general gaming

[proud warren]

this is right off the heels of a baki collab too

[little badger]

Gotta go uh meow

[wind stump]

https://youtu.be/Zv4lX2xRMwQ

[wind stump]

remember, 90% of gamblers give up before they hit it big!

[gaunt marten]

||https://i.imgur.com/DOrxw8g.png||

Nine Sols: Got the "bad" ending

Turns out the game has two good endings

That was the last achievement

75 hours in total

The game has two optimization programmers? Why's it run so bad then? https://i.imgur.com/75ZbgRo.png

[cerulean herald]

what achievement was the most fun for you to get

[hushed onyx]

Just because it had two optimization programmers doesn’t mean that they were good optimization programmers

[gaunt marten]

Robo Fight, Fight through Hardship, Magical Bean, Stonks.

[gaunt marten]

To be fair it is a challenge to get anything this good looking to run on my computer

[green fulcrum]

RDR2 for $15 is wild, lol.

And Discord didn't scroll

[slim thorn]

they probably spent all their time making the Switch version work

[green fulcrum]

Also, the fact that Witcher 3 is $20 at full price is even more wild.

[gaunt marten]

I lowered my resolution to three quarters of the monitor and I finally get 60FPS in some regions

[river veldt]

yeah but rdr2 is good and witcher 3 isn't

[gaunt marten]

Oh also, I've been reviewing the music

[slim thorn]

yeah witcher 2 is the good one

[gaunt marten]

I can't help but notice the Credits theme isn't in the OST

[river veldt]

im sorry witcher 3 did nothing for me :(

[slim thorn]

no it makes sense

Witcher 3 is a classic example of "open world" that probably should've been less open

[gaunt marten]

Nevermind there it is

[slim thorn]

while RDR2 is at the peak of "open for open-ness' sake" which is just not what I want from a video game

[gaunt marten]

I personally enjoyed the Witcher 3 a lot more than 2

[slim thorn]

yeah, a lot of people did because of the core gameplay improvements, and I did like 3 (did all the side stuff and DLCs and so on), I just like 2 more because I'm into those games for the story and 2 was way more focused on telling that story

[gaunt marten]

Out of the songs I reviewed so far, this is the only five star one. Two thirds of the soundtrack remain

[river veldt]

maybe it's because i was more into the western setting than the fantasy witcher is

idk

[slim thorn]

(especially in terms of meaningful narrative choices, 3 doesn't even come close to 2)

[random steppe]

Yeah Ix is wrong about this, but I shut up because I think Witcher 1 is the best and if I cancel him over that I am absolutely next on the chopping block.

"First they came for the socialists" and all that

[slim thorn]

yeah... I couldn't even get through a let's play of 1 without falling asleep

while 2 and 3 are obv both good, which you like better depends on what you're looking for in your games

[river veldt]

i just didn't like the gameplay and couldn't really get into the story. it'e whatever there's so many games everyone loves that didn't do anything for me

[gaunt marten]

Oh and the one one-star song

[slim thorn]

story especially gets so subjective

[random steppe]

Witcher 1 story gets really good once you get out of the prologue, the prologue pretty much even the ardent fans agree is pretty trash

[slim thorn]

and ultimately it's not that important

even if the goal is to get more people to play the best games of all time

I don't think any of the gameplay stuff in W2 or 3 is exceptional (at least not any more)

and while W2 stands out to me for meaningful narrative choice, on that specific point I'd have to rank Disco Elysium higher anyway, especially since DE doesn't have obviously bad parts

[gaunt marten]

Why is the rating format so shit

Oh, there's a rating friendly field

[random steppe]

I personally think Witcher 2 gameplay wise is actually even bad.
I love pretty much everything about its story but it's one game I couldn't bear to replay

[slim thorn]

it's weird, for me 3's gameplay is obviously better but not by that big of a margin, in particular they both had the standard RPG problem that most of the toolkit isn't worth using

[random steppe]

Witcher 1 is a terrible action game but it's enough of a RPG that if you focus on that you can have fun
Witcher 3 is not a great RPG but it's a good enough action game that if you focus on that you can have fun.

Witcher 2 is in the middle and it's equally bad at both in a unique way in my opinion.

[gaunt marten]

| ------ | -------------- |
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????

Who the fuck made foobar2000? I just want to ask a few questions

[random steppe]

Dodge don't work, Geralt moves really weirdly, it's animation that work (badly) on a pretty simplistic RPG system.
I can see the vision but for me it misses...

It's gorgeous to look at, the characters are fantastic, its ideas are bold and uncompromising in a way that I would love if they were on a game that worked better...it's really just the gameplay that I don't like

[slim thorn]

honestly, a lot of the so-called best/people's favorite games have this element of "I love what it's going for but" if you aren't the personal target audience, or had different expectations going into it

[random steppe]

It's interesting because many RPGs have the weird middle child when they move from a more tatics system to a more action real time system

[slim thorn]

like I know if I ever played an Elder Scrolls game I would just be bored by unremarkable combat mechanics and storytelling, and none of the go anywhere do anything-ness would make up for that

[random steppe]

Final Fantasy XIII and Dragon Age 2 are both those for their respective series IMO

[slim thorn]

does Mass Effect count? that's the only series I actually played and was conscious of a genre shift in later entries

[random steppe]

Oh yeah, ME2 gameplay is weird and stunted in a similar way IMO

[slim thorn]

(Dragon Age I watched someone else play so although I've seen 1-4 I have no idea what you're referring to there lol)

[visual hill]

it's a 10 year old game, even if it got a remaster

[random steppe]

Dragon Age moved from a top down real time, almost CRPG kind of game with a lot of depth to the rpg part, to a lot more of an action rpg, and DA2 is definitely the one that is in the middle of the transition, that has done away with all of the RPG depth but doesn't have an action combat that is mature enough to carry the game.

[slim thorn]

you know, the way you're describing this reminds me of my experience playing old Castlevanias; by far the biggest surprise to me was that SotN is genuinely painful to play despite all the hype, mostly because SotN's core combat mechanics are barely different from the linear arcade-y memorize-or-die style of classic CVs, which are not at all designed for the freeform metroidvania castle exploration that SotN introduced, so most of the potential was wasted until entries like Aria of Sorrow that updated the gameplay to match the genre shift

[hushed onyx]

Are you talking about the literal prologue in Caer Morhen or whatever, the Witcher castle, or the first part of the story in the outskirts of the city while you’re working on how to get into the city?

[slim thorn]

which reminds me I still have 2 more stages to beat in Curse of the Moon

[gaunt marten]

The final stage is the only good one

I guess the boss on the ship is nice too

[hushed onyx]

Anyway my #1 and #2 games are Alpha Centauri and Homeworld, and everything else is trash

[gaunt marten]

The final boss theme still gives me chills

[slim thorn]

nice, in stage 7 I beat the boss first try

[gaunt marten]

Hell yeah

[slim thorn]

I've gotten sufficiently used to how these work that the bottomless pits in regular gameplay are by far the bigger hazard

now for the stage you tolerate

[gaunt marten]

Oh yeah the dragon boss is cool too

Which characters do you like in the game?

[river veldt]

my number one game

is

Minecraft probably

[gaunt marten]

Doom???

[river veldt]

Doom Eternal too

[slim thorn]

Gebel's my go-to for new unfamiliar rooms, since his base attack covers the most directions with decent range

[river veldt]

and HL2 and Portal 1 and 2

[slim thorn]

but when I know an area a little better Miriam's my favorite for more reach and maneuverability

[river veldt]

Epic Mickey is a game that's near to my heart because it was the first game i was obsessed with

and Zelda BotW and TotK

[wind stump]

starts playing Supercar sim
decides to go back to cardboard crack sim

[slim thorn]

Alfred's the situational guy but it's very satisfying using him when I see an opportunity to do so, especially mixing in boss freezes with one of the other characters' regular attacks (like I did in stage 7 just now)

[gaunt marten]

I focus on zangetsu because he kills enemies

[slim thorn]

Zangetsu I feel like I don't know what I'm supposed to do with most of the time, unless his diagonal whip happens to be the one thing that can hit a certain enemy lol

[river veldt]

Alfred was in MI5 so he would be good at that

[gaunt marten]

You get real close to the enemy and slash them

[slim thorn]

it made more sense when I read that the true ending is Zangetsu only, recruiting no one else

I will of course not be doing that

[gaunt marten]

You can jump slash for crescent moon attacks, and his diagonals are nice I guess

But the main attack is the reason to play him

Slash slash slash slash slash

[slim thorn]

what advantage does his basic slash have over the others

[gaunt marten]

It deals damage faster

[slim thorn]

the range is just as bad as Alfred's stick, but somehow even worse directional coverage lol

[gaunt marten]

Highest DPS, which means you can damage race bosses

[slim thorn]

huh

since there are no visible damage numbers I just kinda assumed all the basic attacks did the same damage

(I think I switched characters to count a few times and got the same numbers?)

[gaunt marten]

His attacks are faster, not stronger

[slim thorn]

was not prepared for the room that checks how efficiently you can power walk down stairs

[gaunt marten]

The worst part of the game is how you can't move while jumping

[slim thorn]

at this point I consider that part of the micro-genre and a thing I personally dislike, but it's significantly better here than it was in RoB, much less SotN

[gaunt marten]

Shovel Knight dispenses with the clunky movement and keeps the graphics and music of the era

It does everything right

[slim thorn]

yeah, it's emulating different retro games, which are closer to my preferences

[wind stump]

Shovel Knight is Dark Souls meets Mega Man meets Castlevania

... Meets Ducktales (woo hoo)

[slim thorn]

oh right, the one sin both CotM and Shovel Knight share is insta-kill bottomless pits

those really need to stop being a thing

[river veldt]

SHOVEL KNIGHT 🔥🔥🔥🔥

they should put Symphony of the Night on Steam or Nintendo eShop so i can play it

or i guess i could emulate

[wind stump]

As a Metroidvania fan... You don't need to play it

[slim thorn]

if you play one Castlevania game, make it Aria of Sorrow

[river veldt]

but everyone loves SotN !

