#2) they're a pc player and not a console player

[nekrosmos]

My Dragon's Dogma GhostSoap adventure is going very well so far

Soap's ID is GOYDPVCBNSEZ for anyone interested !

[dragonagepolls]

@avgmagetrev

[osakanone]

The steel battalion controller could fix me. Some company needs to make specialty mech controllers so i dont have to spend £350 on 2003 hardware (so i can spend £350 on 2025 hardware).

Mech game Controllers: Solving the unsolvable

I have put so much time into thinking about this and you've basically asked the perfect question.

I think there are really complex and important questions that nobody really has a good robust answer to but also that nobody is really asking those big questions in the first place either, so we're stuck on this issue.

My take is I genuinely think if we want big mecha controllers we have to think about this stuff deeply and profoundly. Like, why we need them and what they're for.

So… This has been tried many times.

NOK or NextOfKin Creatives did try this.

The Mek-Fu lopped horribly, and I was absoloutely fascinated by this at the time and wanted to understand exactly why it had failed. I think we must learn from this failure, so we don't make the same mistakes again.

The lesson I took from Mek-Fu was this: it didn't take because players had nothing to use it in where it was the best fit.

What does this mean?

1) For other games in the real world, it was inferior to keyboard and mouse in games which do not simulate a vehicle. 2) The design wasn't trying to meet some sort of pre-existing need from other games. 3) Steel Battalion emulation did not exist meaningfully yet, and in turn no equivalent game existed on the PC platform which would need it.

Therefor: There was no special environment where its employment made the best sense.

It had nowhere to excel and thrive.

So where have specialty controllers existed, and thrived?

Digital Combat Sim (DCS)

Star Citizen

Euro Truck Simulator

Farming Simulator

What do they all have in common?

They all have robust modding tools for user-created content

They all have some form of social experience or multiplayer

They all are highly accessible (PC, and are controller agnostic*)

They are all sandboxes in some capacity and let users find their own fun.

No mech game which exists at time of writing meets all these terms that I know of.

So what do these controllers look like?

In the case of real vehicles, you can simply ape the real vehicle 1:1, but for fictional vehicles, something special happens -- you see people approach and try to solve the problem in many different ways.

You see, control design in any area exists to solve a problem. The Mek Fu (a response to the VT controller) was a solution looking for a problem, and no problem existed.

From this, we learn that for specialty mech controllers to exist, you first need specialty mech games. Steel Battallion is limited, because it won't run on general hardware and doesn't network or mod easily so it isn't a good fit for this because it makes the game inaccessible and limited.

Let's actually think about the SB controller for a bit:

Steel Battalion approaches its problem from the standpoint of a robot. You might not realize this but a VT or Vertical Tank intentionally controls very similarly to a tractor.

It is influenced by a real thing. I know that sounds absurd, but let me show you what a modern tractor's task control console looks like:

Yeah, not what any of us would have expected.

If you wanna be a mech pilot in 2025, go drive a tractor. I'm not kidding.

Once you're on the field, your hands aren't on the wheel, they're on this thing:

The big stick controls the course in the computer, the little one controls your tool, the many buttons toggle states (or what the little stick is currently triggering) and through these inputs you drive the tractor.

Steel Battalion is very fun, but it won't hold your attention for more than around 100 hours unless you're a real freak about tractors and just don't know it yet.

What's more, Steel Batallion isn't playable to anybody without the controller which limits how many people will be playing it and it isn't social or moddable like the successful games we talked about earlier.

Okay, so what can we do about this?

I think the one feature here that nobody talks about is that of input-agnosticism: The ability to bind your own inputs to something in the game (directly or indirectly through some middle thing) and get good results… But not in some hugely "okay bind 100 things using our controller, or use a keyboard and mouse" binary.

The binary is still not input-agnosticism, and it still will not work.

It has to be granular.

Input agnosticism results in controller agnosticism:

You can bind as much or as little as you want, and you can pass features you don't want to bind directly to a helper subsystem middle-man like an assistant or instructor which will perform limited tasks for you - while you provide the helpers context by telling them which of a limited set of goals you want to achieve.

Say, face a target, or a direction, or aim at a thing. It saves you mental time, though if you did it manually you might get better results (incentivising you towards experimenting in that direction).

Let's touch on why controller agnostic design is really what's needed here, and why its important:

This is the omnithrottle, and and this is the Sublight Dynamics 6dof joystick.

The Omnithrottle tries to solve 6dof throttle management by adding an extra piece to a joystick at the bottom, turning the yaw z-axis-twist of the stick into a sort of vertical axis for direct up and down movement, ascending and descending.

The Sublight Dynamics 6dof joystick combines all six axis into a single device, and is an interesting experiment. I particularly like the puck switches ahead of the user's fingers, inspired likely by Evangelion which in turn was inspired by Sol Bianca's use of them.

We got great lessons in human factors for space dogfighting from both:

The omnithrottle produces huge fatigue if you use it in coupled mode (software assisted flight), because you have to hold the joystick base forward, fighting the springs. This is fine in decoupled mode (where you coast under newtonian force) but not everybody uses it. Likewise, if you remove that spring, you lose fine movement because you can no longer feel where the middle is anymore.

The SD6DOF creates a conflict in Fitt's law (speed and precision are enemies of each-other, and to get both you need a tool in the middle to help you) where some precision is lost due to the same muscles needing to drive more axis at once.

These are both many years old now, and over time we've seen many many solutions to this problem flop.

Well, VKB announced the Space Throttle Grip a few days ago, which rethinks the distribution of axis and combines the best features of both.

The key thing is, this is an evolutionary space with competing ideas. A healthy ecosystem.

And its only possible because the game's inputs are controller agnostic.

This doesn't just mean that it'll let you bind any input device directly to things, but that there are multiple ways to achieve your desired outcomes even on the software side with the helper middleman we talked about (in this case, coupling modes).

Does your machine turn to face an arbitrary vector which is the thing you actually steer or select (Warthunder)? Do you have direct input control? Do you haven an autopilot?

Here's a lecture by F22 Raptor test-pilot Randy Gordon talking about some of this stuff, giving you a frame of reference with a real vehicle which exists.

When you can pick between those goals them, you have what's called "a software" in human factors. Your two grips become arbitrary and are now called inceptors.

The software drives the machine, and you drive the software. You can override the software and provide a manual input, but the other elements you are not overriding will try to compensate to maintain a desired state. If you know how to manipulate this, it means you only need a small number of axis to achieve a very complex control action.

A great example is how long you hold the A-button in Mario changes how much power his jump has. The action is a versatile verb.

Imagine a person balancing. If their goal is to stay upright, and I push them, they translate across the ground and try to stay the right way up, turning that push force into horizontal force. They are following an instruction: remain upright.

If I make that person carry a very heavy thing, they compensate their body's balance accordingly. If I then use my finger and tell them to act as if I am pushing them with that gentle motion, they will respond but if they go too far they can say "hey, don't do that, I'll drop the heavy thing!" and ignore my pushing instruction -- because my directive telling them to remain upright superseded it.

We need to think of mecha in terms like these, and to do mecha, we need to make a standard of accessible rules like this which input devices can talk to via axis and buttons, with lots of middlemen.

Absolute (mouse-like) and relative (stick like) and accumiulated (driving a mouse with a stick by having a variable over time) and blended (driving a car with a d-pad with a simulated wheel that wants to return to zero all the time, replicating a stick) inputs must be middle-modes processing and digesting inputs in these ways. Curves matter. Biases and preferences must be accounted for.

This means finally solving "how" the giant robot works in software (even if its a design conceit), and then having systems which poke at the "how" to bias it in a direction toward an outcome.

My favourite version of this is a deliberately clumsy mech-game called Robot Alchemic Drive (RAD for short).

Playable on a regular PS2 controller, the triggers and bumpers drive the legs like a tank. The sticks drive the arms.

The robot's body has physics. You are controlling a thing.

