Games

About 2 weeks ago there was a disturbing post on the gaming comm: "Forgive me for I have reinstalled Overwatch". Now, while the poster only said an additional "I'm sorry." (I forgive you), several commenters had the absolute audacity to post things like the cool new jetpack cat character, "at least it's not League", and "Overwatch is a softcore pornography game". I shudder just remembering the excuses.

Well, it worked, because I'm ashamed to admit that I relapsed and got into Overwatch again. I... I knew the deal was sealed the moment I could link my old account and get all my old skins back from a decade ago. Not only that, but I tried playing with a controller, and it was awkward, but as soon as I switched to keyboard something snapped and my muscle memory came flooding back. I was playing like I never left. The old Symmetra and Torb might be gone, but damn can you still troll the shit out of people on casual play with DVA and Moira. And there are so many new characters to learn.

I had perfectly good games purchased from steam recently that are now collecting virtual dust. Sonic Racing? I played two cups with NPCs before leaving. Ball x Pit? Loved it, but I'm never going to 100% it now. 150+ hour addiction to Megabonk? I can't even remember the old metas, much less whatever the new abomination strat is. I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't even remember Noelle's little pixelated face. (I will take personal responsibility for one personal failing: buying when I could have pirated, but that's an entirely different addiction, let's stay focused here people.)

I even bought a bundle of Sherlock Holmes games this year to try and get my brain to work properly again after severe work related burnout. Now my job can expect mediocre work for the same stagnant mediocre pay several dollars above state minimum wage that I've received for the last several years. Does my smol bean mega corporation deserve such a cruel long term punishment for one wittle project mismanagement that lead to multiple people quitting and being fired while upper management ended up mostly unscathed? I think deep down you know the answer.

And most lately, I've committed basically the same unforgivable sin as Eve did: I lead my they/them Adam equivalent partner to play Overwatch. "Yes honey, you can still be a Reaper main and spew edgelord character lines. It's perfectly normal." Never mind all the billionaire pedo stuff happening right now, I'M THE ONE NORMALIZING HELL. Lord, have Mercy on us... fuck SHIT not that Mercy, just regular mercy. Now we do quick play matches together, and I can't even complain about DPS not doing enough damage anymore. S-sometimes I even... leave my tank and support responsibilities and join the DPS. How do I fucking live with myself now??

Pray for us not to fall even further and start playing competitive, or we'll truly be past the point of no return. Overwatch: Not even once.

If you want a good view of what it must have looked like when Stalingrad repelled the Nazis and Nazi high command had to blame someone, check out the Helldivers sub on

They are absolutely melting down right now

Peak fascist infighting

I think 4x, no I don’t have any reasoning for this. Purely vibes based

نُشر تبادليًا من: https://hexbear.net/post/7700593

نُشر تبادليًا من: https://hexbear.net/post/7699534

🌙 With the start of Ramadan, our situation in Gaza has not improved — it is getting harder.

Prices are rising, resources are scarce, and work is almost nonexistent. My biggest worry is how to provide food and basic needs for my children during this blessed month.

Any support, no matter how small, can make a real difference 🤍

https://gofund.me/1d3ea05b6

#Gaza #Ramadan #Support #Donate

All the other Lemmy videogame communities disallow humorposting but the rules here don't seem to mention it, so hopefully it's ok

If you're wondering how come they are so many people in one channel - they're actually all in separate channels, in their "squad"'s channel. But you can also bind a "shout" keybind in Mumble settings so your voice is transmitted to linked channels. In this case in the video you can see the "Command 1" channel and people can shout it from the regular line member channels.

So many special little silly experiences. So many to play on my steamdeck. All of them that would struggle on my single core celeron gma 950 integrated graphics on my old laptop. Oh the dynamic shadows of shadowground and nocturne. The steam deck is my favourite way of playing almost all of my games its probably the best handheld to come out ever.

Sigma gamer playing the sigma games. Challenge to see if you can identify all the games.

https://x.com/Cuneyt_S_Sevi/status/2023369825397957099

I have a love-hate relationship with MOBAs, but Deadlock—after its new Old Gods, New Blood update—has dragged me back to the genre kicking and screaming. I've got over 2,400 hours in Dota 2 from my misspent uni years, and I'm currently sitting on 183 hours with Valve's latest and counting.

I'm having a good time, and by "good time", I mean I am magnetically attracted to this dopamine machine and cannot pull away, even while I learn about all the fun new slurs I can be called by strangers online. But that comes with the territory. I'm deep in the paint enough that I've been viciously consuming voicelines, lore, and worldbuilding when I'm not playing.

And yet, I can't shake off this sense of malaise—a feeling of "what if", and I think it's that worldbuilding to blame. Not because it's bad, but because it's very, very good.

Deadlock might be one of my favourite videogame settings in a while. It's placed within a fantastical 1950s America where magic is not only real, but it's become a heck of a lot more real within the past few decades.

