site banner

Friday Fun Thread for March 14, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

2
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Piggybacking off of my last comment, are there others who feel that modern games seem not to be as fun as games from late 90s to late 2000s? This may be nostalgia talking, but people around me game less than they did, and most games they play are MMO ones, as opposed to campaign-focused ones like Half-Life.

I have not played a whole lot of modern games, but their gameplay does not seem to be that big of an improvement over things I have seen before. In many cases, modern shooters feel quite slow compared to arena shooters like unreal tournament or Quake. I was looking at games to play and very caught my eye beyond the new doom games.

I have to question the usefulness of such a broad question. Even talking about 90s games is very broad. In my youth, I played on an iMac G3 and played tons of shareware titles that probably most 90s gamers have never heard of.

These days, my addictive personality becomes apparent even with modern games. Escape From Tarkov, Dark Souls Remastered, Caves of Qud, and Katana Zero all made me noticeably tank my own health in my lust to play them as much as possible. Just yesterday, I was reminiscing that I really liked Max Payne 3. These are all games that aren't exactly new, but they do fall outside of the late 90s to late 2000s parameters. I think there's tons of good stuff out there, it just needs to be found and played to death.

I'd kill for Max Payne 4. I wish someone did another AA or AAA bullet-time shooter with the serial numbers filed off. Quantum Break was actually great as a shooter, but not quite the same.

Escape From Tarkov

It convinced me to pay $150 for a video game, and to put in >1500 hours into it, so I feel you. Can't be arsed to play in recent wipes, especially since they released a new ultra luxury edition and gave the middle finger to EOD owners.

To tell the truth, I didn't get that carried away with it. This wipe, I played to level 15 and then lost all motivation to launch the game, mysteriously. That's usually how it goes. I get a desperate urge to play, then I do, then it's over. Next time, I think I will do the single player mod version so that I at least get to keep my progress (and also so that Delivery from the Past isn't impossible), but it does lose something to be fighting bots instead of players. You die a lot more often in live as well, which keeps you on your toes and can make something like a pistol run pretty thrilling. I didn't actually take any EMS kits anywhere this wipe. Got my legs shot out by scavs and crawled veeerrrryyyy slowly to extract a couple times. I think they let EoD players have the same privileges as Unheard, but it's a very time consuming game and you're a busy guy now.

Of course, I liked Max Payne 1 and 2 as well, but 3 really scratched an itch I didn't know I had. There was some free multiplayer game with slomo shooting, but it didn't feel nearly as good.

I could never get into SPT. Maybe if I had friends who would be willing to download the 'unofficial' patch that adds co-op or PVP.

The PVP is the main draw for me in Tarkov. I particularly enjoyed teaming up, there are people all over the globe who still stay in touch because I adopted them and taught them the ropes and helped them through quests, and half of them are now better players than I'll ever be. The team work gave me a rush, the closest I came to that would be modded Arma 3 or Squad, but there's nothing like making SOPs with your buddies and randos and then wrecking house. Raids in Tarkov can be nail biting experiences, and having someone to watch your six is amazing.

(Having friends who can insurance fraud your stuff always helps too).

Eventually, Tarkov just moved away from what I wanted. I had been looking forward to the patch that added realistic armor hitboxes, and played that patch after waiting several out. Then BSG nerfed it to make streamers happy.

Can't have shit in Tarkov.

Oh, yeah, you really need the co-op mod for SPT. I think it's called Project FIKA. That's actually how I learned the maps initially, some other Tarkov junkie leading us. Yes, the PVP is really the selling point, tense stuff. I just think that Tarkov takes the gear progression way too seriously. You should be able to have a decent chance of killing anyone in the game, rather than the game saying "too bad, you brought in level 3 bullets but you needed level 6, also you've got level 5 gear and he's level 60". SPT fixes that a bit.

The maps of Tarkov are one of the biggest selling points for me. So huge, so very detailed, so war-torn. It made me realize one of the reasons I love Left 4 Dead and Duke Nukem 3D were for the maps portraying real places.

If you want something similar, but with a focus on the pvp then I'd recommend Hunt Showdown. Has the same big maps, good gunplay, great sound design.

My issue with it is that instead of being able to go to different locations to loot, and then extract, you basically always focus on getting to the location with the boss, killing it, and then extracting. So it leads to more focused, but also somewhat repetitive encounters.