Also for decades, Linux has had awful drivers for graphics cards (among other things) and godawful usability. It’s not like Linux would have taken over the desktop computer market in 1998. Have you ever tried installing a vintage distro? It’s a nightmare.
I would strongly suggest downloading the standalone installer and the install files (on a different github, you can see the address when using the web installer), in case this gets taken down, which isn’t exactly unlikely, now that the game isn’t abandonware anymore.
Large corporations, just like any large organization, have significant institutional momentum. I would bet good money that this move was planned for months, if not longer, and was not a reaction to Veilguard underperforming.
Installation is a tiny bit more complicated this way though. You need to manually unpack the content of the archives into your desired install folder before launching the installation, which then needs to install into this folder.
Year and average review score across all available platforms in brackets. I played all of these on PC.
Trespasser (1998, 57): First person shooter based on Jurassic Park. Noteworthy for huge open areas, detailed dinosaurs with procedural animations and a physics engine that would only be surpassed by Half-Life 2 six years later. It is clunky, difficult to control and buggy, a challenge to get running both on contemporary and current PCs, but the atmosphere, the level design and the sheer awe at what they were able to pull off in the '90s is just unbelievable. I first played it many years after its release and it still blew me away.
Elex (2017, 62): Open World RPG from the creators of Gothic and Risen. It’s the definition of ‘Eurojank’, with controls that a bit of time getting used to, high difficulty and dated animations. I really enjoyed my time with it though, because it has a gorgeous, well-designed post-apocalyptic open world, clever quests that frequently allow for multiple approaches, factions that are truly different from one another, rewarding combat and interesting progression with tons of player choice. Just like previous games from this developer, it follows the formula of placing strong gatekeeper enemies at choke points, which serve to guide progression - but there’s nothing stopping a skilled and/or determined player from circumventing or outsmarting them. The inclusion of a jet pack makes this more fun than in any other game I’ve played. This device isn’t easy to use, but very early on, at the first location the first companion takes the player to, there’s a transmission tower with a reward at the top. Figure out how to climb it with the jet pack - which may take a few attempts - and you’ll have learned how to use this jet pack. This is a bit frustrating and can take 20 minutes to half an hour, but once you’ve done this, you’ll notice that the entire game was designed with this mode of transportation in mind. Watching other people play this game is incredibly frustrating to me, because they rarely if ever look up, rarely if ever use it to climb structures and natural obstacles to get to items or gain an advantage in combat. Maybe the developers should have created a more in-depth tutorial on this thing, but I think this is one of the main reasons why people aren’t getting this game.
Homefront: The Revolution (2016, 50): Semi-open world first person shooter. Set in a USA that was somehow defeated and is occupied by a hyper-advanced North Korea that is certainly not a clumsy stand-in for China, you’re playing a brave American resistance fighter against the occupation. Spec Ops: The Line, this ain’t - don’t expect any subtlety or finesse to the narration here, but it works as a scenario. The gameplay is where it’s truly interesting. It’s kind of like the opening hours of Far Cry 3, except that you’re not fighting against a few pirates, but a vastly technologically and numerically superior enemy that will hunt you down mercilessly in a half-destroyed American city. The feeling of powerlessness, yet determination, the thrill of pulling off a successful ambush and then scrambling away as the enemy throws everything they have at you is quite something. It’s not without its flaws, mind you. More linear story missions are hit and miss, even after many patches there are still bugs and glitches, it is slightly generic in terms of gameplay, but when everything comes together, it’s a really solid experience.
AquaNox 2: Revelation (2003, 59): Underwater first-person shooter masquerading as a submarine game. This is actually the third game in the series, after Archimedean Dynasty (also known under its original German title of Schleichfahrt) and AquaNox 1. The setting is a post-apocalyptic irradiated Earth where the remnants of humanity have fled to the bottom of the oceans to survive. Naturally, the fight for power and resources continue there. I’ve never actually played the predecessors, but this game is one of my favorites from the early 2000s. It looks stunning for the time (no wonder they created a benchmark, AquaMark, using engine and assets from the game) and gameplay is a really interesting 3dof that blends stealth and action in bleak, but varied enough underwater environments. Story and characters are charming, the universe is interesting and it’s just a blast from start to finish. It did receive really high review scores in Europe and especially Germany (lots of 85), so perhaps it’s just a case of international audiences/reviewers not getting it, similar to how Gothic and Risen were far more popular there.
