Spoop's Video Game Recommendations

Alright so, Terraria has gotta be the first game on this page. I've got 5k hours on this at the time of writing so I can tell you from my very SOUL Terraria is the game of the year every year. It was so wild seeing every single update this got over the years just making it better and better, it was also wild seeing each update was "the final update for real guys" lmao. The game is basically what a twelve year old thinks is good but actually REALLY good.

Most every aspect of this game is perfect and fun, the player power curve is great and player expression with your character builds and building is great with loads of options for both. The soundtrack is iconic and the visuals are usually very pretty, although there are a few poopy sprites like quite a few of the holiday exclusive items for some reason.

There are a few things with the game I don't like though, nothing too major. Really don't like how rewards from the Angler NPC are randomized and could take you forever to get an item you need and most content near the end of the game feels bad? Really not a fan of the Lunar Pillars and Moon Lord fights as the Pillars can range from annoying to VERY annoying and Moon Lord goes from almost impossible if you stand your ground to extremely easy if you just keep moving in one direction. But the Lunatic Cultist fight is really fun. I really hope the next update does something to make the final boss of the game a bit more engaging.

There's also a massive modding scene for the game that has a ton of cool mods to try out if you're bored of the vanilla game, I'd recommend Thorium mod if you want a ton of content that isn't too far off from the vanilla experience. Calamity I hear good things about but it's not for me honestly. From all the mods the best I've found was one called "Angler Shops Alternative" which just fixes my main issue with Angler rewards.

I'm really picking obscure, underground games for this list huh lmao. But for real, Dark Souls 1 and the rest of the Souls series hooked onto me as soon as I played 1 for the first time back when I was, I wanna say, 15? Played it for the first time on the PS3 and I honestly don't know year I started playing it, It feels like it was like a year or 2 after release but I'm not too sure.

Really great amtosphere throughout the entire game, surprisingly very colourful in alot of areas but there's always this looming dread wherever you go, the world is miserable and almost dead but still beautiful. Gameplay is honestly simple but engaging, very slow paced in comparison to later From melee and magic focused RPGs, which only got better and better in terms of gameplay. The iconic Lore™ is a iconic for a reason, they basically just wrote an entire book, tore out every page and stuck a random page onto whatever the player can pick up. Ofcourse too the soundtrack is also insanely iconic and, personally, think it's still the best in the series. Build diversity is fun and good with alot of weapon, spell, armor and rings for the player to mix and match with alot of ways to make a very fun build.

I do ofcourse have my issues with the game, the second half/most areas after Anor Londo aren't great, still fun I'd say but definitely a step down sadly. Sorceries in this game are a bit too simple and also too strong which makes a pure INT build fairly boring, most damaging sorceries are basically the same with you firing a missile that can lightly track a target, only really differing in cast time and damage. Also some equipment is just too strong to the point of breaking balance a bit.

Still love the game to bits though hehe, the modding scene is there but not too big sadly. I'd recommend a mod called "Shadow of the Eclipse" which is avaliable for both Prepare to Die and the Remaster. Very fun and interesting, my favourite inclusion is redesigning the covenants around offline play, so for example Gravelord Servants have to hunt down red phantoms in their world. Check it out in your next character!

Now for the freak shit game (positive). Cruelty Squad was my personal game of the year in 2021 (besides Terraira ofcourse) and that year was full of fantastic games but Cruelty Squad just stood out way more compared to the rest.

The game's art style is insanely good, absolutly fantastic aesthetic to the game that fits the tone and mood of a gross, hyper consumerist flesh hell. There's a big recurring elemental of the worst things you've seen in your life with a giant smile plastered onto them, which might be representive of something but I think the dev skins people alive for trying to make meaning of this game.

The soundtrack is ofcourse the best slurpcore you'd find in any video game, honestly though I think the game's soundtrack fits the athmosphere perfectly but I don't know if I'm legally allowed to call it good??? I think it's great but I think I'd be hung if I went up to someone super into music and said it was a great soundtrack. Personal favourite track is Divinity of the Office.

The gameplay fucks hard, despite the game giving the impression it's held together with glue and blood it feels great. You die quickly but most enemies also die quickly, it wants you to play either very slow and carefully like a Hitman game or psychopathically fast with insane strats to speedrun a level in two seconds. With augments that change how your character plays and the game not penalizing you in anyway you can just play the game in any sort of fashion you want. Feel free to kill every civilian you come across and eat their corpse for 1hp each.

The modding scene has a recreation of Charlie Kirk's murder as a playable mission.