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Downhill Domination is… honestly stupid as all hell, but by design: it’s a lot of fun :P
It’s a downhill mountain bike racing game with a combat system, and it’s ridiculous. You start being able to punch the bicyclists next to you; once you knock enough of them off their bikes you upgrade to being able to kick; then iirc you eventually get a stick or something lol. Otherwise, it’s just another get-from-point-A-to-B-as-fast-as-possible game that doesn’t require a lot of thought.
One of the weirdest games I’ve ever played: Okage: Shadow King.
Think Final Fantasy gameplay + Zelda: Majora’s Mask level of being genuinely bizarre as all hell.
Fair warning, the music will be stuck in your head for the rest of your life.
…so grain of salt, cuz the name of this one doesn’t sound right, but the screenshots look correct: Gradius V?
Side scroller arcade-y jet fighter - I remember it being good.
I just don’t remember it being called Gradius >_<
Star Wars: Racer Revenge is probably the best racing game I’ve played to-date. It’s very similar to, and often confused with, the N64 podracing game, but it’s way more polished, and the driving physics are chef’s-kiss perfect. Like, the N64 game, the pod and two engines all move together as one unit; basically a car racing game with a pod racer skin. The PS2’s Racer Revenge actually feels like you’re in a pod that’s being pulled by two distinct engines.
Try playing in 1st-person view and set the controls (if you have a PS2 controller) so the left joystick controls the left pod and right joystick controls the right pod - so to turn left for example, you’d pull back on the left stick to brake the left pod, and push forward on the right to accelerate the right pod; since they’re tethered together, the right one arches around the left a bit, and it pulls the pod to the left. It’s harder to play that way vs the usual ‘press X to accelerate’ mechanic, but after the first couple laps you’ll have the hang of it, and it feels so satisfying.
Unfortunately, the last time I tried to run a rom of this game, it did NOT emulate well, to the point of being unplayable. That was probably at least 10 years ago though, so hopefully advancements since then mean it won’t be an issue for you; but heads up.
I mean, nowadays consoles are just a PC with glasses and a moustache… It’d be great if we moved away from physical consoles and more towards digital platforms so that the gaming industry is less fragmented.
Basically officially supported and updated roms/emulators. Or just skip that and make Nintendo and such something akin to Steam.
If Enderal isn’t on your radar yet, that is reason to buy Skyrim.
Total conversion mod that uses Skyrim’s assets to build a completely new game (lore, characters, terrain, voice acting, etc are new, and have nothing to do with the Elder Scrolls universe).
It’s crazy impressive for an indie dev crew’s passion project.
Completely free, provided you own Skyrim.
Especially in the era before just looking shit up on the internet when you hit a snag. I remember scouring levels in that looking for a path that I’d missed when I couldn’t figure out where I was supposed to go next.
Definitely a highlight of the N64 for me. It’s up there with the Zeldas in my book.
When I was a teen I played WoW from vanilla through Cata… Had over a full year of in game /played time on just my main.
…and I made a lot of alts.
100% full-blown addicted.
Blizzard is actually the one example of enshittification that I can actually be thankful for - I didn’t really ever quit; they just stopped supplying my drug of choice. They definitely had the power to keep me enthralled, but instead shifted to a younger and younger target audience as I was ofc aging the opposite direction.
The Kung-Fu-Panda xpac trailer was finally my cue to accept that my dealer wasn’t going to provide that fix anymore.
Then I started making healthy life decisions discovered Ark >_<
Edit - …Ark owned my life for a bit, too:
What did I get flipped?
Legality vs morality
Why wouldn’t torrenting the source code of proprietary software would be a legal issue?
It would be a legal issue. But it’s not a moral issue, which is why so few people are showing sympathy for Nintendo. They lose nothing if someone gets a copy of the code - there’s no victim. They do however have a LONG reputation for weaponizing the legal system by attacking fans with frivolous lawsuits - those DO have a victim, and are therefore a moral issue with Nintendo as the aggressor.
But regardless of context, again don’t conflate legality with morality. Ever. History is absolutely stuffed with atrocities that adhere to established law, that doesn’t make those atrocities okay. Videogame code is pretty minescule compared to legal attrocities like slavery or the holocost etc, but point remains that the law in-and-of-itself doesn’t mean shit.
Also fuck Nintendo.
Yeah those microtransactions didn’t lead to gambling, they are gambling.
Gambling aimed at minors via that lootbox shit was a thing even before videogames - earliest example I’m aware of are baseball cards. Our failure to legislate that shit into the grave at day 1 is why we’re in this situation now.
Iirc (edit - apparently incorrect) Halo was the first to use left joystick as forward/backward and left/right strafe; and right joystick as look up/down and pivot left/right.
I even recall articles counting it as a point against the game due to its ‘awkward controls’ …but apparently after a tiny learning curve, the entire community/industry got on board.
