Yup, something like this or simple sliders would be an ideal solution for what I’m talking about - preferably both, depending on whether the setting is a numerical one or not. It doesn’t have to be a completely granular access to every value, I just want enough control to adjust the experience when things are close but not exactly right.

Jose Pavli, composer for Project Wingman, (re)created music for this project. It’s available on his Bandcamp page.

I’d be down with that. Or at the very least give us modifiers like skulls in Halo games - dunno if that’s just Master Chief Collection addition or if they became a thing after 1 but it’s better than nothing.

I completely agree that accessibility/assist modes are more important and if I had to choose I’d go with that. Since we’re in a fantasy land however I’m still going to advocate for customisation because, let’s be honest, most of the difficulties (besides “the main one”) are usually not that great.

I’m speaking from a perspective of someone who tends to go for the higher difficulty options which extremely often go with the laziest possible decisions like turning enemies into damage sponge and increasing their attack power. That’s it. Stuff like improved enemy awareness, faster reaction times, smarter tactics aren’t exactly common and that’s my main pain point when selecting difficulty. There are also other things like ammo/loot scarcity, need drain in survival games etc.

Having an option to tweak at least some of these things could help folks like me who often end up in a situation when one difficulty is piss easy and the other feels like a drag. Peoples skills and expectations vary way too and there’s simply no way few basic difficulty settings will be right for everyone. And if someone damages their experience? Oh well, let people make mistakes and take responsibility for their choices. Inform them that changing this stuff will affect their experience and leave them to their decisions. We can’t (and shouldn’t) baby-proof everything, in my opinion.

It’s a quick and simple loop that’s easy to get into - just show up, do some super basic tasks and move on to other thing. Definitely a good fit since most of the quests take a few minutes to clear.

These 2 hours would be enough to make some decent progress, especially after unlocking Wayshrines to teleport to.

I’m not sure what I want to play at the moment so I thought I’d jump into Elder Scrolls Online for a bit. After spending a lot of time trying to play as a pacifist character I decided to make a new “normal” one instead - that took a while.

I ended up remaking my character 3 times as I couldn’t decide on who exactly I’d like to play as. Started with my usual choice, Warden, but I wasn’t really feeling the beast master skills and eventually settled down on Nightblade - the class of choice for my very first character, I believe.

I’m having fun so far though I do have some serious issues with the game. Both story and levelling feel WAY to fast, like they were made for someone with neither time nor interest in playing an MMO. Another big problem has to do with movement speed - my character feels like she’s constantly sprinting (even walking and sneaking are sped up) and the worst part is, this only affects my new, dark elf character. Jumping in as an old wood elf Nightblade has her moving like a normal person instead of an arena shooter protagonist. I don’t know why that is but I’m not a fan.

Main content is extremely easy and the writing is… not great for the most part. It’s not like I require some high art from the game but if it could be a little less generic and basic, that would be great.
While of the voice acting is pretty solid there are some real stinkers in there as well - you could tell me few of the characters are voiced by a decade old text-to-speech software and I would believe you.

I don’t know if the game changed so much since my last proper stint or if I didn’t really notice it back then (it’s been years since I played as a combat character). Either way, I might be going back to playing other stuff faster than anticipated. Oh well.

On a slightly different note… I like to listen to game soundtracks - old or new, action packed or mellow, there is something about many of them that just makes me want to put them on as a background for whatever I’m doing at the moment.

I decided to go back to albums from old Maxis games: SimCity 3000 and 4, The Sims and its expansions etc. They all have this atmosphere that makes them stand out and keep you feeling chill and happy. Well, after putting them on I noticed a serious problem - I can’t really listen to them any more, not as a whole anyway. Despite not having such problems in the past, nowadays some of the songs with higher tones sound extremely grating and unpleasant to listen to. I can do it for a bit but but things get painful rather quickly and it makes me sad. I love these soundtracks and not being able to enjoy them really sucks.

I have no idea why that happens but it’s not only limited to these old title. There are some newer games where I end up turning the music off completely since they end up being more annoying than atmospheric. I hate it.

I agree to an extent but there’s a difference between “we made a specific design choice because it fits with what we want the game to convey” and “well, normal mode works like X and feels super easy to anyone experienced with gaming but on hard all the enemies are bullet sponges with 5x HP and player dies in one hit”. The latter approach brings nothing to the table and that’s what I’m against. Plus already mentioned accessibility options for those who need them.

