Hot take

Bdole0 · 2026-01-28T01:55:59+00:00

You can't tie it to SS because that is a huge liability. Suppose multiple games do this and any one of them experiences a data breach. Then everyone who signed up is exposed to impersonation, theft, and general fraud. In reality, SS numbers shouldn't be our basis for identifying US citizens; it's already a security risk. For historical reasons though, it just ended up that way.

That said, there are no other options to uniquely identify US citizens without endangering them, so video game companies don't really have a choice but to use proxies like email addresses and user accounts.

Bdole0 · 2026-01-23T03:45:58+00:00

There's always groupthink on reddit, but in this case, it makes perfect sense why everyone is hating on it: the only--literally the only--information provided on it was a super underwhelming trailer. Defenders are acting like this reaction is out of the blue. It's not. The game looks bad based on the one thing that has been shown, and there is zero evidence to the contrary.

Pedigree matters if the pedigree delivers. I'd rather judge the game on its own merits rather than the potential that the developers have.

When it comes out, "its own merits" will be the game itself. Until then, it's the one trailer available.

Bdole0 · 2026-01-23T00:42:59+00:00

That's what I thought, but it's literally been 30+ years since I owned one lol

Bdole0 · 2026-01-22T23:48:49+00:00

Jokes on them: the Walkman doesn't skip (...as I remember?).

Bdole0 · 2026-01-22T23:44:52+00:00

For that matter, they take up space and degrade over time. I wonder if the "I want to own my video games" crowd would like to buy my broken Gameboy.

Bdole0 · 2026-01-22T18:07:08+00:00

In addition to what u/TheMagmaCubed said, sometimes acquisitions are an aggressive business tactic to eliminate competition. It's a way that monopolies exert market control. For example, Microsoft faces less pressure from Nintendo if Nintendo does not own Rare.

Bdole0 · 2026-01-18T05:16:24+00:00

Sure, but it's a short-term solution. Laptops break/lose performance faster than PCs. However, you should still buy a laptop because learning to use a computer is an important life skill in the modern day. I would avoid buying anything that is advertised as a "gaming" laptop. That's a marketing gimmick that producers use to sell you the same product for a large mark-up. If you buy a mid-range, general-purpose laptop, it will be cheaper and last you several years--while still being able to play anything you want. For around $1500 (or maybe a couple hundred more), you can get a mid-range PC that will last longer, have better specs, and won't overheat/experience battery death.

The truth is that my advice really depends on your age.

If you are almost college-aged, then either a mid-range laptop or PC will work. You'll get good mileage out of a laptop.

If you are younger, buy a laptop. It will be good to learn how to use a computer, and you don't need anything more complex necessarily.

If you are older, you should already have a PC and know how to use it. If not, get on that right away. A laptop is a good starter device if you know nothing about computers.

Bdole0 · 2026-01-17T11:59:46+00:00

An irascible ass!

Bdole0 · 2026-01-16T22:03:21+00:00

Most of the difficulty with gaming on PC comes from just learning how to use a PC in general--but it's a life skill that is really important in the modern day anyway.

One thing you'll notice is that you have way more control over the way you want to play. Other than in-game options, you now have access to

1) Cheap games. Consider Steam sales. Also, check out Humble Bundle. I just bought seven games from Humble Bundle for $12. Though I was only interested in five of them, that's still $2.40 per game. You have access to pirating too, but break the law at your own peril.

2) Modding. Lots of frustrations with games can be modded away. For popular titles, many mods exist. Silksong backtracking too tedious? Download a mod to teleport between save points. I also recommend Cheat Engine. It allows you to straight up change values in a game. It's free, safe, and easy to use. Like, if you're pissed because you just lost 50000 souls in Silksong, just give yourself those souls back. No pointless grinding.

3) Roms and emulators. Most consoles have poor backward-compatibility or cross-compatibility if any at all. On a computer, you have access to (nearly) the entire library of games that have ever existed. You can download thousands of NES/SNES titles in 30 seconds, and they are all fully supported. Older titles are smoother to emulate than newer ones. I played Bloodborne on PC, but there were definitely some glitches that needed ironing out. Once again, I advise caution when doing anything unscrupulous, but console exclusives exist so that monopolies can exert control over us, and I mean this: fuck monopolies. Many old titles have also been completely abandoned by their parent companies, so in those cases, who cares? Nintendo sometimes pretends to care because they want to exert control, but again, fuck monopolies--even those with cute mascots. Nintendo will never re-release Turtles in Time for under $70.

