Varyag

Good article. Despite Stallman's being an asshole, he was right about a great many things.

Ahhh friend, that is such a big question. I'm going to narrow down to just 2 games but I could literally sit here all day, fill out an entire chart of games and still not be done. I love racing games.
I'm going to say the best sim overall is Assetto Corsa, the original, because of it's insane modding community that can make it into any sort of driving experience that you want.
And for best arcade racing game.... I am inclined to say Burnout 3:Takedown from back in the PS2 days. The later sequels were also great, but this is the one that perfected the formula of extremely fast and aggressive driving, with blissful brake to drive and crashing physics. They just don't make games that drive as good as this one in the arcade subgenre anymore.

Actually, I AM going to post a chart too, because I remembered I already have it saved.

Oh wow, I played so many hours of that game as a kid. OpenTTD is a thing already so why not this!

Yeah I took a few Astronomy classes as electives in college. Astronomy is NOT easy or simple at all. Lots and lots of very complicated math and extrapolation from limited data happen there.

Battle for Wesnoth is a personal favorite of mine that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere in the thread. It's a pixel art, hex-grid turn based strategy game with fantasy armies. It's mixed with mild RPG elements, and there's tons and tons of campaigns and fanmade content accessible directly through a mod browser in game.
The other games I enjoy that I see being mentioned here are in the same vein. BAR, Warzone 2100, OpenTTD. And the open mods based on the STALKER engine, like Anomaly. I love those.

Yes, I made that with my own favorite games. Like I said, I could still add more games that I couldn't fit in there. Test Drive Unlimited, Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2, Gran Turismo 2, Forza Horizon 4, Wipeout Pulse, Project CARS 2, Raceroom Racing Experience, Automobilista 2, NFSU2 and Most Wanted both, the other Burnout games... There's way too many good racing games in the past, and not enough in the present. I really like racing games.

The Burnout, WipeOut and Ridge Racer series. All of those are perhaps the best arcade racers ever released on consoles, and they're all dead now. I've been playing the PS1 and PS2 games, and they all still hold up tremendously today.

Ah, this is excellent! I really don't get why, and neither like, the feed on Lemmy pages is centered wasting so much screen space. For that alone I want to throw this onto my browser.

Still trying to figure that out. I think I can follow stuff from kbin here, and stuff from here over there, but I'm having trouble finding this particular post from lemm.ee and I'm not sure if it's just a thing that the servers need to work out between themselves yet. I'm sure all of them are currently overloaded with activity for now.

I've never finished the DS3 DLCs. Maybe I should give it another try this time, despite already having played the games for 300+ hours.

Wow I took a look at Unsighted and it looks really nice. ZeroRanger has been on my list for quite a while too.

I do enjoy the both of them, and they are more games missing from my chart, lol.

Came here to comment that game. It's so good, it just brings me back to when I was a kid and played the older, non-Open version, on my first PC. Today, when I actually am old enough to understand all of the mechanics and complexities, it's a very fun and engaging game that you can sit down with a hot mug of tea, and just let it take half of your day away without noticing. It's great!

Alright, I did go on a boomer shooter and arena shooter romp a while back and found quite a few gems, although most of these answers will probably sound obvious.
-DOOM classic, of course. Also try with mods, like Brutal DOOM
-DOOM 2016 and DOOM Eternal are also really good, modernized takes on the formula -Quake is still really good, the remake is really nice. -Unreal Tournament '99 and 2004 might be officially dead, but they still have players if you follow the player maintained master servers
-Blood:Fresh Supply on GoG
-Hexen/Heretic is a classic -Dusk
-Amid Evil
-ULTRAKILL, really, all of the New Blood shooter projects are really good
-Prodeus is one that flies under the radar of most, but it has a kickass soundtrack and vibe, and a gameplay that is between DOOM and Quake. Probably my favorite of the new bunch.