Same with Saab cars

The thing about Speedball II was that it was made by The Bitmap Brothers. You can remake their games all you want, but it's always going to miss the X factor without the Bros.

Yes, but you need to work with a porting company or pay for proprietary software

They're a strange developer are Fatshark, clearly very talented creatively, but their business side needs improvement.

Poor choices but with MTX and their project management is dire

In my experience it's like 2 players have full agency to play independently, unlike other coop games where the experience for player two is often driven by player one.

In BG3 you can run off in completely different directions, engage with your own NPCs in conversation while the other player starts a fight and it's seamless

I've finished Kingmaker and WotR is in my backlog.

Pathfinder is a really decent RPG system with tons of choice, but the game Kingmaker comes out as quite linear, you don't really have much choice in how you play the game apart from being good or evil.

The game is split between being a typical adventure explorer RPG and being a kingdom management game, the former is interesting and has good quests, the latter is opaque, difficult to get to grips with and inflexible.

The worse part is no matter your best intentions, it you don't do exactly the right things with your kingdom you can find yourself in a dire losing position by the late game.

I don't mind games that have failure conditions, but losing the Kingmaker game after 30+hrs of playtime because your kingdom starts rioting and you can't complete any events seems too harsh to me.

Personally I had to turnoff all the failure conditions in the options so that I could grind through the game to get through the final quests, it ended up leaving a bitter taste for the game which started off as promising.

I hear most of these issues have been addressed in WotR though so I'm looking forward to picking up that.

Once upon a time business owners would build houses for their staff, I wonder how far off we are from that again?

It won't necessarily be a good thing

Yeah ironic that it's for a preservation community

Then what's the point of them?

You know that's exactly what people say about Mastadon and in some cases Lemmy right?

Steam isn't DRM

And GOG sells games with DRM.

Wow can't believe the old Atari and Intellivision even had ports.

The old Intellivision was an interesting console, with a dialpad and spin disk for a controller and speech synthesiser add-on. I will never forget "B 17 Bomb b ber"

It's not a huge threat to the movie and tv industry yet, but it could be soon, from writing scripts, to using actors voices and then likenesses, then eventually crafting scenes and episodes based entirely on prompts and AI its probably only a matter of time, unless regulation and Unions stand in the way.

It's worth noting too that the games industry these days is bigger than movies, so I think this situation is a good thing for SAG AFRA to stand firm on.

Great game

The Vita is such a quality homebrew and emulation device, I've taken it on holiday and it's getting more use than my Steam Deck (which I love too)

I agree with your second paragraph, but you do know there are plenty of good alternatives to Github right?

Sounds like Godot is more for your usecase then

Remnant From the Ashes: They call it a Souls-like with guns, I'm not sure I totally agree, but there are similarities with the checkpoints and NG+ mechanic. It's a shortish game. Plays well in coop, and is made tomplay through a few times as levels are procedurally generated. The second game is out now, but there are still players on this.

Astral Ascent: Kind of a rogue-like action platformer, the game seems straightforward at the beginning but as you try new runs and unlock more skills there is a very deep build and progression system where you can get super powerful and the screen goes wacky. Also the music and atmosphere is top notch. Oh it's only just been released, but it has been in early access for +6 months, so sorry, not sorry.

Sounds great!

I love the character concept with Sabin, it was peak Street Fighter II days for me too, so doing the Bumrush with Sabin was so awesome

They should put the money into education instead

Last Epoch online issues are resolved now.

You have to pay for a core character?

I'm not sure the worst year is specific to game developers though, the whole world is under economic squeeze, take a look at the layoffs in the tech industry.

From GenX onwards they're all marketing terms.

Normally generations were only distinguished after some kind of geo political event, like first world war, or when the birth rate was exceptionally high.

Now we pre-name generations so marketing teams can segment people into target groups.

Isn't this the outcome from it all?

Rational people who aren't fanboys or haters buy and play games with low expectations, and are rarely disappointed.

Reported! But it's nothing personal :)

No need to be buying games on Epic

From the looks of your lists of what you like and what to avoid I think you'd like games like the Dishonored series, Bioshock, and the System Shock remake.

Because the experience is designed around different use cases.

In Krita primary use cases are for painting and drawing so those tools and features are front and centre, easier to reach and remember.

In Gimp the focus is on editing, filtering, effects

It's true, I've never gone back, also the joystick is a bit naff anyway

I'm trying to focus on Nier: Automata, halfway through the 9S playthrough, it's an interesting game, not very deep in gameplay, but every so often surprises me.

I've also just picked up Monster Hunter Rise with Sunbreak, I've never really played a MH game properly and find them really Grundy, but I hear Rise isn't so bad so wanted to give it a fair go.

Also just finished getting a Druid to 100 in Diablo IV, my first season and I am done with the game in about 2 weeks, I may try another class in the next season but the game seems very shallow and repetive.

Started the new D4 season, I don't have the expansion.

This is my second season and my second character, I went with a summoner Necromancer this time, I also skipped the Campaign and went straight to end-game.

I have to say I really find it quite boring.

I'm also getting stuck into Monster Hunter Rise, just passed 5 star missions, I'm playing with Great Sword and I'm enjoying the challenge, I think I'm beginning to understand what MH is all about now.

But Solo Self Found is quite popular and surely that's entirely without trading?

Or are you also talking about Vendor trading/crafting like the Chaos recipe?

I honestly thought the dev team had gone to an end on Grim Dawn, but they've kept it going with patches and content.

Most analogies are, its better to stick to facts

Cool, Sounds like it's worth a shot

Yeah I played the hell out of this on my friends Atari Lynx, this and Ramparts. The graphics in California Games were lush on that brilliant little screen.

The Lynx is the Neo Geo of handhelds

Well I hope he gets a ground floor flat and likes to wear gloves a lot

Ben Esposito