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I've been playing tactical nexus for two hours and what the hell is this
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Feb 19, 2023 04:50
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Mescal posted:I've been playing tactical nexus for two hours and what the hell is this Can't tell from the post, is this what the hell is this (good) or what the hell is this (bad)?
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Feb 19, 2023 05:04
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That was the Taiwanese developed Devotion
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Feb 19, 2023 05:35
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KazigluBey posted:An interesting detail, if true: A website takedown is often as simple as looking up the host and sending them a DMCA. Web hosts aren't required to arbitrate disputes and most of their DMCA requests are handled by overworked policy teams that decide to just blanket takedown any website that receives a seemingly-valid DMCA takedown request until the owner can provide legal documentation proving their right to use the copyrighted work. My guess in a situation like this is that the bad actor/lawyer had actually filed an official copyright registration for the name with the US copyright office which makes them technically the legal owner of the copyright and gives them official documentation to claim ownership and file DMCA requests. It only costs like $25 or something to do this. I'm pretty sure this would give you a pretty clear case for a Steam takedown as well. ~legally speaking~ it is the indie dev's responsibility to ensure that they are not violating someone else's registered copyright, they could pursue a claim that they are the rightful owners of the copyright but in a case like this (assuming my guess about what happened is correct) they probably don't have much leverage. But also assuming I am right the only thing that the devs would need to do to avoid the situation would be to change the name of the challenge mode that the bad actor has a copyright on. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Feb 19, 2023 |
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Feb 19, 2023 05:52
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Artelier posted:Can't tell from the post, is this what the hell is this (good) or what the hell is this (bad)? Taking a look at the game's page, the answer seems to be "both." Which is to say - the kind of crazy that scares away all but the most devoted, who then get sucked into it for several hundred hours. Also seemingly bonkers is that it keeps going up in price the more of the game is released, retroactively increasing the price of each individual set of chapters, all of which are priced at around the same level as the "game", which is really just the first two shorter chapters combined, so that the final complete thing is going to be $150 or something like that. But, come to think of it, we've had both of those things individually for games already, so I suppose if it's promising hundreds of hours of entertainment for those in its particular niche, why not. Jossar fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Feb 19, 2023 |
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Feb 19, 2023 05:57
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tactical nexus is basically in the small genre of games like desktop dungeons, myth bearer, etc, where you have to plan a route in order to mitigate damage and level up/boost your stats along the way. i haven't played it yet myself but it seems closer to myth bearer than desktop dungeons, as it's all hand crafted rather than randomized, so every level is winnable with the right strategy
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Feb 19, 2023 06:44
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Its most direct inspiration was a 1998 Japanese PC game called Tower of the Sorcerer. It's basically an RPG-flavored free-form puzzle game. What distinguishes Tactical Nexus in its own right is the Nexus meta-world. The thing is that while you may be able to beat a tower with proper play, you're also fairly unlikely to get the top possible scores initially. But you can still get some meta-currency from lower ranked clears and such, which you can use to permanently power up outside the towers, which starts you out at a stronger position, so you can rerun towers and improve your scores for more medals and, due to the way levels are laid out, you can enable wholly different routes by, say, simply being able to kill slightly stronger enemies without wasting much if any health, so e.g. you can start going north on a floor instead of having to go east since that was initially the only way you could survive long enough to build any resources before.
