Just a dude who believes in the Fediverse over standard Social Media sites! I’m a fan of horror, cute animals, and handsome lads.
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I understand what you are trying to say, I feel like it’s not that old of a device in comparison to a Switch or Switch OLED. It’s still going to be a decent buy at the price point; I’m not overly worried about spending that much on a Steam Deck OLED. It wouldn’t take but a month of casual saving to afford a Steam Deck and given a lot of the games I buy are Deck Verified…It’s not a bad deal. This thing will likely be good enough for a few more years of play, particularly with indie games. Given that there is plenty of time for further consideration, I am leaning towards waiting for reviews of the Legion device I mentioned…On the off chance it is the better buy.
I’m probably going to get the middle tier of Steam Deck as it does provide a decent value; as I play a lot of farming sims and cozy games, the Steam Deck fills this purpose well for me. Better than my Switch ever could. I was also considering the Lenovo Legion Go S, but waiting for hardware and software reviews for that device is a smart move. As it could be an amazing device, or it could be fucking shit on launch.
Playtron can keep their GameOS, anything associated with Cryptocurrency is a hard pass. I remember a lot of cryptobros were financing the fuck out of Playtron. Naturally, this is a product I consider dead to me. I will buy a Steam Deck from Valve, as they aren’t actively trying to scam their potential user base with Crypto nonsense.
As I said: Nostalgia has me in a stranglehold, that’s the only reason why Oblivion Remastered was first on my list. I had a craving for Oblivion again; Clair Obscur being priced reasonably means I can buy it this payday! Though, I will finish Jedi: Survivor before starting a full playthrough of Clair Obscur.
I can’t wait…Though I got a backlog of games that currently are in progress, so I won’t be playing Clair Obscur immediately. Modern games are simply hit or miss, if it’s made by a big studio…Often it’s a blueprint of what’s trended a few years ago because games are so much bigger, it takes a while to make them.
I feel Indie devs have the most freedom to do something unique, interesting, and fresh without super long development times. I’ve been choosing to play cozy or indie games as of late because a lot of the mainstream games haven’t caught my attention too. Hell, right now I’m playing Oblivion Remastered, and it’s got me in a stranglehold of nostalgia. It’s basically the same game but with a prettier aesthetic (there are some graphical issues that need resolving due to the quirks of Unreal 5). Nothing that Bethesda would be able to produce today that’s a right mix of banal, goofy, lore heavy, and fun.
Yeah, when I was watching Valhalla I noticed the strangeness of the narrative…They did try something different, making each region a self-contained story. The pacing wasn’t terrible either, it’s just that they didn’t try hard enough to make certain areas of the game better. That’s what hurt Valhalla in my opinion, the wealth of very average writing; the fact they had smaller mysteries could’ve been awesome had it been better executed. Ironically, that’s similar to how Odyssey handles the cult; you don’t figure out the leader until the post game, after killing cultists who weren’t part of the main story. I feel Valhalla’s story structure was inspired by Odyssey, most regions have their own self-contained story that connects to the overarching story. Except Valhalla goes for smaller mysteries in place of the overwhelming amount of Side Quest that Odyssey has (still not finished with half of them, thankfully they can be done post game).
I feel the modern world story should be handled with a bit of care, to make that a particularly memorable experience. Going out with a bang is better than ending on a whimper. Walking sims aren’t bad in their own right, but Ubisoft wouldn’t let a writing and dev team handle it with the care it needs (not until they figure out why Larian Studios is so beloved).
That’s why I fault Ubisoft itself…The developer team is only as good as Ubisoft allows their devs to be. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a breakout hit, as that is an example of a dev team that is free from the oppressive weight of a corporation. I’m going to be buying Clair Obscur because I want to send a message that more games from their team would be appreciated!
