I’ve always thought it was both. I’m definitely no expert on Metroidvanias, since I’ve only played the one (if Dead Cells counts as one). I actually thought the term “Metroidvania” was about the movement and combat – today I just learned that it’s about the exploration and finding things. You do at least have to do that in the bank level, if I remember right. And the castle level.

The only one I’ve played is Dead Cells, and it’s fantastic. I haven’t even bought any of the DLC, the base game is already endlessly replayable. I also listen to the soundtrack at least once a week.

I definitely want to get around to playing Hollow Knight and Animal Well at some point.

Wait…you can just do that?

I don’t think that is true, but I certainly like the idea of it being true.

These look great, I love the diversity of art styles on display here.

The title “The Adventures of Gary Pretzelneck” cracked me up. :D

This is making me want to replay this game. I don’t really remember much about the story of this one, but I do remember than the slow motion mechanics were much better than those of the first game.

That was a great interview, thanks for doing it! And I bet the devs enjoy getting to talk about this kind of thing. There are plenty of blog posts about what new features are coming out in open source projects, but very few interviews like this one.

It’s cool how everything right now is still (mostly) focused on translating x86 to ARM, but how we’re starting to hear talk about native ARM. I’m guessing that there won’t enough of a push for that, though, until Linux ARM PCs become more popular. I’m definitely looking forward to that.

Nice, glad to hear that the original, non-remastered Crysis is available! If I remember right, Crysis Remastered is actually an update to the console port of Crysis, and the console versions simplified how your powers activate, making it easier to do on a controller.

Wait, really? I looked at it on the piefed instance I’m using and also on lemmy.world.

I agree, but I think that says a lot about how good the atmosphere in this level was. Gameplay-wise, it really isn’t as interesting as the rest of the game. And yet, everyone was talking about the Scarecrow parts back when this game came out, and it’s still a memorable part of the game.

I think it helps that you won’t die too many times at this part. If it was a platformer section and you had to keep replaying it, people would remember it negatively. (Kind of like how people always hate the puzzle sections in action games.) But instead, they gave this part a great presentation, and you can get through it fairly quickly, so the gameplay didn’t really leave a bad taste in your mouth.

I love this version of Scarecrow, probably one of the best iterations of the character. Although he was creepy as hell in Arkham Knight, too.

Also…

I bet it is. I haven’t played it in a few years, although I just replayed the sequel – Arkham City – earlier this year and it was still great. Arkham City added quite a few game mechanics on top of Arkham Asylum, but I bet Asylum is still fun. Most people agree that Asylum had the best atmosphere, too.

Maybe none, maybe a couple; lately I have resisted sales since my backlog is so big. That being said, some of the more interesting ones on my wishlist are on sale this time around. I might pick one or two of these:

First person shooters:

• Trepang2 (F.E.A.R. homage) - 60% off, $12
• Prodeus (boomer shooter) - 40% off, $15
• Metal: Hellsinger (boomer shooter) - 75% off, $8

Indie/puzzle/chill:

• The Talos Principle 2 - 70% off, $9
• Everspace 2 - 70% off, $15
• Ultimate Chicken Horse (casual/party couch co-op) - 65% off, $5
• Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition - 90% off, $3
• Untitled Goose Game - 55% off, $9
• It Takes Two - 75% off, $10
• Kaze and the Wild Masks (2D platformer) - 80% off, $3
• The Forgotten City - 75% off, $6
• Dreamscaper (indie roguelike) - 80% off, $5

Also:

• Persona 4 Golden (JRPGs aren’t really my thing, but I hear that this is literally one of the best games ever) - 50% off, $10
• God of War - 60% off, $20
• Desperados III (isometric tactics) - 90% off, $4
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps (2D platformer) - 75% off, $8
• Sifu - 60% off, $16

Bah, I got excited and thought that you meant that it was going to be the Epic Games Store freebie next month. Wishful thinking on my part. :P

4! Don’t change anything about it, just get it on PC.

The Sonic “All-Stars Racing” games were actually really good, but then Team Sonic Racing was a disappointment. I feel like that this one is going to try to pick up fans with licensed characters instead of solid gameplay, but maybe I’m wrong. Actually, the existence of a demo at all is encouraging.

I’m not going to buy it since I want to get through more of my backlog and stop buying new games, but I’ll check out this demo.

