Luseth

So having picked up and really enjoying my Rog Ally it got me thinking about games I have in my steam library, some that are really quite good but may have been overlooked by most and I imagine we all feel that way about some games so let us know what games you loved but on the whole people may have missed. I think the first one that really came to mind for me is Alpha Protocol, if you ever wanted to play a video game that made you feel like James Bond I really feel this was it. It was made by Obsidian and published by Sega, Obsidian in fact have the rights back for this one I believe so they could one day bring it back.

I find MMO games a bit odd for me, like I love the idea of them and have given a few of them a go but I don't know if it's because I don't end up with a group to play with but I tend to drift away from them. It's a shame because on paper it looks very much my sort of thing, that said with WoW I would find it hard to justify the subscription when I can get game pass and similar subscriptions in it's place providing me access to so much more content. The one MMO that did capture me was Wildstar but unfortunately it never really took off and is no longer around sadly.

I think my favourite bosses may be a little different, growing up with a lot of my games I rarely got to final bosses, whether it was a shorter attention span or not being good enough I don't know, however I did get to a few bosses when it came to JRPG's. I think the first one I always think of is a boss that I don't think you ever got to beat from memory - I thought her character was fantastic throughout, I know not a main feature but her loyalty to the crown, her strength, she came to her senses midway through the game, I don't think they realised at the time but if they had fleshed her story out a little more it would have paid off.

Similar to others, I think my political view may differ from yours in the first few sentences Elliot. That said the post / thread does open up some potential for some great discussion, I know personally growing up the biggest issue is nobody teaches you how to look after your money really. I have always been quite frivolous with money, in fact it's only been the past year or so that I have started trying to develop some better habbits, it's difficult to change how you have always been though. In fact this year's holiday was the first time I paid it up front rather than putting it on a credit card or paying it monthly installments beforehand. The other thing is that everyone's circumstances are incredibly different and I think it would be wrong to assume everyone is wasting money, admittedly a lot of people are but then if people suddenly cut back and started being sensible what does that do to our economy ^_^ I think a big thing is at what point in your life you are, it's quite easy to see the average savings someone under 30 has to someone say over 40. Straight away if you are paying a mortgage odds are you are paying less than if you were renting (which is something you are far more likely to do when you are younger). Your salary is likely to be higher if you are getting into the second half of your liife if you like as well. Emergency savings are something we should all strive for but that is not always possible, I mean if you are on a minimum wage job in the current climate, single parent of a couple of children I imagine it's not easy to do if at all possible. As for general money advice to help with budgeting, different accounts are great and transferring money over to another account at the start of each month and getting into that habbit is great. Another thing to note is that there is a sensible way to use credit, being good with your money does not mean never have credit, it's about using it sensibly. Running up debt is not great but say buying an item on interest free credit is not necassarily a bad thing if you are comfortable paying it off, you might want a mortgage one day for example and having no credit history would not help in that regard. Something I now do is budget at the start of each month, I think knowing where your money is going is very important (like Elliot say's above) there is every possibility you might look at where your money is going and say hey I have not used netflix for a few months let's cancel it as an example. I think the one thing I have always been a little adverse too is investing and that's mainly down to lack of knowledge and not really having the time to invest in obtaining that knowledge, I am sure there are a million books out there but life is hectic. That said I have recently set up a stocks & shares ISA and just put £20 a month in, it's not a lot but it's something and the hope is to increase that in the future. I also now have a private pension in addition to my work one, that see's £25 added to it each month as well, these are both for the future so I have no plans to dip into these, when I reach each £100 in the stocks and shares ISA I will put it into some companies, likely to be banks & construction companies (as that's what I work in so I already have some idea of what businesses are doing well and which aren't).

