Getting to the top of the mountain in Celeste. It may not be the hardest challenge in the game (screw you Farewell), but just arriving there with the soundtrack swelling felt so good.

Completing the golden path in Tunic.

Any number of silly things in FFXI that at the time probably felt immensely important.

I played it and Blue Shift way back when. I don’t have a lot of specific memories of the levels or story. At the time I was just happy to have more Half-Life to play, and I enjoyed it.

Oh wow. I played the hell out of this game as a kid. Knew it from the thumbnail immediately.

The last game I recall breaking out pen and paper for was Tunic. You can definitely beat the story without, but the later puzzles call for it.

Heyyyy, high five! I’m not sure what my XI playtime is at offhand but I know it could be measured in years.

Yes, I almost posted this same line!

I still use Left 4 Dead’s “pills here!” any time I’m dealing with medication. It’s an involuntary reflex at this point.

Also not really a line but the intonation of Chadley calling out “Cloud!” when he starts a conversation is seared into my psyche. Kind of like a modern version Navi’s “hey!”

Was curious what combat 2.0 meant.

Sticky Combo Points: The gist of it here is that Combo Points now remain after battle, giving combo moves a lot more use overall

This feels like a good change. I always felt like combos didn’t get much use outside of boss fights due to them resetting every battle. I’m not sure this entirely fixes the other problem wherein I almost exclusively used Mending Light, however.

Agreed. There was a fantastic time for mobile games before things went downhill.

I have a strong memory of being in an apple store, finding a display iPad, and becoming enraptured by Plants vs Zombies. I would eventually get my own and put dozens and dozens of hours into the game.

Then EA took it over and turned it into trash.

I feel like I could have some fun with a remake of Descent 1 and 2.

I remember looking at the rows of PC game boxes at the store and being very curious about Myst. But for some reason I never asked my parents for it. I guess maybe since I didn’t really have any idea what it was, it just felt like something out of reach.

I love “artsy puzzle games” now, so I feel like that would have been a pretty cool experience for me way back then!

+1 for sea of thieves.

I had a bad feeling when I saw another developer had picked it up. This sounds worse than I imagined.

Oh that’s very interesting! I will keep this in mind as something to try.

You got the answer right there, it’s cross play. When you have child in the family who wants to play Minecraft on their iPad, and a parent who would like to join in on their Mac, you just can’t do it. And that stinks.

It also feels like relatively low-hanging fruit from a development perspective.

At this price I’m so glad I decided to go for a slim instead of holding out for the pro. Absolutely no way.

I still want to see bedrock on the mac. 😔

I loved Control, but I’m feeling kinda meh about a TV show. If it does happen I’ll keep an open mind and check it out.

Absolutely looking forward to Control 2 however.

Agreeing with all these comments. The game started off really strong in my opinion, but it falls flat very hard after a certain point. Both from a writing perspective and in the combat variety.

The interrupts were interesting to me because I hadn’t seen a mechanic quite like that before. But I suppose it’s true that once you see an enemy charging up there is essentially just one “correct” choice to make, which limits what choices you actually have and puts you on a rail.

Sooooo many moonerangs. That was a big complaint of mine as well. The combat doesn’t really evolve much.

Hmmm maybe I should revisit this game. I got about 3/4 of the way and kinda ran out of steam on it.

I don’t know what game first came up with it, but Super Mario RPG was the first time I saw timed hits for attack and defense in a JRPG. While the mechanic isn’t exactly ubiquitous it has popped up in a handful of other games over the years and it always reminds me of that game.

I’ve played a fair amount of both but to be fair never competitively. Like for example I played tons of Warcraft 2 and 3 with friends at LAN parties. But these days I’m more likely to be drawn to a single player turn based game like XCOM, Civ, or FF Tactics style games.

Yeaaah, kinda seems like people just didn’t want a remastered Braid.

2024 game of the year candidate.

I keep thinking back to years ago when someone at work tried to tell me this guy was good and I could just tell on vibes alone to stay clear.

In retrospect yeah. I was very excited just to see a trailer at all. After sitting with it for a while I’m kinda like, that’s it? To me it looks exactly like the recent Metroid Prime remaster (which to be fair I did really like).

I wonder if the reveal of the big baddie was intended to carry more weight than it ultimately did.

Still amped for this game anyway.

I love the aesthetic of this. I played the white label version back when it came out and then kinda forgot it existed till now. I’m not always big on rhythm games so I’m not yet sure if this will be for me. But I can already tell the OST is gonna rip.

Nice. I had this on my list already, this just makes me want it more. I’ll probably wait for a full release though.

Haven’t had a chance to play this patch yet, but I’ll say I’m impressed at how much they are reworking already. Even going so far as to throw out certain hammers for example.

I attempted Trial of Haste pre-patch and quickly realized I stood no chance, neat to see that being adjusted.

Vow of Forsaking got the nerf treatment. Probably for the best.

There was a time in my life when my friends and I played a whole lot of Halo, particularly Halo 2 and 3. I never played online but we would have essentially LAN parties where multiple people lugged over their TVs and consoles and play for hours. It was a blast. In college Halo was the de facto way to spend Friday night if nothing else was going on.

Strangely enough though I feel no desire to go back to that.

Oh hi! I played XI from release until recently (with some breaks). IMHO the original story (basically up to Rank 6 where you defeat the Shadow Lord) is fine, but it’s really more of a prelude and setting up the stakes. If you stop there it’s not really worth your time.

Rise of the Zilart and Chains of Promathia (+ optionally Apocalypse Nigh) are pretty good from a story perspective. These can be completed solo. This is what I’d recommend playing through to anyone interested in the real story.

From there it’s somewhat diminishing returns. Treasures and Wings add some interesting bits to the lore. Rhapsody is actually great but will take a lot of time and effort and is probably only worth it to a die hard fan.

Played about 5 hours tonight and I’m loving it. I wasn’t sure how much content to expect for early access but this is more than I would have guessed. The combat feels really really good. Charging your abilities with mana starts to feel better once you build up some regen on it and you can use it more freely. It took me a minute to nail how to aim the long charged special but now it’s one of my faves to spam.

A few little surprises have happened that made me grin really big as a big Hades 1 fan as well. I did not play EA last time around but I decided this time I want to be a part of that experience and see how the game evolves.

I think it’s 100% that steam makes so much money on its own. Valve stopped being a game developer once steam really took off and became the behemoth it is. Valve is in the e-commerce business, period.

I loved Alyx too for what it’s worth but my expectations for the future are dim.

Oh wow. I remember a friend being into this forever ago. Had no idea it was still in early access. That’s nuts!

Signed up immediately, not sure how many are gonna be let in though so trying not to get my hopes up. Cannot wait for this game!

I also only had time for one episode so far but I dug it. Felt like they really nailed the vibe. I am loving our three main characters too.

I’m not a huge fan of gore but the violence here felt on par with the game and a little bit slapstick in a way that for me made it less gross and more silly.

I’m excited to watch more soon!

Coming back to revise my answer. It’s definitely FF7 Chadley.

Ah of course, what was I thinking? 😅

Oh man, I love the Stanley Parable! I shudder to think what the collectors stuff will cost, but damn if the “Jim” button isn’t tempting. Also delighted at the cassette tape option.