Technically correct, but what they call a “free trial” is effectively a sizable free tier of the game. The entire base game as well as the first two expansion can be played for free with no time restrictions.

I don’t recommend it, even for free. Lots of grinding with heavy P2W elements. There are much better options for free MMOs, like Guild Wars 2 or Final Fantasy XIV.

The beating around the bush about who it was actually sold to certainly doesn’t bode well.

I was about 2 decades later, but I bonded over games like Pokemon and later made many friendships in minecraft. Wish I could revisit that time. I think it’s less about any particular era in gaming - it’s about being young. Kids are still forging friendships over video games today - just different ones (although, at least in the case of my nephew, Minecraft is still one of them :D).

I guess it probably says something about my own age that I don’t consider the Steam Deck to be anywhere near an old system.

Nope, as that one wasn’t a Switch exclusive. Released for WiiU on the same day.

I broadly agree, but I’ll add that knockout tour is where the game and its open world design really shines. That should probably be considered the main mode for this game rather than grand prix. I hope that they’ll add a 3-lap “classic grand prix” mode at some point. The world in free roam does feel quite empty unfortunately.

That’s almost every console launch ever though. Switch 1 had an even weaker launch lineup when it comes to exclusives.

That’s objectively incorrect though. It’s an entirely new chip based on a different architecture. Switch 1 games are actually run through a translation layer, which is why a small number of them still don’t work on Switch 2 currently.

Well spotted. Just clickbait to market their game then.

I don’t think going after some YouTuber with 87 subscribers will be worth your time.

I’d recommend Sonic Generations (or Sonic X Shadow Generations), which is kind of a best-of of previous Sonic games’ levels, tied together with a new story.

Sonic mania is also a great game, reminiscent of the first few 2d Sonic games. But, just like those games, it doesn’t really have much of a story or character interactions.

Last played this in 2018 apparently, time to give it another go!

Sounds cool. I think there is a lot of untapped potential in location based games. Games like Ingress and Pokemon Go barely scratched the surface.

I don’t really agree that gamers should be blamed for this. Especially when it comes to lootboxes, battlepasses, gatcha etc. Those mechanics are tailor-made to exploit common psychological weaknesses in humans. The companies using these tactics and the lawmakers not stopping them should be blamed, not the people being exploited.

Going back to simple price increases, it’s not true that these always work out well for the companies or result in record sales. Remember the 3DS Ambassador program? Nintendo has already faceplanted pretty hard with their pricing strategy before. Since the Switch 2 isn’t even released, we have no idea how well the more expensive games will sell.

Switch 2 isn’t even out yet. We have no idea how the raised game prices will affect sales numbers.

As expected the industry is following Nintendo lead thanks to gamers.

What do you mean by “thanks to gamers”?

Assassin’s Creed. The actual gameplay is almost never as interesting as just walking around a meticulous recreation of ancient civilizations as a digital tourist.

I don’t think that is true. In his final video (Source, trigger warning of course) he mentioned his failing health, chronic pain and a perceived betrayal by the speedrunning community. Not a word about the lawsuits in there.

The article makes it pretty clear. Jobst always implied the lawsuit was over the cheating allegations, which wasn’t the case. He claimed in one of his videos that Mitchell drove another Youtuber to suicide by suing him and forcing him to pay a large sum of money. As it turns out, that Youtuber didn’t have to pay anything at all. The settlement was just to take his existing videos down and not make any further videos about Mitchell. Honestly seems justified to me and not a good look for Jobst.

Mitchell sucks, but falsely claiming that he drove a person to suicide is a dick move to say the least.

I wouldn’t say they’re “crawling back to Steam”, not like they’ve ever left. This is clearly for their new Handheld/Big Screen UI. They’re seeing the success of Steam Deck and Steam OS and are trying to build a competitive experience on Windows.

I am specifically referring to RTX technology and not ray tracing in general.

There is nothing specifically “RTX” about the reflections in GTAVE.

