(console beeps) - [Falcon] Some games are
meant to be experienced in bite-size chunks and
some can give you tons of worthwhile stuff to do. Hi folks, it's Falcon,
and today on Gameranx, 10 Games Worth Spending 1,000 Hours In. Starting off with number
10, it's No Man's Sky. Whenever anybody talks about No Man's Sky, they always have to kick things off with the standard preamble. The game was very
disappointing when it launched, but the developers
managed to turn it around. You know the whole story, you've probably heard
it 100 times already. I mean, we made not only a good video about what was wrong
with it when it came out, but we also made a good video about how they turned it around. The game's been out for
years and at this point it's been good much
longer than it's been bad. The team's been giving the game consistent and substantial updates for years now and it's all been free the entire time. What started out as a
relatively bare bones procedurally generated space
exploration sandbox has turned into a game with so much to do in it that you could easily spend
thousands of hours playing it and although it's still
not the most mechanically complex game out there,
it's a fantastic experience to chill out in, explore,
build a base, play a role, it's one of those great worlds
to inhabit even if a lot of the mechanical things
are relatively simple, it's not the bad kind of simple. At number nine is Warhammer: Total War. Pretty much all the Total
War games are the best kinds of time vacuums, it's so
easy to lose hours playing these things, but at least in my opinion, the Total War game that
really steals the hours out of the day is Warhammer: Total War. Based on the old World Warhammer universe, these games have long campaigns, a metric ton of unique
and fun to play armies, and an all around insane
amount of content, especially if you've got all three games, which unlocks the ridiculous
Immortal Empires campaign that combines all three
maps from all three games into one massive campaign. Throw in all the fun
alternate campaign modes for certain races and generals and the many different ways
you can play as each race and it's easy to imagine
spending hundreds, if not thousands of
hours with these games. The general consensus is that
Warhammer II is the best one, and if you just want one
game to spend a ton time in, that's probably your best
bet, but in general gameplay, all three games are about equal in quality so there's just little
changes made here and there that bug people or in some cases, people actually really
like, but speaking of, the third game is still pretty buggy. Another hurdle is that getting
into these games has a price. Like I said, Immortal Empires is huge, but if you wanna play, you
got to have all three games and the third one still
isn't going on sale so that's probably gonna
be full price on top of all the DLC and a lot of
it's really, really good, but it's also really damn
expensive when you add it all up. At number eight is Monster Hunter World. If tactics and strategy isn't your thing, you're more into action, then
you really can't go wrong with Monster Hunter World, an
action game all about grinding like the series is
literally all about grinding and if you're obsessive enough, then you can spend a whole
hell of a lot of time with it if you really want to. Just finishing the main
campaign can easily take over 100 hours and that's
just scratching the surface. There's always something
like a new set of armor or a weapon upgrade
that'll keep you going, but unlocking the stuff can
feel like a merciless grind on top of being incredibly
challenging when you're getting into the endgame, but for
a certain type of player, there's a high skills stealing
combined with a gear chase and it can be exhilarating, it
just depends on who you are. There's more than enough
content to keep you playing for thousands of hours,
but you gotta be willing to suffer a few setbacks here and there. To get to the really high rank stuff, it requires some serious dedication, but when you finally get the
required crafting materials to upgrade your equipment
to the next stage, you immediately see its
effects in the next hunt and you can see why it's such
an addictive gameplay loop. At number seven is Path of Exile. There are plenty of action RPGs, you can play hundreds if
not thousands of hours in. Hell, I wouldn't be
surprised if I've logged at least a thousand in Diablo II just from playing it so
many times over the years, but in terms of content
complexity and constant updates that keep players coming back, you really can't top Path of Exile. Big thing here is that
this one's free to play and it doesn't have any of
the attempts to build people that free games often have. All the stuff you can buy is
specifically only cosmetic. The only thing a serious player
would probably actually want to spend some money on
is to expand their stash so they can share equipment
between multiple characters. The thing that keeps Path
of Exile players on board outside of the ridiculously
complex skill tree, which you can spend hours on just thinking about your character build,
is the constant updates. The devs have been super
consistent following a three-month update
schedule for years now and the amount of stuff
they've added to the game is almost overwhelming. This stuff is primarily endgame so you probably won't be
