Tired of the entire gaming industry?

I remember when I first loaded Wolfenstein 3D. I remember Doom, Wing Commander and spending days in and out playing Mechwarrior. I remember DOS and Glide and my voodoo video cards. I remember all of this through, I'm sure, rose-tinted glasses.

I remember when you had to go look for game patches and know what you were doing to get them installed.

The Mechwarrior MMO is about to come out and I'm sitting on a closed beta invite that I'll probably never use. The whole "pay to win/nickle and dime the users to death" model that the gaming industry is diving face first into rather disgusts me. I'm guessing that this is because I'm an old fogy pining away for days long gone.

I was disgusted by how empty/shallow Dragon Age 2 was compared to DA:O. I was disgusted by having to install the Origin service to play ME3 and I was disgusted at how pathetically the ending was written. I'm disgusted by NCSoft's handling of the CoH shutdown.

I've never been very good at tolerating what I consider to be ********. Hell, I left this game twice over the forced teaming/screw the soloists mindset I saw coming from the devs.

I can't shake the feeling that the bean counters have, again, won the war; that there won't be anymore games where the taint of greed doesn't overpower the happy smells of beautiful art, smooth animations and fun gameplay.

I wonder if I can find a working 486 anywhere...

No. Why? ...because I don't ignore indie titles.

Got any good indie single player RPGs?

ever play two worlds 2?

ok, not indie, but pretty small dev team.

oh an chantalise is fun, but the image of bilz playing it is giving me giggle fits.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

I'm finding myself drawn more to indie games lately. Paying 60 bucks for a game that might disappoint is too much of a gamble. Indie games are not only cheaper, but seem to leave a bigger mark in me.

When it comes to big games, I wait for years before getting those. Just recently got Elder Scrolls IV when it was on sale.

Indie Games I can recommend wholeheartedly:

Aquaria - A Metroidvania style 2D game with beautiful art and an even more beautiful soundtrack.

Spelunky - A freeware 2d game where you take on the role of an adventurer exploring a series of caves where death can be anywhere and treasures to grab.

Iji - A freeware 2d platformer that is basic on looks, big on style. Game branches depending on how you proceed with a few big twists and an end game boss that screams of design awesomeness.

The Binding of Isaac - A fun rogue-like/Zelda style game from the artist behind Super Meat Boy.

Dungeons of Dredmor - Another fun rogue-like game. Lutefisk for the lutefisk god!

AAAaaaAAAaaaAAAaaaAAA!!! For The Awesome - Base jumping in crazy style.

The Wonderful End of the World - A Katamari Damacy type game by the developers of AAAaaaAAA!, Dejobaan Games.

Audiosurf - How many levels does this game have? How big is your music collection?

Beat Hazard - Audiosurf meets Asteroids meets Bullet Hell. Your music defines the game.

Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale - A cute JRPG where you raid dungeons and find items. And then sell them in your shop for maximum profits. Capitalism, Ho!

Cthulhu Saves The World - 16-Bit RPG goodness, full of snark and humour.

The Geneforge/Avernum/Avadon games - Oldschool Western RPGs from a shareware studio that has been about for years, Spiderweb Software.

Cave Story + - One man studio makes awesome, fun, difficult platformer.

Bastion - Gorgeous game, gorgeous soundtrack

Trine 1+2 - Fun action/adventure platformer games.

Defense Grid: The Awakening - A very enjoyable tower defense game, along with...

System Protocol One - Another tower defense game, this time with a quirky computer defence theme.

Mount & Blade: Warband - Be an epic general, adventurer, trader, brigand or whatever you desire. Lead small elite teams or massive armies to victory.

Ys: The Oath in Felghana/Ys Origin - JRPG beat-em-up with amazing soundtracks and involved boss fights.

Jets N Guns Gold - Side-scrolling shoot-em-up with an awesome soundtrack and lots of weapon customization.

Eh, sometimes. I think the "wonder" of video games (especially online games) has long worn off, for me anyway. However, I'd still rather play a game than watch TV. That said, I don't get games at release any more, instead waiting for them to go on sale or become used... $15 is the point where I usually start -considering- buying a game. After all, there are many alternatives on the market (quite frankly, I think the games market's become oversaturated) and I've already got a rather meaty game collection.

