#Steam Deck Case review | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sometipsygnostalgic · 7 months

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Steamdeck OLED review/impressions

Thought I'd leave some points to my experience as I have been fiddling with it a couple of days now.

This is also, in some ways, a review of the Steam Deck as a system.

Screen

The Steamdeck has a screen which is pretty small by tablet standards today, but about the same size as the screen on the Nintendo Switch.

The OLED screen is nice and colourful. I no longer have my LCD to compare it to, but the extra few centimeters helps a lot.

I wouldn't recommend you upgrade just for the screen, however, as it is not that different from the LCD in terms of quality.

I have noticed no issues with my screen, I have seen lots of people report problems but I have identified no dead pixels or glare issues.

I am using a glossy screen with a glossy protector. I tried a matte screen protector, which helped significantly with glare, but it gave a glittery and grainy effect on the screen, so it had to be removed. The glossy protector did not affect image in any way. It was fiddly to apply all the protectors, but I got there in the end.

The good news is that the screen can go very bright, and if it is on high brightness then glare is never going to be an issue. So don't worry about which screen type you buy.

Battery

The Steamdeck has a pretty weak battery if you are running most PC games.

The LCD only lasted me an hour if I was playing Monster Hunter World or Balder's Gate 3, and if I played it to depletion, it would bug out on me. More on that shortly.

The OLED seems to have a much better battery. I have been doing a lot of low performance stuff, but I played L4D2 for over an hour earlier, and it only ate maybe 20% of the battery. I played some World today and it only ate another 20% in half an hour with a high performance game, so I think that this unit will do more comparably to the original Nintendo Switch. In all cases I had brightness maxed out.

On emulated games, if you're running gamecube or PS2, it is negligible, however if you run Wii U games it will eat a lot more power (understandably). The fastest drain for me so far was Xenoblade Chronicles X. The other Xenoblade Chronicles games can drain my Switch in an hour, so this isn't a surprise.

This was the main reason I upgraded. I don't mind having the original Switch with its poorer battery performance, but with the Steamdeck LCD it was so bad that the console was barely usable. This change may seem small, but it will make the Steamdeck much more usable for me. Especially as sometimes I am taking 6 hour flights on low voltage planes that struggle to charge my deck.

Performance

The Steamdeck can do most older games very well, but if you're aiming at something released in the past couple of years, it is going to struggle. It plays Monster Hunter Rise like a dream, and I swear that it runs Monster Hunter World better than it used to (the game was updated for deck), but Baldur's Gate 3 will look very ugly texture-wise. Then again, that game looks horrible on any computer that came out before 2021.

You will be playing most demanding games on the low to mid settings.

The irony is, while it looked horrendous, Baldur's Gate 3 performed better on deck than on my PC, and I believe this is because the game has high Memory costs. While my PC's processor and graphics card are superior, it only has 8gb of memory to the Steamdeck's 16gb.

I never played a game where the 8gb was an issue until Baldur's Gate 3. It only affected me if I was connected to lots of streams on Discord. I will compare again when I have my new mid range 32gb memory PC next week.

On the OLED, a game with low performance costs like Left 4 Dead 2 will happily push towards the 90 frames per second limit. Of course, you're going to struggle to get Monster Hunter World over 30fp unless the graphics are very low.

So the Steamdeck is about the equivalent of an entry level or mid range 2018 Gaming PC. It is outdated but it plays most of the classics well.

Controls

The steamdeck's control sticks are quite large, so they're not the best option for people with small hands like myself. However I reckon this makes the unit popular with its primary audience (adult men who struggle with the small controls of the Switch, which are perfect for me).

The haptic mouse pad is okay, but it is obviously no replacement for an actual mouse. It's slightly worse than a laptop trackpad, I think, but at least it continues to move a bit if you swipe it like a ballpoint mouse would, rather than only being "on" or "off". I report no issues with this item, it does everything you will need it to when controlling from desktop mode or with a pointer-based game.

The buttons are okay, I think the right hand buttons are too small and close to the joystick for comfort, and I think the back paddles are too large and the L5/R5 buttons are too low down. It's not exactly easy to click L5 with your baby finger if you have tiny hands like me. The xbox controller is a better option than the steamdeck base controls. It is unfortunate the console doesn't come with a stand like the Switch does, and you have to buy third party options.

What impresses me most is the gyroscopic controls built into the device. I thought playing a shooter like Left 4 Dead 2 would be impossible, but because of the gyroscope, my aiming is as good as any keyboard and mouse player! Just like when playing Breath of the Wild or Ocarina of Time 3D. Even though I can't control the joysticks very well. I don't need them for those fine little movements anymore.

I must add that the Gyro only works on its default settings if you are touching the centre of the right joystick, or the trackpad. I did not like this at all because I needed to move my thumb to press different buttons. Fortunately there was a community layout which enabled gyro at all times. I was able to change the sensitivity on the game's steam options. You may also be able to enable it or disable it permanently by messing around with your own settings.

Compatibility

The biggest obstacle to Steamdeck is the Linux operating system, which upon the console's release, had very little compatibility with most normal tools. Wii USB Helper, the Wii U emulation tool, was completely incompatible. And the reason most games need to be optimised for Deck isn't because of their actual performance costs, it's because they don't run well on Linux.

Originally when playing Devil May Cry 5, the game would crash for no reason, and playing Monster Hunter World, the textures would crash and you would be left surrounded by a glitched out void if the monster you were fighting did a move that the system didn't like.

I think that over the past year, with the popularity of Steamdeck, a lot of developers have taken to making their games run better on Linux. As for the above Wii USB helper tool, there is something called WiiUDownloader which does the same thing and is Linux compatible. So I have had a much better time.

Emulation

It was a huge pain in the ass setting everything up and troubleshooting, especially because of the closed-off technical lingo used in emulation circles. But Emudeck has been a great help in getting everything set up. It is all you need for Gamecube.

I have issues with emulation tools not searching the SD card where Emudeck is installed. They keep searching the "Home" directory for things like their BIOS. Either I need to manually write in the correct path, or it's impossible and I need to copy the bios onto the main Deck. I am not sure if this is an issue with steamdeck or the emulation tools themselves, but it was a pain.

The good news is when you finally have these games running, they play very well. I think some of them perform better on a dedicated gaming unit like the Steamdeck than they do on a Windows computer which has dozens of processes running at the same time.

Lots of work has been done with emulation tools since 2021 to give them maximum compatibility with Linux and Steamdeck, as they know this is the main portable platform for those tools now.

I have had plenty of success with PS2 games, Gamecube games, and Wii U games, once everything was set up to Steam ROM Manager and saved to Steam. You can use community controller layouts on Steam that make things way easier to set up than they would be on a Windows PC.

