Picked up Paper Mario TTYD on Switch to see what all the hype is about, and yeah honestly all the OG fans were right about it. It's the best one I've played in the series by a longshot.
Without context, I would assume Sticker Star and Color Splash released before TTYD - as if they were still figuring out where to go with the series, and would eventually evolve into something better as technology advanced. Then TTYD comes along, and not only has more mechanical depth, but also so much more life and creativity in it.
Update 1: Thanks for all the responses! I’ve gotten a lot of very good comments saying I should stick with Mint, and that’s sitting comfortably in my top two picks right now. Between new distros, I’m most interested in Arch’s rolling release model, as it provides some benefits for me for reasons I didn’t really get...
Sounds like you should just use Mint, especially if you tried and like it. It's customizable, GUI friendly, it's based on Ubuntu so most guides for either will work, and you can download Steam to it and play native games (or Windows games through Proton).
I don't know what you're looking for, that Mint doesn't provide. You can download different DEs or window managers, you can write your own bash scripts, and the core functionality for regular use is already there.
I like the idea of rolling release in theory, but stability is extremely important to me because I use Linux as my daily driver.
EndeavourOS and Manjaro aren't really going to do much to address your desire to use terminal more than Mint IMO, either; most mainstream distros like that emphasize usability first and foremost.
If you're looking to really get under the hood, go with Arch ans follow a guide so you don't bork anything too badly. Arch uses a different package manager than Mint/Ubuntu, so some of the commands might look different if you're not following Arch-specific guides, but terminal is terminal is terminal in many cases. You can run Steam on Arch, and building the core functionality on your own will get you acquainted with terminal.
Although I've used everything from Arch to Zorin, and eventually you will have to use terminal for something. Just depends on what your longterm goals are, what usability you will need to rely on quickly, and how you think you'll get to those goals most efficiently.
This is just talking about games approved through Valve’s verification process. There are a lot of games that work that are “unverified”, not to mention the entire history of gaming available through emulation....
The issue is voters talk about how regular people are doing, while politicians talk about “the economy” which is rich people and business…
This, 100%.
Ask some person on the street how their stock portfolio is looking, and they'll probably be like "The F are you talking about???"
Ask the same person about the cost of groceries, and they'll have a rant locked and loaded about why a 12 pack of soda costs $10 now.
When people respond to these surveys, they are taking their experiences with them, and most of us are seeing expensive gas, expensive groceries, expensive housing, and jobs that don't pay enough to live. People couldn't afford to live on $8 an hour a decade ago, and now everything costs more.
This has downstream effects in that it makes it harder to switch jobs because you cant wait two weeks for your new job to kick in - much less afford to take off work to go to an interview. You can't move to a city with more opportunities because cities are more expensive and you can't even afford to save up enough to make the move because you're paycheck to paycheck. Jobs paying "market rate" for wages which is dragged down because the system keeps people desperate enough to work for cheap.
These are people who have had to live with the boot of the economy on their necks for a long time. And while politicians can talk about all the great jobs out there and how amazing the economy is, for real people that boot is just stepping down harder. It's no wonder they blame leadership when this is their experience with this economy.
As I've gotten older as a player, I have found myself dropping some eras of gaming that I used to be nostalgic for. One of them is the 8-bit era, the NES days. I have played some of the best that system had to offer and I will never say that system didn't have any good games....
For 8-bit era, a lot of those games are rough around the edges. Games like Mario Land 3 hold up pretty well, but honestly I'd rather play the remastered version in Mario All Stars. Zelda is still interesting, but it feels so dated even compared to A Link to the Past, which only came out 5 years later. Tetris holds up, but there are many better versions that have come out since the GameBoy.
You get into the 16-bit era, and it really feels like devs have enough room to flex their muscles. We were getting stuff like Chrono Trigger, Yoshi's Island, Mario World, Earthbound, Super Metroid, Street Fighter II Turbo, Sonic & Knuckles, etc. But by this point, I've played these games so many times that it doesn't feel like nostalgia anymore. Other games from that era don't always feel as polished as the ones I remember fondly, so trying a new game is always hit or miss.
Modern indie games inspired by the 16-bit era just feel like modern games with pixel art, so I think there may be some level of conflation in my nostalgia muscles, as well.
The games that are really feeling nostalgic for me now are early 3D era games, and the indie games that scratch the same itch. Lunacid and Crow Country hit this primordial nostalgia I didn't even realize was there.
I was going to say replaying but I feel like that limits the question to games like Prey or Fallout New Vegas that have endings and games like The Sims 2 or Cities Skylines where you can play indefinitely end up excluded....
Most of the story criticism I've heard fall into a handful of categories:
Overall plot seeming convoluted and hard to follow (which is understandable when you throw both time travel and parallel universes into the same story)
Whitewashed portrayal of racism used for story aesthetics
Ending feeling confusing and/or unsatisfying
Certain story moments feeling out of place and/or undermining things that other story moments set up
I haven't seen much in the way of players expecting/predicting plot twists.
I've had Kenshi on my wishlist for a long time, and I haven't pulled the trigger. What's your favorite part about it? Most of what I know is that it's punishing and has deep roleplaying opportunities, but I don't know a lot of the specifics.
Genre mismatch might be a factor? Don't Starve is not an action-roguelite like Binding of Isaac; it's a survival-crafting game. They are aiming to be vastly different experiences.
