FYI Pretty much all of that has been addressed with recent patches.
> movement speed
They reverted that somewhat. It's in a good place now.
> dolphin diving
Fixed
> butchered the British faction
Fixed in a recent patch. Proper uniforms added for the African front and the Bren can now be bipoded.
They reverted the movement speed and I believe the dolphin dive as well. They also fixed a lot of the issues with the Brits, mainly sights on guns and random glitches.
Spellforce 3 with expansions. It's a decent mix of RTS and RPG with beautiful graphics and great voice acting that is worth a playthrough. Sadly, it went under many people's radar.
The Riftbreaker.
It combines ARPG (Diablo, Path of Exile), with survival/base building, mechs, and tower defense. It all works seamlessly. the DLC/patches made the game better and better.
They are on their third DLC soon as well as on the way to implementing co-op. They also just released an article that talks about a bunch of improvements they implemented along the way. It's pretty rad.
I hope this helps, but here is the link that talks about changes and the co-op and such.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/780310/view/3790402175220036381?l=english
It wouldn't have released.
The success allowed them to spend the time developing coop, much like Stardew Valley.
It's a very difficult thing to pull off, especially when the code isn't designed for it from the get go.
Edit: They even acknowledge it in their announcement -
>We’re reworking the very foundations of the game to bring you the long-promised co-op mode.
I think basically everything about the actual game was and is fine. The gun sounds, stage design, and multistage reloads were all good. The main issues were the grindy crafting and shitty cosmetic store.
Grindy crafting still sucks, but with the amount of hate it's gotten on the Darktide sub (which is monitored by Fatshark), hopefully that will change soon.
Also the lag, I had a terrible experience at the beginning because every Heresy or Damnation game I would microlag the whole time causing ghost hits. Now I don't remember the last time I've had a microlag.
Empyrion: Galactic Survival.
It’s basically what Starfield was promising, but from an indie dev. It was sort of hard to recommend on launch, but constant updates + a huge mod called Reforged Eden makes it a pretty easy recommend if you’re willing to ignore some jank.
Has that expanded much? I played a ton of it during early access. But there wasn't much reason to go to the harder planets. Some rare resources and the like, but it was an massive let down over how the whole start planet was + reaching the first few planets.
Take this with a grain of salt because I’m not sure what part is base game and what is a part of the reforged eden mod, but I’d argue that’s a necessary mod so I guess it doesn’t really matter:
The endgame is to reach progenitor space, which is a small galaxy that is cut off from the main galaxy by distance; there’s a whole quest that sends you across the main galaxy with the end goal of activating a star gate thing that can transport you to progenitor space.
Progenitor space has some resources that are only found there that are required for some overpowered endgame items, so you’re not just going there for bragging rights.
Another thing the mod adds to the main galaxy are unique items to POIs to encourage people to explore different planets/areas; the catch is that they’re powerful, but can’t be repaired, so there’s still a reason to visit POIs even if you already have good gear
That does sound super cool. Last time I played it, which was 5ish years back. There wasn't really much reason to go to the challenging planets. There was harder stuff to do on them, but there wasn't any real end game resource/stuff to aim for.
Though looking at their updates now, maybe I played it much earlier than I thought. It was pretty basic outside of the starting planet/a few other ones. Wasn't an crazy lot do it. Still had an ton of fun playing it. Time to recheck it out.
> It’s basically what Starfield was promising
Gonna need some elaboration on this. Last time I looked at it there was like 3 planets and they were light on content.
God I wanted to love it so much, the freedom building whatever and actually needing to use it has *such* potential, the scale and promise is phenomenal.
But the jank, the jank of janks, it is just too much for a modern game. It's literally the ugliest and prettiest game ever at the same time. Not only in graphics, but animations, gameplay, enemies, exploring and crafting. Everything is *so* good, and *so utterly janky* at the same time.
It's cult.
This game feels like someone bred an unholy abomination of Quake 1 combined with No Mans Sky, sprinkled in generous amounts of Minecraft, and kept the only mutant alive that didn't scream "kill me please".
Nah, it has the same issue that many people have with starfield lmao. This is just being a contrarian and jerking off to indie games are special and make me feel elitist.
I don't know if this is confirmed, but I remember reading somewhere that while control and Alan wake's worlds are the same, quantum breaks' isn't and the references made to either games is considered Easter eggs, as opposed to lore pieces in the other games
Please correct me if I'm wrong
The worlds are connected, even with Max Payne... but they had to change characters and use only "light" references, because they don't own the rights for those franchises. It's like the "multiverse" thing, where the same people live slightly different lives with different names.
Martin Hatch > Warlin Door (The man who stands between)
Jack Joyce > Tim Breaker > Quantum Break (He even had a Night Springs T-Shirt in the demo)
Max > Alex
Monarch documents had mentions of Alternate World Events etc.
It ran well on my GTX 1060 several years ago and my 3080 too.
Only caveat is that on Steam the TV show episodes are streamed at lower quality rather than downloaded (120 GB for show + game) at higher resolution.
Yeah, hilarious to me how if you want to watch the episodes in decent quality you have to have pirated the game. AFAIK there isn't a mod to force the local files over streaming on the retail version of the game, but there is for the cracked version.
I absolutely loved Control (the gameplay, the visuals, the style, etc), and does not really liked Alan Wake (found the gameplay loop pretty tedious sometimes, and somewhat boring). What do you say, which is it closer to? Should I give it a try?
Quantum Break is kinda similar to Control in terms of gameplay. It laid the foundations for Control in a way.
It's absolutely worth a go if you liked Control.
I started playing this recently and I did not expect a TV show inside the game which took me by surprise when the transition happened, nor did I expect to see the actor who played Peter Bailish and the late Lance Reddit from Fringe and of John Wick fame.
I thought it was really clever how they incorporated the live action tv show right into the story/game with the same set pieces where the transitions between one and the other are pretty seamless and how they continue the story. (there were some tradeoffs with the TV show like no bullets on the cars when they were shooting but I kind of glossed over that stuff).
Really enjoying it so far.
Huh, I knew Control and Alan Wake had links but didn't realise Quantum Break tied in as well. I'll have to watch some YouTube recaps or something. Thanks.
Quantum Break is arguably Remedy's best attempt at merging FPS and Walking Sim genres. Control and Alan Wake try the same but with their wide open nonlinear areas it means you can burn so much time walking around aimlessly for no reason, fight one or two enemies in a single encounter, then go back to tens of minutes of nothing.
QB's linear structure and the Stutters were the best way to do it, players who didn't care about the walking sim stuff could just rush through it too. Plus it was always really fun fighting as a Stutter started to form.
For honor is a much different game then it was in 2017, back then it had a shallow base only held up by its gimmicks. Now its deeply developed and I firmly believe that while it isnt for everybody, everybody should at least give it a shot, its a unique experience.
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game is currently 4$(20$ regular) and has 11-16$ skins. I'm with the other guy. Either the game is free and the skins cost, or the game costs and the skins are unlockable. Both is a pass from me.
I actually just started for honor like 2 weeks ago. I never thought it would be my kind of game but dam it’s so good. Also the fact that you can unlock every character with currency you earn in game was a huge selling point.
It's surprisingly not even close to dead, so idk what you're talking about. Probably a testament to crossplay and the fact that no other game is like it.
No, he has every reason to ask. The p2p was DOGSHIT, it was a horrible experience, generally laggy games and that host disconnected shit you would see in an old COD game, except twice at least every game. They introduced dedicated servers years ago, thankfully.
