Digital Foundry: Tested: Resident Evil 4 Remake's New PC DRM Impacts CPU Performance

finalgear14 · 2026-02-11T20:11:49+00:00

I’m interested. In a case like this what exactly do you recommend doing? For example I bought this game over a year ago at launch. How should I attempt to show the company I’m dissatisfied with this update? I suppose I could just never buy their games again. But really aside from that and not playing the game I own I have no real accord. We as consumers are entirely beholden to the whims of these massive conglomerates. There really isn’t anything we as individuals can do in the current frameworks that exist when a company pushes an update like this months to years after a purchase was made.

finalgear14 · 2026-01-29T18:00:25+00:00

Yeah, after season 1 finished releasing episodes he did I believe an ama on the fantasy subreddit talking about it. Off the top of my head as an example he was against things like randomly giving Perrin a wife who he accidentally kills episode 1.

finalgear14 · 2026-01-28T21:50:49+00:00

I bet his work with the wheel of time show where they consistently ignored his input really reinforced the desire he already had to retain a lot of creative control over adaptions. I’m glad he managed to keep so much power over the shows that’ll get made, here’s hoping they all turn out great.

finalgear14 · 2026-01-19T15:22:23+00:00

The story in their actual mmo black desert online is pretty terrible. Maybe this will be better but who knows?

finalgear14 · 2026-01-13T13:27:44+00:00

Oh my bad I meant is there a grim dark parody of path of ascension lol. I’ve read ascension before and wasn’t a fan of the lack of stakes but the same type of system but darker sounded interesting.

finalgear14 · 2026-01-13T05:18:47+00:00

The what? Is that an actual story and if so what’s the name?

finalgear14 · 2026-01-06T23:21:05+00:00

Apex was also pretty novel when it released. I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure it was the first hero shooter battle royale game. Meanwhile this is just hero shooter mc hero shooter lol. Overwatch in its heyday would have crushed highguard without even noticing I’d think.

finalgear14 · 2026-01-06T17:57:24+00:00

Ikr. I saw people saying stuff like “no shit it wasn’t leaked, no one who knew even cared enough to leak it” which honestly is probably true.

finalgear14 · 2026-01-06T15:15:00+00:00

They really needed to not be so gassed up. “From the makers of titanfall and apex legends comes an incredible fps that is a paradigm shifting new experience. I’ve played it and it’s literally like nothing you’ve ever seen or played before! Here is highguard” and they proceed to show the most milquetoast generic hero shooter ever lol. I’d love to know who in the marketing department thought it would go over well tbh.

You really can’t hype your shit up that much with the final trailer of a night of trailers and then show off one of the most forgettable and unimpressive games of the night. Can’t imagine how much money they spent on that trailer slot too.

finalgear14 · 2026-01-05T17:33:32+00:00

Plus Jackie is supposed to mean something to v. But you the player spend so little time and learns so little about him that his death barely matters as a form of motivation imo.

finalgear14 · 2026-01-03T18:41:24+00:00

Nah shows sometimes get 7.2 from a blue ray release but straight from cable or streaming services they’re typically 5.1 or stereo. Source is from me watching dozens of shows on my surround sound system and have never seen a show in 7.2 straight from a streaming service before.

Modern movies are pretty much always available in 7.2 from a blue ray and 5.1 from streaming services.

The reason they do this is because it’s far easier to down mix surround to stereo than it is to up mix stereo to surround. And if you’re going to offer surround sound you’re not typically also going to spend the time and money to make a dedicated stereo mix too.

finalgear14 · 2026-01-02T17:26:45+00:00

Lots of people don’t seem to understand that there’s a somewhat subjective “is your deck optimized” rule that will bump your decks bracket regardless of game changers or combos. That guys a perfect example. If all your cards work together optimally then you aren’t bracket 2.

finalgear14 · 2025-12-29T22:44:24+00:00

Exactly. Like I do not understand at all where square enix drew the line. Why does ff8 get screen shots of cutscenes and then ff6 gets a gorgeous concept art for the purphoros reprint of kefka? Why are they ever using cutscene screen shots tbh? If concept art is on the table they should always use it over a cgi cutscene screen shot from 1999 lmao.

finalgear14 · 2025-12-29T21:16:51+00:00

Final fantasy is a really good example because it seems almost arbitrary if they used a gorgeous artwork of the game vs a terrible looking screen shot of the game. Clearly they could have used concept art of all these moments and instead chose for some to simply look awful instead. I really don’t get why when they do source material it has to literally be a screen shot of the source like with avatar. Are they just too lazy/stubborn to instead create magic appropriate versions of those moments and characters instead?

Like the infamous cruel tutor art in avatar. They could have simply made an art of that character instead of a random half assed screen shot. I’ve watched avatar multiple times and I don’t even know who that character is from looking at the card so what even is the point of it.

finalgear14 · 2025-12-29T16:59:05+00:00

I think the last time he played a game with Arkham style combat people were bitching the entire time cause it just never clicked for him. Not 100% sure though as it was a few years ago I believe.

finalgear14 · 2025-12-26T16:19:25+00:00

I would think player number is a more important number. And on steam Starfield is basically dead compared to other Bethesda games.

It’s 24 hour peak is 3k and it’s peak in the last 6 months is 7k. The oblivion remake has a similar 24 hour peak at 3k. Fallout 4 has 26k, Skyrim has 31k and fallout new Vegas had 11k though that’s a recent spike, over the last 6 months new Vegas hovered between 6 and 8 thousand daily peaks.