There are no helpers to correct your motions other than when the robot stands up and to keep it upright (its otherwise 100% manual, playing back motion planning which gets fed into the physics) but yes, there is a simulated body here.

With helpers, this could get faster and way, way more fluent.

So how might these "helpers" in software work?

Think for example of how a body in motion continues to move. With a robot in a vacuum like space, you'd continue indefinitely. That's hard to control.

Do you automatically slow down and fake aerodynamic drag axially with your boosters to allow curved trajectories and soft stopping with a motion-control-decoupling-mode (as Star Citizen does), or do you have a breaking system a user can activate on a pedal or trigger, to apply those forces on different axis when they want them?

What are those axis bound to, the pelvis, the thorax, the head, the synthetic vision 3rd person camera?

These are really complicated questions, and this is just about how we make a vehicle come to a stop!

Now this might seem niche, but this exact same kind of thought also applies to how a robot balances, and how it digs its feet into the ground, creating torque or not situationally.

This isn't just fine grained motion like "moving our legs manually", but how and when we apply breaking force on the ground.

Do we apply it when we let go of the left stick?

Does the left stick prescribe a preferred velocity?

Does it prescribe input forces?

Do we change between these situationally, or maybe with a button?

Its important to think about these things.

"You're making this too complex!!"

"But why would we do this? What is the value? People are playing Armored Core 6 with a HOTAS!!"

Yeah, and that experience is not great, actually?

You're actually less capable than a keyboard and mouse-player, because Armored Core 6 isn't a game which simulates orientation over time (the body turns instantly as if by magic), so you're just driving relative inputs. You are literally disadvantaged.

Armored Core 6 has no "vehicle": This is an action-game's 3rd person control software. Its Elden Ring's horse, with a jetpack, and the roll replaced with a dash. Everything else is animations.

Its visually impressive, but there's something fundamentally missing:

Fahrvergnügen.

It means "driving pleasure" in German.

The feeling you get when you speed up going down hill, or you feel the give of the wheels against the road and the lean of the car when you take a corner.

When you bank against air in an aircraft, or turn faster than your velocity changes and you drift.

That good feeling, that's fahrvergnügen.

A game which really gets this I think is Armored Core: For Answer. I know many of you might have expected Mechwarrior here but the physics of Mechwarrior games are extremely simple, following an interpolative model.

Interpolative here means, a bit of calculus is used to ensure a smooth arching curve is how you go from zero to a high speed at all times, or a rotation, so on and so forth. This "smoothness" is the same smoothness present in Armored Core 6.

Armored Core For Answer on the other hand, is additive in how it calculates velocity per second, meaning your AC's velocity curve is inconsistent. The game has hidden stats calculating aerodynamic drag per part, it has a simplified model of angular momentum, and it has ground friction and its boosting system is different on each axis.

All of your inputs are analogue, including the angle of your boosters on left stick, and two booster-types: Your main booster handling like a motor-cycle throttle curve, and the other not only having many stages of output for flashes of thrust via contexts (combining motion and direction together to produce an intent) but also combos and even cancels. Its VERY sophisticated!

That's a lot of different factors to control. A lot of fahrvergnügen to be experienced when you master them, and feel ownership of them.

Lots of areas for skill expression.

This, combined with a rich weapon balance and a complex combat geometry (the emergent spatial and pressure rules of motion, aspects, angles and motions similar to the aircraft dogfighting) are why people are still playing this game today.

The match I uploaded was from four days ago, as of time of writing. People are still modding a game from 2008, limited to console by hacking the rom file's patches. Yeah.

I know among many game reviewers, "smooth" and "smoothness" is considered a compliment in game design (its easy to control), but interpolative motion really is the opposite of fahrvergnügen:

Interpolative suffers from feeling "zippy" and "hollow" when its fast, which is why lots of players and designers insist on slowing games down so they recover their fahrvergnügen.

You don't have to do things this way. A good mech sandbox should reward both fast and slow movement in its design!

There should be room for everybody to play!

In interpolative movement games, motion is already solved, to sell you the superficial power-fantasy (that you're good, despite not having learned how to be good) instead of giving you the experience.

Interpolation is insisting the burger you got at McDonalds is the same as the burger on the commercial. Like the burger at McDonalds, its also way way easier to make, and in today's market yeah, you take what's easy and known because you have economic pressures to get things done quickly.

You can't make a five star meal in a McDonalds kitchen, and the AAA games industry is the McDonalds kitchen of gaming.

So, what is a three star michelin meal, in terms of inputs, with additive movement?

You incentivise people with the cheaper stuff on the menu. That's robust helper tools which let keyboard and mouse players, or gamepads interact fluently.

Its affordable, and easy and gets people invested in your experience.

Then when people use fancy controllers, you get better response-rate. Because everybody buys into the mecha fantasy when they play, being beaten by someone who is controlling more complex control factors more directly at once (making them a better pilot) feels fairer.

They are negotiating the machine's limits better than you are.

You both know they more "an char" than you are:

It becomes aspirational, rather than annoying, which is how the culture of space-simming, and flight-sims, and other vehicle sims express this. It also fits the mecha fantasy, because those with basic controls are your grunt units.

We see this if we look at cockpit controls in Gundam: A Jegan's control inceptor is way simpler than say, Unicorn's.

It is just part of the fantasy.

So let's talk about these limits we negotiate.

It means, some kind of vehicle must be simulated in software, even if its a very simple abstraction purely enough so it feels good for players.

Also, I say "a software" or "helpers" what do I mean?

I don't just mean the simulated vehicle, but a robust modular middle system in the "player controller" part of the game simulation which interprets desired outcomes from a pilot user or operator and tries to achieve them.

Here's an example, let's talk about Armored Core's lockon system, which uses a software stack to turn your intention into an outcome in exactly this way.

Your robot's simulated sensors (radar, visual, etc) detects a list of potential targets…

Which uses camera orientation of a synthetic vision system to give you comprehensive 3d awareness to determine which target is interesting to you…

After selecting the target, it passes that information to the fire control system which computes a trajectory from its position and velocity…

This then talks to your weapons which know how fast your bullets go…

and this picks where to lead along that trajectory…

then that location is sent to the arms to execute that command…

Which then sends the state of this command chain to your HUD, so you understand what the body of your robot is currently trying to achieve.

Each step is influenced by ingame statistics and simulated mechanical limits -- meaning, how well you can lock up, or even select a target is very important.

You can't instantly put a cursor on something and bot a game, because everybody already has a deliberately limited aimbot, it came with your robot, to negotiate its deliberately limited body.

The key thing is, this is much much faster and more effective than you could as a human select the target manually and hit accurate than you could with round velocities -- with most videogames hiding this with hitscan (instantaneous bullet) weapons meaning whatever you click on is hit right away.

When the round takes time to get there, things are far more difficult. This is why almost nobody uses manual aiming unless they're throwing explosives at big bulky targets in AC.

From limitations like this, booster performance, turn-rate, and so on and so forth -- the negotiation of limits produces a combat geometry and how well you understand that combat geometry, and how well you understand your abilities to your opponents abilities dictates how the fight will go.

We see something somewhat similar in Steel Batallion with the lockon system but we also have a lot of deep manual control over our VT's orientations which change its balance and so on. Steel Batallion is in fact, one of the few games where your robot can fall over and get back up.

This is exactly how DCS and Star Citizen also work, and very similar principles apply in Eurotruck Simulator and Farming Simulator via the fuel, cooling, air, combustion cycle, and transmission, and shock absorbsion systems of your vehicle.

Okay, so now what?

I've been thinking for a while now about writing what I think would be the mech-game equivalent of the paper Tim Berners Lee wrote for the web (Information Management: A proposal) going into what I think the simulation would really need, what the software would need, what the controller would need and some suggested practical strategies for solving these problems based in real research I and others have done.

