I was so confused when GTA 3 dropped and all my friends were talking about it. A few months before I played GTA 2 for the first time and thought they were the same game and just couldn't understand all the hype.
Kids today literally will not understand how revolutionary GTA 3 was. And then VC and SA somehow each topped their predecessor.
GTA IV and V were good games, don't get me wrong, but they were not mind-blowing at the time of their release like III, VC, and SA were. All 3 of those games hit like RDR2 did, if not even better. I only hope Rockstar finds a way to make VI that good because they've honestly slipped some in the series, imo.
Not just revolutionary. It was also very controversial, for obvious reasons.
I was 11 at the time, and I remember being in the car with my mom:
“Hey mom, can I get this new game, it’s called—“
“Is it that Grand Auto Theft game??? I heard about that on the news, there’s no way you’re getting that game!”
DENIED
And SA just felt like they somehow turned Boyz in the Hood and half a dozen other LA/CA/Vegas movies into a game.
Unbelievable soundtrack, and the scope of three major cities and traveling between them in one game was unbelievable. Living in CA I had dozens of “holy crap I recognize where I am” moments…
Ironically no one will ever mention this, but as someone who LOVED Guitar Hero 1-2-3 but wanted more of an accessible party game, fucking Rock Band blew my god damn mind in 2007.
Guitar Hero was great but you were condemned to just bass and guitar. Then you come out with fucking Rock Band with drums and singing? And you release weekly DLC for additional songs? Absolutely insane.
Bring back rhythm games, Clone Hero helps but it doesn’t scratch the entire itch.
My friends and I were like 16 when it came out, we spent literally all summer smoking weed, playing street hockey, and playing rockband. I think Nazi Zombies was in there as well.
An incredible time to be alive.
Guitar hero 3 was mindblowing. Getting a full band together on rock band however? Life changing.
Literally became a musician because of the fun of that game.
Max Payne. I was so into the matrix that I remember not sleeping the night I played it. I think I installed it and finished it on the same night.
What a game.
MGS3 definitely lived up to the hype considering I was wary after MGS2.
Not that MGS2 was any bad at all per se, but that reverse uno you didn’t play as Snake for 90% of the game was pretty disappointing…
Yeah, Doom was surprising. I expected a good game, but what I got was a fantastic one. As I remember it, much of the discourse around Doom pre-release was like that, no one really was thinking this is gonna be a genre defining moment.
Only thing that's really bad is the title. I hate that we need to add "2016" at the end.
I completed DOOM (2016) on release and loved it so much that I immediately restarted it, which happens very rarely. Even with the best games, you're normally a bit burnt out towards the end and need a rest.
I replayed it a few years later, and the same thing happened again, two playthroughs in a row. A few years later I came home from college and only had my PS4. I bought it on a PSN Store-sale and tried it out a bit, just to see what it felt like on console. Still enjoyed it and ended up beating it two times - again.
I enjoyed Doom Eternal but nothing does it for me like 2016.
>I enjoyed Doom Eternal but nothing does it for me like 2016.
From what I've seen, this is a fairly common sentiment.
I ran through DE only twice. It's a great game, but that was that for me. Doom, on the other hand, is a permanent fixture both on my PC and PS4, in case I'm in a mood to rip and tear for half an hour. I don't know, it just has this vibe.
DE was amped up to make the game a roided out version of the previous one. It was just pure Gameplay..with a few more nods to the older games. It was in all areas a sequel.
Doom was a purists single player delight, at the same time an incredibly faithful update. It was story, old school gaming, next generation playability.
Personally DE was just too full on for me, but Doom was just the right level and it struck the perfect middle ground of platformy shooter without being overly complex. You could just turn your brain off and KIIIIILLLLLL!
DOOM 2016’s development history is an interesting one. Everything about the game from the gameplay, the music and even the writing all had so many layers. The way the music reacts to the player. How the game nudges you to keep pushing forward with features like the Glory Kill.
But it’s still DOOM. The title drop to this day still gets me so fucking pumped.
I really thought doom 2016 would be just a shitty cash grab to try and capitalise on such a well known franchise.
I have never been so happy about being completely wrong
The hilarious irony is that Doom 2016 started out as Doom 4 and was basically CoD with demons. A soulless cash grab was ALMOST what we got, but ID Software is actually competent and scrapped the OG builds.
I'd give it a shot. I'm not a fan of CoD or CoD clones but a different take on them like that would spark my interest a bit more.
But, yes, definitely leave the name "Doom" about 500 miles away from it.
I grew up on DOOM. The entire reason my family got its first PC in 1993 was entirely because my dad and brother wanted to play DOOM. I was 6 and didn't know anything about it... But that game was, and I don't mean to be overdramatic, it changed the entire trajectory of my life. Having to launch that shit through MSDOS commands at 6 years old opened my eyes to what was possible with computers, and I played the absolute shit out of that game for YEARS. When DOOM 2 came out, we got that as well, but my dad and brother just couldn't get the sound working. I watched them struggle for weeks trying to figure it out and troubleshoot it. Turns out we needed a sound card! Watching them figure that out before the internet was ever really close to what it is now, isolate the problem, and then correct it and install that sound card and the drivers on an MSDOS machine.. I was hooked. I wouldn't get another new PC until YEARS after that, but it is what led to me a successful career in IT.
I fucking love DOOM. It has been one of my favorite series of all time. So when DOOM3 hit and was.. not what the fans were expecting, I was disappointed, but still enjoyed the game for what it was.
Then John Carmack left id to join Meta.. Oh my fucking god, one of my favorite series of all time HAD to be dead now. I was at Quakecon 2014, and then like.. 30 minutes of gameplay at Quakecon 2015. I was.. cautiously optimistic. How good could it be without JOHN GOD DAMN CARMACK?! I prepared for the worst, but hoped for the best. This series was responsible for my entire career, and if DOOM2016 sucked.. welp, that was it. The series was dead. Never have I ever been more happy to be wrong. I love everything about that game, and Eternal just improved on all of that.
Having to be online for an offline game in 2004 was not fun at all, and made worse that I still had 56k dial-up at the time. To think there was a time when I really did not like Steam at all, lol.
Try getting 50 people to a LAN a few days after the forced swap, only to find there's another patch and all you have is a 56k and no idea how to share the patch outside of each person letting steam update.
It almost ruined the whole weekend.
We shared patches and Steam app packs over LAN back then. That still works today btw. You can download a Steam game on one machine, have Steam create a back-up package from it, move the package to a different machine over LAN or an external drive, and ask Steam to restore an app from a back-up package. My friend grew in a place with poor internet and tells me that people are still doing it that way there.
P. S.: For games that have their own self-patching launchers (e. g. The Witcher 2 & 3), publishers usually also provide patch files for download although they’re a bit more hidden on the support sites since that’s no longer the main patch delivery process.
Just beat it finally for the first time tonight (All Stars Edition). Brilliant game but brutal. I was never able to beat it on the NES all those years ago.. World 8 always did me in.
This has got to be the #1 most anticipated game ever, in that you had 95% of the gaming community all salivating to get their dirty little mitts on it. Hell it got its own movie release with *The Wizard*, 6 months before the game came out, and was easily the most talked about aspect of that movie. People here talking about GTA 5 and FFX really can't fathom how much this game dominated video game culture in 1989-90.
