Oh man, I loved playing Dragon’s Age: Origins. I had a sort of “unexpected companion” when I played through it in college.
I was a computer geek; I had a gaming PC. My roommate was in a frat and had an Xbox 360. The only games he ever played were Call of Duty and Madden.
One day he came home with a copy of Dragon Age for the 360. He said, “This seems like a game you would know about. One of my fraternity brothers lent it to me. Have you played it?” I had just bought it a few days earlier but hadn’t played it yet. Of course I’m expecting Call-of-Duty-Madden-360 roommate to hate it.
Later that week I was going to party and he was staying home – a reversal of how things usually went. I got home very late, very drunk, expecting 360 roommate to be asleep. But no, there he is, playing Dragon Age. As soon as I walk in he says, “BRO I’M IN THE DWARVEN CITY HOW FAR DID YOU GET CHECK OUT THIS SKILL I UNLOCKED FOR ALISTAIR AND DUDE THERE IS A DOG.”
We played through the campaign on our respective machines over the next week, sharing tips and strategies along the way. It was great.
I had to torrent SWAT 4 a few years ago to get a copy of it, even though I had paid for it. I bought it on Direct2Drive back when that looked like a good option for buying games long term. When Direct2Drive was purchased by GameFly, you suddenly had to download games from the GameFly client, and not all of Direct2Drive’s catalog was available there. For the games that weren’t available on GameFly, it would just show you your CD key.
Today they aren’t owned by GameFly anymore, but SWAT 4 still isn’t downloadable, it only shows your key. I finally bought it again on GOG a couple months ago when it was like $1. I almost didn’t want to do it out of principle though, haha.
Hades. I bought it a few months ago and finally installed it yesterday. Only played about 30 minutes, but love it so far. I didn’t even know it was a roguelike – I thought it was more like Diablo from the screenshots. I just bought it because everyone said it was amazing, and I think I’m going to agree with them.
Thanks for the lists! Seems like whenever someone asks for some lesser-known indie games, people start mentioning ones like Stray and Hades, which are good, but not exactly deep cuts. :)
I looked through my most played and least reviewed indie games on Steam, and found these three. They’re super cheap for the summer sale right now, too.
Venineth - 178 reviews - currently $8 - released 2020
- Physics-based 3D puzzle platformer. You play as a ball, with a lot of momentum, that rolls around some amazing looking, mysterious landscapes. Chill ambient music plays in the background. I haven’t gotten very far yet; the reviews suggest that it gets harder as it goes on. The first couple hours are very relaxing.
Stealth Bastard Deluxe - 628 reviews - currently $1 - released 2012
- 2D puzzle platformer with the best soundtrack ever (and the soundtrack is 40 cents right now). You need to have very precise jump timing, so it has more difficult platforming than most puzzle platformers. Very replayable with leaderboards, community-made maps, and unlockable new skills that let you solve a level in different ways.
AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity - 625 reviews - currently $2 - released 2009
- I stayed up way too late playing this one many years ago, and I can’t even explain why it was fun. You just kind of fall downwards, aiming at things as you go down, and trying to find new routes to hit the things you want to hit and avoid the things you don’t want to hit. I can’t really compare it to anything else, except for maybe some platformers where there’s a “falling level.” Except this is all falling levels. It’s weirdly good. They’re working on a new one, although it’s very delayed at this point.
I don’t have an 8bitdo Ultimate controller, but I have several of their other ones. They all work for me over bluetooth when I pair it with my PC and then use Steam to recognize the controller. They show up as a Switch Pro controller, meaning Steam won’t be aware of the back buttons (I’m guessing you need to use 8bitdo’s software to do that). But you can remap the regular buttons and the gyroscope in Steam’s UI. If you use xinput mode, then you are limited to the controls on an Xbox controller, so no gyroscope.
That does mean you need to use Steam to launch all of your games, even if you bought them elsewhere, but Steam has a controller-friendly interface, so I prefer to do that anyway.
edit: Bah, I just saw @mp3’s comment. Too bad that their Ultimate controller doesn’t work like their other ones, that’s a big step backwards.