Besides, many games ALREADY HAVE easy modes - giving me ability to adjust things manually (which in my case is usually up, not down) wouldn’t affect their vision any more than it’s already possible.

Oh totally, I’m mostly focusing on solo and co-op titles like Terraria/Minecraft/Raft or whatever is popular for multiplayer these days. That said, it’s not like Souls games have to by played with online functionality even now - it’s already off when not in human form after all.

It’s not a perfect choice for every single title but a good chunk of games could support it without worrying about matchmaking and the like.

Customisable difficulty. Have a single or multiple presets balanced to what you’d like your players to experience but give me an option to adjust some of the stuff to my liking. There are SO MANY games I’d love to play way more than I do but none of the difficulty options feel “right”, bringing the whole experience down.
It’s also a great feature from an accessibility standpoint - pretty important thing for those who literally can’t play your game for reasons that could be easily worked around if such customisation was there.

“But my artistic integrity and vision!”

No, shut up. Your vision doesn’t mean squat if my experience with the game is annoying to the point where I don’t even care about the lore implication of an enemy placement or how gameplay systems intertwine with themes and story of the game. It’s important, sure, but it shouldn’t be more important than player’s enjoyment of your product.

Balance your game how you imagine it but let me play with the sliders to make it feel how I want it to. Just drop a scary message about it not being the intended way to play and it’ll be fine.

It was also an unfortunate victim of the time when IOI struggled with figuring out how to transition from “classic” way of making games to the modern, high budget approach. I’m glad they managed to get back into the rhythm with new Hitman games but it’s still a little disappointing K&L had to serve as a stepping stone towards better times.

The worst part is there’s no “full” version since each beta added new features and removed other ones. I’d give a lot for a build which combines all of the lost mechanics into a single package.

I knew I forgot something! Fantastic style and soundtrack, engaging gameplay and a bit rough in execution - it was great.

Can’t say I feel guilty about liking these but if we’re talking about mediocre games I love that would be:

• Drakengard 3 - simple, repetitive gameplay, huge amount of asset reuse and terrible performance if you’re crazy enough to play it on PS3. It also has a really engaging and tragic story, full of weirdness unique to the series (well, the first game anyway, haven’t played D2 yet).
• Kane & Lynch (both games) - they’re rough, gritty and don’t pull any punches. Pretty divisive in terms of gameplay though I personally think it’s thematically consistent and adds a lot to the atmosphere. My favourite games from IOI despite not being as well designed or polished as the Hitman series.
• Oni - 2001 action game by Bungie. Really cool hand-to-hand combat system, huge empty levels, simple story with wannabe Ghost in the Shell elements.
• Starbound - lots of hype about Terraria in space, lots of wasted potential and cool features that didn’t make to the final release. I tend to prefer beta versions (mainly “Glad Giraffe” beta) but the final one also seemed alright based on what little I played of it. Definitely not as good as it had chance to be during development.
• Scarface: The World is Yours - budget GTA clone based on the 1983 movie with Al Pacino (it’s actually a sequel). It looks bad even for the time but it plays well enough and has some neat mechanics which made it stand out, if only a little.
• Tresspasser - the infamous Jurassic Park game with full control of your arm and focus on physical interactions with the environment. It’s a bit clunky and far from polished but it’s an interesting experience nonetheless.

That’s all that comes to mind for now, I might update the post if I remember anything else.

Access to Phantom Liberty is tied to finishing their quests, that would be why they did it this way.

Phantom Liberty has an option for an accelerated start, dropping you right after the Voodoo Boys quest line. It might not be an ideal solution since it makes certain choices for you but it does skip some of the early stuff.

It’s understandable - they came out swinging with three great games, each better received than the previous one. Combine it with other companies flailing and failing or not doing much to grab the attention away from CDPR and we have a perfect environment to get swept into the frenzy. Heck, I loved all their previous titles and was ready to break my usual stance on pre-orders until the delays started to make me question the state of things.

Even then, I feel like I was one of the lucky ones as my post 2.0 time with the game feels more buggy than my legacy experience - not to a game breaking degree mind you but it’s definitely noticeable.

I’m curious if they’ll try to make the next Cyberpunk into what they hoped to achieve with this one or if they’ll decide on a more reasonable scope instead. My heart hopes for the former but my mind expects the latter. Either way, I’ll be ready and waiting with way too many expectations (half of which will probably have no basis in reality anyway).

