Terraria, for something crafty-buildy with combat and very cartoony/2d blood and gore. 1-8 players.
Don’t Starve Together, survival crafting in a hand-drawn Tim Burton-esque style. 2-6 players.
Awesomenauts, 3v3 fast paced competitive game in the style of Saturday morning cartoons. 3-6 players.
Deep Rock Galactic, coop shooter where you play space dwarves and shoot bugs while doing missions together. Gore may be a bit strong for your liking, but it’s very stylized and only against bugs and robots. 1-4 players.
Risk of Rain 2, shooter where you try and escape a planet together with lots of different ways to play. 1-4 players.
Age of Empires 2, old school fast-paced medieval strategy game modernized with new graphics and such. 1-8 players.
Valheim, viking survival crafty buildy game in which you explore and conquer a dangerous world together. 1-10 players.
Cassette Beasts, technically not multi-player yet but they’re adding it as a free update January. It’s a Pokémon-esque game where you’ll all be trainers in the same overworld together capturing beasts and taking down challenges together. 1-8 players when it comes out.
All of these games are rated T for teen, but it sounds more like you’re opposed to M rated violence and language than T levels. They’re all also insular in that this friend group doesn’t need to involve other people to play together and can either play with or against each other or the computer.
I just want to avoid the porn games on steam, and any super-gory shit like dead space. I thought Diablo would be fun for him but it is a bit too much right now. It was different when super pixelated back in the D2 days.
Overcooked can make for some fun chaos, though it tops at 4 players. Team Fortress 2 could work, but it does have graphic violence and I dunno if it’s available for the newer xboxes. On PC, it has loads of mods and custom maps that offer similar experiences to what you can find in Roblox
The OP said that the friend group has Xboxes, and I assume that you can’t mod the games. I may be wrong though, I haven’t used an Xbox since the 360 and mostly game with the pc myself.
Yeah, to stop another CrowdStrike, but it’s not a sure thing, yet there’s talk of api’s etc and wouldn’t surprise me if certain companies got a pass. An article covering your point: theverge.com/…/microsoft-windows-kernel-antivirus…
Nope. They’re developing an alternative set of APIs for userspace in conjunction with security vendors for their products to use but it’s all still a long way off and will be optional to start with.
Given the volume of mission-critical devices security products are installed on (which the CrowdStrike fuckup highlighted), getting them out of kernel space would be a huge risk reduction for the world. And security vendors would love to get away from that risk as pulling a CrowdStrike costs a lot of money setting things right with customers.
But an anticheat used by consumers on their personal devices for a game, not such a big deal.
While I’m sure MS will eventually deprecate and then kill off third party kernel drivers, it could take a decade since MS has so much business (both internal and within their customer base) that relies on legacy crap.
I have a feeling you’re right about this. I do wish Microsoft would take the Apple approach as Apple steamed ahead with deprecating kernel-mode access.
Love them or hate them, Apple take security a lot more seriously than Microsoft these days and it’s a real shame MS see security architecture as a nuisance rather than a core responsibility of their business.
it’s a real shame MS see security architecture as a nuisance rather than a core responsibility of their business.
I’m pretty sure the reason behind this is that they treat backwards compatibility as a higher priority in a lot of cases. There are so many odd choices I see in my day to day that I can only explain away by backwards compatibility. It’s part of the reason you see them take forever to depreciate old and insecure protocols until they get an encouragement from a vuln hitting the news.
That’s what I’ve noticed as well. They keep the old stuff around for as long as they can, because some software made 30years ago is critical to our society so they need to support it or we’re doomed
And it’s not like the companies will update old stuff, either. They’ve shown a willingness to forget about old games as soon as the revenue dips too much. The result will be that those games will be unplayable in the future.
Pop it in your calendars? Maybe I’m using calendars wrong, but mine aren’t filled with things I should avoid doing. But, I’m willing to learn. What date should I put “Don’t Buy Subnautica 2” on?
