Which indies did you discover and would love more people to know about? I’ll start: The Pale Beyond. Not sure if it’s a hidden gem tbh, but it’s such a good story rich game. I laughed, I cried and felt the characters struggles. If you like story rich games/ choices matter, check it out.
DUDE did you also attend Digipen (camps or real classes)? Nitronic Rush was the fuckin shit and Distance was a massive graphical upgrade. Also hard to deny how great multiplayer is as an addition.
It’s old enough that I can’t attest to how hidden it was/is, but Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery is likely the greatest 3 hours I’ve spent in a single videogame. It’s chock-full of confidence and style and atmosphere. The story is nothing unique but the presentation is everything. Pixellated graphics contrasted with vivid sound design and a glorious soundtrack. I love everything about it.
In a bad-vibes moment, they’re denying a huge outlet like IGN a review code. No matter what I think of IGN in particular (nothing good tbh), that’s not something I can find a real explanation for other than “We made DC’s Gollum and want to avoid bad press as long as we can”.
Imagine you just finished playing Arkham Knight, and you get an interview with Rocksteady as a game developer. They love you, your passion, your creative skills, and they onboard you. This “game” is what Warner Bros hands down to you to work on. The well-known head of the studio leaves within a few years of you joining. You hold out hope that everything will come together so people can enjoy the art that you’ve worked so hard on. Warner Bros adds a battle pass. Warner Bros makes it a “game”-as-a-service. Warner Bros announces nonsensical lore additions for the sake of post-launch content. Warner Bros denies review copies. The “studio” you thought you were signing up for has become nothing but a slot machine for the higher-ups.
What a shitty thing to do to a whole group of wonderfully creative and skilled people.
Okay let me start with two heavy hitters right from the get go and don’t forget these are only personal oppinions and I absolute understand if you like those games. Good for you!...
Don’t get me wrong, the game has fantastic mechanics and great art direction.
HOWEVER. The game relied too much on its lack of hand-holding in order to be enticing but it came out just raw fuckin frustrating. You know what’s cool? Finding new areas by exploration and not by being told it’s where you’re supposed to go. You know what’s not cool? Being handed a list of names of places with no idea of what is in each of them and being expected to know where to go. I got really frustrated with a boss and quit for a few weeks. I come back, kill the boss, and learn that there’s no new door out of the boss arena. I open the fast travel list to find a long list of names of places I had been to but had no fucking idea which one I was supposed to explore next. That is the absolute worst design choice I have seen in a universally loved game. Fuck Bloodborne.
Yes, I will absolutely buy it when they decide to remaster it for PC.
Just finished Cyberpunk 2077 for the first time. I had it since release but it grew on me very slowly. Focused more on it after the release of 2.0 and it quickly became one of my favorite games ever made. Highly recommend.
I wanted something more linear so I finally started playing God of War (2018) with the intention to finish it. I started it back in 2018 a few months after it came out but it was hard to get into since the combat didn’t feel as free or open-ended as the games I was used to like Spider-man, the Arkham games, or Dark Souls but it’s okay imo. I’m hoping the story has better payoff than the combat does.
I remember being very unimpressed with RDR, though that could be because I rushed through it the week before the sequel came out. In my experience rushing through a game like that ruins the experience completely.
What is it you enjoy most? Open cowboy world or the story or something else? Might have to go back to it (and actually finish the sequel lol)
I’m not sure I know what a character action game is. God of War feels a little grating to me because there are enough enemies who feel like they’re programmed to be challenging and aren’t naturally challenging. I know some enemies from the Spider-man and Arkham games are technically the same, but they ride the other side of the line that defines immersion. DOOM 2016 and DOOM: Eternal are better examples of games with combat mechanics which encourage you (sometimes very strongly) to play the game a specific way, but lets you try to play it your way if you want, or can’t play the way it encourages.
