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Intro

Honestly this is just something i've been ruminating about recently with the new Marathon game on the horizon.

I've consumed a lot of sci fi compared to a normal person, and probably not that much compared to a serious fan. Wolfe, Asimov, Ellison, Sanderson, Card, Strugatsky, Crichton, etc for novels. Blame! jumps to mind for Manga, and I'm sure I could name shows and movies for quite some time even ignoring adaptations and re-tellings.

In general, I like novelty to some extent in my narrative media. Once you've seen enough, you see the patterns, and that can ruin some of the fun. You can have people who just execute a well known narrative perfectly, but it's nice when you stumble across something doing things you haven't seen before, or doing things you'd thought of but hadn't seen executed.

Video games have the potential to do some interesting things, but it's not a surprise that for FPS especially it gravitates to Power Fantasy. "OH GOD EVERYTHING IS WRONG! QUICK HERE'S A SHARP STICK INVADE HELL!" started with Doom (with 2016 actually having some great Pixaresque storytelling itself) and obviously does it well. Being the lone fighter vs hordes is at the bare minimum a fun gameplay loop.

The Games

However there are a shocking number of interesting or well executed plots in the genre as well. I think the big 3 that stand out to me are System Shock (which is sorta cheating as it's also an ImSim), Half-Life, and Marathon (but honorable mentions to both versions of Prey and E.Y.E. and I'm sure I'm forgetting others).

I'm going to skim over System Shock as "oh no the AI has gone crazy and evil" has been done before, and done better (in the same year...by another game on this list). Suffice it to say that Shodan is still a wonderful take on the whole concept. However System Shock does devolve into a larger power fantasy (save the day, stop the bad guy) despite starting as a small and helpless fool.

Half Life, in comparison, you spend most of the time running around doing your best to even figure out what the fuck is going on, and ultimately fail to accomplish much of anything meaningful. The Combine is so soul crushingly vast that even some super fighter like Freeman (which itself has always been odd) amounts to little more than a blip on a dashboard somewhere (as the 2017 spoiled HL3 ending showed...although I can find no working link to that as of right now).

Likewise Marathon, which has some fantastic storytelling in its use of terminals, has you as the objectively broken superhuman slaughtering enemies left right and sideways, and yet you're little more than a Rook or a Bishop for something SO much larger than you, only to find out that it's stumbled upon something even larger than it.

I won't dive into every detail (lots of good ways to do that. Mandalore, Emms, and the classic story website ) but Marathon takes the vastness of space, the standard "what if the AI went nuts/sentient", and so many other tropes and combines them into something quite unique. It's got the feelings of cosmic horror without falling back on "oh look its Lovecraft again" and I wish more games would take notes. Naturally Bungie even then was famous for connecting ALL their lore and that's probably part of it, but I also suspect any payoff for that is long gone after decades of riding the Halo and Destiny "what if heroes shot more bad guys" plan.

The End

With a new Marathon proper finally on the horizon, I'm more optimistic than I should be. Logically I know this is the company that made Destiny and they're still looking to just milk profit out of these things. That said I don't mind it being an extraction shooter or possibly a retelling (or alt telling...) of the Marathon story, and they even seem to understand the vibe that should be underpinning all of it. Either way it had me thinking about just how well the original Marathon and Half Life immersed you into the scale of what you were dealing with by letting you be the badass you are in just about every other game, and having it basically not matter. Either because your deeds accomplished nothing in the scheme of things or because your agency is utterly denied.

I think what really drew me to these games was finally seeing the idea of something like Lovecraft without the literally copy paste of the small port town and the tentacled cthulu monsters. I'd love to know what other games really stood out to people when it comes to SciFi and/or Cosmic Horror specifically. Or if you just agree/disagree on the ones I've rambled about.

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I typically don't play these kind of games, the few times I've played Souls games, I found issues I had with every game I've played more or less, I've tried Demon Souls around the time where Dark Souls was a thing on PS3, it didn't take too long to get used to the general idea and flow of the game, slowish/sluggish controls on purpose, overall being very difficult, parrying being something that could make or break battles, healing items are consumables that you need to farm, dying makes you lose souls, EXP is the currency, etc.