The system I've already built solves for fire control, fine arm motion, head movement, independent pelvis and foot motion, the operation of boosters and other similar systems in a 6dof environment which accounts for gravity, aerodynamics, balancing, alignment and full motion control -- all on a standard game controller. Its not modular yet, simply because I am not a skilled programmer, and would need real help to do this.

There's also game-design research here, which would ensure the combat geometry would reward skill expression via investing in that agnostic game design, so the control skill aligns with the power-fantasy through skill expression. This means no one strategy becomes overwhelming.

It likewise, also has the "for gamepad and keyboard/mouse" solve which would be needed to ensure its accessible for those who aren't ready yet for custom controllers.

In turn, it also has considerations and proposals for such likely controller designs and probable strategies of employment which of course translate and map to two big sticks, in a HOSAS (Hands on Stick and Stick) layout.

So what's your ideal controller?

Less a controller, and more a principle:

Key to the proposal is you can scale up the amount of control bindings, or scale it down passing automation to helper subsystems which take your intention and act on it in a useful way.

You could have just two plain sticks with foot pedals, or you could go ham and have some complex force feedback device with tons of inputs -- because of this input agnosticism.

The secret sauce I think to the highest end control is the use of software defined force-feedback not only for the two big sticks, but also four smaller ones: one each for your thumb, and one each for your finger on each hand, and an analogue trigger. I've seen this solved in open source projects, so its entirely doable.

What does this actually mean?

Source: KAIST-HCIL/FS-Pad

The purpose of a force-feedback stick is software defined -- driving the camera, pelvis, upper body, boosters, walking etc variably, with the feedback not necessarily telling you about the environment -- but also by providing what amounts to new input devices.

To explain, force feedback works by providing input to the stick like a robot arm and is not at all like a rumble feedback device. This means the position the stick "wants to return to" at any given time is not defined by springs like it is in a conventional controller, but by active software which can update in real-time.

This means resistance can be different in different directions, or the stick can even hold a position you give it in one axis but not another, replicating a hat switch or a flight throttle.

I've looked at many different open source projects which achieve these outcomes both on thumb-sticks and main sticks with great outcomes, and I think a prototype could be made if I had a team, or other people to work with.

If interest is expressed, I'll produce a specification proposal for what this input agnostic design in software needs to be (eg, how the robot is controlling) in strictly defined terms which can be implemented.

You can already see it on my Tumblr account as TOMINO, NAGANO, etc where I go into some of this -- all of which works on a standard controller, but adapts extremely well to a large HOSAS.

Likewise, I'd (eventually) also produce a proposal for a controller design which meets this specification.

I've been testing this concept on and off for many years now in Unreal Engine (I'm not a skilled programmer, not skilled with CAD or electronics, depression limits my effective outcome returns -- but I'm still getting very promising outcomes).

Ultimately what I'd really want access to is expertise and help, since my background is mainly thinking about and designing solutions for problems not necessarily implementing them -- and I'm essentially on disability, so I have unlimited time to think about this.

I don't want to ask for money, which I figure is the thing everybody is anticipating: I'd rather get this done than make money from it.

In conclusion?

To solve this what's needed isn't some figure of brilliance in a basement or garage somewhere, but an organic ecosystem of designers and builders responding to pressures, and we've already see that work many times very well.

In our case, nobody has defined the vehicle or the modular helpers in a way robust enough to capture every fantasy effectively.

That's the issue.

tl;dr coming away from this:

For the controller to exist, you first must have something to control.

To be a pilot, you first need a vehicle.

--

Live forever, Apes.

[jeff-from-marketing]

Hey it's been a hot minute, I'm gonna go off about Helldivers 2 for a bit, because the whole thing fascinates me.

Funnily enough it's not even the actual game itself that truly fascinates me, as great as it is. I do genuinely think that, while not perfect, it's a very solid game that knows what kind of experience it wants to deliver, and does a fantastic job delivering on it. The Starship Troopers-esque satire is hilarious, and I love how much the gameplay reinforces that satire through things like reinforcements canonically being a whole new Helldiver sent into the meat grinder, and that the mission still counts as a celebrated victory even if you never make it back alive. I could even talk about how the objectively clunky system for calling in orbital support is actually a positive for the game, but only this game and the type of experience it's selling.

But none of that is what fascinates me about this game so much. Because y'see, I played the first Helldivers game, and it was also a great bit of fun! It's actually why I was interested in the second one to begin with. But I also know that the first Helldivers was not a very wide reaching game, none of Arrowhead's games have been. They've not done poorly by any means, they're still in business and have been for over a decade now. But they've always been fairly niche affairs. Until now. To really sell the picture, I wanna rattle off player counts for their previous games:

Magicka in 2011, Arrowhead's first big game and published by Paradox, had an all-time max player count of 11,727 players according to SteamDB. I don't believe it was on any other storefronts, but I could be mistaken. A quick wikipedia visit tells me that the game sold roughly a million units over a year which, again, not bad! Especially for a game that is admittedly fairly unusual, but is a lot of fun!

The Showdown Effect in 2013, which I only just found out about right now after double checking my numbers, had a all time high of just 3,284 according to SteamDB, and is now delisted from Steam. Though apparently there's a remake from another company happening? There's a lot less info on this one in general.

Gauntlet in 2014, this one I do know a bit more about since I also played this one. A remake of the original 1985 game, and was a good bit of fun as well! This one is trickier to get an accurate player count reading, because it did have a PS4 release and those are harder to find numbers for. Regardless, it was also on Steam, so therefore I can use those numbers at least, which gives me a max consecutive player count of 12,730. I don't know how much PS4 factored into this.

And now we get to the real interesting one: Helldivers 1. Again, this is tricky because not only was it on console, but it was actually on console before it was ever on PC, which heavily skews numbers. SteamDB has the peak at just 6,744, but this doesn't sit right with me. I've seen estimates of 50k people around the place, some say 35k, but never a solid source. It's also very difficult to search atm because of how much Helldivers 2 is blowing up. Speaking of...

So Helldivers 1 is their most popular game, and I'll be generous and say that the 50k count is the accurate one. So surely Helldivers 2 can't be that much more- oh I'm not even going to pretend, you already know what's going on here. The game has reached ~450k concurrent players just on Steam alone! And the game also exists on PS5, and if I recall correctly: there's official statements saying that the player counts are roughly equal with each other. That means a peak of ~900,000 individual players. To illustrate how bonkers batshit insane that is, motherfucking Fortnite has a current consecutive player count of roughly one million.

Let me reiterate: a game that came out of basically nowhere with little marketing, from a small studio with only about 100 employees, is rivaling the juggernaut that is fucking Fortnite. That is insane.

As someone who has played all of Arrowhead's previous games besides The Showdown Effect, this is bonkers. There's a reason the sentiment was "there's no way to have predicted this" when the servers were at their worst, because look at the previous data! How is anyone supposed to predict a sequel to a niche game (from a company very few people have heard about) to get a ~1800% increase in max player count? Their initial server capacity was 250k, which would've been very optimistic if you were just going by Helldivers 1 numbers. But then that wasn't enough. And then 360k wasn't enough. And then 450k wasn't enough. We're now at 700k server capacity and just finally getting things under control. This game just exploded in a way no one could have reasonably predicted. And I have no idea why this is the case either.

I'm not saying it's not deserved; it absolutely is! Like I said, game is great, and there's not even any shitty business practices I can bitch at this time! It's just so sudden and out of nowhere that it baffles me. Such a small percentage of these players would've even heard of the first game, let alone played it. It didn't have a massive marketing campaign, this is pretty much all spread through word of mouth, which is insane in its own right. It's not even like the game is entering an untapped market, it shares its existence with games like Deep Rock Galactic, Vermintide, Darktide, the actual Starship Troopers game, probably some others I'm forgetting. And yet, despite all of this, it breached containment something fierce. I don't have a big conclusion to make from all this, I'd love to be able to say "oh people are just getting tired of Triple A- oh I'm sorry, Quadruple A gaming and this is a breath of fresh air" and it is that, as was Baldur's Gate 3, but I'm not naive enough to think that's the main reason. Not when so many other great games continue to go undiscovered, and so many people still end up buying whatever the next big Triple A thing is. It's a great game to play with friends, and there's a lot going for it and a lot of charm, but such is also the case for the other games I already listed in this paragraph and they don't see the same popularity.