The RTX reflections in the GTA:V:E are very satisfying I love all this.

It’s called Raytracing. RTX is just a marketing term Nvidia uses for their GPUs, GTAVE has nothing to do with it.

I think power efficiency should play a bigger role when evaluating the value of this card. In terms of frames per watt, it’s among the most efficient you can get, while the XT is pretty much the opposite.

I’ll give it another go, but my initial impressions of this demo unfortunately aren’t great. Very poorly optimized, buggy, and janky UI. The movement is super floaty, with a ton of input delay and slow animations. While the German voiceacting is good, it’s very noticable in many dialogues that it was translated from English. The environments are well crafted, but the overall graphical presentation has issues, in terms of lighting, reflections and especially the forced AA which causes tons of artifacts. The remade music, however, is wonderful. Really gives it that Gothic-feeling. I hope the devs can still turn this around, because there is definitely potential.

I’ve played the first two hours now, and so far it’s good but not exceptional IMO. Graphics look beautiful and it runs very well, even on my somewhat aging GPU. The setting and plot are interesting so far. The combat is fluid and fun. However, for an RPG, it’s very streamlined and light on actual Roleplaying elements as well as immersion. It’s the kind of game that reminds you that it’s just a video game all the time. Both when it comes to the design of the areas you travel through as well as audiovisual elements, like lootable objects playing a sparkle sound-effect etc.

Unfortunate for the employees but otherwise nothing of value was lost.

DLSS without frame generation is at least equivalent (sometimes superior) to a native image though.

It really isn’t though. DLSS produces artifacts, especially for quick camera movements as well as things like hair and vegetation. Those artifacts get heavier the smaller the native rendering resolution is. It also differs quite a lot between implementations. In some games it looks better, in others worse (e.g. Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Stalker 2).

But my point wasn’t to bash DLSS anyway. It’s a good technology, especially for lower powered devices. I use it in many games on my 2070s. But Nvidia using this technology to claim “4090 performance” on a card that really has far less power than a 4090 is dishonest and misleading. To make an honest comparison, you’d use the same settings and parameters on both cards.

*With heavy DLSS and frame generation. Total bullshit and false marketing by Nvidia IMO.

Does it have a proper suspend/resume function for games? For me, that’s pretty much the benchmark for reaching a “Steam Deck-level” experience. But I think none of the other handhelds have it.

Tablet

Great for watching videos, reading the newspaper and drawing (with a digital pen).

I actually don’t have a laptop anymore, because I found that a tablet could do everything I needed on the go with less bulk, longer lasting battery and no fan noise.

Smartwatch

Tracks my heartrate (had some issues with elevated heart rate before), guilt-trips me into doing more excercise, shows me notifications without having to get my phone out, displays the time with a customizable watch face.

Let’s hope they’ll introduce some solid competition into the GPU market.

I have a perfectly capable gaming PC but more often than not, I choose to play on the Steam Deck instead. I already sit at my desk for work most of the day, so it’s nice having a dedicated gaming device that I can take with me and sit in the garden or on my sofa. And of course I can take it with me when travelling.

That won’t do much. Each of the spam accounts I’ve seen is on a different instance.

There was a lot of panic about “killer games” in the 90s-00s. Politicians and parents blamed video games for school shootings. Nowadays nobody cares about the topic at all, but the strict rules remain. Steam just kind of ignored the local laws so far, but now decided to actually adhere to them.

That depends… many games blocked in Germany on Steam also can’t be activated in Germany.

Technically yes, but they didn’t actually require it in the beginning and they even sold it in regions without PSN.

Steam refunds are easy and convenient. I wouldn’t personally bother doing that just to post a “protest review” either, but it’s definitely possible to do without losing any money.

No, that’s incorrect. None of the previous games required it, except for multiplayer. For example you could play the Ghost of Tsushima campaign just fine without an account. This one seems to be entirely singleplayer and yet requires an account for no reason.