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!
Since Dishonored and System Shock was already mentioned, I'll also recommend the Thief trilogy (Thief: The Dark Project, Thief 2: The Metal Age and Thief: Deadly Shadows). Thief along with System Shock is one of the series which started the Immersive Sim genre, which Dishonored belongs to also. The third game came out in 2004 but I also recommend the first two because despite a lot less detailed graphics they imo have a lot better atmosphere and objectively better gameplay (a lot of the gameplay depth was cut in the third one to make it more playable on consoles, but it's still a good game).
Another one I always tell people about is INFRA. It's a pretty unknown puzzle/exploration game with excellent atmosphere and very high on my top of all time list. Highly recommend if exploring crumbling or long forgotten urban environments sounds like your thing.
I'll be checking Thief and INFRA out!
Enjoy!