Video games

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This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.
People playing a large scale version of the iconic Pong video game at the National Videogame Museum

Video games are games played with an electronic device, instead of paper, pens, dice, boards, anything traditional, and most of the time omitting your imagination too. It is also true that they do contain amusing game mechanics, can be easily played alone, provide visual and auditory representation, and don't cost hundreds of dollars for a few miniature visual representations; however, this does come at the cost of freedom, physical being, social skills, and imagination.

Many traditional or tabletop games (like WH40K and D&D) can now be played as using electronic devices to substitute for their tactile components like maps or minis, proving once again that technology continues to screw up everything that we all wished had remained as it was. A virtual tabletop simulator has been released so you may play a tabletop game with friends out of town. Also, we have an article at List of Vidya Board Games to cover various tabletop adaptions into the digital realm.

Electronic games played by strange, electronic fa/tg/uys have been accepted by /tg/, so that any game can be traditional, and this media fits right in with the old board games and Tabletop Wargames we all know and love. Some video games are accepted and enjoyed by /tg/. Many, however, are not. Generally, video game threads, especially games with no corresponding /tg/ version/interest, belong on /v/ instead.

You'll find quite a few /v/ related articles on 1d4chan because some video games have at least some relation to /tg/ and because 1d4chan tends to draw in people who are fans of WH40K universe primarily through Dawn of War, even if these people don't actually play the tabletop game. And lets be honest here, 1d4chan is as much a page for WH40K fans as it is for fa/tg/uys so these people are certainly welcome here.