For those who don’t know, this streamer is only tangentially related to the stop killing games petition because he made a comment about it being BS because he misinterpreted what it was supposed to do. He used his misinterpretation to spread false information about this petition leading to it not getting the support it initially should have.
When the guy behind the petition made a statement saying he didn’t think the petition was going to get enough signatures in part because of the misinformation being spread about it, PirateSoftware doubled down on his false claims and all of this lead to people doing the research they should have done in the first place and deciding to support the petition after all.
What we should probably be learning from this is that we should do our own research, and find out things instead of taking the word of random people online.
Edit: electric has brought to my attention that it wasn’t just one clip, but in fact a whole video dedicated to spreading misinformation that was made by Thor from PirateSoftware. Just wanted to be clear about that.
A comment? Am I misreading your comment or is this just ignorance of the situation? Because PirateSoftware made a whole ass video on the subject way back (the one allegedly rife with misinformation). I remember it on my feed when the campaign was getting traction, but didn’t watch it because my view of him was souring.
From what clips I’ve seen*, PirateSoftware misinterprets the majority of what he addressed. Either maliciously or unknowingly, which is why he was blamed for tanking momentum since that video did get a ton of views (before people wised up to him being a total cunt).
*Yes I know the irony of what I just said there after reading your last paragraph. I believe these terminally online streamers because I would not put it past PirateSoftware to be this awful after watching his videos for a small period and then the subsequent controversies coming out.
He may well have done but the only clip I have seen is the one where someone asks about it while he’s streaming games and he responded to that person with misinformation.
Ah. Makes sense. I caught a stream once and he pretty much just did discussions with the chat. A lot of his videos were just cuts from his streams when someone asked.
I think a lot of people didn’t hear about this guy until about 2 days ago. Personally I didn’t even know about this petition.
I knew about the lawsuit against The Crew, but I didn’t know anything about any more general petition, so I think the greater problem was simply a lack of advertising.
System scanning: EGS is known to automatically scan your system and send your data back to them. While this seems to be the same type of analytics Steam does occasionally, in Steam’s case, it’s opt-in, and done with full, informed consent.
Paid exclusives: Epic has been known to pay publishers to make their games artificially exclusive to their own store. They regularly claim this money is to support the development of the games in question, but this is easily disproven, as they’ve been seen buying games known to be complete more than once. Additionally, this has resulted in bait-and-switch-like situations, where users would prepurchase Steam copies of games, only to be informed that they wouldn’t be getting them.
Publisher-centric behavior: Another user here claimed that EGS is pro-developer and anti-consumer, but this is only half true. This only rings true in the case of self-published games. There have been cases of developers getting unwarranted backlash after aforementioned bait-and-switches, when they were just as surprised to learn about all the “development support” they received as anyone.
Tim Sweeney: Tim Weeney, the CEO of Epic, is an asshole. A giant, narcissistic, hateful shitbag. Just look at his Twitter, the dudes a giant POS.
Additionally, this has resulted in bait-and-switch-like situations, where users would prepurchase Steam copies of games, only to be informed that they wouldn’t be getting them.
I didn’t know about this.
It happened to Metro Exodus (great game btw) but iirc all pre orders were honoured and the game was just delisted.
You don’t have to like games just because they are popular. It’s clearly not for you and that’s really all there is to it, and that is ok. Go try something else that actually piques your interest.
My understanding is that it is a complete game with no microtransactions to shove along with it. After that I believe it is because it is really really good and not a common genre to get the spot light. Mainly the first part.
There’s also the reaction from other developers claiming that the game “sets an unrealistic standard for what to expect out of a game” despite it being exactly what people want from a triple A studio. Just a complete, well made, functional game with no microtransactions
I was there with KSP from the early days. Squad was not in the video game business, they were a billboard advertisement company. The lead dev HarvesteR started it as a passion project. It found success with the alpha and full release in 2015.
