April 2025 General Game Discussion

[BeardyHat]

Finally got tired of Windows and the various issues I've been running into. This week it was a credentials thing, where if I tried to RDP into my Server it refused to let me because I have different credentials I use for my Shared drive off there. So if I disconnect from my Share, then I can login via RDP, but can't access my Share anymore; this had never been an issue in Windows 10, but of course, Windows 11 is a bit of a dumpster fire.

Anyway, decided to reinstall my 1Tb drive into my new laptop (having upgraded to 2Tb about a week or so ago) and try out running Linux, since I'd had success using it on the new-old gaming computer I'll be giving to my kids and having learned a lot using my Steam Deck in the last 3 years.

So, I got it installed yesterday and Linux being Linux, there's definitely some fiddliness here and there, as expected, but what wasn't expected was the Benchmarks.

Everything on the left hand side of the screen is benchmarked on Linux, the right is Windows:

https://imgur.com/a/80phltO

I saw anywhere from a 4-9 FPS uplift in various games, with one exception, which was Forza 4

https://imgur.com/VXLwCdP

It lists stutters as greater, but through watching the benchmark they were completely imperceptible to me and of course, the FPS is solidly pegged, so the lower FPS I did receive was not obvious.

Anyway, again, there's some fiddliness to get around, but overall my switchable graphics are working flawlessly and games are running great. I'll probably continue on with this 1Tb for the time being and if I'm happy with Linux still after a few weeks, I'll probably Clone this install over to the 2Tb and run like that.

 

[Zed Clampet]

My best run in Zombieland USA 3D was $460,000. I go by money collected instead of levels since there are too many ways to cheese levels and collecting the money is dangerous. I suppose I'll come back to it occasionally, but it was a better "quick play" game when my runs were lasting 5 minutes instead of 40. Probably wrong, but I don't think I've left much on the table. Don't think I can do significantly better than 460k.

 

[neogunhero]

About 8 hours into Dying Light 2 now. So far it's been fantastic, having a ton of fun especially with the parkour. I spent a lot of time getting Gold in two Parkour Challenges I found, they're pretty tough but very satisfying to complete. Combat has been kind of whatever so far, but I think it will improve once I get more combat moves unlocked. Same with the parkour, I wish it were a bit better, but I know I'm just low leveled and still have tons of abilities to unlock. Speaking of which, I think you level the combat and parkour a bit too slow. You can equip different clothing that will give your XP boosts, but sometimes that comes at the cost of unequipping something that gave you benefits like damage increase or resistance boosts. The challenges give a good bit of XP though, with the parkour challenge being get from one area to the next as fast as possible, and combat challenges being you entering a quarantine zone and killing every zombie in there.

The main complaint people seem to have with the game is the story. So far, the main story is interesting enough, but it's the side missions that are a bit weird and where I can see the complaints coming from. For example, as soon as you get to the Bazaar which is the first major settlement you reach, it plays a cutscene where this guy bumps into you and is obviously grumbling about it, saying things like "can this day get any worse?". It sets it up as if you're meant to talk to him, like it's very important, because as soon as you regain control you're looking right at him with a "Press F to talk" indicator. When you do, this guy gives the worst voice acting job, complaining that he can't showcase his new electric fence without electrical parts. The dialogue and voice acting are so incredibly cheesy, and the premise is the most cliche thing I've seen in a while. In retrospect, it really is just an introduction to side missions, but it's very poorly executed. Didn't Chris Avellone of all people write the story??

That aside, it is actually easy to ignore and very bearable, unlike a game like Borderlands where the writing and dialogue make me instantly turn the game off. The combat, parkour, and exploration make up for it's shortcomings. Looking forward to continuing to play more.