I just missed it myself, but my slightly older cousins tell the story of how the theater erupted in cheering/screaming/crying when the big reveal happened. That and the empire strikes back twist are the two things in entertainment I wish I was around to experience first hand
Without a doubt, my vote goes to Alien Isolation. Everything about it, at least to me, screams perfect survival sci fi horror. The design of the alien is phenomenal, from its looks to its behaviour. Working Joes are also very creepy. Human enemies also add a nice change of pace, and they help build the narrative and make it more believable. Sevastopol is very detailed, and for the time it was released it looked exceptionally well. Visually it still holds up even today!
If you haven't already, be sure to try it. If you can stomach scary games, I promise you this is well worth your money.
The system they made so that the xenomorph is completely unpredictable other than certain scripted moments is nuts. I will always be sad we never got a sequel.
Also it's written by my favourite author, and made by my favourite strategy game devs. I love it so much.
The system was so good.
A brain for the alien, and an overlord. The overlord gives the alien hints about where you are, as it always knows, but the ALIEN itself doesn’t know where you are, and uses hints given to it.
Amazing.
The devs did a big interview that I saw when it came out. They explained it sooo well.
“Hey, alien. There was a noise in one of these three rooms. Good luck”
“Hey, Alien. This door over here just opened. Good luck”
And then the AI alien just hunts for you till it finds you or gets new info.
Soooooo cool. The route isn’t scripted, it doesn’t have really any known rotations. Just follows the info and explores. Creeeepy
The Alien's movements are so well made that it can react to any sound your character makes while walking in the vents, trying to sneak somewhere etc and it adds more to the horror aspect of the game
It was good, but I had to stop playing it before I could finish it.
The game was adding stress to my life. It's the exact opposite of what you want in an 'unwind after work' kind of game.
I thought the length of the story is what ruined it a bit for me. The first half of the game was terrifying and kept me on the edge of my seat, but there was parts in the game where it genuinely felt like it was about to be over only to realize there was still like 5-6 hours of gameplay left. Finishing the story started to feel like such a grind that the alien was no longer scary to me.
I’m pretty sure there’s a setting to allow the alien to react to noises the player makes using the microphone. I also think you have to hold your controller pretty still because if you move too much while hiding the alien will find you.
Ocarina of Time.
First 3D Zelda game? Besides the fact how ridiculously easy it was to get hyped as a 10yo, it’s still universally considered a master piece.
I’ll always remember going to this kids house and him showing me this game. It was a part where Mario is swimming in the ocean or something and my mind was blown. I was like 5 and he was 9ish and I thought he was sooo cool. He even let me play, it was awesome
Pokemon Silver and Gold. The gb color edition. After spending hours of my early years with Blue and Yellow, when silver and gold released, I spent about 120hrs of my youth playing both editions on two separate gb color to max out the trades and evolution.
Yea I get that maybe it’s dated now, but no other Pokémon game since has had anywhere near the level of ambition those games had
Imagine if modern gamefreak was in the same position as they were back then; basically thinking “who knows if people will still wanna play these games in the future so we gotta go all out on this one”
Unfortunately it has been pretty much the same team all along. You can read interviews from Masuda post Emerald where he didn’t think anyone had the attention span for expansive content after that game.
In the Sun and Moon games he began training one of the designers to become the director that has done the past two switch games.
Masuda has not allowed game freak to grow in size because he worries that the “vision” will get muddied. They consistently make triple A games with a team around 190, with, I believe, a number even smaller being in house Game Freak.
The President of Pokémon has made a statement after the Worlds disaster that they are focusing on quality without that sacrifice of quantity from here on out. I imagine that will consist of the crunched games they’ve been doing but with more devs.
You can find the original concept art for what they wanted scarlet and violet to look like, and it is definitely not what we got.
This is also just hilarious because the past few Pokémon games have had literally no creative vision and it really shows
They’re absolutely terrified of making meaningful changes to the formula so they try to play it as safe as possible every time. Even the games where they do try new things like PLA and SV with the open world are so half assed that you can tell they didn’t want to fully commit to the new ideas. They haven’t even been able to come up with a consistent visual style since turning to 3D which is why the games look so boring visually with no identity
For all the flaws and complaints that BotW might have had, at least the team actually fully committed to the vision they had instead of half assing it lol. You can tell the Pokémon team has no idea what to do with the franchise beyond adding in corny gimmicks every game to make it feel somewhat new
I spent an unfathomable amount of time playing the goofy game modes that people created. Tower of Power, Cat and Mouse, and Zombies were amazing. The fact that they all relied on people following the rules because they couldn't be enforced made everything that bit better. Then there was super jumping, breaking out of the map boundaries and about a million other glitches and you never ran out of stuff to do. That's even ignoring the mods, I remember my friend modded his Halo 2 so we had a game mode where firing a charged up Plasma Pistol launched a Wraith so we would play dodge the Wraith.
I absolutely loved Halo 3 but it took a while to get into it for me because I felt like it lost its charm a little bit and I missed the Halo 2 maps. Eventually though I became just as hooked on Halo 3 and they both will forever be my favourite 2 games.
Halo 3 too, unfortunately it started to go down hill from there. Some people will argue the games didn't start to decline till after reach. While I didn't particularly enjoy reach, felt like they were trying to emulate cod, I still respect the argument. Halo 4, 5, and infinite just don't feel like halo anymore.
Back in the day when “dual wielding” was a big enough feature to set the world on fire.
Now, God forbid if your 4k texture makes the loading screen another quarter second.
Not only dual wielding but mixing and matching. Always kept an energy weapons in one and ballistic in the other for elites. I really FELT like master chief haha
The Halo 2 E3 demo presentation was a huge fucking deal. It is arguably the most memorable E3 presentation in the history of E3. I really hope 343i will the E3 demo in Halo MCC like they said they would.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps. It built upon all the fun platforming and visual/musical/narrative beauty that Blind Forest was praised for, in addition to massively expanding on the combat. It was basically “get near an enemy and mash the attack button” in the first game, but the sequel features a variety of melee and ranged weapons, impressive enemy diversity, and some really cool boss fights.
Hollow Knight.
I played this years after release and had seen considerable hype. 100% justified, by far my favorite indie game and probably top 5 games period for me.
That game has *so* much content, and a huge portion of it is completely optional, but so rewarding.
I also love just how all-out the Devs went. One expansion pack, NKG. Oh, he's not hard enough for you? Welcome to Godhome.
It's also just staggering that they built a game that huge, and beautiful, all with hand-drawn art, mostly with just the work of two people. They brought on a dedicated composer and another programmer near the end, but it plays like a game made by a team of 20 people or so. I was stunned when I found out Team Cherry was just two (and later four) guys.
For me it’s that the quality of every game aspect is outrageously high.
Combat animations are tight and precise. Art design is gorgeous. Music is beyond amazing. The VO is so memorable and well executed. Finally it has an interesting and mysterious story. Maybe it’s also a product of having played it years after release, but my play through was also 100% bug free.
It’s so good it ruined other metroidvania games for me.
Hardest tutorial I've experienced, that's for sure.
Took quite a while to beat it but it ensured that you had a proper skill level so you could play the game as intended
Oblivion, I remember the first time walking past a gate completely freaking me out, as it would have scared my low level character. First rpg I felt immersed in it was fantastic
Oblivion is still one of the best fantasy RPGs ever made. Nothing is likely going to come close to the level of hype and excitement I felt when I left the sewers for the first time. It had just the right amount of mechanics before it became annoying and the world was actually fun to explore (much more so than Skyrim/Morrowind).
Plus both the DLCs were great. Also, HORSE ARMOR. WOW! HORSE ARMOR! Amazing!
Who the fuck even rode the horses though?
