I could see the writing on the wall last week, but after about 20 hours I've dropped Dragon's Dogma 2. Exploration felt just like a chore to me, and combat was super boring. This is definitely one of those games, where I absolutely don't see what reviewers saw in it to give out such high scores and maybe even call it GotY. From what I've read, the online discourse has shifted a little as well, and not just because of the bad performance or microtransactions.

I tried switching over to Horizon Forbidden West, and was going through the first small zone, when the game started crashing constantly with no error or hint on what the problem could be. It was weird, because it ran smoothly for almost 10 hours, and then it became basically unplayable. Crashes every 1–5 minutes. I tried a lot of things, but nothing helped, and was close to giving up. Then one or two days ago I had a breakthrough and I think I found the cause, something with the textures or my GPU memory. First, I reduced the memory OC of my GPU, which I haven't changed in almost 2 years, although it still crashed after an hour, which was definitely an improvement. Then I turned down the Texture Quality setting from Very High to High, I was finally able to play with no issues again. Today I'll check with my normal overclock again, if it's just the in-game setting or both.

As for the game itself, I like it, it's basically Assassin's Creed Valhalla or something, just that controlling Aloy doesn't feel like you're moving through molasses. I don't play these open world RPGs where you're basically checking off markers on the map too often, but I do enjoy them from time to time. Because of all the problems I had with the game, I just made it out of the prologue / introduction or whatever (before you get to the titular Forbidden West), so I can't say too much about it yet, however I gotta say it does look fantastic, probably the best looking game (on a technical level) that I've played.

I also played the new stuff, that was released in the first big patch of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. The new zone is really neat and I had a good time.

Then I tried Halls of Torment, another Vampire Survivors-type game. I love the look and vibe while playing, but it feels like you have to grind the early levels somewhat for upgrades and stuff until you're ready for the later stages, which I'm not really a fan of. For now, I've shelved it, but will definitely check it out again later.

I gave Pathfinder: Gallowspire Survivors another chance as well, this time on my desktop PC, since I didn't have a great time on my Steam Deck before. The game just loves throwing ranged enemies at you, so your screen is constantly filled with projectiles, which is just not fun, and the bigger screen only helps a tiny bit. It also seems super grindy, since there is sooooo much stuff to unlock and upgrade, although basically everything are just tiny passive improvements. Not really sure how I feel about it yet, but it's another game, which I'll check out again at a later time.

I played it a year ago, and it was fun (playing as the male MC), but the side quests are complete ass, so I definitely recommend skipping them.

I beat Final Fantasy 2. It's good, definitely one of the better JRPG stories for me, although some parts could definitely be improved if they were a bit more fleshed out. The main characters are really lame, but the supporting cast makes up for it somewhat. The magic system is pretty bad, since there are a gazillion different spells, most of them useless, but even if you wanted to use them, you'd have to level up each one separately for every character. Even the auto battle can't really save that.

Then Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor made it to Early Access, but right now it's pretty disappointing. I've done a dozen or so runs, but all four classes feel just really weak, even on the lowest difficulty. There is some meta progression, but they improve your character so little, and get really expensive, really quickly, that I don't think it'll make that much of a difference. I'll give it some a bit more time, maybe unlock a few more things, since I like the DRG Theme, but will probably shelve it soon and go back to Soulstone Survivors, Vampire Survivors or the dozen other games like this I haven't played yet.

Next, after like a 10-month break, I'm back to Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin. Playing through FF1 really made me play this again. Back when it was released on Steam, I made it through the base game and started on the first DLC, but the then new Bahamut difficulty was a bit too much for me at the time. By that point you can't just overpower everything with better gear anymore, but need to pay attention to your build and stats. I still need to wrap my head around things more, although it kinda sucks, since there are very little guides on the internet to help with that. Most information is for the endgame on the highest difficulty, which doesn't help me that much. There is a kind of "easy mode" called Extra Mode, which (in combination with certain gear that you get) will make you basically permanently invincible, and everyone and their mom recommends to just use that to get to the endgame (where the real game begins hurr durr). I don't want to do that, so I have to crawl through Discord channels, which really sucks, so I can get the basics.

I also tried Helldivers 2, but it's kinda unplayable on Steam, unless you have a group of friends to make a private lobby with, or are willing to manually add random people to your friends list, both of which is a no for me dawg. Matchmaking in this game is broken and doesn't work, if you can even make it into the game. I have no idea how this isn't talked about more, considering other games get clowned on for far less. I'll give it a more few days, but I'm not very hopeful, since it's already been over a week, and will probably refund it.

I've done some runs, unlocked all four classes, and right now I'd agree. All the characters feel pretty weak to me, even though I'm just playing on the lowest difficulty, where you'd usually expect to cruise through, depending on your experience.

Anyone find something interesting? Most of the games under "Trending Upcoming" don't appeal to me, so I have to dig a bit deeper.

Gatekeeper looks like it could be fun, and I've downloaded the demo, but haven't checked it out yet.

Since you're on PC, using cheats or potentially mods can expand the list of games you have available, since you might be able to just ignore certain aspects of a game, like combat, money or resources in general.

The more recent Assassin's Creed games have something called a Discovery Tour, where you can just explore the world, without combat. They are partially meant for educational purposes and can teach about the different regions and history, and offer guided tours. I don't know if there's a real free roam, where you can just do whatever though.

You mentioned buying Goat Simulator, so maybe other of these "Simulator" games might be for you.

