I just cant get into competitive multiplayer anymore.

Big same.

I used to eat MP up, but now I just get tilted because my reflexes aren’t what they used to be (that, and I can’t devote an entire weekend to honing my twitch skillz).

I like your approach. I made this post actually mostly because I’m curious about trying it out myself. I feel like it might actually get me to play more games, rather than just scrolling through what I could play and then not playing anything.

6000 to 1300 is massive.

Do you ever think about writing off a game without playing it? Or maybe like putting it in a “B pile” if the description doesn’t 100% grab you?

Yeah, after the first couple of Steam sales I realized it was the same frenzied want that department stores try to inculcate in shoppers, and so I’ve tried to be much more conscious about my purchases.

Congrats on not being a completionist! I don’t suffer from the issue either, but I know of many many many people who do, and this is for them.

Maybe you need to edit the approach. Like, you consider every game, then decide whether to keep it on your backlog or remove. Could even just be done by glancing over your current backlog and rejecting anything that doesn’t jump out at you.

You can always go back and find something you dismissed initially if you really want to.

That’s a fun way to look at it. I do have a weird sense of minimalist-adjacent purity fetish with my library that is undoubtedly unhealthy.

That’s kind of how I view the internet–there’s always something interesting to read of watch.

Speaking of checking off lists, I had an old co-worker who just had this great big huge spreadsheet of games he’d played or wanted to play. It was an interesting phenomenon when I’d play a games and think I wonder if Michael’s played this – I think he would like it and then realize I could just consult his public list lol.

I feel like it would be good to remember how you felt about a game, too.

Its the same group of people who are heavily invested in AI to replace creative people in these fields as they do not understand the difference between AI doing a passable copy of someone elses style and someone actually creative creating a new style or approach.

This is a good example yeah, they just look at the cost of an artists’ salaries and drool about pulling those into the exec and owners’ takehome.

We used to have design!

Related, while I’m sure it’s not fully pacifist, Torment: Tides of Numenera greatly emphasises dialogue and text descriptions.

My first thought as well. And while the mention startups explicitly

A new £30 million Games Growth Package over three years to back the next generation of start-up games studios and talent, …

the fund needs to be protected, so it can do its work.

I mean, aren’t we changing things right now, changing the way it goes?

Sorry for all my railing against the mainstream, I can’t resist quoting T2.

But yes, I suspect you’re right. Really, it’s a kind of return to the pre-commercial internet, before corpos started trying to capture, valueize, and monetize all of our freely given interactions on their platforms.

Here’s a little sample https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/99258/why-do-corporate-mergers-require-the-approval-of-foreign-governments

That’s great. It’s like you were temporarily a worker’s co-op.

I remember my company at the time also admitted that COVID was threatening the bottom line and many in the all hands and public chats suggested just what your company did.

Instead we got multiple rounds of gutting layoffs mid-pandemic, a mass exodus of core talent, and the founders selling out to some B tier silicon valley fucks who fly in every now and then to complain about morale.

I only had a 360 back in the day, and I feel like I got in and out at the absolute peak. So many great couch coop with roommates memories.

Companies used to need approval to do such things

Username tells me you know your stuff

I never had one but sounds like I missed out. I also wasn’t thinking of rereleases or emulation.

Perhaps this is a weird part to single out, but it surprised me

I mainly played on the 3DS from when I was 6 until I was 15, so I don’t have as much experience with other consoles.
[…]
The 3DS was simply Nintendo’s best era, and I don’t think we’ll see anything like that again given the current direction of their latest consoles…

Curious if others agree. I would’ve thought that it would be the SNES era, but that’s probably betraying my age more than anything.

Great article! On par with gaming publications, and actually probably better than most Nintendo Power articles I remember from back in the day. Great job!!

Not a graphics card guy, but this thumbnail is art

Maybe referring to Flynn Taggart in the novels? Haven’t read any doom in a while, I must confess…

Agree. I have such a soft spot for Duke 3D, though.

Idea: Duke gets woke and goes on a cop killing rampage redemption arc???

Thank you. For once I don’t have to be that person.

Spicy, but I love that take

Yeah really. They should be more like campuses funding a hundred small teams each trying to make something they’re individually passionate about. Hell, even give them the IPs to play with and see what they come up with.

Fear of failure becomes self fulfilling, yeah. You get so worried about making the wrong move and losing money that you can have your spotlight stolen by a challenger doing it fresher for 1/10th the budget.

Read the article, you say? What a radical notion.

I’ve been wondering why my fav retro podcasts have been discussing contemporary games.

I agree. Unless they got very lucky I think the only way they could do Quake 5/2030/whatever is if they gave it the indie treatment, which as vassals of a giant publisher they are unable to do with an important IP.

I recently replayed Quake ii + expansions, too, and it’s also its own joined of fun. Hunting for secrets never got old.

This game looks cool. I had not noticed what you’re taking about in previews, but I love when media subtly subverts expectations around beauty or how certain characters should look.

Like I love a “weak” chin, but character designers seem allergic to using anything but the idealised western proportions for that part of the head.

Nice.

Nice. Did you make this?

Oh yeah reflex is a huge skill gate. I could basically never land a parry in Demon’s Souls, so hopefully there are some nice settings to dial that in.

Interesting. I’ve heard good things about this game from a friend who is way better at games than I am.

Solid farm. Makes me we want to boot up my old world.

Tyyy. Also these are such cool designs. As little as I was actually interested in playing this game, I had to admit the aesthetic was so cool.

I hope the artist is made whole from this, or at last gains some more patrons (https://antireal.info/)

It was really good. I just wanted more indigenous themes if they were going to use the Prey name. It was such a disappointment in that respect.

Fucking spot on analogy

Why?