Oooh gotcha. Yeah, when I was a kid I enjoyed that sort of game, like The Force Unleashed was one of my favorites. But as I’ve gotten older they just haven’t been fun. I tried Darksiders when I was in college and it was mind-numbingly boring.
If God of War (2018) didn’t grant me the flexibility to chuck Kratos’ axe whenever I want and switch up styles between axed and hands/shield on the fly I would probably get too bored of this game to continue. But I do get a lot of enjoyment out of hucking that axe into someone’s noggin then bum-rushing them and beating the shit out of them with godlike aggression. That’s pretty cool.
I’m pretty confident it’s following closely in the shoes of The Avengers game that came out not long ago, and not in the shoes of any popular co-op game.
I would LOVE to be proven wrong. Rocksteady has (had?) a lot of talent that shouldn’t go to waste.
I remember when Gotham Knights(game, not the show) and Suicide Squad (game, not the movie) were announced almost back to back. I was more excited about the setting of Gotham Knights, then immediately irked when they made it clear it did not line up with the Arkham story, then immediately completely turned off when they announced it would include a leveling system for the player and enemies since it clearly would not have the feeling of the Arkham series’ combat and was likely to have leveled weapons that have artificially weak feeling impact. Suicide Squad seemed more exciting at the time simply because it sounded more narrative-driven like the Arkham games even though the jump from playing as Batman against the more grounded Batman rogues gallery to literally “Kill the Justice League” sounded extremely jarring and made it seem like the games could not possibly feel like they were from the same development team or storyline. Here we are, years later and I feel very proven right. Neither game so far has sounded even remotely interesting. EXCEPT for the co-op. If Arkham Knight had co-op baked into the game that would have been incredible. That’s all that I wanted from either Suicide Squad or Gotham Knights. Sadly, that’s not what we get.
…a late 2000s futuristic FPS game (with dubious status as an FPS) introducing never-before-seen movement mechanics that are used to their fullest potential featuring an athletic but non-sexualized female protagonist, had a radio-friendly song titled “Still Alive” playing over the end credits, i’d have two nickels. which...
Holy fuck is there a lot of content in Cyberpunk 2077. I remember when the game came out people complained of it being as wide as an ocean and as deep as a puddle but those people can fuck right outta here. It’s chock full of interesting stories to learn about and tons of fun gameplay. Same goes for Phantom Liberty which takes countless hours to get through.
I get that cost does not directly correlate to play time when it comes to video games, but it’s hard for me not to gawk at how this game was sold for the same price point of the yearly reskin of <insert corporate slop here>.
No, the irony of how CyberPUNK was almost ruined by corporate interference is not lost on me, but it’s clear that the developers, artists, writers, programmers, and designers behind this game are true masters of the craft.
This year, I’m most looking forward to playing through it again after I’ve taken a good couple months off.
That’s fair. I guess I read the criticism like they were saying the game lacked the depth of the Witcher 3 which I would say is far from true. They’re roughly the same imo
No trackpads? I’m straight-up not interested. With how finicky PC gaming can be when it comes to window-focus issues, if I don’t have extra controls on a handheld PC to be able to randomly click or mash emulated keyboard keys I’m not gonna feel comfortable with the handheld.
Maybe the Steam Link and Controller weren’t as popular as Valve hoped they would be, but damn everyone who still has them seems to love them. Maybe I’m biased because I still have my controller and love it, and I gave away my Steam link because my Deck can do that too, but my friend who received the link is loving it.
Deathloop. I put it off for so long because so many people said “if you’re coming here looking for another Dishonored or Prey, you’ll be disappointed because the story and immersive sim elements are far more shallow” BUT HOLY HELL Deathloop is the most unique AAA game on the market. The metagame is amazing in that while the moment-to-moment gameplay is FPS/action-style, the game as a whole is really a puzzle for the player to solve through exploration and discovery. Fuck me it works so damn well.
Who the hell am I? How did I wake up on this island? Who’s yelling in my ear all the time? Why do I wake up on this beach every morning even if I die? The game makes you ask questions and doesn’t let you leave them unanswered.
