I used to play RTS games like Warhammer, then got into Heroes of Might and Magic and its spin-offs like Pennon and Battle. I’ve also played XCOM 2 and Age of Wonders 4. Any other must-play series you’d recommend?...
It’s not real time but Civilization is a must for any strategy fan. I personally recommend getting V and all its expansions, it’s peak for me still. Some like VI but I could never get into it.
Here’s some more Screenshots from Cyberpunk. Did you know this game had a photo mode, because i didn’t. It’s resulted in some pretty images such as this one of some holo-fish:...
From a purely architectural point of view i think you’d be hard pressed to find a better video game city than Night City. Scale too, like you mentioned. I always hold Paris in AC: Unity in really high regard too, but Cyberpunk is on another level in terms of complexity and verticality.
Today’s game is Cyberpunk 2077. I’ve been wanting to save this for my new gaming rig i’ve been planning (i think Lemmy will be happy to know i’m planning to stay with Linux lol), but after getting news some of the parts won’t be here until Febuary, i’ve decided my Steam Deck can go through one last Marathon Sprint...
I hope you’ll enjoy your time in Night City! I think it’s a great game at this point with some really interesting characters and a good story. It has its flaws, but I had no problem overlooking them though your mileage may vary. If you intend to pick it up on PC when it’s arrived there is also a vast assortment of great mods.
Also, you’ll be blown away when you’re trying it on your new rig, fully path traced Cyberpunk is probably still one of the prettiest games out there.
It’s been a minute since I played but setting carry capacity to infinite should certainly be trivial (I didn’t use it but I’ve seen it around). Smarter Scrapper was enough for me I think. Also Muted Markers in the same vein, though it’s not strictly inventory. Limited HUD is also a must have. But if you let me keep going you’ll eventually end up with 250+ mods just like me.
I’ve been playing some retro games recently (PS1 and prior) and I’ve been discovering a lot of games that I never thought I would enjoy. Particularly 90s arcade shmups and arcade style sports games....
It’s not strictly a 90s schmup but I got the original XIII (2003) on sale on GOG last month and played through it. I never played it back then and always thought it looked cool. It’s a shame it wasn’t a big success, the art direction and concept of playing in the panels of a comic strip was really cool and still holds up. I love the typed out sound effects like TAP TAP TAP on footsteps and BOOOM on explosions. So I guess that’s my retro recommendation.
Next for me will be No One Lives Forever, which I also missed back in the day but heard was amazing. It’s been unavailable to purchase for decades but I just recently found out the game is made available to download for free by some fans.
I guess I’m on a bit of an old school spy game kick lately.
I’m about 160 hours into Pathfinder: Kingmaker and I can’t say for certain if it’s a good game or not. It’s certainly captured my obsessive attention, and there are parts of it that I really enjoy. However, the game is also frustrating and messy and the two halves of CRPG on one side and kingdom management sim on the other really don’t mesh well. It’s also a complete nightmare for any completionist with the huge amount of timed quests, many of which never announce their timer publicly. The encounter design also doesn’t feel great and the difficulty is often unfun - though there are some menu settings that can mitigate some of that.
Today’s game is Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag. This is one of my favorite games of all time. I first played through it on PS3 when i was younger and have fond memories of it, especially the story. Though Unity will always have my favorite game play, Black Flags story will always be one of my favorites....
Though Unity will always have my favorite game play(…)
I love seeing another Unity enjoyer around here. That game is severely underrated and had it not had that disastrously buggy launch the AC franchise could have gone in a completely different direction than the open world RPG flavour we ended up with. Plus, revolutionary Paris is one of the best realized video game cities of all time, it’s just beautiful.
The issue is that I think there are Steam bundles that can’t be gifted, such as the Valve pack and that kind of thing. That also makes something like Civ 6 less likely, just because of the DLC bundles. I can also use Fanatical or Humble but frankly the region thing might be an issue....
How powerful is the PC? Is the question more about games optimised for mouse+keyboard, or is it about demanding recent games that allows his new machine to flex its muscles?
