For backstory: My partner and I have been playing Super Mario Party so long that it’s gotten boring. They asked me what I wanted for my birthday (which is coming up), and I thought something like that would be cool. If X-COM 2 had a local co-op on the Switch, I’d do that, but is there something similar?
RTS means real time strategy, it’s stuff like warcraft, starcraft, age of empires etc. X-COM is turn based, so not real time.
If you are searching for turn based tactical games (I don’t really play RTS), yeah, Mario + Rabbids is very reminiscent of X-COM, only with an emphasis on movement combos (using other characters/enemies to boost your jumps, that kind of things). It does have multiplayer maps, though I have not tried them myself. Main campaign is single player.
In that move combo aspect it looks quite a bit like Chroma Squad, a tactical game with a cast of super sentai/power rangers-like actors who do combo stunts as they move. It’s pretty fun, though I have not tried the switch version and I think it’s single player only.
Fire emblem has two episodes on switch, three houses and engage. I have played a lot of three houses. It’s not for everyone, it’s a very long game with loads of dialogue, many characters, a lot of schedule planning etc. Battles are turn based, though in Fire Emblem fashion more about tricking the (basic) AI to break against your high defence “wall” characters while protecting your glass cannons characters. Difficulty being there is a lot of those (admittedly dumb) enemies with various strengths and weaknesses. It’s fun but again, single player only. I haven’t played Engage, because honestly, Its character design is terrible and it looks quite silly.
Triangle Strategy is another turn based tactical RPG with an heavy emphasis on story. Lots and lots of dialogue, to the point you may ask yourself when the strategy starts when you begin. It has branching story paths, with a rather unique voting mechanic where you have to convince your people to choose the path you want to take. Battle maps are typically less flat than fire emblem, and turn order is determined by each unit’s speed instead of being player turn/enemy turn. Again, single player.
Into the Breach is turn based strategy on a very small scale (each battle is 5 turns on a 10x10 map). It’s almost more of an open-ended puzzle than a strategy game, requiring you to use your squad effectively to defend key locations against waves of bugs with different abilities. It’s very good.
Wargroove is Advance Wars inspired, so instead of unique characters like Fire Emblem etc, you play one commander with a special ability, and armies of nameless soldier units that you recruit in cities you control. A remake of Advance Wars 1 and 2 is on switch too, I have not played it. Not a fan of this type of game personally, but they have their fans. Those are multiplayer, kind of like chess with more rules.
Now for something turn-based and strategic but completely different, Civilization 6 is on the switch, though I don’t know how well it works on it. It’s Civilization, so long games on random maps where you found your cities, find resources, develop technologies, trade, and choose a way to overpower the other empire. This one is multiplayer.
Even in the main series he’s been switching between power hungry destroyer of worlds (Galaxy, Wonder) and goofy bully with a Peach obsession (Sunshine, Odyssey) for a long time.
Yeah, RPGs (Square, Paper or M&L) often have him team up with the good guys when he’s been out-villained. He’s particularly depicted as incompetent in those, and usually kicked out of his own castle, it and his minions being one of the rare other things he cares about.
Gog is the main place for that, since their principal stance is DRM-free downloadable installers. They have a launcher too, but it’s optional and only meant as convenience. Itch.io does DRM-free too, but they’re often more about very indie and often experimental games. They have a few all-time indie classics though.
Steam technically doesn’t require the games to implement DRM, so a part of their library is DRM-free once you’ve passed the installation process (they don’t need steam to be running). This is on a case-by-case basis though. Lots of Steam games use steamworks (Steam’s very own DRM) and a lot more use third party DRMs (and even require external launchers like Ubisoft’s or EA’s).
For years I have been a bit pissed at Steam for opening themselves to all and every shitty fake game/quick buck asset flip there is out there, refusing to do any kind of curation. Instead they opted for letting the almighty Algorithm do that for them. I doesn’t work, their store is a discoverability catastrophe full of shit.
That said, I still buy from them in some cases, and these cases are mostly down to one point : the workshop, the integrated mod and user content interface. It’s for a handful of games that profit a lot from it, but it’s undenyingly convenient.
