Amid flawed AAA ports, PC gaming shines with standout titles worth every gamer's attention. Our top picks in this 2023 update focuses on single-player games, sprinkled with indie gems.
The Best PC Games (You Should Be Playing)
- Thread starter Julio Franco
- Start date
m3tavision
Posts: 1,438 +1,222
The way I look at PC gaming:
I have the INTERNET...... other people are connected to the internet... I gave up single player action games nearly 20 years ago..! (Solo action games are all unrewarding and trite...)
Although, I do play non-action based turn-based Strategy games (ie Total War) that are played like chess... can be saved and resumed & often times taking weeks to finish.
I have the INTERNET...... other people are connected to the internet... I gave up single player action games nearly 20 years ago..! (Solo action games are all unrewarding and trite...)
Although, I do play non-action based turn-based Strategy games (ie Total War) that are played like chess... can be saved and resumed & often times taking weeks to finish.
I agree, there aren't many single player games that I play any more. Hogwart's is fun, but I'd rather play a multi-player shooter or co-op game any day.
m3tavision
Posts: 1,438 +1,222
To me, it's about the comradery and the group-comms and off coarse the competitive nature in online play.
Exactly this. I have friends I've played with for nearly 20 years now. We are spread out all over the US and have a couple of buddies in the UK. We occasionally get together in person and do some non-gaming stuff.
m3tavision
Posts: 1,438 +1,222
That is why we are able to tell what games are made for players and what games are made for money.
It's easy to make an arcade game...
And I, hate all the multiplayer games as they detract from solo style games.
From the turn based tactical games, with a strategic overlay, to the building empires like factorio/sids games, to the specific games like Battletech. Yes even a FPS, sick of humans scumming game dynamics, bots, etc.
But seems I am a minority. No wonder good games are hard to come by, and indie developers are trying to fill the gaps.
From the turn based tactical games, with a strategic overlay, to the building empires like factorio/sids games, to the specific games like Battletech. Yes even a FPS, sick of humans scumming game dynamics, bots, etc.
But seems I am a minority. No wonder good games are hard to come by, and indie developers are trying to fill the gaps.
Still playing Elden Ring, Diablo II LOD and Diablo III here :-D
*Plus some nice Little Nightmares II on Thursday nights...*
*Plus some nice Little Nightmares II on Thursday nights...*
I play 90% of my games SP; MMOs are the only exception. No reason to limit myself to online gaming.
I don't think you are in the minority. There is often uproar when some game dont have single player but it is nowhere near as loud when an SP game has no online mode.
Gunfire Reborn is great for those who like fast action shooters with roguelike elements; permanent unlocks + talents for the classes you can play, along with each run having it's own random layouts to the levels & random starting weapons + drops, random talent progression each run, and later on, random perks on top of that. Great game in co-op with friends, and fairly cheap too: 20 bucks for the base game, dlc is about 6? Can get both together for $25 on steam. They are still adding some content to the game (new dlc coming soon with 2 additional classes). Have about 300 hours in it myself.
Nova Drift is also a pretty good top-down roguelike space shooter, some permanent unlocks + the usual random stuff you get each run (random upgrades each time you level up), not big on hd space (463 mb install size), but great visuals & audio... but make no mistake, this game can be hard. Though the game was originally released 4 years ago, it got an Enemies 2.0 (part 3!) update just last month, with new bosses & skills & stuff. Plan is for more updates to come.
One small nitpick I'd note from my own perspective: while the game is playable with keyboard+mouse, this is definitely something that probably plays better with a controller, the edge-of-screen wrap around + different velocity speeds can be a little wonky to deal with while using the mouse and trying to follow the mouse cursor, especially when trying to dodge things at low speed.
But I noticed it's just $9.49 right now on steam (until june 5th).
+1 on Vampire Survivors, stupidly addictive game for adhd unlock nerds like me, though it does get a bit samey in the end. But the price is just ridiculous, very cheap. Have about 70 hours played in it.
