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.

 

[Pifanjr]

I played some more Dave the Diver and it turns out I was wrong, I wasn't collecting too much, I was in fact not collecting enough. Turns out you unlock a bunch of collection quests that you can only complete over the course of several dives.

Though I was right that the sushi restaurant is only a minor part of the game, you only need to catch a handful of fish on each dive to have more than enough to make sushi from. You can upgrade your dishes if you catch multiple of the same type, but that's not worth it at the start as bigger fish and new recipes are worth so much more.

 

[Pifanjr]

I've said before that I like that Dave the Diver has a fast pace at which it introduces new mechanics because I don't like long tutorials, but the game still hasn't stopped introducing new mechanics and it's getting a bit ridiculous.

One of the last mechanics I unlocked was the ability to pick up heavy rocks and drop them. This does not seem like a mechanic you introduce after 10+ hours of gameplay, it seems like a very basic action that you would teach within the first half hour. Which means the game isn't teaching me how to play, the constant introductions of new mechanics is just a part of the game itself.

Keeping a game fresh by constantly introducing new mechanics without the game feeling disjointed isn't easy. Dave the Diver doesn't do it quite perfectly, but it does it well enough to be enjoyable, at least so far.

 

[Zed Clampet]

As a lifetime user of poorly explained software, I've developed the sinking feeling that the last words I'll hear on my deathbed will be something along the lines of, "Hey! Life hack. Did you know that if you say 'polka dot turtle' you can switch to a parallel universe?"

***

Also, does it count if everyone who liked my post on "X" has an OnlyFans?

 

[neogunhero]

Also, does it count if everyone who liked my post on "X" has an OnlyFans?

Either you're one big hunk, or you've attracted the attention of bots. Not sure which is more preferable.

---

---

Still plodding along in Starfield. The load screens are starting to get to me, but that just means I need to spend more time exploring planets and not flying through space. The moment-to-moment gameplay is fun, but you constantly get taken out of it when you need to travel to a different planet. I often find myself picking up my phone when waiting for the load screens.

I also downloaded a bunch of mods. Something as simple as making the menus open and close much faster makes the game much more enjoyable. It's hard to notice at first, but once this mod comes into your attention, you realize how there is a fade in and fade out animation when opening and closing the menu and how annoyingly sluggish it is. I've also got an improved UI mod and performance mods, so the game is running super smooth even in large cities. I average 70-80fps in major settlements, 90-120fps in all other areas. I remember having to play the game on all Low settings while barely hitting 60fps on my old GPU. I'm at a mix of High-Ultra now and the game looks so much better.

 

[Colif]

@neogunhero wouldn't have been amused at this, lucky it didn't happen

Sony don't deserve it, they already had Concord (lol), let another studio make a good game without your "help"

 

[BeardyHat]

Made it partway through Ravenholm last night, then got tired and bored, so dropped things off. Half-Life 2 still really holds-up as a game, I love it.

It's nice having the 165Hz screen on the laptop, though Half-Life 2 was only running at 60 anyway. Didn't see any uncapped framerate, so left it there.

I think the total of like $225 I spent was worth it for quality of life upgrades on my laptop. The 165Hz is nice and the lower resolution means my machine is cooler and quieter than trying to push 4k all the time. Though the funny thing is, people are always raving about high refresh rate displays and yeah, it's nice, I can tell the difference, but it's not life-changing. 60hz is hardly bothersome when I use it on my second monitor or on my Steam Deck.

 

[Colif]

I think the total of like $225 I spent was worth it for quality of life upgrades on my laptop. The 165Hz is nice and the lower resolution means my machine is cooler and quieter than trying to push 4k all the time. Though the funny thing is, people are always raving about high refresh rate displays and yeah, it's nice, I can tell the difference, but it's not life-changing. 60hz is hardly bothersome when I use it on my second monitor or on my Steam Deck.

The last time I had a 4k screen my PC really wasn't ready for it, Going to 2k was a smart move for me and it sounds like it was for you as well.

Its been a while since i ran at 60, probably the last time was when I got my previous PC in 2020. The 4k monitor could only run at 60 max. Think the PC before it could run desktop at 60 but games were out of question. I mostly played it 2k anyway. Having a 4k screen on an under powered PC is just cruel.