Damnation (2009, 38): Probably the worst game on this list. Damnation is a third person shooter set in an alternate-history US Civil War with advanced steampunk technology. The story is extremely poorly presented, controls are clunky, enemy AI is braindead, there are glitches galore, but somehow, I still had fun with it. While the graphics are nothing to write home about and perhaps the epitome of the brownness of this era of gaming, there is a sense of scale that is rare in games like these, with huge levels and impressive vistas. It’s not truly open world, but the sense of scale, the feeling of traversing large environments (an aspect that Elex also nails, but with a true open worlds) is something to behold. As poor as the narration is, the setting is also interesting enough to deal with the below-average cover shooting gameplay. If screenshots and videos appeal to you, then it might be worth checking out.
Velvet Assassin (2009, 59): Dreamy third person stealth game set in WW2. It’s a Splinter Cell clone at heart, but far more challenging. This is an unusually bleak and dark take on WW2 that, unlike most other games with this setting, doesn’t shy away from topics like mass murder and trauma - but it’s also willing to experiment: Most of the game is essentially the protagonist suffering through a fever dream, recalling her exploits as a British commando in her hospital bed. This leads to the surreal gameplay elements: The protagonist is heavily wounded, but if she injects morphine on her hospital bed, she can prance around the levels in a white nightgown, murdering Nazis in slow motion.The difficult, slightly unpolished gameplay is the main reason for the relatively low review scores, but fans of stealth games who want to explore a more unusual WW2 setting might want to give it a go.
Legend Hand of God (2007, 57): A Diablo-clone with a constantly talking and rather snarky fairy as your mouse pointer. German voice acting is good, English localization not so much. There’s nothing exceptional about it, except for its presentation: Instead of disconnected animations, there are custom ones for each weapon and enemy type, a unique feature in this genre. It just looks so much more immersive. The dynamic lighting and, for the time, very detailed environments are also quite a visual treat. The world is relatively compact, making it a nice hack and slash snack.
While I had first heard of the series decades ago, I wasn’t really interested enough to actually pick it up for the longest time, even though I actually like limited open world games that put more detail into smaller locations. A few months ago, I bought Yakuza 0 on sale and recently tried it out on the Steam Deck. I’ve played a couple of hours at this point, so these are more first impressions than an actual review.
It’s a bit of a trip, both good and bad.
Starting with the technical side of things, the best way to describe it would be that it’s highly inconsistent. It runs well on the Deck, even connected to a 1080p external display, but that’s to be expected of a PS3/PS4 cross-gen title. It still feels like a PS2 game with a thick coat of paint though, especially the clunky movement and combat animations. Characters look incredibly well-modeled and textured, equal parts stylized and realistic - but the moment they are starting to move, the illusion falls apart. At least early on, the open world is a series of corridors in a district of Tokyo, with some locations connected via taxi. There are many, but poorly animated pedestrians. It can look impressive at night, with its countless authentic neon signs, whereas the daytime segments are more dated. I was expecting it to feel more believable and less like a set filled with poorly directed background extras that bump into things and each other, but perhaps my expectations were too high.
What’s truly bizarre and off-putting though is how this game switches between several different types of cutscenes, ranging from completely fleshed out and animated (those look great) over less well-animated (but serviceable), to nearly completely static (but still voiced)= cutscenes with barely any movement. There are also segments that aren’t voiced at all. In some cases, cutscenes appear to randomly switch between two or even all three of these levels of quality right in the middle of the scene. Maybe it’s some holdover from the series early days, but to me it feels jarring and unfinished, as if the developers ran out of money and/or time and had to push out the bare minimum product that almost like a cheaply made Japanese visual novel at the worst moments. Not what I was expecting of a Sega game.
