Started playing Star wars the force unleashed. Got 1 and 2 from prime gaming a long time ago. Installed through heroic. I played the first one when I was young on the Wii. Never played the second.
Terraria. You can choose difficulty of the initial save depending on how familiar the players are, and there are several clear milestones that can serve as transfer point (usually marked by beating specific bosses). In a small world, 20 hours is probably doable? You can maybe find a suitable seed for world generation to be sure.
I was also thinking about Elden Ring - despite the game size, the minimum required amount of bosses to beat the game is surprisingly small, and you can also divide the game into milestones. If it’s too short (like, if your players are speedrunner), you can add the DLC on top.
Scheduling availability for people is way easier with set times, 2 hours each, rather than tying it into game progression.
You can’t really “lose” in elden ring, it’s just a steady slog towards the end, so it might be less interesting. All of our highlight reels are full of permadeaths and mishaps, “winning” barely even makes the cut. Terraria in hardcore mode could be interesting though.
Subnautica is one of the best games out there, I highly recommend it to everyone.
Sea of Thieves has the best ocean physics, the water is absolutely gorgeous, but gameplay is shallow as the game is trying to appeal to as many people as possible.
Seconding Sea of Thieves, its a fantastic family game or thing to bring everyone along for. There is no “leveling”, the only thing playing does is give you more fancy pirate drip. Game knowlege goes a decent way, but people just being handed a controler and told to act like a pirate will not feel overwelmed.
It’s the dialogue for me. Some of it was just kinda ok. But having other characters to interact with really took away the loneliness aspect that made the first game so good.
Yep exactly. I also didn't like the hand-holdy waypoints, being told somewhere 1000m down there's a facility is all I needed.
All the monsters are so easy to avoid with orchestrated attacks. The biggest baddest reapers of that game are just on rails and they give you a seatruck perimeter defense upgrade, which just makes every enemy extra harmless.
Also the story...
spoiler-titleyou are sent down to find out what happened to your sister, then you just end up fucking off with a random alien and you dont even need to find anything out about your sister...
Oh I could not agree more with all of your points hahaha. I did like the seatruck more than the giant sea base in the first game (I never really used that…) but I also modded my seatruck so it wouldn’t go slower with more cars attached.
I gave the original Subnautica an 8/10 (on a real rating system, where 5/10 is an average game, not trash lawl) and I gave BZ a 6/10. It was good, but the original was amazing.
Oh hell yeah! I like you. One of my biggest peeves is reviewers rating something a 6/10 as “okay but kinda bad.” For me, a 5/10 is a serviceable game that I enjoyed, but has some flaws. Not until like 4/10 do I rate “really flawed and needs much work”. I have tons of 5/10 games I really enjoyed.
I think I have three or four 10/10 games period, reviewers throw that out like parade candy!
I enjoyed below zero but found the big moments weren’t as big. Like I’d categorize Subnautica as an exploration horror survival crafting game for the first playthrough but then drop the horror for subsequent ones. I didn’t really get the same sense of horror from below zero and don’t think 2 could do it either.
The way the original dripped the information was an experience on its own, you know, the whole reason I’m being vague to not spoil it while being OK with using quotes like “Multiple Leviathan class life forms detected. Are you sure what you’re doing is worth it?”
The second one didn’t have that, even though they really expanded on a lot of things and did a great job at making a successor exploration survival crafting game, it didn’t make me reel or feel like a hopeless situation just entered a whole new level of hopelessness. That experience is what I wish I could go back to but can’t.
Personally I’ve been cooking through the System Shock games. The SS1 remake was my first proper introduction to the series and I loved it. I was pretty excited for the impending System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition but it, uh… doesn’t really seem like it’s going to be very enhanced. Especially compared to what you can do with just modding the base game. So rather than keep waiting for that I spent ten bucks on SS2 Classic and have been enjoying myself greatly.
I’ve always liked SHODAN just via cultural osmosis, but now having actually played the games she stars in, that’s cranked up to 12. I fucking love SHODAN. She might be one of the best examples of an evil rogue AI in any media, and also has an actual reason for going rogue besides just “mankind builds a machine too smart for them and suffers the consequences”. The entire story setup is so believable.
Anyway, tl;dr, the System Shock games are hella good and the remake is especially very good. Particularly because controlling classic SS1 is more like playing an operating system than playing a video game. Also SHODAN. step on me again metal mommy
I got to the System Shock games after Prey (2017), not only am I WAY too young to have been around for them, but it just kinda went past me. But after that spiritual successor I visited the System Shock games, and I love them!
I’m hoping the SS2 is good, because I loved what they did with the first! It’s never meant to be a remake, just a polish of the game itself.
I think they might have finally beaten their Nintendo curse though: one console is a huge success, the next is a fair failure. The Switch 2 will be a winner, but there’s no way it can be the same cultural phenomenon that the first was (I’d say)
I really need to get into the habit of just linking all my previous ones at the end of each of these. I just worry it’ll look ‘messy’ or something!
I guess its easier to just follow my username then filter by posts? Or…something. Thanks for asking though, that is a confidence boost to see it wanted!!! <3
I’m not sure how this works, but I checked your posting history and it didn’t show up there, either. I guess the great weakness of the fediverse is if the links are interrupted. Perhaps it was due to instance maintenance or something.
Thank you for letting me know, from the next post I share I’ll start including links to all the previous installments I’ve made, to make it easier for people to navigate to them. What a strange thing to not be able to find them, I’m sorry!
I agree with you however I have one barrier to entry that others haven’t elaborated on.
Firstly, I’ll say how they could overcome some of the other challenges mentioned.