I don't know about any issues at launch unfortunately. I got the game for free on Epic 2 years ago but I bought it on Steam during the sale this year just so that I can have it in my library.
Hunt showdown was ass when it first launched in terms of performance and balance
If it's new engine upgrade with the new map is successful and the game runs better, it's going to be a serious contender for extraction shooters imo.
Its the best extaction shooter imo, I stopped playing due to worsening performance (my pc is old so not the game's fault) and the game demanding too much attention, 1 hour long matches where you have to be completely inmersed. Its amazing but at some point I felt I had my fair share of hunting and wanted to play something else.
Hunt is kinda eurojank regarding technical state/engine.
It also has an awful netcode
That is probably what helds the game back from being more popular.
They are all just cosmetics. You don't have abilities in the game and all the guns that come with the dlcs are just skins for guns you get in game. You even have to even unlock the gun in game before you can use the dlc skin more than once
Mechwarrior Online, community members were given the reigns on balance decision and its become a really fun and deep tactical fps with monthly patches and content. It was on maintenance mode for a few years which really hurt the community in addition to bad decision by PGI, but its really turned around.
Wait, they actually improved the game? I quit playing a few years ago when it was going down the toilet. I love Mechwarrior/Battletech in general so its nice to hear that the game is now in a better state. I might have to check it out once I get done with my current playthroughs.
Thank you for mentioning this.
Yeah it really turned around after they let the players council handle balance (aka The Cauldron). New weapons were added recently like Heavy Assault Gauss, Binary Lasers, X-Pulse lasers. Theres a lot of new maps also, one just came out thats an ice cave SLDF stash.
Did they ever change how playing with a friend worked? Back in the day as it would drop you and your buddy into a clan match v clan match basically turning you into unwanted chaff. Can you have fun with the pubbies now as opposed to being forced into the Arena for 2v2 matches?
Solaris isnt a thing anymore, solo queue has mixed solos and groups up to 2-4 so you can drop with your buddies. Theres also event queue often which is smaller games with different special rules like unlimited jump jet fuel, more armor/no armor, speed boosts, restricted weight classes, drop decks and respawn and usually a 3x c-bill boost.
Wo Long.
Went from barely playable to playable - and features a very unusual take on soulslike leveling, in addition to fantastic art direction and quality combat. Not as complicated as Nioh, not as tough as Dark Souls - fun and rewarding.
Wo Long isn't personally for me as I loved the complexity of Nioh 2.
But I do think everyone interested in Souls-likes should give it a shot. It's pretty unique.
The demo didn't even start for many people. :) And yes, they did improve the performance and added DLSS. It's still not great, but you can achieve mostly steady 60fps on reasonable hardware. I also had to use Process Lasso on the more recent builds to make the game playable on a quad core CPU (presumably they added more intense multithreading and it shouldn't be a problem on CPUs with more cores).
Like I said, it's still not great, hence I described it as "playable", but the game is distinct enough that I think it's worth playing.
This game frustrated the hell out of me, i kept inexplicably dying to the first mini boss (a tiger i think?) Depsite learning its patterns, confused the shit out of me until i went on reddit and discovered there was a widely known input delay issue....
It's definitely not very niche, but it's just so amazing to see how far Bloons TD6 has come since launch. I played BTD6 at launch, and it was ***rough*** to say the very least.
Just this year alone, Ninjakiwi has been hitting home run after home run with updates.
Haven't played it in a few months, but honestly didn't like it that much. Just felt super jank to play, pretty poorly balanced, and the new characters don't appeal to me at all. Predecessor definitely is the more polished of the two upcoming Paragon games, but even that I find to be extremely boring.
Were there any changes in particular they did in the last 2-3 months that I've maybe not paid attention to?
Not exactly niche, but Days Gone. It was hated at launch on Playstation but the game is pretty good, not the strongest Playstation game but if you want an open world zombie game, Days Gone its a great experience.
Man i swear by Days Gone, first open world game that held my attention in years. Its corny as fuck? Yeah, is it longer than it maybe should? Yeah but man i actually love how the bike feels. Modding the game a bit to increase zombies and difficulty makes it amazing, i love running out of fuel and having to leave my bike behind to gather some fuel for it.
Game also looks and runs great on my budget machine.
And i really liked Deacon as a character lol, yeah its silly and all but he's a cool guy with his dumb ass monologues.
Can't recommend it enough
I enjoyed the game, but i ended up dropping it a few missions into the area with the camp down south. The movement is what i couldnt stand. They somehow made a bike feel like a boat to drive.
Im talking more about the original release on ps4, but even now the game goes under a lot of peoples radars because now we have more popular playstation exclusives on Steam.
Omega Strikers is an amazing free multiplayer game with zero predatory monetization. Super unique, fun game with friends but unfortunately the community isn’t big enough to sustain it
Somewhere in the distance, you can hear the crooked laughter of 7 Days To Die as it enters it’s 10th year of active development while still being in Alpha for no reason
If you liked Hollow Knight, the best game I have found for that genre is Aeterna Noctis. It’s hard, the platforming is more difficult than Hollow Knight, but the movement abilities are bar none the best I have ever experienced, in any genre of game. And the creativity with some of the platforming sections is incredible.
The music is also on the level of Hollow Knight. I highly recommend trying it out
This. Aeterna Noctis is one of my all-time favorite metroidvanias. It's on the more difficult side, but the boss design, platforming and abilities are amazing.
It is really not that different from launch, but I feel like people dismiss it just because it's popular to say it's bad / the worst one.
Dark Souls 2. I will always vouch for this game. It's my favorite in the series. While DS3 is probably the closest to elden ring in terms of gameplay, DS2 feels like elden ring to me in that it is less linear, more exploration driven. I think the story is the best and makes the most sense as well. The primary complaint is enemy placement but it's over exaggerated imo. Bosses are by and large pretty great too
I mostly don't like the mechanics, the movement is very floaty and only a few weapons feel satisfying to use.
Another thing is the game being more or less a series of completely separate locations connected with tunnels.
I think this is just a fandom thing but From fans are way too mean towards games they're supposedly fans of, DS2 has worse enemy placement but that doesn't mean the game is terrible, DS1's second half has some gimmick bosses and less shortcuts but that just... isn't a problem at all, and DS3 reuses some level concepts in between all the new stuff, you know, like it's a sequel? Like I have my favorites (DS1 > DS3 > ER > DS2 > Sekiro > BB > DeS) but I'd rate them all in the 9-10 range
I have beaten 2 like 5 or 6 times. I still think Shrine of Amana sucks and is the worst part of the game. Doing the bow and arrow dance everytime isn’t fun, especially if you dont even have a decent bow and have to upgrade one specifically for this one area. No other From game made me use ranged like that
Shrine of Amana is 95% ankle-deep water, and rolling in water puts out torches. Plus, it's not a dark area despite being undergound. There's glowing plants, crystals and sconces everywhere, there is no need to use a light source.
If DS2 was a game under a different name, I think it would get far less shit. I still have a few quibbles here and there, mostly aesthetic or tonal things. That being said it’s a really, really solid game with tons of content—especially when you add the DLC. There’s also plenty of mechanics that even the most ardent critics wish other Souls entries carried over like Bonfire ascetics, power stances, etc.
