I really enjoy it, but now that I live alone and have to do it every day and not just for the sake of it whenever I want I'm realizing that I kinda overestimated my ability at it. Hardest part for me honestly is getting the seasonings right or just being able to plan out recipies beforehand and shopping accordingly instead of just improvising with what's on hand. I might take TheFrugalGamer's advice and buy a cookbook just to get ideas of what to cook. I might also take the advice on terriyaki too...
Ghost Trick is something I played recently but is now one of my favorite games but seems to be relatively unknown. It takes advantage of the DS mechanics really well, most of the puzzles felt good to solve, there's great characters, and the story is solid. It was made by the same creators of Ace Attorney but in my opinion is much better. After I finished I immediately went back to check out all the details I missed, the foreshadowing and how the mystery comes together is really incredible.
GHOST TRICK IS SO GOOD !! the game mechanics and the story are literally woven together so perfectly but the story by itself is already so good even if it was just in visual novel format!!!!! (also is swiftpaw a WC ref)
Ghost trick is one of the most underrated games of all time. Even in visual novel circles it's kinda unknown. People only ever seem to find out about it because it was made by Shu Takumi. I really wish we got a sequel to it one day... Like, in the vein of a spiritual successor.
This is kind of a hard question for me because I can usually get into anything, but there is one thing that comes to mind: horror.
It seems to me to be incredibly popular. Half of the itch front page is horror games, and it seems to be very prominent on sites like youtube and twitch. But I just never really got into it that much. I guess part of it is because I was, well, scared of getting scared but part because I never really saw anything too interesting in the genre. All of these games and movies just seemed to be kinda samey to me. The few I played/watched that seemed cool were also not really all that scary.
Recently tough I played resident evil 1, and I enjoyed it a lot. The game is not spooky but it is tense. It's funny how all the frustrating aspects of the game are what make it so good due to that tension.
I have some horror visual novels in my wishlist, so I might get into that soon.
GTAO eventually became its own mess of terrible people, but this time they were actual people who exist in the real world and seem to be motivated solely by ruining your enjoyment of the game. I can't help but think Rockstar's story and character writing influenced the way these people play the online mode, feeling the game justifies their griefing because the characters in the story mode are also a-holes.
As a result, it's practically impossible for a new player to get into the game now. It's not just pay-to-win, because even if you use real money to buy the same equipment that the griefers use in order to stand a chance against them, you can't level up enough to be allowed to actually use it. When I tried to get back into it with a new character a few years ago, I couldn't even complete the first night club mission without someone in a flying car chasing me around and preventing me from completing a single task.
Oh my god I remember playing GTAO and it was horrible. The fun parts of the game (The heists and missions and stuff) are locked behind the purchase of very expensive buildings. But to get money you have to grind for HOURS. When you want to sell the product you grinded the entire fucking server gets alerted to your delivery and griefers with overpowered flying bikes/cars that shoot missiles at you can just destroy hours of your work instantly. The game actively encourages griefing. The only way I found to play the game was to use a trick on xbox where you could get your own private lobby. But even then the game was such a grindfest that I stopped after the first two heists.
I guess this enters in the popular game that I hate category lol.
I loved all Watch_Dogs games, and that is exceedingly rare because people either love 1 and hate 2 and Legion, or love 2 and think 1 has aged badly and Legion is dumb. But I like them all!
Here's my reasoning: ...