The icing on the cake is the amazing combat with cool guns and amazingly fun supernatural powers. I may be in the minority but I also love the way that the invasion PvP mode works. It adds a really nice difficulty jump when the game might start feeling too easy. The only two complaints I have are that the multiplayer networking experience is definitely subpar with a lot of lag, and that the game holds your hand too much at the end. It shouldn’t give you objective markers telling you how to actually go about solving the puzzle, it should force you to figure it out and implement it on your own.
Oh absolutely. The PvP was really about outsmarting (just like the rest of the game, nice cohesion) and sometimes boiled down to tense gun fights. Even then you could rely more on the slabs than the guns if you wanted.
The banter also really adds to the game. Reminds me of Evolve and how the varied character conversations and banter helped keep the matches from feeling extremely repetitive.
They listed reasons why the PS5 and XboS were not the platform of the year, but nothing about the Steam Deck. It seems like the reason they claimed the Switch was the platform of the year was due to exclusives, so I suppose if that’s their only metric I guess the Switch wins out by a longshot. But I gotta say in any other metric except maybe raw usability (due to some UI bugs) the Deck wins against all other current platforms.
If you ask me, the Steam Deck’s battery is its biggest weakness, however it completely depends on what you’re playing. I can play Cyberpunk 2077 on the Steam Deck graphics preset for roughly 90 minutes but I played Arkham Knight for 30 minutes and lost only 10% of the battery. Dead Cells takes only 5% in 30 minutes. That is to say battery life is completely dependent on the game you choose to play, but at least you have the choice, whereas many crossplatform AAA games just aren’t on the Switch.
The portability difference is also notable. The Deck is a chonky boi, though imo it’s not as big a difference as some people would say. They both fit well in a backpack.
However, I completely disagree with you saying that the Deck isn’t a new platform. Nothing has existed like the Deck before because yes, it’s a gaming laptop that’s dramatically more portable and more gaming-oriented than any gaming laptop ever before. The control options alone make it the best controller ever invented (here’s hoping for a Steam Controller 2.0) and the flexibility to plug anything in via that USB C connector is fabulous.
Sharing my Steam library between my PC and my Steam Deck is just the icing on the gravy.
I still use my Steam Controller fairly regularly. It’s so handy and I love the dual track pads.
I really want a 2.0 because as much as I love the trackpads, having only one stick for something like a driving game just doesn’t work well. I also can’t get over how nice it is being able to have a full 16-button controller PLUS buttons that can invoke keyboard shortcuts like alt-tab or move the mouse if focus gets lost or something.
I’m surprised you don’t like the feel of the Deck. It’s honestly the most comfortable any controller has felt sitting in my hands. It beats the ergonomics of the Switch by a mile too
Lol I can respect that. Everyone’s got their preferences.
I do think it’s funny that at first I was like “eh, it’s cool” then I bought into the hype, got one, and touched it maybe a dozen times the first year I had it. But now the more I use it the more I fall in love lol
I only played the NDS version of this game which definitely included Yoshi, Luigi, and Wario as playable characters. And a multiplayer mode where each character was Yoshi and could put on hats to play as Mario, Luigi, or Wario. Was any of that in the N64 version of the game?
I’m not convinced any online-only games are worth anyone’s time if they’re planned as a live service game from the get-go. When Halo: Infinite F2P multiplayer dropped, so many people on the Halo subreddit were like “yeah, it’s fun but the battlepass is so slow to progress that I feel like I don’t have a reason to keep playing.” Uhhhhh maybe keep playing because you’re having fun? Or do you need some artificial number to tell you to keep going?
Seems like a confusing shift in the target demographic where battlepasses and constant new updates are required in order to consider a game “worth your time.”
squeaky old man voice back in my day my brothers and I would play CoD: Zombies using the exact same strategies every day after school for years with no updates to the gameplay AND WE LIKED IT
Yeah, if the game is fun then ignore the cosmetics. If you like the cosmetics enough, then buy the cosmetics. As long as gameplay elements aren’t locked behind a paywall, I see no problem.
