I’ve been thinking about the PS1 game ‘Driver’ a lot recently. It’s a game I spent a lot of time on during my youth, and whilst I’m sure it doesn’t hold up some 20 years later, it was still a highlight from my ‘gaming youth’.
As much as I know I enjoyed it however, I don’t remember all that much about it. Aside from pulling the perfect reverse hand-break-turn in order to leave the garage/lockup area and begin the game proper. I didn’t need to pull this manoeuvre of course, I could just, you know…drive out, but something felt so incredibly satisfying about it that I couldn’t stop myself.
Which brings me to this point of this thread. What’s something you do in a game for no reason other than it feels damn good?
Shooting out of a cannon with the wings hat and flying around in Mario 64 was such a pure fun experience for my kid brain. The switch in music and just soaring around a 3d level was really something special at the time.
I love to boot up Red Dead Redemption 2 and go on little hunting / fishing trips as Arthur. I play it as close to real life as I can, meaning I don’t just sprint across the map on horseback and get to my destination in five minutes or less. I have Arthur eat breakfast, ride the trails for a few in game hours, eat lunch, ride until dark, set up camp, eat dinner, brush / feed the horse, sleep, repeat. If I go through a town on my way, I’ll usually stop for a day to experience some entertainment or do a bit of gambling. It can take multiple in game days to reach a hunting / fishing spot. I’ll set up a camp once there, do some hunting / fishing for a few days, and then ride back home. It’s just super relaxing for me and helps me appreciate the little details in the game even more.
Riding around in GTA San Andreas. Like taking a truck and making long trips while listening to K-DST radio.
K-DST formed many of my current favorite musical genres lol.
Cyberpunk 2077 is purely an escapist game for me. The game itself sort of sucks, the side missions are mostly “go and kill this dude” or “go and steal this thing”, nothing you do has an effect on anything and it’s generally pretty uninspired and blah, but I bought it because I got it for under 20€ so I figured why the hell not.
It looks damn purdy though, and Night City is intricately built and has lots of small fun details. I love just wandering around the city, stopping at hole-in-the-wall noodle places (even though they might just be “window dressing”, and even if they’re not the restaurants in the game are totally pointless), or browsing the stuff at some market, etc. etc. etc. So even though I don’t like it as a game, I like the environment it provides (although honestly the constant in-your-face sexism gets pretty old…)
Have you tried Cloudpunk?
I have not! I was actually just eyeballing it in Steam the other day thinking about whether I’d want to buy it, so I think I’ll take this as a recommendation
Cloudpunk has really nice atmosphere but is highly linear, almost to the point of belonging to the “walking simulator” genre. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but just don’t go in expecting much in terms of gameplay.
Oddly enough I like walking simulators, even though Cyberpunk’s linearity irked me. I think it’s because I like my RPGs more nonlinear and with more freedom to decide how things go, but I’m fine with linear stories in games that don’t try to sell themselves as something else
That’s probably why I recommended it. I spent more time with it going around aimlessly, hamging out in places than actually following the story.
I just want a Blade Runner sim so badly…
I just want a Blade Runner sim so badly…
Right‽ I just started playing Cloudpunk and I’ve really liked it so far, and I had this exact thought. Cloudpunk is close and it’s great fun, but I would commit light treason if it meant getting a (good…) 1st person Blade Runner game on the market
edit: oh and thank you for the tip, it’s exactly what I was looking for
Absolutely a recommendation. It’s extremely atmospheric. If you’ve ever wanted “drive” around in Blade Runner’s world, Cloudpunk is about as close as you’re going to get in terms of feel.
I would always play AVP2 as an Alien. I loved the mobility of being able to traverse walls and the unique challenges/opportunities it presented. I played it a lot and got quite good at it (would easily be the top player in most games I played), but would more often focus on making use of those unique mechanics for novelty situations.
One map (the forge, or something similar) had high ceilings with ridges built in to it, perfect for hiding an Alien. Instead of running around the map tearing up victims and moving up the leaderboard, I would cling up on that ceiling and wait for an unsuspecting human to pass underneath. I would drop down like a spider, paralyze them with my tail, and immediately headbite them. The glee that I would get from perfectly executing that surpassed any MVP received from high scores. It was fun to just play an Alien like an Alien.
I want to play that so bad right now. The cat like movement with wall-climb, plus the alien vision is easily one of my top 5 unique gaming experiences.
