All fighting games (or anything that runs deterministically on all players’ machines, like fighting games do) should always have a performance test requirement before you hop online. We figured this out over a decade ago, and plenty still don’t do it, resulting in people with weak computers causing matches to appear laggy.
As a society, we should agree on which menu subtitles belong in. Is it language? Audio? Display? Game Settings? Sometimes I’ve seen games put them in multiple menus so that we always find them where we’re looking for them.
I’m no expert on colorblind settings, but I tried playing Monaco with someone who’s red/green colorblind, and that game was nearly impossible for him.
If your game runs online, I should be able to host the server myself, and launching a listen server from within the game ought to be present, too. It might be nice to surface port forward information there as well. LAN is nice; Direct IP connections are better. (Thanks, Larian, for including both!)
I’ve seen games with either a totally separate “accessibility” section or tab, or the settings in related tabs and those settings also all in the accessibility menu.
I really really like this modern gaming thing where accessibility settings are now standard.
Cutscenes that can’t be paused, especially if they’re longer than 10 seconds.
Do you have the slightest idea how frustrating it is to be mid-cutscene, something else requires my attention, and I cannot fucking pause it? Singlehandedly my biggest gripe with gaming.
Same with unskippable cutscenes, especially before a difficult boss. It’s no fun to have to sit through it over and over if I’m struggling with said boss, or have to sit through a cutscene I’ve seen several times in previous playthroughs. This also applies to the game’s credits.
Multiple un-skippable product and company credits at the start. Show a blinking “Loading…” if that is what is going on but let me skip this stuff on the second start onward.
I bought Cyberpunk on Stadia on release day, since I couldn’t play it anywhere else, and it was actually great for me. The technical issues I ran into were all because the game was buggy, not because the service was bad. The biggest issue was the self self-fulfilling prophecy that Google was going to kill it, and not worth subscribing to (which they eventually did kill because of low usage). I think that if Google had spun out Stadia as it’s own company, it may have succeeded.
Same here, Stadia was great the entire time it lasted. But I have good internet, so that helped. But yeah the killing factor of it ended up being google as you said. Very unfortunate.
I was betting on Stadia being the future of gaming. Without having to mess with hardware or software it was an amazing product. Their service was great, but we all know how it turned out. At least they refunded me all my purchases.
Hah I actually made a profit on their shutting down. Or at least, on Cyberpunk 2077. Bought CP77 and got a free controller + Chromecast bundle, sold the Chromecast for 45 bucks and got Cyberpunk refunded in full. After buying it again on sale through Steam, I had a profit of 15€.
And I still have the controller! The Stadia controllers are awesome.
Even non techie people don’t trust them to keep any new service going, so they have to force people to use their new services, which of course comes with a ton of bad will, and then when people inevitably don’t like this and don’t spend as google has envisioned, they shutter it, continuing the cycle of failing more and more and probably reinforcing internally the idea that the only way to make more money is through enshitification rather than innovation, because they can’t admit to themselves they’ve destroyed their brand image.
Chants of Sennaar was great! Had an absolute blast trying to work my way through it. I probably sounded like I was playing Baba Is You when trying to wrap my head around the glyphs (?) and the messages they try to convey.
Figuring out the symbols, their meaning and then using them properly to translate between different people was surprisingly rewarding and fun. I wouldn’t have minded if the game had a bit more gameplay, but at least it didn’t overstay it’s welcome.
I loved the grammar differences between the languages. Like where the negation glyphs go, or pluralisation. It always made me happy when I struggled with the translations, and then renumbered stuff like “Bards place the subject before the verb!”
Chants of Sennaar is by far one of the best games I’ve played. I had an absolute blast getting it to 100% and wish it had just a little bit more to do or vocalisations of the various languages.
I also really liked Heaven’s Vault, really recommend that as well. Tunic is probably one of my favourite recent games, genre wise very different but still in that translation category.
Chants was probably in my top I played last year, absolutely loved the soundtrack too.
I‘m always amazed at the amount of people believing the Steam Machine will be sold for the same or less than the most expensive version of the Steam Deck while being six times as powerful.
The other problem is that the tariffs could be totally different by the time it releases. I fully suspect that the tariffs are the reason that we haven’t got a price yet.
It would be funny if it is noticeably more expensive in the US though like with the Switch 2.
Just playing devil’s advocate here. I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but there are some interesting factors at play.
