I can‘t really pinpoint one game, it‘s easier for me to list a top 5ish in no particular order (but even then I‘ll probably answer differently in a month from now when I remember games I‘m forgetting about right now). It goes something like this:
Crusader Kings III
Monster Hunter World/Wilds (the latter if it didn‘t run like shit)
Nioh 2
Rocket League (haven‘t played it in years though)
HITMAN
maybe League of Legends if it still was season 7 lol (haven‘t played that in a while either)
Counterstrike 1.6
Dark Souls II (my first soulslike that I played on release with an active online population, so I have the fondest memories of this one, DS1 and its awful PC port was nothing to make fond memories with for me)
Seems like I‘m a competitive/challenging game enjoyer, but not the „1v1 no-hit bosses“-kind, I enjoy all of these games most in coop if they support it. Overcoming challenges together is my thing.
I‘ve played 20 odd hours of the initial release version on my Deck and hadn’t hit its content cap. It ran smooth, I didn‘t encounter any bugs or crashes.
Gameplay-wise, it‘s more shallow in the farming aspect but cozier in its atmosphere compared to SDV. Personally, I had a lot of fun, probably the most in a farming sim after SDV. I loved the cast.
I‘ve read criticism that it‘s just a clone which even if true (IMO it‘s not), I don‘t think is a problem: I‘ve played so much SDV, I really needed a different flavor of farming sim (but without any extra BS) to get over the fatigue.
The initial release was already a good and competent game by its own merits, IMO. However, it’s not the second coming of farming sim Christ. This is just my 20 hours impression of the release version, it had two major updates since IIRC.
My LG OLED autoupdated through the internet last year and now VRR is broken (flickers no matter what or how stable the FPS is), only way to „fix“ it is to set the refresh rate to whatever my FPS is gonna be (most of the time) and then lock my FPS to that and hope it doesn’t dip below that too much (or it‘ll flicker). Support is as helpful as you might imagine.
So yeah, don‘t connect your TV to the internet or you‘re at the mercy of the manufacturer. Lesson learned.
Maybe unpopular opinion, but USUM is my favorite Pokemon game. The graphics were great and fitting, and it had a nice cozy feel with a banger OST.
Going from that to SwSh broke my heart. I literally just wanted a less pixelated USUM and instead they „evolved“ to that weird plastic/clay look like so many other Nintendo-close franchises…
I‘d say I‘m excited for an USUM remake in the future, but I don‘t think they‘d go with the vibrant and clean anime look anymore, and that‘d be over half my excitement gone.
I loved their last three HITMAN games, easily in my top 10 favorite games ever (the actual story portion of it, not the liveservice), so yeah, I‘m very excited.
I also wished they would‘ve not gone the liveservice route with their last HITMAN title and kept making proper entries. Have there even been new maps since the story ended? Last time I checked all they did was throw out new targets with a shallow story on - at best modified - existing maps.
That being said, I‘m so ready and excited for actual new content from them. Exploring their maps has always been so fun for me.
And I think them working on a James Bond game has been known for so long, it shouldn‘t be much longer until we see it.
I found that channel a couple weeks ago and without having much insight into the development side of games myself, I just thought their videos couldn‘t look more shady if they tried. Especially the plugging of their own company (?) and call for donations among other things left a bad taste. They should work on their presentation IMO.
I‘m planning to play Bread & Fred with a friend and get the platinum time trials even though we both kinda suck at the game, we have a backup plan with GOD EATER 3 to calm ourselves down after too many failures though LOL
I‘m trying to play We Were Here (the f2p one) with my gf but there‘s a weird choppiness to the camera when you walk around which made both of us motion sick, not sure what that‘s about.
Putting the finishing touches on Darksiders Genesis with a friend. Game was alright. My advice would be to play the game on Medium or High settings with Ultra textures. I realized too late that I could‘ve played with 50% higher framerate while the game hardly looks any different all this time lol
I also hope to figure out why the fuck I suck so much at Dorfromantik and get a bit more into the game this weekend.
Wholeheartedly agree with your take on CK3. Considering how greedy they are with their DLC policy, you‘d at least think they‘d be able to get proper multi-core optimizations into their engine so games don‘t grind to a halt lategame…
I did the Lingua Franca achievement in CK3 before mods etc. were allowed for it (essentially a world conquest challenge), and lategame was crazy slow while my CPU was snoozing.
Also it feels to me like the more DLCs they add the more forced/unpolished it gets, the features don’t fit in nicely, but that‘s just my personal opinion. Also lots of oversights in text when I last played.
It‘s a great game regardless which honestly should be pirated, or the base game bought and pirate the rest. The DLC policy is just batshit insane. Don‘t they even have a monthly DLC subscription for some games? Like fuck off lol
If you‘re eyeing NFS Unbound for that sweet 90+% discount, get Forza Horizon, The Crew 2/Motorfest or even NFS Heat instead. The effects - which most people take offense with - are probably the only thing about this game that isn’t generic and the only thing I have a positive opinion about. The car handling, the map, the story, the soundtrack, the performance, the cops - the fucking cops… Long rant short: Get a different acarde racer and don‘t waste your time with NFS Unbound. There’s a reason they’re already throwing it away for five bucks.
NFS Heat is the same shit but better, and The Crew or Forza Horizon are way better than that still.
Performance is utterly ridiculous, straightup the worst I‘ve ever experienced from a visuals vs hardware load standpoint ever. It runs almost as bad as CP2077 on ultra raytracing for me - but without any raytracing and on medium settings.
Also, try running the game at native without any upscaling or anti-aliasing; not for performance sake, but just to see what the game looks like „raw“: It‘s incredibly noisy, the upscalers have to work miracles with that input.
It is hands-down the best MH gameplay-wise though. My biggest gripes with the series (played the other entries for like 600hrs) were always how long you‘re stuck in animations and how stiff the attack animations are, often leading to missed attacks (or even finishers) because my character refuses to turn an inch to the left during a combo.
The „aim“ button fixes this completely and recovery animations don‘t seem to take ages anymore either. In World when I get hit I have time to literally put my controller down and facepalm for messing up (in Rise you can „wiredash“if you have charges), not in Wilds though.
As an LS main, I absolutely vibe with the new moves it got and the wound system is also very intuitive and accesible.
The story is pretty meh IMO as in every MH I‘ve played, they seemingly did put a lot of budget into those cutscenes though, they look good. I ended up skipping towards the end regardless, and I can’t help but feel half the cutscene budget would have been better off used for engine work.
I saw a bunch of complaints that the game‘s too easy, which I don‘t disagree with but first of all: Tempered Gore. Second of all: Wait for the expansion, the base game is always easier and then the expansion knocks our teeth out.
If I can run Wilds at a stable 60 in performance mode on high settings (should be doable on a 3080), it‘ll be in my top10 fav games ever, but since it runs like total ass, I prefer World still. This is my opinion on the game.