I haven't had any success with Yuzu, the Switch emulator. This isn't necessary for me but it just seems like it isn't finding the keys that Emudeck set up.

Docked mode

I have mostly experimented with this on my LCD prior to the latest update, but I have fiddled with it on the 3.5 update this Sunday.

I have a Toshiba LED Flatscreen TV from ten years ago. It has no issues with any consoles of any kind, though I've never tested it with a PC before.

It is 50/50 as to whether the Dock works. At first it wasn't reacting at all. Now it seems to be compatible on Gaming mode, this could be because I forced lower resolution for screen compatibility.

However, on Desktop mode, when I used the automatic settings, the screen was flickering black and turning off altogether. I searched online for a solution, but unfortunately nothing I saw was helping.

I saw that it was trying to run at 24hz 1080p. I couldn't change the framerate, but I lowered the resolution to 720p and it became locked at 60hz.

This seemed to fix the issue, but now the resolution is too small and there doesn't seem to be a way to force it to change without also lowering the framerate to unusable levels. Odd as I am pretty sure you can force Windows to a massive resolution and the text will just look very tiny on your screen.

I will attribute this to my TV being too old for a modern computer, and maybe it's just a 720p tv, as I have had no issues with the two LCD tvs that my dad owns. I'm not eager on the idea of replacing my TV just for the steamdeck, but if it has no issues in Gaming Mode, it's not going to be a priority anyway.

As for the controller connection, well, it was initially pain in the ass trying to get my xbox series x controller connected. For some reason the bluetooth wasn't doing the job. But after a firmware update on my controller, it went a lot smoother.

What I did not like was you couldn't wake Steamdeck from sleep with the controller.

I have heard this isn't a problem on the OLED, but I am sure a firmware update on the original Steamdeck could have solved the problem. And if not - Why? We have been using bluetooth controllers to wake consoles since 2006! I saw someone claim you can't wake a PC from sleep with a bluetooth controller, so I immediately tested it and... woke my PC from sleep. Why does the Steamdeck LCD have worse wireless functionality than the Nintendo Wii?

Overall

People ask on this sub if the console will replace their gaming PCs. In my case, no, as it has to be a very old gaming PC for the steamdeck to be more powerful.

Generally it hasn't replaced my Switch, either, as the Steamdeck's battery life is too limited for long sessions (or cafe gaming as I like to do), and it is a worse Multiplayer console than the Switch. Especially as I had to get the dock separately. The console's portability is limited by its great size, too. I have bought a special case that is smaller than the stock one, but it can only do so much.

However i have found the steamdeck to be useful when I am travelling with access to power outlets and want a gaming PC on the go when I am staying with my partner, or when I simply want to sit in a different room of the house and play Monster Hunter.

The OLED also has a nice screen that makes me choose to play some games on there instead of on my PC screen.

The gimmick of playing demanding Pc games on such a tiny console is fun, and the gyro functionality has opened a lot of options for me that I hadn't previously considered. Maybe it is time to return to DOOM.

I love my steamdeck. After I was happy with my OLED setup, I said goodbye to it and traded it in at CEX. I will transfer that love over to my OLED and even though it isn't immediately that useful, I will find a lot of use for it over the next year with my travelling.

#steam #steamdeck #xenoblade chronicles

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fridge-reviews · 2 months

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En Garde! - Blast Review

Developer: Fireplace Games Steam Deck Compatibility?: Verified Rrp: £15.99 (Gog.com, Humble and Steam)

Sometimes you find a game that just encapsulates a style or specific genre perfectly and in the case of this game the genre it encapsulates is the ‘adventure movies of early cinema’. You may be wondering what I mean by that, to which I shall suggest that you search the name Errol Flynn and specifically his role as Robin Hood in 1938. That’s right this game is all about the fancy stage fencing that those movies portrayed so often, of course this time without a stage.

In this game you’ll be kicking over barrels, dropping chandeliers and swashbuckling in order to survive the onslaught of enemies coming your way. There’s just something so fun about it and this game very much has its tongue firmly stuck in its cheek.

The combat is engaging and challenging, of course I did make my life a bit harder for myself because the last game I had played was God of War which has the dodge button on [A] while this game placed it on [B]. This caused a lot of confusion for myself until I rebound the keys. Still, the combat is really snappy and keeps you engaged. That being said I do take one bit of issue which is that the camera in this game can be a bit frustrating, sometimes I couldn’t see an enemy's attack because the camera was just stuck inside a tree or a wall.

I personally really recommend this game, sure it’s not very long lasting maybe six hours but in that time you’ll be kept highly entertained!

---- If you’d like to support me I have a Ko-fi, the reviews will continue to be posted donation or not.

#game review #game reviews #games review #games reviews #video game #video games #video gaming #indie #indie games #indie game #en garde #swashbuckler #fencing

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everygame · 4 months

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Cobalt Core Developed/Published by: Rocket Rat Games / Brace Yourself Games Released: 08/11/2023 Completed: 17/01/2024 Completion: I’ve beaten it six times including once without using the starting three characters.

Slay The Spire is great, isn’t it? I mean you could basically play it forever. Except… I stopped because I felt like–at least for me–I had to play it focusing on defense, and after beating it a few times it just started to feel samey. With well over a year since I last touched it I’m wondering if I was being a bit unfair on it–I mean I played it for so long it’s like those Steam review that are like “140 hours, I got bored, 1 star”. But let’s imagine there was a roguelike-like deckbuilder where you could dodge instead of just putting it all into block.

Hang on!!! We don’t have to imagine! Because here’s Cobalt Core!

Cobalt Core takes Slay The Spire’s metagame–by which I mean the entire thing where you do three branching levels experiencing events, fighting normal enemies and bosses and collecting or removing cards from your deck and getting passive powers via artifacts and that–exactly and throws it onto an actually rather more complex card game set up. Instead of selecting one character, you now select three (each with their own selection of cards) and a space ship (which provides its own playstyle quirks) and then in each battle you’ve got more to think about than just playing your cards. You also have to think about your ship’s positioning, because you can move it to either avoid damage or make sure that you’re hitting your opponent. Actually I suppose you still do that by playing cards.

This is a really fun change, and it also makes things even more complex than they already were. Not only do you now need to think about how much damage you’re putting out on a turn and how much defense (in this case, shields), you now need to think about how much movement your are gaining, or spending, and where that means your ship will be or needs to be. And in turn you do this with a deck that’s made up of cards from three characters whose abilities can be wildly different making adding new cards to your deck a minefield of potential combos and non-bos.

