games today

[Jeff]

You wake up stranded on an island. Make no mistake, this is a life-or-death situation. So you run around in your underwear gathering sticks. After about 20 minutes you have enough sticks to craft a dreamcatcher. You hang the dreamcatcher off a tree branch in the hopes that this nightmare will end and you'll wake up back home.

No such luck. You hear a loud bang. A bullet pierces your knee, and you fall down on all fours in agony. You try to crawl behind a tree to take cover when an enemy player approaches you from the woods. The last thing you hear is him calling you a swell guy over voice chat before he proceeds so stab you in the ass until you die. He crafts your skin into an armor that reduces bullet damage by two, while you wait in the lobby to join a new server.

This is The Last Survivors, an early-access video game by the indie developer The Computer Games Boys. We're currently in version 0.000282AFG alpha, and rest assured this game will never be finished. However we will be adding features such as cars and farming soon, so stay tuned. Maybe even car farming (combine harvester). Now available on Steam for 50 bucks.

[SenisterDenister]

It's just frustrating that this is the state of vidya now.

[Jeff]

Jokes aside I feel like gaming is doing great right now. The 80s and 90s produced heaps of interesting stuff because the medium was more or less in its infancy / adolescence -- everything was kind of new -- but by now we've become accustomed to certain mechanics and have expectations for a lot basic of stuff like controls and UI. Feels like we've settled into something of a groove and everything is much more derivative now, but I don't think the magic can happen twice unless something really groundbreaking comes along; you can only get started once. I don't really even know what an original game (mechanics-wise) would look like these days, a lot of the time the more original games are just a clever combination of different genres.

On the flipside there are really good games being released regularly. Separating the wheat from the chaff in an oversaturated market can be challenging and a lot of good games have flown under my radar at least, but if you look at the bigger picture, say the past decade, gaming has been pretty good to us. Remember when RPGs and adventure games were dead? Really happy with the reemergence of roguelikes / lites as well, and personally I like the introduction nuXcom style tactical games that are easy to get into, as I can't be bothered to spend a week learning how a game works.

I guess the progression has become more linear, too. Think of all the BOTW-style open world games, the level of freedom of exploration would have blown my mind as a kid, but we just got there so naturally that it didn't feel like that big of a deal.

Still fucking hate all the crafting though, and I'm not saying there haven't been lots of dumb developments like what early access has become, but whatever

[Echo]

Here's to the ups and downs of the gaming world, and the thrill of discovering hidden gems along the way.

[Hyacinth]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sobl3Ry9zkQ

[TheKingofVault14]

Truth be told, it's Indie Gaming that's currently & continuously thriving, while Mainstream Triple A Gaming has declined & died.

There are however a few hold outs on the Mainstream Triple A side, but those are rare now in this day and age.

Just wanted to throw my two cents BTW.

[Hyacinth]

Reading people reviewing games on steam is like listening to some fat idiot giving his opinions about the sloppy burger he just ate.

[Jeff]

oh yeah all the fuckin gifts and upvotes, it's just copypastas and tiktok gags in text form, I will leave the cat here, so that everybody who passes by can pet it

　　　 　　／＞　　フ
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　　　 /　 ヽ　　 ﾉ
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　／￣|　　 |　|　|
　| (￣ヽ＿_ヽ_)__)
　＼二つ

gee thanks thats helpful

[Hyacinth]

This is my review of Jeff's post.


---{ Graphics }---
☑ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☑ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☑ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☑ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☑ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☑ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☑ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10

[SenisterDenister]

I hate those reviews so much.

[Jeff]

Ok so I just placed an order for a Raspberry Pi 5 and a RGB-Pi SCART cable to connect the Pi to a CRT television which I am yet to purchase -- will pay some charity shops a visit to see what's available when I can be bothered -- so that I can play PSX-gen and older video games as God intended, all blurry and lo-def. Let's see if this is just another waste of time and money, but the total's like 200 bucks so whatever. Regardless, here are a few games I'm particularly looking forward to playing for the first time:

Snatcher
Policenauts
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood

[Hyacinth]

I downloaded a previous version of this

https://www.arcadepunks.com/400gb-coino ... s-awesome/

Also got 2 wired logitech controllers coming in on monday, its not gonna be CRT but might be fun nonetheless

Never really got to play super mario party since I was all Playstation but I think my woman will enjoy it.

[Jeff]

TV + RPI + SCART was like 200 bucks total

Also got 2 wired logitech controllers coming in on monday, its not gonna be CRT but might be fun nonetheless

That looks slick
I was a Play Station kid myself and the TV is mostly for larping the salad days really, pixel art games look just fine on a modern screen imo but I can't handle the early 3D in full HD, tried playing MGS on my PC and didn't -- a fly just flew into my god damn eye what the fuck, anyway didn't like it at all. I don't know if I'll like it better on a CRT but hey at least I can flex on the internet with my retro rig. Would be fun to connect some shitty 90s PC speakers to it but ehh think I'll just use my Bluetooth speaker. I can also watch some old ass 4:3 TV shows and cartoons on Kodi which is pretty sweet I guess, Sailor Moon here I come. Tomorrow I'll drop some acid and pretend I'm 14 again, spent the Y2K playing Syphon Filter, good times

If you come across some particularly good retro games let me know

[Jeff]

the fucking fly flew into my again this is bullshit

[Jeff]

looks lik I've done a full circle 180°C because the PSX era CGI & the pre-rendered environments are fricken sick again, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy VIII, Parasite Eve, they all look gorgeous

Been playing Racing Lagoon, a racing... RPG? think Gran Turismo x Final Fantasy x Initial D, can u wrap your head around that math homes