[gaunt marten]

Order of Ecclesia is my favorite

[wind stump]

Easy to emulate (GBA)
If you want to go the legit route, there's the Advance collection on like, PC and probably Switch (Which also has features like rewind and a proper bestiary so you don't have to look up if an enemy can drop an item or not and what Souls do)
It's Really Fuckin' Good.

[gaunt marten]

Because it's the first one that got popular, not because it's the best.

[slim thorn]

sadly, yeah

[gaunt marten]

Everyone knows you play the third game in the series to get the best

[slim thorn]

it's not a Link to the Past situation where the first game that nailed the formula is also one of the best

[gaunt marten]

In this case, Symphony of the Night is the first game with that formula

[slim thorn]

SotN nailed the map formula, but it's later games like Aria that really unlock its potential

[wind stump]

There are two camps on this.

1. Meme prologue enjoyers
2. Speedrunners who got used to the jank or people who have played it to death

It is NOT a beginner friendly game

[slim thorn]

it's also the only CV that I started and didn't finish >_>

[gaunt marten]

It is on archipelago

[wind stump]

and look, I love the prologue meme
but that's like the first 5 minutes of the game

[slim thorn]

I appreciate SotN for being a necessary stepping stone to Aria/Dawn/Portrait/Order, but it's definitely not a good entry point today

[river veldt]

the only Castlevanias ive played are 1 and 2

[wind stump]

Hell, even what you end up doing in the prologue affects your stats

Does the game tell you that? NO.

[slim thorn]

I would say you've seen my thoughts on classic/pre-SotN CV already but knowing you probably not should I repeat?

[random steppe]

Sorry I suddenly got busy because mod duty, I mean the Caer Morhen part yeah, the Outskirts of Vizima might be one of the best parts of the game.
(keeping the ping on because it was some time since you asked me)

[river veldt]

if you want

[wind stump]

If you get hit by Dracula and you take over 1 minute to finish, you start with 70 hp
If you don't take any damage, but take more than 1 minute to finish, you start with 75 hp
If you don't take damage, finish in less than a minute, and use a sub-weapon, 80 hp
No damage, less than a minute, no sub-weapons; and you will start with 85 hp

[gaunt marten]

Bullshit

Should be easier if you do worse

[wind stump]

Exactly!

[river veldt]

that's so funny though

[wind stump]

You do get a potion if you get hit enough Maria has to save you (aka you die but you Don't Actually™️)

[slim thorn]

the short version is that if "classic Castlevania-like" is taken as a micro-genre, then Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is the best I've played, better than CV: Rondo of Blood which CV series vets convinced me was the best pre-SotN (despite its relative obscurity in the west)

[wind stump]

anyway Aria of Sorrow is good but Rabi-Ribi and TEVI have bunny girls

so they're objectively superior

[slim thorn]

SotN is the retroactively weird one because it's a partial transition from "classic" CV to "metroidvania" CV, but being only partial causes problems that are obvious in retrospect after playing any modern metroidvania

[wind stump]

(also i can't really comment on TEVI, but Rabi-Ribi is a VERY SOLID Metroidvania with a lot of mechanical depth if you can get past the fanservice.)

[gaunt marten]

I can't get past the fanservice

[slim thorn]

I feel like I missed something huge about Rabi-Ribi because (despite getting past/ignoring the fanservice) I lost interest in it even before getting to the bad ending

[gaunt marten]

I finished the game and was uncomfortable every step of the way

[river veldt]

Skyrim has a Castlevania 2 reference

[gaunt marten]

Eventually got a mod to put clothes on the girls

I can't believe there's no rotisserie chicken emoji

[wind stump]

There's not even a "bad" ending

[slim thorn]

oh well, whatever the lowest completion ending was

[wind stump]

You have the regular ending, the Chapter 8 ending, and the Before Next Adventure Chapter 10 ending

(Latter is paid DLC)

And if I recall, the only "requirement" for chapter 8 is to beat every boss

(Since you only need 10 characters for the normal ending, but there's no NG+ bullshit, you just continue from where you left off)

(god i know way too much about this game )

[slim thorn]

here we go, final(???) boss time

[gaunt marten]

Good luck

[slim thorn]

yeah casual was a necessary choice

[gaunt marten]

I didn't say anything

(I was thinking it though)

It's definitely a frustrating game any other way

[slim thorn]

I think I just died to the desperation move

[gaunt marten]

Which one was that?

You should make it to the curse of the moon

[slim thorn]

it dropped a blood moon on my head

I don't know which part of this falls under "the curse"

[gaunt marten]

Oh yeah you made it to phase 2

This is the real fight

Tons of fun

Very cool thematically

Though now that you played it I can't play Curse of Strahd with you

[slim thorn]

ok I'm not dead technically

[gaunt marten]

This is how evading a hyper beam feels in Pokémon

[slim thorn]

normal ending

[gaunt marten]

I don't remember what the endings were anyway

The pixel art for the big bosses is masterful

[river veldt]

how do you have infinite lives

[gaunt marten]

For the smaller characters it's too faithful for my taste

[slim thorn]

"Casual" mode

[gaunt marten]

(casual mode is still pretty hard)

[slim thorn]

it's honestly part of the reason I'm so positive about this

a lot of the "Nintendo Hard"-era games or their modern homages are basically unplayable without save states unless you're very into them

but allowing e.g. checkpoints to actually function as checkpoints makes it so much more approachable if, like me, it wouldn't be any fun if you had to spend several of hours of practice to get past a single level

[unreal idol]

I've beaten SMB Lost Levels so I deserve a purple heart

[gaunt marten]

I played the game for six and a half hour and got all achievements except the ones for doing a solo playthrough, for normal ending, for boss rush.

Now I wanna give 2 a try

[slim thorn]

I have... 3.5 hours, 9/15 achievements

wow it felt a lot longer than 3.5h

[gaunt marten]

Your character moves slowly and clunkily, mistakes take time to recover

This contributes to the feeling

[river veldt]

genuinely true

[slim thorn]

probably the fairest way to put it is this is just not my genre, in a way that playing it is more draining than games that do click with me more; it's tempting to say "it's more punishing than ..." and that's true in some ways but on Casual not by much

like if we compare to my Nine Sols gameplay, I definitely put way more hours into 9S and died more overall, but I usually find running around in 9S or dying repeatedly to 🥚 a relatively chill and stress-free experience even if I'm objectively making no progress

[gaunt marten]

I also agree Curse of the Moon is too punishing

[slim thorn]

still, by far less than the games it's a spiritual successor to

[flint iron]

Halo Wars 2 had some funny commercials
https://youtu.be/oZlummy-umA?si=R6cUAywfTJhbf-tR

[visual hill]

SoTN has a work-in-progress decompilation, it seems to have decent progress but there's still a long way ahead before a PC port is possible

(same for MGS1)

[quiet swift]

as he watches gamer reactions to expedition 33 act 1 ending

(I was unfortunately spoiled so I knew what was coming )

[random steppe]

My emotional vampirism has eaten good with this game I'll tell you that

[quiet swift]

[fickle garnet]

I was not expecting act 1 to end the way it did ngl

[quiet swift]

Speaking of act 1, (HEAVY SPOILER WARNING) || the first loading screen tip I get after the end of act 1 is "gustave can generate AP by doing xyz..." really, game? really?||

[fickle garnet]

That's crazy😭

[cunning galleon]

Um

[bitter stream]

did you clip into the ground?

[river veldt]

i think it's a Bedrock chunk error

[cunning galleon]

I grew an old growth spruce tree

Or mega spruce tree and i clipped through the leaves that spawned

Oh actually its just a megaspruce

Old growths are really tall and only have leaves at the top

[cunning galleon]

Spotted an old growth pine biome... I say let it die, let it die, let it shrivel up and die..

The keep so far 🔥

2nd floor is gonna be kitchen and storage, the 3rd floor will be living quarters and then the top is where I'll make battlements and stuff

[bitter stream]

yo sick

[cunning galleon]

This is just like stage 1 and it took me 65 days up to this point

What's a keep without a village to reign over?

[bitter stream]

I should play more MC, i have a mod pack setup and everything

[cunning galleon]

(i lied, took me like.. Hol on

30 days!

[bitter stream]

fair enough

[cunning galleon]

my t-34 did a backflip????

[wind stump]

fekk.

man if i'm struggling with the second Emerald good fucking luck getting all 7

[bitter stream]

oof! Good luck

[wind stump]

i got up to the 4th

[bitter stream]

lets goo

[wind stump]

Being able to restart Special Stages is kinda broken but eh

[wind stump]

actually did the last stage first try

[bitter stream]

well done

[gaunt marten]

Trying to play Chicory but I guess controller support is nonexistent https://steamcommunity.com/app/1123450/discussions/0/3191359376167877176/

The response is from the publisher

What do I write in? https://i.imgur.com/sbYlgkF.png

I know

https://i.imgur.com/9FXYE7L.png

(It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥)

[wind stump]

[gaunt marten]

I found a secret ending https://i.imgur.com/YfQnRlJ.png

[wind stump]

Sonic Origins is a flawless masterpiece

[gaunt marten]

Holy shit I can paint my mom through the phone https://i.imgur.com/EvfmImG.png

[cunning galleon]

Land yacht

[forest shoal]

Here's what I've got for the Balatro mod so far

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1n6bv04wZwlzKXjpGhZ7D_eHKGW82uq6Q?usp=sharing

[wind stump]

that sounds about right.

[fresh bane]

lol lmao

[slim thorn]

Activate Windows OR ELSE

[fresh bane]

I'm actually confused at the whole ''your windows 10 pc cannot be upgraded'' I don't even know if that's true

unless windows 11 is this ultra advanced crazy high spec OS

I got a couple of months before I have to do that whole thing I guess

[slim thorn]

one of the reasons Windows 11 was so controversial is that it (tried to) introduce a genuinely new hardware requirement for the first time in god knows how long, so yeah there's a long tail of people who can't upgrade (although I heard there's exceptions but I have no idea how any of that works)

[light gate]

They want you to buy a new PC.

