Ashen44

I 100% agree. Games are about what's fun, and that differs for everybody. Difficulty selection exists for a reason. My mom LOVES the playstation first party games (god of war, horizon, etc) but she always plays them on story mode. It's not because she can't handle any higher difficulties (she's been gaming since before I was born), she simply doesn't care about the challenge and just wants to experience the story.

Games are for us to enjoy, and short of cheating in a multiplayer game I don't really think there's a wrong way to enjoy them. Opening up more avenues for more people to enjoy them is just a net positive in my opinion.

As a diehard(man) Death Stranding fan, I gotta say the boss fights were easily the worst part of the game. I always turn the difficulty up to maximum when I'm doing a new playthrough because the game just feels more impactful and fun when there's an actual sense of danger, but it goes straight down to easy mode whenever a boss comes out cause I am not dealing with that lol

While I'll definitely be doing the bossfights the first time around in DS2 this feature will probably save my future playthroughs. It's just always nice to see more options for letting players engage with the game in the ways they want to.

According to the wikipedia page for isoamyl acetate, it is both responsible for the banana smell and is the chemical honey bees use to tell other bees to sting, so at least the logic for the post is sound.

I've recently been disabling minimaps in games that let me.... hell of a good idea, makes the game way more immersive and fun to navigate.

That being said, it does require a certain mindset that using a minimap doesn't. You need to be willing to take things slow, take in your surroundings, and really look. I recognize that most people don't like going that slow and so minimaps are useful. I hope that they've taken that into consideration with this decision.

I'm afraid we'll never know

It's hilarious that you say that because I literally just finished 100%ing Control the other day haha! I found it to be the perfect game for stopping and staring because of all the thought put into everything, and how many cool little details and experiences you can have by taking things slowly! I do 100% agree with you though, I wish they were way less aggressive with the enemies spawning. Thankfully when you get tired of it you can just turn on god mode and blast through them, but it's certainly not an ideal solution.

Unfortunately, it's an intentional design choice. You can see it in many, many other games too. Fact of the matter is, most players need constant stimulation or they drop off quick, so game designers specifically design their games so you never go without a new event for more than 5 minutes. You can see it especially well in games like Tears of the Kingdom, another game I love that has a godawful encounter system where you can't go five steps without another enemy ambushing you!

It's sadly something you aren't going to escape from as long as you're playing big budget games, which is doubly sad because big budget game worlds are usually extra fun to explore because they can afford to really flesh out their worlds! That's why I appreciate games like Monster Hunter (specifically World and Wilds) which solve the issue by giving you those constanr encounters (back to back quests, running into monsters constantly out in the maps) but make it incredibly easy to just not engage and completely ignore them (most monsters not being instantly aggressive, ghillie mantle and skills that make monsters ignore you completely). This at least gives me hope that we can compromise between the stimulation bombardment and the tranquil admiration.

The author talks a lot about the addictiveness of the flow state, and how most players try to achieve thjs state to just stop thinking for a while. I found it interesting what the author said about the teacher trying to get their students to recognize the feeling of games, because that's exactly what I've been trying to do lately to counteract that state of not really taking things in and just passing through the game.

There's a youtuber named "Any Austin" who really opened my eyes up to this. Now instead of doing the quests and advancing the game, I take my time with games. I actively get annoyed when games don't give me some quiet time to not play the game, and I really appreciate the beauty of games beyind the gameplay.

I highly recommend everyone to try this out: pick your favourite game, preferably one with an actual game world you can move around in, rather than just a board like balatro, and just sit. Don't play the game, just find something interesting and stare at it. Think about how it was made, and what purpose does it serve in the game. Keep doing this, just walk around your world and try to appreciate its existence. Stare at the skybox, the grass, the buildings, the mountains.

This has given me both a new appreciation for games, and a way to break free from the endless treadmill of going from one experience to the next, with no thought put into the inbetween. It's a sort of mindfulness in a way, and something I feel has actively improved my real life rather than just distracted me from it. Now I find myself able to appreciate these small beauties and curiosities everywhere I go.

good god I am so hyped for this game. The story looks so good, the music is on point (hello woodkid?), and I'm loving the new environments we're being shown! Ironically, the action is the part I'm least interested in since that was my least favourite part of the first game, so I'm worried that they showed so much of it, but hopefully they've improved it between games.

It's kinda funny seeing that sandstorm after Monster Hunter Wilds just released. Where's my Rey Dau BT? (wait a Monster Hunter - Death Stranding crossover would be peak)

So what you're saying is the trick is to get one of those sinks that's literally just a slant in the vanity leading to the drain, then you'll never let your dishes pile up

While I agree with the criticisms of this list, it does have 2 of my favourite games of all time (Tunic and Crosscode) so I dub it based as hell.

For real. I've seen the fingerprinting info, I know your website can see what language I've set, so display your website in that language!

Oh my god, this brought back memories!

I had a book as a small child about various weird plants. Pitcher plants, water lilies, stuff like that. I remember reading about a plant with no chlorophyll called the ghost plant or something and thinking it was the coolest thing ever, but I could never find that book again. This was also before I knew how to use the internet so I had no way of looking up the plant, thanks for reminding me of it!