July 2025 General Game Discussion Thread

[Zed Clampet]

@Pifanjr Played some more 9kings last night, and I'm not really sure what to think now. I've made two runs and easily won them both. It forces you to start on the lowest difficulty, though, so I expect more challenge the next time I play.

I'm a little bit concerned about the strategy options. As of right now, I only really see one way to play, which is only barely disturbed by having to draw cards.

Honestly, it just made me want to play Monster Train.

 

[BeardyHat]

@neogunhero was this your Nashville trip?

@BeardyHat mainline Might and Magic used to be my favorite games.

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Well, of all the games I'm not good at, Void Crew is solidly the worst, which is bad because it's Guido's favorite game at the moment. I've been playing all morning by myself and have yet to survive a mission. Think I'm going to offer to buy his friends copies.

Haven't played any of the others, but so far, I think 4 + 5 hold up very well. Definitely some UI fiddliness to get around, multiple clicks for stuff and comparing things is a pain, especially with my poor memory, but the overall gameplay is very fun. I had actually been thinking about buying Legends of Amberland during the Steam Sale, then decided I should save the money (and overspend on Clue Books, apparently) and play M&M which I've been wanting to play for ages now.

Save 50% on Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown on Steam

Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown is a classic western RPG inspired by the games from the 90s. Basically, it’s the kind of game I personally find missing nowadays. Light, fairy tale, epic, heroic, slightly humorous and without the need of endless grind to progress.

store.steampowered.com

Also, I want to play Void Crew at some point. Would like to play with my buddies, but I've fallen off my schedule of every other Friday with them since I took my Chicago trip. I'll have to see if maybe I can pick it back up this week, as Void Crew does seem pretty neat.

 

[neogunhero]

@neogunhero was this your Nashville trip?

Not yet, that's at the end of this month. Speaking of which, I was looking into getting a handheld emulation device for the trip... won't have too much time to play, but my wife and I will be splitting driving duties on the 7 hour road trip both ways so I will have a few hours in the car to play. I've been looking at the Anbernic RG40XX H (catchy name) and seems to be a well-built little machine. It's specs only allow it to play up to PS1/N64 games max and select few Dreamcast games at playable FPS, but for under $100 that's perfectly fine for me.

 

[BeardyHat]

Not yet, that's at the end of this month. Speaking of which, I was looking into getting a handheld emulation device for the trip... won't have too much time to play, but my wife and I will be splitting driving duties on the 7 hour road trip both ways so I will have a few hours in the car to play. I've been looking at the Anbernic RG40XX H (catchy name) and seems to be a well-built little machine. It's specs only allow it to play up to PS1/N64 games max and select few Dreamcast games at playable FPS, but for under $100 that's perfectly fine for me.

The 40XX is generally pretty well regarded in the community. I thought about picking one up as well, but I tend to prefer more pocketable handhelds. They also have the 40XX V if you prefer verticals (which is more my jam).

I only have one Anbernic and was generally a little wary before picking up, given how many people tend to complain about them, but my 405m has been great in the almost year I've owned it and often becomes my preferred handheld when I'm not using my Steam Deck. The Miyoo Mini has also treated me well in the 3-years I've owned it and now having owned the TrimUI Brick for 8 months, I'm finally beginning to come around to it. It's superior in many ways to the Miyoo, but the Miyoo has the software and community support which just blows the Brick out of the water.

Keep in mind, that if you don't want to spend the money, you can also get a phone controller for emulation and your phone will generally be more powerful than the lower end handhelds. That said, I still prefer to have a dedicated device myself, as a phone just feels like a distraction...

Oh and lastly, the nice thing about the Linux based handhelds (which the 40XX is), you'll have access to Portmaster, which is pretty great. I've got quite a few installed on my Brick right now, but the main thing that I've been playing on it when I have been playing it is Carmageddon.

 

[Pifanjr]

@Pifanjr Played some more 9kings last night, and I'm not really sure what to think now. I've made two runs and easily won them both. It forces you to start on the lowest difficulty, though, so I expect more challenge the next time I play.

I'm a little bit concerned about the strategy options. As of right now, I only really see one way to play, which is only barely disturbed by having to draw cards.

Honestly, it just made me want to play Monster Train.

