I‘m having a blast alternating between Tunic and Sleeping Dogs to get an unusual, but not unpleasant mix of action, adventure, and puzzles. I’ll probably pick up Cyberpunk after finishing the latter, as it seems to set the mood for it (at least in terms of the city vibes and the protagonist’s story somewhat).
As for 2024 games, I’m trying to steer clear of any announcements. In general, I don’t enjoy the “hype season” phase; for me that time is better spent doing something else - carpe diem and all that. Path of Exile 2 is the only game I can name for this year and that’s because I used to have a borderline unhealthy amount of hours in POE1. Time well spent.
My fiance and I just finished the DLC for The Case of the Golden Idol, and not only is that game awesome, but the story hooks for the DLC were a pleasant surprise. We can't wait for the sequel.
I've been playing a lot of Pillars of Eternity, and I made it to Act 2. It's impressive how insanely good this game is. And then on top of that, it's impressive that I think everything I like about it is done better in Baldur's Gate 3.
I finally made it to Master rank in Street Fighter 6! Still some input frustrations until the game can get a season 2 patch, but I'm just happy to finally have something like an Elo rather than the superficial league system, even though my master rating settled slightly below the default 1500 value.
EDIT: Missed the bonus question. Of the games I'm confident are coming out in 2024, I'd say Avowed, which is why I'm playing Pillars of Eternity now.
If you already have a similarly sized tablet, you could just buy a dummy HDMI plug, a few dollars, to add a second virtual desktop and then simply cast that screen to the mobile device.
There are pretty nice Android tablets now with 2.5k 120 hz HDR OLD screens. You can just connect it directly to the computer via USB, enable USB network tethering, then use something like the Moonlight client app with Sunshine screen casting server. With the wired connection, and a high bit rate such as 150 Mbps, you can get single digit millisecond latency and hardly tell the difference from an native HDMI display.
Tablets like those might be on the high end, but at least you’d have nice secondary display that’s a bit more multifunctional. Or just go with a cheaper LCD based tablet or old iPad, if color accuracy, refresh rate, or resolution isn’t a priority.
With this method, would I be able to use an iPad as a display for windows 10? If so, are there any downsides? I remember trying Duet Display years ago but they charge a monthly fee which is absurd. And performance was not great.
Looks like Moonlight does have their app up on the Apple store or iOS, and Sunlight has binaries for most operating systems. Personally, instead of Sunlight’s server, I still use Nvidia’s GeForce Experience software to stream games, as it takes less effort to configure. Of course, Nvidia may not be applicable if you’re using integrated or AMD graphics instead.
Although, with Nvidia recently deprecating support for it’s shield device, Sunlight provides support for the same protocol that Moonlight was originally developed against, but it’s also open source. I’ve not used multi monitor streaming with GeForce Experience, something Sunlight would be much more flexible in configuring.
As for connectivity, I’m unsure if iOS supports the same USB network feature that Android has. I’d imagine at least the iPhone would, as that’s a core feature/option for mobile hotspot connectivity, but maybe that’s nixed from iPad iOS? Alternatively you could get yourself a USB C hub or dock with an ethernet adapter and pass through power delivery, so you can connect your iPad with a wired network and charge simultaneously.
Or you could just use Wi-Fi, but with wireless networks dropping and retrying packets, that’ll impact latency or bitrate quality when casting displays. Although for something mostly static like discord windows, that’s probably less of an issue. Windows 11, and maybe 10, also have a hotspot mode, where you could share your wired network via your PCs wireless radio via and ad hoc Wi-Fi SSID. That could reduce latency and improve signal reception, but you’d have to start the hotspot setting every session or whenever the device disconnects from windows’ hotspot for more than 15 minutes or something.
You could try other remote display streaming software as well, like Parsec. However they have a online account login requirement with the freemium model, so I prefer the open source client Moonlight instead. However parsecs a lot easier too use when streaming from outside your home, or when remotely single screen co-oping with friends, without having to configure firewalls or domain names.
If you go to the website, I can see it says “motion controls (switch only)” and I don’t know if I should be worried about that considering I want to play emulated switch games ON PC
EDIT: and about the variations, thanks for pointing that out, I was aware of the Ultimate C existed and I did supposed it was some sort of “lite” version. But thanks anyways
Motion control support on PC is rather rare as almost every PC game uses xinput, and therefore almost every controller will simply identify itself as an Xbox controller for the best compatibility. You basically have to check on a controller by controller basis if and how motion controls can be enabled on PC.
I do know that some of the 8bitdo controllers can be configured to show up as Switch Pro Controllers on PC with working motion controls.
I can’t say for sure with 8bitdo but I can say the KK2’s motion controls work on PC so long as the emulator has them. I’d assume this is the case with 8bitdo but I can’t check as I found the problem I had with them to be the neutral wrist/hand position to be uncomfortable very quickly.
I was aware of the Ultimate C existed and I did supposed it was some sort of “lite” version
Yeah, but just to be clear, it’s not just the Ultimate C that doesn’t have them. The fourth link above is to a non-Bluetooth Ultimate variant with no “C” in its name; that particular variant also doesn’t have Hall Effect sticks.
For me, it was annoying because — at least when I bought mine, haven’t checked recently — 8bitdo doesn’t make a Ultimate controller with an XBox button layout and Hall Effect sticks. You gotta settle for a Nintendo-layout controller. You can remap the buttons in software on your computer, and they apparently sell replacement button caps if you want to make the controller , but it’s not internally using the XBox layout, annoyingly-enough.
