Yeah those microtransactions didn’t lead to gambling, they are gambling.

Gambling aimed at minors via that lootbox shit was a thing even before videogames - earliest example I’m aware of are baseball cards. Our failure to legislate that shit into the grave at day 1 is why we’re in this situation now.

λ λ λ

HyperX Cloud Alpha is the most comfortable I’ve used - could wear those all day, no pressure points. Sound quality is fantastic, largely due to the closed-back design.

And if you’re not already familiar with the difference between open- and closed-back headphones, definitely learn it! Something not often discussed in headset articles is how YOU sound when wearing them. It’s a bit weird to describe, but you ofc hear yourself when you speak, and something that alters how you’re supposed to sound can be jarring as fuck.

The you sound when you speak without having anything on your head or in your ears, would be most comparable to open-back headphones.

If you plug your ears and then speak, you’ll sound weird, and hearing yourself sound weird can make speaking feel weird.

…idk if I’m doing a good job putting this to words. For real, just stick your fingers in your ears and start saying a few sentences, you’ll hear what I mean.

I did NOT know the difference when I got my HyperX’s, and it took a while to get used to speaking with them on. Had I known the difference, I probably would have looked for an open-back model instead. I love em now, but again it did take a bit to get there.

I’ll update with links when I’m on my comp next (mobile now), but a few off the top of my head:

Portal 1 and 2. It’s so popular that it doesn’t seem like it even can be ‘unique’, but the game play really is one of a kind, and it’s pretty great.

Enderal - total conversion mod for Skyrim, but in the steam store as it’s own game. It’s got familiar combat and game mechanics, but the antagonists aren’t your typical big-bad-evil-guy, but things like emotions, mental states, and philosophies. Somehow they managed to work that kind of content into a fantasy RPG… it’s a fucking masterpiece, and it’s free if you have Skyrim in your library already (it uses Skyrim’s assets and engine, but is not related to Elder Scrolls in any way).

Zelda Majora’s Mask, for the N64. This game is fucking weird, even by the Zelda franchise’s standards. Every scene is bizarre in a way that other games haven’t hit before or since Zelda MJ. It’s built around the Kübler-Ross 5 stages of grief; it never draws attention to that, but guides you through them beautifully.

Secret World Legends. Technically an MMO, but treat it like a single player RPG - the MMO elements are shit. This game will have you running all over the globe to basically do Men In Black shit, but instead of aliens, it’s occult weirdness, and things like urban legends that turn out to be true. Heavy Lovecraftian influence. One of the more challenging parts of the game are investigative missions, which I’d encourage you to give a solid effort before turning to the web for answers. The objectives can be something like “investigate the murder of John Doe” …and that’s it. You have to tackle it the same way you would IRL, so you’d go to places that make sense like a police station or town hall. It doesn’t tell you, which makes it probably the most intellectually challenging games I’ve ever played. If you dive in, you’ll need to choose a faction when you make your character: and trust me in this, choose Illuminati. The story writing is way better than the other two for their faction-specific missions; and the rest of the game doesn’t change by faction (you’ll be in the same zones, grouping and working together with players in other factions; there’s just a few off-shoots of solo faction story time)

Maybe you should reevaluate what you projected?

Most of my Steam library is shit I have no intention of ever playing. I’ve bought a TON of bundles that contain one game I actually want that justifies the entire purchase; one or two that look like they have some potential, so I’ll bookmark them for a rainy day; and like 15 digital turds that I now have the key to, so… why not, might as well activate.

The ‘unplayed math’ is comically bad in my case.

Never said that either. Y’all are great at refuting the words you put into my mouth… maybe try a little less strawman?

When did I say I was furious? Or that I couldn’t come to grips with the mechanics? Or that I couldn’t treat the game as it is? I adapted to ER just fine, and made it to the Malenia fight waiting for the game to rise up to bar the community holds it at. I ‘got gud’, but the game never actually got fun, cuz it never stopped being clunky.