Whether it's just dumb fucking luck, or a really oddly specific set of circumstances at play that I can't see, I'm just dumbfounded and flabbergasted. But I'm not exactly gonna complain. It's fun getting sent into the meat grinder to spread Managed Democracy, and I'm glad the game is doing as well as it is, though I do hope that the devs get to have a bit of rest once the dust finally settles a little bit.

[exeggcute]

after some trial and error I think I finally have the perfect PS2 setup for the modern gamer. behold:

PS2 (old reliable) + power cable + magicgate memory card for those eight delicious MB of storage

retrotink adapter: a must-have in my case because we don't have any TVs that support analog input. you COULD go scrounge up an old CRT instead of shelling out for an adapter but (1) I have no desire to fistfight a melee player over who gets dibs on the CRT we both spotted on craigslist at exactly the same time (2) I have nowhere to put a CRT and (3) the retrotink is sick. worth every penny imo. this thing has upscaling, lots of settings to mess with (including psuedo-CRT settings to add scanlines and whatnot), and zero lag. there are significantly cheaper adapters out there but I did a shitload of research and nearly all of them have some kind of dealbreaking problem, save for the retrotink, whose only problems are that it isn't cheap and it runs out of stock quickly because they're all made by one guy in his garage.

component/YPbPr cable: the retrotink won't accept the regular AV cable that I've had for two decades (with the red/white/yellow inputs), but apparently AV input kind of sucks so component is the way to go for quality anyway.

wingman PS2: this thing is SO fucking cool dude. if you only pick up a single item on this list let it be the wingman. being able to play PS2 games not just wirelessly but on a modern controller (dualsense ftw) feels amaaaaazing. rumble works great, pairing is easy, no lag as far as I've noticed. the only downside is that modern controllers don't have the same pressure-sensitive buttons that the PS2's dualshock did, which means the handful of games that utilize that feature won't be a 1:1 experience.

so now your wallet just took a hit on all these peripherals—but not to worry, because we're also in the golden age of PS2 piracy:

if you have a stack of compatible DVD-Rs and a disc reader for your PC, you can use freedvdboot ESR patcher to patch an .iso of almost any PS2 game, burn that patched .iso to a disc, and then run the game on unmodified(!!!) PS2 hardware. there's a handful of caveats though:

(1) not all PS2s can take advantage of the exploit; it depends on the version of your console's DVD player. atm I think all slim models are compatible, and some fat models are compatible, but people are working to crack the last few holdouts so don't lose hope if yours isn't supported yet.

(2) technically not all games are compatible either, but more games seem to work than not. games that do work are essentially indistinguishable from a legit copy, though—some of the other game piracy methods I looked into (like MC2SIO) have a lot of performance issues that freedvdboot-patched games don't seem to suffer from at all.

(3) not all DVDs are equal; someone on reddit compiled a list of DVDs that worked/didn't work with freedvdboot-patched games. (they aren't on this list, but I used Verbatim DVD-Rs and they worked fine.)

I have yet to find any good text-based guides about using the patcher, but this guy's video tutorial explains everything well. howeverrrr you can skip all the parts about "creating backups" of your "original game discs" and just use the .iso you downloaded off of Vimm's Lair lol.

bam. not quite free since you have to buy discs, but just about. and a 50-pack of DVDs was still cheaper than any of the used copies of ape escape 3 that I could find on ebay

[andrevasims]

Grand Theft Auto 5 released an "enhanced" version last month for PC, but it's apparently just an update that console players have already had for several years

I wasn't sure what "enhanced" would entail besides maybe better lighting and model details or something, but I've ended up literally walking around the map and constantly keep coming across things I don't remember ever seeing before

like entirely new buildings with unique textures/models/designs, new logo/advertising graphics, new NPC models/animations (like there's a walk animation specifically for the really steep hills so they look like they're putting in effort trying to walk uphill)

I was gonna say it's funny that console players got updates/improvements before PC players, but then I remembered that I literally waited two (2) years after the game's original release to play it on PC lol

[chichiricatsan]

Indie/RPG Maker Video Game Recs!

I mainly made this for a member of a discord I'm part of, but ye! My ramblings of some game recs!

Harvester Games Anthology

1. Downfall 2. The Cat Lady 3. Lorelai 4. Burnhouse Lane

The first three games in this series are also known as "The Devil Came Through Here" trilogy with Burnhouse Lane being the odd one out, but I just call it the Anthology b/c they all take place in the same/a similar universe with crossovers and characters that appear through all the games here and there. They're mainly dark/twisted stories set in mundane environments told through 2D side-scrolling, adventure-style, point and click/arrow keys, and inventory-use gameplay. There's supernatural elements, blood, gore, and heavy elements and themes in all the games. My personal favorites of the series are The Cat Lady and Burnhouse Lane. Downfall had an original game in 2008, but I'd honestly go with its remake from 2016 as it fits in better with its newly-presented style and the way the story is presented.

You don't have to play them in any particular order to feel satisfied with their stories. The stories themselves are self-contained enough.

RPG Maker Games - Horror or Otherwise

A lot of these games are heavy on puzzle elements as well as minimal to light battle mechanics or trial and error gameplay. Story is what is the biggest element here, though.

OMORI

I can't say too much about it for spoilers sake, but at its core this story is about coming to terms with trauma and guilt. It's quirky, imaginative, surprisingly poignant, amazing style and music, and overall thematic AF. It's a deep dive into some psychological stuff. Left a big mark on me and never looked back. It's not heavy with blood and gore, but it's heavy on its subject matter and can be with its disturbing/scary imagery at times. It's got a bunch of TWs, honestly.

ALSO! JUST TO NOTE: The Switch and PS4 editions have exclusive content NOT found in the PC release! It's nothing substantial or anything that changes the story, it's moreso just a little more 'funsies' for the fans and is really only exclusive to one of the two big branches/decision taken in the game. I can say that the console versions run great and since the controls are simple, it's easy to use with a controller/joycon.

Yume Nikki & Yume 2kki

This is one of OMORI's biggest inspirations and is often referenced as one of the first RPG maker "horror" games. While it's minimalistic and older in its presentation and style, it's surrealistic and sometimes disturbing nature keeps most players coming back for more. Lots of room for personal interpretation. The fan-made sequel is usually mentioned in the same breath, so I put that here, too, but 2kki is a much larger, longer, and more spread out game. Playing Nikki is good enough if you don't want too much of the same thing with more of a slog imo.

In the games you play as self-isolating girls who explore their dreams when they sleep. They've got blood and gore in some parts, but mostly disturbing imagery and implications behind said imagery. And then suicidal ideation/action.

The Forest of Drizzling Rain

"After the sudden death of her parents, a young woman named Shiori Kanzaki finds a picture of a man that she believes to be her grandfather Keiichiro. She travels to Azakawa Village, where he was apparently from, in hopes of meeting him and reconnecting with her estranged family. However, when she arrives, she learns that her grandfather has already passed on, and the family manor converted to a museum. Koutaro Suga, the manager of the museum who only communicates in written memos, begrudgingly allows her to stay there for a while and research her family. But there is a legend in the village of the Kotori Obake--the "Taking Spirit", a demon woman who abducts children who go into the nearby forest. When a young girl Shiori befriends goes missing, Shiori is forced to venture into the forest and confront the demon to save her. How is the tale of the village connected to Shiori's past, and why does she hear voices calling her, commanding her to "Come fulfill the promise"?" --From different summaries on different sites I weaved together.

