I love them both. I feel like they both need to be played on harder difficulties because they’re built for a pushy playstyle, especially Eternal which requires melee finishers for ammo drops even more than the '16 game already did.

'16 has more of a straightforward plot. The story is fine. The main NPC looks and sounds like James Spader’s Ultron, which thrills me. I love the Mars station design and wish the Hell levels were a bit more creative. Other than some mysterious hints at a connection between Doomguy and all the Hell stuff, '16 doesn’t bother much with lore.

Eternal takes everything good about '16 and gives it an espresso, some laughing gas, and a whole bunch of lore that might have been written by Tenacious D. It’s deeply silly, very hard and has some of the best game design I’ve ever seen. I don’t think one is better than the other; 2016 is more nostalgic, but Eternal is more ambitious. The only catch about Eternal’s ambition is that you really have to be on board, because there aren’t optional play styles — you play Eternal the way the devs tell you it’s supposed to be played.

Incidentally I just started Prey about an hour ago after sitting on it in my backlog for a couple years. It’s very good so far, seems to have a good spread of systems with decent depth and the graphics are still 2023-approved.

I’ve been playing a lot of DOOM so the combat feels a bit Lite™, but I felt that way about Dishonored too—blows land like wing chun and not like a rock crusher.

It’s got BioShock’s turrets, F.E.A.R.'s slow-mo and Dishonored’s stealthy parkour, and so far it all comes together nicely.

It feels very much like an Arkane title, too. Maybe a bit too much going on at once, but boy do they know how to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks.

It’s a consequence of retail. Because carriers in the US determine which phones most of us can access, with the exit of LG from the market the Android landscape in the US was effectively reduced to Samsung. Other manufacturers may as well not exist for all the average shopper is led to believe – the brick and mortar store where you pick out your phone gives you two options: iPhone or Samsung.

Certain markets too, perhaps. I’m in the US with an A32 because I’ve just flat-out stopped paying for flagships, and I haven’t seen any junk in the most recent update.

Wow, hadn’t heard of this. It looks great, thank you!

Oh sick, I didn’t realize Deathloop was first-person (I assumed it was over the shoulder 3rd-person like Max Payne & Control).

I almost mentioned Control in my post because it did have great environmental design that felt like a cross between Aperture and The X-Files. I’ll stick Deathloop on the wishlist, thanks for the recommendation!

Shit, and it comes with the first two games for $4?? Purchased and downloaded. Thanks for the suggestion!

Thanks for the really thoughtful comment! You make all three sound extremely intriguing.

I was unaware that any of the Halo games had much of a story at all! I’ve always just imagined them as the present incarnation of Unreal Tournament, i.e. built primarily for competitive multiplayer. I’d have expected the art direction to be, uh, perfunctory. Shame on me.

The thing that I dislike about metroidvanias, which is that I get hopelessly disoriented, could indeed work in favor of a horror game. I’m very interested in this one now, and as a fortysomething gamer I love the idea of a Gameboy title.

I picked up Frostpunk during the Epic giveaway but haven’t dived in yet. Thank you for the specific description—it’ll make it easier to go in with the proper expectation for suspense!

What exactly does Sabbath mode do? Is it like a burst of deep freeze so the appliance can power down Fri-Sat and stay cold, or what?

Asking as a renter with Sabbath mode on the fridge in my apartment.

Well you just bloody sold me on DOOM 3, adding it to the wishlist immediately

I’ve started Black Mesa but haven’t finished it yet. What I’ve played has been fucking impressive.

Valve is sort of the best at what I’m asking about—all of their games have the greatest touches that make the settings feel like existing locations you’ve walked into. It’s what makes me wish they published more.

The insane detail that goes into aging Aperture throughout the second half of Portal 2, the way it starts in the 40s or 50s at the very bottom and has a distinct “era” for each level as you get closer to the surface, including Cave’s progressing illness . . . it’s such good storytelling, and it’s literally just window dressing for the already-great main plot.

I’ve got about 2k hours in Skyrim so I definitely love a Bethesda game, but what I’m thinking about are simple arcade shooters with less of an RPG structure than TES or Fallout.

Admittedly Borderlands has skill trees and classes, but I feel like it’s safe to call it a shooter first & a roleplayer second. But DOOM, Bioshock, Portal, Metro—if there’s more to your character than their name & their gun, the game barely acknowledges it. :P

An extremely patient gamer, I see ;)

I was 16 when Goldeneye released. The immersion of those locations was off the charts for the time. I’m not sure I played another game that gave me that uncanny feeling of being somewhere else until HL2.

I actually have SoC & CoP in my backlog. I tried SoC once, but admittedly didn’t give it the time it deserved.

Gameplay-wise, would you recommend playing CoP before SoC, since Pripyat is newer, or is it best to play SoC first for the story?

OG experts

And all the poor bastards with that wireless Apple mouse that charges via USB on the goddamn bottom of the device so it can’t be used while it’s plugged in. 🤦‍♂️

I switched from Mac to PC a couple years ago, and learning to use the Windows key for those slightly-obscure special character shortcuts (e.g. em-dash, accents) took some angry rewiring of muscle memory.

Fool—the scroll wheel is a scalpel; the scrollbar is a broadsword. Use the right tool for the job.

There was a recurring gag on Parks And Rec about Pawnee internet users needing Altavista so they could use it to navigate to Google. That joke felt very real.

This is me watching my SO use any video editing software, or anything at all from Adobe.

Blood and Wine is worth playing for the soundtrack alone