> I'm new to Lemmy BTW. ``` Just want to make some friends ```

I really like thinkygames.com for puzzle games. I am looking for something similar keeping the indie game coverage but less specific to a genre. Where do you guys get your news from? Bonus points for interviews with developer/director and a RSS feed.

Ha! Just finished Thank Goodness You're Here and it was the silliest, raunchiest, Northern Englishest?? thing I've played in a while. It was a bit of a fever dream. Like an Adult Swim cartoon with a joke a minute that you're sort of "playing." There's not much in the way of controls and yet it was still incredibly satisfying how you unexpectedly interact with this bizarre world. Everyone in this town is off their rocker yet also loveable? I don't even know how to describe it it was so unique. I guess just play it if this at all sounds intriguing. Short, but a completely wonderful way to spend a few hours.

Today’s game is **Halo 2**. I’m currently without Wi-Fi (I had to figure out how to upload the screenshots from my hotspot via a tether because wireless was dialup speeds), so I decided to give Halo 2 a try with the CRT filter. It turns out I had the resolution wrong, but I fixed it. After playing it for so long at HD resolutions with a modern OLED flatscreen, It’s really helped to change my perspective to see it from the original intended viewing (or atleast a emulation of a CRT).  I went through the “Players Choice” playlist since I’m not sure I’d have the time to do _all_ the levels. So it took me through the 2 in Mombasa, 1 on delta halo, and the finale. Honestly not a bad selection of levels.  I also got this kill on the hunters that felt so god damn therapeutic after dealing with their BS in Legendary my first playthrough. Maybe I’m just hyping myself up but damn does this game do a good job of making you feel like a bad ass sometimes.  During outskirts I managed to keep the marines in my warthog alive until the end which was fun. I’d never been able to do that until now. They were always sniped by one lucky Beam Rifle shot or something. This time though when the marine said he didn’t think he was going to make it, I made damn sure he did.  I ended with the Great Journey as I had mentioned earlier. Honestly I think this was one of the most interesting to see with the CRT filter. It almost felt like seeing a VHS tape recording of the game with how the colors looked. And the way the landscape kind of blenders together really added to it too.  Someone suggested something that can overlay a CRT Shader without hooking into a DLL which I’m tempted to try. I’d be fun to continue my CE playthrough like this.

Today’s game is **Batman Arkham Origins**. I was originally going to play this after Shadow of Mordor, but that game has some weird bug where if I Alt Tab the entire game crashes, and my headphones kept defaulting to a profile with *really* low spec audio whenever I open the game. The only way I could find to change it back was to alt tab and go to settings. I’m sure you can see where this is going.  Anyways, so I picked this which I had installed. The entire opening I kind of got side tracked looking at all the details. There’s a letter to Calendar man from Harley Quinn (I presume) in his cell. I had first played this game like 2013, on PS3, at a younger age. So I was more than happy to sprint past all these details at the low resolution to the next fight to beat the shit out of some thugs.  Speaking of beating up thugs, definitely my age has lended me some more skills when playing these. I’m sure having played Asylum and City full to completion helped, but I was blowing through the predator encounters in this one. I remember being particularly stuck on the encounter on the outside of the cruise ship for a while. This time? A few Batclaws to knockout some thugs and a few stealth attacks and I’m on my merry way.  I ended up making it all this way to the a huge ass block of ice with people in it I had never noticed before. I’m wondering if there’s any lore to it. Unfortunately though my controller died before I could get a closer look. It seems these days I’m trading one error for another. Either a dead controller or no Wi-Fi. Still though, I made it pretty far. I was hoping to get to the Deathstroke fight before the end of the night but that doesn’t seem to be happening. Hopefully I can get Shadow of Mordor sorted out tomorrow, but we’ll see. Some friends were wanting to play Halo now that I have the Wi-Fi back up so that may be what I end up doing instead. Maybe I’ll try to juggle both?

