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Larian is very ambitious in their aims. Divinity: OS, DOS2, and Baldur’s Gate 3 were all huge games with incredible interactions and stories, and the games hold together even if you intentionally make an effort to break them by being a murder hobo or just not playing “correctly.” Their games are pretty awesome, because there is no “correct” way to play them, they’re very wide open and flexible.
I don’t always like everything they do (in fact, I kinda hate BG3), but I respect their efforts. They don’t half-ass anything.
Grim Dawn was an excellent and finished game on release, and said DLCs came out years later via DLCs that acted as expansions to the campaign.
Last Epoch doesn’t even have a complete story, just some unfinished tripe with no real lore and oh here’s a bunch of alternate versions of how the unfinished thing you encountered could have happened differently.
They’re not even in the same class. It’s why I have 440 hours on Grim Dawn and would play it more still. I dropped LE at 170 hours and don’t really see any reason to play more. Hell, Last Epoch had a cash shop before the game even left Early Access. It feels like the development and costs were mismanaged out of the gate. I waited to buy it on discount.
We just split duties there, and tbh our third run of the game was mostly custom characters just because the combat is so fun. For that run we sent Yrliet to the inquisition, spaced Idira, told Argenta she wasn’t needed - go stay on station, and punted Cassia off the ship at the first sign of trouble. Was actually a hilarious run, and ended up siding with <spoiler guy> at the end for the first time, who was as crazy as I thought but not actual evil and still emperor aligned.
We’ve also played a ton of Solasta, and looking forward to Solasta 2, but absolutely despised BG3. We want to go on adventures, not play a soft-core fuckin’ simulator that bends the crap out of 5e rules. BG3 just gets so boring come Act 3 and falls apart. Brain worms just don’t make for an interesting premise I guess.
I’m finding this sale underwhelming, and my backlog is already huge. Might skip it this time.
Edit - okay, found some good stuff. A lot of the tables for Pinball FX were on deep sales, and with the Legacy packs I got them even cheaper (some I owned for PFX3 already, and some I bought legacy for both).
New Heretic+Hexen remaster
Some DLC for Across the Obelisk as my wife and I play that one together.
Still an underwhelming sale, but at least not a total bust.
That’s actually something Wipeout did, it’s one of the few things from Fusion that people liked enough for it to be brought back.
Ah, I didn’t know that, I’ve never played the series past 3 and XL.
Just a heads up to, BNG has a 2097 mode as well, with entirely different physics/control. It’s still in dev builds but it seems like the goal is to integrate both styles from OG Wipeout (2085 and 2097) within the game as separate campaigns.
Redout is a weird one. It got a lot of comparisons to F-Zero because of the speed but it plays a lot more like Wipeout, or like an F-Zero/Wipeout hybrid. It’s very fast, and the steering mechanics are interesting as it requires using both joysticks to steer through a lot of turns. I like it, but find it pretty difficult. The ships tend to be a bit floaty and the main thing is controlling well to not hit walls as they utterly kill your momentum.
With BallisticNG, it does ape on Wipeout a lot (by design) but it’s an absolute love letter to the series and is extremely polished. It also has workshop support for all kinds of custom tracks and ships.
There are things BallisticNG does though that are really interesting, like solo races where your goal is to go as far as possible without exploding from damage. You can’t use the brakes and it gets faster every few sections. Those are probably my favorite races.
I’ve got games ranging from PS2/PS3 going all the way back to the NES and Atari 7800 on my NAS. The PS3 stuff is hit or miss, but everything PS2 and down is great to play today via emulation.
Heck, I even still own a modded 3DS and a DSi XL with a flashcart. Those ones are able to be emulated fine, but it’s just not the same.
For modern digital games, it’s a toss up. Some have DRM, some don’t. There are games you can buy digitally on Steam, install, and just copy out the folder somewhere else, zip it, and move it to another system to play, it won’t care. Others, DRM prevents it. GOG is good for the DRM free stuff.
Funny enough, I have Madden 08 for PC. Bought it on Amazon many years back, this was way back before EA decided to introduce launcher hell. Installed updates, patched the exe, and it’s good to go. It’s zipped on my NAS and completely portable. Last year I even installed it on my Steam Deck, works perfectly, just extract to a folder and launch the game. And it’s still way better than the modern Madden games.
Digital everything. Books, games, movies, TV. I don’t want a bunch of physical stuff cluttering my space.
I do prefer things I can archive to my NAS whenever possible though. I make exceptions for gaming with Steam, but all my books, video, and music are locally stored, I don’t like streaming services as an indefinite solution.
- WRC 7, 10, Generations
- Dirt Rally 2.0
- Rush Rally Origins
- Old School Rally
- Super Woden GP2
- New Star GP
- Forza Horizon 5 (I don’t own this one, but hear it’s very good)
- BallisticNG
- Gravel
- GRIP: Combat Racing
- Wreckfest (don’t own this either but I’ve played it in the past, it’s good)
- Assetto Corsa
- Assetto Corsa Competizione
- Descenders
- Grid Autosport
- Redout
- Automobilista 2
- V-Rally 4
- Sebastian Loeb Rally Evo
These vary between arcade and simulation racing, and things in between. For some (Assetto Corsa games, Automobilista, WRC and Dirt Rally games) a racing wheel is highly recommended.
The main story points are further apart level-wise, leading to more grinding. There’s also more fluff side story content involving multiple characters instead of just one. Which isn’t bad in itself, but none of it is actually optional because of the leveling curve. And the two multi-character “side plots” I did… anime is an apt comparison, they kinda felt like hot springs episodes. No bearing on the overarching plot.
The way it was done, the story beats for individual character plot arcs are very far apart. 30 hours in, I only had a few characters through the second parts of their stories.
