Games that were *almost* exactly what you're looking for.

[Fry]

Someone mentioned the game Monaco in the stealth games thread, and it made me think about when it was first described to me. "A top down, couch co-op stealth game built around a bank heist." I remember how incredibly up my alley that sounded, then I found out about the fact you can have different characters with different abilities and it had a "collect all the loot to get a top score" mechanic and I was even more excited, then I saw the first screenshots and the art style sent me to cream jean city.

Me and three friends waited patiently for it to come out, the day it did we all piled on to a mate's sofa. Got some beers, snacks and some weed and settled down for a monster session - planning to spend all weekend in his living room and polish it off in one run. Sadly, the game didn't quite deliver... It had everything that was promised, but there was something about the execution. The controls and movement of the characters just wasn't deliberate enough. It felt too much like scurrying around, like you could easily beat most early levels by just running around like a lunatic. I wanted something more precise and nerve wracking, I wanted to be forced to think of plans in advance and feel the desire to keep trying them again and again to get the perfect heist off. I wanted skulking in shadows, timing runs, complicated levels that required thinking outside the box. It just didn't deliver on what I had built up in my mind.

Perhaps it was just us, and the way we played, but I remember being quite disappointed, even though it was a fun game.  We ended up playing Trackmania again instead after a few hours.

How about you?

[Lemming]

Stellaris. Not even sure what exactly it's missing that keeps it from being what I want it to be, but as it is, it's a huge exercise in massive potential that doesn't really amount to anything.

[Kryton]

Stellaris. Not even sure what exactly it's missing that keeps it from being what I want it to be, but as it is, it's a huge exercise in massive potential that doesn't really amount to anything.

It lacks the diplomatic angle of other similar games. Hell, even Civ had better diplomacy than Stellaris. I've heard it's gotten a lot better with the new updates and DLC's, but for me CK2 will always be the better game.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Kingpin.

[bgmnts]

Kotor 2

[Kelvin]

To be honest, this is kind of how I ended up feeling about Hollow Knight. Perfect visuals and music, tight controls, loads of secrets and unlockables - it really feels like the elements are all there for a gaming masterpiece; an actual 10 out of 10.

But as it is, one problem - the extent of the backtracking - basically knocks it back down to a 7 or 8, for me. I cant even exactly pinpoint why. Metroid Prime is among my favourite games of all time, and that contains some fairly tedious backtracking, too. Maybe it's because you at least know your destination at every point in Prime, or because that game is less hard, and so doesn't also make you repeatedly walk long distances back to a ghost, I don't know.

[Huxleys Babkins]

My entire Switch indie game library is a collection of games that are superficially exactly what I'm looking for but slightly lacking in execution so I've only played them for about five minutes each;

Crypt of the Necrodancer, Enter the Gungeon, Pocket Rumble, Snake Pass off the top of my head.

Sometimes I think I'm just going off games completely but then I'll be glued to something like Forza 7, Lumines, Super Hexagon, Mario Odyssey, Picross S or Shovel Knight for hours so it's not that at all.

[monolith]

If there was a perfect combination of Skyrim and The Witcher 3 that would do me forever.

[Kelvin]

My entire Switch indie game library is a collection of games that are superficially exactly what I'm looking for but slightly lacking in execution so I've only played them for about five minutes each;

Crypt of the Necrodancer, Enter the Gungeon, Pocket Rumble, Snake Pass off the top of my head.

Sometimes I think I'm just going off games completely but then I'll be glued to something like Forza 7, Lumines, Super Hexagon, Mario Odyssey, Picross S or Shovel Knight for hours so it's not that at all.

Enter the Gungeon is a good example, yeah. Looks good and has loads of wierd and wonderful weapons and bosses, but just feels a fraction too slow, and quite a bit unbalanced. I'm still waiting for the free patch that's meant to fix a lot of the balance issues, but it's months late at this point.

[The Boston Crab]

I've also uninstalled it til that appears. And then, this morning I played about three hours of Isaac, a game I've played for 295hrs on the Switch, dwarfing everything else on there. I had to make myself stop playing that because it was taking over my free time and my mind too much. I could probably do another 295, easy, whereas Gungeon is just a bit dull and repetitive.

[Kryton]

DayZ was almost the apocalyptic survival game. But was ultimately rushed out - too clunky, unresponsive controls and too many cheaters.

However it had its moments. Nothing was quite as atmospheric as crawling through a town in the darkness and rain whilst a pair of bastards were hunting you down for your tins of beans.

[Dex Sawash]

Virtual Satisfaction 4

[Junglist]

The Golf Club 2.

