LadyCrimson

^ LOL - looks like a cross between Age of Empires and the Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator. Just crazy enough I might like it. ==== Manor Lords - I'm starting to worry the city management-builder-RTS "hype" is starting to get overextended for this one (2 million wishlisted I think I saw last). That said...even tho it'll be Early Access first, I'm still also totally going "Please be good, please be good, please be good...". EDIT: also, I don't know what song plays in that battle trailer, but I love it.

@Sarex I do think the big "outcry" re: no save on exit etc. does come from many feeling taken by surprise. It shows as a driving with at least some level of sorta free exploration survival game, not necessarily a hardcore-kinda-rogue-like rush-y style game (or whatever). I watched three reviews of the game and none of them mentioned the save system process. Supposedly later many missions do get shorter, but yeah those initial ones where many players may take an hour or two or more is the first impression. And in the demo at least, altering most settings options would also disable Achievements. Not that I would care, but anyone who does care can't change the settings then. Anyway, the dev's already responded, which is why I noted I don't think they'll change anything. Which again, is fine. Just means I won't likely get it, myself. Note: the "technical sacrifices" they refer to is probably that they didn't code the game to keep (constant) track of stuff that would be needed for a save/exit state.

omg

The demo for Pacific Drive, if you already installed it, was made unplayable with the full release of the game. If you try to run it (even by the .exe) it just says "no license." Some folks are kinda peeved. It doesn't include me, but I can understand if they didn't get around to playing demo before release day. Seems an odd choice. I'm still kind of interested in the game but not having even a save-on-exit still isn't my thing for a SP game, so I'll wait and see if they ever change their minds. They could leave the no-save-on-exit etc. as a hardcore playstyle option or vice versa. Again, I don't need manual saving, but "leave game on all night" or "replay a section again cause maybe life happens, once too often" isn't my thing. Edit: not holding my breath for it to be changed, mind. I kind of think they won't.

Tried a city-builder demo named Synergy. Mostly because I liked the artwork style a lot. Demo appears to be the tutorial round. So little mini-quests to set up water, gathering, homes etc. So far, the artstyle is the only thing I seriously like about it. Keybinds are all over the place + mouse use and I feel like I need three hands maybe. Probably can remap them ofc, but it all feels like weird choices/annoying, at least to me. Building rotation seems limited (use Shift). I don't think the map itself rotates, not even the 4 point rotation ala Caesar 3, which is disappointing. Maybe I just can't find it in the keybind. Also, the UI element/text default setting of 1 is very microscopic, turn it way up if you want. Other than that it feels like your general city builder, keep citizens fed, busy, research/tech lines, some map exploration factors/motivations which might be a little different than usual. Something about the gameplay design feels strangely limited/awkward tho. But the artstyle is fantastic, which makes me want to like the game. Maybe with full release/outside of the tutorial.

Also, don't forget you can always turn the video play speed up to save viewing time. Doesn't work well for everything but very talk-y videos, putting it 1.5x speed helps a lot. Or even max 2x speed if they are verryy slow talkers. That video above is also notable (to me) for probably being the first I've seen that used up the time-stamp numerical limit. The last long looking segment isn't about one single game, he just couldn't use any more time stamps. heh.

First two seasons of Resident Alien is on Netflix now. I guess there's a 3rd season still airing. I remember seeing the first episode when syfy posted it on YT and thinking it was weird/quirky/funny, + I'm a fan of Alan Tudyk. But I don't have SyFy. Rewatching the first episode, it didn't seem quite as funny as I remembered, but it was still kinda cool. It became less and less interesting after a few episodes. One of those shows that it feels like I should like but it doesn't quite pull it off. Ah well.

Speaking of mega length videos, here's one where my interest-meter was enough to make me click on it. He spends maybe 2-5 minutes describing a game a little, steam user reaction if any, release/ea status if any, etc. So it was easy to spam the spacebar arrow keys to skip over any titles I wasn't immediately intrigued by - thus for me it was a 30 minute video, hardehar. The actual more city-builder focused (vs. train sims, life sims, factory/shop/tycoon more rts sims, god games etc) starts around 2 (hrs):28(min) I think. I saw a few new ones to put in the Wishlist. lol. Seems to be several indie Spore-like games being made, too.

My game YT account is kaput, gone. Made me feel weird for a few minutes but I don't use it/care about using it anymore so I don't miss it, either. But anyone who maybe wanted to rewatch the FO:NV Thriller video once every few years, you're outta luck now. hahaha Edit: The older I get the more I miss the non-internet days. I mean in terms of my life/habits/hobbies etc.

Yeah...limits or not, a lot of uploaders now over-indulge themselves far too much re: video length/lack of editing. But I'd give that posted video slack since it appears to be documentary oriented/very specific-interest topic. eg, if one is really into that topic, maybe the longer the better. On the flip side - generally speaking, I dislike "shorts" almost as much. I mean I get it, some silly/ent. content works fine with that but I wish TikTok hadn't made it such a dominant form so now YT keeps pushing it to compete. That's not what I go to YT for.

---That Patrick Stewart ad was really weird. >.> Man he looks really old now. He was 48ish when ST:TNG began I think, so he's early/mid 80's now? Time marches. ---That John Stewart video was great, thanks. Re: what I assume was also a superbowl ad, I liked the Arnold and Danny one better. Poking fun at himself plus at the end it was sort of like a Twins reunion, of a sorts.

Some disco songs were ok, but those pants back then were terrible. ...sorry, I'll show myself out.

