Comic: https://www.deathbulge.com/comics/441
Alt text: Yeah yeah, there's always exceptions, I mean look no further than the game in the 2nd panel, not the most thrilling gameplay, is it?
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to play devil’s advocate: if i want 1990-2005 era graphics i’d rather just play games from that era because they were better.
i want GOOD AAA games in 2026, just like i want good hollywood blockbusters in 2026, just like i want good pop music in 2026.
i don’t want to spend 5485080485 hours sorting through garbage to find a $2 gem. anyone over 40 knows this pain; zoomers are in denial and make memes like this to justify their pathetic lives and smugly look down on everyone who isn’t willing to go the distance for a fleeting experience that’s lacking in comparison to some crappy dos game from 35 years ago, like martian memorandum.
It’s not just the graphics that improved in the last 20 years. Modern game engines created a floor of quality where input just works, basic configuration just works, autosave just works. All these little conveniences around the game itself that you barely think about, until you play a shooter from 20 years ago and the buttons are mapped weirdly and there’s no way to remap.
As if all indie-games look like 1990s. I’m over 50 and went more and more indie over the years as AAA just does the same grey-washed boring pc-crap over and over again. Also sloppy, shitty and buggy. Rare exceptions may apply.
Name 3 really(!) Good AAA since January? Not good by sales, but good. And then try to find ONE that was also creative and dared to bring something fresh. Yeah exactly. Fresh doesn’t appease investors.
It is trivially easy on steam or gog to simply filter for indie games and just click through each ones that are well reviewed. Especially on steam it’s brain-dead simple browse these. If you’re having too much a problem with it just tell me your taste and I’ll give you a game that’s objectively good.
Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout 2, Fallout NV, Civilisation, Rimworld, Privateer, Minecraft.
What’s my current indie goodness?
Noita, Verho or Lunacid, Path of Achra, Gloomwood, and maybe Fear and Hunger if you like the atmosphere and pain, idk if this one is Indie but check out Cataclismo
Excellent, I haven’t heard of any of these! I will check them out. Tyvm.
Yeah, right. I think the place for useless assholes is not here. At least I hope it is.
You’re thinking of a different time; there’s a deluge of indie and AA games with graphical fidelity that puts most AAAs to shame; and that’s if you set aside their art direction.
This isn’t 2005. Devs have access to some fantastic off-the-shelf engines.
Games that I have enjoyed that are indie:
Its a wild ride I recommend!
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1296610/Peglin/
If you like peggle its a fun little game. -
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1218210/Coromon/
Its like pokemon and amazing pixel art. -
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1082710/Bug_Fables_The_Everlasting_Sapling/
If you liked Mario RPG titles this is a fun one.
What are your picks?
Voices of the Void is great and free! It’s a game set in a government facility in the woods where you monitor satellites to try to detect aliens.
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Jazzpunk https://store.steampowered.com/app/250260/Jazzpunk_Directors_Cut/ - Everyone should play Jazzpunk. Watch the trailer, and read no other reviews, just play it.
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Far: Lone Sails https://store.steampowered.com/app/609320/FAR_Lone_Sails/ - a gorgeous art piece, a good story that develops through the gameplay, worth your time.
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Void War https://store.steampowered.com/app/2853590/Void_War/ - Void War is FTL crossed with Warhammer 40k, but it’s not just a reskin. If you ever wanted more FTL gameplay, Void War is it.
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The Red Strings Club https://store.steampowered.com/app/589780/The_Red_Strings_Club/ - a great story with beautifully written characters, everything that digital storytelling should be.
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Songs of Syx https://store.steampowered.com/app/1162750/Songs_of_Syx/ - this has been eating my brain recently. If you enjoy colony builders like Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress, Songs of Syx is potentially dangerous in that where did the last eight hours go kind of way. It’s still got some rough spots, but the developer is actively working on it.
*Bonus - Fatum Betula https://store.steampowered.com/app/1281270/Fatum_Betula/ - a strange experience, like nothing else that I know of. I also recommend going into this one blind, just watch the developer’s trailer.
+1 for Far. I’ve only played a little, but the art and music are fantastic.
I’ll have to check out the rest.
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I mean c’mon you gotta at least acknoledge that these are wildly different genres from the AAA games people complain about
No way Undertale/Deltarune fans haven’t shown up yet
This one has arrived
Genuinely crazy that it so rarely gets mentioned in the “we’ll never see another original game again!!!” hysteria.
Larian Studios also has a string of bangers that should mark it out as the next Bethesda or BioWare, but it also routinely gets ignored.
CRPGs aren’t as popular as a genre is the main reason
My only suggestion for outer wilds is that at the very start of the game if the village feels boring just go straight to the ship and once you’ve taken off give the game at least another half an hour to wow you. If by that time you’re not hooked the game might not be for you.
- Star Valor is one of my all time favourites - i always come back to this one, it never gets boring.
- Dead Cells doesn’t need much introduction i think.
- Pathogenic is the newest addition to my library, and it’s a really fun and innovative twin stick shooter with a great soundtrack and a very polished design.
- Look Outside Is a horror survival game. Lots of body horror, for those who like that. Great atmosphere, i love playing it at night on my steam deck.
Dead Cells has difficukty adjustments in the menus too, for anyone who tried it and hated it like I did. They added it later. Its a lot of fun even on easy mode. I played it enough that I had the difficulty back to “normal” and even higher at one point too.
Star valor kinda reminds me of the old Inner space game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCcpqUL90rY
Yes, i loved that back in the days too, fighting through my Mp3 collection lol
https://store.steampowered.com/developer/knucklecracker
I really enjoyed most games by Knuckle Cracker. They’re very unique and different.
There are some NSFW games I’ve had a lot of fun with that are contenders for a space in your library:
The Flipwitch series is a fun Metroidvania that asks “what if changing gender at will was a gameplay mechanic?”
Scarlet Maiden was my first 2d platformer roguelike I’ve ever sunk hours into and really turned me on to the genre, pun intended.
Spirit Valley is “what if Pokemon but with sexy monster girls?” There are even shinies to hunt!
Elf Girl Pinball is a lot of fun!
Tower/Sword of Succubus are two entirely different genres. Tower is more puzzle based, Sword is essentially sexy Zelda. Even comes with the free Castlevania throwback: Succubus Hunter. The series even expands further into search-action with Midnight Castle Succubus DX and Castle in the Clouds DX. Seriously, check these out while you wait for Belmont’s Curse.
Smash Girls looks fun if you can get it to run without crashing and rebooting your PC. Basically Smash Bros with Hentai.
I’ve sunk way more hours than I’d ever have thought into My Dystopian Robot Girlfriend. Still haven’t finished it at all but really good storyline and honestly the porn aspects can be completely ignored
I have to use every opportunity to recommend vivid/stasis. Its amazing, my favorite game
catgirl is another cool game
Both games are free and have a cool story, the second took me 5 hours to finish, in the first one i have spent 117 hours
I’ve been enjoying My Little Puppy. It’s a cute little game about finding your human. Not for kids though.
“This looks amazing!”
“Oh, its already on my wishlist, I thought itnwas amazing before too!”
You have to buy it now, it’s the double wishlist rule
You joke but I have used this before.
I’ve been playing that and loving it! Is…is it not kid friendly? A lot of the gameplay… seems just cute and simple… Ohno. Anxious now that it might have a dark af ending o-o Guess I’ll see.
Sorry by that I meant that the gameplay is actually quite difficult. The quick time events are strict and there’s no accessibility option, the jumps are tight especially in some sections, etc. So far the themes are kid friendly, though I haven’t beaten it try. But I can’t see anyone under 10 maybe 13 beating this game without serious frustration. Heck as an adult I got annoyed at repeatedly failing a few seconds 😂
I’ve finished the game now. No spoilers, but for any parents reading this:
Tap for not spoiler
I would personally rate the game PG instead of the current G age rating due to certain themes
Is it like spiritfarer? That game fucked me up.
