Spiderless PC Game Suggestions Solicited
February 21, 2019 7:18 PM Subscribe
I have a shiny new gaming laptop. Help me decide what to play!
Games I've played and enjoyed:
-Dragon Age: Origins. I love love loved this game-both the story, and the party combat mechanics (for example, one of my favorite moves was to have one of my mages freeze an enemy and the other one conjure a giant boulder to shatter it. Classic.)
-Witcher 3. I only made it partway through and will probably go back to this one at some point-I loved the story and folklore and look of it, but found the fighting mechanics a bit dull sometimes.
-Shadow of Mordor. I eventually gave up because I was playing on Xbox which I'm extremely bad at, but I liked the sneaking around and the nemesis system.
-WoW circa 2010-2012. I liked a lot of the fighting mechanics, was meh on the storylines and the whole playing with other people thing.
Other relevant information:
-I really don't care for spiders, so I'd love to hear about games which either don't have them or have good no-spider mods available (shakes fist at Tolkien for eternally cursing the fantasy genre with giant spiders around every corner). I used a mod for DA:O, but am hesitant about the other Dragon Age games for this reason.
-I suuuuuck at first person shooters and have fairly mediocre reflexes-one of the reasons I loved DA:O was the ability to pause combat and line things up.
-I struggle a bit with motion sickness while gaming-I'd be interested in games that are better for this or in hearing how other people deal with it (my strategy is mostly drinking ginger tea and powering through).
-Obviously I like fantasy role playing games, but suggestions to break me out of that rut are very welcome!
Thanks so much, gamers of AskMe!
Games I've played and enjoyed:
-Dragon Age: Origins. I love love loved this game-both the story, and the party combat mechanics (for example, one of my favorite moves was to have one of my mages freeze an enemy and the other one conjure a giant boulder to shatter it. Classic.)
-Witcher 3. I only made it partway through and will probably go back to this one at some point-I loved the story and folklore and look of it, but found the fighting mechanics a bit dull sometimes.
-Shadow of Mordor. I eventually gave up because I was playing on Xbox which I'm extremely bad at, but I liked the sneaking around and the nemesis system.
-WoW circa 2010-2012. I liked a lot of the fighting mechanics, was meh on the storylines and the whole playing with other people thing.
Other relevant information:
-I really don't care for spiders, so I'd love to hear about games which either don't have them or have good no-spider mods available (shakes fist at Tolkien for eternally cursing the fantasy genre with giant spiders around every corner). I used a mod for DA:O, but am hesitant about the other Dragon Age games for this reason.
-I suuuuuck at first person shooters and have fairly mediocre reflexes-one of the reasons I loved DA:O was the ability to pause combat and line things up.
-I struggle a bit with motion sickness while gaming-I'd be interested in games that are better for this or in hearing how other people deal with it (my strategy is mostly drinking ginger tea and powering through).
-Obviously I like fantasy role playing games, but suggestions to break me out of that rut are very welcome!
Thanks so much, gamers of AskMe!
Best answer: It’s not fantasy, but I think you’d enjoy Fallout: New Vegas. Great writing and story. You can have two companions at a time, which offers some fun party combat synergy. The VATS combat system allows you to freeze time while you decide what body part of your opponent you want to shoot off, which makes combat less twitchy and more considered. And you can pause in the middle of combat to decide which healing items or combat buffs to consume.
And no spiders! Well, there are giant wasps. And ants. And scorpions. And flies. But no spiders!
posted by ejs at 8:01 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
And no spiders! Well, there are giant wasps. And ants. And scorpions. And flies. But no spiders!
posted by ejs at 8:01 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
Might as well try Fallout 3/NV/4 when they go on sale for cheaps. VATS should be able to make most FPS issues go away but you'd need to spec into the right stuff.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:04 PM on February 21, 2019
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:04 PM on February 21, 2019
Best answer: I haven't used it, but just to confirm that there is at least one Skyrim mod that turns spiders into bears.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:07 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:07 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I have used the Skyrim mod that turns spiders into bears - it's a tiny bit buggy (some of the models that get modded are meant to drop from the ceiling in caves and sometimes the bear mod model gets stuck up there and you get stuck in combat briefly) but it's not game-breaking. You'll only know you were meant to be fighting a spider when the "bear" corpse drops frostbite venom.
posted by terretu at 9:41 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by terretu at 9:41 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Best answer: You could try Stardew Valley! It's got action RPG elements (combat! items! stuff!) and fantasy elements, and it might provide an entertaining change of pace. IIRC, the only spider in the game is a decorative one that shows up at the Halloween event, and it's in the pixel art style, anyway.
There are a bunch of fun mods for it, too.
posted by wintersweet at 9:45 PM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
There are a bunch of fun mods for it, too.
posted by wintersweet at 9:45 PM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: These are all great suggestions! New Vegas looks intriguing, and I wound up downloading Stardew Valley and am really enjoying it. I've watched other people play Skyrim but have never played it myself, I may have to look into the bear mod. Cheers, everyone!
posted by LadyNibbler at 11:31 PM on February 21, 2019
posted by LadyNibbler at 11:31 PM on February 21, 2019
I always recommend Haven and Hearth.