I absolutely hammered the first to the point I was playing on an online Tour that mirrored the real life golf schedule for ranking points and virtual cash, was basically a top 20 player in the world and it was my main passion for 18 months. I won a tournament which is linked below, multiple top 5s and 10s , utterly adored that game.

http://tgctours.com/Tournament/Details/2362

The second came out, started off well. They made the swing harder with three different clubsets, the easier ones meaning less yardage, the harder ones where the swing is very precise but you hit it way further and have more control over the ball. It looked better, no more glass like greens to contend with at the highest level, but it wasn't right. Ball physics designed to deliberately cheat you (the ball would actively avoid the hole against the break on chip shots/putts, like literally go completely the wrong way against the break),  rough penalties designed to absolutely fuck you over and courses that weren't within the remit of the real world just as a way to test you. All because HB Games, the devs, signed a deal with a publisher who wanted it shipped out asap and then refused patch support and badly needed updates.

It plays a very good game of golf but when you've got 2000+ hours across both games and can essentially play in autopilot you notice all the bullshit.

It should've been great, it should've been the one. I ended up genuinely hating it. Luckily the new one, TGC2019 which I was in the beta for, is fantastic. HB have left the devs behind and are going it alone, as they did with the first.

If you like golf games, if you like a challenge, its the best out there. Just be warned that to get even decent at it means a shitload of math, and a lot of commitment. The second is okay for casual play, but I'd wait for 2019 which is out next month.

[Bogbrainedmurphy]

Nothing too obscure for me but a couple of titles:


PES 5.

This was the pinnacle football game for me. I'd grown up with the likes of World Cup Italia 90, early FIFAs, Actua, ISS Pro etc but PES 5 hit at the same time my geekiness for European and global football was at its height and the level of detail in this just hit the spot at the time. Even the goal stanchions at Berlin's Olympiastadion had the actual blue and white stripes from real life Hertha BSC on them. Wow.

The editing, the weather, the stadiums, the depth of teams, the kits... even the fact you could mix and match a home top with away shorts etc. It had everything.

I felt like there'd never be a time I wouldn't want to play PES at that point (same as I thought there'd never be a time I wouldn't be keen to know how things were looking in the J-League or Copa Libertadores. But, I guess, life takes over doesn't it. Wonderful memories though.


Syndicate Wars - PS1

Now then.

Recently I've tried to revisit SW through YouTube play throughs and it does seem quite limited in a way now. But at the time, brilliant. The atmosphere in the cyberpunk cities, THAT SOUNDTRACK, the weaponry and especially the co-op play element - countless all nighters on sleepovers at mates houses - everything just fit perfectly at the time; late high school years, bit rebellious, the premise felt intelligent and edgy.

And one of the best opening sequences of any game, ever...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOtaDhB0mM

[asids]

The Golf Club 2.

I absolutely hammered the first to the point I was playing on an online Tour that mirrored the real life golf schedule for ranking points and virtual cash, was basically a top 20 player in the world and it was my main passion for 18 months. I won a tournament which is linked below, multiple top 5s and 10s , utterly adored that game.

http://tgctours.com/Tournament/Details/2362

The second came out, started off well. They made the swing harder with three different clubsets, the easier ones meaning less yardage, the harder ones where the swing is very precise but you hit it way further and have more control over the ball. It looked better, no more glass like greens to contend with at the highest level, but it wasn't right. Ball physics designed to deliberately cheat you (the ball would actively avoid the hole against the break on chip shots/putts, like literally go completely the wrong way against the break),  rough penalties designed to absolutely fuck you over and courses that weren't within the remit of the real world just as a way to test you. All because HB Games, the devs, signed a deal with a publisher who wanted it shipped out asap and then refused patch support and badly needed updates.

It plays a very good game of golf but when you've got 2000+ hours across both games and can essentially play in autopilot you notice all the bullshit.

It should've been great, it should've been the one. I ended up genuinely hating it. Luckily the new one, TGC2019 which I was in the beta for, is fantastic. HB have left the devs behind and are going it alone, as they did with the first.

If you like golf games, if you like a challenge, its the best out there. Just be warned that to get even decent at it means a shitload of math, and a lot of commitment. The second is okay for casual play, but I'd wait for 2019 which is out next month.

I remember playing the first Golf Club on Xbone on a trial (I think it might have been Games With Gold and I don't have Gold anymore) and finding it a real challenge but good in that respect as it tested you - I played the last PGA Tour game and it was just too simplistic and the challenge faded quickly. I also remember you could download custom courses so I'd download a few based on real ones that obviously weren't in the game. I'll need to go back and try to get it and play it again.

[Junglist]

I remember playing the first Golf Club on Xbone on a trial (I think it might have been Games With Gold and I don't have Gold anymore) and finding it a real challenge but good in that respect as it tested you - I played the last PGA Tour game and it was just too simplistic and the challenge faded quickly. I also remember you could download custom courses so I'd download a few based on real ones that obviously weren't in the game. I'll need to go back and try to get it and play it again.

Definitely wait for 2019 if you're thinking of it. The first one is still a very, very good game but its quite rough around the edges now.