Finally got my mitts on Nightdive Studio's 2024 remaster of Doom! And I'm happy to report that it is Doom in *every* way that matters. It looks spectacular in HD while *still* looking like Doom. The controls, especially with WASD, feel great. At the same time, this still feels like Doom. The music? Still one of the greatest soundtracks of all time, and sounds pristine. Even now, the level design with Doom is fantastic. It holds up even now. It's stood the test of time for a damn good reason. This game has a 96% positive rating on Steam, which means that Nightdive definitely did something right. @[email protected]

Bread & Fred looks like a fun game, but I'm a little bummed out. This was supposed to be published by Apogee but I guess they sold the rights to Atari, which is publishing this under their Infrogrames label. Might sound silly, but I really wanted Apogee to start publishing these quirky little indie games again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2kPf5ohFsI @[email protected]

The Ubisoft sale on Steam is bonkers! Each of these games is 90% off: \* Anno 1800 \* Farcry 5 \* Farcry New Dawn \* Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint \* Inmortal Fenix Rising Because this is Ubisoft, I’m a little hesitant. But this is a massive price drop, so I’ll probably buy a few of these games. [@pcgaming](https://lemmy.ca/c/pcgaming)

Indie games deserve far more attention than AAA games. Last year, there was only one *new* AAA that I considered top quality, and that was Black Myth: Wukong. Apart from that, all other AAA games ranged from “yuck” (Concorde) to “cromulent” (Indiana Jones and the Great Circle). In contrast, when we look at indie games, we got Balatro, Nightmare Kart, MiSide, Mullet Madjack, and Crow Country. That’s just the top of my head because I know there are hundreds, if not thousands more. This isn’t to say that AA gaming doesn’t exist. We all know about the success of PalWorld and Helldivers 2. And this isn’t to say you have terrible taste in games if you only like big budget titles. But it is to say that when it comes to sheer *volume*, there are more good indie games than AAA games. And this just makes sense: 20K games were released on Steam last year, and almost all of them are indies. Now previously, I’ve asked, “Why, despite being beloved, do indie games receive so little attention in the gaming press?” And the conclusion I always come back to is that you can’t expect the gaming press to cover indie because indies aren’t paying the gaming press. Sad but true. So how do we solve the problem of good indie games going unnoticed? Well, it’s up to us to talk about them. For one thing, I think it’s important to talk about PC gaming itself as the indie platform—because that’s what it is. When we move away from GPUs and RGB lighting, most PC gamers are playing indie games. More to the point, most indies aren’t released for PC first—and often stay on PC. Entire platforms, like itch.io, exist to serve indie developers—and most of those games are made for PC. Indie gaming is PC gaming. And *almost* all PC gaming is indie gaming. So why do we pretend that PC gaming is about face-melting GPU-pushing graphics when it’s clearly not? That’s just a tiny—though lucrative—portion of the PC gaming market. I, for one, want to talk about new indie game releases on PC—they’re worth talking about. @[email protected]

I'm about to play Back 4 Blood, the "spiritual successor" to Left 4 Dead. This game has mixed reviews. And based on comments, it looks like the online co-op and PvP is dead. Now whenever I see blowback on games like this, I wonder if it's because Back 4 Blood is simply not exactly like Left 4 Dead even though it was made by the same developers. It's what I like to call the Yooka-Laylee Phenomenon. Or is this more like the Mighty No. 9 Phenomenon where, it's not so much the spiritual successor isn't exactly like the original, but nowhere near as good as the original? Hard to say without playing. I do notice that, for whatever reason, Steam reviewers tend to privilege indie releases over AAA titles. So that might be something to do with it too. I don't know. This is all conjecture from someone who's yet to play it yet. However, last Steam sale, I bought this for C$3.99 -- which was 95% off. So how bad can it really be? Well, you know what they say -- YOLO! @[email protected]