Monthly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing?

Silent Hill (Duckstation) - classic survival horror game

great atmosphere, strong sense of mystery and dread
oldschool approach to mystery/horror where everything doesn't have to be explained or logical
some outstanding puzzles
combat is kinda annoying, but when you play with emulator you at least have saves everywhere

Sekiro is really testing my patience with my own skills

Is it your first time playing it? Sekiro is probably my favourite game of all time but it’s definitely not beginner-friendly. The steep learning curve is pretty intense but so worth it when it clicks!
- Yep, first time. It feels so good when it clicks!

I've been playing a bunch of SSX tricky. It's super old, but I absolutly love it even 20 years later. I've been playing on the PC using a ps2 emulator.

I've also been playing simpsons hit and run which really holds up. It's a simpsons version of grand theft auto & it's just fun. It's another emulated ps2 game.

Lastly I've been playing survival fountain of youth. It's a fairly recent release. You play as a shipwrecked Spaniard looking for the fountain of youth. I enjoy the base building & exploration -- the story line is fiiine but nothing special.

Which emulator are you using for ps2?
- Pcsx2 -- it works pretty well, the only game I've had trouble running was monster rancher 2

Unlock The King: Cheap, simple puzzler that uses chess pieces and how they‘re allowed to move, but otherwise has nothing in common with actuall chess. Recommended.

Orcs Must Die! 3: Comic-y 3rd person tower defense game (here: traps) that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I was a big fan of OMD2 and thought 3 was their weird pvp game called Unchained or whatever, so this one went completely past me and now I get to play a complete and new (to me) OMD for cheap! Recommended.

Potion Permit: Harvest Moon but you’re making potions instead. The pixel art is absolutely amazing. The game feels a bit too small and has weird technical issues (stutter, sudden increase in CPU load or controller input crapping itself until you restart), but it‘s still fun af. Recommended.

Fields of Mistria: Early Access Harvest Moon clone in Gameboy Color style. It may be Early Access, but it runs smooth, I‘ve experienced zero bugs and after ten hours I‘m not even in my first fall. It‘s already well worth a buy. Recommended.

Playing Steam World Dig 2 for the 4th or 5th time. Trying a no death run, because I know there's an achievement for that.

The Spirit and The Mouse is free on Epic Games right now. I've been enjoying it - gentle, cute game where you play as a little electric mouse in a french village trying to help it's citizens. Rough around the edges with a lot of heart.

I played

Sanctum 2, a fun mix of FPS and tower defense. There still are some active players, although it might take a while to get a full 4 player game.

And 3 new games which don't fit the community rules

Tiny Glade is a really nice relaxing game to turn your imagination into reality and build small castles and medieval towns. Hopefully they expand the contents, but even now it was really fun to just experiment a bit.

Age of Mythology: Retold still is fun to me, although I don't play it as a serious PvP game, but rather to have fun together with a friend and relive our old LAN games together.

Still wakes the Deepis freshly installed, but couldn't yet play it, probably on the weekend.

Tiny glade was interesting. I only played the demo, & it was enjoyable for a half hour or so, but I kind of ran through everything & it didn't seem like there was enough content to justify buying the full game or playing more.

I also felt like there wasn't enough ability to customize different aspects, like I could place flowers but couldn't choose how they're arranged within that space.

Did you play the full release or just the demo?
- I played only the full game and not the demo. As far as I heard about it, the demo had all elements of the full game just a smaller area to work in. If you think the demo was not fulfilling enough, I don't think the full game will satisfy you.
  
  It definitely is a game where you need to set goals for yourself. It is better described as a program than a game, because it is not objective driven at all, but simply gives you the possibility to build scenes.

Grow home, it surprisingly gives me Death Stranding vibes

I love this game so much. It's so chill but also blood boiling lol
Aaaa! This game's so good. I freaking bought the second one and completely forgot about it in my library. I'm definitely playing it when I get home now

I’ve just finished replaying Killzone 3 on PlayStation 3 and it’s still really impressive.

I might start Little Nightmares 2 tonight or tomorrow on my PlayStation 5.

Ooo. I've been wanting to pull my PS3 out again and you just gave me a reason to.

