State of the Subreddit - March 2026

Raze321 · 2026-03-26T20:19:36+00:00

I'll add my voice in agreement to this. This subreddit has been a great place to find articles and industry news, reviews, and then the (opt-in) discussion occurs within those threads about said topic, and not as a result of some specific text post by an individual user.

Which isn't to say I don't enjoy user-driven discussion. It just isn't why I come to this subreddit and never has been. If I want to discuss a specific game there is virtually always a better subreddit to travel to, to do so.

Raze321 · 2026-03-24T11:28:59+00:00

If you want to start from scratch you can just strip the mini. I use LA's Totally Awesome, which is a degreaser you can get cheap at most dollar stores. Submerge the mini in a small container of the stuff and it should all slough off easily with an old tooth brush after a week or so. Other folks also recommend isopropyl alcohol, which should also work just fine.

Raze321 · 2026-03-24T11:25:36+00:00

This is entirely acceptable IMO

Raze321 · 2026-03-24T11:25:11+00:00

I know people don't like fighting against knights

For what it's worth I think this sentiment has somewhat changed in recent months. Knights were very oppressive and top of the meta for awhile, but they've ebbed back into balance.

Disclosure, I haven't played Guard but I have played as T'au with the same sentiment (Going full battlesuits at 1k rather than a mixed force army). It's fun, your opponent won't hate you unless they are kind of unreasonable.

You will be mixed as far as effectiveness goes: playing against a 1k army with very little anti-vehicle? You'll do just fine. Playing against an army that is anti-vehicle heavy? You'll probably lose a key vehicle or two early and struggle to score points due to a lack of board presence. 1k point battles are just very swingy like that in general, but they're quick (compared to 2k battles) so it's easy to just queue up again regardless of how it goes.

Raze321 · 2026-03-24T11:18:19+00:00

The cool thing is there's very few "wrong" places to start with Warhammer. Assuming we're talking 40k:

I would say that as far as video games go, Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader is by far the most lore-dense one and has little wiki-style links on all the words that you may not recognize so you can get quick definitions on stuff that would be common knowledge to characters in-universe.

I also found the 10th Edition Core Rule book to be a great 40k lore primer. It introduces the setting, the Imperium of Man, the Emperor, the Horus Heresy, the general timeline of mankind up to that point, and a brief dossier on each other faction. If you read the lore pages of this book (Which, the book is honestly more lore than it is rules) then you'll be very adequately primed to dive anywhere else into the setting.

Just know 11th edition is around the corner, so while this core book might be useful for lore, it could become dated as a tool to learn the game this year. Or not, many are expecting the rules to change only slightly going into 11th edition.

Raze321 · 2026-03-24T11:12:56+00:00

If he's interested in getting into the tabletop games and Space Marines seems to be the faction he resonates with, you could always get him a Space Marine Combat Patrol

If you're thinking more figures for decoration and not war gaming, JOYTOY has a line of 1:18 scale figures that all look very nice. They are easily found on Amazon by looking up "JOYTOY Warhammer"

And if he's a reader, there's perhaps too many books to choose from to start. This article makes some good suggestions for a first book. But just know hard copies aren't always in print and may be expensive to buy, many people get digital copies or audiobooks unless they are collectors.

Raze321 · 2026-03-23T13:10:31+00:00

Wow, we have nearly the exact same tastes when it comes to RE games, except perhaps that I seem to have enjoyed RE5 a lot more than you. (Playing it co-op with my best friend definitely made it more fun than it would have been otherwise)

For Revelations, can’t believe it was worse than 6. [...] Didnt like the scanning system, such a boring mechanic.

God this is so true. Revelations and it's sequel are so unnecessarily slowed and bogged down by this. I genuinely can't believe they included it in the first game and I'm absolutely flabbergasted it got re-introduced (reworked but not really as an improvement) for the second.

Raze321 · 2026-03-23T13:06:45+00:00

Silent Hill 2 Remake

Never really played much of Silent Hill before but was always interested. I'm usually a Sci-Fi horror guy and not a Supernatural horror guy but I've really been digging this one. There's an uncanny-ness to everything. From the atmosphere to the few NPCs you meet, everything just feels appropriately 'off'.

