March 2025 General Game Discussion Thread

[BeardyHat]

I have y-continued mine play of Centre Station Simulator. This day, forsooth, I y-opened the shoppes for the firste time in many weekes. Moste of mine houres be spent idelwy, abiding the comynge of newe updates, and y-making mine factorye as large and glorious as it maye be. If I y-shoulde accomplisshe the game—whiche hath been possible since the begynning—I shalle naught return for updates, forsooth, as no ende-goal shalle remayne. Thus I do but continually expand mine operations.

Pardon, good folk, forsooth I have knockéd mine noggin and seem to y-channelle Master Chaucer.

Unfortunate about the brain damage, looks like we're going to have to put him down.

Tried the Half-Life 2 RTX demo and, unsurprisingly, it runs and looks like garbage on my 6700 XT. 10FPS if I'm lucky and that's only with its upscaler set as "Performance", so even if it ran, it looks like muddy, blurry garbage. I'll have to try and see if I can get it going with the native AMD upscaling, but unsurprisingly, I need to fix that as the AMD software is broken again.

 

[ZedClampet]

Next he will be using thorn

Thorn (letter) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

No Ye Olde around here either (Ye = The)

If only I could type characters the way people used to write them I could become completely illegible.

 

[Colif]

If only I could type characters the way people used to write them I could become completely illegible.

þ
some of them exist... just need to know their alt combo

Alt Codes List of Alt Key Codes Symbols

www.alt-codes.net

¿

alcohol + typing is another way to become completely illegible

 

[Johnway]

Trying out the Half-Life 2 RTX demo (warning another photo dump) and it...looks beautiful, its nicely redone but it runs pretty hard, even with my 4080super 12900k 6600 ddr6 ram. I can get about 60fps at High at 3440x1440, goes down to 50 at ultra. Some pics from my time:

Awesome screenshots and gorgeous lighting. i'm kinda wondering whether i would actually notice the RTX if i play the games. I've not personally experienced it side by side to make that call tbh. i wouldn't be surprised if i become numb to it all.

 

[ZedClampet]

þ
some of them exist... just need to know their alt combo

Alt Codes List of Alt Key Codes Symbols

www.alt-codes.net

¿

alcohol + typing is another way to become completely illegible

I actually meant "incomprehensible" but I'm halfway to that without any help at all.

 

[BeardyHat]

Awesome screenshots and gorgeous lighting. i'm kinda wondering whether i would actually notice the RTX if i play the games. I've not personally experienced it side by side to make that call tbh. i wouldn't be surprised if i become numb to it all.

Based on video comparisons alone, I really can't tell the difference between ray tracing and no ray tracing in modern games. That said, this video seems to make Half-Life 2 look pretty different, or at least, like it has some really neat lighting effects. Would love to see it running on my own system, but looks like that probably won't happen...

I've now got both of my laptops cleaned-up, reformatted and up for sale on eBay (Cross your fingers for me that they sell quickly), so I'm now using this cursed setup to stream from my main PC. It's not ideal, given my Surface Go I'm using is 16:10, versus 16:9 of the desktop system. But it is really nice to use the Trackpoint Keyboard II, instead of the somewhat chintzy Go keyboard cover.

https://imgur.com/a/52xrp2a

I've also successfully redesigned the roads and truck stop of the image I posted above; things are moving much smoother now, though I didn't take a new screenshot.

 

[ZedClampet]

Been hooked on Transport Fever 2 again after firing it up just to test my touchpad. I have expanded my transport empire across this small chain of islands and it's been mostly fine until now, but my first transport hub is really going to need some reconfiguring. It's in the middle of a smaller town and given that it's kind of become this defacto hub that sends stuff in all directions, it's needed to expand and just has loads of trucks going through it.

You can see all the trucks from the center of the image all queuing up on the roads outside and this is a "light traffic" time. They end-up sitting there for ages even on the fastest speed level, so unfortunately for residents, I'm going to need to level their homes and businesses so I can figure out some better traffic management, so I can add to my billions. Sorry little people...

https://imgur.com/a/Ob6ReJG

Okay, so my new thing is to stop buying games and to play the games other people are talking about that I already have. Downloading Transport Fever 2.

 

[BeardyHat]

Okay, so my new thing is to stop buying games and to play the games other people are talking about that I already have. Downloading Transport Fever 2.

I'd recommend a YouTube tutorial or a guide after playing for a bit. It can be a little obtuse to understand, but once you get a handle on how things move through a network, it all comes together.

The basic gist is that there needs to be demand for a product. So feed a food processing plant with wheat, then make sure that produced food is getting to a city that's demanding it and to the particular section of the city that's demanding it.

