Community MetaSteam | September 2021 - Welcome to Punxsutawney

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Stone Ocean

Proud Degenerate
Apr 17, 2019
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Are any of these must-plays?
Aria of Sorrow is arguably one of the best Igavanias. I'll also swear by Circle of the Moon, it's technically limited but it's the closest Igavania to classic Castlevania, difficulty included.

Harmony and Dracula X are worth playing but they are fairly subpar in comparison to other games in their gameplay style.
 
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FunnyJay

Powered by the Cloud
Apr 6, 2019
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So, I've been revisiting my old 360 library a bit.
First tried Dark Sector which I remember liking the atmosphere in even though I never made it very far into it.

Decided to start a new game. The disc decided to not lead after the opening cutscene.
Bummer.
That one's a bust.

Next game: **Gears of War.
I remember not entirely getting along with it the last times I've played it, but let's try again.
My savegame is apparently at the tail end of act 2. The save leaves me at some kind of final stand defense against the enemies.

After a few attempts I remember why I never got along with the game...
Even on Casual difficulty I find it very difficult. You die in seconds if you are out of cover. And sometimes even if you are in cover.
The cover itself is sticky AF and sometimes weirdly placed. And most of the time you have no real idea of what the game wants you to focus on.
Enemies are everywhere but you can't proceed until you shoot this particular concrete block that doesn't seem react when you shoot at it.
You just have to continue shooting at it for longer than you might think.

Bleh. This game is definitely not for me. Personally, I find it hard to see how this game became so popular.

So, let's skip it and move on to the next game!

Gears of War 2!
I managed to get through the tutorial, then I ran out of time for this gaming session. But it felt a bit more smoother than GoW1.
 

Cacher

MetaMember
Jun 3, 2020
4,701
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So, I've been revisiting my old 360 library a bit.
First tried Dark Sector which I remember liking the atmosphere in even though I never made it very far into it.

Decided to start a new game. The disc decided to not lead after the opening cutscene.
Bummer.
That one's a bust.

Next game: **Gears of War.
I remember not entirely getting along with it the last times I've played it, but let's try again.
My savegame is apparently at the tail end of act 2. The save leaves me at some kind of final stand defense against the enemies.

After a few attempts I remember why I never got along with the game...
Even on Casual difficulty I find it very difficult. You die in seconds if you are out of cover. And sometimes even if you are in cover.
The cover itself is sticky AF and sometimes weirdly placed. And most of the time you have no real idea of what the game wants you to focus on.
Enemies are everywhere but you can't proceed until you shoot this particular concrete block that doesn't seem react when you shoot at it.
You just have to continue shooting at it for longer than you might think.

Bleh. This game is definitely not for me. Personally, I find it hard to see how this game became so popular.

So, let's skip it and move on to the next game!

Gears of War 2!
I managed to get through the tutorial, then I ran out of time for this gaming session. But it felt a bit more smoother than GoW1.
In the act 2 of Gears of War 1, I am pretty sure that you need to stay under lighting because the bats attack anything moves in the dark. Sad to hear that you are not into it because the game also has a great final boss fight.
 
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FunnyJay

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In the act 2 of Gears of War 1, I am pretty sure that you need to stay under lighting because the bats attack anything moves in the dark. Sad to hear that you are not into it because the game also has a great final boss fight.
I find it a bit hard to control. The player character lumbers around and is hard to control with the sticky cover, and the checkpoint system is kinda weird. Sometimes encounters are really long with out any checkpoints.

I believe this was after the bat part, since I remember them and didn't see any during the fight.
 
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TioChuck

More Yellow 🤷‍♂️
Dec 31, 2018
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Halo Infinite Multiplayer seems pretty fun, I only played against bots so far, but I was having a blast.
 
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Aaron D.

MetaMember
Jul 10, 2019
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So I've been super-hyped for Deck and was there the moment pre-orders went up. Got in Q1 window as the site kept crashing when pre-orders went live.

I was just thinking about the screen size and idling wondering if it would suit my needs. I've never seen a Switch in real life so I looked up the measurements for the Deck screen (5.94" x 3.70") and drew it out on the back of an envelope.

Turns out it was a lot smaller than I initially imagined and now I'm suddenly having serious doubts.

Problem is my bread & butter genres are heavily menu driven. Strategy, Simulation, Management, etc.

I was looking at that rectangle penciled out on the back of the envelope and trying to imagine playing Crusader Kings, RimWorld, Factorio and Project Zomboid...and it just didn't seem feasible. More specifically, navigating menus for these titles.

Luckily I'm in the second wave of pre-orders (hands-on impressions and all), but man. I'm legit bummed that this product might simply not work for my use case scenario. :(
 

Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
854
2,390
93
Well.... Sable performance really is ... not great.

Starting area was "fine" aside from the stutters everyone is getting, but now I'm at a point where I'm wondering if there is some incompatible with my system. It doesn't appear to pushing either my old 4-core CPU or the GPU (3080) but some areas can get close to 30 fps.

But, since I'm still going back to it (with a controller), I guess it does other things really right :p
 

manchego obfuscator

MetaMember
Jan 23, 2020
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Never played these before, can I assume they each have multiple endings a la SOTN?

also are any of them grindy?
I fairly enjoyed Bloodstained but I found it rather grindy in the need to collect enemy souls in a way that SOTN wasn’t like for me
the card collection in CotM is particularly grindy, as some of the cards have pretty low drop rates. I played all of these on GBA back in the day but it's been long enough that I can't say for sure about the other two.

Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow definitely have multiple endings, but not sure about CotM
 

PC-tan

Low Tier Weeb
Jan 19, 2019
3,804
6,160
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California
So I've been super-hyped for Deck and was there the moment pre-orders went up. Got in Q1 window as the site kept crashing when pre-orders went live.