I really liked this one for the characters and setting. It reminded me of the manga/anime Higurashi (When They Cry). It was remade in recent years with all new content and new endings and such, so make sure to nab that version if you give it a try! It's not inherently a horror game--more a horror/mystery combo, but there is a bit of blood and scary imagery in this one to watch out for, iirc.

Ib

"This follows the experiences of a nine-year-old girl named Ib who visits an art gallery with her parents. While looking around, she finds herself stuck in a strange, surreal world where art has come to life. What's worse, Ib's life is now linked to that of a red rose she picks up, and if all the petals fall she will die." --TV Tropes game summary.

Surreal and creepy AF at times, especially when playing as a child in an adults' world. And it's existential and somber at times. There are a couple other characters Ib runs into that help, but this is the core of the story. Make sure to grab the remake/remaster of this one as well if you're looking to play! Blood and scary imagery are the tws for this one. Overall, it tries to have a positive message.

The Witch's House

"A young girl named Viola has gone to visit her friend, Ellen, who lives in the woods. However, those same woods are said to be haunted by a "Wicked Witch" who kidnaps children. When Viola finds her way blocked by magical roses, it seems that her only option is to enter the eponymous witch's house and find a way to break the spell, in hopes of reuniting with Ellen. Accompanied by a snarky talking black cat, Viola must navigate the dangers of the house and its murderous inhabitants." --TV Tropes game summary.

Another that got a remaster/remake with MV added to the title--what that means, I honestly don't know lol. But it's another RPG horror game with blood, gore, gruesome imagery, puzzles, and trial and error gameplay that can sometimes make you want to rip your hair out. But the story is good, if heartbreakingly bittersweet.

Mad Father

"A young German girl named Aya Drevis is living at home with her titular Mad Father, Doctor Alfred Drevis, and his assistant Maria. One night, Aya hears her father scream and finds her house riddled with corpses and other supernatural things trying to kill her, and her seemingly dead mother Monika Drevis having kidnapped Alfred. Not wanting to leave without her father, Aya decides to brave the house and look for him, all while encountering the horrors of what her father has really done." --TV Tropes game summary.

This one can be pretty messed up with its gruesome images and overall harrowing journey of the MC. And while happy in some bits, it left a bittersweet taste in my mouth b/c of the trial and error of some of the gameplay. The remake helps with this, but it isn't perfect. Overall, I'd say give it a try if you do like RPG horror games, though. It can be pretty gratuitous in its imagery, however, just a forewarning.

Misao

"Misao was just an ordinary highschool student, who didn't particularly stand out at all... until three months ago, when she stopped coming to class. Though nobody knew what happened to her, rumors started spreading that she'd already passed away. As they joke about the idea of her haunting the school and cursing her classmates, a sudden earthquake takes out the lights. A voice pleads for help. Separated from the others, your character sets out to discover the truth behind Misao's disappearance, and the curse that's now seemingly befell the school." --TV Tropes game summary (edited a little by me).

This game's characters makes you want to root for Misao tbh lol. It's definitely a test in the belief of humanity and how bullying/ostracizing someone can really come back to haunt you if you're not careful. Blood, gore, gruesome and sometimes gratuitous imagery, and more trial and error messiness at times, but overall a campy good time. The camp and absolute bat-shitness of this is what kept me playing XD

The Crooked Man

"David Hoover has just finished moving into a new apartment during a rough part of his life, but some incredibly odd happenings within the unit leave him shaken. When he tries asking about the former tenant, there's little information on the man in question. Curiosity piqued, David sets out to find him. Along the way, he runs into a terrifying humanoid monster known only as the Crooked Man, who is intent on killing David for unknown reasons." --TV Tropes game summary.

This is another less subtle character study of a game. It's older and definitely has its issues with trial and error portions, but it's got heart. I can't fault it for that. Some blood and disturbing imagery for tws.

Hylics 1 & 2

"Hylics is a video game created by Mason Lindroth in 2015, described as "a recreational program with light JRPG elements.

Its world, from the environments to the battle sprites, is made entirely from pastel claymation. You play mainly as Wayne, a man with a waning moon for a head, on a vague quest to meet Gibby, the King of the Moon. The plot, if there can be said to be one, is heavily buried under symbolism and the general surrealism of the world." --TV tropes game summary

A really unique take on the RPG maker style. It's not a horror game, but I thought I'd share nevertheless. The artist does claymation and mixes their 3D style with the 2D style to make a unique adventure. The vernacular in the game, though, reminds me a lot of OFF and that sometimes it's a bit "extra" XD I've yet to finish them, but did enjoy what I played! I LOVE the style!

To The Moon

"Join Dr. Rosalene and Dr. Watts as they enter a patient named Johnny's mind on his death bed to grant his final request. Watch, interact, and change the past as Johnny's life unfolds before you and takes you on a magical journey inside one's head that asks the greatest question of all: "What if…?" If you had the chance to relive your life, would you change things? Would you try to achieve some grand goal? Could you find love? Fame? Fortune? Or would you realize that sometimes the past is meant to stay the same. Join Dr. Rosalene and Watts on their journey and travel To The Moon." --From the Backloggd description.

Not a horror game, again. This...is a really melancholic game ngl. It's great, just bittersweet and leaves you in tears. Bring tissues. T^T

Other Games

Night in the Woods

"Mae Borowski, a recent college dropout, returns to her hometown that is the sleepy mining town of Possum Springs. There, she struggles with the changes to her home and her former friends. As Mae struggles with finding her own identity and coping with the massive changes in her life, she begins to have odd dreams with ominous messages, and discovers hints of some mysterious force living out in the woods of her community." --TV Tropes game summary (edited a little by me).

A 2D adventure game with minor platforming elements and mini games. This is one of my favorites. It's an existential package all wrapped up in shattered hopes and dreams, with a sprinkle of cult stuff. :3

Sally Face

"Sally Face is a 2D horror point-and-click adventure aame developed by Portable Moose following the titular character, a boy with a prosthetic face and a mysterious past.

The game is broken up into five episodes. In the first, Sally Face and his father move into a new apartment filled with odd tenants and an unfortunate crime scene. But starting from the second episode, things take a far stranger turn as Sal obtains a portable console that seems to detect supernatural activity." --TV tropes game summary.

This game didn't grab me at first b/c it released episodically (which...I hate with games tbh), but after picking it back up and playing through it in its entirety, it broke my heart in the best of ways. I like the art style reminiscent of how old MTV used to feel with Beavis and Butthead. The characters are actually great, and the story is both surreal and pulls you back down to ground you hard. Blood, some gore, supernatural elements, demonic stuff? What's not to love? XD

Crow Country

"The game takes place in 1990, and centers around Special Agent Mara Forest as she investigates a missing person report for one Edward Crow. The report brings her to Crow Country, Crow's long-abandoned amusement park. Mara has to not only navigate the old, locked-up attractions to find her quarry, but also must tangle with unknown horrors as this investigation turns out to go even deeper that it appears…" --TV Tropes game summary.

I'm a sucker for the older Resident Evil and Silent Hill games as well as the blocky PS1 art style. This game hits the nail on the head with it feeling like a love letter to those days. It's a recent release, so might be a bit pricy, but I thought I'd drop the summary here anyway. It's a 3rd person shooter with blood, some gore, and disturbing imagery. Spooky!

Kindergarten 1-3

"You play as a kindergartner. Throughout the day, do favors, avoid trouble, get special items, and repeat as you uncover the mystery under the kindergarten." --TV Tropes game summary.

That's...the best way one can describe these games. The games are so randomly batshit and off the wall I couldn't not share them, though. It's an adventure-type game with trial and error (but done well) and has "true" endings for each--all with canonical stuff following to the next for more insane madness. What can I say except... it's Kindergarten. There is a lot of crude humor, some language, blood, and distressing stuff happening to you and your teachers and classmates all the time.

Flower

"The game takes place within the dreams of a lonely potted flower upon the windowsill of a rather dreary city apartment.

