Horizon Chase Turbo - for a long while grinding to get 1st place on tougher races like the more difficult tournaments or endurance races.

Hollow Knight - just grinding to get gud, get all collectibles, etc… did all that, past 106% about 5 months ago and now just need to beat what’s in the Black Egg. Don’t know why I haven’t gone back. Trying to be a completionist I guess and I’m still missing some things.

Darksiders 3 - played quite a bit on PS4 Pro, but I got it for Deck and it’s just as addicting. Usually grinding certain areas in main game, doing the DLC The Crucible (arena based Waves of 1 - 100 with mini bosses at wave 25, and a special character at Wave 101). Also the other DLC has some nice grindy bits (Keepers of the Void)

Yakuza 0 - literally grinding the game if you want it to be. Beat THE EXCELLENT main story and all side missions long ago but is the other stuff like continuing the hostess club stuff just for more money, the underground tournament for rare prizes, and grinding to get more weapons built to use in fights from the blacksmith.

Bastion is mine. Love that game!

Batman: Arkham Origins.

I love the game. I haven’t put more hours into it than say Arkham City or other games I have in Deck.

The reason it might be my favorite is that this game was released during the end of the PS3 / 360 generation (Oct or Nov 2013). I got the game at launch on PS3. It was a blast but it had technical issues. Arkham Asylum and City didn’t have those issues, and also they got a last gen remaster while Origins was left in the dust from now two gens prior.

Anytime you’d be anywhere fighting with a ton of mooks, the framerate would get into the low teens all the way to single digits at times. There’d also be some framerate / frame pacing issues when you used the Grapnel Boost to speed around the city gliding, dive bombing, and soaring through the city (again, in the craziest things you can do off a grapnel boost, I used to get single frames sometimes.

But on Steam Deck (I have not played since FW 3.5.5), it’s damn near a locked 60fps. In combat I’ve yet to see a dip even in yet most demanding combat bits (open world or combat challenges), and the grapnel boosts are mostly 60fps and sometimes there’s a framerate issue and it drops to at worst 54-55 fps.

And this is all with settings on high. So that’s the other thing. The visual detail is so good. Signs, newspaper clippings, and other media in the world and Batcave are all legible now with great detail, and smoke and fog and neon lights just pop way more. It definitely is super impressive.

No, I still enjoyed games, but over the last couple of years, I’ve been downsizing and with that downsizing came my gaming footprint.

Alll my PS4 Pro, PS3, systems and games and accessories are sitting in storage for not too much longer along with PS1 and PS2 games that I’ll probably sell / give away.

Looking to travel the world and do remote anywhere type work soon. The Steam Deck (and SD type devices / whatever Nintendo’s next portable is… might be new future since they’re so portable)

The other side of it carving out some time to really get into modding / emulation / and learning Linux when I have more time.

As far as games, I’ve been slowly rebuying old games for dirt cheap (when there are sales) that I enjoyed on PS3 / PS4 and they mostly play better with a game here or there that has some compatibility issues or I just haven’t tested because of storage woes lol (Darksiders 3, Sleeping Dogs: DE, Sonic Generations, MGS Ground Zeroes / The Phantom Pain, Yakuza 0, Outland, Batman Arkham Asylum City Origins Knight, Valkyria Chronicles, The Witcher 3, Bastion, Jedi Fallen Order, Flower, Heavy Rain, Overlord: Raising Hell, Tomb Raider 2013, Bionic Commando 2009, Spec-Ops: The Line, Valiant Hearts, etc)

And then Steam / Steam Deck has also gotten me to get games I’ve known about that I had known about before but for whatever reason I didn’t get them on other systems OR got them but didn’t play them (HOLLOW KNIGHT, Miles Morales, Celeste, Alice: Madness Returns, Undertale, Super Meat Boy, Beyond: Two Souls, Firewatch, etc)

And finally there are truly unique gems that I only found out through YT creators or on here that I may have heard things about in the past (older PC games or remakes) and other genuine surprises (Horizon Chase Turbo, Blade Runner, UnMetal - a metal gear parody game, Faith: The Unholy Trinity, Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk, Minit, Black Mesa, Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King, Project Pong, The Talos Principle, Terminator: Resistance, etc).

So I made a post a long time ago about “rubberbanding” (will refer to it as RB) in HCT. It’s there but not there and it’s very hard to explain. To me it’s not like say a Mario kart game or kart racer where there’s always someone behind you (you can clearly tell on the minimap on each stage how close another car is).

There is wonky AI at times. This can be when you boost at the beginning of a race (perfect timing boost at Start) and other cars either look like they’re in park vs moving like other cars. There’s a handful of those moments - also can happen in the middle of the race where cars are just “stuck” on the track.

Then there are cars that boost past you or boost into you that throw you off for a second.

But here’s where I think you think the rubberbanding is.