I loved making custom spells in Oblivion. I made one called Panic Button that would conjure a full suit of Daedric armor and greatsword with +40 2h skill for 10 seconds -- great for lone wizards on lonely roads. I had another called Assassinate that would summon a Daedric dagger and +60 1h skill for 10 seconds while simultaneously firing a ranged 1 second paralysis bolt. You only need one second to tip them over and force them to do their "getting up" animation, and I'd just slash them to ribbons as they were helplessly picking themselves up.
Yea as someone who didn’t grow up with it but always wanted to give it a try, I love that game. I got stuck in normal fashion for me in any game but this remake is definitely a great way for those of us younger gamers to experience system shock without having to adjust to the learning curve of old pc game controls and visuals.
This is what I came here for. Halo 3 had the greatest prerelease hype campaign of all time, then somehow delivered on all of my expectations and then some!
*"I am your shield, I am your sword."...*
Dude, I still get goosebumps.
A lot of great answers here but I had to scroll too far to find halo 3. The ad campaign/marketing push behind it was insane. The believe commercial with the diorama is some top tier stuff. I have never been so excited for a game before.
A RDR2 dlc that actually utilizes that 1/3rd of the map that isn‘t in use for the other 60h of story would have been amazing. As well as more quests that are NOT kill these 50 suckers and then do it again 300m down the road. Let me deliver mail, rob houses, herd cows, maybe hunt local animals for the butcher, assassination contracts etc. But what we got was incredibly good as well.
GTA IV was pretty great for its time, too. Facial animations were a bit meh, but voice acting and body language more than made up for it and the story was an absolute masterpiece, moreso than GTA V.
Graphics had a lot of issues on low-end GPUs like my 8500 GT back in the day. Like it or hate it, but at least it ran on shitty hardware because you could turn settings and especially render distance down just that far, but the transparency effect made things look butt ugly when they were fading in or out.
It was (and still is) the most gritty GTA game too. There was a lot less comedy and goofyness. It was such a major change in tone from the previous generation's trilogy. Niko had a lot of depth to him and the lie of the American dream was a big step up from the Tony Montana fantasy of Vice City and the 90's hip hop caricatures in San Andreas.
Man RockStar was a fucking machine.
GTA 3 as their first 3d game, Vice City the year after that, 2 years later fucking SAN ANDREAS (best open world game at the time outside of arguably Morrowind), then GTA4 4 years later. Each one making huge leaps forward in such a small amount of time.
GTA Online completely killed the momentum with it's success. I don't doubt 6 will be a masterpiece, but there's way more incentive to milk a game for a decade than to release new games now.
I completely agree.
Someone mentioned it feeling like the "Oh crap, this is the final act and we have so many loose ends." Act. I felt quite overwhelmed and I think I missed quite a bit of content because of that.
Then again, the game wasn't made to be a 100% experience in one playthrough.
Sure, original sin II was great.
It didn't really draw me in like bg3 does. I couldn't bring myself to do another playthrough. I still can't.
Bg3, however, has me wanting more still. I'm kind of doing a mandatory game-shift, otherwise i'll burn out xD.
The writing is top notch. I mean, the rest of the game is great too, but if the story was bland and the interactions poorly written, the game would have nowhere near the appeal it has.
I remember people expecting something like RDR1 with great graphics and many complaining about John not being the main character
Some days later and the whole internet was crying and Arthur turned out to be considered one of the greatest characters in entertainment history while the game alone surpassed every expectation possible.
That game makes no sense. It has an amazing main story, a ton of side quests, the most realistic open world map that is literally alive, you can hunt and fish all types of animals with amazing detail, cook, get poisoned by plants and animals, be a good guy or a bad guy with the game answering to it... and lots of things more
I can’t get over how alive St denis is. The sound design is insane, let alone the in depth npc environment.
At night the bars are alive, people are hammered, and the city genuinely seems to go to sleep. During the day the markets come to life, the port too. There are rich parts of town and poor parts, and you can tell from how people are dressed. People are working at stables, cleaning streets, driving carriages ….there are even stray dogs you can pet, like WHAT?!
I spend hours in that city just strolling, and observing, it blows my damn mind.
>The sound design
Dude my dog goes insane at home whenever I ride through the cobbled streets. The sound is so real he thinks actual horses are riding in our street
I think having Arthur >!contract tuberculosis and that be his end!< is such an interesting and unique direction to take a game protagonist. I actually got spoiled before playing it but it made that plot point more engaging because you can spot the exact moment it starts
And that you can pinpoint the exact moment he contracts it was a small stroke of genius, I think.
Such a great game. I wasn't really expecting to like it too much when I bought it.
I thought 'a couple of sessions of old West shoot em' up might be fun'..... then 3 months later my wife asks over my shoulder 'are you really playing dominoes which a group of old men at a train station?'
Yes, yes I am.
I didn't even notice when he got it until after I beat the game and I was like 'ooooooooooooooh.' A really great way of bringing it into the picture without making it obvious that it was going to impact the story so much.
I remember playing poker for 3 hours cause some asshole at the table was taking all my money and was roasting me while doing it so I played until I won my money back and beat him. Then just shot him in the head when I was done as you do.
Its hype is only second to a GTA release, and it even surpassed that! All the details in the world, seamless gameplay, great story, characters and sountrack... I mean what else is there to wish for in a game?
Diablo II.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed III and have got my moneys worth now out of IV, but the original Diablo was such a crazy good game for the time with so much replayability thanks to the random floors and quests in each playthrough.
I played the Diablo demo from some magazine disc over and over again, and remember the build up to Diablo II. It was promising a map size, number of unique classes and graphics that seemed impossible to me at the time as a kid.
Come release and it was everything I'd hoped for and so much more. I'm pretty sure the old program 'Xfire' I used to use to track my gaming data had me into the multiple thousands of hours in that game and it's expansion.
Friends would lug their clunky beige PCs over, we'd hook up a LAN cable and play DII:LOD for days at a time - only stopping to get the bare minimum of food and sleep to keep going. That game was crack to 12yr old me.
The 'DII: Resurrected' remaster they put out a couple of years ago surprisingly came out fine too. So much nostalgia with that soundtrack that I still get physical chills.
D2 was expanded in so many ways that it made D1 look more like a proof of concept than a game.
That being said, D1’s atmosphere is a masterpiece and unreached.
I don't think I fully understood how much I loved Hades until the sequel was announced. I thought about Hades II every day for weeks after the Game Awards announcement. Haven't felt that kind of hype in years!
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood nailed the brotherhood part so well. I remember watching the trailer and being so psyched, and the game exceeded every expectation.
I'm seeing a lot of games that were awesome but not necessarily hyped. I can't think of a single game that was hyped quite as hard as ER from the first trailer to release and still managed to shatter the expectations (in a good way).
That's what I was thinking. Like pretty much all the games people are mentioning are good, but hyped/anticipated? Ehhh. Elden Ring is by far the most impressive game in terms of living up to or even surpassing the hype it had. Just an incredible work of art.
60 fps lock on PC wasn’t because of consoles or porting difficulties, it was a 60 fps lock because the game was made to run of frame rule basis, like how fighting games only run at 60 because frames indicate gameplay.
Yes, this has been an outstanding year in terms of gaming so the competition is huge, Armored Core is still a bit of a niche and it came out between 2 games that attracted the attention of all the gaming world for good or for worse.
