What are some games you find yourself frequently coming back to?

Minecraft, you can only pretend to have gotten away for so long before the block game calls again.

One thing I've gotten into doing is instead of starting a new game I just run off in some random direction for an hour. It's neat to stumble across things you built years ago

I definitely get what you mean
They have bees now!
We play it HARD a few weekends a year. So amazing to get lost in a new world every now and then.

Factorio. I love the gameplay but none of my friends play it so I normally play other games with them and come back to Factorio every now and then.

I'm with you, I got a lot of hours in it but still come back every few months for a new map.

But although I've done mega bases, deathworld, Bobs and Space Exploration, I don't want to do them again even though I thoroughly enjoyed them.

My love is the early game and up to launching a rocket. Anyone with me on this?

Civ V, every few months I decide to completely fuck up my sleep schedule playing later than I should

Shattered Pixel Dungeon
Project Zomboid
Vampire Survivors
Rimworld
Metal Gear Solid V (on PC with mods that greatly expand/enhance free roam, and add more side ops)
Tomba 1 and 2 (Tombi in the EU)
Chrono Trigger
Megaman Legends (love the sequel, but haven't ever completed it, life keeps getting in the way)
Castlevania Syphony of the Night
Sonic Adventure (it's trash, but fun trash, especially with mods)
Sonic Mania, Sonic 3 and Knuckles
Minecraft

Some that I haven't come back to in a while, but I'm overdue:

Ape Escape
Crash Bandicoot (1-3)
Spyro (1-3)
Digimon World 3
Any of the GBA or DS Castlevanias
Actraiser
Rayman 2
Megaman Battle Network series(3 and 4 are my favorite entries)
Dissidia Duodecim
Zone of the Enders 2
God Hand
Wipeout Pulse/Pure
Pretty much any Kirby game

Most of these games I find just plain fun. Thanks for asking, I was starting to get burned out and not finding stuff as fun, but writing this out has me hankering to revisit some old favorites again.

Can you recommend some Sonic Adventure mods?

Skyrim for the mods. Every hardware upgrade I wonder how much more I can push it.

What were the results of your most recent trial?
- Aside from textures being able to run enbs more smoothly.

Peggle

Great, now I need to play some peggle
- Peglin is also pretty great

STALKER, Stardew Valley, No Man's Sky, Skyrim, Morrowind, WoW Classic/Vanilla, Mass Effect, Fallout 3/New Vegas.

Kenshi and Rimworld, with tons of mods its like adding different spices to the same yummy dish ☺️

I've had Kenshi on my wishlist for a long time, and I haven't pulled the trigger. What's your favorite part about it? Most of what I know is that it's punishing and has deep roleplaying opportunities, but I don't know a lot of the specifics.
- I love that its brutal when you start out. Everything can kill you. From bandits, to creatures, hell even certain regions are hazardous. First time playing and exploring the biomes I was walking on egg shells constantly, really enjoyed that. Overtime you get attached to your npc as they continuously get into fights and try to not lose a limb (seriously). Lore wise (if you are into that like I am) you start shifting through bits of relics from the past on your travels. You can buy maps or just randomly discover landmarks as you roam. There's also politics and you'll learn with time who is in charge of what. Is it safe to enter here or stay there? You are free to be whatever you want; Have a storefront and sell your crafts for cash (cats), explore and make bank with old artifacts you find, become a thief and run mock stealing, grow drugs and profit from that, you can build a base or not. Choose to make a large squad or keep is small. Watch as they fight & work together. Each play through is always different and if you love mods then you can go crazy with added customization. If that sounds good than you can totally wait for it to go on sale if anything. Kenshi 2 is in the works now so will definitely look forward to that one ☺️

Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, Dwarf Fortress. Highly-replayable, open-world and they keep being developed, so when you come back, there's new stuff.

Skyrim, Fallout 4. Same idea, but the modders have added a lot of content.

Some of the city-builders, like Tropico 5. I play for a while, get tired, uninstall, but tend to come back, because the game is replayable.

Chase the Sun and Nova Drift are action games that I have spent some time away from and then come back and played. Nova Drift has seen regular development.

Pinball sims. I think that one can only play so much pinball, but I find myself thinking "I'd like to play a pinball game" down the line and reinstall.

I think that most of the games have some common characteristics:

Didn't live-or-die based on their technology or graphics, because they're invariably obsolete by the time I've come back.
Need to be highly-replayable. I've played games with story, like Fallout: New Vegas but I don't really go back to play them for the story (though I'll concede that specifically Fallout: New Vegas does have multiple paths to explore). They can't be appealing because of a surprising or tense plot or a plot twist.
Often see continued development or modding, so there's some reason to go back and see what's there (though pinball would be a notable exception...you don't go back for new content).

Skyrim. Always end up with conjuration build.