An event, called the Maelstrom, opened a bunch of Astral Gates across the world—including one right above New York, dubbed the Cursed Apple. The reason it's a MOBA is because there are two patrons trying to manifest fully in this magic-flooded planet, and you've gotta stop them.

Valve's character artists and writers have taken this concept and run with it. In no particular order, here are some of my favourite facts about this setting:

• There's a governmental agency that invades people's dreams called the Sandmen.
• The Vatican has supersoldier exterminators.
• 'Hell', actually another realm called Ixia, has been permanently connected to the Earth, and also South Ixia is a member of the United States.
• Ixians have been a part of human society for so long that the game's newest character has a conversation about identity and diaspora with the New York-born Ixian Infernus.
• There's an entire Vampire: The Masquerade-style society of vampires with their own baronies.
• There's a thieves guild of time-jumpers called Paradox whose literal goal is to just put priceless items on display at pop-up museums.
• The souls of the dead power machines of war.
• New York has a Municipal Coven of witches.
• There's a Lovecraftian entity who got so bored he decided to join the service industry.
• The Djinn want part of Wyoming. This is an actual plot point.
• Jacob Lash is an asshole.

This is a game, need I remind you, which has an incomplete roster—some of whose models are also deeply unfinished (my poor Vyper), but when Valve's polish does apply, it's been cooking up some of its best designs ever, and the map is getting downright pretty, too. I whisper a quiet "hell yeah" to myself whenever I romp through The Hidden King's subwoofer-drowned base.

Which is why I'm a little sad, because, well—it's a MOBA. As we all know, introducing your friend to a MOBA (and worse, getting them into one) is a sin that will mean your soul will never see the light of heaven. But it's also, by its very nature, a pretty constraining setting.

It's three lanes and a single map—we might get a little more from Valve in the form of animated shorts and comics a la TF2 (indeed, there's already a visual novel in the works) but that's it. Deadlock's setting is worthy of its own singleplayer game—be that an RPG or a first-person shooter.

Heck, there's enough juice here where I'd subscribe to a Deadlock MMO, or merrily run my own Deadlock TTRPG campaign (maybe I still could, with Blades in the Dark's new sci-fi supplement? Oh man, don't give me ideas).

I wanna meet other agents of the OSIC. I wanna run errands for the Municipal Coven. I wanna see what Ixia and the rest of the Baroness look like. I want to chase a time thief through a Paradox exhibit. I wanna get caught in a turf war between the vampire baronies. I want a terrifying boss fight with a Venator that has express permission from the Pope to stake me.

… Ah, crap. This is what League of Legends players feel like waiting on that Riot MMO, huh.

These are, to be clear, pie-in-the-sky dreams: But they're the kind of games I think about through the tiny windows of the game that Deadlock actually is—Deadlock has an ocean-deep skill ceiling and incredible complexity, true. But it's also an infinitesimal slice of a much more interesting world I wish we could see more of.

Which, hey—it's a good problem for Valve to have, right? I salute you, artists and writers under Gabe Newell's employ: You have cooked hard enough to leave me hungry for more.

Heyo!

I just recently got more into Deadlock (currently ~Alchemist rank but climbing quickly so far) and would like someone(s) to queue with.

I like playing fairly tryhard (casual play is fun too but I get that with my friends already). If you’re new to the game but like MOBAs and would like to learn and geek out with me

I’m a very experienced dota player so Deadlock is scratching that same itch in a fresh way, which is very fun!

About me (without doxing too badly):

• EU region, play during evenings and weekends
• He/him, mid-20s
• Pretty easy going, I like to think I don’t get super salty or anything like that

Reply here or DM me if you’re interested <33333

Cecilily discusses the financialisation of Pokemon cards as an investment vehicle.

It's one thing that makes me pause in teaching my niece how to play, I don't want her to get caught up in the abstraction of the cards as anything other than pieces of cardboard with funny pictures of animals

If you had to pick a good love story, you might think of something classic, like Jane Austen's Emma or Casablanca. Or maybe tragic, like Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin or Romeo and Juliet. Or possibly cozy, like Heated Rivalry or Netflix's Nobody Wants This. What probably doesn't come to mind is a video game love story, and there's a good reason for that. Despite the appearance of variety, video game romances only come in one type. And it hardly even counts as a romance.

Games are still young as a storytelling medium, so the lack of memorable love stories compared film or literature is hardly surprising. What is surprising is just how little romance has changed in over three decades. In 1994, Konami's Tokimeki Memorial made popular the idea of dating in video games. It was hardly what you might call romantic, with its stat-based progress and checklist approach to relationships. But it set a precedent for how to Do Romance in games, and later titles, like Harvest Moon, built on that formula. By 2000, the likes of Baldur's Gate 2 added a stronger element of personality, with more complex characters who played important roles in bigger stories, but not necessarily in each other's lives. Relationships consisted of saying the right thing at the right time and then, like magic, love occurs. 26 years later, game romances are still written like they were in 2000, with obvious exceptions like (usually) not being as sexist anymore and occasionally being decent enough to show more than one type of love.

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