Some obscure title will surely have weird driver, hardware and OS quirks. For example Crazy Machines 2’s physics break down and the fixes didn’t work for me. They use PhysX for their physics engine, before Nvidia acquired it, and it was heavily updated of course and now the puzzles don’t work anymore. Maybe somebody found another solution to it by now, but I haven’t checked it.
Child of light, a Ubisoft game, I couldn’t get working on windows 10. Forums say it hasn’t been patched since vista… Even if I copy the files over locally I don’t think I’ll have much luck getting uplay to run. Thanks DRM.
That doesn’t make it trash, but it’s mostly a regression from previous games. Shame that Bethesda seems to be have absolutely zero desire to improve anything about their formula at all.
And as expected, Obsidian’s already-subpar Outer Worlds vs now Starfield really just proved who made all the good open-world RPGs that released under Bethesda’s name.
Windows 7 was okay, but I still can’t fathom how Windows 8 and 8.1 came to be. In the computer companies I’ve worked for, I don’t think they have a single product that runs on Windows 8 or Windows Vista. The OS progression was XP to 7 to 10. Now, they’re all working towards Windows 11 support.
Legos have age ranges written clearly on the packaging. Can’t remember if the steam deck had similar labelling on its box.
Swallowing is also a much more obvious risk that parents are aware of. Valve is issuing an official statement to its adult customers not to smell the poison gas from its product, so apparently the danger is not so obvious.
That’s true. I’m reminded of how the “new car smell” (a smell adults actively seek out as it is considered pleasant) actually consists of toxic chemicals like formaldehyde, benzene, and volatile organic compounds.
Yeah there’s a big failure in education regarding dangerous smells. I have had multiple adults tell me that they love the smell of gasoline and like to breathe deep at the gas station…
Totally beside the point, but is it just me or is that article written really strangely? Overall it has a kinda high school newspaper vibe, but in particular the attempts at humor are both awkward and numerous.
The information itself is good, though, so thank you for sharing!
Hades is a steal at 5$, if you’re into more casual gameplay vampire survivors is also a steal at 3.50 (includes all the dlc), if you want something in between brotato has been a wonderful purchase for me. If you want more of the frantic play style, but shorter sessions and less RPG decision making elements, 1 finger death punch is only a buck.
All of the source games are on sale, I recommend portal> portal 2 /half life 2 > left 4 dead 1&2
Slay the spire for < 2$ is an absolute steal, if you think you might like deck builders that’s one of the o.g’s. another most excellent deck builder, monster train, is also less than 2$, I cannot recommend them both highly enough.
The room is an excellent puzzle game, especially for 75 cents, not personally sure about it’s sequels but I’ve heard they’re equally good.
Don’t starve for 2.50 is amazing, but if you’re at all multiplayer inclined, get ‘don’t starve together’ (I believe it comes with a second copy you can give to anyone)
Hexcells, hexcells 2, and lyne are great if you like puzzle games (everyday genius square logic is also great, but not on sale and no longer supported by devs) delete is also good, and on sale, but it’s much more once over it’s done game (like the room)
Doom (2016?) Is a great first person shooter at 4$, and fallout new Vegas is a great first person RPG at the same price.
FtL at 2.50 is amazing, and after you’ve sunk a hundred hours into it, download the ‘across the multiverse’ fan made expansion, and sink another thousand hours into the game.
And if you’re considering Diablo 4, I plead with you to give path of exile a fair shake first, it’s free to play, only cosmetic micro transactions, and so much more fleshed out of experience.
I stand by each of the above games, if you give any of them a fair shot and walk away considering it an actual bad game, hit me up, let me know what made it bad, and I’ll toss you a game key (of my choosing) of equal or greater value (than the sale price of the game you thought was bad)
Edit, not sure where the hell I got those prices from, I think it may have been showing me "complete the bundle"prices on games I already owned that had bundles with everything else I also owned? I’ll go through and change my reviews based on the prices I find, it’ll definitely change a couple of my “absolutely must have at this price”
Don’t Starve no longer gets updates since the studio only focuses on Don’t Starve Together now. So I would recommend Don’t Starve Together even if you don’t want to play multiplayer.
My friend who loves the game told me about it when they stopped adding content to DS a few years ago. You can see it on the steam updates. DST gets content updates all the time but DS only gets the occasional bug fix update.
Regarding your comment on Diablo 4… Is that really the case? I played Diablo 2, skipped 3 and then played Diablo 4 a few weeks back during the free weekend on Steam. I’m admittedly a casual player, but I enjoyed it a lot. I didn’t love it, though I like it. It was familiar with clear improvements, and I was able to jump right into the game and had an enjoyable experience (I’m aware others could have a different experience especially end game). Gameplay was smooth, UI was simple to navigate while chilling on the couch with a controller, story was interesting, fights were satisfying, and the choices I made for skill progression and weapons all made for a decent experience in the 6-7 hours I played till the level 20 cap. I don’t care about character customization with cosmetics, and have never/will never spend money on mtx especially in a game with this hefty price tag. With all that in mind, the trial was enough to make me consider buying it on sale, and am now considering it again.