You sound like you’re specifically wanting a Nintendo layout, so you probably don’t need an XBox layout, but you might still want to be careful that whatever you order does in fact have the Hall Effect sticks.
However the thumbstick’s rubber eventually crumbled off after a year or so, so I 3D printed these replacements (it’s for SF30, but fits Pro 2), then I got cheap Switch thumbsticks rubber pad to put on top of them. IIRC, you might be able to request thumbstick replacement from them. The 3D printed treplacement + cheap caps feels kinda better than the original.
How is noone screaming about Lethal Company? I have never had more fun that playing that game last few weeks. True its “short” even with mods but sooo worth it.
Absolutely Hi-Fi Rush. I loved many games this year, but Hi-Fi Rush was so fun, so wholesome, so loveable that the music it used carried me through some insanely hard times. It is very obviously a passion project made by incredible creators, and I legitimately cannot find a single issue with it (which I can’t say of any other game this year).
I still feel swells of emotion listening to the music from that game. Absolutely incredible.
First, I did go back to Tunic and got the good ending, and I'm glad I did, because now the little fox was happy. I had to look up hints or the solutions to some of the puzzles though, some of those were just too cryptic for me.
Then I tried two Vampire Survivors-likes, Pathfinder: Gallowspire Survivors and Soulstone Survivors, both of which I played on my Steam Deck. Also, both are in Early Access.
I only did a few runs in Pathfinder. I might just be bad, but maybe the game isn't really suited for the Deck right now. There are tons of enemies that shoot small projectiles, that are just a pain to see on the small-ish screen, so dodging everything can be a pain. It also felt like the hit boxes aren't that good right now, but again, that might just be me, I didn't play the game for too long. I'd have to try the game on my desktop PC to check out how it plays there. One thing of note though, this game has local multiplayer, which might be interesting to some people. When you're playing alone, the second character sticks to you as a companion and just deals some extra damage. I also have to mention the menuing in this game, on controller it's complete garbage. Sometimes you select some menu category with triggers, change sub-categories with bumpers, sub-sub-categories with the D-Pad and then the actual thing you want to select with the stick. I had to constantly check where I was and what I had to press, which sucked.
The other, Soulstone Survivors, was a lot more fun for me. You get up to six weapons, and also upgrades for those weapons and generally for your character. In this game, weapons can have "tags", like melee, area, electric, whatever, and upgrades can affect one specific weapon, all of them or everything of a certain type, which can be neat. There are also tons of small QoL details, like highlighting which weapons get upgraded, a summary for your stats in a run or how much damage your weapons are doing. That last point is neat, because you can keep replacing your weapons, even when you already have all six, and if you don't want to, you just get a normal upgrade. When not in a run, there's just tons of meta progression with a gazillion different materials. You can unlock characters, weapons for those characters, a skill tree, something called runes, which I have no idea what they are, and maybe more. Menus also suck, although mostly because everything is just crammed full of stuff and a bit too small on the Deck. It's not as bad as Pathfinder though.
Next, a small game I saw while going through the Steam Discovery Queue, Froggy's Battle. This is a Roguelike, where you're playing as a frog on a skateboard, that's going around in a loop. You kill enemies by bumping into them, or with weapons you might get at the end of a level. The game is really short, I beat the boss after a bit more than ten runs, about 90 minutes, although there's a hard mode, which I didn't do. The main difficulty, in my opinion, comes from the controls, since you're riding a skateboard in a loop, so you'll end up upside down, which flips some of your controls. When the loop is filled with enemies, it can get pretty chaotic. The game has a bunch of different control schemes, so you can try to find whatever works best for you, so it isn't terrible. Doing sick kickflips, while wielding a magic wand, is pretty cool.
Finally, I started Diablo 4. I'm playing a Druid, because eventually I hope to punch everything as a werebear, although right now I'm punching stuff with stones that I summon from the earth. Even though I'm almost level 40, I'm still pretty early in the story, because I just run around in the world, doing side quests, going into the dungeons and whatnot. I'm trying to focus a bit more on the main story, just so I can get the mount and get around the world faster. While I am a KB+M elitist and mainly play on my PC, I also installed the game on my Steam Deck, and it runs really well on there. I turned everything down, except like textures, so it doesn't look as bad in closeups, but I'm basically always at 60fps, with room to spare. Only in the bigger city do I go below 60 sometimes, which is also pretty much the only time when I hear the fan turning up. Playing on controller is also neat, except for the menus (again). It also does have native ultrawide support, it's nice to have a modern game, where you don't have to look for patches or fixes, to fill the whole screen.
As for my favorite game of the year (that was released in 2023), it has to be Baldurs Gate 3, not much really came close.
Sekiro. It ruined other souls like for me. Even DS. Combat felt like dancing, QoL are very good, even better than Lies of P that people kept praising about QoL.
Quake I, now remastered. I reinstall it frequently and it was one of the first games I tried on Linux, and it works flawlessly even though it came from a Microsoft-owned Bethesda-published Id. There’s something hypnotyzing in how responsive it feels so I don’t get bored nor with originar, nor with pretty new levels. Even boomer shooters don’t scratch it just like this game does.
bin.pol.social
Ważne