Proper spatial audio, ie not the DSP effect that upconverts stereo, but something like Atmos or DTS:X that’s sending object based audio to an arbitrary number of speakers, does sound better to me on headphones in the few games that support it. The only game where use it regularly that I can think of is MSFS, but it does sound better than headphone stereo. You do have to pay Dolby to use it, or buy headphones that come with it, however. Sounds best on my 5.1 home theater, but also does a good job with binaural headphone output.

This is funny looking.

The people clamoring for traditional FPS flashlight took a lot away from the horror aspect. Being forced to choose between flashlight or weapon was great, sometimes I’d just be seeing from the muzzle flash. Having the flashlight and gun simultaneously ruined this deliberate disempowerment.

I played the shit out of this when it was released, really enjoyed it. Getting stoned and playing it in the dark on my Viewsonic P95f+ CRT was an absolutely blast.

Glad the article mentions Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay because that was a really dope game of the same era that I rarely see mentioned.

You can already walk around in the cabin in 2020 by translating the camera.

Forza Motorsport is a huge disappointment. Even if the graphics are fixed, the single player content is shockingly thin, and increased graphics settings won’t fix the bad models, unrealistic track details, terrible sound, or numerous bugs.

It just felt like 1 but worse.

I don’t disagree, but I still liked it much more than Infinite. I didn’t care for the art style of Infinite, the social commentary didn’t land for me, and the guns weren’t fun to use. I know a lot of people liked it, but it wasn’t for me. It’s been a long time so maybe I need to revisit it.

The comment about steam deck makes sense, I also see it’s got achievements. Just curious who would use it, as it’s been free for a long time. One of the first open sourced games I remember. Great games, aside from some torturous level design, thanks for posting. Added it to my library anyways.

Marathon has been free and open source for 20 years. Is there any reason to use this over Aleph One?

I really didn’t care for the changes made to Bioshock Infinite to make it appeal to a wider base. I got maybe a third into it and stopped. Loved Bioshock 1 & 2 though.

Had a lot of fun with both Horizon 4 & 5, great mix of arcade and sim. Tons of cars, just about everything is viable. Lots of accessibility options, should be a good fit for just about anyone.

Forza Motorsport (2023) on the other hand is a massive disappointment. Avoid. Driving dynamics are good and more simmy, but everything else is a downgrade from its 7 year old predecessor. Kind of amazing how terrible it is. Apparently Microsoft had developers constantly rotating out on short contracts and it shows.

I’ve got >1000 hours in Microsoft Flight Simulator and I paid $100 for the deluxe edition. 10 cents an hour, at most.

Shazbot!

Early 00s was AMDs time to shine. It was the later 00s when they began to languish.

Check what preset is mapped in the controller configuration page. I’ve had it revert to the default map before, but the old preset was still saved.

15GB sounds about right for missing a few months. IMO, that’s a relatively small update. I’ve got a ~400GB install with all world updates installed, and another ~400GB of third party mods on top of that. 15GB is about the space for a single study level airliner with no liveries and a couple of handcrafted airports. This is not particularly out of the ordinary compared to the other pilots in my virtual airline. It’s a big game with big mods, people want very high resolution textures, detailed models, and high fidelity sounds.

Fair enough, I can see how that would be annoying. In my experience, the updates have been substantial and worth the download; the added handcrafted airports, updated scenery/city scans, and vastly expanded activities more than makes up for the 20 minutes I spend a month to update the game. XPlane might be more up your alley in terms of fewer forced updates but the VFR flying isn’t as stunning as MSFS to me. For airliners, it’s on par for the most part.

Can’t say this mirrors my experience either. Taildraggers were working fine at launch and are better now with the recent ground handling update. ATC issues taxi instructions based on the scenery files and I’ve not found missing airports save for some tiny private grass strips. I haven’t found a missing towered airport. Real world charts work just fine, a Navigraph subscription is one of the top paid addons to use up to date IRL charts.

If it’s not a complete sim, what is? XPlane has slightly better flight dynamics, ground handling, and replays, but that’s about it. MSFS is at least on par everywhere else.

I’ve been playing this since release and that’s not my experience at all. There’s no pointless updates, the post launch support for this game is top tier. We’ve gotten consistent updates for years now, and the amount of content they’ve added to a non-subscription game is unmatched in my experience.

I’m surprised to see this at the top comment.

“If you were an F22 fighter jet in Doom Eternal, this time around we wanted you to feel like an Abrams tank.” […] ”You’re heavier, more powerful, and grounded,” he says. “We’re making strafing-to-aim a thing again. You’ll be weaving between projectiles, just like you did in the original Doom, to deliver that Super Shotgun blast to the chest… It almost creates this three-dimensional 'shoot ‘em up’ puzzle that you’re weaving your way through.”

Hell yes. I’m still going to be cautious with my hype but this sounds like what I want. I know many people liked the acrobatics of Eternal but it was not for me.

I didn’t say “Eternal is a bad game”, I said “I don’t like it”. Don’t conflate the two. It’s just my feelings towards the game, I realize many others like it. I don’t care for the changes they made.

Mick Gordon did the Doom soundtrack. Mike Gordon is the bassist for Phish, but that would be a funny combination.