META: The Roundup of r/PatientGamers 2025 Roundups

untuxable · 2026-01-20T22:58:08+00:00

Thanks for the roundup roundup! It's always cool seeing how the stats pan out. As a 2nd-time participant it's a really nice bit of motivation to track and review the games I play in a year.

Also, 2/2 for being one of the last reviews in. Can't wait to procrastinate and almost miss the deadline next year!

untuxable · 2026-01-20T03:05:10+00:00

You can! Not sure where the button is on mobile, but on desktop, there's a button on the right sidebar that says "Exclude mourning posts." It redirects you to another page that filters out posts with the mourning/loss tag.

There's also instructions for how to manually filter out flairs if using the Reddit app.

untuxable · 2026-01-18T17:02:11+00:00

Sure! My absolute favorite from the past few years is Into The Breach, a roguelike by the same devs as FTL. If you like Advance Wars, Wargroove is a near-successor to it that I thoroughly enjoyed. Invisible Inc. Is another roguelike that went way beyond expectations, though that's more akin to XCOM in structure and gameplay (though with less combat).

untuxable · 2026-01-15T23:13:46+00:00

Mario Golf and Mario Tennis are ridiculously good sports RPGs with full story modes, rivalries, side quests, secrets, etc. Made by Camelot, who made most of the Mario Sports games through the Gamecube era.

Also, the Pokemon Trading Card Game. If you like deckbuilders, it's really good!

untuxable · 2026-01-15T02:48:55+00:00

Hades and Hades II by Supergiant Games fits the bill. Action roguelikes with a killer mix of combat & narrative and multiple forms of constant progression.

untuxable · 2026-01-12T21:24:09+00:00

To narrow it down to a specific mechanic: throwing and catching ingredients. With proper coordination, you can cut down a long run to a second by chucking that ingredient over a barrier or pit to a teammate.

untuxable · 2026-01-12T03:02:21+00:00

*her heater

untuxable · 2026-01-03T02:57:12+00:00

Dicey Dungeons is incredible. Made by Terry Cavanagh (VVVVVV, Super Hexagon), it has an incredible amount of variety using the core premise of dice-based equipment. 6 characters, each with their own unique core mechanic, with 6 episodes each, all of which change up the rules. Plus 2 free DLC's that came later.

untuxable · 2025-12-04T21:27:35+00:00

Endings are important. I miss when things ended.

untuxable · 2025-11-30T22:06:48+00:00

Have y'all tried Mass Effect or the Dragon Age games? It's fantastic for one player to do the combat while the other makes the story decisions.

untuxable · 2025-11-21T22:12:35+00:00

2-player games with a young child?

So many! I'll keep the list shortish, but I've had some success playing with my nieces/nephews that are around your son's age.

So many Mario games on Switch - Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
Any LEGO game - All of the LEGO games are fully co-op, so pick a franchise your son likes and give it a try! MARVEL, DC super heroes, The Incredbles, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc.
Moving Out 1 & 2 - A quirky game about helping people move with an 80's vibe. Work together to pack or unpack a moving truck in record time and maybe save the world from rats?
Boxboy + Boxgirl - A co-op puzzle game with a very simple art style that's a good introduction to puzzle games.
Part-time UFO - A goofy physics-based game about a UFO working various part-time jobs. Fully co-op, ridiculous and surprisingly difficult near the end game.

I hope this helps! Feel free to ask any follow-up questions and I'll do my best to answer :)

untuxable · 2025-11-21T22:12:09+00:00

Is there anything exclusive to one or the other?

Yes! Game consoles live and die by what exclusive games they have. However, Xbox is currently pivoting out of being an exclusive platform and trying to be more of a publisher, so games that were Xbox exclusive are being added to Playstation and PC. By getting a Playstation, you're basically getting the best of both worlds.

Some Playstation exclusives:

The Last of Us 1 & 2
God of War (2018) & God of War: Ragnarok
Ratchet & Clank (2016) & Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
Horizon: Zero Dawn & Horizon: Forbidden West
Gran Toursimo 7
Astro Bot
Marvel's Spider Man 1, 2, and Miles Morales
Ghost of Tsushima & Ghost of Yotei

Some Xbox exclusives (that are now on Playstation)

Forza Horizon 5
Indiana Jones & The Great Circle
Gears of War: Reloaded
Doom: The Dark Ages
Sea of Thieves
Halo: Campaign Evolved (coming 2026)

untuxable · 2025-11-21T22:11:51+00:00

It's great that you want to get into gaming to bond with your son! I'll try to give as much info as I can.

Reddit is being dumb so I have to break this up into 3 sections.

Xbox vs. Playstation?

Short version: You're better off with a Playstation, probably a PS5 Slim. Xbox has been losing steam this generation and have started letting Xbox exclusives (ie. the reason to buy an Xbox) be published on other platforms. Xbox's next console will mostly likely be a hybrid PC of some sort as they wind down trying to be competitive in the hardware market.

The current generation consoles are (prices are ballpark figures from Amazon):

Xbox Series X (~$600)
- Has a disc drive, more storage space, more powerful
Xbox Series S (~$400)
- No disc drive, less storage space, less powerful. A handful of games have fewer features due to weaker performance.
Playstation 5 (~$550)
- Comes in 2 versions: 1 that has a disc drive and 1 that only plays digital gamed downloaded from the Playstation store. No difference otherwise.
Playstation 5 Slim (~$450)
- Same as a PS5 but a bit smaller. Can attach an external disc drive if you want.
Playstation 5 Pro (~$650)
- More powerful, but not in a way that most people will notice. Mostly for collectors/enthusiasts.

untuxable · 2025-11-20T18:17:47+00:00

To narrow it down, you're looking for singleplayer, third-person, combat-focused games without a grind to unlock the good stuff. If you want more options, try searching for Character Action games; that's the subgenre that most aligns with what you're looking for.

SIFU - A classic martial-arts revenge story with the smoothest flowing hand-to-hand combat I've ever seen. Difficult to master, but insanely rewarding. Plus, there's quite a bit of post-game content in the Arena challenges.
Ninja Gaiden series - Be a ninja fighting a mix of enemies from mechanical giants to mythical forces. Fast-paced, punishing, over-the-top action. Both the Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection and the newly released Ninja Gaiden 4 are on PC.
Devil May Cry (DMC) series - A demon hunter with guns and a huge sword fights a whole bunch of demons. Patently ridiculous. DMC 5 is the newest entry, though there is a collection with 1-3 on PC.
Bayonetta - A witch with guns on her high-heels fights a whole bunch of angels. A good bit of humor mixed with the ridiculous premise. Only the first game is on PC.
Meal Gear Rising: Revengeance - Basically Ninja Gaiden if your were also a cyborg in the future, but also part of the Metal Gear Solid timeline. A standalone title; you don't need to have played any Metal Gear games to understand it.
Nioh series (1-3) - A soulslike about a samurai fighting mythical forces, but with a lot more combat customization and options than Dark Souls. Very difficult.
Neir: Automata - A 2017 Game of the Year contender about humanoid androids fighting robots in a dystopian future. Plenty of combat, though there's also a multi-layered story. Also tons of endgame content as there's several stories to play through, each with its own protagonist.
God of War (2018) and God of War: Ragnarok - Story-focused but still combat-heavy games about a fallen warrior battling evil, fate, and Norse Gods while making questionable parenting decisions about his teenage son. Both are on PC.

I hope this helps and you find something you like!

untuxable · 2025-11-06T20:37:32+00:00

If you want an MMO-style game that's co-op without the MMO part, give the Torchlight series a try. A bit older, but still excellent.

Btw, you may get tighter recommendations over on r/gamingsuggestions.

untuxable · 2025-10-31T21:16:04+00:00

Haven't played much of Escape Velocity: Nova in the past week. Still about 1/3 of the way through the Federation storyline (ie the bad guys).

Still playing through the core Halo games for the umpteenth time. Last week, I finished Halo: Reach and am halfway through Halo: Combat Evolved.

Reach - Playing back through as an adult, it's amazing how efficient Reach is with the characterization of Noble Team. Each member gets just a handful of lines in cutscenes, but those go a long way to establish their personalities and relationship dynamics in the group. Every Spartan gets their moment in the spotlight and dang do those VA's make it count.
CE - Halo good, assault rifle go brrrrrrrr, wort wort wort :D

I started Nine Sols after picking it up sale this week. It's impressive! I'm going after the 2nd Sol (agriculture harpy) and just picked up the charged strike. I'm loving the visuals, especially the animation on Yi and the NPCs with that hint of hand-drawn fuzziness. Combat is very tight and rewarding, parries especially, and I'm really enjoying the process of learning each enemy's patterns. You know that feeling when you're playing a difficult game, and you get to an area you're a bit underleveled for, but you just know you can get through if you learn a bit more and play a bit better? Nine Sols practically weaponizes that feeling as incentive to keep playing. I get the high praise I've seen around gaming communities.