Blind Guardian is pretty hit-and-miss: their shit lands somewhere on a spectrum of metal to renaissance-faire lol. Sacred Worlds is another one of my favorites.
All of Metallica’s S&M album is solid fucking gold, but the best (imo) song from it almost never gets the spotlight, so it’s tragically easy to miss: No Leaf Clover
Avenged Sevenfold isn’t symphonic metal, but they’ve got two songs that at least dip their toes in that water: The Stage, and Little Piece of Heaven.
Epica
If you know Epica you’re probably already familiar with Nightwish, but in case your not… well, Nightwish. Most of their music is more similar to Omega than the one I’m about to link, but this specific song is just so fucking weird, I love it: Scaretale. Definitely check out their other songs too!
Essence of Datum / Naxayras
You’d probably like Pelican - kind of ambient rock. Or Russian Circles, which is similar but more mellow.
Mohamed Shawky
Not familiar, and the only Mohamed Shawky’s I’m seeing on YouTube are a physicist and an athlete. Judging entirely by the name, I’m guessing it’s got some Arabic vibes, and the best I’ve got there is the first one I linked, Wheel of Time, mostly because of the intro… Antti Martikainen has some Arabic sounding songs - that dude’s music is ALL over the place… I recall one being a kind of Arabic metal that I could have SWORN was called “Ancient Worlds” but searching that isn’t coming up with anything. He does have Arabic hybrid sci-fi music lol. Skim that dude’s channel, and brace for a musical roller coaster.
Rivers of Nihil
Hmm, maybe try Lorna Shore, especially Pain Remains. Lorna Shore is WAY too throaty-howler-monkey-shit for me personally, but fortunately they’ve got instrumental versions too.
Nice mix of metal and violin.
Juuuuust in case you’re not already familiar with symphonic metal… It’s pretty fuckin great.
HyperX Cloud Alpha is the most comfortable I’ve used - could wear those all day, no pressure points. Sound quality is fantastic, largely due to the closed-back design.
And if you’re not already familiar with the difference between open- and closed-back headphones, definitely learn it! Something not often discussed in headset articles is how YOU sound when wearing them. It’s a bit weird to describe, but you ofc hear yourself when you speak, and something that alters how you’re supposed to sound can be jarring as fuck.
The you sound when you speak without having anything on your head or in your ears, would be most comparable to open-back headphones.
If you plug your ears and then speak, you’ll sound weird, and hearing yourself sound weird can make speaking feel weird.
…idk if I’m doing a good job putting this to words. For real, just stick your fingers in your ears and start saying a few sentences, you’ll hear what I mean.
I did NOT know the difference when I got my HyperX’s, and it took a while to get used to speaking with them on. Had I known the difference, I probably would have looked for an open-back model instead. I love em now, but again it did take a bit to get there.
I’ll update with links when I’m on my comp next (mobile now), but a few off the top of my head:
Portal 1 and 2. It’s so popular that it doesn’t seem like it even can be ‘unique’, but the game play really is one of a kind, and it’s pretty great.
Enderal - total conversion mod for Skyrim, but in the steam store as it’s own game. It’s got familiar combat and game mechanics, but the antagonists aren’t your typical big-bad-evil-guy, but things like emotions, mental states, and philosophies. Somehow they managed to work that kind of content into a fantasy RPG… it’s a fucking masterpiece, and it’s free if you have Skyrim in your library already (it uses Skyrim’s assets and engine, but is not related to Elder Scrolls in any way).
Zelda Majora’s Mask, for the N64. This game is fucking weird, even by the Zelda franchise’s standards. Every scene is bizarre in a way that other games haven’t hit before or since Zelda MJ. It’s built around the Kübler-Ross 5 stages of grief; it never draws attention to that, but guides you through them beautifully.
Secret World Legends. Technically an MMO, but treat it like a single player RPG - the MMO elements are shit. This game will have you running all over the globe to basically do Men In Black shit, but instead of aliens, it’s occult weirdness, and things like urban legends that turn out to be true. Heavy Lovecraftian influence. One of the more challenging parts of the game are investigative missions, which I’d encourage you to give a solid effort before turning to the web for answers. The objectives can be something like “investigate the murder of John Doe” …and that’s it. You have to tackle it the same way you would IRL, so you’d go to places that make sense like a police station or town hall. It doesn’t tell you, which makes it probably the most intellectually challenging games I’ve ever played. If you dive in, you’ll need to choose a faction when you make your character: and trust me in this, choose Illuminati. The story writing is way better than the other two for their faction-specific missions; and the rest of the game doesn’t change by faction (you’ll be in the same zones, grouping and working together with players in other factions; there’s just a few off-shoots of solo faction story time)
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Meh, fuck canon. It’s all fiction, who cares what Disney says is the ‘real’ fiction vs not?
That universe can house some incredibly good or incredibly stupid content - no reason to judge the good by the existence of the stupid. Same applies to the universe we live in, tbh.