Yes that’s true! I find that games like that have their own sort of niche, in which players usually know quite a lot about the game (from watching others play it online) before jumping in. And there’s an expectation that they’ll refer to the wiki regularly. These kind of games can’t have a tutorial that covers everything, because there’s way too much to cover.

This is a weird one for me because it often depends on whether I paid for the game. I got the first Fallout game for free (from GOG or something), and when I inevitably became confused by the UI and objective I ended up giving up on it. If I’d bought the game (either today or back when it came out) I definitely would have invested a lot more time into it, and got past that initial hump. Back when PC games came on disc with an instruction guide, reading that was part of the experience. There’s definitely a awkward period around the early 2000s when games were becoming way more complex, but before in-game tutorials were regularly a thing. I find it hard to go back to a lot of those games.

Likewise I played the first hour of Resident Evil HD on my PS4 (free with PS+) and never had the motivation to get into it. After paying for it in a Humble Bundle, I played through the whole thing on Steam and loved it! The fact that I’d paid for it was able to outweigh the fact that the game was quite outdated. I guess I felt like I wanted to get my money’s worth.

Any game from 2005-ish onwards feels ‘modern’ enough that I don’t usually have this problem.

Yeah I agree with all that! Definitely a bit too much school life stuff near the start. The story starts to get properly interesting around the halfway mark, but also branches out so much that it’s hard to follow. I’d love to see a similar game in this setting, with an equal complex story but told in a more standard way.

Also yeah Megumi’s part kinda sucked. Didn’t ever get interesting.

Thanks for the clarification on those bits!

Wait I’m confused… You’re asking for a fan-made mod to be added to the Switch version of Stardew? 🤔

I’m not sure about Vita, but there is a decent 3DS emulator (Citra). I haven’t tested MGS3 on it

I started playing it years ago but quit after reaching the Strip - this time I will make sure to actually finish it! The writing is great and the quests are really memorable.

I like the sound of this! The Starfield coffee article was funny. $7 a month miiiight be a little bit much for me - but I’ll keep an eye on this and if the journalism is decent and they put out a fair number of articles I’ll definitely consider it. I guess I used to spend around that amount on gaming magazines…

Have you played any of the series before? MGS2 and 3 are some of the best games ever made, IMO :) Twin Snakes is ok, but I much prefer the original.

Playing through:

• New Vegas
• 13 Sentinels
• Might start on Skyward Sword on Switch, now that I’ve finished TOTK

Oh I completely misread your earlier comment lol. They sound good though! I’ve heard great things about ULTRAKILL too

Not heard of that one! I can’t seem to find it online - unless is the game called Virtuaverse and Master Boot Record did the music?

Oh awesome, most of these were on my wishlist. The backlog grows yay!

Thanks, I got it working! Well all except the ragdoll mod because that requires you to have all the DLC :(

This is a difficult one to answer as most RPGs I can think of have some combination of the stuff that puts you off. Have you tried the Witcher 3 (great story, and the RPG elements are fairly simplified) or Deus Ex: Human Revolution? And if you’ve played Nier Replicant and enjoyed it, I think you’d love Nier Automata.

I’ll give those two a go! Looking into it, I think I’d need the following mods to get these to work, which isn’t too bad:

• B42 Weapon inertia
• Ragdolls
• JIP LN NVSE
• JohnnyGuitar NVSE
• NC Compatibility skeleton
• The Mod Configuration Menu (optional)

One thing I’m not sure about… I installed MO2 on my Deck using this guide which also installs NVSE. But how do I know what version of NVSE it installed? A few mods mention they need a particular version of NVSE.

Some of those look nice! I notice that a lot have pre-requisite mods, and those require their own pre-requisites 😱 I’ll see if I can find some easy to install ones

I’ve started a new playthrough of Fallout New Vegas. Never got round to finishing it last time, so hopefully will do now! So far I’ve added some stability mods and a new radio station. Anyone got any other mod recommendations?

Yeah I guess that’s my take on ‘gamifying things’, but there’s probably a few different ways to do it. I’ve heard that in psychology, rewards are a lot more effective than punishments - so maybe frame it slightly differently. Personally I wouldn’t base things on how well you do in the game, because that could get frustrating - in the worst scenario you’ll already be annoyed at doing poorly in the game, and that’s followed by having to do more work. Instead I’d spin it, so if you do all the tidying reward yourself with an hour of gaming. If you get all your chores done, you get 2 hours of gaming etc.

I agree with what others have said about gamifying life. For example, ‘oh it’s 5pm, I need to spend 30 minutes doing some tidying before I can play a game again’. And for games with no clear end point, set yourself goals so you know when to take a break. ‘Once I’ve built this factory, I need to take an hour’s break before I can play again’.

If you like puzzles and open world games, have you tried The Witness? There are a lot of puzzles to complete so it should take you a while!

Not currently on sale on Steam, but it does drop in price regularly. Depending how you feel about key reselling sites, you might be able to get it cheaper.