Oh, Need for Speed! I still break out the originals like NFS III Hot Pursuit when I want to focus on a podcast or an audio book, but don’t want my mind to wonder. Letting my visual and motor cortex enter a flow state while doing timed laps pacifies my ADHD, keeping me on track to complete any audible reading, pun intended. It also helps having all the maps memorized from nostalgia.
Emulating the PS1 and PS2 titles is an option, but there are modern patches of the PC ports that improve the ergonomics of running them on current operating systems, including Wine and Proton:
Need For Speed III Modern Patch v1.6.1 [2016/10/28] (HD + Widescreen + Portable)
Another racing series with a similar flow vibe could be the Track Mania titles. Forza Horizon is a little flashy, but if you create a waypoint race route and then avoid the finish line, you can then free roam without traffic making for a relaxing and scenic diving game. The Hot Wheels DLC for Forza Horizon is also rather zen once you get a grasp for the different gravity and motion model dynamics.
Turn-based RPGs generally move at the speed you do, so they aren’t intense in a way you’d have to worry about, and there are a LOT of them. Many Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, etc. games.
What I call ‘procedural’ games would also work, things where it’s less about pushing yourself to have perfect reaction times or compute complex values in your head, and more about just walking through the process in search of the Zen of flow state. Lots of simulator games fit in the category: train station renovator sim, house flipper sim, power wash sim, rover mechanic sim, mech mechanic sim, etc. Hardspace: Shipbreaker is a favorite in this category. There are also games like ‘Papers, Please’, ‘Contraband Police,’ etc. where you run down a checklist and try to spot anomalies.
Life games serve as well. They usually don’t have a hard limit on how you play through them so you can play as you like and progress in whatever way. Stardew Valley, Staxel, the My Time At … series, Farming Sim, etc. all lean toward just being pleasant rather than an intense challenge.
It’s how i pick my screenshots. I try to pick ones that arent too obvious but if you know the game you can identify it. Some games are hard to do that on though
The pleasure is all mine! I always try to respond to people, but sometimes fear I don’t have anything important to say. But I love talking with people who comment on my posts
I’ve tried it on and off two times. It piqued my interest but I never got around to playing it for more than an hour both times. It didn’t click with me for whatever reason.
if you got out of the apartment and didn’t want to finish the game then it’s simply not for you. for me that moment alone was enough to see it through.
I get that. It’s one of those games where i don’t think i can play it more than once after seeing the ending (even with me not getting the ending last playthrough i’m worried i won’t stick with this playthrough because of that)
They could probably get away with a PS6 that’s a PS5 Pro raster equivalent, improved ray tracing, and a modern AMD CPU and a bump in memory. Whatever can be sold for $500 in 2-3 years. Switch 2 is the baseline.
Microsoft can be twice as powerful, unless they had a multi year string of incredible exclusives, they’re not doing better than this gen and
regardless they don’t do exclusives anymore
Improved ray tracing is key. We’re at a point where hardware improvements aren’t for selling games to end users, they’re for cutting costs for developers. Project managers don’t want to spend time and resources handcrafting lighting anymore.
We saw it before where making SSDs baseline didn’t necessarily always lead to a change in world design but certainly led to cuts in asset streaming optimization. Same with framerates.
After SCE increased their prices in EU and Aus to help offset the US tariffs, I doubt I’ll invest anything into the PS ecosystem any more. I’d rather redirect into PC gaming from here.
Feels like we’ve hit the point of diminishing returns where the console cycle stops making sense. Does anyone really expect to ever play a PS6 game they just flat out couldn’t make at all on the PS5?
This gen gave me the kick to leave consoles. Neither Sony or Nintendo seem that interested with me being a customer, constant paywalls and upsells while getting less and less in return. I’ll get the next 8-10 years of games through the ps5 after that I imagine everything will be on pc. VR is not my thing, neither is online or live service so I can get all the emulators without a monthly cost.
Some weird views in the article. Like comparing it to the price of the ps5 pro and will be lower. Of course it will be. It has to be since the price point of the average consumer will never buy it at that price. They need to get it back down to the $400-$500 range for it to work. Also saying the ps4 cutback on hardware compared to the ps3 may be true but it wasnt noticeable either. The jump between both consoles was huge and didnt seem like anything was sacrificed. That won’t be the case here since i doubt anyone will even notice the difference because games aren’t getting that much better looking anymore. They need to start focusing on features and other advantages to establish itself as a better option to having a PC.
I don’t see how this thing possibly competes with a handheld PC. It’ll play the same games approximately just as well but with a tiny fraction of the library, and unless something changes, online play won’t even be free.
The Vita had a shared library system where if you get the handheld version for free if you owned the PS4 version of games. I imagine they could do something similar to keep playstation users interested
That’s surely what they’re planning, especially since the architecture won’t be very different this time around, but that still pales in comparison to the value you’d get from a PC handheld for what will likely be an extremely similar price.
The handheld PC and things like SteamOS have crossed the moat that console games used to have as a defense. The PC is coming to the living room, attaching to your TV, and playing games controller-first. The question will be how well will those games play and will they be exclusive.
The other defense, exclusive games, consoles themselves have given up. PlayStation has been publishing to PC to make up revenues thinking that it’s safe because it’s not their competitor Xbox, and Xbox bet on gamepass (and has now lost the console almost entirely, hoping to make its money back via Windows licensure).
If this is true I’m definitely out. I am barely playing anything technically demanding on the hardware. Mostly older or indie games. The Steam Deck has proven that handheld PC couch gaming is more than enough for me.
Come to think of it, I didn’t even had to buy the PS5. It just catches dust and unlike the PS4 I didn’t get anything like Bloodborne aka something I could pump countless hundreds of hours in to justify buying it.
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