But I’m frugal, and have heard from sources online and friends that Path of Exile is Diablo but much better, so I tried it. I gave it 2 hours, and I was personally lost. Not sure if it was the UI which felt clunky and unfamiliar, or the story that didn’t draw me in, or the fact that it felt almost expected to read through wikis to be able to get a decent build, but after two hours I didn’t have fun and uninstalled it. Is it worth it to try again and see if it will scratch the arpg itch?
Path of exile is a love letter to diablo 2. It also has materia from ff7 and the sphere grid from ff10 turned up to 11.
It is also deep as fuck, and thus easy to get lost in. There’s tons of side projects in the game (mining, heists, hunting, just to name three I remember). The skill grid is huge. The in game economy is complicated.The core game is huge and then there’s a huge end game about exploring maps that has its own skill grid. It’s like a decade of content.
You can play it casually. Just go and click on monsters , pick good sounding stuff on level up, and have fun.
You can also look up a guide for your build. You’ll probably do better, but then you’re following a guide.
If you want a game that has a lot of depth, it’s fantastic. If you want something shallow but fun, it can still work but it’s possible you’ll hit parts where your character is built poorly and struggles.
That’s cool, yeah I can see that it can be as deep as you want it to be.
I gave it a shot again last night, and enjoyed it more. Watched a short beginner video that clarified some of the clunkiness I felt with the UI, and my controller worked this time. It crashed 7 times in 2 hours, which is 7 times more than Diablo 4, but it’s a free game so not complaining. Each time the UI would stop responding for 4-5 seconds while the game kept going, then it would show a frozen start of the GGG intro, then crash to desktop. Last time I played it didn’t do that. Meh.
I do find the economy very complicated, and am finding it a little hard to identify the worthwhile loot so that I’m not going to Nessa to sell a few random pieces every 5 mins.
I do also find the fights somewhat repetitive, but that could just be my uneducated witch/necro build. Minions do the tank duties, while I sit back with chain lighting, lobbing fireballs at everything moving. Pretty satisfying, though I feel it could get tired soon. I think I only used a health potion 4x and mana 3x while playing last night, getting up to level 10, doing the main and side quests up to “The Way Forward”.
That’s weird that it crashed so often for you. I don’t think it’s crashed 7 times in the 300 hours I’ve played. Did you do the usual “update your drivers and os” stuff?
You can get a loot filter that will make it more obvious what items to pick up. www.pathofexile.com/item-filter/ladder/follower . Some items sell for more valuable currency (like an item with all 3 color sockets linked together, or one with six sockets, etc).
The game does pick up as you go farther. You get more sockets on your equipment so you can add more support gems and skills. The beginning is pretty easy, though.
There are also other potions you can slot in for like more speed, resistances, and such.
There’s a lot of depth. More than I really know in detail.
Now I’m thinking of downloading it again :thinking:
I loved diablo 2 and 3 but 4 was very meh for me. Path of exile was very confusing to me so I dropped it. You should give grim dawn a chance. It’s so good.
Game often goes on sale along with the dlc. If you decide to give it a chance, check out grimtools for fun builds, calculators, and many more tools. The game is actively being developed after so long, and it’s just so fun to play. It’s what diablo 4 should have been.
So if you uninstall or delete the game, you can reinstall them at a later time? Can you take the game out of steam? Can you launch the game without steam?
If the game doesn’t have DRM, you can download it through steam, keep a copy of the files and it will work without steam. AFAIK, Steam doesn’t remove things from people’s libraries, only from the store. I have a few games that aren’t sold anymore, but you I can still download and play them just fine. It’s the same on the Steam Deck, but playing a game through Steam is more convenient.
You have to use the desktop mode for that and use it as a pc that executes games. Find the game files and execute them. I’m not certain about support for all the controls (I think as long as stram is running it just works)
That entirely depends on the game. Some games, like Terraria, can connect to the same servers regardless of whether it was bough on Steam or GOG. Others could rely on Steam's API for matchmaking and online play on the Steam version, and will likely be incompatible with GOG versions. And then there are games that may not be designed for online play, but still can be played online using methods like Steam Remote Play.
If I see on the store page that the game has Steam API, just forget about getting the GOG version because I won’t be able to play with the steam players?
Mostly you have to look it up on a per game basis. Probably just Google the game name and “supports cross play between” whatever platforms you want and someone will know
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