Tough call between the Dualsense and the Dualshocks 1-3.
The Dualsense has great features, but is large enough and bulbous enough that I’m forced to use a full palm grip. That’s good some of the time, but sometimes I like a lighter finger grip that the earlier Dualshocks allowed for. I think of it similarly to claw vs palm grips on mice. A full palm grip on either can get too sweaty over time. The Dualshock 4 is a bulbous mess that fatigues my hands. On all of them, the plastic feels premium and sturdy and really fits well together. Plastic molding is an art, and they are good at it.
I have a few 8BitDo’s and they are all good too. The Pro-2, SN30 Pro, and Ultimate C (their naming conventions are flour of control). A bit cheaper feeling than the Sony offerings, but still pretty good.
The Xbox Series controller is… Fine. The plastic feels cheap, the face buttons feel cheap, it’s too big and requires a palm grip, the R1/L1 buttons feel cheap, the d-pad is one of the worst in history. The analog sticks almost feel great except they’re too tall.
Shout-out to the Steam Deck for feeling phenomenal. Also shout-out to the RetroBit Genesis controllers- they feel really good, but the lack of sticks and fewer buttons than most modern controllers makes it hard to use for modern games.
The JoyCons are awful. Most 3rd party options are better but I still haven’t found one that I really like.
The GameCube and N64 both feel kind of cheap. I think the plastic is a bit thin, and the sticks and buttons rattle around slightly.
left joystick is “up” at a natural spot (sorry PS enthusiasts, those low sticks suck)
buttons are “chicklet” style (Xbox round buttons feel awkward)
one set of trigger buttons are “throttle” style
sits on a flat surface without any buttons being pressed
Not sure if there’s one out there that meets all of those. But I have a certain fondness for the GameCube controller. Always felt comfortable, and I actually liked the asymmetric button layout.
They seem nice and not too pricey. Their website said they have Hall effect sticks. Shouldn’t those be more durable and longer lasting than regular sticks?
For how long did you use them before you started having issues with the sticks?
So my sticks still work, but I’ve worn down the rubber on two of the left joysticks so much its crumbling apart. Purchased in 2021 and was my main driver until that happened about 6 months ago, so a fair bit of use. Used that opportunity to try out the PS5 controller and the new Xbox series ones.
And I mean… they’re good?
The resistive triggers were cool and the touchpad is really customizeable. Xbox controller stays solid but boring.
Switch Pro controller feels great but weird to be playing PC games with. Nothing WRONG with it, just feels mentally disconnecting for some reason lol.
Idk. For me the Pro 2 and the wireless SNES sized 8bitdo controllers are perfectly comfy. Have an ultimate in its way to me now actually.
xbox is my top controller design (360 onwards), however the touchpad on ps4/ps5 comes in handy for RTS games (or any mouse required game). it’s a missed opportunity for microsoft, considering they’re bringing Age of Empires to the console
Never liked XBox controllers. They feel fat and clunky, especially trying to use the bumpers, I feel like I have to strain my fingers. I also hate the way the sticks feel in general, theres something about the friction curves that’s just… off. Idk how to describe it. Also, no gyroscope. I will praise the triggers on the XBox one controllers though. I like the shape and the amount of travel they have, I think they rock for racing games.
My favourite controller is the Dualshock 4. Haven’t had a chance to try the Dualsense but even that looks a little bloated. The DS4 is lean, has all the features I want, and those thumbsticks are the best I’ve used on a stock controller. You can practically use them like a trackpoint on a laptop, they’re very precise and great for use with a linear response curve in shooters with zero deadzone.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is a really good game, but it feels like an outdated work of the past that hasn’t been modernized enough to keep up with current developments in game design philosophy. The repetition of limited gameplay mechanics and weak artificial intelligence are quite evident in the game, and these factors combine to make the overall experience look mediocre.
When Google fired all of those staffers last year there was a report that there was a huge bump in startups being formed. That’s where actual innovation happens, not at large companies but the small startups. I see that happening now too. They’ll eventually get bought up, but the cycle will repeat.
I survived it for a few hours but ultimately succumbed to your issue exactly but with the added annoyance of having to get in and out of the car repeatedly. Not my game either…
Arkham Knight is decent except for the batmobile sections - as others have already mentioned.
I’d still argue it’s better than Origins though. From memory, memorising all the different toolbelt skills isn’t really necessary - you can definitely get through the game by just abusing jumps, cloak and counters - some special enemies might need a specific ability to make vulnerable, but the game normally warns you the first time you fight them, so I don’t think it ever feels too overwhelming - it just feels like a lot if you run through it very quickly.
Beyond just game studios, why aren’t there more employee owned companies?
When Starbucks was unionizing I made the comment that if I were the corporation I would just get out and let the employees run it. I got flamed for this attitude. What is so terrible about employee owned companies?
The question I was answering was “why aren’t there more employee owned companies?” And the answer is it’s a lot harder to get seed money for those, because the rent seeking parasites don’t want them to exist.
People literally buy into the idea that they wouldn’t know how to do anything if they weren’t being told what to do. They think that value comes from above.
They think that when a company sells them raspberries, that company invented the raspberry bush. They don’t realize that the raspberries were already there. They certainly don’t realize that they themselves are another kind of bush. Or that the labor bush operates without a company to own it and sell its labor berries.
Grow a bunch of labor bushes and make it incredibly clear that it’s not about them being owned, but about them being labor bushes.
