I personally think that interacting with anything related to Harry Potter continues to give it cultural dominance and longevity, so even if you aren’t personally spending money to support the giant piece of shit that is JK Rowling, you’re helping it stay relevant enough to keep making that bigot of a bitch money.
It can also be argued that since Epic made a deal for giving the game away, that the money has already been paid to Rowling, whether you grab the game for free or not. The fewer people who grab the free copy, the less wise of an investment it will be seen as by Epic’s beancounters. This also ties back into the first point of the more people taking the free copy is giving Harry Potter more cultural dominance and longevity.
I pirated this game when it came out specifically I could play it and write about how bad it was in terms of gameplay, story, and game design. I don’t feel like re-writing a full on review here, but I’ll just say it: It’s a bad fucking game and the only reason people have given it as much attention as it has gotten is the association with Harry Potter. If this had been an original property with no connection to the HP series with similar gameplay and story it would have been a clusterfuck of a failure on release.
Anyway I’ll shut up now but fuck Harry Potter, the only thing Harry Potter related I’ll accept anymore is Wizard People, Dear Reader, because it’s a parody.
Re: 3, unfortunately, pirating the game won’t let you avoid supporting transphobic lunatics. The person who cracked the game is even worse than Rowling - as in, “makes Rowling look like a paragon of progressiveness in comparison” worse - and uses the download numbers for her cracks (and the fact she’s usually the only one willing to crack Denuvo) to justify asking for donations.
That’s a fair take. I deleted it promptly after playing, but anyone who is willing to fund empress’s insanity is a fool anyway. Yet, sadly, a whole lot of fools out there.
How’s the action? It looked like you can launch people in the trailer and perform some kind of air combo. I doubt it leads to anything truly fun, but I’m curious.
You can, and I find it fun. Some other reviewers don’t like it, and it can be clunky, but it is still fun for me to levitate someone and then slam them into a wall.
I played mostly Rocket League (again, 10 consecutive wins for time played lol).
But my computer was down done Christmas Eve last year and just got out working again on Halloween. So most of my games this year were solely on the Deck. So the Deck gets an MVP award for being there when I needed it.
That said, the only game I own that doesn’t really work on the Deck is Helldivers 2.
I cannot drop down and play literally anything in 30fps. I already have to deal with the 60Hz screen on the Deck, I cannot use anything less (that hasn’t been literally designed for it- anything that can run at a higher fps should be. 60 is the absolute rock bottom I will tolerate.
Anyway, I also played a lot of Balatro, Slay the Spire, and REPO. Getting it working satisfactorily would have been impossible on some handhelds, but the grip buttons made it just enough to have access to all inventory slots, sprinting and tumbling. Had to use voice activation without an easy way to use push to talk, but that didn’t really bother me.
Tried PEAK, but it doesn’t really grab me personally. I still wanna try it on PC tho now that I have it running again, to give it a fair shake. I feel really off balance trying controllers with games meant to be kb/m. Repo felt awkward but playable. And I liked the choir game design enough anyway. But playing Peak while being awkward didn’t feel as rewarding. But I wanna give it a go with kb/m.
I played some Hades as well. Still haven’t beaten it yet (I’ve only gotten to the Hades fight twice). That game I actually like better on the Deck or on controller better. Which is kinda what I expected, but it definitely belongs on a controller.
I played through It Takes Two, which was beautiful. Haven’t finished Split Fiction yet because my brother keeps being unavailable. I try to tell him to “come be a lesbian with me”. Haven’t quite finished it yet, but there’s no way those 2 don’t hook up, right?
Didn’t play a lot of anything else, haven’t gotten back to work after my last couple years of surgeries so my budget was basically zero.(Supplemented by Steam gifties from real ones) Soon to change this coming year I hope, but given my disability, the depression of being stuck for medical reasons back in a house I had escaped from, the general everything, being poor, and not even having access to my main platform to game on at all, I think I did ok.
