Believe it or not, the Catholic Church is far less into the “Satanic Panic” idea that anything that mentions magic and stuff is evil and should be avoided than most Protestant Christian churches, especially the Evangelicals. Pretty much the only thing they consider sinful outright in the media is porn, otherwise you’re just advised to avoid stuff that influences you to commit other sins. This includes things like Baldur’s Gate 3. If it’s not influencing you to sin, it’s not a sin to play. Same with Harry Potter and other stuff like that. It’s just some extreme folks in the Church, influenced by the Evangelicals, who push the Satanic Panic farther than the Church officially teaches and give the Church a bad name in that regard. Lots of priests are sci-fi/fantasy/gamer nerds, and Tolkien (author of Lord of the Rings) was a faithful practicing Catholic.
The YouTube channel Stop Skeletons From Fighting made an entertaining and informative series of videos on the Zeebo and its games. Definitely recommend it.
Exactly. This has much more to do with pirating games, especially before release, than any emulator crackdown. He’s the poster child of every reason Nintendo has used to go after anyone not using legit hardware. And frankly, I think more people than many are comfortable admitting are like this guy: they use emulators primarily for piracy. I’m not 100% totally against emulation, but that’s where we need to point companies like Nintendo who are hyper-aggressive with their IPs to the real target: illegal ROM sharing sites and other avenues of game piracy, instead of the emulators. People who are emulating just for backup/preservation of games, as many claim they are (and I don’t have a problem with), shouldn’t really have an objection to the real pirates going down.
Cult of the Lamb is a cute game about building, maintaining, and running a cult in order to overthrow the four Bishops controlling the Old Faith. But is there such a thing as a good cult…?...
Fun fact: at least in the Catholic Church, “cult” is a neutral word that basically means “popular following”. In the Church, it’s mostly used to refer to particular devotions or holy people that catch on in local communities and spread to a wider area, which the Church may look into for official " approval" for anyone to participate in or promote worldwide, or as a beginning sign that a holy person may become a saint. Even if the Church doesn’t officially canonize a person a saint, they may still say the person has a “cult” in a particular area.
EDIT: meant to post in reply to the OP, not the above comment, sorry about that.
Pocketpair goes on to say that Palworld has been claimed to infringe on three patents held by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company and that part of the damage is required as compensation....
To be fair, they’re both Japanese companies, but yeah, Japan’s patent/trademark/copyright laws, or at least the way they’re enforced, make America’s look like China’s. It’s a big part of how Nintendo can be the copyright bullies they are: they’ll do this, file suit in Japan, and steamroll anyone who dares oppose them in court. Because both companies in this case are Japanese, though, all the Japan vs foreigner stuff doesn’t really apply here.
And as a foreigner who lived in Japan in the past, I will say there’s some truth to the above, but it’s a bit exaggerated. Due to that homogeneity, 90+ percent of any racism anyone might experience there is due to stereotypes, not hostility or hatred. It’s still wrong, but more due to ignorance. That is, unless you’re Chinese or Korean. Japan, China and Korea HATE each other (each one hates the other two) for many historical reasons, and while the hostility isn’t as overt nowadays, it still simmers just under the surface. The US is basically forcing Japan and South Korea to play nice and be “allies” so that China and North Korea don’t run them both over. Otherwise, they would all be at each other’s throats.
That’s the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive Classics collection. I have it myself (bought several years ago). It’s just an official emulator/GUI wrapper (styled like a bedroom with a CRT) that comes with the games. If you have the collection you can find all the ROMs in the collection’s folder and play them with whatever emulator you want. If Steam ever threatens to take them away I strongly recommend backing that folder up somewhere.
They already did this with the classic Sonic games (Sonic Origins) and removed them from any new Steam copies of the Genesis/Mega Drive Classics collection. I doubt they’re working on all the games in their library, but it may be enough of them that they just decided to pull the whole collection rather than leave it so gutted out. Sucks, but yeah, that’s the way it goes. That said, Shining Force remaster please? That would be awesome.
I’m replaying Arkham Asylum for the first time since close to when it first came out! It’s old for sure but it doesn’t take long to get used to it again....