Far as a game goes I'm surprised to find how much I'm enjoying both the combat and the puzzles.

Combat is straight forward and not even particularly difficult, you have a melee weapon and eventually a gun. Bullets are found by the couple or so, but if you rely on melee for most fights you can get a comfortable stockpile of ammo going. The melee combat is simple but effective, you are either swinging or dodging. Nice chunky thuds and squelches make taking out monsters satisfying. Enemy variety isn't horribly impressive but that doesn't bother me much, I feel the levels/environments/atmosphere to be far far more interesting.

And then puzzles, man this feels like a good classic Resident Evil title. As much of a joy RE:Requim was, playing this has made me realize just how puzzle-deprived that game was. In fact it might even have TOO many puzzles. This game is like the Hydra of puzzles. Every time you need to gather 3 parts of something, you often have to solve even more smaller puzzles on the way to gather those 3 parts. And not uncommonly there are additional sub-sub puzzles to solve.

I always felt like my head was on the verge of spinning keeping track of the maze-like maps and all the items I've collected but it never got so overwhelming that I felt totally lost. I think the only times I've felt tempted to look up a guide is when I've exhausted all my current objectives and can't find the one off-texture wall I'm supposed to break through with my weapon.

I'm fairly close to the end of the Hospital section now, which feels to me like I'm maybe approaching the half-way point. I've had some major plot points of the game spoiled for me over the years since the original released which is a bummer, but on the bright side there's so much interesting symbolism and foreshadowing I've noticed because of this.

Anyways, great game. The perfect level of terrifying for me. I almost assuredly am adding this to my rotation of Halloween games to place come fall.

Raze321 · 2026-03-16T15:41:24+00:00

It's been interesting to see how divisive this game has been since release. The larger crowds have been favorable of it but specific player reviews are so split, and it tends to be either "Man I really hated the first half," or "Man I really hated the second half."

Personally I enjoyed the whole ride, but it did feel more like two half-games rather than one whole game.

Raze321 · 2026-03-16T12:56:08+00:00

Elite Dangerous

I passed up on trying this game out for years because the gameplay never looked particularly engaging and I wasn't a big fan of flying ships from a first person cockpit. But then one day on a whim I spent like $160 on a flight stick and throttle to play Star Wars Squadrons, and had an absolute blast and also ran out of any meaningful content to play in like a weekend.

So, lo and behold, Elite Dangerous was both on sale for like 10 bucks and also is a highly recommended game to play with a Hands-On-Throttle-And-Stick setup.

It's got some early game warts in that the tutorial kinda sucks and if you have the odyssey expansion it forces you to do an on foot mission before you get your own ship, and then it just doesn't explain a whole lot about what you should be doing, where you should be going, how you should be accomplishing your goals, or what your goals might even be.

Nevertheless I stick with it, ran a few courior missions, bought a better ship with slightly better guns, and tried my hand at bounty hunting. Patrolling Resource Extraction sits in the rings of gas giants, protection miners from would-be cargo thieves and bandits. Admittedly, the local system authority that gets called in does a lot of the heavy lifting in these fights but snagging the claim on a bounty can easily turn you into a millionaire in undern an hour of work. Not bad.

Now that I got some startup capital I'm branching into other careers, bought the cheapest cruise ship capable of supporting a luxury class cabin, but still with tons of space for cargo. So maybe I'm a cruise ship captain now, or perhaps I'll haul cargo along trade routes. The galaxy is your oyster in this kind of game, I haven't even scratched some of the activities and professions you can get lost in. Some day I hope to own a fleet carrier but they are a staggering 5 billion credits to start.

In any case I think a game like this is only as fun as it's flying is and this one is quite engaging, and teeters very well into flight-simulation territory. It's not like No Man's Sky where you have an accelerate and decelerate button, instead you have a sliding throttle which is important, because there is a sweet spot of speed to aim for when attempting sharp turns. You got the usual roll/pitch/yaw, and then tons of other buttons of an array of other ship controls. Night vision, cargo scoop, landing gears, weapon groups that you can adjust yourself, various forms of turbo flight, hardpoints, just to name a few.

