January 2025 General Game Discussion

[ZedClampet]

Oops, that picture has nothing to do with gaming. It's just my prediction for 2025 and a little advice.

For game related stuff:

2024 in Review:​

The Steam Awards 2024

The Steam Awards

Vote for the 2024 Steam Award nominees during the Steam Winter Sale

store.steampowered.com

The PC Gamer Awards for 2024

PC Gamer's Game of the Year Awards 2024

From major releases to the games that perfectly captured their niche, these were the best games of the year.

www.pcgamer.com

The PC Gamer Forums Top 100 Games List

The PC Gamer Forums Top 100 Games

This is the top 100 PC games of all time as selected by the PC Gamer Forums members! Note: After reviewing all the lists we provided, it became obvious that we could not break up game series, mostly because we didn't follow the provided rules when making our lists. Therefore, if you see "Elder...

forums.pcgamer.com

Looking Ahead​

Most of the big name games that might come out in 2025

The Big Year: What 2025 Games are You Most Looking Forward To?

Per the folks at our fan site, PC Gamer, 2025 is going to be a huge year for games. Basically that means AAA games, so that doesn't do me that much good, but I've looked through the following list and found quite a few games that I'm pretty excited for...

forums.pcgamer.com

Note: Best I could do because I wanted to finish the Top 100 list instead of carrying that over into my 2025 list of things to do. Also, I lost the Excel spreadsheet where I had already done most of the work due to file corruption and had to start over. It was breaking the ties that took awhile.


We miss you, Brian

 

[Pifanjr]

I had to wait until all of the fireworks had stopped so I could take my dog for a walk before going to sleep, so I decided to download the demo for Approaching Infinity:

Here's a quirky little space sim crossed with traditional roguelike

Approaching Infinity has the weird little goods that make a roguelike interesting.

www.pcgamer.com

I only played the tutorial (my dog finally came out of hiding), but it looks like a regular space sim, just with permadeath and some roguelite progression. You can mine asteroids, trade a whole bunch of different resources between space stations with a simulated economy, shoot pirates, accept quests and I assume you can pirate other ships as well. There's even a crafting system and you can land on planets to shoot the local wildlife and maybe find some resources laying about.

I've always liked the idea of space sims, but they often felt too aimless and involved too much grinding/repetitive gameplay. I like the fact that this game has a win condition and roguelite elements to give a better sense of progression. I'm excited to play more of it.

 

[ZedClampet]

I had to wait until all of the fireworks had stopped so I could take my dog for a walk before going to sleep, so I decided to download the demo for Approaching Infinity:

Here's a quirky little space sim crossed with traditional roguelike

Approaching Infinity has the weird little goods that make a roguelike interesting.

www.pcgamer.com

I only played the tutorial (my dog finally came out of hiding), but it looks like a regular space sim, just with permadeath and some roguelite progression. You can mine asteroids, trade a whole bunch of different resources between space stations with a simulated economy, shoot pirates, accept quests and I assume you can pirate other ships as well. There's even a crafting system and you can land on planets to shoot the local wildlife and maybe find some resources laying about.

I've always liked the idea of space sims, but they often felt too aimless and involved too much grinding/repetitive gameplay. I like the fact that this game has a win condition and roguelite elements to give a better sense of progression. I'm excited to play more of it.

It all sounds great to me except the permadeath. I don't suppose you can turn that off?

 

[Colif]

Japan sees Zeds image and says, we can do that without nukes

https://twitter.com/x/status/1874264118318031162

View: https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1874264118318031162

 

[ZedClampet]

Japan sees Zeds image and says, we can do that without nukes

https://twitter.com/x/status/1874264118318031162

View: https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1874264118318031162

We have a large fireworks company in the city I live in. About 25 years ago their warehouse blew up, killed a bunch of people, and damaged houses for a long distance.

Just thought I'd share a cheerful fireworks story.

 

[Colif]

I heard a big bang here a few weeks ago, I was hopeful the NYE fireworks had all gone off early. As it stands, I think I heard them last night... realises he had less sleep last night than he thought... how am I awake now?

 

[Colif]

When a mod is better than the original... you know its a Bethesda game... lol

 

[Johnway]

Well, hello 2025. So i spent NYE alone playing games. To welcome 2025 i was playing Legend of heroes: Trails of cold steel on my Vita. I'm still on chapter 2 and i'm not entirely sure if i'm getting familiar with its mechanics. namely the Linking and break mechanics. i just can't see to make it effective, sure use skills that unbalance enemies and open up with attacks, but its more suggestive at times.

