April 2025 General Game Discussion

[Zloth]

My new game of Distant Worlds 2 ended abruptly. For whatever reason, the other empires didn't really get going very well. One of them had two planets, the other two had one each. I had 9 or 10, as well as a bigger economy and whatnot. I didn't know that, though. I was just playing along and POOF! You Won!

• The open world feels dead, completely lifeless. Traveling around the world on foot or in a car, it feels all like cardboard cutouts, nothing really exists and I don't feel immersed. You see the same advertisements everywhere, the same NPCs (often standing right next to each other), the same canned animations, it doesn't react well to the player, it again just feels absolutely lifeless.

The same advertisements everyone seems pretty realistic, unfortunately. The same NPCs is bad, but every RPG with a city has been stuck with that. Even as is, the game has to dump objects when you don't look at them sometimes.

Anyway, we'll see. I'm hoping to finish that last Cyberpunk ending tomorrow and then get on with the DLC and hopefully that won't take me too long.

Oh! You probably should have done the DLC before finishing. After the initial missions to get established there, you're able to go freely between the two. (Well, sorta freely.) That would have given you some more interesting stuff to do.

 

[Pifanjr]

I finally build The Dawn Machine in my Minecraft Blightfall game. It's the machine that can remove all of the taint from the world, if supplied with the proper ingredients, so I've entered the late game now.

All that's left to do is set up the various automated production chains to supply The Dawn Machine with everything it needs to clean up the continent. Which is easier said than done, because it takes a lot of resources to clean an entire continent.

 

[neogunhero]

Watched my girlfriend play a bit of South of Midnight last night on Game Pass. So far, the story is very interesting and gripping. There are a few bits of jank here and there but nothing that detracts from the experience. Gameplay wise, it's quite generic and a bit casual. Within 5 minutes of taking control, you are already having to press X to squeeze through a tight spot which is just a game design tool to help load into the next area fairly seamlessly, and there is already Uncharted style climbing where there are white painted ledges that you have to hang and climb across. We haven't gotten to any combat just yet, so not sure about that.

The one bit of jank I’m referring to is such a minor, inconsequential, insignificant thing, but I have noticed it in a few games and for whatever reason it does bother me a tiny bit. There is no transition effect from cutscene to gameplay. The cutscene ends, then the camera abruptly, instantly snaps to the back of your character and you are in. Not even a minor fade in fade out, nothing, it just ends and you are in game. This bothered me the most with Pirate Yakuza as I know previous games did have transitions from cutscene to gameplay.

This isn’t a game for people who are wanting to experience something phenomenal, some innovative gaming experience that will blow your mind. This isn’t a Michelin 3 Star dining experience, this is more akin to a cheap tasty burger that you know you are going to like. What i’m trying to say is that this is a fairly casual game, aimed at fairly casual audiences, but with a good story and beautiful graphics and art styles. I’m excited to watch her play more, and she’s having fun so that’s all that matters.

Besides that I did crush some more Balatro in my phone. I think at this point I have more progress on the mobile version than Steam. It’s the exact same game in case you’re wondering, nothing is changed to cater to mobile, it’s just that there isn’t cross-progression unfortunately.

 

[BeardyHat]

The same advertisements everyone seems pretty realistic, unfortunately. The same NPCs is bad, but every RPG with a city has been stuck with that. Even as is, the game has to dump objects when you don't look at them sometimes.

True enough. I am willing to forgive the advertisements, but the NPCs just stand out more in this game for whatever reason and it was never infrequent that I'd see two standing next to each other that were identical, which seemed all the more silly given that Cyberpunk has such a huge swath of different styles of NPCs.

Oh! You probably should have done the DLC before finishing. After the initial missions to get established there, you're able to go freely between the two. (Well, sorta freely.) That would have given you some more interesting stuff to do.

I just have this mental thing where I railroad and hyperfocus myself on one objective, not letting myself explore other stuff until I'm done with that thing. I do this with projects too; I think it's a worry that if I don't, I'll never actually come back to them and complete them and instead just abandon them.

At this point, I've done all the endings except the secret one, which I'm trying for right now as I type this (I believe I've got all the checkmarks checked for it) and then I'll be ready to move-on to Dogtown.

Edit: Looks like the secret ending is pretty much more of the same and both epilogues I've seen before, so I may just end-up watching it on Youtube to see anything I might have missed and then move on.