Since you say he likes Souls-likes Black Myth Wukong probably checks both boxes - I never ended up playing it (my backlog is too long) but it looked great with stunning visuals and I heard good things about the gameplay.
Cyberpunk with full path tracing is still one of the prettiest games out there and a pretty damn good game too after the patches and expansions.
Finally, something like Fallout: London could be an interesting suggestion as mods of that nature are out of reach of the console crowd. Could give him a whiff of what he’s been missing out on.
What competition has such a rich gambling scene though. No other game I am aware of (Maybe TF2 but, still valve)
Gacha games have been taking over the world ever since Genshin Impact and those are pure gambling. Going even further back, Ultimate Team on FIFA (EA FC now) is probably the worst true “selling gambling to kids” product I can remember.
Today’s game is Control. I’ve been wanting to finally finish this after beating Alan Wake II. Today, i 100% Silent Hill 2, and decided to pick it up and give it a try. I must have stopped at the worst time because i stopped right before the ashtray maze, and i finally understand why people love this game. I don’t want to...
Jesse didn’t really do it for me as a protagonist, not sure if it’s due to writing or the performance (I suspect both). Which is really a shame because the game itself is really fucking cool. I still recommend it to anyone, the gameplay is slick and the SCP/world building aspect makes it engaging and interesting enough by itself.
I picked up Total War: WARHAMMER III and Pennon and Battle, both strategy games. I’m thinking of getting Baldur’s Gate 3 as well. This should keep me busy for a while. My holiday plan is to stay home and game! https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/ecf5697b-192e-4bcf-87ce-7f1dfec76993.png
I still haven’t worked my way through the deals I got during last year’s sales, and despite that I bought another dozen games on GOG this black week. So I’m trying to stay away from the Steam winter sale this year lest my backlog becomes such a behemoth it gives me uncontrollable anxiety.
Cyberpunk with full path tracing is still one of the prettiest games out there. And I also think - in its post 2.0 state - that it’s just a very good game too. I recommend the Ultra+ mod to squeeze out even more performance and visual fidelity from the engine.
Was my answer too. Absolutely phenomenal game. Don’t really have anything else to add to your points other than to encourage people to play it if they haven’t already. Great story, great gameplay, just an absolute classic.
Much needed. I finished the game before this latest huge patch dropped and had to use console commands three times just to fix progression locking bugs in the main story.
It’s still a must play for fans of the franchise I would say, but if you can wait it’s probably a good idea to do so. They still haven’t gotten A-life working.
If Warren Spector is actually involved I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt but I’m not thrilled about the competitive multiplayer aspect and the trailer presentation made me think “hero shooter” more than Deus Ex/Thief spiritual successor. Also Spector’s track record over the 20 post-Eidos years isn’t exactly glowing.
I was praying for Letho even though we all knew it was going to be Ciri (for better or worse, we’ll see).
Leaning into the moral grey of the Witcher world with Letho would have been awesome, he says (in one of the endings to his story) he’ll head out east over the mountains so we could have gotten some all-new environments and it would have been 100% CDPR IP so they could have done whatever they wanted without trampling over lore too much. Plus Letho is just an amazing character with huge protagonist energy. Oh well.
Didn’t the remake rip out all the amazing period songs from the original OST? I remember vibing to Django Reinhardt as you’re driving was a huge part of it for me.
I’m starting to really despise this franchise, studio and/or publisher. Fuck off with these remaster cash crabs two years after a game is released. Are we due a The Last of Us: Part 1 Remastered - Remake too soon? Get out of here.
Ragebound sounds about right. I had Ninja Gaiden on my original Xbox back in the day and while I loved it and played the shit out of it I never beat it. These games were fucking hard.
I have rewatched MGSV trailers multiple times, and I find this combination of 5+ minutes videos with scenes and music building the right atmosphere to be amazing. The other thing is, that for some, they created fake expectations of what story was going to be about....
FFXIV: A Realm Reborn is a fantastic trailer but it’s almost cheating because Answers is such an unbelievable Uematsu banger that it carries it on music alone.