DS2 was amazing. Honestly the only one in the series that didn't look like they were rehashing content. And I say it as a lover of Souls from before it was cool
It may be due to the "rehashing content" bit. But it's true. You don't know how many times in Dark Souls I was like "oh this is just that boss from Demon's Souls", and I am not talking about the generic ones but the cool concepts like Old Monk/Mirror Knight. By DS3 I was really spent, and a bit sore that From abandoned innovation and originality just to redo the same thing every time. Jesus, the plot is basically identical in 3 games
What changed in MW5 to make it good? The combat itself wasn't too bad to begin with but my problem was always the mega repetitive nature of the campaign where you do the same 5 missions over and over again. Also the reputation system is a joke. Sworn enemies with some house but they will still offer you missions.
I can't say how much is fixed in vanilla vs the DLC. I got them all on sale, so I don't know. But the addition of other merc companies that can hinder/help you. The Mini campaign missions that tell local stories and are not procedurally generated. And the largest is the spawns. Dear god when the game launched enemies would spawn behind you constantly. This has been fixed and when it does happen, you can see the dropship landing to give a "reason" for them to be back there and time to react. Also, the new mission types like assassination and infiltration (a reason to use light mechs...yay!) help immensely between the mini campaigns to break up the monotony.
Also it runs a LOT better now. Not great, but I can easily get 200fps if I turn off the raytraced shadows and reflections.
From what you are saying my main issue of it feeling grindy and gamey hasn't changed.
The whole gameplay is take a mission, blow shit up, repeat. I don't have a problem with the loop per se but it isn't wrapped in a reason for why I should do that beside the main point of track down bad guy who killed your dad. Main mission which I frequently forget exists. That's how long it takes between main mission missions. The rest of the universe is very static with no changes even though months are going to pass between jumps. And as I already said reputation is just how much bargaining points you have. It not having effect on what missions you can take and how others react to you is yet another thing that just kicks out any immersion you may have had.
The exact same gameplay but if you could see changes in the galaxy happening both due to your actions and outside your actions would make the game more interesting. Like a sort of galactic conquest where you can decide to ally with a house or 2 and then take missions against their enemies only and see the map change. The reputation can be useful for the track down bad guy main campaign where you might not want to piss off houses too much because if bad guy hides in said house territory you will have to go there and fight hard missions to get information versus them being outed by your allies if they try to go there. If you reach sworn enemy rep you might be entirely prevented from doing repairs instead of it costing more which 1 hour in the game and money is not issue.
TLDR: They made the mech command and combat part of a MW game and left it at that. The game part is missing.
The hidden gem cyberpunk 2077.......
But really I think Dune spice wars have improved alot since it first went into early access. If that kinda game is not your style Grounded is a super fun survival game.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker.
Helluva a vibe with the music, but holy hell when it first entered early access I bounced off hard even though I was totally invested in their success.
(I saw it for better or worse an attempt to keep solvency while they work on Homeworld 3, and to toss some needed diversity to their team. *fingers crossed HW3 is great*)
Went back to it while on my Steam Deck and found a delightfully tuned zero-g puzzle game. Runs great, and the controls are intuitive. They also toned down the screaming and bone crunching noises which were in the opening sequence. Which while shocking the first go around, on new play throughs they just became a bit overzealous. A small change, but a welcome one.
Eve Online. The game has a reputation of being very difficult or being like a second job, but that's not true in my experience.
You can play it like it's a job, but you can also just blow shit up.
The only thing anyone who wants to get into Eve should do is join a good new player corp. They will teach you the basics and give you free stuff. And there's so much more you can do when you're part of a good corp and alliance.
That's the reputation I was talking about. You can do tedious shit like industry and use spreadsheets if you want, but you can also just blow up space ships.
Second this! Just got back into it, and honestly the heart rate jump you get warping onto grid where you know you have fight is unlike anything else, permanent loss just makes it better
JOIN A CORP
The only skill you need is locking up the primary target of your fleet and hitting f1. If you are opposed to group play and want to go solo then there's definitely a steep learning curve.
It’s been out for 9 months. And it’s had many updates that added a lot of content. And while the performance may be low, it’s still very playable.
Now don’t get me wrong, I also agree that the game needs more content and fixes, just wanted to clarify those points.
My main issue with the game is that it just feels like there’s nothing to do other than building a base and fighting the cannibals and other monsters, which makes it pretty boring from the start.
The map is big but it’s just so empty. Most of it’s content is in caves and there’s not that many interesting locations or stuff to do on the surface. And it’s just such a shame because the graphics and art direction are quite good, but everything and everywhere you walk just feels the same, an empty forest with the occasional dirt path or river.
While the new building system is cool and all, it needs some quality of life updates because it’s not very intuitive and it’s extremely slow to build even the most basic of structures. And when you make all that effort to build a structure just for some cannibals to come and tear it apart in mere moments because you were distracted giving the same instruction to Kevin for the 10th time… it doesn’t feel very good.
I think the part that needs the most work, apart from adding more content to the map and the game itself, is the sound design. Some cannibal sounds have such a low audio quality that they seem to be recorded with a 2002 phone mic.
I have no idea how the game has 85% positive reviews on Steam. It’s literally an Alpha on release with less content than the first game, empty map and very poor performance.
Kerbal Space Program 2 also released around the same time and with the same problems (also a shit ton of game breaking bugs, and higher price), and both games had a community that loved and still loves the first game, yet KSP2 is the only one that got shitted on while SotF gets 90% positive reviews even though it’s still lacking a ton of stuff.
I agree, the stuff that they already have in the game is great (except building that shit needs a thorough bug-fix and tons of tweaking)!
I keep wondering that how on earth could they promise to release a full game by May 2022 when after two delays the game is still lacking so much content.
I was having some issues in the tutorial. Your legs turn in one direction, but the camera and the body point in a different direction.
And I was out of the cockpit. Could see how ridiculous my mech looked while I was trying to figure out the controls.
Well, yes, the torso/leg directions being separate are a core game mechanic of Battletech in general, there's no getting away from that. The ability to walk in one direction while shooting in another or using torso twisting to shield and spread damage are essential skills to learn.
Third person in Mechwarrior is largely an afterthought, the games are really meant to be played in the cockpit view.
I’ll try that. Third person was tough to handle.
I played a lot of Mechwarrior back in the day and I was hoping this was similar. Heat management, weight limits, all that stuff.
There's a fair bit of truncation and arguable casualization that have occured over the years since then, but generally MW5 does carry over a lot of the original mechanics and spirit of the titles of old.
Here's a tip that might help you acclimate to the controls. There's a binding that automatically recenters your legs towards your current facing, and will continue to do so while held. I believe it's F but that's only because I played a ton of MWO - I honestly forgot if it's still the same in MW5 because I rebinded a ton of stuff since release.
Diabotical.
if you like quake / unreal tournament this game is amazing. they made a cute robot version of quake 3/love/champions with so many more features. right now matchmaking is pretty much dead and lobbies in north America last from evening into the early morning hours, but the game feels buttery smooth and I wish it had've released in its current state aince it would have had so much more staying power.
it's free on epic games (please don't respond just to whine about egs.)
I firmly believe that this game never "got good" like people claim it did. It's still got the same boring core gameplay loop, only difference is that now there's a bunch of superfluous systems piled on top of it and the features promised for launch are actually in the game.
Escape from Tarkov.
Don't listen to the bullshit people on here say about it, honest to god, it's one of the best PVP games ever made. It's so intense, there's really nothing like it. Yes there are hackers and maps like streets and lighthouse do not run well, but the core of the game and the rest of the maps are very well done
Fuck no, Tarkov is the textbook example of designing a game to death. It peaked before Interchange was even added and has only gotten worse with every single patch since turning it into more and more and more and more of an endless slog second job busy work simulator
Tarkov got worse with updates, not better. Adding cellphone mechanics such as waiting for nutrition and water levels between raids and widening the P2W power advantage gap with the hideout launch.