Then in 2017 Take-Two bought the rights to the game. Squad kept working on the original, but development of the sequel was handed off to Star Theory with Private Division publishing. The game was delayed, then development was moved to a new studio, Intercept Games, which was owned by Take-Two. They also poached a third of Star Theory’s personnel, which resulted in the studio’s death. They fucked around for a few years, released the early access version, then sold Private Division, closed Intercept Games, and abandoned the game.
In short: corporate interests. KSP2’s failure had nothing to do with KSP or its developers.
Same, I am still so mad about the whole ksp2 fiasco that I block all of take twos games on steam, they ain’t getting any money from me. I am so glad I didn’t buy it in EA although it looked promising.
I’m with you. I was excited to learn the other day that some of the KSP developers are working on a game called Kitten Space Agency that might fill the void left by KSP2’s demise.
That’s exactly right. They also had managers/publishers telling them to do shit like make the rockets even wobblier than KSP1 because it made for funny viral videos that would get more PR.
Nobody who actually played the game wanted wobblier rockets than KSP1. Nobody really wanted wobbly rockets at all. Sometimes a bug can actually be a feature, but in this case, it really was just a bug. The people in charge didn’t ever care about the people who actually played the game, they just wanted sales, and they made decisions accordingly. That’s why it looks nice, but plays like shit.
Yup, and honestly even according to that anti-art logic it was a strategic failure. Funny meme gifs were part of how the game gained notoriety, but you don’t maintain a game long term on meme status alone.
Even if “haha funni physics glitches” were still the in thing - I think people got over them fast, like with any comedy style - the longevity of the game came from the deep mechanics and impressive missions people could do, and the community support.
I actually think that sequels to breakout sandbox games are always doomed to fail. Like what if they tried to release Minecraft 2? It would be awful, and I think we all instinctively know it would be, which is kind of a self fullfulling prophecy.
Minecraft doesn’t have a monopoly on the special sauce that makes their game good. It has a decade and a half of support and cultural recognition from a dedicated following. You can’t make that happen a second time. I don’t like what’s been done with the franchise commercially, but they figured out how to milk it without doing a direct sequel, which I think is part of why it’s still relevant.
A couple of weeks ago the Mass Effect Trilogy was so cheap on Steam that it was hard to resist, so I pirated it. I’m already on Mass Effect 3, it’s been a while since I played the trilogy.
I bought mass effect legendary edition from epic last year, it was super cheap and I never played. I finally installed it a couple weeks ago and am playing the first game. It’s a great game, but the drm infrastructure is really frustrating.
To play the game, I need to:
Don’t click the desktop icon it installed for me, nothing will happen Start EA app Don’t click the icon on the side, nothing will happen Click on library Click on game Ignore the helpful hint to use the icon on the side to save time Click on launch This starts the epic store This then starts the mass effect launcher Click launch on the game I want While the game is loading, the epic store will now steal focus back and I need to alt-tab back to the game Now I can play the game and it works fine
It really makes me think about pirating the other games instead of continuing this bs. Plus I should be able to then play them on Linux instead of needing to boot into Windows to play.
Gaben was absolutely correct in saying that piracy is a service problem.
So far, I get about 6-8 years out of whatever generation PlayStation controller I get. PS3 controller battery eventually crapped out. PS4 controller got pretty bad stick drift.
Tried an Xbox 360 controller once, it got stick drift after only a year.
Amy recommendations? I’ve been considering getting a new controller, but I use one so rarely. For the longest time I’ve used I think an ancient PS3 controller, or my old Steam Controller (which is great for some things but sucks for others).
While technically true, you will lose the capacitive touch functionality of the sticks (the steam deck knows when your thumbs are touching the sticks) unless you desolder the old thumb caps and resolder them on the new sticks.
Edit: You’re right. It appears newer Hall Effect Sticks for the Steam Deck come with the capacitive caps pre soldered, while the OG Gulikit Sensors required desoldering the original caps and resoldering them on the replacement board. That being said, it was super easy to do, even for my butterfingers that last touched a soldering iron in highschool more than 15 years ago.