If you’ll pardon me I gotta go grind some more Rocket League.
Dispatch - I’ve been having a blast playing this. It’s my first time playing a game thats more of an interactive TV show but I love the writing and the characters.
I’ve been trying to get into a bunch of games this year but I keep losing motivation super quickly. The only other game I’ve managed to finish is Pico Park 2 in coop.
Haven’t played Silksong yet, but its release did get me to play Hollow Knight which had been sitting in my library forever.
I’ve gotten partway through Expedition 33, but decided to take a break after spending ~20 hours on act 1 alone (speaking of, I think it’s about time to get back on that soon).
As much as I like single player games, I imagine the most significant amount of my time by far has probably been spent on multiplayer games like cod
I don’t wanna hype you up too much - but I’d been looking forward to playing Silksong almost since it was announced and had very high expectations, and it did not disappoint!
Abiotic Factor, has been a pearl. Survival in a 90’s science center complex in the middle of Australia. Good mechanics once you get past the water hump. The story has the right amounts of dread and humor, and the stakes /difficulty / rewards ramp up just right for me.
Oh and still playing noita… Finally cleared it this year
I’ve played Abiotic twice and have enjoyed it, but both times I’ve stopping before finishing it. I’ve been playing solo and know that playing with friends is a much better experience but sadly none of my friends want to buy it. Would you say it’s worth finishing? I’ve gotten to third third lab area
I left gaming. That’s the highlight. I’m yearning to get back tho. But my laptop is kinda struggling to play games so yeah I might be away from them for a long time ig.
There were many but the one I wanna mention is Dredge - a horror fishing game that is creepy fun. Wasn’t on my radar but popped up on gamepass and I love it.
I‘ve sorted my library by release date, and there are five games which have released this year in it that aren‘t just remastered or early access which finally hit 1.0. Of those five I‘ve played three. Also of those five, three are indie games.
Monster Hunter Wilds
Poorly received across „enthusiasts“ as too easy of a MH game. I personally liked it a lot. The wounds mechanic is fun, focus mode is good but too much, performance is absolutely horrendous. One of the things I’ve always hated with MH are those stiff ass animations that made you miss combos by a cm, focus mode helps with that but now you can just 180 during a swing which is overkill IMO. I miss tracking monsters - which made me feel more like I‘m actually hunting game - as well as wallbanging them. The current mounting feels less interesting overall. 150 hrs played and they were a lot of fun with friends.
PEAK
Probably my GOTY (cause I didn‘t play much from this year anyway, see above lol). There‘s only one thing that bums me out: The game should have DLSS/FSR cause it‘s really heavy God knows why and the internal upscaler is meh. Otherwise, the most fun I had in a multiplayer game in a long time. Did ascension 7, unlocked all the stuff, gobble up every update, great fun with friends (also if solo but less so). 110 hrs, amazing game for less than ten bucks. Fuck those sencient tornados.
Mario Kart World
Idk, as the successor to MK8 it‘s kinda mid in comparisson. The feeling of speed, the racing flow, they‘re kinda missing. Lots of uninteresting filler tracks. Idk why this had to be an open world game. Some of its soul died for that. I got gold on all the cups but haven‘t touched it since. Pro tip: If you have trouble at max diff, stop drifting. The game ups the difficulty (read: rubberbanding) PER DRIFT, and it stacks up across the whole cup!
This year I unsubscribed from FFXIV. Speaking only for myself, Dawntrail was a massive drop in nearly all aspects after Endwalker. The music and environment were great, I was positively giddy when I reached Solution Nine… but the characters are unlikable, the antagonist is boring and one-dimensional, there is hardly any payoff for setups, one of the most significant conflicts gets resolved with a fucking pep talk, most of the first half of the main story only exists to extol about how much of a chad the current monarch is. Somehow the second half gets even worse with multiple contrived plot points relying on characters being idiots and the player being a passive observer, including the reintroduction of a high profile issue that had been present for the entire DECADE of the game’s existence and resolved in a high profile way in Shadowbringers. Wuk Lamat was fine. Overused and dumb as a pair of boots, but fine.
