Well, you can hardly call it “uncontroversial” if “so many people” so strongly disagree with your absolutist characterization of an entire medium of art, right? It seems to me to be quite divisive in fact

But I’m intrigued by this, you consider not only games but also shows and movies to be childish indulgences? I think a more reasonable assessment would be that they have the capacity to be such. But what people want to communicate to you is that through these mediums, they’ve experienced powerful artistic catharsis that has improved their lives, and yes, even connected them with and strengthened their relationships with others.

Sure, a child may have all the time in the world to rot their mind in Fortnite. But there is an artistry to experiencing a craft, just the same as there is an artistry to crafting it. Investing in your capacity to be critical of cinematography, as opposed to simply letting the film flash before your eyes. Eventually you learn to tell the difference between reality tv and great works like Twin Peaks.

If you think these differences are simply not present in the medium of gaming then it’s no surprise you touch the nerve of people who have invested in the craft.

In summary, it’s inconsistent with the lived experience of countless millions of others for you to propose that “appreciating a painting” is a valuable use of an adult’s time, but “appreciating interactive art” never can be, and should be discarded as childish.

And as an aside, whether someone only plays games with no other pursuits to the point where their life falls apart is not really relevant to the discussion. Yes, of course that is a terrible and childish way to ruin your life. It would be equally terrible if you stayed up all binging Netflix and lost your job as a result. Once again the issue here is your perspective broadly, and how you are trying to justify it. Not the medium itself.

As a final aside, I’m (obviously) a gamer myself, as well as a multi-instrumentalist. I find creating music and playing games to be similarly enriching. The high level discussions I have with participants between the two mediums are equally thought provoking. It is a great blessing as well that games are so thoroughly intertwined with music, giving me a lot of carryover between the two pursuits.

This is however, essentially the limit of what I can manage to sustain dedication to as an adult. I would also love to get into painting, and read two novels a week, and watch all of history’s greatest films, and train for a marathon, and sail around the world, and so on. I have confronted the fact that, having only one life, I will only ever dabble in most of those things, if I am lucky enough experience them at all. But I would never think to myself that the things I have chosen to invest in primarily are inherently superior to the things that bring other people fulfillment. Entertaining thoughts like that would make me feel very childish

Yeah that’s part of what makes games specifically so valuable. It asks a lot of you. You have to meet it where it’s at. You have to muster the energy to be able to appreciate it even when life drags you down. Otherwise you can’t progress.

I obviously don’t know you, and reading books and investing time in your family is obviously great. But to anyone generally, I would say be careful and make sure you advocate for your time and energy. It’s very common for people to fall into a loop of passivity. The audiobook is on in the car but their mind is elsewhere. They endlessly scroll algorithmic slop on their phone without it ever actionably enriching them. They turn on a show at the end of the day just to tune out.

If your life is already full of the experiences that make it worth living, great! Again, I don’t know you. But irl, what I see most often when people complain about not having time for deep passions is that their job drains them, then their responsibilities drain them, then they lay, crushed, letting images on the screen flash by them as the days turn into months. Then somehow years go by and they’re left without the memory of ever living them.

In the midst of this, many people adopt the belief that they’ve simply aged out of participating in deep passions, and the way life slips through their fingers is just the way life is. This is a difficult belief to weed out once it has taken root. Ironically Outer Wilds specifically is a great way to confront this mindset lol

The real issue here is actually just your opinion of games. You consider games to be “sit around dick around” time wasters.

If that’s all it is to you then yeah you’ll naturally find yourself moving on as basically anything else will be more fulfilling.

Games to me are a form of art which have the power to change lives. A medium I’ve been continuing to develop an appreciation for my entire life, alongside other pursuits such as music. As life gets hectic into adulthood I’ve found that games are far more meaningful to me now than ever before.

And I’m not sitting around looking for time to kill. I make time to play because of how restorative and life affirming it is. Games like Citizen Sleeper, Spiritfarer, Outer Wilds, To The Moon, Slay the Princess, Hollow Knight, Eastward, Arctic Eggs. Some experiences stay with you forever, expand the depth of your empathy, and steer your heart towards kindness.

I don’t know what’s gonna happen to you if you try to crank out endless rounds of Call of Duty to the point where it interferes with you taking your dog to the vet. But I’m 100% certain all working adults would benefit from engaging with meaningful art regularly. Be it games, books, film, etc. Whatever strikes you.