 

[Colif]

Avowed must be selling well... I mean, why else would Windows 11 suggest I install it?

updated windows 11 and within a few minutes its recommending games to me. It doesn't know I am in process of removing them all from this PC, as when I get new PC I will have to install them all again.

 

[March's Ghost]

It doesn't know I am in process of removing them all from this PC,

Windows doesn't know anything...except whether or not your computer meets the requirements to upgrade to Windows 11.

 

[March's Ghost]

Watched my girlfriend play a bit of South of Midnight last night on Game Pass. So far, the story is very interesting and gripping. There are a few bits of jank here and there but nothing that detracts from the experience. Gameplay wise, it's quite generic and a bit casual.

I don't know if I like the choppy animation..I know it's stop motion or something and the low frames are intentional, but they seem off putting to me.

The design does follow a path of what appears to be cheap and easy 3rd person games in the last few years, counting along with South of Midnight would be Forspoken, Unknown 9: Awakening, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, and Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn.

They all have a great premise, an interesting story, something somewhat unique in gameplay or combat, but lack any real glue that holds them together. Forspoken is a mostly empty world you run through despite having great travel abilities. Banishers is an awesome premise of ghosts which gets bogged down by clumsy world design, mostly generic combat, and dull filler material. Flintlock is just kinda boring. I find almost all of it uninteresting. I haven't played Unknown 9 but I read it also misses the mark.

Many of these games, of the ones I player, have a lot of very similar gameplay elements like a talking sidekick that's effin annoying or some kind of point to point portal system that whisks you between on spot on teh map to another close spot like across a smal chasm or up to a ridge normally out of reach.

I will say the world design of South of Midnight does look refreshing. I kinda like bayou settings for games. Anyway, I don't believe any of these games are terrible (though some Unknow 9 players would argue it is), just like you said, nothing revolutionary that will blow you away (save for a few rare moments in a story beat).

 

[Colif]

Windows doesn't know anything...except whether or not your computer meets the requirements to upgrade to Windows 11.

It doesn't check that anymore... not since I been on 11 for 4 years already. You can change a setting in registry to stop windows even looking for a new version. Since there isn't ever going to be a new version of 10, that would stay as is forever.

Windows isn't that dumb, it knows other things but it can't foresee my actions... most of the time.

 

[neogunhero]

Anyway, I don't believe any of these games are terrible (though some Unknow 9 players would argue it is), just like you said, nothing revolutionary that will blow you away (save for a few rare moments in a story beat).

That’s a really good observation. I have kind of noticed this trend as well, these games tend to have good stories or at least a good premise, but the lacks in gameplay. Perhaps this type of gameplay is a lot easier to develop so they can focus on the story, but in the end it harms the whole experience. Games with great stories like Red Dead Redemption 2 wouldn’t be nearly as good if the story stayed the same but the gameplay was worse.

However, for casual gamers like her, it works well as a vehicle to drive the story. It almost becomes an interactive movie at that point. It’s a very meat and potatoes kind of game (excuse the many food analogies), good but nothing special.

The animation style is a little weird at first. I kept asking her to pause so I can fiddle with settings thinking it wasn’t running properly. I eventually turned on a FPS counter and that calmed me down to know it was actually holding at 60fps, it’s just the animation that has that stop-motion effect to it. However while you’re in gameplay it looks smoother which could also be a bit jarring, but after a while you get used to it. The art style is still very gorgeous.

 

[Colif]

The Talos Principle: Reawakened on Steam

Step back into a world of thought-provoking puzzles, philosophical intrigue, and breathtaking visuals with The Talos Principle: Reawakened - a first-person puzzle masterpiece for both new players and long-time fans alike.

store.steampowered.com

new things to do.

 

[neogunhero]

The Talos Principle: Reawakened on Steam

Step back into a world of thought-provoking puzzles, philosophical intrigue, and breathtaking visuals with The Talos Principle: Reawakened - a first-person puzzle masterpiece for both new players and long-time fans alike.

store.steampowered.com

new things to do.

Was hoping to get a major discount or even a free upgrade, but since I only have the first game it's only $10 off for me. I was interested in checking it out, but $30 is a bit much for me, I only played the first one for a few hours. However it seems quite substantial, so good for fans of the series. That puzzle editor and Workshop support is what intrigued me the most.

