General Game Discussion for February 2026

[Zed Clampet]

I'm declaring Monster Lab Simulator an entirely new genre of game that I'm simply calling "Save-Scummer". The RNG, economy and enemy balance are such that I don't think there is any other rational way to play it. It's literally the primary game mechanic. You reload every couple of seconds.

 

[Zloth]

I'm going through Jedi: Survivor. I wish the game wouldn't call itself a Souls-like - it makes me compare it to Elden Ring, and that's really not good. Maybe Luke Skywalker does Lara Croft impersonations in Elden Ring would fit? Nah. Easier to just call it Jedi: Survivor. Anyway, it's getting more fun as I get more used to enemies which use a lot of unblockable attacks.

Digital Foundry bumped into a solution for "stuttering" in Jedi: Survivor just recently. It's a special kind of stuttering, though. Instead of the framerate getting wonky, the framerate stays quite steady. However, if you're running along and look carefully, you'll notice that the distance you cover per frame is a little different each time. They quickly average out, making the run smooth. People with lower end CPUs get a more... jumpy? run. Anyway, there's a system built into the game that's turned on by default for consoles (which tend to have CPUs long on cores but short on speed) but not for PC. Use Unreal Engine Console, turn that on, and you get the home-brew interpolation system.

Yes, The Phantom Pain.

Maybe I'll try the game with mouse and keyboard next time, though I don't really mind playing with a controller either. I'm not planning on having to do a lot of shooting.

The game adapts to your gameplay style, whatever that is, and starts to counter it. For instance, when you keep shooting soldiers in the head with a tranq dart, they start wearing helmets. Hojima & company want you to think creatively, and you won't do that if you just find a playstyle and stick with it for 80 hours.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Dune Awakening is going to be alright. They've just added a massive update. End game is 100 times better. While still somewhat low, they've tripled their concurrent players. I think more will join when they realize all that's changed.

 

[Pifanjr]

I played more Dave the Diver today. I unlocked a bunch more game mechanics and it's starting to seem like the restaurant part of this game is a much smaller part of the game than I initially thought. The restaurant is just a way to make some money, the real gameplay is finding specific items every time you go down into the water.

However, I keep wanting to collect everything, but my storage fills up too quickly, so I don't get to do the quests because I need to drop off all of the loot I found.

The game adapts to your gameplay style, whatever that is, and starts to counter it. For instance, when you keep shooting soldiers in the head with a tranq dart, they start wearing helmets. Hojima & company want you to think creatively, and you won't do that if you just find a playstyle and stick with it for 80 hours.

Yeah, I've read about that. I'm kind of curious about how well that ends up working, I can imagine it could be either annoying or amazing, or maybe it'll be too easy to work around and it won't have much of an impact at all.

 

[BeardyHat]

Been on a bit of a Half-Life kick lately.

Decided to try Opposing Forces again this past week. I played it back when it first released and didn't like it and that was the only time I ever played it, so I figured it was worth a go to reassess.

Total crap. Still hate it. It feels like a low rent, lazy Boomer Shooter and nothing like Half-Life. The new weapons add nothing, the followers are obnoxious and largely useless. New enemies are annoying and there's really no puzzle solving and exploring to be found in it, which makes it feel completely disconnected from the original game.

Blue Shift, on the other hand, I quite enjoyed and it didn't overstay its welcome. Again done by Gearbox, but feels much more faithful to the original game, with lots of exploration, intelligently placed enemies and plenty of puzzles to solve.

After I finished Blue Shift, I kind of stared at my screen and thought, "Well now what do I do?"

So, I'm on to Half-Life 2, which is just as fun as ever. Been at least a decade since I last played it and I feel like I'm kind of understanding the world a little bit more and really taking my time to soak-up the atmosphere. I'm already at Black Mesa East/Eli's Lab after starting it this afternoon.

Looking forward to moving on to the episodes and then finally getting through Alyx. I've played less than two hours of that and while I enjoyed it, VR is such a pain as for as gaming goes. I usually game in the evenings during my relax time, so the last thing I want to be doing is moving my body around more. We'll see.

 

[neogunhero]

I played a bit of Flotilla today.

Slightly off topic, but I absolutely love Blendo Games. One of the best indie developers in my opinion. I went through his whole gameography a few years back and picked up Skin Deep last year. Idiosyncratic would be a good word to describe him.

After I finished Blue Shift, I kind of stared at my screen and thought, "Well now what do I do?"

Keep the GoldSrc energy going and play some Gunman Chronicles! It's abandonware so it's easy to find a copy of it online.

Have you ever tried Sven Co-op? It's great with friends but also works well in singleplayer. Lots of community made GoldSrc campaigns to play through.

 

[BeardyHat]

Keep the GoldSrc energy going and play some Gunman Chronicles! It's abandonware so it's easy to find a copy of it online.

Have you ever tried Sven Co-op? It's great with friends but also works well in singleplayer. Lots of community made GoldSrc campaigns to play through.

Funny, I remember this one, but totally forgot about it. I'll have to give it a go, but now I'm deep in Half-Life 2, so I gotta finish that!

Never did try Sven. Think at the time I was well into Counter-Strike or Everquest, so never did give it a go.

 

[neogunhero]

After bashing on Starfield a lot last week, I inadvertently grew a desire to revisit it. I saw one of my good friends on Steam picked it up recently, and that gave me the drive to boot it up. I now have someone to talk about it with directly.

So far I'm about 6 hours in and... I'm actually having fun. To be fair this is how I felt when it first came out. First 20-30 hours were fun, then all the issues became too glaring to ignore. Hopefully the issues aren't so bad anymore as there have been lots of additions and improvements since I last played around launch, over two years ago.

In typical Bethesda game fashion, I started freeroaming the minute I was able to. I landed on a random nearby moon and already found a new ship that's better than the starter ship. I forgot that you still have to pay to "register" it before you're able to make any modifications, but it beats buying a ship.

On that same moon, I found out that surface maps have been added to the game. It's silly they weren't added before. It shows you all the POIs in the explorable area on each planet so you're not aimlessly wandering around trying to find places to loot and fight. I haven't gotten the land vehicle yet, but it's definitely one of my main goals.

One thing that I should do is play the main story a bit but honestly it's quiet boring. You unlock your Powers after a few missions, similar to the Dovahkiin's powers, allowing you to do things like manipulate gravity and force push enemies away, I just need to push through the first few boring missions.

Another aspect I need to check out is the modding. I took a look at the Creations page and found a mix of free and paid mods. Apparently, I have $5 worth of credits so I might buy a couple cheap ones. I personally am not against paid mods, mod authors deserve to get paid too, but it really is just another scheme for Bethesda to collect your money. You're not paying the authors directly, Bethesda gets a cut too. At least they look high quality.

I'm looking forward to spending more time with Starfield. It's a flawed game but at the end of the day I am a big Bethesda games fan, no matter how much I wish to keep that a secret. Like a diamond in the rough there is fun to be had with it amongst all the frustrating game design choices.