 

[Zed Clampet]

About 8 hours into Dying Light 2 now. So far it's been fantastic, having a ton of fun especially with the parkour. I spent a lot of time getting Gold in two Parkour Challenges I found, they're pretty tough but very satisfying to complete. Combat has been kind of whatever so far, but I think it will improve once I get more combat moves unlocked. Same with the parkour, I wish it were a bit better, but I know I'm just low leveled and still have tons of abilities to unlock. Speaking of which, I think you level the combat and parkour a bit too slow. You can equip different clothing that will give your XP boosts, but sometimes that comes at the cost of unequipping something that gave you benefits like damage increase or resistance boosts. The challenges give a good bit of XP though, with the parkour challenge being get from one area to the next as fast as possible, and combat challenges being you entering a quarantine zone and killing every zombie in there.

The main complaint people seem to have with the game is the story. So far, the main story is interesting enough, but it's the side missions that are a bit weird and where I can see the complaints coming from. For example, as soon as you get to the Bazaar which is the first major settlement you reach, it plays a cutscene where this guy bumps into you and is obviously grumbling about it, saying things like "can this day get any worse?". It sets it up as if you're meant to talk to him, like it's very important, because as soon as you regain control you're looking right at him with a "Press F to talk" indicator. When you do, this guy gives the worst voice acting job, complaining that he can't showcase his new electric fence without electrical parts. The dialogue and voice acting are so incredibly cheesy, and the premise is the most cliche thing I've seen in a while. In retrospect, it really is just an introduction to side missions, but it's very poorly executed. Didn't Chris Avellone of all people write the story??

That aside, it is actually easy to ignore and very bearable, unlike a game like Borderlands where the writing and dialogue make me instantly turn the game off. The combat, parkour, and exploration make up for it's shortcomings. Looking forward to continuing to play more.

I liked the story just fine; however, a lot of it was written at the last second because Chris Avellone was fired when he was accused of whatever he was accused of, and they purged his contributions from the game.

For other types of entertainment, as I have a degree in literature, I'm very picky about how they are written. I refuse to go to most movies or to watch most television or to read most novels. But in games the story is just there to anchor you in the game world and to move you from one objective to the next. It's not supposed to be high level literature. Overall, I thought the story of Dying Light 2 was as good as most AAA game stories. Actually, it probably better than most of the ones I've played, which is not many.

 

[DXCHASE]

Over the last couple days and probably up until Doom: The Dark Ages, ill be playing a pretty big rotation of games.

Within the last week ive went from just running through The Last of Us Part 2 (still am) to 5 different games now and im not sure what ill be finishing or not.

So, to start off, my Rise of the Ronin game wont update my save game with the latest patch. Was planning on just finishing that game off since im over half way through but will put it on the side until i can get this patch to work correctly.

I "demo'd" the game Soulslinger: Envoy of Death. There is a demo on steam if you want to try it but it doesnt get into a lot of the better weapons and power-ups you get. Its a FPS rougelite thats decent and fun. Looks good, havent gotten too far, so far there is very little health when doing the runs, so its kinda frustrating to get in 8-10 waves and die on the boss wave because you have 5 health.

Next, i started playing Last Epoch's new update. There is a lot going on right now in the ARPG space which, to me... is exhausting. I do not have the time to play all of them but at least i have choices...

Do i want to fly through a campaign and having my abilities just be strong from the beginning pretty much? Ill play Diablo 4 or Last Epoch. Do i want a challenging, slow grind that feels really rewarding (imo) as you level? Ill choose POE 2. Do i want an old-school but still very well balanced type of ARPG? Ill play Grim Dawn or maybe Torchlight or even venture into Diablo 2 Remastered which still gets seasons.

All these ARPGs listed have got recent updates or are getting new expansions so they continue to grow and get even better.

With that, i dabbled into both Last Epoch and POE 2 with my wife (me a monk, her deadeye (rogue) ) over the weekend, spending the majority of time playing those and Helldivers 2 (remember Helldivers 2 is an always game for me)

After that, theres my "i hate dark souls but play them anyway" game called Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch which is a beautiful looking castlevania style souls-like game. Its punishing and perhaps maybe a little too punishing but still a fun game. I dont know if ill complete this but i hope the game does well as a "souls like" game...i guess.

