After seeing title (but not having yet read the overview) on turnbasedlovers, I was hoping this wouldn't be a fantasy RPG, but alas...

Looks cool, never played the original Z, just Steel Soldiers. I remember it being not particularly memorable in terms of the gameplay experience (there was a lot to choose from in terms of RTS game options at that time).

It's also been 25 years or since I played Steel Soldiers, so my memory could be off.

Only Star Citizen's developer CIG, has sufficient expertise to make a quad A game.

Just looks at prices in their cash shop.

I really like the art style of their map:

This may be true, but forms of social organisation can and do change and improve.

It's not possible to put the genie back into the bottle, so to speak, when it comes to technology.

Cheers, thanks!

You can have both, convenience and DRM-free games via something like GOG installer packages. It's even relatively easy to patch them to work on modern systems. It would be best if the updates were present in the installers, but you got to start somewhere.

You can't have that with optical discs or Nintendo style DRM'd broken SD cards.

You don't need physical media at all. You can still buy MP3 / FLACs without being tied to a streaming provider (it's pretty universal at least with electronic music).

Thanks for looking into this!

All good, I am using my LW account for now.

Sweeney is such a dishonest and corrupt piece of shit, a very typical retrograde American oligarch.

Valve has previously said that 32-bit Windows installations represent around 0.01% of active Steam systems.

I feel like it's fair to sunset 32-bit Windows support if this segment represents 0.01% of your installed base

This is not surprising, video gaming has been around since the 70s, the first gamers are hitting 70+.

I don't use tiktok, but I was hanging out with brother and his gf and they showed me how they watch reels/tiktok. It was funny, I won't lie, but man the format is slop.

No, physical media is not useful for PC games, you want a DRM free installer (preferably with all relevant patches applied, both game patches and compatibility DLL/mods for older games), not the physical media (which may or may not have DRM).

This ship has sailed a long time ago on PC (~15 years ago).

Funnily enough that's actually why it is my favourite GTA game (I haven't played 5 and I won't play 6), although nostalgia probably plays a big role too.

I also liked that it had a cold, clinical feel compared to the later GTAs. You are in "Anywhere City" and it feels like society has entered a permanent state of decline.

I also think the relatively lite cyberpunk and retro-futuristic elements added a bit of flair to the concept.

That being said, I can understand why they will never make a game like GTA2 again; bad market fit and the futurism of GTA2 is in many ways a product of the 90s/early 2000s.

I am not a Valve fanboy.

They are only sort of OK when viewed in comparison to other American technology oligarch groups. I even hesitate to use the term "OK" in this context.

I love GN for what they do, but I just can't get into the video format for tech hardware news or reviews.

For some topics, I totally understand the strength of the video format, but for others it just doesn't make sense to me. A review is much quicker to process with commentary text and relevant charts for benchmarking. I would argue the same for less in-depth news and analysis.

I also wish GN had a peetrube channel!

An earlier statement from one of the Paradox PR reps (before release):

"I actually played Bloodlines 1 quite recently, and it is a good game, but it is also an old game, and there are many things that would not fly today," Lilja said. "But I understand why people were super psyched by it in 2004, because it had a lot of cool [elements], and the feeling of being a vampire is really strong, regardless of other features. But I think people, they remember their feelings about it. And if they replayed it, I think they would see that it's a competently good game by 2004 standards, now that it's patched.

Seems like their approach to Bloodlines 2 isn't much of "high flyer" in the year 2025.

In defence of the PR rep, they were open about Bloodlines 2 not having much to do with the original and that it was more of vampire themed linear action game.

But in that case, why would you have internal targets of 2M+ initial sales if your plan is to have a radical departure from a well known cult classic RPG known for its roleplaying and strong writing?

Is it just nostalgia or were the website designs from the 2000s more unique, playful and with character? Responsive design and mobile web are a necessity, but I feel like they annihilated all creativity in web design.

The only time I ever tried loot boxes was with TF2 and Dota2 back in the early to mid 2010s.

I very quickly realized that this wasn't what I was looking for in gaming. These days I mostly play indie games where monetisation is not issue. Even gave up on Paradox because I am not okay with their DLC approach. I don't mind paying for DLC, but one has to look at their release of Cities: Skylines 2 to see that they've really become the "EA of Europe".

I personally think "eurojank" is almost like a sign of quality. Sure you can have a bad game that has janky elements, but any truly innovative/interesting games will have some measure of jank because you're not dealing with a template.

Then there is issue of genre. Complex strategy games like Kingdoms Reborn, Transport Fever 2 or Evolution of Ages: Settlements have to have a measure of complexity to be fun and with complexity, you will have jank.

Settlements in particular can superficially look like some trash game, but if you get into it you'll find a very in-depth game that takes inspiration from multiple genres, allows for very different playstyles and requires you to experiment and take risks to beat often overwhelming odds.

I remember playing Jill of the Jungle in early 1997, it was on one of those "100 in 1" pirate CD that were common around the time the CD-ROM was introduced (became somewhat common in my region).

That same pirate compilation had Commander Keen, Dune 2 and many other games.