I said this in my post above, I just forgot to post the link! Woops!! 😄

Not entirely sure where you are going with this. It is a commercial decision as to what consoles you develop a game for, they can simply say we won't release the game on xbox then... There is no reason for it to affect development if they do not want it too. We see console exclusive games all of the time. If a game does not run on a console you wouldn't release it on it i.e. it's why you don't get the latest version of Fifa on the Switch (well you get a different version), you don't get COD on the Switch. All those games were released later on after much refinement maybe but I am failing to see why that can't happen with the Xbox? Why does a game have to launch right away on the console (in fact with it having a lesser uptake than the Playstation surely it's going to make financial sense to focus on a PS version of a game anyway). It might be just me but reading your post reads like you have not read mine properly and you have not read the link you provided, just to snippet a line I can pull out straight away counters your comment about Larian being vocal about the power of the Series S. They have been vocal in that yes there has been more work involved but not necassarily that they can not release games on it due to it being underpowered - Again referring back to my previous post, Baldurs Gate has been announced as coming to the xbox, just that the Series S version will not have local co-op. The reason for this is down to the lesser RAM and not necassarily the console being underpowered because of the way they have designed local co-op (to be independant of one another). Final note, it is easy to say ah just pop the extra on finance and get the more powerful console but it is never as simple as that, we have families in the UK struggling to feed themselves, foodbank use at it's highest and with mortgage rates the way they are there are plenty of families (I know a couple) who are currently fearful of losing their homes. Finding a couple of hundred quid to buy a next gen console for their child and bring them some joy is far easier than committing to double that, and taking it out on finance. When you are in a much more privileged position it is far easier to say ah why don't people just stump up the extra £200 for a bigger more powerful console. There may well come a point where Microsoft let the Series S go and it will be replaced with the Series S-2, I mean it's no different to buying a new mobile phone, your older one stops getting the updates etc despite being on the same OS for example. Saying that it affects development is an odd sentence, well of course it would, I don't know about you but if I was to produce a video game, I would have to consider all the machines it was going to be played in. If I was to make a PC game for example, I would look at the range of pc's that currently use Steam and would have to consider if it could cater to them all, if it can't then I make a decision on whether or not I limit the game to reach a bigger audience or I don't and let it achieve the heights it can, that's literally how the industry works. I don't see the same developers sitting their complaining that people choosing to game on pc's from 2010 are affecting development and they need to do away with them. Oh no wait they just ignore them....

I have put down no for now, MW2 is the first COD I have picked up in a while and it's enough for me, I jump on more now for catching up with you guys more than anything. Couple that with being a little skint at the moment having spent more than I should have last month and wanting to get the new Fifa game (EA Sports) it is a bit further down the list. So for now it's a no, maybe when there is a deal on it or maybe christmas time when things are paid off I might contemplate it if there's a bunch playing on there regularly. But for now my COD fix is more than sated by the current game. I also have some great games to play at the moment, Starfields coming out too so I have a lot of gaming hours to put in as it is!

I think you're missing the point with the S though, yes people who bought it may have to upgrade down the road to a Series X, however a large portion of those who have bought the S have double dipped, so are more sony based players that now have an Xbox (some for the first time because it was so affordable). That may entice them to give the whole Xbox ecosystem a go, and in addition to that upgrading your console mid generation is nothing new. The last generation had PS4 Pro's mid way through, Xbox one had it's more powerful brother, the Switch has had a Switch OLED midway through it's life, the PS3 / 360 era had slim versions. Yeah the Series S might not be capable of running Unreal Engine 5, but for £250 right now you can buy a console that is capable of running 2 of the most anticipated titles of the year, Starfield and now it has been announced Baldurs Gate (with the exception of local co-op). Find a PC that can play both of those for £250? Oh wait normally it's just tough sh*t if your pc can not run a game, at least Microsoft have offered an option that is affordable during a cost of living crisis. Heck Sony just announced a portable handheld for only £50 cheaper and it can't run native games and can't even utilise their streaming service. It is only gamers who are shall I say more elitist that have real complaints about the Series S. Unreal 4 games will remain yes but that's not wholly due to Microsoft, there is nothing to stop devs creating games specifically for the PS5 / PC and then relaunching down the road on the Xbox to generate extra funds, heck they do this all the time at the moment with some of the sh*tty remasters they keep releasing. Unreal engine 5 is not the only way to progress and move games forwards, yeah it will help graphically but games are so much more than just visuals. My final note, I will put the link below as well, the Larian Studios CEO has stated in a recent interview it's not the Series S but more the lack of effort from devs. They want things to be quick, easy and so that they can churn stuff out to maximum profit, it's why we have so little ingenuity within modern triple A games. It comes through at indie level because they have to think about how they can make their games stand out, be a little bit different. If you look back at the history of video games, even back to the 16 bit era, development was so much more, coming up with ideas on how to get a game to run on a specific machine, overcoming the problems that machine might have had. It's easy to just blame a console but we have seen in the past how the lack of a consoles power can be overcome if you think outside the box a little - Resi Evil 2 on the N64 Morrowind on the original Xbox And probably my favourite game, the Witcher 3 on the Switch

I think people forget bugs in a game can make for some of the most memorable in games!

