Patient Gamers

Return of Obra Dinn. Such an incredible experience.

The normies? What is this, reddit

Horizon: Zero Dawn.

Captivating storyline combined with interesting fights and beautiful visuals.

Disco Elysium.

I missed it when it came out, but it’s an amazing game. An amazing amazing game.

Probably Hollow Knight.

Saying Crusader Kings III feels like cheating cause I‘ve just been playing it for a long time.

Kenshi. Unlimited replayability and modability.

I finally got around to playing the Mass Effect trilogy (the Legendary Edition remasters, anyway). It's excellent.

In 2011, I gave up on ME1 after getting to a very difficult combat encounter that I was not prepared for and having no other saves to go back to. I essentially rage-quit the trilogy for over 10 years, lol.

Still about halfway through ME3 but I am already planning my second playthrough. Truly a God-tier set of games, IMO.

I was almost not going to respond with Outer Wilds, since it feels like I played forever ago. But apparently I only played it in June of this year, so that's my choice. It's one of my favorite games now, if not my favorite game ever.

It's so good, in fact, that it's helping me get over this weird anxiety I have of talking about my hobbies with other people (including my closest friends). Outer Wilds is so good that even though I hate talking about games I like, I still feel the need to recommend it to people. And now that the floodgates are open I feel a bit more comfortable talking about my other favorite games, like Baba is You, which I got another person to play as well, and The Messenger, which I'm playing now and loving it.

Tunic. Not that old either (2022), but I guess it's not "this year". The whole game is captivating.

Super Mario Odyssey. It's mostly extremely fun, controls well, with only occasional camera angles and poor checkpointing infuriation lighting its copybook.

I gave Fallout 4 another try recently, after only playing a few hours of it a couple of years back. I ended up getting sucked into it. So far, I've only used a couple of quality-of-life mods, like a high FPS fix and allowing Dogmeat to be a companion alongside any other companion, which the game had unimplemented code for.

Celeste.

To a lesser extent, I liked Hitman 3, Factorio and Plate Up! (fun to play on the TV locally with friends)

Probably Mass Effect Legendary Edition

• God of War II
• Tekken 1 through Tekken 5 (so far)

I used to play Tekken 1 and Tekken 3 on PS1, so huge nostalgic trip. And I've wanted to play God of War for forever, but never had a PS2, but Steam Deck (and Emudeck) made emulation so easy that I'm catching up.

Red Dead Redemption 2. I got like 200 hours out of it already and still not done.

Rain World is absolutely amazing. I'm hopelessly addicted to it. Highly recommend if you like unique games.

Toem. I heard it was pretty good but I was surprised how cozy it was to play. A great example of Iyashikei in gaming

I'll share three based on how much I want to play them again soon

• The Last of Us Part 2
• Kena Bridge of Spirits
• Days Gone

I’ll have to say Cloud Punk.

A small indie game about a girl starting her courier job in a cyberpunk future.

• The game-play is okayish
• The graphics try to emulate a voxel look and are functional at best.
• The Sound design, music and the full synchronisation make this game exceptional!

The story captured me and together with the audio and visual style kept me playing way into the small hours.

I'd say Hitman III (now called World of Assassins) or No Man's Sky. Both are really great values for their price.

I think I'm mostly done with the Hitman franchise for now, but I'll probably come back to NMS next time Starfield has some big update and I need to scratch that exploration itch.

ADACA and Signalis just came out last year so not far behind but they were fun. ADACA is billed as Half-Life meets Halo meets STALKER by reviewers and it’s a fun, light FPS. (although I couldn’t get into the more open Zone Patrol mode)

Signalis though, that oozes atmosphere, an excellent soundtrack, and offered feels in a neat fleshed out world. I enjoyed the gameplay quite a bit, a callback to top-down survival horror from an era I never really played. I really appreciate a lack of jump scares except one enemy’s presence when you enter a room making your screen/radio go haywire but hardly FNAF material which I will only watch.

Probably 'Talos Principle'. I still haven't finished it though. A tier puzzle game for me. Maybe S tier by the time I finish!

For me, it's No Mans Sky. I've put a lot of hours into it this year.

My backlog is so big I figure any game that I've played would qualify.

Ticket to Earth would be mine.

I am working my way through Yakuza 5 though which I'm really enjoying.

Grounded, The Forest.

Good on a steam deck.

Gravity Rush.

Theme Hospital

Perfect Vermin. It takes only 15 to beat, it's fun, and it has a cool theme/concept/story