kfwyre's recent activity
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Comment on November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
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Comment on Digiphile - Return of the immersive sim in ~games
kfwyre LinkI think we'll have to see how often they launch bundles. If they're spaced out and have consistently good quality games, then I'd say that posts like this are well worth it. However, if they start...Should we post other Digiphile bundles or is this a terrible selection compared to Humble Choice?
I think we'll have to see how often they launch bundles.
If they're spaced out and have consistently good quality games, then I'd say that posts like this are well worth it. However, if they start hitting the rate of, say, Fanatical or Humble Bundle's regular bundles, then I think putting them in Save Point would probably be best.
Also, as someone who knows how long it takes to hand-assemble those tables, kudos to you! Updating the extension might be the best path forward if you're planning to do those each time.
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Comment on Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of November 16 in ~games
kfwyre LinkTwo carry-overs from last week: Immortals Fenyx Rising is currently free on the Ubisoft Store through December 2. Digiphile is a new bundle platform from former Humble Bundle employees that's...Two carry-overs from last week:
Immortals Fenyx Rising is currently free on the Ubisoft Store through December 2.
Digiphile is a new bundle platform from former Humble Bundle employees that's offering their inaugural Return of the Immersive Sim Bundle. In a twist from other bundle stores, you can get credit for bundled games that you already have, and then use those credits to buy games from their exchange.
@Venko has a great rundown of the bundle and its games as a separate post here.
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Comment on Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of November 16 in ~games
kfwyre LinkSlow Game Club is a charity subscription blind-buy for 12 different games, each delivered as a Steam key on the first of the month. The current cost is £40 GPB for the entire year. Once January 1,...Slow Game Club is a charity subscription blind-buy for 12 different games, each delivered as a Steam key on the first of the month. The current cost is £40 GPB for the entire year. Once January 1, 2026 rolls around, it becomes £9 per month.
The charity is Into Games which helps low-income individuals in the UK enter careers in the games industry.
You also get access to a shared Discord server with other subscriber, as well as live Q&As with the devs of each game.
Three of the twelve games for 2026 have been revealed:
This apparently also ran last year, but I missed it. These are the eleven games released so far for 2025, in case anyone wants to get a feel for the types of games they pick:
- Tails Noir
- Genesis Noir
- Paradise Killer
- The Case of the Golden Idol
- Dahlia View
- Killer Frequency
- BUSTAFELLOWS
- Arsene Lupin - Once a Thief
- The Darkside Detective
- Phoenix Springs
- Fallen Aces
Full disclaimer: I haven't used this service/platform yet, so I can't give it a personal recommendation. I did sign up for this coming year though. I love a charity buy, and they seem to highlight high quality, off-the-beaten path games.
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Comment on November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre (edited )Link ParentCheating gets my vote. That will let you determine whether this is a singular pain point, or if the remainder of the game follows a similar design pattern. Plus, cheating in boomer shooters is...Cheating gets my vote. That will let you determine whether this is a singular pain point, or if the remainder of the game follows a similar design pattern.
Plus, cheating in boomer shooters is like, genuinely part of the genre. After all, who among us hasn’t played through DOOM with
iddqdon?Also, don’t sell your writeups short! I appreciate your earnest assessments of what you’re playing and how you feel about them.
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Comment on November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre (edited )Link ParentI hear you completely. I don't think resonance is the sole source of value by any means; I just think it's often downplayed rather than leaned into. There are a lot of games that I've played for a...I hear you completely. I don't think resonance is the sole source of value by any means; I just think it's often downplayed rather than leaned into.
There are a lot of games that I've played for a long time that are "keep you on the hook" games that use the psychology of gambling to keep you going, even though the playing hasn't necessarily been worthwhile or meaningful. I loved playing these games in the moments in which I was playing them, but I don't love these games in my heart. Probably similar to how you feel about Genshin Impact.
Film critic Claire Dederer has a criticism model that basically boils down to "Did the text deliver on its intent?" and then also "How worthwhile was the intent in the first place?"
I really like this model, because it can help us understand the appeal and resonance of something like Genshin Impact which effectively delivers on its intent, except that its intent involves, in large part (or maybe in total?) predatory monetization. Halls of Torment was like that for me. Great game, but I think it's great in part because the game is one giant protracted "number-go-up" grind designed to get you to do the same effectively mindless thing over and over again for hours and hours and hours. Does it deliver on its intent? Absolutely. Is its intent worthwhile? Hmmmm. That's a much harder question.
