I feel like Microsoft was their own enemy. They kept slicing off small portions of their market in pursuit of vendor lock-in. Now there is nobody left supporting them.

I wish it covered how they went from selling cards giving time for PS+, to requiring mismatched currency cards for PS+.

Yeah, that’s kind of why I asked. Gamestop propped up their numbers by bundling the magazine with their discount card. Game Informer wasn’t selling on it’s own merits, so I think the chance of it rallying with it’s old staff is slim.

EDIT: removed the random Apple tangent

so is this an Atari situation where the name is being used but everybody behind it is different?

Doesn’t work on Nintendo, for some reason. Mario Tax expanded to anything first or second party, so the best you’ll see is $20 off new price on Mar10 for the games that came out 5 years ago. It’s like every retailer came to the agreement that Nintendo games don’t depreciate.

I hate timers on games that give you little guidance. People claim that Fallout 1’s timer is too lenient, but I ended up replaying (and failing) the game twice and still not coming close to finding the water chip. Also, the game constantly reminds you “We’re all dying, hurry up! Every minute you take is an other life lost!”. Same reason I dislike Lightning Returns.

Everytime this game got ported, I’d retry it. I’d get over the bridge, get into town, fight the pirates, earn the boat… and get completely lost.

I always thought UHD used a different laser than standard blu-ray, but only just found out it was a trick of h265 encoding and triple layer discs.

Based on the mini-BD format, assuming triple layer, the upper limit would have been around 24GB.

Now you’ve got me curious what capacity a UMD form factor could achieve with a UHD Blu-ray laser.

Yes/No. Both Sony and Microsoft have quality control processes to ensure that whatever is published is going to play on first entry of the disc.

That said, publishers use A LOT of workarounds. Day 1 patches to “finish” the game. Download code inserts. And as of recent, mandatory online server check-ins. As far as I’m aware, Nintendo is the only one who allows publishing half the product with required download.

It’s right there in the link. It sold more than Witcher 3, even though it did the wrong thing by releasing early and buggy.

…and they followed it with Cyberpunk 2077’s disastrous launch but ultimate success. So I wouldn’t hold CDPR as a high standard.

After the “We’re going to delete any cloud captures older than 90 days… oopsie we deleted your local storage”

I’m going to delay updating as long as possible regardless.

There was one publication that I was subscribed to, which I cannot recall the name of now, that just heaped article after article about how great the PS5 Pro was, and how it was revolutionizing gaming, how much better it was than the PS5, and how it’s sold out everywhere and the best console ever created. Every single game that had a single digit framerate improvement was a full article about how awesome the Pro was.

Some hyperbole on my part, of course, but I did get sick of them praising the PS5 Pro, and the comments section following lock-step, so I ditched it. I just couldn’t understand the dissonance in the communities, especially since neither produced numbers to back up claims.

I bet if I dug around my archived bookmark backups I could find it, and I bet they are still singing praises about the thing.

I thought I was losing my mind after seeing all the PS5 Pro praise. Glad to see that the numbers matched what my expectations were.

I do wonder if Sony bought out some influencers or something, because it was oddly counterintuitive amounts of praise.

I tried so hard to get this one to work and it just… didn’t. The intro played, vanilla FO4 started. I patched it again, vanilla intro started, crash to desktop. Even tried versions from Steam & GoG. Manually patched it, failed. Downloaded the patcher from GoG, failed.

ooh, do you have any details? I don’t think I heard about this one.

Nonono, you misunderstand. They want $30 for allowing you to play The Sims 2.

none of those are DLC

I keep seeing “have all DLC” but they seem to be conflating Expansion/Stuff Packs with actual Downloadable Content.

Does The Sims 1 contain all the Maxis website stuff? Is the downloadable Elle Woods no longer lost media?

Does the Sims 2 include all the downloadables from The Exchange? The downloads from Sims Store? The downloadable pre-order bonuses? The downloadable Christmas pack?

Just you wait for the mid-cycle “Xbox X”, making it’s debut in 2030!

I wouldn’t put it past them to just name it “Xbox” and try to play it off like a movie reboot.

Did I hear a rock and stone?!

I still miss my Xperia Play. It’s been over 10 years… Still my favorite phone.

*yawn*

I always got the impression it wasn’t a learning AI but rather a very limited “Has the player pressed the run button? if YES: AI can use run next cycle”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zZaRH00Q54

I gave FreeSO a try since it’s an open-source implementation of Sims Online, but the hookability wasn’t there. We’ve come so far from the days of Sims 1…

I hate how I get charged overseas transaction fees for every purchase.

The first Deception game by Tecmo. A pretty basic game in concept: Invaders come in your castle, you set up traps, lure them into the traps. But- Something about the limiting view of first-person, combined with the poorly lit castle, chilling music, and dark story tone has never been replicated. Add on how you could customize your castle with extra hallways and rooms with special attributes, capture invaders to make your own monsters, or even use masks to change the way invaders react to you… mmm, now I want to play it again.

I tried playing the second, third, and Trapt, but everything after the first game switched to a more action-oriented third person view and started to shy away from the heaven/hell connection.

I wouldn’t mind if it was a game outside the Deception IP. I just want the atmosphere back.

ooh, umm. I actually haven’t played it since 2018. I can’t speak for Enhanced Edition as that came out like a month after I completed the campaign.

Dang, I scanned the suggestions and didn’t see this one before posting!

Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2

Edit: Oh, Neverwinter Nights

Batman: Arkham Asylum’s free-flowing combo system was copied by many future games.

There were WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too many secret caves in DKC1 to try to 100%. I did try to complete DKC3, but I don’t think I achieved it.

I’m the kind of person who has no issues with moving on from a game with only 20% of the achievements/trophies unlocked after beating the final boss. If it’s not fun, it’s not fun.

I think the only two games I set out to 100% were probably Super Mario World, or Donkey Kong Country 2.

I really hope that tcrf doesn’t take over. I STILL can’t contribute to that website because it requires you to sign up for Discord and agree to Discord’s ToS just to paste some stupid code into their bot.

They really do seem dead-set on transitioning to a software rental company. Let the hardware languish and shove another tier of Game Pass into the marketing grinder.

Sometimes it’s not so dramatic. I had one throwing a forever captcha and figured out it was because I set webp to disabled in about:config

Animyst seemed like a genuinely creepy/interesting game to try to conquer with a handful of friends.

I heard his voice in River City Girls 2 and was like “Is that the Criticom Saga guy…?” I didn’t think it was such a distinct voice but apparently it is.