cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27813858

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27804175

I found this mini-article interesting. It talks about the development of GTA from its early days in Scotland, in the UK.

Many people probably assume that GTA is an American game series, and sure it is ultimately owned by American companies (Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive).

But GTA was originally made in Scotland, and Rockstar North, which I think is still the lead development studio for GTA, is still based in Scotland.

GTA must be one of Scotland's most important exports of modern times. The website of Rockstar North clearly shows their Scottish heritage with a Scottish flag on the left-hand side:

Today's game is Zomboid. Me and my friend ended up continuing from our save from last time where we were playing a Dad Rock Band. Sadly i lost my character after he died looking for a car and I ended up making a new Character that's a mechanic. On my way back to our temporary base as my new character i bumped into a large horde along the way i had to fight before they migrated over to our base a few blocks away.

I named my character Wendell Martelli and he's a Trailer Park living mechanic with a love for Wrestling and works at the local Walmart Garage. I went with Mechanic because it will make it easier to start Hotwiring cars when i don't have a key.

To fit my new theme this we settled into a Mechanics shop (also because the space is nice). We scavenged some planks from the windows and barricaded them. I also looted some coveralls to wear to help sell the Mechanic bit.

We ended up having to start working towards getting carpentry up to move furniture because our house is lacking beds. On multiplayer Sleep isn't required, but we want furniture for the immersion aspect. We also intend to get a stove at some point because all we have is microwave.

Generally though, that's all we did. It was an exhausting day for the both me and my friend so it was very hands off and relaxed today.

I'm currently scraping the Steam barrel and I could really use these ports:

1. Gravity Rush Remastered/Gravity Rush 2: best traversal in gaming. Surprisingly fun combat too. Just pure joy all around.
2. Viewtiful Joe: integral Kamiya core and probably the closest on this list to actually happening seeing the Clover revival.
3. God Hand: I have nothing new to add here. All I can do is reiterate the "beat'em goat" claim.
4. The Red Star: PS2 hidden gem—mix of beat'em up and twin-stick shooter. Proper action game rooted in arcade design principles.
5. Ketsui: again, all I can do is reiterate the "shmup goat" claim. Criminal this is not on Steam. Come on, M2.

Alternate editions of games we already have on Steam:

1. Catherine: Full Body: extra stages is cool, but I need the online Colosseum.
2. Ninja Gaiden II: ugh, this one is obviously never happening at this point. I swear, even if they try a third time, they'll most likely find some way to mess it up.

Definitely never happening: Pikmin. Nintendo suck.

Today's game is Zomboid. Me and my friend ended up continuing from our save from last time where we were playing a Dad Rock Band. Sadly i lost my character after he died looking for a car and I ended up making a new Character that's a mechanic. On my way back to our temporary base as my new character i bumped into a large horde along the way i had to fight before they migrated over to our base a few blocks away.

I named my character Wendell Martelli and he's a Trailer Park living mechanic with a love for Wrestling and works at the local Walmart Garage. I went with Mechanic because it will make it easier to start Hotwiring cars when i don't have a key.

To fit my new theme this we settled into a Mechanics shop (also because the space is nice). We scavenged some planks from the windows and barricaded them. I also looted some coveralls to wear to help sell the Mechanic bit.

We ended up having to start working towards getting carpentry up to move furniture because our house is lacking beds. On multiplayer Sleep isn't required, but we want furniture for the immersion aspect. We also intend to get a stove at some point because all we have is microwave.

Generally though, that's all we did. It was an exhausting day for the both me and my friend so it was very hands off and relaxed today.

I know I remember seeing some people talk about how nice some of the environments in Hitman were, and that they'd just walk around as a tourist from time to time, treating it like a walking simulator/virtual tourism thing instead of the stealth assassination game it is. Curious about other things like that, where you play a game totally differently than it was meant to be played.

Atomfall has an audio bug that mutes all game sound. The only way to get sound back is to close and reopen the game.