This is also part of why I think resonance is so important. Halls of Torment took up lots of time time and made my depressed brain light up, but it was devoid of pretty much any emotional valence besides frustration when my numbers didn't go up enough like I wanted them to.
The games that I love in my heart, the ones that are meaningful to me, the ones that I still think about decades later have all effectively navigated emotional resonance. It's part of their intent. Celeste is, mechanically, an utterly fantastic platformer. If you play the PICO-8 version, you get this part of the game. But if you play the full release, the mechanics are integrated with resonance which takes the game up a level to something truly great. Both the game's intent and delivery are elevated.
Soma is something that does the same, I think. Yes, it does have flaws, but those flaws exist within an integrated system of mechanics, design, art, and writing that use resonance as their connective tissue. I also think that resonance can be sort of a cheat code for covering up flaws. If done well, it can help us overlook something that otherwise would have pinged. If done unsubtly, it can feel cheap and manipulative -- something akin to
numberemotion-go-up.Everyone's experiences, of course, vary, in part because that resonance is landing on beds of completely different associations, contexts, etc. If I read a queer romance story, its resonance is more likely to cause me to overlook its flaws than, say, a straight or ace reader. The old model of criticism made me feel like I wasn't doing my job for reading it like a detached straight reader, and it took me a while to see that the old model was effectively advantaging that viewpoint. Meanwhile, when I pointed out flaws in straight works whose emotional resonance I was effectively immune to (e.g. Lost in Translation, Garden State), I was told that the fault once again lay with me because I didn't understand the text's "objective" beauty or meaning or whatnot.
(Note: I felt this way about Lost in Translation and Garden State when I saw them decades ago, not just afterwards, where they have started to come under more criticism from a modern lens. I think this is a sign that criticism is actually shifting away from the paradigm I'm decrying, so maybe my whole post is me just tilting at windmills from a grudge that I've been holding on to for way too long now?)
I’m not trying to say that queer resonance is better than straight resonance by any means. Instead, I think properly accounting for and considering resonance is a part of good criticism, and that was absent on both sides at the time for different reasons.
Anyway, I realize this is a lot, and the way I've phrased everything sounds really didactic, but I'm intending it to be completely the opposite. I'm not trying to tell you how you should think about Soma or criticism or anything. Instead, I'm trying to convey that I think that your criticism of Soma probably lands differently on me than it does on you, and I'm trying give you my personal framework for why that is.
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Comment on November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentNoooo! I felt this viscerally. The same thing happened with my first Steam Deck. Thankfully, it was easy enough to work around that, and it was also easy enough to eventually just get another...And I think I'll stop here because the R button started sticking, and I need that to zoom out to check the rest of the puzzle. Now I get to worry about that button... Yaaaay...
Noooo! I felt this viscerally. The same thing happened with my first Steam Deck.
Thankfully, it was easy enough to work around that, and it was also easy enough to eventually just get another whole Deck when my battery also died, but 3DS hardware is a lot harder to come by. Hopefully you're able to figure out a fix.
Also Pushmo looks super cute by the way.
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Comment on November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre (edited )Link ParentI unironically love the idea of someone completing a backlog game over several different Backlog Burners. I say go for it!If I put in 10 hours every Backlog Burner I should finish it in maybe a couple of years?
I unironically love the idea of someone completing a backlog game over several different Backlog Burners. I say go for it!
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Comment on November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentI'd like to accept this award on behalf of distro hoppers everywhere.We are two weeks in, and I'll have everyone know that I haven't deleted my card or had to reinstall Linux even once!
We're all so proud of you Kefir!!
I'd like to accept this award on behalf of distro hoppers everywhere.
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Comment on November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentBummer that Pacific Drive and CULTIC are disappointing you now. It sounds like Episode 2 of CULTIC took your primary critique of the game and really centered their design around that. It's been a...Bummer that Pacific Drive and CULTIC are disappointing you now. It sounds like Episode 2 of CULTIC took your primary critique of the game and really centered their design around that. It's been a bit since I've played it, but I think I stopped my playthrough of AMID EVIL for similar reasons. Despite genuinely loving the game, I fell off of it at some point because my love was starting to get soured.
I'm glad you're liking Darkest Dungeon II though. I have a friend who adores that series and its oppressive atmosphere and difficult decision-making.