Then there is the return of the game Defiance which comes from a SyFy show that was cut too short. It was an online MMO from a couple years ago that was shut down. Its now being brought back as a F2P game and i got to play all of maybe 5 minutes online before servers crashed. It re-launched friday and have had no luck connecting, so thatll have to wait, but im excited its back. I loved the show.

And last but not least, the game thats been sitting playing in my background while i type this, is Days Gone. Im getting back into the motions because the new DLC hoard mode is about to drop and im probably going to buy it. It looks really fun.

Did i get everything i played over the last 4-5 days? I think so.

 

[neogunhero]

For other types of entertainment, as I have a degree in literature, I'm very picky about how they are written. I refuse to go to most movies or to watch most television or to read most novels. But in games the story is just there to anchor you in the game world and to move you from one objective to the next. It's not supposed to be high level literature.

Very few games can achieve that level of literary quality, and even the ones that do, if you were to take that story and format it into a novel it probably wouldn't be very great. I think we've just come to not except a whole lot from a video game story. There are lots of exceptions, but if a game isn't set out with the intention to be a narrative/cinematic masterpiece at the start, then as you said the story just serves as a method to drive the gameplay and world. I still enjoy some comedic dialogue and I think DL2 nails that quite well. I really like the main character Aiden, as he's going through some traumatic personal stuff but his interactions with other survivors is usually lighthearted and playful. Some of the NPC's not so much, but easy to look past.

DL1 had a similar issue, and I think a lot of it stems of non-native English speakers playing English speaking characters. This isn't a bad thing of course, but in this case they haven't mastered American/English accents and they are performing dialogue that was written with an American dialect in mind, so it comes off a bit silly.

 

[BeardyHat]

I'm still playing Two Point Hospital. It can be stressful, but it also feels relatively chill, since it's a game that doesn't require quick reflexes or anything.

I don't recall if I mentioned, but I also picked-up Tempest Rising and have been playing that here and there. But it's generally been a busy weekend, so I haven't played much and I've mostly just been kind of messing with my laptop and Linux.

But I'm torn. There's a lot that annoys me about Windows and I hate feeling like I'm locked into their "Ecosystem" for lack of a better term. But, I also feel like a lot of the annoyances with Windows are typically one time things or things that are annoying every now and then, rather than constant. The prompts to subscribe to M365, having to disable OneDrive immediately on any new install, credentials between RDP and my Share, that stuff.

But the stuff I'm having with Linux; I've only been using it 4-days now and I've already got a list of annoyances from minor to very annoying. Namely, after sleeping, my monitor has this barely perceptible flicker that goes on for an indeterminate amount of time and it doesn't seem that anyone else has this issue, but it's definitely not hardware related. Another, Middle Mouse does not function how I want it to, especially in games, though I consider this relatively minor, as I can work around it by using the keyboard. More importantly for me, Trackpoint on my laptop just isn't accurate like it is normally in Windows; I've messed with the sensitivity and mouse acceleration, but I just can't get it to feel "right" and I'm not sure why.

There's some other minor complaints, but those are the primary ones. I do find the mouse stuff pretty annoying, but I feel like I'm generally being kind of petty and whiny about all of it, using it as an excuse to go back to the OS I know, because it's easier. I just can't decide if I should stick it out and try to keep working around my issues, maybe finding resolutions for them or just go back to what I know, which feels lame to me.

 

[Zloth]

I wrote up a guide on Distant Worlds 2 over the weekend, and played a bunch more of it to confirm what I was saying. It again ended far too quickly as I had 10 colonies before anyone else had 3. I'll need to up the difficulty next time I play, though that might be a while. Time to get FF7 Rebirth done and then get back to BG3!

 

[Frindis]

Do you need it? Most likely not. Is it free? Yes.

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[Pifanjr]

After almost 100 hours or so, I finally finished Blightfall.