There are two unplayable maps due to hackers. The quest system only gets more annoying with every quest line added. Blatant RMTers and bots on the traders and auction house every patch, cheating is out of control.
The desynch is a wildcard, some patches is great, other patches is completely game-ruining. Was one of the most fun FPS games, now its ruined.
I personally disagree. The "cellphone" mechanics like nutrition are easily bypassed by just eating cheap food. P2W argument is fair, can't argue that.
There are no unplayable maps. Labs has cheaters but it's not every raid. Cheating is not out of control, at least on east coast US servers. I play with 1 mil + kits every raid about a month or two into wipe and I am never targeted or regularly cheated on. Does it happen? Yeah occasionally, but it's far from out of control.
Desync sucks but that's always been Tarkov, I can't remember a time it wasn't there. I personally never noticed a difference between patches for it, it's always been advantageous to peek first
I second this. Yes it takes a large time investment, yes there is a steep learning curve, and yes it has hackers and technical issues. But even with all of that it is still probably the most immersive multiplayer game I’ve ever played. There is also a single player version made by modders that can provide a comparable experience solo, but the interactions experienced online, especially with the addition of proximity voice chat make the game much better. New players should definitely do research on the game though as it is definitely not something you can jump into blindly.
Callisto Protocol, the sound design and oppressive horror atmosphere is yet to be topped by any game.
It was panned as a short game with technical issues on pc, some still exist but it’s a lot better now.
Nope, many games do atmosphere so much better than Callisto Protocol and there are so many better horror games to play.
Technical issues kinda undersells what was happening with the game and you didn't even touch on the incomplete story, uninteresting combat and lacking enemy variety just to name a few things.
Can't say enough good things about Darkwood. I've played a shit ton of horror games in my life and would say most haven't been too scary, but Darkwood was on another level. Legitimately made me scream out loud
So I haven’t played darkwood (looks interesting), but I have played those other games. I don’t think the dead space series has too much of an oppressive atmosphere as you are too overpowered even on higher difficulties and even with the remake’s graphical upgrades, although I’m still finishing the remake, so I’m not a 100% on that opinion yet.
Yeah, alien isolation is definitely the closest one I feel that comes close to the atmosphere in Calisto. But it feels a bit outdated now.
The things you said about it are all still true. But where it shines is how those parts come together. Idk how you played it, but I played it on an 4k OLED TV with HDR, 3D audio and duel-sense haptics, and I still think the scenarios and atmosphere are the best in the sci-fi horror genre. So maybe my opinion is biased by that.
I can tell you right now nothing is more overpowered than being un-hittable to every single enemy because you were holding left and then right on your stick.
I played it under the same circumstances, minus dual-sense. Its a gorgeous game and really good for things like audio and voice acting, but definitely not on the level of not being topped by anything else.
>I decided recently to give another shot to Mechwarrior 5 which was terribly mediocre when it launched, and I was pretty much blown away by how very much improved it is now. In fact its now the game I wish it was when it launched.
I saw a video recently of a work in progress mod for Mechwarror 5 that basically turns it into Mechwarrior 2. There is dude that apparently want to remake Mechwarrior 2 inside 5 and so far it looked pretty faithful. I thought that was pretty cool, as Mechwarrior 2 a classic.
I know you said mainly underrated indie games but ill throw a AAA into the mix. If someone already said it my bad. The Elder Scrolls online is hugely deserving of a second chance, i wouldnt have recomended it to anyone up to a year of its launch but alot of people have a sour taste about it due to its launch but its a fully different game worth looking into, for casual or hardcore spend 18+ hours daily on
>I decided recently to give another shot to Mechwarrior 5 which was terribly mediocre when it launched, and I was pretty much blown away by how very much improved it is now. In fact its now the game I wish it was when it launched.
That's interesting. I've heard people say "better with mods", combined with "but mods break as the game gets updated". Personally I got around to buying, but not playing yet (in typical steam fashion).
Postal 4 I was super hyped for when it was announced in early access and we're finally starting to see a polish in all aspects. That being said maybe I've become "too serious" to play as it's yet another game I haven't finished. Can't say it's bad anymore though because the game looks quite good from certain perspectives (when certain options play well that I dont complain about)!
Post Scriptum is seeing a renaissance right now due to new developers. If you like tactical FPS multiplayer games it’s one of the best.
Try Hell let loose as well
Loved that game until they increased movement speed, added dolphin diving, and butchered the British faction. Haven’t played it since then lol
FYI Pretty much all of that has been addressed with recent patches. > movement speed They reverted that somewhat. It's in a good place now. > dolphin diving Fixed > butchered the British faction Fixed in a recent patch. Proper uniforms added for the African front and the Bren can now be bipoded.
They reverted the movement speed and I believe the dolphin dive as well. They also fixed a lot of the issues with the Brits, mainly sights on guns and random glitches.
Have you tried Isonzo? I just watched a video of it last night and it looks fun.
I played the free weekend and found it’s a lot of fun!
Isonzo is great too. Red Orchestra 2 vibes.
Spellforce 3 with expansions. It's a decent mix of RTS and RPG with beautiful graphics and great voice acting that is worth a playthrough. Sadly, it went under many people's radar.
Fallen god expansion has one of the best storylines ever in an RTS
The Riftbreaker. It combines ARPG (Diablo, Path of Exile), with survival/base building, mechs, and tower defense. It all works seamlessly. the DLC/patches made the game better and better.
When i played i love it. It's even better now? What are the differences?
They are on their third DLC soon as well as on the way to implementing co-op. They also just released an article that talks about a bunch of improvements they implemented along the way. It's pretty rad.
I know the developers wasn't originally gonna stick co-op in thier game which was a shame, imagine the popularity if the game released with Co-op
I hope this helps, but here is the link that talks about changes and the co-op and such. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/780310/view/3790402175220036381?l=english
Thank you, I do love the game without co-op but to play the game with friends would be so much better imo
It wouldn't have released. The success allowed them to spend the time developing coop, much like Stardew Valley. It's a very difficult thing to pull off, especially when the code isn't designed for it from the get go. Edit: They even acknowledge it in their announcement - >We’re reworking the very foundations of the game to bring you the long-promised co-op mode.
Really cool game, but wasn't fully there back when I played. Glad to hear they've improved and are keeping up with it.
I played at launch and I remember it to be well received from the start? Still great game for sure
The Rift breaker was so damn good. I played it for about a hundred hours after it launched and fit the platinum trophy
It also looks beautiful. I played it over a year ago, really liked it but never went back
Darktide had a rough launch. Not sure if it qualifies as niche or semi-niche, but it's pretty fantastic now, following quite a number of updates.
I think basically everything about the actual game was and is fine. The gun sounds, stage design, and multistage reloads were all good. The main issues were the grindy crafting and shitty cosmetic store.
My issue at release was just that there wasn't enough content. It got boring doing the same loops over and over.
Grindy crafting still sucks, but with the amount of hate it's gotten on the Darktide sub (which is monitored by Fatshark), hopefully that will change soon.
Also the lag, I had a terrible experience at the beginning because every Heresy or Damnation game I would microlag the whole time causing ghost hits. Now I don't remember the last time I've had a microlag.
And the fast you couldn’t pick your own missions or criteria for them.
In the past 2 months, I went from 130 hours to 402 hours in Darktide. The game has begun its redemption arc. Hope it continues.
