Did you get a chance to checkout Horizon: Forbidden West (the sequel to Horizon: Zero Dawn)? I have been gaming for a few decades now, and this is the most impressive technical achievement I have seen in a game. For me, everything else pales in comparison after this experience (The studio develops their own game engine Decima)

It looks beautiful, but I tortured myself through zero dawn and then dropped forbidden West an hour in. The story is dumb, the dialogues are a nightmare and I feel like the more they try to paint the female protagonist as some kind of strong woman the worse it made the whole thing. Instead of making her seem strong she's like a petty person, constantly complaining and badmouth everything. The game mechanics make it hard to overlook the terrible storytelling, constant boring grind with an extremely boring skill system.

But it's not exclusive to her. All of dialogues are silly. If you had Horizon with the script writers of God of War (2018) even with the boring game mechanics, it would probably be a masterpiece.

> The story is dumb, the dialogues are a nightmare and I feel like the more they try to paint the female protagonist as some kind of strong woman the worse it made the whole thing. Instead of making her seem strong she's like a petty person, constantly complaining and badmouth everything.

The Mary Sue trope has infected Hollywood and now the gaming industry. Every woman needs to be perfect; flawless. Every man serves only one purpose: make the Mary Sue appear even more perfect. At this stage I'm impressed when media doesn't include a Mary Sue. I'm really disappointed to see this game is similarly compromised, as I was looking forward to playing it one day.

I really didn't get the vibe that there's some kind of pandering going on with Zero Dawn (haven't played the sequel). I would also note that it's extremely common for video game characters to be Mary Sues, probably because they're often a stand-in for the player. In this regard, Aloy is not particularly different than a Gordon Freeman or a Link. Perhaps that's an indictment of how poor the writing in Zero Dawn is, but it's not unusual.

Completely different from Link. It's not even in the same dimension.

One character that might be similar is that guy in Devil May Cry 5 and I find him equally cringe, I'm glad I didn't actually pay for it.

The character writing in Forbidden West is largely of the same quality as Zero Dawn: serviceable with a few outstanding characters (none of whom are the MC, unfortunately).

I feel like the reason it’s suddenly become an issue is that the quality of the Main Story took quite a drop in the sequel and it’s easier for people to pick out and criticize examples of poor characterization.

And to be fair, I never thought Forbidden West would be able to match/exceed the fantastic Zero Dawn plot - since ZD relied on a fantastic sci-fi premise that couldn’t be easily repeated once the “truth” had been revealed. But going with cackling immortal demigods dressed like a low budget episode of Star Trek: TOS was a poor choice for the middle act of a trilogy.

What’s really strange is how the new FW expansion lays out more breadcrumbs for the closing act of the trilogy that honestly should have been part of the second act (eg: VAST SILVER and the interactions between Old World AIs). I’d be less disappointed in the mustache twirling, scene eating, villains in sparkly spandex if they were the final remnants of humanity’s ancient hubris that had to be dealt with to bring lasting peace.

I think this is an idiosyncratic use of the trope “Mary Sue”, which isn’t really gendered, or wasn’t originally. Unless the usage has drifted a lot more that I’m aware of?

I think there may be some linguistic drift here, because I've always heard of a male "Mary Sue" referred to as "Gary Stu".

Huh, interesting. I think I recall running into that one also, but not consistently. The mis-match with GP usage are deeper than re-gendering the name though.

There are certainly examples of men embodying the Mary Sue trope. I'm highlighting the recent trend of women in the role.

There's a really good story reason why she's Special and the Only Possible Savior. Much better than "Darth Vader was your daddy" or "you're the Boy Who Lived because your mom loved you a bunch and... that's it, that's all" at least.

> Much better than "Darth Vader was your daddy"

That particular twist might seem contrived, especially by today's standards, but Luke had a story arc. He didn't appear in the world as a perfect being. He made many mistakes and earned his redemption and victory.

Similarly, Harry Potter had a story arc. He began completely unskilled and naive. He made many mistakes on his journey to competence.