Well over 300 hours in BotW here, loved it. It feels a lot more “grounded” in comparison to totk, which feels a lot more “sandboxy” at times. Both great games, just different vibes

I would also say, there were a TON of times in TotK where they riff on previous things from BotW. A lot of the enjoyment I got was the subversion of expectations. In the lead up to the game we all thought they just copy/pasted the map to save time but they actually did a TON of work to it, and it’s very interesting and nostalgic to retread over places that have changed so much.

I would guess your best bet is playing them in order, altho it’s probably fine either way

Oh I seem to think you’re a dishonest, instigating time waster, huh? What makes it seem that way, the part where I directly accused you of it?

I’m not sure why you’re so resistant to it but I’ll just move on.

Oh, sorry yeah I can clear that up.

The reason I don’t feel like dancing for you is because you’re dishonest, aggressively self righteous, and obviously just want to fight about something meaningless for no reason.

Spend the extra forty bucks for something official if you don’t trust used, and don’t start dumb semantic arguments with people if you’re gonna want their help after. Not that I think you really do, mind. Just pointing out how ridiculous that whole pretense is.

Anyway, yeah. Probably is best if you moved along

But ultimately none of this is that high stakes

Been saying that for four comments now lol

Yes consoles are often the more economical choice

This right here is the main idea, yeah, even when looking at the used market for PC components. Glad we found our way back, and even ended up in complete agreement at the end

As for the help you requested sifting through listings, used and refurbished are different things, you should know. Refurbished direct from Sony is $400, looks like gamestop will do it for $370. This sets a hard cap on used prices, so you’ll notice all the used listings (that actually sell) are below that.

You should also know they have websites for you to track what actually sells, and not just the listings that are left standing for a while because the price is mediocre. Worth checking that out so you know where to watch, and have a good chance of getting a good price when it appears. Best of luck to you

And “well below” $300 is not $285-$330

You’re equivocating. In that instance I am responding directly to your claim that it’s far fetched to find a used one around the $300 point.

You’ll notice when you quoted me you also excluded the word “dips”. It’s dishonest for you frame my position as misrepresentative of the market by presenting my numbers without the couching I presented them with.

And why do you want to quibble over $50 when it doesn’t affect the discussion at all? Let’s just work with the higher prices, or even the brand new prices for that matter

Same, yeah I mean once you’re established the actual cost of games on steam is ludicrously small depending on your habits. I’m pretty much locked-in to pc gaming simply for the love of indie titles that more often than not do not get published to consoles. Lots of those games are just straight up free

We also have to consider the value the computer itself serves beyond just gaming. If you’re gonna get a $500 ps5 and you’re already going for an $800-$1200 computer, well hey. You could really get the best of both worlds without affecting the budget. Probably could even save money

But I think there’s also a big group that isn’t in that situation. I know plenty of people who rock like a chromebook and the cheapest xbox. Or people who only play like NBA 2k or something. Or people who play 1-2 big titles a year when they get caught in the hype train, and can enjoy them at 4k60fps for the much lower upfront cost

Why not? Like I said the certified refurbished directly from Sony is $399. Plenty of listings up right now for $285-330

But even if we compare new consoles to used PCs I think the conclusion is the same

Certainly, but we’d then have to compare with the used ps5 market, which dips well below $300.

Can a used pc or a build with used components be had with comparable performance to ps5? Even with a much larger budget of say, $800?

A certified refurbished ps5 can be had right at this moment for $399, $450 new. I game on PC for many other reasons but the performance for value is pretty amazing on the ps5

Yeah plenty of people develop these feelings about laser focussed games. Sekiro is a good example. Not gonna be your game if you don’t like parrying. Lots of comments online from such people who write the game off as “spam parry to win” as tho there’s no depth to it.

Huge parry fan on the other hand? Probably your favorite game, and you’re bewildered by those comments because you feel like you could write a novel about how interesting the system is and how rewarding it is to master all the way into your seventh charmless NG+ run.

I think at the end of the day, when the gameplay is simply not catered to our preferences we’re not really going to appreciate what makes it so great at what it is

Virtual Ricochet Projectile :p

It’s the game’s in-game (Crossworlds) terminology for the charged shot that bounces around, yeah. They cover it in the tutorial but the main cast basically ‘nerd emoji’s’ Sergey and they simply refer to it as “balls” for the rest of the game lol

timing-&-angling annoyances

But yeah, like I said, you just don’t like the central mechanic. It’s valid. This is the main point of contention for the minority of people who don’t click with the game, as is evidenced by filtering for negative reviews on steam

But imagine if you didn’t find it to be an annoyance, and instead found it to be inherently satisfying? One of my favorite parts about Crosscode is how unafraid they are to present you with puzzles that are not only difficult to solve in the typical sense, but also difficult to perform once you know what to do. It’s a rare treat, most games instead lean hard only into one direction (purely cerebral puzzling or purely focussed on action)

It’s a game that just gives and gives, and to the contrary of your experience, I found the constant innovation of the puzzles throughout the game is what brought it from A to S tier. I finished the final dungeon wishing there was more game to play. Imagine my delight when the DLC dropped and added another 20 hours of timing & angling goodness. Replayed the game 3 times over the years.