I had almost the entire world cleared already, but there were a couple of spots where the Dawn Machine had gone over while out of Ignis essentia, meaning not everything had been cleared. I tried to clean it manually, but it turned out it was way too easy to miss blocks.

I tried running the Dawn Machine by supplying it with a ton of Cognito essentia, which makes it skip over areas that are already clean, but that made it consume the other essentia types so fast that my automated set-up couldn't keep up.

So in the end I had to just wait and let it clean the entire world a second time, making sure none of the essentia ran out.

Despite spending around 100 hours on this modpack and finishing the main objective, I feel like I've only dabbled in most of the major mods included in the modpack and I've ignored several entirely. It's kind of insane how much quality content these mods introduce, it's just a shame none of them have a decent tutorial or manual, if they have any in-game documentation at all.

 

[Pifanjr]

So I went looking for the next game to play and decided to go through all of the games in the Steam Family category of my Steam Library, which contains 431 games mostly from one of our friends.

I now have a backlog of 81 games, with 7 on a short list:

1. Baldur's Gate 3
2. Inscryption
3. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
4. Moonring
5. Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
6. Slay the Princess
7. Undertale

I was planning on going back to Baldur's Gate 3 when I finished with Blightfall, but I don't really feel like it. I think I'm going to start with one of the shorter games on the list instead.

 

[neogunhero]

Oblivion Remastered is out now. $49.99 standard, $59.99 Deluxe. A bit pricey, but at least not full priced. Also out on Game Pass so I’m very happy about that.

The game looks good. Updated visuals actually look fine, not horrible as I was anticipating. Only thing I didn't like is the color scheme, they got rid of the colorful vivid landscapes for a brown washed out color filter, looks more in line with a lot of modern games rather than keeping its unique colorfulness. Not a major issue as I said yesterday, mods and other methods will be available to bring the color back.

Definitely diving into it tonight. Hoping to have decent performance, recommended GPU asks for a RTX 2080, but I'm above all other recommended specs.

 

[Pifanjr]

Oblivion Remastered is out now. $49.99 standard, $59.99 Deluxe. A bit pricey, but at least not full priced. Also out on Game Pass so I’m very happy about that.

The game looks good. Updated visuals actually look fine, not horrible as I was anticipating. Only thing I didn't like is the color scheme, they got rid of the colorful vivid landscapes for a brown washed out color filter, looks more in line with a lot of modern games rather than keeping its unique colorfulness. Not a major issue as I said yesterday, mods and other methods will be available to bring the color back.

Definitely diving into it tonight. Hoping to have decent performance, recommended GPU asks for a RTX 2080, but I'm above all other recommended specs.

I don't care that much about the change in landscapes, but the new NPC faces will take some getting used to. Then again, the original faces took some getting used to too.

But I'll have to upgrade my PC first, I don't think my current PC could run it decently.

 

[Zimbaly]

I don't think the price is horrible. Oblivion is a lengthy game.

That said.... Lunar or Oblivion.... man what the hell.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I finished Half Life 2, you guys may have heard of it. Pretty good game all in all.

Started on RoboCop Rogue City. Was expecting a corridor shooter from the intro level. Robocop is obviously a walking tank so youre not looking for cover anywhere, but it seems theres a fair amount of investigation stuff and its all quite goofy. Liking it after a couple of hours, lets see if it stays the course.

 

[BeardyHat]

Oblivion Remastered is out now. $49.99 standard, $59.99 Deluxe. A bit pricey, but at least not full priced. Also out on Game Pass so I’m very happy about that.

The game looks good. Updated visuals actually look fine, not horrible as I was anticipating. Only thing I didn't like is the color scheme, they got rid of the colorful vivid landscapes for a brown washed out color filter, looks more in line with a lot of modern games rather than keeping its unique colorfulness. Not a major issue as I said yesterday, mods and other methods will be available to bring the color back.