I was just thinking about the screen size and idling wondering if it would suit my needs. I've never seen a Switch in real life so I looked up the measurements for the Deck screen (5.94" x 3.70") and drew it out on the back of an envelope.

Turns out it was a lot smaller than I initially imagined and now I'm suddenly having serious doubts.

Problem is my bread & butter genres are heavily menu driven. Strategy, Simulation, Management, etc.

I was looking at that rectangle penciled out on the back of the envelope and trying to imagine playing Crusader Kings, RimWorld, Factorio and Project Zomboid...and it just didn't seem feasible. More specifically, navigating menus for these titles.

Luckily I'm in the second wave of pre-orders (hands-on impressions and all), but man. I'm legit bummed that this product might simply not work for my use case scenario. :(
All of that will depend on the dev since it might be possible to change UI size.





I think that every big studio got a dev kit, there's no way that Valve isn't working with them to get their games optimized. The lack of Steam Deck-related social media posts from them might be because there are several management layers between developers in a big company and the PR department, or because they will be part of some future big media push closer to launch.
What I meant is that realistically the amount of support from big name devs will at most be limited (there may be some that do support it and others that don't, of the ones that we shall Hades was the only one with a Switch port and all of the rest would likely not release on the switch natively and would at best require a cloud version like control does)


Also from the sounds of it there are devs from big name companies that like it and that want one but as we have seen over the years what devs want is not what we always get since they have to keep stock holders happy and that means money. Not sharing stuff online is okay and that's expected but I'm just thinking of it more realistically and thinking if they even would support it.


Death Stranding was shown on the system and that will never be on Switch and you also had Guilty Gear shown on it and while guilty gear may get ported to switch at some point I'm sure that even ASW knows that it runs a lot better on the Steam Deck then it ever would on the Switch (the PC version has less input lag than the PS version as an example).


Other wise why don't devs support stuff like DLSS.

So If there is a switch port or something we may possible not see Steam Deck optimization and though it may not always really be needed


I'm sorry I should have added more information.


But yeah the Steam Deck buy some may be viewed as a new hardware by some and investors will be asking about it. We already saw this with Ubisoft and how they were asked about it during an investor meeting.
 

TioChuck

More Yellow 🤷‍♂️
Dec 31, 2018
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Well.... Sable performance really is ... not great.

Starting area was "fine" aside from the stutters everyone is getting, but now I'm at a point where I'm wondering if there is some incompatible with my system. It doesn't appear to pushing either my old 4-core CPU or the GPU (3080) but some areas can get close to 30 fps.

But, since I'm still going back to it (with a controller), I guess it does other things really right :p
Yeah... I will wait for a patch until the last minute of my 2 weeks, if nothing changes I will refund it.

Its a pitty, I would love to play it.
 

Stone Ocean

Proud Degenerate
Apr 17, 2019
2,357
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Never played these before, can I assume they each have multiple endings a la SOTN?

also are any of them grindy?
I fairly enjoyed Bloodstained but I found it rather grindy in the need to collect enemy souls in a way that SOTN wasn’t like for me
Circle is fairly grindy due to cards and the fact that it doesnt have a shop so any consumables and equipment are enemy drops, and if you wanna do the bonus super hard dungeon youre gonna need to farm potions.

The enemy soul system from Bloodstained originated from Aria od Sorrow. It works the same for the most part but theres no crafting and upgrading so its only grindy if you wanna collect everything.

Harmony is the closest to SOTN in that regard.
 

ExistentialThought

Coffee Lover ♥☕
Feb 29, 2020
1,640
5,024
113
Inscryption is launching October 19th and a demo is available.


Game still looks so interesting and such a blend of genres. I plan to check out the demo soon.

Edit: on the store page there is a bundle for folks, which may make it cheaper if you own Pony Island and/or The Hex
 
Reason: Added bundle details
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toxicitizen

MetaMember
Oct 24, 2018
1,632
4,183
113
One of the biggest takeaways from all these announcements is that SQEX is going hard into bringing their old games to modern platform. Mana, SaGa, FF Pixel Remastered, and now Actraiser... sooner or later, I think most of their old classics will be revived.
This is why I'm cautiously optimistic about that Chrono Cross remaster from the Nvidia leak. Normally I'd think it too obscure to really have a chance but the fact that it was on the list at all is something. And if they're willing to remaster the SaGa games of all things, which as far as I can tell basically had little to no fanbase in the West, then I think the sequel to Chrono Trigger probably has a shot.
 

thistestnow

*doom noises*
Feb 16, 2021
171
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Never played these before, can I assume they each have multiple endings a la SOTN?

also are any of them grindy?
I fairly enjoyed Bloodstained but I found it rather grindy in the need to collect enemy souls in a way that SOTN wasn’t like for me
Rondo of Blood had multiple endings per say, not sure how much of it has changed in Dracula X though.
 
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EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
7,397
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RE Stranger Things being removed. In cases like that 99% of the time i'm going to say it's licensing issues or license expiry somewhere down the line. There was some speculation they were removing stuff to bring it back at a later date under the Netflix brand entirely so again, licensing.
 
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TioChuck

More Yellow 🤷‍♂️
Dec 31, 2018
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I've never seen this happen before, but it seems Prime Gaming is going to offer GOG and EGS keys for some games next month. Star Wars Squadrons for Origin and Ghostrunner for GOG. So if you know someone with Amazon Prime, you could ask them for a spare key.
I already have ghostrunner so I will probably do a giveaway here.
 

Dragon1893

MetaMember
Apr 17, 2019
1,687
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I recently finished Mankind Divided and decided to wait for a sale on the season pass. I'll take that 80% discount, thank you very much.
There's a lot of stuff on sale on my wishlist but this is probably all I can afford.
 
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