And yeah, frankly we should compare it to Zelda, the most celebrated and beloved puzzle adventure series of all time developed and supported for 40 years by one of the largest and most influential video game companies of all time. No joke, I think this is actually exactly where Crosscode stacks up. It’s up there for me with my favorite Zelda titles

Not a sequel, just their next game! Combat and UI look similar so far. They’re doing dev streams on their discord

I thought crosscode had the best puzzles haha. The way they built it out with the elemental system, the enemies that required puzzle mechanics you had learned, the tight timing where you had to send a ball flying and then race it to various objectives, the myriad of subtle environmental puzzles in the overworld. Could go on and on, but yeah the VRP is the game’s central mechanic so if you simply don’t enjoy lining up your shots then I imagine the game would be pretty rough lol

Crosscode for sure! They have a new game in the works as well, it looks like it will be just as good. Great time to get into it

Aside from the dozens of direct shameless hollow knight clones, more “legitimate” artistic efforts are unmistakably if not explicitly influenced by it in a massive way. I think Nine Sols is probably the apotheosis of this. Will of the Wisps was famously accused of completely copying HK, much to the ire of the devs lol.

It’s also quite complicated because HK and the souls genre share so much DNA. And Dark Souls itself owes much of what makes it great to metroidvanias. So with these three things in mind (soulslikes, metroidvanias, and HK itself) which are all so interconnected, my argument is basically contingent upon whether or not HK is a particularly strong inflection point in gaming as a whole.

I think it clearly is, and I think it’s because it effectively culminated everything about the genre that we’ve come to love while also contributing new things to it. It was made with absolute reverence for the style, with the devs saying more than anything they wanted to create a world where players could get truly and completely lost. The fact that the art and music are impeccable seals the deal for most people

I would argue Animal Well is another such inflection point in gaming, and also probably the best example of a modern metroidvania that strongly diverges from HK

Nah it’s totally different this time around.

For starters Leth acknowledged Nintendo’s tweet about it by retweeting it, and setting his profile background to the new key art (which was provided by TC themselves)

TC also provided four new screenshots of the game to Nintendo as part of a press kit.

The xbox situation was literally never acknowledged by them at all, except for when Leth ultimately posted that it wasn’t happening lol. Apparently just based on estimates that TC had communicated with them privately, and only ever “confirmed” by a single social media person at Microsoft

This isn’t some random Nintendo direct, but rather THE big event for their big console. And also officially and immediately supported by TC this time around. This is 100% an intentional press rollout

On the flipside, I’m a huge metroidvania fan and Hollow Knight is clearly one of the best to ever do it in my opinion. It also totally transformed the landscape of metroidvanias, with subsequent games imitating it left and right.

The fact that silksong has remained more or less the #1 wishlisted game on steam since it was announced speaks to the broader cultural impact of the game. Hollow knight really elevated metroidvanias as a genre

Xbox did that I think in like 2022-2023

The silksong community is one of my favorite of all time for years now. Every couple of weeks a new “theme” of insane shitposting evolves. Most fun and creative silly posting I’ve ever seen.

One common post is “_____ every day until silksong comes out”. People are doing fanart challenges, one guy posts a video of himself petting a cat every day which is very popular. The cat had to get a surgery at one point and needed a cone but was fine.

It’s not just noise. It brings people a lot of joy. There’s been several posts over the years from people basically grieving the potential loss/change of the community once the game actually drops. I’ll miss it, too

No no it’s good, this is actually better than them making a proper announcement. Community loves this shit.

Quick summary:

Dev changes name, handle, and pfp on twitter. Posts a cryptic message about keeping your eyes closed tomorrow.

Reverse image search of pfp leads to a recipe released April 2nd

Cryptic message appears to be a reference to an Imagine Dragons thing from April 2nd

“Tomorrow” was interpreted as being related to the big switch 2 reveal, launching April 2nd

The name and handle also appear to be references to things having to do with April 2nd

The community is ablaze right now. Without a hint of irony: there is more genuine belief in the game actually coming out this time than there was before the original delay was announced in 2023, back when we had an official release date

Silksong launch title?