To start with, it’s totally overwhelming, with every screen packed with information. Then it suddenly clicks (probably quicker, much quicker, if you’re an old hand with Slay The Spire) and it becomes super fun. You feel powerful, in control and it starts to feel a bit… easy?

Then you pick a new character and it’s frustrating and confusing again. Then it’s fun! And… a bit easy?

Basically, you’ll continue this loop as long as you like, and something nice about the game is that it’s not particularly bothered about you playing it on progressively harder difficulties or anything (unless you really want an achievement or whatever) so you actually can choose a level where it’s not as easy, or you can just not bother.

Where it falls down a bit for me is that it’s got a really cute narrative with excellently written characters, and I liked it a lot, but to unlock the “true” ending you have to beat the game 18 times. It’s simply… too many times! Being able to do it on the easiest difficulty helps, I guess, but then that just ends up being a grind, and if you’re like me and played the game multiple times over with one character failing every time till you got a handle on them/got the right drops, that means a lot of time spent playing this. And the more I played it the more I felt like I hit the same issue I had with Slay The Spire. The game makes healing so rare that even though you can move to avoid getting hit, it’s still so hard to avoid getting hit you still need to put a lot of focus on defense. To the point that the character with defense is probably the best one in the game (and the one with movement is a close second.) So I guess the change here wasn’t enough, and just like Slay The Spire I started to find this too samey.

But just like Slay The Spire you’ll play this for so long until you find it samey that it positively feels churlish to say so. If you can get through the initial complexity you’ll have a great time. Just don’t feel you need to see the true ending, I guess.

Will I ever play it again? Well, after I wrote most of this I actually decided I fancied seeing if I could beat this on the hardest difficulty, and after a couple of runs I did and I had fun as well! So there’s something still oddly moreish about this, even though I’m intent to put it down for good.

Final Thought: Something I must say is that it may simply be in the nature of these kinds of roguelike-likes that you will always have to concentrate on defense somewhat because a single death is, well, the end of the game. It’s like how if you chose to play Doom or whatever with a single life suddenly the way you play it changes completely. In basically everything else I love to play glass cannons–games where you die and reload–and it may simply be a case of horses for courses. Every time I have to choose a boring-ass card with shields on it rather than the one that’s like “do loads of damage” I slightly die inside, but maybe that’s not you. Maybe you’re boring!!! I mean… maybe my complaint doesn’t hold water with you because you accept that bit of the design. Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up a digital copy of exp. 2600, a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

#gaming #video games #games #txt #text #review #cobalt core #rocket rat games #brace yourself games #2023

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zydrateacademy · 5 months

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Starfield Addendum: Ryujin and Stealth Design

I posted my review on Steam and here on Tumblr before completing the Ryujin questline. There's things to like about it but the penultimate mission was an awful experience.

Disclaimer: There are spoilers. I don't get into specifics on the who's and what's and I don't name names so even reading this post you can still mostly experience the story on your own. I just kind of spoil the general expectations and layouts of certain missions.

Side thought: I've already been told that there's a 'cheesy' way to blitz through the questline. Ryujin doesn't want you to ever murder anyone but they actually don't ever really care if you're marked as 'caught'. So there's a strategy of literally sprinting through the missions, hitting the objectives, eating food and medpaks and just escaping the area. In theory you'll still get the bonus rewards.

Just in case someone wants to "um actually" parts of this post. I just don't feel that that's the intended style of gameplay here. So let me start with the stealth.

Playing the game normally, still doing my first run clocking at about 24 hours. Some main quest, some side stuff, some spacefaring, some contraband. All of it trying to stealth through most encounters.

Just kind of experiencing the game as a first timer. At first stealth was a chore, nigh impossible beyond the first hit. I got an early lucky drop when an enemy bandit gave me a suppressed pistol (my review talks about how stupidly obtuse crafting is, ~24 hours and I still can't really kit all my own stuff out yet, just wearing what was dropped or rewarded) that luckily had a scope on it and stealth finally became a viable option even when I was only one or two perks into the stealth skill. So stealth is sadly not something you can just dive into, at least not in the same way as Skyrim.

I haven't tested stealth melee but judging from the low damage numbers I can't imagine it being very good. The stealth perk only gives bonuses to suppressed weapons, not melee attacks. So very quickly, melee could potentially fall behind. There's a blurb somewhere on TVtropes on Starfield that mentions that melee is almost completely useless as 98% of enemies will be shooting at you. I only see a melee enemy once in a while, meanwhile Starfield follows the same formulae of "dungeon bosses" that they did in Skyrim. The area's boss can be about 8-15 levels above you and they can hit incredibly hard with the scaling so it's a bad time to try and rush them while they're dumping bullets on full automatic.

So there's no sneaky stabby here, the game's main stealth conceit is making sure you're a suppressed sniper. And I haven't even acquired a proper sniper rifle yet but I have a silenced pistol and single shot rifle that do just fine.

Now, shooting a spacer in the head will still put your stealth meter in the orange and force enemies to patrol. I think over a decade of Skyrim (and even some in Fallout 4) have made the open world RPG gamer community a bit complacent, as everyone seems to miss the days where you could silently pick enemies off without their mates knowing. But if a spacer sees their heavily armored mate hit the deck with a crack in their helmet and blood on the ground, they will of course start doing some patrolling. They'll give up the search eventually.

However, enemy sight lines are both incredibly wide and far reaching to the point where there's a mod with 170,000 downloads trying to nerf them. I might have to get it.

So let's veer into the game's stealth faction, Ryujin Industries. Supposedly this game's version of the Thieves Guild, with Neon City serving as a cyberpunk version of Riften. Their introduction was neat, giving me a fair bit of Arasaka-but-worse, with their black/red motif and Japanese ownership. I liked their vibe, especially since I am effectively playing the same character I do on 2077.

I briefly had a few warning signs before being given one very good mission, then it went downhill.

First, Ryujin has a fairly strict no-murder policy. Now I have no idea if they actually kick you out or not because I tried to play by their rules for the experience but I do know you get chastised if you do actually kill anyone. This actually proves to be a huge detriment as you can't eliminate patrollers without angering your employers. I think they took Skyrim's TG as a lesson about how you could murderhobo your way through that questline without much of an issue but they forgot to split the difference. Starfield could have benefitted from Oblivion's style where if you kill someone in the same interior as where your job is supposed to be, you get kicked out of the guild. In Skyrim, Fallout, and otherwise I think Beth doesn't want people to lose out on content so they try to make everything accessible. They should be appealing to logic. If you fucked up, reload a last save you filthy animal.

The first five or so missions are like a baby's introduction to basic espionage. Go hack someone's computer, go slip this item in someone's storage, go talk to a guard to get their keycard (though I think I could have actually just pickpocketed them for that one). There's no danger or any real threat as long as you're not playing a braindead murderhobo.

