Asklemmy

Where would I even start.

There's a lot of good information provided video game reviewers. I tend to start there, when looking for something new.

In particular, I've learned about entire genres such as "cozy games" and "couch co-op", that way. Then, once I know what the genre I'm in the mood for is called I can search for "best cozy games of 2020", to find ideas of what I might like to try.

In order to not worry about whether each game will run, I feel that the SteamDeck is the current nicest all around game console available, followed by the Nintendo Switch.

My wife is a 30+ woman and she loved (among others) OneShot, World of Goo, and Final Fantasy XV.

OneShot is an atmospheric, story-based game with some puzzle elements and a lot of lovable characters. On the flip side, there's a lot of walking and it's easy to get lost. Nevertheless, there's a deep connection you as the player can build with the characters and the world they inhabit.

World of Goo is a physics-based building game, where you build bridges and towers out of cute sentient rubber-like balls, but beneath the solid physics, art and music there lies a deep social commentary too.

Final Fantasy XV is the most mainstream of these, but it is an entry into the FF games specifically designed for newcomers in mind. It follows four main and several supporting characters on a journey that starts as a road trip interspersed with beginner-friendly but still jaw-droppingly well rendered and animated combat and slowly but surely escalated to an epic catharsis.

Try out open-source games too, not just the big corporate games. Space Station 14, OpenTTD, Endless Sky, Naev, plenty of choices. Saw someone here rant about how the "videogames industry has become very rotten" and decided I'd point you to a non-rotten part of it.

If you want to try an FPS, the original Half-Life is amazing (if visually dated), and was designed to ease the player into the experience as opposed to something like Doom or Dusk that throws you into the action without any tutorials. I'm biased though, Half-Life is my favorite FPS of all time lol.

It goes on sale for around $2 regularly, which is a nice bonus. I second the Portal and Stardew recommendations of others too.

I will say, as a 30 year old man I had the urge to start playing games because they just looked so good these days. I played a little here and there growing up, but all of my friends were gamers and I just wasn’t interested. When I got interested, I found a lot of fun and joy in it.

I’m still not your typical gamer. I find a few games I really love and I keep playing them over and over—great campaigns with great story telling and great characters and great graphics are so much of it. Since I started playing video games in like 2020, I’ve basically played four games, but two of them I’ve played a bunch of times (red dead redemption II and Cyberpunk).

Now I’m looking at Stalker 2 and I think that might be my next game I want to play to death. Gotta wait to hear how people feel about it though.

Others have said it and I agree, Stardew Valley. Don't even need to buy a console.

Depending on your tolerance for low resolution graphics there are a literal lifetimes worth of games from NES to PS1 that can be emulated at better quality features available than the originals.

Evoquest 1-2 would be wild for you, the gameplay is designed to replicate the evolution from 8 bit to modern mobile gaming platforms. You'll get a chance to "catch up" on what games have been like with a coherent story tying it together.

If you want to get into multi-player stuff there are a lot of MMOs out there for mobile as well.

Very much so. As people have mentioned there’s a lot of good advice here. A Nintendo Switch might be worth checking out as a starting point. It’s handheld and can also connect to your TV to play on a larger screen.

Depends on what you want to achieve.

Video games are an easy way of losing yourself in a hobby for an afternoon. Can become addictive and you may lose the entire weekend.

Do you want games that focus on the social aspect and make friends? The story? Quick reactions and precise timing? Building something? Compete? Challenge yourself and improve (at ultimately a pointless task in a video game)? Simulate something accurately?

Before you start, as a gamer what do you non gamers do to spend your free time on anyway?

Can I go completely 180 and suggest programming as a hobby? If you want a hobby where you're in a computer. Then try learning to program little things. If you work on a computer then it'll make things easier for you in the future, it'll keep your brain sharp and teaches you problem solving.

If you like phone puzzle games, have you tried Monument Valley?

If you like puzzle games I suggest trying portal. Portal 1 is inexpensive on Steam and playable on any modern PC including on Linux. It's low pressure, has some humor, not very violent, and you can restart from anywhere you like.

Steam would be a great place to start. Tons of games, many of them free. If you're willing to buy some hardware, getting a Switch would be a good bet. Lots of excellent games, many of them are beginner-friendly.

There is a concern about accesability and hidden gamer slang.

First person 3d games can make you motion sick.

There you would need to learn to control a camera.

Red is health, Blue is mana, Yellow is for climbing.

There will be countless stuff that are build upon years of gaming culture.

Try to start with co-op so someone can guide you.

Make a post it note on the monitor with button mappings especially if you play on gamepad.

I started recently after a 15 year hiatus.

I chose steamworld dig 2. It's a fun game

I would only recommend short games. Ive been gaming my whole life and basically quit recently, because I was playing grindy games that were so exhausting mentally.

Even great games like Terraria, Minecraft and dont starve leave me exhausted. Such huge time sinks. Ive moved onto hobbies that are much more satisfying.

https://g.co/kgs/9BWGKjZ This for a game called belatro. I hear it has the rules of poker but it’s a very replayable game that every time you play it is new and different.

There are many games that have great stories and have game modes that make it very easy or hard to die so you can just really enjoy the story.