With the completion of each dream, more flowers appear upon the windowsill, and the apartment grows ever less run-down while the view out of the window grows ever more picturesque. Actual game-play consists, for the most part, of guiding a single, wind-borne petal of the presently dreaming flower, awakening other flowers and adding a petal from each to your own, until you find yourself guiding a great, winding current of blossoms and petals (along with the occasional leaf) through the game's vast and varied landscapes while the ambient music shifts and changes according to locations, movements, and events.

As the game's wordless story progresses, it takes on an increasingly subdued and eventually sinister tone, until the player finds themself witness to a triumphant charge to bring back life to a once beautiful landscape and city." --TV Tropes game summary.

This is a very peaceful and lovely game. A palette cleanser, if you will. The only hang up is that it uses motion controls, but it's not overwhelmingly difficult or unintuitive with them and still would recommend. :3

Journey

"You play as a nameless robed figure who is crossing the desert to reach a mountain in the distance. As the game progresses, you pass through several unique environments and ruins, uncovering more of the game's story as you go.

Your character has only two real abilities. The first is singing, which radiates a sound wave proportional to how long you hold down the button — this is used to activate or attract various objects. The second is jumping, which allows you to go sailing through the air — this ability uses energy, which can be replenished by touching the floating bits of cloth you encounter throughout the game. The maximum amount of storable energy, indicated by the length of your character's trailing scarf, can be increased by collecting glowing symbols.

One of the game's main selling points is its unique form of multiplayer. During the game, you may encounter another player, whom you may travel with if you wish. However, unlike most multiplayer games, you can't see the other player's name or other information except for a unique icon that appears above their head when they sing, which is the only real way to communicate. There is no text or voice chat in the game, so you must rely entirely on your in-game abilities to work with your partner. However the game does list the handles of all the other players you encountered in the session during the credit, so you have a chance to send them a heartfelt “thank you” after the session." --TV Tropes game summary

It's a very unique and short experience. Another palette cleanser <3

GRIS

"The title heroine is a young girl dealing with personal trauma, the exact nature of which is uncovered throughout the game, as you guide Gris through a surreal and initially bleak landscape of her devastated psyche." --TV Tropes game summary.

This game's art style and soundtrack are heartbreakingly beautiful, and it's a less "severe" journey through the MC's trauma without blood or gore. It's a lovely game, honestly, and I find myself going back to it a lot.

[princesssmars]

in love with the thought of you and jordan playing video games with marie.

like. i imagine in the group home the only way they got to play any games were physical ones and if they could sneak in a few minutes on cool math games during computer time. and as much as i think marie would kick ass at life and chutes and ladders, she'd constantly miss the game consoles she had at home.

so she meets you and jordan and college, and jordan takes gaming serious but not so seriously. they'll dick around in online games and scarily become a master manipulator when they can be convinced to play among us once in a blue moon, and once marie tells you she hasnt player a real video game since middle school you both make it your personal missions to help her play any game she wants.

and i feel like she would kick ass at nearly everything! and annoyed as she gets at randoms screaming in her ears she can enjoy a game of cs:go or call of duty, and had a week long obsession with slime rancher, constantly coming over to your dorm to play the game on your pc while you give her tips in the background.

yes her favorite is the honey slime. yes she made too many gordos and stopped playing for a month because the tar killed them all.

and dont even get me started on mobile games...jordan probably begs her no to play them because :

1. they're corny as hell

2. you play them religiously, and everytime a game says 'share to get an extra _' you send them the link. she goes through their messages and there are probably 200 shared links from you.

but its inevitable. once she gets a phone you send her a link for choices/episode and its all over. but once she has her first diamond choice where she has to tell her love interest (definitely modeled after you or jordan) she hates their guts she gets pissed off. if you give her money to buy some diamonds she'll be unstoppable.

but my favorite headcanon would be her playing games while high. just on weed, but it was when jordan told you they were going to try to teach marie how to play fortnite, and you had a really bad but really funny idea to do it while high.

it was supposed to be just you, but marie joined in which landed the two of you cackling after you both fell off a tower and died, jordan with their head in their hands as the 'you ranked #80!' lit up the screen.

[dreamxsimx]

My Strangetown Theory <3 (Part I )

Hi ^^, i asked myself a lot of about Sims 2 Strangetown consoles and pc timeline for the past few years whether they related or not and here's the thing , i think some are supposed to be a continuation ( with a few modified scenarios , like someone having a dream of something that really happened but with exagerated details ) and some have some pieces of the main story but are on a completly parallele sims world.

Strangetown Windows : Of course it's where's placed the main and debut story of Strangetown, Bella is supposed to be placed there but is still unfound, the Olive Specter is still alive and as messy as she can be while her niece is in her late teens and about to be a young adult , the rest if you're ts2 player yk lol

2. Strangetown PSP : I think this when things starts to get a lil spicy because i think the story happens between at least a year or two or a few years after the main pc story, i think it's a form of story progression of it, Olive Specter finally died ( i mean not like it's a victory or anything lol ) , Ophelia choosed to stay in her place and take care of the cemetary and her church (which is where the issue is Olive never owned a church in the pc version however these to me are still related) Bella was finally found (by your character) and is waiting to get back home , The Beaker's kidnapped an other person for their experiment, Nervous accidentally died , Grunt brothers got out of high school , Smith children grew up and more...

The Difference between the pc and psp version is the windows version of Strangetown is less extravagent than it's console version, since the it's maybe based on making families and not mainly finding clues in the existent families story , so i think a lot of element like special lots that you can find on psp are also placed in the "real" Strangetown but are located on the other side of Strangetown that you do not see in the pc game.

Which is one of my many theories the strangetown we have in our pc game is in reality way bigger than we think but the other locations are placed in the console versions of Strangetown, some elements like Olive's Church and the Beaker's new house to me aren't part of the real story, i think the Beaker's are still on their main houses but since psp engine is very restricted they had to recreate a whole new houses and Olive's church is just a bonus element they added to make the story more interesting (to me).

I think that psp version is also like a expanded view of the pc version when it comes to hidden families like the Dante-Calonzo family, Rossum and Blanco-Florica family.

And also since i believe they're related even tho some details doesn't add up, psp version is the fate of Nervous Subject, i think Nervous Subject was or maybe not supposed to die anyway and the psp version shows us his ending and that's prob why you don't see him in other small ports because i think he is also dead in these versions as well.

Sorry in advance if this might seem like a non-sense theory lmao , but if you get it or not thx for trying lmao <3

(Part II) soon ^^

[doubleddenden]

Nintendo finally revealed the Switch 2 in an official capacity, after everyone, their mom, grandma, brother, sister, cousin, father, aunts, grandfathers, and of course their their Uncles that Work at Nintendo TM did it for them. The trailer has such "ALRIGHT ALREADY GET OFF MY BACK" energy with what little it reveals, but there's still info we know that can be gleaned from the trailer and stuff other sources have said

So first off, I genuinely thought those controllers would be 3rd party, but they're official apparently. I love the accented colors, although I was kinda hoping they'd swap to white this go around. No biggie though.

Second, that looks like a new Mario Kart project. There's 24 starting lines, there's a slight redesign to DK, and the graphics appear higher res, so this is either the first official first party game quietly announced for the system, or a heavy update to 8.

Third, the joycons moving around seems to tease the potential pc mouse-like capabilities due to an optical sensor on the inner side of the joycons. Of course this is strictly a guess based on 3rd party info revealed, but it would potentially open doors for certain pc games or touch only DS/3ds/Mobile games to come to the system. Potentially, anyway. I'm more or less expecting it to be used for something like FF14.

The last bit is something that seems to be a correction on their part- they had previously said that Switch 2 would have backwards compatibility. Most, like me, assumed 100% because it's literally the Switch but stronger- Nintendo corrected by saying *certain* games may *not* be playable. Imo, this is probably a small number and most first party titles will transfer over, but I'm not an expert.

We can also see the two systems side by side here, showing clearer size differences and how the system will fit in hands. Personally, as someone with bigger hands, this feels like an upgrade.

