What has been your best "I can't play this game" alternative game?

I'm of the age where although I think am past getting caught up in the various hype-trains when a release as big as Cyberpunk 2077 comes around the ubiquitous nature of these huge games make it difficult to not at least find myself getting a little itchy to give it go.

More often than not these days I don't always have the means or time to pick up one of these massive everyone's-talking-about-it things and end up looking over my backlog or archive for a game that will sate the desire for new and expensive things. Cyberpunk's release (I currently can't justify the expenditure/PC might not do it justice) inspired me to go back and try Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a game I got in a bundle way after it came out and never got around to playing. And, I am loving it - it is not only easing the fear-of-missing-out but it being a older game it runs fantastic on my PC which seems to be more than can be said of some people's experience with Cyberpunk. Plus - really good game thus far.

Similarly, the near(ish) releases of Ghost of Tsushima and Sekiro set me on a path to try Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun as showed up on search of Samurai themed games I owned but had not given the chance to before. I should have listened to Sir Matthew Rorie earlier as I was captivated by that game - it's probably the best 'replacement' game experience I had (although as I work through DE:HR that might change).

Anyone else had a mega release inspire some unexpected discoveries or the notion to pick up an old game you'd been meaning to play and ended up having a better time than you might have done with the new release?

I am in the same exact boat. My hardware cannot handle Cyberpunk, so I had myself wondering whether I should install Witcher 3 and go through Blood and Wine, or install and play Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, since I never got around to it. I ended up installing DE:MD and I am super excited to start playing it!

@daiphyer: Nice! I have also installed DE:MD so it's good to go should I want more after Human Revolution. I also have Syndicate (the Jeff favoured one, the the Assassin's Creed one) good to try out at some point too - pretty sure the Cyberpunk noise will carry on for a while.

I'm currently taking another run at Dark Souls (remastered, this time) since I decided against getting a PS5 for now and can't play the Demon's Souls remake. I'm convinced this is the time I actually finish it, after previously getting stuck on some of the late game bosses. So far, so good, as I've absolutely wrecked some this go round that broke me on past attempts.

I only have a base PS4 so all the CP2077 talk has made me want to finally give Mankind Divided a try as well. :D I hadn't played it cuz I really liked HR but the respone to MD was so tepid.

@ralphmoustaccio: I did much the same when Bloodborne came out and not having a PS4, fired up Dark Souls on the 360 and used it to sit on the coattails of the zeitgeist.

I did the same when the first Dark Souls came out. Didn't have the spare cash at the time to pick it up at launch, so I played through Demon's Souls again while the Dark Souls zeitgeist was going on.

I'm in the same boat. December and January is when I usually dive into big ass open world RPGs, so Cyberpunk fits the bill. I am planning on waiting for the PS5 version of Cyberpunk where hopefully the issues will be more ironed out.

I just finished up Demon's Souls too, so I fired up Final Fantasy 7 remake. It's an RPG, so why not? I've basically played all of the big western RPGs of the last 10 years, so this was my best bet without replaying something. I am hoping it's as good as everyone said it was otherwise I will jump to Persona 5.

@colonel_pockets: FF remake has really high highs and if you can handle jrpg bloat and long corridors you're fine. At times it is 10/10 other times a 3/10.

I wish there was a shortened version of the game, before the end part there are some really obnoxious chapters of pointless repetition.

Still happy I played it. Wall market is a treat.

Don't have a PS5 for Demon's Souls Remastered, so I'm replaying Demon's Souls on PS3.

Since that's kinda cheating, I'll give a reverse example for this thread. If you're sad the Wipeout series isn't getting new entries, try out FAST rmx on the Switch.

I am thinking of starting the Witcher 3. It’s (i’m guessing) completely different thematically but it might scratch the detailed world exploration itch and probably shares some of the DNA of Cyberpunk.

I like the Deus Ex suggestions though, I might have a look at the original again, it’s been a while!

@bitbat Same here. I've reinstalled Witcher 3 and it's one of the two big PS4 titles I've yet to truly get into.

And I did the Demon Souls thing. However nice it looks, I don't need the remake in my life. Well, maybe for a proper Old Monk fight.

@ll_exile_ll: I wonder if when Demon's Souls came out there were people who jumped into one of the King's Fields or Otogi games. Like some sort of historic series of handshakes through a game's family tree.