AC Origins was a return to form for them, since the Brotherhood days (great story, glitchy climbing and parkour). They trusted that their main historical protagonist would thrive, so the story they told was solid. AC Odyssey had issues because they didn’t trust in Cassandra being the historical MC; Alexios felt like an added on character because they thought a female lead wouldn’t sell well. The more recent games were mid because the narratives felt kinda messy; I watched a play through of Valhalla in parts it wasn’t great, Mirage had a lukewarm response, and AC Shadows had some writing issues (two MCs go from having beef to suddenly trusting one another two hours in). Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed team has fallen asleep at the wheel, the storytelling isn’t quite up to snuff with the latest games.
I feel the modern world story should’ve been resolved, as it interferes with quasi historically accurate storyline (one can only approximate in these situations, we will never have the full truth as it’s lost to time). The modern world story has dragged on for far too long and needs to be put to rest; we need a game set purely in the modern era, to resolve what is happening. I’d love to see AC games that spin into exploring approximated history, without the burden of a world ending in slow-motion…
If only Ubisoft actually cared.
GenAI is the line in the sand for me, as that is merely a step towards pushing creatives out of creative fields. While Krafton C-Suite executives may say they get their data directly from preexisting data from devs; I’m not particularly trusting of those who implement GenAI in their games.
I’m going to focus on Paralives and Vivaland as those seem more interesting in my opinion.
I lost hope for that game because they use GenAI to power to create a character, clothing, furniture color/pattern customization. I won’t play a game that utilizes GenAI, as base requirements are increased, GenAI is a security hazard, and it has a damaging effect on the environment. The fact that InZOI requires a constant internet connection as well due to the game’s reliance on GenAI.
It would’ve been interesting, given that Rod Humble wanted to create a fully fleshed out base game…The DLC for Life By You likely would’ve been merely outfits, additional hairs made post launch, and possibly furniture/architecture style sets that could be priced at a reasonable rate. Meaning more players would’ve bought it and those funds would be reinvested in the game for more work to be done! The mod support would’ve been nice for those that want it; I often don’t care for mods (Prepare Carefully, for Rimworld is one of the few that I adore). This situation is truly vexing because the Life Sim scene needs a well funded direct competitor to The Sims that isn’t afraid to make a coherent and interesting Simulation game; one that is built with an engine that actual works and in-depth gameplay! The loss of Life By You will irk me for years to come.
Honestly, I kind of miss the idea of what “Life By You” could’ve been, as it had the game designer for The Sims 2 and The Sims 3 behind it. That game could’ve been a return to form and an actual threat to EA’s watered down and extremely pricey Sims Slop. If only the team Rod Humble had assembled were able to gel their concept into a reality, with Paradox’s backing, could’ve created something magical. Alas, it was not to be…I still imagine the potential for player driven storytelling that Life By You was offering!
I agree with his points about the $80 dollar games not being a sustainable price point, especially in places like Australia or Brazil which suffer from higher game prices! This is a stupid move on the part of Nintendo…It’s made me rethink buying their Switch 2 as a result. I will wait and see if they have a moment of clarity which derails this bad decision. If they don’t, I hope the market slaps them in the face and buys games that are reasonably priced!
If EA chooses the stupid route and BioWare doesn’t fight back…Yep, it could be and it would be a DOA game. Given that EA C-Suites don’t have more than 3 shared brain cells between them; they’ll fail to notice that Sony axed their live service game ambitions. They’ll pretend to not see the other struggling live service game companies, and think that Mass Effect as a franchise will have the drive behind it to win. It won’t give that Andromeda was such a flop which didn’t excite a lot of Mass Effect fans.
This is a game that cannot fail (lest the Mass Effect franchise fall into ruin), but will if too many bad decisions are made in the development process.
As long as we consistently don’t buy their intentionally compromised products…It’s been shown that companies will relent. Like Sony did recently with their PSN requirements for certain games, as the hostile feedback was hurting sales. I will continue to heckle those big corps myself, until they kowtow! It’s a boss battle, but they only have so much HP, Chip Damage is a successful strategy.
