December 2025 General Games Discussion

[Zed Clampet]

I feel like I might be starting to feel my age.

I started playing Lemmings on the PSP, first via an emulator and next on my PSP Go. The screen size on both is roughly 3.6" and 3.8" respectively and I gotta say, I'm struggling to really enjoy it because everything is so small.

I'm not sure if it's my eyes or what. But I'm trying to find a solution to this.

Could you get one of those Fresnel lenses to clip onto the screen? Or maybe just magnifying glasses? I've never tried either of those. I just know they exist.

 

[BeardyHat]

Could you get one of those Fresnel lenses to clip onto the screen? Or maybe just magnifying glasses? I've never tried either of those. I just know they exist.

I just switched to using my PS Vita instead, since it's significantly larger. The upscaled resolution looks a little crunchy, but everything still plays just fine, so I'll probably just stick to that for now.

 

[Zloth]

I tried to play Slay the Spire, but I think that's been forever ruined by Monster Train 2.

Will a train running over a spire be the AI-generated image for February?

I'm not sure if it's my eyes or what. But I'm trying to find a solution to this.

Lemmings looked great on the family Apple ][+'s 280x162 6-color graphics! Well, I say six colors... but you couldn't just show any of those 6 colors on any pixel you wanted.

 

[BeardyHat]

Will a train running over a spire be the AI-generated image for February?

Lemmings looked great on the family Apple ][+'s 280x162 6-color graphics! Well, I say six colors... but you couldn't just show any of those 6 colors on any pixel you wanted.

I've been thinking about playing the DOS version now, actually. Just because even on the bigger Vita screen, it still seems small...

Would this be the Apple II version?

Lemmings (woz-a-day collection) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Lemmings is a 1982 action game developed by Dan Thompson and distributed by Sirius Software. It runs on any Apple II with 48K.

archive.org

Seems different...

 

[Zed Clampet]

Stunlock Studios had made nothing but MOBAs and were barely staying alive when they launched V Rising, a survival game and one of my top 3 favorite games of all time. V Rising has sold 5.5 million copies on Steam and another 500k on console. If they go back to making MOBAs, they've lost their minds. I don't care about Half-Life 3. Give me V Rising 2.

 

[Pifanjr]

I played PEAK for most of the night last night with my wife and two friends and we never made it to the second camp fire. We didn't even make it to the first on most of the attempts and the times we did at least one person had died.

My wife and I also tried the demo for YapYap, which was a lot of fun, even (or because) if it's quite difficult to get the game to understand you correctly.

I feel like I might be starting to feel my age.

I started playing Lemmings on the PSP, first via an emulator and next on my PSP Go. The screen size on both is roughly 3.6" and 3.8" respectively and I gotta say, I'm struggling to really enjoy it because everything is so small.

I'm not sure if it's my eyes or what. But I'm trying to find a solution to this.

I've always had this problem with handhelds. I used to emulate games on the PC just so I could use a big screen. It's not just easier to see and read what's happening, the controls are usually easier with a keyboard and it's more comfortable to sit at a PC than it is to hold a handheld for long periods of time.

 

[Zloth]

Planet Crafter went from changing so fast I could barely keep up with the new craftables popping up to almost a dead stop as water sllllooowly rises. I'm finding it really hard to predict what is and isn't going to fill up with water, though. When a game changes the whole sky color just by having a few flowers in your base pumping out oxygen for an hour, it's really hard to guess what it's going to do next.

Seems different...

Oh! It seems there are two different games called Lemmings! I was thinking of the side-view version where you try to get the lemmings to go out the door instead of getting killed. There's another, top-down version which is a totally different game. Somebody probably would have been sued for that naming these days. But that was back when Atari could drop TIE fighters right on the cover of a game and call them Zylons without getting sued (see Star Raiders).

 

[neogunhero]

Just had a long holiday break, got a lot of gaming in. Biggest news is that I picked up a new monitor and it's really been a major upgrade for me. After using an old 12+ year old TV, going to a monitor designed specifically for gaming was a huge improvement. Because of that, I played a lot of different games testing it out, but I landed on Yakuza Kiwami and Insurgency Sandstorm the most this weekend.