To me the change from the current system doesn’t come by diving into the current system and trying to ask it nicely. It doesn’t come from asking permission at all. It comes from operating with zero concern or tolerance for capitalist bullshit.
Go help people who can’t afford to pay you. Make something beautiful and give it to the world in a way that gives them an opportunity to prop you up, but that also lets them enjoy it without having to be rich or emptying their wallet.
Internalize the idea that wealth is not a virtue, and poverty is not an ill. People who need help are an opportunity to help, and people who have value are in a position to use it to help, but holding onto that value and using it are mutually exclusive.
It’s not going to come from a politician or some big speaker or a revolution, it’s going to come from individual people in their own lives lives making different choices. Your choices matter.
I drive a cab and get paid very little to basically drive around and help people. Like, the job is to drive people from point A to point B, but I try to do more than that, and help people who need it along the way. I carry a lot of stuff around that I’m not really paid for and I try to go the extra mile for people.
If the projects I’m working on pan out and I manage to get to a place where I have more resources, I plan to use that as a way of making other small steps. Setting up a coop instead of chasing money, releasing a game license that allows independent producers to do their own thing. Things like that. Literally just leaving the door open for people instead of slamming it shut.
I don’t really have any intent to code software outside of games, but I’d like to empower others to be able to make the things they want to make and not just feed some big parasitic company with it.
Employee owned companies are more stable in economic downturns but they also require much more diversification to replace the owner/manager roles where there is actually shit to do. Big item being the book keeping it’s simple enough in theory but in practice even smaller companies can take hours just to understand where you’re starting from.
Not splitting the profits, tracking bills, making sure they’re all paid on time, making sure the company is getting paid on time depending on your business plan, tracking any special taxes you gotta pay, tracking price increases in long term contracts, list goes on
Probably because the owners want to take all of the profit and employees do not have the capital to make the investment.
It takes a certain benevolent capitalist to convert their business to employee owned (Bobs Red Mill intensifies). Such businesses only represent 12% of the private sector
Benevolent capital is out there, especially in the startup phase. I find it arrogant and ignorant, but available. It does require risk-sharing which I find doesn’t fit the vision of the borrower.
Like the literal law. In most places it’s a much more involved and expensive process to even open a coop compared to a traditional private company. It takes more paperwork, more fees, more capital funds etc. Also, getting investors in (when they can’t own the coop, as they are not workers) or even loans from private or state banks/institutions is much harder. There are several programs incentivising people to open private companies, giving them tax credits, making the application and approval process easier, giving access to funds and education etc. How many there are for coops? In most places around the world there are 0. In what ways does it appear the opposite to you…? Like this all seems very self-evident to me.
I don’t know where you are located. I am in the US and a co-op is just a corporation so all the things that apply to a private corporation apply to a co-op. When applying for grants there are no differentiators that I can think of. One advantage for a co-op here is that there are no passive investors.
For my city, just for a very specific example, it takes less than one afternoon and 80 bucks total (no fees and almost no capital fund requirements) to open a corporation. It takes weeks if not months to open a coop and it costs 2500 bucks PER member.
I don’t know the specifics of all cities and states everywhere in the world. But the system is built to benefit private corporations much more, as it’s a capitalist system where owning capital equals power, and workers are a commodity.
I genuinely enjoyed Arkham Knight, but those mandatory Batmobile sections are easily the most miserable part of the game. If we had those for an entire game, it might not be too bad, but most of the time you just end up using it to get from point A to point B. If you can put up with being stuck for a bit on those sections, you might enjoy it.
Its big issue is that it has to follow up on Arkham City. It’s not a bad game by any stretch, but it’s following up to one of the best superhero games out there. If you’re not invested in the story, there’s no harm in dropping it. Play something you’ll have fun with.
It is clunky and I am also old, slow, and uncoordinated. I did manage to finish it, and I ended up liking it overall. I didn’t care for the Batmobile stuff, and I was never good at it. But once I got “good enough” at the Batmobile sections and could solve the puzzles, etc, I have to admit I found it satisfying in the same way you feel after getting your taxes or colonoscopy over with.
If you decide to walk away from it, you aren’t missing anything super fantastic. I love the series, but there’s no requirement to complete all of the games. Life is short, there are lots of other things to do. No need to beat your head against the wall on it.
You might like the Spider-Man games better. The combo moves, power ups, suit choices, etc, are more customizable there and I think it ‘flows’ better. Zipping around a realistic map of NYC is really damned cool, too. (Though I did find myself missing the moody atmosphere and je ne sais quoi of Gotham and Bats). There is are the occasional nasty / annoying boss fights in Spider-Man (one of them early on) but once you face roll past them, the rest of the game is hella fun.
Yeah, the Spider-Man games are a good comparison. A ton of different moves you can do but most of them are pretty easy and intuitive to pull of. I’m patiently waiting for Spider-Man 2 to arrive on PC.
I think I’ll invest a few more hours into Arkham Knight and if I can’t get into it I’ll try Origins. And if that one doesn’t do it for me either I’ll just play Asylum again.
Tacking on my unsolicited two cents - I gave Origins a very, very fair go (added an easy 30 hours to my playtime and even completed some challenge paths for my sense of accomplishment), and while it does try to emulate the success of its prequels, ultimately it falls short of its predecessor.
Arkham City is a perfect balance of all the elements introduced during the series; it doesn’t feel incomplete (although Asylum works great as an entry point) yet it’s not an overbloated mess like Knight. Its story also feels more emotionally involved and the plethora of characters is incorporated well.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne