Holy cow...Although when Morrowind Elder Scrolls III cam out I probably wasted months of my productive life doing nothing but that. Dont even regret it because it was so awesome, it was like playing art.

Sands of Time is one of my favorite games. The puzzles are awesome, and the game has an ICO feeling to it that's hard to describe; just that it's atmospheric in a similar way.

+1 about the combat though, that was the one complaint I had with the game. That and the sound was a bit shoddy in the original, I don't know if they fixed it in the HD collection.

Sands of Time boasted some really strong writing and characterization with the Prince and Farah. Easily one of the best written romances in video games.

I know, right. I'm pretty sure I'd have more on Morrowind as well, I remember when that came came out I was in a video game coma for a fair few months.

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So, is it like an Elder Scrolls hipster thing, or was Morrowind really the best ES game?

It seems to be the general opinion, although I'm a bit of an ES deviant because I think I enjoy Skyrim better in the end... However the possible only thing that would get Morrowind a little higher on my list would be the fact that Skyrim is filled with glitches and bugs (still love it, though).

I think the reason why I played Morrowind for so long and loved it so much was that at the time that it came out it just blew my mind, I'd never played anything like it. I also love the music, as soon as I hear that Morrowind theme I feel extremely nostalgic.

I don't think it's an Elder Scrolls hipster thing, I just think Morrowind is a great game.

Mostly NBA 2k13, can't wait for 2k14.
Also, Civilization IV and Hearts of Iron II.

It's the best in terms of location and narrative but from a gameplay and character building standpoint it's a load of poo. There's a mod project going on to convert Morrowind's world to Skyrim's engine though which will pretty much be the greatest thing ever made if it's not a bug-filled mess.

League of Legends.

Still probably my favorite game of all time.

2k13 is phucking awesome. I saw the 2k14 promo and it looks even better graphically. 12' to 13' had some big gameplay changes that really helped it out for the better, hopefully they can continue on that path.

Gameplay I may agree just because it is so much older but really.....the char building is poo? The character building is SOOO much more in depth and so much harder than the other games. Astronomer and I just had this discussion about how in Skyrim and Oblivion it doesnt matter how you level your character...in Morrowind it could take you 50 trys to get a char right.

Not to mention how much more customizable Morrowind is in comparison to Oblivion and Skyrim. Infinite spellmaking and item effects.

I hate that kind of character building though because it prevents you from salvaging anything if you've made a mistake for a few levels. If you spend your first hours in Skyrim using heavy armour then decide to swap to light then you'll be at a disatvantage but it's absolutely possible. If you do that in Morrowind then you can say goodbye to skill points that go towards increasing your level along with the balance of skills to attributes that you presumably worked out for the best deal. Morrowind's system lacks malleability and has far too many skills that are either complete trash or impractical due to their attribute connection.

Skyrims system is so simple a child could use it, and you are never really challenged in character development. Is that really how you want your game play experience to be...simple and watered down?

All those "useless skills" you mentioned were only useless if you went with something else, and if you learned to level correctly then you never really needed to even train them. Name skills they had that wouldnt be useful to anyone.?

When I said "useless skills" I didn't think about my wording. I really meant "skills that are objectively worse than others for anything but roleplaying". Those skills would be medium armour, sneak and unarmoured off the top of my head. And yes actually, I would rather the system was kept simple. I don't play TES games for grind and de facto spreadsheets like I would an MMO, I play it for roleplaying and exploration. I think Skyrim's levelling system is far more suited to that than Morrowind's.

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Just playing through this at the minute. Absolutely loving it too. Nothing like burning through a mission or two of this on the hardest setting after a rough day.
Agree with every word of this post. As long as you knew how to block and flip over enemies before hitting them from behind, that was basically every fight in the game won right there.

Fair enough. But an old school true rpg is about grind and de facto spreadsheets. While other games are still rpg's they border in other genres as well. I guess I just really like old school mmo and rpgs and that they should have left the "fable like" gameplay to other games.

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A very fun little isometric action-RPG similar to Diablo 3 or Torchlight II yet prettier, cheaper, and better written than both of them.

I'm playing this off and on

Nostalgia purchase

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After watching Indie Game : The Movie, I remembered that I should get Fez which my friend recommended to me just after its release. I'd forgotten about it for a few weeks.

So I got it and it's fucking awesome. It's charming, quirky, fun, stunningly beautiful at times, relaxing, explorative, fun of course .. I would be playing it instead of sitting here typing, but my wife is in the couch in front of the TV playing it so that I can't. That's never happened before. She normally hates games!

For those who don't know it, it is an indie platform game in which you play this little guy with a fez. The guy lives in a 2D world, but the fez gives him the power to change perspective in a 3D way. So it's a 2D game, but you flip the levels around with the trigger buttons and it's just such a great game mechanic. It makes for a lot of fun challenges and a sort of platformy gameplay that is both familiar and completely new.

The mood of the game is rather relaxed and focused on the nicer things. The places and different dimensions you travel to seem to be mostly islands floating in the sea or in the air. You can travel between these places, also returning to places you've been before and so on, so the game itself is non-linear - which I love.

People need to play it :)

I have played and loved this game as well. One thing I do recommend is to KEEP EXPLORING. Trust me, you'll find so many little secrets in tons of places, even places where you think you saw everything it had to offer.

