silverchase

silverchase, 2 dni temu

I’m sure someone at Valve also had fond memories of that toilet.

Amazingly, I played this game when it came out and discovered it has Steam Controller binds out of the box!

At this point, the fact that Portal is in the Half-Life universe is just a fluke. The plots of Portal 2 singleplayer, co-op, and PTI are very “distant” from anything happening with Half-Life. The two series are tonally very mismatched. Their strongest connection is that Aperture bumbled their way into possessing Half-Life plot-critical stuff and then losing the boat that contained it.

silverchase, 17 dni temu

By the way, my main is Qing Yan, the other bird boy.

silverchase, 17 dni temu

The maps aren’t generated inch-by-inch, if that’s what you were hoping for. Each stage has a bucket of unique rooms it stitches together to create the level geometry. The devs did a clever thing and made rooms with multiple doorways, with two chosen at random to be part of the path, so you can traverse through the same room in a slightly different way each run. At this point, I’ve seen all the possible rooms, but the combination of character upgrades, surprise challenges the game springs on you, weapons, and enemies keeps it fresh. There’s a lot of replayability in just character builds alone, since you can find multiple ways to make each character effective, depending on what perks you got first and what risks you take.

The co-op works well. Gunfire Reborn is a lot easier in co-op because friends can revive each other with unlimited tries, whereas in singleplayer, you get only one revive by sacrificing the character-upgrading resource. Recently, they’ve added a Left 4 Dead-style bot co-op mode so you can have that experience instead of the pure solo one. I’ve actually ground myself into a weird corner where I’m way better than everyone else I play with and can carry a whole team, dealing like 80% of the entire team’s damage across the whole run. I’ve not actually tried public matchmaking, just playing solo or with friends.

In terms of DLCs, each comes with two new characters and a handful of weapons. Each DLC character has a different mechanical focus in case you’re getting bored of the characters you already have. The base game is just fine to start with. I have the first two packs, but the latest one, the third, I skipped during the Steam winter sale to buy more games. The character I was playing here, Zi Xiao, comes from the second pack, Artisan and Magician. His counterpart in that pack is Nona, who is pretty much the red panda version of Gaige from Borderlands 2 (no anarchy stacks, though), summoning and commanding a combat robot. The first pack, Spirit Realm, has a monkey who aggressively upgrades his guns and a fox who, with the right build, can just stop using guns and drop fireballs on enemies instead.

Okay, here’s my final pitch. The game is on sale as part of the launch of the new season. It’s not the all-time low, but it’s pretty close.

silverchase, 17 dni temu

The WADF soundtrack sticks with me

silverchase, 26 dni temu

Valve tried trackballs with the Steam Controller but ditched them for trackpads that emulate trackball physics. They found small ones felt bad but big ones were too bulky and heavy. Clearly they like that idea, since every controller-like thing they’ve designed since includes pads.

silverchase, miesiąc temu

If you haven’t done so already, I suggest you start taking notes while playing the game. You’ll need to keep track of what you have to come back to a place for.

silverchase, miesiąc temu

It’s actually spelled “chamberrr”

silverchase, miesiąc temu

I don’t think it has ever gone on sale.

silverchase, miesiąc temu

I recommend you avoid games with continuous movement early on. Moving with joystick feels very bad until you get your VR legs. Also get the Lab, Valve’s free VR minigame collection.

silverchase, miesiąc temu

This game is timeless. It was released in a time when the arena FPS was on its way out and server browsers were still the norm for PC online multiplayer, yet it has hardly aged.

silverchase, miesiąc temu

Still alive, are we?

silverchase, miesiąc temu

His pandemic project in 2021 was making 139 games!

silverchase, miesiąc temu

I wishlisted PVKK. I’m also aware that Buckshot Roulette is well-received but haven’t played it myself.

silverchase, miesiąc temu

With hindsight, I view this generation of the Pokémon series as an awkward transition to 3D. It’s pretty apparent in the graphics and UI that Diamond/Pearl/Platinum are essentially upgraded GBA games. 3D effects occur only sparingly, and I remember the backpack UI bizarrely having an iPod-style scroll wheel on the touchscreen.

