Talos Principle 2. I bought it 5 months ago but only recently I’ve been able to actually play it.
The first game was a near 10/10 experience for me, so I came in with very high expectations, and… At the moment, I’m a bit disappointed.
The main drawback is how pointlessly big everything is. You spend minutes running from puzzle to puzzle, especially if you want to 100% the game, which requires a lot of wandering around to find hidden switches and light rods to solve the Sphynx’s puzzles.
The environment is gorgeous, mind you, but it’s just… too much. Which is funny, because an NPC I talked to yesterday lamented the exact same thing: '“bigger doesn’t equal more beautiful”. I agree, Jeremy.
That being said, it’s still a fun game, and the story is interesting (although a lot more heavy-handed than the first game). There are also a lot of cats! And you can pet some of them! I also found a little fox running around. I couldn’t pet it, but it was cute regardless.
But seriously, this game is soothing for the soul. There’s just something in strolling around taking in the view with a beautiful soundtrack in the background that is just soooo relaxing. I use it as a way to cool my head after a day’s work before going to bed.
Not the most searchable since it’s main use is through it’s api (I use it through retrodeck/ES-DE which is for ROM libraries) but screenscraper.fr contains scans of boxart, title art, videos from the games, manuals that used to come with physical copies and a lot more.
If you want retro ROMs, I can’t help you since I don’t know if I can link to those types of sites but ask on !piracy and check their wiki linked at the top of the community.
Jak and Daxter 2 via opengoal on Steam Deck. Such a clunky game, but it runs beautifully (except I had to stop right now because it crashed in the middle of the mission, but that’s one crash in several hours). This game feels like a sequence of levels that are just hard enough to be infuriating, but without feeling impossible. And the characters make it more interesting and easier to keep trying the same mission 20 times in a row.
I’m playing through Celeste again. I only finished the main story when I played it before. I intend to finish chapter 8 and go through as much of the B/C sides as I can this time.
I’ve also been playing Stardew Valley and another game called vivid/stasis. I really like the story in vivid/stasis so far because it’s Sci-Fi, one of my favorite genres. There are some things that I don’t enjoy about the game, like the puzzles and the boss songs having health bars (the songs are just too difficult for the current me to beat with a health bar). Thankfully I can just skip the puzzles with a guide and the boss songs using the autoplay accessibility option.
Ahhhh my friend, who is a dev for Decky Loader, is obsessed with Celeste, and far-far-far better than I will ever be with it AND Vivid/Stasis… AA is that you?!
I’ve put in soooo much time on Stardew over the years that I think its one of those few games I just can’t go back to…I shudder to think of just how much time :)
What I’ve learned playing rhythm games is that taking breaks is important. When I hit a wall, I just take a break from that game and come back to it later.
Thanks for doing these, this is some top quality content!
I wonder if Microsoft is making dev mode free because hackers got close to a working exploit in retail mode. There was one shared almost an year ago, but it required a specific app from the store that had been deleted since, but maybe it led to something behind the scenes.
For local multiplayer, Rounds with mods. If you mod in new cards/powers and turn on endless rounds, the powers inevitably become game-breaking in unique and hilarious ways after 10-20 rounds of stacked card power-ups.
I’m a collector of physical games, but with the last couple of models of PS5 lacking a disc drive and Nintendo’s Screwball “Game Key Card” situation with Switch 2, the writing is on the wall when it comes to physical games media. I just recently got a Steam Deck LCD model (I don’t need OLED) and couldn’t be happier. I don’t see myself getting a Switch 2 unless maybe it’s years down the road, pre-owned and with at least three decent exclusives (one would have to be a “Zelda BOTW 3”.) But no, Nintendo pissed away all their goodwill they built up as the common folk’s console with the OG Switch
Określenie powstało w latach 90-tych kiedy problem mafii kibolskich i przemocy na ulicach był tysiąc razy większy niż dzisiaj. Media publiczne wtedy razem z policją, ngosami i władzami prowadziły kampanie przeciw przemocy i w ramach tej kampanii wymyślono słowo “pseudokibice”, które dziennikarze używali przy opisywaniu różnych kibolskich ekscesów. To przykład miękkiej socjotechniki.
Its funny, I just think I have a thing for the underdogs. So I was always drawn to GOG, their stance on DRM-free gaming and games preservation in general don’t hurt though, of course!
Its taken me until now to even really look at Steam, even for my Steam Deck. I will admit, Steam’s cloud saves and pre-shader compilation is a blessing to game with.
Personally, I didn’t like physically holding the steam deck. In my opinion, it’s much too heavy/bulky and even with a high quality comfort grip It just wasn’t working for me. Ultimately, I ended up going with an Ayn Odin 2 instead and I’ve been enjoying my portable/lounging game time much more now. I do miss the ability to play my steam library though. Even though I can still do this with streaming, I just don’t like streaming games as much. Other than the weight/size/ergonomics, which most people seem to be just fine with, the only other thing I’d mention is that steam’s UI is buggy as hell when you’re browsing around the store. I ended up doing most of my browsing on desktop as a result.
All that being said, you can’t deny the draw of it. Even though it wasn’t for me personally, I still like the system and I’d still recommend it to pretty much anybody. There’s a reason Steam Deck is the champ.
Also, look up retro game corp if you aren’t familiar. He just released a video today called ‘dude, just get a steam deck’
Poor ergonomics is actually a large reason why I sold my Deck. It is quite heavy and clearly made for hands bigger than mine, which made holding it for more than 20 minutes quite uncomfortable. Also the joysticks are just awful, awful, awful awful awful. Id say a hall-effect stick mod is basically mandatory.
The joysticks are way better than the Switch and comparable to regular controllers. I haven’t had any issues with stick drift, and generally find it quite pleasant.
What exactly were your issues with the joysticks?
And yeah, being able to replace them a/ hall effect sticks is awesome, and I plan to do so if the sticks ever run into issues or I need to open it up for some reason. But I have no complaints, and in fact love playing with gryo aiming.
They were much too big for my thumbs (going off the theme of the Deck in general being made for hands clearly bigger than mine). Too tall, too wide on top, and while I never had to deal with any drift - the deadzones suck to play games with. I keep a gamepad at my desk for racing and flying games and I switched it to a hall-effect gamepad about a year ago and I’ve never looked back. Potentiometer-based joysticks just feel like garbage in comparison and I think are inexcusable to use in a highend gaming product these days. I ended up using the touchpads instead for many things.
You can tune those, though the tighter you make it, the more likely you’ll run into drift issues. Replacing with hall-effect sticks is absolutely reasonable if you’re playing a lot of racing and similar games that benefit from slight adjustments near the neutral point. I mostly play action games, so I slam my sticks against the edges most of the time.
I totally understand size issues though. The Deck works a lot better with larger hands, so if yours aren’t large enough, it could be uncomfortable.
highend gaming product
I don’t consider the Steam Deck “high end” at all. There are handhelds with hall effect sticks and higher end graphics.
Yeah, I didn’t like the shape/feel of the stock sticks either. I never really had any problems with sick drift or anything, but I also didn’t actually own the system for very long either.
To remedy this, I had actually bought some stick caps from skull & co (per recommendations from people on here actually) and they were quite excellent.
Yeah, it’s kinda big. I happen to have big-ish hands, so it’s fine, but I still wish it was a bit smaller. The Switch is too small though, so I mostly play with my Pro controller on the TV.
I do love my Steam Deck though. I love playing in bed while having access to all my PC games.
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