To contrast, Skyrim's thieves guild sets you loose pretty quickly. You have the two radiant questgivers, all give 7 or so different "types" of missions to pick from. (This comes as a post-questline reward for Ryujin). So you can pick up two (more with mods) of those and go to the island estate to sneak around a bandit-controlled base. Now it still encourages stealth because those mercenaries have absolutely ungodly amounts of hitpoints, like five times the amount their counterparts in the open world do. They only hit as hard as their level demands (and wielding iron weapons) but if you're a fledgling thief they can be a real bastard to deal with in open combat.

That's what Ryujin should have done. Beef up the security, let us kill them if we have to but you can still figure out how to punish us for entering open combat beyond some chastising in dialog. As it stands I save-scummed through some missions (the penultimate mission, which we'll get to, I think I near broke my F9 key) but ultimately got through a majority of the questline with nary a bad word to my name. I think on any NG+ I might go get a bit head-shotty and see if I get kicked out completely. If I do, then that means Beth weren't fucking cowards and my previous commentary is null and void.

So after baby mode I am given a mission where I'm like oh hell yeah, the actual questline is starting. It's the mission called "Background Checks". Without spoiling any specifics about it, you're actually infiltrating your own employer's base (everyone but a security team is given some fake story about maintenance) to hack into an employee's computer to find some potential espionage. All well and good. The layout should already be partially familiar to you, the vent system is unlocked for your benefit... After that you're just ducking and weaving through some hallways in order to get to the computer. There was a moment where I had to savescum through a couple of encounters because the stealth... just isn't quite there.

So the perk system isn't as robust as Skyrim's was. There's literally only one stealth perk that eventually, all it does is make you 100% harder to detect while also giving the final benefit of opening doors not alerting enemies. Helpful, right. I also made sure to unequip my space suit which you are still technically wearing even if you clicked the option to "hide in settlements", but you're still wearing it and benefit from the stats. Well that's more weight, and it makes you "louder". And let me tell you, it only helps slightly. So with the perks, the weight knowledge, and even eventually an outfit that adds another 25% more detection reduction, I keep running into situations where I peak into a hallway or slightly out a doorway and my alert meter goes from "Hidden" to 90% into the orange "caution" notation in a single second. A half second more and it's red and put in "danger", where enemies will open fire and sound alarms. I still can't grasp why this is, except that they're still working on outdated Fallout 4 coding where some similar problems persist even then.

Beth caught some flack because Starfield is still running on a decade old engine. That wouldn't have bothered me because some of these problems didn't exist with Skyrim. I've had my stealth fuckups on Skyrim but they still didn't cascade in an entire base or cavern assaulting me. Usually just the immediate area. That went away in Fallout 4 with ballistic coding, where a single missed bullet, suppressed or not, will send legions of enemies to investigate you.

So after the quite excellent "Background Checks" mission you're given two other missions and they're... fine, but basic. You can infiltate some criminal base with a couple different options but the option I took I was literally able to just walk in, not make a fuss, talk to the person, then leave. So it was more of a persuasion minigame than a stealth mission. Same with the mission after that. With one or two persuasions you can literally just talk to two guys and pick up a briefcase that doesn't even have the stolen tag on it. Despite you stealing it, it's still something of a scripted event where a guy won't leave his desk. (Maybe he does and I didn't give him enough time). Either way, both missions are thematically fine for the story its telling. I just didn't sneak through them.

And now we approach the problem with Ryujin. We're forced to not defend ourselves properly, at least not in a preventative capacity. There is a damage type where you can nuke robots faster and stun human enemies but that's already a post-fuckup option. During this questline we still can't just snipe guards from afar to make the pathing easier. I did everything Starfield wanted me to do within my power and abilities. Rank 4 in the stealth perk. That one piece of clothing. Took off my space suit. I used detection based chems. Yet even still if you're in the vaguest periphery of the enemy, your hidden meter hits the orange instantly. This is the problem I had with the penultimate mission, "Sabotage".

This is essentially the finale. In theory this should be the "test" of all the things you've learned before, in a normal game. It's not. You're given one skill of "Manipulation" which allows you to temporarily mind control people. You can make them run off, open doors, use objects, etc. Typically in the fashion of getting them out of your way. Half the time it doesn't work and just puts me in their sightlines which was a huge problem in this mission.

It's tutorialized once, where it took me several attempts to even get the guy to move before finally getting it done. I barely learned how the mechanic actually functions, and then I'm shoved off to do this multilayered, multi-objective espionage assault on a rival company. There's elevators, you activate some gas leak to get all the civilians to leave, it's like a whole fucking thing.

It's fucking awful.

Maybe my second attempt will be better. Maybe I should have picked some more pockets. But the mission didn't give me room to learn and breathe.

I wasn't clear on the order of operations. You're able to get into one floor freely, and I tried breaking into other places that way but there were too many guards everywhere. I later then realize; I probably should have just done the gas-evacuation. Several alerts and reloads later I just full on reload an actual save, not just a quicksave, back at the beginning of the tower and I go hit the gas leak. So now most people are gone and the tower is replaced with specific patrolling-type enemies.

They were fucking awful.

I don't know if it was coding, behavior, or all stealth concepts just glitched out on me fully. All the problems I listed before came to me on this mission full force, a wrecking ball to my patience. Between quickloads, enemies would sometimes stop patrolling and just stare down the hallway I needed to go. At one point, dozens of quickloads and attempts, I was once stuck in this room with some guy who just wouldn't stop looking at the doorway I was in. I'd peak out the door and get hit with full caution or danger/alarms instantly.

I only fixed this by letting it go full orange which put him in a semi-alert status and only then would he actually move a bit. He and his buddy came to the door, gave up, and I could sneak behind them as they were walking away. Ten minutes of this shit and it wasn't even where I needed to be at all.

Also during that, my objective kind of glitched on me. The only marker was on the elevator which didn't work. I don't know if it's because the building was on lockdown or what. Where I ACTUALLY needed to be was back in the Marketting area (the place you can get legit access to) and find some vents and shafts and make your way deeper into the level.

And let me tell you, the actual level design... was fine. You can sneak on the vents and actually hop on the lights at catwalks and sneak above people. The same option was a thing back in the superior mission "Background Checks". So in theory we'd be familiar with the lessons. The design of the place itself was fine, but everything else was dogshit.