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Comment on November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentI'm a big believer in resonance as applied to media criticism. For a long time, it seemed to be the "correct" way was to interpret something in a sort of divorced, distanced way that attempted to...I'm a big believer in resonance as applied to media criticism.
For a long time, it seemed to be the "correct" way was to interpret something in a sort of divorced, distanced way that attempted to be objective about the media's hypothetical impact to some hypothetical average person. The "view from nowhere" was held up as the most esteemed and idealized way to interpret a text of any kind.
I myself tried this for a while.
Clumsily.
It felt "right" according to the standards of criticism to turn off my own personal responses, because well, that's what critics do. But it felt "wrong" according to me in my own self because, well, what purpose does ignoring my own feelings serve?
It was unfortunately very easy for me to ignore those feelings for a long time. I didn't spend a decade in the closet without getting INCREDIBLY good at turning down the volume on my heart, for example.
After I came out though, I threw myself into a bunch of unexplored queer media. I got my hands on any queer books I could find and devoured them. Their resonance was more powerful than anything else I'd read up to that point. By critical standards though, these were all but invisible. It's not that they were duds. It's that they were so niche as to not be worth criticism in the first place.
This was my first introduction to the idea that the "view from nowhere" really isn't a view from "nowhere" but is, instead, a view from the generalized norm of humanity. It can sound noble, but it can also completely fall apart because the norm is so watered-down and homogenized to be almost nonsensical.
It's like that "the average person has one ovary and one testicle" quip. Very few people (if any?) are like that, but an average targets that hypothetical individual as if they represent the whole swath of humanity itself. When we sand off all the edges of personal, individual resonance in our criticism, we end up with something that might technically fit everyone, without really accounting for the possibility that the "fit" might be completely, distractingly off.
I have since adjusted my idea of criticism to put much more weight on personal resonance. Not only does this feel more true to the emotional side of me that I deadened for so long, but I also think it it's the richer way of looking at media in general. From the other side of criticism, reading it rather than writing it, if the driving question I'm using when consulting a piece of criticism is "what does this text offer me?" rather than "what did other people get out of this text?" then I'm really limiting my scope, prioritizing my experiences over others, and reducing the possibility space for how a work can be appreciated.
This is all a really long-winded way to say that your criticism of Soma doesn't have to live in the "view from nowhere" space. It can live in your heart, your feelings, your connections, the questions it brought up in you, the context in which you played it, the way you acknowledge its strengths alongside its flaws. The personal aspects of your criticism are what give your words oxygen and make them compelling to read and think about.
When I read what you wrote about Soma, I'm not just reading about the game -- I'm reading about another human's very human response to a game that asks a lot of very human questions. This is an asset for your criticism, IMO, not a flaw.
This is a complete aside, but I am deeply thalassophobic (and mildly submechanophobic) so Soma gave me the same heebie jeebies it gave you. I finished Soma (reluctantly), and I had to stop playing the amazing Subnautica on account of the anxiety it gave me.
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Comment on November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre (edited )LinkWe are two weeks in, and I'll have everyone know that I haven't deleted my card or had to reinstall Linux even once! This is a personal triumph. My dog also didn't eat my writeups this time. I did...We are two weeks in, and I'll have everyone know that I haven't deleted my card or had to reinstall Linux even once! This is a personal triumph.
My dog also didn't eat my writeups this time. I did type them in my notes app rather than the web browser this time, so even if he did jump on the computer again they would have been okay. But, as is the case with backups, issues like that will only happen when you don't have recovery set up. When you do? It's like the universe knows and leaves you alone.
General life things have kept me quite busy and, correspondingly, have kept me from being as present in the comments of this event as I'd like to be, but know that I'm thrilled with all of the great writeups everyone is doing. The true fun of Backlog Burner for me isn't just in playing my own games, it's in hearing what everyone else has to say about theirs too! So, big thanks to everyone for being so thoughtful and forthcoming in talking about what you've been playing.
Mode: Custom Bingo! Finished 10/25 Distribution
✅ PepsimanOrder Calm Simple
✅ Rocket Skates VRVerticality
✅ ROTAFragmentation Annihilation
✅ Cozy Space SurvivorsCollaboration Creativity Rebirth Style Emergence ★ Wildcard Peace
✅ Vib-RibbonDeception Open
✅ Midtown MadnessDiscovery Swift
✅ Skator GatorAbundance Isolation
✅ FirestarterRepetition
✅ Mask of MistsSound
✅ Paradise MarshDestruction Maneuver Comfortable This is a racing game from 1999 that looked SO cool to young me but that I never was able to actually get my hands on. We're spoiled these days with availability. If a game wasn't in my local stores back then, I never even had a chance to play it. As such, this is one of those games that I've always been interested in but never actually scratched the itch to pick up and play.