It's been so long since I've played it, but I recall it being an interesting enough experience to stick around for a little bit, Bolterian Palace being somewhat memorable from the first 2 zones or so including the first area, but I absolutely did not finish it.
I've played the first part of the game by myself, but ended up watching my friends play it more than I did play it, so I ended up knowing that Shrine of Storms has that weapon that makes farming souls super easy, I ended up going there.
Then I encountered the rolling skeletons, I don't think I was aware at the time that Turpentine is how you fight them ,so I had miserable experience there, I think at the end I got tired of it that I ended up just quitting the game to reload to not lose my souls and halve my HP, which in hindsight, I didn't know that. you take half damage as a soul(iirc) at the time and compounded with the PS3's insanely long loading times, which eventually made me to simply quit and never return to it, not having shortcuts also doesn't help, killing the same mobs over and over just to try fighting a boss once isn't fun.

I've not played Dark Souls 1 or 2 myself, so I have nothing to say aside from that I've seen my friends play PvP a lot in DS2, and that Bed of Chaos apparently is a rushed boss by the devs to complete the game, and it shows.

Despite what the title may imply, I did play Bloodborne a little bit, I did get to the first boss(Father Cosguine?) and getting a parry on him was one of those memorable moments for me playing the game, but phase 2 happened, and I'm going to blame the camera or locking-on for my death because 3D games from that era had dogshit cameras.
I have also seen some of my friends play the game, and the weapons BB has looked so fun, of note is the Chikage, which I wanted to use when I played BB, but apparently it's not a good weapon to get on your first run of the game.

Might be worth noting that I gave Little Witch Nobeta a try to see how non Fromsoft Souls-likes are like, I also didn't really go back to it after defeating the first boss.

Then a year or two ago I decided to give Elden Ring a go, being pushed to it by an irl friend.
I rarely get a game and go "Wow I regret buying this", but ER was exactly that.
As usual, I did see a friend stream it in discord or play it while I'm at their house, so it's not that I didn't know what I was into, but I assumed it would be similar to my previous experience with souls games.
 
I picked up a Sorcerer, so my spells are barely better than hitting things with bare fists, my melee weapon is adequate at best, and my base stats were sort of gimped, I leveled up Intelligence to make my spells do more damage and for mobs, they are ok. I leveled up Dexterity as my main source of damage and that was... ok enough, at first.
 
I didn't get to Margit until a couple of hours in, I was wandering around and activating Lost Graces, just to avoid combat.
When I got to Margit, I died a lot but I did have some fun, it didn't feel unfair as much as it felt like my weapon limiting me and my spells barely tickling the boss.
Similar to how my previous Souls attempts went, I stopped playing, until one day I did accept my friends assisting me with the game instead of trying to do everything solo, and we felled Margit but with minimal intervention from my friends, we then got to Godrick and I don't remember much aside from the stairs and the stupid hitboxes.
After Godrick though, my lack of damage was even more apparent in the overworld areas after him, I can't really pick most battles in the world by myself because almost everything there is a group of enemies that notice you when you start attacking one of their group.
They handed me these souls giving item to level up my stats but despite leveling up a fair bit, my damage still felt pitiful and I didn't want to over level. When we called it a day that day, I never really returned to Elden Ring and I don't plan to, I "got" Souls games even less after that. Nightreign however seems to be a much more interesting game in general.
I think you'd need to be a big fan of Dark Souls in the first place to even find fun with ER.
 
This leads us to the past week or two where the same friend that got me to buy ER convinced me to play Dark Souls 3 with seamless co-op in memory of a recently deceased friend who has played the PC Souls games except DS3.
 
And I'm having fun, for change? I'm getting, guided, sure, and I'm not having the full experience by hitting the noob traps, and the bosses seem to get mowed down by playing with more experienced players.
Maybe it's a change in mindset, or maybe I'd only enjoy Souls games co-op.
My issue with DS3 however, is that everything looks the same to me, as in I'd get lost very easily because of how similar everything looks, which is in contrast of what I remember Demon Souls being like.
Not having a map of sorts makes me it difficult to navigate areas in games like these.
 