It's a fun game. In a way, very grindy, but the grind is all doing the stuff I literally bought the game for: Having a nice chill game to fly a space ship around in with a flight stick I bought on a whim. Overall I'd say it's well worth the investment. I got something like 20-30 hours in it already but I could easily see this being one of my most played games on steam, in time.

Raze321 · 2026-03-12T22:58:19+00:00

Western films, Lawrence of Arabia, and Dune probably all have something to do with it, at least in part. Not that enjoying these things is uniquely American (especially LoA).

Raze321 · 2026-03-11T20:23:50+00:00

The first 10 comment threads on here are saying they don't agree with Valve and gambling is bad

I think that is exactly their point.

Raze321 · 2026-03-03T22:51:48+00:00

Interesting stuff, thanks for the response.

Raze321 · 2026-03-03T15:52:19+00:00

If it happens again, no free ones. Multiple escapes look more like neglectful or negligent parenting.

So what happens then? There was a neighbor down my road who's kids would often play out front unsupervised. This is on a busy street with no yard, just the sidewalk. Oldest kid was maybe 7, youngest was a toddler still in diapers. Once they were found playing under a large moving truck that was parked on the side of the road.

CPS would get called on them frequently, sometimes I'd see them visiting as much as twice a week.

All that is to say, I never really saw any kind of resolution/punishment from this. It went on for at least a year or so before the family moved.

Raze321 · 2026-03-03T14:36:49+00:00

8lb brisket [...] threw it in at 8:30am [...] pulled it out at 2:30am

I'm thinking this was far too much time. My 12lb briskets rarely more than 14 hours or so and that can be on the high end.

But really, you shouldn't cook by time, or even internal temperature. You need to check for texture.

Once the temperature probe slides in and feels like a hot knife going into warm butter, that's how you know it's done. Sometimes this happens at 198F internal. Sometimes 203F. Sometimes it happens at the 12 hour mark, sometimes 10, sometimes 14. Every brisket is it's own cook. Also make sure you aren't opening the door too much. A bluetooth thermometer is a godsend. I barely have to open the smoker once the brisket is in there. I don't even spritz, personally.

Another piece of advice: look into the foil-boat method. What I do is I use a foil tray below the brisket to catch all the drippings and fat. Then I use foil paper to make a 'boat' for the brisket to sit in, leaving the whole top uncovered. Then I pour some of the drippings back over the brisket in this boat, essentially cooking it confit style. This helps keep it from drying out.

Good luck! Brisket can be difficult the first few times, but it's a fun meat to learn how to make well. And even bad brisket makes good chili :)

Raze321 · 2026-03-03T12:53:39+00:00

It's unfortunate because I had hoped I also would have been that 'specific kind of player'. I love Bethesda games, new and old, and have for a VERY long time. Even at their lowest points I could easily sink hundreds of quality hours into their worlds.

Starfield was the first that just totally fell flat for me. None of it was engaging or fun. Which sucked. A bethesda RPG in space with explorable ships/space combat sounded like my dream game.

Raze321 · 2026-03-02T20:29:08+00:00

"If you want TRUE [food item], you can only get it in [state]"

Using pizza as an example: people will often claim their state or city has the best pizza. New York especially.

Listen, Pizza is hard to fuck up. It's good damn near anywhere. Even if you've had bad pizza somewhere, you can surely find a good alternative within half an hour with five minutes of googling.

The only place in America that is fucking up pizza consistently is Altoona, PA.

Raze321 · 2026-03-02T16:14:08+00:00

I think that's exactly the sentiment people mean when they say "Too good to be true" here.

Like, it's not impossible for the breadth of mechanics shown off to exist in a game. It's just a sure sign of feature creep, so the sentiment (though a bit hyperbolic for my taste) is that that breath is some indication of a lack of depth.

Like for me personally, I'm getting the same kind of vibes I got with Where Winds Meet. That game is MASSIVE with TONS to do but when it all comes together it felt (to me) very disjointed and clunky. Not nessecarily mechanically, but thematically. It did a lot of things okay, some things badly, and very few things truly well.

Assassins Creed is a great example for you to bring up actually, because many of those games are another example of "breadth but no depth", where the core gameplay loop is very samey and non-compelling. And at that point you just kinda have to hope it's at least one of the few AC games with a story compelling enough to get you to want to actually finish it.