As a final boss for the chapter unsurprisingly it is the hardest thing i've faced and i'm slightly stumped. I can't seem to do much damage as the boss(es) are resistant to elemental attacks and only one physical type of attacks (with plenty of health to boot),

 

[isleepinabed]

To start the year I thought I could see some of the celebrated anniversaries coming up, which will invariably be remembered during the year with re-releases:

45th anniversary:
Pac-Man
Missile Command
Zork I
Rogue
Nintendo Game & Watch series (Ball, Flagman, Vermin, Fire and Judge)
Mattel Intellivision
Sinclair ZX80, Acorn Atom, Tandy CoCo

40th anniversary:
Gradius
Hang-On
Ghosts 'n Goblins
Gauntlet
NES (in the USA)
Commodore 128, Atari 520ST, Amiga 1000

35th anniversary:
The Secret of Monkey Island
Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon
Ultima VI
King's Quest V
Super Mario World
Super Famicom, Neo Geo AES

30th anniversary:
Panzer Dragoon
Chrono Trigger
Full Throttle
The Dig
Discworld
The Beast Within: Gabriel Knight
Phantasmagoria
Command & Conquer
Heroes of Might & Magic

25th anniversary:
The Sims
Deus Ex
Daikatana
Diablo II
Counter-Strike
The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask

20th anniversary:
Civilization IV
Call of Duty 2
Resident Evil 4
Forza Motorsport
Yakuza
Xbox 360


This is of course by no means exhaustive (or necessarily correct) and just the result of a quick look on wiki. Feel free to add more.
Personally, I'd look with interest regarding a new release or perhaps an anthology like we had this year with Llamasoft and Tetris especially for Gradius, Hang-On and Zork

 

[Pifanjr]

It all sounds great to me except the permadeath. I don't suppose you can turn that off?

To quote the article:

though as is often the case these days you can just turn off the permadeath if that's not your bag.

You can choose for "adventure" mode instead of permadeath when you start a new game (somewhere between picking your ship and turning on cheats I believe).

 

[January's Ghost]

To start the year I thought I could see some of the celebrated anniversaries coming up, which will invariably be remembered during the year with re-releases:

45th anniversary...20th anniversary

Stop coming up with new ways to tell me I'm old! 😠

 

[isleepinabed]

Stop coming up with new ways to tell me I'm old! 😠

Aren't we all... If only we could be remastered as well

 

[Zloth]

50 years ago, we were in the age of pong-clone consoles and hand-held football video games. (I'm not sure the latter even count as "video." If they were, the resolution was something like 3x8 pixels.) Next year will be the 50 year anniversary of the Fairchild Channel F, which was the first console that could play games that were not built in.

Experience Every Home Gaming Console from the Beginning

Play every major gaming console released in North America from classic systems to modern day platforms.

liretro.com

Aren't wel all... If only we could be remastered as well

Is that what children are?

 

[Johnway]

and... thats Leon story A finished. Clocked in just shy of 6 hours and saved a staggering 63 times and a B ranking. Honestly i thought i was going to crash and burn with a piss poor rank. To get S rank, you need under 3 hours and save only THREE times. For A rank you need to be under 5 hours. Which, to be fair if you know what you were doing, a bit of experience and had the codes from another play through is easily do able.

But back to the run. yeah, jolly entertaining. By the end i was having a lot of fun as i could use my weapons against the enemies and had sufficient ammo, health and dmg against them. But that said, if you were to try and kill absolutely everything, you would be seriously under pressure. for the most part of the first half i was really, really under pressure and had to redo bits to carry on.

having played both remake and classic RE2 i have to say Remake is fantastic, sure its not quite as shooty as the previous game, but it captures the horror a lot better. maybe annoying for the tyrant to chase you and monsters at times basic monster feel like bullet sponges, but its alright. i had been expecting where the spiders disappeared do and it seems like they are non existent in RE2 remake which is a small mercy, but the Fully formed G zombie with its leech like things in the sewer can be annoying.

So play through Claire's story and lets see where it takes me. it might be slightly faster when i get to the police station. probably.

 

[Pifanjr]

I played some more Approaching Infinity today. It's still fun, but the combat is very basic. I can get a couple more active abilities, but so far it seems like you can kite most enemies and/or kill them in one or two attacks and I have my doubts it's going to become more interesting.

