In ten years, the only place you’ll be able to truly own what you buy and play how you want is on Linux from Itch.io. These fools are salting the earth they grow their crops in.
That still can’t inform you properly on how a game ‘feels’ to play. I’m very tempted by Alan Wake 2, but having bounced off many other similar games because of how they control has me pining for a demo. I’ll not be dropping 50 quid without being able to try it first
A good quick look or early game LP with commentary will fill that in. The Giant Bomb format has one person asking another a series of questions, and game feel usually comes up. ACG reviews so many games that it's more than likely he covered it in a video. If you find a couple of YouTube channels where the reviewers or LPers have similar tastes as you, it ends up being as good a method as any to make an informed purchase. Demos can also sometimes be misleading, depending on the game. There's no perfect answer here, but there isn't for any other purchase either.
I dunno about that. Another person can describe a game however they see fit, and they may even be thorough, but what someone might define as clunky controls might feel fine to me. I can’t know how a game feels to play unless I play it for myself. Most of the games I regret buying were games I bought based on what youtubers and reviewers were saying
It's not perfect. Nothing is. But it does make for a pretty informed decision. As long as you don't abuse it, there's always 2 hour refund policies as well. I don't think it makes the OP an asshole to pirate a game as a demo, but I've been burned so few times by this strategy that I've never considered some other means of trying out a game to be necessary. If you're really unsure, you can wait for a sale, too.
If OP doesn’t spend money, and pirates the game, the devs get no money If OP Doesn’t spend money or pirate, the devs still get no money. It doesn’t actually matter to them whether or not you have the game, only whether you pay
And you should pay if you think it’s a worthwhile experience, but piracy frees you from gambling on the marketing tactics made by corporations. I don’t even know for sure that the reviewer I’m listening to isn’t sponsored by the devs. If a person cannot afford to buy a game, they should just pirate. It’s a sale the devs would have never made to begin with. If a person needs to make sure their money is being well-spent, it’s the same thing with a bit more financial give. Ultimately, game devs can either release demos, or let pirates do it themselves
I just think of all the poor souls who actually spent money on Arkham Knights or Babylon’s Fall
You'll know if the reviewer is sponsored by the game, because they legally have to disclose it. ACG probably takes one or two steps more than necessary to prove he's incorruptible.
The type of person who buys Arkham Knights or Babylon's Fall despite the plethora of warning signs is either such a fan of Batman or Platinum that they can't help themselves, or they're like my friend who needs to see every major shit show in gaming. Neither game sold many copies.
My clan started with Quake. Eventually it grew to IRL get togethers. We all grew up and had families and jobs so we don’t game together as much, although sometimes a new game comes along that gets us all playing together again. But 26 years later we still come from all over the country to get together IRL once a year, without fail.
Yes! I almost always change a few of the buttons when I get the chance. Extra points if the game is nice enough to let you know when your changes conflict with other presets.
A lot of PC games let you change mouse and keyboard bindings, but not controller bindings, because they have “keyboard and mouse mode” or “console mode” if the controller is used.
I’ve got no problem with having a sensible set of defaults, but if I get a controller with more buttons, unless this is a competitive multiplayer game that needs a level playing field, I’d like to be able to take advantage of them.
Yeah, but if that’s the only way a game developer implements it, they’re tying themselves to Steam. I mean, if I were a game developer, I wouldn’t want to do that, as it’s a lot of lock-in.
I think that Valve’s service is a pretty good one, but they’re taking a 30% cut for doing a number of things for game developers. If they become the only game in town, it’s possible that they might start taking more than 30% and those developers are going to be kind of stuck with that.
It’s common across games, so it doesn’t make sense for game devs to reimplement the wheel, but I’d think that putting as much as possible in the game engine would be a reasonable place.
Not being able to bind the controller on PC is even more insane to me. Why can I change my entire keyboard layout but not change the controller AT ALL?
I’ve been playing it, through less than legal means, and honestly to me it feels like a proper sequel to super Mario world. Granted I’m still relatively early in the game, and super Mario world is my all-time favorite Mario game with 3 shortly behind it, but it feels every bit is fun as those games so far. I’m absolutely going to pick it up when it releases.
That’s good to hear. World and 3 are also my #1 and #2 Mario games (sometimes 3 is #1, sometimes World is) and if this is as good as those, I’m really looking forward to it. Never could get into the NSMB stuff, for some reason. They’re OK, but just didn’t scratch that World itch.
This is going to sound weird I prefer it to the laughing, makes it feel like they’re actually finishing their sentences rather than being cut off by people laughing at random words and seemingly cutting them off. I don’t know about most people but I find seemingly random laughter at benign things to be unpleasant and annoying.
