August 2024 PC Gamer Article Discussion

[Pifanjr]

The lead writer of Baldur's Gate 3's Dark Urge was extremely squeamish at first, which shows you can do just about anything if you set your mind to it

"It desensitised me to everything."

www.pcgamer.com

As a squeamish person myself, I must say they did a great job. I expected a more murder-hobo feeling, but "the contrast between euphemistic writing and bloody mayhem", as the article says, makes it much more unsettling. I intended to do a fully evil playthrough, but I'm not sure if I'll actually be able to. Luckily you aren't forced to while playing The Dark Urge, so I'll probably try to redeem myself, at least as much as possible.

 

[Brian Boru]

there are such weirdos out there

It gets worse

There are people wo actually write such reviews!
Then there are the outliers who post about it on forums—no, no really, they do exist!!

We won't mention those who combine these, posting reviews on forums—just too sad

 

[Hveðrungr]

It gets worse

There are people wo actually write such reviews!
Then there are the outliers who post about it on forums—no, no really, they do exist!!

We won't mention those who combine these, posting reviews on forums—just too sad

why is there no crying react

 

[ZedClampet]

Many of Epic's exclusivity deals were 'not good investments,' says Tim Sweeney, but the free games program 'has been just magical'

The most cost-effective way to get new users on the Epic Games Store has been the free games, not the exclusives.

www.pcgamer.com

Hey, The Callisto Protocol is coming up as a free game.

 

[Brian Boru]

free game

Sounds like Epic will continue the FG strategy, nice

I found myself nodding along with Tim Sweeney's comments about the usual FG tactics and results—we have found very similar tactics and results in our online biz.

Interesting that some exclusives worked great but most tanked. I wonder what's the dividing characteristic(s) between plus and minus there.

 

[Colif]

why is there no crying react

lucky we got 3, some other sites only have the one...

Shame can't react with all the emoji. You can on discord. Though they also have more animated ones and bigger ones. The choice we have is so dull I only use about 3.

 

[ZedClampet]

Interesting that some exclusives worked great but most tanked. I wonder what's the dividing characteristic(s) between plus and minus there.

I think if a game was going to be phenomenally successful, like Satisfactory, then it has a chance to succeed no matter where it launches. Even then, though, Satisfactory did far better once it relaunched on Steam. So I guess you could say that the dividing characteristics are hype and demand. I'd never heard of most of their exclusives, so maybe if those had generated post launch hype they'd have had more success. Since Epic doesn't do legitimate user reviews, you really have to work a lot harder to learn about their games.

 

[ZedClampet]

I have been to Steam forums, I don't hold the kind of people who post on Steam in higher regard than the people who post on Reddit.

I may not look in the right places on reddit, but whenever people ask for game recs their the responses are usually horrible.

 

[Frindis]

I intended to do a fully evil playthrough, but I'm not sure if I'll actually be able to. Luckily you aren't forced to while playing The Dark Urge, so I'll probably try to redeem myself, at least as much as possible.

I'm playing a semi-evil person on my tactician playthrough, building up to my third playthrough with Dark Urge. I'm playing a Warlock Rock Gnome so I try to be friendly with gnomes and not many else if they don't suit my needs. I just killed off Lae'zel and I don't see many other companies surviving this playthrough, except for Astorian because I never did have him as a companion. I could also say that for Halsin, but I don't think he will want to be my companion since I recently destroyed the Emerald Grove and stole (and sold come to think of it) the idol of Silvanus😅

 

[BeardyHat]

Valve is 'continuing to work on adding support' for other handhelds, but 'SteamOS isn't ready to run out of the box' just yet

Is SteamOS becoming the Half-Life 3 of gaming operating systems?

www.pcgamer.com

I assume if you put this on your PC that you would be able to turn off Big Picture View in Steam. Whenever I accidentally go into BPV I try to use it for awhile, but it's just not as convenient for mouse/keyboard.

Big picture mode is very nice for the handheld form factor, but yeah you can switch between Desktop and Big Picture.