Definitely diving into it tonight. Hoping to have decent performance, recommended GPU asks for a RTX 2080, but I'm above all other recommended specs.

I don't really have any hype for it, but it is tempting; the price isn't absolutely awful. I wouldn't call myself a huge Oblivion fan, but I did play it a lot back in 2006 and I am generally a fan of Bethesda games. But I did buy Kingdom Come 2 and haven't even touched it yet, but something about Oblivion sounds cozy right now...

I do wonder if I should just play the Game of the Year edition, which I already own...

I finished Half Life 2, you guys may have heard of it. Pretty good game all in all.

Started on RoboCop Rogue City. Was expecting a corridor shooter from the intro level. Robocop is obviously a walking tank so youre not looking for cover anywhere, but it seems theres a fair amount of investigation stuff and its all quite goofy. Liking it after a couple of hours, lets see if it stays the course.

I keep wanting to pick-up Robocop, but just haven't made it all the way there yet for some reason. Probably because I know I won't play it immediately.

I'm calling it quits on Linux for this years experiment. There's a lot I do really like about it, but what broke the camels back this morning were two things: KDE Connect, which is a Phone Link styled application, as I send a lot of texts from my various computers in this manner. It's just a bit janky, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it scrolls all the way up on a text thread and won't scroll all the way back down; for someone that uses this feature every day in Windows so that I don't have to pick up my phone, this was more than a minor annoyance.

Secondly, the poor performance in some games. Sure some games see a small uplift in performance, as I posted about, but many other's just seem to not work correctly and I suspect that has something to do with how Linux controls my laptop's fans. Windows will crank them full bore when it needs to and do its best to keep temps down; Linux seems to take a lackadaisical approach and is happy to just let the computer overheat and throttle itself while the fans are at something like half their maximum RPM.

Coupled with those other little issues, I just had to call it quits; Windows might annoy me with some stuff, but they're generally here and gone (Subscribe to 365! Automatically sync with OneDrive on initial install), but Linux has lots of daily annoyances that I'm constantly trying to fix or look-up fixes for, I end-up spending more time doing that then the stuff I actually want to do with my computer.

I really want to love it and I really want to daily drive it, it's just such a hassle to get it to function how I want it to and it makes me tired.

 

[neogunhero]

I don't really have any hype for it, but it is tempting; the price isn't absolutely awful. I wouldn't call myself a huge Oblivion fan, but I did play it a lot back in 2006 and I am generally a fan of Bethesda games. But I did buy Kingdom Come 2 and haven't even touched it yet, but something about Oblivion sounds cozy right now...

It's not the greatest game ever, not even the best TES game objectively, but there is a great deal of nostalgia around it and I think that is driving the hype. Bethesda successfully nostalgia-pilled everyone with this game. I haven't played KCD2, but I would assume Oblivion is the cozier game. It's not as realism-driven, a lot more lighthearted, and gives you more freedom to explore at your own leisure, at least I think so.

 

[BeardyHat]

It's not the greatest game ever, not even the best TES game objectively, but there is a great deal of nostalgia around it and I think that is driving the hype. Bethesda successfully nostalgia-pilled everyone with this game. I haven't played KCD2, but I would assume Oblivion is the cozier game. It's not as realism-driven, a lot more lighthearted, and gives you more freedom to explore at your own leisure, at least I think so.

Oh yeah, I still enjoyed it though. I remember my girlfriend at the time and I went to GameStop to pick-up our preorders and then just holed-up in her apartment for like a week to play side-by-side. Hard to imagine that was 20-years ago now.

Anyway, I always liked the fantasy styling of Oblivion; I like Morrowind just fine, but I'm kind of a fan of generic fantasy, so Oblivion hit right with me. Except for the Oblivion gates. I eventually started noclipping to the top of the towers just so I could shut them down and be done with them and that's the one thing that's kept me from replaying it all these years later; not that I've ever replayed any TES game.

 

[Pifanjr]

I decided to try out Slay the Princess. It reminds me of The Stanley Parable, but as a horror game.

