My partner expressed an interest in finding a game for both of us to play. She doesn’t play many games, and I generally prefer single player games so I find myself at a loss for what’s out there that we might like. Hoping the community here can help!...
I heard puzzle games and am legally obligated to shill Petal Crash (and it's upcoming sequel). It's a great accessible entry point into versus puzzles, and tbh it's practically the only good thing to happen to the genre in a decade or so.
Can also check out Panel Attack as a FOSS clone of Panel de Pon, and FightCade for emulating all kinds of classics with netplay.
If the collectibles aren't satisfying to obtain on their own, I don't think putting an unlock behind them makes them retroactively better.
A good collectible is something like Strawberries in Celeste, each one requires you to take a more difficult path or do an additional screen. They're fun to go for, and I think it actually would've detracted if some unlock made them feel like a required task rather than a bonus challenge.
Mine always is, completely forgetting what I was doing and where I was going after not touching a save file for a long time. This is happening to me right now with Stardew Valley....
Miyamoto says: If the player is not locked into a succession of inescapable and slowly plodding text boxes where they're offered neither choices nor agency, it must mean they're not sufficiently engaged!
What Miyamoto game is this describing? If anything I'd say he's got a reputation for being anti-text.
I like how this article does not talk about the anti consumer practices engaged in by Nintendo, that might push some customers away from their consoles. /s Nintendo can disable your Switch 2 for piracy in the U.S., but not in Europe, as confirmed by its EULA. There is already a switch in my household, but the price along with...
That was always the case for Nintendo's home consoles, not like it was a new thing that started with the Wii. Switch was the first one to be region-free.
It's early and there aren't a lot of heavy hitters yet. But for me, Kirby Air Riders alone was well worth it, I waited 22 years for this sequel and it delivered.
NES and SNES were region-locked. In addition to an actual lockout chip, they even had different cartridge shapes so you couldn't physically fit Famicom or Super Famicom games.
Handhelds were not (until DSi and 3DS), but I specifically said home consoles.
I don't think that's had much of an impact when Nintendo sold more Switch 2s at launch than Valve has manufactured Steam Decks over its entire lifespan. The Steam Deck is still an enthusiast product for a niche crowd, and will likely never be in direct competition with the big three.
Did you have a modded console? Without modification, the 10NES lockout chip prevents PAL cartridges from running on NTSC or vice versa. But it is possible to disable the chip to get around this.
Short: I opened up the Nintendo eshop on a hacked 2DS. And didn’t realize my brothers main Nintendo account was logged in, as I usually only play offline. Will his account get banned?...
You should be safe. There were banwaves in the past that resulted in players getting blocked from online play, but those were tied to the console, not the account, and there is no 3DS online play to ban people from anymore. And after those banwaves happened, CFW started getting smarter about covering its tracks so Nintendo likely can't detect you as long as everything's up to date.
Given that the 3DS has been long discontinued, Nintendo's not going to bother cracking down on anyone now.
As far as I can tell, this is just a PVP 3rd person multiplayer shooter. Tagging this game as PVE is absolutely disingenuous. Despite the dev team originally developing this as PVE, they launched with PVP included, and the PVP and matchmaking feels half-assed....
It sounds like you're upset that a game that clearly put a lot of focus on PvP in its design, has PvP in it. I'm not sure it's fair to blame the game because you expected something else.
I think this just a sign of changing times regarding how games are made. We've come a long way from the days when one programmer added multiplayer into Goldeneye at the very end of development, that could never happen today. And those are the footsteps Halo 1 followed in, they didn't even have Xbox Live until the sequel.
Today, I think trying to make a game do a little bit of everything may risk struggling to stand out against titles that focus all of their development resources on just doing one thing really really well. You do have a point that having solo content to fall back on is at least a safety net, but does the opportunity cost of implementing that solo content make it even harder to succeed as a multiplayer game in such a competitive market?
TLDR: To know if a game was good before playing, I read many (Backloggd) reviews, then decided. There is a reason for why it has the score that it does, but I couldn’t trust it blindly....
Today’s game is some more OneShot. I binged this game all day today, and honestly i was a little sad at the end. It did a really good job of making me feel connected to the characters, and on a meta level it did its job well....
It's a purely narrative game, the original version (this is now a remake of a remake in a new engine) was made in RPG Maker but without any RPG elements. Walk around, talk to NPCs, watch the story unfold.