I have a fairly busy month of Saturdays tbh, let me check with the missus and let you guys know if I can do any of them.

I set this to pre-install yesterday on my Series S, I am quite excited for this game (Though keeping my optimism in check knowing some of the recent disappointments within the gaming industry). I am unsure about whether I will play it through on there or the ROG yet. Something I did think about, with how ambitious this game is and it still being released on the Series S, I know a lot of other devs are complaining about the lack of power in the S but it seems more to me that they would have to spend time making it work on there as well as the X which would presumably eat into profits? So it's easier to complain at this point?

Ah it affects you prem fans much less but we are feeling a little the same way at Birmingham at the moment, there is certainly a feel good factor around the club at the moment, and the good results to the start of the season show that considering the team is still a long way off a play off contending side. We made bristol look mediocre, we nicked a win against Leeds at the last second and our new wingers are looking very promising. The stadium is looking in good shape, the new owners have spent a sum repainting the stadium, putting up new screens and club crest as well as regenerating the seats etc. The stadium was looking rather dilapidated so it looks great in comparison. There is talk of a few more players yet to come in, we need some more depth so that's promising, we are lacking a potent striker (though that sounds like something most clubs are struggling with at the moment). It has also been nice to see some faces to our new ownership and some interaction from them with the fans, our previous owners were certainly leaving the club to languish.

I am probably much like you, the SD was mostly used round the house and I suspect this will be too, I have a trip to Liverpool in a few weeks where I am contemplating taking it on the train but then my Switch is probably a less expensive gadget to take in case someone decides they want to do something stupid or something ^_^

Yeah a steamdeck 2 or ultra could be a brilliant machine, the Switch with a bit more power, I have also seen a Lenovo handheld thing that has detachable controllers so there is a lot of potential at the moment. I think with the ROG, at least for the time being I am starting to use it more than my PS5 and it serves the purpose I wanted it for brilliantly.

