So some of us are MMO homeless atm and it's going to be a while before Pantheon is ready. So I decided to make a little list of 10 games that you may or may not have heard of or played to help pass the time for those looking for a little something to do while you wait.
Why am I making this list you ask? Because I am bored and at this moment I have absolutely nothing at all better to do than sit here and writhe in pain thanks to a not serious but painful injury. So let’s write. lol
#10) Darkest Dungeons: If you like roguelike, permadeath, dungeon crawlers with a number of different classes that can be customizable in name and appearance, this turn-based dungeon crawling adventure is a lot of fun. You can download a lot of fun little mods off of the Steam Workshop to improve some of the QOL and other things such as an increase in the roster size to allow additional recruitment. That said, you start your adventure at a camp after the tutorial that you can upgrade with gold from your adventures. You use that to improve your adventurer's gear, powers, and moral. But if they die, there's a good chance they're gone for good. But you can have a chance in some rare circumstances to drag a dead character back to life. All good fun and I recommend this one for those that like this sort of thing.
Tuk’s Parting Word’s for New Adventurers: Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/262060/Darkest_Dungeon/
#9) Subnautica: I love deep sea horror. Id probably struggle to find a better setting in my mind short of the Artic isolation in John Carpenter's 1982 classic, The Thing. But Subnautica is a survival game that thrusts the player onto an isolated planet in deep space made almost entirely out of water. And like any good survival game, the first thing you do is look for the necessities and then try to build shelter. Shelter in this case is collecting schematics and resources to build a base underwater to sustain your life while trying to get rescued. But beware the depths of the sea.
Subnautica is addictively fun. It also has a sequel called Subnautica Below Zero. Which is decent enough but the world is way, way smaller than Subnautica.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/264710/Subnautica/
Tuk’s Parting Word’s for New Survivors: To put a twist on the words of Gandalf The Gray: "There are older and fouler things than fish in the deep places of the world." ;p
#8) Death Stranding: I'm a big story nut when it comes to games. And this one has gotten some criticism as a delivery simulator. It's a fair criticism. But the story is an interesting one. Death Stranding is one of those games I'd recommend as more of an experience. It's best experienced with no spoilers. If you don't know what you're walking into it's much better. So if you're in to good and weird stories, this one has a great one. And one of the twists is really well-written and handled great in its execution.
Death Stranding also has a fun online aspect that allows you to in ways share worlds with other porters. You won’t see them, but you will see items that they’ve placed that can help you out on your journey. And in some boss fights, you will see the ghostly visage of other porters sometimes appear to throw you items to help.
Tuk’s Parting Word’s for New Porters: Take in the visuals, audio, and story. And as always, toss a “Like” to your fellow porters. Oh Valley of plenty! Oh valley of plenty! Oh, yeah, try not to cause a voidout. You’ll understand why.
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=Death+Stranding
#7) Middle-Earth Shadows of Mordor and Shadows of War: This one takes a twist on some of the Tolkien lore for Middle-Earth. Set prior to Frodo destroying the ring, the adventure follows Talion, a ranger of the Black Gate, and Celebrimbor, the wraith visage of an elf of the second age. The best part of these games is the Nemesis system, which allows named orcs to remember their encounters with Talion. They might kill you in one battle and brag about it in the next. Or maybe you killed them and they cheat death through dark magic and come back for revenge, scarred from the battle missing a limb. It's a really creative and fun system that I'd love to see in more games.
In Shadow of War, Talion will dominate orcs to build an army against Mordor and capture fortresses that will then need to be defended. You can also attack other player fortresses online and dominate their orcs to add a copy of it to your ranks. Again, the big fun in this game is the Nemesis system. Just watch a few videos if you’re not familiar with it. Good fun. I like this one.
Shadow of War has some additional DLCs with 3 orc tribe DLCs (clearly cut from the game) and 2 additional story DLCs that are played from the perspective of two other characters from the Shadow of War story with Desolation of Mordor and The Blade of Galadriel. Both are decent enough, but I enjoyed The Desolation of Mordor more as it added some fun new mechanics to the game.
Tuk’s Parting Word’s for New Bright Lords: Dominate orcs and send them to war. You’ll never run out as there’s plenty more. They can fight to the death or they can run. The Nemesis system is so much fun. ;p
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
https://store.steampowered.com/sub/51209/
Middle-Earth: Shadow of War
https://store.steampowered.com/sub/281112/
#6) Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order: This one goes under that great story category. It's probably the best Star Wars story to come out in a good while. The story follows Cal Kestis and some other outcasts. The time period is set about 5 years after the Jedi purge in Revenge of the Sith. If you've followed the Clone Wars animated series there will be some nice surprises in this one for you. And the story and gameplay are great. By the way, OGGDO BOGDO will probably make you hate life the first time you meet him.
With a stellar story from Megan Fausti, great visuals and audio, and a killer voice cast ranging from Gotham star Cameron Monaghan as Cal Kestis to Debra Wilson (Cere Junda), to the very awesome Tony Amendola (or as I like to call him, Master Bra’tak, and turn in your nerd card if you have to Google that ;p) and many others. It may not be a deep RPG like KOTOR, but this one is still a really solid story.