The only other thing I think is worth noting is the top mounted C-port in addition to the bottom one. That probably makes hand held charging easier, but I'd imagine that may have some kind of purpose in the future. The extra button on the lower right controller still could be anything I guess.

The next Nintendo Direct will be in April, but there could potentially be other tid bits dropped between here and there. Last I saw, the system will probably go for about $400 American, so it might be time to squirrel away some change before it drops potentially around Christmas 2025.

Other thoughts:

The name Switch 2 in official capacity might sound a little plain, but I think they learned from the Wii U not to get cute with the title. If they had named it something like "SwitchAroo" or "Super Switch," people would probably assume it to just be a Switch pro. Likewise, a completely new name such as the "Nintendo Click" probably would betray the fact that it is essentially just a better Switch. Basically this indicates the clear goal in mind to developers and customers about what it is: a successor you can easily see with name alone.

Certain games coming to or on Switch already have built in support for higher res, so it seems like you can expect certain visual and/or performance upgrades when playing those. Paper Mario remake is probably more on the visual angle, and if older Pokemon dlc leaks are to go by, then SV would be the performance angle.

Speaking of, specs reveal this thing is about on par with a ps4 in power. I'm not a graphics snob, I just care about performance- that being said, a hand held console that's expected to be about as powerful as a system that ran Red Dead Redemption 2 or Horizons Zero Dawn while still probably selling for cheaper than competitors (as Nintendo usually does), that is not bad. Not bad at all. Let's just hope they've finally fixed long standing issues with joycon drift.

As far as launch titles... good question, but I'd expect MK9, Smash Bros- the basics that sell the system to casual players. But also some name 3rd party games you'd see run on the ps4 and Xbox One, potentially PS5 and Xbox S/X games- basically something higher on the graphics angle to really push what the Switch 2 is capable of. I could potentially see Red Dead Redemption 2 coming eventually, if not at launch. Otherwise, potentially Zelda Wii U port ports. That'd be neat.

Closing thoughts:

THE ONE PIECE IS REAAAAAL

*also I am not an official reporter, I just like Nintendo games.

[dystopianam]

Unpopular opnion: When a website or any other person on the internet talks about The Sims, it really annoys me that they only mention The Sims 4 as if it were the ONLY The Sims that exists just because it is the newest and still active.

I feel like a complaining old woman who says "in my time things were better", but I'm TOO sad that titles that really made history like The Sims 1 and The Sims 2 are forgotten because they're old.

The Sims 4 can't compete with any of its predecessors in my opinion. It has its good things, but there are more defects than good things.

Quoting (not literally because I don't remember every single word perfectly) Plumbella: "It's obvious that new players won't understand our complaints and the lack of mechanics and vibes if they've never played any other The Sims beyond the 4"

You may or may not like The Sims 4, but The Sims 4 IS NOT The Sims, it's ONE of the The Sims.

Please remember that there is a whole franchise behind this logo, not just PC games but for every type of console.

[jeffgerstmann]

How much of a factor do you think the steam refund policy is in COD continuing to do the garbage COD HQ shit? The hours being combined means you can't get the automatic 2 hour refund, so its more of a hassle to refund it. Is the COD HQ crap on consoles? Is that how it works on the other PC store fronts?

They do this across all platforms, it's not some weird plot to keep people from refunding the game. They're not wrong to want a unified platform, it's a pretty good idea. Warzone being an evolving, free-to-play piece of the game every year makes keeping everyone in the same launcher the right move.

The execution really sucks, though, and I'm not sure that it could be much better, considering the way the games are built. This is a game that still requires full restarts every time they do a patch-less update, and you might already be two or three menus and two executable loads deep before you hit the "update requires restart" wall.

That's a horrible experience that they just haven't changed... I'm guessing that's because the way the game hands itself off to different executables isn't exposed as directly on console as it is on PC, where the game literally shuts down and relaunches.

Breaking the games apart would effectively require them to update a game at the end of its year to completely remove Warzone from it, because Warzone is typically attached to the current year's game. The alternative would be to break Warzone out into its own thing entirely, but then creating a situation where Warzone more directly competes with the paid product instead of it all being part of the same package.

Combining those things also keeps filesizes down, because having them completely split apart would mean you couldn't share player models or any other assets between the installs.

[potatowitch]

This is going to be me being negative about Veilguard so uh. If you don't want that, scroll on.

Judging by what content we've seen about Veilguard thus far, I'm confident I'm going to love the story, the aesthetics and the companions. I'm also confident I'm going to fucking hate the combat to the point where I probably won't replay DA4 often at all.

Look. I enjoy Mass Effect. I do! Again, I love the story. I love the characters. I love the vibes. The combat, though? Worst part of the series as a whole, by far, in my opinion. I don't use the ability wheel in ME. I just don't. I bump my difficulty all the way down just so I don't have to worry about what my squadmates are doing because I HATE how you have to give them orders. I assign all my abilities to hotkeys, and if I can't assign something to a hotkey, I'm not bloody using it.

I'm a PC player. For the past three DA games, I've had a hotbar to put abilities and consumables on - though Inquisition only gives you 8 ability slots and 2 consumable slots aside from your health potions, and I hate that. I hate it. I thought it was a bit of a piss take, honestly. This is what my hotbars in Origins and DA2 end up looking like by the endgame:

I like having all my abilities and consumables there to use on the one or two occasions I think "hey wait, wouldn't X ability be useful here?". Obviously the ones right at the beginning, bound to the number keys, are the abilities I use the most, but it's just nice to have all the options in the world if you want them.

Veilguard not having a hotbar at all is just so disappointing to me. I understand that console players who are used to an ability wheel aren't going to have this problem, but I play RPGs almost exclusively on PC, and most fantasy PC RPGs have hotbars.

Tactics are my next issue. I LOVE the tactics system in Origins and DA2. I love being able to assign my companions a list of "if - then" orders and full customise what they do in combat without having to micromanage them in the moment. I love being able to say "hey, Anders, if someone is attacking Varric specifically, I need you to cast a Glyph of Paralysis on the enemy". I was disappointed in Inquisition when the extent of your tactics was telling companions when it's appropriate to use a health potion and how much stamina/mana they should reserve. The fact that Veilguard, from what I've seen, has no tactics whatsoever? Disappointed, but not surprised.

What I AM surprised by, and not in a good way, is that from my understanding (what I saw while watching the combat breakdown, which I also don't recommend you do if you don't want massive story spoilers) you cannot directly control companions during combat in Veilguard at all. You're relying exclusively on orders given in the action wheel to position them, tell them what combos to use, what abilities to use, when to change who they're attacking. That's really shitty, dude. You've been able to do that for all three Dragon Age games thus far. Bioware removing the ability to directly control companions is a massive step backward. Let me know if I'm wrong and I just missed something where they showed taking control of companions or explicitly said it'd be possible, because dear lord I really hope I'm wrong.

Finally, the two companion limit. Again, I know why Bioware chose to go from three companions to two, and I also think it was a dumb fucking decision and everyone involved in making it are idiots. It also looks like some companions will be required for missions - so say if you're going on a mission where you NEED to bring Davrin, and you're also playing as a warrior - well, you'd better hope nothing needs lockpicking OR you don't need a healer, because you will need to choose between bringing a rogue or a mage. Class synergy is out the damn window.

Again, I want to reiterate that I think I'm still going to have fun with DA4. I will play it. I will probably have all sorts of nice feelings about the story and the characters and the worldbuilding. I will also most definitely have all sorts of nasty horrible negative feelings about the combat, and until I can mod it to look more like it did in previous games, DA4 will not be super replayable for me unless everything other than the combat is phenomenal enough to make up for all the ways Bioware have fucked the combat.

[lavellenchanted]

Best PC game recs?