Hadn't heard much of this project until now. Apparently, Crytek, a previous holder of the IP, has at one point given their direct blessing for this project to exist, so it *should* be safe from immediate legal threats. The project aims to recreate multiplayer as well as the singleplayer. Great to have another awesome free game available, so it'll be reliant on natural social media spread.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40224994 > I just found out that Embark used genAI to replace recalling it's voice actors. And I am devastated. It was my GOTY and now I'm boycotting it. To the point that I decided to be vocal about it. > > I don't want any AI (not talking about machine learning for the way the Arcs move, I'm talking about the voice actors being replaced) in the work of art that I think are the video games I play. > > To game developers: Stop using AI in your video games! > > --- > > > Je viens de découvrir que Embark a utilisé de l'IA générative pour remplacer ses acteurs. Et franchement je suis tellement déçu. C'était clairement mon GOTY, et maintenant je me retrouve à boycotter tout ça, au point de carrément en faire des posts pour toucher le plus de monde possible. > > Je ne veux aucune IA (et attention, je ne parle pas du machine learning utilisé pour les déplacements des Arcs) dans les oeuvres d'art que je consomme. > > Aux développeurs: Arrêtez d'utiliser de l'IA dans les jeux vidéos !

I was just reflecting on games I've played in the last year, and wondering when Steam's year-in-review thing would be happening (probably within the next week). However, I thought it might be interesting to ask this question before that drops, because I'd expect that people will respond differently before they've seen the data, and I think that subjective aspect of the reflection is interesting. So tell me what games you've played in the past year that have most stuck out to you. I think it's more fun if you try to go by memory, but if you want to go check stuff like whether you first played a game in December 2024 or January 2025, that's fine too; just try to not get too deep into the data, I'm interested in the *vibes* here. For me, a recent highlight was Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I didn't expect to be able to play it for a long while because of its cost, but a friend got it for me in November, for my birthday. I like that I'll always associate it with them for that reason. The game is also very me, what with its artsy fartsy themes and the like. Before that, I played a heckton of Hades 2, which I thoroughly enjoyed, even if it didn't quite scratch the same itch that the first game did. I've not 100%ed it yet, but I plan to. My favourite part of the game is the music — the boss fight that incorporates music in a cool way is so awesome And before that was Hollow Knight, partly motivated by hearing all the hype in the runup to Silksong's release. I'd been weirdly resistant to playing Hollow Knight for years. I think it's because when something is so universally lauded, it makes me feel oddly anxious. Like, if I don't enjoy it, does that mean I have bad taste? What if it is objectively amazing, but it just doesn't click with me, and I feel sad that I'm missing out on whatever magic everyone else is experiencing? Or what if everyone else is wrong, and the game is way overhyped? They're silly thoughts, but this is fairly common for me (this is why I resisted watching Breaking Bad for years). Fortunately I loved it, and I expect that Silksong will be one of my highlights of 2026. Beautiful soundtrack that I've listened to so much that it was in my Spotify wrapped. The most interesting part of my year is that I branched out more and played smaller games, outside of the typical stuff I'd play, and for a delightfully silly reason: [this Venn diagram](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/4a2fa768-9f08-4c2d-8e8d-f56a1924ac74.jpeg)([Source](https://www.tumblr.com/ludwig1beethoven/767930645084274688/i-think-its-a-wise-diagram?source=share)). I stumbled across that when I was voraciously consuming as much Disco Elysium analysis as I could back in 2024, when I played it. I had already played Pathologic 2 (largely due to hbomberguy's video essay on the first one), as well as Planescape:Torment (because so many had cited that as a clear influence on Disco Elysium). This gave me enough points of reference on that venn diagram that I became determined to play all the games included (i.e. Disco Elysium, Pentiment, Felvidek, The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante, Planescape: Torment, Pathologic 2. The middle section is not a game, but a book (which I haven't read): Umberto Eco's *The Name of the Rose*) I was utterly enchanted by this Venn diagram to an absurd degree. According to it: * Pentiment = Disco Elysium - Pathologic 2; * Felvidek = Disco Elysium - Planescape: Torment; and * The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante = Felvidek + Pentiment Based off the first two statements, I felt like I could approximate the vibe of Pentiment and Felvidek, but I was intrigued to test that, and I played two games I don't think I would have otherwise. Pentiment was delightful. I played a bunch of it when a medievalist friend was visiting me, and they verified that every [weird and wonderful animal drawings](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/2bcc365b-35b4-4953-93db-6934b560ead3.jpeg) were actually drawn from real medieval manuscripts. They worked with multiple historians to ensure the history depicted was accurate, and it made for an incredibly immersive experience. I loved how the text in the speech bubbles were written in a different script depending on how the protagonist perceived them — more educated people speak with a fancied script than peasants, for example. It really grounds the game in the protagonist's subjective perspective, which synergised so well with the historical setting. I learned so much from this game and from analysis content of it. Apparently Josh Sawyer studied history as an undergraduate, and he'd been wanting to make a game like this for years; I'm so glad he got the chance to make it. [Felvidek](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2299900/Felvidek/) is a much smaller game than Pentiment — small enough that I would have felt grumpy at its price if not for the fact that it was clearly a labour of love by a small team. It's a JROG based in a psuedo-historical version of Slovakia, which I found cool, because I knew next to nothing about Slovakian culture. I still don't, because it's not really that kind of game, but I felt like I came away understanding more. It's the kind of game where I felt close to the developer, given that it was such a small project. If you were going to try any of the games I mentioned here, I'd recommend this one, because I'd wager you've not heard of it. If it looks like the kind of game you'd play, I'd advise you go in blind to maximise the impact of the generally absurd vibes. The soundtrack was a highlight for me — it really drove home the absurdity. Having completed these two pillars of the Venn diagram, I was finally able to complete my quest with The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante. However, I find myself running out of steam and unable to write much more, but it was a fun little experience. Not quite as out there as Felvidek, but definitely something I wouldn't have played ordinarily. Experimenting with new games also encouraged me to push myself out of my comfort zone further, with games like Fear & Hunger, and Signalis. I'm not great with horror, but that's part of why this was fun. Anyway, what games have been highlights for you guys? Don't feel pressured to write anywhere near as much as I have — I mostly just wrote this much because I appear to be procrastinating making dinner.