 

Given my struggles with the other Souls games, the fact that I really like what I've seen from BB's gameplay, the weapons, the fact that you can parry at range, what I've read of the story and lore that makes it very compelling. Are there any tips or ways that I can change my perspective so that when/if I undust my PS4 and my friend's copy of BB, I can have fun? I get that I don't need to like Souls games, but this feels like it'd be my best shot.
 
I don't intend to play it co-op because of both wanting the "full experience" and my PS4 can be modded on its current firmware.

Racing Lagoon

Versions: The only official release was the release of PlayStation 1 disc version in Japan.

Platforms: PlayStation

Genre(s): Racing/Driving, Role-playing

Links: Mobygames, Wikipedia

Stores:

• Regrettably, there is no modern digital distribution for this game, so as much as I hate to say it, we're all on our own acquiring it. It should be noted that a fan translation exists, for which the patch is available here (it's a patreon link, but it's not paywalled), but as usual for translations released in patch format, you will still need to acquire your own copy of the game to patch.

Game Setup

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

• Share which version of the game you're playing
• Share what hardware you're playing it on
• Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
• Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
• Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

• Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
• What about its system or era?
• What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
• What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
• What are you expecting from this game in particular?

Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:

• Post updates sharing your thoughts as you play.
• Ask for help if you get stuck.
• Offer help to others.

It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.

Important

• Any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.

• Put any spoilers in a dropdown block. Copy/paste the block below if needed.

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>
 
Spoiler text goes here.
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FAQ

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I'm really tired of finding groups of people to play D&D (in person), is there any solo/two people campaign that me and I friend can play with?

Please something simple, I have a little more experience playing it but have never DM'd before, but we're both very creative, so I can think we both can still have fun

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February 2026's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight Steam games.

Does anyone have experience with any of the games and, if so, would you recommend them? Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited to play?

Every year my friend group and I have a long weekend meetup where we rent a house and communally nerd out with each other. Lots of tabletop gaming; plenty of Magic matches; handheld consoles everywhere; etc.

I always bring my Steam Link so people can cast their Decks to the TV, and I'm looking for recommendations for games that would be good for hotseat play where people can pass around a Deck and each play a little bit of. (So, specifically single player games rather than multiplayer games.)

In past years Peggle and Peglin have been big hits with the group. They're immediately pick-uppable even by people who don't play a lot of videogames (of which there are a few in our group). They're also eminently entertaining to watch because it's easy to tell what's going on.

I'm looking for other games that would fit the bill: casual, simple, fun, easy to hand off to others, relatively quick intervals between players. If you have any recommendations, let me know!

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Welcome back, Heroes of Wind! (For the sake of full disclosure I myself am not yet a Hero of Wind, but should be within an hour or so...)

Hopefully everyone enjoyed their second consecutive month on the high seas as much as I did - I'd say at this point, we can basically consider ourselves a pirate club!

I had initially planned to actually plan something to write about in this post, but due to taking on way too many things this month I unfortunately haven't really had a chance to do any research beyond my own (almost) completion of the game. Hopefully any Wind Waker veterans in here will be able to help us out with any important insight that I am certainly overlooking!

For me, the most notable thing about The Wind Waker is how strongly it influenced the most recent two Zelda games. I'd say it seems to be the game that contributed the most to the modern Zelda formula. The freedom it offers you in being able to simply choose a direction and start exploring is a feature that is more or less missing from most 3D Zelda games. Also, the sheer scale of the world is really only comparable to BOTW and Tears. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Koroks - I had no idea that was a Wind Waker thing!

While I had heard about it in passing, actually seeing the underwater kingdom in this game was a strangely nostalgic experience. The way they tied in the old angular Link statue was very cool; I imagine it is safe to assume that an extremely long time passed between Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker to allow for such evolutionary toon-ification.

I wish I had had more time to finish exploring more thoroughly and compile a list of secrets. I just finished exploring the map today, and know there are still plenty of things that I have yet to see. So instead of rushing through the last dungeon, I decided to post this for now, then come back to share more thoughts in the comments later.

Next month, join us as u/Kawa guides us on a trip to the lagoon... the Racing Lagoon!

Until next time, you filthy bilge rats!

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