I'm about halfway through Kiwami, and it's been great playing it at a solid 120fps. The colors also pop a lot more, making Kamurocho look as beautiful as ever to me. I want to challenge myself to beat all Yakuza games this year but lets see how much I'll actually stick to it. You guys know me, I jump to a new game every week it seems.

Insurgency Sandstorm was also another game that looked amazing at 120fps. I ended up playing for two hours straight which is pretty crazy for me, especially that game. Typically I can only handle match or two at a time, I played 5 matches of co-op with almost the same group of players all throughout and it was a ton of fun. I played Gunner, and laying down hundreds of rounds into enemies never gets old.

 

[Frindis]

I tried The Outer Worlds 2, but did not like it. It felt a bit stiff around character animation and expression, and the dialogue felt bland. I also did not like the repetitive words from different NPC's . It's been almost 20 years since Oblivion; we can do without NPCs saying the same thing in a loop. Pickpocket felt way too OP, I don't believe you can actually fail it. Buildings felt a bit too copy-paste for me, lacking uniqueness. Gun combat and environmental effects were decent, but not enough positives for me to keep playing.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I tried The Outer Worlds 2, but did not like it. It felt a bit stiff around character animation and expression, and the dialogue felt bland. I also did not like the repetitive words from different NPC's . It's been almost 20 years since Oblivion; we can do without NPCs saying the same thing in a loop. Pickpocket felt way too OP, I don't believe you can actually fail it. Buildings felt a bit too copy-paste for me, lacking uniqueness. Gun combat and environmental effects were decent, but not enough positives for me to keep playing.

I played Outer Worlds 1, it was not nearly as good as other similar genre games I've played, so I didn't bother with OW 2.

 

[Zed Clampet]

OMG I'm SOOOO disappointed. I was hovering over a spice field when the worm started heading right to it. Guido was on the ground, and took off for his Assault Ornithopter. He got in and hit the thrust right as the worm got there. The worm breached and stretched to try to grab him. He escaped in very dramatic fashion.

I was going to save that clip and show it to everyone, but I played too long and it recorded over it

 

[Pifanjr]

I got some more stuff done in the StoneBlock 4 modpack for Minecraft. I finally got to make my wireless energy network, so now I have a room under my base with a couple of generators and some batteries. I should automate it at some point, but I'm not using all that much energy at the moment and the last generator I built can generate about 500 million on a full stack of nether stars, which I'm not going to burn through any time soon.

Though I did have a little accident when I was setting up my network. I had a machine that was keeping a wither in stasis so I could mine it for resources, but I accidentally pulled too much power from the network at once and that machine failed, causing the wither to make a couple of holes in my base.

I also digitized my storage, meaning I basically have one chest that contains all of my items, which saves a lot of times trying to sort all of my resources. I also finally automated my chickens properly so I don't run out of basic resources. I'm trying to finish the main quests and at this point all of the crafting recipes use so many steps that it doesn't make sense to only craft the components I need for a specific machine. So by having a ton of basic resources I can craft entire stacks of every component for when I need them for other machines as well.

Though I'm getting to the point where even a full stack of components doesn't last very long, so I might have to take a closer look at all the auto-crafting options there are. I always put off automating my machines and I always regret it later.

 

[Zed Clampet]

`I also digitized my storage,

Any type of crafting game, I usually look for storage mods. Wish I could mod Dune Awakening because with just base storage, it's a bit of a disaster.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I decided I was going to toss a little support to Epic for all the free games and went to their store to find something to buy. I came away with nothing. I honestly think that if Epic were the only PC gaming store that I wouldn't be gaming.

What are they doing? Why spend so much money when your product is terrible? Fix the store. Then advertise it. I can only assume that they don't know how to fix it, that there is somehow no one there who can design a proper online shop. When they say they have 15 percent of the market, I bet that is almost entirely Fortnite microtransactions.

 

[Pifanjr]

Any type of crafting game, I usually look for storage mods. Wish I could mod Dune Awakening because with just base storage, it's a bit of a disaster.

One of the first things I did in this modpack was to make a backpack and then upgrade it as much as I could. Same with chest storage, I made the biggest chests I could get as quick as I could.

