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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   1977 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 28, 2024

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Any good discounted games folks recommend on the steam summer sale? Specifically interested in co-op games if anyone knows any good ones.

Overcooked 2 is on sale, probably grabbing that. As well as Trine who someone here recommended.

EDIT: I like fun single player games too! @SubstantialFrivolity pointed out Arkham Knight which looks awesome for $2.

The first Amnesia is on sale for €4. Excellent Lovecraftian survival horror.

The first Dishonored + all the DLC for €5. If you liked Thief or Bioshock you'll almost certainly like this. I've only played the base game.

Far Cry 3 for €3. My favourite in the series, very satisfying stealth and gunplay (fair warning: I recently tried replaying it and it crashed so frequently that I gave up. Apparently it's an issue with Windows 11).

Inside and Limbo for less than €3. Everyone's heard of Limbo (that really stylish 2D black-and-white platformer where you control a little boy in a forest) and it's as good as everyone says it is, but I think Inside is even better.

Mirror's Edge for €5. Very satisfying first-person parkour platforming, stylish visuals, amazing soundtrack (just skip all the cutscenes, the story is trash).

Psychonauts for €2.50. About as close to a game I'd call perfect as any game I've played, and one of the few games which made me actually laugh out loud several times without once resorting to puerile toilet humour.

Manhunt for €3.50. In my opinion a massively underrated stealth/survival horror game from the people behind Grand Theft Auto. A game that makes you feel dirty playing it (in a good way) and has some interestingly meta things going on long before that was cool (and in a subtle enough way that doesn't draw attention to itself).

Valkyria Chronicles for €5. After the X-COM reboot, the best turn-based tactics game I've played. Attempts to tell a sanitised PG-13 World War Two science fantasy AU without downplaying the horror and tragedy of that conflict, and largely succeeds.

X-COM 2 for €2.50. Currently playing through it for the first time, having logged more hours in Enemy Unknown than I care to mention. Mechanically speaking it's a little cluttered compared to its more streamlined predecessor, and the new "concealment" mechanic feels awfully half-baked. But I've already sunk 40 hours into it, which I'm sure speaks for itself - given how addictive the first one was, the sequel would have to be a lot worse for me not to spend a comparable amount of time playing it.

Alien Isolation for a tenner. If you liked the original Alien film (and, crucially, thought Aliens kind of missed the point of what made the original work) you'll probably like this. Tense, atmospheric, terrifying, with visuals which capture the vibe of the original film flawlessly.

Others have mentioned Arkham Knight, which I haven't played. Asylum and City, both of which I've played several times and loved, are going for €4 each.

You can buy the entire F.E.A.R. franchise for €5.50 (weirdly, the only individual entries you can buy are 2 and 3). The only one I've played is the first, which had some of the most satisfying FPS gunplay and sound design I've played. The horror elements didn't really work for me, in stark contrast to a game by the same studio which came out within a year, Condemned Criminal Origins, which is in the top ten most terrifying games I've ever played and which is going for €2.50.

Ghostrunner for €9. Played it a few months ago, possibly the single hardest game I've ever played to completion. Nails that hypnotic Hotline Miami effect (aided by the amazing synthwave soundtrack), but this one's a first-person parkour platformer where you hack up enemies with a katana.

Outlast and its DLC for under a fiver. Excellent first-person survival horror in the vein of Amnesia.

SOMA for under €6. From the people who made Amnesia, but far superior to it. It's much less overtly scary: the tone is more of Philip K. Dick-esque dread and existential despair. The ending really got under my skin.

Catherine Classic for €5. Played it for the first time a few months ago and loved it, it's a combination of puzzle-platformer and visual novel/dating sim. Addictive, stylish and bonkers.

Detention for under €4. A side-scrolling horror visual novel set in Taiwan in the 1960s may not sound like your thing - it certainly didn't sound like mine. I found it so absorbing I played through the whole thing in one sitting anyway.

Resident Evil 7 for €8. A steal. A radical departure from previous Resident Evils, and yet one that works remarkably well.

The Shrouded Isle for €2. A weird strategy game in which you play as the leader of a Wicker Man-esque cult on a secluded island. Every quarter, you must sacrifice a member of the cult to appease the gods, while carefully balancing relationships and trust among the various houses. Weird and cool.

SUPERHOT for €7. FPS based around an ingenious and deceptively simple gameplay gimmick. Remember earlier when I said that Manhunt's story has some cool meta elements which are subtle enough not to draw attention to themselves? SUPERHOT is the opposite of that: it's one of those indie games where the story is super meta and seems to expect a big pat on the back for doing something meta, all of which is awfully grating. Would've been improved by cutting the story entirely or replacing it with a dumb excuse plot. But the gameplay and visuals are great.

