Latest 30 Comments

£70/€80 is way too much for the base game of Death Stranding 2. That's $95; although European customers are subsidising US customers because they're only charging $70 in the US. £50/€60 would still be an expensive game, but not insane.

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Oh hey, Calico, I've been meaning to check that out.

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Quoting: Platanito@ID:3486;Arehandoro actually they were responsible of the last two Metroid games for Nintendo, which are quite good IMO, specially Metroid Dread.
Regarding the EGS exclusivity, I agree it was not a good commercial decision, but I guess it was 505 games rather than MercurySteam the ones who made that call. Anyway, the game seems like a spiritual successor of their classic Blade of Darkness, so I'm really interested on this one.

Actually, you're right, I forgot about Metroid Dread and really loved that one! Oh, Blade of Darkness, that was a real gem and so advanced for its time too.

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Meh, wake me when it comes to GOG.

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Quoting: axredneck

Quoting: Stella...the currently most widely known screensaver program, XScreensaver, works only in x11

Afaik most recent version works on Wayland.

oh that's really cool! I gotta check it out again

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Gothic 1 is very dear to me - the fact that one part of my nick is named after a NPC in this game I think speaks for itself. I was young, a few years into my primary school and although I was already quite good with English, I still struggled to play RPG games. I found their systems difficult to understand and kept getting my ass handed to me. So, the classics I played like the first two Fallouts or Might and Magic games were all games I *played* but never *finished*. Gothic was the first one that I actually completed. Thanks to easy systems - just two attributes! - and no shenanigans like "first-person view but you're actually 4 people" and thanks to the overall very immersive design I was finally able to just play and enjoy.

Which is funny because nowadays, the Gothic games have somewhat of a reputation for being difficult, partly due to weird controls and partly due to mercilessly difficult fights when you have a character with no learned skills and no equipment. I don't really remember having too much problems in the beginning. When I got told to watch out for the wolves in the forest, and when I immediately died to them, I simply learned to avoid the forests and to heed any further warnings :)

Gothic also killed Morrowind for me. When I finally got my hands on it later (Bethesda would never strike a deal with the gaming magazines over here, so it took years for me to get) and saw how the combat actually looked and worked, I bounced off immediately.

But to get back on the topic of the remake - I'm personally skeptical. It became more and more apparent as time went on that the first two Gothic games captured lightning in a bottle. To this day, it's still immersive in ways that most modern games do not understand. Piranha Bytes themselves struggled to capture the magic of the first two games while also utilizing modern mechanics that they thought gamers wanted for the rest of their career. They never did. So the odds are quite stacked against the remake. Thankfully, even if the remake turns out to be bad, I can look forward to the update on Archolos instead.

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@ID:3486;Arehandoro actually they were responsible of the last two Metroid games for Nintendo, which are quite good IMO, specially Metroid Dread.
Regarding the EGS exclusivity, I agree it was not a good commercial decision, but I guess it was 505 games rather than MercurySteam the ones who made that call. Anyway, the game seems like a spiritual successor of their classic Blade of Darkness, so I'm really interested on this one.

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MercurySteam hasn't been able to ace a game since the first Castlevania 3D they did. The game didn't great the best reviews on Spanish websites, so not sure if I'll give it a go.

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I don't need 1431 games on Itch.io, so I might just donate directly instead 😊

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I am beginning to worry about how many charity bundles there have been lately.

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Hyyyype!

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Great opportunity for me to grab some more Android games, as odd as that may sound. 😅

Quoting: SakuretsuAbsolutely based.

Almost certainly all based.

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Quoting: soulsourceTell that to my boss... We have to usesuffer Discord at work...

Just out of curiosity, how old is your boss?

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Quoting: Hamish1999 (my fifth birthday)

None of my business of course, but as I see this...

All those games and systems are not your own good olde times? What made you investigate them so deeply?

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Quoting: amataiShouldn't we call it WFCE then ?

I know it's not correct but, I now pronounce Xfce (in my head) as "X Face". Later, I'll be pronoucing it "X Fowl".

The owl eats the mouse.

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Quoting: JarmerAbsolutely love what S76 is doing with Cosmic. 🥰

Right now, a lot of people say "pick gnome or plasma" when installing distros and I can see a future a few years out where cosmic replaces gnome in that sentence.

⚰️RIP 🐭Xfce 😖
I remember when that was a notable third choice. It's not completely dead, just outshined.

That said, I have to admit that I am getting pretty hyped about Cosmic DE and hope to see it as a frequent third option.

