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I’m on the Distant Worlds 3 expedition. I’ve been relying on the carrier shuttling to keep pace. I wanted to try flying myself form waypoint 12 to 13. Something like 8,000ly in a week. I’m still heading to my second POI along the way, 4kly from wp 12, 4kly to poi 2, and then it’s another 4kly to wp 13. I’ve been going 7 days out of 10 available before they go to wp 14. They’re all undiscovered systems so it’s hard to convince myself to just honk and scan and leave without at least mapping bio signs… For science. And just like that, it became a family road trip “vacation”
I’m no noob, either. 1300 hours and several of prior 5-10kly exploration trips. 50ly jump range and the neeeeed to scan
Sometimes I feel similarly about Elite: Dangerous. Disclaimer: I haven’t played NMS because E:D gets all my spacetime tokens and I’m fine with that. “Community goals” (high payout limited time events) get me to play because it gives me purpose for a week. For the most part though, I like coming to it for an hour or two when I want to take a break from story-laden games. Hunt pirates for an hour, fly out of inhabited space and explore for an hour (well, an hour out, an hour there per session, an hour back next time), or just chill with music and asteroid mining.
So I do wish there was a plot at times, but I do appreciate it for mixing up the routine with simple cruising
This ain’t quite what you’re asking about, but I think this is an underlying factor. I’m guessing you’re in your 20s. It’s not an exact age bracket, as life can make this happen earlier or later.
Games change over time. So do your responsibilities. The market is bigger than ever. You likely have less time than ever. You’re struggling to get into the hype and lore of an unfamiliar game with a community divided among other hot titles while, presumably, working full time, commuting, making food, cleaning, laundry, exercise, and doomscroll loops. To add onto it, so many games are artificially demanding attention by way of limited time events.
I have a few comfort games. I have a few long term campaign games pinned at a time. I have a couple new games pinned at a time. While that applies to PC and console, I also keep about 4 discs sitting at my console at a time. Narrowing down a large library to just ~8 on hand makes it easier to get into something for an extended length of time. Even if it’s been sitting for years, pinning it helps remind me. It helps me get into the lore and enjoy the game more when I’m not spending 30 minutes deciding how to best spend my time, then getting too late for proper immersion in the hour left.
Don’t feel bad playing a game that’s not right, not the best use of time, not the hottest, part of the “game industry problem” as defined by random commenters, whatever. Just play. I may be bummed I haven’t finished some 2015 era campaign yet, but at least I’m not bummed I sat and did nothing if I manage to get some game time.
I bet a dollar you live more than an hour from most stables. It’s like skiing. It’s a luxurious hobby at its base. If you’re local, it’s not that big a deal and lots of neighbors are into. If you have to travel to maintain the hobby and you do, in fact, maintain it, you’re either very dedicated or very well off.
I thought it was a clever take on why isolationism leads to theories and assumptions about everyone else. The rangers are isolated and created their own paranoia. Obviously, they couldn’t readily get more information, so it’s not their fault for being in the dark.
The only thing I specifically didn’t like about the ending was how this whole manifesto of sorts was presented. I get that it gives closure on the writer’s intended narrative, but it admits a lot of legal guilt for the antagonist.
Fortnite Save the World (paid game mode) made a lot of vbucks originally, but the high-payout challenges (300 vbucks/day) are only available to players who owned that mode prior to some time in 2020. Buying STW now gives a one time pack of 1500 vbucks. So the alternative, given that the vast majority of players didn’t buy the game, play for free in Bottle Royale. It takes 4 seasons to gain enough free vbucks in battle Royale to have enough to buy a season pass. It’s 1000 for the pass and typically has 300 free vbucks (100 near the bottom, 200 around level 80). So then you’re talking like 40 hours of play per season, with strong encouragement to play daily for an easy +1 level. The actual skins are typically paywalled behind the battle pass.
Then there’s the shop. Buying separate skins are anywhere from like 500 to 2000 vbucks. If it’s a full season, there’s probably an extra 500 vbucks available if you hit level 150 or so. So now like 60 hours every 2-3 months to get the free 500 to accumulate after the battle pass renewal.
That’s not sustainable. It’s not supposed to be. Skins are nowhere near “affordable” with free bucks. They don’t care if it’s your money or your game time that makes the vbucks because it’s time and/or money taken from other games. So what if it’s their limited money? What exactly did you invest in as a kid? All I put it towards was, effectively, entertainment that didn’t last longer as a skin, be it a game, a toy, or candy. Maybe even less, given that fortnite has been running for what, 9 years?
