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What Should I Buy This Holiday Season?
Pablo the Penguin
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I just noticed that the holidays are coming up, and that means that the consequential holiday shopping is alarmingly close. Unfortunately, I have no idea what kind of games to get for others/myself. I don't want to consult a generic holiday shopping guide that I can find virtually anywhere on the internet, because those guides simply point me at obvious choices like Call of Duty, or Assassin's Creed. So I would like to ask the people of the internet what I should get. Are there any obscure and underappreciated titles I should look for? Or maybe something more obvious? Any help is appreciated (also, for simplicity, just assume I'm looking for any genre of game and own every console).
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Souls
RTS: wait for Starcraft 2 until than you can stick to the Dawn of War or Company of Heroes anthology.
RPG: Dragon Age or Drakensang, probably both. If you are into SCIFI add Mass Effect and Fallout3.
4X: Sins of a Solar Empire/Sword of the Stars (both including expansions). Sins has the better UI and more polished grapics and speed but Swords has gameplaydepth galore and thus more replayability.
sports (sorta): Blood Bowl
(action)flightsim: H.A.W.X. and Ace Combat 6 (Ace combat is the better choice i guess if you own a X-Box)
Or... that... if they manage to finish it in time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yabM7RAQXjc&feature=fvw
Also buy some chocolate. Gotta have chocolate for Xmas.
And mulled wine.
Mmm...
These are all recent or semi-recently released games.. if you go back further in the year there are lots of great niche/underappreciated/obscure games, but anyway:
Torchlight - THIS is the new Diablo. It's fantastic if you enjoy that style of game.
Gyromancer - It's like Puzzle Quest but it's developed by a dream team - PopCap for the puzzle gameplay, Square-Enix for the RPGing & art.
Trials HD - Combines driving and puzzle-elements into one seamless and addictive game.
A Boy & His Blob - beautiful 2D puzzle platformer
Dead Space Extraction - innovative, story-driven horror on-rails shooter pushes the genre forward
Contra ReBirth - old school Contra at its finest
Muramasa: The Demon Blade - beautiful 2D action / RPG hybrid
ExciteBike World Rally - throwback to the classic gameplay formula with some new twists, level editor, online
Trine - Physics-based action game where three characters' various abilities solve puzzles / kill enemies
Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection - fantastic addicting classic pinball table collection with excellent physics and presentation and controls
Demon's Souls - unique niche dungeon crawling RPG action game and great multiplayer
Half Minute Hero - like a sped-up trip through every RPG convention in some crazy, addicting, bite size, fast-paced formula
Space Invaders Extreme 2 - addicting retro remake of the classic Space Invaders formula with some excellent new twists and presentation
Machinarium - beautiful and unique adventure / puzzle game about the story of a little robot in a vast mechanical city
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
It's easily worthwhile in my book. I didn't find it get boring or repetitive honestly, but if someone felt like they were, they probably needed to step it up to Hard difficulty (Shura) rather than Easy (Muso). If you play on Easy the whole time you can get away without advancing your skills much, which might make it less fun. Playing on Shura requires greater mastery over the skillset you're given, item management, and sword management/special skills.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Hmm... is it randomizing levels or always the same? Is there a hardcore mode where your character gets deleted if you die? I am very much into roguelikes and those two key aspects mean a lot to me.
On a sidenote: a lot of very good games are free. Dwarfen Fortress as an example.
Rave Reviews, mediocre sales, my GOTY. It's 35 at Best Buy and it's multiplayer is absolutely glorious. I made a multiplayer guide and got to talk to Double Fine about it.
Levels are randomized a la Diablo II (i.e., some set of tilesets in each level and some monster mash). There is always a clear path forward, however, but I don't know anyone who liked backtracking in Diablo II.
There is a hardcore mode, too.
From IGN review and GT review:
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Do you all think that many people are going to appreciate a goddamn roguelike? It's a niche genre for a reason.
Well he said to assume that he's looking for any genre of game.
Roguelike is definitely a genre. And Demons Souls is a good one, and kinda fits the bill of more obscure or maybe more underappreciated than the other big Fall mega titles that take up most of the media's attention.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Still wondering how it got such high reviews, though.
Reviewers complain all the time of frustration, but build a game out of it and give it five stars!
That's why Demon's Souls is amazing.
It's frustrating in a good way.
Really, fustration is part of the draw of roguelikes. As long as it's done in a good way.
I wouldn't really suggest it at full price, but if you can get a decent deal, Afrika just got a non-asian version, and is definitely an interesting experience.
Also, trine is 50% on steam until 8AM PST tomorrow, and is definately worth a look
Funniest game I've played in years. And its less than $5.00 on Steam.
KORG DS-10 - It's a synth! On a Nintendo DS!
Heroes of Newerth - Do you have enemies? Or, alternatively, friends who really love DOTA? This is the gift for them.
GalCon - It's a deceptively simple game PC/iPhone game. Sort of like real time space risk. I featured it as a sort of little pre-game thing at a LAN party, the sort of thing people played while everyone else got the big game of the evening installed, but it absolutely destroyed the rest of the evening.
uh
wut
I don't get this reaction.
Forza 3 garnered amazing reviews.
NFS: Shift did not.
It's like if someone asked for a solid platformer, and you recommended Super Mario Galaxy and not Blinx: The Time Sweeper.
NFS:Shift is a competent racer with the best driver view ever put into a video game.
Its not about backtracking. You got to reach the next level and to do so you have to explore. Diablo II did a very poor job on this. Yes the levels are somewhat randomized but it feels still the same. Dungeon Hack is a prime example how to do this. The monster table yould be a bit more varied but than again so could Diablo II.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab1ZIyLGKKA
Also Demon's Souls is fun as hell. Yes its unforgiving, but its never feels hopeless, and its part of its appeal. It successfully pulled me away from Uncharted 2, MW2 and L4D2 for a second game. (This time I'm doing a melee/bow build instead of magic based)
Let me tell you about Demon's Souls....
That game gets ridiculously hard like a quarter way through on Shura. Sometimes the latest weapons you forge wont even help, you have to go back to using more reliable weapons in your inventory that suit the enemies you're fighting. There's LOTS of sword techniques to use.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
rpg, adventure?
platformer?
I would HIGHLY recommend boy and his blob.
unless they are against anthropomorphic traits to inanimate objects (i know some religious families that deter from talking animals)
Boy and His blob emphasizes the virtues of friendship to overcome obstacles, not too unlike the relationship with a family pet.
World of Goo also has some sort of quirky story as I understand.
I shop for a lot of parents who have very conservative religious restrictions on what their children play.
It would be a great help if you mentioned what systems they owned first.
I couldn't really get into Torchlight.
One of the things that really sold me on the Diablo and Titan Quest games was the sheer variety of character build possibilities. Torchlight seems like a huge step backwards in that regard.
There are relatively few skills that each character can get. Sure, the skill trees have a lot of stuff in them, but they're largely passives that all three classes share. The skills that do exist tend to be very samey.
Then you add in the relative (lack of) balance, and the game just feels incredibly shallow. You wind up using like one primary skill, and one backup skill. And maybe a buff here and there. It's a big step backwards in terms of the roleplaying aspects, and my tolerance for using the same damned lightning attack time and time and time and time again is just non-existent.
That's not to say that Torchlight's awful or has no redeeming qualities. It's just that it feels anachronistic. It's a step in the wrong direction for everything I like about the genre.
Also: holy shit does that game need a better loot system. Like, bad.