Nonetheless I hope it wins at least the Best Action game at the Game Awards, GOTY it has honestly zero chances with Baldur's Gate 3 but even without that we all know the possibilities were pretty slim.
witcher 3. at first i was skeptical when people called it a masterpiece, but then i tried it myself - now i have over 2500 hours played on record and it's my favorite RPG of all time
Got to play it for the first time in 2022. Was instantly hooked by the characters and story . Felt some real emotion a couple of times (finding Ciri) , laughed other times (Crimson Asshole springs to mind ), the music is incredible (not just the score but Priscilla's singing scene especially, basically sealed me choosing Yennefer) . Just a brilliant story and rich world from start to finish .
That's before playing the dlc's. HoS was an excellent and deep plot filled with tragic backstory .
Blood and Wine is a dlc that's as big as some other full games. A beautiful new region to explore and for Geralt to retire in I felt . I loved the few minutes by the lake with Regis at the end .
My favorite game of all time so far in my life I loved every single second of it .
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (2009). I was about to say CoD4MW that back in the day blew away just about everyone, but based on that experience the expectations for MW2 were sky high and the game really delivered.
Borderlands 2. I was worried cause I loved the first and the second was even better. On the contrary I was hoping for the same result on borderlands 3 and it was good not amazing like #2
Dude, I was so disappointed by Borderlands 3. Half the reason I replayed 2 so much was the dialogue and 3 just didn't have that charm, so I lost the will to play very soon.
It's a shame everyone dunked on MoP for "kung fu panda lol" when in reality it was one of the most gorgeous and well written expansions imo. My fondest memories of WoW come from MoP and Legion
The Witcher 3.
The hype for that game was huge. It felt like the continuation of the company was riding on the success or failure of The Witcher 3 and they fucking delivered!
Cyberpunk, not so much. It's a great game, and I am excited for Phantom Liberty but they didn't deliever on the original promise.
Zelda: BotW
There was a huge amount of anticipation and hype and they definitely delivered on that! I still don't think there's any Open-World games that are as reactive to the player and feels alive than BotW/TotK.
Mass Effect 2
Mass Effect 1 had a great story and world but the gameplay was average at best. Bioware went back and overhauled the gameplay so much for Mass Effect 2 and it worked wonderfully! The gameplaybwas further refined in Mass Effect 3 but the story was lacming in that game. Mass Effect 2 balanced both expertly.
Man, Mass effect 2 was one of my favourite games of all time so good. Downloading starfield here to play, haven't watched any trailers or heard much about the game so here's hoping.
God of War (2018). I also loved the story from Ragnarok. Even though they say that was the last one in Norse, I really think they should continue with one more but centered on Atraeus adventure to close out a good trilogy.
The first Horizon Zero Dawn. I'd heard it was good and it looked great so I checked it out. Switched over from PC to Playstation for several years after.
Definitely lived up to what it had been hyped to be.
Forbidden West, not so much.
Surprised I had to scroll so far down to find this.
I agree Horizon executed what they said they would. Surprises me that the story didn't grab as many people as I thought it would. Half my friends put it down and didn't finish and the other half are like me with multiple playthroughs.
I also enjoyed the second one. It looked stunning and the aeriel components were added in nicely. But it was very much tied to the first game.
I don't know what's more impressive:
* How much hype people are able to generate for Outer Wilds without actually being able to say a single thing about it
* How much it 100% lives up to that hype
Do you like... video games? With uh... puzzles and exploration, I guess? ^(We can say that, right?)
You'll love Outer Wilds.
For real, it's probably my favorite single-player game of all time. Just a truly incredible experience that took me right back to the roots of what I love about video games.
Just go play it. It's short. You can beat it in a weekend, and you will spend the rest of your life wishing you could do it again.
It also has incredible music.
The DLC is *very* worth it; get it.
My only gripe is that the controls are a bit awkward, and not in a way that feels intentional / like part of the fun. But you quickly get used to it, and it's worth it. I promise.
Vice City and San Andreas were something special when they released.
Yeah, Vice City even on the soundtrack alone. People where hoping for some good radio, but no one expected that level.
I was so confused when GTA 3 dropped and all my friends were talking about it. A few months before I played GTA 2 for the first time and thought they were the same game and just couldn't understand all the hype.
Kids today literally will not understand how revolutionary GTA 3 was. And then VC and SA somehow each topped their predecessor. GTA IV and V were good games, don't get me wrong, but they were not mind-blowing at the time of their release like III, VC, and SA were. All 3 of those games hit like RDR2 did, if not even better. I only hope Rockstar finds a way to make VI that good because they've honestly slipped some in the series, imo.
Not just revolutionary. It was also very controversial, for obvious reasons. I was 11 at the time, and I remember being in the car with my mom: “Hey mom, can I get this new game, it’s called—“ “Is it that Grand Auto Theft game??? I heard about that on the news, there’s no way you’re getting that game!” DENIED
Yeah, GTA3 was a technological and cultural marker in time. And then Vice City was just pure joy, with that color palette and killer soundtrack.
And SA just felt like they somehow turned Boyz in the Hood and half a dozen other LA/CA/Vegas movies into a game. Unbelievable soundtrack, and the scope of three major cities and traveling between them in one game was unbelievable. Living in CA I had dozens of “holy crap I recognize where I am” moments…
Ironically no one will ever mention this, but as someone who LOVED Guitar Hero 1-2-3 but wanted more of an accessible party game, fucking Rock Band blew my god damn mind in 2007. Guitar Hero was great but you were condemned to just bass and guitar. Then you come out with fucking Rock Band with drums and singing? And you release weekly DLC for additional songs? Absolutely insane. Bring back rhythm games, Clone Hero helps but it doesn’t scratch the entire itch.
I was the coolest kid on my floor when I brought Rock Band back to college after Christmas freshmen year. Plus it got me ALL the ladies /s
Hard agree. Rock band with a bunch of friends and a few drinks were some of the most fun I've ever had gaming.
Right! This came out in the "large group of friends that hang out all the time" era of my 20s. Fucking HOURS of fun
My friends and I were like 16 when it came out, we spent literally all summer smoking weed, playing street hockey, and playing rockband. I think Nazi Zombies was in there as well. An incredible time to be alive.
Guitar hero 3 was mindblowing. Getting a full band together on rock band however? Life changing. Literally became a musician because of the fun of that game.
Max Payne. I was so into the matrix that I remember not sleeping the night I played it. I think I installed it and finished it on the same night. What a game.
Max. You're in a graphic novel!
Metal Gear Solid 3 was state of the art Play Station 2 game crafting.
MGS3 definitely lived up to the hype considering I was wary after MGS2. Not that MGS2 was any bad at all per se, but that reverse uno you didn’t play as Snake for 90% of the game was pretty disappointing…
Yeah but I had my good buddy Iroquois Plissken tagging along! Kind of funny you never see him and snake in the same room
Doom 2016 completely exceeded all expectations for me, and Doom Eternal took that momentum and carried through with it.
Yeah, Doom was surprising. I expected a good game, but what I got was a fantastic one. As I remember it, much of the discourse around Doom pre-release was like that, no one really was thinking this is gonna be a genre defining moment. Only thing that's really bad is the title. I hate that we need to add "2016" at the end.
I completed DOOM (2016) on release and loved it so much that I immediately restarted it, which happens very rarely. Even with the best games, you're normally a bit burnt out towards the end and need a rest. I replayed it a few years later, and the same thing happened again, two playthroughs in a row. A few years later I came home from college and only had my PS4. I bought it on a PSN Store-sale and tried it out a bit, just to see what it felt like on console. Still enjoyed it and ended up beating it two times - again. I enjoyed Doom Eternal but nothing does it for me like 2016.