Path of Exile is still f2p for arpg nerds, though I always feel hesitant to recommend it. The base game is probably in the best shape it's been in a long time, but... lots of hits & misses (mostly misses) in the last few leagues (seasons). And the learning curve is.. Steep. Endlessly massive. And lots of things change every new league. I have 9k hours in it, and there are still mechanics that I just don't have a good grasp on, which is partly because it has a ridiculous amounts of systems and unhelpful UI/tooltips and some abysmal QoL issues, with tendency to be extremely nitpicky about how they word things sometimes... while sometimes being so damn vague that you can't know what they mean ("nearby" can be anything from one inch from you, to off the edge of the screen, depending on context, and minion spell ui info only tells you how quickly you can cast the spell, with offering zero actual current minion stats). There's a good reason there's a lot of memes about how playing PoE can mean having multiple tabs open in your browser, along with running multiple 3rd party tools (mainly related to trading), in addition to running a 3rd party character building tool (Path of Building), just so you can have any idea how your build is functioning. Or not. Because those memes are true. The game can be overwhelming at times.
But it has a wild variety of builds you can play, and those shift & change every league too.. which get released every 3-4 months.
That said, looking forwards to Diablo 4 ;p (have 4k hours in Diablo 3 over the years spanning since original release).
Also still enjoy blasting away in the Borderlands games once in a while (with ~ 1.5k hours combined in them, with BL3 having half of that time).
Nova Drift is also a pretty good top-down roguelike space shooter, some permanent unlocks + the usual random stuff you get each run (random upgrades each time you level up), not big on hd space (463 mb install size), but great visuals & audio... but make no mistake, this game can be hard. Though the game was originally released 4 years ago, it got an Enemies 2.0 (part 3!) update just last month, with new bosses & skills & stuff. Plan is for more updates to come.
One small nitpick I'd note from my own perspective: while the game is playable with keyboard+mouse, this is definitely something that probably plays better with a controller, the edge-of-screen wrap around + different velocity speeds can be a little wonky to deal with while using the mouse and trying to follow the mouse cursor, especially when trying to dodge things at low speed.
But I noticed it's just $9.49 right now on steam (until june 5th).
+1 on Vampire Survivors, stupidly addictive game for adhd unlock nerds like me, though it does get a bit samey in the end. But the price is just ridiculous, very cheap. Have about 70 hours played in it.
Path of Exile is still f2p for arpg nerds, though I always feel hesitant to recommend it. The base game is probably in the best shape it's been in a long time, but... lots of hits & misses (mostly misses) in the last few leagues (seasons). And the learning curve is.. Steep. Endlessly massive. And lots of things change every new league. I have 9k hours in it, and there are still mechanics that I just don't have a good grasp on, which is partly because it has a ridiculous amounts of systems and unhelpful UI/tooltips and some abysmal QoL issues, with tendency to be extremely nitpicky about how they word things sometimes... while sometimes being so damn vague that you can't know what they mean ("nearby" can be anything from one inch from you, to off the edge of the screen, depending on context, and minion spell ui info only tells you how quickly you can cast the spell, with offering zero actual current minion stats). There's a good reason there's a lot of memes about how playing PoE can mean having multiple tabs open in your browser, along with running multiple 3rd party tools (mainly related to trading), in addition to running a 3rd party character building tool (Path of Building), just so you can have any idea how your build is functioning. Or not. Because those memes are true. The game can be overwhelming at times.
But it has a wild variety of builds you can play, and those shift & change every league too.. which get released every 3-4 months.
That said, looking forwards to Diablo 4 ;p (have 4k hours in Diablo 3 over the years spanning since original release).
Also still enjoy blasting away in the Borderlands games once in a while (with ~ 1.5k hours combined in them, with BL3 having half of that time).
To round up then... Got Dead Space. It's as fine a remake as the RE2 one was, 'nuff said.
RE4 is still wishlisted, just awaiting a nice sale. Likewise TLOU.
All of the above mentioned were played closer to original release and were good enough then for replaying (which is very rare for me re story based games) so any improvements the remakes get are a good thing.
V Rising and Dredge are followed, will look at again in a few months/out of EA.
Not interested in Jedi Survivor. Fallen Order was ok but didn't hold my interest for long.
Dying Light 2 is a maybe someday. The first one was great, one of my GOATS in fact, but I've heard dubious reports about the sequel.
GTA5 was my long burn game, now replaced by RDR2 that I'm yet to really get into (winter would be good for this) Took me some 4 years to finish GTA5 but I do tend to explore and play around with mechanics in wacky ways (a la Just Cause 2) so...