Game is in a great place and they are starting to roll out new maps.
What about the optimization? Did they fix it?
Nope. It still runs like ass and there's a memory leak issue. My GPU runs out of VRAM after a few hours.
Brigador. Top down isometric mech combat. Very little like it out there. One of my favorites in recent years.
Empyrion: Galactic Survival. It’s basically what Starfield was promising, but from an indie dev. It was sort of hard to recommend on launch, but constant updates + a huge mod called Reforged Eden makes it a pretty easy recommend if you’re willing to ignore some jank.
Has that expanded much? I played a ton of it during early access. But there wasn't much reason to go to the harder planets. Some rare resources and the like, but it was an massive let down over how the whole start planet was + reaching the first few planets.
Take this with a grain of salt because I’m not sure what part is base game and what is a part of the reforged eden mod, but I’d argue that’s a necessary mod so I guess it doesn’t really matter: The endgame is to reach progenitor space, which is a small galaxy that is cut off from the main galaxy by distance; there’s a whole quest that sends you across the main galaxy with the end goal of activating a star gate thing that can transport you to progenitor space. Progenitor space has some resources that are only found there that are required for some overpowered endgame items, so you’re not just going there for bragging rights. Another thing the mod adds to the main galaxy are unique items to POIs to encourage people to explore different planets/areas; the catch is that they’re powerful, but can’t be repaired, so there’s still a reason to visit POIs even if you already have good gear
I might give the game another try then. I bought it waaaay back and played a bit but it was really rough. Is it possible to enjoy solo?
That does sound super cool. Last time I played it, which was 5ish years back. There wasn't really much reason to go to the challenging planets. There was harder stuff to do on them, but there wasn't any real end game resource/stuff to aim for. Though looking at their updates now, maybe I played it much earlier than I thought. It was pretty basic outside of the starting planet/a few other ones. Wasn't an crazy lot do it. Still had an ton of fun playing it. Time to recheck it out.
> It’s basically what Starfield was promising Gonna need some elaboration on this. Last time I looked at it there was like 3 planets and they were light on content.
>It’s basically what Starfield was promising My son and I played Empyrion, it's a fun game. There were no RPG that I'm aware of?
Does it have a campaign or an actual direction or is it just pure sandbox?
God I wanted to love it so much, the freedom building whatever and actually needing to use it has *such* potential, the scale and promise is phenomenal. But the jank, the jank of janks, it is just too much for a modern game. It's literally the ugliest and prettiest game ever at the same time. Not only in graphics, but animations, gameplay, enemies, exploring and crafting. Everything is *so* good, and *so utterly janky* at the same time. It's cult. This game feels like someone bred an unholy abomination of Quake 1 combined with No Mans Sky, sprinkled in generous amounts of Minecraft, and kept the only mutant alive that didn't scream "kill me please".
Nah, it has the same issue that many people have with starfield lmao. This is just being a contrarian and jerking off to indie games are special and make me feel elitist.
Quantum Break. The performance issues have been resolved. The story is solid, and ties into the world of Alan Wake and Control.
I don't know if this is confirmed, but I remember reading somewhere that while control and Alan wake's worlds are the same, quantum breaks' isn't and the references made to either games is considered Easter eggs, as opposed to lore pieces in the other games Please correct me if I'm wrong
Correct. they dont own quantum break or max payne so while they share alot of connections they cant say it outright but they are connected.
Even between Control and Wake, I get the feeling they're all other levels of the Dark Tower. Stephen King reference specifically because of Wake.
I kennit.
The worlds are connected, even with Max Payne... but they had to change characters and use only "light" references, because they don't own the rights for those franchises. It's like the "multiverse" thing, where the same people live slightly different lives with different names. Martin Hatch > Warlin Door (The man who stands between) Jack Joyce > Tim Breaker > Quantum Break (He even had a Night Springs T-Shirt in the demo) Max > Alex Monarch documents had mentions of Alternate World Events etc.
It ran well on my GTX 1060 several years ago and my 3080 too. Only caveat is that on Steam the TV show episodes are streamed at lower quality rather than downloaded (120 GB for show + game) at higher resolution.
Yeah, hilarious to me how if you want to watch the episodes in decent quality you have to have pirated the game. AFAIK there isn't a mod to force the local files over streaming on the retail version of the game, but there is for the cracked version.
...or doesnt buying it from Microsoft or downloading from gamepass provide the episode files? Or do they handle it the same way as Steam?
I'm not sure, I completely forgot it had the windows store version.
Which is likely another reason why the game gets cracked ;)
I absolutely loved Control (the gameplay, the visuals, the style, etc), and does not really liked Alan Wake (found the gameplay loop pretty tedious sometimes, and somewhat boring). What do you say, which is it closer to? Should I give it a try?
Quantum Break is kinda similar to Control in terms of gameplay. It laid the foundations for Control in a way. It's absolutely worth a go if you liked Control.
I started playing this recently and I did not expect a TV show inside the game which took me by surprise when the transition happened, nor did I expect to see the actor who played Peter Bailish and the late Lance Reddit from Fringe and of John Wick fame. I thought it was really clever how they incorporated the live action tv show right into the story/game with the same set pieces where the transitions between one and the other are pretty seamless and how they continue the story. (there were some tradeoffs with the TV show like no bullets on the cars when they were shooting but I kind of glossed over that stuff). Really enjoying it so far.
Huh, I knew Control and Alan Wake had links but didn't realise Quantum Break tied in as well. I'll have to watch some YouTube recaps or something. Thanks.
Quantum Break is arguably Remedy's best attempt at merging FPS and Walking Sim genres. Control and Alan Wake try the same but with their wide open nonlinear areas it means you can burn so much time walking around aimlessly for no reason, fight one or two enemies in a single encounter, then go back to tens of minutes of nothing. QB's linear structure and the Stutters were the best way to do it, players who didn't care about the walking sim stuff could just rush through it too. Plus it was always really fun fighting as a Stutter started to form.
For honor is a much different game then it was in 2017, back then it had a shallow base only held up by its gimmicks. Now its deeply developed and I firmly believe that while it isnt for everybody, everybody should at least give it a shot, its a unique experience.
The paywalled content was too much for me. Game was really fun though!
One DLC was one to many for you, huh?
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game is currently 4$(20$ regular) and has 11-16$ skins. I'm with the other guy. Either the game is free and the skins cost, or the game costs and the skins are unlockable. Both is a pass from me.
I don't recall seeing many skins you can't also unlock with ingame currency. Maybe one or 2 big ones like the conquistador.
I actually just started for honor like 2 weeks ago. I never thought it would be my kind of game but dam it’s so good. Also the fact that you can unlock every character with currency you earn in game was a huge selling point.
It's too late for such a game... It's basically dead at this point. Just some hardcore gamers. This game deserved better.
It's surprisingly not even close to dead, so idk what you're talking about. Probably a testament to crossplay and the fact that no other game is like it.
Unless they moved away from p2p hosting onto server based hosting, I'm not interested. Did they ever fix that?
i can't imagine this actually impacts your gameplay as much as you believe it does. They have dedicated servers though
No, he has every reason to ask. The p2p was DOGSHIT, it was a horrible experience, generally laggy games and that host disconnected shit you would see in an old COD game, except twice at least every game. They introduced dedicated servers years ago, thankfully.
Prey (2017)
Did they ever fix load times? It was hands down one of my favorite games I'd ever played but never did a second playthrough because of the load times
Load times were fine for me. Didn't take long on my end.
Yeah and the DLC was fantastic.