I'm wondering if it's the Dynamic Range audio setting glitching somehow. High had the bug often occurring. Low not so at all so far. Though it may be coincidence.

Anyone else found something that helps?

"As previously mentioned, this is an online multiplayer title at its core, but this doesn't mean that we as a company have decided to shift to a more multiplayer-focused direction with titles going forward," said Miyazaki in an interview with Nintendo.

"The Nintendo Switch 2 version of Elden Ring was also announced, and we still intend to actively develop single-player focused games such as this that embrace our more traditional style."

Link the full interview on Nintendo's site

Bats! Very cool.

Today's game is Stranded Deep. While i was playing through AC Shadows, i had a friend ask if we could play something. While normally Halo is our go to game for multiplayer, i have burnt him out on that after he created a monster from me (i've legit played a total of 90 current playlist games, and have no intent of stopping anytime soon until i 100% MCC). So we downloaded this, which we've had in our library for a while after i gifted it to him.

I personally have fond memories for this game, even if it's a little cheap and buggy. I remember being younger and seeing a youtuber play the early Access, and i'd tune in like every tuesday just to catch his lets plays. Playing it as an adult though? It feels a bit less magical, still fun to play with friends though. One major complaint outside of the Gameplay though is that this game has the worst implementation of TAA i've ever seen. I'm playing 4k, ultra settings, and everything was ghosting. I ended up saying fuck it and turned AA off entirely.

Me and my friend ended up resorting to tribalism within a day after our unfortunate plane crash (our headcannon is that there in fact was no pilot, and we both were just drunk driving the plane). In this "tribal" society i in fact, did all the work while my friend just relaxed. What a good friend.

I ended up making a Fire for our little rag tag duo to gather around. We ended up catching a fish which we named Harold to make our Duo into a Trio. All was well until my Friend cooked harold and ate him. We put it to a vote and in a total of 2 votes to 0, he got 3 slaps from the communal paddle (seen above).

All was going well, until my friend died to a shark after a run to an island for stones to make my Stove. I ran out to try and save him while his corpse was using the Raft for sick tricks, and i was sadly mauled by the same shark. In my final moments i got a picture of his corpse doing a sick trick on the raft though.

https://scarlet-games.itch.io/zoomies-cat-racing

Jazztronauts doesn't have a page on the Steam Store. Instead, it lives on the Steam Workshop!

Quick facts:

• It's a full game mode for Garry's Mod
• Genre: Uh, first-person collectathon?
• Number of players: Singleplayer and online co-op

Getting Jazzed Up

Jazztronauts is a deeply meta kind of game that takes full advantage of its Garry's Mod base: it uses the Gmod workshop as its playground and the story takes place within it as a "Source engine multiverse" of sorts. I find it's a great experience in online co-op with friends.

The story starts off with you playing normal Gmod. However, while playing some unremarkable Half-Life 2-styled map, a band of interdimensional cats show up, exploring the worlds of the Source engine. They recruit you to help with the mission: you're going to help them gather junk from maps from all over the Gmod workshop. You will actually go out to real maps to steal props and level geometry!

Wait, otherworldly visitors that show up to offer you a job for a mysterious agenda? Am I back in Black Mesa?

Joining the Band

Once you join the cats, they take you to the Bar Samsara, their hideout between maps. You chat with them to get to know them better and receive jobs from them to fetch certain quantities of certain objects.

You go over to the giant TV and channel surf on the real Gmod workshop for a real map that you want to visit. These are maps people made for other game modes, like Sandbox, Prop Hunt, or Zombie Survival. In one rare case, I stumbled upon a map that was specifically designed for Jazztronauts, called jazz_artemis, uploaded a few days prior.

jazz_artemis on the workshop

Once you find a map you want to raid, you call over a trolley to take you there and the map starts downloading. Panels all over the bar also display stats about the map. Hopefully it has a lot of props to steal! You get in the trolley and honk the horn repeatedly to tell your friends to hurry up and get in.