Origins tends to be the “forgotten” title in the Arkham series since it wasn’t developed by the same studio and doesn’t feature many of the iconic characters/villains of the others (just Penguin, Deathstroke, Riddler and Joker), but IMO it’s still a very good game that can be held up with the others in the series and can introduce players to a variety of other members of Batman’s rogues gallery they may have not heard of before.
Ah, yes, that infamous barrel. Claims many a hedgehog’s life due to timing out. I did actually manage once or twice as a kid to get under it through fast and clever jumping, until I only learned in adulthood that you’re supposed to move the D-pad up and down to control it. Really doesn’t help that the game doesn’t show you before how to control a barrel like that, and that stage can push players to the edge of danger timewise with or without that barrel.
For game designers, encouraging aggression is often a good thing. Too many players of StarCraft or even regular combat games end up “turtling”, dropping initiative wherever possible to make their games slow and boring while playing as safe as possible....
Competitive Pokémon tends to go back and forth between times of “stall” (turtling) and hyper-offense (aggression) dominating the metagame, depending on which strategies and team builds players will find. Whenever one becomes dominant, fans of the other will constantly hound tournament runners to change tiering or ban certain pokemon to change it.
As for a “fun” game to go hyper-aggressive with zero HP, max damage, I’ve seen some YouTubers attempt “Danger Mario” runs in the first two Paper Mario games, maximizing FP and BP and never taking HP when leveling, keeping Mario in the “danger” zone where lots of evasion or damage badges will stay activated. They then rely on those badges, items and partner abilities to avoid taking damage.
Within console generations, change has indeed always tended to be gradual, but I think the point here is that we’re talking about the step up to the next console generation, for which the visual difference in graphical power used to be very large, you could do a lot more on the newer console than the older one, but has become more gradual over time. Many already didn’t see the need to upgrade to the new Playstation or Xbox from the PS4 or Xbox One, and a lot of their libraries were backported to the older consoles (granted, the consoles dropped during Covid so scarcity played a part in that but even after production picked back up they’re not doing as well overall). The only console that could still likely make a big visual leap to a new generation any time soon is the Switch to the Switch 2, and we still don’t have confirmation on whether Nintendo is even planning on such an upgrade. Just like the Wii, it sold like crazy while still being the least powerful in the generation because it had a knockout combination of utility and quality games. On the other hand, it is showing its age now, so if Nintendo doesn’t make that upgrade who knows if the fans will continue to support it.
The original got overshadowed (pun not intended) by high profile releases such as SKYRIM and a new Mario Kart at the time and was followed up by the very mid Sonic Lost World, so here’s hoping the good reviews help people decide to pick this up and actually see 3D Sonic done right.
Sounds like the community of every competitive (or coop campaign) multiplayer game I’ve ever been in. I prefer just to not play online multiplayer, I don’t have the time (or disposable income) to “git gud” enough to be able to even stand a chance against all the obsessed people who pour hundreds of hours into it in the first month and drive everyone else out.
As someone who grew up playing games like World of Warcraft and other AAA titles, I’ve seen how the gaming industry has evolved over the years—and not always for the better. One of the most disturbing trends is the rise of gacha games, which are, at their core, thinly veiled gambling systems targeting younger players. And I...
Even the ESRB, another example of gaming industry self-regulation, hasn’t stopped gaming companies marketing M-rated games to kids or really slowed down sales or access to such games to underage players at all. If anything, they use the M rating as a direct marketing tool to kids: “your parents wouldn’t want you to play this so you totally should”.
Then they come up with the rating system whose only enforcement is on the AO rating, and don’t bother to actually clean up their shit. As the post above yours mentioned, the problem is lack of enforcement anywhere outside the AO rating or even anyone involved actually caring. Devs and marketing teams push for M if they want to actually sell a game to kids above 7 years old, retailers will sell anything to anyone lest they lose out on the money, and parents who ask about it will just ask the kid who wants to buy the game and will lie about what the rating means. We can crab about movie ratings all we want, but at least most studios and theaters actually enforce the MPAA’s rating and parents know what movie ratings mean. Game ratings are basically like TV ratings, so irrelevant you wonder why they even bother.