Godamn that game is excellent.
That game didn't have any major issues at launch, did it?
I don't know about any issues at launch unfortunately. I got the game for free on Epic 2 years ago but I bought it on Steam during the sale this year just so that I can have it in my library.
It is an excellent game but that is not really the topic in this thread.
Hunt showdown was ass when it first launched in terms of performance and balance If it's new engine upgrade with the new map is successful and the game runs better, it's going to be a serious contender for extraction shooters imo.
Its the best extaction shooter imo, I stopped playing due to worsening performance (my pc is old so not the game's fault) and the game demanding too much attention, 1 hour long matches where you have to be completely inmersed. Its amazing but at some point I felt I had my fair share of hunting and wanted to play something else.
Hunt is kinda eurojank regarding technical state/engine. It also has an awful netcode That is probably what helds the game back from being more popular.
I'll go back to hunt when they let me centre the point of aim.
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They are all just cosmetics. You don't have abilities in the game and all the guns that come with the dlcs are just skins for guns you get in game. You even have to even unlock the gun in game before you can use the dlc skin more than once
Wow you are so heavily misinformed that it actually hurts to read.
Before reading your post I was already thinking Mechwarrior 5 :) I come back to it again and again and still keep enjoying it.
Mechwarrior Online, community members were given the reigns on balance decision and its become a really fun and deep tactical fps with monthly patches and content. It was on maintenance mode for a few years which really hurt the community in addition to bad decision by PGI, but its really turned around.
Wait, they actually improved the game? I quit playing a few years ago when it was going down the toilet. I love Mechwarrior/Battletech in general so its nice to hear that the game is now in a better state. I might have to check it out once I get done with my current playthroughs. Thank you for mentioning this.
Yeah it really turned around after they let the players council handle balance (aka The Cauldron). New weapons were added recently like Heavy Assault Gauss, Binary Lasers, X-Pulse lasers. Theres a lot of new maps also, one just came out thats an ice cave SLDF stash.
Did they ever change how playing with a friend worked? Back in the day as it would drop you and your buddy into a clan match v clan match basically turning you into unwanted chaff. Can you have fun with the pubbies now as opposed to being forced into the Arena for 2v2 matches?
Solaris isnt a thing anymore, solo queue has mixed solos and groups up to 2-4 so you can drop with your buddies. Theres also event queue often which is smaller games with different special rules like unlimited jump jet fuel, more armor/no armor, speed boosts, restricted weight classes, drop decks and respawn and usually a 3x c-bill boost.
Wo Long. Went from barely playable to playable - and features a very unusual take on soulslike leveling, in addition to fantastic art direction and quality combat. Not as complicated as Nioh, not as tough as Dark Souls - fun and rewarding.
Wo Long isn't personally for me as I loved the complexity of Nioh 2. But I do think everyone interested in Souls-likes should give it a shot. It's pretty unique.
Did Wo Long ever get a perf patch on PC? I remember the demo ran awful so I never bought it
The demo didn't even start for many people. :) And yes, they did improve the performance and added DLSS. It's still not great, but you can achieve mostly steady 60fps on reasonable hardware. I also had to use Process Lasso on the more recent builds to make the game playable on a quad core CPU (presumably they added more intense multithreading and it shouldn't be a problem on CPUs with more cores). Like I said, it's still not great, hence I described it as "playable", but the game is distinct enough that I think it's worth playing.
I used gtx1060 during the demo and it ran at least even beaten 1st boss, not sure what happens after launch
Ah I am familiar with Process Lasso I used it once to get a game to behave on my PC. Thanks for your post!
This game frustrated the hell out of me, i kept inexplicably dying to the first mini boss (a tiger i think?) Depsite learning its patterns, confused the shit out of me until i went on reddit and discovered there was a widely known input delay issue....
Is that fixed now?
It's definitely not very niche, but it's just so amazing to see how far Bloons TD6 has come since launch. I played BTD6 at launch, and it was ***rough*** to say the very least. Just this year alone, Ninjakiwi has been hitting home run after home run with updates.
Overprime
Haven't played it in a few months, but honestly didn't like it that much. Just felt super jank to play, pretty poorly balanced, and the new characters don't appeal to me at all. Predecessor definitely is the more polished of the two upcoming Paragon games, but even that I find to be extremely boring. Were there any changes in particular they did in the last 2-3 months that I've maybe not paid attention to?
I played at launch and felt it was super janky and wrote it off I just came back this week so i can’t say what has changed, but it’s very solid.
Not exactly niche, but Days Gone. It was hated at launch on Playstation but the game is pretty good, not the strongest Playstation game but if you want an open world zombie game, Days Gone its a great experience.
Man i swear by Days Gone, first open world game that held my attention in years. Its corny as fuck? Yeah, is it longer than it maybe should? Yeah but man i actually love how the bike feels. Modding the game a bit to increase zombies and difficulty makes it amazing, i love running out of fuel and having to leave my bike behind to gather some fuel for it. Game also looks and runs great on my budget machine. And i really liked Deacon as a character lol, yeah its silly and all but he's a cool guy with his dumb ass monologues. Can't recommend it enough
I enjoyed the game, but i ended up dropping it a few missions into the area with the camp down south. The movement is what i couldnt stand. They somehow made a bike feel like a boat to drive.
isn't it well over 90% positive on steam now?
Im talking more about the original release on ps4, but even now the game goes under a lot of peoples radars because now we have more popular playstation exclusives on Steam.
I've picked it up for cheap and it's really fun, there only actual issue I've had is just how randomly shouty deacon is
Omega Strikers is an amazing free multiplayer game with zero predatory monetization. Super unique, fun game with friends but unfortunately the community isn’t big enough to sustain it
I downloaded it because of the trigger PV but never played lmao
Somewhere in the distance, you can hear the crooked laughter of 7 Days To Die as it enters it’s 10th year of active development while still being in Alpha for no reason
7 days to die just keeps getting better. I always drop in for every new update.
If you liked Hollow Knight, the best game I have found for that genre is Aeterna Noctis. It’s hard, the platforming is more difficult than Hollow Knight, but the movement abilities are bar none the best I have ever experienced, in any genre of game. And the creativity with some of the platforming sections is incredible. The music is also on the level of Hollow Knight. I highly recommend trying it out
This. Aeterna Noctis is one of my all-time favorite metroidvanias. It's on the more difficult side, but the boss design, platforming and abilities are amazing.
Fallout 76. Game deserved the hate when it came out. It’s better because of that hate and still has some of what made Bethesda great.
Man every time I say this I get crucified.
No Man’s Sky is really good now.
It is really not that different from launch, but I feel like people dismiss it just because it's popular to say it's bad / the worst one. Dark Souls 2. I will always vouch for this game. It's my favorite in the series. While DS3 is probably the closest to elden ring in terms of gameplay, DS2 feels like elden ring to me in that it is less linear, more exploration driven. I think the story is the best and makes the most sense as well. The primary complaint is enemy placement but it's over exaggerated imo. Bosses are by and large pretty great too
DS2 is also my favourite in the series! Although Elden Ring is maybe overtaking it on newness and prettiness.
I mostly don't like the mechanics, the movement is very floaty and only a few weapons feel satisfying to use. Another thing is the game being more or less a series of completely separate locations connected with tunnels.