The game is noteworthy for having an open world back when that was novel and exciting. For example: I played hours and hours of Carmageddon back in the day not because I liked its over-the-top violence (it actually put me off a lot) but because you could drive anywhere and that was SO COOL! Midtown Madness does the same thing minus the violence, with its map being a facsimile of downtown Chicago.
I streamed the game from my Windows PC to my Deck, and set up a Steam Input profile to play the game with a controller which works better than it has any right to. It's inevitably clunky, especially in menus, but being able to stream a game to my handheld gaming device and use a control scheme it was never intended for is one of those reminders that I am living in the future. The me from 1999 never could have imagined such a thing!
Anyway, in terms of racing, the game is pretty standard. No rubber-banding, which is nice, and it's got various adjustable settings like time of day and traffic and "physics realism" (whatever that means). I turned the "realism" slider almost all the way down, and my car rolled when I went around a corner, which was unexpected and kind of fun?
In the middle of the map are these big drawbridges that open and close, so of course you can hit them while the sides are up for a perfect ramp that gets you massive air. It's a little quaint by modern standards, but I can assure you that it was undoubtedly breathtakingly cool back at the turn of the millennium.
I can't really say I recommend the game outside of a novel curiosity these days. As much as I love retro racing games, I also think they're one of the genres that ages the poorest. I don't know that the game has a lot to offer unless you're looking to relive your own nostalgia for it or, like me, scratch a decades-long itch.
If anyone is wanting to visit it, an abandonware download of it is really your only option. This is one of those games that will never see re-release due to its use of actual licensed cars (a problem that is still a death knell for most racing games in terms of long-term availability -- even the Forza games can't stay available for more than a few years!).
This one does have a modern re-release, being, from what I can tell, a GOG Exclusive.
It's from the same developer that did the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, though it was put out several years before the first of those games.
It's an arena horde shooter with quite possibly the worst onboarding I've had in recent memory. Instead of spawning hordes of enemies, the tutorial levels of the game laboriously and slowly spawn enemies in isolation, one-by-one, complete with multi-second cutaways to introduce each new enemy and weapon. Once you get past this the game gets more interesting, picking up in both pacing and difficulty.
The game does have a lot of cool ideas. There are different classes with different stats, and as you advance through the game you choose from among different boosts to your character in the now-familiar pattern of a modern-day roguelike.
The game is something that I would have enjoyed keeping up with, but unfortunately it was marred by some bugs that I have to assume are the product of running a 2003 game on 2025 hardware. I died for no reason at multiple points on multiple levels. In starting the game I had to adjust Windows settings to make my mouse not be stuttery in-game and finally got that working, only to have the stutter return when I used the first ability I unlocked (time slow).
Enough of these little issues accumulated that they would have made the game frustrating to continue, so I decided to shelve the game. I was glad that I was able to play enough to get a feel and an appreciation for it though.
You are Pepsiman, a distribution superhero bringing Pepsi to people in need.
A few scattered thoughts:
- It is remarkably not terrible, which is high praise for a licensed game.
- It was a runner game long before the runner game genre was standard (my mind wants to say Canabalt from 2009 was one of the first major games to be identified with the genre)
- The recurring "PEPSIMAAAAAAN" vocals in the soundtrack are hilarious...
- ...at first. By the end of the game I found them kind of grating.
- The cutscenes were entertaining in a deliberately bad sort of way.
This game is a perfect example of what I will henceforth call "The @vili Principle:"
Nowadays, a game often contains 100 hours of content, of which you play 50. Back in the day, games contained 2 hours of content, of which you also played 50.
The game is short. I probably beat it in about an hour or so?
But that's only because I abused the crap out of save states.
If I hadn't, it would have taken me hours, maybe dozens of them, to see the game all the way through. It relies on you learning its patterns and cycles through repetition so that you can avoid them. The game has a lot of cheap deaths or obstacles. If you don't collect enough Pepsi cans you can run out of lives and have to start all the way over. It's a bit unfair by modern standards to the point of potentially being unfun by modern standards as well.