Once you're in the map, you pull out your prop snatcher baton and start ripping stuff out of the map. You remember to be on the lookout for any quest items you need to grab. When playing with friends, credit for stolen props is shared, so there's no need to compete for props. When you snatch stuff, it'll automatically be lifted off the map, leaving behind a pink crystal pattern to indicate what used to be there.

After a while of stealing potted plants and office windows, you're satisfied with what you've gotten and the map is looking pretty pink. You pull out your keyfob and press the button to summon a trolley to take you back to the bar. This exit effect is absolutely amazing, with the trolley smashing through map geometry to get to you. It's an impressively robust and seamless transition!

Now back at the bar, you head to the prop claim area to get paid. You pull the lever to unload your haul of stolen props for the cats. When playing with friends, all money earned to date is copied to each player, so late joiners automatically get caught up with money. You can then go see the Bartender to buy upgrades for your tools.

The tasks the cats assign you start off simple, like "find 15 barrels", but the needed objects become more and more obscure: washing machines, live headcrabs, suspicious chemicals. Later quests get strange:

Grooving in Maps

The variety of quest items means you're going to have to explore far corners of the Gmod workshop for many kinds of maps to find your loot. Here are some examples of maps I found.

rp_newexton is a roleplay map where you pretend to live in a fictional Australian city. There are apartments, a shopping mall, a giant banana beside the highway, and even a working train that takes you to out of New Exton to the suburbs!

This map, whose name I don't remember, has a turret that rapid fires rockets.

vp_voidmall is a creepy, sprawling abandoned mall with phenomenal lighting. There's also a playable story in this map if you were to play it properly. It was too powerful for Jazztronauts and crashed the game! However, it was too intriguing to pass on, so my friends and I explored the map in vanilla Gmod instead. This is no doubt the highest-quality map I've ever played from the Gmod workshop.

Coda

Jazztronauts feels like a wild take on a story mode for Garry's Mod itself, given its persistent story and its awareness of Garry's Mod and its player culture. It has a special, meta perspective on the game it's built on, reaching through the fourth wall but never getting smarmy or self-referential about it. This game certainly could only exist as a mod on top of the mountains of content made for Garry's Mod.

Jazztronauts is an earnest love letter to the Source engine and celebrates all of the things fans have made for it over the years. In fact, this is at the core of their objectives: they want you to collect stuff so they can build an interactive Source engine museum! Learn about brushes, the intricacies of crouch-jumping, and surfing! Now this is edutainment.

Is the gameplay of Jazztronauts thin? Yes. One of the cats even says to your face that this is "fetch quest hell". You run a long chain of fetch quests for objects that aren't even guaranteed to appear in the maps you visit. How many maps do you think contain Dr. Kleiner?

Nonetheless, my friends and I enjoy playing; we care more about the journey than the destination. We get to share our reactions to all the interesting things we find, and some maps have stuck with us. Months on, we still talk about the memorable ones: maps with awesome atmosphere, humour, wacky ideas from novice mappers, and inventive interactive elements. Jazztronauts has taken us on trips to see more of the Garry's Mod workshop than we'd normally bother to. (If you really want, you can open the console and directly load a map that you know has quest items.)

Jazztronauts is like some fever dream interpretation of what surfing the web looks like inside cyberspace. It's like a StumbleUpon for Garry's Mod.

Want to play Jazztronauts?

You'll need:

• Garry's Mod
• Jazztronauts from the Garry's Mod workshop

To avoid map errors, make sure you have Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 2 installed. To avoid more map errors, you'll probably have to install more Valve games, like Left 4 Dead 2 and Team Fortress 2.

If you're playing with friends, make sure to always have the same person host the game because the save file is kept on their computer.

😺

This week’s interesting bits and pieces in Steam Deck / Linux and general gaming that I have found is a lighter version. Just a small handful of things I found and wanted to share here. So don't judge me too harshly!

