March 2025 General Game Discussion Thread

[DXCHASE]

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.

(my response isnt trying to start a fight or attack anyone)

Against woke/dei, but its a smooth-brained movement because its probably the most arbitrary, ill-informed, lazy reasons out there to not play a video game, then a lot of misinformation is spread through the industry and you have the "hive mind" just hating a game (without playing it or even watching it) and just go based on their friends or youtube overlords opinions.

Hey, im not a ubisoft fan either. Their company is not immune to terrible industry standards of firing mass amounts of employees, or having their ceos be "greedy" where they stiff their hard-working developers, having personal abuse cases towards certain individuals etc. etc. Its those reasons to not like ubisoft, not that a character is black or a woman has a woman partner, or that "acchctually in 1568 japan, there was this, and this VIDEO GAME, doesnt do that! hurr" like everyone is a historian all of a sudden.

They then have to make 100s of posts only about those reasons, covering up any actual criticism, or even good things about the game. I mean it looks fun but it still is just an Assassins Creed game, a series i dont dable too much in anymore. (played and beat AC 1-4, Black Flag being my favorite)

Heck, I think all assassins creed games are kinda meh since its pretty much the same formula, but theres a huge difference to me between not liking for actual reasons and then hating a game because, to me, youre prejudice more or less and that you forgot youre playing a video game and not 1:1 historical representation. Its just, in general to me, hating because of color of skin, sexual preference, liberties to history etc. is just down right trash.

So, to me, if someone even includes woke/dei as a reason to not like somethin, their opinion on it is completely dismissed by me. Simple

I actually had one of these people, whos original comment on a fb post to AC:Shadows said "i hope this woke garbage fails and that men will actually make games again" tell me that he was an ANARCHIST!! lol!!! You would never in a million years catch an actual anarchist say that let alone even buying games.

 

[ZedClampet]

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.

It's bad, but I think most of the people complaining about it on Steam are just trolling for Jester awards.

******

Shame on the developer of Center Station Simulator! She got stressed out and convinced her friend to be the community manager. The old saying, "With friends like these...."

She (developer) put out a big update yesterday, and there are some problems, and her friend isn't handling it very well. I told her all she should be doing is asking for logs and telling people she'll pass it along because people are just getting angry when she answers, which is usually something along the lines of "It must be your computer."

Personally, I haven't had any problems. Works great for me.

 

[Colif]

I did see mention of a bug associated with a cut scene that removes some abilities, that they hopefully fixed by now.
I haven't seen enough game play to know what it's like..
I did see you can't hide in the grass like in Star Wars game.

 

[ZedClampet]

I did see you can't hide in the grass like in Star Wars game.

They've replaced grass with shadows. Enemies have reduced vision of you during the day, and they can't see you at all during the night if you are in the shadows.

 

[ZedClampet]

The future games show is about to start if anyone is interested.

Future Games Show

GamesRadar's flagship digital games showcase was broadcast on Wednesday August 23. Here's how to watch a recap.

www.futuregamesshow.com

I don't really watch these anymore since I rarely play anything that gets highlighted. I did first hear about some of the games I love, like Satsifactory, from shows like this, though.

 

[DXCHASE]

It's bad, but I think most of the people complaining about it on Steam are just trolling for Jester awards.

That is true about the awards and why i rarely use steam reviews as a good source for info on how good a game is.

Even if im not an AC fan or ubisoft fan in general, the game sits at Very positive on steam and has critic scores in the 7-10s or 4.0/4.5 out of 5 ratings so far so "bad" is more subjective i think than say LOTR Golem or something.

 

[ZedClampet]

That is true about the awards and why i rarely use steam reviews as a good source for info on how good a game is.

Even if im not an AC fan or ubisoft fan in general, the game sits at Very positive on steam and has critic scores in the 7-10s or 4.0/4.5 out of 5 ratings so far so "bad" is more subjective i think than say LOTR Golem or something.