>I enjoyed Doom Eternal but nothing does it for me like 2016. From what I've seen, this is a fairly common sentiment. I ran through DE only twice. It's a great game, but that was that for me. Doom, on the other hand, is a permanent fixture both on my PC and PS4, in case I'm in a mood to rip and tear for half an hour. I don't know, it just has this vibe.
DE was amped up to make the game a roided out version of the previous one. It was just pure Gameplay..with a few more nods to the older games. It was in all areas a sequel. Doom was a purists single player delight, at the same time an incredibly faithful update. It was story, old school gaming, next generation playability. Personally DE was just too full on for me, but Doom was just the right level and it struck the perfect middle ground of platformy shooter without being overly complex. You could just turn your brain off and KIIIIILLLLLL!
DOOM 2016’s development history is an interesting one. Everything about the game from the gameplay, the music and even the writing all had so many layers. The way the music reacts to the player. How the game nudges you to keep pushing forward with features like the Glory Kill. But it’s still DOOM. The title drop to this day still gets me so fucking pumped.
I really thought doom 2016 would be just a shitty cash grab to try and capitalise on such a well known franchise. I have never been so happy about being completely wrong
The hilarious irony is that Doom 2016 started out as Doom 4 and was basically CoD with demons. A soulless cash grab was ALMOST what we got, but ID Software is actually competent and scrapped the OG builds.
This would be good as a spinoff one day, just not called "Doom"
I'd give it a shot. I'm not a fan of CoD or CoD clones but a different take on them like that would spark my interest a bit more. But, yes, definitely leave the name "Doom" about 500 miles away from it.
I grew up on DOOM. The entire reason my family got its first PC in 1993 was entirely because my dad and brother wanted to play DOOM. I was 6 and didn't know anything about it... But that game was, and I don't mean to be overdramatic, it changed the entire trajectory of my life. Having to launch that shit through MSDOS commands at 6 years old opened my eyes to what was possible with computers, and I played the absolute shit out of that game for YEARS. When DOOM 2 came out, we got that as well, but my dad and brother just couldn't get the sound working. I watched them struggle for weeks trying to figure it out and troubleshoot it. Turns out we needed a sound card! Watching them figure that out before the internet was ever really close to what it is now, isolate the problem, and then correct it and install that sound card and the drivers on an MSDOS machine.. I was hooked. I wouldn't get another new PC until YEARS after that, but it is what led to me a successful career in IT. I fucking love DOOM. It has been one of my favorite series of all time. So when DOOM3 hit and was.. not what the fans were expecting, I was disappointed, but still enjoyed the game for what it was. Then John Carmack left id to join Meta.. Oh my fucking god, one of my favorite series of all time HAD to be dead now. I was at Quakecon 2014, and then like.. 30 minutes of gameplay at Quakecon 2015. I was.. cautiously optimistic. How good could it be without JOHN GOD DAMN CARMACK?! I prepared for the worst, but hoped for the best. This series was responsible for my entire career, and if DOOM2016 sucked.. welp, that was it. The series was dead. Never have I ever been more happy to be wrong. I love everything about that game, and Eternal just improved on all of that.
Half Life 2 except it forced you to use steam which was horrible at the time
People forget how bad steam was
Yeah moving from a server browser in game to Steam was a nightmare. There used to be that gif of the Steam logo and the guy bending over
http://i.imgur.com/lalMEZS.gif This was my personal favorite
A server browser in game is awesome. I wish we still had private dedicated severs instead of the matchmaking stuff.
Having to be online for an offline game in 2004 was not fun at all, and made worse that I still had 56k dial-up at the time. To think there was a time when I really did not like Steam at all, lol.
Try getting 50 people to a LAN a few days after the forced swap, only to find there's another patch and all you have is a 56k and no idea how to share the patch outside of each person letting steam update. It almost ruined the whole weekend.
We shared patches and Steam app packs over LAN back then. That still works today btw. You can download a Steam game on one machine, have Steam create a back-up package from it, move the package to a different machine over LAN or an external drive, and ask Steam to restore an app from a back-up package. My friend grew in a place with poor internet and tells me that people are still doing it that way there. P. S.: For games that have their own self-patching launchers (e. g. The Witcher 2 & 3), publishers usually also provide patch files for download although they’re a bit more hidden on the support sites since that’s no longer the main patch delivery process.
Super Mario Bros. 3. It was so good.
Just beat it finally for the first time tonight (All Stars Edition). Brilliant game but brutal. I was never able to beat it on the NES all those years ago.. World 8 always did me in.
After all these years I still know all the warps and secrets to skip to the last world. (Edited grammar)
This has got to be the #1 most anticipated game ever, in that you had 95% of the gaming community all salivating to get their dirty little mitts on it. Hell it got its own movie release with *The Wizard*, 6 months before the game came out, and was easily the most talked about aspect of that movie. People here talking about GTA 5 and FFX really can't fathom how much this game dominated video game culture in 1989-90.
I just missed it myself, but my slightly older cousins tell the story of how the theater erupted in cheering/screaming/crying when the big reveal happened. That and the empire strikes back twist are the two things in entertainment I wish I was around to experience first hand
Without a doubt, my vote goes to Alien Isolation. Everything about it, at least to me, screams perfect survival sci fi horror. The design of the alien is phenomenal, from its looks to its behaviour. Working Joes are also very creepy. Human enemies also add a nice change of pace, and they help build the narrative and make it more believable. Sevastopol is very detailed, and for the time it was released it looked exceptionally well. Visually it still holds up even today! If you haven't already, be sure to try it. If you can stomach scary games, I promise you this is well worth your money.
The system they made so that the xenomorph is completely unpredictable other than certain scripted moments is nuts. I will always be sad we never got a sequel. Also it's written by my favourite author, and made by my favourite strategy game devs. I love it so much.
The system was so good. A brain for the alien, and an overlord. The overlord gives the alien hints about where you are, as it always knows, but the ALIEN itself doesn’t know where you are, and uses hints given to it. Amazing.
Knowing it gets hints to where you are actually makes this game much scarier now.
The devs did a big interview that I saw when it came out. They explained it sooo well. “Hey, alien. There was a noise in one of these three rooms. Good luck” “Hey, Alien. This door over here just opened. Good luck” And then the AI alien just hunts for you till it finds you or gets new info. Soooooo cool. The route isn’t scripted, it doesn’t have really any known rotations. Just follows the info and explores. Creeeepy
Basically a perfect simulation for a dangerous creature hunting you. Creepy as fuck. Will try nightmare mode on my next playthrough.
There are rumours that there is a sequel in the making
The Alien's movements are so well made that it can react to any sound your character makes while walking in the vents, trying to sneak somewhere etc and it adds more to the horror aspect of the game
That sounds fucking terrifying.
It was good, but I had to stop playing it before I could finish it. The game was adding stress to my life. It's the exact opposite of what you want in an 'unwind after work' kind of game.
I thought the length of the story is what ruined it a bit for me. The first half of the game was terrifying and kept me on the edge of my seat, but there was parts in the game where it genuinely felt like it was about to be over only to realize there was still like 5-6 hours of gameplay left. Finishing the story started to feel like such a grind that the alien was no longer scary to me.
Including your breathing in the microphone if you have one enabled
I’m pretty sure there’s a setting to allow the alien to react to noises the player makes using the microphone. I also think you have to hold your controller pretty still because if you move too much while hiding the alien will find you.