Steam's new 'Helpfulness' system for user reviews is here to fix Steam's 'Helpful' system for user reviews

Valve just can't stop fiddling.

www.pcgamer.com

I’m all for this. While I appreciate a meme-y or funny review as much as the next guy, as Valve puts it, it really does impact your purchasing decisions. You go to the review section to find out what players like and don’t like about the game, trying to help inform your decision, but all you see is:

“My friend who I play DOTA with said if this review gets 300 likes, he’ll buy me a new skin”

Or

“No one ever reads my reviews so for every 1 like I get I’ll eat 1 spoonful of mayonnaise”

…and they both have over 500 likes, 30 gifted badges, 300 users marked as “Funny”. Because of the numbers it generates, they’re always at the top of the review section. It doesn’t irk or piss me off, but I would much prefer to see real opinions instead of that.

Thankful for it. Tired of seeing the memeification of everything and is just one of the reason I stopped actually using reddit, because going into the comment section, every top comment is a joke or a pun or something; mildly amusing at first, but rapidly becomes tiresome.

Yeah, it’s definitely not the best place to make an informed decision, but the ease of access is convenient, and when someone actually writes a well thought out review, I deem that to be helpful. I’m just glad that I don’t have to sift around the junk reviews to find the good ones anymore, which may end up making it a more reliable source of info than before. I still watch YouTube videos and read publication reviews along with Steam reviews to make purchasing decisions.

To take this a step further, I don’t find very much value in reading the opinions of posters in a subreddit dedicated to a single game/series of games to make these informed decisions. These are major fans of the franchise, so I think there’s some bias there. It can also be polarizing, since I’ve seen subreddit collectively say which entry of a franchise is the best, while also seeing a subreddit not able to agree which game is the best. For example, go to the HoMM subreddit and search for posts asking which is the best Heroes of Might and Magic game, every comment has a different answer.

The answer is HoMM2. Specifically use fheroes2.

 

[JarlBSoD]

Big picture mode is very nice for the handheld form factor, but yeah you can switch between Desktop and Big Picture.



Thankful for it. Tired of seeing the memeification of everything and is just one of the reason I stopped actually using reddit, because going into the comment section, every top comment is a joke or a pun or something; mildly amusing at first, but rapidly becomes tiresome.



The answer is HoMM2. Specifically use fheroes2.

Clearly you are dillusional. It is HoMM3 with the expansions!

 

[neogunhero]

Clearly you are dillusional. It is HoMM3 with the expansions!

The answer is HoMM2. Specifically use fheroes2.

No mention of HoMM 4 is disturbing my mental peace

 

[Hveðrungr]

Many of Epic's exclusivity deals were 'not good investments,' says Tim Sweeney, but the free games program 'has been just magical'

The most cost-effective way to get new users on the Epic Games Store has been the free games, not the exclusives.

www.pcgamer.com

Hey, The Callisto Protocol is coming up as a free game.

As you'd know if you followed the Free Time-Limited Games List

Page 35 - The Free Time Limited Games List

Page 35 - Love gaming? Join the PC Gamer community to share that passion with gamers all around the world!

forums.pcgamer.com

 

[BeardyHat]

No mention of HoMM 4 is disturbing my mental peace

I don't believe there are any entries in the Heroes franchise after 3.

Unfortunate, that...

 

[Brian Boru]

I'd never heard of most of their exclusives,

You're almost certainly right about that, but the puzzler is the Ubi deal they had for a while. I don't recall specifics, but I think a couple of AC games were exclusives? I assume Ubi would have enough general brand recognition to get traction—but that deal was dropped if I recall correctly… but of course it might be Ubi that dropped it, not Epic 🤷‍♂️

reddit, but whenever people ask for game recs their the responses are usually horrible

Agreed. I find it useful only within specific game subs, for questions re that particular game or series.

 

[ZedClampet]

You're almost certainly right about that, but the puzzler is the Ubi deal they had for a while. I don't recall specifics, but I think a couple of AC games were exclusives? I assume Ubi would have enough general brand recognition to get traction—but that deal was dropped if I recall correctly… but of course it might be Ubi that dropped it, not Epic 🤷‍♂️



Agreed. I find it useful only within specific game subs, for questions re that particular game or series.

Ubisoft probably isn't counted in this since the games weren't true exclusives. They were available on Ubisoft's launcher. I assume most people bought them there since you have to open their launcher anyway.

