This will take a rogue agent to send malware or otherwise brick all machines by kernel injection. The crowd strike event poked a hole in the dam. This needs a full exploit to get major traction beyond game studios moving to the next kernel level drm/exploit engine.
Totally agree. Went all-in on Linux earlier this year and it was all working pretty good but there is really no solution when all your buddies are playing fortnite.
The multiple “game streaming” services our there wasn’t really cutting it either. I recall reading that Microsoft was going to be more strict with allowing kernel level anticheat but I don’t remember exactly where in saw that and I’m too lazy to Google. I hope with all the new PC handhelds coming out (steam deck, etc), that major companies start pushing for this or figuring out a workaround.
In the wake of Crowdstrike, Microsoft was going to allow for additional avenues for hooks into the OS that don’t reach as deep into the kernel level, but they never said they were removing the hooks that Crowdstrike or anti-cheat use, as far as I can tell. One solution for PC handhelds is to run whatever modified version of Windows that Microsoft is cooking up, so that you get the console-like interface without compromising on the anti-cheat compatibility. The solution Valve is seemingly hoping for is that, by disclosing kernel-level anti-cheat on the store page, such a solution becomes poison in the marketplace and developers choose a different one.
Steam is a good platform, but if this strategy works and it kills off kernel level anticheat and gets more Linux support, those would be next level contributions to gaming.
The solution Valve is seemingly hoping for is that, by disclosing kernel-level anti-cheat on the store page, such a solution becomes poison in the marketplace and developers choose a different one.
Honestly, I wish they were more aggressive with it. Make the warning banners about kernel-level anti-cheat bright red and put it right above the purchase button like the “needs VR headset” warning.
Previously, my Apex Legends account with hundreds of hours and unlocks got banned for no reason, but I made a new account and played on. Then they banned Linux and I’ve never looked back.
Now I’m looking forward to not being able to play 2XKO as well.
I’m not a target for these hacks (I mostly play like commandos 1.5, Red alert and Diablo II) but I have my main PC on Linux and then a sort of franken-PC on windows where I don’t share sensitive data, or anything meaningful except game-related data I guess.
Elden Ring. Even after finishing the final boss there was so many areas I’ve not been to. And all those areas are unique - some with unique enemy types. It’s the game that dares to hide a secret area behind a secret area.
The kinds of people that claim “wokism” in games tend to also not actually play the games they’re bitching about, so they don’t actually know what to expect.
Awhile ago my partner and I discovered there’s a combined work “Woke Advisory List” of videogames compiled by these backwards grognards. It roughly places games into categories of “Do not play, tis too woke” and “mild Trigger warning - has woke elements”
There is no small matter of quality of game that seems to influence which category the game is put in. Generally blah games with like a non sexy female protagonist and a single gay person randomly existing as a character you optionally meet might classify as “Holy shit! Too woke too WOKE!”… But then LIFE IS STRANGE is only categorized with the mildest of warnings of “some gay themes”… Like bro… “some” ?
It is equal parts hilarious and disheartening to go through and look at all the shit they decry as woke collated in one place and to recognize what counts as “exceptions” because they cannot bring themselves to cast games they love onto the burn pile.
It’s not just that they don’t want to put games they love into the pile. Their whole idiology is based on woke games failing. If a game is successful and “woke” then their idiology must be wrong. They will never admit to this being the case, so instead the game must not be that “woke” after all.
My thought was that Geralt and Ciri’s stories were over or decided, and I’m disappointed they didn’t find a way to do a Witcher story either in the future or past that enabled you to pick your own gender, appearance, Witcher school, or whatever else, maybe with creative use of the trial of the grasses or something.
I’ll happily play as Ciri to revisit the universe and maybe some familiar characters, but I just wish they’d done something newer or more original.
Nothing happened. It is the same as always. There was no time, when graphics (and audio) weren’t the hottest shit to talk about. We did that in the 90s in ads, game magazines and in the schoolyard. And the people before us did the same. The buzzwords back then were different but that’s all.
Maybe stop watching youtubers, if that annoys you? Idk.
Just started playing Skyrim for the first time last week.
My character is optimized for ending fights before they begin – by liquifying the opponent’s noggin’ with one swing of her 2-handed warhammer.
Other than that, she travels the world collecting ingredients to cook, brew and smith stuff with.
I suspect that’s not an optimal build, but it’s fun.
Sauna2000 (it’s not out yet, but there are some demos floating around).
Squirrel stapler
Cruelty Squad - depends on the kinda person you are. If you’re super open-minded about game presentation then I’d tell you to go into it blind. If not, then I’ll happily try to sell you on it. If it helps, the game looks the way that it does because of how fucking confident it is in itself; and that confidence is fully justified. Give it time, even if the first level doesn’t hook you, give it time because in my experience it will eventually hook you and reel you in and leave you thinking it’s one of the best games of all time.