I was fucking around this mission for something to the tune of an hour and a half. I eventually gave the fuck up completely and someone on a discord server told me about the "tdetect" cheat which turns off enemies ability to see you. And EVEN THEN it still took me 10-15 minutes or so to find my way back down to the place where I was to steal a prototype. I literally couldn't figure out where to go even without worrying about enemies. Not because the level design was broke, but because the game itself kind of broke on me. Stealth wasn't working. The elevator didn't work. My objective marker didn't work. Players can whine about objective markers if they want but I did play Morrowind and was able to read the journal because NPC's gave you exact directions. There was no direction here, was the problem. Just "go do these five things," which is why losing the objective marker was such a problem at one point.

That last mission pissed me off that I just wrote 2550 words (that's about a chapter in a fucking novel) to rant about it.

Crazy thing is, the storyline wrapped up really well. The final-final mission is this unique thing where you go lobby a bunch of board members, and you can choose the level of ethics to employ on two different issues at once. It was really cool with a lot of dialog options and that characterization from the leadership I so craved from before.

To contrast, in Skyrim's Thieves Guild, you work with the leadership often. They give you those radiant quests, you're sent to speak with them to get tips on the mission. In the first mission, talking to one of them will give you some characterization about infiltration; and she points out an extra entry point that avoids guards. Ryujin needed more of that here. They really should have brought the lessons they learned with the Dark Brotherhood as well. In Oblivion and Skyrim's DB questlines, you're encouraged to speak with every guildmate and they'll often offer some kind of insight to the mission. Sometimes it's just a quip, but other times they'll actually give you an idea of positioning or something.

All of that soul is lost here. They hit the vibe. The story is actually really neat and fairly underplayed compared to a lot of other things. Nothing particularly world-shattering (except the issue of the whole mind control device, which you can address at the end), just a bit of Corpo on Corpo violence. There was a lot to like and it just came up a bit short for me.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

#Starfield #Bethesda #bethesda softworks #gaming #pc gaming

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gamesception · 1 year

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So here's the new toy that's been distracting me the last couple days. My decade+ old oversized ASUS gaming laptop finally pooped out several months ago, leaving me daily driving my Steam Deck of all things as my main home computer. And don't get me wrong, the Deck has performed remarkably well in that regard, but I've been meaning to get something a bit fancier for a while. Something that could handle 1440p gameplay at a decent framerate while streaming or recording, can manage image and video editing well, and in particular can run some VR games. I've been interested in VR gaming ever since Lobac posted about some of that a while back, especially with the Meta Quest 2 being a solid headset at a really aggressive cost. With the Zuck giving up on the metaverse, the Quest is likely never going to be cheaper than it is now.

I'd waffled for a while about building a PC, but in the end I psyched myself out and decided to go with a pre-built instead. Yes, that means willfully overpaying for the end product by a few hundred bucks to pay someone else to do the assembly and initial set up for me, but in exchange I only had to research one product instead of half a dozen separate components, plus there's a single warranty where if anything doesn't work it's somebody else's problem to fix it, and I'd only have to deal with a delay.

After watching and reading a bunch of reviews, Skytech seemed to be a decent choice for system integrator, with solid to positive reviews for various prebuilt models they offer, including Gamer's Nexus who tend to be pretty harsh on pre-builts. But it was this review from JustIN Tech that sold me on this Azure 2 model. "Performance equivalent to last gens best, but at half the price" is the exact tag line I was looking for, and after a recent price discount it was just within my $2k range.

In retrospect though, I should have done some more research on the specific components. I'm quite happy with the intel 13600 cpu, and while the included cooling setup is overkill for that chip, that just means I've got some free thermal space to overclock or upgrade in the future. Plus, it's pretty, and I'm shallow. On the other hand it turns out the nvidia 4070ti is not well thought of - generally considered badly overpriced, plus has the extra negetive association of being just a rebranding of the failed '4080 12gb' that was so roundly panned that its release had to be canned altogether. And the PNY model that came bundled in my unit isn't even as nice as the Gigabyte one in the JustIN Tech review. One of the reasons why Gamer's Nexus is the better channel for these sorts of reviews is that they do secret shopper and get the same stuff regular folks get, where as brands know what they're sending to channels like JustIN Tech and can take pains to make the best possible impression by including better components and taking extra care in assembly and packaging.

So what should I have purchased instead? I don't know. Maybe the 'blue' model of the same Azure 2 line, which is three hundred dollars cheaper to swap out the 4070ti for an intel Arc a770, which would probably have been more than enough for my intended use cases. Heck, with 4 extra gb of vram it might have even been better than the 4070ti for me in the long term, and if not then I could use the money saved towards swapping out to a better AMD card next gen. But the blue model comes in a blue version of the case, which wouldn't have made the swirly rainbow rbgs pop as much.

Anyway, while I might have made a different choice if I had done more research, that doesn't mean I'm at all unhappy with what I got! The Azure 2 arrived promptly. The build quality of the system is very nice. No damage, no loose or cross-threaded screws. Everything worked right out of the box when plugged in - including all the various external ports. Skytech certainly did a good job putting it all together. While the 4070ti might not be the most reasonably priced card for its performance level, now that it's here and paid for regardless, it seems like it should be able to do everything I want it to, at least for now. And if I end up replacing the gpu sooner then I would have liked, eh, we live and learn.

And while it doesn't matter at all compared to cost and performance, the swirly rainbow rgb lighting makes me feel like a Real Gamer (tm).

Desk is getting a bit cluttered tho.

As for performance, It's quiet and runs cool while playing my current games at top settings - though my particular game selection (mostly just Elden Ring on max settings with Ray Tracing), and my 1080p, 75hz monitor aren't exactly putting it through its paces yet. A new monitor is one of several upgrades & accessories I plan to get to go with this thing in coming months. New monitor, VR headset, an extra ssd on which to install linux - I figure I'll keep the windows install on the side, on the off chance there are games or utilities I can't get running in Linux down the line.

But anyway yeah, that's what I've been so busy with lately, delaying liveblog posts.

#gaming pc #skytech #other guys my age go out and buy like an expensive car or something #This is my mid life crisis gaming rig #I will use it to emulate nes games

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4colorrebellion · 2 years

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4cr Plays - Freshly Frosted (PS4)

Hi. Anybody still out there? It's been a minute, eh? Life happens, and suddenly it has been quite some time since the last post.

However, sometimes, just when the world is getting to be too much, a metaphorical hand descends from the clouds with a wonderfully wholesome, addictive puzzle game for you to get lost in for a few days. In this case, that game is Freshly Frosted - a sugar and pastel-filled puzzle game about topping and delivering donuts.

I've been sucked into the game recently, and you get to hear all about it.

The core idea at the heart of Freshly Frosted is that your bakery has machines that produce plain donuts and counters where the donuts are served. In between are stations that dispense toppings - frosting, whipped cream, sprinkles, and so on. Your task is to lay conveyer belts in the right configuration to deliver donuts with the correct toppings to the counters.

