Agreed and Starfield wasn’t even that bad. I just don’t have any time to play a mediocre game when BG3 is sitting right there.

Maybe it’s just me getting older, but since Skyrim, Bethesda games have failed to capture that magic for me. They’ve been leaning on the creation engine for too long, to the point that so many of the features, not the least of which being the goddamn shouts, are all carbon copies of one another, the base building is literally just a fucking resource sink, the gunplay sucks and the enemies are all bullet sponges unless you dip into late game planets and filch a late game gun, the jobs are 90% basic bitch fetch quests, and the core gameplay loop of “go place --> grab shit --> sell shit” has not evolved since Morrowind.

I stop playing games when they start feeling like a second job, and for me that point in Starfield was about three hours in when I was trying to complete survey data for the homesteading program and I was wandering around this deserted planet, looking for samples of flora and fauna, and I scoot back from my desk as I realize, for 20 minutes, I have done absolutely nothing meaningful or engaging. The closest I’ve come is, I’ve pointed a scanner at a bunch of procedurally generated animals hoping they don’t land a hit on me because they’re too spongy for me to kill, so I can fill a meter, so that when I’m done filling meters I can go back to BDG and tell him this place is suitable for people to live. That’s not fun. It barely qualifies as gameplay, and it is an aggressive waste of time.

I treat Deep Rock the same way I treat rogueli*es and arcade-style games – I can just hop on when I’m in the “dwarf mood”, play one or two missions and be done with it for the day. It’s very good for short sessions like that. Also, you can play solo no problem – you get a drone instead that can mine and shoot things.

Also, TF2 community servers FTW

Ayy someone else who’s been enjoying Against the Storm.

A fellow Xbox gamepass User IT seems. Pentiment is one of my All Time favorites (probably top3 at least)

This was after my First playthrough. Now, with George putting out his video, im back in. My god, its marvellous.

Hifi Rush was great, but felt too formulaic for me, so i abandoned it after the first or second Boss. Too much running arpund, No real banger music between Bosses.

On a Side Note, its kinda similiar too with Lies of Pi. I can See the great soulslike It is (3/4 in) but my interest vanishes. Too many repetitive encounters. Too linear. I feel Like Elden Ring really innovated the genre through its semi Open world approach.

I liked Peglin but after a while it feels like the game is really unbalanced with too few useful builds.

I liked Deep Rock. I started playing it during the pandemic with some friends instead of doing in-person board games (and Jackbox and boardgame simulators got old). I definitely ended up playing more single player than multiplayer. Buuut I probably haven’t played it in a year? It just got really samey after getting through a lot of leveling up and unlocks.

Every other game Riot releases outside of League is better than League.

Mageseeker is my top choice by them this year.

100h is not a stinker game playtime but I see what you mean :))

I loved every other Diablo and went hard on 4. Then one day I just put the controller down and never picked it back up. I might play more later, but I’m so tired of games that are just nakedly obvious about being nothing but a grind and a job. I wasted so much money getting PSPlus for just this game. All told I spent about $150 on this and the only thing of value I got was a few hours playing with some old friends who also stopped playing and made me realize I wasn’t getting anything else out of it.

I’ve played a hell of a lot of BG3 and it feels completely the opposite. There is so much content that motivates me to do it for roleplay reasons. It doesn’t feel nearly as grindy. Some of the dialogs are a bit much to slog through after seeing them a few too many times, but they were all great the first time through, and it motivates me to try different options to get different dialog. But everyone knows BG3 is good.

Guess I’ll round out my list.

I really enjoyed Jedi: Outcast. Like BG3, the story is as good as the action, but there’s really only one storyline and if I recall you can get pretty much everything on a single playthrough so there aren’t really even mechanical decisions to make other than how to approach a combat.

Horizon: Forbidden West was pretty fun. I put it down for other games and haven’t gotten back to it but I will. Seems to share a lot with Jedi. Similar gameplay, similar linear storyline. It feels like mechanical choices are more meaningful and maybe you can’t do everything on a single playthrough but again I haven’t finished it.

Hogwarts Legacy: my wife wanted this because Harry Potter, but then it made her motion sick. So I felt obligated to play it to get our money’s worth and I didn’t make it very far at all before putting it down. Maybe there is more there further into the game but it didn’t grab me enough to find out.

OK yes I play mostly casual games…

You say that like it’s something to be ashamed of. “Casual” is an underrated genre, because sometimes, it’s nice to just take your time and enjoy the experience. Life has enough complexities that escaping to a world of simplicity and calm can be truly rewarding.

Why does “Stardew Valley” get it totally right, and the rest not get it right at all?

I think it’s because Stardew has a lot of RPG elements. Developing relationships with the townspeople (romantic and friendship), figuring out the lore, etc. Lots of games that try to replicate Stardew do the farming / labor stuff and call it quits. I know there are probably some people that go into that game only doing farming, but most people I’ve met who are fans of it like the lore stuff.

If you don’t want gaming to feel like work, maybe stop playing labor simulators. Like, isn’t the point of those games to make you feel like your working whatever job they’re “simulating”?

this is such a mood. i’m still waiting for the next stardew valley.

Why does “Stardew Valley” get it totally right, and the rest not get it right at all?

I am not an expert on SDV, but my wife plays basically every HM-like out there, and her take is that Barone focused so heavily on the ‘economy’ balance in SDV that all of the activities feel like they’re worth doing, so it doesn’t become “only farming”, or “only adventuring”, etc, like many others do. Even just picking up wild plants feels worth it when you drop them in the sale bin in the evening.

Same here – I’ve been doing exploration exclusively in Elite, and it got kinda samey and boring. Yet, somehow playing Elite was so mentally taxing, it quite often felt like having a second job. So, I decided to try out NMS, after hearing about its redemption so much.

The story of NMS was kinda neat, even though it was presented in a very dry way. The visuals were also not bad. Looking at planetary landscapes sometimes felt like stepping into the world of The Sand Sea and the Plateaux of Mirrors, which is a very good thing imo.

The actual gameplay just wasn’t engaging enough, though, and super janky (making gas/mineral farms sucks). Like, it’s very hard to find meaning in whatever you’re doing in that game. In contrast, doing exploration in Outer Wilds was very fun, because it felt like you were exploring an actual living world. In NMS, you get the same prefab randomly generated building and a sliver of lore. No environmental storytelling, no anything. So, it’s very difficult to connect to NMS’s world.

I wanted to like “No Man’s Sky,” when it was finally available on the Switch (my PS4 had just died when it came out) I was elated to play it. After a couple hours of playing, I wanted those two hours of my life back. An ugly game with very little color, and absolutely no direction as to what you’re supposed to be doing, I wasted those two hours trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I absolutely hated it - the only game I ever asked for a refund on.

Elite dangerous is so fucking good.

To jump in on Hunt Showdown, the initial learning curve of the game does require a little time to get used to compared to other shooters. However the biggest call out I would have is to not try playing the game solo. Hunt is very much a game that is made or broken by the company you keep while you play it and it takes a very special kind of player (a masochist) to enjoy playing it solo. Either way, definitely understandable to bounce off it, it’s a great game but not for everyone.

Oh yeah, I forgot about this one. Good call, definite stinker. Shame, would have loved an Arkham spiritual successor.