I liked Starfield (I even 100%ed the achievements on Steam). I also loved No Man’s Sky long before the shift in pubic sentiment towards it, so maybe I’m just weird. But if you’re reading this and thinking “this guy wouldn’t know a good game if it shat a voxel-based turd onto his chest”, you’re WRONG. I also loved MindsEye. So there.

Sandra, cancel my 1 o’clock.

I don’t think it’s necessary, even from a story perspective (the game does a great job of filling in the blanks for you). It’s definitely worth playing Portal 1 though, it’s a fantastic game with perfect design even nearly 20 years later. I mean apart from engine and graphics tech, I don’t think the game could be improved upon much. Same is true for Portal 2.

Another thing about Portal 1’s story is that it’s barely there at all. Almost all of it is incidental to the puzzles, and the story that is there is either passive exposition from the antagonist, or some very minimal environmental stuff. With that in mind, you could easily get yourself up to speed on the story going into Portal 2 just by glancing at a one or two paragraph summary, maybe with a couple of screenshots (you could probably convey everything in the story in one sentence if you’re creative with the punctuation). Portal 2’s story is much more fleshed out and interesting, though.

Portal 1 is so old and undemanding that you could probably run it smoothly inside a VM even on a meagre PC. I don’t know what OS you’re running, but I presume it’s not Windows?

This is also true for psychiatric or neurological issues. For example:

https://lemmy.world/post/38035805

We’re truly just one dude in 8 billion trench coats.

Won’t it be kinda strange for gamers who buy a game and find that none of the characters look like the ones on the Steam storefront? 👀 Many of these characters are legendary and have been in long-running serieseses, imagine booting up the latest Uncharted game only to find that Burt Reynolds is the main character now, all because you turned on DLSS.

Downright disrespectful of the artistic toil that goes into perfecting characters, lighting, colour grading, etc. Like maybe there was an artistic choice made to not have the character look like an AI ad for an AI-generated OnlyFans model?

It used to be a tool to gain FPS while retaining graphical fidelity. Now it’s aiming to be a full-on infidel; replacing art to the extent that it’s barely recognisable. What will DLSS 8 be like?

You can still do this. There’re loads of free and basic (i.e. easy-to-learn) game engines and you can make games of much better quality with the same effort. itch.io is full of free games made by amateurs.

When people celebrate the downfall of Flash, it’s not because of the games. It’s because the entire internet was replete with unnecessary Flash-heavy bullshit that required constantly updating your browser’s Flash plugins (and all browsers had their own version you had to install and update), and how it was completely unsuited to any sort of UI/UX (e.g. you couldn’t even copy and paste text in Flash pages most of the time). And all that is to say nothing of the gaping goatse of a security hole that it was.

It was cancer. Just because the cancer got you down to your goal weight, it doesn’t mean you should lament the success of your chemotherapy.

Welp, looks like I’ll need to get myself a PS5 then.

Said no cunt ever

‘Steam Store Front’ should be shortened to ‘Stormfront’. At least then no one would be shocked when they discover it’s teeming with illiterate bigots.

All I can suggest is that you report and block as much as you can. If there’s a game, like Relooted, that’s a bug light for scumbags, go to its forums when you have 10 minutes free and just report the shitstains you come across. Steam does take action sometimes.

My parents paid about that much for a SNES copy of Earthworm Jim back in the mid-90s. It was disgusting then and it’s disgusting now, despite the fact that, adjusted for inflation, that would be £140 today. I mean I don’t feel like we’re getting a 50% discount when a game costs 70 fuckin’ quid nowadays.

There’s really no reason to spend that anyway, not on PC at least. IsThereAnyDeal.com and the slightly questionable loaded.com (formerly cdkeys.com) give decent discounts even on day one (and Steam itself will eventually have it on sale, of course). Loaded isn’t like G2A, which is a credit card thief’s wonderland. It’s more like when your uncle Jim crosses the border with 40 cartons of cigarettes secreted in the wheel wells of his truck because they cost 400% less over there. I can live with that level of mischief when it comes to AAA games that take the absolute piss with their prices and their hostage DLCs. EA, Ubisoft and Rockstar have not caused me a millisecond of lost sleep when I get their games for £3 six months after release from a code that was originally bundled with a new GPU. With how extremely easy it is to pirate games (something I haven’t done in nearly 20 years), I don’t feel like those larger AAA companies are meeting us half way, to say the fucking least.

If saving 5 bucks on your grocery bill is the thing that keeps your head above water… you’re probably already deep enough to meet the ghost of that OceanGate CEO.

They’re banking on severe vendor lock-in preventing people from moving on. So many communities are solely on Discord now, it’s insane.

Would something like Stoat (previously known as Revolt) eventually have the same requirements?

I need action. I need constant chaos in my life to feel content.

This is the sound of deep, deep, profound, deep insecurity chasing a man down a never-ending alleyway peppered with neon signs that say “Unattractive to Women?”, “Easily Bullied By Other Men?”, “GAY???”

I hope he does serious prison time for his crimes, because it will be extra enjoyable knowing that it’s literally the worst place he could ever find himself. No escaping one’s own mind in that place.

Because ‘Headquarters 69’ would be too cringe, fr fr no cap.

be on the wrong side of history speedrun

That pizza cutter feels almost racist in this context 😆 If Luigi was named Paddy Murphy, would he have brought a potato masher instead?

At least they have an AI-free option, as annoying as it is to have to opt into it.

On a related note, it’s hilarious to me that the Ecosia search engine has AI built in. Like, I don’t think planting any number of trees is going to offset the damage AI has done and will do to the planet.

In any other business, having 6 simultaneous failed projects would be cause for dismissal of the CEO and probably the majority of the management staff. If I owned or had a large amount of shares in a company where this happened, I would not be a happy chappy. But I’m assuming the Ubisoft upper echelons are patting themselves on the back for their business acumen and financial savviness, already penning their bonuses into their calendars.

Meanwhile, regular workers are dropped like pubic lice the minute it’s convenient to do so.

Parasites.

You need to work pretty hard to make FIFA embarrassed about anything.

Evil. Gimme a better term and I’ll use it. But for now: evil.

Gavin: So, Supersemite Palestine Crusher, welcome. Can I call you Ben for short? OK, so Ben; what’s the deal with all these transes that they have now?? Have you seen them? There’s gotta be literally tens of them out there at this point. It’s out of control.

Ben: Renée Good tried to fly her car into the Israeli Embassy and it was only the quick reactions of that ICE officer that prevented 9/11 2.0.

Saved you 90 minutes 😴