Too much going on. It’s like they’ve just accepted and (mostly) implemented every single feature request they ever got without necessarily thinking about how it should work with all the other stuff.
I played PoE for a good few years around its release and had a lot of fun initially with the temporary hardcore leagues with new mechanics every time, but there is a good reason I haven’t come back to the game - and it’s not just that I’m kind of over the ARPG thing. Scope Creep has turned it into a convoluted mess to get back into if you’re been out of the game for a while (or never played it) and I say that as someone who typically enjoys complexity.
The SoD expansion was made by Beamdog some 15 years after BG1 was released. It’s admirable that they tried getting the original voice actors back, but otherwise the team behind BG 1&2 (and ToB) had nothing to do with it. I couldn’t get through it, and I have a hard time supporting the Enhanced Editions as is due to Beamdog inserting their fanfiction into them as well - though I recognise they’ve been instrumental in revamping the engine and bringing the games to a new generation of people.
I actually think an argument could be made for Disco Elysium not being one of these games actually. I’ve seen people bounce off it because they went in with the wrong expectations. The game doesn’t really market itself correctly: it claims to be an isometric RPG and a detective game, but it could be argued the game is actually neither. Also lots of people miss out on a lot because they weren’t aware of the fail-forward design principle.
And that’s very deliberate! There are a couple of key rolls very very early that have positive outcomes if you fail them. They’re supposed to teach the player that failure is okay. But it turns out many many people are too afraid of the dangerously red button and the low percentage number so they never even try in the first place, thus also missing the lesson.
Also that sequence you’re talking about is one of my favourites in the game, it’s so damn funny. Another classic failure is the ice-cop-hat-fuck-show.
Dividing my time between playingSTALKER 2 and modding it. There is a really great game underneath the surface - at least the potential of one - but it’s a shame it released in the state it did. The A-life offline simulation being turned off smells of console constraints and/or a forced release after they ran out of possibilities to delay further. I really hope they’ll be able to keep working on the game through patches because it has the potential to be truly fantastic.
Also still playing Deadlock, a game or two a day or so. It’s an often frustrating experience - as MOBAs tend to be - where matchmaking still has a huge impact on your fun, but the core gameplay is just so damn good. I just wish I was in a skill bracket where people are actually using mics and coordinating and communicating. Partly an EU problem though I’m sure.
You know what, I agree. And I would love to see the look on Todd Howard’s face if Fallout: London wins GotY. It should be eligible for that reason alone.
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.
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.
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.
Been playing this game for weeks. I completed it and then started a new game. The game’s story is excellent, but it absolutely does not justify the tedium it makes you endure to experience it. In a 40 minute sitting, I’d spend the entire thing simply having characters dialogue at me. What’s the point of the open world...
I always felt like the game was originally never meant to be an open-world game, it’s as if they were going for a mission-to-mission corridor kind of game and wrapped up a world around it to walk around in at a later phase.
That’s my take on it too. The story they wanted to tell does not mesh well with an open world game, but since the people loudly wanted something like “RDR 2 but Cyberpunk” they felt obliged to attempt to shoehorn it in.
The whole cutscene thing with Jackie after the intro feels like it was supposed to be actual gameplay, but was just cut out and changed to a cutscene to skip time.
Completely agree. I think having you play through that part would have made a huge impact on how you connect with Jackie. Maybe they felt it would have pushed the Keanu introduction too deep into the game?
I’ve been trying to get back in the game a couple of times, but it often just feels so lifeless and lacks any depth.
They’ve added some touches to the open world, but I think it was too fundamentally broken to be easily patched. The new skill tree from 2.0 is actually good though and I think the combat is pretty fun in its current state, even without going to mods.
Could be, could be. I think your suggestion would make for a better game with less conflict between what the main story is saying and what the game is presenting in the open world. Having the story emphasize how fast V is dying, only for the player to then fuck around with car races and random merc contracts and whatnot really doesn’t work all that well as far as immersion goes.