Voice acting, which is completely in Japanese, does sound excellent, the speakers clearly being masters of their art, but the script - if the English translation is accurate, which it seems to be - about a young, idealistic Yakuza that gets cast into a web of conspiracies, with it’s long and overdramatic conversations, the insane amount of pathos, even a cheesy black and white retrospective (I’m sure there will be many more of those) is a mess, taking away from the generally interesting intrigue of the overarching plot with meandering conversations that would have benefited from an editor cutting them to a small fraction of their original length (which would have also permitted those to be actually fully animated with the same budget). I have seen a few clips of this game and others that make it seems like the series is able to make fun of itself (the new pirate spin-off makes this more than obvious), but at least early on, there’s not much of that in Yakuza 0 and to me it feels like it takes itself way too seriously.
The first time I played this game, I made a mistake and didn’t save the game manually at the telephone booths. Yes, I know they are marked with an ‘S’ icon on the minimap, but since I visited a booth during a cutscene, I thought the game had saved there automatically. When I discovered that about 1.5 hours of progress had been wiped, I was more than a bit furious. Having no auto-save is anachronistic for a 2015 game to say the least. I was considering giving up on this game entirely at this point, despite some desire to find out where the plot would be going, but I decided to try it again. It was then that it truly became apparent just how much of the game, at least during the introduction, is spent on narration and how little actual gameplay there is. Skipping all of the cutscenes and “cutscenes” the game allowed me to skip, which was annoying, and running through the world to the destinations, those 1.5 hours and change shrunk down to less than ten minutes of actual gameplay, which I haven’t even touched on yet. Even compared to a game by Quantic Dream, who are making perhaps the closest Western equivalents to this series (I’m expecting angry disagreements on this), this is quite a striking ratio. I like narrative games, I enjoy games that take their time exposing their world to the player - but the best way of doing this is through ludonarrative means, not by shoving an amount of cutscenes into the player’s face that clearly exceeds both the talent of the writers and the coffers of the publisher footing the bill.
Anyhow, on to the gameplay. Since it makes up so little of the game, at least so far, and is clearly an afterthought, I won’t spend much time on it. Yakuza 0 is a basic arena beat-em-up with limited open world exploration and mid-fight quick-time events that can catch you completely off-guard (as well as other quick-time minigames, like karaoke). Solid, but unspectacular combo system that permits the player to get by with button mashing, hard to notice button prompts, slightly unfair mini-boss and boss fights, at least to the inexperienced player, terrible lock-on system, AWFUL camera (one more aspect that makes it feel 15 years older than it is), no AI to speak of and animations that are decades out of date, apart from the crunchy and satisfying finishers (unless you’re at at the receiving end). The developers tried to make up for this with a charge up system that adds particle effects to the presentation and expands the available move set, which is probably another series tradition, but feels completely out of place. This isn’t a modern fantasy game, at least not yet, so I don’t know what they were thinking. Not that I was expecting realism - one guy beating up a dozen in a single fight clearly isn’t - but this feels cheap. They could have just made the UI more readable instead of compressing important information against the edge of the screen and compensating for it with effects. I’m sure this becomes less of an issue the more experienced one has with these games, but still, it’s hardly ideal.
Overall, it’s a weird package. I’m equal parts intrigued and annoyed by this game. Yakuza is clearly its very own thing. The formula is successful and well received, both in Japan and internationally, so maybe I’m the odd-one out for not fawning over it. It’s like a dish with two dozen ingredients, some of which taste great, others do not and the overall impression is mainly that of confusion. Despite frequent claims that Yakuza 0 was a great entry point into the series, it feels like watching a random episode of an obscure TV show 25 out of its 50 seasons in that some friend has been pushing me to watch for years, telling me how great it is. It’s like a (barely) playable Japanese telenovela, if that makes any sense, even though the story isn’t actually that hard to follow. The unremarkable gameplay, dated tech, unfinished presentation and meandering narrative kind of sour an intriguing setting that is bursting with character and detail. I want to explore late 1980s bubble-era Tokyo and I want to know how this story ends, but at least the early parts of this game feel like I’m being dragged along at a pace that seems both too fast and too slow at the same time.