Strategy Games

  • Simulation/Sandbox
    • Dwarf Fortress The legend, the lamentation, the...fun.
    • Aurora 4X, a.k.a Dwarf Fortress in space with MUCH more complicated details
    • Factorio, a process building game. The player is stuck on an alien world and trying to build a spaceship to get off said world, but the enormous industrial activity necessary to build a spaceship provokes the local wildlife to attack, necessitating more industry to fight them off.
    • Dyson Sphere Program: Factorio's fully 3D, multi-planet galactic version on meth made by a Chinese company. It's crazy as it sounds. Remove combat, add multiple planets and literal Dyson swarm and/or Dyson Sphere building over the ages.
    • From The Depths
    • Kerbal Space Program A aerospace engineer is you, build space vehicles, manage your own space agency and conduct missions kerbaled and automated across a simulated solar system. Bear in mind, this game involves actual rocket science; you're going to have to learn about things like Delta-V and slingshot maneuvers if you're going to plot a course that won't end with your rocket crashing into the ocean.
    • Space Engineers Build space ships, stations and bases.
      • Medieval Engineers Build castles, villages and siege equipment.
    • Minecraft, for some odd reason.
    • Terraria, for the same odd reason.
    • Mount and Blade, it's expandalone Warband, and the new Bannerlord 2. A sandbox medieval setting, you go around either being a bandit or uniting the scattered kingdoms into a grand empire or whatever. Enormous modding community means finding something thematically different if you want, including Warhammer and historical mods. In facts, the mods are a selling point of the whole thing, given there is one for just about any setting you can think about.
    • Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress IN SPEHSS except dumbed down for the casuals, which may or may not be a good thing.
    • Space Station 13: Dwarf Fortress except you play as the dwarves. Has been completely fucking ruined by goons leaking into every other version of the game.
    • Tabletop Simulator, a virtual tabletop for playing Card Games, Board Games, RPGs, etc. online with friends. The game has multiple built-in tools for creating custom games, and the Steam Workshop has thousands of add-ons; a popular choice for playing WH40K online thanks to ripped assets from Dawn of War.
    • VASSAL Engine
  • 4X/Grand Strategy
    • Age of Wonders - Take Master of Magic, then make it good and from the guys who made Overlord no less. The most approved is 2nd game (especially Shadow Magic) as it strikes balance between being its own unique thing, having good campaign and not sacrificing gameplay in the process. That being said AoW1 and AoW3 have their merits with the former being more relaxed and easier to get into while the latter is the most complex out of the bunch, so take your pick.
    • Civilization I-IV - Civilization actually was based on a board game and in a case of coming full circle, ended up creating it's own board game. Civ IV in particular happens to have a highly active modding scene to this very day, and many of those mods are total overhauls with fantasy settings. One of those is a Fall from Heaven mod, or rather a series of mods with shared setting. Neat stuff.
      • Note: Civs V and VI have design issues that make them difficult to recommend in this list, and are thus explicitly not included--that being said, this exclusion is more on the basis of them being Skubish--some people love V and/or VI, while some people hate them.
    • Disciples (series) - Heroes of Might and Magic made Grimdark.
    • Dominions - Civilization's and Dwarf Fortress' beautiful love child. Enjoy Lovecraft's Father Dagon square up against Ravana from India's Ramayana as they fight for the glory of their respective gods (you and whatever other neckbeards you are playing with).
    • Heroes of Might and Magic - Turn based strategy of over six main games and expansions where you control a fantasy hero and their legion of men/elves/dwarves/creatures/etc. Special mention goes to second and especially third installments.
    • Master of Magic: Take Sid Meier's Civilization. Add fantasy races with their own units, magic in the form of spells and summons, heroes and a very basic isometric battlefield when armies clash, and give dozens of abilities to units according to their species, situation and metal they are armed with (Yes, the metal used can be mithril or adamantite if the building city has any). That's Master of Magic. Still great for when you need to scratch that 'wizard with no sense of right or wrong bent on conquering the world' itch.
    • Masters of Orion
    • Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Despite starting out as "Civ 2: SPACE EDITION", SMAC became one of the more iconic games of the 90s. In the late 21st century Earth goes to sh*t and a colony ship is dispatched to Alpha Centauri to give humanity a new lease on life. Instead, we start fighting before we even get there and the whole thing eventually spirals off into a free-for all (with aliens joining the fun too!) with transcendence to virtual godhood as the ultimate prize. The game was a great joy to play due to gameplay and strategic depth, an interesting array of futuristic techs mostly rooted in semi-hard science and a plethora of interesting factions and various lore blurbs. Game is so tightly written, people discuss its content to this day. When SJGames released a setting book for GURPS 3e, they didn't have to make up anything at all to get 130 pages of lore.
    • Sengoku Rance: Hentai game spinoff that parodies the long-running Nobunaga's Ambition series. You play as Rance, Slaanesh's very own fun guy to be around, as he unifies Warring States-era Japan under his mighty "hyperweapon." Despite the utterly ludicrous premise it's a solid grand strategy game, to the point that the porn is more of a reward for playing well than an end in itself. Comparing this game to Total War was a common troll on /gsg/ when Shogun II was released.
    • Endless Space 1&2 The first game is ok and free to play, but the second one is where it's at as it does everything the original did better and then some.
    • Endless Legend
    • Distant Worlds
    • Paradox series: This is the go-to company for nation-ruling Grand Strategy games for different eras such as Crusader Kings 800's-1400's, Europa Universalis 1400's-1800's, Victoria 1820's-1936, or Hearts of Iron 1936-1950's.
      • Warhammer: Geheimnisnacht, a Warhammer Fantasy conversion for Crusader Kings II. Setting predates Winds of Chaos & End Times.
    • Stellaris Paradox's attempt to fill the gap in the market between their Grand Strategy games and traditional 4X. You can run *any* science fiction staple idea and none would look out of place. A civilisation of individuals ranging from unique megacorporations to generic governments, hive-minded eusocial species, robots and anything in between each have unique playstyles. It also has endgame "crises" of galaxy threatening proportions which needs elaborate teamwork to stop.
    • Total War series: Rome Total War, Medieval Total War, Empire Total War, Shogun Total War
      • Rome 1 mods: Call to Arms: Warhammer and Fourth Age Total War and Medieval 2 mods: Call of Warhammer, Third Age Total War
  • Real-time Strategy
    • Age of Empires series. Classic RTS with a more Command and Conquer vibe then a 4X, which is more common for historical settings, though pretty much every unit has multiple counters so it tends to be a more complex game then normal fast pace RTSs.