What I often do if it’s a possibility is buying directly from the developer, which often includes a Steam key. That’s what I did for Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress (through Itch.io). It gives you everything Steam has to offer for the game and usually a DRM-free version too. Only “down point” is that your Steam review doesn’t count for the game’s Steam score when you have activated it from an external key. I don’t care much for that.
In the end at that point you’ve noticed I talked about a lot of different platforms and launchers, and it’s not even all of them. Like the previous poster, I can’t recommend Playnite enough. It’s a meta launcher that makes all of your libraries united in the same place, with a lot of options. You still require all the platforms installed, but you’re not using them directly most of the time.
I’ve got Steam, Gog, Humble, Ubisoft, EA, Amazon, Xbox, Itch.io and yeah, even Epic through it (though I only use EGS to get the free games, I don’t plan on buying anything from there).
That made me think about the most arbitrary and broken player “moral choice” I know : the end of Fable 2.
spoilerBad guy enslaves lots of people for years for his project, killing many of them. Then kills your family and your cute puppy because fuck you. After you beat bad guy, magic ascended girl appears, rewards you with one of three wishes for post-game : revive everyone enslaved by bad guy, revive your family and cute puppy, or give you lots of useless monies. The player is not really responsible for the slave deaths. The ability to “fix” ten years of history by magically erasing all the deaths is weird and undermines the impact of the whole story a lot. Also, and perhaps more importantly on the player’s side of things, the dog is a freaking gameplay mechanic, not having it prevents some actions and blocks a few minor quests. Well, sorry, nameless, faceless theoretical people who died years ago, I really need my cute puppy. Really, the game never even establishes why that very specifically determined choice has to be made. It feels very rushed, very cheap and the whole thing is over in 5 minutes.
‘There’s almost nobody left’: CEO of Baldur’s Gate 3 dev Swen Vincke says the D&D team he initially worked with is gone, due to Hasbro layoffs
Same Lemmy title as the article. You know exactly who’s talking (“CEO of Baldur’s Gate 3 dev Swen Vincke”), about whom (“the D&D team he initially worked with”), what happened to them (“is gone”) and who is to blame (“due to Hasbro layoffs”).
As far as titles go, it’s pretty good at telling you exactly what the actual article is about. Sure, you may need basic knowledge about how a licenced product works, and that BG3 is under the D&D licence. It would be rather hard to fit all that in a title.
So yeah, I want to discuss or point out why I think Valve needs to fix Anti-Cheat issues. They have VAC but apparently its doing jackshit, be it Counter Strike 2 (any previous iterations) or something like Hunt: Showdown the prevalence of cheating players is non deniable. For me personally it has come to a point that I am not...
Yeah, I agree with that. Installing freaking rootkits on people’s personal device, with the express purpose of identifying them and knowing what their machine contains, is not OK. A multiplayer client should be as lightweight as possible and shouldn’t be able to fuck with a game.
Even if they agree not using your data for anything else, the next security breach on their servers will make that promise useless.
And I am not sure why one would trust big publishers to have any kind of ethics anyway. Do you remember Activision’s patent to manipulate matchmaking? That would specifically match players to reward those who buy microtransactions and create pressure on those who don’t?
Yeah, totally trusting those manipulative snakes with my private data with a big “do not watch” sticker on it.
And I am saying that even though I have zero love for the mobile gaming market, while I do own and like consoles. There is just no reason to consider they’re doing things any differently on this matter.
30% seems quite a lot, no matter the platform, especially for small indie studios. I’d care more about these than whatever the Fortnite machine has to pay.
spoiler10. Dredge 9. Diablo IV 8. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor 7. Super Mario Bros. Wonder 6. Dead Space (Remake) 5. Resident Evil 4 (Remake) 4. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 3. Spider-Man 2 2. Baldur’s Gate 3 1. Alan Wake II
Not an excuse in any way, but the x360 had its share of tearing too. I was surprised when I saw that, it’s something I had only encountered in PC games before (my only other 3D-capable console were a GameCube and a Wii).
