5 years later after the contract is up…

The game downloads a patch that replaces Nolan North or Jennifer Hale or whoever’s voice with Microsoft Sam.

That’s fair. My Steam Deck doesn’t get much use, so I was wondering if there was some angle I wasn’t considering.

How can a game just be better on a handheld? That sounds highly subjective.

As of 2021, Valve employees made roughly $430K-4.5M, depending on role. Not bad, considering the average salary in WA is around $58k.

Source:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/13/24197477/valve-employs-few-hundred-people-payroll-redacted

I haven’t played RoR1, but loved RoR2, but I also tend to prefer 3d games over 2d. I haven’t played since the latest xpac, so I don’t know if they fixed the things they broke or not.

This is more of a “scummy business” article than an “Epic bad” article. The directors in question were sitting on the boards of both Epic Games and Tencent. This was seen as an issue because while Tencent holds a minority share of Epic, they also completely own competitors, such as Riot.

I don’t really buy youtuber merch, but I bought a couple things from GN after their investigative work with the latest Asus warranty debacle. Excellent channel and Steve and crew deserve all the support they can get.

There’s a local barcade that’s good times. You get to drink local craft brews and play arcade games and pinball. They had Time Crisis 2 last time I was there.

As far as light gun shooters, your best bet is probably VR. I can’t personally make any recommendations though, as I don’t have a headset.

It was certainly there, but more common in cooperative games. Also, Overwatch is/was particularly infamous for its toxic community. While I didn’t play them myself, I’ve heard a lot of stories from competitive games back in the day where you could host your own lobby. Being a shithead back then could get you banned from any number of private communities, so you needed good behavior if you didn’t want to be an outcast.

This was me, too. Over the past few years, I noticed I was having less and less fun with games, and was getting bored with them more quickly, even good ones that are right up my alley. I ended up starting a new hobby (gunpla) and couldn’t be happier. I still game some, but only a small fraction of what I used to.

Maybe I’m weird, but I prefer the Joycons over any other Switch controller I’ve tried, including their Pro controller. It is SO NICE to be able to position my hands wherever I like, to the point where holding a standard controller basically feels like handcuffs. Even using my Xbox controller on pc feels bad in comparison. Also worth noting that 99%+ of my play time is docked.

World of Warcraft - over 11k hrs

Guild Wars 2 - over 5k hrs

Warframe - 2200 hrs

Minecraft - who knows… a lot

Sounds like this game just isn’t for you, then. Their updates for the most part have just been expanding the ocean without making it any deeper for years, and at this point, it is what it is.

I jumped back into NMS a few months ago and had a good time with it. I liked the simple mechanics, since I wanted a game I could fly around and explore in without having to think too deeply.

Did you read the article? It says the other purchasable titles are 75 fish bucks.

He gives a lot of detail as to why he likes or doesn’t like various things, so you can determine for yourself if they’re important to you or not. SKillUp is my favorite reviewer, and I definitely don’t agree with him on all his takes.

I uninstalled Epic Online Services right after installing the game, and the only difference now is I get a warning screen that it’s not installed whenever I start the game up. It’s still BS that I should have to manually uninstall something I never wanted, though.

I started with World, and put hundreds of hours into that and Rise, plus their expansions. I tried the GU demo on Switch, but it felt too clunky.

The thing that hooked me was the first large monster you hunt, Great Jagras. He’s a pushover for any hunter with even a slight amount of experience, but for me as a new player, it was an epic battle and I certainly didn’t expect that much intensity that early in the game. I also liked how even after you had a monster on “farm status” a hunt could still easily go from good to bad if you weren’t careful. It emphasized that these monsters were incredibly dangerous, and even seasoned hunters could be in trouble if they get too cocky. It also helped keep farming more interesting as you needed to pay attention if you wanted to be successful.

Overall, I like the… world, in World more, but the gameplay mechanics and combat more in Rise. In World, the maps were larger, with more detail and felt more alive. I also liked the tracking aspect, and was disappointed that aspect didn’t make it to Rise. It felt like you were actually hunting your target, instead of just sprinting to their location on your doggo friend and beating them up like in Rise.

I’m definitely looking forward to Wilds releasing next year.

I use mine to play some Steam games and to run emulators. I haven’t had any compatibility issues, but I also tend to stick to games that are Steam Deck verified.

As far as how good it is, it’s the only handheld pc I’ve used personally, but from reviews and discussions I’ve seen, despite other handhelds being more powerful, Steam Deck is a solid contender because of its price point and SteamOS being purpose-built for a handheld, whereas Windows is not.

Minecraft or any number of the farming/life sim games out there. I’ve dug countless tunnels in Minecraft while listening to various things.

No Man’s Sky would be good for the same reasons.