Leaving aside LLMs, the brain is not a database. there is no specific place that you can point to and say āthere resides the word for orangeā. Assuming that would be the case, it would be highly inefficient to assign a spot somewhere for each bit of information (again, not talking about software here, still the brain). And if you would, then you would be able to isolate that place, cut it out, and actually induce somebody to forget the word and the notion (since we link words with meaning - say orange and you think of the fruit, colour or perhaps a carrot). If we hade a database organized into tables and say orange was a member of colours and another table, āorange thingsā, deleting the member āorangeā would make you not recognize that carrots nowadays are orange.
Instead, what happens - for example in those who have a stroke or those who suffer from epilepsy (a misfiring of meurons) - is that there appears a tip-of-the tongue phenomenon where they know what they want to say and can recognize notions, itās just the pathway to that specific word is interrupted and causes a miss, presumably when the brain tries to go on the path it knows it should take because itās the path taken many times for that specific notion and is prevented. But they donāt lose the ability to say their phone number, they might lose the ability to say āfourā and some just resort to describing the notion - say the fruit that makes breakfast juice instead. Of course, if the damage done is high enough to wipe out a large amout of neurons, you lose larger amounts of words.
Downsides - you cannot learn stuff instantly, as you could if the brain was a database. Thatās why practice makes perfect. You remember your childhood phone number because you repeated it so many times that there is a strong enough link between some neurons.
Upsides - there is more learning capacity if you just relate notions and words versus, for lack of a better term, hardcoding them. Again, not talking about software here.
Also leads to some funky things like a pencil sharpener being called literally a pencil eater in Danish.
These days I primarily play games that are Nintendo IP (Nintendo's couch co-op output is unrivaled and my partner and I play Nintendo games together often) or Sony exclusives (quality output is top-notch). I on-and-off look at Steam and have never been overwhelmingly impressed by the catalog of indie devs and am generally turned off by the over-saturation of lower-end pixel art prevalent in many indie titles. Sure, every so often something like Celeste or Hades comes along, but it's somewhat rare for me to be taken by indie games. An immediate example of an indie game I'm playing with a friend right now, Children of Morta, the pixel art design makes it incredibly hard to see what is going on.
I'm also not willing to shell out $1000+ for a PC and accessories that I don't want nor do I have space for that. The Steam Deck has my attention, but the screen is too low quality for me to pay that much for it; I already lived through that with the Switch. I barely played the Switch handheld and only traveled with it twice. If the Steam Deck has a V2 with a better screen, I'd consider it, but I'd still rather have a tv connected setup as those are way more comfortable to play than a handheld.
Everyone's got preferences and mine are Sony/Nintendo consoles, a preference I've come to over many years and attempts at other things. It just sucks that shit has gotten so expensive again.
This game has occupied so many hours of my life. I play a ROMHack called āRosy Retrospective,ā where modern features have been added, like pressing up to drop and being able to save pieces. Probably donāt need to explain this game :D
Super Punch-Out!
Nostalgic pick because the SNES was my favorite system. Iām not really into boxing games, but this adds a puzzle element to it where you memorize patterns of ridiciulous over-the-top fighters (one of them kicks, so the boxing is loose here). I can easily pick this game up and play the time-attack mode to refight a boxer that Iāve defeated before. There is a lot of satisfaction completely owning a boxer. However, there are still boxers in this game that I canāt beat.
NYT Crosswords
Love doing a crossword with friends. I highly recommend their app screenshared to your TV; NYT has done a fantastic job optimizing the experience for screens. The grid and the clues are very visible, as if everyone was crowded around you on a table looking at the print version. NYT has quietly done a great job diversifying their games business. Spelling Bee and Werdle I donāt play as much, but I know a bunch of people who do. If you donāt have a sub, you can play on Downforacross with friends, the Google sheets of crosswords.
Solebon Solitaire (iOS)
An app that has many variants of single-player card games on there. My favorites include Klondike, Golf, Monte Carlo, Yukon, and La Belle Lucie, but FAR and away the game I play the most is FreeCell. There is a randomness to Solitare where some deals just arenāt winnable. However, with FreeCell, with the ability to have 4 reserve spaces to move cards around, the game is more forgiving and every deal is winnable.