As is now tradition (signed in blood) each time I swear this will become a weekly event, it is only a handful of days between it and the next!

So as always, this is just the bits and pieces of news I’ve spotted that made me smile, or made me interested, so I thought they’d fit in nicely here.

My aim is to phrase this in a more personal manner than most gaming sites do now. My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:

• image/gif/link heavy
• personal voice (no hard news here!)
• mostly news or articles or points you won’t find on the ‘big’ gaming sites, these are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to

This is a warning though, Boost has trouble displaying so many images per post. I am told however that the dev has fixed this, or is fixing this. I can say that Jerboa and Thunder have no issue scrolling these (same with the website)

So grab a cup of coffee, settle in and poke holes in my mistakes and formatting (or, idk, just enjoy this)!

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News / Games

Infinity Blade II:

Infinity Blade II now has a PC port! For a game which really shone as an example of both a mobile game done with high quality visuals (and production) and on how to make a touch-centric game play well...it’s hard to see this translating well to something like PC/Steam Deck. But, in the interests of my obsession of games preservation – it’s just a good thing to share the work some have done to ensure this has other ways of playing

The port targets 64-bit Windows, but the community has confirmed the following configurations to work:

Linux via Lutris, Proton, or Wine. macOS via Crossover or Parallels. Steamdeck via Proton.

Features:

• The original Infinity Blade II experience
• Keybinds for abilities such as dodging, blocking, stabbing, and more
• Standalone launcher to tweak graphical settings and controls
• Scroll menus naturally by dragging the mouse, or by scrolling the mouse wheel.
• Improved graphical fidelity over iOS
• Toggleable dynamic shadows and godrays
• Audio sliders to control music and SFX separately
• Easy save transfer between iOS and PC

There’s an announcement/guide on YouTube about this, which you can go to by clicking on this link right here!

I am neither affiliated with Epic Games nor with the creation of this port, which exists soley for the purpose of lost media preservation. This video analyzes of a publicly available website and file from the Internet Archive.

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Epic Games app:

Just a small note here, recently Epic has not only launched their app for Android and Apple, but they’ve been consistently updating it (I’d argue more than their PC experience, which years later is still lacking many of the QoL features others have had for eons -__-).

Their most recent update now shows the ‘discounts’ (sale prices) on their mobile games.

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Myst and Cyan

My father has a copy of Myst, in one of those ancient battered ‘big box’ style...boxes. It’s always been near his desk, alongside the others which are (forgive my ignorance, I just don’t know this series beyond the recent remaster ones) in the same universe? Sequels? Like Riven. He adores that game, like he adores the Portal games.

Being a senior programmer who has a reputation for COBOL, my father enjoyed the puzzle games, the ones which made him take his time and think.

Anyway, I only mention this because Myst, or rather the indie studio behind it called Cyan (which has remained a studio for 37 years now, and always remained independent) have announced that they laid off “...roughly half the team”.

As one user said though:

“You definitely hate to see it, but riding Myst at some point doesn’t pay the bills. When your iconic game’s release party would be closer in time to shaking President JFK’s hand than mine, it’s been too long…”

Further, Cyan shared a list of “impacted employees who are looking for new opportunities…” - you can read that list, as well as more information from Cyan via this Bluesky link where they made this announcement

Time passes, but this is still some very sad news to see, especially for such a long-running studio. I hope happier and brighter times are ahead for them.

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Croc on GOG

(No, not Steve Irwin)

Well, if you’ve been keeping up with this one, after almost 30 years the cult-classic Croc, as well as the remastered version, are now available on GOG. This one’s unique, in that it is only available on PC on GOG, whereas it is available everywhere on the consoles. Typical bitter weird comments are out there where people get angry (totally missing the irony that some games are available only on Steam), but overall things seem quite cheerful on this release!