Halo Infinite (campaign) was actually a winner for me. I've seen some debate over the move to a more open world style etc but for me I don't know why they didn't do it before (and hope they continue to expand in this direction) Anyway, I enjoyed it immensely and while I wish it was longer, it might yet end up my favourite gaming experience this year (only Dead Space and the consistently flawed yet visionary Total War: Warhammer 3 matching up thus far)
RE4 is still wishlisted, just awaiting a nice sale. Likewise TLOU.
All of the above mentioned were played closer to original release and were good enough then for replaying (which is very rare for me re story based games) so any improvements the remakes get are a good thing.
V Rising and Dredge are followed, will look at again in a few months/out of EA.
Not interested in Jedi Survivor. Fallen Order was ok but didn't hold my interest for long.
Dying Light 2 is a maybe someday. The first one was great, one of my GOATS in fact, but I've heard dubious reports about the sequel.
GTA5 was my long burn game, now replaced by RDR2 that I'm yet to really get into (winter would be good for this) Took me some 4 years to finish GTA5 but I do tend to explore and play around with mechanics in wacky ways (a la Just Cause 2) so...
Halo Infinite (campaign) was actually a winner for me. I've seen some debate over the move to a more open world style etc but for me I don't know why they didn't do it before (and hope they continue to expand in this direction) Anyway, I enjoyed it immensely and while I wish it was longer, it might yet end up my favourite gaming experience this year (only Dead Space and the consistently flawed yet visionary Total War: Warhammer 3 matching up thus far)
LimyG
Posts: 55 +27
I fully agree with all you said, but will add one other problem. First, let me say the last time I played online was Halo 2, the original. They had a very clever match making system so for the probably around 100 hours, each ten minute and 20 minute game never required waiting - never! The play base was huge.
On Xbox.
Now on PC since end days of 360. No need to repeat what you said Aus Spot, totally agree. Extra problem which I know as it is often mentioned for large variety of games on Steam are comments like,
"Is the game dead?" Seems that most if not all MP games are good for a while when the player base is good, but all but the best games lose online players and players end up waiting for enough people to join to make a match. (I guess that doesn't apply to co-op 2 person games, only need one friend really, but waiting and more waiting is one of if not the biggest complaint.
I really hope games that are good online (for those who play online) contains a decent solo campaign too. I've skipped many games that sounded good because all the focus is on MP.
But in the end it's totally subjective and there are so many games now that it's not hard to find a good solo game or MP focused game.
Everything but the Vampire game, looks to cheesy
Not sure how a MP game detracts from a SP game. Some MP games don't put a lot of effort into SP mode but most of the online MP games I play don't have a solo play mode.
I like to play some solo player games too and I would say there are a fair number of good single player titles. Cyberpunk, Hogwart's, GTA, Final Fantasy, God of War, Death Stranding and more.
DonquixoteIII
Posts: 165 +101
You used a scene from No Man's Sky Interceptor update to intro your article "The Best PC Games (You Should Be Playing)
Essential PC Games Worth Your Time" and then don't even bother to mention it? Guess you figger it is ssSSOOOooo popular it really needs no mention, eh...
Essential PC Games Worth Your Time" and then don't even bother to mention it? Guess you figger it is ssSSOOOooo popular it really needs no mention, eh...
m3tavision
Posts: 1,438 +1,222
No Man's Sky was a farce.... still is. Murray played a Peter Molyneux game and saw a Star Citizen post about Spore....and thought he'd scam people into his "generated game".
Zsoltblabla
Posts: 52 +115
Aliens - Dark Descent
I was surprised to not see it mentioned here at all.
It is by far the best Alien game ever created! Its almost like playing Aliens (by J Cameron). Its absolutely brilliant! Brilliant acting, good story, fantastic atmosphere… and a great tactical RTS!
I cant stop playing it!
I was surprised to not see it mentioned here at all.
It is by far the best Alien game ever created! Its almost like playing Aliens (by J Cameron). Its absolutely brilliant! Brilliant acting, good story, fantastic atmosphere… and a great tactical RTS!
I cant stop playing it!
This article was published on May 29 and Dark Descent was released on June 20 -- can't recommend a game without being able to play it first.
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