Oh yeah, I still enjoyed it though. I remember my girlfriend at the time and I went to GameStop to pick-up our preorders and then just holed-up in her apartment for like a week to play side-by-side. Hard to imagine that was 20-years ago now.

Anyway, I always liked the fantasy styling of Oblivion; I like Morrowind just fine, but I'm kind of a fan of generic fantasy, so Oblivion hit right with me. Except for the Oblivion gates. I eventually started noclipping to the top of the towers just so I could shut them down and be done with them and that's the one thing that's kept me from replaying it all these years later; not that I've ever replayed any TES game.

Every time I've played Oblivion I've ignored the main quest entirely, meaning the Oblivion gates never open. Only once did I finish the main quest line and just like you I also ended up cheating to close the gates as fast as possible.

 

[BeardyHat]

I decided to try out Slay the Princess. It reminds me of The Stanley Parable, but as a horror game.



Every time I've played Oblivion I've ignored the main quest entirely, meaning the Oblivion gates never open. Only once did I finish the main quest line and just like you I also ended up cheating to close the gates as fast as possible.

Yup, exact same boat. Finished the main quest once and then just ignored it any other time I played.

I did strongly consider buying the remake this afternoon and $41 on Fanatical is a fair price, but I felt that the hype was getting to me, even though I to like Bethesda games. So I reinstalled the original and started it. Think I might download a boatload of mods tonight and see how that goes.

 

[Colif]

Every time I've played Oblivion I've ignored the main quest entirely, meaning the Oblivion gates never open. Only once did I finish the main quest line and just like you I also ended up cheating to close the gates as fast as possible.

I don't think I even know how to start the main quest. I wonder what I got it on before, maybe PS3.
I don't have any memory of ever doing main quest, so perhaps if I get around to buying it this year, I will do that instead of getting distracted as soon as I exit starting area.

At least this gets one remake out of their system,.


Different topic: They are making a movie about the game Outrun... well, they have a lot to add since the story of a driver driving to a city needs a lot of flesh added to it to make it interesting, and not just a remake of Cannonball Run or Smokey & Bandit series. If they not driving a Ferrari its an instant fail.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I decided to try out Slay the Princess. It reminds me of The Stanley Parable, but as a horror game.



Every time I've played Oblivion I've ignored the main quest entirely, meaning the Oblivion gates never open. Only once did I finish the main quest line and just like you I also ended up cheating to close the gates as fast as possible.

After reading your other post, I was going to recommend Slay the Princess. Shouldn't take you too long unless you want to get all the endings. I just got one ending and then read about the rest.

I almost bought Inscription when it was on sale last week. I liked their other game, Pony Island.

MOONRING! That's the RPG I said I was going to recommend to you and @BeardyHat , but then I lost it in Steam.

***

I'm currently obsessed with a strategy game called Mini Motorways.

 

[Colif]

I'm currently obsessed with a strategy game called Mini Motorways.

I have watched that before. They also have MIni Metro

 

[Zloth]

I had a massive nerd-out moment playing FF7 Rebirth last night.

Spoiler: Minor but late game FF7 Rebirth spoiler

Aerith did a dance that looked similar to the "sending" dance that Yuna would do in Final Fantasy 10. Yuna's dance in 10 vs. Aerith's. Square has been messing with us, putting hints of FF7 into FFX and vice versa for a long time now. It has been glorious!

 

[Pifanjr]

After reading your other post, I was going to recommend Slay the Princess. Shouldn't take you too long unless you want to get all the endings. I just got one ending and then read about the rest.

I almost bought Inscription when it was on sale last week. I liked their other game, Pony Island.

MOONRING! That's the RPG I said I was going to recommend to you and @BeardyHat , but then I lost it in Steam.

I'm not sure if I'll do all of the endings myself, but the game is short enough that I can at least do a bunch of them. I got two of them so far, with the second one being the "good" ending.