Steam would just have to add the ability for developers to upload android builds of games alongside the windows, Linux, Mac builds. All of a sudden, users would have huge, existing libraries of games. Most games built with Unity can target Android. I suspect a lot of indie developers would happily add the build.
Leaks have implied they were working on an arm emulator/translation layer but I assume this had to do with VR prototyping. Possibly the same effect as above but so many more configurations to target, they couldn’t handle it the way they do with steam deck.
Require/recommend to users to use a controller on Android
If either or both of those first 2 points succeed, Valve doesn’t need to do much more to ensure the utility of Steam games on Android. PC gamers are considered among the most willing and able to jump through hoops for a result. Going to a website to download the steam store plus a little warning on Android wouldn’t stop a reasonable percentage of them. It wouldn’t stop me.
It’s almost 0 risk to them, right? Right? I don’t think so.
Here’s the big barrier I mentioned. I assume they have a not-insignificant number of sales through the the android app. If they start allowing users to install android games, Google is going to stop them from having purchases in their play store app. And while I said that users would install their app from a website, what percentage of users would do it? How many fewer PC game sales would they make (from the Play Store app) in order to let their current users play games on Android?
Additionally, what would Steam do if they started getting android-only games being submitted. Or mobile-quality games dominating their store? Does this dilute Steam’s identity?
Additionally, it might be something they’ve discussed but they would have rather focused on steam deck-type gaming for mobile. Or perhaps an ARM-based steam OS+steamdeck approach would make more sense for them and then the difficulty/cost (and opportunity cost) increases do instead they simply don’t pursue it.
The cross-buy thing is something that Gog or Epic could do but they don’t have nearly the same “customer profile” (size, behaviour etc) so it isn’t as likely to have the same impact.
Regardless, in my view you’ve asked a great question and it’s a solid idea.
They would have to distribute it independently. Google would have no say in the matter.
That’s exactly my point. The current app lets you buy PC games despite being distributed through the store. If you can buy Android games on it, well, I doubt Google will ignore it. And even if Google was okay with it, there’s no way to easily communicate to users who start using the app there that they need to download another app from a website.
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. I’m just saying I think there are reasons they haven’t done it (yet?). I think they certainly must have considered it. I’ve certainly been wondering about it for a long while too.
why not both?
Sure. I would assume they would do it the same way as steam deck, where that’s the priority. The wide variety of phone specs on the market might have an impact on how they could support it etc.
That’s exactly my point. The current app lets you buy PC games despite being distributed through the store.
And they could continue doing so while also distributing a separate app independently that allows you to buy Android games.
Notice if you try to buy a movie from Amazon on Google TV they redirect you to the website. They could do the same or redirect you to the non-Google version.
I’m just saying I think there are reasons they haven’t done it (yet?)
I agree, I just find it very curious what those reasons are.
I don’t think they would get away with selling games in the app if games were playable on Android (demonstrating Android compatibility). I think they would have to do what Amazon kindle does and tell you to go buy your game somewhere else.
Now that I’m thinking about it they’d probably have to de-list those cross-platform games from the Google app or make them unavailable, which would probably lead to a lot of confusion.
What would you suggest they sell on their Android store that users would be so encouraged to install a new store and then what they want?
Steam already has a store on Android, you just can’t play games there because most games on steam either already exist on the native google play store, or aren’t compatible with mobile architectures like Arm64. Most mobiles unlike a arm laptop, have no x86/amd64 emulator which is what those games are compiled as by their developers.
What would you suggest they sell on their Android store that users would be so encouraged to install a new store and then what they want?
…games?
Steam already has a store on Android
Uhhhh they have an Android app which you can use to buy and manage PC games. That’s not what I’m talking about.
because most games on steam either already exist on the native google play store
…no? Even if they did you’d have to buy 2 licenses instead of 1. As I mentioned in the OP.
Most mobiles unlike a arm laptop, have no x86/amd64 emulator
I’m not suggesting emulation or translation (although that would be great as well), I’m suggesting an app store for selling and installing native Android games.
I’m trying to figure out the gap in the market you’re trying to fill other than “for steam fan boys it would allow us fans of steam games that already exist in a native place, in a non native place!”
Correct me what is going into it that isn’t already somewhere, and who that appeals to?
Well there is that but there’s also the example I gave in the OP where devs could potentially extend their existing games into a new market, increasing their potential audience. A single license would gain a new platform with potential sales opportunities.
Definitely not the best, but still worth a mention is “Stormworks: Build and rescue”. Basically a Lego like “build a ship/plane and do missions on the oceans” game - missions nowadays are also including far more than rescue.
Valves strategy of not doing anything new in the last decade while every other publisber shoots themselves in the foot seems to be working pretty well for them.
I don’t know, it’s only been around for a few months.
Valves strategy of not doing anything new in the last decade
That’s not their strategy. I mean, among other things you may have heard of this thing called the Steam Deck? Or Family Sharing? SteamOS? Shit there’s a new video every week about Steam Client updates and improvements.
I think it ultimately comes down to having to support another platform ads more work and risk then its worth.
For example theyd have to convince people to essentially break androids walled garden which means valve has to make sure everything they offer for android isnt malicous. Then there is the fact that phones are different specs, more testing, potential customer support … Its a whole can of worms, but valve would gain little. There arent many people who want steam on their phones but dont already have it on pc.
Vavle is good at what they do, they have basically cornered the PC and portable PC markets already, i think not mucking around in an already monopolistic mobile market is a pretty wise business decision on their part overall.
The past weeks i got back into playing some Diablo 2 and played some worms armageddon with friends. Worms has some free & legal options to play but i need to look into how i make them work.
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Aktywne