Not so far, though I haven’t finished the game yet
if you’re looking for a fun couch coop game, towerfall is really awesome! it’s a 2D vertical fighting game with bows, the controls are very easy to pick up and the rounds are fast, so anyone can join in and it’s really fun!
Oh wow havent seen that game since the ouya. It was actually super fun. Nice.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1569580/Blue_Prince/
A fun puzzle game with lots of layers to it. There’s the original, stated goal. But as you work towards it, you discover lore that points you towards other puzzles.
This game is genius until you’re determined to truly finish it… Then the next level of the puzzles border on insanity.
Interesting! ill take a look.
For puzzle games, my goto is baba is you
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Played Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora recently, and it struck me almost immediately:
This is, without a hint of doubt, a Ubisoft game. The setting may change, the characters are swapped, but it is always the same gameplay. Like if they figured something that works with Assassin’s Creed and decided to never change it, ever.
Whatever Ubisoft action RPG you start, you always play Assassin’s Creed with extra decorations. Again. And again. And again. Zero creative vision, just new textures on top of the same mechanics.
you always play Assassin’s Creed with extra decorations.
Or if there are guns and vehicles, it’s all Far Cry :-)
They used to have good writing though. How’s Avatar’s story?
Well…it does have some good points. To provide an example without much spoilers, I’ll take one from the early game: while some RDA humans join the Na’vi resistance, and Na’vi are happy to have some help, they keep the original Avatar’s line of Pandorans’ mistrust towards the humans. You are being reminded that humans (the “Sky People”) might sometimes be allies, but they fight a proxy war, and you are here to protect your very homeland. This does get developed further down the story, and it’s a little gem, being a rare shift against humans in the game industry. It provides a nice shift of perspective, while being true to the original story.
Or, the fact that Na’vi clans all have their own vision of war, and some are hesitant to join in again after past defeats. This adds more political complexity to the lore, as opposed to “good guys - bad guys” mentality.
Also, on the crossection of story and game mechanics, there is a disharmony debuff granted when you get too genocidal towards local wildlife. It lowers your senses, makes you a pariah among na’vi, leads to your ikran abandoning you, and more. I think it’s nice, though they made a fairly poor job communicating what counts as a source of one.
On the negative side, it often feels like game design came before the story itself. A lot of it feels like they first planned where the player should go, and only then - the actual “why” behind it. This leads to some awkward turns in the story that feel like a patched afterthought.
I have all of the big studios blocked on Steam. So any new dog shit they pump out that is inevitably built around nothing but extracting wealth, is never shown to me.
For real, there’s so much more variety these days than there was ten or fifteen years ago. I feel like these are the golden days of gaming where everyone can find the exact niche game that they are looking for
People do not actually want games that are original and know what they want to be from AAA game studios. Bungie made Marathon. It is a game with a unique aesthetic, non-apologetic play style that is excellent for those who enjoy that gameplay, deep lore, etc. It flopped and it is constantly being asked to change and have more “mass appeal”.
Let’s say I’m not interested in side-scrollers, that’s already removing at least 50% of all indie games for me. Throw in games with pixel looks and we’re down to maybe 10%.
Fine, but with that said saying side-scrollers is incredibly broad. Cuphead is very different to Pentiment which is nothing like Pizza Tower and that doesn’t share much with Replaced, and so on. There are plenty of genres represin Indie circles from FPS’s to rpgs, point and clicks, simulation, platformers, Metroidvania’s, open world adventures and far more that I can’t be fucked to think of. The point being if indie games aren’t for you then that’s cool but at least be honest and not just dismiss wiith sweeping generalisations.
Side scrollers is very generic, what type of side scrollers?
Saying that 50% of the indie games are side scrollers is like saying that 50% of the AAA games are FPS… No wait, that is actually true.
Yeah, indie and AA-gaming are doing fine, its the AAA that is suffering. And I think they deserve it for sure: predatory practices, lack of innovation, everything looking and feeling the same… Indie and AA-games are the ones I look forward to.