• A link to the GOG page is here
• The YouTube trailer from 5 months ago is here with this link
• The forum post for the launch on GOG is here, if you want to read what people said

One issue though was reported by GOG themselves at launch, with their announcement of the game’s availability:

Hey all! Please note that for the smoothest experience, right now we recommend launching Croc (remastered version) while logged into your GOG GALAXY client—whether you're online or offline. Using only the Offline Installers without GOG GALAXY may lead to some issues when trying to launch the game. We're aware of this and are working on a fix ASAP. This affects only the remastered version. We apologize for the inconvenience—this shouldn’t take long to resolve. We hope you’ll have a blast playing nonetheless!

...though this has obviously been fixed long since!

Fun fact: This was originally going to be a Yoshi game but Nintendo turned it down so they made an original game. This was by Argonaut Games who also worked with Nintendo to do Star Fox

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Live Stranding

If you’ve been following my Mastodon for any time, you’ll have seen my countless obsessive love letter’s to Kojima’s delivery game – Death Stranding. A absolutely adore it.

It took me a couple times of trying it before it really suck with me, but ever since it climbed (pun?) high into my list of Perfect Dark’s Fav Games list. Being made available for free via Epic Games’ weekly free games a few times, chances are you’ve got it in your library too.

What I have noticed is a trend of users replying to my posts saying that the combat takes their enjoyment away. The BT battles, the timefall, the ‘stress’. And hey, that’s fine! We all get to enjoy games our own way, if you’ve been avoiding playing it because of these reasons, and you want that pure, pure dopamine hit of delivering packages, re-building roads and finding the perfect route through a broken land, then I have the suggestion for you!

Nexus Mods has a mod by AspeerTheDog, which removes Bts and timefall (rain) – which you can find using this link

This mod removes most of the timefall areas and prevents BTs from spawning. Some areas are left to allow Chiralium farming

I heavily discourage people who want to use this mod to play the campaign. BTs and timefall are a very important part of this game and without them a lot of mechanics in the game disappear or become useless. The mod was made with endgame in mind, for people who want to chill and farm deliveries in peace. I will not stop anyone from playing however they want though.

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Miyoo Game Diary:

This one is just plain sweet. I found a user (Acrobatic_Age) whose efforts to detail their experiences playing Final Fantasy 1 were done by hand with watercolor and ink in a game diary. All while they travelled and played.

While riding the train from Łódź to Warszawa, I had some time to snap pics of all the pages from my Final Fantasy 1 game journal so far. If you're planning to play it, feel free to check out the maps and drawings, but skip the text—there are plenty of spoilers in those dialogues and rumors.

They have their previous adventures and efforts all detailed here on their blog, this link is theirs: called PIXELS IN MY POCKET. It is utterly beautiful, and if I can convince you to follow one link I’ve shared in this post, make it this one. It’s such a nice and unique thing they’re doing :)

Anyway, here’s some images of theirs, so you can see just how beautiful it is:

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A journal:

The above one reminds me of a RDR2 journal / diary I saw someone made when Red Dead released all those years ago. That user was candority, and here’s a few images of it just because it’s rather lovely:

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PC Ports / Decompilations, and more:

A frequently updated list of PC ports, decompilations, remakes, and fan games—all verified as playable on the Steam Deck (and PC)—has transitioned from Reddit to a standalone website. Originally maintained through community contributions on Reddit, the list has now outgrown its format, prompting the shift to a dedicated site by the maintainer: OldMcGroin.

The new site adopts a minimalist design, prioritizing readability and ease of navigation. Whilst OldMcGroin (what a username) acknowledges its a bit janky to start with (citing this as their first web project), the focus remains on accessibility for us users searching for compatible fan-made projects. The list continues to expand thanks to community suggestions, and feedback on both content and site improvements is encouraged. Those interested can explore the project here: with this link to ‘the gaming emporium’

This is definitely one I recommend you bookmark!