It the echo that gets me.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/31534423

EDIT: Heading to bed but will check this thread in the morning and if anyone would like the remaining four keys (see below), they're yours. Merry Christmas! ____________ Hello friends! I recently bought a Humble Bundle that had several games i already own, so I'm giving the keys away. If you'd like one of them, please post the game you want in the comments and I will DM you the gift link from Humble Bundle. First come, first served and one key per requestor. Here are the games: - ~~F.E.A.R. - Ultimate Shooter Edition~~ - ~~Middle Earth - Shadow of Mordor GOTY Edition~~ - ~~Middle Earth - Shadow of War Definitive Edition~~ - ~~Batman Arkham Asylum - GOTY Edition~~ - ~~Batman Arkham City - GOTY Edition~~ - ~~Batman Arkham Origins~~ - ~~Batman Arkham Knight - Premium Edition~~ - ~~Injustice Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition~~ - ~~Injustice 2 - Legendary Edition~~ - ~~Watchmen The End Is Nigh - Pt 1 and 2 Bundle~~ - ~~Mad Max~~

The game started in German, and I couldn't change the language. Multiple sites told me how to change the language of the Epic Games Launcher instead. WTF?? Here's the solution: Find `GameUserSettings.ini` in `%localappdata%\HogwartsLegacy\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor` and add these two lines: ``` [Internationalization] Language=en-US ``` Now the game is in English. **CAREFUL:** The game is overwriting this file. You need to do this every time you want to play the game or set the file to read-only. Which prevents you from changing some settings.