If you’ve read this far already (I’m truly sorry for making you suffer through this stream of consciousness - just like the writers of this game, I should probably hire an editor), are familiar with both this game and the rest of the series, would you say that it makes sense for me to continue or should I move on? Has anyone else felt similarly baffled by the whole experience?
Have you heard of Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood from the same developers? A very similar game in many ways, with some of the most beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds I’ve ever seen in an isometric game. And yes, the AI can also be played around with at will, although it feels a bit more sophisticated compared to Desperados.
I’ve never played a Commandos game for some reason, so I couldn’t tell, but I would say it’s about on par with Desperados 1 in terms of gameplay, if perhaps a bit less punishing. Cutscenes and voice acting (at least with the German version I played) are considerably worse however and I have no idea why.
I can confirm that these looked magnificent on a high quality CRT. This was a transitional period, when 3D graphics were not able to deliver the same amount of detail as the best 2D isometric graphics just yet. That said, everyone knew that the clock was ticking, since the advantages of fully 3D graphics were obvious and, unlike today, technological progress happened at breakneck speeds.
I was particularly fond of isometric RTS games back then. I spent the most amount of time with Age of Empires II (of course), but there were many others, like Cossacks (2001) from GSC Gameworld (who would later develop S.T.A.L.K.E.R.), which didn’t look as good as the inspiration, but boasted far larger maps and enormous numbers of units on screen. With American Conquest (2002), they refined the concept and overtook the original version of AoK in terms of visuals, with huge and detailed sprite work, as well as even more insane unit counts that pushed CPUs of the time to their limits. The gameplay was almost on par as well, with quite a bit more depth. It’s ridiculous just how much more sophisticated it is compared to Cossacks, despite there being only 1.5 years between the two. America (2000) is a more obscure title from this era, essentially a Wild West clone of Age of Empires. It’s quite solid, but unremarkable compared to the other games mentioned here.
Another Eastern European series I was fond of was Sudden Strike, set in WW2, as well as its sequel and countless spin-offs and expansions. There’s a model train charm to the detailed visuals, despite the not exactly charming setting. Fiendishly hard and realistic, but for all of its realism, it unfortunately decides to ignore the context of many battles, especially the war crimes that happened around them, which is troubling, since you can also play from the German perspective. Blitzkrieg (2005) is quite similar in terms of gameplay, although with a more sophisticated engine that blends 2D and 3D elements. However, when the groundbreaking Codename Panzers with its amazing fully 3D graphics and tight (if unrealistic) gameplay and mission design came out in 2004, all of these more technologically conservative WW2 RTS games instantly felt outdated, even though it came out right in the middle of them. They still had their value though, since Codename Panzers wasn’t trying to replace them in terms of gameplay, focusing on decision making instead of simulation.
Similarly, Desperados 2 (2006) made the first game feel a century old. From the same camera distance as the first game, it both looked far better than the original and had the advantage of dynamic lighting, more fluidity and a freely rotatable camera. Up close it was a bit blocky, but this was to be expected back then.
Many of the titles mentioned above can be rather troublesome on modern systems, so I highly recommend checking out their pages on the PCGamingWiki, which is a truly invaluable resource.
So this problem started back in 2023 as in still occurring. Dead Space Remake, Jedi Survivor and Silent Hill 2 are some of the offenders. All these games were highly rated on gameplay and graphics...
It ran incredibly well on my machine and looked amazing. This is not a poorly optimized game in my experience. Could it be that it also ran fine on the machines of most reviewers?
Sometimes I game on keyboard + mouse, sometimes on controller, depending on the game. I love my keyboard, but being able to slouch with controller in hand is welcome as well. Unfortunately I’ve played so many games over the years with a controller that I struggle immensely to tap the right buttons when shit gets real. It’s...