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Feb 19, 2023 07:09
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  Arcade Paradise I've mentioned it before but the simulator genre really bugs me in how no developer seems to care about putting out one highly polished game vs a bunch of mediocre janky and buggy games with a lovely UI. It's really a bummer for me since I enjoy games like House Flipper, but stray too far down the path and no matter what the chore being simulated is, the play experience is not much more fun than actually doing the chore in real life, because no care is put into the presentation or the refinement. Arcade Paradise doesn't have a whole lot in the way of customization, at least in the early going, as you are basically just limited to "what slots do you want to place the machines?" But for once, I get a crumb, a sliver, a dollop, of polish and presentation. Having taken over your father's laundromat, you learn that the couple of arcade machines in the back pull in more revenue than the actual laundromat does, and so you work in secret to slowly build up your dream arcade while working at the laundromat, without your father knowing. Most of your day is really Laundromat Simulator rather than Arcade Simulator in the early going, as you do a lot of time management, putting laundry in the washer, then the dryer, picking up and throwing out trash, cleaning the bathroom, and taking money out of the coin deposits to put in the safe. But as you accumulate money, you get the ability to buy additional arcade games, and expand the area in the back and make it more of a proper game palace. What is refreshing first about Arcade Paradise is that it is slickly produced. It looks nice, it runs perfectly on Steam Deck, and everything has a good snappy feel to it, along with a stylish UI, gamifying everything you do with silly graphics, such as RPG damage numbers when you unclog the toilet, a madden field goal meter when you grab gum or throw the trash out, and grade ranking up to S for doing the laundry. Projections of customers pixelize into nothingness when you get near them (cool, but also terrifying). When a new arcade machine arrives, the truck careens in from around the corner and drops it out the back, as the box pops open with 90s pyrotechnics. It's a very perky game. All of the arcade games are playable and encompass a wide range of genres. I have only so far played the first batch of machines you can choose from, but there's a legitimately solid Mr Driller clone, a GTA1-inspired take on Pac-Man, a Yoshi's Cookie esque RPG battle matcher, air hockey, and a race-against-the-clock color stacker. I already know there's games akin to Final Fight, Outrun, and Police Trainer (albeit DLC on this one) to acquire as the game progresses, and I'm interested to try each of them. In order to increase the revenue of the games, you can go into the 'dipswitch' menu to make changes to how much they cost, what difficulty they are, etc... but you can also give them a temporary boost by playing the game yourself. Most importantly, each game has a set of goals, that will permanently increase the game's popularity and thus revenue. And you can do daily goals which award you a second currency for buying fashion upgrades (possibly with perks? I haven't really delved into that yet). So you do have a purpose for playing the games. And it helps that they are competently designed. If this was, say, developed by the average Simulator developer, the games could easily have felt like Flash Trash from the 2000s, but the dev here was willing to put in the effort to make most of the games feel like proper self-contained arcade games, albeit missing an attract mode for some reason (although Chaser Racer feels a LITTLE cheap, if I'm being honest) and their in-game UI often doesn't really feel era-appropriate-- the Mr Driller game for example has a menu after you "insert coin".... huh??? The games may only provide a humorous distraction for a couple of minutes, but since the needs of the laundromat are constantly calling for your attention every couple of minutes, that kind of works out perfectly. The games also have online leaderboards and a number of them support local co-op/competitive play. It's definitely interesting, but whether this all turns out to be an ultimately good product will depend on the consistency of the quality of the arcade games, what the upgrade paths are, if the laundromat continues to demand as much of your attention as it currently does, etc. I will say that the dev is also adding post-launch arcade games via DLC packs, one of which is based on the Kung Fury game adaptation, while another is the previously mentioned Police Trainer nod. Some of the userbase is split on this with people feeling like it's nickel & diming. The first DLC pack is $4 and has the Police Trainer style game, a DDR style game, and a very antiquated looking game that feels too much like a parody called Empathy. is 3 games for $4 too pricey? eh, I dunno. I'm not sure how much it matters. There are 35 in the base game already, that seems fairly generous? I've also finished Ctrl Alt Ego and Evil West, neither really dipped from my initial thoughts; Evil West stayed a 7/10 game, and Ctrl-Alt-Ego remained quite good. ALTHOUGH, I will say, Ctrl-Alt-Ego is a game you should save in often, and you should feel like it's ok to load a game rather than keep respawning. Because there are finite resources in the game and you can get into a bad loop of being out of juice, and low on energy, and making only glacial incremental progress, or finding some juice only to squander it. It's better to just load a past save so you have access to the resources again and have your options continue to remain open.
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Feb 19, 2023 08:49
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Hogama posted:Its most direct inspiration was a 1998 Japanese PC game called Tower of the Sorcerer. Is every level a swastika?
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Feb 19, 2023 08:50
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drat, just read that Thick44 of the Neebs gaming crew died last week. One day just collapsed and found out he had brain cancer, spiraled over 2 years. Neebs does a lot of Lets Plays with the 5 man group. I highly recommend their Subnautica one though Thick only had a smallish part in it. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1Uou2DWH7IGBJGlBqXwYnv7nX8LhleCO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puU7C44XeAA
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Feb 19, 2023 09:29
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PowerBeard posted:Is every level a swastika?
