I cast… NON-magic missile!

If you liked Skyrim, check out Enderal - it’s a total conversion mod, but in Steam as it’s own game. It’s much more linear than Skyrim - the world still feels open, but it’s much more dense, and it’s scaled more like a traditional RPG, so if you wander off the intended path too far, you’ll get your ass beat by mobs that are much higher level than you.

Side quests are meh, with a notable exception of the Rhalata line, which is kind of like a combo of thieves guild and dark brotherhood. Main quest line is fucking wild.

If you skip the vast majority of side quests, you might have an issue with scaling, since you’ll be missing out on all that xp. If you run into that and don’t want to do the quests, just use the command console to cheat some in.

Witcher 1 is so bad it kinda goes full circle into having a certain charm.

It’s like the gaming equivalent of a pug: so ugly it’s cute.

…I recommend modding the fuck out of it to basically godmode blitz your way through the story so you can get on to Witcher 2 which is an actually decent game; and Witcher 3 which remains one of the best games on the market to-date.

Honestly, as a stopgap that just releases out of nowhere for the sole purpose of building hype for the actual Witcher 4, kinda like how Bethesda did with their random vault dweller mobile game, I’d be all for it.

Bonus points if it’s 16 bit.

There were multiple endings depending on the choices you make throughout the game. Same for the two DLCs.

The ‘good’ endings were in the base game she confronts the winter and succeeds, returns to Geralt as a father figure, and lives on as a witcher. Then in the Blood & Wine DLC, Geralt basically retires in his own vineyard.

They need to release a fake “Witcher 4” that’s just an older Geralt moping around his vineyard bitching about how his knees hurt. All of his quests would be things like pestering his workers about how badass he used to be, going to town to return a watermelon to the fruit vendor because of a mushy spot he didn’t notice when he purchased it, shit like that.

All the while, the townsfolk would slip idle chatter about crazy shit that Ciri’s doing off camera.

Star Citizen looked so fucking cool when it was announced like 15 years ago. Since then it’s dipped lower and lower every single time new info comes out.

Like, the hopeful dumbasses that got burned initially like my dumb ass did with No Man’s Sky, I kinda get… but how the absolute fuck are they still getting sales?? Are there seriously still people that don’t know it’s a scam?

This just in: hobby people have had for basically their entire life has big number!!

Meh, fuck canon. It’s all fiction, who cares what Disney says is the ‘real’ fiction vs not?

That universe can house some incredibly good or incredibly stupid content - no reason to judge the good by the existence of the stupid. Same applies to the universe we live in, tbh.

They can do good work: Rogue One and Andor were fucking fantastic.

…but yeah the odds aren’t great when you consider everything else.

Downhill Domination is… honestly stupid as all hell, but by design: it’s a lot of fun :P

It’s a downhill mountain bike racing game with a combat system, and it’s ridiculous. You start being able to punch the bicyclists next to you; once you knock enough of them off their bikes you upgrade to being able to kick; then iirc you eventually get a stick or something lol. Otherwise, it’s just another get-from-point-A-to-B-as-fast-as-possible game that doesn’t require a lot of thought.

Dark Cloud 1 definitely earns its spot on the list, too!

One of the weirdest games I’ve ever played: Okage: Shadow King.

Think Final Fantasy gameplay + Zelda: Majora’s Mask level of being genuinely bizarre as all hell.

Fair warning, the music will be stuck in your head for the rest of your life.

…so grain of salt, cuz the name of this one doesn’t sound right, but the screenshots look correct: Gradius V?

Side scroller arcade-y jet fighter - I remember it being good.

I just don’t remember it being called Gradius >_<

Soul Reaver did NOT age well, but fuck was that a good series for its time.

Star Wars: Racer Revenge is probably the best racing game I’ve played to-date. It’s very similar to, and often confused with, the N64 podracing game, but it’s way more polished, and the driving physics are chef’s-kiss perfect. Like, the N64 game, the pod and two engines all move together as one unit; basically a car racing game with a pod racer skin. The PS2’s Racer Revenge actually feels like you’re in a pod that’s being pulled by two distinct engines.

Try playing in 1st-person view and set the controls (if you have a PS2 controller) so the left joystick controls the left pod and right joystick controls the right pod - so to turn left for example, you’d pull back on the left stick to brake the left pod, and push forward on the right to accelerate the right pod; since they’re tethered together, the right one arches around the left a bit, and it pulls the pod to the left. It’s harder to play that way vs the usual ‘press X to accelerate’ mechanic, but after the first couple laps you’ll have the hang of it, and it feels so satisfying.