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Lovecraftian Sale:

Every year there’s something called The Lovecraftian Days, which also tends to have a themed sale on Steam. They also have shown the art for this year’s event:

Fulqrum Publishing is delighted to partner with the great and terrible Cthulhu, to celebrate the third iteration of Lovecraftian Days - hosted and curated by Fulqrum Publishing, and joined by dozens of other developers and publishers. The event will celebrate the influences of the classic works of H.P. Lovecraft, and the cosmic horror genre in gaming. The celebrations will include new game releases, new announcements, game demos and discounts!

The site for this is here, with this link if you’d like to visit it!

Further, here’s a couple images of the previous two years art:

(above is 2023)

(above is 2024)

And finally? A couple Lovecraftian games I’d recommend for the Steam Deck:

• Call of Cthulhu

• Darkest Dungeon

• DREDGE (my fav!)

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Gameboy Camera

This one’s quick, but twofold because its fun:

User Marurun shared an image of their Gameboy Camera pictures they’ve been taking, and those he took a step further to colorize:

I recently got back into taking photos with my Game Boy Camera since I can now save my photos. I don't use a Game Boy Printer emulator to get my pictures from it since I don't own one yet, but I found a different way using my GameCube and GameBoy Interface. I wrote about how I figured out how all of this works and how I colorize my photos on my blog:

https://marupanda.art/blog/posts/tech/gameboy-camera/

& I also recommend you check out this video on YouTube by Becca Farsace, showing them taking the modern ‘remake’ of the classic Nintendo Gameboy Camera, the 2BitToy which you can look at in more detail on their site, here! around.

It’s a wonderful and fun video, I really recommend this one here’s the link to YouTube if you wanna check it out!

And here’s an image of that camera set-up:

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Quick Links:

These are just bits and pieces I have absolutely no doubt most of you have seen, but maybe going forward this will be a handy thing (at least to look back in retrospect as time goes on) – having them in one place? IDK, let me know if you like this lil section:

• Nintendo Direct: Nintendo Switch 2 – 4.2.2025 – my takeaway above all else was the sad departure of an entire game being stored on a game cart, now seeing them instead be a typica; ‘digital license’. It’s a sad thing to see for me. Also, up to $90 USD for Mario Kart? WTF is that?

• Loci is now a part of Epic Games. Loci being a algorithm which generates metadata for 3D assets (maybe so FAB will be less shit?)A link to the announcement article is here, if you’re interested in the details

• Enter The Gungeon 2 now has a page on Steam, and you can find the page here with this link if you want! Enter the Gungeon 2 is a reloaded, high-caliber sequel to the iconic bullet hell dungeon crawler, reinforced with a new 3D art style, new weapons and enemies, and new gameplay tricks.

• If you’d like a little more info on why Warner Bros. cancelled the planned DLC expansion to Hogwarts Legacy, then you can read a bit more about it here on Bloomberg with this link to the article. TBH I’m just jaded and figure whatever it is or was will be recycled as a sequel.

• The GitHub for Citra, the most well known of the 3DS emulators has been closed down. If you’ve been running it via EmuDeck or RetroDECK, then you’ll see it’s disappeared completely. Azahar is now the default 3DS emulator for all.

• Atomfall is the most successful game launch for the developers (who are known for Sniper Elite) at Rebellion. They’ve been making games now for 32 years! This is an article about that, its on IGN

• Nightdive Studios’ CEO said ‘we stands ready’ – to remaster Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 era games. The artcile giving more details is here via VideoGamesChronicle if you’d like to read more!