So I let my Steamdeck go, it had an issue with one of the trigger buttons (I think after dropping it) and I managed to sell it and recoup most of my funds still ^_^ I opted to go for one of these instead of rebuying the Steamdeck, I think the big draw for me was having Windows straight off and not having to faff about trying to install it manually on the Steamdeck, playing with drivers etc. So I feel after having it for a week I can somewhat compare the 2 and I think as I was chatting to Greboth the other night there is a market for each of them and I don't necessarily feel like they are stepping too much on each others shoes. Power / Grunt of the consoles - The ROG wins this hands down, I can play Baldurs Gate 3 on high settings, it's also capable of running outer wilds and such which the Steam Deck somewhat struggles with. The ROG is definately the more powerful console. You are able to change the power settings so you can run at I think 5W, 15W & 25W (or 30 if plugged in), so you can adjust the power draw depending on the game you are playing, however it is worth noting that on more demanding games and running at a higher power draw the machine can run quite hot (something I will get onto later) Audio - I don't think there is much in this, the ROG has Dolby Atmos I believe but it does not make too much of a difference, I will note that playing Baldurs Gate 3 I seem to get some crackling in the speakers sometimes, I haven't had this with other games so I am not sure if it's the demand of the game on the chipset. On the whole I would say they are pretty even on this one. Screen - I think the ROG just edges it, it's a higher refresh rate and just looks a little bit sharper, that said, is it enough to justify buying it over the steam deck for the screen alone? Nope I wouldn't say so. Portability / battery - I think this is a point where the steamdeck may just win out, I find myself charging the ROG more, this might be due to the more demanding games I am playing mind. But due to this I have mostly been playing whilst plugged in and this obviously detracts from the portability. For me that is not an issue as I am using it in place of my Playstation when the kids are about at home (they tend to stand in front of the tv a lot when playing) but if you want a true handheld then I probably would not recommend the ROG over the steamdeck. Controls - The ROG does not have the trackpad admittedly, that said I think this boils down to the games you play. The ROG controls are basically like using an XBOX controller, so mainstream games tend work pretty well with it. I can navigate the OS with the gamepad fine or use touchscreen. Obviously the Steamdeck has the trackpad, which if you are comfortable with it is great and obviously for RTS games and such it is brilliant. I think the Steamdeck just pinches this one just by having more options of controls. OS - For me the ROG wins this one, I am a fan of the current Windows and it being installed by default there is no messing around, I can install anything and it all runs simply. Yes it can be a little fuddly on a smaller screen but on the whole the fact that it has a wider compatibility for me is great. For most people Windows is the problem with this handheld as it is not great for touchscreen etc, that said I tend to control it with the sticks fine. The console also has what is called Armoury Crate I think which is a layer over the top which allows you to easily access games or game launchers all from one menu (similar to how the Steamdeck works). Steam OS is great in itself in that it has been designed and adapted specifically for the Steam deck, it works fairly flawlessly and the obvious benefit of having such a good community behind it does help. Being able to access control schemes others have set up and such. Other notes - Going back to heat, the ROG get's quite hot and there have reportedly been issues around the SD card slot location, the exhaust vents are right next to the slot and some users have reported it burning out SD cards, certainly not great considering the device only comes with 512gb storage, a SD card for most people is a must. It has not happened to me yet, but so far I have only used the SD slot to transfer things between my tablet and my ROG and not to game from. I do plan to upgrade the internal storage at some point. Pricing, the ROG has only one price point and it is pretty steep! The Steam deck has options with the bottom rung being much more available and affordable for people (I would not write off getting one again). On the whole I think it is pretty 50/50, yeah the ROG wins out on power, screen and compatibility but the Steam deck is the better designed product. I think it will largely come down to your preference and the sort of games you want to play on it. If you want a handheld that can play great indie games and every now and again you might push it to play the Witcher 3 or something akin to that then the Steam Deck is perfect, if you want something with more grunt but you don't mind being tethered in place or lumping round a big power bank, being able to play current release Triple A titles then the ROG is the way to go 🙂

Thanks guys!

Similar to how I am playing Pathfinder then ^_^ I will be honest I have not got too far in Divinity 2 yet, I think I got pulled away by another game so maybe I might go back to that first and see if I can hold out till a deal on Baldurs Gate crops up ^_^ Only downside then is you get a bit of FOMO 😄

I am looking forward to playing this, I have been umming and arring about getting it for my Playstation though, I know it means waiting a little but I think it will be easier to play ^_^ In the meantime I am playing the last Pathfinder game, I always find the combat in these games tough mind!

So off the back of Saturday's DnD night, my wife was paying attention throughout it seems and she has been chatting to me about it since and want's to give it a go herself ^_^ So if we do this again in the future I have another player 🙂 We have also ordered one of the starter kits so we can have a play at home (my brother's joining us too) so that should be good fun! I think @Lurchzy need's to plan another night to complete this as well 🙂 Maybe sometime in September? (I imagine people are on holiday's over the next month or so). But yeah it was great fun and definitely something I'd do again.

My character reached level 5 in an epic duel with a necromancer that had just raised an army of undead dragons to destroy the realm, on defeating the necromancer the dragons fade away saving the realm. The army he fought side by side with erupts in celebration only for them to watch on as the hero slips on the way down the castle stairs, tumbling down he bashes his head off the steps and dies instantly.

That looks brilliant, I never played these games, I got into Desperados when I was younger but they are of a similar style I think? I need to sort out screenshots, I have a few from Final Fantasy to put up here yet ^_^

But we also know what humanity is like, we will create AI for war, we will create it for profit and they are two things that will not create better wellbeing for us, it won't result in more time to spend with family. It will result in more time for the rich to spend with family while the rest of humanity starves and suffers. It will become something for the rich, do you think we will be giving AI robots to third world countries to help them survive, help them grow enough crops and such. I think the issue is not what AI is capable of, it's how we get to it's end goal. Remember the whole idea is this AI will learn from us and it won't be learning just the good aspects of humanity but the bad traits too. We need to get ourselves in order first and I just do not see that happening.

Done 🙂

I would be interested, think you're gonna have to remind me how to join the league though 😄