If you find satisfaction in managing the clunk, more power to ya - clunk away. But it’s not my cup of tea.

Idk why folks get so defensive for that game… just in this thread, we’ve post after post getting all heated about how it’s not clunky because [describes how or why it’s clunky]. It’d be like the Minecraft community getting up in flames if I said I didn’t like it because it’s pixelated, and jumping to the defense of their infallible title against such heresy, explaining how it’s not pixelated, the aesthetic was chosen on purpose and carefully made that way!! …vs just advising against playing games that look like Minescraft… because it’s pixelated.

enjoy missing out on the nier titles, the devil may cry series, every fable game, kingdom hearts, the whole god of war franchise, asura’s wrath, and the new final fantasies

Yeah none of those are really on my radar. Fable maybe, for nostalgia sake - played the hell out of the first one when I was in highschool, but haven’t touched the franchise since. I don’t recall getting the impression that it was clunky in the way ER is, but definitely so in other ways… though I wouldn’t hold a game from 2004 up to today’s standards; the entire industry was janky as fuck then.

The rules will not change just because you refuse to learn them.

Bruh that’s what mods are for, hence my first post here. Don’t like something about a game? Change it. Idk if there’s one that can mod the clunk out of ER, but if I get the itch to revisit that world via a more fluid combat experience, then that’ll be high on the to-do list.

It’s standard practice.

In many cases, yes.

In fighting games, monster hunter, and a bunch of other games, really similar rules apply

…which makes those games clunky. I disliked monster hunter for the exact same reason.

Your take is uninformed and you obviously don’t play much of the genre

I don’t play much of the genre… because it’s clunky. I’m sorry that description offends you.

Making you commit to moves when you make them isn’t clunky.

What is it?

It’s cool if you don’t mind the clunk; apparently it’s a selling point… but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.

I understand the reasoning behind it all, but those design decisions add up to it being clunky. Being intentional and with purpose doesn’t change that.

Which stats? I put over 100 hours into ER if that’s what you’re looking for. Like I said, I really wanted to like it, and ‘got gud’ (learned to time the control’s clunkiness) enough to progress a decent way through the game. But it never actually got fun, nor did it live up to the wildly positive feedback it was getting from the gaming community. ER is an okay game. 5/10. It’s not bad by any stretch, but it’s not the posterchild of a perfect game that it was/is lauded as.

It’s been a while, but I recall most attacks having an obnoxiously long animation, and that animation being set in stone once you trigger it. There is no aborting a sword-swing midway through to dodge or block. And if you make the mistake of pressing the attack button twice, apparently there’s a built-in ability queue that can’t be disabled, so you have to wait for the first animation to completely play through, then wait again for a second animation to play from start to finish.

It makes it extremely unresponsive. That unresponsiveness seems to be what most folks are talking about when they’re applauding the game’s “difficulty”… but you could make any game that flavor of difficult by obstructing the controls.

I really wanted to like ER. It’s fucking beautiful and seems to have a lot of depth, but the a appeal to difficulty doesn’t really hold any water, cuz the only thing that makes it difficult is unnecessarily clunky controls.

Maybe there’s a mod or something now that makes the combat more fluid… I should give it another visit.

I deleted my reddit when they backstabbed their 3rd party app devs. Came to Lemmy around the same time - have had no reason to look back. You’ll love it here!

I know Bethesda has been historically pretty chill with modders… but every time I see an update on Skyblivion I worry they’re gonna pull a Nintendo and fuck the whole project.

I sent a tip to SureAI after I finished Enderal, cuz it was fucking amazing, free, and didn’t have any bs like microtransactions.

But for a game I purchase normally? Naw bro, I tipped enough with that initial purchase.

DLC expansion mod

Redundancy is redundant because of the redundance.

Well, here’s hoping.

Witcher III sets a pretty fucking high bar, and Cyberpunk doesn’t leave me with much faith that CDPR still has the chops.

Cautiously looking forward to it.

Addictive and entertaining are synonyms now?