Jackie’s death would have also been much more impactful if we’d have spent all that time with him playing through those six months.
Already pre-ordered the Ultimate edition. Goes against my usual principles but I don’t care in this instance. I hope the game is a massive, GotY contending success.
Unity is flawed, but somewhat of an underrated gem. It’s such a shame that it released in the state it did and got the reception it did because that’s pretty much what caused Ubisoft to pivot into the style of the Origins and onwards style games.
Imagine what could have been if they built on what they had in Unity? The free run up/down system had so much potential and - while janky - the Unity parkour can produce some of the most pleasing, slick and stylish sequences. Just look at the stuff people are pulling off!
Also, revolutionary Paris is the best realised city they’ve ever made for an Assassin’s Creed game.
There is also Red Info which is Robert Kurvitz, Alex Rostov, Helen Hindpere and Martin Luiga. They are apparently working on something and will probably make an announcement next year (according to Martin Luiga on his recent Human Can Opener podcast appearance).
All I want is a final proper send-off Splinter Cell before he dies. Sam Fisher’s final job type vibe. I think there is some cool potential there - not that I trust Ubisoft to pull it off, mind.
Today’s game is Alan Wake. I wasted no time getting back too it and went through the first half of episode 4. I would have done the second half but the game crashed sadly. I’m hoping to complete it soon, though with the Silent Hill 2 remake on the horizon i’m considering swapping my plans for Alan Wake 2 with that because...
I’m so glad you’re enjoying it! It’s a damn shame BG3 took the world by storm last year, as I felt AW2 truly deserved more awards, including Game of the Year. BG3 is good and all but at the end of the day it’s just a really well made RPG. AW2 is doing something bold and interesting with the video game medium in a way that deserves to be celebrated. It topped Jacob Geller’s yearly list for a reason, and I think he put it the best in his video:
“Is Alan Wake 2 the best game I’ve played this year? No. But it’s the most excited I’ve been to be playing a video game this year.”
Also it should have won the Game award for best soundtrack and I’ll hear no arguments.
Epic is just terrible. I wanted to bypass the launcher by using Heroic instead, but it wouldn’t recognize me having the Deluxe edition without actually installing the game through Epic and being logged in through their launcher. Garbage.
Not to mention the fucking notifications for Epic Games Achievements are loud as all fuck and default to “on” every time you open the launcher so you have to manually turn on Do Not Disturb every time you launch the game or your immersion gets ruined every 5 seconds by an Epic Achievement notification ding (and visual on screen popup btw!)
Got any must-play games for strategy fans?
I used to play RTS games like Warhammer, then got into Heroes of Might and Magic and its spin-offs like Pennon and Battle. I’ve also played XCOM 2 and Age of Wonders 4. Any other must-play series you’d recommend?...
Day 184 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I’ve been playing until I forget to post Screenshots (pixelfed.social)
Here’s some more Screenshots from Cyberpunk. Did you know this game had a photo mode, because i didn’t. It’s resulted in some pretty images such as this one of some holo-fish:...
After shutting down several popular emulators, Nintendo admits emulation is legal (www.androidauthority.com)
Day 183 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I’ve been playing until I forget to post Screenshots (pixelfed.social)
Today’s game is Cyberpunk 2077. I’ve been wanting to save this for my new gaming rig i’ve been planning (i think Lemmy will be happy to know i’m planning to stay with Linux lol), but after getting news some of the parts won’t be here until Febuary, i’ve decided my Steam Deck can go through one last Marathon Sprint...
Favorite retro games?
I’ve been playing some retro games recently (PS1 and prior) and I’ve been discovering a lot of games that I never thought I would enjoy. Particularly 90s arcade shmups and arcade style sports games....
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of January 12th
What have you been playing?...
Of course Atari’s new handheld includes a trackball, spinner, and numpad (arstechnica.com)
Day 172 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I’ve been playing until I forget to post Screenshots (pixelfed.social)
Today’s game is Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag. This is one of my favorite games of all time. I first played through it on PS3 when i was younger and have fond memories of it, especially the story. Though Unity will always have my favorite game play, Black Flags story will always be one of my favorites....
