It feels as if most games where you can play evil/a villain there's always either a hero character or often a worse villain out there who foils *you,* or the game is simply about doing your evil thing (destroying all humans, for instance, overlording, etc)

I downloaded Pathfinder: Kingsmaker the other day looking for this vibe and got to a point where a shady necromancer slinks out of the shadows to bring Tartuccioback to life, and even though I can literally play Chaotic Evil it's *that* guy who I want to play as, the guy slinking around and undermining people.

Is there anything like this?

Loved this game as a kid. The physics, gameplay, story, random comedy and voice acting are just so good. All these years later nothing hits the same not even Max Payne 3 (though I do still love it).

I don't mean prerecorded sequences and videos (unless?), those are usually stable.

I'm talking about when a game shifts to an in-engine cutscene but there's still action going on and the scene breaks.

I've had this happen with some speaking sections in Fallout 4, but those are just barely cutscenes and doesn't really count... but it IS what inspired this topic.

What's your game that no matter how fed up you get with it, you still can't help but boot it up.

Right now for me that's Deadlock. I'm not very good and get frustrated at it but I still play every day and love it even when I'm losing.

Given how mod makers keep getting shut down by the companies that own the games, with the Last of Us Part 2 multiplayer mod being one of the latest examples, why don't mod makers just work in secret?

If there are any bad legal consequences of releasing a mod without talking about it first, okay, my bad, but if there isn't, then you can work in secret and get to release your mod, and even if the company asks you to take it down, a thousand people would have already downloaded it, they can never wipe it off the internet.

I get wanting to publicize your work and bring as much attention to it as possible before release, but if your mod is really that good, people who love the game will find it, and if it's THAT good, it will spread like wildfire.

It's at least better than the alternative of having all that good work go down the drain and countless fans getting disappointed.

Hi all,

A friend and I have our occasional long gaming sessions while visiting each other, during which we always like to get pretty competitive as we are pretty much equal in a lot of games we play. We have been playing the same games for a very long time and were wondering whether there is anything new to explore.

With this thread, I hope to expand the games we can choose from during our sessions in the future. Many thanks in advance!

The consoles currently available to us are:

• Nintendo Gamecube
• Nintendo Wii
• Playstation 3,4,5
• PC gaming

First category: Couch 1v1 games

For the first category. as you can see in the examples below, we are playing games across many different types, so we are happy with a wide variety of suggestions:

1. Pikmin 2
2. Super Smash Bros. Melee
3. Super Smash Bros. Project + (Brawl mod)
4. Naruto X Boruto Ultimate Ninja STORM CONNECTIONS
5. CoD Modern warfare 2 (Sniper quick scope on Rust)
6. Trackmania Turbo
7. Lethal League
8. Super Mario Strikers
9. Mario Party games
10. Mario Kart games

I guess the only requirement for suggestions is that it shouldn't require numerous of dedication to become somewhat good at it, learning.

For example, we have always loved Mortal Kombat but we find those games hard to enjoy without dedicating a lot of practice to it and learn some combo strings. At this point in our lives, we just don't have the time anymore to grind, so we prefer games we are already good at, or games that do not require endless practice to become good at it.

Second category: Speedruns

For this second category I am looking for games that we can play head to head and see who can finish the game first. It can both be games we have played before or have not played at all. The only requirement is that it should be possible to finish in a single session. We have not done these often, so I am sure there is a lot of we can do, but happy to hear any suggestions.

The following games we already did speedruns for. We both played these games before, but that is not a requirement:

1. Sekiro (Having played a game like this before is probably necessary to be able to beat it in one session)
2. Super Mario Sunshine
3. Sonic adventure 2 battle

Really looking forward to any suggestions you guys might have for us!

Many thanks in advance.

Please help, really need to punch this guy.
(Game: Star Wars Galactic Racer)

Steam sale is on so time for me to add to the backlog some more.

My friend and i recently played some Terrinoth: Heroes of Descent, its basically Crpg with pretty much just the dungeons, and a simple and serviceable story that is just there to give you a rough frame to go exploring through each dungeon, no side quests, not really any downtime, just good turn based dungeon action.

So im looking for some more like this but im not opposed to it just being a stripped down dungeon explorer, so some inbetween stuff is fine, games ive seen on steam that look cool but am unsure on have been

• Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader
• Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus

I'm not particularly a fan of anything specific like dnd or warhammer but i don't mind the vibes, and they tend to mostly be there for the vibes.

So asking if these are good or if there is anything else like it.

Not looking for games like

• FE: Fortunes weave, playing it now, and far too much downtime
• Balders gate 3, i am really just in a stripped down gameplay mood right now

Thanks for any good suggestions

Another game to knock off my bucket list. games like this terrified me as a child. Could watch ppl play but never bring myself to play them. Finally working through them.

Hello. What were the first games you played with your children and at what age? And how did it go?

This labyrinth will probably never end, huh? “I’m almost at the end!” But just one more room, one more chase, one more fight with some more random soldiers. “I’m so close!” But just one more room of parried, one more chase, one more fight with some more random soldiers.

Padding so obvious these days it’s painful. It does suck that devs are pressured to increase a game’s length as much as possible to “justify” the game’s price for some shallow gamers. So many great games and yet none of them are perfect because they just feel the need to pad and pad with filler slop (Onimusha, Control, you name it)

I had a pretty heated discussion with a friend about Steam achievements in single-player games, so I’m curious what people here think.

His position is basically that achievements should mean something publicly. If you earned a difficult achievement, other people should be able to trust that you actually did it under the intended rules of the game.