And no, I really don’t give a shit about any complaints about them just being cosmetic skins. They’re kids. I’m sure you had your brand name demands when you were 12. It’s the same shit. Vans are just shoes. Mongoose is just a bicycle. Air jordans are just shoes. JNCO is just pants. Air Forces are just shoes. Louisville slugger is just a bat. Whatever must-have item it was, it didn’t make either of us professionals at the game or sport. Yet, somehow, it still was the most important thing that week.
I quit around 2019 because I just didn’t stand a chance anymore. I’d place 2 walls and a ramp in the time it took most top-25 players to build a small castle with a wine cellar, jacuzzi, and escalator (or so it felt). I can’t keep up with these goddamn Ritalin-riddled kids.
It always cracks me up when my go-to move (in zero build) is to just stand still when it gets to close quarters. They start jumping like a cracked out kangaroo and miss shot after shot. I only do pitch/yaw and some sideways strafe, no jumping. It lets me use my Ps1/Ps2 era PvE experience.
Fortnite. No story to catch up on, no true goals besides winning, no long-term strategizing. I’m sure PUBG is the same/better, but my SO is entertained by the cartoonish nature of FN. It brings us excitement when I’m close to winning. With the introduction of zero build, I fair well. I used to feel more guilt for it being a “bad” game and for not giving time to the betrer story/campaign titles, bur you know what? I’m tired and my time is limited as an actual adult. I’ll take my dopamine where I can get it, thank you.
I’m replaying Ace Combat 7 right now. I can’t believe how bad the writing is. I played it in 2020 and had a grand time with probably 6 runs for the various achievements. Turns out, I remember basically nothing of the story. It’s definitely amusing to revisit the AI story aspects now that “AI” is in full swing. I guess AC5 set my standard for AC stories, but maybe that doesn’t hold up well either. Regardless, I’m in it for the fun, respectable flight physics. Just don’t ask me where I keep 144 missiles stored.
I played AC: Rogue most recently. Its the first time I refused to 100% the missions and, for the most part, skipped collectibles. I started off going for everything and was struggling to enjoy it and didn’t feel motivated to play it. Granted, Rogue is a weak game in the series (alternate dev), but I still wanted the story (even though the script and voice acting was laughable at points).
I 100%d the missions and got 90%+ collectibles (in this order) in Unity, Syndicate, Origins, Odyssey, and IV prior to that. It was kinda nice to be free and and pin myself in side-quest-purgatory at 90% mission completion to not “end the game too soon”.
That was a good time for the story portion of the Ubisoft formula. 360-era and early One-era Assin and Far Cry games did a lot to make you question your own morality while not giving you a clear “good guy” ending. I only played a little of AC3 and I guess AC4 wasn’t that deep on the topic. FC2 had you aiding opposing factions in a foreign conflict and manages to make you, potentially, sympathetic to the Jackal at the end. FC3 kinda saves it for the ending when you realize the fantasy mass-killer hero life is incompatible normal life. FC4 has you actively watching competing revolutionaries advance with different drastic flawsgiving validity to Min’s dictatorship. ACU gives a strong case for the Templars while giving you such a hollow ending. I’d say ACOri also has a hollow ending, though the baddies are shallow along the way. .
I can’t recall any major moral conflicts in ACOdy (played 2020) and they definitely went light in FC6 (played 2024, dictator makes the country money with drugs but gives nothing back to the people). Haven’t played anything later.
This week marks 10 years with my Xbox One Forza Motorsport 6 edition. I was thinking that’s a good mile marker to admit it’s struggling under modern games and upgrade to a disc XSX. Guess I won’t expect any cool discounts this holiday. Probably just discounted to the prior price.
I really like the blue console/controller with racing stripes and car sounds, so it’s a shame they haven’t matched that. Part of the reason I didn’t want to replace it yet
I can appreciate the personal part you added regarding losing faith. I left catholicism in my teens. Too many inconsistencies, too much abuse of power. It started by questioning how multiple christianities could have such different rules, followed by learning how most religion is abrahamic and even more diverse in interpretation, to finally saying fuck all this.
I got FC5 in 2020 and it became hard to stomach. It felt like a real potential reality of the US that year. Cults, vehement religious figures, gun fetish, and a classic Americana setting. The prior titles were all far away, imaginary lands offering even a small degree of dissociation. FC5 was just home. I’d relate it to Harry Potter villains in the sense that yeah, of course we know Voldemort is evil, but Umbridge is the most hated character. Not because she’s worse, but because we know a real-life Umbridge personally.
