I'm a casual gamer who's been largely inactive for the past few decades, and so I'm looking for some some good game recommendations. I don't mind if they're old as long as they came out after 2003 (because that's when graphics of many games really started improving), maybe between 2008-2019. I'm also quite a picky gamer.
Here is a list of games that I've played before and that I liked (in no particular order):
The Stanley Parable
Counter-Strike: Source
Counter-Strike Global Offensive
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Grand Theft Auto V (just started playing this one)
Freeways
The Wizard's Pen
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Need for Speed: Heat
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Simon Tatham's Puzzle Game Collection
Minecraft
Hamsterball
Sifu
Tekken 6
SuperHOT
Papers Please
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
Accelerator (by TenebrousP)
The Professional
Paraopticon
Socrates Jones: Pro Philosopher
ir:rational
Viewport
Lyxo
Shadowess (by playchilla)
Duet (by Kumobius)
Chain Reaction
Gumslinger
Intersectiion Controller
Little Alchemy
Magic Survival (by Leme)
Spy Tactics
Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil
Cyclomaniacs 2
Learn 2 Fly 2
Piano Tiles 2
The Sims 3
Plants vs. Zombies
Tetris (on Facebook)
Solitaire on Windows 7
Space Cadet Pinball
Purble Place
Here are games that I've played that I didn't like:
Quake II RTX
Doom (1993)
Counter-Strike 1.6
Left 4 Dead
Half-Life
Speed Dreams
Assault Cube
Terraria
Minetest
Xonotic
Piano Tiles
Geometry Dash
Payback 2
Touchgrind Skate 2
Pixel Wheels
NBA 2K11
Defense of the Ancients
Dota 2
Sim City 2000
OpenRCT 2
OpenTTD
The Sims 4
Doki Doki Literature Club
Tetris (any other implementation I've tried)
Solitaire on Windows XP
Here are games I would like to avoid:
Battle Royale / Deathmatch- style games (Fortnite, PUBG, etc.)
MOBAs (League of Legends, Mobile Legends, etc.)
Hero shooters (Overwatch, Rainbow Six Siege, etc.)
Games with fantasy-based elements (Skyrim, The Witcher, Souls games etc.)
RPGs
Side-scrollers / Shoot-em-ups / Top-down games
Platformers
Horror/supernatural games (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, etc.)
Management games (Civilization, Cities: Skylines, etc.)
Artillery games
Outer-space/post-apocalyptic games (Halo, Fallout, etc.)
Cookie clickers / Walking simulators
Rhythm games
Sports games
Game adaptations of existing media (Star Wars games, Arkham games, etc.)
Board/card/gambling/collectible/gacha games\
Games that have microtransactions/required DLCs
Text adventures / Visual novels
Trivia games
VR games
Other than that, everything is fair game. I don't have any aversion towards graphic language/gore/sex.
My tastes might be too specific, but I hope someone here may be able to provide me with a recommendation!
I agree with the rec here. I think at this point OP is just going to have to roll the dice on the recent hits and see if it can change some of their tastes. Or just drop the medium altogether.
Maybe it'll help a little that Disco Elysium is isometric, not top-down. Though it's an RPG. And text-heavy. 🤷♀️
Yeah, being isometric does help. Though the thing that steers me away from Disco Elysium is not the text-heaviness (which I don't really mind), nor the RPGness (since it seems that it's been implemented quite uniquely in this game), but that there may be some kind of alien insects (?) in the game.
I damn near guarantee the "alien insect" is not what you're imagining, and even if it were, it's less than 1% of the game.
It's one element of a larger setting, the kind of original idea that we rarely see in RPGs. It's not your typical fantasy tropes. I'm being vague here because discovering the nature of the world you're in is a big part of the game.