Poopfeast420

I played a few games that were just really mediocre.

• Warhammer 40k: Inquisitor was a super boring ARPG and I couldn't put in more than a few hours. The levels were super short and just corridors.
• Pathfinder: Kingmaker started out ok, but was just far too long, terribly paced, and the last third was a complete slog. This was probably the one I'd call a "stinker" the most.
• Crisis Core Remake (FF7 spin off) had a boring story and lame characters. The bulk of the "content" were 300 side missions that were usually less than five minutes long in one of like six stages. I picked it up after I enjoyed the FF7 Remake far more than I thought, but this game adds nothing to the overall story. To be fair to the game though, I did complete all 300 side stories, because from time to time I like a mindless grind.
• I'm continuing my four-year-old save of Octopath Traveler, where I got a third or so in. I dunno if it's the Steam Deck, but there's just tons of aliasing, shifting sprites and flickering, it just looks bad, and the detailed enemy sprites were the only thing I really liked about the game in the first place. Combat is also a slog at times, so I don't know if I have it in me to finish the game.

yes, he lied to players about that, and he’s apologized many times for that

And I'd like to see one of those apologies. With my surface level searches, I've found nothing.

Although I'm pretty sure there never was and never will be a direct apology, since that probably opens them up to litigation, but that's just baseless speculation on my part.

Are you pretending they didn't lie? Sean Murray didn't say the game had multiplayer even after it was released?

The developers literally spent YEARS adding to the game, completely for free, but they don’t “respect their players”?

They ever apologized for lying for years to the players, who they respect so much?

I got one of those new Steam Deck OLEDs today and am thinking about getting some casual games for that (even though I got a ton of stuff in my backlog).

Dave the Diver is currently the forerunner, and maybe Mega Man Battle Network. I might just wait until the Steam Winter Sale though, since the prices won't be worse, and maybe even a tiny bit better.

Just on the topic of demos, I feel like they are making a comeback these last few years (speaking as a PC gamer).

Steam has their Next Fest, which is all about demos, and I've found a few games there I bought later or put on my wishlist.

As for Talos 2, while I haven't checked out the demo, I really liked the first game, so I was gonna get the sequel anyway eventually, unless the reviews thrash it for some reason.

So far, I only checked out the demo for Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, A Vampire Survivors-like.

My first few runs were a bit boring, but you unlock more items to find on your runs, which can spice things up in the future. I beat the first stage twice, and the second time it was a complete breeze and I just mowed through the enemies.

The game is somewhat similar to Brotato, it's wave based, although the waves are longer than in Brotato and in my runs I only had to do five, no idea if it increases on higher difficulties.

Like you'd expect in a DRG game, you won't just kill the bugs, but also mine Gold, Nitra, whatever else. In between rounds you can buy upgrades with Nitra and Gold, and between runs you can spend the other resources for permanent upgrades.

I look forward to the Early Access release, and if it's in the same ballpark as many other Survivors games, so about 5€, I'll probably immediately buy it.

I think the real game changer here is that CS:GO is still available, while the original OW is not

Absolutely. This is the main difference for me, which I didn't know in the beginning, although it makes sense, since it's been known that Steam has this functionality. If that gets some "official" support (selecting the version in the game properties like a beta), and not the current hacky solution, it would be great.

To be honest though, I still think for a lot of people across the internet, it's totally a Blizzard bad, Valve good, situation.

If you search for results before the OW2 PvP release last year, you'll find a bunch of articles and comments, that say PvP is free, PvE is going to cost money.

You said repeatedly, that the engine changes between CSGO and CS2 are night and day, and I'm not disputing that. I just think, going from 6v6 to 5v5, reworking and rebalancing heroes to accommodate that, is also a night and day difference.

When I was talking about how the quality of a game mode shouldn't matter in this discussion, I meant only when comparing the "name changes" for OW2 and CS2, and if a game "deserves" to be called a sequel.

OW2 PvE was never going to be free, and whether people find whatever mode was added fun or not should not matter.

Dota 2 changed their engine and that was handled in an update, we didn't get Dota 3.

You do however have a point with previous CSGO versions still being accessible, if that still works.

Do you know what OW2 changed, since you call it small and meaningless?

Imo the gameplay updates with a move to 5v5 were pretty significant. The engine stayed the same, afaik, but some things were overhauled, although I don't know if it was just visual changes.

According to some comments I've read, CS2 feels somewhat rushed. Some game modes and maps are missing, and the subtick server stuff also seems like a mixed bag.

So, why is it fine for one of these games, but not the other? For someone who hasn't played either game in years, it feels like a similar level of change for either game.

Hardware Unboxed Starfield CPU Benchmark