So long as you don’t care for graphics, Driver still holds up in the feel department. Get a PSX emulator, rip/“acquire” the game and you’re good to go.
For me, it’s any game moment where the player is given manual control over a function that is usually automated or simply blocked off. For example: any game that gives you control over sheathing/holstering your weapon instead of waiting for your character to do it for you (a boon for RP in RPG games) or in GTA V when the right d-pad(?) button gives control over the gun’s flashlight or a car’s headlights and convertible roof. I’m not sure about earlier games in the series but Test Drive Unlimited even let the player roll down the individual front side windows of the car you were driving.
Edit: screw ups.
any game that gives you control over sheathing/holstering your weapon instead of waiting for your character to do it for you
I recently bought red dead 2 and that feature took some getting used to. Especially because the controls are context sensitive and the button that starts a conversation when your gun is holstered is the same button that points that gun at a stranger if it’s out. I’m used to it now and compulsively holster my gun as soon as the shooting seems to be done, but for a while there was a lot of “Howdy partner. Fine weather we’re having ain’t…no wait wait sorry I didn’t mean…ah shit” and suddenly I’m in a shootout with the law and out $50 for my bounty when I just wanted to buy a bottle of whiskey.
I know the exact problem and unfortunately that’s just a staple of contextual buttons. I generally found I had a lot of problems with RDR2 so I can’t say too much inbiased and it’s not to bash R* (this time) but when button layout is handled well, it’s manual controls like I was talking about that make the experience feel that much better.
On the subject of contextual button commands, Gavin from Achievement Hunter made the joke comparison during a Hitman video (pretty sure it was Hitman). To paraphraae because it’s been so long, “Don’t you just hate it when you walk up to a window in real life and jump out of it instead of opening it because your angle was slightly off?”
With the spiderman games, I almost always swing around instead of using fast travel. I’ll do the little tricks and stuff too.
They did such a good job making the basic traversal mechanism satisfying that it’s almost weird they included fast travel.
Risk of Rain 2: Get 5 to 10 movement items and just zoooooooom around.
Deep Rock Galactic: Drill thru the walls even when it’s not the best idea, because I just like the idea of destructible terrain and navigating in 3d.
DRG has a whole list of things that just feel good:
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Fucking obliterating one grunt with your biggest gun or explosive as you board the drop pod
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Going back to rescue your teammate that didn’t make it to the drop pod even though it technically barely matters as long as one person makes it back alive
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When building liquid morkite pipes that run parallel for a while, lining the support points up
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Using a bulk detonator to kill a dreadnought
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Mining a crassus detonator gold sphere by drilling all of the surrounding terrain away so that the entire sphere pops at once and collapses in to a neat pile
Using the exterminator device event to kill a dreadnaught
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Seconding the movement. Everyone wants at least one feather and a handful of hooves and energy drinks but if you stack up you can literally just fly around the map. It’s even more fun with movement utilities like the commando’s slide, you can launch jump like crazy.
I used to like to get gently stoned, fire up GTA 5, put on FlyLo FM in the car and just drive around. My brother and I would sit for hours, and it was basically like we were in a real car. I didn’t drive super fast, took most reasonable precautions against wrecking and killing people. It was just…nice. A sort of cut-rate flow state where the thing I’m doing is something that I have to pay attention to, but not something I’m occupied by to the point of not being able to bs with somebody.
I enjoyed the ship battles in Assassin’s Creed 4 way more than the platforming and main story. I probably spent twice as much time at sea as I did on land.
Flying around in the birdsuit in Pilotwings 64. I could do that for hours. Except I usually eventually try to fly through a cave and crash. Gosh I’d love a new Pilotwings
YOU COULD JUST LEAVE??? WE HAD TWO RENT IT THREE TIMES IN A ROW TO BEAT THAT TUTORIAL!!
Red Dead Redemption 2. The guy in St Dennis selling his white supremacy books… The police look the other way. Just sayin.
Running over pedestrians and crashing motorcycles in Sleeping Dogs.
I completed every mission with an insanely low cop score because I killed so many civillians. This game is the poster child of ludonarrative dissonance in 7th gen AAA games.
The game tracks how many people you run over in a “combo” and assigns a high score. Mine is 647.
In Diablo 3, I always saved the NPCs in Act 2 while doing bounties, even though there was no incentive to do so. Dunno if it counts as feeling good, but could never bring myself to ignore their cries.