 

[ZedClampet]

50 years ago, we were in the age of pong-clone consoles and hand-held football video games. (I'm not sure the latter even count as "video." If they were, the resolution was something like 3x8 pixels.) Next year will be the 50 year anniversary of the Fairchild Channel F, which was the first console that could play games that were not built in.

Experience Every Home Gaming Console from the Beginning

Play every major gaming console released in North America from classic systems to modern day platforms.

liretro.com

Is that what children are?

No, that's a remake.

 

[January's Ghost]

Aren't we all... If only we could be remastered as well

Well, Botox, facelifts, wrinkle removing cream...but just because you can be made to look younger doesn't mean you aren't still old.

 

[Colif]

Nintendo Game & Watch series (Ball, Flagman, Vermin, Fire and Judge)

I know we had this one

we had a dual screen one too but I don't remember which.

Tandy CoCo

Had one of those too. Had Asteroids on Cartridge.

 

[BeardyHat]

Haven't been motivated to get on my PC and write a post and after an extremely busy and social New Years Day, I'm just lying on my couch and browsing with my phone. At any rate, I just want to make a post before I get too far from my last played game!

I started and finished Felvidek last week an excellent little JRPG (styled anyway) that takes place in 15th Century Slovakia. It has a pretty great sense of humor and the characters are fun to follow and get to know. It only took me 6.6 hours to get through and I was trying to do every side quest I found, so it really doesn't overstay its welcome. It also has extremely excellent music, that is very anachronistic, but just so fitting and great. I loved the entire thing to pieces.

Here's the OST. If it doesn't link automatically, try song 2, it's one of the battle music tracks.

Felvidék (OST), by Marcel Gidote's Holy Crab

13 track album

holycrab.bandcamp.com

Anyway, it put me in a bit of a mind for a JRPG, so I picked up Dragon Quest 3 on Gameboy Color again and resolved to get myself unstuck from where I last put it down. I wasn't exactly figuring it out, but I grabbed the Prima Official Guide scan off archive.org last night and have been looking at it on my tablet. It's been so damn illuminating to have an official guide and I'm finally understanding a lot of mechanics after my 20 hours playing, it's really reinvested me in the game. The official guide has been so much more helpful than decades old forum posts, it's kind of great, makes me feel like a kid again, looking at guidebooks for NES games.

 

[Colif]

I have been known to post using my phone before, forum software isn't that bad on it, but PC just makes it easier to post links. And to scroll through really long threads.

My pc is right next to my bed so on phone or PC I would generally be in same place anyway. Main reasons to use phone would be:

1. its storming outside and its safer to use phone
2. Its too hot outside and PC being on only makes it worse - on hot Summer days I just turn PC off for a few hours mid afternoon to let room/PC cool down. The joy of radiators is they hold the heat longer after shutdown.
3. I feel like listening to music which I need phone to act as remote for, and PC isn't part of the system
4. My PC is broken - this can happen but luckily isn't case at moment

Pretty much in order of operation.

 

[January's Ghost]

So, I've been swapping between three games the last couple of weeks:

One of the newer kids on the block, Indiana Jones and The Great Circle. A fantastic contribution to the Indiana Jones legacy. It just outright feels like an Indiana Jones adventure and Troy Baker did a fantastic job mimicking the overall personality of Doctor Jones.

Hitman: World of Assassination. While I have played through all three Hitman games before I was rather displeased when they started combining all the games towards its current form that all my completed challenges were wiped away. So I've been going back through each mission and regaining most of the challenges. Currently I'm skipping ones that require playing a mode outside of the standard mission. I still love this game and even though I know most of the maps very well, it still provides a lot of entertainment.

Shadow Gambit. What can I say, Mimimi games (RIP) was the master of the tactical stealth genre. I am loving this game so much. I enjoyed Shadow Tactics, but skipped Desperados III because cowboy settings was never an interest of mine, but I'll be damned if I didn't buy it soon after playing Shadow Gambit.

So I'm in a sweet zone playing two new games for me and re-enjoying a classic.

 

[ZedClampet]

Hey, I'm learning French! But not because I want to. Most of Center Station Simulator hasn't been translated.

 

[Johnway]

I'm sure most of you guys do it, but i started to keep a spreadsheet as to how much i spend on games.