The Steam Machine won’t need a screen or battery, two of the most expensive components on the Deck. So that can go into better CPU/GPU/RAM instead.
Valve proved they can make a successful physical hardware product with the deck. That gives them a lot of negotiating power with AMD to get the best deal they can.
Unlike with the Deck, they’re releasing three new gadgets in almost all major countries simultaneously. That means they may have already started manufacturing months ago, and are benefiting from economy of scale at an entirely new level.
Sure, I should have clarified not surprised by the power or the price.
It makes sense that as more and more power becomes available, the price doesn’t necessarily have to increase.
Computers (especially CPUs/GPUs/SOCs etc) are becoming more and more powerful all the time, and more and more efficient all the time. It doesn’t mean that the price of them has to rise.
The fact that it’s 6 times as powerful doesn’t mean it should be more expensive than the most expensive version of the Steam Deck. The fact that it’s 6 times as powerful should be entirely expected, given the fact that it’s newer with a larger form factor (meaning that it may not be as limited in terms of heat etc)
Hopefully this is a detailed enough comment to clearly explain my thoughts on this.
As per my understanding, Sweet Baby Inc was/is a DEI consultant that would advise on accurate portrayal of minorities in games that wished to have them represented.
How accurate they were/are or how much their input is being used, I can’t say, however the easily swayed have taken to the idea they’re an evil shadowy cabal that mind controls companies and has them add brainwashing techniques meant to bring about the downfall of western society (the MAGAts that is).
they’re an evil shadowy cabal that mind controls companies and has them add brainwashing techniques meant to bring about the downfall of western society
2001 easily had the most games that were highly rated and as others have said you some real classics. The PS2 was hitting it’s stride, the original Xbox Launched, and the Gamecube was right there.
2011 also had some damn amazing games: Arkham City, Portal 2, Skyrim, Skyward Sword, Minecraft, Mortal Kombat 9, Starcraft II, Bastion, Uncharted 3, Battlefield 3 to name a few.
I cannot describe how disappointed I was in the switch when it came out, and the situation isn’t much better now. It took one huge step forwards, yes, bus also ditched a ton of really good features :
No cameras !?
No microphone !?
No analog triggers
No 3D display
No stylus support
No Streetpass
No personality (fun apps, menu music, themes…)
Even the Motion controls, which are still a thing, do not feature any IR reference point, making the Wii still the best implementation of motion aim outside of VR.
The games are great, but these days I personally play the Wii U and 3DS more often, because unlike the switch these platforms still offer some experiences that are just not possible elsewhere.
In fact, the Wii U and 3DS are currently the only consoles I would recommend actually possessing physically. Wii U emulation is really annoying (though Steam Deck can get there, with a cable in the way), and good luck finding anything for the 3DS that does the 3D part any better than a New 3DS XL.
Some of the things make sense, but overall I agree.
3D display simply died, everybody did it for a while but so few things used it well that it wasn’t worth the cost (especially since it hurts quality unless you can get the player to use special glasses).
You could use touchscreen compatible stylus, but no extra features connected to it.
Definitely miss analog triggers, which also hurts emulation (GameCube). Something streetpass-like could’ve been put in the mobile app (which also is way too limited and supported by too few games).
Absolutely miss customization too.
Gen 1 Switch should also already have gotten a top side USB C port - with support for accessories like a camera + mic (which wouldn’t have necessarily been built in, but supported).
Switch 2 could benefit so much from better local discovery especially now that it has GameShare, you could have it passively advertise supported games so you could discover opportunities to play even games you don’t have (much like how Download Play used to work on the Nintendo DS and GBA)
This one is it for me. The game really does so much with so little. The reality of the game is that it is a roughly linear sequence of closed levels (with some hub levels thrown in) that feels like a cohesive, connected world. It’s absolutely incredible!
Yes, I go back and replay the game every few years. Its grittiness is definitely a bit silly to me now, but when I was a kid, I was enchanted by it. While the Jensen games did not have the charm of the OG, the first was still decent, and it’s a shame Square Enix drove it into the ground with the second Jensen title.
DX:MD is one of the most fun stealth games, it’s just unfortunate they put vent shafts everywhere. Absolutely tragic what Square Enix did with the preorder bullshit.
Having played a lot of raft with my kids, I can say I never would have thought of it for this. But looking back, yeah, there is a good deal of world building going on.
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