Bench

Sounds familiar, that was one of Chris Roberts projects right? Are you optimistic for his latest endeavours? Also regarding your other comment aye Tribes is great fun and stands out on its own with that movement system. Though, I remember finding games a bit more difficult compared to Quake or UT. Might just be me not knowing where to look these days. At the moment I am waiting for Midair:CE to come out and play some pugs in their discord. Maybe I'll spot you there as well!

I've played a lot games over the years, really hard to narrow that down. Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, was an awesome 3D mascot platformer with collectibles but the tech for the time and immersive gameplay was just really cool. It was one of the first games in my life that had seamless loading transitions, a day night cycle and you could see the whole game world in the distance from every location via landmarks. The whole series is super cool and very fun to play (The Naughty Dog made ones, we don't talk about...that Jak & Daxter game.) with tight controls. When it comes to PC though, there's more, and it's ultimately the two greatest shooter franchises of all time in multiplayer: Quake & Unreal Tournament. What more is there to say really? Just bad ass, balls to the wall action with a perplexingly high skill ceiling, so many game modes you're just spoiled for choice. There's a reason there's still people playing these today, me being one of them. Personal favourites are Quake Live and Unreal Tournament 2004 respectively but most games in both series have merit and are absolutely worth playing. Shout out to Diabotical for keeping AFPS going with a boat load of QoL features and more accessible settings, though it does have growing pains in its second season right now with no way to host/rent permanent server space as of yet. I hope they refocus their goals with the game soon because it deserves success in my opinon. The most modern game to have released the impressed me to no end has to be the Total War: Warhammer games. The detail and dedication to the old world makes me want to cry with joy, and the spectacle of the battles is so unbelievably cool to watch unfold. If only the old world was still around on the table being updated...soon. Soon. To condense it down for a top 10, here's how I'm feeling at the moment for brevity; 1. Unreal Tournament 2004 2. Quake 3: Arena/Quake Live 3. Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy 4. Total War: Warhammer 1 & 2 5. DotA 2 6. Awesomenauts 7. Rising Storm 2: Vietnam 8. Skater XL 9. Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades 10. Elite Dangerous

Grimbeard Diaries is a pretty good channel if you like point and click adventure games and narrative based stuff, though he covers a decent variety.

I don't know if this really counts as it isn't out yet, but I've had the immense pleasure of participating in the closed beta back in February and March of this year, and frankly, I want to spread the word about it! Sorry in advance for a thinly-veiled sales pitch, but every game cultist has to try and proselytise the masses at some point right? Without further ado... Diabotical (The GD Studio, Release Date TBD.) 1. Fine, have it your way!: This game has the most indepth settings menu I've ever seen in an FPS. You can adjust your HUD in any way you see fit down to size, spacing, font choice, colours, how it reacts to variable changes. It's like a small photo editor that you can craft into your personal perfect FPS HUD and then send links to others they can paste in and check out themselves. Customisation extends beyond UI, as you can choose specific settings regarding mouse input and sensitivity and netcode options. There's also custom lobbies for your specific game mode tastes that shares the same link copy paste system to allow easy match pick-up's. 2. Rise from your grave: Arena First Person Shooters (AFPS) have unfortunately fallen into obscurity in recent years, but this game is trying its damned hardest to bring back the heart of Quake with a modern presentation and feel. Wipeout is The GD Studio's take on Clan Arena, which now has individual escalating respawn timers for every death with rounds ending once a team is successfully wiped out. In Duel, there is the new 'Golden Frag' mechanic that's intended to help new players pick up a game mode notorious for it's high skill gap and punishing ruleset. This rule makes it possible for amazing comebacks once time's up instead of waiting the timer out once you have a decent frag deficit on your opponent and knowing they have no chance of getting sweet sweet revenge. For general mechanics, an Unreal Tournament style dodge/dash has been added for new players to gain UPS quickly and helps set them up for advanced movement mechanics like strafe jumping, circle jumping, etc. There are also utility grenades (called Weeballs) that players get in each mode that help to shake up familiar modes and a ping system for better communication in public team modes such as Wipeout and Team Deathmatch. 3. Passion Project: While AAA industry plagues itself with Games as a Service and indie titles make strides with limited resources, Diabotical is a game that shows its lofty ambitions on its sleeve and in my opinion succeeds in spades. The GD Studio is founded by ex-professional Quake players who felt the genre was under served in its modern forms and that it's niche and steadfast community truly deserved a better experience. The intention with this game is to create a base that can stand the test of time, with planned release of server binaries, a simple to use in-game map editor and working in collaboration with the AFPS community such as appearing at TimConLAN and offering money to regional grassroots ESports. This game screams out to me as a passion project unlike any other in recent memory. One of a kind. I'm excitedly waiting for open beta later this year, but for those curious this game will be free to play on release and you can still sign up for access on the website. I think this game would make for an amazing play with fans session should Ross look into it, I know he's done UT2004 sessions in the past and this would be much in the same vein with no price cost and it's an absolute blast to play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlVkCo0x4tk

I play Quake Live, UT2004 and a variety of other AFPS games. Not the best but happy to duel scrim with other people, and if you're into mapping I'll be looking to get into that once Diabotical comes out. https://steamcommunity.com/id/EGBench/