Oooh, well. I actually play most of my games on console because I prefer the controls, so if we're talking PC specific:

Baldur's Gate 3 is really great to play on PC because of its turn-based combat system, and is overall a fantastic game with brilliant writing, memorable characters and a really high class character creator. (They have also remastered the first two Baldur's Gate games, but I haven't played those editions and it's been years since I played the original BG games so I can't speak to how well they play on PC now).

I'm a big fan of the Nancy Drew mystery games on PC. They're click and point puzzle games that are a lot of fun to play. If you're any kind of puzzle fan you'll love them.

The Monkey Island games. These came out years ago but I've been replaying the special edition of The Secret of Monkey Island and they really hold up and are hilarious, so I think worth checking out.

Disney Dreamlight Valley is my favourite cosy game at the moment, I play it on both PC and Switch and it's just very relaxing and sweet and has a lot of fun decorating and clothing options

If we're talking games in general regardless of platform:

Dragon Age. All of them. Cannot rec these games enough, I'm obsessed with them. I think all of them are worth playing from a story point of view, but Origins definitely shows its age these days and is very clunky at times to play. I'm currently replaying on PC specifically so I can mod, which is great, but I definitely find the combat harder to manage on PC then I did playing on PS3. I'm not sure if it's available on PS4/5 so if you want to play, you may just need to play on PC.

Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West. I've only played these on PS5 so I can't comment on what the PC gameplay is like, but they are absolutely among my favourite ever games with some of the best storytelling I've seen and I highly, highly recommend playing them on one platform or another.

Final Fantasy - OKAY so there are a LOT of FF games out there. Of the ones I've played my favourites are 7, 8 and 10, and obviously they've also now released the first two games in the FF7 Remake Trilogy which I am loving. You don't have to have played the OG FF7 to play the Remake, buuut I do think it adds a lot of context and they're doing things with the Remake trilogy that I think OG players are definitely receiving differently to new players. FF8 and FF10 both have remasters - FF10 in particular has some incredible storytelling.

Tomb Raider - I'm a big fan of the series generally. The Legend/Anniversary/Underworld trilogy is still my favourite overall, partly because Keeley Hawes is such a good Lara Croft, but the more recent Crystal Dynamics series is very fun. I think the first in the trilogy is more of a generic action/adventure game than a Tomb Raider game in all honesty but I still enjoyed it and the second two were huge improvements.

Uncharted - again, one of my favourite series and Nathan Drake is one of my favourite characters. I think all of them are worth replaying but A Thief's End is my fave of all of them and the one I've replayed the most.

Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales - I've not finished Spider Man 2 yet but the first two games were really well done with fantastic storylines and are my favourite moderns renditions of Peter Parker tbqh.

Any of the LEGO games, but especially LEGO Lord of the Rings. They're absolutely hilarious and so much fun.

Spyro - I loved the original Spyro back in the day and they did a Remaster for PS4 which is so much and super cute, and is also available for PC!

Finally I think you probably need a DOS emulator to play it now but if you can get one of those I highly highly recommend the 1995 Discworld PC game. It is batshit insane and you will absolutely need a walkthrough for it, but it is also genius and if you're a Discworld fan at all you will love it.

[whit-doodle]

Path of Titans is one of those games that people either seem to love or they hate. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground for most people. For me, I find the game quite enjoyable.

It's one of the few games I actually bought the day it released on console. Even as an adult, I never outgrew my childhood "dinosaur phase" so I was ecstatic when I first found out about it.

The changes and improvements the devs at Alderon Games have made since its release have been astounding, honestly. Yes, there are things that definitely need to be worked on, but overall, it's really not as bad of a game as many people would want others to believe.

Plus, one of my favorite things about it is the cross-platform playability. The game is available on console, PC, Switch, and Mobile so unless you have cross-platform settings turned off, you'll find players from every device in a server. And kudos to those who only play on mobile because I have no idea how they do it. I have tried but I much prefer my Xbox and a controller.

One of my favorite dinos to play is the Amargasaurus. I lovingly refer to mine as the "walking buffet" because it's an instant target when spotted by carnivores. This is as screenshot from a couple nights ago. That Ceratosaurus followed me and let his buddies know where I was. In the end, 3 Ceratosaurus, 1 Sarcosuchus, and 1 Spinosaurus were needed to take down my Amargasaurus. I honestly laughed the entire time because 1) I am terrible at PvP and 2) The Spino was called in for backup because the rest of them couldn't take down my Amargasaurus.

I flew over Impact Crater on my Thalassodromeus, and the Hatzegopteryx was so high up I didn't even know it was there until it nearly knocked me right out of the sky. I flew for my life, but alas, my poor little Thal didn't stand a chance after the initial hit. I had just been passing through to see what was happening in IC because it's always either a bloodbath or everyone is gathered around the pond just chilling.

I don't know what it was with Ceratosaurus players the other night, but I ended up switching from Gondwa to the Panjura map after my Amargasaurus got taken out. I was in the server maybe 5 minutes before this Cerato in the background tried to make a meal out of my Latenivenatrix. They failed after I was able to outrun them, but I give them an A for effort.

Path of Titans is one of those games where people do get frustrated due to how many times they're targeted by other players. Global chat can be full of toxicity and sweaty PvP players. Then there are days where you'll find a large group of players hanging out in Hotspots, just chilling and chatting in global.

I personally don't mind being targeted by other players. It's a PvP game after all where the end goal is literally make it to adulthood then see how long you can last.

[dr-spectre]

May I just say that I'm really impressed with the Nintendo Switch, especially after the direct.

Most Nintendo consoles after their halfway point really slow down and pretty much suffer a slow death, they don't get any big games and Nintendo fans just wait in agony for the next Nintendo console.

The Wii barely got anything in its later years aside from Kirby's Return to Dreamland and like... Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (which is actually a pretty fun minigame collection I recommend it.)

The Wii U..... HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! I mean there was Breath of the Wild but like... who played it on Wii U? Be honest with me here guys. Don't lie.

The Gamecube... nothing. N64... uh... Dr. Mario?

But with the Switch, we're getting a brand new Mario and Luigi title, a new Mario Party with over 110 minigames and a 20 player online mode, a brand new top-down Zelda game with Zelda as the main character, and Metroid Prime 4!!! LIKE... WHAT?!?!

If the Switch can somehow outsell the DS, then I wouldn't be that shocked. Nintendo, despite having one of the most EVIL legal teams in gaming and being an awful fucking company, they still manage to get exclusives and exciting titles out on a consistent basis. Sure there are some sour spots like the Mario sports games and... Nintendo Switch Sports.. ugh. And sure there are lots of overpriced remasters ill give you that but, the quality and consistency of these titles is something that Sony and Microsoft can't even come close to.

I'm not trying to jerk off Nintendo and turn this into a console war thing but, Sony have really dropped the ball on their management and it has gone to shit. Only pumping out hyper realistic giant 30+ hour games that take so much time and money to make. While I do like most of them, I want there to be more variety and more titles. There's a reason why "PS5 has no games" is a meme. And the pc ports of PS5 games after a couple of years of their release are getting really annoying. Once Spider-Man 2 gets on the PC, I won't ever touch my PS5 ever again aside from Astro Bot coming later this year. Im not saying that these games shouldn't be on pc, I'm saying that it's kinda damaging the dedicated fan base of Sony players and they're gonna start moving over to the PC and not want to use their PS5 anymore. The PS5 will not have a legacy like its older brothers. As a person who grew up with a PS2 and PS3, I'm really disappointed with Sony at the moment.

And Microsoft? Well... we'll have to wait and see the quality of those games they announced recently. But you know what? They did have a good showcase, I will admit.

I'm starting to really come around on the Switch and there are SO MANY games to get for it. There's at least one title for everyone and I think that's really cool. It also has so many indie games and retro collections on it too. The Switch has a giant library of old classics from many generations as well as exciting new games that bring new concepts to the table.

If the Switch 2 can continue that momentum while increasing the fidelity to allow for more games to reach 60fps and higher resolutions... then we're in for something really special.