Binding of Isaac for sure. Been playing on and off since I was in high school and there is just so much content there and new crazy synergies to find. Across all platforms I have well over a thousand hours. Hoping I can 100% it some day!

Morrowind, there are some great multi player communities.

Mindustry, sometimes i just listen to the machines.

pretty much any console game on emulators, recently playing ffvii again while i wait for rebirth pc port.

shattered pixel dungeon.

Do you mind talking a bit more about the Morrowind multiplayer? I'd be interested to hear how it works and your experience
- You have to have the original game files either from the disk or downloaded from GoG or steam. Then you need tes3mp which runs great on linux and windows. I personally play on a server called neravarine prophecies, they have seasonal events and the community is a lot of fun. It uses the same engine as openMW so most of the mods that work on OpenMW are compatible, I'd stick with cosmetics to keep the servers you join compatible.
  
  Different servers have different rules, many of them forbid going into areas that cause server crashes, i.e. mornhould.
  
  I had a blast, then I got my kids to play and i was there to guide them a bit when the game gets tough.
I had no idea morrowind had multiplayer mods. That sounds cool!

Fallout 4 and FO:NV

Civ VI

The entire Myst series, Obduction (haven't played Firmament yet)

Ultima VII, Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld II

Under a Steel Sky, Beyond a Steel Sky

Ooh, Under a Steel Sky. I've been in the mood to play one of those old ScummVM games. How is that one?
- Great story. It’s on GOG. Beyond a Steel Sky is the sequel, released a few years ago. Kinda sad, but really great, too. Made by the creators of the original from the 90s, and has an in-game commentary track!
Under a steel sky

Is there a third game in the series I'm not aware of or did you mean Beneath a steel sky?
- I did mean that. Fixed

For me,

half life 1 and 2
portal 1 but not 2
psychonauts 1 and 2

They're like chicken soup. So good.

Just curious as why not Portal 2? That’s honestly one of my “chicken soup” comfort food games - Portal 1 is great but to me, Portal 2 is so much more.
- I think it's the length, is all. Tough to commit to all that again now. It is great, for sure. We reference it in quotes all the time around my house.
- Portal 2 is definitely the one I pick up regularly, but specifically for the Perpetual Testing Initiative. I've already played the main story enough times, but dropping in for a few really well-made user-created levels with a little bit of new Cave Johnson dialogue is great!

Doom (1993). Though, I use a source port and the Brutal Doom mod. The Binding of Isaac, as well.

Do you play any other Doom WADs?
- No.

Postal 2. The game mechanics and open-world flexibility have aged amazingly well, it's still very funny, and I love the way the game's level of violence firmly depends on the player's actions.
Plus the Postal Dude's petition to make whiney congressmen play violent video games is needed more than ever.

On Android I miss Spaghetti & Marshmallows, where you had to build towers out of said materials. That was a wonderful game with great physics but sadly only runs on very old phones.

Tetris. Always Tetris. Tetris connected is the best iteration so far. The music and visuals are amazing.

Definitely Bioshock Infinite. It was the first Bioshock game I ever played and the story just wow'ed me, it quickly became one of my favs.

Now I just treat the whole game like a huge movie event, playing the game with my friends as we experience the story. It's just something that i would introduce anyone to, even if they din't play that many video games cuz compared to Bioshock 1 the action is a lot faster.

(Btw Bio1 is better in almost everything, love that game as well)

Do you have arguments to make against the people who hate Infinite's story? I'm undecided, I've heard their opinions and I'd like to hear an opposing one
- I haven't read many arguments made by people who hated Infinite's story but I loved it because it does one thing really well: making shit up as you go. Which is why it works so well when I let my friends play it as movie. There are very few ways to not have fun when beautifully interesting things like, "He doesn't row", lighthouse rocket chair, the bird or the cage, Quantum Entanglement, a star wars reference keep surfacing up adding to an ever increasing thread of inquires and intrigues.
  
  No matter what arguments someone may have against the story, it's hard to deny that it oozes fantastical details, mystery and lore.
  
  There's a childlike wow-ness to the game because it doesn't pursue multiverse in the way we are so used to: on the nose. It lets the visuals of infinite lighthouses speak for itself.
- I actually enjoyed the story. Some of the themes and motifs were heavy handed, but that’s par for the course. Honestly, the biggest issue with the story is that players have come to expect a big plot twist. Bioshock 1’s twist hit first-time players hard, so later games have tried to replicate that. But the issue is that it only hit players hard because they never knew it was coming. They only remember it because it was truly shocking the first time you played through it.
  
  So now players have come to expect that from the series, which means the series can’t replicate it; When players are looking for a big plot twist, you can’t really hide it anymore. Because as soon as you start foreshadowing it, players catch on. And if you’re too subtle with your signals, then players who have been looking for it will say that doesn’t make any sense.