Gloomhaven. It's a high quality adaptation of a board game with a persistent campaign that lets you level your adventurers, buy new loot, and unlock new stuff between missions. You both will need your own copy, but it's on sale for $13.50, which even when doubled is way cheaper than the physical board game. And the computer handling setup, monster behavior, and deck shuffling makes it a lot more convenient to play. My wife and I have 250 hours in it together, and I credit it for a significant portion of our relationship progress during the years we were dating long distance.

For single player:

The Geneforge Saga is deeply discounted. Phenomenal writing, ok gameplay. You may want the remakes of the first two games for QoL purposes; I think the first three had graphical lag issues on 64-bit Windows, but this was a decade ago and is likely patched.

Arcanum (again, awesome game with a very dated interface) is $1.49.

Vermintide 2 is the best co-op game I've ever played.

Hah yeah I’ve had fun with that one.

Just pasting directly what I put elsewhere:

Haven't checked if all of these are on sale, but:

  • Six Ages (revamp of the classic tribal RPG/strategy simulation King of Dragon Pass - if you haven't played KoDP, what are you even doing?)
  • The Banner Saga (kind of resembles KoDP but more focus on battles)
  • Frostpunk (post-apocalyptic city simulation)
  • The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante (dark fantasy choose-your-own-adventure)
  • Pentiment (medieval adventure/detective)
  • Return of Obra Dinn (dark time-detective style puzzle)
  • Roadwarden (dark fantasy RPG)
  • Griftlands (Slay the Spire style scifi deckbuilder with fun mechanisms)

All single-player, note. Might also add in Balatro, since others had already recommended it multiple times in the discussion I commented on.

I've just started with Vagrus:The Riven Realms, which is a combination Roadwarden, Sunless Seas with a bit of Darkest Dungeon combat. Really enjoying it. Great if you like merchant caravan style games in a fantasy post apocalyptic setting.

Would you recommend KoDP before Six Ages or would you recommend for someone that doesn't play that much to go straight to Six Ages?

You can go either way. KoDP is a bit more complex gaming-mechanics-wise (which could be a minus or a plus in your opinion, the mechanics are not super complex either way) and the story is a bit richer and longer.

What's your opinion on six ages 2? Is it an improvement on 1 or more of the same?

Personal indie-adjacent recs in no particular order:

Raft is a good mid-length survival-ish experience solo and a great one in co-op. Very chill pace but has enough action/exploration to stay interesting throughout.

Not for Broadcast is a singleplayer narrative adventure which I think people are blatantly fucking sleeping on, basically Papers Please but your new job is a cameraman for CNN. Text-heavy but cheap on sale and I expect it to hit very close to heart for many mottizens, especially with election season on the horizon. If you check one game from this list, make it this one.

Gunfire Reborn is an FPS that successfully distills all the great parts of Borderlands (minus the cringe) into a roguelite format. Tailor-made for kicking back and shooting shit in co-op. The discount isn't big but imo it's very much worth it at full price, it even still gets DLCs/updates.

SYNTHETIK is a fairly difficult but very satisfying roguelite top-down shooter, it's somewhat old at this point but it's like 5 bucks on sale and is great value for the price. Has janky but workable multiplayer for the premium friendly fire experience. The sequel is also great but I think it still needs some time in the oven.

I will never stop shilling Chrono Ark, a roguelite deckbuilder with extremely autistic mechanics and (unusually for roguelites) an actual plotline with enough despair to make Gen Urobuchi blush. It's... an acquired taste but if you already beat Slay the Spire on Ascension 20 definitely give this one a try. The cultured swimsuit DLC is entirely skippable.

Don't Starve Together

From the Steam page:

Fight, Farm, Build and Explore Together in the standalone multiplayer expansion to the uncompromising wilderness survival game, Don't Starve.

It Takes Two, if you haven't already played it.

Played this! Yeah it was great.

Arkham Knight is $2. I assume I don't need to sing the praises of the Arkham games, but that's an insane price for such a good game.

Dude, this looks awesome. Thank you for the heads up!

You're welcome! If you haven't played them, definitely check out Arkham Asylum and Arkham City as well, they are both on sale too. I think it's something like $9 for all three.

Rabbit and Steel has been pretty fun, but the sale isn’t much.

Moving Out is like Overcooked, but with furniture. Not quite as charming. Still goofy.

I feel like I should have other examples…

Escape Simulator and the We Were Here series are fun puzzle coop games.

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