I am just curious about people’s taste here, since this community looks sane compared to other “loony-toons” gaming subs or forums online.
You don’t need to explain yourself just name them.
Thanks
I am just curious about people’s taste here, since this community looks sane compared to other “loony-toons” gaming subs or forums online.
You don’t need to explain yourself just name them.
Thanks

Off the top of my head? Alan Wake 2, Max Payne 2, Silent Hill2, Mario Kart 64, and Assassin’s Creed Unity.
Some of them are nostalgia, some of them come from a genuine love and appreciation for the game
In the order I played them,
Metroid Prime, WoW, Subnautica, Satisfactory, Hollow Knight
Elden Ring
Baldurs Gate 3
VtolVr
Borderlands 2 (based on when I played it years ago, it was peak as a middle schooler)
Beamng (once I got a wheel, it got bumped up)
Prob not super accurate, just the first 5 that come to mind.
blade and sorcery might be one and prob #1, unmatched feeling, haven’t even played the full release yet
Soma
Deus Ex
Hotline Miami
Fallout New Vegas
Outer Wilds
Edit: Since you guys liked it so much, lemme add 5 more. Its cheating but they really deserve the attention
Disco Elysium
Stanley Parable
The Talos Principle
Return of the Obra Dinn
Spec Ops: The Line
Frankly I got very bored with it and did not finish. Maybe it’s because I’ve never felt “existential dread” or maybe it’s because I had already run into and come to terms with the Teletransportation paradox as a thought experiment so the concept wasn’t new, but the horror completely missed me so all I had was the walking around and getting increasingly frustrated at the character’s ignorance. I looked up the plot synopsis after I had enough and it’s just… yep.
I just finished this game for the first time tonight and I don’t get it… I mean I get the point of the story being that there are no “correct” choices in this circumstance. Absolutely fantastic story. But the game itself wasn’t exactly difficult? I felt like it was holding my hand through the puzzles.
Its mostly a walking simulator. Pretty sure theres better horror games out there. Soma is only about the story.
The first Hotline Miami is so fucking good. Such a tight game. In the second one the enemies can see you from off screen and it makes it unplayable to me.
It’s my go to for explaining the difference between “difficult” and “punishing.” Levels are rough, but they go fast and restart in an instant.
Spec Ops: The Line unfortuately does not hold up in 2026 like the others you mentioned. I played it a couple years back after hearing so much about it and it’s decidedly mid.
Its not for everyone but I disagree that it doesn’t hold up today.
I’m curious, what holds up? The gameplay is dated, guns don’t feel particularly good, level design isn’t anything special, graphics are merely typical for the day, and you’re railroaded on the storyline so IMO nothing feels that impactful. When the only way to progress the level is to commit a war crime, and then I’m supposed to feel bad about it as if there was an alternative, it just sucks.
I can see how in its era, for console gamers, it was unique. I was very underwhelmed when I got around to playing it a couple years ago. IMO, it didn’t really say anything new and it didn’t do it in a particularly compelling or innovative matter.
Just one person’s opinion.
When the only way to progress the level is to commit a war crime, and then I’m supposed to feel bad about it as if there was an alternative, it just sucks.
This feels a lot like saying “books can’t have an emotional impact, you just read the words in the order they were written”.
This isn’t a book, it’s a video game, and video games had meaningful choices decades before Spec Ops: The Line was released. Books also have well fleshed out characters with clear motivations. Spec Ops: The Line does not have this, IMO.
Middling gameplay, graphics, and story, low replayability, the only part that felt good was the music.
Seriously, what’s the draw here? The twist? Feels gimmicky to me. It’s a C+ game at best, and it’s listed in that comment among a solid string of A+ games.
Its about the message, the art that shows a new perspective to our world. What you are looking for imo is fun.
Based af putting Doom 64 above Doom 2016. I’m right there with you, I think Doom 64 is terribly underrated. The soundtrack for 64 is my favorite in the franchise.
Honestly the atmosphere of Doom 64 is unrivaled. I need to replay it again some day.