Digitizing all of it is definitely a lot easier though, it just takes a bit of effort, but I should've probably done it a lot sooner. I'm just not very familiar with that mod.

 

[Zloth]

I think I'm exploring too much and terraforming too little in Planet Crafter. I keep getting recipes that ask for metals I've found and other things that I see on the blueprint crafting station as being for worlds with far more terraforming done. The devs are reining me in: no new stuff until you get back to the main point of the game, Zloth!

Fine. Right after I check what's behind that hill...

Oh, and I finally died, just a couple dozen yards from oxygen. Death penalty is just to force you to drop some items where you die so, in this case, it was no penalty at all.

I'm about halfway through Kiwami, and it's been great playing it at a solid 120fps. The colors also pop a lot more, making Kamurocho look as beautiful as ever to me. I want to challenge myself to beat all Yakuza games this year but lets see how much I'll actually stick to it. You guys know me, I jump to a new game every week it seems.

I wouldn't want to do all the games back to back! Jumping straight from 2 to 3 would really hurt, as they basically drop-kick one of the important characters out of the series.

I was going to save that clip and show it to everyone, but I played too long and it recorded over it

I've done that a few times already with Planet Crafters - and that's a game where it's trivial to save anywhere to save a clip! {eye roll}

Same with chest storage, I made the biggest chests I could get as quick as I could.

Searching all of Nexus for "big chest mod" isn't returning what I think you're talking about.

 

[Frindis]

Played a few hours of Oblivion Remastered and Hollow Knight: Silksong since Microsoft has another one of those pay 1 USD for a month deals, so ovbiously I'm jumping on that.

Oblivion Remastered was too poorly optimized for me, even with meeting the minimum requirements and reducing most settings to medium or high. The game looks great, but it just got too much frame dip and stutters when you walk around in the more open areas. Inside the dungeons, everything feels great, so just sucks it could not be like that outside also.

Hollow Knight: Silksong is pretty much a perfect game, with beautiful maps and ambience and combat that feels really smooth. Unfortunately for me I did not enjoy that the map areas felt so cramped, making it hard for me to navigate around. I think Dark Souls did this better, because of further camera distance + landmarks, making navigating from one place to another much easier and less the feeling of getting lost. It's just one of those games that is well-made, but not for me.

 

[Colif]

I feel like I might be starting to feel my age.

I started playing Lemmings on the PSP, first via an emulator and next on my PSP Go. The screen size on both is roughly 3.6" and 3.8" respectively and I gotta say, I'm struggling to really enjoy it because everything is so small.

I'm not sure if it's my eyes or what. But I'm trying to find a solution to this.

this is why i don't watch many videos on my phone, and even if I was mad enough to buy a game on mobile, I know I wouldn't be able to see it. I never got into handhelds though. Last one I owned was a Game & Watch (the original ones)

I can't read anything on my PC monitor without glasses so there is that, anything smaller is impossible... some things are hard even with glasses. Camera is used then... wouldn't work on moving images...

Only played one game this month (and year) so perhaps I find another one to play soon.

 

[Rolfil]

I think I'm exploring too much and terraforming too little in Planet Crafter. I keep getting recipes that ask for metals I've found and other things that I see on the blueprint crafting station as being for worlds with far more terraforming done. The devs are reining me in: no new stuff until you get back to the main point of the game, Zloth!

Another convert .

The general idea is to tear down what you have built when you can build the next tier. The problem being you won't have the resources. For Prime if you generate heat a bit more then it will melt the cave entrances...

As long as you have the water collector and a couple of food growers your set. That's the first priority

 

[Zed Clampet]

Another convert .

I think I'm exploring too much and terraforming too little in Planet Crafter. I keep getting recipes that ask for metals I've found and other things that I see on the blueprint crafting station as being for worlds with far more terraforming done. The devs are reining me in: no new stuff until you get back to the main point of the game, Zloth!

I've played it 3 or 4 times, but only once after it hit 1.0, and I haven't done the DLC planets yet.

I always feel especially happy when I unlock the last extractor. I won't spoil anything for you, but there are some other very helpful things you'll unlock later, but no matter what you do, terraforming takes a decent amount of time unless you change the speed when you are setting up your game.

There is a good "big chest" mod and a mod that makes the jetpack more useful and incredibly fast.

