My Favorite Games

I happen to be a very avid gamer. At the moment, though, I'm also a bored one. So what's a bored gamer do when they've got no one to play with? Talk about their favorite games, of course!

Zero-K
Here's one I doubt many of you have heard of before. Zero-K is a free, open-source, downloadable RTS game in which you play as the Commander of a robotic army, and must build and lead your side to victory over the opposing force. It takes almost all of its inspiration from games like Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander -- both of which I highly recommend to anyone wishing to call themselves a true RTS fan.

(More to follow later. Check out the links and the video for now!)
RimWorld
RimWorld is a futuristic colony builder/survival game set over 3000 years in the future, millions of miles from Earth on the edges of the galaxy. You control three survivors of a crashed space liner to build a new colony and survive, weathering pirate raids, incursions from violent mechanoids, and all manner of natural (and unnatural) disasters in your quest to eventually build a ship and get off the planet. It is inspired by the groundbreaking freeware title, Dwarf Fortress, and takes story elements from future universes like Firefly, Dune, and Warhammer 40,000.

Ori and the Blind Forest
Ori and the Blind Forest is a 2-D action/adventure platforming game puts you in control of the protagonist Ori, a fledgling guardian spirit of the forest of Nibel who is separated from the tree that gave birth to him. He is found and raised by Naru, a kind, cuddly bear-like creature, in what has to be one of the most heartwarming, yet tear-jerking prologue scenes I've ever seen. While you are likely to be blown away immediately by the game's incredible graphics and the nature of its story, Ori and the Blind Forest follows through with a fluid and immensely entertaining gameplay system. Expect to do a lot of jumping. And rabbit-kicking off of enemies (or their projectiles) mid-flight like a springboard, knocking them into a bed of spikes in the process. I also couldn't stop going "D'awww" at Ori's incredibly cute voice every time he surfaces for a breath of air after taking a swim.

If you haven't played this game yet, now is the time to do it. Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition has now released, which adds an extra dungeon area to explore, new abilities, and extra storyline bits that flesh out what went on in the forest of Nibel before the main plot begins. This game has a good bit of replayability, though it clocks in at roughly 7-9 hours of playtime for a first run, and can be completed in as little as one hour (or less!) if you're an accomplished speedrunner. The fastest I've done it is about 3 and a half hours. You can get this game on Steam, or XBox One.

Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander
I am the kind of guy who craves a nice, simple, power-trip RPG once in a while. Something where I can just worry about unleashing multi-death spells, calling down meteor storms, or ordering fully kitted-out paladins to attack evil undead liches, and not about complex storylines or long wait times between the action. Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander is that game, except with high sci-fi fleet combat and away team engagements, watching giant ships blast each other with hull-disintegrating beams and missiles to the tune of some of the greatest battle music I've ever heard.

The game is set in a galaxy far, far away (hah, puns), where the New Terran Federation (that's you) is under siege by a vicious extradimensional enemy called the Chruul, which resemble some kind of cosmic horrors that wouldn't be out of place in an H.P. Lovecraft novel. With the NTF's fleets quickly decimated, their homeworld conquered and all their fringe colonies out of contact, the only hope left is Halcyon 6, a mostly-unexplored precursor alien starbase that's been kept secret from the galaxy until now. It falls to you, the player, to gather a new lineup of senior officers, build a fleet of starships to combat the Chruul menace, and rally humanity's scattered colonies under your banner.