Couldn’t have happened to nicer people. Reap what you sow.
If you’ve ever had to deal with a Gamergate dogpiling campaign, you are probably high as a kite on schadenfreude right now. You are probably knocking back a huge mug of crocodile tears.
Three day weekend … Messed up my schedule. Oh well, what have you been playing? I’ve been checking out a ton of cool playdate stuff, as well as more binding of Isaac. I also picked up a game called the roottrees are dead that I’m excited to check out! It seems like a game similar to case of the golden idol which is one of...
As a more portable and budget-friendly alternative, consider a small emulation console. I’m very happy with my Anbernic RG35XXSP. Since the screen folds like on the original GBA SP, it’s absolutely tiny and fits into any pocket - without having to worry that the screen might scratch. Configure it correctly and you can close the screen to suspend games.
This kind of system would also make for a great first gaming device once your kid is around five years old.
Considering the Switch 2 (with those pretty joystick well covers to protect from drift, omg) and the Ryzen Z2 Go announcements, the low cost and availability of Steam Deck & parity level APU machines for purchase now, and the giant 1080p gaming install base represented by current gen consoles, it sure seems like low spec & 1080p...
I should warn you, the Steam Deck is incredibly bulky and heavy compared to the tiny 3DS - and even in my large hands, it never feels particularly comfortable, despite the good shape of the grips and with a thin rubber case I added to it. Definitely not the right system for you if you have weak wrists, simply due to its substantial mass. Using it for longer periods of time without resting it my your lap is not very pleasant, but resting it in your lap means I have to look down, which can result in neck strain. Lying down meanwhile, it’s a bit too heavy for the weight to rest on the elbows as well. Placing it on a pillow or bag (while making sure that none of the vents are obstructed) helps though, to the point that you can get fully immersed in playing, not thinking about the device at all, even on a busy train.
For an hour to an hour and a half, none of this is problematic, of course. There are also workarounds: Connecting it to an external display that has the right height can circumvent the issue, including those USB C display glasses that create a large virtual screen in front of you (haven’t tried those, but heard good things in combination with this device).
There are also much smaller, thinner and lighter alternatives to the Deck, but none of them have the advantage of being a fully integrated design like the Deck, where every aspect of the hard- and software was developed together and tuned to compliment each other and none of them have the complete backing of the largest game distribution network behind it. Most of them are running Windows, which, while having superior games compatibility, is not suited for a portable gaming device at all, lacking for example the ability to reliably suspend and resume games. With the Lenovo Legion Go S as the first, expect there to be more and more devices running Steam OS, but those are unlikely to have the same level of compatibility as the device this version of the OS was created for.
If emulation is what you’re looking for, the Deck is a powerhouse (up to and including Nintendo Switch is no problem), but not the only game in town. Older console games in particular run well even on very basic devices. Maybe all you need is a controller cradle for your phone, if you don’t already have one, or a cheap and cheerful emulation console like one those tiny things Anbernic is having a great deal of success with lately.
The uncanny valley remains, but as a palette cleanser, I do enjoy looking at expensive games every once in a while. It’s like walking through a film set that clearly took months and lots of blood, sweat and tears by the artists who created it. For as much as I have always loved scrappy Indie games, this kind of splendor is one thing they can rarely provide.
There is a life hack, which is so effective it might result in you lying down too much: If there is a wall right next to you, you can attach a basic monitor arm to it. I then added a tablet VESA mount, which allows me to either use it with a tablet or a small portable monitor that you can plug anything into, including games consoles, a normal desktop PC or the Steam Deck through a single USB-C cable - it’ll also get charged through the screen. Add a controller or mouse and keyboard combo and you’re golden.
This is also by far the most comfortable way to read ebooks, using a tablet with an OLED screen, ideally, with white or grey on black text and brightness set to near zero (in a dark room) and a mouse for scrolling.