      • There's the original which is a curiosity at best since it was developed when RTS as a genre was still getting it's feet wet. Has a HD remaster and Definitive Edition remake,
      • The second game that is made of pure gold, with 39 civilizations to choose from, vibrant player base and ongoing developer support. Has HD remaster and Definitive Edition like the first one.
      • *** The third game is sadly little more than just Mythology with guns and Online which is F2P game and also dead-ish (unless you play Project Celeste, which is still getting updated by fans).
      • Mythology mixes up the formula well, being a surprisingly good leap into 3D and having a splendid campaign that spans some 30 missions that see you jump all over the ancient western world and some other places while on an epic quest. Had a single expansion - The Titans which added the Atlanteans as a faction and explored the aftermath of the first game.
      • The fourth installment is good but it is currently a victim of AoE2's seniority since the latter has so much content that the 4 seems quite barren in comparison, though a number of new civs are underway.
    • Battlezone, the strategy game not the arcade game. Mixture of real time strategy and hover tank combat while fighting commies on the moon. Clunky, and as balanced as a one legged hippo, but it's uniqueness, concept and immersion make it a classic. Got a second game that was tighter and better balanced but weaker plot and setting. Both got pretty decent HD remasters.
    • Command and Conquer, a franchise with more then four different series running at the time where you control varied forces trying to beat the crap out of each other.
    • Company of Heroes and Men of War series which are basically RTSs based on the idea of commanding forces as if someone was playing a classic WW2 shooter. While there are hard counters in Company of Heroes it still focuses more on holding chokepoints, piecing defensive lines and utilizing sandbags and barbed wire. Men at War focuses on realistic damage and as such is more the ARMA to Company of Heroes Call of Duty 2.
    • Cossacks series, which covers 17th and 18th century, being the closest to /tg/'s desire to have "pike and shot setting". Most notable for ability to field absolutely gigantic armies of thousands upon thousands of soldiers.
      • American Conquest is an off-shot mini-series, expanding game mechanics from Cossacks and covering the period between Cortes conquest of Aztec Empire till American Revolutionary War. An expansion is dedicated to American Civil War.
    • Cultures series, but most importantly first two games. A Viking village sim
    • Dungeon Keeper, where you play as an evil overlord defending against pesky adventurers and goodie-two-shoes trying to conquer your dungeon, and play it like Sims on crack.
    • Homeworld: THE iconic space video game of the early 00's. Basically Battlestar Galactica if the Galactica was tall instead of long. Borrows heavily from the artwork of Chris Foss.
    • Original War, most notable for its unique mix of RPG and RTS elements, with each unit representing an individual character with own backstory, personality and set of skills.
    • Patrician 3: Rise of the Hansa is pretty standard (and good) economic-transport sim, but it makes up with being related with the titular Hansa and the Baltic region during Late Medieval, which rarely show up as a setting despite being what is represented as the ISO Standard Medieval setting.
    • Railroad Tycoon 2 comes with absolutely amazing series of scenarios and an unique, fleshed out post-apo setting. No, not kidding. There are also dozens of fan-made maps further expanding on said setting.
    • Rise of Nations and especially Rise of Legends which had a steampunk faction and a "totally not the baddies from Stargate" faction
    • The Settlers series, especially the I-IV parts. This is less of a straight RTS and more a space-management game, where you're building the most efficient transport system for your settlement, particularly in first two games, with their iconic flag-and-road system. Plot-wise, S3 and 4 are great kitchen-sink settings and Amazons are hot.
    • Starcraft and Warcraft: 40K and Fantasy rip-offs respectively, although they were so successful that from video gamers' perspective the jedi are evil GW should be paying Blizzard.
    • Supreme Commander, the closest thing to "modern" remake of Total Annihilation and of course "the endless war IN SPESS!" setting that everyone loves so much.
    • Theocracy, in which you control one of Mesoamerican tribes with a goal of unifying the region.
    • Total Annihilation The game that started it all when it it comes to RTS. Not much of a story but it had great gameplay that laid the foundations for the stuff to come. There was also a fantasy sequel "Kingdoms" that had a great story and lore (rivaling that of Warcraft at the time) but abysmal gameplay.
    • Transarctica A bizarre mix of an economic sim, adventure game and a railroad simulator. After an experiment to slow down global warming caused a new ice-age, there are only massive trains going through the ice wasteland between the handful of surviving cities and coal mines. Your task is to bring Sun back from beyond the thick clouds surrounding Earth. Very atypical gameplay. And while the premise sounds familiar, it has nothing to do with Snowpiercer, insted being based on The Ice Company novels from the 80s.
    • Warfront: Turning Point: Command and Conquer Generals meets WW2, but everyone fielding experimental mecha, pulp super-weapons and other silly things. Notably, defense buildings come with FPS mode (and this can greatly increase their performance), while weather and terrain affect everything in variety of ways.
  • Turn-based Strategy
    • Advance Wars - It's like Panzer General but Anime. Except for Days of Ruin; that game is Grimdark and thus manly.
    • Fire Emblem - Advance Wars' twin brother who likes swords and magic rather than guns and tanks. Fire Emblem has heavy RPG elements, tasking you with managing a stable of characters with limited EXP to go around and the specter of permadeath hanging overhead. Awakening and later installments are not approved for being waifu delivery systems cleverly disguised as strategy games.
    • Jagged Alliance I & II, A PMC is you!
    • King of Dragon Pass
    • Panzer General - The first decent "Tabletop WW2 meets PC" back in '94, it's the second inspiration for Nazi Equipment and is the Mecca of wehraboo'ism. Spawned an entire series of games.
      • Of note from that series: Fantasy General, which is, other than some rather questionable AI balancing, a fairly fun "D&D Wargame" style affair.
    • Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale a Japanese game about running a shop, which sells and buys items used by dungeon-crawling adventurers. Much more engaging than it sounds and full of cutting humour. Capitalism, ho!
    • Valkyria Chronicles series - JRPG fantasy world version of World War II. Quite a bit of depth and supporting cast of characters.
    • The UFO: After[X] series which is essentially an X-Com made grimdark. How grim? The bad ending of the first game, Aftermath, is canon.
    • The original X-COM: UFO Defense
    • The new XCOM: Enemy Unknown and its sequel, XCOM 2.
      • XCOM and XCOM 2 mods: The Long War. Both versions add dramatically to their respective games, transforming them from comparatively quick, light experiences to fatigue-worn wars. Buckle up. Plays a lot like Valkyria Chronicles except with destructable terrain and lots of chest-high walls.