Undertale
Hypnospace Outlaw
Jet Set Radio, Jet Set Radio Future, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Give the first two a try, and if you don’t like either one, skip BRC; it’s a spiritual successor to JSRF and if you didn’t like JSRF then you probably won’t like BRC.
Hylics. If you liked that and wanted more, Hylics 2. Hylics 2 actually does something throughout the game that I’ve only ever seen as a gimmick in other games. It’s really cool and it’ll probably catch you off-guard every time it does it.
Katamari Damacy. If you liked that, there’s also We <3 Katamari.
Myst. The newest version has VR support. If you liked that, the recent Riven remaster also has VR support.
S C O R N (if you like Myst, give it a try. It feels very myst-like)
Hrot (boomer shooter, but if you like boomer shooters then you should give it a go).
If you’re at a place in your life where you’re trying to still find yourself: Night in the Woods. Especially if you’re a furry. This game is really fucking good. It’ll make you laugh. It’ll make you cry. It’ll make you miss home but also be glad you aren’t there anymore. It’ll make you question your place in life and who you are. Also, you can interact with things multiple times, make sure you don’t miss out on dialogue, you’ll regret it.
STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl - This is hard to go into blind because it’s buggy as fuck and most people recommend some form of community patch even for your first playthrough. That said, play it on the highest difficulty. It’s unironically more fun once you get used to it. If it’s too hard though, don’t be fooled into thinking that dropping the difficulty will make it easier, the hardest difficulty is special (you can only take a few hits, but the same is true for most enemies), and dropping it down will result in enemy difficulty scaling becoming more traditional (buffing health and damage).
Portal (and Portal 2).
Bugsnax.
If I can throw in a movie too:
Willy’s Wonderland. It’s a Nicolas Cage movie and that’s all I’ll tell you. DO NOT LOOK UP THE TRAILER. I wouldn’t have watched it if I hadn’t seen the trailer, but the trailer also has huge spoilers. I’m not a huge movie person and I had to watch it after seeing the trailer, but again the trailer has spoilers. It is on my top-10 movies list now.
Portal 2 has, hands-down, the most hilariously-written dialogue I have ever seen in a video game. That alone is worth playing the game, but it’s also a fun puzzle game to boot.
“Aperture Science: We do what we must, because we can.”
EDIT: Also: “Science isn’t about why - it’s about why not. Why is so much of our science dangerous? Why not marry safe science if you love it so much? In fact, why not invent a special safety door that won’t hit you in the butt on the way out, because you are fired!”
It breaks my heart to read about all the bugs and performance issues. Not that they were entirely unexpected - especially since it’s a STALKER game - but I was hoping for a miracle. I really, really want this game to succeed and the game itself sounds like they hit it out the park. I just hope launching in this state doesn’t ruin the game’s reputation and sales.
Yeah the war has definitely affected the team a lot, and it’s very admirable they managed to release the game at all. Here’s hoping that with a few bug fixes and patches the game can be a solid entry to the series.
They are based in Kyiv and the team moved away from UA. If they were based in the Eastern part of the country, the game would have been in development hell forever.
My first hour of gameplay didn’t feel like as bad as the reviewers put it. I have a relatively beefy machine (5800x, 4070 and 32gb of ram), the game defaulted me to epic settings (with DLSS and frame gen) and I’m getting a pretty stable 50 FPS. The only bug I’ve encountered is the audio not playing, and I guess also the sun not reflecting correctly off of windows.
The first hour isn’t much but I was expecting a much worse initial experience. My biggest issue so far has been the default keybinds but I’m hoping to solve it when I have more time to tinker in the settings menus. I’ll update my experience when I’ve had more time to play. So far I’m happy.
I have a 7800X3D and a 4070TI, running the game at 3413x1920 with DLDSR on my 1440p monitor with everything on Epic and DLSS on Balanced. For the most part, I’m sitting at 65-85 FPS. However both frame drops and stutters are pretty bad, and performance tanks in the populated first town area (forgetting its name), regularly hitting 45-55 FPS. To note also, frame gen doesn’t seem to work for me. It works for a couple of minutes, then it starts behaving like a memory leak: getting me down to sub 10 FPS until it crashes or I reboot the game. This doesn’t happen with frame gen off.
On that subject though, I’m getting frequent crashes anyway. The first two hours yesterday were fine, but I’ve had 4 fatal error CTDs today. Very disappointing.
I guess I’ve gotten lucky. I have stable FPS, performance doesn’t tank in the first village, no crashes and the only stuttering I had was when I was killing everyone at the military base and I had about 20 bodies at the building entrance because they just kept coming.