And read the data coming out of the various stations and producers, that'll help you track down inefficiencies.

I do think the campaign teaches some of this, but I've only spent a tiny amount of time with it, usually playing freeplay instead.

 

[Pifanjr]

I've played about 70 hours in my Blightfall world now and I'm still very much in the mid-game. There are three major mods, one of which I've barely started on and the other two I've only just got to the point where I can start working on automating stuff.

I'm still very much enjoying it. The fact that this modpack has an actual goal to pursue helps a lot to keep me excited to keep playing. It also helps that it's very well balanced, with none of the mods giving obvious major boosts in progression. In other modpacks I often lost interest because I managed to trivialise progression after a couple of hours because one or more mods were too powerful.

 

[ZedClampet]

I've played about 70 hours in my Blightfall world now and I'm still very much in the mid-game. There are three major mods, one of which I've barely started on and the other two I've only just got to the point where I can start working on automating stuff.

I'm still very much enjoying it. The fact that this modpack has an actual goal to pursue helps a lot to keep me excited to keep playing. It also helps that it's very well balanced, with none of the mods giving obvious major boosts in progression. In other modpacks I often lost interest because I managed to trivialise progression after a couple of hours because one or more mods were too powerful.

Are you going to empty your savings and take the family to A Minecraft Movie? I actually would love to see it, but I can't stand the thought of movie prices these days. When you factor in the garbage can-sized popcorn and 50 ounce coke I require to watch movies, you're talking a small fortune. Plus, I have to buy my wife her own food or she keeps trying to reach over and eat mine...Oh yeah, the movie...Everyone is hating on it, but I think it looks okay.

My kids have been telling me how bad it is, so I don't have to take them, and my wife couldn't pick a picture of Minecraft out of a group of pictures that only included a picture of Minecraft and 3 pictures of the new Assassin's Creed game, so I don't have to take her either. Hey, this is getting cheaper by the minute. If I could think of a reason to not take myself, it would be free, and I don't think I could pass that up.

 

[Pifanjr]

Are you going to empty your savings and take the family to A Minecraft Movie? I actually would love to see it, but I can't stand the thought of movie prices these days. When you factor in the garbage can-sized popcorn and 50 ounce coke I require to watch movies, you're talking a small fortune. Plus, I have to buy my wife her own food or she keeps trying to reach over and eat mine...Oh yeah, the movie...Everyone is hating on it, but I think it looks okay.

My kids have been telling me how bad it is, so I don't have to take them, and my wife couldn't pick a picture of Minecraft out of a group of pictures that only included a picture of Minecraft and 3 pictures of the new Assassin's Creed game, so I don't have to take her either. Hey, this is getting cheaper by the minute. If I could think of a reason to not take myself, it would be free, and I don't think I could pass that up.

I doubt my kid would want to see A Minecraft Movie. She's kind of hesitant about movies because she's worried they'll be too scary and she's never been to a cinema before, so that's kind of scary too.

Maybe she'll ask for it if her friends go see it and tell her it's really good. My wife has been wanting to take her to the cinema for a while now, but there hasn't been anything my kid wants to see.

Otherwise we'll just wait until we can stream it somewhere.

 

[ZedClampet]

I almost bought Balatro, but decided in the end that I probably wouldn't play it that much. Still thinking about it though.

I played the demo back in the day, but wasn't that enthusiastic about it. Seemed like there were too many random events to really call it a game of skill. Sure, it takes some skill, but it felt like too often you just get something impossible to deal with.

 

[Colif]

I actually meant "incomprehensible" but I'm halfway to that without any help at all.

i can manage that easily by just missing the right keys when I start typing and not noticing. Seems to happen a lot. Never really learned how to type... I know where all the keys are but its hard to convince myself to not look at keys. Though I did type most of this paragraph without looking. My current keyboard does make it easier.

its useful since I am going blind and I can't really read characters on keys without reading glasses, and with those on, I can't read my screen... Shame bifocals are fading away, I should look at transitional glasses instead...

Some days my hands are in wrong place. And I don't notice and it can be hard to work out what I was intending to type

 

[ZedClampet]

Shame bifocals are fading away, I should look at transitional glasses instead...

I just have a pair of reading glasses for use on the computer. I wouldn't want bifocals because you'd have to tilt your head up to see the screen correctly.

 

[Colif]

I need to use a pair of glasses to see screen (or at least, read text on it) but my monitor is at least 134cm away from my sitting position, so my reading glasses don't have the range needed to read it and really small type. So if I want to use my phone I have to swap to my reading glasses but if I want to use the PC, I have to use PC glasses to read it. Lots of swapping.