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Your character walks along the top of the screen

Okay but, do I have to be that guy? Let me be a penguin or at least not look like that. 😖 lol

Just don't expect your makeshift arsenal to last forever.

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Quoting: GustyGhost

Second chart, 83% PC

GDC guilty of naively using "PC" to refer to Windows. To me, PC envelopes all Linux + Windows + Mac.

So if you include the 17% Mac and 6% Linux, PC as a platform is even more dominant than it first appears.

Good point. I read it as what it literally said, "personal computer". As in, any desktop or gaming class laptop opposed to android/other mobile devices, cloud-first(?), VR, or console platforms. I think it's vague and misleading as I would have selected PC despite my only focus being GNU/Linux primarily and Steam Deck secondarily (because dock it with a larger screen, kb+m :P)

I likw that the Deck is higher than Switch but, I wonder if that's also because it's easier. Ensure it works with Proton and check whatever boxes necessary. Nintendont hardware is something completely different.

It's funny that the top 5 outreach methods do not apply to me. Aside from GOL's Telegram and the 64 Sprites XMPP MUC, if those count because they're mostly a bunch of nerds talking about gaming adject things and/or a copy of the newsletter.
In person events would be awesome but, I haven't gone to any. Not for any particular reason.

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Quoting: Corben

Quoting: Tares

Quoting: ChrisznixI was always too old for discord, it was too confusing for me. I missed the magic of early IRC channels or BBS/Forum stuff.

My thoughts exactly. I wish IRC would come back.

IRC was never gone... it's now libera.chat after the freenode takeover.

Also:
https://xkcd.com/1782/

Thanks for the laugh.

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WScreenSaver? 😸😸😸

Also, yes. There are plenty of other Ubuntu based distros. I think it's time to switch to LMDE as the main. Along with Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce "leafs", plus a well polished WM -- Sway maybe?.

Sway, or perhaps another window manager, fully set up, inherently lightweight in comparison to the others, that shouldn't mean it's barebones and takes all day just to customize. Use Arch or Gentoo for that. lol. Even if it's suboptimal, it ought to be snazzy, fun, and complete.

I want [LMDE] to look and feel unique. I want a solid, beautiful, cohesive desktop experience. I'd rather them focus on making those really awesome and let Linux Mint be even more so its own thing.

Perhaps, dropping the Ubuntu base after this current LTS cycle, we could get annual LMDE releases.

I haven't used those DEs in a long time but, for me over the last several years, one of the most important things is being on a new KDE/Qt base. There have been so many changes and improvements! With Debian Unstable being rolling, maybe they could aim to round up good snapshots of Cinnamon and MATE for when they decide to release a new LMDE. I don't see any particular reason why it has to be X month of every year or every other year. I'd be happy to upgrade a couple weeks after release, in any season.

What would be funny is to look at the biggest native habitat of mint plants to determine when they peak then put out a new release then. 😹

Side note, I was just thinking earlier that it's nide to see posts here that aren't specifically about games.

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D2R is the only non-Steam game I play. I don't really love the price, but at the same time, I see people who claim to have played the game for hundreds or thousands of hours complaining about it... Seems nuts to me. And I want to send the message that Steam is the way to go. Also, since there is no Blizzard.net launcher, that alone makes this appealing. And it apparently runs better on Steam Deck, now (seemed to run well enough for me before, though).

I don't know if I could still play it online with people using the base game from Battle.net, or if they'd have to buy the expansion, or if they'd have to buy the entire Steam version.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyWell, overall, it kind of is. But French speaking in Canada is really quite geographically concentrated--masses in Quebec which has a large population, a couple of other enclaves like the Acadians, pretty much none everywhere else.

I would not say they are unheard of out here, but more as one ethnolinguistic minority among many. Alberta has the highest proportion of Métis in the country for instance, who of course have heavy French ancestry and influence.

A great deal of the towns and villages here also still have French names due to early Francophone settlement. My favourite example is Vegreville, which of course is now far more associated with its Ukrainian population, what with the giant pysanka and all.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyThe big AI firms do have some revenue, but far, far less than their operating expenses, certainly nothing like enough to pay back their debts.

good point, i often forget about the operating expense. Maybe this time it will crash ? I still believe those data centers will exist to perform yet even more short-lived grifts & ofc Ai isn't going away. However if the economic effects are profound as usual i expect we will see privatize the gains socialize the losses situation. Leaving the bag holders & the public to pick up the pieces.

Lets hope for a return to normal soon.

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Quoting: AustinPowersICE must be melted and evaporated!

Hear, hear!