Very noticeable on Bayonetta, and I am not sure which but I remember others had some too (maybe Darksiders?).
A bunch of cryptobros who don’t really have an interest in playing video games started to think “what if everything in a game was a cryptocurrency, and what if instead of playing for fun, you invested in the game to earn more money?”
Seriously, “play-to-earn” is the thing they want to make happen. They took all those boring trends that make shitty microtransaction-fests feel like a job, and they saw a future where stuff like this would actually be your job.
Difference I can see with traditional gambling (e.g. Texas Hold’em) is that it’s not in the instant, they actually want you to speculate on virtual “ownership” and spend now while it’s “cheap” to earn later in a totally happening glorious metaverse future. Yes, it’s very pyramid-y in nature.
Some of these “games” are empty shells of of a virtual world where you buy plots of land and then expect it to become more valuable, maybe build a virtual store or boring asset-flipped “resort” on it, rent part of it to someone to do the same, etc. They’re landlord fantasy. Except some may really believe in it.
If you’ve got the time, Dan Olson made a pretty good video about that stuff :
Good news if you ever spend Thanksgiving in Hyrule, they have actually edible (and mostly harmless) birds, including big juicy Eldin and forest ostriches.
Also, if they’re not extinct and you’re looking for very big game, you could always try loftwing.
If it means that it’s talking about society, every story ever written is political in some way. But we all know in this context it means “stuff I don’t like”.
What I am searching for is for games that support touch screens and can be played with 1 finger / one hand. No action games with fake joysticks on the screen, just games that work with a single finger or at least one hand while lying in bed and trying to wind down. One very good example is Civilization V, which has a dedicated...
It was either in the first two or in the second one.
I am not sure because I know I got it from the second bundle, but that one included the games from the first humble bundle too.
Though I already had it on the Wii for quite some time at that point. I knew the original flash game, Tower of Goo, and I’d spent so much time messing around with that thing, I was pretty excited that they made a whole game around it.
Which version, PC? I did that one a while ago and I liked it. But then I was like “Wait, how?” when I saw it was being ported to Switch, because I am not sure how the weird stuff it does would work on it.
In any case it has interesting themes, and it’s very good at making the player connect with them.
Literally a used Switch game in a big, ridiculous bag with a “New” sticker on it. Imagine going into a GameStop with a game in a bag like this and convincing them to give you credit for it as “New”....
Xenoblade Chronicles for Wii (I have yet to play the Switch version).
It’s as awesome a game as it was back then, and the QoL changes are definitely welcome. The new chapter… Exists, I guess. It’s fun to play, and it’s nice to get more Melia, but the story really feels like filler content.
I was so disappointed by XC2’s direction that it mostly made me want to replay the first one again. I had started replaying Wii version, then they announced DE, so I waited and played that one instead. No regrets.
Nowadays, it would be very hard for me to choose between XC1 and 3 for my favourite though. 3 hits right in the feels in so many places, and its main cast is so good.
2 has… problems. It looks like a bingo of bad anime tropes and terrible character designs. It’s almost pervy comedy harem anime territory at times. You’ve probably heard cringe as a complaint, and yeah, it has that, quite a bit of it. It’s not all that bad, but when it is, it’s terrible.
It also has a pseudo-gatcha system (no actual microtransactions, thank you for that) to unlock optional characters. These all have side quests tied to them. Some are absurdly rare, hundreds of hours of farming and opening random capsules kind of rare. I hate it.
Mechanically, fights are fun at least, and of course it brings a bit of context that is a bit important to 3, so it’s hard to recommend skipping it if you want the full story.
Weird thing, the XC2 DLC episode, a prequel of sort, was very good. It’s short, but focused on a small group of likeable characters, and it’s like they concentrated the good parts of the main game in a neat, fun package.
So, they’re still using their own frankenstein monster reanimated from the corpse of Gamebryo I presume?
There are definitely more problems at Bethesda than their engine of choice, but yeah, it certainly still is a big one. It’s been creaking at the seams forever.