Both of these examples are the antithesis of the Mary Sue trope. It sounds like you're confirming that Aloy was born a Mary Sue, and didn't have to earn the mantle like any good story arc demands.

Do you think you would feel the same about Aloy if she were presented as a male character?

As the protagonist of the story she’s privy to information and intelligence far beyond the knowledge of much of the rest of the cast. She’s treated as a literal outsider for much of the early story and is often held back from completing vital goals by archaic and arbitrary belief systems throughout both games.

The character is arguably too nice and accommodating to those blocking progress, given the situation, yet your complaint is fairly common.

Absolutely yes. Maybe there are male game characters like that, but I clearly don't remember them. Do you have any examples?

You can be snarky by the way. She is not snarky. She's just superior to the "dumb plebs" and whiny at the same time.

I can't currently think of stupid annoying completely superior male protagonists, but they are quite common in certain types of anime. If the comments on streaming platforms are any indication or their popularity, for the most part, unless the story is extreme parody, they are usually universally disliked.

I don’t really agree with your interpretation of the character, I would argue she’s more understandably frustrated and desperate given the context of the story than whiny. To me that makes her a more realistic and well-rounded character. She’s certainly nothing close to an anime cliche even at the characters more stubborn or impulsive moments.

Edward Kenway (Assassins Creed: Black Flag) is a similar character that comes to mind, though I concede it is difficult to think of many open world video-game characters that deviate from blank-slate people pleasers.

I did the same. Aloy is supposed to be the chosen hero who destroys massive killing machines with just a stick, but instead she’s stuck dealing with a petty bureaucrat who refuses to open a gate.

PS: I tried shooting the dude, to see if that works. He’s bulletproof because railroads and scripted events

Horizon: Forbidden West is an amazing technical achievement, I just wish I had found it more enjoyable, instead it was "fine". Elden Ring coming out 2 weeks later kinda made me forget all about it - it gave me a feeling I haven't felt playing games in decades that I had been really missing.

> It's a market-tested, risk-averse product that most people will enjoy, and only a few will truly love or despise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q38fjcyP1IQ

> The studio develops their own game engine Decima

Death Stranding (Hideo Kojima's latest game) also uses Decima and is a nice showcase as well, runs like a dream on even the Steam Deck.

Curiously, Death Stranding's PC port is much better optimized than Horizon: Zero Dawn's port.

Death Stranding on the PS4 is the last time I remember being truly immersed in the world the game is presenting - in a non-Nintendo game.

The first time you go out of the city, the world just opens up to you and the soundtrack just gets more and more calming and you're left with Sam, the cargo and the target. It's just... wonderful.

Of course, the same exact thing happened this morning in the first few minutes of Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo seems to get this right way more often than everyone else.

I felt the same. I came late to Zero Dawn playing it 5 years after it came out. My first Zelda was the original Zelda (I was 7 when it came out) and Zero Dawn is the closest I ever came to that same feeling as an adult. I don't know the siblings comments are on about—I usually don't really care about the story, though I found myself super curious to find out what was going on the whole time and worried less about what kind of person Aloy was.

I've heard the Steam Deck emulates Switch games like Zelda BOTW much better than the Switch. And it's not much more expensive either.

To offer a counterpoint - the Deck is heavy. For a system that is meant to be chiefly used as a handheld, the thing borders on being as heavy as your average laptop, which gets quite tiring on your arms after a while.

The Switch' fit is a lot lighter by comparison, which is quite nice.

I own a Switch, but I'm still debating whether I play BoTW on Deck or Switch. Either way I'll probably buy it on Switch because developers should be rewarded for making good games, but it's handy for me to have all of my games in one place. Plus the Deck is a much more comfortable for me to hold - more ergonomic, better fit for larger hands.

> but I'm still debating whether I play BoTW on Deck or Switch.

Debating what ? Are you pulling the "IP owners don't make their products available on my platform so I am forced to pirate it" netflix card when you own the device the game is supposed to be played on ?

Do you act with the same rampant indignation at people who rip their dvd/blu rays to a home NAS so they can watch them without having to faff about looking for the disc?

Maybe read the whole comment first before reacting in future?

