A few more honorable mentions that are not exact re-implementations with compatibility with the original datafiles, but more spiritual followups:
Total Annihilation - TA Spring > Spring Engine > Recoil Engine > Beyond All Reason github.com/beyond-all-reason (I think there are mods that make it “Basically TA”)
Don’t forget the Xash3D engine for GoldSrc games (e.g. Half-Life and mods). It runs on everything from a PSP to a PC. And it’s faithful. It relies on the original assets.
Thank you for these posts, a friend shared a link and I’ve spent this Sunday morning browsing over the past few weeks of information. I really like the writing style, it’s enjoyable to read.
I’ve just ordered a SteamDeck myself and have more free games on Epic and GOG than my steam library (2 titles!). So it will take me a while to get up to speed onto how to get access to those libraries and get started in emulation.
Keep an eye out, I try make them weekly, though in the past it’s gone as few as two days between posts (generally though, I try make myself wait and hold off to give it a week between them!) - so there’ll be more coming :)
I’m so glad you’re getting a Steam Deck, you’ll love it! They’re easy if you want to just…start installing games without tinkering, or you can dive in and find all kinds of fun things.
…but if you ever have any specific questions, or want help or a guide to anything, reach out to me. I kinda live/breath the Steam Deck - so I’m always happy to help!!!
Sometimes (often) those ‘latest’ builds don’t work so well, and things break. Its a classic problem which plagues EmuDeck, and why long-term users warn people
if things are working, don’t update!
That very thing which annoys some people - no bleeding-edge latest updates on emulators, to me is stability and a relief. I trust the devs of RetroDECK to update only when things need it!
And I also have it all on my SD card! Its the best idea, roms, emulators, bios, mods, texture packs. I like how it keeps things organized and clean :)
It’s a shame that Another Metroid 2 Remake got Cease & Desisted, purely because Nintendo was about to release Samus Returns and didn’t want to compete with a fan game that was better.
My list focus more on PC Games source ports/remakes etc. but the “Addendum Console Games” it’s in this list (with many others) github.com/…/awesome-unofficial-pc-ports
If you enjoyed Kill The Crows, I highly recommend Akane. It’s the same basic gameplay loop (one map area, single hit enemies, every 50 enemies is a boss fight) but Akane has a cyberpunk aesthetic. I don’t understand how these two games were made by different developers given the similarities.
The one hit kill is an incredibly meaningful choice, and I feel like it drives a lot of other decisions as well. It forces the player to be completely unburdened by the weight of their actions, killing without a thought. The second you fret about your next move, the flow is interrupted, and your survival chances drop.
And since you spend so little time on any single enemy, that drives decisions about how success is measured, etc etc. The similarities fall into place when you hew very closely to the single hit kill mechanic.
I don’t fault Ludic at all for the similarities here, it’s an innocent case of carcinization. If you’re going to make a game whose loop is so tight that you can boot up the game and enter an extremely satisfying flow state in a minute flat, you make something like this. I’m definitely going to check out Akane next.
My nerd herd likes the game, although we quickly have been adding mods to ramp up the difficulty and add some quality of life stuff. For a social game, I like it over Lethal Company because everyone gets to participate and there is no designated AFK role that watches the cameras or activates the teleporters.
The No AFK role part is one of my favorite parts about it. It means a party of 3 isn’t broken down into 2, which can be sometimes annoying. I think the closest i’ve seen is usually one of our players will head back to the truck early and wait if they have a Map Player count so they can watch to see if anybody dies and run out to grab them (or leave if the risk is to high)
Sweeney (the CEO of Epic) says that he wants competition with Steam, but many of his actions point toward that he really just wants to be the guy at the top (ie, he wants to be the monopoly instead of Valve). He’s taken a fair number of anti-consumerist stances, which vary from understandable to clearly anti-competitive.
Epic is known for making exclusivity deals with 3rd party studios in which Epic bribes the studio with money, and in exchange, the studio does not release their game on Steam for 1 year.
At several points, this occurred after a studio already said that they will release on Steam, and the studio would have to walk back and delete their Steam listing.
Iirc, at one point Epic bought out a studio and had them remove the Steam listing for an already-released game, causing the game to be unplayable for people who had already bought the game
Edit: this apparently happened twice (Unreal Tournament and Rocket League), but it appears that the games still work for the people who bought it. I think the concern was actually that Steam players would lose functionality due to not being supported anymore after the unlisting
The Epic Game Store released in a non-functional state, and development on it is extremely slow. The first impression of the broken store likely still influences many people’s impression of the store. But it’s still missing many features that many gamers want to see in a store.
There were various rumors when the store first launched that it contained spyware. My understanding is that those rumors never fully got disproven, especially since some of the claims were supported by at least some evidence
Epic does not support Linux, and Sweeney has openly said that he does not plan to support Linux until it becomes more popular. He did immediately jump on board with supporting Arm though, which caused a lot of Linux gamers to think that he just doesn’t want to support Linux
Sweeney is a pretty abrasive person and iirc he made a lot of concerning statements on his social media. Several of them (as mentioned above) indicate that he wants to dethrone Valve so that he can be the monopoly instead
Overall, many gamers are in support of more competition in the game store space. Unfortunately, many gamers also think that Epic is an untrustworthy competitor, and they believe that Epic has a serious chance of making the gaming industry worse if they become more popular. As a result, many would prefer for Steam remain the monopoly rather than to take a bet on Epic.
It was a while ago, I don’t remember off the top of my head which specific game I’m remembering. Doing a brief search, it appears that this happened to Unreal Tournament and Rocket League, though it appears that the games still work for the people who bought it before the unlisting. I think the concern was losing functionality, especially for server-based or multiplayer games
For unplayable, Rocket League had very good Linux and macos native builds Epic required them to delete support for those operating systems as part of the acquisition of Psyonix
Yeesh I knew Epic was run by dick heads but I didn’t know they were this slimy, I’m glad I’ve only bought one game on their platform (Subnautica below zero), and that’s only because I got the original Subnautica for free from their weekly giveaway and loved it. I’ll continue to get the free games from them as it’s good to take a chance on games that you otherwise might never learn about.
I’ve managed to get Cryostasis working, and for a game over a decade old, it’s a lot of fun. Great atmosphere, interesting mechanics, fascinating story, the whole package.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne