The first thing is that at one point many years ago we participated in Rocket League’s RLCS. Participation was completely open. We were actually doing quite well until we randomly ran into pro players and got completely demolished. It’s kinda humbling to know that even though you’re part of the top ~1% of players, pro players are still in a totally different league and absolutely unbeatable. Their speed and game sense is so much better than that of any mere mortal, it’s like we weren’t even there. We were probably low Grand Champion around the time, and we got beaten like we would beat Gold ranked players. Personally I don’t mind losing like this, it’s a good learning experience and shows you how much is possible.
At uni I also participated in plenty of LAN parties that had random game competitions. Usually they were games that a lot of us didn’t ever play before. We’d usually start playing the game a few hours in advance to get a feel for it. There I’ve found that I’m quite decent at this usually, but that there are definitely a few people who can get quite decent at a game in 2 hours to the point that they challenge people with casual experience with the game. It as always good fun though, and because I tended to put some effort into it I regularly managed to get into the top 3.
Personally I’d say that “always striving for the maximum and stressing myself out” is a personality trait that’s not only a problem in Stardew Valley for me haha. I’m o it’s not a great mindset to have, but unfortunately it’s a subconscious drive that’s hard to eliminate.
I guess it’s just a mindset difference. I’d say me and my friends are all pretty competitive gamers (as opposed to more creative gamers). We tend to play games mostly for the challenge. Also didn’t help that we had just finished our Facorio playthrough. So in our mind we still had “the factory must grow”. So our minds were like “if space -> use space”.
While I enjoyed it, it was also very stressful. I think we just played wrong. We covered every millimeter of the plot with farms or other useful stuff and then proceeded to be busy for more than half the day with just maintenance. At some point this meant that we never got to explore and often barely had time to go to the stores or talk to the people in the village.
Apart from overcooked it was probably the most stressful game Is ever played and it’s not supposed to be like that
What? The launch was definitely botched, but after all the updates it’s now a great game. Personally one of my favorites. Honestly I’m not sure if there are many studios who would do a better job than CDPR in making such a large scale Cyberpunk game.
As long as it’s a bit of a sandbox: hell yeah. But there needs to be stuff happening, things to do. I love games like GTA, Cyberpunk, Just Cause, Stalker, because you can just go around the world and experience random stuff happening. Sometimes I don’t want a goal, but just a sandbox to create my own stories.
I’m still not sure what to think of early access. On the one hand, it is too often an excuse to push a buggy mess. That shit is seriously annoying.
But if it’s done right, it can allow developers to make games that are way larger than they otherwise could. In the end development costs money, so with only X million dollars of upfront investment you will run out at some point. With early access they can extend the money pile further, and therefore they can keep extending the scope of the game way beyond what would otherwise be possible as long as the game is popular enough. But then the focus should be on delivering a mostly stable core experience instead of a buggy unbalanced mess.
Imo it worked quite well for games like Factorio, Valheim, Satisfactory. I had like 80 hours in Satisfactory way before the official release, and then another 100 hours or so with friends a bit later (also before the final release). While there were definitely some bugs, the experience overall was worth my money and I was happy to be able to play it already.
Ironically my laptop, which has been Linux-only since 2015 or something, has finally stopped working properly. The dedicated GPU (NVIDIA Quadro K1100M) no longer has working drivers with the kernel from Ubuntu 24.04. Then again, it wouldn’t run windows 11 either probably.
I finally committed to Linux at the end of last year. Enough is working to make it preferable to Windows now. I’m still having a lot of bugs, and it’s costing quite some time. But at least my computer is mine again. No more telemetry, ads, and UIs that treat me like a toddler. No more updates forced onto me instead of being done whenever I want it.
Well if I could quickly check how all clothes would fit on me without going to the store and without having to change clothes, I’d probably spend the same effort. Having a character creator would also be neato
For real. Imo the best RTS out there currently. I feel so much more in control of the camera and the units. Whenever I go back to old RTS games now they feel dated and clunky.
The AI is also surprisingly enjoyable for a more casual player like me. It doesn’t cheat (as far as I’m aware) by getting resources or having vision where it shouldn’t. But it does exploit its high APM and it is very aware of what it can get away with in fights. This results in an AI that never does outright bullshit, but in one that does just sneak past the 2mm space not covered by turrets or units and ruins your entire economy. Give it a large open map and it’ll demolish me, but on smaller maps with choke points it’s easier to handle.
I haven’t seriously played any of them over the last year though. RL has been run into the ground by greed. GTA V was always greedy, but was still some fun to fck around in. However it isn’t really relevant anymore. PC2 was replaced for me by Assetto Corsa (5th place, 170 hours) which has great mods and better physics.
Also, this is only Steam. Combining Steam and Uplay numbers, Trackmania 2020 probably 2nd place with just over 300 hours. And LoL may also be top 3 even though I haven’t played in years. Likewise Beyond All Reason may be getting close to the top 3, but I have no way of knowing since it doesn’t track the playtime afaik.
Damn the trailer looked pretty cool. I love the modern retro vibe it has. They have space tech, but also CD decks etc. But the comments on Youtube are an absolute dumpster fire… “How dare they have a female with short hair REEEEEEEEEEEEE”
We played this game called Icarus last weekend because of a free weekend. It was okay for me, but I also have a pretty high-end PC for the 1080p monitor connected to it. Even for me the game was quite janky, but for my friends with older hardware the game wasn’t a good time. One friend’s microphone randomly turned into a max-volume noise generator while playing on multiple occasions, something that has never happened before. Another (who plays on Linux) experienced constant crashes and weird behaviour.
After that disappointment we went back in time to The Showdown Effect for the first time in years, which was still as hilarious as ever. Apparently there’s an updated free to play version now (called reloaded or something?) so we’d have to check that out. Would recommend it if you’re looking to have some mayhem with friends .
Edit: oh yeah and I also bought Grid Legends because it has a big sale and I like racing games. The driving physics don’t annoy me like the ones in The Crew or Forza so I’m having a good time with it till now