> Maybe read the whole comment first before reacting in future?

You mean that part ? Where it says "probably" ? Yeah, I read it. It says "probably".

> Either way I'll probably buy it on Switch because developers should be rewarded for making good games, but it's handy for me to have all of my games in one place.

> Do you act with the same rampant indignation at people who rip their dvd/blu rays to a home NAS so they can watch them without having to faff about looking for the disc?

Only those who claim they probably have the dvd/blu rays somewhere or are planning to "probably" buy them while claiming they'll watch the rip on their home NAS because it's much more convenient.

If you read my comment, I said I'd pay for it either way. At that point while I might be technically pirating, I don't think I am ethically.

No, you wrote (emphasis mine):

> Either way I'll probably buy it [..]

If you don't for sure buy it then there is no debating playing it on deck unless what you are debating is playing the game or not.

He’s not debating on whether to pay for the game, he’s debating on where he’ll get the best experience with it.

It just happens to be that one of those options requires pirating game instead of paying for it.

Yeah, probably.

You're also not paying for their hardware. Like Apple, since they own both sides of the equation, the hardware is part of their pricing model.

Unless you also own a switch, in which case disregard!

I do in fact own a Switch (as I wrote above).

I would have thought that the console doesn't have much effect on the financial model though. The margin on the console has to be fairly low, and they sell many games for each console sale. I've always assumed that the vast majority of their profit was from the game sales.

Sorry, missed that part :(

TBH I don't know. Apple is obviously a hardware company that happens to make software.

As you say, Nintendo does sell software as you say. But there's plenty of people out there who buy the devices for a couple of games. The people that always just want whatever the latest Mario Kart or Smash Bros is, or whatever.

That's why I've figured they view themselves as a bit of a hybrid. If they viewed themselves as a software company I'd think they would be less fanatical about having their own hardware.

It's a no-brainer for me. The headache of setting up emulation of consoles more modern than about N64 era makes it way less appealing right from the start, plus the Switch is way lighter, and all the native hardware features just work better when you aren't going through a few levels of translation (Steam's controller mapping is great, but gyro working seamlessly is hard to beat, and amiibo support is a hassle to replicate). The Switch is a bit less comfortable to hold on its own, but there are lots of grips that fix that problem (I'm a fan of the Skull & Co one).

I've found emudeck on the Steam Deck to be surprisingly easy (I have a low tolerance for that sort of tinkering in my spare time). Downloading the right ROMs has been a little more painful (and slow), but once you've got them it's generally been just SCPing them onto the deck and then pressing the button to generate the menu entries.

Admittedly though, I don't care about amiibos or motion controls (I always turn them off when using my Switch).

Thank you for being part of normalizing consumer freedom while being responsible enough to support the people who worked on the thing.

Part of what makes the discussion of emulators or alternative means of playing games so difficult, is that the loudest voices are those who make it clear that they have no intention of actually buying the product to begin with.

It makes it hard for any conversation around the publisher’s pushback to “protect their IP” to move beyond their need to protect their income stream, and into the legitimate reasons a consumer would want to have more control over how they play the publisher’s game.

Can I play the Steam Deck handheld (with controllers attached), on kickstand with controllers detracted and split, docked with controllers in a dock to make a single controller, and docked with controller split and turned sideways for two player?

Sort of, yes - at least, the linux kernel has built in support for Nintendo controller connections over bluetooth, and there are some userspace drivers (or dkms, or maybe they've been merged into mainline now, `joycond` iirc) for support for split/merged/2p joycons. There's the Steam Dock peripheral for playing it docked to a TV just like the switch. The only thing missing is the ability to stow the joycons into the body of the deck (it has a built in controller so you don't need the joycons to play handheld), and you'd have to get a case for the deck with a kickstand as there isn't one built in. I've been using a Switch Pro controller to play TotK via Yuzu and it works perfectly, gyro included.

Steam Deck supports external gamepads. There's a dock too. It even supports switch joycons though you can't split them.

Obviously you can't attach controllers directly to the deck, but it does support a ton of controllers including the Switch ones. With motion control etc.