Most people don’t, or only throw something like 5 bucks at games like that here or there. But some F2P games are pushing 10 years or more in existence, so somebody’s paying to keep the servers running. The backbone of that industry is the small population of “whales” who spend their life’s savings to get the superior rare new cosmetic or in-game currency to gamble their life away to maybe pull enough copies to max out their waifu. Then they’ll use said cosmetic or waifu for about a month before the next super-ultra rare amazing once-in-a-lifetime hat or weapon comes along, or another waifu who totally eclipses their original one is released, then it’s rinse, repeat ad infinitum until the whale is flat broke and their life is ruined. But at least they maxed out their waifu and got to the top of the rankings in the leaderboard.
Honkai Star Rail, a free-to-play gacha game (basically, gambling game of chance) in which players spend anywhere from $5 to $10,000 to get characters, gear, equipment… is now releasing a disc version of their game on PlayStation 5. First issue with this is that many people don’t have a disk drive in their PlayStation, and...
Yeah, at least some in-game currency is really the least they could have done if you’re gonna pay money to just get the base game to begin with since it’s F2P (pay-to-win) otherwise. Complete waste of money even for people who play and regularly spend money on these types of games.
I’ve been a part of two different friends’ attempts to quit addiction to MMOs. A high school friend had a problem with Everquest back before WoW. His brother recruited us friends to help give him alternative stuff to do like movie and other game nights. We succeeded, and he was able to put the game down. Some college friends and I were not so successful in pulling one of my roommates away from WoW. Activision Blizzard have it literally down to the science of addiction.
I’m curious about which types of math games are most ideal for children in terms of both fun and learning. As someone who enjoys playing math games on Math Playground, I’m interested in hearing recommendations and experiences from other parents, educators, or game enthusiasts.
Aside from Microsoft selling it as one, there’s a reason the 360’s contoller design is basically the de facto basis for most PC controllers. It’s the most comfortable one I’ve used for 3D games by far. Everything you need is easy to access. Nintendo lifted essentially the same design for their Wii U and Switch Pro controllers.
I think I still have one of those. It was Logitech. I thought it was good unless I wanted to use the thumbsticks or triggers. I always thought the Sony design of putting the thumbsticks down in the lower-middle was really awkward, and for some reason, using the triggers on the Logitech controller sometimes felt a bit painful.
Legend of Zelda OoT followed up with popularizing a targeting button (good ol’ Z-targeting) to focus on one object or enemy in a 3D space and move around it or fight/otherwise interact with it. Such targeting has been a standard feature of 3D action-adventure games ever since.
As an RPG player, people kept saying I should play Fallout, but I never have because it always looked more like a shooter than an RPG, and I want to play an actual RPG, not a shooter with RPG elements (especially because I despise shooters).
I’m guessing they made significant changes, but although I didn’t think this game was too bad the first time around, I don’t have too much hope for it. The only successful revival of a game after being taken down temporarily that I can think of is Final Fantasy XIV.
Exactly. Until around 2005 with the advent of affordable HDTVs and the war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, anything more than what came stock with your TV, which was usually standard definition picture and stereo sound, was something of a luxury. Sound bars were only really starting to become a popular thing.
There have been some generally well-received games since Adventure 2, like Generations, which you mentioned, along with Colors, Mania, and Frontiers seems to be generally liked enough.
Very few third-party games remain exclusive to one platform forever, so in those cases I’m usually content to just wait it out until the exclusivity deal is over then pick the game up on a platform I own. Sometimes the wait can be pretty long but I really don’t have much of a sense of FOMO most of the time.
The Saturn is probably one of the most jaded consoles I come across, on one hand I like some of the japan only games, but on the other, most multiplat games were better on the PS1....
There were lots of things that impacted how the Saturn sold compared to the PS1. These include things such as its 2D vs 3D performance (it did 2D much better than 3D, which impacted the Japan vs Western sales since the Western market was all in on 3D whereas Japan still had an appetite for 2D games yet), its basis on squares vs triangles for rendering polygons (a major impact to that 3D performance), infighting between Sega of Japan vs Sega of America (the Saturn was developed in Japan to be Sega’s launch into that generation, while the Genesis was still selling well in America, leading to Sega of America pushing the 32X instead, and Sega of Japan forcing their hand on Sega of America and pulling a surprise Western launch of the Saturn, angering devs and retailers who weren’t ready, and leaving Sega of America holding the bag), and the cancelation of what was supposed to be that marquee Sonic game, Sonic X-treme.