The one big thing it has in common with Undertale is that the less you know going in, the better. If the art style and vibe is enough to get your attention, go ahead and give it a shot, go in blind.
Physical copies, yes. If it's a game I absolutely know I'm definitely buying and I want it badly enough to spend full price and I want to play it on day 1, I'll preorder to ensure it ships on day 1. Because if I actually ordered it on release day, it'd take a few more days to ship. Last game I preordered was Kirby Air Riders, and I'm very happy with that purchase.
As for Early Access, my criteria is to just evaluate the game in its current state - if it offers enough to be worth buying now, I'll buy it now.
So im not really a fan of gacha games sense my brother only talks about them, so much so that ive gotten sick of them and he ruined the genre for me....
I have included a image of my specs, im also using Linux sense thats what works on my laptop. Im looking for free to play games that will run smoothly on my system/laptop. I would like to try popular and maybe online titles....
I was just reflecting on games I’ve played in the last year, and wondering when Steam’s year-in-review thing would be happening (probably within the next week)....
Attending Combo Breaker is the highlight of my year every year. In 2025 I was able to fit Frosty Faustings into my travel budget too. Managed to place 17th in Mystery Bracket both times, and they were very wild bracket runs. I saw Gyakuten Puzzle Bancho and turned to my opponent to utter a sentence no one wants to hear in Mystery: "I'm sorry, I know how to play this game." Also at CB I was able to make it out of pools in Under Night In-Birth II, and it was a hella stacked bracket so I'm pretty happy with that one.
Been focusing more on my mahjong career, attended Riichi Nomi Open and Philadelphia Riichi Open as my first two tournaments. Didn't do so hot though. But of course, when I win it's because I'm skilled, when I lose it was just bad luck.
New arcade opened up near me with modded Maimai, Wacca, and Chunithm cabinets. I told myself I'm never going back to Round 1 again, though R1 does have the new official international Maimai now so I guess that's something. I also got back into Dance Dance Revolution a little, but I'm still not very good.
As for actual new releases, Deltarune is obvious. Kirby Air Riders is a sequel I waited 22 years for, and it was worth the wait. The original is one of my favorite games of all time and I'm blown away by how much higher they raised the bar. Online City Trial is everything childhood me ever dreamed of. And I have to shout out Rhythm Doctor finally exiting Early Access, the final chapter is a wonderful conclusion that gave me a lot of emotions.
So recently, I ended up getting sick from an event I went to. I took sick leave from my employment, and I have a few days to rest. I don’t want to just stay in bed, however....
One of the bonus levels in Rhythm Doctor is a Bits and Bops collab. There's also an Unbeatable level, so it's a funny coincidence to have all three games launch in the same week.
I was recently discussing Farcry 2 with some friends and how cool the fire spread system was - And how it essentially was never used again after that title....
The Fiend's Cauldron from Kid Icarus Uprising. At the start of a stage, you have to wager currency on how high of a difficulty you want to attempt, on a sliding scale from 0.0 to 9.0. Higher difficulties cost more to play, and if you fail, you lose your bet and the difficulty drops if you choose Continue. It's an interesting system for how it forces you to check your ego and self-evaluate just how much you think you can handle.
Kirby Air Riders definitely feels like it keeps that spirit alive. The game could've just been City Trial and I would've paid $70 just to play City Trial, but they packed everything else in there too because they could.
Hear me out. A few games have shader installations that will usually apply any new settings you put down AFTER you restart the game, and a lot of other games have graphics settings that will only apply after you’ve rebooted the game....
If I'm going to put 100+ hours into a game, there better be a setting to mute BGM, because no matter how good the OST is I will eventually tire of it and want to listen to something else.
An article from this weekend that seemingly got buried by soundbites about the Steam Machine price in the same interview, but given that we have no information on price, this seems way more interesting to me. I mean…I basically self-select games that don’t use these kinds of anti-cheat at all, but this is important...
I wouldn't expect the Machine to be any more popular than the Deck, which already wasn't enough to convince holdouts. In fact I would bet the Machine will sell much less than the Deck, since that had a more unique niche carved out for it.
If devs want to support one, it'll be no problem to support the other. But I doubt devs who already refused to support one will suddenly change their minds.