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Feb 19, 2023 09:34
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The 7th Guest posted:
Thanks for this write-up! I too love these janky sim games but there is a level of jank beneath which I will not fall, and it's frustrating trying to figure out which ones work.
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Feb 19, 2023 15:03
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Sab669 posted:I've been having a ton of fun with Deep Rock Galactic lately. Coop class based FPS with a good array of Difficulty options depending on your mood and skill level. I played this a bit a while back but it didn't click. I don't know the gameplay kinda felt slow and very standard? Does it get better after the first few hours?
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Feb 19, 2023 15:14
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it's good
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Feb 19, 2023 16:18
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PowerBeard posted:Is every level a swastika? No, you are thinking of Wolfenstein 3D.
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Feb 19, 2023 16:22
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Ulio posted:I played this a bit a while back but it didn't click. I don't know the gameplay kinda felt slow and very standard? Does it get better after the first few hours? It gets a bit better after you unlock some weapon upgrades, and some mission types are going to be more fun for you than others, but for the most part, what you see is what you get. It helps if you enjoy the aesthetic and being a science fiction dwarf. And of course, multiplayer makes it a lot better.
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Feb 19, 2023 16:26
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It never really stops feeling slow at low difficulties imo, I really don't like playing DRG below hazard 5 these days. But I really like playing on hazard 5!
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Feb 19, 2023 16:28
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Ulio posted:I played this a bit a while back but it didn't click. I don't know the gameplay kinda felt slow and very standard? Does it get better after the first few hours? Playing on Hazard 2 is immensely boring, it's so easy and the Swarms that attack are so small. If you've played a half decent amount of FPS you can easily play on Haz3 or probably even 4. 5 gets a good bit more dicey.
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Feb 19, 2023 17:15
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Recently finished playing Ghost Song on Game Pass. Pretty decent metroid-style experience where you go around getting your double-jumps, your missiles and so on, unlocking new combat options as well as exploration, all the classic stuff. Had an interesting combat mechanic where your gun overheats, but that heat gets applied to your melee weapon to give it extra damage, giving a back-and-forth loop of shooting and then dumping heat with melee. Story was nice as well with an interesting central cast of characters as well as a lot of mysterious lore and hidden encounters you can find if you explore more off the beaten path, similar to a Soulslike experience with all sorts of optional NPC questlines that unlock in strange ways. For its central story line, it's got you delving deep down different paths to find these ship parts. Once you find a ship part, however, you need to lug it all the way back manually: no fast travel allowed and also there are new critters that get activated around the world by carrying ship parts. This really screwed me over initially since I got a ship part right after fighting a boss with me having no healing consumables and 1 HP, meaning I had to make it all the way back not getting hit at all, which was incredibly frustrating (and it checkpoints you precisely in this initial state upon picking the part up, meaning you don't even get full HP refill after dying). I will say, though, that I found that experience memorable in comparison, as after that first time, all of the other trips back felt like just tedious busywork where I had plenty of HP and consumables and the extra activated critters were not enough to spice up the trip back. Felt really bizarre and lackluster that so many of the ship parts besides the first one could be picked up no problem: no boss fight or anything to cap off the trip. Ghost Song started out pretty strong for me, but ended up petering out as it went on. As explained before, I found it bizarre that apart from collecting one or two ship parts, most of the rest were collected without any sort of fanfare like a boss fight, making it almost feel like there was cut content. Not that I really wanted boss fights in some cases as there were plenty that felt really badly designed with awkward disjointed hitboxes and annoying patterns and sudden wombo-combo-insta-death due to the lack of invincibility after getting hit. The whole heat mechanic with the gun/melee started to get pretty annoying as well: combat in general felt a bit clunky and the gun not powerful enough to justify its rapid heat generation, and there were plenty of times where melee just wasn't a good option to switch to in combat or exploration, making it a tedious waiting game for it to cool down. Finally, the ending really fell flat for me: I didn't mind it being a downer and such, and it was kind of what I expected, but still, just felt like nothing special. I even got the secret ending with its reveal and a whole bunch of mysterious lore to chew on and such but it was just like, ok, whatever. I dunno, I feel like Ghost Song is one of those unfortunate games that are good, great even, but only in a vacuum: once you compare it to its large amount of competition, Hollow Knight being the obvious comparison, it became not good enough. I certainly like to explore these lesser-known games to see if they are hidden gems and again, this wasn't bad, especially if perhaps you've already played all the other big hits and want another decent metroid, but for me, this one just made me feel like I wasted my time as I have so many of those big hits waiting in the backlog to play instead. In a way, it really made me think about this recent video from Sakurai on competing with the past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhcitspNMuI FutureCop fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Feb 19, 2023 |
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Feb 19, 2023 17:59
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HopperUK posted:Thanks for this write-up! I too love these janky sim games but there is a level of jank beneath which I will not fall, and it's frustrating trying to figure out which ones work. train station renovator I put up with the lack of optimization and lack of polish because I liked the general loop. but these games have to start putting in more effort with their presentation and feel right now Arcade Paradise and Powerwash Simulator have cared the most about presentation, with House Flipper behind them, and then a wide gap between those 3 and the next tier.
