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Cake day: Jun 15, 2023

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Pacific Drive?

It’s a great game with a great story ( that I kinda rushed through because I couldn’t enjoy the constant tension - instead the couple playthroughs I watched were very enjoyable )


I try to go GOG first, so I can keep the installation kits offline. There are however a lot of good indies on Steam, and few of these ever get ported from there. Steam workshop is also fantastic and doesn’t really have a match on other platforms, and unlike GOG they provide good linux support. Also worth noting that some of the old games on GOG are inferior to their steam counterparts ( see Commander Keen for example ). So yes, I’d say both are good, but maybe prioritise GOG first.


In increasing order of casualness I recommend: Elite Dangerous->X3/X4->Everspace/Everspace 2-> No Man’s Sky.

Everspace 2 is a spiritual successor to Freelancer, so probably your best bet ( Everspace 1 is more roguelike, but holds up nicely ). Speaking of Freelancer, I hear the game is still alive and has a vibrant community around it.

If you ever want to revisit Elite shoot me a message, I may help you with starting up. They say Elite doesn’t have a learning curve but a cliff, so help is usually needed. Luckily the game has the most welcoming and helpful community I’ve seen in/around a video game.

Other than these, there’s Chorus, but I haven’t played that one and it seems more story driven than open-ended.


For those unaware, there is also Heroes of Science and Fiction, which is essentially homm 3 with a fresh scifi coat of paint and lots of qol stuff. It’s in early access but man it catches the vibe so well.


Seeing the series’ progression so far, I just know microsoft will stuff it full of FOMO crap and monetization, as well as a lot of AI generated stuff ( which, admittedly, may not be all bad ). But still, I’m pretty excited for it.


I loved him in mafia, he had such a recognizable voice. Almost bought Mindseye because of him lol.

But seriously, I wish him luck and hope he doesn’t give up on games.


Finally, some competition for scs. From the trailer it doesn’t look like it will be a sim tho. Maybe a story driven teucking game?


Damn. The original was (to me) the highlight of many, many lan-parties.


I see it didn’t take long for polygon to turn into a clickbait factory post-layoffs


Thanks. Yeah, I did try it. Must’ve replayed it a few dozen times since it released. Another masterpiece, that one. Might give it another run after 2.4 is out, lol.


I just sort of ignored it initially thinking it will definitely flop after seeing a trailer or two. But I played it recently after a legendary edition replay and it’s an ok game. The story and characters are pretty uninspired, there’s no escaping that, but the gameplay, the combat, the exploration vibe all click. It also looks great. And the new mako is brilliant.


Do it. All mass effects are great. Even Andromeda ( despite the lackluster story )

I’ve been itching for a similar game these past few weeks and I swear there is nothing contemporary that is quite like Mass Effect. KOTOR is close, but is has aged like milk ( graphically ). Maybe the deus exes? I am still open to suggestions.

Also you’ll want to play the legendary edition, I think they fixed some of the less pleasant gameplay quirks ME1 used to have.




Honestly, I mostly trust them. I did feel they went too easy on some corpos, especially nvidia with series 50, but also amd and iirc they barely said anything about the Intel gen13/14 issues. Their attitude towards lower-end hardware is also a bit annoying, especially alex’s. However they do have great retro reviews for both tech and games, and john’s fascination with older tech is infectious. And I love that they have a positive attitude towards linux gaming and privacy in general, unlike many other channels. I wish them lots of luck with this newfound independence.


It’s so damn good. I must’ve replayed it like six times since it came to pc. The story, the voice acting, characters, graphics, everything is absolutely top notch. Except for the goddamn controls (and the menus). I’m not sure if it’s due to it being a console-first game or just a rockstar thing as rdr1’s were also crap, but holy shit they’re infuriating. The amount of times I shot people by mistake, lost missions because of a wrong key, or just plain ended up with an unpayable bounty is too damn high.


It’s TakeTwo - you know they did. Bioshock was a complete arc and died with Irrational. Whatever this zombie project is, I expect it won’t live up to the name, but they’ll slap it on anyway because goshdarnit executives just can’t help milking a franchise dry instead of innovating.



I still keep a copy of a pre-EA version on my pc, as that was the cleanest one. I played pvz2 for a bit back when it launched and don’t remember it being complete shite, but it was absolutely riddled with mtx. As far as the other pvz games, holy hell what a shitshow.


True, but iirc sims 4 also released in a more cut-down state than sims 3 - in fact it was one of the pioneers of “paradoxification” of games and victim of other bullshit that EA was trying to pull, just like with simcity.

Anyway, my point was that with EA the up-front price they charge is not awfully relevant, because you have lootboxes, p2w, mtx, gambling, dlc of varying dollar value etc. so you might end up paying a crapload, live service or not.


Yeah, wasn’t sims 4 with all dlc like 1 grand just a couple yeara ago?


Love how fast they all dial back after seeing the reaction on nintendo’s 80$ approach. But seriously EA I don’t care for those extra 10 bucks upfronf if your games are still the mtx and gambling infested shit they currently are.


As a PC player I wholeheartedly welcome the demise of exclusives, but are the strategies toward them really changing? Near as I can tell it’s only microsoft that’s pivoting, and that’s probably because they have to. Sony is sticking to their strategy of the past few years of delayed PC releases, and nintendo does what nintendo does - keeps everything in-house and sues everyone.


