Anecdote alert: I mean, I went to Mint thinking this to be true. The first release I tried didn’t even support my (years old) WiFi drivers, and then the second couldn’t run levels in Hitman. (Bazzite did, however, so distro apparently matters)

I may play it when the story is finished - if the reviews for the full thing are positive. Right now I’m too worried they’re making a decade of buildup for a dissatisfying and confusing ending, just like Kingdom Hearts.

I’ve played a demo of Remake on my PlayStation and while I could project whatever conversational voices I wanted from text dialog back with the original, I just can’t mesh with the half-hearted anime dub voices (in either language). And I ultimately play JRPGs for their story. Thanks for the recommendation though.

I used to enjoy Gmod/SFM animations, but that content naturally takes months of work for people to put out. That was okay because there were dozens of amateurs always releasing their own things; but now, the trend is for weekly or even more frequent videos, which means animators need to rush to put out trendy 8 second shorts, switch to low-effort mediums like Let’s Plays, or just stop getting visitors entirely.

Every so often, I find a great animator that’s sitting in the last category getting their detailed animations quashed, and I get to see the 3 videos they’ve put out in the last 5 months; still wish YouTube could put them in my recommendations.

On this topic, if someone has just built a new PC, what games would you recommend?

At this point what would make the most sense is an “Xbox Series Z” for people that want higher-performing games. I just don’t see thousands of people buying another $600 console for like 5 games, when most will continue to support the Xbox One. (Yes, Xbox One - most games on the front page of their store still support their old console)

Hard to say what’s the absolute best one, but some highlights:

Finale of Ace Attorney Justice for All; when you finally have the change in circumstances needed to pin the real killer and send them into a genuine panic.

Pizza Tower, final boss third phase: When Peppino sees that Pizza Face is sending him a Boss Rush, and flips his shit, annihilating each boss at lightning speed.

Ghost Trick, Phantom Detective: The final “4 minutes before death”, and multiple last revelations

Most of these are memories of story-driven moments nailed in by very solid soundtracks, which has very much convinced me how important music is to these games.

That’s the thing, I was careful about my wording; “if their only intention is to step up to a higher object”. If I tell someone to get on top of a cement block, their impulse won’t be to do a parkour jump where they’re tucking their legs, they’ll likely use their hands to lift themselves up. They wouldn’t even think of their action as a “jump”. When people press the spacebar in a video game, the intent is clearly to get higher onto the thing in front of them, it’s just most games choose not to express the particular actions a human does to do that (much like how we dropped Tomb Raider’s approach of manually holding a button to grab onto ledges)

In DRG, the way they differentiate intention is with the direction you’re looking - you can only mantle onto platforms you’re looking towards. So, you wouldn’t get many occasions where you’re dodging sideways and accidentally get on a platform.

In DOOM Eternal, they got rid of crouch, and put the grenade launcher on there. G was changed to toggle between your two grenade types. In Deep Rock Galactic, Ctrl uses the player’s laser pointer, a tool for communicating to teammates that doesn’t really impact gameplay. Having a free keybind offers a number of ways to enhance or simplify the game; if they wanted to go for simple measures, it could be a context-sensitive VO button, like spotting out enemy players.

You and I might do it as a connected reflex between the space key and ctrl key to always get a higher chance of reaching a ledge with no drawbacks, but it makes no digetic sense. People in real life don’t do a squat mid-air if their only intention is to step up to a higher object.

FPSes of both the realistic and cartoony variety have been introducing step-ups as a way to simplify movement for a long time. Examples: DOOM 2016, Deep Rock Galactic. It also means that they can connect other important game functionality to the Crouch button if that keybind just doesn’t do much for the intended gameplay.

We see a lot of the gold of indies rising above the crowd, but there’s still lots of indie studios failing. Think of one of your favorite indies, and try checking to see if they’ve made a second game - many don’t even get that far.

Minority opinion, I think there’s a lot they could do for Team Fortress 3.

• Reset expectations on cosmetics to reduce flaming ghost hats
• Invent female versions of each merc and a new character/voice for Soldier’s deceased actor
• Add an unobtrusive mantling system to replace crouch jumping
• Console crossplay
• Simplify weapons by making Flare gun and Sandwich defaults for respective classes
• Retool matchmaking system

I don’t remember there being any textual dialog in the game except for a few portions of the manual, so I’m not sure what you mean with the central temple. Its main activation comes from both towers, and as someone said, the first simply requires a short trip through a forest and beating a large guard; but the second requires a VERY long path.

Valve used to do ARGs for some of their major releases. It’ll be kinda sad if there’s just not enough energy around for people to figure out their puzzle pieces here.

I’m pretty sure even if the Steam store doesn’t do it, there are tools to search Steam that can exclude tags, right?

Seems like for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle it will be under half a year.

ah yes, port the billion dollar decades old high-fidelity engine that carefully manages memory to java, a language minecraft struggled to break free from to achieve any meaningful performance or mobile porting options. thank you, no one thought of that before.

Glad to see that strikes are having an effect.

Game bundles like from Fanatical are a good start. You can’t return them if you have issues, but they’re great if you haven’t played any of the offerings given.

A similar thing would be Xbox Game Pass, but that very much locks you into their ecosystem, and they’re clearly done investing into worthwhile games.

I have not played Sekiro, but I have played an indie knockoff called Kanagi Usagi, so I’m basing my understanding on that.

From how it felt, the health bars are a decoration and the real boss health is poise. I get what they were going for, but it causes a lot of stress for any interruption like healing or long enemy attacks that cause their poise to regenerate, feeling like your effort and time was wasted.

A game I liked better in every respect was Another Crab’s Treasure. You build poise even just by hold-blocking, but your “shield” is a limited resource; one you can choose to invest in with RES. It keeps the idea of encouraging you to keep pressure, by building poise damage on regular attacks, but also punishes you for dodge-rolling as a default for every attack (you’ll never get a “capsize”). And, you still get the reward factor of parries if you release block at the perfect time.

And yeah, ACT is a bit easier; but I’d say its chosen level of difficulty made it a more enjoyable game.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth looks really good. I can’t wait until it’s done so I can play it.

Another Crab’s Treasure is a cute, fun, cartoony soulslike game where you play as a hermit crab whose shell has been stolen! He heads out on an adventure to get it back.