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Feb 19, 2023 18:19
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FutureCop posted:[thoughts on Ghost Song] Similar feeling here. I didn't hate my time with it at all but it kinda feels like it ran out of energy somewhere near the end. And like you said, there's areas that feel like something was cut out. I like the individual parts of it - the main hub and its people, the 'bring parts back on foot' concept, the open-ended way the world is built... but the whole of it doesn't mesh together well. I think it is an above-average search action game, however.
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Feb 19, 2023 19:03
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Anyways, my library and downloads pages are like.... not grayed out but uh, "blacked out"? Steam has a limo tint now on the library/downloads pages. The store page still works fine for some reason. Windows 10  Any ideas? Has been doing this for about a week now. I can't click on anything from the library page anymore, but it renders/redraws as you resize the window, like there's a pop-up here that I'm supposed to be seeing, but can't X out of fixed Hadlock fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Feb 19, 2023 |
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Feb 19, 2023 19:07
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Have you tried logging out and in again? Alt+TAB/Maximizing the window, as it could also be a modal window taking the focus?
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Feb 19, 2023 19:20
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ugh yeah i closed and reopened it just now (third time this week) and it pulled down some update, seems to have fixed the problem cheers
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Feb 19, 2023 19:23
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ErrEff posted:Similar feeling here. I didn't hate my time with it at all but it kinda feels like it ran out of energy somewhere near the end. And like you said, there's areas that feel like something was cut out. Count me in with similar Ghost Song experiences. The beginning felt incredibly atmospheric and exciting, but as the game went along, it kinda lost a lot of the mystery. Some areas existed simply for being somewhere to pick up a ship part, not much else. The ending left me wanting something more, even with the secret ending, which felt like "okay, and?" more than a big reveal. But all in all a positive experience, it's just hard to be more memorable than some of the hallmarks of the genre.
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Feb 19, 2023 19:25
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Holy poo poo did Big Picture mode get an update after fifteen years
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Feb 19, 2023 19:30
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credburn posted:Holy poo poo did Big Picture mode get an update after fifteen years I think it's Steam Deck UI that just replaced Big Picture wholesale.
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Feb 19, 2023 19:33
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Ulio posted:I played this a bit a while back but it didn't click. I don't know the gameplay kinda felt slow and very standard? Does it get better after the first few hours? Yeah I only played a couple of hours but never unlocked the magic that people seem to find in this, might be needing coop or higher difficulties
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Feb 19, 2023 20:46
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DRG has cool level-gen and the Lost Vikings style co-operative traversal is neat but add me to the list of people who never found themselves particularly excited by it. I download it and play 3-5 missions every once in a while but I always get bored of it quick 
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Feb 19, 2023 20:54
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deep dish peat moss posted:DRG has cool level-gen and the Lost Vikings style co-operative traversal is neat but add me to the list of people who never found themselves particularly excited by it. I download it and play 3-5 missions every once in a while but I always get bored of it quick It's a very relaxed game for a co-op shooter except at Haz4+ and I'm rarely engaged enough with it to want to play more than a single assignment's worth of missions in a week. At Haz4 on up it's stressful in a way I find unpleasant so I doubt it's just a question of the difficulty. Maybe it's the forced waiting sections and the lack of pressure on lower difficulties? I find Deep Dives are close to the sweet spot of where I'd like difficulty to be but also being strapped in for a whole hour+ of nonstop runs is pretty rough.