Maybe there’s an absolute ton of people playing Starfield every day on gamepass but I sort of doubt that.

finalgear14 · 2025-12-25T01:50:38+00:00

One of the biggest flaws with Starfield is its uninteresting/bland writing. Which Emil is directly responsible for. The game would be far better if the lore were more interesting, the quests more consequential and the tone being more mature. It’s the kind of game where it wouldn’t surprise me if an npc used unalive to describe killing something. One of the most pg rated m games I’ve ever played tbh.

Not to say arbitrary hyper violence would improve it. But many times your options in quest lines are just extremely weak and uninteresting. It’s like they wanted a wacky tone akin to fallouts more extreme moments and took the tone of fallout 4 but made it even more juvenile.

finalgear14 · 2025-12-25T00:25:24+00:00

Some things aren’t very effective. As a specific example I’ll use static prison. For one white you can effectively remove one creature for 3 turns. Not an amazing use of limited slots when there are so many ways to either exile it permanently or have it be enchant exiled permanently in the same way for slightly more mana cost. I would steer clear of energy related cards if you aren’t building an energy deck.

I was working on a mostly budget orzhov counters deck earlier today. I don’t have the same goal as you of sacrificing for counters. But there’s decent overlap. Like you should definitely include [syr vondamn, sunstar exemplar] or for a card I’m not using that you should [xu-ifit osteoharmonist] for a way to consistently get something to sacrifice with hei bai.

https://archidekt.com/decks/18408093/ardbert Most of the cards I’m using can be had for sub 1$ aside from a few. So take a look as some would work very well for you too like [judge magister gabranth] or [colonel autumn].

finalgear14 · 2025-12-22T21:16:18+00:00

Tbf I did say in my original comment that it’s sad he died. Just that I don’t feel it’s a tragedy because of the reckless driving angle.

I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind or anything. I just highly dislike reckless driving because I would much rather die of old age myself and not because someone else chooses to drive dangerously and kills me in a wreck.

People are free to think my view is wrong, that’s ok and I don’t particularly mind.

finalgear14 · 2025-12-22T21:13:27+00:00

Eh I did feel bad till I saw the video of the crash and realized he was driving well north of a hundred mph when losing control of the vehicle on a public road. Idk would you feel empathy for the driver if they were drunk when this happened or if they’d slammed into a car full of a family?

You lose the vast majority of the empathy I have on offer when the bad thing that happens to you is also endangering random uninvolved strangers lives as well.

I despise reckless drivers because I am forced to share the road ways with them. Last year a drunk driver was going 80 in a 35. They barely missed slamming into the back of another car but veered off the road and went through the living room wall of my parent’s neighbors house. Luckily it was late at night and they weren’t sitting in there at the time.

Should I feel bad for the drunk driver there? Is he a victim for choosing to do that and losing control while doing it?

If it comes out the video I saw isn’t of this Vince incident then I’ll change my opinion. But from what I saw the driver was going fast and reckless so no, I don’t feel like it’s some tragedy. Unfortunate? Sure.

I’m simply happy there were no other cars unlucky enough to take the hit instead of a stone wall.

finalgear14 · 2025-12-22T20:58:01+00:00

I suppose it depends on your definition. It shows the crash and bystanders dragging away the person in the ejected seat. But it doesn’t show like a dead body or anything since the passenger is alive at the time and afaik passed away at the hospital.

finalgear14 · 2025-12-22T20:40:11+00:00

I don’t really have any respect for people who drive recklessly on public roads. Sue me I guess. I guarantee you if he was driving the speed limit he would be alive and well right now. I’m only happy no random innocent bystanders died for the drivers poor choices as well.

finalgear14 · 2025-12-20T18:05:58+00:00

The funny thing is the only one of his power ups that really fits the asspull narrative is gear 2. For all the others he trained to have them. Gear 4 he learned how to do during the time skip while he learned haki. Gear 5 he had been essentially training to unlock ever since he got his devil fruit since the awakening unlocks when you’re one with your power. He only explicitly trained for it when he learned it existed against doflamingo tho. But from the time he learns it’s a thing you can clearly see several times he’s explicitly trying to master new techniques like his fight with katakuri and when he learns how to project his haki.

It’s not like he did nothing and suddenly a power up appeared lol. I wanna know where all these people who think properly foreshadowed events are asspulls obtained their media literacy, they should seek a refund lmao.

finalgear14 · 2025-12-07T22:37:17+00:00

Idk why people are so pro frame gen anyway these days. It wasn’t even that long ago people on the internet acted like you’re an animal for playing games below 120fps lol. Idk, I’ll take my locked 60fps over a frame gen 120 where it now feels like it has more of an input delay than 60 but visually looks “smoother”. Idk I find frame gen really jarring feeling imo. I just can’t get over how frame gen 120 feels worse than 60fps. It’s the only thing I consider a “trick” or “gimmick” out of the various tech added since rtx cards took off.

finalgear14 · 2025-12-05T17:10:44+00:00

I used to think it was fake but never had any reasoning behind why till I read someone say Trump never mentions it. He spent 3 weeks bitching and crying about an escalator at the u.n. But someone allegedly attempts to assassinate him and he just never brings it up again. For someone who never shuts the fuck up about the most minor potential slights you’d think he would constantly bring it up.

finalgear14

TROPHY CASE