aware of it the first 100 or so hours, but it's a big
part of what keeps players, well, playing. It's a game that rewards
dedicated players like few others, requires a lot to get into,
especially for an action RPG, but if you enjoy crunching
numbers and collecting loot, Path of Exile's probably
right up your alley or could send you away running, screaming at the top of your lungs if you take one look at that skill tree and don't want it, you could
just nope out right there. It does have that effect on
a certain type of person. At number six is RimWorld. Build as a narrative engine,
RimWorld is just as much about the stories that you can tell as much as it is about the gameplay. It's a heady mix of Dwarf
Fortress and the Sims with an added sci-fi twist that makes the game very easy to get lost in. Don't let its very basic visuals fool you, the game has a ton of depth. It's not quite as deep as
something like Dwarf Fortress, but the potential for chaos
and storytellers might be even higher here than in that game. RimWorld is a colony survival game. This is much about keeping your
people happy and comfortable as it is about building
a sustainable settlement. Most of the time these
things spiral into chaos, but even when things are going well, there's always kind of
an air of uncertainty with your little NPCs. Characters can snap in an
instant and go on a killing spree or become a drug kingpin
when you're not looking, all kinds of crazy stuff can happen and so much of the
entertainment of the game comes from these wild swings away
from what is supposed to happen. There's a ton of content to experience from the base game and so much so that the few DLCs aren't
even really necessary. Oh, yeah, and I can't forget the many huge game changing mods there are out there as well. RimWorld is a game that can
take a little bit of effort to get into and fully
understand, but once it clicks, it's really a game that you
can spend tons of time with. At number five is Crusader
King/Europa Universalis. Really just the Paradox
grand strategy games. Everybody has a different idea about which Paradox grand strategy game is their favorite, so I'm
just gonna say all of them. The most popular seem
to be Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV, and they're certainly the biggest, discounting the metric
ton of expansion packs and add-ons they have, but really, any of these games will do
with one big word of warning, if you thought RimWorld
looked impenetrable, run away from these games. They're massive strategy games with some of the most complicated and dynamic game worlds out there and you could be anybody in these games. To a Lilly Duke with a small territory, to a king of a world spanning empire, it's all under your control
to the smallest detail. These games are really
daunting to get into and even veterans struggle with
certain aspects of the game, but what makes them so playable is that you never actually
have to do anything. There's no end goal, you just pick a year and a sovereign and you're off. It doesn't matter if you win or lose so it's really up to the player
to set goals for themselves and that's what a lot of the fun of these games really comes from. Like creating ridiculous
A historical scenarios through pure force of will or playing as inconsequential
characters trying to survive, it's all there. You can start in the lowest position and scheme your way
into making your family into the new sovereigns or
undermine a country from within. It's another game about stories and while the intrigues you can set up are depicted fairly
abstract, like seriously, sometimes you really have to think about what's supposed to
be going on sometimes, but the way generally things play out, feel like you're messing around in a pretty real and reactive world. Paradox games are complicated as hell, but you don't actually
have to learn anything, sometimes it's actually more fun to fail than it is to succeed. Beware though, this is
another of those games that can be expensive to get into, there's tons of DLC and a lot
of it is considered essential. At number four is Fallout 4. Interesting thing about
this game is that, well, the core game is really
long with a lot to do, it's not one of those games you'd be able to spend 1,000 hours playing unless you get into the settlement stuff. Don't get me wrong, the
entire Boston Commonwealth is it's massive, there's tons to explore, but the thing that keeps
players coming back is the extensive crafting
and construction system where you can build your own settlement. People have built some
really ridiculous stuff with this system. Not exactly Minecraft,
mind you, there is a limit to what you can eventually build, but if you're playing on PC,
it's trivially easy to mod and just go as crazy as you want. People have built entire
new towns with this system, they've constructed massive structures and devise these crazy
elaborate Rube Goldberg machines with the game's physics. All this stuff can be
done with the base game and it's easy to dump
hundreds of hours into it without even thinking. If you really want to go nuts, however, like I said, take a look at the game's extensive modding scene. It's been tweaking and making improvements to Fallout 4 for years now. I mean, it's par for the course with pretty much every Bethesda Game. Fallout 4 is a game that's