Ah ok, so you were even earlier to the Deck modding scene than me, and it has evolved toward being even easier since.
Whew!
I appreciate your pointing this out and explanation, I wouldn’t want to have been unintentionally spreading misinfo.
… Nor would I have wanted to get my own Hall Effect ‘no soldering’ kit and then learned… actually there still is soldering in some other step or on some other component, that the ‘no soldering’ kits actually just mean ‘less soldering’.
I really wanted one of those transparent Atomic Purple shells for mine. Then thought, might as well swap the sticks since it’s already opened up.
Well the transfer into the new shell requires complete disassembly, which was quite bit more involved then I anticipated. The screen is glued to the top half of the shell. Getting a bit impatient, I shattered my screen as I was trying to pry it off. You need to heat the adhesive and remove the screen before it cools. I had done a couple of phone screen repairs in the past, and let me tell you, they use a lot less adhesive and because they are so small, you’ll easily be able to pop it off before the adhesive starts becoming super sticky again. Not so much with the Steam Deck.
Well, the Deck HD (1200p) screen was only like 10€ more than an OEM replacement, so I might as well. (I quite like it, much sharper and more vibrant than the original and FSR can still give you good results in games that can’t hit the resolution, but the battery life did take a small hit).
Long story short, I love my Atomic Purple Steam Deck HD with Hall Effect Sticks, where one cosmetic mod led me to do two hardware upgrades. I don’t regret it, but I doubt I would do it again. I just love how much you can do it.
I hate all online competitive games. Yup, all of em. I can’t relax! I can’t learn at my own pace! I can’t explore! The challenge is unknown! I don’t want to get better than strangers, i don’t care about them!
i like beating systems not people. Watching my BIL play CoD and that car soccer game, I’ve seen and heard some nasty shit. I guess it’s not unusual that people get competitive (ive seen people lose their composure over drunken kickball, i get its not just online) but considering how toxic people can be i just don’t get why people would invite that into their house.
Maybe im just not competitive. Yo, any ranked or generally competitive players, what makes you come back?
I miss server browsers and community servers. Just people playing casually and the teams could shuffle every round. It was competitive, but not sweaty plam bs and being too toxic would get you banned.
Ok first of all, online gaming communities especially around the most popular “serious” competitive gaming scenes are usually awful, terribly toxic places dominated by toxic masculinity.
It is a major problem in my opinion, both from the toxic people it breeds but also from the gatekeeping that keeps out a more diverse player base than just insecure men who hurl around insults and call shit “gay” when they don’t like it.
That being said, I do really like competitive multiplayer games like apex, battlebit, rocket league (car soccer game), halo infinite etc. I am not an especially competitive person though, I don’t HAVE to win and I don’t get super angry when I lose.
I enjoy competitive games because of the rich experience of playing a game against another human who is focused and motivated to win. I especially like playing with a team of humans against another team of humans. Humans are just so much more interesting and dynamic to compete against and generally a blast to cooperate with, singleplayer games often feel stale and like they are trying to forcefully induce a fabricated experience in me in comparison. Why do I want to play a singleplayer call of duty campaign that tries to make me “feel” like I am in a big battle when I can just play battlebit and actually be in a virtual battle with 200 other humans?
Another human competing against you for fun brings a great gift to the table from the perspective of game design and it takes an immense amount of effort to create a singleplayer experience anywhere near as engaging and dynamic. Likewise goes for a human teammate vs an AI one. Drive around in a gun truck in a singleplayer game and get an AI to gun for you and you have a slightly interesting experience where the AI just dumbly shoots at targets when you drive up to them… get a HUMAN to gun for you and all of a sudden you and that person are in an action movie together where your collective survival depends on how efficiently you work together and help each other out. Maybe you never talk to your gunner over a mic, it doesn’t matter really, the connection is still there. It never gets old to me because everything I do impacts other humans who then react and adapt which causes me to have to do the same.