Star Wars: The Old Republic. I don’t care about all the MMO stuff, but every time I watch or read something star-wars-related, I want to fire it up, get the one month subscription, and go on with some single-player story I need to finish. This happens twice a year more or less.

Don't starve, hands down

Also Pokémon Rom hacks

Don't Starve ticks pretty much all the boxes for a game that I should like...but I just don't.

I like a number of action roguelikes, like The Binding of Isaac.

I like the open-world nature.

But the game just doesn't do it for me. I dunno. I guess that a lot of the gameplay is clicking on things to gather them, which I am not that blown away by. I don't feel like I change things up much based on what the world throws at me, which I think is an important aspect for a roguelite/roguelike to have. Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead does a better job of this, The Binding of Isaac a much better. I think that the low-sanity graphical artifacts might build mood, but are obnoxious.

The aesthetic just doesn't really do it for me.
- Genre mismatch might be a factor? Don't Starve is not an action-roguelite like Binding of Isaac; it's a survival-crafting game. They are aiming to be vastly different experiences.

Rayman Legends and Borderlands both live rent free in my mind. I don't know how to feel about it.

Horizon Zero dawn comes in a close 3rd place.

Man I WANT to love Horizon. It seems exactly like my type of game. But everytime I play it everything feels... insincere? Idk something about it doesnt hit. Still paid for it day one when it came to PC though to support the cross platform Sony initiative.
- My problem is that i can’t seem to get a hang of the combat, at all. Taking down even some medium sized dinobots feels like a slog, 20 minutes of me breaking line of sight, taking a pot shot at its weak point, and somehow missing, rinse and repeat. I feel the game either didn’t do a good job teaching me how to deal with them, or I’m just playing it wrong and don’t know better.
  
  I’ve started the game three times and each time I get about 6 hours in before I get bored.
- For what it’s worth, I wasn’t a huge fan of the story at first. It took me a few hours and a few quests to actually get into it. It suffers from Kingdom Hearts 2/The Witcher 3 Syndrome: The two hour long intro/tutorial is absolutely the worst part, which is a shame. The game really begins to shine once you get to Meridian, but that’s several hours in.

Mirror's Edge, Jet set radio future (and now bomb rush cyberfunk)

The 3D Mario's (I haven't gotten around to playing galaxy 2 yet and it's eating me up inside lol)

Skyrim, Minecraft, stardew Valley

Ocarina of time and majoras mask.

Animal crossing (usually whatever latest entry, but I liked new leaf the best so far)

Lumines has become an addiction

Forza Horizon (similar to animal crossing, usually the latest entry, but surprisingly I enjoyed 1 and 4 the most. I was surprised about 4 because I didn't think I really cared too much about the location, but I liked the seasons a lot. It kept everything feeling new)

Kirby and the crystal shards

You're the first person I've seen say Mario, which I find surprising.

For me, it's Super Mario World, including romhacks. It's platforming perfection. I particularly like the SMW Central level competition compilation romhacks since you can skip the levels you don't enjoy.

Spyro is another one I come back to, especially now with the remastered version.

Diablo 2, with mods now, is another. "Stay awhile, and listen." I sure will, old man.

For a long time, it was Counter Strike and Team Fortress, but I don't really play FPS games any more so it's been almost a decade for me at this point.
- Super Mario world is a classic! I haven't tried any romhacks for it, that sounds like fun!
  
  Oh man Diablo 2. I've attempted to play it so many times, but I've yet to finish it yet. Not because I don't want to, but it's like every time I start up a fresh game, something happens to my game or save. I've lost a save twice now(this is over the course of 15 years) and the last time I tried to get it to run, it didn't want to cooperate on my windows 10 install. It's oddly cursed lol. I'll finish it one day. I have to haha

Here are some of mine:

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Romancing SaGa 2 & 3
Mega Man X 1-4

Every few years I replay Gothic 1 or 2. Are these great games? Yes. Is it also because of nostalgia? Yeah

Also from time to time I reinstall black flag... Mostly for the feeling of sailing

Total war warhammer, always the newest one. I come back, play a campaign and forget about it for a few months.

Slay the spire

I revisit Slay the Spire fairly frequently. Vampire Survivors when I have my Deck and a little bit of downtime.

Every Miyazaki Fromsoft game ever.

I have no idea how I'm not bored yet. They're all just so damn satisfying to play. I went from mostly online FPS to these games after I got Prepare to Die Edition back in the day. Any given time I play a game now, there's an 80% chance it's one of these or something similar to them (like The Surge, Mortal Shell, Lies of P, etc).

Kerbal space program 1

Dwarf Fortress

Deep Rock Galactic

Age of Empires II

Green hell and the long dark

What about green hell brings you back? It's one of those games that has been on my wishlist for a while now

I don’t play The Sims for months and months, then come back to it and play really intensely for few days.