Role-Playing Games

  • cRPGs
    • Albion Duo of space janitors crash-land on a planet that will be soon strip-mined, only to find out there is local, if Iron Age tier population of few intelligent species.
    • Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura Fallout, but set in a fantasy world where magic and technology coexist and fight each other. The story takes your party across the world as you try to unravel a plot that threatens not only the world but the very concept of life itself.
    • Arx Fatalis A decent but pretty generic RPG if not for the fact that you appear in an underground kingdom in a world that had it's sun extinguished and surface turned into frozen waste. The magic system is also unique as you perform gestures with your mouse in order to cast spells, which is as fun as it is inconvenient (mage-knight build is a necessity due to this).
    • Baldur's Gate I & II
    • Battle for Wesnoth An Aussie who played too much jRPGs made a hex-based battle mini games that happens to be one of the more balanced things on the market.
    • Betrayal at Krondor
    • Darklands Adventures of a roaming party in the 15th century Holy Roman Empire Germany. Probably the lowest possible low fantasy to still qualify as such, rather than just historical setting.
    • Deus Ex series. THE cyberpunk RPG. So good that it managed to incorporate nearly every conspiracy theory into its story and make them actually work well together.
    • Dungeons & Dragons Gold Box Series (also includes some Buck Rogers games because of Lorraine Williams)
    • The Elder Scrolls especially Daggerfall, and Morrowind as the other ones are pretty generic and thus boring.
    • Fallout series.
    • Icewind Dale
    • Neverwinter Nights
    • Might and Magic from 1 to 8, then X. Might and Magic 9 does not exist.
    • Planescape: Torment Storyfags' and Lorefags' wet dream.
    • System Shock series
    • The Temple of Elemental Evil
    • Ultima series - see Might & Magic above and retain the "ignore 9" rule.
    • Underrail Metro 2033 (setting) meets classic Fallout (gameplay) and decides to have a foursome with cosmic horror and space opera. Try it or get dominated, pipeworker.
    • Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines/Redemption Bloodlines was Troika's last hurrah and after you apply the official and fan patches you will see why. Redemption is also good but not as much as Bl.
    • Wasteland series
    • Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
  • Modern RPGs
    • The Banner Saga
    • Dark Souls, due to its moody Berserk-inspired atmosphere, emphasis on exploration, and merciless learning curve. Compelling story and characters are a major plus, also contains large amounts of death and RAGE. The tagline isn't 'Prepare to Die' for no reason.
      • To a lesser extent, the other "Soulsborne" games (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Elden Ring).
    • Deus Ex: Human Revolution While not nearly as broad or deep as the original, it still manages to capture some of it's essence and is a fine RPG in it's own right.
    • Dragon Age: Origins Much better than later games. Has the added bonus of having an actual conclusion; the sequels tend to end on unsatisfying cliffhangers.
    • Disco Elysium Planescape: Torment, except you're an Alcoholic, deadbeat detective.
    • Expeditions: Conquistador and Viking and Rome.
    • Fallout: New Vegas Made by the team that made the classics, and it shows.
    • Kingdom Come: Deliverance A truly generic story of "from zero to hero", involving blacksmith's son climbing the social ladder of medieval society until knighthood. But what makes the game unique is the fact it's a historical RPG, set in specific area of Bohemia during a specific period with autistic levels of research behind it, providing more data about its own setting than your typical edutainment game.
    • Legend of Grimrock
    • Mass Effect 1 and 2 Grand space opera to rival that of Star Wars in the levels of epic.
    • Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor A fun uruk/olog hunting/recruiting game with some contentious framing, particularly in the sequel (Monstergirl Shelob, among other things). Think of it as "Arkham's Creed: Middle-Earth Edition."
    • Pillars of Eternity Set in the world of Eora where souls are tangible and measurable rather than being metaphysical/religious concepts. With the advance of technology and Animancy (science of souls) the world is set up for some radical upheavals, and that is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Billed as a spiritual successor to Planescape Torment, Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale the game accomplishes - for the most part - what it sets out to do and is one of the better cRPGs in recent times.
    • Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Both games are very good, the second just needs the Restored Content mod.
    • State of Decay, the only good thing that came out of the early 2010s zombie craze. If you ever planned to run a zombie campaign, just rip the whole thing off - unlike other vidya rip-offs, this one works out great. Only the first game is approved.
    • The Witcher series
    • Pathfinder Kingmaker
    • Tyranny From the same devs that made Pillars of Eternity. This time you are cast into the world of Terratus, a high-fantasy world which is just about to exit its Bronze Age, and as another twist to the ol' formula, you are a mid-ranking minion of the setting's overlord tasked with mediating conflicts and bringing "justice" through their empire. Story and gameplay are just as good as PoE, but the game was released in a rushed state with many things missing. Still, good for ~20hrs of fun or as an entry-level cRPG.

