When it comes to arcade racers people seem to either forget or just don’t know about trackmania games. They aren’t perfect by any means but id certainly consider them among the best
Trackmania Nations has to be the peak of the series. One aspect that amazes me is that it works equally well with every input method out there. I’ve played this with a keyboard, joystick, gamepad and even steering wheel (although admittedly one without force feedback).
The cooking minigame in Palia is the best cooking minigame I’ve ever played AND it’s multiplayer! It’s laid back, rewarding, and easy but not TOO easy.
Kinda old school here but I really loved Pokémon Stadium mini games, also the shooter mode from Donkey Kong 64 was a blast, back in the day. Even Banjo Kazzoie/Tooie had some amazing mini games, I really loved those.
The host club manager minigame in Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 2, I don’t even remember their rewards, just that they were very fun. Compared to the real state minigame in 0 that was so boring I only remember the prize at the end, at least it was worth it
spoilerYou got Kyriu’s original fighting style as a 4th one that breaks the game with a fanservice scene that references the cover art of the first game.
I loved that mini game , it had great gameplay and very short and sweet story . I would buy it in a heard beat if it was a standalone game with more in-depth mechanics.
Always ready to bump my favorite game of all time, but honestly I feel this is quite a popular opinion (compared to some of the games in OP’s list that are really overlooked on these discussions of best games ever).
But still, what an incredible experience, the OST for outer Wilds was my fourth most listened to on last year’s Spotify Wrapped :)
Yeah, it may not be as popular as Mario or Zelda, but I wouldn’t say it’s “unfairly forgotten”. People who have played the game tend to be pretty vocal about it. And justifiably so, I’ve never had a comparable experience in another game. I wish I could forget about it and play it again.
For the people who do find out about it and it hooks them enough sure, it’s not really forgotten or underrated. But I still think it’s kinda obscure / not well known?
I started playing the Outer Worlds thinking I had simply misheard the name Outer Wilds and found myself very confused but still kept trudging on. Thank you for bringing some sanity into my life; Wilds seems like the game I wanted to play the whole time, not Worlds. I’ll see how chaotic I can fuck out Worlds before I ditch it for Wilds.
Just finished Observer: System Redux. It’s a cyberpunk/horror game made by a Polish studio. They did a good job using the medium to create a sense of dread and foreboding.
Also playing Aurora, the free 4x most people compare to Dwarf Fortress. A new release came out a few weeks ago and it’s fun to learn the new mechanics.
Soul reaver is on my short list of potential games to start next. (It’s up against Half Life and Silent Hill). I went through the first blood omen about a year ago and loved it.
I was thinking Soul Reaver too! I think the problem is that it had a handful of mediocre sequels that made people eventually lose interest in the series. But the original game was one of the best on the PS1. I loved the whole improvised combat mechanic where you have to use anything around you in the environment that could hit the vampires’ weakneses.
I think Soul Reaver 2 was the peak of the series for me. When Kain had his monologue during the climax about flipping a coin enough times that one day it lands on its side, jesus. I get goosebumps just remembering it.
Dunno that we need much more experimentation, we all know what the outcome will be - Loads of sexual harassment and misogyny.
Also, the stastically correct way to “sound like a girl” is to mute and never speak up. Last time i read something on this topic, the gender balance in a lot of games is better than we think, but women overwhelmingly stay muted to avoid harassment.
The solution isnt more education/experimentation. Everyone who cares already knows what the problem is. Games need better moderation tools and clear community standards.
I was very glad to read the last sentence. I agree fully. Easiest would be a report button that saves the last 60 seconds of voice, analyzes it with ai and check if something illegal/harassing was said and autokicks the person who said it.
Yeah that sounds totally reasonable and unintrusive, wtf. I don’t want my every word spoken in voice to be live analyzed by ai to see if I did a wrongthink.
Why not simply mute or kick if someone is being an asshole? Has served me well in all my years using discord or teamspeak.
Apart from what you‘re interpreting into my words, I said if someone is harassing you or speaking about lets say the things they did with their daughter yesterday, you can report them and have a computer look into it instead of a human.
Whatever privileges you have in your discord, you cant kick just anyone in every place. You either need privileges or a moderator to do it normally and my idea was to use AI to analyze the reported stuff.
I completely understand the sentiment of protecting children, but at the same time under that argument you can push the most dystopian and intrusive, overreaching legislature imaginable. It is the old balance of freedom versus safety, we can’t have complete safety without giving up all freedom.
And I think a constant ai driven monitoring of everything people say in the general vicinity of a microphone is very dystopian; which would be the eventual outcome of this.
I’m just gonna repeat myself since this is the most common answer I get in those topics:
The vast majority of people is being listened in on, analyzed and manipulated on a daily basis by far, far worse actors. Storing 1 minute of VC for 1 minute only accessible to this hypothetical bot *if someone reports them - facing wrongful report consequences themselves is not comparable to real privacy threats.