I'm not a big fan of roguelites that make you earn higher difficulties. The beginning is too easy and the hardest difficulties are too hard, but that means I never get a satisfying end to the game. I just stop playing when I get too frustrated to keep going.

 

[Frindis]

Been playing a little Resident Evil Village. It's quite different from RE7 Biohazard in terms of getting scared, but I think it so far makes up for it by being more tense in the way you have to fend off the creatures. Takes me back to when I first played Resident Evil 4 and had to barricade myself in a small house against hordes of enemies. I can live with the difference in scariness, as long as the rest of the game lives up to the good first impression.

Just in case some of you are like me...slightly crazy...after Free Stuff!

Score these new FREE Steam Points Shop items during the ongoing Automation Fest!

Look, it’s Automation Fest! And yes, that means new free Steam Points Shop items are up for grabs!

gg.deals

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd4-UnU8lWY

 

[Zed Clampet]

It drives me crazy when someone leaves a review that says something like "You have to have a controller to play this game. It was a complete waste of my money."

REFUND THE DAMN GAME YOU MORON. It only takes a few seconds. Just refund it.

The person I was referencing here was surprised to discover that you could refund games and has thanked me for explaining how to do it. 🙂

 

[Zloth]

The person I was referencing here was surprised to discover that you could refund games and has thanked me for explaining how to do it. 🙂

But it was all over the news just.... ten years ago!? Sheesh, this time acceleration is getting crazy.

 

[neogunhero]

Saw someone review a $5 game and basically said “this game is fun but I beat it in 4 hours. Wait for a sale”.

Some people seemingly have no concept of value.

 

[Pifanjr]

Saw someone review a $5 game and basically said “this game is fun but I beat it in 4 hours. Wait for a sale”.

Some people seemingly have no concept of value.

Compared to a lot of other games, $5 for 4 hours of gameplay isn't much.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Saw someone review a $5 game and basically said “this game is fun but I beat it in 4 hours. Wait for a sale”.

Some people seemingly have no concept of value.

I saw a review the other day that said there wasn't enough to do in the end game, so he couldn't recommend the game. He had over 1000 hours of playtime.

Compared to a lot of other games, $5 for 4 hours of gameplay isn't much.

Compared to a lot of AAA games, $5 for 4 hours is massive. There have been many under 20 hour campaigns. But please don't go Zloth on us. That's such a horrible philosophy. If you believe that the only value of a game comes from the dollars to hours played ratio, then don't buy a game that is $5 full price. That's a very serious indicator that you aren't going to be playing the game for weeks/months.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Well, that was a little shocking. I was playing Monster Train and just cruising through the levels. Got to a new level, and had no problems at first. When the boss showed up, all my characters were at full health. The boss immediately ended the run, wiped out everyone, seemingly with little effort.

 

[neogunhero]

Compared to a lot of other games, $5 for 4 hours of gameplay isn't much.

You're not wrong, but if you break it down, that's only $1.25 per hour of entertainment which is a good "value". Most movie tickets these days are $15, and if the movie is only 2 hours long, that's $7.50 per hour. Many $60+ games don't even offer 60 hours' worth of gameplay. Of course you can't look at everything in these terms, cost per hour of entertainment, but I'd be happy to play 4 hours of a game I only spent $5 on.

 

[BeardyHat]

Am I the only person who feels a little indignant about buying games I already own on Steam on other platforms?

I have several Android devices, just got a new tablet to replace my Surface Go, in fact and I end-up..."acquiring" many games for the platform that I already own on Steam.

Like, I spend a fortune on games via Steam, I feel like once I've bought them one place, I should just have access to them everywhere. I get that it costs money to port them to different platforms, but still.

Maybe I'm just a spoiled PC gamer. Having had access to my Steam library on a huge swath of computers for 21-years now has warped my sense of what a platform is.

 

[neogunhero]

Maybe I'm just a spoiled PC gamer. Having had access to my Steam library on a huge swath of computers for 21-years now has warped my sense of what a platform is.

This. Steam has been too good to us, we're all so spoiled...