If old PC can't upgrade, buy new PC that is hopefully Copilot.

[slim thorn]

specifically, it's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module, which to skip over a bunch of boring cryptography details, allows for fancy algorithms to prove that messages from your machine were sent from your machine and no one else

for obvious reasons it's basically inevitable that this becomes a hard requirement for everyone everywhere, it's just a question of when and how hard to push it, and of course W11 is bearing consumer frustration for doing some of that push

(none of this has anything to do with AI/LLMs/Copilot, at least not directly; it's been going on long before the recent LLM boom)

[light gate]

True, but it is also a CPU requirement. Has to be 8th gen or I think Ryzen 2nd gen?

So no FX.

[fresh bane]

Yeah I can see why people would be mad about basically being forced to upgrade their entire computers or be left with one that's completely unsafe

[bronze abyss]

is this dlss artifacting

[fresh bane]

I heard people saying that you can still use older windows versions even if they don't get any updates and what not but it always seems like more of a hassle than it's worth

[slim thorn]

yeah, no one likes having to push the new hardware requirements, but this is one of those super rare cases where it really is worth the pain

[fresh bane]

most I remember hearing about W11 is that it was just way more annoying to navigate and had a lot more bloat programs

[slim thorn]

people also say that a lot and I've yet to notice it despite being on W11 for years

but Windows experiences seem to vary so wildly by user on any # of Windows that it's probably true somehow

[rugged flax]

I have yet to have any significant problems with Windows 11 across multiple computers

[light gate]

I have, its the bloat.

But I rather not turn this into another gauntlet.

lets just say Windows 11 works, but it really loves to upsell you harder than an in app transaction.

[fresh bane]

That's weird, the more important requirement I'm noticing for Windows 11 seems to be the whole TPM thing, the rest seems mostly standard higher spec things like ram and certain processors, I just followed the steps to check if my computer has it enabled and seems like I could just update whenever but it still told me my PC can't be upgraded?

I wonder if it's a mistake or if there's another requirement I'm missing

[light gate]

What are your specs?

You might have Secure Boot off or some sort of weird BIOS quirk that requires a full proper reset for proper Secure Boot and TPM.

Because that's essentially what most folks have to deal with.

[slim thorn]

any chance it's a TPM v1 versus v2 thing?

I've never had to look into these specs in detail (I personally got W11 via buying a new laptop)

[light gate]

oh hell

uhh check system configuration

it should tell you about the tpm ver there

[fresh bane]

intel core i5 11400F 2.60 ghz 6 cores, 24gb ram, 1 tb SSD 1 tb Hard Drive, TPM is enabled, graphics card compatibility with directx and display stuff is in order too

[river veldt]

....The Phantom Menace ????

[fresh bane]

might be the secure boot maybe

i'll check really quick since I'm already here

[light gate]

just keep in mind, your TPM has to be 2.0

if its not 2.0, new motherboard

[fresh bane]

it did say 2.0

[light gate]

ah okay

Then yeah, secure boot issue.

That involves a full reinstall.

Sometimes

[fresh bane]

Well I was thinking of getting a new 1 tb SSD for extra storage sometime soon anyways so I guess as long as I backup any important stuff I wouldn't mind doing a reinstall

[light gate]

I suppose, but do try just enabling it on the bios.

Hopefully the system just reboots and works.

[fresh bane]

okay it does just tell me what to do on these support pages

I'll probably mess with that stuff later, it seems like that's the only thing that would prevent me from upgrading

the other stuff seems to be all in order for me luckily

[light gate]

if you've turned secure boot on and it works, you're ready.

all you gotta do now is wait for Windows Update to eventually push you onto Windows 11

Or... force it by some command

(Media creator tool)

(Or Windows 11 Installation Assistant)

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11

Good thing you have an 11th gen, your experience should be decent.

8th gen works fine, but turning memory integrity really makes things get more of a delay.

[fresh bane]

I'll be honest I still don't know if my parts are any good at all when I was picking out my parts last time I just kinda winged it and went with what seemed to be better than what I had and nothing too expensive I guess I got lucky I didn't create a frankenstein monster of a computer with severely mismatched parts

I did find out eventually my GPU choice could've probably been better though

I guess I lucked out with the motherboard I picked too

[slim thorn]

future proof part selection also depends to some extent on guessing the performance characteristics of future software and hardware, so there's always a gap between what really happens and what people expected to happen

[light gate]

Just remember, you will always need to upgrade at some point.

But yeah, you lucked out for now.

[slim thorn]

for example, I didn't know integrated GPUs were going to stop sucking, so in retrospect there's probably one or two laptops where I arguably overspent on "real" GPUs

[fresh bane]

I was surprised to find there's a couple of older gpus that work as well or sometimes even better than some newer ones for whatever reason that may be, like the 1070 ti I think I remember was the one

[fresh bane]

not fully out of the woods yet, I just checked the whole secure boot thing in the system info and it says unsupported, but I looked it up really quick and it may be because its set to a different boot mode that isn't UEFI so until I mess around with the bios stuff and go check it out I won't know for sure

[light gate]

ah crap

that means you need to reformat the entire thing

ugh

secure boot is a bit a nightmare if you didn't set it properly

idk why people still tell others to leave secure boot off

you should only turn it off if you absolutely have a valid reason for it.

[fresh bane]

Bios mode says legacy instead of UEFI which as far as I know right now is what I need to even enable secure boot to begin with so maybe that'll work

[light gate]

yeah, that should be set to UEFI

legacy is essentially the older methods

I hate how each motherboard vendor makes it unclear these days.

[fresh bane]

yeah that's what I've been seeing, I'll have to go into bios and change it to uefi and then check and restart it again to activate secure boot, so that's why I'm not stressing too much about it just yet

if I do do all that and I still can't enable secure boot then I'll start panicking

[light gate]

Secure Boot should become active for sure.

Or at least, toggable.

[fresh bane]

Yeah it should be fine I'm sure, at least everything else is in order too so whenever that inevitable update rolls up I'll hopefully have no issue

I still think they shouldn't just completely cut off support for windows 10 but what do I know

[light gate]

That update will come when your system is set properly, it won't apply if your system is not supported.

[fresh bane]

my brother helped me put the pc together since I still don't know how to do all that so he probably was the one that set up the whole boot thing so I won't give him much shit for it, but that's probably why it's in legacy mode

[rugged flax]

FYI if you change from Legacy to UEFI, Windows won't boot anymore. It requires a full reinstall of Windows to change boot methods. There are ways around this but it requires complex things like messing with the raw filesystem to run things like mbr2gpt.

[light gate]

wait, how is my gaming laptop running windows 11 on mbr>

I knew gpt was for somethin

[rugged flax]

UEFI requires that the boot partition be on a GPT disk.

[light gate]

ahh, okay

that explains the gpt partition while the os is on mbr

okey

[rugged flax]

the UEFI bootloader needs a specific GPT partition table type to locate boot files
anything else can technically be MBR and still work

[fresh bane]

Good to know in that case I may just leave it until the last moment since as long as I can backup most things I care about like programs and important folders and browser bookmarks and logins I don't really mind doing a clean reinstall

[rugged flax]

Windows has a built in tool to do it, and it's technically possible to do it without data loss, but it can brick your install if something goes wrong.
there's a writeup of how to do it here.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_11/convert-an-existing-windows-10-installation-from/aa8c2de3-460b-4a8c-b30b-641405f800d7

[fresh bane]

I might check it out anyways even if I don't decide to do it just to see how complex it'd be, I mean last time when I bought my 1tb SSD I did kinda go out of my way to essentially copy the entirety of my previous hard drive stuff all into the new ssd just so I didn't have to go through the hassle of reorganizing and reinstalling everything luckily it wasn't that hard to do

I should probably still go into my bios and check if the uefi enable option is even there, if it is then it'll probably be fine to do later

regardless even if I end up having no issues upgrading in the end a couple of months down the line I'm still a little mad I even have to go through the hassle of checking all this stuff

[glossy narwhal]

Peak has arrived at my local Round1

[bronze abyss]

my cat had a lil too many treats

[cunning galleon]

Messing around

[minor gorge]

Perfect.

[cunning galleon]

When I get super bored i just download builds instead of working on mine

[gaunt marten]

https://i.imgur.com/RuHr1fC.png

They made content warnings opt-in in the settings. I don't think that's a good choice

[robust latch]

yeah content warnings should be opt-out

[gaunt marten]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110/view/500572747038983899?l=english

Originally started in April 2019, monthly charts are another way for players to discover a variety of new games finding popularity on Steam. Unfortunately, we've been re-building them each month by hand, leading to a less-than-consistent publishing cadence as we waited to complete all of the necessary work each time.

Until now!

Automating the process means we can now release these charts exactly 14 days after the end of each month, meaning we can surface the most popular releases of the month sooner. It also freed up our ability to get in our time machine and go alllll the way back to 2004, running calculations for all games ever released on Steam; which means you can now do some monthly browsing from the olden days too.

[wind stump]

EGGMAN FUCKIN BALLIN

[slim thorn]

now this is my genre

[slim thorn]

ah, and it has the Aria/Dawn of Sorrow system where every enemy type drops a unique equippable soul shard

I think my favorite iterative combat improvement so far is that it has a few additional shard types; in Aria you could always choose between your weapon and soul/spell without any menuing, here you can always choose between weapon, primary shard, and directional shard by aiming with the right analog stick before pressing the magic attack button

[wind stump]

oooh, you playing Bloodstained

[slim thorn]

yeah, I finished CotM the other day

[wind stump]

i'll keep an eye on this thread then while grinding out Tails in FFXIV

[wind stump]

holy.

[quiet swift]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGMI7gbqydo Yooo, Carbot's finally in the final stretch of elden ring episodes!

[visual hill]

reinstalling Windows and putting the 8 Gb/s connection to work for Steam 👀

[light gate]

That was the most annoying ‘hello’ guard I’ve seen, amazing.

[bronze abyss]

simply a difference in build

[umbral zinc]

yea

[bitter stream]

oh yeah, you're gaming.

