Can you elaborate? Would jacking up the graphics, animations, and sound mess with the atmosphere? It‘s been a hot minute since I‘ve played it so I‘m not sure what the issue would be.

That‘s a nice catch I‘m gonna spread at any opportunity in the future

One has to be Crusader Kings III considering the amount of time that died in that game. I did Lingua Franca (world domination) when mods and savescumming voided achievements, my whole empire fell apart literally 20 seconds after I achieved world domination lol, could barely hold it together to achieve the feat.

The other one is probably Rocket League. Low skill floor, skyhigh skill ceiling, wonderfully designed esports game. If you could still freely go in and out of casual games, I‘d probably still play it. But I peaked and don‘t feel the need to play ranked anymore and casuals started to feel like ranked.

After these two I can probably name ten more but I can‘t say which takes a top 3. League of Legends, Counterstrike 1.6, Battlefield 3, HITMAN, Dark Souls II (yep lol, I could probably draw a map of this game from memory), NIOH 1/2, Monster Hunter World, Sleeping Dogs, Muse Dash, all these games killed countless hours with fun, but it‘s hard to put one above the other. Apart from League of Legends, that one takes the rear.

If that‘s the case then I guess I shouldn‘t be as sceptic cause I liked Infinite quite a bit

Aren‘t the original devs gone or am I misremembering?

And „community-based engagement business“ is…?

I remember them coping how it‘s actually good that they‘re owned by IGN now not too long ago lol

Of course this is good and I welcome it

Yup, best controller design for my hands. If only the quality of its components wasn‘t so crap. Drifting sticks, squeaky triggers, double pressing buttons, I had it all. I thought an elite controller would be of better quality, got one, and the plastic of the right shoulder button straightup broke within a year. No dropping, no throwing, it just broke from normal use lol

The form‘s great, the buttons (when they work), are great, the sticks (when they work) are great. It just doesn‘t last long past warranty. Thankfully they‘re on sale every year for like 35 bucks but I‘d rather they were a tad more expensive with better quality components… I guess they don‘t mind people having to buy more of them either though…

I think it‘s so dominant cause it‘s cheap and easy to make, and it runs on anything. I don‘t see it go anywhere anytime soon. But I hope some AA studios will try their hands on this style.

How high can you go in the settings while still getting 55-60 fps at native res on the Deck?

Assassin‘s Creed Unity

I‘ve complained it the past about Shadow of War that I felt like I had to fight Talon to get him to go where I want him to. Now that I’m close to 100%ing ACU, I want to apologize to Talon cause ACU has the most sluggish, slow, and imprecise movement I‘ve ever wrestled with in these kinda games. Really made me realize how good I had it in Shadow of War lol. Every enemy just screaming at me on sight for no reason and tryna pick a fight with me when there‘s 50 people around me is also getting annoying. I think I love these games mainly for their sight-seeing and podcast side-activity capabilities now (collecathon). And revolutionary Paris is definitely a good sight-seeing location.

DiRT Rally 2.0

I‘m more of an arcade racer fan, but I‘m trying to challenge myself a bit with this one. I sometimes don‘t understand why I‘m spinning out, but I‘m hanging in there. The goal is another 100%, we‘ll see how far I can go! It‘s a pretty good rally simulation game, for anyone who doesn‘t know. It‘s also dirt cheap (hah).

Octopath Traveler

Hardly playing it atm but man, the theme song speaks to me, what a good piece. I‘m done with all chapter 1s, currently following a guide to pick up the missables before I go into the next chapters. There‘s something cozy about voiced pixel graphics JRPG storytelling to me. To anyone who‘s never heard of this game: Imagine old Final Fantasy titles, still pixel graphics, still turn-based, but with a few modern twists and the graphics pop out like a children picture book with modern effects. Full 60 at native res at max graphics on the Deck.

I love the visuals so much… I wish there were way more games out there looking like that, but at best it‘s (great) cell-shaded characters/monsters in a clay/plastic-looking world nowadays.

P5R is a reminder to me that I should be patient. Got it for 40 bucks way back, 2 hours played. I‘ll play it eventually, no doubt, but I didn‘t need it then lol

This month‘s choice is stacked

I enjoyed the DC mod more which might be the reason why BF3 was my peak 🤔 Did you maybe like BFV then?

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Idk how much it fits into your understanding of racing games, but one of my favorite vibing games of all time is Slipstream.

My favorite traditional racing game is the old DiRT 2. I‘m just not much of a sim guy, I dislike having to fight the car too much, it starts to feel like I’m trying to steer a washing machine on ice. I am challenging myself with DiRT Rally 2.0 (yes, confusing) though, not sure how far I‘ll get.

Valve is self-publishing so technically… 🤔

I don‘t even have a disk drive anymore. I prefer digital nowadays since I like to swap around games and don‘t wanna have to swap the media every time as well. It kinda bothers me with my Switch, but I still prefer physical there so I can resell.

In an ideal world I‘d like a physical copy of a complete game on my shelf where I don‘t have to use the physical medium to play it but can fall back to that in case a platform‘s failing or I want to resell it… However all that would work.

In the current reality it‘s just Steam all the way for convenience‘s sake. Gabe was right, it‘s all about service quality. If Steam ever pulls the rug from under my feet, I’ll basically have no games anymore though lol

I loved Battlefield.

For me it started to go downhill with BF1, although it was still a good game, it already started trying to be a movie and not the „put C4 onto jeep, plop into jeep, drive jeep to enemy, plop out if jeep, boom“ kinda jamboree that I loved. Now it was all about getting spammed with immersive animations that just broke the flow for me. At least hardcore servers were still very enjoyable for me.

Then BFV came around and with it more animation spam on top of absolute terrible visual clarity where you had to stand still for a couple seconds and scan a room to really be sure no one‘s lying on their back in a corner (obviously you‘re long dead by then). Oftentimes I got shot by a camper and even in the killcam I couldn‘t even see the guy. As if that‘s not enough, they introduced clown skins that made you wonder if that person‘s on your side or not. Now it’s not x uniform soldiers against x uniform soldiers anymore, there‘s superheroes and supervillains running around. I hardly even played this one.

Then BF2042 came and it‘s just Apex Legends hamfisted into a BF frame as far as I‘m concerned. I didn‘t even get this until they trashed it for 2 bucks and played for like 2 hours since.

BF3 was peak, BF4 was good, BF1 was alright, then a whole lotta disappointment. I‘ll never forget the 24/7 Back to Karkand Rush server in BF3, community servers rock. Good times, sad greed made it go to shit.

I can second that, it‘s a good sim for what I can tell anyway. (Although also EA now, see OP‘s requirements)