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!...
I played the shit out of Borderlands 2 until I realized it really wasn’t fun. The guns and stuff are cool, but the shooting feedback wasn’t satisfying enough to justify continuing. Then Borderlands 3 came out and improved in every way on the core mechanics and I was too tired of Borderlands 2 to care. I really wish BL3 came out like 5 years sooner.
I loved the Finals when it was in beta. It legitimately was the most fun I had in a multiplayer game since Titanfall 2 and Lawbreakers. It just had that raw chaos feeling that I was craving.
Then I heard the announcers were AI voices, and that was disheartening. Then I heard that they slowed the movement down for the release to a point that it felt really sluggish so I just haven’t been motivated to try it post-release.
I’m starting to find that HUDs in games clutter the screen and take away from being fully immersed in the game. I like games that force you to pay attention to what’s going on in the game and not numbers/markers on the edges of the display. What are some of your favorite games to play with no HUD? Here are a few of mine:...
The graphics look amazing as they did with RDR2, but unless there’s something truly innovative about the open world’s gameplay (like for example persistent, story unessential NPCs or a more dynamic relationship between the player and police) I don’t see a reason to be hyped about this game.
They do, although their additions up until now have been about more content: more vehicles, more space, more detail, more activities, more granularity
I want to know what’s specifically going to be better or more interesting. I’m honestly happy replaying RDR and GTA V or finally finishing GTA IV and RDR2 because those are all fantastic games.
Everyone playing the newest Call of Duty has been foaming at the mouth for something new as well. Buying the newest game is not going to manifest something new. In fact, quite the opposite. If more of the same generates them more money with less cost, they will 100% do that.
I just finished my second ever playthrough of the original goldsrc Half-Life. It gets all the love it deserves. So few games craft an atmosphere of horrific mystery like that game, and I love the payoff of that tension. I know Xen gets hate for being rushed and the levels being chaotic, but I like that. EVERYTHING about Xen feels alien and terrifying. Then when you find out more about the alien society it turns the entire “invasion” on its head. What a great fuckin game.
I think now is as good a time as any to finally finish (after restarting) Half-Life: Alyx
Deathloop. I kept reading reviews saying it failed to live up to the standards of Dishonored and Prey, but I think those people went into it with the wrong expectations. Dishonored and Prey are amazing immersive sims, yes, but Deathloop was like if you took an indie game that sought to better contextualize trite video game mechanics like endless multiplayer war, respawning, checkpoints, etc. within a reasonable story and then polished it with the skill of industry veterans and a big fuckin budget and everything about it (short of some network latency) worked magically. It’s one of my favorite games now and I strongly recommend it to any fans of well-told stories and FPS games.
If I had any complaint, it’s that the game holds your hand at the end a little too much. If they had given you space to plan your final attack it would’ve felt so much more satisfying. Regardless, great fuckin game.
One of my favorite memories from college was when I was home over the summer, had no job, and almost my whole family was gone for like a week. I binged a replay through all 4 Arkham games and the gameplay never got old while the story was just as good as the first few times I played each of them.
Also, screw everyone who says otherwise: the Batmobile was a ton of fun to use and broke up the other gameplay extremely well.
If a game even remotely looks like a chore, I’m passing. I don’t have time to just mosey around limitless planets, mining for resources to build a gun or some shit.
Unless you let me swing around like fuckin Spider-man. Nothing’s a chore when you get to swing from chore to chore like fuckin Spider-man. Fuckin cool ass bitch with the pendulums and zipping and swinging and shit. Fuckin love Spider-man.
Shit I’m so so so sorry when I wrote that I thought it was obvious I was making a joke about Spider-man being an entitled millennial but now, looking back that obviously was not clear. That’s 100% my bad!!!