I didn’t think that Steam was crashable at this point. Great to see that a game made and published by an indie developer is getting so much attention.

This has not been the case for aftermath.site nor 404media.co, two sites that got started pretty much the same way this new one has.

Edit: I should clarify that I’m saying “those were not doomed from the start, and are both self-sustaining through paid subscribers.”

This is way beyond me, but congratulations!

Come to think of it, there are so many graphical enhancement mods for Morrowind, I’d bet that every asset has already been recreated by someone already. There might already be something close to a libre reimplementation of Morrowind, except for rewriting the dialog and quest scripts. Which would be a lot. Ok, close-ish, maybe.

Great resource, thanks! I played 0 A.D. for the first time recently, and was amazed by how polished it was.

Side note for anyone hoping that there is a free version of Morrowind: you still need to have Morrowind to play OpenMW. OpenMW is an open source (and improved) clone of the game’s rendering engine, but you still need the game’s content (models, textures, maps, etc.) from the original game.

Has Castle Crashers been getting updates this whole time? Or is this an “out of nowhere” thing? Either way, great!

Also, between this and a new Super Meat Boy coming out, Newgrounds is having a moment right now.

I keep getting this game and the upcoming Shinobi game confused with each other, but they both look amazing. And I do mean that literally, with great pixel art for Ninja Gaiden and a kind of hand-drawn Flash game style for Shinobi. Great time to be a fan of… retro-styled 2D reboots of ninja-themed franchises, I guess?

I have too many games in my backlog right now, but I’ll probably have to pick these up anyway and move them to the top of the queue.

Nice. I had borrowed a friend’s physical copy of Crysis, and that’s how I played it back in the day.

Yeah, I had forgotten how slow an optical drive was, and how that was usually the limiting factor. I installed Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear from the original CD a couple days ago, and it took about 20 minutes to install on my current PC. I’m pretty sure that’s about how long it took in 1999, too.

Downloading it from Steam takes about 10 seconds.

Very cool. I’ve never backed mine up; I should do that. What game was it last week?

Piracy hysteria was at an absolute fever pitch in 2007 – those online activations are what make me think that much of my physical collection won’t be playable anymore.

Oblivion was also one that I owned physically. I just assumed that I had also acquired it on Steam by now, but it looks like I haven’t. Also great memories with Oblivion. I think it’s still my 4th or 5th most-played game. (I have to guess, based on remembering the number of hours that Xfire said I had back in the day, which is a whole nother nostalgia trip right there, lol.)

Nice. I haven’t tried OpenMW yet, but I definitely want to. Are you running a bunch of mods with it?

Oh dang, that is a good idea.

I’d say that absolutely counts!

I’ve been wanting to do this, too, for games that I bought on Steam. Like, make a bootable Linux DVD that has Steam and the game preinstalled on it, with Steam already logged in as my account.

The most recent ones I’ve bought were only a Steam key in the box, and the DVD simply had a Steam installer on it. Nice that some have both, I haven’t actually seen one of those.

I should still have that somewhere as well. That was one I didn’t find, but it should be around.

Do you need a battle.net account to play Diablo 2, or can you just install and play offline if you only want to play singleplayer? I haven’t been able to find a clear answer about this, since everyone talking about it these days is talking about the download-only version.

Sweet! Lutris is amazing, I tried it for the first time a couple days ago. One of my physical games is Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear, which would not run on my Windows 10 PC, but runs just fine on my Linux PC through Lutris.

Nice. I was recently browsing this used bookstore near me, and C&C: Generals was sitting on the shelf in the music CD section, so I bought it. That was what got me thinking about my existing physical game collection.

Yeah, they definitely aren’t seen as a necessity anymore.

However, the Silverstone FLP01 was mentioned in another community around here and I was so tempted to get one. At $150, it’s not exactly inexpensive, and I already have a perfectly good case (Fractal Design Core 500), but man I want one. The “floppy disk drives” are doors that flip down: the top one reveals an optical drive, and the bottom one reveals the USB ports.

I almost went that route, but kept moving my disc drive from one PC to the next just for Morrowind. I didn’t have room for it in my latest build, though (I put in a tower cooler for the first time), so I bought an external DVD drive.

So, how far can you throw those DVDs?

This is such a great writeup, thank you! I always can’t believe the actual photos I see of Group B races, lol.

Having a game out there on any platform is super cool. I love the art style, too!