I got to the final region, got the “I will now genocide the multiverse because my obviously unsustainable economy is running out of resources” monologue, and just stopped playing. Unless 8.0 sees some massive improvements, I have no plans to finish Dawntrail.
On the completely different end of the spectrum, Warframe is in the best place it’s ever been. The last four major updates (1999, Isleweaver, Vallis Undermind, and The Old Peace) have been fucking phenomenal, both in terms of story and gameplay. The Old Peace (released literally a few days ago) also contains the most valid crashout in history. Rap tap tap, little piggy. The new gamemodes are fun, fast-paced, and so far haven’t outstayed their welcome, although like always, I’m worried about their longevity since they’re essentially content islands.
Warframe’s music is exceptional. I’ll always appreciate the works of Keith Power (he gave us We All Lift Together and This Is What You Are), but the current composer Matt Chalmers has elevated the game’s music both in quality and variety. Starting with 1999, there are no songs that I ever want to skip, and that includes the virtual boy band. Even if you have no interest in the game, you shouldn’t skip the music: TennoConcert 2025 (Matt is the eternally chilled out dude who sings From The Stars), Tethra Jahrak, Lullaby of the Manifold, and (potential spoilers) Roses from the Abyss.
In terms of smaller games, I fell off the wagon and had several all-night benders in Factorio. If you’re anywhere near the spectrum, that game is like crack cocaine. I had a lot of fun in Project Wingman and the biggest furball in history, I replayed Star Wars: Republic Commando, and rediscovered my appreciation for games where the player is not the Chosen One. Against all wisdom, I finally played The Mystery Of The Droods. Even knowing what awaited me, I was unprepared for the absolute jank.
On osu!, finally achieved my player goal of achieving 400pp, then saw a drastic fall on my play time exploring other games. Still doing mapping for two different osu tournaments, but maybe i’m not there forever :)
Balatro became really addictive to me. 200 hours in, still haven’t achieved completionist, but I definetly will. Fuck black deck
Marvel Rivals. Really good game overall, my initial expectations were really low considering Marvel has repeatedly fumbled my expectations on their games, but honestly the game felt like I was playing a game par with Overwatch 1 with Marvel characters.
I’ve got hooked into Trackmania very interestingly this year, my previous racing game experience was stuff like Most Wanted/Carbon, but appearently the osu! style “keep the improve grind” games interest me still. Aside from TM2020, I also got Stadium and Turbo, might get Canyon on a future sale to play.
Rhythm Doctor 1.0 came out, the last two chapters blew me away! I would hate to spoil anything, but let’s just say they have used the tricks they did on Act 5 Boss Stage exceptionally well, again.
Last Command B-Side DLC was very enjoyable. Got it the day it came out, the included content was very fun. Story was meh, but again you don’t really follow the story on a bullet hell game. The new stages were really cool.
I wasn’t expecting to play Megabonk at all, but gave it a shot thanks to my Steam Family Library. Honestly it’s a fine game, gives similar vibes to Balatro as a mob slaying game.
Lastly, got into Tetris: The Grand Master 4. It is unbelievably difficult, but have managed to unlock 3.1 on TGM mode, and on standard mode achieved 800 Master. TGM Master still feels way too tough, but I’m seeing improvements here and there.
So your staple games seem to be focused on gameplay (or you’re at the part where the story is done) while the games you think you want to play are story heavy with gameplay locked behind looking at cutscenes and listening intently to dialogue. If the first actual playing happens after only 30 minutes, you might not have the energy to sit through that. Maybe look into indie games that get quickly to the gameplay. You’ll probably find that it’s not that hard to play new games if they’re built for playing instead of mass appeal and story
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Aktywne