Unfortunately, the last time I tried to run a rom of this game, it did NOT emulate well, to the point of being unplayable. That was probably at least 10 years ago though, so hopefully advancements since then mean it won’t be an issue for you; but heads up.

A veteran of not playing WoW, then? Did he relapse?

ex-WoW vet

He isn’t a WoW vet anymore? How in the time-travel-bullshit did he manage that?!

I mean, nowadays consoles are just a PC with glasses and a moustache… It’d be great if we moved away from physical consoles and more towards digital platforms so that the gaming industry is less fragmented.

Basically officially supported and updated roms/emulators. Or just skip that and make Nintendo and such something akin to Steam.

8 times bigger than Witcher 3 filled wilth Witcher 3 quality content would be a godsend. 8 times bigger than Witcher 3 filled with procedural generation and AI slop… not so much.

If Enderal isn’t on your radar yet, that is reason to buy Skyrim.

Total conversion mod that uses Skyrim’s assets to build a completely new game (lore, characters, terrain, voice acting, etc are new, and have nothing to do with the Elder Scrolls universe).

It’s crazy impressive for an indie dev crew’s passion project.

Completely free, provided you own Skyrim.

Zelda OOT, or vanilla WoW. Hearing the intro music from either is a pretty strong nostalgia hit.

…in an it was the worst thing ever kind of way - cuz that meant it was over Q_Q

Especially in the era before just looking shit up on the internet when you hit a snag. I remember scouring levels in that looking for a path that I’d missed when I couldn’t figure out where I was supposed to go next.

Definitely a highlight of the N64 for me. It’s up there with the Zeldas in my book.

My parents didn’t let me buy any shooter games other than jet force gemini

At least you landed on solid gold! Jet Force Gemini was the single best shooter for the N64. Far superior to Golden Eye. Yes, I’ll die on this hill.

It’d be pretty great if consoles finally acknowledged that they’re just a PC with a moustache and glasses nowadays; and transitioned into a digital space to effectively become officially supported emulators. Especially if launcher isn’t restricted.

These games were a highlight of my childhood. That said, I’ve tried to revisit them, and by today’s standards, they did NOT age well. Trying to remaster these would be a massive undertaking - I’ll be cheering for them, though.

When I was a teen I played WoW from vanilla through Cata… Had over a full year of in game /played time on just my main.

…and I made a lot of alts.

100% full-blown addicted.

Blizzard is actually the one example of enshittification that I can actually be thankful for - I didn’t really ever quit; they just stopped supplying my drug of choice. They definitely had the power to keep me enthralled, but instead shifted to a younger and younger target audience as I was ofc aging the opposite direction.

The Kung-Fu-Panda xpac trailer was finally my cue to accept that my dealer wasn’t going to provide that fix anymore.

Then I started making healthy life decisions discovered Ark >_<

Edit - …Ark owned my life for a bit, too:

If we’re pitching microtransactions as extremist content, I’m on board.

Portal if you want to pass the controller, Portal 2 if you want multiplayer. Both great options for what you’re describing.

Just play WoW on a private server and stop supporting Blizzard’s anti-user business model.

What did I get flipped?

Legality vs morality

Why wouldn’t torrenting the source code of proprietary software would be a legal issue?

It would be a legal issue. But it’s not a moral issue, which is why so few people are showing sympathy for Nintendo. They lose nothing if someone gets a copy of the code - there’s no victim. They do however have a LONG reputation for weaponizing the legal system by attacking fans with frivolous lawsuits - those DO have a victim, and are therefore a moral issue with Nintendo as the aggressor.

But regardless of context, again don’t conflate legality with morality. Ever. History is absolutely stuffed with atrocities that adhere to established law, that doesn’t make those atrocities okay. Videogame code is pretty minescule compared to legal attrocities like slavery or the holocost etc, but point remains that the law in-and-of-itself doesn’t mean shit.

Also fuck Nintendo.

Ya got those flipped.

Don’t conflate legality with morality.

*snaps gloves*

The force is about to be with you.

Halo CE, Halo 2, and Halo 3 are great. Then the franchise was purchased by 343 and everything since has been a soulless COD clone with a Halo skin… and a random RTS.

Image search pulls up Masters of Albion

Higher res shot:

Yeah those microtransactions didn’t lead to gambling, they are gambling.

Gambling aimed at minors via that lootbox shit was a thing even before videogames - earliest example I’m aware of are baseball cards. Our failure to legislate that shit into the grave at day 1 is why we’re in this situation now.