 

[Zed Clampet]

One of the first things I did in this modpack was to make a backpack and then upgrade it as much as I could. Same with chest storage, I made the biggest chests I could get as quick as I could.

Digitizing all of it is definitely a lot easier though, it just takes a bit of effort, but I should've probably done it a lot sooner. I'm just not very familiar with that mod.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "digitizing". At first I thought it just created a count of everything that was in it, but then I realized that's what chests always do I get that it's an infinite chest for everything. You can do that in Satisfactory (with a mod) too, but then you have to put a bunch of smart splitters with it so that everything goes in the right direction when it leaves storage. Usually, I just build a warehouse and create one infinite storage for each resource. Of course with Satisfactory you'll end up with 30 different factories (or more) all over the map, so getting things to the warehouse before you have trains or drones is a bit of a pain. Your options are self-driving trucks or just building really long conveyor belts. The awesome thing about self-driving trucks is that I always end up getting run over by one

 

[neogunhero]

I decided I was going to toss a little support to Epic for all the free games and went to their store to find something to buy. I came away with nothing. I honestly think that if Epic were the only PC gaming store that I wouldn't be gaming.

What are they doing? Why spend so much money when your product is terrible? Fix the store. Then advertise it. I can only assume that they don't know how to fix it, that there is somehow no one there who can design a proper online shop. When they say they have 15 percent of the market, I bet that is almost entirely Fortnite microtransactions.

I've only bought two games on Epic when they were exclusives: Saints Row III Remastered and Chivalry 2. At the time I believe I had a 25% off coupon that stacked with any sale that was going on, so I got them both pretty cheap. Besides that it's only a vessel for the free games. Their storefront is terrible, only ever showcasing Fortnite stuff as they know that is what most people use it for. I don't see any reason to use it over Steam for new purchases.

I wouldn't want to do all the games back to back! Jumping straight from 2 to 3 would really hurt, as they basically drop-kick one of the important characters out of the series.

Another friend said the same for playing Yakuza 0 to Kiwami, he told me to take a break. About a year long break should be good lol. The main reason why I want to play them through again is because I've never played Yakuza 4-6, and 6 seems very interesting to me. I've heard mixed stuff about them but I still want to check them out. I'm most likely just going to rush through the stories and only play side activities that interest me. No need to grind for 25+ hours in Pocket Circuit and Real Estate Royale again. Let's see how long until I get burnt out and need a break from the series

Oblivion Remastered was too poorly optimized for me, even with meeting the minimum requirements and reducing most settings to medium or high. The game looks great, but it just got too much frame dip and stutters when you walk around in the more open areas. Inside the dungeons, everything feels great, so just sucks it could not be like that outside also.

This was one of the specific reasons why I decided to upgrade my GPU earlier this year. Oblivion Remastered is a great game... if you can run it. I've heard lots of theories as to why that is; it runs on two engines, it has forced Ray Tracing on at all times, it's a Bethesda game... no matter what the issue is, it's obvious that it is not well optimized. I have to enable FSR, force FSR4 upgrade via Radeon software, and enable frame gen just to get over 60fps, and that is still reducing a lot of graphics settings. Foliage, Shadows, Global Illumination and Hardware Lumen are the worst FPS destroyers in that game.

this is why i don't watch many videos on my phone, and even if I was mad enough to buy a game on mobile, I know I wouldn't be able to see it. I never got into handhelds though. Last one I owned was a Game & Watch (the original ones)

I play mobile games very rarely, but when I do it has to be well suited for mobile. Unfortunately, Balatro is not, it is too small and being in landscape you have to play with both hands. I wish they would release an update to play in portrait mode with larger text and icons.

 

[Colif]

15k USD server to play minecraft
It has a 4090 attached.

 

[neogunhero]

15k USD server to play minecraft
It has a 4090 attached.

Because adding on a 5090 would have increased the price by 5k

 

[Frindis]

Had some fun playing CloverPit. It's a rogue-lite slot machine game where you get different charms and debuffs that can make or break your game. Each turn, you need to gather enough coins, or you lose the game. It's pretty chill if you like the slow grind and want to squeeze in some more dopamine rush between other games.