Been thinking about this since I've been playing Rain World. I feel that Rain World is solidly within the genre. There are definitely video essays out there about it being about existing in an ecosystem or whatever. Pathologic is another obvious one. The original Dark Souls is probably paradigmatic of this category.

What traits define this category? I think:

• Difficult, you struggle to make progress
• Inscrutable narrative motivation
• Hidden depth to the world that can be teased out through intensive study
• Possible to find it fun, but much likelier to just bounce off (and watch the video essay instead!)

Is this a valid category?

Sure sex is great, but you haven't lived until you've tugged your little chili dog red raw for 14 hours straight!

Yep, this was the golden age of ethical games journalism that gaters yearn for. This was the era where there were centerfold-style ads that didn't show the fucking game but showed a sweaty naked woman with the game's logo printed on her body. This was the era that said Rise of the Robots was GAME OF THE YEAR before anyone fucking played it.

This one was actually kind of hard had to fight GB 4 times and France 1 time but got it done.

Me, after restarting the mission six times:

spoiler

In my defense, Supreme Commander crashed three of those times.

I have it on xbox, looking to play with some chill people. Maybe do a dynasty.

Control and Resident Evil 2 Remake still look incredible and run well on fairly inexpensive hardware today. We don't need globally illuminated Unreal Engine 5 games with individually modeled nostril hairs on each character that require graphics cards with prices in the three digit range

Graphics should just be kept at late PS4 level for the foreseeable future to keep games as accessible as possible

The news about the new mh game has me thinking about this silly series I've spent way too much of my life playing (without improving! Impressive!) so I finally got around to setting up emulation to play it with my wife as she needs m&kb and started with mhworld.

Turns out there's a neat emulated network on ryujinx so you can actually play with people all over the world! Kinda like Hamachi if anyone else is old enough to remember that.

Anyway the long and the short of it, if anyone wants to play together you can set passwords either on the hubs/on the emulated lan. So I thought I'd see if anyone on hexbear had interest in revisiting it (or playing for the first time!). If there's enough we could set a password on the lan and hopefully just be able to pop in and out.

Just so there's some discussion here, I had forgotten how sticky combat was in old gen. I'm trying sns and it feels like the moment you hit attack you're basically glued to the floor. I am generally a bit mixed on some of the changes (although I thought rise and sunbreak were amazing fun overall), but the increased fluidity in combat does make it hard to go back in some ways.

I do prefer the slower pace of the older style though, just in terms of increased time wandering around and gathering. I feel like the newer games have been much more action focused for both better and worse.

When did you start playing and what are your favourite and least favourite changes in the post world era?

Libyan Dictator Colonel Jaloppi nukes the US and turns it into an open air slave market

Edit: it's a meme y'all, chill out. The original was "stop doing math", it's not supposed to be serious.

I could talk for weeks about the sheer nepotistic corrupt bullshit in the early years, when an Ayn Rand roleplaying group (not kidding, they were called "Taggart Transdimensional") got unique advantages from the devs that no one else could access all in the name of "roleplaying." They conjured up fictional characters that gave those advantages (the very first and exclusive t2 mining laser blueprint originals) to their Randroid favorites, and over and over again changed the rules to fit their favorites, year after year.

The dystopian corruption of the setting was coming from inside the development company.

it seems like only the most hardcore sony buttlickers would like this thing.

Every casual who just wants to play gta 6 will probably mostly just pick up a regular ps5 for 200 bucks less (Yes sony still refuses to drop the price)

The documentary takes a look at all the design decisions that Hideo Kojima and his team made and shows how an old Japanese short story inspired many of Death Stranding’s themes and gameplay mechanics. It also explores all the hurdles Kojima Productions had to go through. For example, Hideo Kojima’s colleagues initially were very negative about Death Stranding’s concept and gameplay and told Hideo Kojima to switch directions and make something more exciting. Additionally, Hideo Kojima had to travel the world to find the right engine for the game. Lastly, the documentary also takes a look at Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, the Death Stranding feature film and every other project that’s in development at Kojima Productions.

The most immediate example I can think of was called "Subverse," which was directly advertised as some sort of anti-SJW (I think it was called that at the time because woke/DEI weren't quite in common use yet) pandering game where you played some boring ego insert that had a space harem that marked as many safe dopamine boxes for boring nerds as possible to pander to gaters and cater to their cooming needs.

The game was boring. Full stop. It was boring. The gameplay itself was shallow and uninspired, and even the le sexy sex scenes were boring according to the general assessment of the very same treat hogs it was targeted to pander toward.

"Yandere Simulator" would count if that steaming pile of irradiated shit ever actually got completed. It was like Star Citizen for kiddie creeping weeb gooners, but less profitable.

Bounced off this game at least twice over the years but am finally gelling with it. It works well with the steam deck since each run between storms isn't very long so it's easy to pick up and put down. I think when the game finally clicked for me is when I realized it was less about progression to the next area and more about learning to live in and occupy each space, integrating into the ebb & flow of the local flora & fauna. Like:

There's some corn I can get if I go over here. And some bubble fruit over there, as long as I take care to evade the lizard who hangs out near it. Sometimes the scavenger tribe comes through here - what can I give them as a gift so they won't attack me? Time to venture out to this area so I can collect some bats. I bet that corn I ate a while ago has regrown by now. I get a bonus if I go six days in a row without eating meat, can I do that? Gotta take care in this section and watch for the shadows cast as vultures come down. Time to start heading back to the den for the day.

My enjoyment increased quite a bit after I stopped turning my arrival in each area into a quick springboard to get to the next area, and instead sunk into it for a while & mastered the art of existing in that ecosystem. Only after perfecting a routine would I start venturing further out to see what's next. Very unique game.