Slow day here, finally had time to clean 30 years of oil and dirt off my sockets
Not sure why you got downvoted, it's a legit question. C64 was double tape deck, and then QuikCopy on the diskette drive...so many games, that I spent too much time gaming.
But a few examples of now: WRC there are enough stages and cars and can try for better stage times / try to beat your ghost car etc.
MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries, which has a story arc but once you finish the story you can just keep traveling to look for new contracts, some with difficulty so high you lose a lot of equipment and almost become bankrupt / stranded, so there is always an element of risk. Also some generated worlds/scemery are just gorgeous for exploring. I have hit some game awards only 4% of players worldwide have.
But last few years my time is on MudRunners. (Shit sorry this got way to long)... If you havent tried it: Once you complete the tutorial tasks and a few main maps the game opens up into more freedom, and the tasks and terrain can be challenging. If you burn through that there is a mod community that has built so many more maps, vehicles and challenges.
If you have never played, the initial game is drab Russian vehicles and limited colour pallette scenes, where the goal is finding logs or picking up logs from key areas and delivering them to the saw mill across swampy and muddy maps. The physics are amazing for the terrain, as you drive over areas you are morphing the soft terrains and changing traction. Drive in same area too much or without 4wd engaged and you can easily bury your truck up to the axles, so you then have to hope there is a tree nearby that you can attach your winch to and try to pull yourself out. Sometimes you can't so you have to drive out another vehicle and do a tow out.
The American truckers DLC adds more maps and vehicles and brightens up the scenery. Same game play, different challenges. More variety.
The time in game is sped up for day night cycle, but if you are able to load the logs into your truck or trailer you have to now drive them to the log station, either over hilly fireroads roads, or through forested areas, and cross rivers. There is no timewarp. Its precarious, with janky bridges, and deep water. Wheel placement, 4WD and posi traction locks on/off are needed to navigate out of areas. Managing a load down a grade where hillside camber wants to flip your truck means attaching the winch to side of truck on up hill tree to stop you rolling as you look for a down hilltree to lean truck body against to look for next anchor tree up hill. So it can take you hours to drive 1 mile. A tree breaks or you steer to hard and your truck is on its side and stalled, so you have to drive a rescue vehicle out to try to flip it back on its wheels.
You also have to manage fuel, 4wd and spinning in mud burns through it so fast, so getting a fuel tanker truck setup in a strategic spot so you make less long runs back to a fuel station is key.
Wow, I typed a lot. But seriously I can launch this at 11pm Friday night when wife has gone to bed, and get so engrossed that the sun will start rising Saturday.
And crossing a slanted plank bridge with a huge tank of a specialized russian logging vehicle can have my palms sweating on the controller and holding my breath. One wrong tire placement or miscalculation of how much the truck will slide and you are down in the river watching your logs float away and in fast water watching the truck be dragged down the river.
Damage and abuse will degrade the truck, bringing a utility or garage trailer is often required to fix the truck in field. So the game has elements of planning, resource management, goals, understanding wheel placement of off roaring.
But sometimes its just the beauty of driving out of the forest and the mist clears and sun is coming up over the hill, because some mod ad one are gorgeous.
The grappler arm log loader is also fun to operate. And sometimes its marvelling at the effort the devs went to to get soft physics right. You can swap views and see front of truck or Jeeps wheels smushing the mud as you plow forward (and accumulating mud on tires which affects grip), not too much wheel spin or you sink too much, and find out the reason you did get stuck is there is a large rock buried under the mud and its not until you get in the right position that your tire catches the rock and actually rolls it slightly to clear the underbody that you can move on.
So if you have patience for it and free time this game can fill a lot of it. LOL
Yeah, when I was replying you had 2 upvotes and 3 down. I gave you an upvote for a valid question to bring it to 3 and 3 lol.
I read reviews and many players said SnowRunner didn't have quite the same level of soft physics as mudrunners, almost like devs simplified it. So kind of like a hit movie gets a sequel and sequel is watered down. So if its on sale one day I may grab it, but I might regret it if they dropped part of the magic of the original.