[quiet swift]

https://bsky.app/profile/gohbilly.bsky.social/post/3lpha3vc52c27

Goh_billy (@gohbilly.bsky.social)

I made an inspirational greeting card with a spinning Ken Masters. So to all those frustrated out there: "Don't give up because I am... Shoryuken do it!"

Reposts

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Likes

4213

▶ Play video

Bluesky · May 18, 2025, 2:05 PM

[wind stump]

HE IS KENOUGH

wait wrong reference

[green fulcrum]

This is one of the daddest of dad jokes.

[bitter stream]

@static bluff yo did you see t his?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq-vKImyKoQ

I've got to check this out

[static bluff]

Ooo!!

[bitter stream]

I'm updating right now, because part of the reason I played FAF was the graphics haha

and this looks so much better with just some good lighting changes

[static bluff]

This is awesome

[bitter stream]

heck yeah

details here too https://www.beyondallreason.info/news/lightbringer-update

haha, but maybe I'll re-learn the game a bit later, 7am is too early to re-learn economy

[bronze abyss]

improved the score and got it on handcam

[random steppe]

My brain is finally emerging from the Expedition 33 shaped hole it's been for 3 weeks, and I looked up the whole Bungie stealing art debacle.

That is so insane.

[arctic fern]

The what

[random steppe]

Ok so, it's crazy.
Basically at some point people noticed that there was a piece of art in Marathon that was definitely stolen from like, a small artist, and things snowballed from there.

It seems like more than a few thing were just straight up lifted.

[arctic fern]

Wow

[random steppe]

The problem, the whole artstyle of the thing seems to be inspired by the works they stole from this lady.

[arctic fern]

Oh shit

[random steppe]

So it's not as easy as just replacing them

Since they built the whole identity of the game around them

[arctic fern]

Incredible

[random steppe]

And to make matters worse, it seems like the art director and other people from that department follow her on twitter, so it's not like they can belivably sell it as the work of one guy and all these other people being utterly unfamiliar with the source

I mean they are trying, and its possible that's the case, but it becomes an harder sell

And it's like everywhere, the artist made a post with half a dozen examples from the UI or other parts of the game

[arctic fern]

That's wild

[random steppe]

An article if you want to know more: https://thegamepost.com/marathon-alpha-plagiarism-accusations-bungieartist-plastered-stolen-art/

The guy they are pointing the finger at in Bungie statement has allegedly already left the company.

Which like...convenient...

I don't even know what they can do with this honestly
Do they fire the Art Director at that point?
That project is looking so dead

[arctic fern]

You pay out

[random steppe]

I mean that's part of it for sure

[arctic fern]

And probably fire the art director yeah

[random steppe]

A head has to roll, and I'm sorry to say it was his responsibility to check this stuff...this is assuming he wasn't complicit...but it was so blatant that it would be impressively stupid if he knew

And the "Well good news, the culpit already isn't working here anymore" isn't gonna cut it

Insert hot dog costume guy from "I think you should leave"

[smoky sonnet]

and all this on top of bungie's track record with destiny, i don't think many people are paying $40 for an extraction shooter, especially when there's other games that are much more well established

ive been saying since they announced that's what genre it is, if it's not f2p it's probably gonna end up being a borderline concord situation

[random steppe]

I might disagree with you on that

Dark and Darker is free to play but isn't that like the exception to the rule?

I feel like pretty much all the other extraction shooters on the market are around that price point

I feel like on paper Bungie has the pedigree to get into that market with a premium title, assuming the game is good.

The problem is that it seems like it really isn't

That said this problem is separate from that, stealing art is gonna put a damper on this no matter what your genre/plan for the future is gonna be

[smoky sonnet]

i meant, they aren't paying $40 for one from bungie

every time i see them come up in conversation on any website, people are talking about all the bad they've done

that, the art theft, plus barely anyone still being around from the halo days or earlier, and i seriously doubt the game's going to break even with what they put in

[random steppe]

I mean they don't have the most stellar reputation, that's true, but also Destiny is very very big

[smoky sonnet]

and i have 4k hours in it and hate it

[slim thorn]

I have no idea how to predict a AAA game's sucess because the internet discourse and sales figures sometimes have a very strong connection, yet other times appear to be in two entirely different dimensions

(personally I've had no interest in Bungie games since they went multiplayer)

[random steppe]

Be as it may, you don't serve a game to several millions of players without it counting as a plus for your next game

Even only for name recognition

[slim thorn]

yeah, if this was some brand new indie dev, having these scandals before release would make it relatively easy to declare the project DOA

[random steppe]

Bungie reputation was definitely struggling before this scandal too, but also, 40 bucks for an extraction shooter from this dev I feel isn't an outrageous ask

[slim thorn]

were people complaining about the price?

[random steppe]

Responding to Nahvec in general from this message onwards

40 bucks seems to be the current market price for extraction shooters is my argument

[slim thorn]

oh I see, nahvec's not saying the price is "too high" in a vacuum, but that there's a bunch of competition in this genre including f2p

[random steppe]

I don't think there is a lot of F2P for extraction shooters

Dark and Darker is one, but apart from that I don't seem to recall prominent titles

[slim thorn]

yeah I can't argue this one; I can't even keep track of which multiplayer games are supposed to be extraction shooters or battle royales or fort craft looter whatevers

[random steppe]

I suspect it's because the matches are so high stakes that F2P would invite too much of a hacking community

Tarkov sure as fuck isn't F2P and it already has a massive problem with that

But I suspect it's because they are really bad at detecting hackers

[slim thorn]

it often sounds like you need a full-time dedicated team of counter-hacking experts to make a meaningful dent in that problem; any idea how true that is?

[random steppe]

Not really, I'm more familiar in MMOs than in shooters as to how they detect hackers

[slim thorn]

I watched 5 of Thor's youtube shorts on the topic therefore I'm an expert on MMO counter-hacking

[random steppe]

As a sidenote, in relation to this art theft controversy, the stars really aligned for this to happen just as "Arc Raiders", another extraction shooter slated to come out in the future was getting very favourable media/streamer coverage.

So people are already starting to nickname Marathon "Art Raiders"

[slim thorn]

wow

[random steppe]

Which is fucking hilarious and probably a nightmare made manifest for Bungie marketing team

[slim thorn]

it does kinda make you feel bad for everyone there who wasn't complicit in the art theft

but who knows what subset of the company that is

[wind stump]

hahahaha

[slim thorn]

but is it sequential or cumulative

[wind stump]

I think it's cumulative, given this is a weekly objective.

[cunning galleon]

The asymmetry.. Must.. Resist to center

[fresh bane]

good news for me the option to change boot mode from legacy to uefi is there so that means whenever I do change that I should be able to activate secure boot and be able to upgrade to w11 no problem

[worthy rose]

Bug drop, isn't this still a fairly recent game?

Big*

[slim thorn]

I've heard nothing about it after release, so I suspect it took the brunt of AAA open world fatigue

[rancid herald]

Avatar seems to struggle with creating anything outside of the films

having a decade between the first and second film didn't help of course, but even besides that they seem to struggle

[worthy rose]

And it's ubisoft, which probably didn't help

[uneven epoch]

@gaunt marten hi, i wanted to ask you about unicorn overlord. heard a song from it, looked up genre and quickest of plot summaries and it seems interesting. discord search here says you played it, wanted to ask well, if it was fun? if i, who enjoyed fire emblem three houses and who likes octopath and such would like it (and in case you played it on switch, if the performance was okay). when you got time, of course

[gaunt marten]

Did not play it but I've heard super good things so it's on my short list

[uneven epoch]

ooooh

[gaunt marten]

It seems right up my alley and nobody I trust had anything bad to say about it

It has a demo you can try. It is about ten hours long and progress carries over to the full game

Switch performance is fine

[uneven epoch]

okay i misinterpreted if ill end up playin it first ill let you know my thoughts, but this is in like a horizon of few months time for me. a demo sounds delightful tho, ill check that durin weekend i think

[gaunt marten]

Hell yeah I'm interested in hearing what you think

Personally I'm waiting for it to come out on PC

[uneven epoch]

oooh thatd be cool. atlus bein atlus though, hmm well, they let persona free so maybe

[gaunt marten]

From what I understand, the actual developer Vanillaware is the one responsible for what platforms to port the game to. They decided not to go with PC because the scope of the project was too big and they needed money faster

[uneven epoch]

(for flitter or anyone else interested it was this song https://youtu.be/vui8xcRSxtA?si=y2xttQa-cSaa1vPv, there's a tumblr that does blind guesspolls/popularity gauging with video game songs and reveals them in a week, and the vibes of this one are so fuckin cool)

[gaunt marten]

Hell yeah

[random steppe]

I think this flopped for sure, but I heard pretty good things about it.
I think it's a bit of a mix of Ubisoft games fatigue, people overestimating how much people care about Avatar, and it coming out at a bad time

Also IMO, Ubisoft kinda did a terrible job at marketing

[slim thorn]

that's true, I don't remember hearing anything when it was coming out, which feels weird for such a big AAA project, even one I have no interest in playing

[random steppe]

Yeah I learned it was out like two weeks after it happened

No big marketing push for it

It's also a very coloring by numbers Ubisoft game from what I heard, it doesn't really do anything new except being Far Cry but you are blue and very tall

What it does, it's pretty good at it, but also, like...not exactly fresh and exciting

[slim thorn]

what positivity I did hear was mostly about graphics, so, yeah no reason for me to be following it

[visual hill]

Avatar FoP is probably pretty cool if you haven't played open world games in years before

I will probably try it eventually

[rancid herald]

I do care about avatar but I was turned off by the whole first person and inability to rp as my own na'vi

[random steppe]

Yeah they definitely would have been better off with a more light RPG approach to the game IMO

[rancid herald]

if I'm paying 60 dollars for a game I expect to see the whole goddamn character thank you very much

[quiet swift]

https://bsky.app/profile/dominictarason.com/post/3lpjq5cadym2w speaking of games, an interesting thread to browse

Dominic Tarason (@dominictarason.com)

Let's show and tell your favourite underdog games! Below 500 Steam user-reviews. 100, even better! Link it and say why you love it!