 

[DXCHASE]

So there was a leak from yesterday about Titanfall 3 being almost complete, turns out they were just rumors and that the company is focusing on Star Wars Jedi 3 and Apex Legends

Titanfall 3 leaks debunked as hopes of the Xbox shooter's return fade

A Titanfall 3 leak suggested that a third game in the once-exclusive Xbox One series could be on the way; however, it has now been sadly debunked.

www.trueachievements.com

Such a waste of resources to not bring a Titanfall 3 anytime soon.


I also noticed that Days Gone is getting new DLC which includes a new mode called "horde assault". Looks good, havent played since i beat it a couple years ago, might have to jump back in.

 

[neogunhero]

So there was a leak from yesterday about Titanfall 3 being almost complete, turns out they were just rumors and that the company is focusing on Star Wars Jedi 3 and Apex Legends

How sad, I really enjoyed the first two Titanfall games, the second one especially with it's awesome singleplayer mode. I got to play multiplayer a little, but that was after its peak player count so the remaining players were too good for me. I'm not a Star Wars fan so I never found interest in the Jedi games, and Apex was fun the very first month it came out but after that it got boring. Not much into BR games anymore.

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Blue Prince came out today and it's on Game Pass. That game has been inescapable these past few days in games journalism, seems like every game reviewer is in love with the game. This is not a knock on the game at all, but it definately seems like one of those kinds of games where the journalists get it and want to share how amazing this game is, but the gaming audience in general won't fully "get it" and won't like it as much, and that is especially true with this kind of game being on Game Pass. You're gonna have a lot of casual/mainstream gamers try it out, get stuck on a puzzle one hour in, and review it negatively. This is already happening on Steam reviews.

Anyways, I'll check it out some time, I still have a few weeks on my GP subscription. I'm not a puzzle game fan, but I won't review the game poorly just because I'm too dumb to solve something. It will be something new and refreshing to play.

Besides that, hoping to make more progress in South of Midnight today.

 

[Colif]

Was hoping to get a major discount or even a free upgrade, but since I only have the first game it's only $10 off for me. I was interested in checking it out, but $30 is a bit much for me, I only played the first one for a few hours. However it seems quite substantial, so good for fans of the series. That puzzle editor and Workshop support is what intrigued me the most.

I watched one person do one puzzle and realised I would watch more of it, but no way I try to solve some of it myself.
It includes the original game as well as two DLC, including latest one. So it appears you get value for money.

 

[Zloth]

Windows doesn't know anything...except whether or not your computer meets the requirements to upgrade to Windows 11.

It's way past time for me to upgrade to Win11. First step: update my BIOS from however old that thing is.

Edit: Yay! I lived! The last time I updated my BIOS, I think I used a floppy disk.

 

[March's Ghost]

It's way past time for me to upgrade to Win11. First step: update my BIOS from however old that thing is.

My computer supports 11, I just don't have that required doohickey turned on in my BIOS.

Edit: Yay! I lived! The last time I updated my BIOS, I think I used a floppy disk.

It's scary no matter what way you do it, but updating the BIOS from the manufacturer's own utility app without any kind of booting into the BIOS or whatever has bricked my motherboard once or twice in the past.

 

[neogunhero]

It's way past time for me to upgrade to Win11. First step: update my BIOS from however old that thing is.

Edit: Yay! I lived! The last time I updated my BIOS, I think I used a floppy disk.

It was only within the past few years that I realized how scared people are of updating their BIOS. I was always in the camp of "if there's a new update then it must be better" for anything I own and use. I used to regularly, multiple times a year, update my BIOS and was just lucky to never have any issues regarding that. To this day I still regularly update chipset drivers whenever I have a GPU driver, not that I think it makes my PC run better or anything, but I guess it just gives me peace of mind that I'm on the latest update, even if it does occasionally bork some things.

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More South of Midnight last night and we got into some combat finally. It's actually a bit more in-depth than I originally assumed. There is a small bit of Soulslike combat flare in it but toned down to cater to a larger audience. For example, you can lock on, dodge, parry, and have different magic abilities to use, but the enemies telegraph their attacks a good while before attacking, making it easy to dodge and block.

So far in the game, each time you get into combat you're kind of locked into a small arena, with branches and bramble surrounding a small combat area. This is kind of interesting as we haven't encountered any enemies out in the open so to say, they are always waiting in a small area that closes off once you enter combat. In each of these arenas, there is one healing orb thing that you can only use once, unlimited if you play on Easy or Story. I think it works well in this games' favor though, as it is a fairly linear game, knowing when you're about to enter combat helps navigate you to where you need to go next as each arena opens up more paths once you finish combat.