I don't know how much you can go into houses, but Farming Simulator could be worth a look. Your kid can probably just explore the map and maybe even try some of the farming.

As someone else mentioned, Slime Rancher might be fun just to explore the world with the cute creatures all around, but there's not really much or any buildings as far as I know (don't know if the sequel has this stuff).

A Short Hike could be worth a look. You're on a mountainous island / national park type deal and your main objective is to get to the peak of the mountain, but you can just explore, do some side quests, solve puzzles, etc. I feel like the screenshots on the Steam Store page for the game look really ugly, since it's so pixelated, but that's just a filter, that you can change in game (from smooth to really pixely).

I don't think there's really any trolling going on (at least enough that it matters), just that people vote for what they know or recognize, like you said a popularity contest. Three of the titles in the Innovative Gameplay section are pretty niche, no matter how good they are. Even Remnant 2 is dwarfed by Starfield sales, so the latter just becomes the default choice for most people.

If there was any other big name AAA title on the list, I think Starfield could have lost.

He's pissed that Mother 3 was never released in the west and is now on a mission to destroy Nintendo from the inside.

I've been playing a bunch of games this week.

First, I did go back to Tunic and got the good ending, and I'm glad I did, because now the little fox was happy. I had to look up hints or the solutions to some of the puzzles though, some of those were just too cryptic for me.

Then I tried two Vampire Survivors-likes, Pathfinder: Gallowspire Survivors and Soulstone Survivors, both of which I played on my Steam Deck. Also, both are in Early Access.

I only did a few runs in Pathfinder. I might just be bad, but maybe the game isn't really suited for the Deck right now. There are tons of enemies that shoot small projectiles, that are just a pain to see on the small-ish screen, so dodging everything can be a pain. It also felt like the hit boxes aren't that good right now, but again, that might just be me, I didn't play the game for too long. I'd have to try the game on my desktop PC to check out how it plays there. One thing of note though, this game has local multiplayer, which might be interesting to some people. When you're playing alone, the second character sticks to you as a companion and just deals some extra damage. I also have to mention the menuing in this game, on controller it's complete garbage. Sometimes you select some menu category with triggers, change sub-categories with bumpers, sub-sub-categories with the D-Pad and then the actual thing you want to select with the stick. I had to constantly check where I was and what I had to press, which sucked.

The other, Soulstone Survivors, was a lot more fun for me. You get up to six weapons, and also upgrades for those weapons and generally for your character. In this game, weapons can have "tags", like melee, area, electric, whatever, and upgrades can affect one specific weapon, all of them or everything of a certain type, which can be neat. There are also tons of small QoL details, like highlighting which weapons get upgraded, a summary for your stats in a run or how much damage your weapons are doing. That last point is neat, because you can keep replacing your weapons, even when you already have all six, and if you don't want to, you just get a normal upgrade. When not in a run, there's just tons of meta progression with a gazillion different materials. You can unlock characters, weapons for those characters, a skill tree, something called runes, which I have no idea what they are, and maybe more. Menus also suck, although mostly because everything is just crammed full of stuff and a bit too small on the Deck. It's not as bad as Pathfinder though.

Next, a small game I saw while going through the Steam Discovery Queue, Froggy's Battle. This is a Roguelike, where you're playing as a frog on a skateboard, that's going around in a loop. You kill enemies by bumping into them, or with weapons you might get at the end of a level. The game is really short, I beat the boss after a bit more than ten runs, about 90 minutes, although there's a hard mode, which I didn't do. The main difficulty, in my opinion, comes from the controls, since you're riding a skateboard in a loop, so you'll end up upside down, which flips some of your controls. When the loop is filled with enemies, it can get pretty chaotic. The game has a bunch of different control schemes, so you can try to find whatever works best for you, so it isn't terrible. Doing sick kickflips, while wielding a magic wand, is pretty cool.

Finally, I started Diablo 4. I'm playing a Druid, because eventually I hope to punch everything as a werebear, although right now I'm punching stuff with stones that I summon from the earth. Even though I'm almost level 40, I'm still pretty early in the story, because I just run around in the world, doing side quests, going into the dungeons and whatnot. I'm trying to focus a bit more on the main story, just so I can get the mount and get around the world faster. While I am a KB+M elitist and mainly play on my PC, I also installed the game on my Steam Deck, and it runs really well on there. I turned everything down, except like textures, so it doesn't look as bad in closeups, but I'm basically always at 60fps, with room to spare. Only in the bigger city do I go below 60 sometimes, which is also pretty much the only time when I hear the fan turning up. Playing on controller is also neat, except for the menus (again). It also does have native ultrawide support, it's nice to have a modern game, where you don't have to look for patches or fixes, to fill the whole screen.

As for my favorite game of the year (that was released in 2023), it has to be Baldurs Gate 3, not much really came close.

I'm not really into Horror games. I played the RE2 Remake and RE7 years ago and liked them, which made me also get the RE3 Remake and Village, but I've yet to play them.

I played that on Game Pass, when it launched, and really liked it. Although some of the movement could be a bit frustrating, since you are just a blob of meat.

For the best experience, and if you're only going to play through it once, Larian has released Enhanced Editions about a year after their last two releases. The same thing will probably happen here, so late next year could be good. If you play these kinds of games multiple times anyway, then it doesn't really matter. Even in the current state, it's an incredible game, so just go for it whenever.