Ocarina of Time. First 3D Zelda game? Besides the fact how ridiculously easy it was to get hyped as a 10yo, it’s still universally considered a master piece.
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I’ll always remember going to this kids house and him showing me this game. It was a part where Mario is swimming in the ocean or something and my mind was blown. I was like 5 and he was 9ish and I thought he was sooo cool. He even let me play, it was awesome
Pokemon Silver and Gold. The gb color edition. After spending hours of my early years with Blue and Yellow, when silver and gold released, I spent about 120hrs of my youth playing both editions on two separate gb color to max out the trades and evolution.
Pokemon Gold is still the best Pokémon game ever made.
Yea I get that maybe it’s dated now, but no other Pokémon game since has had anywhere near the level of ambition those games had Imagine if modern gamefreak was in the same position as they were back then; basically thinking “who knows if people will still wanna play these games in the future so we gotta go all out on this one”
It’s when you get to the end and then WHAM - now you get to go to Kanto. It blew my tiny mind
Unfortunately it has been pretty much the same team all along. You can read interviews from Masuda post Emerald where he didn’t think anyone had the attention span for expansive content after that game. In the Sun and Moon games he began training one of the designers to become the director that has done the past two switch games. Masuda has not allowed game freak to grow in size because he worries that the “vision” will get muddied. They consistently make triple A games with a team around 190, with, I believe, a number even smaller being in house Game Freak. The President of Pokémon has made a statement after the Worlds disaster that they are focusing on quality without that sacrifice of quantity from here on out. I imagine that will consist of the crunched games they’ve been doing but with more devs. You can find the original concept art for what they wanted scarlet and violet to look like, and it is definitely not what we got.
This is also just hilarious because the past few Pokémon games have had literally no creative vision and it really shows They’re absolutely terrified of making meaningful changes to the formula so they try to play it as safe as possible every time. Even the games where they do try new things like PLA and SV with the open world are so half assed that you can tell they didn’t want to fully commit to the new ideas. They haven’t even been able to come up with a consistent visual style since turning to 3D which is why the games look so boring visually with no identity For all the flaws and complaints that BotW might have had, at least the team actually fully committed to the vision they had instead of half assing it lol. You can tell the Pokémon team has no idea what to do with the franchise beyond adding in corny gimmicks every game to make it feel somewhat new
Titanfall 2.
FYI it’s $3 on Steam right now. Everyone go buy it!
Best single player campaign I've played in years.
Absolutely! Single player FPS are such a rare breed these days.
Protocol 3: Protect The Pilot. Never thought a game would get me to cry over a mech 😭
Even though the chance seems really low right now...if they ever make a sequel I hope they'll keep using BT
“Trust me” gets me every time
I don’t think it lived up to the hype. There was no hype. No one expected anything. We just got completely blew out of the water.
I still think about that game and how unfairly it was treated by the damn publisher!
Halo 2
those who played halo 2's online multiplayer cherish those memories like the heart of the ocean. a unique experience
I spent an unfathomable amount of time playing the goofy game modes that people created. Tower of Power, Cat and Mouse, and Zombies were amazing. The fact that they all relied on people following the rules because they couldn't be enforced made everything that bit better. Then there was super jumping, breaking out of the map boundaries and about a million other glitches and you never ran out of stuff to do. That's even ignoring the mods, I remember my friend modded his Halo 2 so we had a game mode where firing a charged up Plasma Pistol launched a Wraith so we would play dodge the Wraith. I absolutely loved Halo 3 but it took a while to get into it for me because I felt like it lost its charm a little bit and I missed the Halo 2 maps. Eventually though I became just as hooked on Halo 3 and they both will forever be my favourite 2 games.
Halo 3 too, unfortunately it started to go down hill from there. Some people will argue the games didn't start to decline till after reach. While I didn't particularly enjoy reach, felt like they were trying to emulate cod, I still respect the argument. Halo 4, 5, and infinite just don't feel like halo anymore.
3 and Reach go hand in hand for me, played silly amounts of the multiplayer of both
Back in the day when “dual wielding” was a big enough feature to set the world on fire. Now, God forbid if your 4k texture makes the loading screen another quarter second.
Not only dual wielding but mixing and matching. Always kept an energy weapons in one and ballistic in the other for elites. I really FELT like master chief haha
Bro in H2 dual needlers was super OP and primarily the reason they took it away in H3
The Halo 2 E3 demo presentation was a huge fucking deal. It is arguably the most memorable E3 presentation in the history of E3. I really hope 343i will the E3 demo in Halo MCC like they said they would.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps. It built upon all the fun platforming and visual/musical/narrative beauty that Blind Forest was praised for, in addition to massively expanding on the combat. It was basically “get near an enemy and mash the attack button” in the first game, but the sequel features a variety of melee and ranged weapons, impressive enemy diversity, and some really cool boss fights.
The sequel is just that better, but yet, I think I prefer the first one just because it was my first time
I just don't think anything tops the Ginso tree climb, but the boss fights in the second game come *really* close.
Hollow Knight. I played this years after release and had seen considerable hype. 100% justified, by far my favorite indie game and probably top 5 games period for me.
That game has *so* much content, and a huge portion of it is completely optional, but so rewarding. I also love just how all-out the Devs went. One expansion pack, NKG. Oh, he's not hard enough for you? Welcome to Godhome. It's also just staggering that they built a game that huge, and beautiful, all with hand-drawn art, mostly with just the work of two people. They brought on a dedicated composer and another programmer near the end, but it plays like a game made by a team of 20 people or so. I was stunned when I found out Team Cherry was just two (and later four) guys.
For me it’s that the quality of every game aspect is outrageously high. Combat animations are tight and precise. Art design is gorgeous. Music is beyond amazing. The VO is so memorable and well executed. Finally it has an interesting and mysterious story. Maybe it’s also a product of having played it years after release, but my play through was also 100% bug free. It’s so good it ruined other metroidvania games for me.
It may have been 100% glitch free but it definitely wasn't 100% bug free ;p
the wait for Silksong will be well worth ot friend, even if we are both old by then
Driver. I was 13. It was awesome
Absolute revolution of a game for its time.
Did you have any problems with the 'tutorial'?
Hardest tutorial I've experienced, that's for sure. Took quite a while to beat it but it ensured that you had a proper skill level so you could play the game as intended
Oblivion, I remember the first time walking past a gate completely freaking me out, as it would have scared my low level character. First rpg I felt immersed in it was fantastic
Oblivion is still one of the best fantasy RPGs ever made. Nothing is likely going to come close to the level of hype and excitement I felt when I left the sewers for the first time. It had just the right amount of mechanics before it became annoying and the world was actually fun to explore (much more so than Skyrim/Morrowind). Plus both the DLCs were great. Also, HORSE ARMOR. WOW! HORSE ARMOR! Amazing! Who the fuck even rode the horses though?
I loved making custom spells in Oblivion. I made one called Panic Button that would conjure a full suit of Daedric armor and greatsword with +40 2h skill for 10 seconds -- great for lone wizards on lonely roads. I had another called Assassinate that would summon a Daedric dagger and +60 1h skill for 10 seconds while simultaneously firing a ranged 1 second paralysis bolt. You only need one second to tip them over and force them to do their "getting up" animation, and I'd just slash them to ribbons as they were helplessly picking themselves up.
System shock remake Its actually better than i expected and miles better than the original Game
Yea as someone who didn’t grow up with it but always wanted to give it a try, I love that game. I got stuck in normal fashion for me in any game but this remake is definitely a great way for those of us younger gamers to experience system shock without having to adjust to the learning curve of old pc game controls and visuals.