Longtime buddy of mine just got a gaming PC. What games would make up a good "welcome to PC" care package?
The issue is that I think there are Steam bundles that can’t be gifted, such as the Valve pack and that kind of thing. That also makes something like Civ 6 less likely, just because of the DLC bundles. I can also use Fanatical or Humble but frankly the region thing might be an issue....
Coffeezilla does a third part of his CS:GO gambling expose...where he squarely puts the blame on Valve (www.youtube.com)
Valve refused to comment for the video.
Day 162 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I’ve been playing until I forget to post Screenshots (pixelfed.social)
Today’s game is Control. I’ve been wanting to finally finish this after beating Alan Wake II. Today, i 100% Silent Hill 2, and decided to pick it up and give it a try. I must have stopped at the worst time because i stopped right before the ashtray maze, and i finally understand why people love this game. I don’t want to...
What did everyone grab during the Steam Winter Sale?
I picked up Total War: WARHAMMER III and Pennon and Battle, both strategy games. I’m thinking of getting Baldur’s Gate 3 as well. This should keep me busy for a while. My holiday plan is to stay home and game! https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/ecf5697b-192e-4bcf-87ce-7f1dfec76993.png
GOG reportedly suffering from staff turnover and poor management: “Current business model is likely running out of steam” (gameworldobserver.com)
favourite gameboy family games?
Looking for more games. Only requirements are following:...
Stalker 2 has been enjoyable jank, but it’s also getting rapidly fixed (arstechnica.com)
Thief has a new spiritual sequel, built by the Deus Ex and System Shock devs (www.pcgamesn.com)
The Witcher 4 got a surprise reveal at The Game Awards, and this one is all about Ciri | PC Gamer (www.pcgamer.com)
Mafia: The Old Country - The Initiation Trailer (www.youtube.com)
The Last of Us Part II Remastered PC Announcement Trailer (www.youtube.com)
NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound | Reveal Trailer | Coming Summer 2025 (www.youtube.com)
Same devs as Blasphemous, and you can really tell
What are your favourite trailers?
I have rewatched MGSV trailers multiple times, and I find this combination of 5+ minutes videos with scenes and music building the right atmosphere to be amazing. The other thing is, that for some, they created fake expectations of what story was going to be about....
Path of Exile II Queue Warning Issued as 1 Million Early Access Redemptions Are Hit - Insider Gaming (insider-gaming.com)
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of December 1st
Whatcha been playing! I’ve been back into Isaac a bunch. Grinding out dead god....
What are your favorite "gotta go in blind" games?
Which games blow your mind, but only if you know nothing about them in advance?...
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of November 24th
What’s all playing?...
Fallout London is a better game than Fallout 4
Yes, I said it and mean it....
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl | Review Thread
Game Information...
For me, Cyberpunk 2077 was uninteractive and has low replayablility value.
Been playing this game for weeks. I completed it and then started a new game. The game’s story is excellent, but it absolutely does not justify the tedium it makes you endure to experience it. In a 40 minute sitting, I’d spend the entire thing simply having characters dialogue at me. What’s the point of the open world...
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl Potentially Banned in Russia Due To Potential 'Justifying Terrorism' (wccftech.com)
'My personal failure was being stumped': Gabe Newell says finishing Half-Life 2: Episode 3 just to conclude the story would've been 'copping out of [Valve's] obligation to gamers' (www.pcgamer.com)
Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Documentary by Valve
Disco Elysium Successor Dev Says He Is Being Sued By The Others (www.thegamer.com)
Tom Hardy's Splinter Cell Movie Is Officially Dead (thedirect.com)
Day 81 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I’ve been playing until I forget to post Screenshots
Today’s game is Alan Wake. I wasted no time getting back too it and went through the first half of episode 4. I would have done the second half but the game crashed sadly. I’m hoping to complete it soon, though with the Silent Hill 2 remake on the horizon i’m considering swapping my plans for Alan Wake 2 with that because...