Smooth Operator said:
Hawken is pretty solid but pretty much like you said, it's hard to enjoy a multiplayer game that lacks a large player base. I haven't played in a while but I remember it kind of falling into the same sad state of affairs most dying multiplayer games end up in: You frequently end up matched with super-high level guys who've been playing obsessively since launch day or the odd new players who haven't quite gotten curb stomped enough by said high-level guys to be permanently dissuaded yet. And if you live in somewhere more remote you get to combine that with 250+ ping in a game where every little moment counts. However at least in Hawken's case you can still get a full match pretty regularly. Its a little sad when you remember or hear about all these great multiplayer games over the years that either died too soon or never had enough players to really be alive to begin with. I remember eagerly installing multiplayer Source and CryEngine mods off the discs from PC gaming mags only to find the server browser totally empty or close to it. If only we could grab say, 50% of Counter Strike, TF2, Dota, World of Tanks, etc. - the current 'big' multiplayer games and spread them across the many ones that either don't currently have or never had the playerbases they deserved.
One of these kinds of games is
Neotokyo, a multiplayer FPS that somehow manages to be both quite simple and deeply complex that has in this case thankfully gotten an influx of players with its recent official Steam release (though it still deserves a hell of a lot more.) This is a game that knows that less is more, you choose from 3 classes with a couple different abilities and a primary weapon, not a whole lot of options to go round overall yet every one of them has it's place and can be used effectively. There's a lot of varied maps and a ton of approaches you can take in each of them. It's free and is a relatively small download, there's pretty much no reason not to at least try it.
It also has maybe one of the greatest soundtracks of anything, ever. And its a free mod - furthermore a multiplayer mod.
How does that even work?
StoleitfromKilgore said:
Seconding Ice-Pick Lodge. The Void is the one of the damn few games that has genuinely moved me in some way, and though I haven't played Pathologic its still a game everyone should at least know exists. Rock Paper Shotgun's 3 part analysis of it is well worth reading for just about anyone and I'm
eagerly anticipating the upcoming remake which will hopefully feature a decent English translation.
Hadn't heard of Cryostasis or The Cat Lady before but am
definitely checking them out now.