Fenixp

Only if you're absolutely positive that you'll actually be able and willing to put the additional work into maintaining Steam and DRM-free release.

I was never one to enjoy MP games all that much to begin with, but readily accessible information on how to be the most efficient in them was among the reasons for me to stop playing them (I'm the kind of person who enjoys figuring out his own ways to play dem videogames)

So uh... I accidentally clicked a button that said "Click to redeem on Steam" in Humble Store for Crysis 2: Maximum Edition, and if I don't copy the key somewhere right now, I'm 100% positive I'll forget about it. So... Whoever takes it just... Take it. You're welcome.

I've put Tyranny on hold and will re-buy GOTY edition for cheap once it exists with all content released. You know, the one with the DLC for a-life simulation, allowing for factions to live out their lives and have additional conflicts in the background, the Open World Pack, which removes the need for overworld map and puts Tyranny into fully open world environment, the Geneology Pack which allows player to sire an offspring and eventually train him to also become a fatebinder, the Battle Pack which'll completely overhaul the combat system and give even humanoid enemies completely unique behaviors and capacity to talk to PC at any stage of combat at AI's leisure, the Destruction of Innocents pack which allows attacking of arbitrary civilians and makes the game's story adjust to such a choice properly, and - most importantly - the "Other Bits" DLC that finishes the story and effectively acts as a sequel to the game, turning Tyranny into a grand strategy game.

I think I finally settled on playing SWAT 4 and replaying Banner Saga (so that I can carry on with the sequels once I'm finished). SWAT 4 is still very unique and extpertly crafted while Banner Saga carries the same set of problems I've had with it the first time around, but it's still a rather well-written turn-based tactical RPG set in a world that's fun to experience, so that's all good. No, only played 4. Don't the older SWAT games mostly work as adventure games?

Eh, Borderlands games are still reasonably well executed, and I actually found the shooting reasonably fun whenever I was exploring the right area at the right level with the right gear. Problem is that this situation happened rather seldomly and equipment got outdated rather quickly. Still, it most certainly does not solve the problem with spongy enemies as its levelling mechanics are more or less based around that concept. Incidentally, it also has a decent emphasis on headshots. And is a console game. Well it applies you argumentation to real-world uses. Like I still have no idea whether Gorgon was referring specifically to military sims, where he's quite correct that gamepad would be a terrible choice, then again I don't know of consoles really touching the genre in any way, or just FPS games in general, which - to my knowledge - only cared about headshots to very limited extent even before FPS games were widespread on consoles. A few examples would have resolved that problem quite elegantly. First of all, where did I say anything along those lines? Secondly, I would assume that when you bother to actually back up an opinion with arguments, you want your arguments to be understood properly. I don't particularly care if you don't tho and never claimed otherwise?

Started playing SWAT 4. Gotta admit, there's never been anything quite like it before or after it. I'm loving the amount of detail that's been put into environmental storytelling, showing us a lot more of what's been going on at the crime scene besides the briefing, that's really nice. I'm also in love with the sound design, altho this happens to be one of those games that'd really benefit from functional surround sound.

It backs up an argument with context, making it easier to understand - regardless of whether you agree with it or not. I'm pretty sure Borderlands is pretty much the definition of spongy enemies (unless you outlevel an area)

Hmm, yes, I can see the problem. Her boobs should have had nipples modeled given the period Pillars should have been inspired by.

You also need to read Ravenor. Just sayin'.

First of all, your argumentation assumes that majority of FPS games designed to be played with a mouse sport major emphasis on headshots, which quite simply isn't true. They tend to have more emphasis on mobility, but that's slowly changing as designers are getting more comfortable with the idea of creating FPS sporting full controller support (which is why we got 2016 DOOM for instance, which most certainly does contain a ton of it) Secondly, and that's quite important, no FPS designer really wants players to feel like their guns are shooting peas. It's funny that you'd mention Ubisoft as Far Cry 3 and 4 do actually contain rather powerful headshots (in fact I'm pretty sure majority of enemies just drop dead when hit in the head with any weapon.) Regardless, spongy enemies mean the exact opposite of easier and more forgiving game as they... Well... Take more bullets to die and create longer and more exhausting combat scenarios. Your wrists strongly disagree :-P

Much more so, considering aiming with a pad is a fair bit more difficult than with a mouse. And whatever you use to play the game, enemies that feel bullet spongy just don't feel good to fight against, regardless of how do their hitboxes work. The connection to RPGs isn't really relevant per se, but the fact that there are statistics to increase. Whenever you can make your guns more powerful, it's important to allow you to actually feel the difference - in other words, enemies need to be spongy so that there is room for statistical improvement. An issue that many modern shooters now dodge by only allowing you to unlock upgrades which don't directly influence damage per shot.