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Prime Gaming List for April:

The full list of games you can redeem, when and from where – for your Prime Gaming subscription for the month of April is as follows:

• Now Available: Mafia III: Definitive Edition [GOG Code]

• Now Available: Minecraft Legends [Xbox and PC via Microsoft Store Code]

• Now Available: Gravity Circuit [Amazon Games App]

• Now Available: Paleo Pines [Amazon Games App]

• Now Available: Clouds & Sheep 2 [Amazon Games App]

• April 10: DreadOut 2 [Amazon Games App]

• April 10: ENDLESS™ Space — Definitive Edition [Amazon Games App]

• April 10: God’s Trigger [GOG Code]

• April 10: New York Mysteries: Power of Art Collector’s Edition [Legacy Games Code]

• April 10: Projection: First Light [Amazon Games App]

• April 10: Faraway: Director’s Cut [Amazon Games App]

• April 17: Gloomhaven [Epic Games Store]

• April 17: The Last Spell [GOG Code]

• April 17: Fashion Police Squad [Epic Games Store]

• April 17: Genesis Noir [Amazon Games App]

• April 17: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain [GOG Code]

• April 17: Berserk Boy [GOG Code]

• April 17: The Last Show of Mr. Chardish [Epic Games Store]

• April 17: Wild Country [GOG Code]

• April 24: Thief™ Gold [GOG Code]

• April 24: Troublemaker [Epic Games Store]

• April 24: Kraken Academy!! [Amazon Games App]

• April 24: Priest Simulator: Vampire Show [Epic Games Store]

I’m gonna harp on about it again here, I just love the deal which Amazon’s Prime Gaming gives. For most who subscribe (at least this is my own personal experience), this whole add-on of free games titles you get to keep forever, regardless of the subscription status is a Godsend. To me this is the single best deal in gaming right now.

I get to build my GOG library (my fav of all!), as well as the others. I typically find at least one title per week which I’d never buy for myself, but am looking forward to trying! Gloomhaven especially is one of my fav board games ever made. And I am so very excited to try the video game! Enjoy!

Medium has done a small article detailing the list of games released this month for Prime Gaming, if you want to read up on it further, this is a good link for it!

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Epic’s Upcoming Freebie – April 10th:

Next week’s (or one of since there is three in total – though one of them is just in-game currency for a free title) standout game to me is River City Girls.

Free from April 10th to 17th and not available to claim in:

• Australia
• Brazil
• Russia
• South Korea

A beat-em-up, this one is rated highly on Steam, and looks like a great one to claim for free!

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Nintendo Power

Again, something incredibly niche, but I had fun discovering a backup of every single Nintendo Power release which was hosted on archive.org, but now whose link is dead. So, there’s a magnet available for those who want it:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:8a1a883270f3f094150ce258a26b4ca581839153

Every issue, from 1 to 285. Enjoy!

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The Last of Us Pt. 2 on the Steam Deck:

As it stands, while being better than the disaster of Pt 1 on PC, it’s still not ideal for Steam Deck. The video for the Digital Foundry review on performance is up and linked here, and here is a few things Alex points out:

• TLOU2 has it's own Steam Deck preset
• Has trouble locking to 30 fps on the SD
• Frametime issues makes the game feel jerky, even if the average FPS is about 30 fps
• Framecapping is recommended given the CPU performance issues (not just for SD, but for all PCs in general)

Discussion on the Steam Deck is from the 9:58 mark in the video, which is linked here

Having never played the second game, I’m really looking forward to it on PC, but for the moment perhaps I’ll wait until I am home with my powerful desktop, rather than now (travelling) with my Steam Deck.

...and finally, as a bonus, here’s a video from YouTube by Girlfriend Reviews, where they detail how a Redditor on r/TheLastofUs2 sent death threats to himself and blamed them for it. The best case ever of incels going fucking crazy over a game and getting caught out. I can’t recommend enough that you watch this, if only to see a beautiful ‘gotcha’ for the incels.

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A Recommendation:

I try recommend a game I figure not everyone has tried and might enjoy on their Steam Deck. I really loved a game called RKGK or Rakugaki. It’s a beautiful, bright and fun 3D platformer – think (to me anyway) a little bit Bomb Rush/Jet Set and a little bit Sunset Overdrive.

