Thanks!

Personally, I find that researching games on the internet can be really fun. I get analysis paralysis pretty badly (I'm the guy who is always worried he will be out of consumables when he needs them so he never uses them in the first place!) so researching a little beforehand helps me enjoy myself more. I don't need to min/max the fun out of a game, but knowing I'm on the right track is really good for my enjoyment levels.

And this is very much a me thing, and that's okay. We play games to have fun so play the way that's the most fun for you. If you don't like doing research before you play, but the game seems to require it, then play something else. It's okay to not like a game. (I wasn't super into BG3... shhh! Don't tell the internet or they will burn me alive! Good game, but not for me.)

Personally, I really like rogue-lites these days. They're games where you are meant to replay them and every run will be randomized in some way so that each one ends up being unique. (Hades, FTL, Nova Drift, those sorts of games.) The randomness makes it so that there's no WRONG way to play, just better or worse choices for a given run, which takes that "stress" of making a wring choice away for me.

You gotta find what floats your boat and don't worry about the other games.

I'm on Pop and my Steam will randomly just restart sometimes. I have not found any rhyme or reason to it yet. And I'm NOT a linux expert by any sense of the word so not much I can do about it anyways.

Speaking as a relative linux noob, Mint is probably the most recommended distro I've seen now that Ubuntu jumped the shark. Not sure how anyone could think it needs more recognition.

Love my S18. It serves all my needs and I have no plans on getting a new one any time soon.

But I gotta say, not trying to be judgemental, this is is just me, but I feel like if you want to go much faster than 20-30mph, especially on the road, an EUC is a really poor choice. They're just not very safe at high speeds compared to other options like an ebike. And of course, if I'm going to be going fast on a powered bike on the road. a motorcycle will go even faster and often will be safer due to the better suspension and bigger tires.

Anyways, I have EUC's, eScooters, eBikes, BEV car and a motorcycle license (though I don't have a street bike at the moment) so I have options. Everyone can make their own decisions when it comes to issues of personal safety that don't affect other people. Wear a helmet or don't, ride a 50mph EUC or don't, you're only potentially hurting yourself and most of us are old enough to decide for ourselves. :-D

Well to be fair, X4 isn't my favorite of the bunch because of its (lack of) similarity to Wing Commander. It's not really that kind of game. But it is fun and scratches the space economy itch more like a Freelancer or Eve.

I hadn't hard of Nebulous. I see what they're going for graphically (Homeworld style). I'll have to keep an eye on it. But yeah the fleet combat part of X4 never quite got me interested beyond "if I make 100 fighters, I should be able to take out pretty much anything". Controlling large fleets was always a weakness of the game, one of the janky bits. But Building stations, setting up an economy, piracy, and all that stuff is still fun.

Interesting, thanks! I've already installed a custom keyboard on my phone called "TypeWise". It helps me type faster for sure, but boy is its autocorrect terrible. Might be better in the paid version but they only offer a subscription option and I don't think they have a sane concept of how pricing for apps works.

Having a real keyboard that I can use with my phone would allow me to use a software keyboard with better autocorrect and get best of both worlds. In theory. Gonna have to research this, but I really appreciate the suggestion.

IGN review said they tried it briefly and it worked fine, but no info about crossplay.

Thanks. I was aware of the ridiculous "gaming" one on the ROG phone, but I didn't realize there were more mundane cooling cases. I'll look into those, thanks.

(No offense taken, though I admit my pain-killer-addled brain took a second to realize WTF you were talking about! 🤣 )

Thanks, that's actually a good point I hadn't considered. I do enjoy fast charging my phone, never considered the advantages of charging slower. Worth noting, however, that the Pixel seems to run noticeably hotter even when it's not charging. I realize I'm particularly sensitive to it, but yeah, not even related to charging, just a hot processor.

Thanks for the help.

I have Gamepass so I'm not paying for Starfield. :-D (I know I sound like a broken record, but Gamepass is easily my favorite subscription service that I pay for these days, when it comes to entertainment value per dollar.)

But yeah, getting AC6 first and waiting on Starfield instead is not a bad option if you don't have Gamepass. Starfield will only get better over time with patches and mod support. AC6 will probably not change significantly over time.

Same. And I grew up on Champions of Krynn and Eye of the Beholder and Pools of Radiance, so Baldur's Gate was mind blowing when it came out. BG2 was even better!

I haven't played a CRPG in a while. Never got into DoS series, etc. But there's no way I was missing BG3 after the rave reviews it was getting, considering my history with the series.