As for indie games, some are good and worth checking out, but most are crap or overpriced. For every World of Goo or N+ there's a thousand indie titles that just plain suck.

i have to agree that dungeons of dredmore and cthullu saves the world were both very fun games

i loved the dialogues in cthullu saves the world

a non RPG game that i have enjoyed is terraria (cause i dont prefer minecraft)

feel free to look me up on steam, i usually write recommendations for games that i have played all the way through

Indie developers.

Like: Mojang

If I was going to develop a game, I would do it along the lines of Minecraft and avoid the producers. Notch essentially self-published the game.

Thanks for the recommendations, folks. I'll take a look on steam. I have tried out a few retro games but I think my addiction to eye candy is going to stop me dead in my tracks on a lot of potential fun.

Minecraft with a high resolution texture pack Both creative and survival are rather fun, although tend to appeal to different people (I prefer survival, I like the constraints when I'm trying to make anything). It's also still under quite heavy development by Mojang, and it looks like they've still quite quite a few ideas of where to take it in the future.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

I might be tired of the Industry, but the Indie PC Gaming seen is the best it's ever been. Just look at the games that have been mentioned in this thread so far!

Don't despair... rejoice!

Somewhat related to the OP: I'm more excited about Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition (releasing one week from today!) than I am about any new game on the horizon...

I'm always dismayed that nobody seems to really be making the kinds of strategy and rpg games I want to play anymore. Everything's gotta be faster, ideally real time. Everything's gotta be simpler, streamlined (or, from my perspective, dumbed down). Usually they have to be easier, too. And hey, sometimes I enjoy those simpler and more accessible games, but I really miss the older more thoughtful and complex games, and it depresses me that there just doesn't seem to be much of a market for anymore.

Worst of all is when a big name publisher or dev team decides to remake an old title that I loved... but while they'll spruce up the graphics (great), sometimes improve on often clunky interfaces (awesome), they rarely take the original feature set and add to it (which is what I really want), no, instead they gotta strip away half the stuff that was in the original, reduce the options and features, possibly even switch genres (or at least sub-genres), just to make sure it's appealing to a modern mass audience - even if the original(s) never really did. That's worse not only because it leaves me a bit disappointed at yet another game in my genre of choice that just didn't give me what I was looking for (hello just about every 4x space game for the last I don't know how many years), but its the one time that it *should* have turned out exactly what I wanted. And perhaps even worse than that, it removes the small glimmer of hope that maybe one day someone will revisit game/franchise X and let me experience it again - it's been revisited now and that's usually it off the table (at best you'll get a string of sequels in the new style).

I dunno, there may be an element of nostalgia at work there, maybe the older games wouldn't really appeal to me so much if I played them for the first time now. But certainly most of the modern attempts at genres I used to love are mostly just leaving me disappointed these days.


(and yeah, Baldur's Gate EE is probably the only game on the horizon that's really appealing to me right now - from what I've read about it, *that* is what I'm looking for when someone remakes an old series I used to love)

Seconding Space Chem. Absolutely loved it, though it isn't for everyone.

Mark of the Ninja just came out on XBox, and it's pretty amazing. Stealthy ninja-stabby-killy.

SPAZ (Space Pirates and Zombies) is a really fun game; I've sunk a good 25+ hours into it already.

I'm also anxiously awaiting Skulls of the Shogun. I got to play this at PAX, and I was pretty wowed.


The AAA industry isn't out of the game yet, either, with Dishonoured, Assassin's Creed 3, and X-Com: Enemy Unknown all coming out in the next month or so.

As far as MMO's go, I've been having a lot of fun in Firefall of late. It's a bit lacking in content at the moment, but the core game is really well done, and I'd say it's a textbook example of how to do a game right.

I admit, I do get a weird craving now and then... for a good 'god' title like a SimCity/Black & White type.

It was more about the building and crafting on top of automation for me - and no, Minecraft doesn't fit what I am talking about.

Theme Hospital + Dungeon Keeper 2 by old Bullfrog was a hoot.

I haven't played Cthulhu Saves The World (though it, like many other games is languishing in my Steam library). I have, however, played Penny Arcade's On The Rainslick Precipice of Darkness 3, which I am told is very stylistically similar, and which I also recommend.

EDIT: JayboH, if you can get past a ridiculous learning curve and extremely simplistic graphics, I highly recommend Dwarf Fortress.