The only watch dogs game I played was 2, and I remember enjoying it a LOT. So much so in fact, that I 100% the game. Getting every single collectable, buying literally every item, or just overall doing everything there was to do (I had a lot of free time as a kid lol). The gameplay was very cool. But looking back on it now, I can see how the story very much had that patented ubisoft performative activism. To quote from Umurangi Generation:
One popular game that I hate is definitely the Trails Of Cold Steel part of the Trails series. It took one of the most interesting jrpgs out there and transformed it into one of the most generic. They changed it to a high-school setting (and brought along all those shitty anime tropes with it). They down scaled most gameplay mechanics or just outright removed them. It's worth mentioning that Trails has always been a character and world building driven game, but the dialogue writing in this series is abysmal, and feels like it was directly written by the board of directors. The characters are incredibly shallow, and develop very little. The worldbuilding is the only thing that was still fine I think, even if it depended a lot on what the previous games had already showcased. I found myself getting more invested in the little npc storylines than the actual characters sometimes. It is a very popular game because it was made to be popular. The gameplay is beginner friendly (hence the downscalling of the more complex gameplay stuff), and the story just feels like it was made to bait anime fans.
I don't think I have a universally disliked game that I really love (then again it is pretty hard to tell, since a lot of "unpopular" games have good reviews on the surface but bad chatter about them), but I do love a lot of niche games. Maybe Apollo Justice, ace attorney. A lot of people in the AA fandom considered it to be the worst in the series (Until the actual worst in the series, Dual Destinies, came out). But when I played it at like, 14 years old I never found anything that wrong with it. One of the common criticisms is the contradiction design, which I guess I never payed attention to back then. To me the contradiction design in the newer games is what I dislike. It's WAY too easy compared to the older games. Either I just got older, or they really toned the difficulty way down.
What makes the internet great is the fact that you can't make rules for it. That is, outside of moderating specific communities. It's a network, so it's decentralized. This goes great with values for free knowledge, culture, software, etc. I think the problem with the internet today is not a lack of good things, but the fact that the unhealthy parts of the internet have a much bigger userbase. Someone on the yesterweb said that the internet today was like the library of Alexandria, but most people just contented themselves with the talk on the lobby. Imo it is rather a question of attracting more users to use the web outside of big platforms, and fostering a more healthy connection with the online world. But, when you look at it that way, there's nothing impeding you specifically from having whatever experience you'd like on the internet. If you want to live by those rules you just set, there's literally nothing anyone can do about it!
I'm pretty sure everyone here has already seen the social media topic. A common theme I saw there, and that I can very much relate to, is that people saw a need to be distracted, and almost instinctively went on a social media site. To me, for a couple months, I even started using tumblr and youtube again just because I couldn't focus and needed to stop doing what I was doing.
The alternative I found was music. Whenever my thoughts feel cluttered and I feel like I need to take a break from what I'm doing, I just listen to whatever. It has the benefit where you can choose whether to actually pay attention to it, or to just let it be in the background. So it gives you a chance to organize your thoughts and regain your focus.
I feel like a good alternative has to be something where you, yourself, don't put in any effort. But it shouldn't be like social media where it occupies your head just enough so that you can't think of anything else. It should allow you to recompose yourself.
Anyone else have things that they used to scratch the "itch" of social media?
I think the single game I have the most playtime in is Just Cause 3 (If I'm not wrong something like 350 hours). Mostly just messing around as a teen, trying to do crazy stuff with the game's mechanics. The amount of tricks you can pull off with what the game gives you is insane.
Gaming is generally considered one of the most expensive hobbies out there. Not only do you have to pay for powerful hardware, but games themselves cost a pretty penny. But I'd argue that the best games out there are incredibly cheap. Instead of playing a copy and paste open world AAA game for $60 that needs a NASA pc to run, you can play some of the most creative and interesting games out there on a potato for little to no cost. 1- Emulation / Old games / Abandonware
This one is pretty obvious and already known to most, but it would be a crime to make a thread about cheap games and not include it. There is a vast library of old games out there. Enough classics for an entire lifetime, most of which hold up surprisingly well today! Instead of playing the newest title on a franchise, you can play the one that made that franchise famous in the first place. For abandonware, you can check out myabandonware.com. For emulation, all you need is to google the best emulator for the console you want. Always make sure you're downloading from the emulator's official site. Roms out there are generally pretty safe to download from google (just search [game][console] ROM). But know that roms will NEVER come in exe format. They will always be a file that can be opened with an emulator (usually a rom/iso that is packed in a zip file). For old games in general, check out gog.com.