Today's game is Halo Combat Evolved. Me and a friend have been going through it on Normal (Our last playthrough was on Legendary) and during it we lowered the resolution down to 720 x 480 (what, i believe the original Xbox ran on).  We ran through Guilty Spark like that, after that my friend was dreading the library though so he called it stops though. I went and figured out how to setup ReShade with a CRT filter for it too enhance the experience. obviously not the same as just playing the OG but it was an experience. I have a copy on Disk so at one point i'd like to get all the hardware to play it, but for now this was an amazing experience.  Looking at it this way was like playing a new game almost. I could understand how this was the "forefront" of graphics at the time. On the pictures there's scan lines, but in the actual gameplay it's very soft and glowy. It really contextualizes how the original game was supposed to look. I kind of want to go through Halo 2 like this too, but i think the better option is to get a disk copy and play it that way.  I only played Two Betrayals like this because i had to disable Anticheat to play it that way and i didn't want to play that far without my friend but it was a fun experience to play it this way. I wish i could play it that way with him with Anti Cheat. I wonder if there's something i can do with VK Basalt instead of ReShade.

I've loved Alix Wilton Regan in everything I've heard her in, thrilled to see her get a big leading role like this.

Just spent 21 months in prison. Any good releases I might have missed after March 5th 2024? Already have Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Edit: forgot to mention I really enjoyed Cyberpunk before getting arrested, as well as AC: Oddysey

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40151552 > As always, think twice about pre-ordering

The name is CyricZ, and he is the reason the west can get platinum in this series. Over the years, he wrote the best guides on gamefaqs one can ask for. His appearance on reddit has been seen as a second coming of Christ lol. Back to the problem, a lot of controversies followed the recent announcements, and besides dumb rereleases and unlisting of "legacy" remasters, CyricZ is very unhappy that remaster of Yakuza 3 with added campaign [includes a known harrasser and sexual assaulter Teruyuki Kagawa as the voice and the face of the antagonist.](https://www.thegamer.com/yakuza-kiwami-3-boycott-over-teruyuki-kagawa-sexual-harassment/) Although that remaster means fixing known issues with fighting gameplay, and also adding a lot new things, I myself respect and join people who wouldn't want to support that.

Miyoo sent me one of their newest handhelds: the Miyoo Mini Flip to review. Its made to be a clear nostalgic nod (in design) to the old GBA SP:  The tiny thing is *adorable* (and it's so small!), it's perfect for the classic systems (though you won't get N64, Dreamcast etc), and I've essentially found this has been my modern Game Boy Advance SP. For the GBA, GB and GBC systems it's just perfection. I love how you can customize the surroundings with community-made contributions, like this one:  There's a handful of small downsides, like perhaps if you're old-old with poor eyesight, the screen might be a bit too small for you, but this was an easy recommendation from me. [As ever, if you'd like to read my full review, you can find it here with this link, plenty of pictures (with my cat!) and detail shots, if that's your thing in here too!](https://gardinerbryant.com/hands-on-with-the-miyoo-mini-flip-the-modern-successor-to-the-gba-sp/) ...or you can just ask me anything directly here, if you'd prefer :)

I have a lot of experience with games like this, so I'm not too worried about the combat end of things. What I'm curious about, is for those who have played it multiple times, which character offers the "best likely story" if you were to play through once? ("Best" as defined by you.) *** PS: A head's up for any persistent bugs I should be aware of that can really screw up a game would be appreciated as well. cheers,

Expedition 33 coronation as expected. Thing that surprised me the most was Wuthering Waves for Players Choice Award over Expedition 33, Dispatch, Silksong, Death Stranding, Ghost of Yotei, and KCD2. Literal complete stable of awesome games across genres lost out to a gatcha game. Are there just more gooner gamers than I thought? 🤔 Mega-hyped for Total War: Warhammer 40k Flute guy killed it as usual! What are your thoughts on the awards and show overall?