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Feb 19, 2023 21:06
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The 7th Guest posted:yeah, i played through Demolish and Build and it was... rough. and I played the Repair House demo during Next Fest and it seemed like UI was not only an afterthought, but beyond the dev's skill level. very clunky, overly thick fonts, buggy and not popping up some of the time Oo if you're putting Arcade Paradise up there with Powerwash then I might grab it next sale. I also enjoyed House Flipper and Train Station a lot but yeah, jank.
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Feb 19, 2023 21:21
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Runa posted:It's a very relaxed game for a co-op shooter except at Haz4+ and I'm rarely engaged enough with it to want to play more than a single assignment's worth of missions in a week. At Haz4 on up it's stressful in a way I find unpleasant so I doubt it's just a question of the difficulty. It’s rare, but if I have a very quiet weekend, it’s time for a bunch of beers and a haz 4 deep dive.  Otherwise the same, play some missions every now and then but don’t feel the need for more.I’ve stuck with it longer than any other online game somehow. Helps that there isn’t any FOMO when I log on after some time away.
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Feb 19, 2023 21:31
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Play one of the pipe missions and just build the most elaborate grind rail rather than trying to extract the liquid morkite
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Feb 19, 2023 22:20
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Anyone know exactly what 1.0 adds to Phantom Brigade? I'm so tempted to boot up the early access copy I've had for ages, but at the same time I don't want to spend a lot of time on something that's not "complete". It's a little irrational, but I'm certain some of you know what I mean.
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Feb 19, 2023 22:34
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FastestGunAlive posted:Play one of the pipe missions and just build the most elaborate grind rail rather than trying to extract the liquid morkite Last weekend I spent two hours in a mission doing this and it was insane fun. Set it to Haz1 first though, the bugs are an annoying and frustrating distraction while trying to open your dwarfcoaster.
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Feb 19, 2023 22:35
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How well do the Way of the samurai games run ?
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Feb 19, 2023 22:49
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HopperUK posted:Oo if you're putting Arcade Paradise up there with Powerwash then I might grab it next sale. I also enjoyed House Flipper and Train Station a lot but yeah, jank. Arcade Paradise is pretty rad, yeah.
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Feb 19, 2023 23:13
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Ulio posted:I played this a bit a while back but it didn't click. I don't know the gameplay kinda felt slow and very standard? Does it get better after the first few hours? As others have said, the lower difficulties are geared towards tutorials and/or extremely casual mining, it's very chill. I love the game and have over 1k hours in it, but when I first started I was upset when I up'd the difficulty as my peaceful minecraft zen was totally being ruined by all the fighting. Turns out I was sorely mistaken about what the game was like (or rather, that it can play very differently at its extremes), but fortunately I also like sweaty tryhard shooters and so I'm still loving it. Also play with a team of 4, it's really ups the stakes.
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Feb 19, 2023 23:48
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HopperUK posted:Oo if you're putting Arcade Paradise up there with Powerwash then I might grab it next sale. I also enjoyed House Flipper and Train Station a lot but yeah, jank. Fanatical has it in one of their bundles. https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/prestige-collection-build-your-own-bundle
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Feb 19, 2023 23:56
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Tried out the Midnight Suns free weekend. It took a REALLY LONG TIME to get going and at the start its just the Iron Man and Dr Strange show which gets real old quick and it feels like you've just been dropped into someone's fanfic for awhile and the games systems are very VERY slowly drip fed to you so its not til like hour 2-3 that things really click and you get more interesting characters to play with and figure out how to just do stuff in the game. Also people bothering Blade never gets old.  theres also the persistent feel like I'm going to get mugged by microtransactions somewhere though Synthbuttrange fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Feb 20, 2023 |
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Feb 20, 2023 00:03
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