Fire Emblem delayed their 30th anniversary game by two years. It sat, completed, on the shelf with no real proper explanation as to why. Instead they did a temporary release of the original 8-bit version of the first Fire Emblem on the eShop, when a superior version in essentially every way is available on the DS. If all they were going to do was release an original game on the eShop, the least they could have done was do a worldwide release of one of the games in the series that’s still stuck in Japan. Then the actual anniversary game (Engage) finally released two years later, and… it’s mid. Not bad, especially gameplay wise, but held back by a laughably cartoonish story, especially compared to its predecessor Three Houses. The mobile game Heroes has some better stories than Engage.
Until Breath of the Wild it was Ocarina of Time (I’m so original, I know /s), then BotW, and now Tears of the Kingdom improved on BotW in just about every conceivable way. I’m not much of a big completion type of gamer, despite really enjoying BotW I didn’t go for every shrine, but I definitely made the time and effort to do that in TotK. The only aspect of it I didn’t care for was that I didn’t really like going into the Depths and largely stayed above ground as much as I could (and screw Gloom Hands). Makes me excited to see where the series will go next.
So many weird fighting game franchises: of course Tekken, Soul Calibur, DoA, King of Fighters/Fatal Fury, even the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat juggernauts are pretty freaking weird. And that’s just scratching the surface. But that’s part of what makes them so dang fun.
My main issue that upsets me (which from what I understand isn’t much of a thing anymore which is good) is on-disk DLC, forcing you to pay extra to unlock content that is already on the disk you already own. Oh, wait, that leads to another annoyance: the idea that you don’t even own the copy of the game you paid for and is in your hands, you just own a license the publisher can change or revoke at any time or else you can’t play anymore.
Don’t know how good a case Nintendo has here unless it can prove that Yuzu itself contains proprietary code that allows the ROMs to be played. If the decryption is being done on the ROMs’ end, then that’s just another reason to go after the ones dumping and distributing the ROMs. Nintendo couldn’t even substantially stop Dolphin, and Dolphin actually had a decryption key straight from Wii firmware in it. Good luck to them, but they’re likely going for the wrong legal target. Taking down what ROM sites they can (which would legally be a lot easier than the emulator makers) is just getting rid of drops in the ocean of the ROMs’ spread, but they’re the target Nintendo should be going after.
I remember very briefly playing Galaxies in the mid-2000s when my college friends and I were looking for budget MMOs to play together (WoW was expensive for me and some others at the time). It was OK but we quickly moved on from it. We actually played Pirates of the Caribbean Online for the most time overall but never did find one that we all really liked.
Do you find open source games interesting/good thing as a gamer?
@games I am a game developer working on game called Mushy Score. I decided that my niche would be to create open source games. I think these could be helpful for developers or teachers to teach about games and how they are made. Most open source games are small game jam games, but there are few “real games” that are open source like 0 A.D. and Doom. As a non-developer do you think open source games could be good thing?
Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D is out and it is beautiful (lemmy.world) angielski
I’ve been waiting for this to drop from the first trailer. Fantastic remake with a lot of tools to help first time players....
Larian revealed that Baldur's Gate 3 has sold 2 copies in the Vatican (gamerant.com) angielski
Windows 7 and 8 now dead for gaming, as new Steam update pulls support (www.pcgamesn.com) angielski
The Zeebo, only released in Mexico and Brazil. More info in the comments angielski
Nintendo sues a streamer for streaming ten games before their release (www.gamescensor.com) angielski
Guy Who Taunted Nintendo About Streaming Pirated Switch Games Before Release Now Faces $7.5 Million Lawsuit (kotaku.com) angielski
Random Screenshots of my Games #47 - Cult of the Lamb (lemmy.world) angielski
Cult of the Lamb is a cute game about building, maintaining, and running a cult in order to overthrow the four Bishops controlling the Old Faith. But is there such a thing as a good cult…?...
Pocketpair Confirms Which Patents Nintendo And The Pokemon Company Are Suing It Over (www.thegamer.com) angielski
Pocketpair goes on to say that Palworld has been claimed to infringe on three patents held by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company and that part of the damage is required as compensation....
Sega is delisting 60 classic games from Steam, so now’s the time to grab them (arstechnica.com) angielski
Batman: Arkham Origins (2013) - TV Spot [YouTube] (youtu.be) angielski
I’m replaying Arkham Asylum for the first time since close to when it first came out! It’s old for sure but it doesn’t take long to get used to it again....
