The screenshot is from Morrowind (Running in OpenMW)
Portal 1 and Portal 2. Every time.
Planescape: Torment. So much to erase.
That game is too memorable. I tried replaying it a while back after not touching it in 15 years.
Five minutes in and nope, this whole story is seared into my long term memory and there’s nothing fresh yet.
I’ll try again when I’m 80.
A lot of good ones here already listed, some of those I’ve started and veered off due to busy life with kids.
What I didnt see was uncharted 4. Never played any other in the series, but bought that one from steam sales. You know when you picked up a good book which you couldnt put down but had to read through as fast as possible? Or new tv series that you had to binge? Well surprisingly uncharted 4 was that for me last year. After I was finished I felt empty: “whats now?”.
A very few games have gripped me that way.
The first Uncharted, at the time, reminded me what I loved about gaming, and they’ve only gotten better. And just as they were basically a new Indiana Jones, the new Indy game is pretty much an open hub world Uncharted, but they both stand on their own.
Ninja Gaiden NES. I only have good memories from that game. When Super Mario Bros was the baseline, Ninja Gaiden was incredible. I played so much I could finish it on demand with barely any slips.
Dark Souls
Edit: My bad, didn’t notice the name of the community. I sure hope DS doesn’t count as retro lol
Discovering that world for the first time was so special. Still nothing quite like it
Braid
Syberia
Surprised no one mentioned it
The last of us or bioshock infinite
Nier Automata
I first played it on the Switch because I didn’t have a PC working then. Now I have my dream PC, and can’t bring myself to play it again
Obra Dinn
TUNIC. It is such a unique game with such a unique puzzle that I don’t think it can be replicated.
Figuring that shit out felt like brain magic
The Mass Effect trilogy for sure.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. A game of pure charm.
I used to habitually replay it every Christmas until one year it just felt too janky. They were supposed to be remaking it but the expected release date came and went without a word and now it’s just vaporware.
A masterpiece. The entire game you have the sands and can rewind all of your missteps, only to lead up to one final, ridiculous platforming challenge where they take the sands away. Like the whole game was training you for that moment. Such a unique experience.
Skyrim or Fallout New Vegas
I agree with so many here, but I have a new one.
Dredge.
It just seemed like a fishing simulator, but it got creepier as it went on. Definitely an ending I didn’t expect. That may have been me just getting too into finding every fish.
Great gameplay loop and played on steam deck excellently.
Honestly, I had completely the opposite experience with Dredge.
The first few days in the game feel truly scary, with your terribly slow ship, and every strange light in the darkness is terrifying. Those initial quests with the pulsating wet package are creepy, and you wonder where that’s going to lead, and what storyline will come from that.
But then, you get a few engine upgrades and there’s suddenly not a single danger in the game you can’t easily run from. You’re invincible and the whole ocean is your oyster. The pulsating package was just a bit of flavour and nothing comes of it at all - in fact the quests in the game are almost entirely plain fetch quests, totally shallow with very little real story. And while the ending gets interesting, it’s all too brief.
Now don’t get me wrong - I loved Dredge, actually! But I loved it as a cosy collect-em-all fishing sim, bombing around the ocean in your fun and zoomy boat, rather than the narrative-driven Lovecraftian horror the trailers made it out to be, which ultimately I felt it wasn’t at all.
Still fun, though!
im gonna check this out! on gog!