Singleplayer games have to do a massive amount of work to make me fee like I am in a living breathing world that responds to me. Multiplayer games “just” have to setup an arena and let players loose. The experience of trying to outsmart another human who wants to win as bad as I do is perennially rewarding. Every moment I play a competitive multiplayer game I am working on integrating knowledge, skill, and emotional regulation and always learning and adapting. It makes my brain feel alive and stimulated in a way most single player games don’t (don’t get me wrong, I love good singleplayer games too).
I hate the toxicity and I always report it when I see it though.
I feel similarly. Playing with/against npc’s just doesn’t do it for me, and I don’t even use the mic in multiplayer games unless I’m playing with friends. Additionally though, I find video games a really tedious way to get a narrative. They’re long, there’s often a lot of grinding, and if I get stuck behind a boss I won’t figure out what happens next. So I don’t even bother with single player games unless they’re famously good and short, like I really enjoyed the portal games and when I find the time I’m going to play outer wilds. But most of the video games I play are closer to sports than narratives, it’s all about figuring out the little tricks and strategies to improve myself, and the occasional wild situations that can only happen with real people
I agree with you to an extent, in my opinion the gunplay and general movement/action parts of Red Dead Redemption 2 just isn’t fun or deep. Rockstar sucks at gunplay for the most part. I respect that the game is hugely admired and people love the story and open world but I just can’t engage with it for very long because the basic gameplay loop is too unsatisfying.
On the other hand I think really well made point and clicks like Strange Horticulture, the Blackwell Series, Machinarium and others and “interactive fiction” esque games like Roadwarden are awesome ways to tell stories. Other ways are cool too like Firewatch, Oxenfree or Papers Please. If the gameplay is fun I like games with good stories, but I don’t enjoy story focused games with mediocre but prominent mechanics.
I like competitive games where I feel like I outplayed my opponent, the feeling I get from winning against an actual human is so much superior to winning against a system that was designed to not be too hard. Here I know I had to surpass myself to win
Plus having ratings and that kind of stuff is always a nice reward for winning. I play a lot of competitive tetris, Trackmania, CS2, The Finals and recently started learning Tekken 8 for this specific reason
Om the other hand, I don’t like souls like because they’re just a single goal I need to spend hours to beat with no progression afterwards. I want my solo games to be challenging sure but not requiring me to learn like my multiplayer games can get
I’m just competitive. Nothing beats absolutely decimating an opponent to the point they quit.
I also get 0 satisfaction from beating a computer. I do that every day as a software developer, so I’d much rather play against other people.
Also competitive games are great because you can play hundreds or thousands of hours and almost always get new experiences. Some team is going to throw something at you that you haven’t seen before, and it keeps the gameplay interesting and dynamic.
I only like competitive games that are just as much cooperative as they are competitive. Team-based shooters like Overwatch or R6 Siege, for example, are always fun with a group of friends.
Shit like CoD or Fortnite though? Nah, I could never get into them. I don’t really hate them or anything, but I always get bored of them very quickly so I don’t bother buying them.
So, like you I don’t enjoy most competitive games. I like to dabble occasionally and enjoy an FPS here or there(I enjoyed the Finals for a bit, and occasionally a CoD, last one was Modern Warfare), but mostly play single player or co-op games because I find them far more enjoyable.
There is one genre that is an exception, fighting games. I fucking love them. I used to enjoy them as a kid, then had a long hiatus, dabbled when Street Fighter 4 launched, but didn’t “git gud”. Then Dragonball Fighter Z and the Arcade Edition for Street Fighter 5 launched and I think they were the gateway drug for me. Street Fighter 5 was tough, I couldn’t find a character I liked, so kinda bounced off it, but DBFZ kept me in. It wasn’t until Blanka in SF5 came out that it all clicked for me.
The genre starts of like a little puddle, you don’t really need to know a lot going in, but you definitely need to want to improve. And the more you improve the more you realise how deep the puddle is, cause it is actually an ocean. When you play against another human, at the lower ranks it is quite random and spammy. But as you get past them, you get to where you can condition people, you can learn their habits and combo choices. Then you take that knowledge and adjust your gameplay and see if they can counter it, and it can be come a big back and forth of trying to get the other person to make a mistake and exploiting their habits.
