One has to be Crusader Kings III considering the amount of time that died in that game. I did Lingua Franca (world domination) when mods and savescumming voided achievements, my whole empire fell apart literally 20 seconds after I achieved world domination lol, could barely hold it together to achieve the feat.

The other one is probably Rocket League. Low skill floor, skyhigh skill ceiling, wonderfully designed esports game. If you could still freely go in and out of casual games, I‘d probably still play it. But I peaked and don‘t feel the need to play ranked anymore and casuals started to feel like ranked.

After these two I can probably name ten more but I can‘t say which takes a top 3. League of Legends, Counterstrike 1.6, Battlefield 3, HITMAN, Dark Souls II (yep lol, I could probably draw a map of this game from memory), NIOH 1/2, Monster Hunter World, Sleeping Dogs, Muse Dash, all these games killed countless hours with fun, but it‘s hard to put one above the other. Apart from League of Legends, that one takes the rear.

If that‘s the case then I guess I shouldn‘t be as sceptic cause I liked Infinite quite a bit

Aren‘t the original devs gone or am I misremembering?

And „community-based engagement business“ is…?

I remember them coping how it‘s actually good that they‘re owned by IGN now not too long ago lol

Of course this is good and I welcome it

Yup, best controller design for my hands. If only the quality of its components wasn‘t so crap. Drifting sticks, squeaky triggers, double pressing buttons, I had it all. I thought an elite controller would be of better quality, got one, and the plastic of the right shoulder button straightup broke within a year. No dropping, no throwing, it just broke from normal use lol

The form‘s great, the buttons (when they work), are great, the sticks (when they work) are great. It just doesn‘t last long past warranty. Thankfully they‘re on sale every year for like 35 bucks but I‘d rather they were a tad more expensive with better quality components… I guess they don‘t mind people having to buy more of them either though…

I think it‘s so dominant cause it‘s cheap and easy to make, and it runs on anything. I don‘t see it go anywhere anytime soon. But I hope some AA studios will try their hands on this style.

I love the visuals so much… I wish there were way more games out there looking like that, but at best it‘s (great) cell-shaded characters/monsters in a clay/plastic-looking world nowadays.

P5R is a reminder to me that I should be patient. Got it for 40 bucks way back, 2 hours played. I‘ll play it eventually, no doubt, but I didn‘t need it then lol

This month‘s choice is stacked

I enjoyed the DC mod more which might be the reason why BF3 was my peak 🤔 Did you maybe like BFV then?

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Idk how much it fits into your understanding of racing games, but one of my favorite vibing games of all time is Slipstream.

My favorite traditional racing game is the old DiRT 2. I‘m just not much of a sim guy, I dislike having to fight the car too much, it starts to feel like I’m trying to steer a washing machine on ice. I am challenging myself with DiRT Rally 2.0 (yes, confusing) though, not sure how far I‘ll get.

Valve is self-publishing so technically… 🤔

I loved Battlefield.

For me it started to go downhill with BF1, although it was still a good game, it already started trying to be a movie and not the „put C4 onto jeep, plop into jeep, drive jeep to enemy, plop out if jeep, boom“ kinda jamboree that I loved. Now it was all about getting spammed with immersive animations that just broke the flow for me. At least hardcore servers were still very enjoyable for me.

Then BFV came around and with it more animation spam on top of absolute terrible visual clarity where you had to stand still for a couple seconds and scan a room to really be sure no one‘s lying on their back in a corner (obviously you‘re long dead by then). Oftentimes I got shot by a camper and even in the killcam I couldn‘t even see the guy. As if that‘s not enough, they introduced clown skins that made you wonder if that person‘s on your side or not. Now it’s not x uniform soldiers against x uniform soldiers anymore, there‘s superheroes and supervillains running around. I hardly even played this one.

Then BF2042 came and it‘s just Apex Legends hamfisted into a BF frame as far as I‘m concerned. I didn‘t even get this until they trashed it for 2 bucks and played for like 2 hours since.

BF3 was peak, BF4 was good, BF1 was alright, then a whole lotta disappointment. I‘ll never forget the 24/7 Back to Karkand Rush server in BF3, community servers rock. Good times, sad greed made it go to shit.

I can second that, it‘s a good sim for what I can tell anyway. (Although also EA now, see OP‘s requirements)

it had a lot of backtracking which was annoying

…but very immersive on the treadmill, no? LOL

…I‘ll show myself out

You probably mean Dirt Rally 2, I meant the original DiRT 2, which is pretty arcade-y and easy.

(The one that had Games for Windows LIVE (yep lol))

I‘m happy for fans to get more, but the franchise never managed to grab me. And it‘s really hard to explain why since I don‘t have anything bad to say about the games I‘ve played. I guess they play it so safe that they‘re bland and unmemorable to me. Like it‘s less an engaging work of art and more a piece of homework by the book that‘s trying hard to be inoffensive and completely risk-averse to not upset the teacher.

But that’s just my opinion anyway, and not every game has to be for me.

Edit: There was no DLC bs in the games I‘ve played though, just complete games. I wanna explicitely praise that.

From all the racers I‘ve played, DiRT 2 and GRiD 2 are probably my favos, and Forza Horizon 4 is also really good. But the former two are EA now that Codemasters has been bought (although they weren‘t on release) and FH4 is delisted (and 30ish bucks anyway) so…