2- Itch.io Indie games! Some of the most creative games to be released the last few years are on itch. While the front page of the popular section looks like a blob of similar looking horror and romance games, I'd recommend sorting by either "New and popular" or "Top Rated". A lot of the free games are either demos or made for game jams, meaning they're pretty short. But still very enjoyable. The paid games are usually pretty cheap and of very high quality. This is the best game marketplace out there today in my opinion. They also sometimes make charity bundles, which not only support good causes but include a lot of good games. My only advice for this one is to get out there and discover! Edit: I recently went on gog.com again, and remembered that it was also a good place for indie games. Especially if you're looking for the medium range stuff that isn't AAA but still made by a professional studio.
3- Steam There is a whole world of niche/indie games on steam that almost no-one sees. The interactive steam recommender is great in this regard. Crank the slider to niche, adjust the games on the left to reflect what you're looking for, and you'll find games you never even heard of that cost very little but match your tastes perfectly. Do this during a sale and you'll find games that cost less than a dollar. Keep experimenting with the settings!
5- Visual Novels Even a computer that came with windows xp can run a book. You can usually discover newer VN's through itch, and older ones on vndb.org. Though with the latter I'd recommend searching with the "No sexual content" filter on (Not that there aren't VN's with sexual content that are worth playing, but without this filter you will usually find stuff that was mostly meant to be a dating sim/porn). If you want recommendations, my votes are here. These go from LGBT stories, to puzzle games, to 1200000 word long mystery novels. If you've never played VN's before, If Found, 9 persons 9 hours 9 doors, Ace Attoreny and Christmas Tina might be good starters depending on your preference. I'd highly recommend any game I gave an eight or more.
6- Misc sites To be honest, I only have one site to put here, but I'm hoping the people in the replies will add to the list!
-Vgperson All the games on this site are free and easy to run. Some are made by vgperson, while most were just translated by them. A lot of them are classic, must play rpgmaker games.
Have you felt this shift in your own life? Do you view it as a good or bad thing?
Since I was young, I pretty much spend every waking hours on the internet, but growing up I noticed adults spending more time on the computer as time went on.
I think that spending most of your time on a computer is not inherently bad in a vacuum as it is pretty much just a tool you can use to educate and entertain yourself.
That being said, most people are constantly on social media - this has undoubtebly negative effects on society, so yeah I'd argue that in most case it's a bad thing. People should definitely take their eyes off the screen more often.
I share pretty much the same experience and agree 100%. During my teens I pretty much spent all of my free time either on a PC or on a game console. I moved on now (sorta) and am trying to make an effort to do other things too, but I can't bring myself to say that I wasted all that time. My time online is part of my identity, and will continue be part of my identity.
What is the piece of media that changed you the most?
For me it's Ace Attorney. While there are a couple, more serious, books that changed my worldview, I can't think of anything else that changed me as much as that series. I mentioned before in my introduction that my main interests are narrative games and murder mysteries, and Ace Attorney is the game that introduced me to both. I even remember thinking that the premise was stupid when I was 10, and downloading it as a joke. This game pretty much set a chain reaction that made me into who I am today, as silly as that may sound. Both in my tastes and what I want to create.
One pretty funny part of playing old games on new displays is that it sometimes makes them look worst. Here's an example. Old games were meant for blurry CRT screens, and developers took advantage of that effect. A lot of old graphics have pixelated corners that were obscured by CRT blurring. It's nothing super detrimental, but still interesting.
Pale moon. But I'm considering a switch to another Firefox based browser since pale moon is very slow and lacks support for some more modern css/html features.
Try LibreWolf. =)
Thanks for the suggestion! It seems really good on the privacy front, and now my browser doesn't nearly crash every time I try to load a video.
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