Cyberpunk’s wasted potential is one of my biggest disappointments since I started playing games. I love it, way more than I ever expected in fact, but the “what could’ve been” is a real downer even now. It doesn’t stop me from enjoying the game though - I spent over 200 hours in Night City already and will most likely go way over 300 with my current playthrough.

If you like the base game I’m pretty sure you’ll like Phantom Liberty. It has a bit of a different vibe in its story but it’s a really excellent expansion with tons of content. Some of the boss fights might’ve been a little over tuned and I’m not a fan of a single event but other than that I don’t have much negative to say about it. It’s well worth the asking price.

Oh right, I heard about the Linux situation - it’s unfortunate. I never actually played 4 so most of my info comes from osmosis pretty much. The last thing I heard about it was that some modes on the PC version are still active however that was a year or so ago and things might have changed by now.

The thing is, I didn’t even think about the official servers when I asked this question. My mind automatically went to PC version with potential unofficial ones, which now that I think about it might not even be a thing for Bf4.

I had a bit of a tangent explaining my reasoning towards the series but it’s honestly not that important in the grand scheme of things. I had fun and the minutiae of “why this much and not more” would simply end up as me rambling.

Is Bf4 one of the games that didn’t manage to stay alive long term? I know Bf2 and some other titles (Bf3, I think?) are still played but I don’t do much multiplayer these days so I’m not really up to date with what’s still available.

Edit: Just finished Sam & Max, added some thoughts.

I did play it actually! I’m doing a chronological playthrough so I went with Reach > 1 > 2 (partial) > ODST > 2 > 3 and now 4. And yeah, I agree it’s closer to what I like in Halo media than the mainline entries. It was fun but, unfortunately for me, I’m playing on Heroic so gameplay (or health) wise there’s not much difference between playing as a spartan and ODST. Presentation and story did their job though.

I totally get that. While my situation is different there are plenty of times where all I want is to play on autopilot, it’s just not something I do when playing something for the first time. I’m also very hard to please when I get to this state so I end up jumping between multiple titles until I find one that’ll grab me, (which can take longer than the actual playtime but whatever).
Bouncing off on the other hand is something I still suck at but I’m actively working towards. There were way too many games I chose to stick with for the sake of completion despite not enjoying them enough to not feel like I’m wasting my time after certain point. I’m slowly getting better at it but it can still be a tough decision to make (and even more difficult to stick with it).

I have a similar experience with Morrowind as well, though in my case it has to do with the fact it sits in a weird middle ground where it doesn’t feel as immersive as Daggerfall but also isn’t as enjoyable to play as Oblivion, making it very difficult to stick with long-term. The fact that I don’t really care about main stories in TES games and tend to treat them as sandbox playgrounds doesn’t help either. Maybe one day.

Good luck with your attempt!

Having it live up to these expectations years after the whole Halo-mania was over is pretty much an impossible task so I’d be more surprised if it did manage to sweep me as much as it did everyone back in the day. Most parts of those games holds up pretty well from an objective standpoint, personal biases on the other hand are a different issue.

It also doesn’t help that you can feel game’s chaotic development in the its story (both 2 and 3 actually), which is unfortunate since that’s the main reason why I play games like these. It wasn’t terrible or complete let down but it did feel a bit undercooked and disjointed at times. At least the trilogy didn’t made me do a 180 on a franchise like what happened with Mass Effect, so there’s that.

Seriously though, I think I liked it as much as I possibly could. I came out of this playthrough with a very positive experience and that’s more than I can say about many other classics, regardless of whether I played them on launch or years after the fact. Weird brain thinks how it does, there’s not much I can do about it.

Hmm, I think that’s a later version than what I tried. Makes sense though since that was one of the most “finished” of the old versions, I believe. Sounds good.

No worries, it’s not your fault - I simply found the tracks in the second half of the game to be weaker than the early ones. If anything I’m the opposite and tend to be way more critical about stuff that gets hyped up by everyone while trying to keep an open mind about things others complain about.

I remember surfing from one of the trailers, I think, I just hoped there’d be at least a short sequence on the ship and that surfing itself would be a part of the game (I expected a cutscene honestly). As good as these games are there are still some parts that feel a bit rough and unplanned. Oh well, it’s not a huge issue.

The fact these games hold up as well as they do is a testament to their quality. There’s plenty of even newer titles which can’t boast about similar results.