Although linear, the levels are quite open, and they encourage exploration by scattering "Floofs" (terrible name) around the map, which are upgrade points. You have some upgrades, but really it's just unlocking new magic abilities or making them stronger. I do like how they did this, because one of the features of this game is pressing Right Stick shows a whisp that leads you to your next objective, so I can see people not taking the time to explore and just running towards the next objective constantly. Also on Story mode I don't see the purpose of upgrading your stuff, so some players could easily miss exploring the levels. I call the whisp a feature because there is a lore reason why that exists, it's just a part of Hazel's newfound magical abilities.

As I said before, this game isn't anything special, but it does have a great story so far. Gameplay is solid but nothing innovative, in fact it's a bit cliche but easy to overlook. The art and animation styles are fantastic, graphics look great, and the world is full of life with little critters running around and pretty particle effects. The narrator has the most authentic Cajun accent I’ve ever heard in a game. This feels like a Xbox 360 era kind of game in the best way possible.

 

[BeardyHat]

My BIOS' is usually out of date, but only because I just forget to check it for updates. I usually only update drivers when prompted with the various apps and control centers, so I just naturally forget my BIOS. I did have to do a whole bunch of updates on my current desktop when I upgraded to a Ryzen 5 5600, because my Mobo supported it, but wasn't going to work with it until I got it all up to date.

Speaking of which, I need to update the BIOS in the PC I just rebuilt for my kids with the i5-2500k and a 1070. The BIOS is only two updates out of date, but I need to figure out how to get the last security update as something other than an EXE file at the moment.

I spent a whole bunch of time yesterday messing with this build for fun. I tried to install Win 11 with Rufus, which was partially successful, as I was able to skip the checks for a TPM and such (noticed this motherboard does have a slot for TPM though), but Windows popped-up a warning to tell me that because my PC was old, they would refuse to give me any updates or security updates, so I could go **** myself, apparently.

I installed Linux Mint instead and it's been surprisingly good and painless. I did need to install a little work around to get Minecraft Bedrock going, which actually is a launcher and installer for the Android version, but it works flawlessly and I don't think my kids will notice a difference. Even tested multiplayer with it and it works great. Also installed a whole slew of other games via Steam and with one exception, they all work completely perfectly.

The one exception to all this is Just Cause 3, which just refuses to run fullscreen without freezing. I can maximize the window without an issue, but just can't get it to go fullscreen. This shouldn't be an issue at all, but I may try to fix it anyway, because I'm like that; looks like it's probably a driver issue, so if I get the motivation next week, I'll see if I can handle that.

I know this post is getting quite long, but I just want to say that the Steam Deck has absolutely primed me for this transition. I've spent so much time in the last 3 years tinkering with the Deck and getting things working in the desktop space on there that I pretty much know exactly what I'm doing, with minor changes for the different distro. So credit to Valve for going this direction and getting me ready to make this change. I'll certainly be installing Linux on two more "unsupported" PC's this year and am sitting here contemplating if I ought to do the same to my new laptop.

Finally, my laptop is running amazingly cool. It still gets quite hot, but I don't think it throttles as bad after all my cleaning and thermal paste, pad and putty replacements. Currently on battery sitting around 34-38*c between the 8-cores, the package itself clocking at 41*c and the fans not running at all. I'm finding that pretty impressive for an ultrabook with a dedicated GPU and an H-series processor.

 

[Johnway]

Still playing Asscreed valhalla and whilst we've completed another areaand working on the next one.

on other news with me playing Doom megawads, i'm entertaining the notion of making my own map again. Atm its all in my head as to what i want to do for a map:


- A futuristic city map (auger;zenith stylings) where doom guy starts in an apartment and has to escape from the UAC Cordon that surrounds him. Its going to have scripting and a tongue in cheek story of sorts where UAC's VP of Home Entertainment and Longterm Living (HELL) division wants doom guy dead.


The other 2 maps i was inspired by some music tracks and its very much inspired by the tune:


- A factory map based on the following sound track:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHeImF-p2lY&list=RD3PVp_aIOtoM&index=2


- A game show - a shooty heavy arena map

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVV0nUGIWk4&list=RD3PVp_aIOtoM&index=15



Ok admittedly, making a map based on some music is an odd way to start things off. My pick is probably the factory map as i have a rough idea of how things go and it limits the scope.