Adventure Games

  • Animation Arts: Not the game, but a German game dev studio. If you ever wanted to run a cheesy game that's either pulp or B-movie, look no further for inspiration, since this is their speciality.
  • Beneath a Steel Sky: Great cyberpunk themes and rich imagery. Released as freeware by the original developers.
  • Blade Runner: It's a Blade Runner game and it's one of the best things that ever happened in the genre, no need for more recommendations.
  • Broken Sword series: Templars, ancient conspiracies, interesting characters and well-written plot that is mineable even for tabletop games
  • Chains of Satinav and Memoria: Exactly how many adventure games you know that are set in Dere and are good?
  • The DIG: A bunch of astronauts stop an asteroid from hitting earth, only to find out it's really an alien starship that whisks them to a desolate planet on the other side of the galaxy whose inhabitants - who have a huge fetish for the platonic solids - are nowhere to be found. Features a lot of really complex hard-science plot points, difficult-as-fuck puzzles, and Steve Blum as an arrogant German scientist.
  • Indiana Jones and the Fate Of Atlantis: One of the classics that you can't just go wrong with. Aside being a good adventure game by itself, comes with kinda-sorta branching plot, so you can approach same situations differently.
  • King's Quest VI: Heir Today Gone Tomorrow: Just read the title and ask yourself what the game can be about. This series is downright ancient, so be warned. VI is well regarded as the best one and holds up relatively well, though fan remakes of the older games in the style of VI are also available.
  • Monkey Island series: One of the most definitive things to ever happen to the genre, plus it's a great pirate-themed series that both spoofs and reaffirms a lot of cliches related with own content.
  • Myst: A classic video game where you travel to the island of Myst, a magical place located inside a book, and must uncover the mysteriory of what happened to it's owners by traveling into other books.
  • Policenauts: Early Hideo Kojima makes a game where Lethal Weapon meets cyberpunk.
  • The Prince and the Coward: A Polish game that can be best summed up as "ISO Standard Medieval Fantasy gets the Monkey Island treatment". An excellent fan-translation exists that manages to keep the original tone.
  • Pathologic (also known as Pestilence or Мор. Утопия): a truly bizarre and unique Russian game combining adventure, survival, role-playing and lots of nightmarish vibes. Boasts headache-inducing lore and a persistent world, so things roll regardless of the player interfering or not. Got a HD re-release recently with proper translation, so non-Slavs can finally enjoy the game - the previous English translation was a nightmare by itself.
    • Pathologic 2: A remake of the original (or, rather, one storyline of the original), but with updated graphics and mechanics plus a couple of story tweaks. Retains many of the anxiety-inducing survival mechanics and nightmarish atmosphere of the first game and, generally, is a much more streamlined experience. As such, it is generally recommended to newcomers over the original. Only ⅓ of the original game is there, due to limitations in budget; the rest may come depending on how well the game sells (devs have confirmed they are working on the bachelor's campaign, however).
  • Professor Layton series: A refined gentleman investigates mysteries by solving lateral-thinking puzzles. Beautiful watercolor art and solid writing, though the puzzle setups become increasingly absurd as the series goes on. A great series to mine for dungeon puzzles. Any games after the first six are not approved, due to the writing devolving into cliche anime bullshit and a distinct drop in puzzle quality after the death of designer Akira Tago.
  • Star Control series: A mess of alien races in the grand tradition of Niven et al. kill the shit out of each other. First game is turn-based strategy, second game is somewhere between an RPG and an adventure game; both have a surprisingly deep arcade combat system. The second game was released as open-source software by the developers.
  • Vangers: A fuckin' weird Russian game about delivering bugs to other bugs in your bug-like car in a world that's filled with bugs and feels like "A Bug's Life" on a DMT trip. Honestly though, if you're a GM who wants to present their players with a totally alien and incomprehensible setting, then this game does it with flying colours.