You’re fine, I was just stating my own opinion. As it’s true, if I didn’t have such an intolerance to certain barriers to entry…I could get this game to work easily. As weirdly enough, I will spend more than 10 minutes looking for obscure repositories to add in order to make something work (like Vintage Story, I needed an older Fedora 39 repo of .NET 7 to make the game run) even if a Flatpak exists. ROFL
I’m just a silly sausage, I took zero offense…If anything, my initial comment was too speedy and needed more consideration before posting it!
Edit: Yes, I could use Lutris to launch EA app and verify this game. I know it’s lazy of me, but these little unnecessary barriers are annoying; I will just save my money and spend it on a game that opts to not use them like EA is wont to do. As the company can’t help itself, as it is trying to emulate the success of Steam but falling on its face.
Happy The Sims 1 and The Sims 2 remaster day, regardless, as EA listened to The Sims community at least!
Nah, not enough! I need to know how good the story is, how well combat and stealth works in this game, how well they brought an older version of Japan to life, and performance and bugs. An image can look cool, but the product could be trash, this game has potential to be good like Odyssey was (beautiful but a grindy game). With Ubisoft involved, it very well could be a bad game, just as much as a sleeper hit.
ROFL They’ve gotten breached so many times and drained of data, it’s cute that they are trying to gaslight consumers into believing this bullshit! It’s all about looking popular and inflating their free accounts, so those freeloaders can become payers at some point in time. Steam is far more secure than Sony, I would prefer that they’d just give up with trying to strong-arm PC gamers into signing up for their PSN Slop.
I feel like the themes of slavery were so poorly handled that it shouldn’t have even been a plot point. The game would’ve been the same without them or with them; as they didn’t handle it with much nuance and doubtfully had the writing chops to do so. While the Boss Battles with summons are spectacles, they can get really dull the more you fight bosses. I would say it’s a mix of infantile oppressive fantasy to occasional brilliant scenes that made me question why this game was overall so-so. Those strong moments of writing never stuck around long enough to make a greater impact; it made me feel like two people were responsible for the writing of this game, and the worse writer won more often.
I wouldn’t say it’s the worst Final Fantasy as the FF 13 trilogy still exists, however, FF16 is a middling entry in the series.
Yikes, EA is so freaking silly! Why leave money on the table by not presenting a revamped and fresh single-player experience?! They could make it backwards compatible with The Sims 4 letting you import families from The Sims 4 to The Sims 5. If they really want to keep The Sims 4 on life support like this; they need to put in the work with a revamped and much improved engine that can support all the weight which will be put on it. As there are people who will without a doubt buy all the packs and try to run them…To mixed results.
I don’t see Project Rene doing as well as they are hoping; for all the positive changes it will introduce to build/buy mode and even Create a Sim. The omnipresence of free to play bullshit will be evitable because EA (Evil, Actually) will use that as a means of fleecing player base of their hard-earned cash.
I feel like the missions are pretty good for the most part; I’m pretty far in but have yet to actually play more since a frustrating random encounter. I do find the unskippable skinning cutscenes and little too long animations for doing something a bit trying. Also, the bug where Arthur will stow all but his sidearms and main weapon after riding the horse for a few minutes. When you dismount, you’ve got to re-equip every time. This issue is fixed in multiplayer though, but sadly to this day unfixed in single-player. These are really my only gripes, as Rockstar did a good job of approximating the feel of the late 1800s in the USA.
ROFL the more games go $80 to 90 dollars for a base game version, the more I wait for sales. 70 dollars was bad enough in my opinion, but this greed fueled jump is going to put off more potential buyers than it will bring in. It’s my genuine hope that this blows up in their face and will force them to price games reasonably again. Perhaps if the money they made in sales wasn’t mostly funneled into their overpaid CEOs and shareholders, perhaps they’d have more money to cover development costs and keep game prices stable. Sounds like a personal problem to me.