**New Content** - Verso's Drafts, a new playable environment, taking the characters of Expedition 33 to a brand-new location with new enemy encounters and surprises to discover :) Located on the World Map, next to Lumière - Accessible from Act III Esquie’s Underwater ability is required! - New text and UI game localizations into Czech, Ukrainian, Latin American Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Thai, and Indonesian, bringing the total number of supported languages to 19, with more to come! - New costumes for each member of the Expedition, giving even more customization options for players throughout their adventure - New boss battles for late-game players to overcome in the Endless Tower - They are variations of iconic bosses from the main game, designed to be even more challenging - Added new Luminas and Weapons - Added the "Old Key" quest item to the final area of the game - Previously obtainable only during the Prologue, this addition gives players a second chance to collect all journals within a single playthrough **New Features** - Added Photo Mode with plenty of settings and options for players to get creative with while capturing your favourite moments from the game, accessible at any time from the pause menu! - Added Lumina Sets feature, allowing players to save up to 50 different lumina loadouts for adapting to plenty of different fighting tactics at any moment - Added Abandon Battle option in the pause menu which can now be opened in battle - Added HUD Scale setting, allowing players to adjust the size of in-game HUD elements from 80% to 120% - Added FSR 4 support, including AMD temporal upscaling for sharper visuals and Frame Generation for smoother gameplay on compatible GPUs - Added new filters for Pictos and Luminas and improved the UI - Added input remapping for controller **Handheld PC improvements** - The game is now certified on Steam Deck and ROG Xbox Ally! - Global improvement of text legibility - Fixed multiple fog and lighting issues: Overly intense effects during the Flying Manor boss fight (which also impacted some cinematics) Overexposed areas in the Visages Overly dark areas in the Endless Tower - Fixed FPS being capped at 30 on Steam Deck - VSync can now be properly disabled in the settings when playing on Steam Deck - Graphic settings are now adjusted for Steam Deck users - Improved first-time setup flow: Controller input is now supported in installation wizards (no longer touchscreen-only) - External controllers now switch seamlessly with the Steam Deck controls **Bug Fixes** - Fixed an issue where using Battle Retry after a cinematic or automatic trigger could spawn the player out of the world if the last save was created in a different location - The playtime displayed on save files now accurately reflects total playtime, including time spent on Game Overs (Note: this fix does not retroactively update existing save files.) - Fixed inventory behaviour so that sort order now persists after closing the game menu - Fixed issue preventing Intel XeSS Frame Generation setting from being accessible on PC Game Pass - Fixed an issue where the usage of particular diacritic marks (e.g. ^, ~, ´, `) in Windows is blocked after launching the title - Fixed Breaking Death always breaking all enemies when the character dies, it should only break the enemy that killed the character - As a result, it shouldn’t work when the character kills themself anymore - Characters' turn order during a First Strike, triggered by attacking an enemy on the map, now correctly respects characters' Speed - Fixed Boucharo giving +150% Critical chance instead of +50% Critical chance - Fixed some Luminas giving unintended hidden +10% damage: Sweet Kill Teamwork Dead Energy II First Strike and others

So recently, I ended up getting sick from an event I went to. I took sick leave from my employment, and I have a few days to rest. I don't want to just stay in bed, however. So, what games do you like to play when your sick? Something that doesn't require too much thinking to play.

Today's game is some more Shadow of Mordor. I continued the main story and did the quest where you blow up the big ass statue of Sauron. I ended up just letting Caragors out to handle all the work at most turns, as i could just Load a few arrows into their skull and move on.  I also got up too killing all the Warlords. This one was the first one i killed, and honestly, i feel a little bad. The guy didn't really want to fight. Just wanted me to drink. Unfortunately he's also serving the Dark Lord so... he's gotta go.  Another one of the Warlords i took out i just jumped down and stealth attacked. This guy's life goal was to crawl into a pile of corpses apparently. Weird goal, not sure i trust him in the local cemetery, at least he seemed to mostly be a good sport. He certainly didn't make me chase him like all the others at least.  This guy was the last one minus Ratbag. I went ahead and took him out and then moved on with the story. Overall it wasn't as big of a challenge as i was expecting. The hardest one was where i had to execute 5 of his followers, and after that i just ran and hide and then waited to stealth attack him (after letting a Caragor out to soften him up).  I'm hoping to get more promoted because i'd like to try and do it again. Just to see how many i can take out for the fun of it. It'd be a fun challenge. After that story mission though i got off. It seemed like a good mid point to stop.