The following generation got more adventurous with the 3D and started using the DS touchscreen more effectively. The “sprite puppet” effect in Black/White looked janky as heck but I honestly loved it anyway. The character sprites in Cassette Beasts worked similarly, which I guess is another reason I liked that game.

Also, man, the pacing of battle animations and UI is so slow in this generation.

silverchase, miesiąc temu

We are always allowed to admire oddly hi-fi graphics. I love shaking the vodka bottles in Half-Life Alyx. The liquid inside waves and bubbles and if you hold it up to a light source, the light glows through!

silverchase, miesiąc temu

This is hardly news. Path of Exile has server queues at the start of every major launch. I think it’ll be great news if absolutely nothing goes wrong with the launch.

silverchase, miesiąc temu

My build for Settlers league was the most fun map blaster I’ve ever made. I made a melee witch (occultist) with Viper Strike that could one-shot entire packs and some map bosses! Just running up to a pack and slapping it and running off.

It was absolute garbage at bossing, though. The survivability was softcore/10.

silverchase, miesiąc temu

I played the demo during Next Fest. I found it fun. It reminds me of games like (1) Keep Talking and (2) Papers Please.

silverchase, miesiąc temu

My friend kept pestering me to try the game in 2009. The first thing I did in Alpha was die in overworld lava.

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

Back to you, Steve.

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

Her Story is a detective game that starts with you sitting at a computer, not even knowing what mystery you’re supposed to investigate. You have to search through the computer’s database for police interview footage to figure that out. Then you have to figure out the answer to the mystery you think you need to solve. The interview clips have a lot of details for you to track and link together. I had to make a big chunky note for this game and even had to implement a system to keep track of the likelihood of the statements.

If you want more point and click adventures, try the Submachine series, which was originally in Flash but now remastered as a ten-game compilation called Submachine: Legacy. The developer trained as an architect, so you get to admire intricate, hand-drawn architecture porn. It starts off as a typical 00s Flash room escape, until you realize it was all a… hallucination. You realize that you’re actually going to explore a vast, utterly lonely underground world as you try to track down the only person who seems to know how to get out. Teleportation and parallel universe travel come up a lot in the series, so keeping notes will be useful. Incredible dark ambient soundtrack, too.

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

I left my computer to go out with friends to have wings. I was thinking about the puzzle I left behind on the trip there. I was trying to draw the patterns on my phone while we waited. This game gets into your head.

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

I’m not familiar with the games you mentioned, so I went to check them out. And look what we have on the Steam store page!

Reviews

“It shares some of the feeling of Her Story, albeit featuring today’s technology and with less of a focus on the crime angle. But it has the same small moments of revelation, all of which come together to form a story in its own neat yet meandering way.” Rock Paper Shotgun

Guess that means you have to play it now.

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

About that blood. Valve forgot to remove it before submitting the game for age ratings, and despite multiple updates over the years, they’ve never bothered to address this. Also, I wish Portal 2 had hard-mode remix chambers like 1 did.

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

There are high-polish VR shooters, like Half-Life Alyx, Boneworks, and Vertigo 2, which obviously care about where your hands and other body parts are. Boneworks attempts melee combat, but it’s pretty janky. In Half-Life Alyx, you use your hands to rummage around junk to find resources. In Vertigo 2, if you get hit by arrows or thrown spears, you have to pull them out of your body, and there’s a section where you steer a boat.

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

FMVs? What a treat.

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

Path of Exile is one of those games where you never stop learning new things and the ceiling is always higher than you think it is.

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

Look at all that endgame content!

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

I recommend it, but in response to the first part of your comment, I guess it depends on what parts of Pokémon you dislike.