FC6 hit me kinda hard in a similar way. I got into it about a year ago, not long after the israel/Palestine conflict flared up. There’s a ton of genocidal themes there.
The Far Cry games pretty much always allow a sniper and/or stealth option. Some of the scripted mission sequences can be fast paced, but it’s largely open world. If you’re not familiar with them, stick to the games with numbers in the titles for starters. Probably not 6. Maybe not 2 this day and age. 3-6 all exist with a particular style in mind.
Unless you’re anti ubisoft
Idk, maybe I’m the one who phased out of cup stacking by being old. But still, we can’t be that far off from when explaining cup stacking will sound like how I feel about pole sitting.
Skrillex is sort of the face of mainstreamed dubstep. I just learned his subgenre is brostep. The work that came before him was… Gritty. Close to the Key & Peele skit. The FC3 song is closer to common EDM.
Sierra Leone by Mt Eden is probably what I’d use as an example of the best of traditional dubstep
4 is very similar to 3, in my opinion. It generally ranks lower than 3, but I’d attribute that to 3 defining expectations and 4 meeting expectations rather than pulling another groundbreaking move. 3 shared some notable elements with 2 but refined the direction of FC. 2 doesn’t have magic and FC enjoyers begroaned 3’s supernatural element, but here we are.
5 removed the supernatural element and got some mixed feelings. I’d put some of that on the fact that they brought the white American savior trope home to America. Instead of a foreign land under a whimsical authoritarian regime the West likes to go to war with, it’s a religious cult in classic Americana rural towns. It’s like changing from 1990s Batman movies to the Nolan trilogy. Gritty, more realistic, closer to historical fiction than fantasy. It harks back to the 1993 Waco Massacre.
I’ve played 6 on and off over the last few years. I read lots of hate but still enjoyed it. It’s in Cuba, so it was back to being a far-off fantasy for me, with lots of story rooted in the 1960s revolution (though the game is present day). That is until the Gaza war flared up. Suddenly the game got uncomfortable for me. You play as a terrorist group fighting the military. That’s not exactly different from 4. Sure, if you win, it’s a revolution, but if you lose, historical speaking, the winners call it terrorism. I suppose the story could be considered weaker, but it’s a change up. Instead of basing the story on you vs the big bad, it’s rooted more in the friends you make along the way. You’re building a revolution as one faction gathering 3 more.
There’s also 3 half-games. Between the main titles, half of the prior maps for alternate experiments. I’d wait for all the titles to be discounted but would say the halfsies need to be discounted more. Granted, they’re probably all regularly under $20 now anyway.
After 3 came Blood Dragon, using one of the islands for an over the top 1980s synthwave action comedy. It has corny 80s moves in lieu of superpowers. It’s fun.
After 4 came Primal, a prehistoric version of the FC formula. I think it’s neat that they developed a proto-proto-indo-european language for a 10,000BC setting. Spears, slings, clubs, and knives are the weapons here with some grenade-like items. There’s spiritual elements resembling living a mythology. It’s also fun.
After 5, New Dawn is actually a continuation of the story. A quasi-Fallout/Mad Max post-nuke-apocalypse world in which Joseph Seed still lives - and becomes an ally. I think it brought in supernatural powers from nuclear stuff. Probably my least favorite of the 3, but still enjoyable. It also introduced a number of the elements people begroaned in 6, so maybe that’s why I don’t mind 6 as much.
I’m surprised there hasn’t been a halfsies between 6 and, presumably, an upcoming 7. 6 does have some extra story (dlc?) that has you relive parts of the prior titles. I haven’t done them nor read about them much so I can experience them myself.
Make it Bun Dem by Skrillex and Damien Marley
I’m glad you enjoyed the song. I don’t know your age, but seeing that screenshot made me realize how hard it’d be to explain the popularity of dubstep and, in particular, Skrillex to anyone who wasn’t there. Same goes for the immortalization of the “oh my god!” featured in Nice Sprites and Scary Monsters, screamed by the girl who stacked cups in record time. Or stacking cups. This feels like the making of an “onion tied to my belt” type of rambling story. I imagine most of this platform was there for dubstep and that the young adults today had way more internet access than I did as a kid, so it’s probably not even unknown yet.