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Quoting: gbudnyThat's interesting.
I thought French was more popular in Canada because many native French-speaking people live there.

Well, overall, it kind of is. But French speaking in Canada is really quite geographically concentrated--masses in Quebec which has a large population, a couple of other enclaves like the Acadians, pretty much none everywhere else. That said, in British Columbia where I live, school programs offering French immersion are quite popular . . . but North American language teaching just doesn't seem to be as effective as, say, European language teaching. I don't think most of those French immersion kids end up fluent in French once they've been out of school a few years.

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Quoting: Lofty

Quoting: ZlopezLet's hope the bubble around AI will burst soon.

Im not sure it's a bubble like the dot.com or 2008 housing crash. This is a different thing entirely. Im not sure a crash would occur in the same way.

I think it is very similar, actually . . . sort of to both of them combined. The dotcom crash happened when a whole bunch of high-flying internet startups, which had been handed a whole bunch of venture capitalist investment and whose stock prices had risen very high, turned out to have no prospects of making any money, at which point the stock prices crashed, the companies went bankrupt, and they never paid back the money. The big AI firms do have some revenue, but far, far less than their operating expenses, certainly nothing like enough to pay back their debts. When the optimistic "animal spirits" of the investors give way to the fear that maybe there might not be any more "greater fools" to flip the stock to, they will start to sell, stock prices will tank, and lenders will refuse to lend more money. The companies will go bankrupt, and they will never pay back the massive amounts of money that have been invested in them.

So far, so just like the dotcom crash. However, it is far bigger than the dotcom bubble, and the investment in it has involved a lot of clever dodgy financial shenanigans, which probably involve a lot of leverage. When these go south, the impact will be magnified and wreak havoc in balance sheets of a lot of apparently unrelated places, like the 2008 crash. The fallout will probably bring down crypto and may crash property again, and between all that a whole lot of financial institutions will be deeply vulnerable.

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Quoting: CorbenI hope Valve will improve the Steam VR experience, maybe they did in the meantime.

Im fairly sure for the complete novice anything is better than the current dumpster fire landscape that is VR.

even your post is quite revealing no ?

WayVR
Envision
Monado
XRizer
OpenComposite

and all sorts of tweaking , software settings & correct vulkan , rust versions & so on.. and that above does not include half a dozen other jargon terms in relation to VR to bamboozle the user. let alone installation of lighthouses with valve or requiring meta accounts.

But for VR to be a total success ? :

Step 1. Press play on Steam game with wireless dongle connected.
Step 2. Place battery charged headset on & pick up controllers.

Step 3. Play game.

if that is what valve achieve with the frame, then it will be a success imo.

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EGS Exclusive = doesn't exist [to me]

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Quoting: gbudnyThat's interesting. I thought French was more popular in Canada because many native French-speaking people live there.

Most of the Francophone population across the country are fluently bilingual, meaning that they often just blend in with the Anglophone majority, outside of certain regions of Quebec and what once was Acadia in parts of the Maritime provinces.

Our federal institutions are obligated to provide services in French, and commercial packaging bears both French and English labels (what I like to call "cereal box French"), but beyond that you would be hard pressed to ever need to learn or use French in Alberta where I live.

Quoting: HamishMaybe you should contact Sleepless and ask about the Linux version of Inner Worlds. I don't think they have a CD, but maybe they could help you obtain the archive for your article. I didn't ask them about it.

The MS DOS version of Inner Worlds was made explicitly freeware, and the Linux version has been found and distributed on the Internet Archive, but I do intend to try and get in touch with Sleepless Software at some point to clarify the legal status of this before I would cover the game for an article.

Quoting: HamishCan you share your opinion on the license for LinCycles for Linux? The README file mentions payments and the availability of the source code for an old version. I'm not sure if it was a commercial title that was re-released as freeware because one of the comments from an author is odd.

Loading up the binary distributed from old SunSITE archives displays the following message:
"LinCycles v2.1unreg by Oliver Richman.
(C) Copyright 1996 Five Wheel Horse Software.

This program is Shareware! The trial period is 30 days.
If you like LinCycles, then please register it. For only $5,
we will send you the registered version of LinCycles, plus our
nifty FWH software catalogue! Source code for all programs are
available. (see the read.me file for more information).
PLEASE REGISTER LINCYCLES! ALSO ASK ABOUT OUR REALLY COOL PDSOFTWARE CATALOG!"

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I'm going to expose my silliness here but I'm assuming all the "physical" games are going to need to be printed.

*looks at his color laser printer in sympathy*

I mean, it would be amazing to have a huge delivery with boxes of games.

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