My experience from reading window shopping Steam nearly every day is that games that review well are good, but you really need to dig into what's going on with games that review not so great. A lot of times they really aren't so great, but there are also a bunch of times when players are just being too harsh for whatever reason. At least Steam now doesn't include off-topic and review bombing in the scores.

 

[neogunhero]

At least Steam now doesn't include off-topic and review bombing in the scores.

There are still some types of reviews I wish it would filter. Reviewing a game negatively because you are having some technical issues when majority of players don’t have that same issue should be filtered. Unless it is a widespread bug affecting the majority of players, review a game negatively because you had a few crashes or having some issues getting it to boot shouldn’t be counted towards the final score. It is a legitimate criticism if you have taken steps to rectify it, but not if you gave up after trying to launch a few times then refunded.

Another one I see a lot of which I’m not sure would justify being filtered or not is reviews that solely focus on third party launches. Everyone has different experiences with these, I personally have never had an issue with Uplay/Ubisoft Connect for the past 10 years I’ve used it. It’s not my favorite, but I found out a long time ago that when you are launching any game through Steam that requires a third party launcher, if you open that launcher first before starting through Steam, it seems to fix almost every issues with that. However if you go into the negative reviews of any Ubisoft game, nearly all of them complain about the launcher. It is definitely a legitimate criticism, but at the same time it only seems to affect some people, not all, so I have a hard time figuring out if that justifies filtering it or not.

 

[BeardyHat]

There are still some types of reviews I wish it would filter. Reviewing a game negatively because you are having some technical issues when majority of players don’t have that same issue should be filtered. Unless it is a widespread bug affecting the majority of players, review a game negatively because you had a few crashes or having some issues getting it to boot shouldn’t be counted towards the final score. It is a legitimate criticism if you have taken steps to rectify it, but not if you gave up after trying to launch a few times then refunded.

Another one I see a lot of which I’m not sure would justify being filtered or not is reviews that solely focus on third party launches. Everyone has different experiences with these, I personally have never had an issue with Uplay/Ubisoft Connect for the past 10 years I’ve used it. It’s not my favorite, but I found out a long time ago that when you are launching any game through Steam that requires a third party launcher, if you open that launcher first before starting through Steam, it seems to fix almost every issues with that. However if you go into the negative reviews of any Ubisoft game, nearly all of them complain about the launcher. It is definitely a legitimate criticism, but at the same time it only seems to affect some people, not all, so I have a hard time figuring out if that justifies filtering it or not.

This is like when you see a 1-star Amazon review with, "It arrived broken." Yeah, ok, so send it back and get another one, dips***.

I look at Steam reviews, but I don't generally pay them much mind in many of my purchasing decisions, especially when it comes to bigger games where the reviews are generally (literally), "Game Gud."; I find it comes in handy with smaller games where people have written more detailed and nuanced reviews.

 

[BeardyHat]

Oh and it looks like I missed the Spring Sale. I had Robocop and Battlefield 1 in my cart (still on sale, actually) and just went to look and see if there was anything else interesting, but things seem to be done. I'm actually ok with this, as the entire reason I put off my purchases is to try and save myself some money on stuff I didn't need.

Success.

Also, Cyberpunk 2077 is weird. I fired it up again today and it just feels so dead and hollow as a world. I do enjoy the story stuff in the game, but wandering the world feels so uninteresting and uncanny valley to me. I really want to love the game (I did put 50-hours into it), but whenever I'm playing it, I just feel like I'm going through the motions and trying to become invested in a world that keeps reminding me it's just a game. Even top down Grand Theft Auto games feel like they have more life to them.

 

[neogunhero]

This is like when you see a 1-star Amazon review with, "It arrived broken." Yeah, ok, so send it back and get another one, dips***.

I look at Steam reviews, but I don't generally pay them much mind in many of my purchasing decisions, especially when it comes to bigger games where the reviews are generally (literally), "Game Gud."; I find it comes in handy with smaller games where people have written more detailed and nuanced reviews.