Problem with emulators is that at some point they will fail you, and you will lose some saves.

Wrong.

I've used every emulator except the switch emu, and not only do you not randomly lose saves, you can duplicate, move them, etc.

I've used emulators on laptops, desktops, phones, etc.

And I have even transferred saves between them and never had an issue.

I have- right now, saves over 20+ years old.

Wrong.

I've used every emulator including the switch emu, and not only do you randomly lose saves, you can lose duplicates.

I've used emulators on laptops, desktops, phones, etc.

And I have even transferred saves between them and see files being corrupted.

I have- right now, saves over 20+ years old (tales of fantasia in japanese).

I just lost 10 hours of gameplay from Seiken Densetsu 2 on Emu Deck last month.

Wrong.

Sounds like you have a hard drive issue bud.

This is not correct, but there are many people making this claim. Yuzu is arguably the most popular emulator, and only around 20% of games work well out of the box (https://yuzu-emu.org/game/). A further 30% require tweaks, or operate sub-optimally. The remaining 50% either don't run at all or offer a terrible experience. The thing to remember is that even if you pick one of the games in the "perfect" category, it's still not perfect. For example, you often have to content with hours and hours of "shader" loading. This means choppy and and strange graphical glitches. Further, drivers for various systems are not perfect, and sometimes certain features utilising, for example, the gyroscope, don't work correctly.

There is a VERY vocal minority of Linux gamers who have VERY rose coloured glasses on for anything Linux. I expect some of them to respond to this comment with some variation of "well I have never had any problems with Yuzu. It's the most amazing thing I've ever used in my whole life!!!"

20% of switch-exclusive games or 20% of complete switch library? I suspect cross-platform releases aren't in high priority.

Unfortunately it's even worse if we focus on exclusive. These are the top selling Switch games: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_...). Of the top 10, not a single one is in "Perfect" condition.

Mario Kart: "Okay"

Animal Crossing: "Great"

Super Smash Bros: "Okay"

Breath of the Wild: "Great"

Pokemon Sword and Shield: "Okay"

Super Mario Odyssey: "Great"

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet: No support

Super Mario Part: "Okay"

Super Mario Bros U: "Okay"

Ring Fit Adventure: No support

The Deck is impressive and wonderful, but it's not exactly a high end gaming device. Emulating ARM code efficiently requires a significant amount of CPU power and my experience is that the Deck doesn't quite have the CPU capacity to keep up with heavier emulated titles.

I expect the new Logitech handheld (or the many other, even more expensive competitors) to perform much better in this regard.

In a perfect world, emulators such as Skyline would be developed further. As the Switch is just a five year old mid tier Android tablet with a controller attached, I can only imagine the experience if you were to use the KVM capabilities of the upcoming Android 14 to run Switch software at near native performance on modern devices. Just buy one of those controller grips for phone and tablets and you're off!

iPhones/iPads would do even better, but I doubt Apple is going to let you use the necessary APIs to virtualize like that.

It's a shame Skyline has been killed off. With terrible games like that Pokémon game needing much more CPU power than the Switch can provide, I imagine even legitimate players would be interested in a way to play their switch games on modern hardware.

You're right (and interesting, I didn't know that about Android 14) but fwiw, Yuzu performance is vastly improved on the deck by installing the power tools (iirc) plugin via Decky, and disabling SMT. There's a bug in the OS which is due to be patched in the next major version which should prevent SMT from tanking Yuzu and various other games.

What are you talking about long load times on a PS5? Isn't it supposed to revolutionize gaming by dropping load times altogether because of it's ridiculously ( for a consoles anyways ) fast SSDs? That's what I have heard anyways, don't have PS5 myself.

It is. I don't know what OP is on about, but load-times on the PS5 are practically non-existent for me. Played the latest Horizon game, and on loading screens I can't even read the first few words of the game-tip. It's never longer than a second, if it's not instant.

Same for me, load times on PS5 are actually pretty impressive. I can't remember being bothered by load times since I have it.

In comparison I recently started my Switch again to play Dead Cells and load times really break the die & retry experience.