Switch is the most user friendly PlayStation has some of the best single player story based game X box is mainly for online play These are all just very general statements

Try a little bit of everything.

Yes. It's a scalable hobby, and can run from virtually no cost to why-are-you-burning-money. But you can do a lot in gaming with little monetary investment.

There are lots of budget indie games that are lots of fun, and if you find out you like gaming and want to try more fancy titles, you can always upgrade hardware.

Minimal entry: your current pc. Install steam, and buy/try what you like, returning it if it's too slow/doesn't work.

Light entry: get familiar with your pc's ram size, hd/ssd size, cpu speed/type, and graphics card. Use that to ensure your pc can handle the game by looking at the game's minimum requirements.

Medium-heavy entry: Upgrade things.

• ssd if you don't have one. The difference between that and spinning disks is night and day. If you wished things loaded faster, get this.
• 8 gb graphics card in the $150 range, amd or nvidia-based. Get this if you want a smoother experience / if you can notice individual frames happening. You don't need the most expensive tech to play most games that are out there.
• Genuine XBox or PS4/5 controller. These standard controllers are generally pretty solid and durable. $60ish
• new cpu ($$$, and may not even be an option): most games won't be processor-bound. But some are cpu-heavy. Get this if you really want to upgrade overall, or have a particular title in mind that needs it. Or..
• Low-mid range gaming computer ($900 ($600-$1500)): wait until you want to do a pc upgrade, and get a low-end gaming computer. I recommend Lenovo LOQ or Legion. Lenovo in general has provided laptops that don't fall apart on me, and that's not something I can say about most computer manufacturers. That said, keep them long enough and you'll have to replace the keyboard - but that's every laptop out there that I've run across.
• or: go crazy and buy everything all the time at the moment it his the market because it is a game or has "game" written on, near, or associated with it (not recommended)

If you like puzzle games, Tetris effect is the greatest puzzle game I have ever played. I love horror games but Tetris is still fun as fuck. Never to old to get into gaming. Good luck!

Absolutely!!

There are video games that work like card games, you'd love Balatro or Magic the Gathering.

If you like puzzles, Tetris is the perfect start, its the greatest puzzle game of all time. Tetris Effect and Tetris 99 are good recent games for that.

If you want to graduate from Puzzles to something more gamey, I'd recommend any Mario or Zelda game, and to develop a game mind, Metroid and metroid-like games are excellent.

Many games work like movies too, so if you like movies those are nice.

If you like books, there is a genre of game called a visual novel, (most of those are from Japan though, but many have an English option for text)

... Yes?

Start wherever. Buy games with interesting covers or play free demos.

Get an emulation handheld and play some great retro games

Get a Nintendo console. Nintendo Games are absolutely a gateway drug. They're high quality and generally very easy to get into.

Yes,

Yes it is worth it. The return on gameplay hours for the cost of a game can be incredibly high.

I recommend you start by downloading Steam on a laptop or PC and browse some games, or try some demos. Some games require mouse and keyboard, while others are better with a controller - my preference is a regular Xbox controller, it's plug and play.

My advice would be to look into emulators. Old school games do not have any micro transactions and are complete. Plus there is a vast library of consoles and games to go through.

IMHO it's worth getting into games because they are a mainstream form of entertainment these days (just like movies) and there are incredibly well made games and all sorts of genres, so that everyone can find something. It's also a fun hobby, at least as long as you play either with friends, or singleplayer, or a multiplayer game with a non-toxic community. Stay away from popular e-sports titles, they're usually filled with toxic teenagers.

If you like puzzle games, there are some great ones, for example Portal 1+2 or The Talos Principle 1+2 are probably the most polished ones out there, these are AAA games made by big studios, who don't usually do puzzle games as they're somewhat niche but there are some exceptions thankfully. Portal 2 is the highest ranked game of all time on Steam (I think it's deserved).

There are also tons of great indie puzzle games out there, of course.

Somewhat related to puzzle games are "point and click" adventure games. That genre was very popular in the 80s and 90s, now it's also rather niche, but still some great ones are being developed all the time. Adventure games are (also) about story-telling and solving many puzzles to advance in the game. You usually find lots of items in those and have to combine them in various ways and interact with the game world and its characters to solve puzzles and advance the story. That's maybe the key difference between those and more focussed puzzle games where it's more about the puzzles, less about item combinations and character dialogs. But adventures can also contain quite challenging puzzles none the less.

Genres are hard to distinguish these days because so many games are a blend of different genres. Anyway, you probably want to stay away from games tagged with "action" or "e-sports" and primarily look for "adventure", "puzzle" or "casual" tags.

Yes, go for it! Countless worlds, stories and experiences await. Just beware that 3D games might be a little difficult if you've got no experience with controlling them. But nothing to worry about, you'll get that experience in no time!

I recommend the Spyro Reignited Trilogy to be among your first games, it's one of the best games to get your first taste of gaming.

There are a lot bad games out there, and not everyone likes every type of game. So try highly rated games from various categories. Just be aware that video gaming consumes a lot of time that you could use for productivity in other areas of your life. I play video games pretty regularly, but I also turn it off when it seems excessive.