I got new glasses this week but it appears they messed up the prescription for my PC glasses as I can't see anything though them unless I am really close to the screen, and with a 32inch 1440p monitor, it can be too close to the screen for me. At distance I am I can see entire screen without moving head.
Need to take the glasses back and work out what went wrong. I think I have had this happen before, I think there are measurements on their system for glasses with a shorter focal length. The ones I have are wrong. First few days I thought it was my eyes until I swapped to older ones.

 

[Pifanjr]

I almost bought Balatro, but decided in the end that I probably wouldn't play it that much. Still thinking about it though.

I played the demo back in the day, but wasn't that enthusiastic about it. Seemed like there were too many random events to really call it a game of skill. Sure, it takes some skill, but it felt like too often you just get something impossible to deal with.

In my opinion it's indeed too random. There is definitely skill involved, but no amount of skill will make up for some bad luck. There isn't really any way to come back from a setback besides restarting the run.

 

[BeardyHat]

I almost bought Balatro, but decided in the end that I probably wouldn't play it that much. Still thinking about it though.

I played the demo back in the day, but wasn't that enthusiastic about it. Seemed like there were too many random events to really call it a game of skill. Sure, it takes some skill, but it felt like too often you just get something impossible to deal with.

Have you tried Monster Train? I guess it's similar only insofar (my phone doesn't recognize this as a word) as it's a Deck builder style game.

I played it way less than Slay the Spire, but I felt like it was the one of these style of games that I probably enjoyed the most. I also haven't tried Balatro yet.

 

[neogunhero]

So I'm going to start shutting it down at night and seeing if that makes a difference. It would be very nice to retain such low temps.

I’ve always thought that doing a full shut down every night prolongs the computers lifespan. I used to cringe at people who keep their pc’s on all night or put it to sleep/hibernation mode, but I think these days it’s gotten a lot better than it used to be.

 

[neogunhero]

I played the demo back in the day, but wasn't that enthusiastic about it. Seemed like there were too many random events to really call it a game of skill. Sure, it takes some skill, but it felt like too often you just get something impossible to deal with.

It’s definitely more RNG than skill. You still need to know good joker combos, can strategically build your deck and hand combos, but at the end of it all it does come down to a lot of luck and random opportunities. I suppose that’s what makes it fun, the unpredictable nature of it, but I can see people being put off by that. There are times where I restart the blind over and over again until I feel like I have a good starting point, and usually if a game makes me do that I lose interest, but somehow Balatro makes that fun to me. I’d still say give it a shot because it can take some time to get into the flow of it but be prepared to face a lot of death by RNG.

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So far in the steam sale I’ve only bought the Hurk DLC for Far Cry 4. Not even sure if I’ll play it, but I have been wanting to go back to some older FC games and love Hurk so decided to pick it up. I think it just gives you some weapons and a few more missions with him.

I’m just not sure what I want to play anymore. We finished Split Fiction which was fantastic, but not really good for replays. I suppose we could play the other character the second time around, but you’re going through the same game again, so it needs some time to wait before starting it a second time.

Split Fiction took us about 2 weeks to complete, 15-16 hours total, and in that time I barely played anything else. I kind of lost interest in Pirate Yakuza. I will finish it at some point but not feeling up to playing it right now. I made it about halfway through, 30 hours in, so I think that’s good for now. Not a total waste of money lol.

I scrolled through the Steam sale last night and just could not find anything I wanted to play. I downloaded a few games but then immediately lost the urge to play them. Fallout 76, DayZ, Vigor, Delta Force, all downloaded yesterday because I thought maybe I could get into those again but as soon as I launch them I just quit them. Used to play Vigor on Xbox before it came to PC and it was okay nothing special, saw some clips of Delta Force online that looked cool but was immediately shown micro transactions upon start up, I just lost interest. Fallout 76 kind of requires you to start a new character after not playing for so long, and DayZ just didn’t seem to be what I was in the mood for.

So I’m stuck again not knowing what to play. I want to play a single player open world FPS, but the option I have aren’t exactly what I’m wanting. Not really feeling Far Cry, not in the mood for Fallout, I just have no idea what to play. Guess I’ll keep doomscrolling and hopefully I’ll find something good eventually.

 

[Pifanjr]

Have you tried Monster Train? I guess it's similar only insofar (my phone doesn't recognize this as a word) as it's a Deck builder style game.

I played it way less than Slay the Spire, but I felt like it was the one of these style of games that I probably enjoyed the most. I also haven't tried Balatro yet.

I played the demo for Monster Train 2. It was a lot less random than Balatro and Slay the Spire, but the downside is that it makes the game a lot easier. Once you find a good strategy you can typically pull it off every time.