Copy Kitty is a dense, technical Treasure-inspired platform shooter with heart, and a fantastic NG+ mode that continues the story. It gets better the deeper you go.

Reposts

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612

Quotes

125

Replies

153

Bluesky · May 19, 2025, 1:58 PM

[bronze abyss]

damn i dont think i have anything even under that except for free slop i downloaded in 2017 as a child

for sure got some good hidden gems though
sun haven if you enjoy stardew valley but maybe want it to be a bit more rpg
rabi ribi amazing bullet hell metroidvania
rabbit and steel great traditional bullet hell

[cunning galleon]

miporin

[quiet swift]

I count five franchises in there...

[young creek]

Whatever the logo is
MTG
Dragon Ball background
Yu gi oh card equipment
Pokemon
Digimon

[slim thorn]

I suspect the ball Ash’s holding is another reference but the photo’s not high rez enough to be sure

[proud warren]

I'd suspect bakugan

As for the logo itself, that's just the MtG logo

[young creek]

What a missed opportunity

whole image is ruined

@quiet swift Delete it

[proud warren]

The bakugan is a bit of a deep cut tho: not really tho

[river veldt]

oh my god it is a bakugan 😭

[quiet swift]

That's the one franchise I'm not familiar with

[proud warren]

Imagine instead of cards, they're balls that transforming into creatures

All we're missing is card wars from adventure time and I've seen it all

[proud warren]

Obviously they made it that way to sell toys, but hey at least it's a break from cards

[river veldt]

yeah but you use cards to activate them

so it's still a card game

[proud warren]

[cunning galleon]

miporin 2

[wind stump]

This is still absolutely haunting to read.

[rugged flax]

https://kotaku.com/cyberpunk-2077-sequel-orion-night-new-city-chicago-cdpr-1851781566

the game will feature a second city that is “more like Chicago gone wrong.”

[quiet swift]

Soooo.. Gotham?

[visual hill]

Midtown Madness: Hold my New Beetle.

[green fulcrum]

So normal Chicago then?

[river veldt]

Chicago's not that bad

[fresh bane]

''For the new dystopian hellscape players will be exploring on the Cyberpunk sequel we decided to draw inspiration from the real city of Detroit, luckily we didn't need to do many changes at all in the end''

[river veldt]

Cyberpunk in Detroit would just be Robocop

[cerulean herald]

They could be best friends with Detroit Become Human

[green fulcrum]

Lololol, they are just roasting all the US cities, aren't they?

[minor plover]

I mean, TBF, Chicago and Detroit are both very easy to roast

if they were roasting like ... Wichita ... it'd be a totally different kind of roast

[visual hill]

there was an attempt...

[hushed onyx]

Or Deus Ex: Human Revolution!

[cunning galleon]

The Panzer iv is so confusing to understand

Some models have extra view ports some don't

Like, this is definitely an mid war model but it has no extra view ports on the Turret and driver

And then a IV G that has them

Wait why do they share the same running number

[cunning galleon]

Late War IV G^

You can tell from the rounded muzzle break

Wikipedia says they got rid of it later on like the IV J or IV H for ease of production but some pictures of those tanks still retained these so those mightve just been salvaged hulls/turrets from damaged/out of service Pz. IVs

All this for ankou pz iv

[toxic seal]

Depending on the point in the show, Ankou team's Pz IV was a D, F2, or H

[cunning galleon]

Yea I'm basing ankou pz iv on the H

So they did overhaul the entire tank

Pz. IV D has a different hull from the F2

[toxic seal]

GuP ignores a couple of those facts, like the Pz 38(t) gets modded into a Hetzer and they show a Hetzer casemate just being lowered onto the chassis. While the Hetzer was based on the 38(t), it also had its chassis widened and altered so you can't just pop one top off and plop another onto it

[cunning galleon]

What's stopping oorai from just.. Upgrading their tanks, does it have to be a historical thing?

What's stopping them from putting a 120mm smoothbore on their type 89

[toxic seal]

IIRC official word is that GuP pretty much follows the same rule World of Tanks does: Must have had at least a design or prototype before 1970

[cunning galleon]

Or having the automotive club convert the Tiger P into a better tank

[toxic seal]

Though the latest we've seen in canon material is early Cold War vehicles like the Pershing and Centurion

[cunning galleon]

There's an MBT

[toxic seal]

Which are also arguably very late WWII

I mean used in an actual match

[cunning galleon]

But we don't see those in action other than crushing that Ferrari

[toxic seal]

Miho also goes over what can and can't be done to modify a tank IIRC when Saori asks if they can mod the tank to be more comfortable

You can bring in a pillow or something to sit on but no equipment modifications beyond what is historically accurate

[cunning galleon]

GuP is a bunch of girls larping and they love it

[toxic seal]

The lore reason the Oarai girls initially made their tanks outlandishly colored was that they didn't know camo was important, but the production reason is so that those unfamiliar with tanks could start telling them apart as knowing what tanks were doing what was important to the plot

[cunning galleon]

Pink could work!

Albeit just way way lighter and in a desert

[toxic seal]

Pink could actually be a decent desert camo yeah

[cunning galleon]

Rabbit team had their mind in the right spot for the wrong match

I wonder if they ever touched on the old tanks Oorai had

They implied Oorai used to be super good and had great tanks

[toxic seal]

AFAIK it's just known that they used to have a lot more tanks but sold most of them off to keep the school open

[cunning galleon]

Seems to be a mix of a bunch, they mightve had ARL-44s, Tiger 1s (to pair the tiger P, i imagine they bought the tiger P to see if it was better than the Tiger 1)

Also they might be a really old school in the tankery scene, right?

With the Mark IV and all

They just got forgotten in history

[toxic seal]

It was known they'd been in sensha-do since the sport started, but it fell so out of fashion after the school went downhill almost no one remembers

The student coucil had to dig to find out they used to be big into sensha-do when scouring for a way to keep their school open

Then Anzu's like "Oh shit we got a fuckin Nishizumi transferring in, we golden"

[cunning galleon]

Anzu got it all planned out, sis' a genius

She knows she'll come around, (threatened on terminating her)

I mean, it wouldn't matter anyway, the school would close

[toxic seal]

Honestly kinda fucked up how Anzu forced Miho into joining but Saori and Hana immediately became real ones and stood up for her

[cunning galleon]

Miho's mom is fucked up

[toxic seal]

"Why didn't you let your classmate die so you could win?"

[cunning galleon]

Wasn't she mad she saved the Panzer III's crew

Also what the fuck is wrong with the Tiger I's crew? Why didn't they take initiative

Or Miho could've just like instructed them to idk retreat into cover

[toxic seal]

Maybe rules, I dunno. Maybe the tank crew isn't allowed to fire if the commander isn't in the vehicle to give the order. The whole reason they lost is that Miho left the tank to go save the Pz III but her Tiger had a clear shot on the flag tank right before.

[cunning galleon]

Miho did it for the Panzer iv, like she told them to "take it from here" real quick to get rabbit team unstuck

[toxic seal]

Maybe a difference in how KMM is trained then

[cunning galleon]

Also imo they could've just paused the match because actual lives were at stake

Unless the Panzer III is super water tight and has oxygen supply

[toxic seal]

Yeah they aren't too clear on the very real dangers this sport has even with the "non-lethal" shells that disintegrate on impact and the "carbon lining" that keeps crews safe inside

Maybe just more safety we are never told about

[cunning galleon]

Miho was uninformed they converted their Panzer IIIs into submarines

The shells could be made of carbon or something

It has enough gun powder to fling tanks

[quartz pawn]

I want this.

[sacred grove]

Nice. E33 has crossed the threshold into Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam

[green fulcrum]

Surprised it hadn't already

[rancid herald]

An uphill battle due to being French

[gaunt marten]

https://i.imgur.com/wxXEuAu.png

https://i.imgur.com/6d0IEwg.png

My daughter is now a horse

[dense crypt]

Horse

[oblique stone]

No horse allowed.

[wind stump]

https://bskye.app/profile/avencri.bsky.social/post/3lpl2ldoplo2t

[gaunt marten]

The events you get when you're a lunatic are really bad https://i.imgur.com/5KQI4Y3.png

I'm not gonna eat my chancellor!

[cunning galleon]

1 hour of work and I've only made the jack

[gaunt marten]

I foresee a lot of fights in my future https://i.imgur.com/RSr8JUJ.png

Oh boy the pope is mad too

[river veldt]

uh oh

[gaunt marten]

Nevermind, they declared a jihad for Anatolia and a crusade for Aquitaine

[astral steeple]

Oh they do a ballerina collab instead of the actual john wick lol

[fickle garnet]

Wouldn't buy it even if it was John. Activision doesn't deserve my money

[gaunt marten]

John Activision

[minor plover]

I have an ex-friend whose dad worked for the real John Wick as a builder

[river veldt]

Activision made Pitfall! that's pretty cool

[minor plover]

(ex-friend because the guy was like "if you're not a Catholic you're a heretic of the worst kind", with all kinds of specific nasty details, and wouldn't back down from that and I was like ... well, k, we're not good enough friends for you to talk to me like that.)

[wind stump]

Cap... I think anyone who worked on Pitfall is either retired or dead.

[river veldt]

David Crane is still alive !

[wind stump]

Still more than likely riding out his twilight years far away from ActiBlizz

[river veldt]

yeah he left Activision in 1987

[wind stump]

-# was that the bite of-

[hasty patio]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOR0muF7lf8

[cunning galleon]

pov: kuromorimine flag tank

[worthy rose]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/a-clair-obscur-expedition-33-dev-has-formed-an-anime-rivalry-with-the-godlike-buildcrafters-who-only-needed-like-one-week-to-beat-his-one-hit-damage-record-of-3-4-billion/

[wind stump]

[river veldt]

https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/s/QVYfouKeqo

[bitter stream]

holy shit

that's incredible

[gaunt marten]

https://i.imgur.com/KDWZDJ4.png

King Bogumil is a Waldensian, not a Bogomilist

[cunning galleon]

I got the Turret extra armor on and hoo boy, can't wait to see the final product

[wind stump]

was that the bite of 87

[cunning galleon]

Testing tank line up

Yea, I'm happy with this

[fresh bane]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3533730/Warhammer_40000_Boltgun__Words_of_Vengeance/

Steam

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun - Words of Vengeance

The Mechanicum of Mars have gifted you a blessed new weapon - a keyboard! Brutally decimate hordes of daemonic scum with every keystroke, in this fast-paced rail shooter. None can stand against the might of your WPM!

