Gaming

GoG is freely releasing a bunch of games that would likely be targeted for removal by these moral panic lobbyists, for 48 hours, as a protest. Honestly not interested in the majority but hey I can get behind the sentiment!

Link is here:

https://items.gog.com/freedomtobuy/index.html

The official reveal of Battlefield 6 is still a day away, but a fresh leak has spoiled some of the surprise, detailing an October release date, an $80 price point, and a pricier premium edition if you want to spend even more money on EA's latest FPS.

Battlefield 6 hits PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on October 10 at a price of €79.99, according to reliable leaker billbil-kun reporting at Dealabs. While it's technically possible that Euro price might translate differently to USD, for the vast majority of games, €80 translates to $80. If you thought Xbox's sudden turnaround on $80 games was a sign of things to come, you might want to adjust your expectations.

There will also be a deluxe "Phantom Edition" available for €30 more, though we don't know precisely what'll be included. "Contrary to some rumors, the Phantom Edition is not a Collector's Edition," according to a Google translated version of the French report. "It is rather a Deluxe Edition, exclusively digital, including additional in-game content. No early access will be granted: both editions will be available simultaneously on October 10, 2025."

cross-posted from: https://piefed.zip/post/264215

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Ea-n%C4%81%E1%B9%A3ir

I'll teach him a lesson. As soon as my back stops hurting.

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/41291177

The group responsible is "Collective Shout", the same org has targeted Steam before.

There are calls on social media now to contact Mastercard, Visa and co. and file complaints.

Xbox controversially raised the base price of its mainline games to $80 in an announcement a few weeks ago. Now, it seems to be backtracking. Good, I say.

A few weeks ago, Microsoft announced that the base price of its Xbox games at retail would hit frankly staggering $80, underpinning what has been an incredibly tough year for consumers and businesses alike with regards to spiralling costs. Whether it's supply chains being impacted by arbitrary trade wars or sticky inflation from Covid quantitative easing, the market has been relatively unstable for the past few years for a variety of reasons.

In response, various businesses have put up their prices to varying degrees. Microsoft and Sony both raised the price of their Xbox and PlayStation hardware bundles over the past couple of years, and for a short while, it looked like the industry was poised to raise the base price of their mainline games to $80. It started with Nintendo's Mario Kart World hitting $79.99 at retail, and then back and forth over whether Borderlands 4 would hit $79.99 as well — it ended up being $69.99.

I've always been a sucker for RPG games. When I'm feeling down I tend to play Final Fantasy 8 or Final Fantasy 10, they're like my comfort games.

I've had a hard time finding joy in modern RPG games, they all feel very grindy and seem to have an uninteresting plot. I'm looking for something that sparks joy, so I don't have look for some ridiculous challenge like Khimari only run in FF10 or something.

Things that spark joy:

• Being able to play on Steam Deck or at least stream from my (linux) desktop
• Decent graphics, though pixel art is ok
• Voice acting
• No random encounters
• Good plot
• Good combat

Things that do not spark joy:

• Too much grinding
• DnD mechanics
• Mandatory online requirement

Games that I really enjoyed:

• Final Fantasy 7 through 10
• Final Fantasy 5
• Dragon Quest XI
• Xenoblade Chronicles 1/2
• South Park games
• Stardew Valley

Games that I did not enjoy:

• Elden Ring - I guess I just don't have the mental patience for souls games anymore.
• Final Fantasy X-2 - great combat mechanics, horrendous plot
• "Modern" Final Fantasy games
• Divinity: Original Sin 2, Disco Elysium - feels too much like DnD
• Hogwarts Legacy - It felt amazing at first but then got super repetitive
• Persona 5 Royal - The game severely overstayed its welcome, very bloated, very repetitive dialog (the characters tell you the same information multiple times)
• I am Setsuna - The plot resembled Final Fantasy 10 way too much, felt like I had already played that game. Didn't finish
• Kingdom Hearts - Severe motion sickness
• Octopath Traveler - The plot felt extremely disconnected, random encounters were annoying, I got stuck due to an underleveled party and didn't have the patience to grind it up

Thanks in advance!

Hacking Animal Crossing (GameCube, 2002) to add keyboard support, image and video conversion, and even a playable version of Snake.

Source.

I'm kinda sick of walking around Witcher 3's world looking like Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. I'm supposed to be a gruff and grizzled monster hunter, living in a filthy world and at the bottom of the social hierarchy, dishing out menacing threats in a monotone voice, yet I'm dressed in pristine baby blue prince pyjamas because they happen to be the strongest clothes I've come across so far. Let me cut & paste the stats from these Pierrot cumrags into a butcher's apron or something. And let me do it freely, with no in-game wank about having to visit a special magic tailor in the bumhole of nowhere, and with no restrictions on how often I can do it.

Fuckin' 17th century unsuccessful baroque composer lookin' ass. If someone came up to me dressed like my Witcher character, and challenged me to a fight to the death, I'd take the challenge because I know that no just universe or god would allow any harm to come to me from a person wearing that outfit. They could thrust an obsidian-tipped spear directly into my belly, and it'd harmlessly curve around me like a snake climbing a banana tree. The sacred blood of Christ would not allow for even a mild abrasion to befall me by the lace-gloved hand of a ballet theatre's chief bathroom attendant.

Like every time I have a string of good games there the matchmaker just takes a whole minute on an expanded 200 ms search only to grumble and put me in a random match LMAO