I do wish that someone would take the principal of Xbox Play Anywhere but apply it to all devices and consoles. Buy a game one place, play it in another, the publishers and devs could even have their own launchers and store fronts on each device.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Like, I spend a fortune on games via Steam, I feel like once I've bought them one place, I should just have access to them everywhere.

and @neogunhero

You all are aware of Steam Remote Play? You can stream your games to your phone, to a TV, etc. regardless of where you are? So you can be out of town and play your Steam games on your phone?

You'd have to leave your computer on so Steam could launch and run the game, and if the game isn't specifically supported, you'd have to figure out how to control it on your phone.

I use Steam's streaming all the time, and it works fantastic.

NOTE: The first time you use this, you need to pair up your devices at home. Otherwise, you'll be on vacation and decide to use this and it will ask you to enter a PIN on your computer, which will be sad.


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Guido and I are now playing Dune Awakening and Warhammer 40k Darktide every day. Today was our first time with Dune Awakening and it was fantastic. Darktide is a little annoying because the developers don't want you to play with less than 4 people, so they've made the bots worse, and you now spend the entire match reviving and rescuing them. Fatshark are real bastids.

 

[neogunhero]

You all are aware of Steam Remote Play?

I’ve tried it before, and it worked decently enough, but there was still a small amount of lag that annoyed me. Now, the last device I tried was the cheapest Google TV stick you can buy at Walmart, so the speeds were probably hindered by that. I haven’t tried it to my phone yet, which gets the full download speed.

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Can the built in Bluetooth on your motherboard just die over time? I have had and used this same motherboard since the end of 2018, so going on nearly 7 years of near daily use. The BT connection has been dropping bad on it. I purchased a very cheap unknown brand USB adapter which worked for a while but now has failed me again, after only 4-5 months. I should have done this the first time, but I looked up “best BT USB adapters” and read through a few, and landed on the Techkey BT 5.4 long range antenna adapter for $15 at Amazon. It says it reached up to 500FT, but how my set up is it will be more like 2-3 feet from my controller lol. I’m just sick of my controller dropping connection randomly. I was playing THPS 3+4 earlier and my connection dropped, and after about 15 minutes of troubleshooting I still couldn’t get it to connect. I gave up and bought an actually well reviewed one.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I’ve tried it before, and it worked decently enough, but there was still a small amount of lag that annoyed me. Now, the last device I tried was the cheapest Google TV stick you can buy at Walmart, so the speeds were probably hindered by that. I haven’t tried it to my phone yet, which gets the full download speed.

No lag for me from on PC to another over wifi, but the do recommend that the streaming PC be wired instead of wifi.

 

[Pifanjr]

I get that it costs money to port them to different platforms, but still. Maybe I'm just a spoiled PC gamer.

I mean, yeah, you are just spoiled 😛. It does cost money to port these games and the mobile version is often cheaper than the PC version, so it's more like getting a standalone DLC that allows you to play on your phone.

As far as I know most games that require you to pay up front don't sell that well on phones. So the mobile port is probably mostly played by people who already own the game on another platform. Though I don't have any numbers to back up that assumption.

Can the built in Bluetooth on your motherboard just die over time?

I'd suspect the controller before the motherboard, but anything is possible of course.

 

[dxchase]

Maybe I'm just a spoiled PC gamer. Having had access to my Steam library on a huge swath of computers for 21-years now has warped my sense of what a platform is.

Its ok. Im a spoiled PC gamer because id say more than 75% of my gaming has been 'offline' and off any platforms in general lol.


Killing Floor 3 is having another "stress test" today. This time PC players and ....console players get to jump in today. Goes for a solid 12 hours this time and will probably wind up using an hour or PTO tonight so i can go in late and brag to my co-worker who also likes KF3 that i got to stress test the game and he didnt cause hes at work.

I dont think ill get anything else in today. Im chewing away at Tainted Grail still. Game is just a very nice game and if you have any remote interest in oblivion/skyrim. You need to play this game. Was on sale during the steam summer fest but its worth it at full price imo.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Won my third run in Monster Train then got pounded by a late boss in whatever my next run was. I think I accepted the option where it just gets progressively harder.

There must have been a lot of non-survival players playing Dune Awakening when it first launched. All I heard was how difficult it was to get fluids, but it really isn't that difficult. There are some plants you can get a small amount of fluids from in an emergency. You can make the suit that recycles your urine. And every time you kill someone you take their blood and put it in your machine that pulls the water out of it.