I was pretty engaged with a few of the individual stories (the thief, the healer, the merchant, the scholar) so this was really frustrating.
My experience with Code Vein was briefly playing it on game pass, but couldn’t get past the weeb bait waifu chick. Like seriously, first cutscene and her boobs are waving in the breeze while she’s standing still, like they’re fucking flags or something. It was downhill from there when the gameplay was mediocre and I was supposed to somehow connect with and protect said waifu as my motivation.
Uninstalled in under an hour. Wife and I jokingly refer to the game as “Code Titty-Flap.”
I made a post about the shader I’m using on the Steam Deck with an album of screenshots hosted outside of Lemmy upload (on Lensdump) and seems to be better, I think Lemmy is doing something to the image with compression.
https://lemmy.world/post/26996470
If you only care about the comparison shots:
To each their own. The ones with the shader are closer to what it looked like on a CRT (minus some extra bloom and color bleed if using composite or RF).
Edit - I made a post about the shaders I’m using on the Steam Deck with an album of screenshots hosted outside of Lemmy upload (on Lensdump) and seems to be better, I think Lemmy is doing something to the image with compression.
https://lemmy.world/post/26996470
If you only care about the comparison shots:
I grabbed some more comparisons, this time from my tablet using the CRT-Consumer shader. Notice stuff like the bloom from the window and shading around the curtains, the kitchen appliances and plants, general shading around dithered stuff like the tent, and the trees on the world map.
Also these are best viewed on a larger screen, it’s hard to see the difference on a phone.
Yeah, it looks a bit different on my Steam deck and TV, maybe because they’re OLED displays. It doesn’t come across as dramatic as it is in person on the screenshot. In person there’s more bloom and higher contrast, the characters look more… planted in the world, I guess is the best way to explain it.
Like, if you look at the rounded parts of the big robot there’s a bit more depth and contrast that give it more rounding and image depth in shadows, but again, the screenshot isn’t doing the effect justice.
Also, the still image doesn’t help because the shader also impacts how the game looks in motion.
I took the screenshots on my Steam Deck, but hadn’t actually seen them until I uploaded here.
I don’t have nostalgia for the game, tried it a few years ago but bounced off. Not sure why, just wasn’t in the mood for a HRPG at the time I guess.
I recently gave it another go, been playing it on my Steam Deck and it’s been great. I’m a few hours into it in the future currently and I think it’ll stick this time, it’s great.
Only thing is the game feels like it was really made with CRT behavior in mind. Like the game has some amazing shading and almost 3D depth to a lot of the art but without CRT shaders you don’t see it at all. If you play the Steam version, reshade goes a long way. I’m using a combination of CRT-frutbuhn, EasymodeCRT, and vibrance and it looks amazing.
Edit: quick comparison with default look vs. with shaders:
Consoles are just a consistent standard… Everything is standardized, everything works.
Well, with Steam Deck and supposedly upcoming new Steam Machine, that’s a perfectly decent target without restrictive software limitations and closed ecosystems. Plus, PCs are pretty standardized these days in general. Nobody needs to target the high end, and Valve does a hardware survey that’s publicly available to know exactly what hardware range is in use (and it’s generally the lower end, despite enthusiasts).
That’s ignoring the console support for exclusives
And I’ll keep ignoring them because there’s no reason for them to exist now, there aren’t architectural differences and unique capabilities that make sense for games to be exclusive anymore. That’s more of the artificial software restrictions I mentioned. Console exclusives can die in a fire. Even Sony has realized they’re leaving money on the table with that crap and releasing to PC.
I absolutely dig the Steam Deck, but it’s not a console in that regard, it’s not software restricted in any way, it’s just a portable computer with a convenient frontend. But… man, I’m more likely to pick it up than to play on my gaming rig these days, even though both can hook up on the TV. Handhelds are just great.
steam://controllerconfig/413080/2866090215
Try this config. I posted about it above. It’s worked well for me to the point I’m no longer even comfortable playing GW2 on a keyboard, I’m able to react much more quickly to everything with the gamepad setup. Most important thing is always use action camera for combat and general exploration unless you specifically need the mouse for something.
Here you go: steam://controllerconfig/413080/2866090215
Paste that steam link in a browser while Steam is open and it will pull up the controller config.
Control mappings have face buttons and R1/R2 as attacks, L1/L2 as button layer modifiers, Joystick mouse and more. F-keys are on the d-pad, and most mouse related functions are active while holding L1. Pressing L2+R2 heals. Back button is your "interact. L1 + R3 switches between “action” camera and regular mouse mode for aiming. Action camera is better for combat, and is the mode I use like 90% of the time. Dodge is on R3. L3 swaps weapons. There’s also key combos for all the mounts, special action abilities (N key, on L2+back)… basically, everything you could possibly want to do in-game, there’s a controller way to do it. You may need to remap some of the mount buttons, I forget if I did custom mappings for some of those, as I have a lot of mounts (everything except roller beetle and gryffon).
Hope it works for you. I think it’s a great config, but my perspective may be skewed since I’m highly accustomed to it from muscle memory and using it for years (with Xpadder even, before steam controller mapping was a thing). I’ve used this config for every single class in the game and dialed it in so I can play literally any class without issues, including ones that have a number of aiming skills like engineer and elementalist. Actually, elementalist is a blast for this, dpad was perfect for switching elements compared to fumbling with F-keys.
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Larian’s track record is good. They used an in-house engine for Divinity: Original Sin, Divinity: Original Sin 2, and Baldur’s Gate 3. They also made their own game engine for their older Divinity titles (Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity). And Vincke attributes at least part of their success to using in-house tools instead of “off the shelf” engines.