Key to this is perfect placement of the monitor arm on the wall, since you can’t easily change it after having drilled the holes, so make sure it’s exactly where you want it to be. If there is no wall next to you, there are also various significantly more expensive articulated arms that attach to the bed, but they tend to cost hundreds instead of the ten bucks or so I paid for the wall mount.
Not quite. For starters, going by open bug reports and various forum comments, suspend and resume appear to be unreliable and buggy, especially with Proton - and based on developer reaction to at least one of the bug reports, there aren’t even any plans to fix this. This is an essential feature on a handheld gaming device, which means that this OS might not suitable for this device category at the moment.
Bazzite has potential, but it’s nowhere near as mature as Steam OS on the Steam Deck - and it might never be, because it’s meant to work on anything, lacking the close hardware-software relationship that Steam OS on the Deck has.
Also, since it’s using a different flavor of Linux as Steam OS as its foundation (Fedora vs. Arch), I would expect random games to not work or exhibit bugs that aren’t present on Steam OS. With Valve’s Steam Deck verified label, you can be reasonably certain that a game will work, but you can’t with other Linux distros. I’m basing this on reports on ProtonDB and from developers who have released games for popular distros, but then got notified of bugs that only appear on less common distros (read: not Ubuntu or Steam OS).
This doesn’t mean that you can’t have a great time with Bazzite. It might work just fine on your hardware, but there’s no guarantee this will be the case for everyone.
Curious to see what they do with the “mouse” function, as well as how well the new Joycon attachment system works (as well as if they have Hall Effect sensors…)
Nintendo overestimated the intelligence of their customers with the Wii U. They won’t make that mistake ever again.
Not that they are alone in this. There’s a reason why the Xbox 360 was called the Xbox 360 and not the Xbox 2. Microsoft didn’t want the second Xbox console to appear a generation older by name than the upcoming Playstation 3. Nintendo at least don’t have that problem, because the Switch 2 is in a market of its own and won’t be compared to the Playstation 5 by the vast majority of those interested in buying it.
Wreckfest has been big for the last week or so. The only reason why I picked it up again in the first place (after having only played about an hour of it before, mostly on the Steam Deck) was that I got a new controller (from 8bitdo), more or less replacing my worn out Xbone controller, and the idea was that I wanted to test it properly with a proper racing game - and proper racing it is! Hard and punishing, but not really unfair. I’ve been a fan of Finish developer Bugbear ever since the first Flatout (which this is a clear spiritual successor to), so it’s not exactly surprising that it finally clicked with me.
Driving physics in particular are sublime. Even with just a controller, you can feel the mass of the vehicle shifting around, you notice tires losing grip as springs are decompressed on top of a hill. Add to that the second best crash physics after BeamNG and delightfully aggressive AI drivers and the end result is pure carnage. There is some frustration (most races are decided in the first three corners and a single mistake can eliminate any chance of victory at the second highest and highest difficulty), later races are getting too long (since it’s not particularly interesting to lead for five laps after having basically won the race in the first lap) and the gameplay surrounding the races themselves is bare-bones to say the least, with a very basic campaign, upgrade and leveling system and some live service (ultra)lite challenges sprinkled on top, but it does the job.
There are destruction derbies (fun, but laughably easy, all of them) and wacky events like racing a tiny three wheeler against a field of school buses, but the majority of those are really more fun in theory than actually playing them, since most of these unusual vehicles are just slow, fragile and control purely. Worst example so far: RV racing. Nothing fun or interesting about that and the Top Gear segment they copied this from wasn’t exactly a high point in the series either. Normal racing is downright exhilarating though at the best of times, when you just edge out a victory on a slippery, brilliantly designed dirt track, worn out tires barely holding on, opponents trying to spin you out in every corner. I hope there’s more of that in the upcoming sequel. I have not tried the multiplayer yet, but I might in the future. Graphics are excellent - save for the complete lack of driver animations - and there’s a banging soundtrack that would be perfect if it had less screamo, but that’s just my taste. The soundtrack doesn’t quite reach the same heights as Flatout 1 and 2’s, but it’s close.