Later in the game (and this is for almost every track going forward) and definitely in the harder Endurance and Challenge modes), the race starts out and has everything I described above. BUT

There’s one car that does an ungodly boost (seemingly unlimited) from behind you and overtakes everyone. If it’s a series of races where you have to earn 1st place overall to get rewards, it will be the same car every race. If it’s the longer endurance races, it will be between 2-3 other cars who are your main competition.

Now after they’ve boosted, and gotten ahead of you and the pack, it’s up to your skills to beat them. This is where the mini-map comes into play, how many boosts there are on the map and rote memorization of the track (where coin placements, fuel placement, boost placements, sharp turns, or obstacles to avoid all the while trying to also nab 1st place. Sometimes there’s a 2nd place car right near #1 OR there’s the 1st place car far ahead and then #2 and #3 right beside each other and the best you can do is come up to the #4 spot as you’re trying to make your move with however many more laps you have and remaining boosts.

And the trick really is timing of remaining boosts and where you’re in position at. You’ll be able to beat 2 & 3 usually, to be put into the 2 spot. Now you need to see how far away 1 is from your position. It comes with practice but I usually know when I have to quit the race bc the 1 is SO FAR ahead it’s virtually impossible to win. I only do that in single races. If it’s endurance, or challenge, I usually take 2nd place and aim for 1st in the next few tracks.

But let’s say you see #1 off in the distance on the track. And you have a couple of boosts left. It’s all about when and how you use em. This comes with rote memorization of the track, boosting in straightaways or in curves your car’s handling can handle to gain the advantage. Once you get close, DON’T use your boost bc the lead car will boost right with you. Get close, allow them to boost (if it’s not the final lap and they’re not close to the finish line, and tail them, until you get close again, boost in front of them, and boost again. You should win.

This is much harder when the objectives get difficult (like don’t pick up fuel on lap 3 or don’t use boost on lap 1, or don’t get any coins on lap 1, for example).

Then there’s times when you get 1st place on your own and there isn’t a 2nd place car in sight. This is why I kind of say there is no real rubberbanding. You can outclass the competition sometimes.

I didn’t even mention getting all the coins gives you an additional boost. And there’s strategy there and rote memorization of where the coins are can play to your advantage on when you get the boost on the map for collecting them all.

It’s just nuance really. The game has the DNA of older arcade racers so it might be off-putting for some. Hope you give it another go taking into account these strategies.

hmmm not at the moment…

But when I was playing them:

Horizon Chase Turbo - super addictive arcade racer that is an homage to racers of the past like Top Gun and OutRun. Tons of content and I finally 100%’d everything a couple of months ago including all DLC. Great time. Now just waiting to see when HCT 2 will come out on Steam. Think it’s already out for Switch.

Hollow Knight - can’t say anything more than what others have said in the past but all I can say is ‘What a F****N’ GAME!!’ The world, the characters, the journey… it’s just perfect. A perfect 2D soulslike / metroidvania! Once things calm down and I get into emulation and modding, I want to replay it with the Scarab Mod with full voice acting in the game (saw a preview of it earlier this year and was blown away). And also can’t wait on Hollow Knight: Silksong!!!

This is ongoing when I have time but:

Blade Runner - only a few hours in, but the complexity of the game is astounding. It doesn’t hold your f’n hand, and it makes you think. It really does feel like a full fledged sequel in the world of Blade Runner (it was / maybe still is? before BR2049 came out). Just a really well crafted game. This is what I love about the Steam Deck. There are PC titles I never would’ve played bc I wasn’t in the ecosystem until last year with my Steam Deck.

Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King - nice little TLOZ: ALttP clone that comes into its own after the initial couple of hours

UnMetal - Metal Gear / Solid parody game that is absolutely more than meets the eye. Another game that doesn’t hold your hand and makes you think about what to use in your inventory to complete your objectives. Has some CYOA moments that hilariously changes gameplay segments. And absolutely has a great voice acting overall especially the main character Jesse Fox is a dead ringer for someone attempting a David Hayter voicing Solid Snake impression. And a Colonel type that is “kinda” like a foil to Jesse Fox in a sense that he questions every ludicrous thing you do. Truly great stuff. I will say again, it makes you think and there is some difficulty to it (especially recognizing latter boss patterns)

Faith: The Unholy Trinity - just a creepy as hell, 4-bit Atari style horror game that takes inspiration from things like The Exorcist. I still haven’t finished it bc it’s so creepy, but I will get back to it.

Celeste - like Hollow Knight, I knew of this before but I didn’t attempt to play until I got the SD. An absolute masterclass in platforming. It ratchets itself up in the beginning to keep you on your toes, and then all of a sudden once you’re feeling yourself and your abilities, it throws the first “oh **** oh ****” moment at you and you don’t proceed until you get it down. Doesn’t matter if it takes you 50 tries (😣😆), you want to keep trying bc you got just a little bit further in your previous run. Just addicting. I still need to finish the Main game, but I was addicted to the Pico-8 version of the game every time I boot it up.

EDITED for Top 5 (instead of long list of dope games):

Hollow Knight

Yakuza 0

Horizon Chase Turbo

Batman: Arkham Origins

Darksiders 3

• one additional

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales