Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (Steam, PS4/5, Xbox One/Series)

Pretty original mix of brawler and tower defense, with a presentation reminiscent of Okami. Avaiable on Game Pass and has a demo on Steam.

SteamWorld Heist II (Steam, PS4/5, Xbox One/Series, Switch)

Like its predecessor, it’s basically “2D XCOM with skill shots instead of randomness”. Highly recommended, perfect for gaming on the go with a Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch.

Phenomenal game, if a bit short. And another impeccable PS5 to PC port from Nixxes.

• 4D Sports Driving (1990)
• Hi-Octane (1995)
• NFS: Most Wanted (2005)
• Flatout 2 (2008)
• Vector 36 (2017)
• Forza Horizon 5 (2021)
• BeamNG.drive (ongoing)

Nostalgia drive engaged !

The Crusader series (No Remorse, No Regret) could have been built upon, with its famously cheesy live-action cutscenes.

The Quarantine series disappeared after its second installment, Road Warrior. Come to think of it, most mainstream vehicular combat games went away, like the Interstate series.

The Discworld adventure games (1, 2, Noir) were famously convoluted, but they did a pretty good job of adapting Pratchett’s world into video games.

Finally I would have liked to play the initially planned sequels to Advent Rising. I have (probably rose-tinted) fond memories of that game, but hey, you asked.

Since you enjoyed BG3, I’d strongly recommend Divinity: Original Sin 1&2 if you have not played them already.

Other than that, a few random suggestions with sizeable coop campaigns:

• Outriders
• The Ascent
• Remnant 1&2
• Resident Evil 5&6
• Saints Row 3&4
• Trine 1-5
• Valheim

It is quite delightful, which is a nice change of pace from Limbo and the others. I played it last year with game pass and really enjoyed my short time with it.

Bottom line: Konami is a weird company making odd calls and has been for a long time. Someone in charge likely decided 11 years ago that MGRR should not be released on PC in Japan and that’s all there is to it.

Vivaldi is closed source and based on Chromium (albeit modified), so it does not sound all that appealing. As long as uBlock origin, NoScript and Tampermonkey can unleash their full potential in Firefox, I’m likely to stick with it.

NGL, I’m really digging what they are showing in this marketing campaign.

Thanks for the feedback. I no longer use my steam controllers but it’s good to know which are the viable options to keep them up and running.

You could buy the game on Steam, get the source code archive and then refund I guess. Or keep it anyway to play, I understand it’s quite good.

$200M ain’t no pocket change. One would hope such high-profile failures as this or Avengers would curb execs enthusiasm for live service games, but I’m not holding my breath.

I have noticed that trying to return to gaming mode after a long period in desktop mode triggered a reboot more often than not. My impression was that Steam updates that occur in desktop mode would trigger a restart, when attempting to return to gaming mode. That made the SD feel janky, with long restart times.

Don’t get me wrong, I found the SD to be a very versatile device, priced very competitively (compared to low-end gaming laptops for example). I will likely buy its successor if and when it comes out. As a portable gaming device, it’s the best deal around. As a daily driver PC, it’s okay but not great.

I’d say there is nothing too wild about my peripherals: 1080p60 display, USB mouse and keyboard and the occasional PS4 controller. Everything is indeed pretty much plug n play. However in my experience things go south after a while (sometimes days, sometimes weeks) and get fixed after a full restart cycle. Hard to say where it comes from exactly but the dock is a prime suspect.

Bought these to make the most out of those shipping costs. I do not tinker all that much, but having adequate tools like those certainly is a big help.

I also used them to replace the sticks of a Nintendo Switch joy cons with hall effects ones. I saw that similar components are available for the SD, but I currently have no drift problem, so …

I am not aware of better options than the Huaying fan for an OG Steam Deck LCD. Did you have something specific in mind ?

It was OK but not great. I used the official dock and had frequent peripherals issues which could were only solved by rebooting both the SD and the dock. Turning it off and on again is more a Windows that a Linux thing usually, so that was disappointing.

On the software side, the “flatpak” way of applications delivery usually works well, except when the Discover “store” randomly chooses to offer downgrades instead of upgrades. I used software such as Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, OpenShot, OpenRGB, LosslessCut, LocalSend with no hassle.

As expected, gaming performance on a 1080p screen was not as smooth as the native SD screen resolution. I would not recommend it for games needing a bit of oomph unless you are fine with sub 30fps.

Not sure what you mean. I got this one: https://www.ifixit.com/products/steam-deck-original-model-fan?variant=39723201658983

Erm, that’s quite the bare bones trailer we’ve got here, somewhat underwhelming. Not every trailer is going to be Long Live the Lich or War Eternal, but come on.