This really applies to the whole game. It’s not just nostalgia, since I replayed both relatively recently. Wreckfest has better driving physics than its predecessors (or really most other racing games), but that’s about it. The wackiness is more grounded, with plausible or almost plausible and no strictly unrealistic events that involve the driver being hurled into targets anymore, but this also means that, since there is really no “innovation” outside of ultra-basic leveling and daily events compared to the predecessors that it feels like they didn’t really have any ideas and were just doing it by the numbers. Bugbear are masters at the craft of designing tracks, vehicles and the physics that tie it all together, but outside of the immediate racing action, there really is nothing of note there. A campaign system that was below average 21 years ago is now hopelessly outdated. I’m not saying that they should try and make a dirty, ratty version of Forza Horizon with more of those lovely banged up real cars that handle so brilliantly, but… - okay, they totally should, that would be amazing! Anyway, 10/10 racing, 6/10 other events, 3/10 surrounding stuff for a weighed average of 7.99999/10. Don’t check if my math is correct.
Okay, and I also played a few more hours of Balatro (more hours than Wreckfest, I mean), because, well, I was forced to. Yup. I didn’t do it willingly, I swear! Is there a “Balatro players anonymous”? Asking for a friend.
The controller I mentioned (8BitDo Ultimate 2C Wired) is great, by the way. It’s a simple wired-only thing (there’s also a Bluetooth variant) that closely mimics the Xbone controller, except for two additional small shoulder buttons that I haven’t found any use for yet, as well as a turbo and remap feature that allegedly works without any software (don’t care about either, so I haven’t tried them). PC and Android only, just FYI. It has the best sticks and triggers I’ve ever used (both Hall effect, so I hope they’ll last) and the buttons and d-pad are also outstanding, despite this thing costing less than half as much as a first party controller. It feels exactly as solid as an original controller, even down to the plastic making the same noises at precisely the same level of grip strength when some hick from outta town spins ya out in the last corner of tha race for some goddarn reason, which is one hell of an achievement for the price. I’ve already had a Super Famicon style Bluetooth controller from the same company for a few years, so I knew their stuff was high quality. The only aspect about it that might put some people off is that for some reason, it’s only available in bright, almost garish pastel colors, but I quickly got over that. There is a branded Black Myth Wukong version with more muted colors, but it didn’t mention having vibration on any of the spec sheets on any site, so I avoided that one.
They are steaming ahead towards becoming another Sega at full power - or in other words, as their consoles are failing to attract customers, they are transforming themselves - intentionally or not - into just another third party publisher in the gaming sector.
Nintendo are trying to avoid a shortage and scalpers at launch, which is why they are producing the device in large numbers before having officially unveiled it. Given how highly anticipated this console has been for years and how many people have seen it or at least parts of it by sheer necessity, the leaks are unsurprising.
They were also wise to not have revealed the Switch 2 any earlier, because it would have jeopardized sales of the Switch 1. Enough companies have made this mistake in the past. Leaks - which the vast majority of their overwhelmingly non-techie customer base will barely even hear about - are a small price to pay for the obvious economic advantages of this approach.
I’m not listening to any podcasts. I think these are pretty obvious conclusions that anyone can easily reach on their own with the available information.
Honestly, I kind of learned to like not having my headphones randomly yanked out of my ears by clothing, door handles, tree branches and other random objects, as well as random movement. Or maybe I’m just a little clumsy.
The only real problem I have with Bluetooth headphones is that they are fairly prone to interference in my experience, especially in busy areas. Battery life is pretty much a solved issue at this point (even for those tiny things that barely stick out of your ear), as are size, comfort and ease of use.
What kind of bugs did the console have at launch? I must admit, I wasn’t taking it particularly seriously when it came out and didn’t pay much attention to it.
