I don’t think I’ve played a game with fairer difficulty options than Halo: CE. On the lowest difficulty, even your grandma with arthritis can beat it, and on the hardest it’s an actual challenge without making enemies infallibly accurate bullet sponges. But if you can’t do it that way, do it Michael Zaki’s way.
You can install chips in your brain that automates gameplay features. Like getting your turret to shoot automatically, making you melee attack automatically when you are in range, dodge automatically, …
You can really customize your difficulty to the point that the game basically plays itself.
The only downside is that you miss out on using other cooler chip abilities.
Halo CE legendary was 100% an afterthought that Bungie threw a couple of multipliers in at the end because it makes like more than half of your potential loadout worthless lol.
It was still fun, but god damn was it borderline annoying like you’re playing a really unfair zombie survival game.
It’s not about the size, but more about density of meaningful content. I like Elden Ring because every nook and cranny feels worth exploring. It’s the game that dares to hide optional areas behind optional areas, all with their own unique enemies and bosses.
On the other hand, taking Elden Ring as an example again, the mini dungeons were too repetitive. The first time visiting a catacomb is exciting, but it turns into quite a chore after the third time and onwards. You’ve already seen it all. Same thing with the dragon battles.
I think Elden Ring overall strikes a good balance with amount of surprises per square meter.
I think it’s really interesting to compare a game like elden ring to something else like BOTW
My first time playing through elden ring I had an amazing time, and thoroughly enjoyed the open world experience. I made sure to explore every crack in every wall, not necessarily for the rewards, but rather for the exploration itself because that exploration felt magnificent
However, I’ve now played through elden ring four times over the years, and I quickly realised I was only playing for the bosses, with the open world merely being a hindrance to my journey. This problem quickly compounds, as the first few hours of a save is usually you running around buck naked looking for your weapons, smithing stones, flasks, etc.
This is opposed to something like dark souls 3, where your journey to get the build you want usually means you can a 30 second detour from your main path.
Compare this with BOTW, which I’ve also played through a fair few times, and it’s easy to understand why these games are different. Unlike ER, I honestly thought of the bosses as more like hindrances to getting the powers, which would help me traverse the open world. To me, that traversal was the most enjoyable thing about the game
This might just be a tinfoil hat theory, but I think this is because of the difference in rewards between the two. Unlike ER, which most rewards being clearly defined and memorable, in BOTW the vast majority of rewards are either
a) spirit orbs from shrines
or
b) korok seeds
While the shrines themselves can be memorised, I’d say it’s practically impossible to remember the location of all these things, mainly because there’s no point - there are so many, you’ll run into your fair share anyway. There are exceptions of course, with weapons and shields and the like, but for the most part it holds true
The Pokemon game that locked features and Pokemon behind paid DLC released alongside the game revitalized the franchise? Fuck that. I’ve bought every Pokemon game since Red and every console to play them on, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I give them more money when they’re just going to use to sue smaller developers and while letting fascists co-opt their music and imagery.
I don’t think a Switch 2 emulator will come out any time soon, but I do respect the hustle. I myself am probably only gonna get anything Switch/Switch 2 related from resellers and/or used.
It’s already available, has been for a week or so. I don’t think the Switch 2 version is different enough to really matter; obviously, if you’re buying it and have a Switch 2, you’re going to want the extra performance, but if you don’t have a Switch 2 or are otherwise acquiring it, might as well just get the Switch 1 version.
PLA is definitely the better Legends game. PLZA is absurdly dialogue-heavy for a game that doesn’t have well-written dialogue, and they took out the damned Linking Cord, one of the best parts of PLA.
Also, there are scores of dialogue options, and the only ones that matter are your name and a handful of “are you ready to battle” ones; most have two options that mean exactly the same thing.
To be fair the “DLC” isn’t actually available until 2026, what they have released now is basically a pre-order, still scummy but not as bad as you’re implying. Edit:for clarity, they didn’t cut anything out of the game, they just have a pre-order for the DLC.
If before you’ve even finished a project you’ve already decided part of it won’t be included in the original project unless the user pays extra, that’s the definition of scummy.
Control is a very fun game, and Jesse was an intriguing character with an unusual backstory. Enjoyed my time with it. I’m optimistic for Control 2 and hope we’ll get more lore! And of course, something that hits as hard as the Ash tray maze!
I love Control, I think the gameplay and level design is amazing, the world building is phenomenal and some of the side characters are great. Jesse herself wasn’t really that memorable to me though. I get that she’s supposed to act like a foil for all the craziness that’s happening, but as a result she ended up feeling kind of bland and forgettable. I always thought this was intentional, as the main focus of the game was the world building and lore and the Oldest House. Having a protagonist with a super strong colorful personality would be too much and just end up distracting from that.