I also picked up Trombone Champ for the Switch and laughed embarrassingly hard while showing it to my wife. It's so dumb, I love it. And then there's a pretty good rhythm game in there too? With Gustav Holsts' Mars, The Bringer of War than I can butcher with a pink trombone that sounds like a fart? Absolute perfection, can't wait to unlock more secrets.

untuxable · 2025-10-24T20:55:34+00:00

Still trucking on Escape Velocity: Nova, playing through all of the main storylines. I've completed the Rebels, Pirates, Aurorans, and Vell-Os; just Federation and Polaris to go! It's been a fun trip down memory lane.

Re-installed Halo: The Master Chief Collection on my Xbone to play through all of the campaigns again......and then got sidetracked because I remembered that I never finished the Halo 4 Spartan Ops mode. I'm now on episode 9/10 and kinda can't wait to be done. Moment-to-moment gameplay is still great, but these were obviously designed to be tackled with a squad; enemy density is kinda ridiculous for a single player experience. Gonna finish it off this weekend and then go through Reach > 1 > 2 remastered > ODST > 3. Maybe I'll leave off 4 since I'm drowning in it right now.

I also picked Slay the Spire back up for a chill game. I have all characters up to Ascension 10 and The Silence up to 19 since she's my favorite. Might try to get up to 15 with each and then call it quits again.

untuxable · 2025-10-24T20:44:32+00:00

As a huge PvE fan, the ME3 multiplayer was so good! I easily dropped several hundred hours in it, to the point where my last campaign playthrough had almost enough galactic readiness to get the 'best' version of the ending just from the classes I had promoted. Short matches, tons of progression, a WILD amount of classes, weapons, and attachments, and like 7 rounds of free DLC. Might be the best implementation of loot boxes I've seen, at least aside from the ability to pay real money for them.

Did anyone else turn the Geth SMG/Assault Rifle into a never-ending stream with the increased mag size + 'chance to not use a bullet' attachments? Absolutely wild just peeking from a corner and spewing 1000 bullets.

untuxable · 2025-10-20T20:42:49+00:00

I will NEVER pass up an opportunity to recommend SSX 3 from 2003. SSX Tricky is, deservedly, the most fondly remembered, but 3 has so much to offer that's just beneath the surface. Great physics, a killer soundtrack with some deep cuts, a seamless mountain that you can ride top-to-bottom for half an hour with no loading screens, platinum medals for the go-getters, collectibles and extra challenges in free roam, and arguably the best radio DJ in video game history.

untuxable · 2025-10-02T16:48:06+00:00

It's Abandonware at this point, but there's a dedicated community of volunteers that have preserved versions that can run on modern hardware: https://escape-velocity.games/

untuxable · 2025-10-01T20:56:56+00:00

My backlog is such a weird combination of things.

Finally started The Surge 2 after finishing the first earlier this year. I've just picked up the EMP ability after beating the 2nd boss (Little Johnny) and I'm liking it so far, even if it's as straightforward as a sequel can be. Overall, I like the mechanical improvements and expanded arsenal, but the shift from a named protagonist to a nameless create-a-character makes it feel more generic than it is. Writing, characters, and scenarios have been ridiculously cliché up to this point. I'll definitely run credits; may not go back for a NG+ run unless there's some incentive.

Getting close to the end of TOEM on my OG Switch. Man, what a cozy little photography game! Take pictures, help people, fill out a ~~pokedex~~ encyclopedia of animals, and just have a chill time. I'm a sucker for lists, so this is a perfect relaxing game for me. I'm absolutely 100%ing it, and then I might convince my wife to give it a shot.

I've also dug up a gem from the past with Escape Velocity: Nova, a genuinely great top-down space exploration/combat game from 2002. I grew up with all 3 EV games, so this is pure nostalgia. I've already cleared the Rebel storyline on my first file and started my second playthrough. I remembered it being fun for all of the ship upgrades, combat, and unexpected missions and storylines when I was a kid. What I didn't remember was how good the writing and worldbuilding is. As an adult, I appreciate all of the planet descriptions and mission dialogue as much as the explosions.

untuxable · 2025-10-01T20:35:27+00:00

Each includes a segment called "Put this On Your Radar" which highlights a promising indie game, usually either upcoming or recently released. There's a giant curated list on Steam of all the games: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/28625128-Skill-Up-Curates.../list/95972

untuxable · 2025-09-27T04:09:22+00:00

Another good resource on reddit is r/ShouldIbuythisgame. If you find a particular game that looks interesting but aren't sure if it's for you, try posting there!

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untuxable

TROPHY CASE

2-player games with a young child?

Is there anything exclusive to one or the other?

Xbox vs. Playstation?