Warhammer Games

Miscellaneous

  • Roguelikes
    • Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead a post-apocalyptic top-down survival game that looks like Dwarf Fortress with a texture pack and lets you drive cars into zombies.
    • Cultist Simulator is a grind-heavy, card-based game about being too curious about things that no man should know about and slowly building a cult to some demonic abomination... or die trying.
    • Curious Expedition which pokes fun at the pulp adventure genre; think Hollow Earth as a black comedy
    • Darkest Dungeon the newest lovecraftian dungeon crawler with grimdark setting and overall edginess. And its sequel.
    • Don't Starve a pretty-looking survival and exploration game that's fun with friends, and does horror like The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy.
    • Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
    • Freespace & Freespace II: The last major standalone space flight sim, ending the genre that had started with Wing Commander and X-Wing/TIE-Fighter.
    • Highfleet: A strategy roguelike where you command a fleet of Cold War Era airships through the deserts of "not Afghanistan," in order to capture a nuclear reactor.
    • Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures a random-gen adventure game that almost operates like a dungeon crawler and came 20 years too early to get on the roguelike hype.
    • Nethack
    • NEOScavenger much like Cataclysm (gameplay, genre, even the setting is similar), an exploration hex-crawl to surpass all hex-crawls.
    • Pathway, the closest thing to having Hollow Earth Expedition vidya
    • Pixel Dungeon and it's forks coffee break roguelike optimized for phones. FOSS so there's tons of forks. Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a very good version and is on Android Play Store and F-Droid
    • Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies Adventuring out into a WTF eldritch horror setting under the flag of Victorian Britain. Gameplay-wise, the games are just awful grinders, but it's their setting and quests that make them interesting, as long as comically dark settings are your thing.
    • TEARDOWN, a Space-Hulk roguelike
    • WarpRogue, a 40K-inspired roguelike
  • Good FPS games
    • Amnesia series, The first game in the series rekindled the survival horror genre and was pants-shittingly scary through a clever use of jumpscares, ingenious mechanics discouraging directly looking at the enemies and an amazing atmosphere of gothic horror which slowly turns into the cosmic variety as the story progresses. Unfortunately the latter sequels became a victim of their own success mostly due to oversaturation of survival horror genre, but are nevertheless fine games in their own right.
    • Bioshock series: Bunch of retro-aesthetics crammed into FPS games with what passes as a rich plot and world-building within the genre. Arguing over its content used to be prime skub material, now it's mostly forgotten.
    • Borderlands 2, a memetic lolsrandom dumb game, but special mention goes to Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC, as it is a role-playing session involving main characters, with all the crazy hijinks of Borderlands involved.
    • Crysis, Three games provide a very moddable engine with a very versatile set of physics combined with a pretty absurdly large modding community that has among other things, created a perfectly workable Mech Warrior game out of Crysis Warhead. Even if you don't care for nanosuit action, the mods alone are worth checking out.
    • Deep Rock Galactic Squats the video game. Space Dwarfs armed with big guns go digging into a mineral rich planet infested with giant bugs.
    • Dishonored, the spiritual successor to Thief except now you are a supernatural assassin in a proto-dieselpunk edwardian-era-esque steampunk world. Good story and fun gameplay with plenty of assassination options.
    • DOOM, Hexen, and Heretic: With a vibrant community because the games are easy to mod and has produced no shortage of mods (or WADs as they're called in the community (officially, the file extension 'WAD' means 'Where's All the Data?').) Interestingly, Doom was inspired by a D&D game run with Lead Dev John Carmack as the DM. Director John Romero's character recklessly gave a dark tome to a demon in exchange for the magic Daikatana which caused demons to overrun the material plane and the world to end. Visually, parts of the games (Hexen and Heretic especially) are reminiscent of a gothic dungeon.
    • Escape From Butcher Bay a Riddick-licensed game that combines great stealth elements with even better combat sequences and a slight horror vibe, all in the sauce made off used future aesthetics.
    • EYE: Divine Cybermancy: A really weird FPS/RPG due to its cyberpunk fantasy aesthetics, almost an RPG. Extremely buggy due to being a Source Engine game that wasn't made by Valve. The developers absolutely love Warhammer 40,000, made the setting for EYE a lawyer-friendly clone of 40k, and were eventually hired by GW to make the 40k game they wanted to make in the first place.
    • Far Cry series, which has completely different tone depending on installment and is just one huge mine of ideas for extremely pulpy scenarios. Special mention goes to Far Cry 3, which pretty much reinvented the franchise, and its standalone expansion Blood Dragon, which is a hilarious parody of the 80s neon aesthetic. Far Cry 4 and later installments are not approved for being either heavily rehashed or just completely unnecessary.
    • Guns of Icarus, a steampunk flying team deathmatch with set roles.
    • Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades - this VR title is unique for being as close to a true-to-life firearms simulator as you can get, having over 400 accurately modeled and functioning firearms ranging from flintlocks to modern weapons. Its also incredibly goofy, with all enemies being giant sentient hot dogs and a few oddball toys thrown in. It's also effectively Team Fortress 2 VR, as the game includes all the stock weapons from TF2 thanks to a collaboration with Valve.
    • Iron Storm - it's 1964 and the World War I is still going on, with complete stalemate perpetuated by industrialists on both sides. Your mission is to infiltrate and destroy nuclear program of the "bad" side. W40k games wish they were this good in presenting endless, senseless war.
    • Outlaws: A mid 90s shooter from LucasArt, where you are James Anderson, retired US Marshall that has to avenge his wife and rescue the kidnapped daughter. Does fantastic job with all possible Wild West cliches and staples and if you divide number of enemies by 10, you have a ready-to-use campaign, along with fleshed out characters and generic, but still engaging genre story. More importantly, despite its age, still plays great and builds atmosphere better than modern games even wish to.