It is also a genre where nothing else really transfers across. All that time in FPS or RTS games isn’t going to help, so learning to do the technical inputs can be rewarding, or labbing out a combo and how to implement it in your gameplay.
I also really enjoy the ranking climb in most fighting games. SF6 has kinda perfected it, you play 10 games and it gives you a placement from Rookie upto Diamond 1, then you match against someone typically within ±1 rank(Gold 1 would be matched with Silver 5, Gold 1 or Gold 2)and rack up points. At the top of the ranking you hit Master, then it turns into Elo points and a proper distribution of skill, cause the difference between a professional and good player that just hit Master is massive. And for SF6 it is done on a per character basis, which allows you to sink time into every character and be playing with people your skill level.
I am 417 hours into SF6, 3 characters at master rank and a few in diamond/platinum. I still feel like I am bad, and I am definitely not using all the systems effectively in the game. But I sure as hell am excited to sink another several thousand hours into this game over the life of it.
Tekken 8 also just came out, which also seems incredible, but 3D fighters are basically an entire new genre to learn.
i grew up playing street fighter ii turbo and mortal kombat with my friends from the neighborhood. Whenever we get together these days one of us will have a copy ready in case we want to throw down like when we were kids. Getting a big group talking shit and passing the controller around will never not be fun for me, but i know i dont have what it takes to handle people online.
I have read about all that goes into competitive ranked fighting games and it looks (as you say) as deep as the ocean. there is sooooo much to learn and practice that i don’t think i would ever have fun online, but i can still hold out with my favorite characters with my old pals. I agree with you, fighting games are quite fun.
I am going to respectfully disagree, I think if you have a desire to learn and participate everyone can have fun online in fighting games. Don’t get baited by thinking that you need to learn all these combos and moves and be 100% perfect at doing it all the time. Cause you dont.
The difference between someone just starting and a pro is vast, and will seem daunting and like you need to know a bunch of stuff. But honestly competitve starts out similar to you and a bunch of pals just having fun together.
You are playing the other person, getting reliable damage from a combo is more important to begin with than doing optimal damage. For street fighter(it is what I have the most experience with), you need to know how to anti air to stop people from jumping(this is usually a crouching Heavy Punch, but can be different for some characters). Then throw in a simple combo, can be an easy target combo(or using the modern inputs in SF6) or something as simple as HP > Fireball/Tatsu. And then making sure you know basics like blocking and throws, drive impact and drive parry for street fighter 6.
That seems like a lot, but it is less than the mechanics of most single player games that get thrown out in tutorials, and the rest of the knowledge will come with time and practice. Say you come across someone who just cleanly wipes the floor with you, you can look at the replay and see if there is a gap, or learn the timings, or if it is unsafe if you just kept blocking. But that won’t be something you have to worry about for a while. You will spend a lot of time figuring out how to handle people randomly throwing out DP or Drive Impact or who just won’t stop jumping.
I don’t play competitive games unless the community is generally decent or I have the option to just turn off voice and text chat for people I don’t know.
Hunt Showdown is the one arguably competitive game (in that its PvP) that I still play … the community there is generally great. There is the occasional trash talk but mostly it’s just people having fun.
Sometimes people on enemy teams will be willing to negotiate and you both walk away from the fight.
Sometimes they’ll just have fun with it and make sound effects. One guy just the other night I was in a shoot out with was making sound effects “agghhh my leg!!! You got me you got me, it’s over!!” Only to come back a few seconds later with a bomb thrown at me and my buddies.
Occasionally there are toxic people but it’s really fun when you shoot them, take their stuff, and burn their characters bodies … then report them. Taking the extra time to be inflammatory or make noise to trash talk on an extraction shooter can easily get you killed and make you lose a fair amount of stuff.
If being a toxic egomaniac is your jam, extraction shooters are a bad fit.
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