So yeah, praising the Switch performance over PS5 is... weird? Possibly dishonest?

That's what I was thinking. Recently got myself a PS4 because they are really affordable now and god damn those loading times are obscene. About an hour to install new game on first disc load - didn't even connect to internet to skip downloading 10s of GB of updates.

Pro-tip: install an SSD in the PS4. I put a 2TB one in my OG one and everything runs way better despite the connection being just SATA2.

Seconding. I put a 1 TB in mine up from an HDD. It's also softmodded and has PS1 and PS2 title I injects in it. Having sleep mode and resume for my favorite PS1 and PS2 games has been great.

I'm guessing they mean wake from sleep time? Since in my experience that is unparalleled. By the time my xbox has even registered the on button press I could already be playing a game on switch. The steam deck is also pretty good in this regard, but not quite as fast.

Furthermore, the switch rarely if ever forces you to update a game or the OS before play. So if you have 5 minutes spare, you can be sure you can get some play time in. This cannot be said for almost every other console AFAIK

One of the primary reasons I bought Steam Deck was because it can suspend and resume a game mid-action. Ever since life kicked in low gear after 30s I can't really find time anymore to sit at TV and power on/load game anymore as it feels like a chore. What I figured is that I will just play in short bursts whenever I have free time, which means suspending game in a must feature. So far I haven't seen deck updating a game while I am playing it, but there was such event when I launched a game after it was doing updates and it got stuck on loading screen ( mad I/O on sdcard ). Had to pause update explicitly.

Yes that's exactly why I got a steam deck too. I wanted something with a similar time-to-play as the switch. It's been excellent so far. I've had some minor issues when waking, but otherwise no problems.

Since getting it in the sale 2 months ago, I haven't turned on my xbox or my switch. It fills a neat gap. But now Zelda is out, I think the steamdeck will be having a rest for a while.

Any recommendations for games that you've enjoyed on the steam deck? I've been enjoying Opus Magnum recently. The controls were initially a bit fiddly (since it's drag and drop with the trackpad) but it's an excellent puzzle game. Refactoring your machines to optimise production rate really scratches an itch in my programmer's brain :)

Xbox Series X has that feature, you can even suspend multiple games at once

I've seen some longer load times on PS5, but mostly with PS4 games. Not sure why.

It’s a lot faster than the PS4 but it’s still slow in comparison with Switch games. It’s understandable given the difference in file size/game “quality” but I don’t want to wait more than a few seconds.

IME, it depends on the game. Mario Kart 8 and Mario Odyssey load really quickly, for example. All the Lego games seem to take forever to load tho, it's quite frustrating!

It is a super cool piece of kit. I haven't had a console since the PS2, the switch won me over with it's form factor versatility and of course the game library.

I owned a PS4, then PS4 Pro, then PS5 and a laptop capable to play games. And couldn't agree more with you.

Make sure to get also Super Mario Odyssey. This game is just such a joy. It feels like a trip to a funfair every time.

And sure, Mario Kart 8 for some multiplayer fun.

6 years in, and the Switch is still the most used console in my family with 3 kids.

3 kids you say?

Boomerang Fu. You are welcome.

It's a silly, simple, utterly un-put-downable game in our house.

Boomerang Fu occasionally goes on sale for $2 on the eShop. Even at full price it's one of the better cost/fun ratios of any game I've played with the kids.

This works equally well on a PC with controllers/ gamepad, as attested by another family with 3 kids.

This game is just perfect.

Agreed on the Boomerang Fu recommendation! "Good Job" is also a fantastic buy for 1-2 players. Just a hilarious game

Indeed. Stick Fight and Rubber Bandits are similarly fun and addictive

> and the loading speed is a breath of fresh air.

I don't know what games you're playing but my experience pretty much across the board with the switch is "frustratingly long" loading times. Metroid dread is one of the more recent games I played and the loading screens are painful. Especially compared to a PS5. Check out something like Spiderman for how good it can be.

> And tbh, I didn’t see a lot of difference in terms of graphics.