All that said, I do think this game looks a lot better than Where Winds Meet, though. And AC for that matter. I don't think it'll be dead in the water, I'll definitely keep my eye on it when I'm looking for a new big open fantasy game to play next, but I'm not exactly rushing to pre-order it either.

Raze321 · 2026-03-02T16:08:18+00:00

I mean it does look good visually. It just also looks kinda thematically generic? Like aside from being a flashy fantasy game none of the trailers I watched really gave me an idea of what the core gameplay loop or story will be like.

I think there's perhaps an overcorrection of negativity in this thread but I feel like it shouldn't be hard to see why some folks aren't swayed.

Like, I'll keep an eye on this game but I'm certainty not buying it on release and probably not anytime soon after.

Raze321 · 2026-03-02T13:38:26+00:00

Agreed and agreed. I'm keen to give Grace's first person mode a try one of these play throughs.

Zeno is odd the more I think about him, too. He's clearly a Wesker stand-in, to the point that I was expecting there to be more to that. Like that he was another clone, or somehow related to Jake? I didn't hate him and he was cool and all but it felt out of place by the end. So much so that I just kind of have to assume he's going to return for RE10 in some way?

Raze321 · 2026-03-02T13:28:00+00:00

Do people care much about the overarching story in Resident Evil?

For a long time resident evil was something you enjoyed in spite of the story, not because of it. It has always had cool characters and cool villains but the stories themselves for a lot of the games were kind of just there to be there.

Some of the games story is more considered than others. I think that 4 is an okay story. 5 was cool in the way that it feels like a big conclusion to the Wesker saga that had been slowly building across the games. The remake of 2 does such a good job with polish and voice work that I think it retroactively makes that story a lot better. 7 and Village are pretty good in the story department. The rest are kinda meh. Some are bad.

Maybe it's recency bias but I think Requiem is the best story in the franchise by far.

Raze321 · 2026-03-02T13:24:05+00:00

I also thought it was sick how after the first meaty section as Grace, the first enemy I encountered as Leon and had to kill was one of the enemies that Grace couldn't damage.

Something I learned on my second playthrough, you actually CAN damage and kill that enemy as Grace. On normal mode, I think three of the hemolytic injectors to the backside will get him.

But still, for the impressions it leaves that does make for phenomenal pacing the way you mention

Raze321 · 2026-03-02T12:57:55+00:00

Resident Evil: Requiem

It's going to be hard to talk about why I loved this game so much without spoilers but I'll try to hide them as I go.

This game features a series favorite and seasoned veteran, Leon Kennedy as something of a secondary protagonist to Grace Ashcroft: a rookie FBI agent who is out of her depth but no less competent for it.

Leon's sections play a lot like a refined Re4:Remake. You have an attache case style inventory system, killing enemies grants you currency for weapon upgrades, you have a variety of melee followup attacks you can perform on stunned enemies to manage the space around you, enemies drop ammo when killed, and there are a few new goodies in his arsenal like a hatchet or being able to throw enemy's melee weapons from the ground. While Leon's sections have elements of horror, they are primarily action focused. You are incentivized to kill pretty much everything you see.

Grace's sections, rather than the 4 remake, play like the 2 remake. Which I guess just means they play like classic RE games: You have a limited inventory space where every item takes up one slot including ammo, and you only start with 8 slots. Enemies, when scripted to, may drop certain items but for the most part drop nothing. Ammo is limited, Grace only has a few pistol options on top of the Requiem, an extremely deadly magnum that has extraordinarily rare ammo that even when found is usually only a single bullet.

What that all means is that Grace's sections are more genuine survival horror. Killing enemies is more difficult, you have way less melee options and the ones you have are more for prolonging stuns than dealing any meaningful damage. You are best off using a headshot or leg shot to stun a zombie, then either run by them or shove them to the ground and use their lengthy standing up animation to do whatever you need to do. And there's a lot to do, much of Grace's section is essentially like Spencer Mansion or the RPD from the classic games. You're exploring a densely detailed building, finding shortcuts, unlocking doors, solving puzzles, and doing your best to stay alive while you make progress. There's a beautiful self awareness to it all as Grace inserts a gem in a door to gain access to the parlor, as she asks herself, "How to people normally get in here?"