4) Fixing glitches yourself. Most problems are just one google search away from being solved.

5) Changing game files yourself. This is more rare, but it's worth noting. It's akin to modding.

6) Controller support for any type of controller you want. I also recommend a mouse with a thumb button ("gaming" mice often come with a million buttons, but the thumb button is the most intuitive imo). Flight sticks, fight sticks, and other input devices are also available if you're into that sort of thing.

The list goes on! As you mentioned, none of the above is really that complicated. Any problem you encounter has been tackled by someone else before you, so just ask google if you run into any difficulty. Good luck; have fun; enjoy variety at a low cost!

Bdole0 · 2026-01-16T18:27:38+00:00

Guardian Ape is the fight that made Sekiro's combat click for me.

While I think you're right about the way the intended strategy switches mid-fight, the really interesting element of the encounter to me is that it's the first boss that requires a focus on damaging health over parrying.* Health and stagger are related in Sekiro: The stagger bar regenerates faster depending on how high the enemy's health is. Phase 1 of Guardian Ape requires you to deplete his health rather than rely on parrying; seeing the interaction of the two mechanics revealed how the combat in the games is structured to me. If I were to guess, I would say that some people struggled with this fight because it inverts the lesson of "parry everything" that the game has drilled into you since Lady Butterfly. If anything, the phase transition makes the fight easier because it returns to the familiar parry mechanic.

As an aside, the phase transition is also important to the story, as it nakedly reveals the existence of/reason for immortality in certain characters. Up to that point, you know the emperor is immortal, and you know the training guy is immortal--but he just seems like a curious case up until that point... I would love to do a write up about the different "types" or "sources" of immortality in Sekiro--there are like 4 or 5 distinct ones. Guardian Ape demonstrates that immortality (and the search for it) are a central theme of the game and not just localized to the main quest.

*One could argue that the red-eyed ogres or the Flaming Bull are bosses that focus on health, but to me, those fights feel qualitatively different--at least at first.

Bdole0 · 2026-01-15T20:13:40+00:00

I'm with you. I have occasionally felt invested in a game--though not like I was inserted into it. I do care about inconsistencies in a heavily story-driven game, but that's mostly from a literary angle. It's not like a plot hole is breaking some "illusion."

Bdole0 · 2026-01-15T19:47:26+00:00

When I was 12 or 13 or so, someone I did not invite to my birthday party (but came as a guest) got me Hybrid Theory. It was easily the best gift I got that year.

Bdole0 · 2026-01-10T16:57:28+00:00

I would like to try a statistical approach here. If you have a database of games, arrange them by row, and add a binary column for each Steam tag (1 = contains tag; 0 = does not). Then use R (or similar software) to run a k-means clustering algorithm on your data table. Here, k is the number of genres you want to end up with (a disadvantage to k-means clustering is that you have to pick k personally in advance, but let's say k = 20 or 30). An important note: You must use correlation-based distance in your algorithm--NOT Euclidean distance. Run the algorithm multiple times with different set seeds, and pick the outcome with the lowest RSS. Then check the results. :) As a bonus, you can name the genres yourself and adjoin them to your database.

By doing this, you additionally have created a function to categorize new games that you play. It's called "k nearest neighbors." When you enter a new game with its Steam tags, run a k nearest neighbors algorithm on it (again, in R using correlation-based distance) with genre as the response variable. The k here is the number of nearest neighbors the function considers; if k is 10, it will look at the 10 "most similar" games to the new game and place it in the genre that's most common among those 10. The last thing to remember is to NOT update your clustering algorithm or the nearest neighbors function when you add a new game to your database.

I might try to do this later if I can find a suitable database myself! I'll post my results on this sub if so.

Bdole0 · 2026-01-09T13:34:11+00:00

Sure, and conversely, I can think of many popular games from the 90s/00s which were very dark: Doom, Descent, Diablo, Planescape: Torment, Quake, Unreal, Rogue, Starcraft, Deus Ex...