You don’t need to repeat yourself (and neither, be this condescending), I am well aware that this is happening to some degree already. Doesn’t mean I have to happily concede the little that is left.
I personally lean more towards humans for moderation, as words alone dont convey the full intent and meaning. And this cuts both ways, benign words can be used to harass.
But of course, humans are expensive, and recordings of voice chat have privacy implications.
generally, yes. But computers can take care of stuff very well at this point. Kicking someone for using the N-Word does not need meaning. Just dont use it, even if it is for educational purposes (inside a game-chat for example).
and recordings of voice chat have privacy implications.
I dont think we live in the same reality. over 30% in the US use Voice assistants that constantly listen in to their conversatoins (was just the first number I could find, I’m not from the US). Having a bot in a game VC chat store 1 minute of text for 1 minute for reporting purposes is like 0.00001% of what is going wrong with security stuff. Billions of people are getting analyzed, manipulated and whatnot on a daily basis. A reporting tool is not even the same game, let alone in the same ballpark in terms of privacy implications.
Yeah, AI to knock out the egregious stuff (n-bombs etc) is prefectly reasonable. But there is still a lot of harassment that can happen the really needs a human to interpret. Its a balance.
The privacy i am thinking of is the legal side of things. Google/FB/Apple are huge companies with the resources to work through the different legal requirements for every state and country. Google/FB/Apple can afford to just settle if anything goes wrong. A game studio cannot always do the same. As soon as you store a recording of a users voice, even temporarily, it opens up a lot of legal risks. Developers/publishers should still do it imo, but i dont think its something that can just be turned on without careful consideration.
It’s not about experimentation, but awareness. Experiencing life as a woman IRL is not easy - you can’t get a sex change on a whim or quickly hop into a female body. In an online game however, changing your voice is the probably the most convincing way to do so and it’s quite easy.
If even a small percentage of men experiencing the other side of the coin became active in improving the gaming space, it would be something.
Waiting and hoping for better moderation tools and clear community standards is non-active course of “action”. It’s like saying "I’m not going to vote because the system is shit 🙅 " and expecting it to get better.
I appreciate what your saying, and you’re right that it is a passive course of action (unless one were to campaign/lobby for developers to implement moderation). But my point was that imo, everyone that cares about the problem is already aware of it, and more awareness doesn’t solve the problem either.
This has been a problem for decades, and pre-dates microphones and games. Any platform that allows users to send messages will be used to send abuse. The tried and true solution has always been moderation. Riot Games seemed to be making headway with their chat moderation tools, but i havent kept up with how that went.
At a certain point, awareness becomes preaching to the choir. The assholes who are causing the problem won’t change their behavior unless they are forced to.
But my point was that imo, everyone that cares about the problem is already aware of it, and more awareness doesn’t solve the problem either.
I’m not sure that’s true. Yes people who care are aware, but I’d argue there are many who don’t now and aren’t aware. I for example didn’t know the impact was measurable in performance. My gullet has been open a few times while gaming online and the regret kicked in not long after, but using my mic has been so rare, I wouldn’t have been able to tie the shitty responses to decreased performance.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the “gamer girls suck because they’re women” crowd joining the challenge figured out that they were part of the performance problem. That is if they had the ability to self-reflect, which probably the minority has.
At a certain point, awareness becomes preaching to the choir. The assholes who are causing the problem won’t change their behavior unless they are forced to.
Oh, in that regard, yes, I agree. At the very base level, assholes will be assholes and those people can only be forced or kicked out
Yeah, i could be wrong about the level of awareness, i am a datapoint of one.
The performance part is interesting, but almost irrelevant imo. If the results had been that abusing your teammates improves their performance, it would still be wrong to do it.
I worry the people causing this problem are more likely to take the “abuse == tilt” information and use it to justify their behaviour :(.
I’m about to just toss Remnant 2 out. I thought maybe it would be better than the first one, but it’s even more bullshit. Like, it’s a shooter and the first boss hurts you while you look at it. The intended method to defeat it feels way more like cheesing an exploit. I’ve gotten through the first quest in the Labyrinth and I’m hating the bosses even more than the first game with how just annoyingly unfair they are if you’re not playing with a group. They’re simply not fun.
Returnal is very similar in gameplay, and is even a roguelike with super brutal gameplay; even that game isn’t as frustrating as Remnant 2. The bosses are hard, but not unfairly so.
I’ve been thinking about giving Diablo 4 another shot… I haven’t played since release is the new season any good?
I've only played the current season (season 2) and it's very fun. However, it's almost over and the new season starts on the 23rd, so that's probably a better time to go back.
That boss was indeed tough but also one of my favorites from that game. I even have a shirt of it (that is suffering from some wear and tear at this point). I probably spent several hours each trying to beat both that dragon and the game's robot boss as well.
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Aktywne