I heard the base building was great, but we've just started with a nice box house until we figure out where the best place for bases is.

 

[BeardyHat]

and @neogunhero

You all are aware of Steam Remote Play? You can stream your games to your phone, to a TV, etc. regardless of where you are? So you can be out of town and play your Steam games on your phone?

You'd have to leave your computer on so Steam could launch and run the game, and if the game isn't specifically supported, you'd have to figure out how to control it on your phone.

I use Steam's streaming all the time, and it works fantastic.

NOTE: The first time you use this, you need to pair up your devices at home. Otherwise, you'll be on vacation and decide to use this and it will ask you to enter a PIN on your computer, which will be sad.

I actually really dislike streaming for whatever reason. Partly because my WiFi is spotty in different places in the house--I did buy some AP's to fix that, but I haven't tackled it yet--and partly because, I don't know, I just don't care for it? I did it quite a lot back around 2020, in fact, completed the first Kingdom Come that way on my laptop at the time, but every time I've done it since then, there's just some minor annoyance that I don't want to deal with.

I could have kept my old laptop and streamed to it if I was ok with that, but I felt the need to upgrade to something with a proper GPU so I could run on bare metal.

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Can the built in Bluetooth on your motherboard just die over time? I have had and used this same motherboard since the end of 2018, so going on nearly 7 years of near daily use. The BT connection has been dropping bad on it. I purchased a very cheap unknown brand USB adapter which worked for a while but now has failed me again, after only 4-5 months. I should have done this the first time, but I looked up “best BT USB adapters” and read through a few, and landed on the Techkey BT 5.4 long range antenna adapter for $15 at Amazon. It says it reached up to 500FT, but how my set up is it will be more like 2-3 feet from my controller lol. I’m just sick of my controller dropping connection randomly. I was playing THPS 3+4 earlier and my connection dropped, and after about 15 minutes of troubleshooting I still couldn’t get it to connect. I gave up and bought an actually well reviewed one.

Two things to check: I'm assuming you've got the latest drivers for the Bluetooth adapter, so also update your Firmware on your controller itself. My XBone controller was doing this for awhile until I did that and since then, no issues.

Second, make sure you disable Bluetooth Power Saving in device manager. This "helpful" feature causes any and all Bluetooth controllers and devices to experience significant input lag. I was fighting this one for awhile recently as well and I know my friends have as well.

 

[neogunhero]

Two things to check: I'm assuming you've got the latest drivers for the Bluetooth adapter, so also update your Firmware on your controller itself. My XBone controller was doing this for awhile until I did that and since then, no issues.

Second, make sure you disable Bluetooth Power Saving in device manager. This "helpful" feature causes any and all Bluetooth controllers and devices to experience significant input lag. I was fighting this one for awhile recently as well and I know my friends have as well.

AFAIK, my BT drivers are updated, I downloaded them directly from Intel's website last week. How can I check the controller firmware if that is different than Intel's BT drivers?

I will also look into the power saving option. I already bought that new adapter, but that's good to know to disable when I install it.

 

[neogunhero]

No lag for me from on PC to another over wifi, but the do recommend that the streaming PC be wired instead of wifi.

My PC is wired to ethernet, hits a max 45MB/s download speed on Steam. I think in addition to that, the receiving device should have strong wifi, and the Google stick I used did not. Not only was it stuffed behind a TV that is in a semi-enclosed stand, but the cheap device itself probably has a weak wifi module inside anyways. I've considered using my wife's cheap laptop and plugging it into my TV in the bedroom and seeing if that runs more smoothly. Do you have any experience using remote play for local co-op?

 

[BeardyHat]

AFAIK, my BT drivers are updated, I downloaded them directly from Intel's website last week. How can I check the controller firmware if that is different than Intel's BT drivers?

I will also look into the power saving option. I already bought that new adapter, but that's good to know to disable when I install it.

Just Google whatever your controller is and "Firmware update". So far, of the two controllers I've updated firmware on (XBone + 8Bit Do) each have had a little program to download that'll check the controller firmware version and grab a new one if it's out of date. You'll need to wire the controller to the computer in order to do this.

And definitely check that Bluetooth Power Saving setting, it may have gotten switched on via Windows Updates at some point in the past and could potentially be the cause of many an issue.