TBH, I kinda get the feeling that's what most of the hype surrounding the Machine is. People hoping it sells well, but not necessarily people planning to buy one for themselves.
If you'd read the article, Valve says they're working with anticheat devs to come up with a solution together. This can only happen with their cooperation, if Valve somehow could bypass it on their own that would represent a vulnerability that should and would get patched.
osu!, a rhythm game about clicking circles, has had a new client in development since 2014, aiming to fix some of the issues and “spaghetti code” the previous stable version had. The new client, Lazer, is open-source and works on Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. Lazer has finally been made the default download option...
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. IMO this is where the series peaked, perfected the formula and delivered a game packed with several large maps and three sets of bonus characters to replay the game with.
As someone who played later entries first and then went back to SotN, IMO it's a bit rough around the edges in comparison. Still a fantastic game, but I think later games managed to improve on it.
The memestock thing started because people realized they could try to make a quick buck by betting against those who were shorting the stock. But the stock was being heavily shorted for a reason, GameStop is a dying business, one that likely would've gone bankrupt by now if the apes hadn't rushed to prop it up. Anyone who didn't cash out at the peak, anyone who seriously believes GameStop has a long-term future, is a sucker.
Can everyone please stop claiming and speculating that Valve’s new hardware will be loss leaders? If you watch LTT and Gamers Nexus’s first videos on the announcement, they actually spoke with Valve’s engineers. And the Valve representatives already said that the new hardware WILL NOT BE LOSS LEADERS....
Console manufacturers sell at a loss because they need to sell the console first before they can sell anything else. They can expect to make that money back on software the user could not have bought without the console.
Valve doesn't need people to buy Steam Machines to get them to start using Steam. In fact, I suspect most units sold will be to users who are already invested in the ecosystem. Selling at a loss would just be a straight loss to them.
My impression of the original Steam Controller was that it was designed for games I don't want to play on controller, at the expense of being terrible for games I do want to play on controller.
Winter burrow on steam is being released today, (Nov 12th). I went to the forums to see complete chaos. People arguing and calling out the developers about using sweet baby inc. and hiding it, others wondering what the big deal is like myself. It could just be the anti woke gamers, but there were other complaints. I got the demo...
Two years ago, one of my favorite games made some very minor cosmetic tweaks, and that was enough to attract a horde of post-Gamergaters crying that this is the downfall of western civilization. Two years later, the board for that game is still under seige by trolls that have rendered it unusable for anyone who actually wants to talk about the game. Every now and then a Valve mod will lock one thread, and then the trolls just make another and it continues.
PC game recommendation for my partner and I
My partner expressed an interest in finding a game for both of us to play. She doesn’t play many games, and I generally prefer single player games so I find myself at a loss for what’s out there that we might like. Hoping the community here can help!...
What challenge from a game isn't worth completing and what challenge from a game is worth completing?
Either one or both works....
Pet Peeves with Games?
Mine always is, completely forgetting what I was doing and where I was going after not touching a save file for a long time. This is happening to me right now with Stardew Valley....
Switch 2 Sales Reportedly Struggled Over The Christmas Period (www.nintendolife.com)
I like how this article does not talk about the anti consumer practices engaged in by Nintendo, that might push some customers away from their consoles. /s Nintendo can disable your Switch 2 for piracy in the U.S., but not in Europe, as confirmed by its EULA. There is already a switch in my household, but the price along with...
Does Nintendo ban Nintendo accounts opening up eshop from a hacked 3DS / 2DS?
Short: I opened up the Nintendo eshop on a hacked 2DS. And didn’t realize my brothers main Nintendo account was logged in, as I usually only play offline. Will his account get banned?...
How TF2 Still Makes Millions (With No Updates) (www.youtube.com)
Arc raiders is a horrible game
As far as I can tell, this is just a PVP 3rd person multiplayer shooter. Tagging this game as PVE is absolutely disingenuous. Despite the dev team originally developing this as PVE, they launched with PVP included, and the PVP and matchmaking feels half-assed....
Splitgate Has Fumbled Again and Failed to Secure Any Traction Following 'Rebrand' (insider-gaming.com)
Splitgate 2’s rebrand hasn’t been a success and the player count is quickly evaporating to leave nothing behind.