That said, this isn't exactly a criticism. Back in the day, I was the kind of gamer that would have eagerly put those dozens of hours into this game. It was just how we played back then. I'm glad I was able to try out the game, and it was genuinely enjoyable playing it with save states. Without them, however, I think I would have hit a frustration wall pretty early on.
Similar to Midtown Madness, this is another 1999 game that always interested me but that was completely inaccessible to me as a kid (it never came out in North America).
I don't think I even knew about the game in 1999. Instead, what put it on my radar was when I started making my own custom DDR stepfiles for Dance With Intensity (anyone else remember that?). I embedded myself into several online stepfile communities, including one that had a custom map for the track "Laugh & Peace" from this game.
I was entranced by the song. It was odd. Quirky. It had drastic tempo changes and memorable lines. It feels like something that would fit right in on the amazing Katamari Damacy soundtrack.
My knowledge of and interest in the game stopped there for decades, until I finally picked the game up for CGA.
The game is a delight. Full of personality and charm. Its minimalistic, monochromatic graphics punch well above their weight in making the game feel lively, exciting, dynamic, and cute. Vibri is adorable.
The soundtrack is also excellent. I have since acquired a copy of it and uploaded it to my Apple Music account, so that I can listen to the tracks from the game whenever I want.
The gameplay is, well, there.
Unfortunately, for a rhythm game, Vib-Ribbon has some timing issues. I suspect even the built-in tracks for the game were procedurally generated rather than hardcoded in, because there are obstacles that do not follow the song's beats correctly. I took to watching Vibri's footfalls to know when to press buttons, rather than going with the "feel" of the song, which takes a lot of the fun out of it.
I did still enjoy it, particularly the wrinkle the game throws at you in the final Hard stage. I also haven't played any custom tracks yet, but I plan to try to get a custom disc going with my emulator. Despite what I see as an unignorable issue with the game's obstacle timings, I was ultimately won over by the game's irrepressible charm. It's got a personality all its own, buoyed by a bright, endearing, wacky cuteness.
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Comment on November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre LinkPinging all Backlog Burner participants/conversationalists: here's the new topic for the week! Notification List @aphoenix @1338 @BeardyHat @CannibalisticApple @dannydotcafe @deathinactthree...Pinging all Backlog Burner participants/conversationalists: here's the new topic for the week!
Notification List
@aphoenix
@1338
@BeardyHat
@CannibalisticApple
@dannydotcafe
@deathinactthree
@Durinthal
@Eidolon
@J-Chiptunator
@JCPhoenix
@knocklessmonster
@Pistos
@sotix
@sparksbet
@Wes
@ZeroGeeIf you would like to be removed from/added to the list, let me know either here or by PM.
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November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion
Week 3 has begun! Post your current bingo cards. Continue updating us on your games! If you did not participate in Weeks 1-2 but want to start this week, that's fine! Reminder: playing bingo is...
Week 3 has begun!
Post your current bingo cards.
Continue updating us on your games!If you did not participate in Weeks 1-2 but want to start this week, that's fine!
Reminder: playing bingo is OPTIONAL.Quick links:
Week 2 Recap
11 participants played 11 bingo cards and moved 43 games out of their backlogs!
There were 2 bingo wins. Congrats to u/Wes and u/J-Chiptunator! 🎉
Also, in my rush last week to get the recap up, I forgot to celebrate u/Wes's win from Week 1. So, additional congratulations!
- Only 1 game this time had an ALL CAPS TITLE, but 9 games had PARTIAL CAps titles.
- The shortest title was 5 characters: Venba
- The longest title was 12 words: Tales from Toyotoki: Arrival of the Witch (The witch of the Ihanashi)
- We had the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, and 7 represented. Half of the digits!