Take a look at this level here. The machine with green arrows is releasing the plain donuts. Your conveyer belt takes the donut past the frosting machine (in pink), then sprinkles (blue), then whipped cream (white), then cherries (red). Finally, the finished donuts speed towards the exit (the machine with blue arrows at the end).

Now, you can't just lay any conveyer belt in this level. The order of the toppings matters. Additional mechanics are also steadily added that increase the complexity. You might have multiple dispensers, and multiple exits - each demanding a different topping configuration. Later levels get even more complex, adding in pushers, cloners, teleporters, and other complications.

The entire experience has a meditative quality. Mechanics are added slowly and steadily, so while there is a shift in difficulty, you have time to get used to new mechanics before others are introduced. Each puzzle is narrated with a calming voiceover - focused on positive encouragement - and the gentle, catchy soundtrack sucks you in. The art direction itself is also really colorful and pleasing. The end result is this tremendous hit of serotonin that will cure pretty much anything bothering you.

Freshly Frosted has a total of 144 puzzles to solve, split over a series of 12 themed "boxes". Each box has its own theme and new puzzle twists, including the seasons - imagine pumpkin shaped donuts and deep orange and red color selections for the autumn - nights under the moon, and so on.

I've really enjoyed my time with Freshly Frosted. The puzzles are quite satisfying to solve, and the difficulty does ramp up nicely. Still, even the later puzzles are absolutely solvable without a Ph.D., and won't leave you stressed out. There is also a nice hint system if you do get stuck - it gives you a starting point for placing your conveyer belts that you can build off of. If you do get stuck, you can also skip individual puzzles and return to them later.

It's a game that you should absolutely not binge, but play for a puzzle or two at a time to chill out after a long day. I'd guess that a total playthrough would take about 10 hours, maybe less.

If you're looking for a wholesome and addictive puzzle game to get lost in, then I heartily recommend Freshly Frosted. I played on PS4, but would actually say that this game would be best on either Switch or the Steam Deck - something you can take to bed with you to ease your way to sleep. In any case, this is definitely a puzzler worth checking out.

A copy of Freshly Frosted was provided for this review.

#video game #freshly frosted #puzzle games #review #gaming

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nshtn · 29 days

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about me [2]

Read more on Govindhtech.com

#govindhtech #SKhynix #skhynixtubet31 #tubet31 #news #technologynews #technology #technews

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crazydiscostu · 9 months

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Jsaux Steam Deck Shoulder Bag

The Jsaux Steam Deck Shoulder Bag has been designed for gamers on the go and has caught the attention of Steam Deck enthusiasts and handheld gaming aficionados alike. Its assertive promise of protecting the users valuable gaming consoles and accessories is certainly intriguing, but does it live up to the hype? Lets find out! Product supplied for review purposes Jsaux Shoulder Bag For Steam Deck…

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jcmarchi · 7 months

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The Steam Deck OLED Review

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-steam-deck-oled-review/

The Steam Deck OLED Review

The Steam Deck OLED releases today, providing a new avenue for game players (especially those with big Steam libraries) to take their gaming experience on the go. The new OLED models (one at 512 GB and another at 1TB storage) effectively replace the original release as the new Steam Deck flagship hardware. The older 64 GB and 512 GB LCD models are being phased out, while the 256 GB LCD will remain available at a reduced price.

Steam Deck OLED is not a fundamentally new platform. In many ways that matter, our review of the original still stands, and snagging one of the older LCD screen models is now an even more substantial value at the lower price. However, several of the concerns that surfaced in that review have been remedied by the new model – enough that a new evaluation is warranted.

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While I had few complaints about the original screen, there’s no doubt that the new OLED is a step up. It’s also slightly larger, by about half an inch, which is a pleasant bonus. The brightness of graphics on the screen is particularly noticeable, as are color gradations. A play session with the recent indie darling, Jusant, revealed breathtaking landscapes and a rich color palette that look just as good as they would on a great gaming monitor. Black levels were also impressive; a trip down the highway of Darkest Dungeon II was foreboding and pleasantly bleak. The detailed landscapes of Baldur’s Gate 3 popped off the screen, and character portraits looked lifelike. The HDR capability also impresses in games like Ori and the Will of the Wisps, making tiny shifts in shadow depth in dim environments appear realistic and beautiful.

One of my chief concerns with the original model was battery life. A portable gaming system is all well and good, but the fun evaporates quickly if you can only get a few hours of play. The original Steam Deck wasn’t terrible in that regard, but it wasn’t a high point. Thankfully, the new Steam Deck OLED makes major strides in this department. It’s hard to quantify, given that different use cases result in vastly different battery life. But, in general, I found game sessions lasting a good couple of hours longer before a charge became necessary, compared to my tests of the original model. Valve’s claims of 30% to 50% better battery life are, at worst, conservative estimates.

The form factor hasn’t changed substantially. Like with the original model, I don’t love the high placement of the thumbsticks, but the haptic feedback on the touchpads is quite cool. The curved grips comfortably fit adult hands and fingers. It’s a smidge lighter; I’ll admit that I barely noticed the difference, but given that one of my criticisms of the original was its size and weight, it’s worth a call-out. Overall, the OLED model still feels a little bulky in hand, but nothing that should scare away an enthusiast.

I also noted that the new OLED model doesn’t run as hot as the original; that was never a dealbreaker for me, but it’s a pleasant change. And while not every home Wi-Fi system will be able to leverage the advantage, it’s nice to see support for Wi-Fi 6E; when available, that adds up to faster downloads.

In the interim since our original review of the Steam Deck, Valve has also continued to expand its library of games that are “Verified” for Steam Deck. While not technically a part of our hardware evaluation, it’s notable here as you consider a possible purchase; players now have a vast library of verified games running well on Steam Deck. In practical terms, whether you play on the new OLED model or one of the older LCDs, a much more extensive library of enjoyable games makes it worth your time and money.

Over the months since the original Steam Deck’s launch, other companies have continued to push into this portable PC gaming space; we’re very enthusiastic about the ROG Ally, for instance. But Valve makes a potent argument for the value of its new Steam Deck OLED for those players who’ve still been waiting to snag a portable gaming PC. It looks and plays great, features better battery life than the original, and makes minor changes to an array of onboard systems, such as increased bass response in the audio or faster battery charging, that add up to a better overall experience. It’s an easy recommendation for those who have been waiting to take the leap.

The OLED model is a tougher sell for early adopters who purchased a Steam Deck in 2022. Undoubtedly, it’s a step up in ways that matter, but it’s a considerable expense for only incremental change. If you’re looking for the definitive portable Steam game player, it’s undoubtedly the way to go, but be prepared for only minor changes to the overall experience.