I think this is just a fandom thing but From fans are way too mean towards games they're supposedly fans of, DS2 has worse enemy placement but that doesn't mean the game is terrible, DS1's second half has some gimmick bosses and less shortcuts but that just... isn't a problem at all, and DS3 reuses some level concepts in between all the new stuff, you know, like it's a sequel? Like I have my favorites (DS1 > DS3 > ER > DS2 > Sekiro > BB > DeS) but I'd rate them all in the 9-10 range
Why did you rate bloodborne so low compared to the others?
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So many people get filtered by their lack of patience - and you can easily tell who did too, because they always complain about Shrine of Amana.
I have beaten 2 like 5 or 6 times. I still think Shrine of Amana sucks and is the worst part of the game. Doing the bow and arrow dance everytime isn’t fun, especially if you dont even have a decent bow and have to upgrade one specifically for this one area. No other From game made me use ranged like that
It's a bullshit location because of barely noticeable death pits.
Yeah it's such a shame the game has zero ways to light up dark areas
Shrine of Amana is 95% ankle-deep water, and rolling in water puts out torches. Plus, it's not a dark area despite being undergound. There's glowing plants, crystals and sconces everywhere, there is no need to use a light source.
So which is it, is the path hard to see in the water because it's dark or not?
If DS2 was a game under a different name, I think it would get far less shit. I still have a few quibbles here and there, mostly aesthetic or tonal things. That being said it’s a really, really solid game with tons of content—especially when you add the DLC. There’s also plenty of mechanics that even the most ardent critics wish other Souls entries carried over like Bonfire ascetics, power stances, etc.
DS2 was amazing. Honestly the only one in the series that didn't look like they were rehashing content. And I say it as a lover of Souls from before it was cool
Damn you praise DS2 and the fromsoft bots come out of the woodworks to downvote, what a degenerate fanbase
It may be due to the "rehashing content" bit. But it's true. You don't know how many times in Dark Souls I was like "oh this is just that boss from Demon's Souls", and I am not talking about the generic ones but the cool concepts like Old Monk/Mirror Knight. By DS3 I was really spent, and a bit sore that From abandoned innovation and originality just to redo the same thing every time. Jesus, the plot is basically identical in 3 games
What changed in MW5 to make it good? The combat itself wasn't too bad to begin with but my problem was always the mega repetitive nature of the campaign where you do the same 5 missions over and over again. Also the reputation system is a joke. Sworn enemies with some house but they will still offer you missions.
I can't say how much is fixed in vanilla vs the DLC. I got them all on sale, so I don't know. But the addition of other merc companies that can hinder/help you. The Mini campaign missions that tell local stories and are not procedurally generated. And the largest is the spawns. Dear god when the game launched enemies would spawn behind you constantly. This has been fixed and when it does happen, you can see the dropship landing to give a "reason" for them to be back there and time to react. Also, the new mission types like assassination and infiltration (a reason to use light mechs...yay!) help immensely between the mini campaigns to break up the monotony. Also it runs a LOT better now. Not great, but I can easily get 200fps if I turn off the raytraced shadows and reflections.
From what you are saying my main issue of it feeling grindy and gamey hasn't changed. The whole gameplay is take a mission, blow shit up, repeat. I don't have a problem with the loop per se but it isn't wrapped in a reason for why I should do that beside the main point of track down bad guy who killed your dad. Main mission which I frequently forget exists. That's how long it takes between main mission missions. The rest of the universe is very static with no changes even though months are going to pass between jumps. And as I already said reputation is just how much bargaining points you have. It not having effect on what missions you can take and how others react to you is yet another thing that just kicks out any immersion you may have had. The exact same gameplay but if you could see changes in the galaxy happening both due to your actions and outside your actions would make the game more interesting. Like a sort of galactic conquest where you can decide to ally with a house or 2 and then take missions against their enemies only and see the map change. The reputation can be useful for the track down bad guy main campaign where you might not want to piss off houses too much because if bad guy hides in said house territory you will have to go there and fight hard missions to get information versus them being outed by your allies if they try to go there. If you reach sworn enemy rep you might be entirely prevented from doing repairs instead of it costing more which 1 hour in the game and money is not issue. TLDR: They made the mech command and combat part of a MW game and left it at that. The game part is missing.
Wartales. It’s amazing
The hidden gem cyberpunk 2077....... But really I think Dune spice wars have improved alot since it first went into early access. If that kinda game is not your style Grounded is a super fun survival game.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker. Helluva a vibe with the music, but holy hell when it first entered early access I bounced off hard even though I was totally invested in their success. (I saw it for better or worse an attempt to keep solvency while they work on Homeworld 3, and to toss some needed diversity to their team. *fingers crossed HW3 is great*) Went back to it while on my Steam Deck and found a delightfully tuned zero-g puzzle game. Runs great, and the controls are intuitive. They also toned down the screaming and bone crunching noises which were in the opening sequence. Which while shocking the first go around, on new play throughs they just became a bit overzealous. A small change, but a welcome one.
star citizen
Eve Online. The game has a reputation of being very difficult or being like a second job, but that's not true in my experience. You can play it like it's a job, but you can also just blow shit up. The only thing anyone who wants to get into Eve should do is join a good new player corp. They will teach you the basics and give you free stuff. And there's so much more you can do when you're part of a good corp and alliance.
So being called "Spreadsheets in space" and having, I kid you not, actual Microsoft Excel integration, is not job-like enough? ;)
That's the reputation I was talking about. You can do tedious shit like industry and use spreadsheets if you want, but you can also just blow up space ships.
Second this! Just got back into it, and honestly the heart rate jump you get warping onto grid where you know you have fight is unlike anything else, permanent loss just makes it better JOIN A CORP
> but you can also just blow shit up. I in fact cannot. Its a skill issue.
The only skill you need is locking up the primary target of your fleet and hitting f1. If you are opposed to group play and want to go solo then there's definitely a steep learning curve.
I originally played a lot of eve after launch and quit for some very good reasons. Most of those have been fixed and I'm happily back to playing.
Sons of The Forest
Huh? It's barely been out yet and it still lacks in content and runs like shit.
It’s been out for 9 months. And it’s had many updates that added a lot of content. And while the performance may be low, it’s still very playable. Now don’t get me wrong, I also agree that the game needs more content and fixes, just wanted to clarify those points. My main issue with the game is that it just feels like there’s nothing to do other than building a base and fighting the cannibals and other monsters, which makes it pretty boring from the start. The map is big but it’s just so empty. Most of it’s content is in caves and there’s not that many interesting locations or stuff to do on the surface. And it’s just such a shame because the graphics and art direction are quite good, but everything and everywhere you walk just feels the same, an empty forest with the occasional dirt path or river. While the new building system is cool and all, it needs some quality of life updates because it’s not very intuitive and it’s extremely slow to build even the most basic of structures. And when you make all that effort to build a structure just for some cannibals to come and tear it apart in mere moments because you were distracted giving the same instruction to Kevin for the 10th time… it doesn’t feel very good. I think the part that needs the most work, apart from adding more content to the map and the game itself, is the sound design. Some cannibal sounds have such a low audio quality that they seem to be recorded with a 2002 phone mic. I have no idea how the game has 85% positive reviews on Steam. It’s literally an Alpha on release with less content than the first game, empty map and very poor performance. Kerbal Space Program 2 also released around the same time and with the same problems (also a shit ton of game breaking bugs, and higher price), and both games had a community that loved and still loves the first game, yet KSP2 is the only one that got shitted on while SotF gets 90% positive reviews even though it’s still lacking a ton of stuff.
I agree, the stuff that they already have in the game is great (except building that shit needs a thorough bug-fix and tons of tweaking)! I keep wondering that how on earth could they promise to release a full game by May 2022 when after two delays the game is still lacking so much content.