(Note that this only works if I read "I Expect You to Die" as "One: Expect You to Die", which I do)
Game list:
- Afterlove EP
- AKIBA'S TRIP: Undead & Undressed
- Call of the Sea
- Citizen Sleeper
- Cozy Space Survivors
- Crimson Shroud
- CULTIC
- Devilated
- Drox Operative
- Eastward
- Hades II
- Haustoria
- NYT Lunch Break
- I Expect You to Die
- Intravenous
- Katamari Damacy REROLL
- MAKOTO WAKAIDO's Case Files
- Mask of Mists
- Metro Gravity
- Nine Noir Lives
- Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee
- Out There: Ω Edition
- Pacific Drive
- Paradise Marsh
- Pumpkin Jack
- Rocket Skates VR
- Resogun
- The Room Three
- ROTA: Bend Gravity
- Shipwreck
- A Short Hike
- Sid Meier's Civilization VII
- Skator Gator
- Super Fantasy Kingdom
- Tales from Toyotoki: Arrival of the Witch (The witch of the Ihanashi)
- UnderRail
- Untitled Goose Game
- Vegas Stakes
- Venba
- Weapon Shop de Omasse
- We Were Here Expeditions: The FriendShip
- Zenith: Nexus
- Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma
Week 1 Game List
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Comment on NATO alphabet in ~talk
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Comment on NATO alphabet in ~talk
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Comment on NATO alphabet in ~talk
kfwyre LinkB as in Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffaloB as in Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
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Comment on Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of November 9 in ~games
kfwyre LinkThe base game for Immortals Fenyx Rising is free on Ubisoft Connect. I thoroughly enjoyed the game. It's clearly inspired by Breath of the Wild but has its own identity. The game's got lots to do...The base game for Immortals Fenyx Rising is free on Ubisoft Connect.
I thoroughly enjoyed the game. It's clearly inspired by Breath of the Wild but has its own identity. The game's got lots to do (in typical Ubisoft fashion), but a lot of it feels worthwhile. There are tons of different puzzle/challenge vaults you can enter, as well as in-world quests and whatnot to complete. I spent around 70 hours with the base game to 100% it (never touched the DLC). I think it's worth picking up at cost, but for free it's a steal.
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Comment on Valve announces new hardware: Steam Frame, Steam Controller, and Steam Machine in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentOne of my friends called it a “legally distinct GameCube” and I guffawed.One of my friends called it a “legally distinct GameCube” and I guffawed.
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Comment on Valve announces new hardware: Steam Frame, Steam Controller, and Steam Machine in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentThey’re good, but not great. I would recommend buying something better than the regular Airs, but I haven’t used any others so I don’t know which model to recommend. Things I like about the Airs:...They’re good, but not great. I would recommend buying something better than the regular Airs, but I haven’t used any others so I don’t know which model to recommend.
Things I like about the Airs:
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The aforementioned ergonomic benefits.
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You can buy prescription lens inserts for them since you can’t wear glasses with them on.
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My little dog can snuggle up on my chest while I play my Deck lying down. This is priceless to me. 🥰
Things I don’t like about the Airs:
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Unavoidably, it adds a cord to an otherwise cordless setup when I use it with my Deck. Not a huge issue, but worth noting.
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I can’t quite get the full frame in focus. There is always some edge that is a little blurry. If I bring the glasses further onto my face to alleviate that, my eyelashes hit the lenses, which is a non-starter. I just choose to play games on it where the edges of the screen are unimportant. I guess I could also trim my eyelashes? Probably not going to do that though.
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The movement that @gary mentioned can be off-putting. I’ve gotten used to it so it doesn’t bother me anymore, but I can definitely see how it would cause issues for people.
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Image clarity feels a little on the low side. I’m not sure if this is because of the resolution it runs at or some other aspect of design, but I’m assuming better models would alleviate this. The games I play on it are mostly chunky pixel art games anyway, so it’s not really an issue for me. That said, the newer models might run at significantly higher resolutions that could exceed the Deck’s hardware capabilities, so there’s probably a balance to be found.
The marketing for these devices makes it sound like you’ll have the equivalent of a giant TV in front of you. In my experience, it’s more like if I held my Deck screen closer to my face. The intended illusion doesn’t come through for me, but I don’t need that to work. Instead, I’m happy just having an easy external monitor for my Deck that I can use while lying in bed.
I haven’t used them on a plane flight yet, but I also think they would be great for that (if you don’t mind looking a little odd to the other passengers). I love playing my Deck on flights, but the cramped space of an airline seat means my neck is in an even worse position than normal. This would let me keep my head up instead of craned down.
They are definitely a “nice to have” rather than a “must have” IMO, and I think the Airs I have are likely the entry level hardware that have some tradeoffs for their cheap cost. If you already are on board with the concept and know they’ll work for you, I’d recommend paying more for a better model to sand away some of the rough edges.
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I played Hacknet for the May 2024 Backlog Burner and really liked it. I agree that it’s a bit rote, especially at the beginning, but if you’re liking the basic concept then I recommend sticking with it. There are some neat curveballs it throws later in the game, as well as some optional parts that I found interesting to dive into.