Barrel of Doom | Screenshot of what I'm playing, day 5 angielski
Just got through the stage. Overall fun, but I might have a few colorful words about that spinning wheel near the end. e.e"...
Stories and Mechanics around punishing over-aggression angielski
For game designers, encouraging aggression is often a good thing. Too many players of StarCraft or even regular combat games end up “turtling”, dropping initiative wherever possible to make their games slow and boring while playing as safe as possible....
'It Has Plateaued': Should We Be Worried About Console Gaming's Future? (flip.it) angielski
Honestly the Switch 2 is the only future console I have any excitement for.
Sonic x Shadow Generations | Review Thread angielski
Game Information...
A Trip To Machida, The Real-Life 'Pallet Town' That Inspired Pokémon (www.nintendolife.com) angielski
Shigeru Miyamoto comments on AI, says "Nintendo would rather go in a different direction" (nintendoeverything.com) angielski
GOAT
The Most Loved Video Game Character in Every Country (www.shithot.co.uk) angielski
Cool map
People seem to really dislike Destiny 2. Why haven't they ended it yet? (lemmy.world) angielski
Gacha games are out of control. Gambling shouldn't be so widespread angielski
As someone who grew up playing games like World of Warcraft and other AAA titles, I’ve seen how the gaming industry has evolved over the years—and not always for the better. One of the most disturbing trends is the rise of gacha games, which are, at their core, thinly veiled gambling systems targeting younger players. And I...
EU consumer groups slam 'manipulative' video game spending tactics. (www.euractiv.com) angielski
This is definitely one of the strangest cash grabs I've ever seen (lemmy.world) angielski
Honkai Star Rail, a free-to-play gacha game (basically, gambling game of chance) in which players spend anywhere from $5 to $10,000 to get characters, gear, equipment… is now releasing a disc version of their game on PlayStation 5. First issue with this is that many people don’t have a disk drive in their PlayStation, and...
Do people actually starve themselves to play games like World of Warcraft? (lemmy.world) angielski
What types of math games are ideal for children? (lemmy.world) angielski
I’m curious about which types of math games are most ideal for children in terms of both fun and learning. As someone who enjoys playing math games on Math Playground, I’m interested in hearing recommendations and experiences from other parents, educators, or game enthusiasts.
What's your favorite controller? angielski
What games popularized certain mechanics? angielski
I was trying to think of which games created certain mechanics that became popular and copied by future games in the industry....
Paradox Interactive has completely cancelled "Life By You" (www.gamingonlinux.com) angielski
Very surprising. The game looked like it had a lot of potential and could’ve been the most popular sims alternative, but it’s suddenly been cancelled.
Bethesda Is Charging $7 For A New Starfield Mission, And Players Are Upset (www.gamespot.com) angielski
MultiVersus - Launch Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
Sonic Rumble - Announce Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
That framerate is hilarious.
Final Fantasy Maker Square Enix Takes $140 Million Hit in ‘Content Abandonment Losses’ as It Revises Game Pipeline - IGN (www.ign.com) angielski
One big project or multiple smallers ones? What do you think?
The Sega Saturn angielski
The Saturn is probably one of the most jaded consoles I come across, on one hand I like some of the japan only games, but on the other, most multiplat games were better on the PS1....
Which game series had the worst anniversary celebration? angielski
Rockstar didn’t even acknowledge GTA IV’s tenth anniversary. Only by removing several songs from its radio stations....
All announcements from the triple-i showcase angielski
Some trailers have been shared here, but not all. This is a list of all 35 announcements from the Triple-i initiative showcase....
Legend of Zelda angielski
What is your favourite LOZ game? My fave is twilight princess as it was the first zelda game I played. Being it on the Wii....
Tekken is still weird and that’s what makes it great (www.youtube.com) angielski
Microtransactions angielski
I don’t know about you chaps but I absolutely detest the modern approach companies have with their franchises and games....
Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu (news.bloomberglaw.com) angielski
Nintendo’s full case filing...
Two Roads to Jedi-hood. Great article about what a roleplaying game is from 2004. (media.kbin.social) angielski
Foamstars | Review Thread angielski
Game Information...