The Verdict

The Steam Deck OLED improves on almost all the features that were problems in the original model’s release and makes a strong case for being the portable gaming PC to beat – though the competition is steeper now than it was at the original model’s launch. A beautiful screen and excellent battery life are the chief attention-getters amid a slew of minor updates that add up to a big difference.

Release

November 16

Price

$549 (512GB), $649 (1TB)

More Information

store.steampowered.com/steamdeck

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gertlushgaming · 1 year

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Aces And Adventures Review (Steam)

For our Aces And Adventures Review, we play a deckbuilding RPG with poker-powered combat. Craft your deck, combining poker hands with powerful ability cards. Journey through 13 fully-voiced campaigns to save the Life Tree, or tackle procedurally-generated runs in this strategic deck builder unlike any other.

Aces And Adventures Review Pros:

- Decent graphics. - 1.9GB download size. - Steam achievements. - Graphics settings - resolution, v-sync, fullscreen, resolution scale, quality preset, particle/foliage quality, motion blur, depth of field, ambient occlusion, bloom, and volumetric lighting. - Game settings - language, main hand scale, tutorial messages, 3D tooltips, map tooltips, sync the narrative, hover for tooltips, show potential damage, auto select target, and quick mana vial animations. - Can rebind controls for the mouse. - The help section in the menu shows valid hands. - Card battler gameplay. - Four character cards to unlock - Rogue, Mage, Hunter, and Enchantress. - Fully voiced from character interactions to card descriptions. - Attack by selecting valid poker hands from your cards dealt. - Damage is calculated by how many cards you played and not the card's value. - Defending attacks can be done by matching the number of cards used to damage. - Upon a successful defense, the attacker takes the damage. - Easy to control with just the mouse. - A card's health is represented by a dice underneath. - Your story is told via cards and is determined by the story chosen. - Level up to get new abilities, rewards, and cards. - Opening tutorial with I going pop-ups. - Helpful text pop-ups, won't let you do any card hands or play without an attack counter. - Get shield dice that absorb hits before your health dice. - You can fast-forward the dialogue. - Cool card art. - Traits change how a card works. - Guard is a trait that means that character must be attacked first no matter what. - Uses a standard deck of cards with special ability cards mixed in. - Cards can trigger pop-out animations. - Pick up and inspect any visible card. - Multiple choice encounters, especially choosing the route ahead. - Mama is earned at the end of a run and unlocks ability packs. - Sacrifice ability cards to buy new cards in the shop during a run. - If a damage and defense card value match then no one takes damage. - Fast animations. - It's a very chilled game with simple controls amd laid-back combat. - Very well presented. - Full deck creator for each character. - 13 campaigns to unlock and play. - As you fill up a mana container, you can then use that to grow new leaves on the tree. - Handy save and exit option. Aces And Adventures Review Cons: - The game just jumps straight in and starts a run with story cards etc. - No easy to access cheat sheet menu for legal card hands, instead, it's a case of pressing a button and going to a menu. - Cards have a habit of repeating themselves a lot. - Doesn't explain itself very well. - It feels like luck is the main thing, not skill. - Takes a bit of time to unlock a new character. - A lot of cards will shine and shimmer but it's not always the ideal time to play them. - The defending part of the game takes the most time to learn. - No way to customize the play space. - It really is the first half a dozen runs or so that are the worst as you just play the same story over and over until you get unlocks. Related Post: Bazzle Review (Nintendo Switch OLED) Aces And Adventures: Official website. Developer: Triple.B.Titles Publisher: Yogscast Games Store Links - Steam Read the full article

#Indie #PC #steam

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gengamer110 · 2 years

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#ANNAPRO Cases for #SteamDeck reviewed: https://youtu.be/93O4iIGYMb4 By the way, this will be my last Steam Deck video for a while. My deck was RMA'ed a second time and I requested a refund instead of a replacement. If I go down the @Steam Deck rabbit-hole again, is unknown. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cmjwam8uG7P/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#annapro #steamdeck

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linuxgamenews · 8 months

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Uncover the Madness Inside WORLD OF HORROR

WORLD OF HORROR hellish roguelite game releases Verified on Steam Deck and playable on Linux via Windows PC. Thanks to the brilliant team at panstasz for their creativity. Available now on Steam, GOG, itch, and Humble Store with 83% Very Positive reviews. If you're into spine-chilling stories and a touch of old-school flair, you might want to check out the WORLD OF HORROR roguelite. It's a unique title that takes you to the eerie town of Shiokawa, where things aren't as peaceful as they seem. Since you're in a place where the calm is just a facade, and beneath it, there's a creeping madness taking over its residents. Your mission? Dive deep into this mystery, find out what's causing it, and also try to stop it before it's too late. Now, let's talk visuals. This title stands out with its 1-bit graphics, similar to the old Macintosh style. And here's an odd fact: all the artwork was created using Microsoft Paint. WORLD OF HORROR is a blend of nostalgia and modern horror roguelites. Drawing inspiration from renowned horror creators like Junji Ito and H.P. Lovecraft. So, if you're a fan, you will want to check this out. The game offers a variety of scenarios, each filled with its own set of challenges. You'll encounter creepy creatures, face unexpected events, and have to make tough decisions. There are 14 characters to choose from, each with their unique strengths. Due to be similar to a puzzle, where you have to think about which character's abilities best suit the situation.

WORLD OF HORROR Roguelite Trailer

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Combat is turn-based, a nod to classic strategy titles for Linux and Steam Deck. Since you can use whatever you find as a weapon, or even rely on your physical strength. And as you explore Shiokawa, you'll come across different vendors, some even run by dogs, where you can gear up for your adventures. One of the best aspects WORLD OF HORROR is the replay value of this roguelite. Since there are 20 different cases to solve, and each time you dive in, the encounters change. This means you can revisit Shiokawa multiple times and still find new challenges. And for those who like to customize, there are also tools to create your own scenarios or try the creations of other fans. WORLD OF HORROR is a blend of retro aesthetics and modern storytelling, offering a roguelite game filled with suspense, strategy, and surprises. It's also available on various platforms, including Linux and Steam Deck Verified (Proton) via Windows PC, with Mac. So, if you're up for a thrilling adventure in a town filled with secrets, it's available now on Steam, GOG, itch, and Humble Store. Priced at $14.99 USD / £12.56 / 14,62€ with the 20% launch discount on Steam and GOG.