Though maybe in the future as media manipulation with Machine learning gets better maybe we’ll have a way to chop out the gaps seamlessly as if it never happened for the people that find the gaps more bothersome.
By far the most unpleasant thing I find with current implementations is the fact that most aren’t seamless and they leave a lot behind when they can’t mute the whole scene such as when it’s mixed with dialogue or background audio.
Warframe explains very little of its systems, and what it explains is generally poorly done. Upgrading and optimizing your abilities, acquiring proper mods and frames, how the levelling system actually works, generally anything that isn’t “shoot at enemy until it dies” needs to be taught by another player or read upon.
Came here to say this. The new player experience is an awesome upgrade in terms of getting people into the world and narrative, but you're still thrown into an ocean of systems and content without a map. If you're not following a guide or piecing things together from the wiki it's very easy to get totally overwhelmed.
this is probably the best answer imo. This does sound like genuine addiction, and OP’s best bet might just be to work with a therapist on breaking the loop that makes gaming such a honey trap for them.
I’ve been thinking about the disappearance of God games. I think they didn’t disappear, but they evolved so much that we don’t recognize them anymore.
I feel some moved into the direction that we now call “simulators”, like RimWorld, the Sims, Two Point Hospital, and more. In my mind, the big difference between the God games of old and those new games is that in the older games your role as the player was explicitly defined, where in the new games it’s not. In the old games, you were “playing the role of a god in that realm”. The new games don’t bother to tell you “who” you are in this setting. You’re just the player, get on with it, play the game.
I feel like other God games moved in the direction of top down colony builders, like Against the Storm or Frostpunk. And again, I think the big difference between those games and something like Populous is that your role as the player doesn’t have an explicit name in the game world. You’re not a “God”. But most of the rest of the trappings are there, I think.
But when I think of a God game I really mean a game where you literally play as a god and can do god stuff.
In all of your examples the player either controls what each character does or just whoever is is command of the colony. You can’t do miracles and supernatural stuff at the click of a button, you don’t control nature itself, your character is a human like anyone else.
Still fairly old, but newer than B&W: From Dust . Replace trainable animals with fluid physics and light hearted songs with didgeridoos, and it’s kind of similar.
I’m absolutely baffled as to why more than one game I’ve ever played had fishing in it.
I love the X series (despite the unfortunate name), but the literal real-time days you spend waiting for money to appear in your account are still more engaging than any fishing minigame ever.
I agree with fishing mini games, it’s almost never anything like actual fishing, but some sort of weird experience that requires a combination of precise timing, button mashing or both.
That being said I think it’s insane to me that Nintendo crammed a fishing mini game in basically every Zelda game except for BotW and TotK, the two games where it would actually make sense. I just wanna chill and throw out a line. It’s every other zelda game where I just did the minimum amount required to get a bottle or whatever I needed.
I don’t mind the fishing mini game in Breath of Fire 3. You can see all the fish and it’s just a matter of skill not patience. That said, it’s optional (the only fish you need, I believe you can buy) and trying to 100% it is a chore I’d rather not do again.
Shit, even Star Trek: Online does what Starfield promised better, and it’s basically just another dime a dozen MMOs with a high profile licensed IP behind it.
For the most part, it’s either going to be missing a few things you’re looking for, or will offer everything but not actually be good/finished (such as with Star Citizen or anything ever made by Derek Smart, and why none of those are in the above list).
I’ve had my eyes on the X series for a long time. But they’re “fly around in your ship and do stuff” games and not “fly around and walk around” games, right? I’ve also heard there’s no learning curve, more of a learning wall.
You’re right, Star Trek Online is close to my ideal game. If only it weren’t a janky MMO…
I looked at Derek Smart’s games. I don’t think I’m cut out for this. But they kinda reminded of a GDC talk by Jeff Vogel where he talks about how he makes a living by making these niche isometric RPGs.
What about it being a janky MMO takes it away from being your ideal game though?
Quite a bit, I think. It being an MMO has some practical consequences, namely the fact that I can’t play it offline and the monetization of the game. It also influences the game mechanics: For example, STO’s combat uses tabbed targeting¹. I like tabbed targeting² but I don’t think it’s the peak of combat systems; a different combat system could/would make the game more engaging and enjoyable.
I can look at the individual parts of the game. There STO shines. But when I look at STO as a one compact package, it doesn’t.
¹ It also has a shooter mode but I remember it being janky as hell.
² I’d actually love to see a sort of “offline MMO” which would use tabbed targeting.
“A man chooses! A slave obeys.” - Andrew Ryan, BioShock
In general a lot of Andrew Ryan quotes are captivating, but that one transcends thanks to both the events happening, and the realization of the plot reveal.
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