868-HACK
A hacking roguelike on iOS. Love the graphics and concept. You play on a randomly generated grid of tiles and walls that you can hack. Hacking results in enemies appearing on the grid. You have to plan your way to the level exit, while also maximizing the rewards (abilities) you get from hacking.
Enyo (iOS)
A tactical roguelike on iOS. Grid based. You have to dispatch the enemies on the grid with your sword, hook, and shield. Enemies progressively have better abilities and become more numerous, so you really have to plan your route through the grid-based terrain. You can use your weapons in interesting ways, especially the hook and shield. The hook pulls most enemies toward you, so you can sometimes dispatch by pulling them into water. Other times you can swap places with them so you deploy your shield to push them.
Donkey Kong GB
Wonderful puzzle platformer originally released on the GameBoy. Nostalgic pick that I can easily pick up and play for a couple of minutes or a longer session if needed. Mario runs, jumps, and uses hammers to get through 50+ themed levels. Simple and very replayable. Very easy for kids to learn to play.
Hades
For longer sessions, Hades is my go-to roguelite. An isometric dungeon crawler that seemingly has almost endless replayability with your choices of random Greek god-powers and paths through the Underworld. All the things you dislike about roguelites are smartly dealt with. There is an actual storyline between deaths. I have never heard a single line of dialogue repeated. Ever. The game will give you options to make it easier if it notices you are dying a lot. So anybody can make it through this game and progress the story.
Bloodborne
The first FromSoftware game that clicked for me and forced me to āgit gud.ā Something about the gothic horror environment and the weapon fighting is so satisfying to me. You can go through this game with different weapons and builds and have a completely different game experience (a staple of FromSsoftware games). I have this whole game memorized and have beaten it multiple times and yet, I can still get my ass kicked by a random enemy if I am not careful. Every March, a bunch of gamers on Reddit replay the game in celebration of itās launch, but I like to play it around Halloween. Sounds like that is coming up soon!
Hades (2020) - Iām not in any hurry with this one. Iād get it if GOG starts to sell it, otherwise Iāll wait a bit more.
Outer Wilds (2020) - Iām getting impatient with this. Iād like this more on GOG too, but I think Iāll just buy it when Steam winter sale comes.
The Guild III (2022) - quirky trade/life sim game and I have some fond memories of the second one. But that had quite a few bugs even long after release and I hear the third game still looks unfinished so Iām patient.
Hollow Knight is a masterpiece worth recommending. Furthermore, it satisfies most of your criteria. But you might need one of the better integrated GPUs to run it smoothly on your system.
Hades is another masterpiece worth recommending and perhaps satisfies even more of your criteria. Though, once again, it requires you to have one of the better integrated GPUs.
Yeah and Christians always put him and Hades in the evil corner when theyāre writing stories based on myths. Even Anubis gets the villain treatment by people who really canāt be trusted with other cultural mythos.
It really makes me wonder if the Germanic/Norse Hel was actually villainous, given how spotty our actual knowledge of their myth cycle was. Itās certainly a convenient name for her to have, but itās also more than possible āHellā came before āHelā entirely organically instead of being evidence of Christian revisionism.
I dunno, if a level is too hard to beat without auto-aim maybe its just way too hard.
I canāt stand auto-aim in games. like if a target can/should be hit by missing by X amount of in-game inches, then why not make the target that large? I donāt know.
I realized you had to have auto-aim on in Hades pretty quick though. Got fucking smeeeared without it
Fair enough. I do agree with you on the indie front. Hades and Hollow Knight are two of my favourite games of all time. Remnant 2 has knocked it out of the park. And there are so many interesting smaller games coming from indie studios these days.
Same old same old. I only have a Switch, so mostly MarioKart while my bones disintegrate waiting for Silksong and Hades II.
If anyone has any metroidvania recās, Iām all ears. Already played both Ori games, HK, HAAK, Unbound. Havenāt found much else in the Nintendo Shop that appeals to me.
A major Chinese investment trust has missed payments to corporate investors, sparking a rare protest and adding to concerns that a slump in Chinaās property market could trigger a wider financial crisis....
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!...