Also, I’m a bit “specific” (well… weird) in terms of what does or doesn’t gel with me and I often tend to prefer less popular or worse options. Going back to hugely successful titles can be a rather unique experience for me - every game is a surprise in that way, I guess.

Eh, I survived retail A-life I can survive an imperfect one in a mod if it means no fanfic additions. They might be interesting for later playthroughs but I’d rather play something closer to the original vision. Actually, did they specify which version they’re basing this on? Oblivion Lost had quite a few changes during development if I recall correctly, I’m curious which was the chosen one.

Anyway, as long as older versions are available it’s fine. At least they aren’t trying to justify those new changes as “lore accurate” and push them on everyone like a certain Skyrim modder who shall not be named, right? Please say yes.

Ohh, that’s some important info. Appreciate the warning.

Yeah, I spent WAY TOO MUCH time with Crysis (both playing and modding) so I’m familiar with the CPU issue. Can’t predict everything, unfortunately.

Good to know about the Oblivion Lost remake - I did play one of the leaked beta builds before so seeing a more finalised version of what could’ve been should make for an interesting experience. I have a lot to look forward to, thanks!

Yeah, you certainly did. It’s not a huge issue honestly - difficulty was high? That sucks but I simply lowered it, whatever.
My main problem, which isn’t even a real problem, has to do with the atmosphere. Playing MCC made me realise that I simply prefer the (early?) book and Reach approach of subdued, bittersweet and somewhat tragic tone over the “action hero saves the day” of the mainline games. That’s just personal preference though.

Overall, my issues with the game aren’t with its quality, it’s more of a “me” thing.

I have no doubt multiplayer, whether co-op or versus, would be a good fun, it’s just not something I can comment on. I have no one to play with in co-op and I don’t really care about PvP any more. Gameplay does feel like it would work great in that environment and the nostalgia factor can not be understated - I also have plenty of games that might not be my favourites (or the best at what they do) but my memories with them leave me with a soft spot that doesn’t care about objective facts.

It was an engaging experience and that’s exactly what I hoped for when starting MCC for the first time.

Sounds exciting, especially the multithreading part since CPU has always been my main bottleneck. Hopefully it’ll make it in by the time I decide to give it a shot. Not gonna lie, while I was hopeful about Stalker modding in the early days I didn’t expect it to go this far. It’s a nice surprise.

I only heard a little bit of Anomaly in the past but I’m glad it got to such point now. Looks like I’ll have plenty to play with once I get back to it.

Does Anomaly use the updated open source version of the engine or is it running on the game one?

Anomaly? Never tried it. The only big Stalker mod I played was Call of Chernobyl, other than that I dabbed with small balancing mods, gear additions etc.

Besides, all of my Stalker modding experience happened 5 or so years ago, I’m sure things changed quite a bit since then.

There’s a reason why heavily moddable games tend to bring comments like “yeah, so I played the game for 3 hours and spent 20 modding it” - the latter can be just as fun as the game itself.

I’d be curious about more of your thoughts about Anomaly as you continue your playthrough. While I’m not planning to jump back into Stalker any time soon, I’m always on the lookout for what to do when I do so more info could be useful. No pressure though!

I’d still like to have that option but it’s completely understandable.

I don’t think I had this issue with H1 (or at least not to such extent) so I didn’t even think of it until now but I finally realised why I’m leaning towards remastered soundtrack as much as I do - original is more muted/less audible for some reason. I’m not sure if it’s the compression of old audio files or something else but when switching between both versions, original just doesn’t pop up as much. I might have to play around with sound levels.

Thanks for making me think about it, it actually made me stop to figure it out.

Speaking of cut scenes, I was a bit bummed there was no option to switch art styles during those (the in-engine ones at least). It would be just as, if not more, interesting comparison (depending on how much they changed) so I was really curious about that but alas.

I think the new versions of atmospheric tracks are pretty decent alternatives. Better? I can’t say I compared them this way but I’d say… a bit different and fitting with the new visuals for the most part. Dunno about the licensed stuff as my only experience with classic releases was playing the first game a few years ago.

I did find a few spots over all the games I played so far where I felt like the music was lacking a bit but I’m not sure if that’s just a normal experience or something exclusive to MCC/updated versions of the games. It wasn’t something that affected my enjoyment too much so I just moved on and focused on the good.

I still have 2.5 games ahead of me so I probably won’t be doing a full playthrough of H1 but I might take a look. It does sound promising and a bit more involved than I expected to be honest. Thanks again for letting me know!