Mechanically, I see the combat as more matured and nuanced. Battles are almost always 2v2. It uses a board game-inspired system where you pay action points to use a move; you gain 2 each turn, plus a bonus one when you hit with type advantage. The type system has interesting interactions: advantaged moves apply status effects, which give you setups for comboing moves together, instead of nuking opponents with double damage. For example, lightning ⇒ earth turns the target into glass, then metal ⇒ glass spreads damaging shards onto the battlefield. The game cuts down the grinding as well, with your character gaining levels instead of your monster tapes, so you can get to using a new tape with no catch-up grind at all. Stickers are a powerful evolution of the move system. You can freely move stickers around and they can appear with rare mods, ARPG-style, that customize how the sticker works. As an equivalent of Pokémon abilities are passive stickers, which trigger with certain conditions, which let you “program” a tape. There’s also an impressively robust fusion system that comes with an interesting strategic tradeoff: you get bigger stats in a fusion with your partner but lose action economy.

The game’s plot is a fresh one that breaks the standard formula of creature collectors. There’s a side quest that makes a nod to the usual “gym leader series”, but the plot is focused on discovering the mysteries of the island you’re stuck on and finding a way home. There’s a memorable and surprising cast of characters and a clear anti-capitalist message (you fight vampire landlords). I like the worldbuilding, too. It avoids the usual uncomfortable questions surrounding creature collectors, like notably the whole capturing and fighting part — you record images of monsters to tape and transform into them instead.

I find the monster designs imaginative and distinct. The roster is must less focused on elemental animals and more on folklore and cryptids, which ties into the overall plot of the game. The boss designs are also really cool, but that’s a spoiler.

Also, there are mods.

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There might be reasons you still won’t like Cassette Beasts. The combat is still turn-based. The post-game is pretty thin, though I suppose this update is expanding that. You have to collect crafting materials to trade with NPCs for stuff, but only a few materials are scarce enough to care about. The game is pretty easy on the default difficulty, but there are settings to make it harder.

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

Hell yeah, Steam Controller

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

I got my Steam Controller the day they were released and still use it. The stick has never drifted, though I also prefer to use the left pad for most “left stick” purposes. The real problem I’m having with the stick is that the rubbery coating on top is rubbing off, which is kind of gross and makes it harder than it should be to use it for an extended time. Good thing pads never drift! The rough texture of the pads has stayed remarkably well; no smooth and shiny spots.

Mine also has the usual things after almost a decade of use. The A button feels a little soft and the right trigger sounds a bit clangy. The body is plastic faces screwed together. It’s a tiny bit creaky but remarkably sturdy, with no flex spots other than the back keys, which are pressed with the flexible parts of the battery cover.

Overall, it’s lasted me a good long while and I expect it to go longer. I even bought a backup from someone after they were discontinued.

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

They have mentioned before that they gave up on episodic development, which tacitly ditches Episode 3. The episodes ended up not being that much easier or faster to make and in a time when PC games in retail was still kind of relevant, it was a pain to make, distribute, and get shelf space for.

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

It’s Linux native

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

I’m so hyped to listen to the new commentary.

silverchase, 2 miesiące temu

You will need games that have crossplay between PC and Xbox One so you can play together across different platforms. Multiple people have suggested Left 4 Dead 2, but that doesn’t have crossplay. Most of the shooters I personally play don’t have it, but there definitely are shooters with crossplay.

Here are my recommendations that have crossplay:

• Borderlands 3 — Collect wacky guns, travel the universe, and shoot bad guys together. The previous games in the series don’t have crossplay.

…Yeah, that’s it for crossplay shooters I recommend. For crossplay games that aren’t shooters:

• Overcooked! All You Can Eat — Chaotic co-op cooking. Work together to prepare, cook, and serve food in increasingly absurd scenarios: in the middle of the highway, on an iceberg, in a hot air balloon that crashes into a different restaurant.
• Ultimate Chicken Horse — Platformer where you build the levels together and then race to the finish. You only score if someone died, so you need to make the level extra dangerous.
• Moving Out 2 — Goofy co-op game where your group plays as a ridiculously reckless moving company. Carry furniture from the house and shove or throw it into the truck. No one will notice if you break all the windows.

If everyone is on PC, things will open up a good bunch. Old-school networked games generally still work. You can go FFA deathmatch in your old favourites or in newer arena shooters, like Warsow or Disco Dodgeball.