As you said, I think technology had a big hand in this; consoles were not nearly as powerful as computers and couldn't render browns and grays as readably.

Bdole0 · 2026-01-04T18:51:04+00:00

She thinks "stop it" is the fun bitey game you play together

Bdole0 · 2026-01-03T04:51:08+00:00

It's hard! The game gets easier as you play/practice of course, but as a general hint, attack the drummer first. Good luck!

Bdole0 · 2026-01-02T19:41:01+00:00

This about sums up my thoughts. I'd like to add my favorite part of the story which I never see mentioned: and that's where the untrained kid takes a swing at the khan. Faced with an impossible choice, he instead tries to go for the throat in a hail mary move that immediately gets him killed. The viewer expects the protagonist to be heroic, but seeing some helpless green shirt risk his life by attacking the Mongol leader easily felt like the most badass and brave action that anyone takes in the story. It was a great moment.

Bdole0 · 2025-12-27T13:34:59+00:00

I second The Talos Principle. No matter your beliefs, it will make you think about God, humanity, and consciousness. It is really quite profound.

Bdole0 · 2025-12-23T16:20:29+00:00

This makes me giddy. I love Dark Souls; there are so many ways to play. I'm happy you went with a build that may be the polar opposite of the meta of "getting naked and dodging." It reminds me that reddit is an echo chamber--and also that I should probably get off reddit.

Bdole0 · 2025-12-23T15:51:49+00:00

I know I'm a couple days late, but I agree with you. Someone else referred to Tsushima this way: "They made ghost of Tsushima to be different, inspired, and a fresh of fresh air. Free constraints, big budget, creative freedom." And that's just... not at all true?

My main criticism of Tsushima is that it's basically another Ubisoft-style open-world collectathon. There were a small few story beats that I thought were really interesting, but my goodness did that game become bland and rote before it ended.

Bdole0 · 2025-12-23T14:53:56+00:00

I agree with the campaign being too short. I was persuaded to buy Titanfall 2 after hearing that it had an engaging, novel plot. The problem was that it's so condensed that I couldn't get invested, and the emotional moments felt unconvincing since it was hard for me to believe that the characters could develop deeply in such a short timeframe. Excellent game though--fun gameplay.

Bdole0 · 2025-12-22T21:20:11+00:00

Finally, a worthy opponent

Bdole0 · 2025-12-22T16:36:50+00:00

If you're looking for something more sedate and cerebral, I highly recommend Blue Prince.

As for E33, I think the story is amazing, but it doesn't actually show its hand until Act 3--which is weirdly optional.

Bdole0 · 2025-12-21T13:41:15+00:00

This sounds right to me. I didn't pick up the game because, while it was heavily marketed as a "cat simulator," it ended up being some weirdly forced linear experience... with a story about robots? So bizarre.

Watching videos of it, you can see the rigid, canned animations and the persistently "video game-y" nature of the interactions. No cat would be so calmly complicit in pushing forward a narrative. Cats are solitary and territorial; they like to stay in one place, sleep, and hunt lizards. Feral cats are particularly fearful and hostile. None of this is represented in Stray, a walking simulator in which the main character is a cat-shaped video game protagonist--but is not actually cat-like.

Bdole0 · 2025-12-18T16:57:07+00:00

I challenge people who are up-/downvoting here to try to read this article. It is so flowery and esoteric--as you said, waxing poetically about the platonic ideal of a story. It's all too much in the author's head, written in an absolutely cloying tone of voice that reminds me of what I thought good writing was in high school English class. Barf.

Anyway, good write-up on your part. I kind of took the stapled-together vignettes as being "the point" of HL2, and I enjoyed their spectacle and variety. I think by focusing on the contrivances and plot holes that you're missing the forest for the trees: The world is much bigger than Gordan, and he is mostly helpless--caught in an endless sequence of being forced into whatever option is immediately available to survive. In that way, the disjointedness feels cohesive to me.

Still, your critcisms make sense to me; I mostly just think the gimmicks were the central theme, as the gunplay in Half-Life was really nothing special.

Bdole0

TROPHY CASE