The highest-rated games and what the people say
TLDR: To know if a game was good before playing, I read many (Backloggd) reviews, then decided. There is a reason for why it has the score that it does, but I couldn’t trust it blindly....
Day 528 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing
Today’s game is some more OneShot. I binged this game all day today, and honestly i was a little sad at the end. It did a really good job of making me feel connected to the characters, and on a meta level it did its job well....
Do you preorder games?
What about Early Access Games?...
Whats the best free to play anime gacha game if at any at all?
So im not really a fan of gacha games sense my brother only talks about them, so much so that ive gotten sick of them and he ruined the genre for me....
What free to play games can run smoothly on my old laptop?
I have included a image of my specs, im also using Linux sense thats what works on my laptop. Im looking for free to play games that will run smoothly on my system/laptop. I would like to try popular and maybe online titles....
What are your gaming highlights of 2025?
I was just reflecting on games I’ve played in the last year, and wondering when Steam’s year-in-review thing would be happening (probably within the next week)....
What are some good games to play while sick?
So recently, I ended up getting sick from an event I went to. I took sick leave from my employment, and I have a few days to rest. I don’t want to just stay in bed, however....
Bits & Bops, a rhythm minigame collection, has been released on Steam (www.youtube.com)
Bits & Bops on Steam...
Boing. (boing.greg.technology)
"Fewer people are playing Call of Duty this year than they have been before" Why has Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 seemingly sold below expectations? Is it simply not good enough? [Eurogamer] (www.eurogamer.net)
Metroid Prime 4 | Review Thread
Game Information...
A cool feature/mechanic you want to see in games again
I was recently discussing Farcry 2 with some friends and how cool the fire spread system was - And how it essentially was never used again after that title....
Which of the two would you purchase for someone who’s not so technical?
So I wanted to get Switch 2 for my mom on Black Friday. She loves Mario, Yoshi and especially Zelda games....
Epic boss Tim Sweeney thinks stores like Steam should stop labelling games as being made with AI: 'It makes no sense,' he says, because 'AI will be involved in nearly all future production (share.google)
The glory days of Epic Games are long gone and Tim Sweeney is a god damn moron.
Settings you believe ANY game should have? (This is me advocating for a restart/reboot button on ALL games)
Hear me out. A few games have shader installations that will usually apply any new settings you put down AFTER you restart the game, and a lot of other games have graphics settings that will only apply after you’ve rebooted the game....
What game is a guilty pleasure of yours?
What game do you absolutely love that you know yourself is bad, but love it anyway?...
Valve Addresses Steam Machine Anti-Cheat Concerns, Says It's Working Towards Support (thisweekinvideogames.com)
An article from this weekend that seemingly got buried by soundbites about the Steam Machine price in the same interview, but given that we have no information on price, this seems way more interesting to me. I mean…I basically self-select games that don’t use these kinds of anti-cheat at all, but this is important...
Gaming Pet Peeves
What are some things that just get under your skin about games?...
The osu! Open Source Client, Lazer, Has Been Made the Default Download Option for New Users
osu!, a rhythm game about clicking circles, has had a new client in development since 2014, aiming to fix some of the issues and “spaghetti code” the previous stable version had. The new client, Lazer, is open-source and works on Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. Lazer has finally been made the default download option...
What is your favorite Metroidvania?
I haven’t played a Metroidvania in a while and I’m looking for suggestions of some good ones to try. Some I would recommend:...
GameStop workers say its trade anything day will be a huge mess (www.polygon.com)
Sony cracks down on Concord custom servers, issues DMCA takedowns on gameplay videos (thegamepost.com)
Sony is begging you: please forget about concord
Valve's new hardware will NOT be loss leaders
Can everyone please stop claiming and speculating that Valve’s new hardware will be loss leaders? If you watch LTT and Gamers Nexus’s first videos on the announcement, they actually spoke with Valve’s engineers. And the Valve representatives already said that the new hardware WILL NOT BE LOSS LEADERS....
Steam Hardware [new Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and VR headset Steam Frame, coming in 2026] (store.steampowered.com)
No prices yet. I may never financially recover from this.
Winter burrow SBI controversy
Winter burrow on steam is being released today, (Nov 12th). I went to the forums to see complete chaos. People arguing and calling out the developers about using sweet baby inc. and hiding it, others wondering what the big deal is like myself. It could just be the anti woke gamers, but there were other complaints. I got the demo...