I actually did revisit it last winter around time of release. If anything, my lack of ability to summon up interest in it was one of the starting stepping stones of my realization that gaming just ain’t it for me anymore.

I don’t dislike it, mind you - neither gaming nor DF - it just doesn’t fulfill like it used to, nor possess the same attraction.

I agree with lots of what’s already been said and haven’t got much to add to those extant conversations, so let me try to add in some that I’ve not seen:

RuneScape is a candidate. I started way back with RS Classic (the sprite-based one!).

Oh, and Dwarf Fortress too. That began in 2009.

Achaea and/or Lusternia are way up there but I don’t imagine anyone but me can share the experience.

Oh, as well, Mount & Blade: Warband. Quite the adventure(s).

I don’t really game anymore. But this thread did dredge up some memories, old and new.

Thank you.

I was just the right demographic and everything for Halo. Had an Xbox. Had the game. Had 4 brothers to couch co-op with. Was a weird backwards military-obsessed family.

Played it a bunch. A BUNCH. But while I enjoyed it, it didn’t really leave any kind of impression. I thought its story was shallow and its characters unremarkable caricatures even at age 13. Years later when I saw people going on about how DEEP its world-building was and how BADASS Master Chief was and how ICONIC the game was I was just kinda…nonplussed? Whole game was just mediocre to me. I mean, that’s not to say I didn’t like it or whatever, but it wasn’t groundbreaking for me the way it was for (apparently) many others.

Make of that what you wish!

I won’t deny that it’s a fun game. But… If you think it was well-written, it’s the rose glasses. The story is really nonsensical if you think about it…

… or you could let an SA goon tell you about why, instead.