Today's game is **Project Zomboid**. Build 42 finally got a multiplayer version and me and my friends hopped on as soon as we heard the news. I messed with the settings a little to make things easier so we have a bit of breathing room to get comfortable with the changes. We ended up deciding to camp out at a farm. We each took a different farm house, and one of my Friends took up Farming, another took up raising Animals, and i took up exploring and crafting... and god dammit we're just playing Stardew Valley.  I also made a sword and helped clean out the rest of the neighbor hood for my friends. I don't know how i didn't think of this before, but a versatile weapon crafting system like this is perfect for this game. I The arms system i especially love. I can make my friend a Mace for example (and did). I could either give it a Short Handle or a Long Handle. I did the same with my Friend's axe i gave him. I gave it a long handle and put an axe head on it. I love this crafting system because it let's your weapon customization feel a little more personal. It kind of reminds me of Tinker's construct from Minecraft. The only thing i wish could be added was some unique options for combining parts. I'm not sure what that could look like but i think it would be interesting too see added.  I also went out and helped my friend tend his cows. One of them is pregnant i think so we get to look forward to handling that. We had a bug where one of them got stuck in the fence too, so i had to enable admin commands to pick up the cow, and move it. I couldn't figure out how to disable the commands though so i was stuck with being able to lift a cow like it's a pebble i guess. Build 42 is a lot of fun though. I'm glad it's got a multiplayer build as i personally get the most fun out of MP. The QOL changes 42 brings is nice and it just overall feels way more responsive in things like interactions or combat. I really like it.

todd, you've done it again

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40215962 > Game updates > > Tweak: Elks and other mountables can no longer use a translocator or teleporters, unless being currently ridden - a player riding an elk, who uses a translocator, teleports both player and elk > Tweak: Lore hint particles now always spawn, ignoring the player's particles quantity setting > Tweak: Allow liquids to be chiseled only in creative mode > Tweak: Small improvement to elk rider animation in idle and walk > Tweak: New 'manageotherplayergroups' privilege and /group addplayer or removeplayer commands, so that server moderators can deal with abandoned groups (e.g. if all ops leave a group) > Tweak: Add server audit logging for out-of-range block break/place attempts > Tweak: Updated community translations > Tweak: Updated in-game credits > Tweak: On VintageHosting, on the server dashboard include a reminder that the name needs to be between 4 and 80 characters > Fixed: Storage vessels were applying double the perish rate bonus > Fixed: Items stored on shelves would not dry or melt at the intended rate > Fixed: Prevent the trader menu to be opened by multiple players at the same time, which could be abused > Fixed: On some occasions, traders walked away from player mid-conversation or stood still after conversations > Fixed: For traders and villagers, opening the trade window caused the second dialog option also to be run automatically (typically "What's your name?") > Fixed: Boars and sows not consistently being aggressive to players when piglets are around > Fixed: Food placed in ground storage could result in empty ground storage blocks if the food rotted > Fixed: When multiple Hoppers in different places picked up items at about the same time, some items could be teleported from one hopper to another > Fixed: Beehive kiln and cementation furnace consumed fuel even when not processing, when the structure was partially loaded across chunks > Fixed: Placing straw dummies always positioned them on the very edge of blocks > Fixed: Some ropes not properly loading from a savegame to client side > Fixed: Flowing lava blocks now start their particles at the correct height > Fixed: Devastation Area ground level could have chunk borders if originally generated in an earlier game version and /wgen regen used > Fixed: On very old worlds (1.18 or earlier) the pan would result in only Homo Sapiens mode drop chances > Fixed: In vast caves or when standing below large structures or floating islands, a chunk directly above the player was sometimes invisible > Fixed: Rare error when generating a weather dust particle for a not-fully-loaded fruit tree > Fixed: Beehive Kiln doors could cause crashes in multiplayer. Github #5170 and #7226 > Fixed: Rare crash relating to insect sounds. Github #7201 > Fixed: Rare crash from async particle spawn > Fixed: Crash when Ctrl+scroll up on the firepit input slot > Fixed: Rare crash when copying the Resonance Archives > Fixed: Potential crash on player death with no specific damage source (e.g. from combustion) > Fixed: Potential crash with BodyTemperature system during server shutdown > Fixed: Potential crash when trying to spawn a cube particle from a LooseItemFoodSource > Fixed: Potential crashes if certain game folders (Logs, Saves, Macros) were not found > Fixed: Potential client crash in windowed mode when the game fails to center the game > Fixed: WorldEdit chisel tools crash when holding an item instead of a block > Fixed: Pasting line breaks into single line text field showed up as a missing character > Fixed: Certain errors seen in logs on multiplayer servers > Fixed: When the --dataPath argument was used, the game sometimes created unneeded directories > Fixed: Launching a Sailboat spawned it on land instead of in water