Those kinds of reviews make me laugh the most. Go on the Walmart website and look up literally any kind of grocery item. Why do bananas have 2.5/5 stars? Oh, because most of the reviews are complaining about how their delivery was late or the delivery person picked the worst looking bunch.

 

[BeardyHat]

Those kinds of reviews make me laugh the most. Go on the Walmart website and look up literally any kind of grocery item. Why do bananas have 2.5/5 stars? Oh, because most of the reviews are complaining about how their delivery was late or the delivery person picked the worst looking bunch.

This is my mother. At least, if she left reviews online, which she doesn't, thank God.

I hate going to sit down restaurants with her anymore, especially as a person who worked in Customer Service for many years.

 

[ZedClampet]

@BeardyHat @neogunhero you see this type of thing a lot in Steam reviews on big games. And the best part is that after someone describes their problem, a lot of times they say, "Can somebody help me?" Who the hell are you talking to? You think this is where you file bugs? And even if some random person could help you, you have your comments turned off.

My favorite Amazon reviews were for a ceramic humidifier. You put water in it and it heated up, etc. Well there were at least a dozen complaints that said, "This thing is trash! It's already cracked, and I just used it twice." Guess what, super genius? If you put cold water in it while it's still hot, it's going to crack. I'm mocking them even though I broke a hot pizza stone this way by spraying Pam on it. At least I didn't go write an angry review about it. I just thought, "Oh yeah. Most aerosols are cold. Damn."

 

[BeardyHat]

@BeardyHat @neogunhero you see this type of thing a lot in Steam reviews on big games. And the best part is that after someone describes their problem, a lot of times they say, "Can somebody help me?" Who the hell are you talking to? You think this is where you file bugs? And even if some random person could help you, you have your comments turned off.

My favorite Amazon reviews were for a ceramic humidifier. You put water in it and it heated up, etc. Well there were at least a dozen complaints that said, "This thing is trash! It's already cracked, and I just used it twice." Guess what, super genius? If you put cold water in it while it's still hot, it's going to crack. I'm mocking them even though I broke a hot pizza stone this way by spraying Pam on it. At least I didn't go write an angry review about it. I just thought, "Oh yeah. Most aerosols are cold."

It takes intelligence and humility to realize when you f***ed up and change your behavior!

As for the first paragraph: People need to be faced with sorting out their own problems. When my wife and I were early in our relationship (not even married yet), I gave her a list of troubleshooting prompts anytime she had a technology issue, which she needed to work through (Google was one of them) before she was allowed to call me for tech support. This is, of course, after I had been receiving calls several times a day for minor things. She was completely tech illiterate when we met.

At any rate, she now works in a technology job, writing queries/code/scripts and supports me so I can tinker with my insipid hobbies. You should hear her rant about her colleagues that don't engage in these steps. I trained her well.

 

[February's Ghost]

She was completely tech illiterate when we met.

When I was in a A+ cert boot camp we had graduates in computer information systems and programming who didn't know how to connect a keyboard or mouse or monitor to the computer case.

 

[BeardyHat]

When I was in a A+ cert boot camp we had graduates in computer information systems and programming who didn't know how to connect a keyboard or mouse or monitor to the computer case.

Ok, this is weird that I'm going to bring up my Dad for the second time on this forum today, but...

This is my Dad, to a T. Been a software engineer since the 70's, taught me a lot about computers, simply by having them around the house when I was a kid, but doesn't know a damn thing about them (for the most part). He can certainly accomplish basic stuff, but mostly pretends that he knows more than he does.

But I also constantly worry I don't know anything, though I also have a severe case of Imposter Syndrome...

I am hopelessly addicted to Transport Fever 2 at the current moment. Somehow my entire day disappeared into it--not totally true, I did do a lot of little things around the house and went for a good walk--and I'm ready to go back for more. The map I'm currently on, which I started sometime late last year, is the furthest I've ever taken a map on this game and I am just having so much fun working out kinks in my transport lines.

