I got excited about a sale on toilet paper. It was 50% off for 30 rolls of the really high quality one!

I’ve been like that since 15, that’s just being a hypochondriac.

The sequels also got way too bloated imo. If I wanted to collect 50 feathers or whatever I’ll go play a Ubisoft game.

I can’t really say exactly what made the 2013 reboot special but it felt unique. Its sequels feel like any other open world game these days.

Not owned personally but my mom’s '99 Fiat Punto I used to drive in high school was awful. 60 drunk donkeys under the hood, 0-60 of eventually, brakes that yanked it to the right if you were too aggressive on them and a battery that went flat in a few days if you didn’t drive the car. It also had the tendency to just keep revving up when in neutral until you either put it in gear and engage the clutch or shut off the engine.

Anyway, I still have fond memories of that car. Going down mountain roads was fun because it was very slow, but super light, so you could just keep the throttle pinned for the most part and the rotted out muffler made it sound like a racecar lmao.

I have two from when I was a kid. Once I was waiting at a traffic light with my mom. The light turns green and I jump out onto a street without looking. Not even half a second later a car whizzes by just centimeters in front of me. It went by so fast I have no doubt it would have killed me had it hit. That was probably 20 years ago and I still always look both ways even when the light is green.

Another one was at the beach. I couldn’t swim (still can’t) so I was walking parallel to the shore in water up to my shoulders. At one point there was a drainage pipe or something and the current from it seems to have eroded the bottom, so as I’m walking the ground suddenly goes out from under me and I feel like I’m getting pulled deeper in the sea. Luckily my mom was nearby and pulled me out pretty quickly. I don’t like going deeper than waist height into the sea since then.

I also had a more recent scary moment, which wasn’t really near death, but could have easily been very bad if there was an oncoming car. Get good tyres and don’t fuck around in the rain, kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXTThHtUqLk

So, I’ll just go through my Steam favourites and list the ones that fit the bill.

I recently played I Am Your Beast and absolutely loved it. Not really a story focused game, but it’s it has some of it, the voice actors are better than you would expect and the gameplay is top notch.

Pretty much all Call of Juarez games (well, maybe not The Cartel), but start with Gunslinger. The others are old and clunky, but Gunslinger still holds up and is one of my favourite arcady shooters.

Mirror’s Edge is a classic, if you haven’t played it, you definitely should. You can skip the sequel, Catalyst. That one added open world and was mediocre at best anyway.

Speaking of classics, Dishonored is probably one of the best stealth games out there, in my opinion at least. I would consider the first one fairly linear, altho the game does expect you to explore the individual levels quite a bit.

Mafia 2 (I honestly recommend you play the classic edition, you get it when you buy the definitive. It just runs better and isn’t as buggy. The remaster barely improves anything anyway) and the remake of Mafia 1. Yes, they are open world, but only by technicality. The story is very linear and you barely need to interact with said open world. The games never expect you to explore or collect stuff and there’s fuckall to do on the map besides drive around anyway.

If you like Ace combat, Project Wingman would be right up your alley. I’m not sure if I would call it simple per se, but it’s linear, level based and great.

Tactical Breach Wizards is another recent favourite of mine. It’s slightly x-com-y altho more of a puzzle than a strategy game with some pretty decent humour.

Gunpoint is another indie puzzle game with great humour. It’s by the same guy as Tactical Breach Wizards.

Since you said you like Uncharted, I imagine you might enjoy the older Tomb Raider games, before the 2013 reboot when they went open world. Legend is my favourite of them altho I know it’s a bit clunky by modern standards.

Last but not least, SUPERHOT. You probably know it, but in case you don’t, play it. It’s short, it’s simple and it’s great.

Are you dual wielding mice, my man? Why do you need two? I know it doesn’t matter for your question, but I’m genuinely curious what the use case is.

Probably Call of Juarez: The Cartel. I wanted to play the entire franchise back to back, but it wasn’t being sold on Steam, so I had to hunt down a copy on some key reseller. Boy, do I see why it’s not on sale anymore. runs like absolute shit, incredibly buggy, cheesy as hell and with some pretty questionable game design choices. Still, it was somewhat entertaining in a “so bad it’s good” sense, and it ties into the previous games in a fairly interesting way, so I don’t regret playing it. It was certainly an experience, but it’s a very bad game by pretty much all metrics.

I guess they were driving Safely, but not carefully

“watch the ficus” - telling somebody to be more careful after they do something clumsy like tripping or nearly dropping something. I used it in front of some friends once and got confused looks. Apparently grandma used to have a potted ficus tree and used to tell me to watch it when I was playing close to it, so it stuck as a saying in the family.

I’m still in the beginning of my programming career (maybe also the end, looking at how AI is going, lmao) and at my previous job I had fuckall to do. I spent nearly a year without a project, working basically 30 minutes a day. I quit mainly because I was afraid that when I change jobs I will have say 5 years experience on paper, but the knowledge for 1, because I’ve barely done anything.

Work isn’t always about money, you also want to learn stuff so you can make even more money in the future. You can’t really do that if you get paid to watch Youtube all day.

I bought a Steam Deck so I can play games while on the go. I just kind of forgot I’m never actually on the go, so 90% of the time it’s just gathering dust on my nightstand, because I’d rather play on my proper gaming PC when I’m at home.

I also loved racing games as a kid and my first purchase after I moved out was a g29 lmao.

I’d love to have a simrig and could probably afford one nowadays, but space is really big issue when living in an apartment. I don’t really have a free corner to put it in like you.

Lanterns are a pretty significant fire hazard, i’d avoid those too

I wouldn’t really call WWE “safe”, more like “mostly not life-threatening”. Lots of wrestlers have gotten properly fucked up over the years. Yes, the intent isn’t to cause harm but with all the flashy moves being pulled you are bound to break a few bones at some point

I love Cyberpunk 2077, probably one of my favourite games ever and I’ve beaten it something like a dozen times. I still hate talking with Evelyn and doing the heist. It’s such a slog once you know what to expect. At least they made the BD tutorial skippable.

Some great jokes in there:

• FC24, a game with mixed reviews nominated for GOTY.
• RDR2, a game the online mode of which got abandoned two years in because it wasn’t making as much money as GTA5 nominated for Labour of Love.
• Starfield, a game which steals most of its gameplay from decade old Bethesda games nominated for Most Innovative Gameplay.

Idk what the steam community is smoking these days but it’s got to be good.

I never liked afternoon naps as a kid, so I brought some Tom & Jerry comic books to read during nap time at kindergarten. The teacher told me that everyone has to take a nap, took my comic books and never returned them. I’m now 25 years old and still salty about that.

I don’t, sorry, I generally don’t use guides while playing.

Yeah, you got into Hirata Estate. That’s a semi-optional area that’s a bit too hard for when you first gain access to it. It’s really the game’s fault for giving you the bell thingy so early imo.

I definitely recommend giving the game another go. Don’t get me wrong, you will die a lot even when you follow the main path like you are supposed to, but the game is a bit more fair with the difficulty curve. Except for the Chained Ogre, that guy is just bullshit.