This stuff is why “it’s optional” and “it’s just cosmetic” are bullshit arguments.
If you can resist the urge, you’re not the intended target. They don’t make record profits from people who can spend somewhat rationally, even though those are the vast majority of users their contribution to profits is a drop in an ocean.
No, the only reason this model works so well is because it’s exploiting the vulnerabilities of a small percent of big spenders.
So, do you consider paying for more rolls part of the fun?
Because the rest, including the hit of endorphin you get for a stroke of luck, could very well exist without it. But of course on EA’s side getting people addicted has no point if they don’t pay virtually unlimited amounts of money for more.
I’ve spent €45 for a Mario game yesterday. Last I’ve checked that game costs roughly the same for everyone (except understandable variations in regional pricing). Not €45 once for me and $2,000 per week for some guy with an addiction problem.
Yet that game was made, and thousands more that didn’t rely on gacha, lootboxes or whatever.
Probably the least important of all these problems, but really, the publisher issuing a blanket chatGPT-generated apology, in the name of the studio without their knowledge, not even getting the name of the fucking game right.
This is a sore subject, but I feel it necessary to add to the gaming layoff news: Telltale laid most of us off early September. Status of TWAU2, I can’t say (NDA)....
I don’t think you need to. The series is turning to something else entirely, with a completely different focus. I already think any previous episode is more fun than 4.
The folks who loved the old games probably won’t think 5 is a free replacement for these. They’ll just think, it’s okay, I’m going to spend a dozen hours trying to make the old one kinda run.
And that part of the prize was to play Godus early and they got bored pretty quickly of it.
The guy didn’t even look like he had any interest in that kind of game to begin with. And, really, why would he? He’s just a random bloke who tried playing a brainless clicker game, and won the jackpot. There’s nothing that predestined the prize winner to be into any of this. Even Molyneux’s greatest hits in the god game/management genre are still *very" niche games.
Also yeah, Godus was a disaster on many, many levels and very far from those.
The whole thing was very flawed from the beginning.
New Vegas uses Bethesda’s Fallout 3 engine, but it was made by Obsidian. It’s not the most representative of what Bethesda does (well, except the part where it’s very buggy, I guess. That part mostly comes with the engine).
To be confirmed, but this sounds a bit like how Disney decided they didn’t need to pay any more royalties to people who wrote Star Wars novelizations and original novels.
Like, “you don’t have a contract with us, you had one with George Lucas before we bought Star Wars, it didn’t transfer.” Very shady, and probably a lot easier to pull when you’re a huge corporation against a small creator.
Teamfight Tactics is introducing a new Collector’s Bounties system that is aimed at the wealthiest of players. To roll the Collector’s Bounties, you’ll need to cough up 450 Treasure Tokens (approximately $17 USD). In order to guarantee you hit the Prestige skin you’ll need to roll at least 30 times.
Hideki Kamiya, who directed Resident Evil 2 and was the chief creator of Devil May Cry, has announced his surprise departure from Bayonetta developer PlatinumGames effective October 12.
Not too worried for the future of Platinum Games though, he was credited as supervising director lately, while others directed, so it’s not like he’s the only creator there.
Words have meaning. If they want to convince people removing the ToS was an honest mistake (almost unbelievable bad timing, but whatever), they shouldn’t make a non-apology beginning with “genuinely disappointed” and saying they’ve been “framed”.
Because they get to never say in whom they’re disappointed, and I choose to interpret it as “disappointed in all of you people for being meanies and assuming the worst”.
APOLLO JUSTICE IS DOING FINE!! If it please the court, we have new evidence to submit about the lawyers, friends, and rivals of the Wright Anything Agency ac...
Definitely more so in the last one. Dual Destinies was mostly Phoenix and Athena, and yeah, a small bit of Apollo. and Apollo kinda got his limelight stolen in his own game anyway
Funny how they called the collection “Apollo Justice : Ace Attorney” when two games in it literally put “Phoenix Wright” back in the title.
I liked Apollo Justice. Yeah, it was very disjointed and barely consistent at times, but it was still very fun to me.
The weirdest part of it was discovering how absolutely crazy Phoenix looks to anyone not in his head. Someone described it as talking to the version of Phoenix who chose all the stupidest answers in previous games, and yeah, it’s kinda like that.
I love my switch and most of what I got for it. But I try to get stuff I know will run well, and to this day I still can’t understand people who played Bloodstained switch and consider it “fine”.
Even with all patches, it’s still an unstable mess with terrible input lag, second-long freezes and constant loading that sucks all the fun out of it. I don’t care much about compromises in the graphics area, but that shit is practically unplayable.
When I backed that game, it was supposed to run on Wii U, what a joke. I am still convinced the reason they delayed the switch version one week at launch was just so it would not tarnish their glowing reviews.
This should be illegal, companies should be forced to open-source games (or at least provide the code to people who bought it) if they decide to discontinue it, so people can preserve it on their own....
At first the idea was it’d be training an actual “replica” of yourself, that could reflect your own personality. Then when they realized their was a demand for companionship they converted it into virtual friend. Then of course there was a demand for “more than friends”, and yeah, they made it possible to create a custom mate for a while.
Then suddenly it became a problem for them to be seen as a light porn generator. Probably because investors don’t want to touch that, or maybe because of a terms of servce change with their AI service provider.
At that point they started to censor lewd interactions and pretend replika was never supposed to be more than a friendly bot you can talk to. Which is, depending on how you interpret what services they proposed and how they advertized them until then, kind of a blatant lie.
WB’s ‘Ready Player One’ Blockchain, VR, AR, AI ‘Readyverse’ Will Of Course Be A Disaster (www.forbes.com) angielski
What's a good co-op RTS for the Switch?
For backstory: My partner and I have been playing Super Mario Party so long that it’s gotten boring. They asked me what I wanted for my birthday (which is coming up), and I thought something like that would be cool. If X-COM 2 had a local co-op on the Switch, I’d do that, but is there something similar?
Has Bowser finally turned good and gave up on hunting Peach? angielski
You know Mario and Rabbids Sparks of Hope?...
What's up with Epic Games? angielski
I can’t seem to find that one comment explaining the issue with them…...
If Gamers Want More Powerful Women Then Stop Being Afraid Of Them (www.thegamer.com) angielski
Lae'zel and Shadowheart can be mean sometimes, and it's okay to embrace women in video games like them.
'There's almost nobody left': CEO of Baldur's Gate 3 dev Swen Vincke says the D&D team he initially worked with is gone, due to Hasbro layoffs (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
Suffering and success.
The Day Before developer Fntastic shuts down - Gematsu (www.gematsu.com)
Valve needs to step up on Anti-Cheat angielski
So yeah, I want to discuss or point out why I think Valve needs to fix Anti-Cheat issues. They have VAC but apparently its doing jackshit, be it Counter Strike 2 (any previous iterations) or something like Hunt: Showdown the prevalence of cheating players is non deniable. For me personally it has come to a point that I am not...
Epic explains why it hasn't sued Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft over 30% fee (www.gamesindustry.biz) angielski
TIME.com's 10 Best Video Games of 2023 (time.com) angielski
spoiler10. Dredge 9. Diablo IV 8. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor 7. Super Mario Bros. Wonder 6. Dead Space (Remake) 5. Resident Evil 4 (Remake) 4. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 3. Spider-Man 2 2. Baldur’s Gate 3 1. Alan Wake II
More than 75% of web3 games failed (www.coingecko.com)
I am actually shocked that 25% of those shitcoin “games” didn’t fail
Gabe Newell ordered to make in-person deposition for Valve v. Wolfire Games lawsuit (www.gamesindustry.biz) angielski
Rating Video Game Birds I Would (And Wouldn't) Eat For Thanksgiving Dinner - Game Informer (www.gameinformer.com)
Happy Thanksgiving y’all!!! 🦃
Sweet Baby Inc: Why Modern Gaming has Become Woke Political Garbage (www.youtube.com) angielski
Anyone knows about calm Windows games with 1-finger touch screen support? angielski
What I am searching for is for games that support touch screens and can be played with 1 finger / one hand. No action games with fake joysticks on the screen, just games that work with a single finger or at least one hand while lying in bed and trying to wind down. One very good example is Civilization V, which has a dedicated...