RETURN TO GRAIA 
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun - Words of Vengeance is a creative twist on epic boomer shooter Warhammer 40,0…

▶ Play video

huh

[gaunt marten]

Which CK2 achievement do I go for next? https://i.imgur.com/g748lRo.png

https://i.imgur.com/QUOcBYn.png

https://i.imgur.com/8qZVcPO.png

[cerulean herald]

Nobody's Business but the Turks

[gaunt marten]

Good idea

I just got this one https://i.imgur.com/WflYigy.png

[green fulcrum]

Yes.

[gaunt marten]

I'm going for all of them eventually but not all of them at once

[quiet swift]

Gawd damn

[quiet swift]

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-new-expedition-33-monolith-set-includes-items-from-the-sold-out-collectors-edition/1100-6531744/ ooooh, tempting

[fickle garnet]

Oh that's cool

[gaunt marten]

https://i.imgur.com/jrZ1Hun.png

That was fun

Probably want to do less fighting in the next one

26 achievements left. What next?

Maybe this one

As the Anti-Christ/spawn of Satan, become Grandmaster of the Satanists.```

I was hoping to get it randomly, but after 1800 hours it hasn't happened.

[velvet fiber]

is there a gta chat room?

[green fulcrum]

AAAAAAAAAAA Owlcat strikes again! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmfu_Spm-6U

[dense crypt]

What else did owlcat make

[green fulcrum]

They made Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, and Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader.

They are all CRPGs, and very good ones at that

Their writing is pristine

[dense crypt]

nice

[fickle garnet]

Sifu is free on Epic Games Store

[cerulean herald]

There isn't, nobody's made one yet

Might change when GTA6 comes out but we'll see

[fresh bane]

more decomps

[hasty patio]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/489630/Warhammer_40000_Gladius__Relics_of_War/ Free to keep for a week.

Steam

Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War

Gladius Prime was known to Imperial scholars as a planet of archeological interest. During its colonization ancient relics were found, revealing hints of a shrouded past. But it was more than relics. Something awakened, an unspeakable horror from an ancient past, and the citizens of Gladius found themselves trapped in a terrible war for survival…

Price

$3.99

Recommendations

7302

Metacritic

71

▶ Play video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7ig-tH4yyM

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/skulls2025 And one more, but with a general link to the event.

[river veldt]

Halo CE pistol is so good

[green fulcrum]

Soooo...Act 5 of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous...

I say this with all the honesty in my heart...||FUCK Queen Galfrey! She ruined everything! My crusade! My city! My precious armies! All gone, reduced to atoms. All of my resources? Gone. All of my troops? Gone. All of my generals? Dismissed, and I have to wait several days before I can get them again. All of my allies? Abandoned. Every last bit of power I had over the Worldwound and the front lines? Decimated. In six months. And this is part of the story, it's unavoidable. Galfrey can suck it.||

Now, with that rant over...it's good to be back in Drezen, and I can't wait to kick even more ass.

[orchid sundial]

wow right after it took me 20 minutes to get all the trophies in the game

[slim thorn]

on legendary it's often the only non-Covenant weapon I try to hang on to

[arctic fern]

which order of the stalker games should i try plaing? ive never tried them but i found out that i got the enhanced editions for free so....

[worthy rose]

Game informer, October 2008 issue how things change

[forest shoal]

AAA gaming is a waste

[visual hill]

it's streaming, the experience is pretty bad from what I've seen

devmode is still where it's at if you want a good experience 😦

[wind stump]

HOLY

damn Gura fans really broken up after she graduated
Too soon?

[cunning galleon]

Miporin 3

Coming along well, can't wait to make the extra armor for the sides

[green fulcrum]

So, as a little follow-up to this, I found out last night that there's something else you can do that's pretty much tailor-made for this situation: you can declare independence and break away from the nation that's been bankrolling you up until this point, because due to the queen's actions, it's now falling apart. By declaring independence, you regain all the materials, energy, and finance points you need to continue fighting, and you get a special ending. You also pretty much become the most powerful person on the political stage, and Drezen becomes the capital city of a new fledgling nation. The only thing you miss out on is a couple small rewards, but that's relatively pointless in the grand scheme of things.

Owlcat knew what they were doing. It's an absolutely perfect little "yes, but f*ck youuuu" you can give to the nobles when they come crawling back to beg for your help after stonewalling you and hindering you for so long.

[hasty patio]

There is release order (Shadow, Clear, Prypiat) or timeline (Clear, Shadow, Prypiat).

[arctic fern]

i wanted release order
thanks

[hasty patio]

Do note that there have been a few changes that go beyond technical ones (that ultimately came about because of the current war there). I do not know how much that affects the game/series at this point.

[arctic fern]

wdym a ukranian game would remove russian influences? why would that do that? seems silly to remove references to a country actively at war with your country

/s if that wasnt obvious

[gaunt marten]

Let's play some Crusader Kings. Today I want to go for https://i.imgur.com/mC8HfBu.png

[bitter stream]

good luck!

[wind stump]

bro actually got hella scammed

[cerulean herald]

what game is that

[wind stump]

TCG shop sim, but i have a hololive texture mod

[gaunt marten]

https://i.imgur.com/g5nsFLZ.png

https://i.imgur.com/xkZA0YN.png

Wow, this gets you insta-excommunicated

[hasty patio]

lol

Perfect time to bring out your puppet Anti-Pope and let it rip.

[gaunt marten]

I'm ending the game and moving to the next achievement

[hasty patio]

I haven't played it in years.

And off immediate topic, but prepare for higher table top prices for the Horus Heresy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bZW7ANLaA0

[gaunt marten]

137/161 achievements. I'm almost done

[bronze abyss]

cats always fit in weirdest places

[cerulean herald]

if i fit, i sit

[bronze abyss]

my back hurts a lil,got any ibuprofen?

[dense crypt]

Thought that was The Forever Winter for a sec

[velvet fiber]

This is what i play GTA for (Weeeeeeeee)

[visual hill]

bail damage in GTA has always been sooo random

it got worse since GTA IV due to the ragdolls often doing their own thing

[velvet fiber]

I like how the fall damage just didn't work there lol, barely took any

[bitter stream]

Just had an awesome round in Hunt Showdown. We spotted a team from a field away, got some early shots in, got closer, and then a big shootout occured over a barn.

My teamate pushes into the barn, get's a shotgun blast to her face, is down. Me and my other teamate try to rotate to pick her up, BLAM, the other teamate eats bullets from someone on the roof.

I rush into the barn for cover, blast one of them with my rifle, then here the other two coming, and pivot outside, shoot another one of them before hiding around haybales to try to snipe the third, I miss, and rush over to revive one of my teamates.

The remaining opponent has the same idea, but this time my team is better, as we blast the other team off the field, and revive our third, walking out with 3 bounty tokens 🥳

[arctic fern]

nice.

[static bluff]

Not too bad for my first attempt after putting the game down for several years

[bitter stream]

Nice work! is this Into the Breach?

[static bluff]

Yeah. I really like this game. Never ending interesting puzzles

[bitter stream]

sweet! I remember seeing it a fair bit on release, but I never did try it myself.
I've been meaning to get into Darkest Dungeon, but haven't played much yet, the controls on switch are kinda... hard to use

[static bluff]

That one never really peaked my interest. The setting and art style aren't my thing

[bitter stream]

yeah fair enough! I just wanted something different than playing XCOM 2/EU/EW again hahah

What sort of tactics games have you played?

[static bluff]

Wargroove is my favorite tactics game

[bitter stream]

ooh nice!

I'd heard good things

but I keep missing the sales lol

I should probably wishlist it, though do you recommend 1 or 2?

[static bluff]

Well, I've only played 1. So I can't provide a first hand account. But, if you can get 1 really cheap, I'd go for it. It's so good. I have no reason to doubt that 2 is equally amazing

[bitter stream]

Fair enough! i'll keep an eye on it, thanks

[cunning galleon]

Berries

[bitter stream]

tasty snacks!

[cunning galleon]

Yes!

Finished the keep

[bitter stream]

ooh nice work

[light gate]

What texture pack is that?

[rotund forge]

Started Phoenix Wright today

[wind stump]

Pog!

-# absolutely worth it

[slim thorn]

#NineSols: finally made some time for more Level 0 True Eigong practice, just managed (on story mode) to clear phase 2

[bitter stream]

Nice work! though I'm not clicking that spoiler lol, Nine sols seems cool enough that I might try it one day

[cerulean herald]

soon you shall be part of the defeated eggnog at level 0 club

[slim thorn]

have you done that?

[cerulean herald]

I havent attempted level 0 myself, though rematches with Eigong have been noticeably easier when I replayed the game recently

[gaunt marten]

https://i.imgur.com/flpDsmI.png

Never bring a spear to a gun fight

[wind stump]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vk11bb57hf8?feature=share

TIL "Scribblenautical" is a valid abjective

(At least, in Scribblenauts. Don't try pulling this at your next Scrabble game)

[wind stump]

HOLY

[bitter stream]

that is 4 x your current money

holy moly

[worthy rose]

https://www.gematsu.com/2025/05/battle-aces-canceled

[bitter stream]

yeah I heard about this, really sad, I guess they didn't get enough numbers during the beta?