You mean like Quake III: Arena or Unreal Tournament series? Majority of shooters out there, competitive or not, do not sport one shot one kill headshots - including Counter-Strike, incidentally Pretty much all modern games by iD, MachineGames or ... Well, most modern SP shooters that turned out being good, would prove that wrong. Bullet spongy enemies are a way to easily adjust difficulty of your game. And that's the end of the story, really. Altho Majek does make a good point with many modern shooters including character or weapon stat increases.

That's a sentence you'll regret in later missions :-P

Well sims come to mind, including OFP/ARMA

DOOM and Titanfall 2, featuring some of the best FPS campaigns I've ever played, both for entirely different reasons. For MP fans there's Overwatch that I'm not too fond of because it's MP, but.. Y'know. Hitman coming back to form with episodic releases of the Hitman games. When it comes to sequels, it wouldn't be me if I forgot to mention Dishonored 2 with generally stellar level design, but especially two levels come to mind that I'm rather unlikely to forget. XCOM 2 also seem to have been accepted rather well with some great improvements to the formula (and, arguably, some things being for worse.) As for indies, Firewatch showed us how to do walking sims right, Starbound showed No Man's Sky how to do No Man's Sky right and Darkest Dungeon was one of the best Lovecraftian games I have ever played, often to detriment of its own gameplay (for which it has my respect). Inside was also rather acclaimed and Oxenfree was ... Well, Oxenfree I guess? Incidentally, speaking of BF1, it actually featured a pretty damn good SP campaign as well.

More importantly, western games rely on mechanics-driven gameplay, which is what I have always considered the main strength of the medium (mechanics interacting with each other leading to emergent gameplay) whereas Japanese games do focus on their stories (for the most part obviously, there are also Japanese games that do not do that - Dark Souls, character action games etc.) Which is why Japanese games rarely ever end up among my favorite games. Well, be it Western or Japanese, buggy games are not really a new thing regardless, so I have kinda learned to ignore such issues. In fact I tend to have a lot less technical issues with games nowadays than I did back when DOS was the main OS on my computer.

Unlike Nier: Automata which didn't even properly support HD in fullscreen and had terrible performance issues, not to mention crashing? Or Resident Evil 7 that also had crashing and I believe performance issues? Prey worked properly at least and amount of bugs was relatively minuscule (altho they were certainly there, some even progress halting, majority of players reported the game working splendidly)

Yes, let's just ignore Prey altogether :-P Also yes, Sturgeon's law applies pretty much every time.

Regardless, starting with a premise of "Review aggregate scores are objective and don't follow any trends and therefore quality of a game with a lower score is objectively lower than that with a higher score" is a rather flawed way of approaching the subject. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFw_48vv5NQ

Just in case you weren't aware, GOG also released Homeworld: Cataclysm (renamed for the re-release), which happens to offer one of the best RTS campaigns you'll ever play. Deserts of Kharak started pretty good and retained the general feel of Homeworld games which is surprising given the setting, but ultimately, its campaign proved to be too monotonous for me.

And just like with No Man's Sky pre-release information, I still have no idea what the hell is it.

I'm pretty sure crappy PC ports existed before Steam. First of all, With that out of the way... They would want to stay for the same reason they arrived in the first place - PC users possess credit cards and use them to purchase videogames. But yes, you are of course right - if we have learned anything from history, when there's an obvious hole in the market, nobody ever steps in to fill it. Yes, there have never been communities of likeminded individuals talking and bragging on the internet before. Gamespy, Xbox Live (that also existed for PC) and similar services are also just figments of our collective imaginations. There have been areas in which Steam was innovative, yes - but none of the major ones. Majority of Steam's most popular features can be traced much further into the past. That's one of the things Steam fans tend to forget - nothing exists in a vacuum and Steam didn't create a new market, it just stepped into a quickly growing one. Incidentally, the community features you're talking about have not been Steam's integral part until later in its development (indeed, Steam community first launched in 2007, largely copying Xbox live's features) Yes, game devs also talk to people on GOG forums. Shockingly. Anyway, considering I'm pretty sure I've made my case (like a post ago, admittedly) I'm done derailing the thread.

PC gaming is where it's at because of rise of digital distribution, which Valve most certainly did not invent. It's like saying there would be no computers without IBM. Attributing success of PC as a platform to Valve is completely ignoring evolution of the platform itself. A different company would rise with the same concept if it weren't for Valve, and indeed, even back at the inception of Steam there were several competing digital distribution platforms - Valve just had Counter Strike and Half-Life so they had position on the market they could abuse.