I bought my current monitor in December of that year and the 2070 Super can run it at 100. it wasn't until I got the 7900xt that I could run over 100 and actually achieve its 144fps refresh rate

I see if my PC ready for 4k now but its 10 years later... i hope 4k is doable now. I won't be able to run at 240 natively in games but maybe next GPU will. Might be able to with up scaling.

I was happy at 2k but I wanted to try HDR and can't get 2k screens in the size I was after.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Either you're one big hunk, or you've attracted the attention of bots. Not sure which is more preferable.

I'm definitely a big hunk of something.

There were only 4 of them. I'm not sure if they are using bots. Could be. They don't really seem successful enough, so I was just assuming they were feverishly and haphazardly applying "likes" all over the place to attract attention.

 

[neogunhero]

I'm definitely a big hunk of something.

There were only 4 of them. I'm not sure if they are using bots. Could be. They don't really seem successful enough, so I was just assuming they were feverishly and haphazardly applying "likes" all over the place to attract attention.

If I had no moral compass, I sure could rake in tons of cash with a few simple prompts. I doubt OnlyFans regulates AI accounts, it makes them money in the end.

 

[Colif]

So I guess Sony won the console war

'Xbox Is Being Sunsetted' — Seamus Blackley, One of the Creators of Xbox, Thinks Recent Shakeup Spells the End for Microsoft's Gaming Business - IGN

Amid the official statements and many tweets that followed one of the biggest shakeups ever at Xbox, one of its creators believes Microsoft’s true plan is to bring its gaming business to an end.

www.ign.com

though its not official, its the sort of news you wouldn't get official word on, they would deflect (unless someone has tied them down and asked them)

What was prize for winning this war anyway?

Wonder what happens to all the companies they bought...
So what happens to the Xbox console that was meant to be out next year?

Yes, I know, console news but MS leaving gaming probably affect PC gaming a little.

 

[neogunhero]

@Colif I've got lots of thoughts regarding the whole Xbox management shakeup.

Sarah Bond, the outgoing president, apparently was so hardheaded on the "This Is An Xbox" marketing campaign that she effectively turned her employees against her. They told her so many times that they did not like the direction she was taking them, yet she relented on pushing that ad campaign. Not sure how prominent it was in Australia, but in the US I saw those ads many times a week for years.

It's almost like telling people your phone, TV, Chromebook, whatever can play Xbox games is a bad way to sell Xbox consoles. "Your phone now has a built-in camera, so now there is no reason to buy a new camera".

The guy from the article you posted helped create the first Xbox. At that time the console seemed directly for and by gamers. They wanted to be the absolute best platform for serious gamers. Xbox 360 started that way, then throughout it's lifespan it broadened it's target audience to include families and kids, then by the Xbox One it was full on corporate C-Suite executives making all the shots. XB Series X just kept kicking it down that hill.

I agree with his take too. Slowly enough the Xbox brand will fade into existence. They might try a new console, but if they do that will be the last one I bet.

I'm not gonna act like I know all the ins and outs of what is going on or the history behind it all, but I think it's fairly obvious that MS has let their tentacles wrap around Xbox too tightly, when Xbox originally started out with a lot more autonomy from MS. They have done some genuine good for the gaming community as a whole but also has irreparably damaged it. Xbox was a huge proponent of microtransactions and DLC at a time when developers put the entire game on the disc without needing to download or pay for more content.

Goodbye and good riddance, I guess. My heart goes out to all the studios that will potentially get caught in the wake of this sh*tstorm.

 

[Colif]

It was only shown in certain places

Based on reports, the campaign featured immersive takeovers and advertising in the following locations:

United States: San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and Washington State.
United Kingdom: London (including a notable, specific, and creative partnership with The Happy Egg Co).
Australia: Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.
Germany: Berlin.
Canada: Toronto

I don't live in one of the Australian cities, and even if I did, I don't watch TV and have an ad blocker on PC. So I never saw that one.

I never owned an Xbox, I had everything else so didn't need one. Closest I came was owning a controller

the Every device is an Xbox is one way to kill your console. What a stupid move if you intend to actually release one.