Also, launching a Ubi game from Epic didn't work at all for at least the first 6 months, so everyone had to buy on Ubi for awhile. They froze the sale of ubi games on Epic for a long time.

 

[Zloth]

I was gobsmacked a few years ago when a friend told me he reads every review I post and always has a look to see what my activity is. So there are such weirdos out there.

I check mine most every day. Screenshots, videos, artwork, achievements, follow/wishlisted/bought/started game messages, reviews (I don't read all of those, just the ones I'm interested in)... all sorts of fun stuff in there!

I'll check my achievements against other friends' achievements sometimes, too!

 

[Hveðrungr]

I'll check my achievements against other friends' achievements sometimes, too!

I track my cheevos on

TrueSteamAchievements - Steam Achievement Tracking

TrueSteamAchievements is the home of Steam achievements. Find all the latest guides and stats, and manage your steam library here.

truesteamachievements.com

so I don't spend much time tracking them on Steam itself.

 

[ZedClampet]

The Silent Hill 2 remake feels like the PS2 classic in a Resident Evil 2 remake wrapper, and you know what? That's not bad

In my restless dreams, I see that town in 4K 60 fps on Unreal Engine 5.

www.pcgamer.com

I've been following Bloober and people's opinions of them since the first Layers of Fear. The reason the hatred started is pretty stupid. It was because LoF didn't have enemies like Amnesia. People called it a walking simulator and declared it not scary. People as recent as now don't think they are a quality studio and think LoF didn't have enemies because Bloober wasn't talented enough to actually put them in the game despite the fact that every other Bloober series has enemies.

I've said all along they were going to do well with this remake. Maybe this will be the game that rehabilitates their reputation for that horrible sin from years ago.

 

[ZedClampet]

@Zloth I just, right after our conversation, had a Steam friend make a comment about one of my reviews thinking I was too critical because it was free. I explained that I don't give any extra credit to demos and that it's better that they know what is wrong now before they launch the game.

Just funny that I got this right after our conversation. I still feel zero peer pressure. Couldn't care less what others think about my reviews. They are what they are and they aren't changing. Most of them are half-arsed, just getting my opinion about something across. The next time I try to impress someone with a review will be the first time.

 

[Brian Boru]

next time I try to impress someone with a review will be the first time

No worries there, can't see it happening.

I don't give any extra credit to demos

I had a lot of trouble with that concept in our biz. It even took me quite a while to convince our own people that specially made freebies—sort of smorgasbord of various product features—needed more of our attention in content, production and QA than our regular products.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Dying Light: The Beast is a standalone game starring Kyle Crane that started out as DLC, and will be free for owners of Dying Light 2 Ultimate Edition

Step back into the shoes of the original Dying Light's hero.

www.pcgamer.com

Ive got a soft spot for Dying Light, except for The Following. Driving around in the countryside isnt as interesting to me a parkouring across a city. Hopefully this has a bit more of a mix than the expansion for the first game did, definitely up for another Dying Light campaign.

 

[ZedClampet]

Dying Light: The Beast is a standalone game starring Kyle Crane that started out as DLC, and will be free for owners of Dying Light 2 Ultimate Edition

Step back into the shoes of the original Dying Light's hero.

www.pcgamer.com

Ive got a soft spot for Dying Light, except for The Following. Driving around in the countryside isnt as interesting to me a parkouring across a city. Hopefully this has a bit more of a mix than the expansion for the first game did, definitely up for another Dying Light campaign.

I didn't finish The Following. Agree on the driving.

 

[ZedClampet]

Andrzej Sapkowski has finished writing another Witcher book

You can't keep a good Geralt down.

www.pcgamer.com

I'll read this. Probably won't play Witcher 4. Witcher 3 was one of my favorite all-time games, but if I'm not going to be playing as Geralt, then I'm not that interested.

 

[Pifanjr]

Star Wars Outlaws review

Ubisoft's open world Star Wars adventure succeeds at the little things, but not much else shines.

www.pcgamer.com

It's a shame that it isn't a better game, but it sounds pretty similar to most of the Assassin's Creed games I've played, which I did enjoy quite a lot.