I love the Army Men games as a flawed but nostalgic childhood series and I’ve loved the idea of it ever since

Army Men Sarge’s Heroes has two Christmas levels, but the last one is the final boss where you fight a dreaded poodle. It’s flawed but I usually dust it off and give it a play. The Mean Greens also has a neat toy train level.

I was super stoked when Rising Storm 2 had their christmas event come out in 2018. It was a great mix of serious and fun gameplay with the army men concept done with a level of polish I’ve never seen. Before the game died out I had a ton of fun for several christmasses!

I have fond ptsd memories of being a radioman following the green faction commander around as he calls in artillery strikes. We got pinned down behind some legos. The game mode keeps all the base game sound effects so when the commander peeked out and took a hit I got to listen to the long agonising death sounds while fighting for a kid’s craft table lol

Completely unrelated but Hitman is also a go to. The Paris christmas level is amazingly well decorated

The Long Dark is not for everyone but for me it’s awesome

Of all the ones they showed somehow the MLB game bit hit me hardest

MLB 99 and Knockout Kings were two of the coolest sports games my dad played when I was a kid

Yup just tried it! That’s great!

Wait WHAT?

Oh man I think you’re going to like it! ghostrecon.net should still have it. Give it a shot for a few missions and see what you like/dislike.

Then go into the Ghost Recon mod folder, Heroes Unleashed, XTRAS, HU Add-On Mods.

Extract the ones you want to try into the main mod folder for Ghost Recon and activate them in the game’s mod screen.

Yeah it took a minute to get used to that save system and I have been burned a few times. Sometimes I would take advantage of the “save and quit” option instead of using one of the drink saves. Or take a nap on some rando’s bed for an hour!

It does get better as you go everything is a lot harder at the early levels. Once you get some armor, a horse and some practice fights in it goes a lot smoother. And running away is always an option

Shadows of Doubt! Its this sci fi noire game where you play as a cop that became a private eye detective. Their police force was replaced with privatized “enforcers” that uphold the policy of the new corporate government.

You solve crimes the enforcers won’t and take on side jobs to stay alive, upgrade your apartment and build enough social credit to retire to “the fields”- a suspiciously utopian retriement zone far away from the grime, storms and thick smog of the city.

This is an immersive sim. Kind of like a procedurally generated Deus Ex. You can interact with a lot of stuff turn on sinks, open cabinets, read email and newspapers, eat food, watch tv and drink alcohol until you can barely stand.

When it comes to solving crime you can sift through camera footage, take fingerprints, crawl through air ducts, ask people for information, hack into govt databases and more. You put all of the clues on a big conspiracy board in the menu until you find the murderer and bring them in…before they kill again.

Stardew Valley and Kingdom Come Deliverance are the two big ones at the moment. I’ve played both a bit at a time for a while now.

Stardew Valley needs little introduction. It’s a beautiful gem of an indie game. I’m in fall of year two and just getting used to married life and making that sweet sweet gold making wine and jelly.

Kingdom Come Deliverance is an awesome RPG in a non-fantasy medieval setting. You’re the son of a blacksmith and your town is burned by a massive army leaving you a refugee seeking to avenge your parents. You’re no war hero or chosen one, just a man trying to find his place in the beautiful but uncertain world…and maybe learn to read while he’s at it

Not pre 2010 but Shadows of Doubt is worth a mention. You are a former cop turned private eye, solving crimes in a procedually generated city trying to make ends meet. You pick locks, hack emails, use air vents and “Jensen your way in” to chase leads, collect evidence and bring justice that the megacorporation government won’t.

It’s far from perfect but is the best “Deus Ex 1 we have at home” I’ve seen.

That’s sad, I’ve only played Shadow Tactics but if that’s any indication of the rest of their work they were a good studio. I hope they keep that up wherever they find themselves in the future

I go back and forth depending on the game. Original Ghost Recon or X-Com I tend to just roll with the punches and try to learn from my mistakes. But I was perfectly fine with save scumming this game in most situations where the enemy gets alerted

Ooh I’ll look into it!

I played on easy and I’m working through the Aiko’s Choice DLC on normal. The quick save/load lives up to it’s name though! I have a feeling that Commandos games will be a bit more…archaic

Running with Rifles, Ravenfield, Arma/Operation Flashpoint, Foxhole, This War of Mine, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Intravenous, Rimworld etc are ones I can think of. I hope you find what you’re looking for!

Yes the randomness is crazy! I hear Ready or Not is essentially a modern take on Swat style gameplay but I haven’t tried it yet

You know what they’ve been sitting in my library forever. I’m gonna give them a try

The Deus Ex series is good at this. Instead on having a big vast game world they have a condensed area filled with tons of details used for storytelling. You can go into a lot of places like apartments and it says a lot about who lives there. How well kept everything is, what posters they have, the station the radio was on, the stuff in their nightstand etc.

SWAT 4 also does a great job with the environments. One memorable level is where you are trying to arrest a suspected serial killer. When you approach the house everything seems…underwhelmingly okay and the mom pleads with you to not take her son because there’s clearly a mistake. As you clear more rooms things get messier with some traps and blocked doors among the clutter making it a claustrophobic and dangerous maze. Eventually you find rooms dug out from the basement with a girl who had been missing for a long time as well as makeshift torture rooms and plans to capture and kill more. It’s just a slow descent into their madness and it’s quite the experience to play.

That’s a good one I played it quite a bit!

I played a toooon of Sarge’s Heroes 2 on PS2. My next favourites are RTS and PS1 Air Attack

lol the South American road trip simulator (jk, mostly)

Axis and Allies was a board game too I think?

There was a very basic free version with block men models. There’s definitely has been a lot of stuff added and changed since then

I only got to truly experience Red Alert recently with the remake. My first taste of it was on PS1, and I remember it being pretty clunky. Come to think of it that was the first RTS I ever played

Mine was the PS2. Ratchet and Clank, Ace Combat and Metal Gear Solid were my favorites