Dwarf Fortress
Elden Ring
Quake
Chrono Trigger
Metal Gear Solid 3
Excellent, the second really shined as a proper sequal.
What about Cuphead?
And also, anything not in your list you’d recommend on the Castlevania front?
The Outer Wilds (obviously)
The Talos Principle
Dark Souls
Factorio
Dwarf Fortress (This last one is tough and I don’t know if this is the right choice. The other four are correct.)
An honorable mention to Death Stranding. It isn’t in my top games, but I think it deserves to be more influential. It takes the boring part of most games, which is traversal, and builds the entire game around it. It’d be higher if it didn’t become so trivial by the end, but also designing your network that makes it trivial is part of the fun. More open world games should take more lessons from it and it’d solve some of the biggest issues of open world game: traversal just being a waste of time and boring.
Talos is so good that it should be required to play and study in school.
Absolutely! 2 was good also, but it didn’t affect me as much as the first. I wish more games, puzzle games in particular, would try to tackle philosophical concepts like it does. Some might have interesting lore in their world, but they don’t actually try to make you think about the real world.
Interesting. I feel the second game’s lore was even more thought provoking. In any case, the game is more relevant than ever
It could just be the timing of it. When one came out, I was ~20, and I was much more interested in the concepts of religion.
When two came out I was much more educated. I love philosophy, and basically always have, which is part of why I like the games, but I had also gone deeper than the games would explore for the most part. It’s still fun, but the thought experiment isn’t as interesting once you’ve done it before.
But also, they cover different topics. I don’t think either is really better at this, but either one could hit harder for different people and at different times in their life.
(I also think the puzzles in two were too easy, but that’s probably because I had experience with one and the DLC. One had much more complicated things, but some were also frustrating, so I’m glad some were not continued with two. Even completing all the bonus puzzles in two felt fairly trivial. I wish the game lasted longer so they had more time to ramp up difficulty after introducing new elements.)
All good points and agree with you.
I liked how the second one touched on terraforming and the dilemma between preserving the natural state vs curating the world for our needs.
I feel the next one is probably going to focus on free will and the nature of existence. But I can only speculate.
I keep telling people it’s much more than just a puzzle game
Yeah, they’re philosophy games with puzzle elements. They’re good puzzle games on their own, but there are so many good puzzle games that that alone doesn’t make you stand out.
I thought about talos, and while it’s a great game and a very high score, I just can’t get myself to put it next to what I would call the greatest of all time like sm64, oot, and ff7. Talos is too one note. So while it’s likely top most tier in whatever genre that is, it’s also weirdly not that well rounded and I would almost call it a niche game
I think a lot of the best games ever are niche. If you’re interested in what Talos wants to talk about, it’s amazing. But Factorio is an absolutely horrible game for a lot of people who aren’t interested in that too. It doesn’t mean it isn’t an amazing game. I would argue that “niche” should be a badge of honor, not an insult.
Outer Wilds made me cry like a baby at the end. I wish memory erasing tech was real so I could play it for the first time again.
I am so excited and anxious for whatever they make next. The bar is set astronomically high. If they didn’t make the DLC and have it at the same level as the base game I wouldn’t be as excited, because I wouldn’t think anyone could repeat it. They have though, so I’m hopeful they can again. It must be stressful for them trying to live up to that.
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Zelda: A Link to the Past
Minecraft
Stardew Valley
Metal Gear Solid
When I was a kid, I was sure that Descent would take off more than Doom. Maybe the worst prediction I ever made, but I still stand by the spirit of it.
have you played Overload from the creators of Descent? quite fun!
I thought that Descent was way better than Doom. We used to play it after work and it was fantastic.
I’ve never been a first person shooter fan though.
In no particular order:
Glad to see a lot of Chrono Trigger! Playing through that now and it is impressive for such an old title.
Looking forward to playing Alyx for the first time in a week or so
In no particular order:
Yes, that’s 6. Sue me.
Honorable mention: Baldur 3, Dwarf Fortress, Mario 3, Deus Ex, Day of the Tentacle
I hope you know there’s a free and open-source remaster of Rollercoaster Tycoon called OpenRCT2
It’s amazing