That’s neat, quite different from old installers not recognizing newer hardware properly (who can blame the devs after several decades?) and instead stating that the game would not work. There was a German gaming magazine (Computer Bild Spiele) that always put a system check in front of game installers (even software installers) on their discs that would compare your system to the title’s minimum specs, using a simple stoplight (green=far exceeds requirements, yellow=just meets them, red=below minimum specs). It’s kind of similar to modern online services like “Can You Run It”.
I tried to install a very old game from one of these discs recently and it didn’t quite know what to make of the hardware. IIRC, my 32 GB of RAM was more than the developers of this check anticipated and it reported that I didn’t have enough RAM (the game needed 32 MB).
Good analysis, but I checked again and must have either misremembered or different versions of the same test were different in this regard: Upon running one of these again (this one is from 2002), it reported 32 GB of RAM as 2 GB of RAM and gave the system the green light. Notice how it also reported a fabulously high speed for the (virtual) CD-ROM drive:
I never thought that this compatibility mode would limit the amount of memory that is available to an application. In fact, this is the case with all other working compatibility modes as well (Vista, 7, 8 - 95 and 98/ME don’t work with this application).
Why there are few native Linux games compared to Windows or even Mac? angielski
Does the existence of Wine compatibility layer discourages the creation of native Linux games?
EA re-release The Sims 1 and The Sims 2 on PC as DLC-stuffed Legacy editions (www.rockpapershotgun.com) angielski
52-year-old 'Super Mario' supermarket in Costa Rica wins unlikely victory against the Nintendo lawyers: "He is Don Mario, he's my dad" (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
What are some games you like that most people hate and/or were panned by critics? angielski
What are some games you like that most people hate, view negatively and/or were panned by critics?
Let's discuss: Like a Dragon / Yakuza (beehaw.org) angielski
The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!...
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of January 26th
Whatcha been playing?...
Reviewers giving high scores to poorly optimised games really grinds my gears
So this problem started back in 2023 as in still occurring. Dead Space Remake, Jedi Survivor and Silent Hill 2 are some of the offenders. All these games were highly rated on gameplay and graphics...
Gaming on controller & "typos"
Sometimes I game on keyboard + mouse, sometimes on controller, depending on the game. I love my keyboard, but being able to slouch with controller in hand is welcome as well. Unfortunately I’ve played so many games over the years with a controller that I struggle immensely to tap the right buttons when shit gets real. It’s...
The Gamergator rhetoric of historical accuracy has come back to bite Kingdom Come on the arse (www.rockpapershotgun.com)
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of January 20th
Three day weekend … Messed up my schedule. Oh well, what have you been playing? I’ve been checking out a ton of cool playdate stuff, as well as more binding of Isaac. I also picked up a game called the roottrees are dead that I’m excited to check out! It seems like a game similar to case of the golden idol which is one of...
low spec gaming looking pretty sunny right now gang (beehaw.org) angielski
Considering the Switch 2 (with those pretty joystick well covers to protect from drift, omg) and the Ryzen Z2 Go announcements, the low cost and availability of Steam Deck & parity level APU machines for purchase now, and the giant 1080p gaming install base represented by current gen consoles, it sure seems like low spec & 1080p...
After shutting down several popular emulators, Nintendo admits emulation is legal (www.androidauthority.com)
First Look at Switch 2 (youtu.be) angielski
Curious to see what they do with the “mouse” function, as well as how well the new Joycon attachment system works (as well as if they have Hall Effect sensors…)
Games That Don't Push The Limits of the NES (For Interesting Reasons) (youtu.be) angielski
A surprisingly interesting video that taught me some new things about the NES and this era of gaming. Highly recommended!
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of January 12th
What have you been playing?...
Nintendo Switch 2 is reportedly getting two major Xbox games, including Halo [VGC] (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
After almost a decade, cult classic car building sim [My Summer Car] hits 1.0, and it's soaring on Steam (www.pcgamesn.com)
Reliable tech leaker posts a ‘360-degree render’ of Nintendo’s new console [VGC] (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
The Lost Art of Fancy PC Game Installers (youtu.be) angielski