Deconceptualist

I expected the punchline to be “for me to poop on”.

In fairness, PL is a lot newer so it could still be a while before it gets major discounts.

D’oh, that’s just the same $30 the base game has hit plenty of times. I’m holding out for Ultimate Edition <$45, currently ~$50 which is a new low at least (because Phantom Liberty is finally 20% off).

Yeah, in GTA IV, Niko doesn’t have any character stats, and his appearance never changes except for whatever clothes you buy. I assume it’s the same for the 3 protagonists in V.

It’s my favorite of the series, though I never played V.

San Andreas struck a great balance between serious and ridiculous. Some of the gang rivalry story hit pretty hard for its time, but also there was a mini Las Vegas and a goofy jetpack and tons of dumb Cluckin’ Bell jokes. It even had RPG elements like CJ getting more fit if you work out or fat if you fed him tons of fast food. Not everybody loved this and not surprisingly it was cut from later entries but I thought it added to the world. And the map was great, lots of variation between city and countryside. Great soundtrack too, rivaled only by Vice City IMO.

IV just didn’t do it for me. The phone (cousin Roman!) was obnoxious, the cars felt too heavy, the story just wasn’t very funny, and the map was pretty much all city.

Maybe I’d enjoy V since it’s huge and supposedly the vehicles are more fun, but I hear the story isn’t great.

The review I linked was posted 3 days after that update. It’s about the singleplayer career mode.

An internet connection is very much necessary for the online rallies

What if I don’t care about online rallies? I just enjoy a good singleplayer campaign. Rally 1.0 doesn’t require a constant connection.

Also, these days I want games I can play on my Steam deck so I’m not tied to my desk. Reports say DR2 runs pretty well. But am I going to lose hours of progress because I had to temporarily put my battery-powered device into sleep mode? Reviews say it can happen pretty easily even on a normal PC.

Course language warning, but this review sums up the experience I don’t want and why I’m avoiding the game. Commenters confirm it’s remained accurate.

I loved the prior DiRT games but according to PCGW Rally 2.0 still requires a constant Internet connection. Fuck that, even for only a few bucks, it’s not worth the frustration.

I appreciate that. I have a partner who is on the spectrum and has ADHD as well.

I was only joking in the pedantic style often associated (rightly or wrongly) with autistic traits. ASD is the official DSM-5 term. Of course being a diagnostic manual, that focuses only on behavioral deficits. As I understand, the DSM gets plenty of criticism because like you mention, it omits all the interesting ways folks cope or even creatively use abilities like hyperfocus for positive outcomes. But on the other hand, I’m not sure successful behavior requires any psychological treatment, so that may be unnecessary to include in the first place.

Anyway, I think this is one of many situations where simple terminology doesn’t capture the full nuance of reality. So apologies if that came across as crude.

Akshually it’s called Autism Spectrum Disorder

when has long-term growth and stability ever been prioritized over short-term wins in the games industry?

I dunno, maybe Valve’s entire approach to Linux and devices. Maybe GOG’s dedication to only selling DRM-free games. You’d think PC Gamer magazine would be well aware of these.

I saw a comment a while ago where someone calculated the equivalent wealth of fictional dragons (e.g. by estimating the dimensions of Smaug’s vast gold trove in The Hobbit) and determined that real billionaires are far worse hoarders of money. Like 1000x worse.

I should try to find that comment again.

The original Kerbal Space Program is another. You can uninstall Steam completely but still launch the game just fine. It’s actually pretty handy if you want separate mod loadouts, just copy the whole directory.

In contrast to this exec and many of the responses, another Steam Next Fest is happening right now! Go play free demos of upcoming games, 99% of which are Indies you’ve probably not yet heard of.

Retro Games Corps got hit, even though Russ only does legal emulation and backups. It’s his “2nd strike” on YouTube (3rd is channel deletion). He’s always been mindful of the situation and considerate of not spoiling games or encouraging anything close to piracy from what I’ve seen.

Source: Nerd Nest where he often guests.

Ooh, do German next!

Have you had that happen with Microsoft / Rockstar / Ubisoft / EA / whatever accounts? That was my actual question.

Nah, IMO that’s pretty reasonable. I would say “mad” here means someone bought the game and then gave it a negative review over the account linking.

Are people this mad about Microsoft accounts? I picked up Forza Horizon 4 and couldn’t play at all until I signed in with one. However I already had one from using OneDrive.

Rockstar too. Can’t even play RDR2 solo without creating an account.

I do hate Sony extra because they’re the fuckwits behind some particularly stupid DRM schemes. But some of the games they’ve been publishing lately are good and very welcome on PC aside from this account crap.

I disagree.

There’s probably a better argument that either:

1. Political assassinations (as a subset of misnamed ‘vigilante justice’) are never good and we shouldn’t reinforce that precedent, or

2. That person would be a hero to the planet and the future, not just present day America.