I was playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with my kid the other day and it was a blast. Nintendo have really nailed this game, especially in the balance of accessible enough for beginners to have fun but hard enough for people to have a challenge too.

My other favourite game (although I haven't played it for a while) is Sega Rally Championship on Sega Saturn. This game has 4 tracks (one of which needs to be unlocked) and 3 cars (and again, one of these needs to be unlocked). The tiny number of cars and tracks means that you get to do the same corners over and over. This might sound tedious, but when you hit the corner just right you know it. You can get a sense of mastery over it. I've spent many hours playing games in the Gran Turismo series, and I really enjoy them, but fair play some of the tracks and cars are just shovelled into the game and you don't spend much time with them

In the first Gran Turismo the licensing tests were properly hard. They weren't messing around. Getting bronze requires people to read the manual and understand what the point of the test is. Getting all gold is an actual challenge for experienced players. I feel like the tests (at least, the bronze levels) got easier in later games. The UK soundtrack was small but pretty good.

My final mention is the Burnout series. I loved the crash junctions. I'm not sure the open world of Paradise was fun - it meant spending a lot of time driving across a map to get to the start line of various events. I feel the same way about many games - I'd rather just have a menu of levels and what I need to do to complete them (GoldenEye, SNES PilotWings, BlastCorps are all good examples) than have this stuff obscured by the open world. Burnout on the Nintendo DS was a genuinely awful game. I think Burnout Dominator was my favourite in the series.

So, what do driving games get right? What do they miss? What interesting game mechanics do you enjoy?

There were a few years when RTS was a popular genre with games like Total Annihilation, Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, and Starcraft being very popular examples.

But these games have mostly died out, and I was wondering if maybe I'm just not aware of modern RTS variants, or if there are good reasons why these games died off.

Like, are Tower Defence games a form of RTS?

Are there any RTS games where teams play against each other, so 2v2 rather than 1v1?

I found out about these types of games about three years ago. I attempted playing Zork I, as well as this other film where you’re trying to get inside something and apparently it turns into a time travel game where you meet The Beatles (and if someone knows the title of that game I would really appreciate it because I’ve forgotten).

I’ve been fascinated by some of these games. Big problem though, is that I suck at video games in general, and these text adventure games are particularly brutal. I saw some video about Zork, which were great, but for some of them (like the aforementioned time travel game) don’t have videos. So is there a way to just read it like a book. I’ve found guides on how to complete the games, but even those leave me lost and confused.

(Inspired by this conversation thread)

Any and all thoughts on visual novels are welcome. Some potential questions for jumping off points:

What are your thoughts on the VN genre/format?

What are some of the best VNs you’ve played/read?

What would you recommend to someone who’s new to VNs and wants to try one out?

How do you think VNs compare to games, literature, and other interactive fiction?

EDIT: It is official!

We're happy to announce that with today’s batch of order emails, we have completed our reservation queue. We are now in-stock and Steam Deck is available for purchase!

The Docking Station is available for purchase now! Learn more about it here, or order one here.

Previous post:

I wanted to give everyone here a heads' up that it seems like Valve is through most of its preorders for the Steam Deck, so the delay between reserving one and receiving a confirmation is essentially negligible at this point (unlike the months-long waits of the past).

Anecdotally: my husband put in a reservation on Sunday and received confirmation on Monday, the next day (US 512GB model).

Less anecdotally: /r/steamdeck is unofficially confirming this for all queues except the EU 64GB model.

If you've been waiting out the wait time for a Steam Deck, it looks like your time has come! You should be able to get one almost ASAP moving forward.

Also, if you're on the fence about it, I cannot recommend it enough. I absolutely love mine.

Sometimes I like to multitask while I'm having a chill. Basically I'm looking for a game that doesn't require my full attention so that I can play while I'm watching youtube or a stream. Lately I've been playing Stellaris on easier difficulties to scratch this itch, but even on minimum time settings a Stellaris game takes multiple hours. Something with a 30-60 minute gameplay loop would be perfect.

Thanks for your suggestions!