Checks link preview

Gee, I must not’ve played that game.

Opens article

Oh.

I couldn’t get into it, but I do have several dozen hours on X4 :)

Legendary game, only thing that comes close to M&B Warband as a sandbox IMO (shoutouts to Daggerfall)

If anything, media made for a malleable audience with low critical-thinking skills should be held to a higher standard, not lower. I still remember how much I loved The Hobbit as a child. Even at the age kids don’t remember stuff, you still set the groundwork for the rest of their lives. The argument insults kids and betrays the speaker’s low opinion of them.

It’s a shame discourse is still stuck where it was when SWSH came out. I hope the fandom can move forward some day and accept that a billion-dollar franchise isn’t immune from critique.

There was so much other controversy with that game that I didn’t even hear about the AI. Gross.

WE’RE RICH!

It’s not just about dopamine/cope either. Knowing that people saw the state of the world they lived in, and came together to make good art anyway, is good for the soul. It reminds us that there is still good in the world worth fighting for.

It’s easy to forget that when algorithms show us the worst and stupidest of humanity every day for peak engagement.

Does it work if you install the PCSX2 flatpak from Software Manager? I haven’t tried it myself yet, but this page may help and has more detail about the installation methods:

https://pcsx2.net/docs/setup/linux/

How they treated professional Melee and especially Project M was the moment I realized Nintendo was just another out-of-touch company. So many indie devs would kill for fans that passionate, let alone a modding scene that robust. Nintendo threw it all away.

Edit: and that ignores the graveyard of fan games Nintendo has killed. AM2R, Pokémon Uranium…

Love me some Cave Story!

Very true. Sadly game dev is a risky endeavor at the best of times. Steam/other storefronts are very noisy environments for devs with little spare change for marketing. On the flipside, digital distribution and storefronts mean that it’s way more feasible to self-publish than it was twenty or thirty years ago. At least, as far as I’m aware. I know there were standouts like Cave Story in the early days.

Some YouTube videos came out that launched both into wider discussion. Both never had proper sequels or successors, so they stand as unique experiences even twenty years later. I don’t say this to diss modern Bethesda, but that they are both distinct enough from Oblivion and Skyrim to have staying power in their niches.

Daggerfall Unity makes that game playable and smooth on modern hardware, and Morrowind modding projects like Tamriel Rebuilt and Project Tamriel (just released an Anvil expansion!) bring in new and old fans alike. OpenMW does for Morrowind what Unity does for Daggerfall, although stock GOTY Morrowind still runs fine IIIRC.

AAA may be all but dead, (so far gone that even E3 died) but indies have been in a perpetual golden age since Shovel Knight and Undertale came out. And if boomer shooters and Morrowind/Daggerfall can have a modern renaissance, it can happen to other games/genres too.

In my experience with TF2, many popular community servers have common-sense rules like no slurs, cheats, etc. The great thing about a player-run server is that, if you want, it can be stricter than official guidelines, as Valve for example is pretty hands-off beyond the obvious in-game cheats. It allows pockets of the community to shape the experience they want to have more adeptly than official servers ever could.

They were going to implement “harsher” (read: more invasive) anti-cheat at some point, but it never happened as development stalled. Some say the devs are lazy, but I think it’s just the classic feature creep that cripples passion projects with zero oversight. Star Citizen is the highest profile example, although I think the feature creep is part of its appeal to a lot of people. So that might be an imperfect example.

Deep Rock Galactic is still actively developed, so there is hope. An indie titanfall-like is in early development too. If boomer shooters can have a revival, so can classic multiplayer…

I also blame the broken sound update, and the focus on class balance changes over new weapons and maps. Even when they did make new maps, they’d often be overhauling a bad, but fun map into a fine, but generic map (new Basra). Imagine if Valve “fixed” 2fort or Dustbowl. I think it’s that bad, given old Basra’s ridiculous sniper battles were a highlight for me.

Was it unbalanced? Absolutely. But it was stupid fun and something no other game had. The choke point in the middle was just a big mosh pit, but it was so much fun because of how people used proximity chat. Helicoptering over the carnage while someone played 70’s rock over radio was part of why that game went viral.

I know the map isn’t removed from the pool entirely, but it speaks to a design philosophy I personally disagree with. Having a couple “bad” but funny maps are more important than having a bunch of okay generic maps. New Wakistan looks to be making the same mistakes (if it’s ever released).

This ended up being long. I played for a couple hundred hours, so I guess I’m passionate about it :).

If you want to try an FPS, the original Half-Life is amazing (if visually dated), and was designed to ease the player into the experience as opposed to something like Doom or Dusk that throws you into the action without any tutorials. I’m biased though, Half-Life is my favorite FPS of all time lol.

It goes on sale for around $2 regularly, which is a nice bonus. I second the Portal and Stardew recommendations of others too.

Shot in the dark, but does running the Windows software in Wine work?

Star Wars: Empire at War is a classic with more nontraditional gameplay and light 4x elements (no diplomacy). The modding scene is rich too, with Thrawn’s Revenge for the EU and multiple Clone Wars mods.