    • Penumbra series: The easiest way to describe it is to call it modern take on At the Mountains of Madness, only set in Greenland and with massive conspiracy looming over the story. Warning, very tense horror games (while avoiding jump scares) with unique control and physics system, so it might not be your cup of tea.
    • Quake: At least the early games, for similar reasons for DOOM (they were both made by the same company). Quake 1 is a good and challenging FPS that takes cues from Lovecraft in terms of environments and monster designs. Quake 2 is somewhat easier, but is deliciously grimdark sci-fi; it's about fighting cyborg aliens that make more of themselves by capturing conquered races and fitting them with cybernetics/forcing them into a hive mind against their will.
    • Republic Commando, baby's first tactical shooter, but damn if it isn't a good one
    • Team Fortress 2, a game descended from a Quake mod now over 10 years old and still going strong, is a multiplayer FPS with a 1960s theme where players pick a team, one of 9 different classes, and battle to the death. Also, hats. Two hats in this game are 40k references, allowing you to dress your Heavy up as an Ork.
    • S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series: Roadside Picnic: The Video Game. A nice combination of free roaming, excellent gunplay, tense atmosphere and really freaky lore.
    • Thief 1 & 2, the grand daddy of stealth games, with one of the most original settings ever created for games (a combination of industrial - but not steampunk - medieval and pagan elements). Strong story, good characters and makes you feel like a master thief indeed. Third game is good provided you get the Sneaky Update. Reboot from 2014 is unapproved and shunned.
    • Wolfenstein series: Combines sci-fi, fantasy and World War II elements amidst the Nazi-killing. This series is downright ancient, predating DOOM and the FPS genre entirely.
  • Good TPS games
    • Freedom Fighters: Another baby's first tactical shooter to fulfill your Red Dawn fantasies.
    • Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine and Emperor's Tomb Despite what you might think, it's LucasArt ripping-off Tomb Raider, not the other way around.
    • Max Payne 1 & 2 Finest product of the neo-noir genre, especially the second game. Amazingly strong story in both games, with a lot of Norse references in the first one. Also, the game that introduced bullet time as game mechanics.
    • Prince of Persia, especially the Sands of Time trilogy. Accept no substitute for Arabian Nights game.
    • Severance: Blade of Darkness Some eight years before Demon Souls you had Severance, while the setting is somewhat generic-ish blade & sorcery meets LOTR, the moody atmosphere, unforgiving gameplay and fun combat more than make up for it. If you have a thing for Soulslike this is just for you.
    • Styx series Great tps assassination games set in a unique high fantasy setting that has you playing as a goblin of all things. Both games are great though the second one takes itself somewhat less seriously than the first.
    • Tomb Raider series Preferably games created by original studio, Core Design, but anything up to Underworld goes. A swift balance between serious and pulp tone, providing simple plots and a more and more complex locations. Also, good source of creative traps. Reboot from 2013 and what follows are disapproved and shunned, being just generic cover shooter. Comes with its own, massive level-making scene, known collectively as TRLE (after Tomb Raider Level Editor), which by itself is fantastic source of dungeon design, creative traps and excellent puzzles that are all very minable.
  • Mechwarrior, because /tg/ loves Battletech.
    • MechWarrior I is lauded as a classic, and thus the best
    • MechWarrior II is lauded as the best
    • MechWarrior III is lauded as the most engrossing storywise, and thus the best
    • MechWarrior IV is lauded as the latest and greatest, and thus the best
    • MechCommander II is lauded as most like the tabletop, and thus the best
    • MechWarrior: Living Legend is lauded as best for multiplayer, and thus the best
    • MechWarrior Online is the worst
    • MechWarrior V is the newest, therefore both the best AND worst
  • Classic console games
    • Jet Set/Grind Radio seems to have enthused one orky drawfag to the highest of possible levels, make of that what you will.
    • Conker's Bad Fur Day Looney Toons for adults, and that's just the start of the batshit craziness.
    • Dungeons and Dragons Order of the Griffon, a game for the PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 set in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos. Uses Basic D&D rules versus the Gold Box games' AD&D rules.
    • Legacy of Kain series Set in a unique fantasy gothic world, the series takes place over ~2000 year timeline that sees you slain and become a vampire demigod Kain in the first game, have you play as the vampire lieutenant Raziel that gets turned into a sentient time-paradox in the second and third game and then switch between the two on an epic, complex and plot ridden story that sees you jump from future to past to present and back again all the while unraveling a conspiracy that spans the material and spectral realms.
    • Metal Gear
    • Oddworld series A classic platformer set in a grimdark alien world of Oddworld, you play as Abe, a slave turned accidental revolutionary turned messiah for his people as he fights the industrial evil of Glukkons and other vile profiteering species out to stripmine Oddworld for sweet moolah. There are 4 games in total, minus the recent remakes. First two games are cult-classics and you should play them, Munch's oddysee was the awkward transition to 3D so ok-ish and Stranger's Wrath picked up the pace but as many a grognard will tell you it does not quite reach the heights of elden times. The New'n Tasty and Soulstorm remakes of the original games are all in all decent.
    • Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Kid Icarus, and Castlevania (the four games series (with one exception see above) share so much in common they deserve to be discussed together). Why? The exploration-heavy nature of the games, the feeling of growing more powerful as you collect enough gear and relics to make an adventuring party jealous, the incredibly memorable boss battles, interesting backstories (Metroid immerses you in backstory at your pace, via scans and lore pickups, leaving much up to your imagination), and providing many ideas for sci fi or fantasy RPG session.
    • Shantae series You play as a cute genie girl that can turn into various Monstergirls (harpy, drider, mermaid, dragon etc.) while platforming and fighting through a colorful middle-east fantasy setting.