Looking at the reviews and what others are saying I think I’m very much the exception here. I can attest that if the game works it very much is the STALKER experience and if STALKER is your jam then the game is worth playing.
My only negatives so far are the key binds (I checked, I can’t set them how I want to because some actions can’t be changed from the settings menu), there’s no overview of your standing with a faction or who belongs to what faction (maybe it unlocks later as I’m still in the first area, but I do miss that feature) and some mutants seem too beefy (would’ve never imagined running away from a pack of flesh, but I do run away because they eat buckshot for breakfast).
The keybinds are absolutely atrocious and I was staggered that so many were unable to be re-bound. Quick Melee is “V” and you can’t change it??
The beefy mutants are absolutely a problem and made me actually switch from Veteran to Stalker difficulty simply because those bullet sponges are not fun gameplay. Otherwise in the long sequence of inane design decisions the absurdly fast timescale (24h in game in a single real life hour!!!) is pulling me out of immersion a lot as well. I hope it can be modded without breaking everything because I just want to be able to savour these beautiful areas and weathers for a bit while exploring without weather changing and night falling every 5 minutes!
Lastly, and I haven’t gotten far enough to see much of it yet, but most importantly will be the A-life implementation and how much of it is actually fixable with patches. That was what made the other STALKER games feel alive, and the devs have at least acknowledged that it’s not working at the moment. Hopefully that means the engine for it is actually there though and can be patched. Unless they’re lying to save face, I suppose.
Mods are already out to fix it, but it’s not unlikely they tied a bunch of functions to timescale so that longer days screw up AI/Emissions/Quests etc.
It’s way better than any of the prior games were years after release. Granted, I do have a powerful computer (3090/5800X3D) but I haven’t had any significant performance issues nor crashes. A mild bit of jank but nothing that’s totally broken, just some occasional glitching corpses or debris.
Really, really enjoying it so far. Had a classic STALKER experience while exploring, got ambushed, found some really cool mega-anomaly, thought I was safe and got owned. 10/10 would die again
Skimmed through a few of these earlier and REALLY excited for later today (pre-ordered on Steam for the bonuses, will refund if it is a total trainwreck)
The scores are all over the place because this is a B-A game so it has to actually technically perform well (unlike AA-AAA games like Jedi Survivor that get a pass…), But the actual text is fairly consistent:
The world is amazing. The early-mid game balance is brutal and unforgiving and you will spend a LOT of time using AKs so degraded that they WILL jam. The emergent behavior from the storms and enemy placements lead to frantic struggles to reach cover. And the performance and bugs are all over the place and we all REALLY hope the day-one patch fixes things but nobody is that optimitsic.
And… as a STALKER fan who loved SoC and CoP (and didn’t hate CS…):
Just to add on a bit for people thinking “I’ll wait ten years for the community patches”. Yeah, that will be a less painful experience. But it is well worth looking back at how modders have handled the STALKERs over the years. Even as early as year one there were people who insisted on changing the game balance heavily and EVERYONE wanted to re-enable the cut repair features at merchants. Which made the game a lot less frustrating but also kind of defeated the purpose of the game.
Because the experience of stocking up on ALL the good 9x39 ammo in The Zone to take your VSS up against the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant? That involved using AKs and ARs to go from point A to point B because you wanted to save up that durability for when it mattered. And when it did matter? The fighting was so intense that you burned through ALL that ammo AND your gun was busted and there was the experience of basically throwing away a perfectly good gun that you spent your entire net worth on to sprint out from the cover of a burned out bus (that looked suspiciously like the same asset pack Metro and Fallout 3 used…) to grab an AK off a dead zombie to return fire before the RPG soldiers got a good shot.
Also… this is a Ukrainian as fuck game made by Ukrainians during a war for their very survival. Decide how much slack you are gonna cut for that and how much long term support you expect with the upcoming “wrinkle” of 2025.
Some games just put in bs achievements like these to tempt people who care about that to cheat or waste their time to a degree that would make anyone shake their head.
I think achievements should be a framework that ensures the player has the ability to verify whether they have seen all the content the game has to offer (think secrets or easter eggs, hard to find sidequests) and as such had the full experience. You got platinum? You’ve seen it all, thanks for playing, see you in the next one! They shouldn‘t be frustrating or disrespectful to the players time.
Arguably even difficulty achievements aren‘t great in terms of accessibility, although I do understand that those are quite literally „achievements.“
No one is forced to do achievements to enjoy a game. I understand achievement hunting, but since they can easily be cheated (on steam at least) it really is only a personal goal. If you are not enjoying one just forget about it.
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