Same. They’re the only games I’ve actually bought from them.

Not sure how they haven’t fucked it up so far - maybe because anno is a small franchise in the grand scheme of things, and has a cult following particularly in Germany, so apaet from online requirement and denuvo added to the latest entries, they let it be. I’m actually more amazed that bluebyte/ubi mainz haven’t butchered the anno games like they did with the settlers series.


Ffs bioware, your last two “story-heavy” games were both IP “extensions” and they were both pretty meh. Cook up something new for once, see where that goes. Because I guarantee that yet another friggin attempt at mass effect will not go well. That story was cool, it ended and it is now done. Leave a good thing be and think of something new for crying out loud.


Well, according to Ubisoft, they allow for a more unique experience by letting players personalize their characters or speed up progression. In other words, it makes things more fun… allegedly.

Ah, so he didn’t actually say that, then? Tired of these mf clickbaits man.


It really is a great game. The story’s imaginative, the ambiance is jawdropping. And that sound design, man. It’s also fairly well polished. Played it for a good while, until I could not be bothered to manage people anymore. It felt too much like a job lol. The UI is a bit clumsy too I felt, but it’s awesome that the grindy bits are sped up and the game doesn’t waste your time, I appreciated that. However I hated the lack of manual saving, especially in a game that sometimes crashes at inopportune moments. It also does this thing where it appears open, but it punishes you if you don’t do things the way it wants you to. I’m in the “it’s a difficult game” camp, but there’s plenty of people who feel it’s an easy game just because they did some actions differently, or timed some events at different times. Still, it’s definitely worth a play.


Been following the guy on youtube for a while and I love the initiative, but damn, I find it hard to justify 10€ a month for just a single dedicated gaming publication. I expect I will support them every few months or so, but yeah, to me 100€/year seems too hefty.

Also what worries me is that this model has been tried, before the days of ad-supported web, and didn’t fare so well, so why would it work now?


Just add the application to the firewall block list. That’s how I’ve been running most games these days, pirated or not. Sighs


Aah, the Guardia di Finanza, the one police organ all italians actually respect and fear ( or so I hear ).

The charges don’t make sense though. Maybe by reviewing “pirate” material he was indirectly bypassing paying the italian state its due and thus they jumped him?


Have they finally had the revelation that the series has been shovelware for the past decade or more?


Yep, juat read that. Man, what a fuckin’ shitshow is SN2 gonna be.

Fuck krafton


Afaik krafton have been insisting for a while that the game is not ready. Founders disagreed and they were ousted. But seeing as the previous two games were in pretty dire state when they released into EA, I wouldn’t really trust the founder’s word on it. The whole “squirreling out of paying them 250 million” thing seems like speculation, but what do I know.

Besides, the OP is just ragebainting, because we know exactly fuckall about the game’s actual state at this point.


Jesus tapdancing christ is the subnautica fanbase rabid. How about we actually wait and see how the game turns out before we crucify everyone?

I do agree that you should definitely not pre-order it and remove it from your wishlist. But you should’ve done that already.


I can add a few mentions to your list:

Tokyo Xtreme Racer - street racing game set on Tokyo’s highway network and featuring a lor of JDM cars. Sim-cadey physics, great progression loop, nice graphics.

Motortown - not a racing game as such, more of a “drive anything” game that also festures some racing, among cargo hauling, buses, vehicle rescuing and others. Still in early acces but amazingly complete for an early access game. Great physics on this one, too. The developer is also very active and open to feedback.

Edit: Ooh almost forgot! Dakar Desert Rally - the single most realistic rally raid sim I’ve played. Looks and feels great. Just watch out for CTDs, because you’ll see plenty.


IANAL but wasn’t that text just some “standard” legalese relating to the way they license software and it was basically unenforceable anyway? I know it’s cool to pick on ubisoft for being a shit company, but BG3 had a similar requirement in the game’s EULA:

Same for GOG iirc, but I’m too lazy to search.


Yeah, this is the right approach, especially with the subnautica community that seems to be really thirsty for drama. I was going to wait for reviews anyway before getting it, so this whole “devs beg community” is probably for the preordering folk.

That said, my money’s on “subnautica 2 will disappoint regardless” because it continues to build on the original instead of being new. What made the original so good was the novelty of that format, combined with the horror aspect and the fresh lore. Now, after two games set in the same world and the same general flow, people know what to expect so they will be extra picky about s2 and I wager they will end up underwhelmed. I’m still hoping s2 will at least be extra pretty because goddamn if I didn’t love the environments of the first two games.


This is a great interview, thank you! It (sadly) confirms some stuff I’ve been suspecting for a while about the piracy scene: that repackers are a very rare bunch, repacking is getting more complex and liveservice/streamed games would truly be the end for piracy.


Yeah, I was just trying to get the point across and didn’t really have other recent metrics. Just checked and it grew to 1k avg users per day after the most recent update and is now 15x less active than FH5, if that paints a more accurate picture.


It may be, and I feel for Turn10, but they really dropped the ball with the latest motorsport. It only has like a few hundred players on steam, after two years of essentially live service game. Of course the game itself is fine, it’s the “update trickles” and “grind to own” philosophies that are at fault and those were probably decisions also pushed by MS, but here we are. I really hope that Playground doesn’t screw up their next Forza, because rhey might meet the same fate. Then again these days success doesn’t guarantee you’re not getting the axe.