The song shuffles into my playlist sometimes and takes me back to both that game moment and the generalized memory of blasting that from my ipod nano into my grandpa’s handmedown Ford Taurus with the headphone wire I hardwired into the cassette deck. If you think dubstep sounds bad now, I made it sound worse.
What a coincidence. I looked up the Key & Peele skit about dubstep. My exact generation of Taurus is involved, identified by the circular rear window. The skit is worth it on its own, of course
FC3 was the first to make drug trips part of story progression (leaving a little leeway for FC2’s malaria bouts). FC4 had a lot of “spiritual” events. FC5 played a lot with Bliss trips. I’m wrapping up FC6 now and was just saying “man, where are all the hallucinatory story arcs?”. Then I did the Oluso mission (panther amigo) and felt at home for a minute. It didn’t last long, but I guess the reward is bringing back a little supernatural power to the game, late in the campaign.
How would you describe the driving mechanics? I tried NFS Heat to feel that retro night vibe, but the mechanics were atrocious in my opinion. They’re too arcadey. Forza Horizon has become my standard for a balance between realistic (predictable) mechanics without punishing me for every mistake. I don’t mind Forza Motorsports but I’m more interested in cruising and racing stylistic cars more than perfecting lap times.
Is it open world? Japan and JDM aren’t that big in my automotive enthusiasm scale but there’s something deeply nostalgic when I can ride through some highway lights, virtual or real, that resemble the Japan track from Gean Turismo 1 or 2
I’ve played Far Cry 2 through most of 6. If you don’t recognize particular references, there’s nothing that makes them substantial otherwise in the sea of creative, humorous descriptions of everyone/everything else.
I would say it’s similar with assassin’s creed, keeping it in the family of “ubisoft series gamers love to shit on”. The references are in the same style as other database entries, so you’re not missing anything if you’re unfamiliar. I’ve played 4 through Odyssey.
I’m trying to think of other series and keep landing on the same reasoning, actually. Yeah, I love having more basis for the lore in other series, but I don’t feel I’m missing much without every reference. I mean, Ace Combat was my personality for a few months when 7 came out, prompting me to replay 4 and 5 and buy Zero and 6. As others have said, the main thing is if you do choose to go backwards, things get clunky for both general game and specific series development reasons. Assin 4 was my most recent AC (tried 3, beat Unity>Ody, then beat 4) and man, parkour is tough. I gave up on 3 because it was so awkward and I was too old to learn at the elder age of like 23.
I gotta say though, Forza Horizon 1 remains my favorite. There’s certainly some nostalgia tied to it because it set me up for impossible expectations in the car community (especially now in the post-covid takeover bullshit). It had a more concise campaign and had some story attached to it. I’m up to 4 and it just drops me in like “this is just what you do now” and every race unlocks 4 more races with no end in sight.
Ace Combat 4 and 5 both made me feel awesome, then sad, then vengeful, and then awesome in their campaigns. They start as casual arcade styles, throw in some grief, grow the antagonists’ justification, then the skies start speaking Latin and you systematically destroy some megabase. I was fairly young, so now sad Spanish guitar riffs cause me grief when thinking about Yellow 4 and 13. Is that joy? The memory of a fairly casual arcade game weaving in a heartfelt tragic war story?
At risk of making this my only personality trait, Far Cry 2’s desert at night was a treat for me. I seek out similar experiences in real life now. It didn’t necessarily create that desire, but it was my first open world game, if I remember correctly. It didn’t make me jump for joy, it just made me feel serene.
I’m sure it was driven by the memes, but Portal 1 gave me a great sense of accomplishment. It was mild reaction skill with some decent logic puzzles. The build up, the turn, the fight, the final song. Quite a trip.
Overall most joy might go to Forza Horizon 1. First open world Forza title, first (for me?) open world racing game with decent driving mechanics, excellent variety of cars, hit me at my peak interest in house music and other EDM, showed me Colorado scenery I’d see IRL 10 years later, and the campaign was focused around the Woodstock of a [cars X EDM] festival. I wish that was real and I wish the scene would be respectful. But, unfortunately, you can’t control 300 drivers and prevent them from one-upping each other and making it dangerous and disrespectful. And you gotta pay for parking everywhere nice. See: h2o, ocean city Maryland.
Elite Dangerous at about 1300 hours. I do wonder if anything from the ps2 days beats that, with more time and fewer games, but I doubt it. Been playing for 6 years