If you are self directed and don't need someone telling you what to do and who you are, this one is lovely. You'll need to use the wiki to figure out what you are doing. The graphics are old-fashioned simple. The forum is full of jerks. The player community has a few sociopaths. The stakes are high what with character development, pvp and permadeath, but the world is open, the complexity is fantastic and the development cycle is almost weekly.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:46 AM on February 22, 2019
If you are self directed and don't need someone telling you what to do and who you are, this one is lovely. You'll need to use the wiki to figure out what you are doing. The graphics are old-fashioned simple. The forum is full of jerks. The player community has a few sociopaths. The stakes are high what with character development, pvp and permadeath, but the world is open, the complexity is fantastic and the development cycle is almost weekly.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:46 AM on February 22, 2019
How far out of your rut do you want to break? I mean Slay the Spire is not like anything on your list -- it's a deck building dungeon crawler -- but it's one of the best games I've played in years.
posted by The Bellman at 7:28 AM on February 22, 2019
posted by The Bellman at 7:28 AM on February 22, 2019
Oh, man, we have the same taste in games except for the spider thing. I LOVED the updated Middle Earth game (Shadow of War), but it's, like, all spiders, all the time.
You might enjoy Assassin's Creed Origins and/or Mad Max, although you should check out videos of the combat in those games to see if you like it. I think Mad Max is pretty cool, because it combines lots of different types of games (FPS, racing, RPG) into one.
posted by nosila at 8:42 AM on February 22, 2019
You might enjoy Assassin's Creed Origins and/or Mad Max, although you should check out videos of the combat in those games to see if you like it. I think Mad Max is pretty cool, because it combines lots of different types of games (FPS, racing, RPG) into one.
posted by nosila at 8:42 AM on February 22, 2019
Best answer: Since you mentioned sneaking, what about an "immersive sim" like Dishonored or Deus Ex? You can go as loud or as sneaky as you want (although Dishonored especially rewards quiet, nonviolent play) and while they're played in first person none of them are really designed for fast-paced FPS-style combat. Lots of good environmental storytelling, good characters, plus fun powers to take out the enemies.
I'd probably start with Dishonored 1 (which certainly won't stress a new gaming rig). I love the Deus Ex series, but the first one in the reboot (Human Revolution) does have some unavoidable (bad) FPS combat. I also think Prey is fantastic (same devs as Dishonored) but leans more heavily on combat than the others.
posted by backseatpilot at 9:08 AM on February 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
I'd probably start with Dishonored 1 (which certainly won't stress a new gaming rig). I love the Deus Ex series, but the first one in the reboot (Human Revolution) does have some unavoidable (bad) FPS combat. I also think Prey is fantastic (same devs as Dishonored) but leans more heavily on combat than the others.
posted by backseatpilot at 9:08 AM on February 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
I just wanted to chime in to cast a vote against Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Not only did I find it janky and not very fun, it's also laced with toxic conservative politics. I really regret donating to the Kickstarter.
posted by zeusianfog at 10:27 AM on February 22, 2019
posted by zeusianfog at 10:27 AM on February 22, 2019
Maybe Pillars of Eternity and/or Divinity: Original Sin 2. Both are fantasy worlds and can be paused if needed.
posted by MaryVictoria at 4:52 PM on February 22, 2019
posted by MaryVictoria at 4:52 PM on February 22, 2019
Best answer: doesthedogdie.com has a section for games if I remember, allow you to filter for games that don’t have bugs / arachnids in them.
Good luck!
posted by Faintdreams at 7:25 AM on February 23, 2019
Good luck!
posted by Faintdreams at 7:25 AM on February 23, 2019
Best answer: The other Dragon Age games are super fun and lore-packed, but they do have spiders. DA2 has a no-spiders mod, useful since almost every damned cave has spiders. DAI doesn't have nearly as many random spider events, and most of them can be avoided. I believe there is an 'invisible spiders' mod for it. NOTE: there is one giant spider-like creature encounter that is not skippable and probably not modded out. But there's so much other plot stuff going on at the same time, and you don't actually fight the creature directly, so it's not that bad.
The Mass Effect (also by Bioware) series has a similarly rich story/lore but is set in space with no space spiders.
Skyrim has SO MANY SPIDERS of both the huge and the gigantic variety, and of the 'surprise dropping on top of you' form. Definitely install a mod if your phobia is intense. I get by with squinting and using 'detect life' to spy them out and set explody traps for where they'll drop.
As mentioned above, the Fallout world is spider-free! (There are giant cockroaches, and New Vegas has giant wasps. Tarantula Hawk wasps, to be precise. So no giant spiders, just the thing that the giant spiders are afraid of.)
I get motion sick with games quite often. If there's a setting to adjust the FOV and the camera bob and responsiveness, play around with those. I had to turn camera bob almost totally off in Dishonored, but it made the seasickness go away. Otherwise, play in short, regular sessions at first. I find after ten or so hours of total play, I adjust and no longer get woozy. But if I take a break for a few days, it comes back.
posted by lovecrafty at 4:39 PM on February 23, 2019
The Mass Effect (also by Bioware) series has a similarly rich story/lore but is set in space with no space spiders.
Skyrim has SO MANY SPIDERS of both the huge and the gigantic variety, and of the 'surprise dropping on top of you' form. Definitely install a mod if your phobia is intense. I get by with squinting and using 'detect life' to spy them out and set explody traps for where they'll drop.
As mentioned above, the Fallout world is spider-free! (There are giant cockroaches, and New Vegas has giant wasps. Tarantula Hawk wasps, to be precise. So no giant spiders, just the thing that the giant spiders are afraid of.)
I get motion sick with games quite often. If there's a setting to adjust the FOV and the camera bob and responsiveness, play around with those. I had to turn camera bob almost totally off in Dishonored, but it made the seasickness go away. Otherwise, play in short, regular sessions at first. I find after ten or so hours of total play, I adjust and no longer get woozy. But if I take a break for a few days, it comes back.
posted by lovecrafty at 4:39 PM on February 23, 2019
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More recently I've been playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which is set in a medieval world. You start as a peasant and through a series of quests move up in the world! It's a lot of fun and the combat is quite difficult compared to similar styles of games, which is refreshing. I'm playing it on PS4 but it seems to be on PC as well.
posted by DTMFA at 7:51 PM on February 21, 2019