Watching Paradox Interactive transition from AA into a AAA studio has been painful. They fill a niche that nobody else is really paying attention to, but they’ve become so entrenched that the games are really starting to feel like reskins of each other, and while I wouldn’t call their DLC strategy predatory, they feel just a hair below that point.
“Historical strategy simulator” is a pretty tough genre to attack as an indie dev, though.
I kinda get it tbh, sometimes you just want the lore and gameplay of the indie title with the fidelity and scope of a AAA studio.
I mean yes but there are also good games coming out that I wouldn’t call indie games. You just have to know your own taste and need a little bit of experience about which studios will fuck you over and which studio will most certainly deliver what you want.
Me playing Noita (the only game I will ever need) while everyone complains about gta6 which isn’t even out yet.
(actually send help, I cannot make myself play other games)
785 hours, 6 wins. I am perfectly capable of dying to dirt a world over and not need The Works help.
Noita can be such a time sink. I never felt like I properly understood wand crafting. The different ways effects interact is wild.
Noita is great value if you can get around the unforgiving nature of the game.
Now share your secrets with us, give us your go-to wand configuration.
Chainsaws on a trigger spell with an extra one at the end which gets cast at the same time as the trigger bolt to delete cast delay. Adding shit like add manas and heavyshot to the payload really make wands like that shine. Another good one is the lightbeams with the bouncing spells perk or the zig zag modifier.
I have to give the bouncy concentrated light a try. My two favorites are the classic homing (ideally accelerative homing for that increased damage) rock and the multipurpose ping-pong luminous drill (usually with also add mana to never run out of mana). Those are usually guaranteed to carry me far enough to a point where I can gather all the pieces for a high damage wand.
Just finished Momodora: Moonlit Farewell. Couple of years old now but that game had more passion put into it than anything I’ve played in years. Puts many AAA to shame.
I still need to play that one. I played Reverie a few years ago and that was an amazing game that is still in my top recommendations.
Can also recommend Minoria from (I think) the same dev. I believe unrelated story but very similar feel.
Tried God Of War, lost patience after 30 minutes - too much of a “guided experience” for my taste.
Picked up Valheim again for my 6(?)th run of it and only lost patience with it maybe a month (in real time) later.
Been doing Saelig since (got it as a promo from GoG) but now have so much money in that game and such a steady way to make more that it’s not really fun anymore.
Just updated Songs Of Syx to v0.71 and preparing for a new run on that.
I’ve been gaming for almost 4 decades, originally in a ZX Spectrum and after than mostly on the PC (tried modern consoles with the WII, but found it a bit meh).
For me the modern AAA gaming experience is seldom as much fun as some Indie games out there and AAA games now tend to have much less replayability: AAA games in the last 1 or 2 decades mainly have fixed game areas with fixed and reasonably simple game rules so once I’ve seen it and done it I tend to still remember how it was for many years after playing it, so the exploration fun isn’t there anymore in a new run (in my experience it takes maybe a decade before I can come back to the best such games and have fun with it again) whilst many Indie games have procedurally generated playing fields and/or complex enough game rules that after I’ve played so much of it that I got fed up, it takes me a lot less time to have fun in a new run.
Even supposedly great games like Red Dead Redemption II turned out to, for me, be engaging and interesting for far less time than things like, say Terraria - sure, the former starts a lot more impressive, but the fun goes down a lot faster whilst the latter just keeps throwing challanges at you. Also having played it until you’re fed up, some months later Terraria is fun again for another run, whilst if you go back to it a year later, for RDR II you quickly remember what’s were in the game area and how to go around doing stuff, so the “discovery” part of fun isn’t there anymore (this especially so for the story: it’s really only interesting once)
Mind you, there are actually older AAA games for which this doesn’t apply. For example, I can still go back to the Sims 3, start a new game and it will be fun for quite a while.