I's love you You's love Jar To-geth-er we's-a reach the stars! Ins our big round ship Travel far me-sa and you Won't you say You's love me too!

Twister without Bill Paxton (RIP) or Helen Hunt isn't Twister. It's like Die Hard without Bruce Willis (for me Die Hard is 100x the better film but you get my point). At least they waited over 25 years to prequel/reboot. Maybe it won't entirely suck. Mostly it makes me feel old, not because of film dates, but because I don't recognize anyone in that trailer even in a vague, offhand way. This is happening more and more often. I'm so not hip to who's famous or even "well used chr. actor" recognizable re: Films/TV now.

*snort* at "AAAA" game. I mean, if they were going to go there, why not just call it "S". In other games, Tombraider 1-3 remake is almost here. Watching some footage I am undecided whether I like it. They seem to have respected it a lot and it does look better in some ways (there are small QoL improvements as well) but I like the brighter/less muddy lighting/colors/shadows of the original. EDIT: other videos show better lighting in some places, other places almost too dark etc). I wonder if you can turn the shadows low or off to mitigate that. EDITEDIT: you can flip between original/remake on the fly I think it has a photomode too. The biggest ? for me tho is whether I'd actually replay them. Skip to 3:45 for gameplay. The (not in-game) story cutscenes don't look any better, just upscaled/smoothed a bit or something. This YouTuber plays thru whole game plays highlights from all three I think, so you can look at different areas.

Condolences and best wishes, Raithe.

@Keyrock lol, yeah the face quality is the first thing I noticed. Doesn't really bother me much but it's kind of amusing. I noticed on the forum that others seem to have fps/stutter issues with the demo. Outside of having to use DLSS to get the 60fps at 4k because apparently my 9900k/2080ti is a potato these days, I didn't notice any issues like that. I was like that with FFXV tho too. Barely noticed any issues while everyone else called it broken. Based on the install size of Outcast's demo I'm semi-convinced it's a build of almost the entire game, or at least 90% of it, haha, vs. a small-install-sized demo file, which could be one reason for such severe restrictions in place. Players also figured out you could reset the replays limit deleting save files or something, and if you hexedit you could defeat the time limit too. I didn't bother trying however.

Funny, I was just thinking about how many years I've been here. I was a year "late" to the party, however. Does that mean I'm a youngster? Being a youngster sounds good, so I'm going to pretend it does.

Outcast 2, demo: ---This one put time limits on the two non-endless-combat gamemodes (explore, story) available - 20 minutes (kicks you out) and two replays. Annoying. Could've been just two replays, no time limit. Or at least give an hour. ---Visually decent (not "next gen", just looks nice), felt like most might be able to get a decent working performance with setting tweaks and/or DLSS. ---horizontal jet-pack flying/gliding, as well as "jump" being vertical high jet bounces (edit: which will be used in quests or reaching items). In explore demo you could do it endlessly, don't know if there will be fuel limits to range/time in full game, I would guess yes. ---no UI scale in demo and the elements are all huge and often pretty visually disruptive. ---I played "explore" for the 20 minutes and ran into one enemy glitched into the ground so I couldn't shoot it, meaning I couldn't get the quest complete. I was however able to melee punch it when it popped half out of the ground once. I was a fan of the original Outcast game's attempt at doing something different, but wasn't an actual big fan of the gameplay itself. Outcast 2 feels a bit more generic pseudo openworld exploration/rpg, at least in the demo starts. The demo did, however, sort of immediately trigger the curiosity "want to know/explore more" response, vs. wanting to almost immediately turn it off, which I would count as a positive.

This horizontal flying jetpack was cool. I'm guessing that's what Starfield needed. Is it just me, or do most games these days not know how to do non-cluttery/non-annoying UI's? All these elements were huuuuge on the 55" TV. This demo wouldn't let me alter UI size scale either - that at least would help.

Question re: this demo week on Steam: If you've downloaded a demo, are they still playable after the week is up? Or do they become deactivated. I mean, I like demo's but there's only so many hours in a day.

Copycat, demo: ----well, it's sorta cute. Controls are pretty clunky, camera view control is pretty clunky. I do like the cats 1st furperson purspective, like staring at legs from under a shelf. It's no Stray, but maybe. Pacific Drive, demo: ---visually looks decent if you can keep certain settings High/Ultra. Driving the car is fine/didn't feel too hinky etc. ---demanding game performance wise. Shadows and lighting is visually/atmospherically important, so one may not want to turn such down a lot, and middling/older PC's may find themselves playing it at 30fps. If you're the type who wants 85+fps at all times/higher resolutions, likely to be disappointed. YMMV. ---not a very intuitive tutorial phase re: what to do next and the UI in general is a little annoying but I can see getting used to it enough. ---THERE IS NO AUTOSAVE. Save triggers are far between and in most "zones" it will not save until you've finished a bunch of tasks or something. It's done this way on purpose. I get it, gameplay tension design and save-scum prevention. Some may enjoy it. For myself, I like being able to stop and go to bed vs. feeling forced to continue because I haven't figured out/done what will trigger a save to happen. Still, for the type of gameloop, it might be marginally tolerable if you love everything else. Undecided.

I can only pick one? How unfair. Yes, that is a cat all right. Success, now to go hide it under the shelf in the garage for later. ...it's kind of cute, but it's no Stray.

When you download a bunch of demos but by the time you're done looking/dl-ing, it's late and it's time for bed. But there was a new cat game! And Pacific Drive had a demo. And some other randoms. Demos are cool, I like demos.