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Latest Comments by Botonoski
GameImage turns games, emulators and Wine into an AppImage - useful perhaps for Steam Deck
18 January 2023 at 7:33 am UTC Likes: 3

I think I'll soon be ripping my entire console game collection and repackaging them in manners similar to this. Always wanted to just convert my collection into no hassle native PC ports, and this approach would probably be the next best thing.

Google to release a tool to enable Bluetooth on the Stadia Controller
14 January 2023 at 8:07 am UTC

I was very certain they weren't going to do this, so many companies just flippantly make e-waste without so much as a second thought. I am glad they are taking this step, but worried the motives behind doing such a thing are... Lackluster, likely PR motivated rather than an actual intention to reduce waste.

PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 hits a big milestone with all games now bootable
9 January 2023 at 9:07 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: BotonoskiOh wow, I coincidentally bought a compatible blu-ray drive when I was replacing the dead DVD drive in my PC. Guess I'll be keeping an eye at my Value Village for games to buy and dump.
Nice!!! I just ended up putting my old Bluray drive into an external case; as not all computer cases are including a 5.25" bay these days...
A shame 5.25" bays are going out of fashion really, they are handy for more than just disk drives. I remember buying my father a bay accessory with a car cigarette lighter on it, as a bit of a joke, and he ended up using it for years until he quit smoking.

PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 hits a big milestone with all games now bootable
8 January 2023 at 11:41 pm UTC Likes: 1

Oh wow, I coincidentally bought a compatible blu-ray drive when I was replacing the dead DVD drive in my PC. Guess I'll be keeping an eye at my Value Village for games to buy and dump.

PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 hits a big milestone with all games now bootable
5 January 2023 at 11:46 pm UTC

Alright, gotta finally get around to the Yakuza games in that case.

Valve revealed the most played games on Steam Deck for 2022
1 January 2023 at 11:07 pm UTC

Quoting: dvdWell that's exactly what frustrates me about it. There are story missions and characters that elevate the vibe, and highlight the good things, but outside those it just doesn't have the same grab as the Witcher. Even with that the strongest one for me definetly was the Toussaint expansion, where they nailed basically everything. As for the bugs, i played the gog version on the latest patch so i dunno, doesn't seem fixed for me. It wasn't crashy to begin with, and i haven't encountered any bugs in the earlier version so i guess i just got lucky.

I haven't played the original Deus Ex, but i played the recent one and i liked that better than CP2077.
Different strokes for different folks I suppose, personally I don't like the Witcher 3, but I am also not big on fantasy.

Valve revealed the most played games on Steam Deck for 2022
1 January 2023 at 11:14 am UTC

Quoting: dvd
Quoting: Botonoski
Quoting: dvdInteresting that Cyberpunk is still there given how buggy and frustrating game it is.
I've put 30+ hours onto that game on my Deck and have so far only encountered rather mild visual bugs.

I did a second playthrough of it on the latest patch, and ironically encountered more bugs (floating radios at main quest locations, getting lunched into the stratosphere from a motorbike, enemies fusing into cargo crates etc...) than in one of the first patches. Performance is worse too. But that is not what makes the game frustrating for me.

It's just that the cool artwork and some interesting characters are hidden in a bad game. It truly feels like you're playing just to get to the next dialouge/cinematicy moment. In the witcher 2/3 i loved those as well, but combat/free exploration was interesting in its own right.

On my second playthrough i was surprised how much less of it i remembered after 1 year gap compared to the witcher which i last played 2 years ago. I guess hype truly carries a game. I'd hope they can carry the good forward to the next and come up with something better for the rest.

It's a shame too as I think a lot of good stuff got buried in the crap game: Johnny, Judy, Panam, the the Peralez', Jackie, Goro, Misty, Viktor, Evelyn they are all interesting characters and would've been better served if they focused more on normal missions than on 'gigs' and whatever. (and they put the Johnny missions, that are some of the best at the end so so its easy to miss wtf...) I refused to do any of those in my second playthrough, simply since the gameplay is the worst part of the game. There is no difficulty, "Very hard" is a cakewalk, only "challenge" is the 1-shot snipers in maybe 2 of the late game missions. Otherwise the enemy couldn't really scratch my character, which was an anti-tank build btw.
My relationship with the game is complicated. Didn't touch it until it was obviously finished, as in I waited for the bad press to settle down and turn positive, than I bought it almost entirely to bench a rig, and kinda hated it a lot, just absolutely despised almost every aspect.
But then I tried again but with a different mindset, like I just decided to vibe with the setting rather than try to derive entertainment from it, and...the world just started to feel real and compelling, in an exact way I hadn't experienced since the playing original Dues Ex.
Certain things about the game resonate with me very strongly, enough to outshine aspects I dislike, which is much the same experience I have with all open world RPGs like this.

Valve revealed the most played games on Steam Deck for 2022
1 January 2023 at 12:30 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: dvdInteresting that Cyberpunk is still there given how buggy and frustrating game it is.
I've put 30+ hours onto that game on my Deck and have so far only encountered rather mild visual bugs.

The Steam Deck really doesn't need exclusives
28 December 2022 at 5:19 pm UTC Likes: 2

I wouldn't mind a soft exclusive, like the sort of game which is largely made to be played on the Deck, and is playable on other platforms just not as ideal for one reason or another.

Reading some comments got me thinking. Console games are often tailor-made and optimized for specific target hardware. But the Deck is almost the inverse, where it's instead the console rather than the games being tailor-made and optimized to run target games. Steam Input, Performance Profiles, Proton, it's all just stuff to get the console to conform to the games expectations rather than the game being forced to conform with the console expectations.

This has all kind of been the reality for PC gaming since forever, but seeing a console take this approach is fascinating.

Valve giving away tons of Steam Decks during The Game Awards 2022
8 December 2022 at 9:42 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: samurroIts double the weight of the switch, at least to the quick google search I did. So I am not sure where your arguments are. I even said "mobile gaming".

But I get the feeling this forum is not accustomed to different opinions on anything...
Oh, I honestly thought you were joking so I thought to play along and respond with a joke. Whoops. I haven't seen any negative reviews of the Deck myself, any criticisms are typically followed up by reasons why that doesn't really take away from the overall experience or value of the Deck.

This forum is really tolerant of fractured opinions honestly, like Linux is a very fractured yet still unified community. No one here is going to seriously criticize anyone for putting Windows on their system, we're all just trying to have fun the best we can.

To answer your question seriously the Deck is insanely good value. It's not for mobile gaming, its more for console-grade gaming, but on the go. Think of the PSP for example, its goal was to essentially bring the PS2 to your pocket during the PS3 era, the Deck essentially has the power of an original Xbox One, and that's enough power to even play Switch games decently, which is just crazy, like you need a lot of overhead to emulate a whole different system with any semblance of playability. And since its part of the PC ecosystem, you'll save a lot on buying games as Steam store prices are cutthroat and Epic just gives the darn things away every other week. If your the type to fiddle, you can even buy a PC game from goodwill and load it up on there, with emulators and a crazy lineage of PC games you have access to almost the entirely of gaming history, all in the most powerful and affordable PC handheld to date. And at the end of the day it's a PC, my sister plans to buy one because it not only can play her favorite games but also since it works with her drawing tablet and can run Windows 10 when needed. You could buy this thing and use it entirely for productivity tasks if you so chose. Even If you were to look at this thing as a laptop alternative... $400 is a good price for such a capable laptop.