If you buy PC games at all (*especially over the last 12 months given how positive the news around them has been*) then you’ve probably heard of GOG. GOG is a platform that sells games completely DRM-free, meaning there’s no Digital Rights Management shoehorned into the games. For a lil context, Mass Effect Legendary Edition or GTA V use DRM. Their system checks for an online connection and will outright stop you from playing your legally purchased, single-player game if you’re offline for too long. Gross, right? GOG though refuses to sell games with this nonsense. Every game on GOG must have no DRM attached. From AAA to indie titles, with a lot that lean heavily toward older and classic releases. ----------------------------------------------- *Anyway...* I got the chance to chat to the developer of GameSieve. This is a site which lets you search, track and filter games for sale. GOG's site does a reasonable job with selling you games, but something like GameSieve was purpose built just to make all of this easier. I chatted to them about how they made it, why they did, what goes into maintaining it, and a little on the future. If you've not visited the site before, make sure you do! https://gamesieve.com/ They do such lovely work, I think it deserves a lot more recognition! [So, if you want to read through my interview with the dev, you can follow this link here. I do hope you enjoy this one too, I love GOG so much, so this was a blast to me!](https://gardinerbryant.com/building-gamesieve-for-gog-a-chat-with-the-developer/)

They're really cheap. This one cost me only 2800 INR (~$30), but the vibrations are terrible. You can get one from a reputed brand for about 50 USD. I think Razor and Gamesir also sell these. The only Android game I play with this is Fall Guys, that too once a week or so. But primarily I play PSP and PS2 games. Apps like Retroarch provide a really nice UI for retro games, and can make you feel like you're using a handheld console. Here's a screenshot of Retroarch:  NetherSX2 is also great. Here's the screnshot:  I love this thing and would recommend such gamepads to anyone looking for a handheld console experience. Here's a few more photos of this.   Btw, it can also be connected to any PC with a Bluetooth connection. This one can also connect to PlayStation 4 as well. It will work on PS5 too, but only in UI and PS4 games. PS - Sorry for the blurry pictures. i don't have a good secondary camera. Edit - I wanted to add a bit about Retroachievements as well. If you're into retro gaming, and don't use Retroachievements, WHY? Maybe because you didn't know about it? Go to retroachievements.com and see if you can get all the achievements from your favourite childhood game. You can connect Retroachievements via only Retroarch, NetherSX2 and PPSSPP emulators only. Others are not supported yet (on Android).

Today's game is some more Halo PvP. We did a match on Capture the Flag and it was awesome. We usually only have 5 players, but we decided to do CTF and offset it by putting two of our skilled players together (Me and Another player), then one skilled player and some of the more beginner players together. It surprisingly was really well balanced. We were in a stalemate for half the game, and even after my team scored we still only won by one point.  We also did VIP on Halo 3, which i was going to pick for the main screenshot, but this is how it come out after capturing it and... i think the fog makes it really obvious why it wasn't my main screenshot.  We ended with Infection on Zealot (the reliable option), as always, it was a blast. I got zombie 4/5 rounds, and my teammates kept feeding themselves too the survivors who were camping out on the roof. It was still a good time though. I had a blast just hanging out and chilling with them even if i got destroyed in the post score.  We did all of this while waiting for our last guy to join us for Baldurs Gate 3. After the Zealot round he joined VC, so we dropped out and ended for the night to go continue BG3 (we got our asses kicked by some spiders and then fought some Living Trees, then i kicked the shit out of a squirrel thinking it biting me was a druid).