#world of horror #roguelite #survivaly horror #linux #gaming news #panstasz #ubuntu #steam deck #mac #windows #pc #gamemaker studio 2 #Youtube

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slay-the-spire-mod-gm · 2 years

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15 Slay The Spire Mods That Make The Game Even Better

💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥 Cards have been around almost as long as the concept of recreation. Deck builders, on the other hand, have been experiencing a surge in virtual popularity in recent years. One of the best card games to come out during this genre boon has been Slay the Spire , a fantastically animated, fresh-feeling deck-building experience. It's won numerous awards for its strategic gameplay and garnered positive reviews for its replayability. However, even the best games get stale after a while. Content dries up, runs start to feel similar. Challenge fades. Attraction dissipates. Luckily, Slay the Spire came loaded with mod support, and the Steam community isn't one to let a great game die so quickly. Here are a nice handful of mods meant to extend the Slay the Spire experience by adding some cosmetics or, in some cases, completely revising the game from the ground up. As always , make sure to check for prerequisites and conflicts; Steam comments are great for sorting those out. Updated on June 7, by Ritwik Mitra: Slay the Spire is a deceptively simple card game that managed to take the gaming world by storm, courtesy of an addictive gameplay loop coupled with genuinely great design that managed to elevate this title over its contemporaries. Players who want to enjoy this game to the absolute fullest can accomplish the same by checking out the best Slay the Spire mods that can be downloaded right now, and we've refreshed this list to include a few more. The Touhou Project is one of the most underrated and beloved gaming franchises out there, and it was only a matter of time before this series would see some representation in a Slay the Spire mod. One devoted fan has released a mod that adds Marisa from the Touhou Project into Slay the Spire , along with a set of cards, a total of eleven relics, and one special potion as well! The idea of playing a character in Slay the Spire who can damage themselves with their own attacks is a unique concept that comes to life with The Cursed mod. This mod adds a new character to the game along with a deck that is extremely powerful but can curse you with each successive use, turning the game into a race against time as you strive to complete the game as soon as possible. In a similar vein to The Cursed, The Hermit is another piece of fan-made content that adds a new character, along with a new set of cards and a whole host of other additions as well. Using this custom class in a new playthrough of Slay the Spire is bound to be a blast indeed A multiplayer Slay the Spire mod that is as bit as engaging and fun as one might expect it to be, Spire with Friends is a must-have mod for any ardent fan of Slay the Spire. With options for both co-op and versus mode, it goes without saying that Spire with Friends is bound to be a blast for anyone who wishes to enjoy their experience of playing this game with a friend. The map of Slay the Spire can be awfully rudimentary and boring to look at. The fact that some of the icons end up looking like each other due to the monochrome aesthetic is also quite frustrating in its own right. The Colored Map mod for Slay the Spire ends up accomplishing the rather simple yet welcome function of adding some color to this boring map so that players can go through the game without getting a headache from looking at this infamous map. The art does all the world-building any player could ask for, as it breathes a certain life and style into the game that even the most gameplay-focused, hardcore deck-building nerds out there can appreciate. How can something so evocative and alluring become even more so? Why, with added googly eyes , of course! The Ironclad becomes the Irondad, looking out for his son: the blade. The venomous Silent now poisons her enemies with cuteness. All this info may be even harder on the mobile version. Cards affected by relics now glow, multi-attack total damage is now shown instead of making you do the math in your head, and many icons now show various status effects. It makes for a much more readable Slay the Spire experience. The base game of Slay the Spire comes with four characters to play with, multiple secrets to uncover, and loads of enemies to slay. But, after hours, any game can get repetitive. Some people may jump ship to Monster Train , another highly regarded deck builder. While Slay the Spire is good already, all it needs is a little something to shake it up again after a while without totally converting the experience. Replay the Spire does just that. All the characters are intact, just with extra cards and relics to play with. Enemies are buffed with special colored versions, but you can debuff them yourself with new applicable weaknesses. There are even three new, multi-layered bosses to slay. Jump into the config options to modify runs even further, to any specificity a wanting heart could desire. Not every mod needs to add hours of content, new bosses, or even a single new item. Some mods excel at being smaller and more focused, making them more able to help players without significant navigational or spatial awareness skills ascend the spire and, uh, slay it. The Highlight Paths mod simply and effectively lives up to its title. If you right-click on a map mode after loading up a new round of Slay the Spire, the path will highlight all the way down to the boss fight, making planning the most efficient route that much easier. It is so much easier to see the bonfire-to-boss ratio of any given path. After playing a certain amount of Slay the Spire, or mastering one of the characters, some may start to feel confident — overconfident, in some cases. They might start to think that Slay the Spire is easy, especially since there is no such thing as an "impossible" run. Should these confident folks download the Hubris mod, they would soon realize the smirk had been wiped from their face by the one and only Giant Snecko. Hubris adds over 50 new relics, some new cards, and a few events. The biggest addition, is, literally, the Giant Snecko, a towering boss of Godzilla vs. Kong proportions. Be warned: this is a pretty difficult mod to master. The xylophone alone takes a few runs to master. Ye have been warned! Playing roguelike games — even the simpler, entry-level ones — can always feel a little grindy, what with the constant restarts from nothing and all. Oh, the bird hits for one damage, but five times? What fun. Now, run off and quickly ascend that spire. Decks in Slay the Spire should peak between cards. But even 25 cards is a lot to keep track of, on top of everything else you need to know to have a successful ascension. If only there was some way to keep track of what's in your deck, but represented visually…. This mod keeps track of what's both in the current deck, the current draw, and the current discard pile, which allows you to plan just that little bit better. Now, if only they could do this for the physical board game version. The main hook of this fella, outside of his shiny red chassis and adorable little face, is his salvage ability, which lets you shuffle a random card from your discard pile back into your hand. The robot can also use a Solar Flare ability for random end-of-turn damage. This is the big tamale. This is years of work. This massive mod combines extremely popular modded characters, and all their accompanying cards, relics, and passives, into one huge expansion. This is one of the biggest and most comprehensive Slay the Spire mods. This time, players can Descend the Spire, playing as villains from the vanilla game, attempting to slay the spire slayers before they slay the spire. There are even new characters never before seen in any other mod. This may possibly be the only mod any Slay the Spire player could ever, would ever, and should ever need. Poor Switch owners have no idea what they're missing, but they have other roguelikes to play , at least. Sometimes, players want something simple. Something rustic. Something that is totally unnecessary, unneeded, and quite seriously unasked for. The Ironclad is a fan favorite, mostly for his regenerating health. A lot of people like Slay the Spire just the way it is. But, what if you could keep the game and character you love, and not change a single thing about it, except to give the Ironclad a nice, sunburn-stopping cowboy hat? This is how Slay the Spire was meant to be played; with a stupid hat on a blood knight. This rules. This is the kind of stuff that elevates Slay the Spire onto so many best-of lists. Now go enjoy all these mods, spire slayers! Read Next in indie games.

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