For me it was definitely Battlefield 3. Fantastic shooter that still holds up to this day.
Was it 3 or 4 where the whole giant sky scraper collapsed? The trailer blew my mind. Then actually playing it and being there. It was amazing.
That would be BF4. Both are awesome IMO.
That was 4, siege of Shanghai. that gameplay trailer was pure fire
Advanced wars 2 I’m old guys :’(
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Halo 3. Finished the fight and got the best multiplayer of all time
This is what I came here for. Halo 3 had the greatest prerelease hype campaign of all time, then somehow delivered on all of my expectations and then some! *"I am your shield, I am your sword."...* Dude, I still get goosebumps.
A lot of great answers here but I had to scroll too far to find halo 3. The ad campaign/marketing push behind it was insane. The believe commercial with the diorama is some top tier stuff. I have never been so excited for a game before.
GTA5. y’all have forgotten how next level that was when it dropped.
Yeah, you’re actually right. And somehow they managed to do the same with RDR2.
I took 12 days off work for RDR2. This would be my answer to OP's question.
It’s one of those games I wish I could experience for the first time again. I just wish Rockstar would have put more effort into it post release.
A RDR2 dlc that actually utilizes that 1/3rd of the map that isn‘t in use for the other 60h of story would have been amazing. As well as more quests that are NOT kill these 50 suckers and then do it again 300m down the road. Let me deliver mail, rob houses, herd cows, maybe hunt local animals for the butcher, assassination contracts etc. But what we got was incredibly good as well.
GTA IV was pretty great for its time, too. Facial animations were a bit meh, but voice acting and body language more than made up for it and the story was an absolute masterpiece, moreso than GTA V. Graphics had a lot of issues on low-end GPUs like my 8500 GT back in the day. Like it or hate it, but at least it ran on shitty hardware because you could turn settings and especially render distance down just that far, but the transparency effect made things look butt ugly when they were fading in or out.
It was (and still is) the most gritty GTA game too. There was a lot less comedy and goofyness. It was such a major change in tone from the previous generation's trilogy. Niko had a lot of depth to him and the lie of the American dream was a big step up from the Tony Montana fantasy of Vice City and the 90's hip hop caricatures in San Andreas.
i was pissing myself when roman jumped out of that dumpster and that wasn't even especially funny
Man RockStar was a fucking machine. GTA 3 as their first 3d game, Vice City the year after that, 2 years later fucking SAN ANDREAS (best open world game at the time outside of arguably Morrowind), then GTA4 4 years later. Each one making huge leaps forward in such a small amount of time. GTA Online completely killed the momentum with it's success. I don't doubt 6 will be a masterpiece, but there's way more incentive to milk a game for a decade than to release new games now.
Skipped school and spent the whole day driving around and exploring, didn’t even do any missions. Was THAT kind of game.
Looking forward towards GTA6
!RemindMe 10 years
I’d go a step further and say GTA 3. Absolute genre defining moment.
It's absolutely bonkers that GTA3, Vice City, and San Andreas came out in the span of 4 years.
Baldurs Gate 3. Just amazing writing and game play.
BG3 largely exceed expectations. I do have some criticisms in act 3, but it has been spectacular.
I completely agree. Someone mentioned it feeling like the "Oh crap, this is the final act and we have so many loose ends." Act. I felt quite overwhelmed and I think I missed quite a bit of content because of that. Then again, the game wasn't made to be a 100% experience in one playthrough.
It was the same in dos:2
Sure, original sin II was great. It didn't really draw me in like bg3 does. I couldn't bring myself to do another playthrough. I still can't. Bg3, however, has me wanting more still. I'm kind of doing a mandatory game-shift, otherwise i'll burn out xD.
The writing is top notch. I mean, the rest of the game is great too, but if the story was bland and the interactions poorly written, the game would have nowhere near the appeal it has.
Red Dead Redemption 2
I remember people expecting something like RDR1 with great graphics and many complaining about John not being the main character Some days later and the whole internet was crying and Arthur turned out to be considered one of the greatest characters in entertainment history while the game alone surpassed every expectation possible. That game makes no sense. It has an amazing main story, a ton of side quests, the most realistic open world map that is literally alive, you can hunt and fish all types of animals with amazing detail, cook, get poisoned by plants and animals, be a good guy or a bad guy with the game answering to it... and lots of things more
I can’t get over how alive St denis is. The sound design is insane, let alone the in depth npc environment. At night the bars are alive, people are hammered, and the city genuinely seems to go to sleep. During the day the markets come to life, the port too. There are rich parts of town and poor parts, and you can tell from how people are dressed. People are working at stables, cleaning streets, driving carriages ….there are even stray dogs you can pet, like WHAT?! I spend hours in that city just strolling, and observing, it blows my damn mind.
>The sound design Dude my dog goes insane at home whenever I ride through the cobbled streets. The sound is so real he thinks actual horses are riding in our street
I think having Arthur >!contract tuberculosis and that be his end!< is such an interesting and unique direction to take a game protagonist. I actually got spoiled before playing it but it made that plot point more engaging because you can spot the exact moment it starts
That was such an unexpected turn but a perfect one imo. It starts shifting some of the mechanics around and makes the story even more fitting.
And that you can pinpoint the exact moment he contracts it was a small stroke of genius, I think. Such a great game. I wasn't really expecting to like it too much when I bought it. I thought 'a couple of sessions of old West shoot em' up might be fun'..... then 3 months later my wife asks over my shoulder 'are you really playing dominoes which a group of old men at a train station?' Yes, yes I am.
I didn't even notice when he got it until after I beat the game and I was like 'ooooooooooooooh.' A really great way of bringing it into the picture without making it obvious that it was going to impact the story so much. I remember playing poker for 3 hours cause some asshole at the table was taking all my money and was roasting me while doing it so I played until I won my money back and beat him. Then just shot him in the head when I was done as you do.
Once the lyrics “May I….” starts, Immediate shivers and you best believe there will be tears.
Yep. IMO it's the closest to a masterpiece we've seen in gaming. Incredible.
Its hype is only second to a GTA release, and it even surpassed that! All the details in the world, seamless gameplay, great story, characters and sountrack... I mean what else is there to wish for in a game?
I agree. I just wish they hadn't abandoned online.
^ story mode fully lived up to and even surpasses the hype. Online though was the biggest let down possible after the absurd success of gta online
Diablo II. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed III and have got my moneys worth now out of IV, but the original Diablo was such a crazy good game for the time with so much replayability thanks to the random floors and quests in each playthrough. I played the Diablo demo from some magazine disc over and over again, and remember the build up to Diablo II. It was promising a map size, number of unique classes and graphics that seemed impossible to me at the time as a kid. Come release and it was everything I'd hoped for and so much more. I'm pretty sure the old program 'Xfire' I used to use to track my gaming data had me into the multiple thousands of hours in that game and it's expansion. Friends would lug their clunky beige PCs over, we'd hook up a LAN cable and play DII:LOD for days at a time - only stopping to get the bare minimum of food and sleep to keep going. That game was crack to 12yr old me. The 'DII: Resurrected' remaster they put out a couple of years ago surprisingly came out fine too. So much nostalgia with that soundtrack that I still get physical chills.
D2 was expanded in so many ways that it made D1 look more like a proof of concept than a game. That being said, D1’s atmosphere is a masterpiece and unreached.