It's very much like getting a knot out of a bundled up extension cord; you start working on one area, only to discover it's affecting another and on and on. Before I stopped playing, I noticed one of my lines was losing something like 6-million a year and even though I know better, for some reason assumed by vehicle (train) was at fault because it was too big. So I sold off some of the cars and an engine, got it down to size, only to look at the line feeding it and realize that it was totally backed-up and not functioning properly, causing the train to not have enough goods to carry back and forth, so that'll have to be fixed.

I keep getting fixated on certain areas of the map and resolving like 4-6 lines in an area, finally working out the kinks and then looking even further out and discovering more issues to be resolved. It all ends-up like some Gordian Knot, with there being continuous issues and then I only add to it by setting up more lines.

Great game.

 

[Zloth]

You dad is ready for Cloud Computing!

Oh and it looks like I missed the Spring Sale. I had Robocop and Battlefield 1 in my cart (still on sale, actually) and just went to look and see if there was anything else interesting, but things seem to be done. I'm actually ok with this, as the entire reason I put off my purchases is to try and save myself some money on stuff I didn't need.

Success.

Robocop is $10 on GOG. 😈

 

[BeardyHat]

You dad is ready for Cloud Computing!


Robocop is $10 on GOG. 😈

You son of a...

 

[ZedClampet]

Ok, this is weird that I'm going to bring up my Dad for the second time on this forum today, but...

This is my Dad, to a T. Been a software engineer since the 70's, taught me a lot about computers, simply by having them around the house when I was a kid, but doesn't know a damn thing about them (for the most part). He can certainly accomplish basic stuff, but mostly pretends that he knows more than he does.

But I also constantly worry I don't know anything, though I also have a severe case of Imposter Syndrome...

I am hopelessly addicted to Transport Fever 2 at the current moment. Somehow my entire day disappeared into it--not totally true, I did do a lot of little things around the house and went for a good walk--and I'm ready to go back for more. The map I'm currently on, which I started sometime late last year, is the furthest I've ever taken a map on this game and I am just having so much fun working out kinks in my transport lines.

It's very much like getting a knot out of a bundled up extension cord; you start working on one area, only to discover it's affecting another and on and on. Before I stopped playing, I noticed one of my lines was losing something like 6-million a year and even though I know better, for some reason assumed by vehicle (train) was at fault because it was too big. So I sold off some of the cars and an engine, got it down to size, only to look at the line feeding it and realize that it was totally backed-up and not functioning properly, causing the train to not have enough goods to carry back and forth, so that'll have to be fixed.

I keep getting fixated on certain areas of the map and resolving like 4-6 lines in an area, finally working out the kinks and then looking even further out and discovering more issues to be resolved. It all ends-up like some Gordian Knot, with there being continuous issues and then I only add to it by setting up more lines.

Great game.

Played some Transport Fever 2 yesterday. Only about 45 minutes. Having fun. I can see getting addicted to this once I get fully comfortable with it.

***

The new Painkiller looks good:

Painkiller on Steam

The classic Painkiller series is back! Battle through Purgatory in fast-paced co-op action, wielding infernal weapons against relentless demonic hordes. Condemned for your sins, the Voice of the Creator offers you a chance at redemption. Will you seize it or be lost to darkness?

store.steampowered.com

As does FBC Firebreak (Remedy)

FBC: Firebreak on Steam

A three-player cooperative first-person shooter set within a mysterious federal agency under assault by otherworldly forces.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Frindis]

People in the chat on Future Game Show were talking about how real men played Painkiller and boys played Doom The "GTA 6 now?" comment was also quite popular. They say the average age of a PC Gamer is around 38 years old, but I do wonder at times.

 

[ZedClampet]

People in the chat on Future Game Show were talking about how real men played Painkiller and boys played Doom The "GTA 6 now?" comment was also quite popular. They say the average age of a PC Gamer is around 38 years old, but I do wonder at times.

Painkiller does look good though. I got that "Add to my backlog and think about it occasionally for the rest of my life" vibe.

Oh, and real men play Toy Shop Simulator. Boys play GTA 6.