Balatro and Slay the Spire let you lose to RNG a lot more, but if you don't mind that it allows you to play a lot more trying to get a good run.

Honestly, I think Balatro is similar to Poker in that way. There's definitely an element of skill, but you're also going to be folding a lot of bad starts or losing to some bad luck.

So I’m stuck again not knowing what to play. I want to play a single player open world FPS, but the option I have aren’t exactly what I’m wanting. Not really feeling Far Cry, not in the mood for Fallout, I just have no idea what to play. Guess I’ll keep doomscrolling and hopefully I’ll find something good eventually.

What about Fallout: London?

 

[DXCHASE]

I bought somethin on the Steam sale too! Its been awhile for me so a little exclamation mark is needed.

Picked up the Khaos Reigns expansion for Mortal Kombat 1 at 16usd (18 after taxes because yay). Its originally 50usd and has an "overwhelmingly negative" review and its really because the additional campaign is roughly 2 hours maybe and have read it isnt really that good and then theres all the new fighters, but buying it when it came out meant you have to wait for the DLC characters to come out.

Buying it NOW means for 16 you get all the characters in the bundle which just wrapped up this week with the release of the T-1000. So the bundle is awesome at 16 right now. You can get all the DLC and base game for 30, so if you were ever interested, now is the time and its the cheapest ever.

I think Netherrealm did a really good job though with the T-1000. Its really fun to use him against everyone and his fatalities are all from the movie, i like that.



In other news......Is it just me or are more and more games these days forcing you to pre-load shaders? Every game in my rotation outside of Diablo 4 does it. Avowed, Rise of Ronin, Immortals of Avium, Mortal Kombat, GTA 5, etc. Im missing a couple i know it, but it just seems something i have to do almost every time i open games these days.




Today Assassin's Creed Shadows comes out and, even for the past week, we all have to see the ridiculous woke/dei-infatuated hive mind go bezerk and cry all over my feed today without any of them actually playing the game. Its sad to see.

Im not a Ubisoft fan and i honestly think the Samuarai/Ronin/Ninja market is kinda oversaturated right now with Ghosts of Tsushima, Rise of Ronin, Ninja Gaiden Black remaster etc. all coming out within the last couple of months its gotta be more than just an AC clone with a historical asian coat over everything and from what i saw the game looks OK.

But what i feel like im going to see is the smooth-brained woke/dei hive mind attacking almost everything about a game that is actually a decent game and put together. Again, not a ubi fan and i probably wont be picking up the game until a sale, but noone deserves this groups attention.

 

[BeardyHat]

I’ve always thought that doing a full shut down every night prolongs the computers lifespan. I used to cringe at people who keep their pc’s on all night or put it to sleep/hibernation mode, but I think these days it’s gotten a lot better than it used to be.

I generally don't shut things down. My main gaming desktop, which is also my file server runs 24/7, unless I'm out of town.

Shutting off my Nano definitely seemed to help a bit more with the thermals after redoing the PTM 7950, though at this point, since I'll be selling it, I won't get to see the long term effects. For whatever reason, my normal habit of leaving it on ended-up causing some issues with that thermal pad material and my thermals went back to "normal" after a couple of weeks.

 

[ZedClampet]

Have you tried Monster Train? I guess it's similar only insofar (my phone doesn't recognize this as a word) as it's a Deck builder style game.

I played it way less than Slay the Spire, but I felt like it was the one of these style of games that I probably enjoyed the most. I also haven't tried Balatro yet.

I actually picked it up when it was on sale the other day. Need to try it.

 

[neogunhero]

What about Fallout: London?

I still haven’t tried that yet. I know it had some issues at launch especially with the FO4 nextgen update, but I think it’s gotten some massive fixes since then. I may actually check it out, thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Pifanjr]

Today Assassin's Creed Shadows comes out and, even for the past week, we all have to see the ridiculous woke/dei-infatuated hive mind go bezerk and cry all over my feed today without any of them actually playing the game. Its sad to see.

Im not a Ubisoft fan and i honestly think the Samuarai/Ronin/Ninja market is kinda oversaturated right now with Ghosts of Tsushima, Rise of Ronin, Ninja Gaiden Black remaster etc. all coming out within the last couple of months its gotta be more than just an AC clone with a historical asian coat over everything and from what i saw the game looks OK.

But what i feel like im going to see is the smooth-brained woke/dei hive mind attacking almost everything about a game that is actually a decent game and put together. Again, not a ubi fan and i probably wont be picking up the game until a sale, but noone deserves this groups attention.

Is "the smooth-brained woke/dei hive mind" the people for or against woke/dei?

The only person I've seen being negative about the game is Colif.