As someone regularly bemoaning the lack of a new WipeOut, I did the same but with GRIP. Which I realise is kind of the anti WipeOut, sticky vehicles instead of floaty ones, but it's got the same vibe. If my Switch wasn't in temporary retirement due to unbearable drift in all my controllers I'd be hunting Fast RMX down for a go.

@stantongrouse There's a game called Pacer out which is very much a Wipeout clone. It's alright but don't expect anybody to be playing it online.

Recently I've been getting that mmo itch and with shadowlands beimg released it was very tempting to buy another expansion and sub for a couple of months, WoW is a game I've played very casually usually subbing for only 1 or 2 months a year, if that. Didn't want to spend the money on it, or the time though so I hopped into ESO to satisfy that urge, a game suited more to popping in and out than WoW.

Ended up getting into it big time, bought all the expansions and subbed for 3 months.....durp.

@shindig: Ah, that looks pretty damn good, can't believe it passed me by. Then again, even with the pandemic a million games a week come out on Steam. Will wait for the inevitable discount in a future Steam sale.

I love the fact that I started a thread as a don't have the money to buy a new game and I've ended up with a list of games to buy.

@stantongrouse: Syndicate is my favored Syndicate as well. Loved that game, and its co-op. The campaign is enjoyable as well, but the co-op is what I really enjoyed. The co-op missions (Except for a few) are do-able solo as well.

Hades remains conspicuously absent from so much as a release window for Playstation (understandably so, given everything!) so I reinstalled Transistor and am feeling properly befuddled attempting to play a NG+ of a game I beat twice and thus is way more complicated than it would be if I just started fresh.

I'll refrain from saying 'best', but the most recent example would be that a month before Demon's Souls came out on PS5, I played some Dark Souls Remastered, then when it came out I went back and played some DS2/3 and beat Bloodborne again (and finally beating Kos [on my third attempt too, which was weirdly easier than I thought it was going to be]).

Can't think of anything recent but I never got around to Crackdown 2 nor 3 but why would I when I've played Saints Row IV which is vastly more appealing in just about every way.

It depends for me. I just got back from a long World of Warcraft session that feels like it lasted half of a year (it was only like 3 months). In this case, I am dying for something very story-driven and singleplayer. I started several games and the one that stuck was A Plague Tale: Innocence. When I first played it, I could just not get into it, but now it's becoming one of my favorite games of this year.

I'm also considering replaying some Deus Ex games to scratch that itch. I could just Family Share on Steam and play Cyberpunk that way, but my PC is aging and the game has enough issues without me provoking more by running it on this ol' rig. (I want to hold off on buying it, I want to see the state of the game after it's had time to breathe and get a few patches)

Other than that, I don't know that I've ever done the "replacement game" thing before. When DDR games were still hot, I downloaded one of those open-source "DDR on a keyboard!!!1" games to chase that particular dragon, and did a similar thing for when guitar games got big, but that's as close as it gets.

When my GPU died, i decided to check out a bunch of old Playstation games. Turns out Parasite Eve and Vagrant Story are awesome games.

I haven't ever decided to play a game because of a new release, i just rarely pick up new releases, my excitement for new games rarely trumps my desire to play the game i've decided i want to play next.
Cyberpunk has been my first exception in a long time, i wasn't overly hyped for it i just wanted to be part of the conversation and i'm enjoying that aspect of it, since i usually miss games at launch i rarely experience launch issues so i'm enjoying that experience too.
I suppose the closest answer i can give is Guild Wars instead of World of Warcraft, i literally lost my friends for years to WoW and i grew to absolutely despise it, but MMO's with that fidelity were really exciting at the time and GW was perfect for me.

There's a reason Jeff gave Syndicate (2012) a 5 star rating. I couldn't stop playing the co-op demo before it came out. The single player was fine, but holy hell do i wish someone would make a new version of the mutiplayer mode.

Yeah, Guild Wars was an easy choice over WoW back then. Dunno how either series is doing now.

@prl412: Loads of people still play WoW due to the expansions (all my friends keep going back every time), i never played GW2 far enough to see stuff they've added, but they kept adding content to the game and it still has a playerbase, not sure how large it is, i played it again last year and still saw people running around the 'early' areas.

I've been playing Star Renegades and loving it so much, it keeps me from wanting to playing CP2077.

@mrbgone: Thanks for the heads up. I've played the first two chapters so far and I'm surprised at how linear the game is and how easy the combat is. The soundtrack is fantastic and the game looks nice, so I should be able to stick with hopefully.