A link to the trailer is here, if you want to get a better idea of gameplay – the link is to YouTube

Extremely bright pops of color, a cyberpunkish setting, fast platforming movement, graffiti art, and beautifully fluid character handingly: I really enjoyed this one. It also plays amazingly well on the Steam Deck (link to the ProtonDB page), and is a fun pick-up-and-play game. From the store:

The city is your canvas. Join the rebellious Valah and her RKGK crew to free the neo-brutalist Cap City from evil B Corp’s control. Collect secret treasures, find hidden paths, and light up the cold and grey concrete with your graffiti.

How fast can you go? Chain together jumps, dashes, glides, and grinds. Reach the perfect flow state in Defacer mode – where Valah’s world becomes her animated wonderland. Master routes and speed through levels as you take down Mr. Buff’s cronies with style.

Break through enemies, overload your senses, and take back control. Use Valah’s paint abilities for stylish traversal, chaotic mayhem, and leaving your vibrant mark on every corner of Cap City.

...don’t overthink it, this game is just fun!

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Krysten / Sonic:

Just a cute photo of Krysten Ritter from when she was doing a fan signing even for her new novel. Someone brought along a copy of Shadow the Hedgehog for her to sign (she played Director Rockwell in Sonic 3).

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...annnnnd that's it!

I've always got to emphasize that if there's any errors, be they formatting, spelling or phrasing - they're all my errors (and sorry!). I hope you might find some fun in this, even if it's a 'lighter' version of what I typically share.

Thanks as ever for letting me get away with these rambling posts <3

And don't forget, if you want more of my inane posting, then I'm on Mastodon here:

twitter / nitter

I want to grapple, glide, wall run, etc around a big open world. What are some games you think are fun for that?

I picked up Sunset Overdrive on a sale, and the rail grinding is fine I guess, but it's just not clicking with me.

After four hours with Switch 2, and time with all of its new first-party games, I can see it - though the console's more experimental side is also its weaker. Of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with creating a better version of a hugely-successful console, keeping the main Switch concept of hybrid play intact while improving the elements that needed an upgrade: the Switch 1's aged processing power, its fussy Joy-Con attachments, its basic online social capabilities. With Switch 2 in your hands, you hold a console that can tick off a string of current-gen console standards: 4K, HDR, VRR and 120fps, at least on some titles. And while I'll leave the pixel analysis to Digital Foundry, it is evident just from a quick play with Switch 2's first-party software that Nintendo is now able to feed off of significantly more power under the hood.

Mario Kart World's open landscape is a dramatic revolution for the series - a gamble that I believe pays off, and a new landmark entry that seems likely to rival the huge popularity of Mario Kart 8 Deluxeover Nintendo's last generation. I've written my detailed thoughts on Mario Kart World's brilliance elsewhere. And then there's Donkey Kong Bananza, which ended the Switch 2 Direct in a slot many had expected to be reserved for a long-awaited new 3D Mario, but after some hands-on time actually feels just as exciting.

I ended up playing some more Lethal Company with my friends. This is like a once in a blue moon thing to play with all of them, so i'm always to get a chance to hang out. We did a few more missions on the save from last time. The entire time i ended up staying on Monitor Duty due to some past experience making me ideal. While i was watching the monitor i had this bird thing fly in and land on my head. I called him Steven and he kept me company. We also bought a Romantic Table to keep our TV on after last time.

Sadly we ended up losing the save after failing to meet quota and everyone except me dying. We had the worst luck because everytime i went to go Solo something would show up to stop me. (Void of space pictured above)

Our save after ended up faring a bit better. We had to do a tactical maneuver though after we were evicted by bees from our own ship (the invaders are pictured above). One of our crewmates stole the hive and dragged it in, only for him to die and the bees to swarm their hive again. I was crouching outside waiting for our other crewmate to return to so we could escape. I ended up coming up with the plan for him to run in and hit the escape lever while i drew them out. I was fully expecting to die but somehow lived.

Even better than that though, we found an Air Horn (which everyone promptly regretted letting me have). I held onto it until we ended our game session, but lost it at the last second after dropping it to organize my inventory.