designed to get lost in and it's crazy with the amount
of stuff that's just there as well as what you can
factor in with mods. Look, there's so much to do in this game. At number three is Final Fantasy XIV. For me, if you're gonna
get into an MMO right now and really wanna sink your teeth into one, this is probably the one to play. People probably know that
I'm a big Final Fantasy nut, but like, this has got a
massive story campaign, tons of raids, tons of dungeons, lots of time wasting side activities, and just a huge world to explore. It's a game that's been
going strong for so long that it's original disastrous incarnation is basically an afterthought. Nobody really cares how it launched 'cause the current game is so damn solid. It still has issues, people
generally didn't love the newest expansion as much
as some of the previous ones and the housing situation
still kind of a mess, but as far as MMORPGs go, these are kind of minor
issues in the grand scheme. This is another game, it's not super cheap to get into though. On top of the cost of the game
and the multiple expansions, there's also a monthly fee you got to pay and yeah, there is a free to play version, but it's more like a demo
than the full experience. So for people wanting to
spend hundreds of hours in the game, you're gonna have to drop some serious cash for this
one to get everything, but I will also say, if there's a case for the monthly fee version of an MMO, it's Final Fantasy XIV,
like there's just so much to get into and all I
ever hear is how welcoming and positive the community is. Like I may be wrong about it these days, but that's the impression
I've always gotten from it. If you're the type to get into MMOs, Final Fantasy XIV is just top notch. At number two is Stardew Valley. Sometimes when you turn on a game, you're not looking for intense
action or in-depth strategy, you just want something
chill to veg out to and few games do that as
good as Stardew Valley. Look, I put it in the same tier as games like Farming Simulator,
American Truck Simulator, except it has a really
charming pixel art style. It's a farming simulator, pretty abstract version of farming though where you can pretty much
grow whatever you want. There's a big focus on
building relationships, expanding your farm,
and a surprising amount of exploration you can do. It seems like a small game,
but like with Binding of Isaac, it's a game that's been getting
updated for many years now and there's so much
additional content and goals that'll keep you playing
for a really long time. It's a perfect easygoing game to play whether or not you're
fully engaged with it. Everyone's gotta have at
least one game they turn on just take it easy and Stardew's probably one of my favorites, and finally, at number one, it's Factorio. This top-down factory building game is one of the most satisfying
and addicted games out there. It's the ultimate Tetris effect game where you turn it on just
to play for a few minutes and you you look up and
it's the break of dawn. Basics, super simple,
you're on a hostile planet, you got to build a factory
including defenses. What makes it so
satisfying is the factory. Everything is connected
by cables, conveyor belts, and there's just something
really fulfilling to just watch your factory chug away, and while it starts off small and simple, the complexity ratchets up
to almost baffling levels. Like just look at some of the factories people have managed to build. This stuff gets totally
insane at the higher levels, and because there's always
room to optimize, improve, and build a better factory,
there's always something to do. It's super addictive for
people with the brains to handle this kind of thing
and one of the easiest games out there to lose
thousands of hours playing. A quick bonus for you, like Skyrim, it's in the bonus section because it doesn't really
require a lot of explaining. It's obvious, people can and
will dedicate hundreds of hours just screwing around in the base game, but if you really wanna
spend some time with Skyrim, there's an almost infinite
amount of mods to try. Sure, you end up spending
most of that thousand hours just trying to configure everything so that the mods actually work, but when everything
finally comes together, it's super satisfying for
at least a few minutes before you get back into the mod manager to try out something else, you know? The Binding of Isaac: Repentance,
ton of great rogue-likes out there that are easy
to put tons of hours into, but if you wanna play one of
these games for the long haul, probably the one of the
most stuff is this game, The Binding of Isaac. It's an action rogue-like
that's sort of a mix between top-down shooter
and one of the old 16-bit Legend of Zelda games. Concept, very simple. You wander around randomly
generated dungeons, get money, get upgrades, take on bosses. Sounds like a game that
wouldn't have a lot to keep players hooked, but this game has been
getting updated for years at this point, and every
big updated includes a ton of new characters,
upgrades, levels, bosses. (intense music)
(character groaning) At this point, the amount of stuff to do in Binding of Isaac is just crazy, and that's all for today,
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