Christmas has come early!

Now this is a list! Thank you, based on the few I have played here I can’t wait to check out the rest

Yea! An all time favorite, but I played it a long time ago. I wanted to keep my little list just to recent games. Irl I am very annoying about recommending OW to everyone, as well as its dlc which continued to blow me away

Lots of people have replied with similar experiences.

But personally? I’m having the time of my life currently playing tons of new games. I love trying new ones and getting surprised, and maybe falling in love with a genre I hadn’t considered before.

I feel totally contrary to what others are saying: as I’ve gotten older, I find myself enjoying games way more. My time is more valuable to me now than ever before, so I want to fill it with things that are joyful and meaningful. Often those things are art. Games to me have always been very special in the way they can deliver a powerful artistic experience.

I think they also have a special power to be blatant disgusting soulless cash grabs, to be fair. As the years go by I feel like many aspects of the industry have become particularly unpalatable. But many studios are still releasing good games, and so far I’ve continued to find joy in seeking them out.

Not too many people on this post are actually listing games. So, in no particular order, here are some games I absolutely adored that I played recently. Games from the last ~year that have touched and moved me in some way. Experiences I don’t think I’ll forget.

Sable
Chicory: A colorful tale
Manifold Garden
Signalis
OneShot
The Talos Principle
Night in the Woods
Citizen Sleeper
Webbed
Rusted Moss
Armored Core VI
Iron Lung
Slay the Princess
Ghostrunner
Mundaun
Crosscode
Eastward
Animal Well
Pseudoregalia
Dave the Diver
Nine Sols
Patrick’s Parabox
Cocoon
Smushi Come Home

Not to imply that I expect you or anyone else to take a deep look here or to try any of these games. Just wanted to throw my perspective out there, and to show the games in concrete terms that have left an impression and continue to motivate me to keep looking and keep trying more

Oh, the mechanics are superb. I also didn’t see it from the trailer, and originally got the game based on the art alone lol.

But the gameplay feels absurdly good. The main hook I would say is the talisman system. When you parry attacks, you build up charges of what is essentially an explosive that you can then use an another offensive option. Not only that, but it’s applied via a dash, which is a movement option (and can be used to do some cheeky sequence breaking outside of combat, if you’re into that sort of thing in these games). There’s an upgrade tree with several options for it that affect gameplay in a huge way as well.

Other than that I mean, I just like everything about the game. The story was well constructed and emotional. The characters are well designed, especially the bosses who are not just enemies but important characters in the story. The boss fights themselves as I mentioned. Music got me going. Environments are jaw dropping.

To give voice to the other commenter who bounced off the game after 4 hours, it has overwhelmingly positive reviews on steam but even among the good reviews a common complaint is that the game takes a fairly long time to spin up. There’s a lengthy linear section before you get some more freedom of exploration, and even then it never becomes the game’s strongest point. It also takes a long time to get certain essential upgrades. I think this is a good thing in terms of boss design, but can feel like somewhat of a slog if you’re experienced with metroidvanias and really just want your basic dash and double jump etc.

It’s a long game, took me around 40 hours. But I enjoyed it very much in the beginning, and continued to enjoy it more as I progressed and unlocked things. I went in with no expectations however, and was surprised as the game organically developed from “cool little project I’m supporting because I like the genre and the cat is cute”, to “possibly my favorite action game since sekiro”. I hope I’m not doing a disservice by setting expectations too high! But in the end, yes I was left feeling like it was that good

This is purely conspiratorial but I think given the studio’s notable previous controversy, they probably excluded it because Wukong has such a prominent presence this year.

Other than that, yeah it just doesn’t make sense to me. Nine sols has better sales and reviews than other games being honored

My GOTY personally. Left a really strong impression. Combat is an absolute joy, and the boss fights are my favorite since Sekiro. Story and atmosphere are incredible, you can at times really feel that this is a studio accustomed to making horror games.

They totally nailed it, in other words. Great post-release support as well. Can’t wait to see what they do next

Absolute banger of a game. Loved it when it first launched, excited to jump back in with the new content. Just in time for Halloween, too

For me personally, the solution I prefer to see for “Our idea for this game is shaping up to be packed full assets that will swamp development” is for them to find some excuse to cut the content. Genuinely. Artistry thrives in the presence of limitations.

Have an AI naturally grow the forest. Wait, there are plenty of games already doing that

What games out of curiosity? You don’t just mean normal procedural generation which has been around forever? It’s not the same as using AI to generate a million different haircuts.

