or any other non combatant role. She says I can, using her friend as an example. She gives me the gift of a spork. Because we’re teenage girls and it’s random times.
I then explain I wouldn’t mind if the game is grindy or slow because my tolerance for that as a teenager was very high. But my ability to play the game at the time is hampered by my lack of money so I can’t pay the monthly fees. Or buy the game. Because I’m a kid.
I think the spork through me off, but yep I get it now - thanks!
Dark Age of Camelot, heard it was one of the best MMOs of its time. By the time I heard of it and had a PC I could play it on, most of the player base had moved on to other games.
Dungeons and dragons, both the paper version and the digital stuff. I remember as a kid playing some random DnD games with no context and being upset that they were weird rpgs that only went up to level 8 or whatever. Without context, that is not common in videoganes. And not knowing how much more open the games could have been than just playing them “murder hobo” style…
I only ended up playing paper DnD at around the start of 5e, while I was tangentially aware of it since I think before third edition, I didn’t know I would actually like it back then. And it’s entirely possible I wouldn’t have. I have a processing delay, so whether or not I end up enjoying board games, or anything else involving players taking turns doing complicated thinking… largely depends on how patient the other players are.
I also wasn’t super creative back then… although maybe playing DnD would have helped. But at the very least, I wish I would have tried learning paper DnD back then even if I didn’t like it, so I had the context when I played the digital games. I would have very much appreciated those if I understood why certain limitations were in place.
I mean, could you imagine a DnD digital game trying to accurately represent the capabilities of level 20 characters… hitting level 20 in DnD basically forces your campaign into “jumping the shark”. Which omnipotent god are we one-shotting this week?
For some reason, Starcraft. There’s barely anyone who’s into it in my age group. Not that I got good, I just had so much fun in custom maps.
Diablo 2. I was still in school, parents had dial up, and it was marketed in such a way that I thought it was mostly catering towards the online experience, so I blew it off. Flash forward nearly 20 years, get into D2:R, single player is actually pretty cool
D2:R is such an interesting technical showpiece. I love that the new graphics are like an interpreted realtime overlay. That the regular game is running right behind all that. Such a cool thing to see. It would be awesome even if it wasn’t still fun to play, but it also is.
Definitely the Silent Hill series for me. We were more of a Resident Evil household growing-up
From what I’ve seen, the SH2 remake looks really good. Honestly, it’s a fine starting point if you want to get into the series as SH1 is pretty inconsequential to the rest of the games, so you can definitely just skip it and not really miss out on much.
I really hope that Bloober gets the greenlight to continue remaking the rest of the series. I’d love to see a modernized SH3.
SH2 remake is sooo good. I’m in disbelief, honestly—and I’m still not convinced Konami will take Silent Hill f seriously enough. God willing.
But yes, if you’re interested, play SH2 remake.
Thanks for your replies! I’ve started playing SH2 remake just today and I’m thoroughly enjoying it thus far. Bloober Team really surprised me with this one.
The following are incoherent rambles pls don’t bother to read/don’t be madI’m finding this hard to articulate without rambling but despite enjoying it, I’m not feeling truly immersed in the moment-to-moment gameplay as much as I’d like to be. The reason being this is my first exposure to SH2 and I personally feel like I’m trying to retroactively “catch-up” on almost 20 years of missed themes and nostalgia, therefore I’m trying to absorb & consider every element of the story a li’l too much.
Phenomonal sound design btw.
I want to smash every window in the townYeah, that’s a tough one.
I’d say “well, don’t,” but that’s pretty obviously useless. :p
I think I can say this much, though: Silent Hill, being so metaphorical, it’s kind of built like a big puzzle? It’s okay to “not get it” while you’re playing. Most of the stuff I know I’m pretty sure I picked up from fan wikis later on.
So, easier said than done, but: try not to think so much, haha.
The remake is also a little better about explaining its own plot, I think just by being a little more obvious. So, by the end, some things might click into place a little more.
And yeah, the sound design, (minor early game spoiler) have you noticed that >!the radio!< >!is a positional sound?!<
!Normally, you hear it kind of left and behind you. My instinct that the sound is supposed to be telling me where to look was so strong that I kept turning away from enemies I knew were right in front of me. That’s so genius I almost feel it must have been an accident.!<
You live up to your name, thank you King! I’m going to try to put that critical part of my brain away, just enjoy the ride and worry about having a deeper delve & thinking about the themes after my first run-through.
I’ve recently upgraded TV and sound systems and that li’l detail about the radio is genuinely so helpful.
Oh hell yeah. The perfect system for Yamaoka’s industrial scrape music.
Let me know how it goes. I’ve been real excited to see people experience this for the first time, haha.
Morrowind- oh shit u wrote it too 😂 im playing tribunal rn
I remember looking at the rows of PC game boxes at the store and being very curious about Myst. But for some reason I never asked my parents for it. I guess maybe since I didn’t really have any idea what it was, it just felt like something out of reach.
I love “artsy puzzle games” now, so I feel like that would have been a pretty cool experience for me way back then!
If you still haven’t played it, check out Riven which was recently released. It’s a complete modern remake (plus some changes) of the sequel to Myst.
There is a bunch of different modern versions of Myst. It’s also got a VR version that is very good. Riven and Obduction are also available in VR. Not sure about some of the lesser known Myst games like exile, uru, or revelation.
In my experience, playing them when I was younger didn’t work out great, some of the puzzles were just way too hard for pre-teen me. But they were great to play now.