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Comment by dom96 | Hacker News Reader

Play more video games. I feel like this year I haven't had a chance to get lost in a great video game's narrative. Spent far too much time trying to be productive and not just taking a break to relax.

Btw if anyone has any suggestions for games to play. Please share.

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If you're looking for narrative experiences, Disco Elysium is likely the best video game story ever told - bar none.

Maybe not the best story (although it's really good) but the intersection of presentation and prose is exceptional. One of the few times the medium has really surpassed raw text on the storytelling metric.

Some of those narrative sequences will stay with me for the rest of my life.

My necktie disagrees with this.

I second Disco Elysium. Top 10 games if not 5 I ever played. Sad thing about the studio and the creators getting pushed out of the company.

Try pentiment for a similar experience; albeit, 15th century European style.

Elden Ring got the Game of the Year award for a reason. The narrative is somewhat minimalist and told in fragmented notes, not the type you would see in Mass Effect, for example, but it is there. The biggest points of the game are exploration and challenge, though.

My personal favorite is Citizen Sleeper. Also Signalis is pretty cool somewhat oldschool dreamy horror game.

Signalis is a masterpiece in my humble opinion. It's been a long time since I've truly enjoyed falling into the lore of a game.

Marvel's Midnight Suns, by Fireaxis the XCOM developers.

Half card based tactical combat, half Mass Effect dialog trees with passable writing. It's a great chill out and relax game. In the game itself you basically hang out and talk to people for most of it.

It's not going to blow your mind, but it's my game of choice for destressing. And it's so long!

Fire Emblem is another game people compare it to, but I haven't played that.

If you want something with especially strong narrative, the Witcher 3 got a big update that added raytracing and blinged out the graphics overall.

Hades is a phenomenal game if you like an action rogue-like. Amazing story and music with extremely high polish.

Second this. Last game I've put serious time into - a true joy to play.

Control. It’s a bit weird but a great game with a really nice atmosphere.

I recommend Control to everyone I can.

Stunning game, weird as. There is a... sequence... towards the end that is in my Top 3 gaming moments ever. Probably even Top 2.

Sounds a bit cliché but Control opened a creative doorway in my mind that I didn't know was there, and now I spend a lot of time trying to find more things like it.

don’t want to spoil anything but do you mean the one with the music?

I do indeed.

Although I thought about it a bit more, and I'm a sucker for the storytelling trope they use a little bit after that, which means Control probably takes 2 out of the Top 5 moments :)

Here are the games I've enjoyed in recent years: https://memex.marginalia.nu/good-video-games.gmi

Turns out to be mostly indie games. Feels like that's the only space that's actually experimenting and doing interesting things.

Heaven's Vault and Cruelty Squad stand out especially even though the latter is weird and has a fairly high bar to entry.

Baldurs Gate II.

Still one of the most engrossing games. Even works on iPad.

I'm actually playing that right now on PC.

I never played it before and was looking for some cheap, fun RPG games.

I finished Baldurs Gate I a couple weeks ago and then moved on to II.

Love the BG series. Met my wife through the modding community too. Every couple of years I do a replay of the games.

Outer Wilds (not to be confused with Outer Worlds) is the best game I've ever played. An extremely engaging discovery driven story game that's so well executed it puts most AAA titles to shame. It's one of those amazing experiences you'll only get to have once. Wish I could forget everything and play it over again. (If you're not convinced look at some of the reviews online. But try to avoid spoilers as much as possible. This game is best experienced as blind as possible.)

For the great narration with stunning visuals and great story, you might like to play Bioshock series. Right now I think they sell entire collection (Bioshock 1,2 and infinite) on sale on Steam.

Hah! Love your nick! I haven't played games in years, but, I really enjoyed half life and the bioshock series (and portal, absolute classic).

Any others to recommend in that vein?

I would like to add couple more titles to recommend: Firewatch, Fallout series and entire Metro series (2033, Last Light and Exodus). Fallout and Metro games are very similar to half life just not that hard to play.

I've really enjoyed the BioShock series and I started Metro 2033 in october. It's great.

Firewatch I enjoyed, I'll have a look at the others.

Thanks :) happy new years

RDR2! Taking long rides on a horse through beautiful fields is extremely relaxing.

Don't sleep on games from FromSoftware. They make me feel the way games did over two decades ago. There's an accompanying sense of wonder and exploration, but also thrilling challenge. The narrative format is less in-your-face - there's lots of lore and optional quests/conversations with NPCs, but few cutscenes.

God of War: Ragnarok. Preceded by God of War 4 if not already completed.

One of the best progressions for a suite of character in this decade.

I’m fascinated by how well they managed to reinvent the character Kratos as well as God of war the game. Incredible feat. Imo this transition has really solidified Kratos as one of the all time greatest video game characters.

I can highly recommend the documentary “Raising Kratos” which gives a great behind the scenes look of the whole process. Very interesting and at times even pretty emotional.

I'd expect silk song to come out this year, I think the sequel to breath of the wild as well?

I don't know if either will have a narrative to get lost in, but they'll certainly have worlds to get lost in

SOMA's one of my favorites - went into it blind and first played it this year thanks to it being added to Xbox Game Pass. High on Life is good too comedy/style-wise.

Pentiment for something very different than everything else. Also, the steamdeck is a game changer if you’re time constrained.

I enjoyed the main quest line in Genshin Impact. Besides being a beautiful open world all around, some of the story arcs left me in tears, which hadn't happened since the cutscene where <warning: spoiler ahead> Cyan said goodbyes to his family on the ghost train in FFVI.

Oh, goody. I recommend Turbo Overkill. It plays better than the new Doom games before you even get to the upgrades. Double jump, dash, and remarkable air control right of the box. Narrative is pretty solid: shoot things till they stop trying to get you.

Hellblade: Senuas's Sacrifice is the latest I've been drawn into.

It perfectly blends an Icelandic setting, Pict lore (blended with nordic mythology in historically accurate ways), and psychosis, which is the main theme of the game.

If you’re a programmer, you might enjoy Captain of Industry. It’s a factory game that’s strangely realistic.

I love factory games in general but I refunded Captain of Industry almost immediately. It's very well regarded, but it's very early access, and I have a couple more of the major Factorio modpacks to work my way through, which should take me roughly until the heat death of the universe. By then, Captain of Industry should be out of EA; so I will try it again then.

out of the park baseball

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