This is one of many reasons why I’ve been trying to buy physical PC games lately.

I found a boxed copy of the GTA Trilogy recently. It was for Mac, and had probably been sitting on a shelf in some office supply store for 15 years. I don’t even have a Mac, but I bought it since I figured that, not only would it be the original, non-remade version, but it should (hopefully) have the original music as well.

I haven’t opened it yet. I’ll probably post a thread here when I do. Maybe it’ll run in a virtual machine.

Same. And especially for a live service game, it’s just gone. If someone made some great 3D models and animations for an offline game, even if the game doesn’t sell very well, their work is still out there. But with a live service game, that’s just it. No one else gets to see it for more than a few days.

I also hate the fact that the dev studio will face the consequences of this, while whatever braindead exec with a master’s in bullshit administration will probably still be employed.

But at the same time… I can’t help but enjoy the spectacular failures of these anti-consumer products lately.

Man, AnandTech came from the earlier type of Internet, where independent media outlets were fully in control of their own presence on the web. (E.g. they were not a YouTube channel.) Even though they weren’t still independent for a while now (purchased by a publishing company in 2014), I’m sad to see one of the originals go.

I was watching a livestream of this game’s reveal trailer. The chat was excited at first during the cinematic trailer. Sure, it looked like a Malt-O-Meal Guardians of the Galaxy, but it still looked like it could be fun. Then as soon as they said “5 v 5 live service game” there was a giant, collective “oh nevermind lol” from the chat.

As someone who is not familiar with the Animal Crossing series, I first read this as Assassin’s Creed: New Hampshire.

I love when anti-progressive people “take a stand” against California by moving to Texas, and then they move to the most famously progressive city in Texas.

Austin: For those who are stupid enough to relocate based on culture war bullshit, but not stupid enough to think that you’re hiring software developers and creatives out in the boonies.

I swear on the soul of my father, Stardew Montoya, you will get all DLC for one price.

This article brings up a great point.

In addition, I’ve always thought that video games work the way we were told the world worked. (At least, the way we were told it worked in the 90s in America.) Work hard to get some resources so that you can use those resources to build more stuff to get more resources, etc.

Kids today can work as hard as they want, only to still have no chance of paying for college and still have no chance of buying a house. Video games at least provide that “strategy -> effort -> reward -> next level” cycle that our brains find very rewarding, which, for far too many people, does not exist in real life.

That’s probably what makes modern games so disappointing, too. Games were one area that actually was a meritocracy… until pay-to-win messed that up.

Sonic and Dr. Robotnik are codependent. They don’t actually want to defeat each other. That’s why Robotnik is always building these elaborate bases that, for some reason, have a bunch of perfectly Sonic-sized tubes for getting around in. And it’s why there’s always that moment at the end where Sonic is chasing Robotnik but doesn’t catch him.

Cool! I’m not a hardcore sim racing fan, but I got a little into them when I realized that you can play them without a wheel if you use the gyroscope in a PS5 controller for steering. It’s not perfect, but it’s accurate enough to play these games that are otherwise unplayable with an analog stick.

BTW if anyone is reading this and thinks you might want to try it, Assetto Corsa is two dollars on the Steam sale right now. It came out a while ago, but there are graphics mods that make it look nice. https://store.steampowered.com/app/244210/Assetto_Corsa/

This might not be exactly what you’re looking for, but Neon White is one of my favorite games of the last few years, and it’s on the Switch. I played on PC, but I haven’t seen any complaints about the Switch version.

I don’t really know if I’d call if a first person shooter. It’s more like a first person platformer and you have to shoot some targets before completing the level. Levels are very, very short, and you’ll replay them many times to shave a fraction of a second off of your time.

It could’ve been the first YAAA YAAA YAAA YAAA YAAA game. Instead, it’s just an AAA game, and I’m probably going to skip it. :(

Thank you! Was just about to ask if there were any suggestions for someone who had never played the original.

Yeah, it definitely needs trackpads that are easy to reach in order to be a Steam Deck controller. (And I’m saying “easy to each” because the awkwardly placed Playstation touchpad doesn’t count.)

I’m curious about this part, though:

Gyro in the “Steam mode”. With the sticks having a touch sensor too.

That sounds like an advantage over a Playstation or Switch controller. I’m guessing that means you could enable the gyro just by touching the analog stick, without having to press a button. That’s like what most people did on the Steam controller, where the gyro would enable when you touched the trackpad.

I’m guessing GP was referring to the fact that the DRM-free download store is partnering with a “you don’t actually own this” streaming service. As long as it’s optional, I don’t have an issue with it, and the word ironic doesn’t necessarily imply that its a negative.

This may not work out the way I want it to, but I’m actually a little excited about these tech companies making a bunch of anti-consumer decisions all at once. So many mainstream users will be looking for alternatives, and it’s going to provide a great opportunity for non-profit open source projects. It’s already happening with the fediverse suddenly becoming a viable place for discussion in the last 1.5 years. After Windows Recall was announced, I’ve seen more people talking about switching to Linux than ever before. Part of me can’t wait for unskippable Youtube ads.

I’ve never been excited for DLC before, but Street Fighter 6 adding Terry and Mai, from King of Fighters, was very unexpected. I think that was my favorite.

I’ve been playing Capcom vs. SNK 2 whenver I have a few minutes to spare these days: https://saltylike.us/@tuckerm/112482256002789207.

Aw, I was looking forward to this one. But also, meh, my unplayed backlog is huge.

I’m gonna put on my casual-observer-business-analyst hat real quick: it seems weird that Sony is making so many decisions that they know will piss off customers with their brand lately. Microsoft has been striking out hard with underwhelming exclusives, whereas at least Sony has had a few hits. Sony could take advantage of that and use this generation to crush the Xbox brand pretty hard. The payoff would be huge later on.

Business execs always fancy themselves as military generals; I’m sure they’ve heard that Napoleon quote, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Instead, they seem to be taking advantage of Microsoft’s blunders to just knowingly make their own blunders.

Like, even from a cutthroat business exec mindset, there is a profit-motivated reason to just chill out with the anti-consumer stuff right now. Your biggest competitor has been absolutely unloading a clip into their own foot for like two years. Quit drawing attention to yourself.

I think the the previous post was sarcasm. :)

Their Infinitybook models – both the 14 and 16 inch – disappeared from their site recently. It was their slim, lightweight model, and I thought that was their flagship computer, too. I’m wondering if the Stellaris Slim is the new Infinitybook, or if there’s a new Infinitybook coming that they haven’t announced yet.