I bought a PS2 about 6 months ago from a coworker and finally got around to getting it working at a good enough resolution on my monitor. I currently have:...
So is this stock Yuzu without any changes? IIRC the legal issue was something about circumventing copy protection, so would this project be subject to the same issues?
Also, how do I verify that this fork isn't malware wrapped in emulator code?
The amount of time to build something like this seems like it would offset the amount of effort it would take just to write good character dialogue. AI tools are basically word calculators, which means you have to provide data for the LLM, which means time to produce this data, time to build guardrails, etc. Even in this implementation, they say they had to build guardrails so that they don't say anything "harmful."
There are also a number of lawsuits going on that will set a precedent for how training data can be utilized in commercial products. While I expect them to take the side of large corporations with vast resources at the expense of ethics, there's the possibility that they will do the right thing. This will affect how AI tools wil be used in such contexts.
"Monado" has no specific meaning and is just a name.
As a Xenoblade fan, I call BS.
But I do expect we'll see more open source VR solutions and support as adoption increases. They're still in that phase of expensive luxury goods in most cases - PSVR costs more than a PS5 and also requires one to work, Index is $1000, and I don't even know where the Apple headset got its pricing.
Most of these also want to lock down their VR as a platform, instead of being ubiquitous hardware like a monitor, and I think lack of standardization is gonna hurt them in the long run by narrowing their audience.
For example, I was doing research for a blog article and found a paper by a guy named Christian Messenger. That man was definitely destined for missionary work, but the paper was about football.
I know it’s an unpopular opinion given current circumstances, but I’ve always been a huge nerd about Russia. The history, the geography, the music, etc. And as an American, I’ve always found it fascinating how U.S.-Russian relations have fluctuated over time. We’ve gone from allies, to enemies, to frenemies. This...
But deliberately misunderstanding the term antisemitism is also quite frustrating.
Given how the term is broadly understood in modern usage, I wouldn't say the players are misunderstanding it; I think it's more a question of misidentifying where the pushback is actually coming from.
And I am sympathetic, given all the reasons both modern and historical that might make it easy to infer antisemitism. But starting there shuts out any possibility for nuance or discussion or learning.
What frustrates me is how hard it is to get people out of that mindset - of taking things other people are communicating and adding one's own assumptions on where they're coming from. You have to be able to recognize how your behavior is limiting your ability to empathize and grow, and that kind of change can be so challenging.
It feels like an uphill battle, but positive change doesn't happen overnight.
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 26th
Whatcha all been playing!...
New Linux user, here is my use case. Distro recommendations?
Update 1: Thanks for all the responses! I’ve gotten a lot of very good comments saying I should stick with Mint, and that’s sitting comfortably in my top two picks right now. Between new distros, I’m most interested in Arch’s rolling release model, as it provides some benefits for me for reasons I didn’t really get...
Steam Deck game library now 29% larger than that of Nintendo Switch (www.pcgamesn.com)
This is just talking about games approved through Valve’s verification process. There are a lot of games that work that are “unverified”, not to mention the entire history of gaming available through emulation....
Alaskan rivers turning orange due to climate change, study finds (www.theguardian.com)
Dozens of rivers and streams in Alaska are turning rusty orange, a likely consequence of thawing permafrost, a new study finds....
Majority of Americans wrongly believe US is in recession – and most blame Biden (www.theguardian.com)
cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/15676201...
What are some eras of gaming that you've stopped feeling nostalgic for?
As I've gotten older as a player, I have found myself dropping some eras of gaming that I used to be nostalgic for. One of them is the 8-bit era, the NES days. I have played some of the best that system had to offer and I will never say that system didn't have any good games....
What are some games you find yourself frequently coming back to?
I was going to say replaying but I feel like that limits the question to games like Prey or Fallout New Vegas that have endings and games like The Sims 2 or Cities Skylines where you can play indefinitely end up excluded....
Harold Halibut - Official Release Date Trailer (www.youtube.com)
Amy Jo Johnson shades 'Power Rangers' costar Austin St. John for selling t-shirts with Hitler quotes (ew.com)
Best PS2 games?
I bought a PS2 about 6 months ago from a coworker and finally got around to getting it working at a good enough resolution on my monitor. I currently have:...
Suyu, a potential replacement for Yuzu (gitlab.com)
A Small Steam Game Shows How LLMs Could Kill the Dialogue Tree (re: Verbal Verdict demo) (www.404media.co)
Excerpts:...
Windows Mixed Reality to be removed in Windows 11 24H2 (blogs.windows.com)
Windows MR and HP Reverb VR headsets to lose all functionality in Windows 11 24H2, so don’t update if you use those headsets....
Donald Trump says he would encourage Russia to attack Nato countries who don’t pay ‘bills’ (www.theguardian.com)
What is the most on-the-nose or strangely objective name that you have heard?
For example, I was doing research for a blog article and found a paper by a guy named Christian Messenger. That man was definitely destined for missionary work, but the paper was about football.
Everyone's a nerd about something. What are you a nerd about?
I know it’s an unpopular opinion given current circumstances, but I’ve always been a huge nerd about Russia. The history, the geography, the music, etc. And as an American, I’ve always found it fascinating how U.S.-Russian relations have fluctuated over time. We’ve gone from allies, to enemies, to frenemies. This...
Irish women’s basketball team refused to shake hands with Israel (www.theguardian.com)
TheGuardian.com