Games that can be used to troll /tg/

  • Most other MMORPGs. World of Warcraft, as the most successful to date, is especially effective. Special points to Star Wars: The Old Republic for being a massive disappointment for a popular franchise.
  • JRPGs, for often recycling the same plots over and over and having identical structure. Along with of course cringy bad character designs in some cases.
    • Seriously, just play Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy Whatever and you have basically played 95% of JRPGs.
  • Any of the modern Final Fantasy games, which somehow keep getting sequels despite being financial failures. Some fa/tg/uys have a fondness for the early ones, mostly because the first one rips off D&D pretty squarely.
  • Skyrim, a popular well liked meme game that /v/ contrarians and neckbeards with nostalgia goggles will say is shit. Same goes for Oblivion, Fallout 3 and 4, and any future Bethesda RPGs.
  • Mentioning the attention Warhammer 40k games have gotten compared to Warhammer Fantasy is a sore spot for Fantasy fans. With the failure that is Dawn of War III and recent success of Total War: WARHAMMER and Vermintide, you could say the tables have turned. Actually DoW3 by itself is enough for trolling anyway.
  • Sonic The Hedgehog. The fans are everywhere, and the butthurt is unfathomable.
  • Nintendo games have ultra-dedicated fanbases, and also hardcore haters, except for series like Metroid, Zelda, Mother, or Kid Icarus which are generally respected. Mentioning Pokemon in a positive light or stating the controller of "the best" console they released is a sex toy may cause an internet fight.
  • Games with bad random number generators. Even highly approved of games like Mordheim: City Of The Damned will cause a shitstorm when someone is reminded that a supposed 95% chance to hit can result in four consecutive misses.
  • No Man's Sky - such a huge waste of potential, although it got somewhat better with patches. Bringing this game up is a good troll move on /v/ as well, but everything's a good troll move on /v/.
  • Blizzard. JUST. Blizzard. (ACTIVISION Blizzard now, fuckers! The shit train only goes downhill from here!) [Not so fast! Big Daddy Micro$oft bought it out, stay tuned for further developments!]

Games that are universally loathed, so you'll probably have to put in some work if you want to troll with:

  • Unlike the previous Bethesda RPGs Fallout 76 is actually bad. So if you want to troll people you'll have to pretend to like it. Although, it's so objectively terrible your bait will most likely seem too obvious.
  • Anthem.
    • Almost all "Games as a Service" games released in the wake of Destiny have a similar, if lesser, level of disdain; it's just that Fallout 76 and Anthem were so garbage on release, and had such a CRPG pedigree, that the trolling mines were quickly completely depleted.
  • Reminding Shadowrun fans of the terrible Shadowrun FPS is not going to earn you any goodwill.
  • Evony

The Game List That People Copypasta

Every so often, someone posts on /tg/: "Wow, you guys are so smart and cool; can you recommend some video games to play for those hours when I'm not playing tabletop?". It happens so often that people have made copypasta for the occasion, even image copypasta.

You will find a lot of those games on Good Old Games, DRM free, for 6 or 9 bucks. Or for free if you pirate, which can often be justified by the original creators leaving the development company so all the Profit goes to people who don't deserve it. Your choice.

For any video game that someone felt was good enough for a full page on this wiki, see Video Games

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