 

[Pifanjr]

I spent a lot of time today planning out the next steps in my Blightfall game. I should be able to get almost everything I need just from an automated sugarcane and rubber tree farm.

I've been kind of obsessed with the game now that I'm so close to finishing, but I probably won't have time to play this weekend, unfortunately.

 

[Colif]

I only update BIOS if I have to. I know there are newer ones but the PC works fine now, so why update it and maybe get problems I didn't have already. Only really helpful if you getting new hardware that might not be recognised by the current Bios, such as a new CPU. Or if your current one was a beta... which mine was, but I am still resisting it. Easier than having to mess with TPM again.

Current one supports TPM so its been on for ages and the only time I had any problems with it was when I swapped my CPU - the TPM is usually on the CPU so swapping the CPU meant I needed to create a new key again.

Windows 11 only needs the PC to be able to enable Secure Boot, it doesn't necessarily need to be on. I haven't had it enabled at all on this PC. I probably will on next PC as my guess is on Windows 12 it will be mandatory to be on. That would make sense to me.

 

[Zloth]

My computer supports 11, I just don't have that required doohickey turned on in my BIOS.

Me too - and I wasn't sure what that TPM thing was even named in the BIOS setup. I figured it was time to update the thing.

It's scary no matter what way you do it, but updating the BIOS from the manufacturer's own utility app without any kind of booting into the BIOS or whatever has bricked my motherboard once or twice in the past.

I've heard plenty of such stories, which is what had me scared. If it somehow couldn't understand my C drive anymore.... <shudder>

I've also never updated my OS to a new version. I just wait until it's time for a new PC and get the updated OS with that. There's no way I could justify that with this PC, though - it's still great after 4 years.

I spent a whole bunch of time yesterday messing with this build for fun. I tried to install Win 11 with Rufus, which was partially successful, as I was able to skip the checks for a TPM and such (noticed this motherboard does have a slot for TPM though), but Windows popped-up a warning to tell me that because my PC was old, they would refuse to give me any updates or security updates, so I could go **** myself, apparently.

That would be the error screen that has a little animation of a person's head with a giant screw being screwed into the skull?

 

[Colif]

The chances of bricking motherboard are small these days, and a lot of new motherboards have several different ways to let you reflash the bios onto the boards if it does fail.

My current motherboard would allow me to flash a bios on just by inserting a USB flash drive with the bios on it, into a specific slot on back panel, I can flash the board with as little as a PSU attached.

Some Asus boards have recovery processes built in so if an update fails, it lets you try again or flash another one on.

I've also never updated my OS to a new version. I just wait until it's time for a new PC and get the updated OS with that. There's no way I could justify that with this PC, though - it's still great after 4 years.

Now updating from 10 to 11 is as simple as putting the Win 11 Install USB into the drive while windows is running and run the setup.exe file on the USB. Follow wizard and it will update windows to Win 11. Takes 20 minutes at most. If you have an ssd anyway (I assume you do).

Its not hard now compared to the past where to update windows to a new version, you had to wipe the previous install. And after doing that too many times on Windows ME, its not that hard either.

Clean install can be a little more complicated but I am sure I can find a guide that would help

How To - Windows 11 clean install tutorial

Windows 11 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows 11, version 23H2 or newer but can be equally applied to earlier versions which may have some basic differences in the screens you see but will largely remain similar in...

forums.tomshardware.com

Pretty sure you could just use a win 11 installer to update, I don't think you need a new licence key as it might accept your Win 10 one. Its been a while since I answered windows questions.

 

[ZedClampet]

It's a fun concept, but it has also highlighted how bad I am at vanilla Minecraft. Maybe I should just turn the difficulty down.

Are you talking about combat? Did you play Minecraft before the combat update? Before the combat update. I almost never died and played for months on a hardcore game before finally getting knocked off of a ledge in the Nether and falling into lava. However, one reason I stopped playing was the combat update. Suddenly I was terrible at it. I was constantly running out of stamina. To be fair, I've only played it a handful of times since that update, and I probably would have gotten a little better, but I felt like it changed the game too much for me.

 

[ZedClampet]

Can you make a major mistake when naming your game and still be successful? Apparently so. Schedule 1 is not actually what the game is named. The game is named Schedule I (the Roman numeral for 1). This is causing all sorts of problems with search engines, and every time I've noticed, people have been using the number instead of the letter. Schedule I would have been a great idea if the Steam font looked like the letter. Then it would have distinguished itself from everything online that actually is Schedule 1.