Skyrim, Fallout, Stardew Valley, and the Animal Crossing Games are my perennial favorites!

Time will tell on this one, but I think Baldur’s Gate 3 will be one I come back to again and again.

Nethack DROD

Satisfactory, I'm hoping to get employee of the planet cup before 1.0 comes out.

Angband. I don't stick with it long, but I always come back, even though I've never killed Morgoth or the Balrog in Moria before that. Still, I enjoy it for a while and then move on again.

I have an unhealthy cycle of this with Hearts of Iron IV a WW2 grand strategy game. I'll realize the embarrassing number of hours that I've put into the game and then I'll stop playing for a while. But then one of the big mods for it will update and then I dive back in and lose a weekend and then the process repeats.

The other game I consistently come back to is Threads of Fate or Dewprism it's a PS1 action-RPG with dual protagonists where each one has their own campaign or story to play through. I guess it's nostalgia that keeps me coming back to it, but it really wasn't a favorite game growing up and I didn't beat it until years after I'd gotten it. But every few years I'll just remember it out of the blue and get the urge to play through it again.

Dark Souls

Dungeons of the Endless

Castlevania

Neverwinter Nights (Which I've been playing or DMing on for 23 years)

Ummm tell us more!
- DotE is a tower defense roguelike with pixel graphics and a team of heroes you manage. It also has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard.
  
  Castlevania needs no description. It's just one of the best games ever made.
  
  Neverwinter Nights has stood the test of time for me because it has persistent game worlds, built by other players (basically mini, homemade MMO's), that you can log in and play. I also use its DM client to run online adventures for other players myself.

Warframe.

I don't game very much, all the more so as I got older, but now and then I always return to the older fire emblem games and sometimes casual games like Diner Dash.

I have over 4,000 hours across all the trackmania games. So that, I guess. Most is 2,000 in United followed by a couple hundred in all the rest. 1,000 in trackmania 2020

Tetris and Rocket League

Cyberpunk 2077

Vampire Survivors

Hades

Dead Cells

Slime Rancher/SR2

Gunfire Reborn

W40K: Gladius
Civ (latest version)
Distant World: Universe (latest version). In all years I played many DW:U (I and II) games. Finished exactly one.

Puh, yes! Gladius! Thats a pretty rare Pick These days. May I ask why Gladius? What makes it so Special?
- The best 4X combat. Huge variety of units and sides (need DLCs though). Unique game in that it just focuses on combat, no diplomacy (it sux in all games anyway) no spies (also sux in other games), and simple but reasonably good (and different for different races) economy. It focuses at one thing - combat, drives it to perfection and the rest of the game design narrow focused to support that.
  
  Being W40K helps with richness of the fluff, if this is important for you.

I keep coming back to hunter call of the wild,

Its just such a nice looking game with no real skill curve once you know not to go running through the bush hoping to see a dear, it takes patience.

On a hot day, put the ac on a nice cup of coffee and go walking through the bushlands looking at points of interest and maybe shoot me a dear all without sweating like a pig like i do where i live.

That game is the reason im moving south, im so tired of trying tondo anything and dying from the heat.

Skate 3 EarthBound Skyrim Oblivion Quake 1/2/3 Mario 64 Super Mario World Battlefield 1943 (RIP 😞) Fallout 76 DayZ Vampire Survivors

These are just a few. I cycle through games a lot.

Skate 3 is a fantastic choice.
- It’s top tier fun. I come back to it routinely and make a bunch of ridiculous skate videos. Never gets old.

Neverwinter Nights (the first one) and Heroes of Might and Magic (3 and 4). They're just so comfortable for me to play so I just start them up when I'm to stressed out to play anything new.

I started playing through Skyrim again last year, but didn't get very far before I lost interest.

I jump back in to left4dead every year or two. The original is probably my favorite shooter. I haven't found Back4Blood as compelling.

Space Engineers

Dragon Age: Origins

Paper Mario for the N64 and Super Mario World for the SNES. I think it's because I found them both at the perfect point in my childhood where they were the first games in their genres I managed to beat.

I had a blast finding every single exit and bonus stage in SMW, and Paper Mario was the first RPG that didn't make my eyes glaze over (including Super Mario RPG). Plus the characters and aesthetics are still so charming, the whole game gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.

Quake 3

Star Citizen, I like to poke my head in every few patches to see how things have progressed. I gotta say, despite what a lot of the naysayers claim, it has become quite a fun game and their development has only sped up since I first started playing. Still, a couple months hiatus every once and a while is worth it.

Fallout 4, I get that this is one of the more controversial choices but while the main storyline was super weak the world design was phenomenal. I love just wandering through the Boston area wastelands uncovering random things and fighting ghouls and bandits.