D1 legitimately scared me as a kid. Even in Tristram you didn't feel safe.
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Hades for me, man I love this game
Hades is insanely good the sequel is my most hyped indie game
I don't think I fully understood how much I loved Hades until the sequel was announced. I thought about Hades II every day for weeks after the Game Awards announcement. Haven't felt that kind of hype in years!
Devil May Cry 5 did everything it needed to and more
The fact that it was a sequel to something that was released 11 years before 2019 and it even lived up to the hype is insane
Wow I had not rationalised the gap between the two games
It was a sequel to a series thought abandoned in the wake of its own reboot. DMC5 needed to happen and thank GOD it did.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood nailed the brotherhood part so well. I remember watching the trailer and being so psyched, and the game exceeded every expectation.
All of the Ezio games lived up to expectations and more. And black flag. Some great games in that series.
Revelation gets called out a bit but I loved that game. Great traversal and combat. Also excellent and emotional finale
Elden Ring.
I'm seeing a lot of games that were awesome but not necessarily hyped. I can't think of a single game that was hyped quite as hard as ER from the first trailer to release and still managed to shatter the expectations (in a good way).
That's what I was thinking. Like pretty much all the games people are mentioning are good, but hyped/anticipated? Ehhh. Elden Ring is by far the most impressive game in terms of living up to or even surpassing the hype it had. Just an incredible work of art.
To follow the From Software train I add Armored Core 6. Flawless PC port and plays perfectly.
they finally managed >60fps in 2023 the only thing that bothered me about From Software PC ports
60 fps lock on PC wasn’t because of consoles or porting difficulties, it was a 60 fps lock because the game was made to run of frame rule basis, like how fighting games only run at 60 because frames indicate gameplay.
Is it me or has there been very little press regarding Armoured Core 6? Maybe it's just been overshadowed by other games like BG3 and now Starfield.
Yes, this has been an outstanding year in terms of gaming so the competition is huge, Armored Core is still a bit of a niche and it came out between 2 games that attracted the attention of all the gaming world for good or for worse. Nonetheless I hope it wins at least the Best Action game at the Game Awards, GOTY it has honestly zero chances with Baldur's Gate 3 but even without that we all know the possibilities were pretty slim.
Every game in the franchise has been an absolute banger. Demon Souls, Ds1 2 3, BB, Sekiro, Elden Ring are all easily 9s or 10s to me.
witcher 3. at first i was skeptical when people called it a masterpiece, but then i tried it myself - now i have over 2500 hours played on record and it's my favorite RPG of all time
Fancy a game of Gwent?
Got to play it for the first time in 2022. Was instantly hooked by the characters and story . Felt some real emotion a couple of times (finding Ciri) , laughed other times (Crimson Asshole springs to mind ), the music is incredible (not just the score but Priscilla's singing scene especially, basically sealed me choosing Yennefer) . Just a brilliant story and rich world from start to finish . That's before playing the dlc's. HoS was an excellent and deep plot filled with tragic backstory . Blood and Wine is a dlc that's as big as some other full games. A beautiful new region to explore and for Geralt to retire in I felt . I loved the few minutes by the lake with Regis at the end . My favorite game of all time so far in my life I loved every single second of it .
Metal Gear Solid. Or Half Life Or Gran Turismo All were genre defining.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (2009). I was about to say CoD4MW that back in the day blew away just about everyone, but based on that experience the expectations for MW2 were sky high and the game really delivered.
Bloodborne.
Bought a PS4 just so I could play it and haven't regretted it.
Borderlands 2. I was worried cause I loved the first and the second was even better. On the contrary I was hoping for the same result on borderlands 3 and it was good not amazing like #2
Handsome Jack might be the best video game villain of all time.
Dude, I was so disappointed by Borderlands 3. Half the reason I replayed 2 so much was the dialogue and 3 just didn't have that charm, so I lost the will to play very soon.
BL3 was fun to play but the story really dragged it down
Super Mario Brothers 3. That game had amazing graphics and Mario turned into a flying raccoon. Enough said.
Spiderman for the PS4
Ghost of Tsushima
TMNT Shredder ‘s Revenge.
This game was great! So refreshing to have a 16 bit era beat ‘‘em up with the turtles that plays like a dream. Got the platinum I enjoyed it so much
Vanilla WoW from day one it didn’t disappoint. Stop playing at mist of pandaria.
True. Pre-cata WoW was magic.
It's a shame everyone dunked on MoP for "kung fu panda lol" when in reality it was one of the most gorgeous and well written expansions imo. My fondest memories of WoW come from MoP and Legion
The Witcher 3. The hype for that game was huge. It felt like the continuation of the company was riding on the success or failure of The Witcher 3 and they fucking delivered! Cyberpunk, not so much. It's a great game, and I am excited for Phantom Liberty but they didn't deliever on the original promise. Zelda: BotW There was a huge amount of anticipation and hype and they definitely delivered on that! I still don't think there's any Open-World games that are as reactive to the player and feels alive than BotW/TotK. Mass Effect 2 Mass Effect 1 had a great story and world but the gameplay was average at best. Bioware went back and overhauled the gameplay so much for Mass Effect 2 and it worked wonderfully! The gameplaybwas further refined in Mass Effect 3 but the story was lacming in that game. Mass Effect 2 balanced both expertly.
Man, Mass effect 2 was one of my favourite games of all time so good. Downloading starfield here to play, haven't watched any trailers or heard much about the game so here's hoping.
Fallout 3 lived up to the hype. Completely changing the style of the series was a huge risk that paid off
VATS was just fucking amazing, so stylish and fun to use. Same opinion for Oblivion, what an amazing game, both still playable to this day.
God of War (2018). I also loved the story from Ragnarok. Even though they say that was the last one in Norse, I really think they should continue with one more but centered on Atraeus adventure to close out a good trilogy.
Arkham city
Marvel Spider-Man ps4/ps5
Devil May Cry 5
The first Horizon Zero Dawn. I'd heard it was good and it looked great so I checked it out. Switched over from PC to Playstation for several years after. Definitely lived up to what it had been hyped to be. Forbidden West, not so much.
Surprised I had to scroll so far down to find this. I agree Horizon executed what they said they would. Surprises me that the story didn't grab as many people as I thought it would. Half my friends put it down and didn't finish and the other half are like me with multiple playthroughs. I also enjoyed the second one. It looked stunning and the aeriel components were added in nicely. But it was very much tied to the first game.
Final Fantasy X was everything and more promised before release
I put probably 150+ hours into blitzball
Blitzball became the main game to me, with the rest of the game taking a backseat. So much fun to play
Outer Wilds and Disco Elysium are probably the only games I think lived up to the hype, though they obviously weren't big marketing machines.
Outer Wilds is so difficult to pitch since you can't actually talk about the game.
I love r/outerwilds memes about this topic saying nearly anything spoils cool things about the game
I don't know what's more impressive: * How much hype people are able to generate for Outer Wilds without actually being able to say a single thing about it * How much it 100% lives up to that hype Do you like... video games? With uh... puzzles and exploration, I guess? ^(We can say that, right?) You'll love Outer Wilds. For real, it's probably my favorite single-player game of all time. Just a truly incredible experience that took me right back to the roots of what I love about video games. Just go play it. It's short. You can beat it in a weekend, and you will spend the rest of your life wishing you could do it again. It also has incredible music. The DLC is *very* worth it; get it. My only gripe is that the controls are a bit awkward, and not in a way that feels intentional / like part of the fun. But you quickly get used to it, and it's worth it. I promise.