Everyone in the comments making such a huge deal of account security when literally all Rockstar had to do was allow people to unlink their Steam accounts from Social Club. It could even be done in their own launcher, with the credentials of the Steam account that actually owns the game. Then people could just make a new Social Club account, it’s not worth shit anyways.
They’re locking people out of playing a local, offline game, over some decade old account that I used my spam email for, and now I’m supposed to remember it? Get a fucking grip bro.
Your post made me want to check these out. I only ever played one with a friend for kicks. It was a fun, cheap activity, easy to make a drinking game out of.
It’s like how erotica can still be literature, but people dismiss it for the sexual focus. But I’ve read erotic stories that had me hooked, made interesting social commentary, had nuanced characters and were just a fantastic time.
One of the hardest times I’ve laughed my ass off was at a one of those semi surreal uncanny 3d porn games. Can’t remember what it was but it scared the shit out of my cat who was sleeping under my desk, have the scars to prove it.
Also if anyone wants to look at porn games F95zone"dot"to is a pirate forum which is good for keeping track of in dev ones or just if you don’t want to possibly waste money on a porn game you may not like. Also the dot is in quotes cause I am not sure how the mods would react to me posting what amounts to a porn link.
I’ve written porn comedy before. No I will not be linking it, but yeah I enjoyed it and the bad porn book club I was in over the pandemic enjoyed it too.
I think part of the problem is that oftentimes once something erotic has merit beyond the erotic it often loses its porn classification in the public eye. Venus in Furs is porn, the word masochism is a reference to Sacher-Masoch who wrote it the same as sadism is named after the Marquis de Sade, but it’s also classic literature.
I definitely do want to get back into writing porn comedy, but I haven’t been pissed off sufficiently stupid porn writing since that book club stopped.
once something erotic has merit beyond the erotic it often loses its porn classification in the public eye.
This definitely poses a problem. Er… depending on what we think a problem is, I guess. But the stuff I’m thinking of, it would be very hard to do this to.
Maybe but like Story of O is on the verge (apologies as these are all going to be bdsm) by nature of it being old and remembered. The 120 Days of Sodom is likely mostly read by people not into it in a sexual way (mind you I think it’s mostly read by the edgy). 50 Shades of Grey is atrociously written and yet despite being a story existing to package soft core pornography that’s the dissenting opinion on it, not the mainstream consensus. Sunstone meanwhile is the inverse, soft core pornography to entice and enhance a story about bdsm. All of these except Sodom are edge cases where some people might be uncomfortable regardless of which box you put it in
Though I’ll acknowledge it does get harder for much more explicit stuff with less non-sex content.
I’m terrible at bookmarking, and most of it’s random stories on the internet. My favorite was about a girl, raised by wolves, who meets a werewolf, found on DeviantArt when I was a teenager when I didn’t know what erotica was. Must be gone because I haven’t been able to find it. But had a hell of an impact since I remember it, vividly.
Literotica has fantastic writers. I’m in a discord server with other amateur/professional writers, too. 9/10 are bad to meh, but that one in ten can rattle in my brain for days.
However, instead of participating in the game development, he chose to focus on a personal film project.
My assumption is that Krafton expected the leads to put in 12 hour days 7 days a week to meet ridiculous expectations and the leads took some vacation time or something along those lines. That would match up with common publisher behavior, especially the ones that trash people publicly.
They did not have any reason to personally attack the leads except out of spite, and odds are high that doing so will only anger the player base towards the publisher.
Trashing the devs was a terrible idea, and what they wrote was clearly petty and spiteful.
They did not have any reason to personally attack the leads except out of spite,
Lol what the honest fuck are you talking about?
They were facing a boycott because it seemed like they fired the original creators to avoid paying the employees.
They could have issued a statement saying that they would still pay the remaining employees and everyone would assume that they still fired the creators out of greed reasons. If the creators actually didn’t do their jobs, then they would want to make it clear that they are the ones actually committed to making a good game and this has nothing to do with greed.
That may not be the case, but at present we simply do not know what the reality of the situation was.
A publisher trashing devs of a beloved game with personal attacks certainly was a bold move.
However, instead of participating in the game development, he chose to focus on a personal film project.
We are deeply disappointed by the former leadership’s conduct, and above all, we feel a profound sense of betrayal by their failure to honor the trust placed in them by our fans.
If that description is accurate then there’s nothing unprofessional about that.
What would be unprofessional in that situation is the original devs not doing their jobs and then allowing a fan backlash to grow.
Again, we don’t know the reality of the situation. I think everyone would be curious to hear from other devs at the studio that aren’t part of management or the three who were fired but we haven’t yet.
My assumption is that Krafton expected the leads to put in 12 hour days 7 days a week to meet ridiculous expectations and the leads took some vacation time or something along those lines.