Then you're not the target audience. Look at TOTK beside Ratchet and Clank on PS5. The difference is night and day.

On the graphics point I meant from PS4 > PS5. Switch is obviously much less powerful graphically but it has zero impact on my enjoyment of the games.

Its a very different thing to say there's no difference, and that the difference doesn't impact your enjoyment of the games. I've been playing TOTK this weekend, and the graphic quality does affect my enjoyment. There are performance issues, super low res graphics, awful aliasing and shadows, and super low detail textures. It doesn't ruin the game, but this is stuff that definitely deserves to be talked about.

Switch load times are indeed long, especially after living with a PS5. In fact they frustrated me when I originally played through BoTW on release.

Coming back to this, I've been playing TOTK this weekend on my switch. The loading times on death, or entering/exiting shrines are pretty close to a minute. I'm currently playing jedi survivor on PS5 and the load times are closer to 10 seconds. It's night and day.

If you don’t have a 4K TV then you wouldn’t notice for dons games since both consoles would run at 1080

> Huge game downloads, huge update downloads

I have uncapped gigabit internet. (Like many of us, I WFH, and want the most "internet" I can get.) I recall redownloading a game I wanted to play recently. It was 40GB. I thought I would go get a coffee while I waited. It was done before I rounded up and got my shoes on. I don't think the game and update sizes really matter to most of the target demographic of a current-gen console any more. But, hey, I could be extrapolating my experience in a terribly shortsighted way.

Unfortunately having uncapped gigabit Internet isn’t an option for most people. I would gladly pay for that if I could. But I’m stuck with Comcast. I’ve lived in 4 different cities in the last decade and I’ve always been stuck with Comcast. You should absolutely not assume that massive downloads don’t matter to most people.

It may not be available in your area but even being stuck with Comcast it might be available.

With Comcast I pay $100/mo for gigabit and $20/mo for unlimited usage.

This is precisely what I'm doing.

I have comcast and I have uncapped 10G internet. I'm sorry you don't and I don't love comcast as a company and years ago comcast was definitely synonymous with poor network quality and certainly they still are in some locations, but, it's hardly universal anymore.

I'm a huge gamer across a few platforms and I wish this was consistent across all platforms, launchers, and companies. I have a fast inner city fiber connection as well and a Sea of Thieves download from Gamepass recently took multiple hours. I've had some patches for PS5 games take 30-45 minutes for a couple gigs. Many companies are hosting their stuff on fast scalable infra but some are still cheaping out.

Back in the PS4 era when I had FIOS gigabit it was incredibly frustrating to have that internet speed with a console which would download things at 10-15Mbit. There were some tweaks which would double it plus or minus a bit, but, it was fundamentally incapable of using anything close to line rate.

PS5 is incredibly faster. Sony is using Akamai CDN now (they didn't when I checked in the PS4 era) and I consistently max out the PS5s gigabit port (I have 10G symmetric at home).

The Switch is an excellent piece of hardware. Nintendo knocked it out of the park so far it's only just starting to see competition at the end of it's lifecycle.

I've had a switch for years and I agree I do love playing it, but, there are some really great games in the playstation ecosystem. It's definitively a less casual environment but I personally would not give up on playing games like The Last of Us and Horizon and the new God of War games. Really incredible gameplay with incredible story as well.

I really want to get a Switch but I can’t seem to justify paying full price for hardware that is evidently several years out of date. Released 6 years ago and still $300.

I was so used to older consoles being bundled with games after a couple years after being released

When I first got a PS4 it was bundled with GTAV and Last of Us. Pretty incredible deal.

>> I really want to get a Switch but I can’t seem to justify paying full price for hardware that is evidently several years out of date.

I thought similar but at the end of the day does it matter? Games work well on it. Sure they might be making bigger profit margins on it but it still does what it’s meant to at a good level.

Honestly, while I have a running boycott of consoles on moral grounds (Steam Deck notwithstanding), I feel like the Switch and PS4 are the best systems in quite a while, both for the variety of independent/AA games in all genres on them, and the retro arcade game ports M2 and Hamster are churning out at a steady and ever increasing pace.