[visual hill]

finally Black Mesa at 8K 120 FPS is possible after this GPU upgrade 😛

[fickle garnet]

Damn

[visual hill]

it's just barely possible, in fact it will occasionally drop to 100-110 FPS in heavy fights

the game has a lot of aliasing, so the higher resolution really helps reduce that

[fickle garnet]

That's still pretty good for 8k

[quiet swift]

From what I'm reading, yeah. Not enough response to it it seems

[slim thorn]

I am once again reminded of^

[visual hill]

immersive sims too 😛

[slim thorn]

hm... how many immersive sims have even gotten made since Prey?

[light gate]

Real Time Strategy games tend to be exhausting.

But they can be fun when the time is right.

[slim thorn]

I just realized forwarding doesn't include the name, so I probably just gave some of you the impression that I said that about RTSs

[light gate]

No, I did see it.

I'm just sharing a reason as to why it happens.

I love CNC but I occasionally play CNC.

[slim thorn]

I'm in a weird place with this one since I barely tried any RTSs and just didn't have strong feelings about any of them, while with immersive sims I loved the few I did play but also have no desire to play them again... usually I gravitate to genres which aren't quite that open-ended

[fresh bane]

I played so many RTS as a kid

it's kind of nuts actually, it's not the type of genre you'd think a child would be stimulated by

Age of Mythology and Warcraft 3 were my entire life I would go to a cybercafe just to play them for like 2 hours

[slim thorn]

for comparison, the RTSs that I do remember playing as a kid were Age of Mythology and Star Trek: Armada; in retrospect both pretty clear examples of choosing a game because it's about a thing I like regardless of genre

[light gate]

I mostly remember C&C for the cinematics.

[toxic seal]

SPACE

[light gate]

Kane is just 👌

That too.

[fresh bane]

does System Shock remake count?

[slim thorn]

I was waiting for someone to bring that up

in this context, no

(especially if the remake didn't lead to any new immersive sims)

[light gate]

"You can't kill a messiah."
... "BUT I CAN" record scratch

god am I old.

Ironically enough, the only RTS that never gave me any interest was Starcraft. The intro was the only thing I enjoyed about it, the rest just blurs to me. Maybe I should stick to the protos only campaign since it felt kinda sick.

[slim thorn]

as a spectator I was actually watching a lot of SC2 for a few years

[light gate]

Oh I meant SC1.

[slim thorn]

but that had absolutely zero connection with interest in playing games like it

[light gate]

SC2 looks really dull for some reason.

[rotund forge]

I love that I'm seeing new videos about Prey pop up recently. I've never played but I've seen several playthroughs. It's honestly a great game. I love seeing people blind react to the Nightmare

[slim thorn]

there's nothing quite like your first time figuring out which coffee mug is the mimic

[rotund forge]

Or your first time recycling every thing in existence

Including the people

[slim thorn]

or realizing you can use the GLOO cannon to build stairs

[light gate]

In rememberable gaming moments, I'll never forget beating ||the trials|| in Tunic.

[random steppe]

Does Death Stranding count as an Immersive Sim?

[slim thorn]

oh yeah, some of the later reveals in Tunic are a specific flavor of whoa I don't think I'll ever experience again

[fresh bane]

Isn't Death Stranding a literal actual walking simulator?

[rotund forge]

I will never forget teaching my high school teacher the infinite 1 up trick in 3D World

[slim thorn]

I want to say no but then I'd have to start talking about the definition of "immersive sim" and I don't want to do that again

[random steppe]

I mean it's not a walking simulator in the sense that the game genre is defined

[light gate]

I hope Riven comes out to PS5 I really want to re-experience it at the highest graphics.

[random steppe]

I guess there isn't much player choices in it so maybe not

[slim thorn]

I'm so used to "walking simulator" being a pejorative I don't consider it a real genre (in the neutral descriptive sense), but I've also called Death Stranding a game that simulates walking since it really is exactly that

[random steppe]

Oh yeah, it is a walking simulator but doesn't belong to the "Walking Simulator" genre

Which is generally characterised by a lack of gameplay mechanics

Death Stranding has plenty of those, some would even say too many

[slim thorn]

the funny thing about that description is when I think of "games with no gameplay/mechanics", my go-to is cow clickers

[cerulean herald]

is QWOP a walking simulator /s

[fresh bane]

Death Stranding 2 is gonna be interesting

[fickle garnet]

It's the best walking simulator

If there were no enemies, it would be a super relaxing game, but since there are enemies it's slightly stressful at times

[visual hill]

"a game that is critically acclaimed but didn't sell well" is my definition

[fresh bane]

I mean it gets to a point where you built these intricate roads and stuff where you can just travel without many issues I guess

Especially super late game

[fickle garnet]

Yeah true

[slim thorn]

in retrospect I didn't use enough ziplines

[fickle garnet]

I pretty much set up a whole zipline highway in the mountains

[slim thorn]

I've seen videos of those

[fickle garnet]

It's a small one but still

It goes between most of the locations high up in the mountains

Death Stranding probably has my favorite traversal system in a game. Walking from place to place is so nice

[random steppe]

I sure hope so, that's like...the game

[fickle garnet]

That's why I like it so much. It's super fun to play

[random steppe]

I do love games that make apparently tasks into more complex and involved procedures

[fickle garnet]

Yeah

[slim thorn]

I do think there hasn't been nearly enough experimentation with game designs where "simple" actions like walking, jumping, climbing, etc have a lot of complex mechanics (like they do in real life)

[fickle garnet]

Usually walking places in games is super boring, but with the way they did it in Death Stranding makes it fun

[random steppe]

This triggerted me checking if PVKK has a release date yet.
It doesn't, so I'm sad

[fickle garnet]

Agreed

[slim thorn]

I remember way back when Assassin's Creed 1 was new and felt those parkour mechanics were a badly needed improvement on the "press the jump button to go boing" that every other game does

...and then we just stuck with that for a few decades lol

[fickle garnet]

It's also relaxing to walk your way through the world in DS

[slim thorn]

but at least it has been done with walking and jumping

parrying, for example, I don't know of a single game that ever made the basic act of parrying more intricate than "face enemy then press button during time interval" (and then all the interesting complexity is "on top" of this)

I want to see a system where e.g. you need to position your weapon/shield and then shove it in a specific direction to execute a parry

[random steppe]

This reminds me of Reciever, it's an older indie game where you have a gun and there are drones sometimes trying to kill you
Problem is, nothing of the use of the gun is automated like in other games.
So for example if it's a revolver you have to get out the cylinder, load the bullets one at a time, close the cylinder, cock the hammer, once you shot to reload you have to reopen the cylinder, get out the casings...etc

[slim thorn]

I appreciated that Half-Life: Alyx "manual-ified"/un-automated/??? a lot of those firearm operation tasks

[random steppe]

It's pretty silly, but I feel like these things make for the soul of a game.
Maually swiping the gas mask in Metro games when it's dirty or wet, or having to change the spent filters

[slim thorn]

they definitely have a big impact on the overall experience

[random steppe]

Speaking of which, I feel like Elite Dangerous misses an opportunity with having you do very little maintenance on the ship.
The game is already a busywork simulation, they should have had me click some buttons to IDK, purge the fuel filters sometimes, or run a diagnostic on the weapon targeting, or recalibrate the radar IDK, I love that shit

Make it so it's only required if you don't run manteniance on a station for a long time, and maybe sell some modules to automate it for those that don't want to do it

I want to do it

Maybe give those system a bonus for a while after that has been ran

[slim thorn]

this would've felt right at home in Shipbreaker too

[random steppe]

So you do it before jumping in a difficult battle

Shipbreaker is great, I played that game so much

[fresh bane]

Assassin's Creed makes me so damn sad

I grew up with that franchise it was my life when I was in my pre-teens

and then they just got worse and worse every time

now it's just a franchise I used to know

I wasn't even interested enough in the new ones to keep up with them at all I don't even know what's going on with anything post Origins

[slim thorn]

I don't know what's going on with anything post-3

[random steppe]

I sometimes wonder if they get worse or you just grew up.

[fresh bane]

I just saw a few clips of Mirage and Shadows and thought ''wow that looks like it feels jank and slow'' and that's about all I know

[slim thorn]

according to people I watch on youtube who've played literally every AC multiple times, mostly they did actually get worse

[fresh bane]

I could boot up AC Revelations or Unity right now and have an absolute blast

those are my favourite ones

[random steppe]

Yeah true, but also, I could do that with Witcher 1, because I already love the game

My cousin kid did grow up with more modern ACs and they seem to love those, they aren't liking the most recent ones much though, but like,,I wonder if it's because they just became 16 and they are starting to be more interested in outdoor sports activites

[fresh bane]

I mean I guess I wouldn't know how to answer that because of course I think they're still great

but if me liking them already invalidates that opinion because then I'm biased well, I don't know

[slim thorn]

part of it is also that even the "worst" AC is still a functional game; if you just pick one AC completely at random and give it to a person who's never even heard of the series, they'll probably have fun with it, even if they would've had more fun with a better entry

[random steppe]

They definitely changed.
I have no horse in the race ultimately, if it's for the better or for the worse it's hard to tell, honestly IMO AC went in the wrong direction straight from AC2, that's when I jumped off the bandwagon

[slim thorn]

like how Halo Infinite is a fun game even though every other Halo is better

wait, from 2?

[random steppe]

I did have some fun in Odyssey but it was too grindy to finish

Yeah, I didn't care for 2 much

I did like the more grounded combat in 1, at the time I was doing a lot of medieval fencing as a sport.

[fresh bane]

I've heard people not liking Revelations but 1-2-Brotherhood have always been the golden period of AC for most people

3 is by far the most divisive and 4 struck gold even with people who don't care for AC at all

Unity got gutted by that launch but underneath that is probably the most immersive and expanded AC gameplay ever

[slim thorn]

ah, for me AC was about platforming and stealth and assassinations, the combat was always a fallback option you do only to buy time for a proper getaway; whenever ACs forced a lot of combat it was just a drag for me

[fresh bane]

You're gonna get the absolute AC nerds complaining that the parkour in Unity is too 'automated' but it's not as bad as people make it seem like it is

[random steppe]

4 I tried a bit.
I have a big problem with that game, I played it at the wrong time

[slim thorn]

2 is definitely the peak for me, a lot of 1's obvious issues were just plain fixed in 2 (back in the era where it was actually common for a sequel to just do that)

[random steppe]

(4 is black flag right?)