Tuk’s Parting Words for New Padawans: If you’ve felt Star Wars has been somewhat lacking in the game and movie space in recent years, I have 2 good things to tell you about. The first is The Mandalorian, the second, this game. The story follows that tried and true ‘Heroes Journey.’ There are ups, downs, hope, fear, success, failure, and it’s always darkest before the light. As it should be.
https://www.origin.com/usa/en-us/store/star-wars/star-wars-jedi-fallen-order
#5) Alan Wake: I've been a big fan of the 2 Alan Wake games for a long time. And since Remedy started weaving their universe of games together with Alan Wake, Control, and Quantum Break, I've been replaying them all lately. Alan Wake follows a writer trying to save his wife from "The Dark Place." Wake has to fight the darkness with a mysterious ally and the light. AW has some creative gameplay for the time and a great story with two DLCs that builds on the established stories well.
There's also a spinoff called Alan Wake American Nightmare, which by some speculation ties into certain things linked in Control’s AWE DLC. No spoilers here folks. But if you want a fun dark story, try Alan Wake. Oh, and be sure to read those collectible manuscript pages. You have no idea how much tension that adds to the game. You'll understand why.
Tuk’s Parting Word’s for New Writers: Read those manuscript collectibles. Trust me!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/108710/Alan_Wake/
#4) Horizon: Zero Dawn: I have nothing negative to say about the gameplay of Horizon: Zero Dawn. It's smooth and fun. But the story at first can feel like it drags a bit. But during the second half of the game when certain events are revealed, the story takes a hellava turn. And it's well worth a playthrough to get that the first time through. Again, no spoilers, but as a story nut, I loved this one.
Tuk’s Parting Word’s for New Hunters/Huntresses: If the story feels slow at times, stick with it. I stopped playing this for a while because I felt it was dragging a bit. But there’s a turning point where you’ll get sucked in. It’s really good. Don’t make my mistake. It’s a solid story.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1151640/Horizon_Zero_Dawn_Complete_Edition/
#3) This War of Mine: This one is very addictive. It's a base-building survival game set in the war-torn fictional city of Pogoren, Graznavia. You start off in your run down dwelling with little to survive on. Each night you'll send out one survivor to try and scavenge for supplies and food. You'll have to make choices to trade with certain people or maybe take them out because they have supplies you need. All the while, you'll need to keep strengthening your own home to fortify against raiders and provide food and medicines for those there.
Tuk’s Parting Word’s for New Starving Survivors: When in Sniper Alley, plan your moves and don’t stand in the open. Bad idea.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/282070/This_War_of_Mine/
#2) State of Decay Year One Survival Edition and State of Decay 2 Juggernaut Edition: Ok look. The story in the State of Decay games is subpar and the voice acting and dialogue can be quite bad at times. But this game's charm comes from its indie studio roots at Undead Labs. It's a base-building zombie survival game with permadeath. Both have their charms. The first is a single player only story game with some DLCs that add other ways of playing. The second is like the first but adds some new mechanics and the option for multiplayer. All in all, they have some fun zombie play, an assortment of zombie freaks, and if you're careless, a very gruesome death. And I have played way, way, way, too much of these.
Tuk’s Parting Word’s for New Zombie Hunters: Never try to tackle a feral or juggernaut while tired and at half stamina. Or the half might just be you. Half there, half over there. It won’t end well. I mean, there’s still a feral out there somewhere using one of my character’s intestines as dental floss.
State of Decay YOSE
https://store.steampowered.com/app/329430/State_of_Decay_YOSE/
State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition
https://store.steampowered.com/app/495420/State_of_Decay_2_Juggernaut_Edition/
#1) The Mass Effect Trilogy: This one is my favorite trilogy of games and despite how...erm, some things ended, it's a solid trilogy with a great story. There's a remaster of the trilogy coming up in March that includes all 3 games and all 40 DLCs. If you haven't played this yet, I cannot recommend this one enough for those that have not played it. For its time, BioWare crafted this trilogy in a unique way that to my knowledge none had done at the time and very few (The Witcher series) have done since. Choices from the most mundane of side quests to the decision that could kill off an ally character all carry over from the first game to the last in several ways. There are consequences to the choices you make. In one instance, an ally might be there to help save your life. In another, that same ally may be dead, leaving you with other events. This trilogy of games, to me at least, is the pinnacle of what made BioWare great.
There is another game that followed this excellent trilogy called Mass Effect: Andromeda. But like Fight Club...we don't talk about Andromeda.
Tuk’s Parting Word’s for New Shepards: If you love sci fi, and you love RPGs, and you have not played this. You owe it to yourself to do so. It has a great story and a great cast fully voicing all three games. Keith David voices Admiral Anderson, Shepard’s mentor. The male Shepard is voiced by Mark Meer and the female by Jennifer Hale, you can pick your choice. Other fantastic voices in this saga include Lance “The Man” Henriksen as Admiral Hackett, Ali Hillis as Liara T’Soni, Brandon Keener as Garrus Vakarian, Marina Sirtis as Matriarch Benezia, and so many more, giving this game some awesome talent and making the game more of an immersive world. Immersive in a way we don’t get enough of anymore.
All that said, the first game does have some clunky gameplay with the Mako vehicle, and the combat AI can drive you nuts at times. But it’s worth grinding through for the story alone. Besides, the remaster is fixing some of that so I will be ordering a 3rd copy of the trilogy now…
Mass Effect Trilogy
https://www.origin.com/usa/en-us/store/mass-effect/mass-effect-trilogy
Mass Effect Legendary Edition (Release: May14, 2021)
https://www.origin.com/usa/en-us/store/mass-effect/mass-effect-legendary-edition
Anywho, that’s 10 for now. Hope it helps give you good folks some options if you’re bored. If you have some recommendations toss em below.