So... what was the damage for 2024?

In 2024 i...

... Added 64 games onto Steam includes games i bought or added for free. (epic and GoG excluded, but i didn't buy anything there and nothing added theree)
... The RRP cost of the games on steam was £1,343.36
... but spent only £95.71 to get those games.
... therefore saved £1,247.65
... I got the most games from Humble bundle
... The most expensive game i bought was assassin's creed valhalla complete edition at 19.83 from greenmangaming.


So overall a good haul. Can't be too upset at that result when i compare the RRP with actual cost. Humble bundle really helped here.

So here's hoping i get more games for cheap. yakuza like a dragon, judgement, lost judgement et al i'm looking at you....

 

[BeardyHat]

I have been known to post using my phone before, forum software isn't that bad on it, but PC just makes it easier to post links. And to scroll through really long threads.

My pc is right next to my bed so on phone or PC I would generally be in same place anyway. Main reasons to use phone would be:

1. its storming outside and its safer to use phone
2. Its too hot outside and PC being on only makes it worse - on hot Summer days I just turn PC off for a few hours mid afternoon to let room/PC cool down. The joy of radiators is they hold the heat longer after shutdown.
3. I feel like listening to music which I need phone to act as remote for, and PC isn't part of the system
4. My PC is broken - this can happen but luckily isn't case at moment

Pretty much in order of operation.

I mostly do if it's just not convenient to use my computer. Last night I just wanted to lay on my back and prop my head up, as I slept wrong and hurt my neck (stupid that that can happen).

I'm sure most of you guys do it, but i started to keep a spreadsheet as to how much i spend on games.

So... what was the damage for 2024?

In 2024 i...

... Added 64 games onto Steam includes games i bought or added for free. (epic and GoG excluded, but i didn't buy anything there and nothing added theree)
... The RRP cost of the games on steam was £1,343.36
... but spent only £95.71 to get those games.
... therefore saved £1,247.65
... I got the most games from Humble bundle
... The most expensive game i bought was assassin's creed valhalla complete edition at 19.83 from greenmangaming.


So overall a good haul. Can't be too upset at that result when i compare the RRP with actual cost. Humble bundle really helped here.

So here's hoping i get more games for cheap. yakuza like a dragon, judgement, lost judgement et al i'm looking at you....

I should do this for 2025. Maybe I'll start one once my kids go back to school so I can better keep track and maybe I'll do one for all of 2024 to see what was what.

I spent $433.34 somehow this year. This doesn't include a pretty small amount on GoG, just because I don't feel like going to look right now. This also doesn't include any hardware, which I know there's probably $800 worth of various bits for that. How I spent that much money, I don't know. Though I am constantly buying and selling stuff and did start selling off quite a few of my lesser used handhelds recently.

 

[Johnway]

To start the year I thought I could see some of the celebrated anniversaries coming up, which will invariably be remembered during the year with re-releases:

45th anniversary:
Pac-Man
Missile Command
Zork I
Rogue
Nintendo Game & Watch series (Ball, Flagman, Vermin, Fire and Judge)
Mattel Intellivision
Sinclair ZX80, Acorn Atom, Tandy CoCo

40th anniversary:
Gradius
Hang-On
Ghosts 'n Goblins
Gauntlet
NES (in the USA)
Commodore 128, Atari 520ST, Amiga 1000

35th anniversary:
The Secret of Monkey Island
Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon
Ultima VI
King's Quest V
Super Mario World
Super Famicom, Neo Geo AES

30th anniversary:
Panzer Dragoon
Chrono Trigger
Full Throttle
The Dig
Discworld
The Beast Within: Gabriel Knight
Phantasmagoria
Command & Conquer
Heroes of Might & Magic

25th anniversary:
The Sims
Deus Ex
Daikatana
Diablo II
Counter-Strike
The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask

20th anniversary:
Civilization IV
Call of Duty 2
Resident Evil 4
Forza Motorsport
Yakuza
Xbox 360


This is of course by no means exhaustive (or necessarily correct) and just the result of a quick look on wiki. Feel free to add more.
Personally, I'd look with interest regarding a new release or perhaps an anthology like we had this year with Llamasoft and Tetris especially for Gradius, Hang-On and Zork

Christ i feel old. Its happen... it feels like they were released recently and yet nearly 2 decades have passed. Resident evil 2 was 1998 and the remake is at least 3 years old...