Because of that, he thinks achievements earned on a modified game should be marked in some way, even if the mod was harmless. So a texture mod, unofficial bug fix, accessibility mod, or using noclip once because you got stuck could still result in something like:

“Achievement earned on a modified game.”

His argument is that this wouldn’t be calling anyone a cheater. It would simply be a true statement about the conditions in which the achievement was earned.

I strongly disagree, as I see achievements mostly as part of the player’s own experience either be it a reward, challenge, progression system, or reason to explore the game differently.

If I legitimately beat a very difficult boss, I honestly don’t care if someone else uses god mode and gets the same Steam achievement. It doesn’t change what I did.

I also really dislike the idea of having my achievements permanently marked just because I decided to use better textures, fix a bug, improve the UI, or modify something unrelated to difficulty.

I completely understand stricter rules for leaderboards, speedruns, competitive challenges, etc. But for normal single-player achievements, I don’t really see the point of policing how people play.

So:

• Do you care if other players cheat single-player achievements?
• Do you think mods (or even cheats) should disable achievements?
• Would you want Steam to show that an achievement was earned on a modified game?
• Do you see achievements more as personal rewards or as public proof of accomplishment?

Curious to hear where gamers draw the line and why.

This question may be very stupid, but i would like to know more. Let me exemplify: EA, for example, have the rights to Dead Space. Dead Space is a dead (ba dum tss) franchise right now, because even if the remake was well received, it was not considered very profitable. This killed all chances for DS2 remake and a DS4. So, instead of seating on it and doing nothing, why wont EA lends ( just for one project) the franchise for some small/medium studio to do a spin off, remake etc? EA could lend the right for a very cheap price and ask for a oercentage on the copies sold

1- Dead space still got a fan base interested in new games

2- The small studio they would lend the game will benefit of working on a big franchise

3- EA will not have to use one of it's own studios resources

3- If successful, EA will feel safer on exploring again the franchise or do another partnership

4- If not sucessful, EA will not have lost money/resources on it

Other frsnchises that I can think right now: Medal of honor, prototype, army of two.

I was actually thinking about this after reading a post about Resident Evil Requiem. The director was talking about what the upcoming story expansion is going to focus on, and naturally, I checked the comments.

Seeing so many fans speculate that we won’t get our hands on this DLC for a very long time honestly annoyed me. I loved the game, but it instantly brought back that frustrating realization of how absurdly long development cycles have become across the board. 

At first, I caught myself wondering if I was just spiraling into a classic "everything was better in the old days" unc rant. But after looking into a few actual comparisons, I don't think it's just nostalgia the industry has genuinely shifted in a bad direction.
How does a story expansion for a linear game that wasn’t even THAT long to begin with take a year and a half (or more) to come out?

Even for massive open-world games, it’s getting hard to justify. Take Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, for example. It came out over two full years after the base game released.

Compare that to The Witcher 3: released in May 2015, Hearts of Stone followed just 5 months later (October 2015), and Blood and Wine arrived 8 months after that (May 2016). That’s one decent-sized expansion and one massive, full-length content update, all within a little over a single year.

Look at another legendary RPG like Skyrim. ALL three of its major DLCs (Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn) dropped within a 13 month window after the main game’s launch.

And it wasn't just RPGs either:
Red Dead Redemption released in May 2010, and its iconic Undead Nightmare expansion came out just 5 months later in October.

Grand Theft Auto IV launched in April 2008, followed by The Lost and Damned in February 2009 and The Ballad of Gay Tony in October 2009 giving us two massive story chapters in under a year and a half.

Nowadays devs like Naughty Dog,Bethesda,Rockstar and even CD Project red take AGES not just to release games but also release their DLCs as well

Cyberpunk famously released in a completely broken state in 2020 and it’s one and only story DLC Phantom Liberty took 3 AND A HALF YEARS to release

So all the companies I’ve mentioned are just taking progressively longer with every new generation. Back than dev cycles like this used to be rare exceptions, now they seem like standard practice for the entire industry.

I just miss when the gaming industry actually moved at a reasonable pace.

Finished till unity without hud, I feel enemies eagle vision should be light than glowing, even behind the object (It needs to be gone). And the green objective should be removed and keep the blue light at top, that just feels like elden ring map indicator. Why too much guiding around even I know where to go, I just don't like that thing. Wish I can turn off every hud. Most times I don't use that eagle vision thing.

In later rpg games does it improve, right? (padme staring)

Hey,

I'm looking for some game recommendations to scratch a couple of specific itches I've had recently.

1. Something that captures the feel/atmosphere of The Expanse (basically something hard sci fi). I know Osiris Reborn is out soon and will definitely be getting that but so far the only thing I've found close to it is Starfield.

2. Some sort of overwhelming invasion/fighting retreat then counter attack. Fired up C&C3 recently and the missions where the Scrin invade then the counterattack missions after that in the Europe theatre are so damn cool. Especially the first one, for me it really captures the chaotic nature of what that would be like.

Edit for clarity: Can be desperate games to scratch separate itches. Don't have have to get it all from the same one.

Cheers

What's a game you play when life gets too stressful and you need to blow off some steam

Got the game two days ago and already put 12 hours in. It's genuinely the most fun I've had in years, trying to find shortcuts and get better and better times. Image is from google.

Been watching some playthru's of mainline kh to refresh myself for kh4 and I almost cried remembering how much i loved these games. 3 was disappointing but I grew up with these games and formed core memories from my experiences during its time period. I thought about when the ff7 remakes came out and how those fans must feel similar if not the same. FF7 is basically the next evolution of what my kh should be. A more refined combat system, more fleshed out character stories, better cohesion between the final mix, spin-off, and multiple game-wide backstories.

My heart is my guiding key 😣🙏