[fresh bane]

Which is why I'm kind of baffled more people aren't completely against them going for the action RPG approach with the newer games

Such a baffling decision I'm still completely blindsided by that everytime I'm reminded of it

[slim thorn]

I think that's because "people" either dropped the series long ago like me, or "only played the modern ones" like Gen was saying before

[random steppe]

Ok here is the thing, have you watched the tv show Black Sails?

[slim thorn]

all you've really done is given me yet another reason to not give it another try

not that I needed one, there's plenty of other games I haven't gotten to which sound more interesting

[river veldt]

i love New Vegas and that's the jankiest game in the world

[slim thorn]

New Vegas being one of them

[random steppe]

You are now in the catch 33 problem of "are they gonna drop a sneaky remaster like Oblivion right after I finished playing it?"

[slim thorn]

E33 being another one of them

(did you do that on purpose?)

[random steppe]

(because they totally should remaster it, since Oblivion sold well)

No

Believe it or not, I don't drop subliminal messages to convince you to play E33

[slim thorn]

only Superliminal ones (hint)

[random steppe]

I will however drop overliminial messages

yes

[river veldt]

man i would love a New Vegas remaster

[random steppe]

It's so funny that Bethesda releaseed Skyrim 60 times and somehow the best move they could make all along was to just remaster anything but that

[slim thorn]

that whole time Nire was typing I was wondering if he'd add Majora's Mask to the chain of games I haven't played yet but I guess not

[random steppe]

Also about E33, this will sounds very weird, but hearing about your mother react to your Witcher playthroughs, I feel like that game would be a great one to expose her to in some way.

Lots of very intense french drama

[slim thorn]

noted

[random steppe]

Also very powerful hook at the start

Which helps

[slim thorn]

(but we'll have to see if she gets around to Disco Elysium first)

[quiet swift]

Speaking of E33 - || Monoco is hilarious. Just got to him.||

Also scrolling back up. RTS were (as a kid) and probably still are my favorite genre. It does make me incredibly sad to see it go by the wayside. I still feel that if it had more followed total annihilation/supreme commander style grand giga battles rather than APM madness, it wouldn't have ended up being replaced by MOBAs or other genres

[random steppe]

You speak truth.

IDK why it is that every bit of comedic relief just hits really well for me in that game

I usually am just annoyed when in a game they present a character that is just supposed to be goofy for no reason but here I love them all and I find them fucking hilarious

Also if you just got there, ||how was the Dualiste?||

[quiet swift]

||Pain. And I'm playing on story mode but it still fuckin hurts. But it only took a single try, it was definitely skin of teeth||

And I found the ||grosse tête, and it would be easy enough on story mode except i'm like 32-34 vs this thing which is probably like 60||

[random steppe]

Yeah, be careful at exploring a lot

It's kind of easy to accidentally get ahead of the difficulty curve even on normal

especially if you tackle some harder map enemies early and get a few high level weapons or pictos

[cunning galleon]

It came with actions and stuff

[river veldt]

so the marines in Halo are very obviously inspired by the Aliens marines correct

[cunning galleon]

This should be a common activity

[wind stump]

WHEN DID THIS GAME ABOUT ROBBING A BANK AND COMMITTING TAX FRAUD WENT ALL
T H I S

[toxic seal]

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 spoilers ||Attack it and potentially have an easier time later or leave it be because it's nonviolent and potentially have a harder time later? Ugh these decisions||

[fickle garnet]

Now that I finished The Dark Ages, I should continue E33

I stopped after act one

[gaunt marten]

I love optional bosses

[random steppe]

I love that whole area

[tropic kindle]

Random Forza Horizon 4 Liveries i got

[wind stump]

BEST GAME EVER

I WILL IN FACT
BE GAY
AND DOING CRIME

[graceful bridge]

https://youtu.be/CJXp3UYj50Q?si=0zSZRZmWgxWI1sLa

So the SteamOS version of the Legion Go S does better than the Windows version.

[slim thorn]

putting every left number in purple when one of them isn't higher than the right number feels misleading

[graceful bridge]

Probably an oversight, yeah.

[slim thorn]

but it makes sense, SteamOS is a distro specifically designed to run Steam games, it'd be kinda weird if it didn't outperform Windows at its literal one job

[minor plover]

they're using the purple coding just to say "SteamOS" rather than to say "better" which ... yeah ...

[quiet swift]

Deck Dominance!

[graceful bridge]

It's interesting, because SteamOS has to run the games through emulation, which takes a lot of CPU power... but Windows 11 just has that much more overhead compared to Linux that even emulating outperforms it on the same hardware.

[slim thorn]

in theory, the longer windows relies on backwards compatibility with all past windowses, the better emulation can compete with it... and perhaps replace it

dunno if that'd ever lead to me actually changing OSes on my main device though

[gaunt marten]

It's technically not actual emulation, but just translation (and other compatibility tools)

That's why it's so performant

[slim thorn]

oh right, Wine Is Not an Emulator, I know this

[graceful bridge]

Yeah, good point.

[graceful bridge]

Probably wouldn't switch my main OS, because some utilities I use aren't compatible. But a set-top console box would be amazing.

[slim thorn]

it'd be funny if we ended up with a "POSIX + Win32" standard that most future apps get coded against

Mac already got (mostly?) absorbed

[graceful bridge]

Yeah, MacOS X was running BSD Unix at its core. Very heavily modified at this point, but still similar bones.

[visual hill]

that reminds me, I tried to run the 3DMark99 installer but it's a Win16 executable appearently

which is weird because it is a 32-bit application

I recall a few programs/games from that era being like this, due to using third-party installer code that was 16-bit, and it was fine back then because Windows could still run 16-bit programs

I guess you can use a third-party program that extracts the installer without running its code, or find an already-installed copy that can be unzipped

or run Windows 98 in DOSBox/86box just to install it, but that's a bit extreme 🙂

[fickle garnet]

I've been seeing a lot of talk about game recomps and I would like to ask what that is

[slim thorn]

fair question

are you familiar with terms like "source code" vs "binary code"? or "assembly code"? or "compiling"?

[fickle garnet]

Not completely

[slim thorn]

("recomp" is short for "re-compilation" so we've gotta cover the regular comp and the decomp to get there)

so the basic idea here is that when a computer runs a program, that program is in a form we call "machine code", which is designed for computers to run, but typically is very bad for humans to read or edit

"source code" is the form of a program that's designed for humans to read and edit

you'll also hear "assembly code" very often in this context; assembly is slightly more human-readable than machine code but still has the exact same structure

so when a programmer writes or edits some source code, the thing they do to turn that source code into machine code is called "building" or "compiling" (there are meaningful distinctions I'm glossing over here but this is good enough for now)

the reason we end up with decomps and recomps is that, for a lot of the games we're talking about, the source code is lost or not publicly available

so a "decompilation" is when you try to convert the machine code back into readable source code

this is usually a long, labor-intensive process because it involves recreating a bunch of information the source code had (variable names, function names, comments, etc) that's not in the machine code, but is essential for any human programmer to understand wtf is going on in it

finally, after you do all that, a "recompilation" would be rebuilding the game using that decompiled code

usually the point of doing all this is that the decompiled code is far, far easier to modify, so it's easier to add modern features to de/recompilations of old games

[fickle garnet]

Interesting. I dont know anything about coding, so this is all new to me

[slim thorn]

to make that a little bit more concrete, https://godbolt.org/ shows C++ source code next to the assembly code it produces (for an x86 processor like what your PC probably has):

even if you've never seen C++ before in your life, I hope it's obvious how much easier the left side is for a human to work with

[fickle garnet]

Yeah definitely

[hushed onyx]

What, you don't find pushing, moving around and multiplying values, and popping to be intuitive and easy?

(Also, relevantly: How do you know you've probably spent too much time playing Zachtronics games? The right side does start to look intuitive and easy...)

[slim thorn]

yeah, "register for base pointer minus four bytes" is so much easier to understand than int num

[hushed onyx]

Duh, int and numare just a construct of the man...man

Okay, that's enough of that.

[slim thorn]

Incidentally, even in this example, the square(int) on the right is just this tool / assembly being nice to you. Machine code would not have that name/signature in it, so that's something the human doing decompilation would have to figure out.

[visual hill]

x86 assembly is much more complex than MIPS assembly, and most games being decompiled are MIPS (N64/PS1)

[slim thorn]

(I was googling a bit for N64 examples but couldn't quickly find something better than godbolt)

[visual hill]

also, to make reversers' work easier, games were compiled with -Og (debug optimizations) surprisingly often, which are easier to decompile

sometimes, full debug symbols were even left on the disc - this happened with GTA 3 on the PS2, which is how re3/reVC were possible

[slim thorn]

wow, that I did not know

[visual hill]

to be fair, there's no other way an engine as large as GTA 3 would have been fully decompiled in 2020

Super Mario 64 is also -Og, same for Zelda OoT... but Zelda MM is -O2

[hushed onyx]

Games seem like one of the few applications where you would really really really want to have the compiler do everything it possibly could to optimize.

[visual hill]

yeah, it used to be common wisdom to use -ffast-math and other aggressive optimizations in gamedev

[slim thorn]

honestly, it depends

[visual hill]

although that particular one fell out of favor due to its unpredictable behavior

[slim thorn]

optimizers back then were not as good as they are now, especially if you have the mixed fortune of working on launch titles for brand new consoles

oh, also the debugging / crash inspection tools

[visual hill]

a lot of games of that era have custom crash handlers still in the final ROM

GoldenEye had one that was discovered just a few months ago by someone working on decomp

built-in debug menus and profilers (typically shown as a long colored bar) were also pretty common

[hushed onyx]

I think we're thinking about different "eras" here. I'm thinking about, like, the modern day, or at most the 2000s, but you seem to be talking about the 1980s or 1990s.