Honestly I’ve done just about everything over the years except ultimates (I play with IRL friends and I’m happy if we can clear a savage tier lol)

If I had to pick a “main” activity I think it would be parsing tbh, I really enjoy chasing the numbers. I level up all jobs and also try to perfect at least the basic rotation for all of them. I’ll hang out on party finder and jump into extreme farms on off jobs to practice.

But there’s also been months where I’ve done nothing but like, ocean fishing, diadem, pvp (I love crystal conflict, best part about endwalker to me) and so on. That’s been one of my favorite things about the game; you can get totally wrapped up in a huge project. Almost like you can play the game to take a break from playing the game. Just recently we’ve gotten into treasure maps, super chill

Sorry, I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking. The games being too similar is an issue, not something I wanted

I genuinely hate it lol, as do all of my friends IRL.

We’re all huge into 14, which was produced by the same team. I mention it because there’s a ton of overlap with 14. The cinematography in the cutscenes and even the emotes the characters use feel lifted straight from the older game. The structure of the combat segments is also uncannily similar, they feel a lot like 14 dungeons. So, my group generally felt like the game got stale really quickly, which colored our impression as a whole.

The moment-to-moment gameplay also feels like a hyper simplified version of the “rotation” system in 14. You have a basic filler combo, and larger more powerful moves that can only be used again after a long cooldown timer. I found it to be under-stimulating, even after unlocking a few more things.

The story was awesome in the segments covered by the free trial, but then everything after that just kind of slipped off my brain. More than anything, I remember side quests in particular were really boring to the point where it felt like a joke.

We were really hyped and really really wanted to like the game when we first heard about it, and we were super hyped after playing the demo, but in the end it just felt like a really unpleasant slog to actually play.

At the same time however I can totally see why people do really enjoy the game. I think it’s a divisive release, and often the people who love/hate it will cite the exact same things but paint them in a different light. I ultimately wouldn’t not recommend the game, I think $50 is a really fair price for it too for what you’re getting

I’m still crying about that :( olli olli world is such an incredible fucking game. I had just bought rollerdrome when I heard the news

Surprised by how much he adores the game, I usually expect super harsh criticism no matter what lol.

Personally Nine Sols hit super good. A bit early to tell, as it’s still brand new, but it might be in my top 5 games of all time. Highly recommended if you’re on the fence

Hey, just wanted to add that it’s not just an optional player-made challenge, but actually an in-game achievement/trophy!

Hey, Outer Wilds super fan here. Bought the game twice, recommend it to everyone, etc.

I’ve seen a couple people bounce off the game because of the space flight, which is totally valid! It’s legitimately very difficult, doubly so if it’s your first time doing a zero G type of thing.

I’ve also seen people thoroughly enjoy the game despite crashing into everything! So that’s possible, too. I wish I knew the secret to making it click, as I think once the story really gets its hooks in you it’s one of the most rewarding experiences out there.

With all that being said, a couple tips:

The autopilot let me crash into stuff blocking its path so I gave up on that too.

Don’t give up on auto pilot! I simply can’t imagine traveling between planets without it.

You just have to keep in mind that the auto pilot isn’t intelligent. When you activate it, it does exactly three things: it lines you up, it accelerates you, then it slows you down to a stop in front of your destination. You have to watch and be willing to interrupt it if it looks like you’re going to crash into a planet or the sun. You also have to make sure you’re reasonably far away from a planet before activating it in the first place. Once you’re there, keep a close eye on your instruments and just guide the ship in slowly until you can land.

Even if you don’t have any obstacles, the auto pilot can still rarely result in a crash in certain scenarios where the planet is orbiting directly at you. This is especially prevalent with the twin planets.

But the game is designed with crashes of all sorts in mind! Make sure to always put your suit on immediately when you first enter it on Timber Hearth. That way you can abandon the ship if necessary. There’s even a working eject button!

I hope things work out, but best of luck no matter what you end up doing!

I guess I just don’t really resonate with that idea, personally.

In Nine Sols you can turn on story mode and access sliders to adjust the combat however you want. It disables boss achievements. I’m still perfectly able to enjoy the intended experience regardless of what anyone else does.

Coming from someone who buys every fromsoft game day 1 and enjoys them thoroughly as-is, at this point I genuinely think it’s just a marketing thing. Pretty much every other game has accessibility options, and you really never see anyone complaining about it as if it somehow ruined the game for them. On the contrary, other communities are proud of the accessibility options and are glad to welcome all different types of players.