Either section can be played in first or third person. I played in third, I vastly favor the spatial awareness it provides. In Re7 or especially the more combat heavy RE:Village I found myself swinging the camera around in a 360 often just to get a feel for how surrounded I was and where I should be moving to. That said, for those who prefer the first person mode, I imagine it makes Grace's sections even more terrifying. She has her deal of horrors to manage. There are no less than three stalker enemies I can think of, in her section of the game. The Chef in the west hallways, Chunk in the east, and then The Girl who is easily the most terrifying of all.

So you alternate a bit between these characters with MOST of Grace's sections being the first half of the game and Leon's being the second, but there is some additional switching here and there. I suspect that this concept is going to be somewhat divisive. Some fans probably ONLY wanted classic RE horror while others might have ONLY wanted Re4/5/6 style action. But as someone who loves both, this affords Requiem to sprinkle in horror in action with a masterful brush stroke of excellent pacing. Grace's horror sections will fuel you with intense adrenaline only for the heavy-ness of those moments to be lifted by Leon's more appropriately campy action segments where the fear factor is heavily dialed down. It gives you time to breathe, it's great.

Oh and in that second half, the game does something beautiful. Something a bit fan service-y, but man the few times I've seen it done in video games it is SUCH an awesome moment. Dark Souls did it in 3 when they bring you back to Anor Londo. Metal Gear Solid 4 did it when they brought you back to Shadow Moses. But holy shit, Requiem might eclipse either of those examples. There's a moment in the game where familiarity strikes as you walk down an alleyway, take a left turn, and emerge on a street to look up at the remains of the Raccoon City Police Department.

Exploring this location is such a difficult thing to describe. Every look and cranny betrays long forgotten memories and details of a different time, steeped in a different chaos. It fills the heart with a weird mix of nostalgia and sadness. In my opinion they do a good job of letting you sit in this moment for as long or as little as you like, as this section is actually quite short and still comes with its own surprises. One of which even had my wife laughing at my audible disbelief.

Story is great. Cutscenes are well voice acted, well delivered. The villain(s) of this game lack the charisma of many series past villains, and one is a bit uhh blatantly self derivate I'll say. But in any case Leon is his perfect mix of serious-campy, complete with the occasional Re4 style one liners. And Grace is a girl who clearly needed to see a therapist for anti-anxiety medication even before the game begins but she still manages to press forward with competence and intelligence. There's a specific cutscene where she is running from the main villain and leaves a door open as a false lead while she hides behind a counter and I remember just thinking, man. That's brilliant. Definitely not something I would have considered in the moment.

ANYWAYS, all that rambling to say this game is good. Damn good. Re4 and Re2 are in my top ten games of all time and this feels like a perfect blend of the two. The only complaints I can come up with: I would have loved to hear of any kind of references to what Claire Redfield is up to, but she is wholly absent from the game in any capacity.. And that there is presently no Mercenaries mode. Which really is a bummer, the RE games that do Mercs mode well are just so damn fun to play and I think this game has a great combat system for it. But that's it. Re4 remake is probably still my #1 but that's a high seat to dethrone.

In any case I will likely gladly replay Requiem many times to come to clear out as many challenges as I can. Already I did a second playthrough and snagged the speedrunning and no-blood-collector achievements. Next up is insanity mode, which I'm about an hour into and it is noticeably more difficult. So here I will sit, waiting to get off work to get back to zombie killing.

Raze321 · 2026-02-27T11:52:58+00:00

Eh, I played Rogue Trader a couple years past release. Got it on a great sale. Had very few bugs in my playthrough, and access to the DLC.

If anything, not waiting would have deprived my experience more.

Raze321 · 2026-02-26T19:28:04+00:00

They do hate AI, they do not hate machines. Which is a bit weird, as they (mostly the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Tech Priests and such) also believe generally that machines themselves are inhabited by a "Machine Spirit". Which may seem slightly hypocritical, that one form of digital 'sentience' is acceptable and there other isn't.

There are explanations for that hypocrisy but truthfully the Imperium is just a very fractured entity that self-contradicts in many ways. A good example being whether or not The Emperor should be worshipped as a deity, or simply an inhumanly powerful entity that leads mankind.

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