What game did you last finish? What did you think of it? (i.imgur.com) angielski
I picked up “Mafia: Definitive Edition” cheap the other day (I’ve linked it on Steam as it’s still on sale for the next few days)....
GameStop’s definition of “New” (lemmy.world) angielski
Literally a used Switch game in a big, ridiculous bag with a “New” sticker on it. Imagine going into a GameStop with a game in a bag like this and convincing them to give you credit for it as “New”....
Stop blaming teeth for Cities: Skylines 2 performance problems, say devs (www.rockpapershotgun.com) angielski
deleted_by_author
Minnmax interview with Bruce Nesmith, ex Bethesda design director (video, 1:40:49 length) (www.youtube.com) angielski
They do touch upon what went “wrong” with F76 a few times, one notable quote is:...
Meet the men hiding their FIFA Ultimate Team addiction from their families (www.rockpapershotgun.com) angielski
A great article on video games gambling addictions.
Every Franchise Xbox Now Owns After Buying Activision (kotaku.com) angielski
New Report Makes Disturbing Allegations Against The Lord of the Rings: Gollum Developer - IGN (www.ign.com) angielski
EA SPORTS FC™ 24 Sees Massive Fan Engagement to Kick Off New Era of Football (www.businesswire.com) angielski
Telltale Games has reportedly laid off most of their staff (nitter.net) angielski
This is a sore subject, but I feel it necessary to add to the gaming layoff news: Telltale laid most of us off early September. Status of TWAU2, I can’t say (NDA)....
Sergiy Galyonkin (Steam spy) announces departure from Epic Games (twitter.com) angielski
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/95a18f70-d155-448e-acf6-265382b3ae2f.webp
Is there an indie games bubble? (roadmapmag.com) angielski
Peter Molyneux is ready to disappoint us again with his latest game, a blockchain-based business sim (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
Starfield Is Bethesda's Lowest-Rated Game On Steam (www.gamespot.com) angielski
Hatoful Boyfriend creator: "btw I’ve got no royalty payment for Hatoful Boyfriend from Epic since they acquired Mediatonic back in spring 2021" (twitter.com) angielski
LoL players rebel against “disgusting” prices with new Prestige TFT skin - Dexerto (www.dexerto.com) angielski
Teamfight Tactics is introducing a new Collector’s Bounties system that is aimed at the wealthiest of players. To roll the Collector’s Bounties, you’ll need to cough up 450 Treasure Tokens (approximately $17 USD). In order to guarantee you hit the Prestige skin you’ll need to roll at least 30 times.
Game Developer Legend Hideki Kamiya in Shock PlatinumGames Exit - IGN (www.ign.com) angielski
Hideki Kamiya, who directed Resident Evil 2 and was the chief creator of Devil May Cry, has announced his surprise departure from Bayonetta developer PlatinumGames effective October 12.
Unity: disappointed at how removal ToS has been framed. We removed it way before the pricing change was announced not because we didn't want people to see it. (twitter.com) angielski
Palworld | TGS 2023 Trailer | Pocketpair | Multiplayer | Character Customization (youtu.be) angielski
"Palworld" is a multiplayer open-world survival craft monster-collection game that is set in a world where mysterious monsters "Pal" inhabit....
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy - Release Date Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
APOLLO JUSTICE IS DOING FINE!! If it please the court, we have new evidence to submit about the lawyers, friends, and rivals of the Wright Anything Agency ac...
Mortal Kombat 1 Switch trailer featuring Steam achievement taken down (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
A launch trailer for the Nintendo Switch version of Mortal Kombat 1 is no longer available to view on YouTube after fan…
This should be illegal (lemmy.world) angielski
This should be illegal, companies should be forced to open-source games (or at least provide the code to people who bought it) if they decide to discontinue it, so people can preserve it on their own....