I think that the problem with modern AAA games is that far too much was invested into glitzy visuals and a heavilly curated game area (not just visually but even things like scripted events) and not enough in engaging game play, plus I get the impression that game play tends to be low complexity so as to be accessible to more people, and for me after 4 decades as a gamer, simpler game rules are usually boring unless the interact in complex ways. Further, all that curating (read, “tight control”) of the game experience goes against a great source of fun in games - emergent gameplay (how the interaction between game rules and between them and the game environment can create varied and complex situations that need different solutions) - something which, IMHO, is part of the reason why in some games multiplayer is a lot of fun when singleplayer is not (humans are great at creating the novel and unexpected) and which works especially well with game with tons of things which interact with each other and with procedurally generated game spaces.
too much of a “guided experience” for my taste.
This shit drives me crazy, and Sony games are far and away the worst offenders - Spider-man, GoW, Death Stranding 2, etc. Otherwise great and enjoyable games damn near ruined by constant nagging and pointers for the most obvious things, like “helpful” reminders to get to the objective you’re already going towards. I have other problems with Death Stranding 2, but that was one of the bigger ones. Stupid doll man wouldn’t. shut. up.
As I recall The Last of Us two found a pretty organic sweet spot. The character you’re with would just make oblique observations if you were stuck for a while, increasingly explicit, until finally an actual icon would appear in the UI pointing you in the right direction (configurable).
I really do find hifi environments too busy to make out “significant” features, and if you’re not going to splash yellow paint on everything some kind of hint system is nice.
Source: I’m not smart
God of war Ragnarok gets even worse with the backseating
The last games I finished were both Remakes (last one: Another Code Recollection)
Aside KingdomHearts getting a Switch remake release the onyl thing entertaining me are GBA and NDS on the RetroidPocketFlip2 … Switch2 ? Collecting Dust … (Altho finishing MMSFLC would be needed. Yet another Remake)
Maybe I should make my own game. Good thing new games are trash, that way it won’t hurt not being able to preserve em anymore
Modern gaming like modern TV and Series and books are very boring. All targeting the low attention span of smartphone zombies
Same thing for movies, music, etc. The people that piss and moan about their media being terrible are the ones that can’t be bothered to lift a finger to seek out something better. They only bother with media that falls into their lap, and that’s petty much all determined by studios that care more about profits than quality.
Exactly. It’s like when people complained that rock and roll died again at the end of the 90’s. Sure, if you don’t seek out better music and just take what’s handed to you by MTV and the radio (or what Spotify shows on its Home screen these days), then music is terrible now. If you go digging, you can find all kinds of amazing stuff. Same goes for gaming. Good studios get too big or bought out and ruined by people who only care about money, but if you dig around you can find all kinds of good stuff.
The stuff that “lands in your lap” was actually shoved there by a multi-million dollar marketing budget. That almost certainly means the product itself is meant for mass consumption and may not be that compelling or interesting. If you’re willing to spend the time and effort to look around and play some bad games along the way, you’ll find the good ones.
On the topic of indie films, can people in-the-known share some suggestions for what’s worth watching?
Grey Man, purely for Captain America in a pedostache hamming it up as a villain.
Brick, Moon, Sunshine, Seven psychopaths
I don’t know how many of those are actually indie but I feel like they all flew in under the radar.
Back in the day, I used to just look up the different indie film festivals, see what was nominated/won, go watch the trailer, and pirate the ones I was interested in.
Found a lot of films this way.
I think it’s still a bit of a fair critique.
There were always sequels and garbage 30 years ago but someone who maybe only saw a movie a year the chance that it would be a new IP were higher. Studios are allergic to risk so they would prefer a mediocre known quality.
That said you’re right there’s more media than ever and tones of interesting options in niche areas. That said discoverability is not free. You have to put in a decent amount of effort and even still you might end up watching a niche indie darling that was never for you and come out disappointed.
For someone who only periodically dips into a form of media I think the current landscape is undeniably worse than it was and I understand when they complain about it.
Streaming has changed films. With on-demand TV, and more affordable, higher-qualitt home theatres, the only films worh spending money on seeing in a cinema are the big eye-candy films.
However, those streaming films are often lower quality if they weren’t also released in cinemas.