Tack Call of Duty Zombies into that list too, but Moonguide has a point. CoD: BlOps 3 was the last really good zombies experience and that was just as they were starting to turn it into an MTx nightmare.
Say a simple (hours enjoyed playing)/(price of game) equation. How many hours (you enjoyed) per $ do you think is reasonable/expected? Or is there other criteria for you?...
I can’t say I have any sort of standard way to gauge that. Once the money is spent, I don’t really think about it anymore and yeah that’s probably a result of my monetary privilege, but it’s my honest answer to your question. It’s almost impossible to determine about the monetary value of an experience of a piece of art.
What are some hidden indie gems nobody knows about? angielski
Which indies did you discover and would love more people to know about? I’ll start: The Pale Beyond. Not sure if it’s a hidden gem tbh, but it’s such a good story rich game. I laughed, I cried and felt the characters struggles. If you like story rich games/ choices matter, check it out.
Where's Our Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Review? (IGN denied review code) (www.ign.com) angielski
In a bad-vibes moment, they’re denying a huge outlet like IGN a review code. No matter what I think of IGN in particular (nothing good tbh), that’s not something I can find a real explanation for other than “We made DC’s Gollum and want to avoid bad press as long as we can”.
Which games do you dislike, but the rest of the world loves them? angielski
Okay let me start with two heavy hitters right from the get go and don’t forget these are only personal oppinions and I absolute understand if you like those games. Good for you!...
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of January 21st
Hey y’all, what have you been playing?...
Indiana Jones And The Great Circle is first-person, stealthy, and coming 2024 (www.rockpapershotgun.com)
Suicide Squad Boss Downplays Live-Service Elements Of Obviously Live-Service Game (kotaku.com)
if i had a nickel for every time... angielski
…a late 2000s futuristic FPS game (with dubious status as an FPS) introducing never-before-seen movement mechanics that are used to their fullest potential featuring an athletic but non-sexualized female protagonist, had a radio-friendly song titled “Still Alive” playing over the end credits, i’d have two nickels. which...
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of January 7th
Happy new year!...
MSI CLAW gaming handheld leaked, features Intel Core Ultra 7 155H with Arc graphics and 32GB memory (videocardz.com) angielski
8 Years later my Steam Link is still getting regular updates (slrpnk.net) angielski
With the year coming to an end, what was your favorite video game you played this year?
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Super Mario 64 Footage Seemingly Shows Off a Multiplayer Mode With Luigi For the First Time - IGN (www.ign.com) angielski
Naughty Dog Ends Development Of The Last Of Us Online (www.gameinformer.com) angielski
The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion (lemmy.world) angielski
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!...
Good gaming experiences with no HUD? angielski
I’m starting to find that HUDs in games clutter the screen and take away from being fully immersed in the game. I like games that force you to pay attention to what’s going on in the game and not numbers/markers on the edges of the display. What are some of your favorite games to play with no HUD? Here are a few of mine:...
Grand Theft Auto VI Trailer 1 (www.youtube.com) angielski
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of December 3rd
What have you all been playing! I’ve been playing… Not much! I’m moving states and haven’t had a lot of time to game 😢
Steam Sale Games
What are people excited about for with the steam sale? Any hidden gems you’d like to share with the class?
What game did you last finish? What did you think of it? (i.imgur.com) angielski
I picked up “Mafia: Definitive Edition” cheap the other day (I’ve linked it on Steam as it’s still on sale for the next few days)....
Rainbow 6: Siege Operation Deep Freeze Gameplay Trailer (youtu.be) angielski
Shameless plug: come join the discussion on Rainbow Six
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Far Cry's Multiplayer Game is an Extraction-Based Shooter (insider-gaming.com) angielski
When was a game's price worth it to you?
Say a simple (hours enjoyed playing)/(price of game) equation. How many hours (you enjoyed) per $ do you think is reasonable/expected? Or is there other criteria for you?...