This is from the lead himself, on his movie production website:
I’m Charlie Cleveland and I’ve been designing video games for over 25 years. I founded Unknown Worlds and built games like Natural Selection, Natural Selection 2, Subnautica and Moonbreaker. I absolutely love making games but wanted to try something new.
At the end of 2023, I left San Francisco after almost 20 years and moved to Los Angeles to reset my life. Instead of taking it easy, I now find myself working on multiple film projects. It’s amazing how fast it’s all happening - being right in the thick of things makes it so much easier to meet like-minded people!
Also, according to this link, he’s taking a break from making video games, for at least a couple of months now, before all this stuff was out.
It might not be as one-sided as you think. But right now it’s he said, she said, so nobody really knows.
Early release was supposed to be in 2024. We have halfway through 2025.
Lead devs have said the game is ready for early release, so they are likely taking a break from a game they feel is being delayed by the publisher. The publisher is whining about expectations, not obligations or anything along those lines.
I’m with the devs on this one, project burnout is real.
The leads allegedly also were looking to gain $225 Million dollars (supposedly 90% of a $250 Million bonus), so of course they are saying the game is ready.
Charlie Cleveland did say they were going to split the bonus with the team, but imma be honest, why not put that into writing? Why take that huge cut in the first place, and then trust that the leads are going to do the right thing.
I don’t think at this point you can really be sure of anything. Since the former leads have said they’ve filed a lawsuit (but not for what they’re suing), it’ll most likely come out at one point.
The devs rushing the game out half added results in them getting $225M. So they have incentive to be shitty too. I don’t know enough about any of them to say which is more likely but that logic goes both ways.
I mean the former leads (or at least one of them) say the game was ready for Early Access, the publisher says it wasn’t. This could be the deciding factor if the studio gets the bonus or not.
Although today the publisher said some previously leaked slides were real, that show how the potential EA release fell way behind schedule over the years and would have been pretty bare-bones and that a delay would have made sense.
It’s funny—just a little over five years ago, gamers hated it. Not because they ever used one, but because it was a failure. And as we all know about gamers, there’s nothing they hate more than a failure.
Nice try, but that’s not why I hated it.
This smug revisionism triggers me hard. As a hard core steam fan I loved the idea of the SC, I bought it and really tried to use it, but the reality was just too clunky for primary use. It has no dpad, a single crappy convex analog stick, terribly placed ABXY buttons, horrible shoulder buttons, and just a bit too much input lag on the trackpads. On top all that was (actually, still is) a remapping system that’s way too convoluted to use regularly. There’s also the sad fact that alarmingly many games don’t allow simultaneous gamepad and mouse inputs, and simulating the mouse through right stick inputs feels like shit. I really didn’t find any use case where it’s ergonomically superior to a regular gamepad beside the always cited Civ on the Couch, and I’ve tried with sooo many games.
The deck’s control layout fixes most of the issues – the placement is better (except maybe the Salvador Dali inspired B button but I digress), there is a great d pad, two pretty good analog sticks and the input is snappier. Surprise surprise, the deck is a success.
Was the SC innovative, bold and ahead of its time in many ways? Sure. Was it a good controller to play games with? Hell no.
Fully agree. I tried to make the SC work and wrote off a lot of it as “I’m just not used to it”, but it really is asking a lot. In its defence, it was a first run product. The fact that it’s still ass usable and as weird is impressive enough to me. But it’s better as a piece of gaming history than a good product. It was just a good try.
I also agree with the Steam deck controls being actually good. I want the SC2 that’s just a steam deck without the screen or computer.
So I guess the opposite of the steam brick.
I’d gladly pay $100 to have a steam deck like control scheme for my desktop. Rechargeable batteries and a Linux first design would be awesome. I don’t mind just using cables all the time, but I would like better wireless options for Linux gamepads (though to be fair, I haven’t tried connecting a wireless controller to a Linux box in 5 years).
I bought it and really tried to use it, but the reality was just too clunky for primary use. It has no dpad, a single crappy convex analog stick, terribly placed ABXY buttons, horrible shoulder buttons, and just a bit too much input lag on the trackpads.
Hard truths.
Why did they feel the need to replace analog controls with these weird, inconsistently responsive, difficult to map touch controls when every other console platform had already demonstrated why that’s a bad idea?
Was the SC innovative, bold and ahead of its time in many ways?
NO. It was kitsch and poorly engineered and obviously not play tested sufficiently before release. It was a hobbyist’s attempt at reinventing the mousetrap that got shoved into a major distribution pipeline when Playstation and Nintendo and XBox had already demonstrated why you don’t build controllers this way ten years earlier.