Slender - The Arrival

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I couldn't for the longest time get past the level with the generators, so I decided to unlock all the levels with cheats just so I can enjoy the damn story. Really glad I did too, because this game has the same amount of scare factor that Amnesia did for me. Blue Isle Studios definitely knows how to make a great survival horror game. I really hope they make more in the genre about different stories because they are good at it.

I really want to play Slender: The Arrival but some of the reviews I've read haven't been all the flattering and I never beat Slender: The Eight Pages and that's free.

Speaking of horror, in anticipation for Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs (coming out September 10th pre-order it on Steam or GOG.com) I've resolved myself to finally grow a pair and beat Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Fortunately for me I've played through it so many times that I know most of the puzzles without actually having to think, unfortunately for me though I've gotten to the point where I gave up last time and now have to try and figure it out on my own.

Hide and seek

I think you should give The Arrival a shot even if just to see how you like it. I think you'd appreciate the effort put into it though because for me, I like a good survival horror that can make me jump, and this one does that very well.

Unfortunately I didn't have a computer at the time so I got left out, but back in military school everybody had Counterstrike, and since we were all on a LAN the entire school would just play each other for months on end. We had weird trends there. The t.A.T.u. obsession was probably the weirdest.

You dont have to be left out now. My buddy and I play quite often if you needed someone to play with.

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And I thought the first one was hard! I chose normal difficulty instead of semi-difficult for the prequel, and this game is already handing my balls to me. My computer had a bit of trouble handling the amazing lighting engine, so I had to tone down some of the settings for this one. I really like how I can actually upgrade my firearms in this, and the hunting rifle feels solid as shit. Not sure how I feel about this one yet, but I've heard it's the weakest of the trilogy.

Facade

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Nothing better than a free game. But this one is just...um...yeah.

I can't play any of the Slender games because I will probably actually **** my pants in fright.

It definitely is. I played it for about 8-12 hours or so and I could never figure out how to get artifacts. The lighting engine in the game is definitely amazing though.

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Gone Home

Leave it to the indies to actually move this medium forward in terms of storytelling. Basically you play as a young woman who arrives home after a year backpacking in Europe to find it empty and a cryptic note on the front door from your younger sister. From there you explore the house and learn about your family through letters and various other things scattered throughout the house.

What's great is the game really knows how to subvert your expectations. It's a dark and stormy night, you're alone in a large house with a cryptic note. You've seen this scenario played out a thousand times and the game teases you with moments of dread, but it is not a horror game. It really manages to capture the feeling of being alone in a new house.

The game also perfectly recreates the '90's setting with props ranging from cassette tapings of X-Files strewn throughout the TV room to music magazines of famous alternative bands from that time period. There's also a bunch of cassette tapes featuring riot grrl bands like Bratmobile and Heavens to Betsy to really help sell the time period.

Honestly I'm being incredibly vague on the story because it really is something that I would rather potential players experience on their own. I can't say it's boundary breaking or Earth shattering, but considering video games' relationship with matters of sexuality, this is as mature as they come without seeming like it's talking down to you.

The only criticism I really have for the game is that it is rather short for $20, however I feel like I will learn more about the family upon further play throughs as there really is just that much to the game.

Don't wait 'till the end of the year when this crops up on "Best of 2013" lists, take the risk and reward the developer for going the extra mile to create something utterly unique.

I love the setting, but I hate the feel of the controls and so on. I wish they would stop developing their own inferior engine and just use something else.

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Papers, Please

Ever wonder what it's like to be a bureaucrat border guard for a Communist country? No me neither, but now you can live out that very specific experience.

You seriously play as a mid level bureaucrat sitting in a booth checking the papers of immigrants and deciding if you let them into the great country of Arstotzka. As the game progresses you have more and more levels of bureaucracy to deal with as you have to check to make sure passport issuing cities are right, official seals are correct, if the weight of the person matches their ID, if their picture matches, if they're the gender they say they are, if their passport ID is correct, etc. It creates a bit of a moral dilemma when the occasional person begs you to be let through despite not having the proper paperwork, or begs you to not "detain" them. To make matters more complicated you get paid by how many people you process in a day, and you lose money if you let people through without the proper paperwork. Most of your pay goes towards keeping your family fed, warm, and in an apartment, but you also have to contend with bribes, terrorists, and your superiors.

Easily one of the most engrossing games I've played recently, and only $10 on Steam, definitely something worth checking out.

Mafia II, i'm playing it on PS3

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Can't stop playing...

It's like a Metroidvania game but as a roguelike where your descendants pick up from where you left off. So fucking addicting I might actually shell out for a controller.

I have say that sounds pretty awesome.

Last game I played through and finished was the new Tomb Raider, and I loved it. The gameplay was awesome, really fluid shooting and controls were perfect. The storyline was just okay, but it was so much fun I didn't mind.

It is pretty awesome and there's a lot of replay value to it because of all the different endings. So far I've gotten 3, one results in me getting arrested because I was too forthcoming with information, another was me getting arrested because I had a horrible day at work and lost money which put me in a debtors prison, and then my last one was me actually "winning" the game.

No paperwork simulator should have the right to be this... fun's not the right word because the game isn't fun in the same way that Saints Row IV is fun, but it's an engaging experience and one of my favorite games of the year.