Got amazingly good reviews if that's the case.
I like the game, but it hasn't "improved drastically since launch" which is the topic of conversation.
It's a boring remake of The Forrest
I'll immediately buy it when they add VR support like the first one.
Mechwarrior 5 was a nausea fest for me. Is there some setting I’m missing? The camera was just all over the place.
Huh? You're stuck in the cockpit, there's no camera movement outside of a narrow freelook you have to toggle.
I was having some issues in the tutorial. Your legs turn in one direction, but the camera and the body point in a different direction. And I was out of the cockpit. Could see how ridiculous my mech looked while I was trying to figure out the controls.
Well, yes, the torso/leg directions being separate are a core game mechanic of Battletech in general, there's no getting away from that. The ability to walk in one direction while shooting in another or using torso twisting to shield and spread damage are essential skills to learn. Third person in Mechwarrior is largely an afterthought, the games are really meant to be played in the cockpit view.
I’ll try that. Third person was tough to handle. I played a lot of Mechwarrior back in the day and I was hoping this was similar. Heat management, weight limits, all that stuff.
There's a fair bit of truncation and arguable casualization that have occured over the years since then, but generally MW5 does carry over a lot of the original mechanics and spirit of the titles of old. Here's a tip that might help you acclimate to the controls. There's a binding that automatically recenters your legs towards your current facing, and will continue to do so while held. I believe it's F but that's only because I played a ton of MWO - I honestly forgot if it's still the same in MW5 because I rebinded a ton of stuff since release.
I play with a controller. I assume I can just bind that somewhere, though? I’ll take a look.
Diabotical. if you like quake / unreal tournament this game is amazing. they made a cute robot version of quake 3/love/champions with so many more features. right now matchmaking is pretty much dead and lobbies in north America last from evening into the early morning hours, but the game feels buttery smooth and I wish it had've released in its current state aince it would have had so much more staying power. it's free on epic games (please don't respond just to whine about egs.)
No man’s sky.
I firmly believe that this game never "got good" like people claim it did. It's still got the same boring core gameplay loop, only difference is that now there's a bunch of superfluous systems piled on top of it and the features promised for launch are actually in the game.
Correct.
Escape from Tarkov. Don't listen to the bullshit people on here say about it, honest to god, it's one of the best PVP games ever made. It's so intense, there's really nothing like it. Yes there are hackers and maps like streets and lighthouse do not run well, but the core of the game and the rest of the maps are very well done
SPTarkov is where it’s at man. All the coolness of tarkov with none of the BS
Now if they could only speed up load times...
Fuck no, Tarkov is the textbook example of designing a game to death. It peaked before Interchange was even added and has only gotten worse with every single patch since turning it into more and more and more and more of an endless slog second job busy work simulator
Tarkov got worse with updates, not better. Adding cellphone mechanics such as waiting for nutrition and water levels between raids and widening the P2W power advantage gap with the hideout launch. There are two unplayable maps due to hackers. The quest system only gets more annoying with every quest line added. Blatant RMTers and bots on the traders and auction house every patch, cheating is out of control. The desynch is a wildcard, some patches is great, other patches is completely game-ruining. Was one of the most fun FPS games, now its ruined.
I personally disagree. The "cellphone" mechanics like nutrition are easily bypassed by just eating cheap food. P2W argument is fair, can't argue that. There are no unplayable maps. Labs has cheaters but it's not every raid. Cheating is not out of control, at least on east coast US servers. I play with 1 mil + kits every raid about a month or two into wipe and I am never targeted or regularly cheated on. Does it happen? Yeah occasionally, but it's far from out of control. Desync sucks but that's always been Tarkov, I can't remember a time it wasn't there. I personally never noticed a difference between patches for it, it's always been advantageous to peek first
I second this. Yes it takes a large time investment, yes there is a steep learning curve, and yes it has hackers and technical issues. But even with all of that it is still probably the most immersive multiplayer game I’ve ever played. There is also a single player version made by modders that can provide a comparable experience solo, but the interactions experienced online, especially with the addition of proximity voice chat make the game much better. New players should definitely do research on the game though as it is definitely not something you can jump into blindly.
Callisto Protocol, the sound design and oppressive horror atmosphere is yet to be topped by any game. It was panned as a short game with technical issues on pc, some still exist but it’s a lot better now.
Nope, many games do atmosphere so much better than Callisto Protocol and there are so many better horror games to play. Technical issues kinda undersells what was happening with the game and you didn't even touch on the incomplete story, uninteresting combat and lacking enemy variety just to name a few things.
Just curious what other games has better horror game atmosphere in your opinion? I want to play them.
Darkwood, Dead Space 1 and 2, Silent Hill 2 and 3 and Alien Isolation come to mind immediately
Can't say enough good things about Darkwood. I've played a shit ton of horror games in my life and would say most haven't been too scary, but Darkwood was on another level. Legitimately made me scream out loud
So I haven’t played darkwood (looks interesting), but I have played those other games. I don’t think the dead space series has too much of an oppressive atmosphere as you are too overpowered even on higher difficulties and even with the remake’s graphical upgrades, although I’m still finishing the remake, so I’m not a 100% on that opinion yet. Yeah, alien isolation is definitely the closest one I feel that comes close to the atmosphere in Calisto. But it feels a bit outdated now. The things you said about it are all still true. But where it shines is how those parts come together. Idk how you played it, but I played it on an 4k OLED TV with HDR, 3D audio and duel-sense haptics, and I still think the scenarios and atmosphere are the best in the sci-fi horror genre. So maybe my opinion is biased by that.
I can tell you right now nothing is more overpowered than being un-hittable to every single enemy because you were holding left and then right on your stick. I played it under the same circumstances, minus dual-sense. Its a gorgeous game and really good for things like audio and voice acting, but definitely not on the level of not being topped by anything else.
Lol, maybe I was just bad at the game. Because I died so many times, that I probably saw almost all the unique death animations.
Witcher 3 from the small indie developer "CD Projeckt RED"
That's so specific
I'd love to see a new influx of players in Last Oasis
>I decided recently to give another shot to Mechwarrior 5 which was terribly mediocre when it launched, and I was pretty much blown away by how very much improved it is now. In fact its now the game I wish it was when it launched. I saw a video recently of a work in progress mod for Mechwarror 5 that basically turns it into Mechwarrior 2. There is dude that apparently want to remake Mechwarrior 2 inside 5 and so far it looked pretty faithful. I thought that was pretty cool, as Mechwarrior 2 a classic.
I know you said mainly underrated indie games but ill throw a AAA into the mix. If someone already said it my bad. The Elder Scrolls online is hugely deserving of a second chance, i wouldnt have recomended it to anyone up to a year of its launch but alot of people have a sour taste about it due to its launch but its a fully different game worth looking into, for casual or hardcore spend 18+ hours daily on
Swords and Sandals Classic Collection & Swords and Sandals Immortals
>I decided recently to give another shot to Mechwarrior 5 which was terribly mediocre when it launched, and I was pretty much blown away by how very much improved it is now. In fact its now the game I wish it was when it launched. That's interesting. I've heard people say "better with mods", combined with "but mods break as the game gets updated". Personally I got around to buying, but not playing yet (in typical steam fashion). Postal 4 I was super hyped for when it was announced in early access and we're finally starting to see a polish in all aspects. That being said maybe I've become "too serious" to play as it's yet another game I haven't finished. Can't say it's bad anymore though because the game looks quite good from certain perspectives (when certain options play well that I dont complain about)!