Why did they feel the need to replace analog controls with these weird, inconsistently responsive, difficult to map touch controls when every other console platform had already demonstrated why that’s a bad idea?
I have no idea what you’re talking about. The DS4 had a trackpad that was clearly positioned and intended for menu navigation. Nobody used trackpads as a primary game control input before the SC. That’s not because sticks are some god-given pinnacle of technology but because potentiometer-based sticks are cheap and people are used to them. Analog sticks were always, and still are, a crappy way to control a camera. Building a 1:1 thumb based input source into a controller absolutely was innovative and, like it or hate it, I don’t see how you can contest that. The Steam Deck’s pads are actually pretty great to use.
Playstation and Nintendo and XBox had already demonstrated why you don’t build controllers this way ten years earlier.
Again, what are you talking about? The SC was released in 2015.
It actually is the most hilarious of ironies that despite what very real harm Thor might have inflicted upon the early stages of the movement through misinformation/mischaracterization; The fact is, I don’t think this movement would have come near to exploding the way that it has recently if not for the perfect Rube Goldberg machine of drama surrounding this man in the past 6 months.
Seriously. He could not have Barbara Streisand effected the “Stop Killing Games” movement harder if he tried. It really is such poetic justice. It’s a shame that I don’t live in the EU or I would gladly sign the initiate myself. Here’s to hoping that another EU regulation can have sweeping effects for the US. As a reluctant and very jaded US citizen myself, I harbor no illusions about any real and meaningful consumer protection regulations to ever make it over here. Mega-corpos have simply spent far too much money buying out every level of government, legislature, and regulatory bodies that exist.
Europe really is like a strange beacon of hope for US consumers, as odd as that sounds. Fight the good fight for us as well, brothers.
I can believe this, if he wasn’t such a narcissist or such a lying douche bag who always has to be right and has something to say about absolutely everything while having a story to go with it…
Then he would be a pretty cool guy…
Some of his advice isn’t actually bad though… I watched him for a bit but the more you watch him the more you see him for who he is…
I know it’s not going to happen, but I would love it if legislation could go as far as requiring companies to open-source their engines and servers after maybe a period of time, or on ending support for the game. It could be done ID-style where the company retains full rights of the content and trademarks, which would still require players to buy the game to legally play it.
I’m aware there are a lot of cases where games include middleware that’s licensed from 3rd parties that complicate preservation efforts. But if open-sourcing the code is the path taken, there’s a simple solution for that: just release what you can, even if what’s released is in an unplayable state without the middleware. It then becomes the responsibility of any volunteers to take that code and bring it back to a usable state however they choose.
This drama highlights that there’s still a great need for better computer literacy. Anyone with even a basic education in how software, source-code, and software licensing works can tell PirateSoftware is full of shit pretty much immediately. That is, anyone educated who are themselves not grifters.
You should only be granted copyright protections if you can guarantee the copyrighted material can become public domain after the time period ends. This would involve giving the government a copy of all source code and assets to preserve securely. This should be a flat policy for all copyrighted material, so 3rd party involvement wouldn’t complicate things.
The original intent of patents was almost exactly that. You’re protected for a handful of years, after that anyone can just use the patent as instructions for recreating it.
… then Disney and other fucking greedy ghouls of corporations got involved and greased the right palms…
Why is everyone here gaslighting OP as if this isn’t a valid privacy concern? It’s completely valid. Other messaging services allow you to disable typing indicators and message receipts. Even Google messages offers this. So yea, I’m with OP on this one.
It’s weird that Lemmy is super concerned with privacy yet shits on people for stuff like this. Good jobs guys. Really making Lemmy shine here.
Agree, but let’s not dilute the meaning of “gaslighting”. That word has a VERY specific definition and it had been getting used in inappropriate contexts so much that that very specific and necessary definition is being lost. It refers to a specific abusive behavior pattern which needs a good and concrete word to communicate it. My teen stepdaughter had it in her head that us educating her on the world was “gaslighting”, which is dangerous because she had the “gaslighting bad” reaction to things that were not gaslighting, and it is not limited to her. There is a concerted effort on the part of some political groups to break and weaponize the definitions of things like gaslighting and manipulation, we need to work to make sure it is not successful.
Feedback: that’s a great screen shot. I really enjoyed playing this screenshot. The screenshot download was fast and I was able to run it from my phone.
None of those games need sequels, and neither did Hades. I get why they did, because it was the first time they weren’t veering on bankruptcy and could use a bigger safety net, but doubling down on this lack of creativity is hardly what I expect from Supergiant.
I can understand what you’re saying with none of them needing sequels. Invaded that definition yeah sure none of them need them. But I would very much want a sequel to bastion and transistor. And if that puts me in the minority as far as that’s concerned I’m okay with that. I’m not going to boycott their team because they don’t make a sequel by any means.
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