 

[Frindis]

This was the Painkiller version I played some time back. Overall a cool game with some enormous bosses, good music/combat. Quite fast paced, tons of secrets and not the easiest of the shooters out there, but not impossible either.

Painkiller: Black Edition on Steam

Painkiller Black Edition includes the expansion pack Battle Out of Hell, featuring 10 additional single-player levels and many new villains.

store.steampowered.com

 

[BeardyHat]

This was the Painkiller version I played some time back. Overall a cool game with some enormous bosses, good music/combat. Quite fast paced, tons of secrets and not the easiest of the shooters out there, but not impossible either.

Painkiller: Black Edition on Steam

Painkiller Black Edition includes the expansion pack Battle Out of Hell, featuring 10 additional single-player levels and many new villains.

store.steampowered.com

Finally. Something that can really push my Glorified Chromebook to the limit.

I'm pretty sure I owned this at some point and played it exactly once for about 15 minutes. Can't seem to find it in my Steam Library though, so not sure where I own it.

 

[neogunhero]

@BeardyHat @neogunhero you see this type of thing a lot in Steam reviews on big games. And the best part is that after someone describes their problem, a lot of times they say, "Can somebody help me?" Who the hell are you talking to? You think this is where you file bugs? And even if some random person could help you, you have your comments turned off.

Most people don't realize Steam reviews keeps comments off by default, so a lot of times when you see a particularly idiotic take on a good game, you can't give them a piece of your mind in the comments, or if I want to lend a helping hand I can't and don't want to bother adding them or commenting on their profile. Then that person is just left helpless and with a bad experience, but if they can't use the proper methods to get real support then I suppose I don't feel bad for them.

---

---

Tried to play some games last night and just mostly doomscrolled again. I thought about Fallout London, but then I wanted to start a normal modded game, so I spent a good 20 minutes looking at mods in game, then just gave up as soon as I started my character. I proceeded to look at my library a ton then stumbled upon Insurgency Sandstorm.

I really love Sandstorm, it's a great mix of milsim and arcade shooter. It's got a slight bit of realism, but is easy to play. I mostly like to play co-op mode which is up to 8 players vs AI, most times just moving from objective to the next while fighting enemies. I suck really bad at PVP, unless it's the arcadey mode that's a lot like Battlefield conquest mode with instant respawns.

I saw that back in December it got a massive crossplay update, so I figured I would definitely find people to play with. To my surprise it found servers immediately, I remember there were times before the crossplay update that I had to wait 30secs-1min to find a server. The crossplay settings allow you to turn it on or off and choose either mouse+keyboard only or to play with people of all input types, I chose the later. In co-op mode I don't care about playing with people with controllers.

I played two matches of hardcore co-op which was a lot of fun! You have to be more careful as enemies are quicker and if you die you don't respawn until an objective is taken, which can take minutes sometimes. If you do respawn, you only respawn with a single shot rifle, and have to find a singular resupply crate somewhere on the map to get your loadout back. I haven't played in a while so I was glad that I remembered this game exists.

In the Random Hardware Topics thread, I've been documenting upgrading the cooling of my PC. To quickly recap, I redid the thermal paste and pads on my GPU, got a new CPU air cooler and redid the thermal paste there, and replaced top exhaust fan and added a new front intake fan, dusted very well and improved cable management. Played for an hour, ultra graphics 1080p 60fps, and my CPU stayed below 50c and GPU barely went above 61c, so I’m very happy about that.

 

[ZedClampet]

I spent a good 20 minutes looking at mods in game,

I love going through mods. I can spend huge chunks of time if the game has lots of them, like with Satisfactory and Farming Simulator.

*****

I'm finally getting to play Kaiserpunk! So far my first city was turning out to be a disaster because you never know what you need to do in a first playthrough; however, I soon discovered the "move" button. Click that then just move whatever you want wherever you want it. Wish all city builders had that.

The tutorial seems to be taking me through most of a game, which is fine in this case. It's still giving me plenty of freedom to do things the way I want to. No bugs and no crashes. It's running extremely well, but my city is more of a small village at this point. We'll see how it does later.