Iāve been playing Hades again. I played it a while back, but only had like 30 attempts and 3 successes. The hype of the 64 heat run and the sequel coming soon got me back into it to hopefully finish the game.
So...that's your personal taste. Fifty Shades of Grey wouldn't have been successful if no one liked it, and we can quantify some form of quality via review scores. Some of Bethesda's games have reviewed phenomenally well, especially in as large of a bucket as the past 20 years of their history. If I was the sole dictator of what was good, no one would be playing the latest Assassin's Creed game or Hades, but plenty of people love those games; the majority would say they're great, and we can measure that to some degree.
I do my absolute best to avoid proprietary software. I can only think of three I use consistently. Those are Obsidian, Steam, and the Nvidia drivers.
Obsidian is a weird one; there are loads of note taking/pim/personal wiki options out there. And donāt get me wrong, stuff like Standard Notes, Joplin, and Trillium are great. But for reasons I canāt quite put my finger on, Obsidian is the only one that clicks for me.
Steam isnāt so much an āI prefer,ā itās more of a āI have a huge game library Iām not willing to abandon.ā Without Steam, I canāt play Terraria, Hades, Core Keeper, and more than 200 others. It might be a sunk cost fallacy thing, but Iām not giving up my Fallout New Vegas.
The Nvidia thing is an extension of the Steam thing. My next computer will have an AMD card, though, so thatās kind of a āfor now.ā
Iāve had a great time playing some of the āsmallerā games lately: Dredge (adore this game so much), Dave the Diver, Cloudpunk, Stray, Octopath II, Observer....
I really enjoyed playing Hades, but I just didnāt have the skills or patience to progress at the pace I wanted. So (after realizing that being prideful about difficulty settings in my hobbies that i do to have fun is a dumb way to live), I turned on God Mode. You get extra stacks of damage resistance every time you die, capping at like 80% or something, and you can turn it on and off as needed. After that, I was having so much more fun, and the rate of progression was much better for me. I felt like I was finally playing the game that everyone else was loving so much.
A.I.ās un-learning problem: Researchers say itās virtually impossible to make an A.I. model āforgetā the things it learns from private user data (finance.yahoo.com)
Iām rather curious to see how the EUās privacy laws are going to handle this....
PlayStation Plus prices increasing (blog.playstation.com)
USD "per year" prices:...
What are your favorite single player games to go back to?
What are your favorite single player games to go back to often?...
Are you holding off on any game in particular right now?
I suppose Baldurās Gate 3 could be an example for a lot of people. Any recent or just ārecentā release you are waiting for to get at the moment?
Sea of Stars (2023) review thread
Game Information...
Sea of Stars Review Thread | (90/100 OpenCritic)
Game Information...
Recommend me a game
Hi all,...
Beautiful games?
Suggest some beautiful games. Genre doesnāt matter. 3d or 2d no big deal. Hyper Light Drifter, Satisfactory, Cliff Empire, etc....
Behold the human! (lemmy.sdf.org)
I'll kill this Valkyrie on hard if it TAKES ME ALL NIGHT (beehaw.org)
Microsoft will sell Activision Blizzard streaming rights to Ubisoft (www.eurogamer.net)
Weekly āWhat are you playingā Thread || Week of August 20th
Another week another thread. Whatcha yāall playing? And why is it Baldurās gate 3?
Chinaās āLehman moment?ā Big investment firm misses payments (www.cnn.com)
A major Chinese investment trust has missed payments to corporate investors, sparking a rare protest and adding to concerns that a slump in Chinaās property market could trigger a wider financial crisis....
The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion - 17-08-2023 (lemmy.world)
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!...
Starfield has housing system, player jail, and more reveals Bethesda in new Q&A (www.eurogamer.net)
What's the Best Non-Alcoholic Alternative to an Ice Cold Beer at the End of the Day?
Whatās the Best Non-Alcoholic Alternative to an Ice Cold Beer at the End of the Day?...
Which proprietary software do you prefer over their open-source alternatives, and why?
Suggestions for smaller-y games if I liked _______
Iāve had a great time playing some of the āsmallerā games lately: Dredge (adore this game so much), Dave the Diver, Cloudpunk, Stray, Octopath II, Observer....