What about your Deck though? Do you have to send it in?

I‘m happy for the devs, but I shudder at the signal this sends to publishers regarding liveservice, „we just gotta keep trying, guys!“

I don‘t know… the soundtrack, the presentation, the map, the car handling, the story (although I‘m already skipping cause I couldn‘t take it anymore), it all seems inferior to me. Although neither is a masterpiece, but Heat left a more competent impression on me.

Maybe the graphics are better which I‘d hope after all this time, but the goofy pedestrians take away from that as well. The police could be better as well, they were obnoxious in Heat and practically couldn‘t be shaken off without a ramp/jump.

How 2 Escape with a friend (can recommend, not mindblowing but a good time), Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes with gf (pretty fun experience)

Solo I‘m bouncing around between games, but shoutout to NFS Unbound which I like less the more I play it lol

Even for 5 bucks, it‘s NFS Heat but worse in basically every aspect

I realized that I need a certain amount of time with a game to warm up to it or else I‘m always drawn back to known quantities. Seems like playing things I know is just more comfortable. I also realized that I really like racing games for a similar reason: I don‘t have to learn anything new about the mechanics/game, I just have to drive.

Counterpoint: Building something big in first person is a lot more bothersome than in 2D/topdown

I have Satisfactory and like it btw, I‘m just saying it‘s something to keep in mind. It‘s also a lot heavier on the hardware, obviously.

First time hearing of it, good riddance

Well, there‘s your vocal minority. Some people act as if you’re breaching a contract on performing lifesaving brain surgery when you leave a lobsided casual game. And for some reason they can‘t just take that attitude and stick to ranked. It blows my mind that Psyonix caved in on that, but here we are.

I loved Rocket League, was top 1%, and quit it because of the casual game ban you eat when leaving poorly matched games. I already wasn‘t playing ranked anymore cause I reached my goal so I just liked to play casual games.

I didn‘t mind people leaving casual games or leaving myself cause the outcome of the match didn‘t matter, what mattered was whether it was a well-matched game that was fun to play or not. And if it wasn‘t, you left and went back into queue, and it took like five seconds to match a new game.

Which is also why I didn‘t mind if my team was leaving. I just shrugged, went into a new queue, five seconds later I was back in the game.

But nah, nowadays devs gotta have this weird obsession over forcing people to play matches out even if there‘s no stakes other than whether you‘re having fun or not even though there‘s no victims here with the outcome being irrelevant and the queue timers being super low. It also doesn‘t matter how much time into a match has passed, the game‘s the same at minute 1 as it is at minute 3 or 5, you‘re not losing progress as in a MOBA or RTS match.

It breeds toxicity too: Instead of leaving, people now feel forced to stay, so they‘re just in there, pissed off, and take it out on their teammates.

Just allaround a dumb change likely initiated by a vocal minority of the playerbase.

Like, fuck quitting ranked games, but casual? Unnecessary.

Rant end. This change annoyed me af too when it happened, so I can definitely relate to OP.

EDIT: I do think there‘s worse offenders with regards to the post’s topic though. Ubisoft, EA, anyone using Denuvo or patching in mtx after launch, Paradox and their crazy dlc policy, KOEI and their crazy dlc policy for DOA (and probably other stuff), etcetc

NFS Unbound and BF2042 cause it‘s five bucks each rn.

I think BF is fine for 5 bucks if you don‘t think about how much worse it is compared to BF3 or 4, it‘s still silly fun for cheap on its own.

NFS I struggle to recommend even for this price, unless you‘re already done with all the Forzas, Crews, Grids, and Dirts of this world. The driving just feels incredibly wrong, lots of „what the fuck just happened?“ And it runs poorly even though it looks mediocre.

Chained Together was fun so far with a friend, although it‘s clearly not very polished.

I also got Deep Rock Galactic, but I haven‘t spent much time in it yet. This one in contrast looks very polished lol

Lastly, Chicory has been a lot of fun and a unique experience. A cute and wholesome game I can recommend.

After I became „worthy“ this week in Distance, I also want to recommend it again. It‘s a game I discovered through people talking about it on here and it was a great experience.

If you‘re an achievement/trophy hunter, there‘s a lot of those cause of missables

I‘m considering getting Sizeable and the collection of all the games the Hook guy has made - so basically a buncha puzzle games. I‘m also looking at Psychonauts 2 and the „new“ NFS cause both are five bucks so I‘m like what the hell why not. And Hotline Miami 2, I‘m in the mood for some senseless violence. To top it off, Streets of Rogue and The Messenger. All of it together would come in at exactly 29.99 for me lol

There‘s other games I want more, but they‘re all still more expensive (or close to) than this whole bundle so it‘s not really worth it IMO considering the amount of games I still got anyway.

Probably League of Legends, I don‘t know how to check how many and don‘t really care, but I‘d be surprised if I hadn‘t spent more than in Rocket League which clocks in at 1100 hours. I don‘t play much of either anymore though. Counterstrike 1.6 is at 400 hours but that‘s gotta be a lie and way more as well lol

I actually have not played the original which is why I was interested in playing the remaster since it‘s such a classic. I ended up liking the Nightdive-made DLC maps and the N64 port the most tbh.

Catching up on Vampire Survivors updates when solo.

It Takes Two with gf. Really dislike the story, we’re just skipping the cutscenes now. But great diverse gameplay and visual setpieces.

Gonna start Darksiders Genesis with a friend this weekend now that our run through Quake II remastered is done. I liked Quake II 64 (lol) the most out of the lot tbh. The levels were way less confusing. The Nightdive-made DLC was also great.

Witcher 2 yay, Witcher 1 nay. IMO, the first one really didn‘t age well. It‘s been too long to remember the specifics but what I do remember is me dealing with the gameplay and visuals for the story‘s sake. The second game I started up and was awed by the visuals, the gameplay was much better too. Insane step forward. Again though, it‘s been many, many years so it‘s a blur now.

Rocket League cracked that for me, crazy ceiling on that game.

Crusader Kings III is gonna crack it eventually…

Force people to use the MS store to complete the laughing stock

Quake II remaster (?) by Nightdive in co-op with a friend. It‘s alright. I see it more as a video game history course, everything kinda looks the same so it hasn’t held up too well IMO, but it‘s a good time in co-op. And thank God they built in a navigation system lol

I‘m probably even downplaying it, my friend ragequit from the frequency of crashes lol

Maybe Magicka 2 is the better starting point, but I wouldn‘t know since after my experience with Magicka, I didn‘t wanna touch it

It was fun when it worked though!