I still haven't beaten the DLC for the 1st little nightmares. I plan to get to 2 once I do. I hope it's as good as the original

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Can I ask for recommendations here?

I mainly play on PS and Switch, and have a long list of games that I want to play, so am fully covered there, but recently updated my laptop, and this one has a nice Nvidia card in it, so was thinking about catching up on the PC only games I missed.

I am currently playing Trails in the Sky series, and plan to get Age of Empires and other Xbox / MS games like Halo, Gears of Wars, Fable etc.

Any other PC-only, must-play recommendations from last 10-15 years?

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- Well, I am generally a fan of RPGs but I play pretty much any kind of game. Most of the AAA games end up on consoles, so have played most of them (or have them on wishlist). Played both God of War (all except Ragnarok, which is on my wishlist) and Control on PS. And Guardians of the Galaxy is on my wishlist.
  
  Oh, not a big fan of MOBAs or any PvP game. Same with very old or retro game. Don't have a nostalgia for 8-bit games. Don't mind 16bit era that much though. Also don't like horror.
I would say PC only games mainly consists of complex strategy games like StarCraft or Total War and small indie titles that were not ported to a console like Dwarf Fortress. I would argue in general that there aren't really any must play titles, it all depends on what genres you like.

I would recommend Oneshot, which is in the second category and similar to Undertale. While there is a console port, it loses a lot of appeal due to a certain spoilery mechanic if you play it not on a PC.

Other games I like in the indie category:

FTL: Faster than Light

Into the Breach

Baba is you

Renowned Explorers

On the strategy side there are real time strategy games like StarCraft 2, Age of Empires 4/Age of Mythology, all of the MOBA games like Dota 2 or complex 4X games like Hearts of Iron 1-4 and all of the Total War series etc. I personally like AoE4 and the new remake for AoM.

If you like those totally depends on you.

Except Half-Life, that one is PC only and must play. I suggest to play the remake Blackmesa and Half Life 2, then you don't need to play a 20 year old game.
- Played FTL near to it's release, and Into the Breach when it ended up on mobile / Netflix. Baba is You is still on my wishlist though.
  
  Complex strategy game might be an interesting category. Will check out a few. Any recommendations that I should check first? I used to play Age of Empires before, so going to get AoE IV soon, but don't know much 4X games (except maybe some Civilizations and Age of Wonders 2).
  
  Also played Half-Life a while ago, haven't played 2 though. Thanks for the reminder!

I've had it for a while but finally it dug it's claws in - Tunic!

Apparently this is a devisive little game. I absolutely adore it and think the combat difficulty is just about perfect while the puzzle solving and the exploration is masterclass levels of design. The show, don't tell approach is used so perfectly here. Ah I love it

Currently spending my time revisiting Fallen London and Sunless Sea. It’s really nice to be able to engage with the setting from multiple games that share the same universe and has some limited crossover. During the day I check in on my adventures in Fallen London on my phone, while I roam the Zee in the evenings at home.

Very much recommended if you’re into story based games and deep world building!

Destroy and Humans. I just started playing 2 days ago, it is enjoyable for what it is.

Kunitsu-Gami! I played the demo for 7 hours and then bought it officially. I enjoyed it way more than I expected.

Currently playing MGSV on PC. I never got into the metal gear franchise because I wasn't willing to keep up with the play stations. But it's a surprisingly good game. A little fan-service here and there (cough, Quiet) but the gameplay is solid. I like how they tie achievements with in-game rewards, things like rescuing a certain prisoner unlocks a new type of weapon or something. It's a good motivation to complete all the optional parts of the missions. And the missions are replayable, which gives you plenty of opportunity to get the best ratings and rewards.

I'm playing through the Plucky Squire. It's lovely to look at, and really wholesome! Feels a bit hand-holdy with some of the puzzles but nevertheless I'm enjoying my time with it.

Still finishing Yakuza 3, and looking for something spooky to play.

I'll probably go back to Alan Wake and the Metro series, but if anyone has some great indie suggestions that work well on Steam Deck, I might pick some up.

Ah, thanks for the reminder, already forgot about this bullshit decision from Sony for the PC release.