I’m having a good time with it! If you’re a Marvel fan, it draws from a lot more than just the MCU, and is much better for it in my opinion. If you’re not a Marvel fan, it’s similar to an Overwatch, but with each character playing drastically different from each other. Character complexity can feel like a lot, but it works out in a chaotic, fun way.

Iron Man, my preferred character, has a projectile repulsor blast, a close-range unibeam, perpetual flight, boosters to move quickly (with a recharging meter), a temporary damage buff, rockets that can fire while buffed or while using boosters, and an ultimate bomb. If he’s on the same team as a Bruce Banner/Hulk, then whenever Hulk drops Gamma radiation, Iron Man’s buff is stronger (and green).

Hell Let Loose, I’m assuming. Haven’t played it, but I think it’s a WW2 sim shooter?

I mean, it’s certainly one way to have “flavor of the month” characters without actually having to rebalance things monthly.

A lot of good games can be based on randomness. Being in control of the deck building means that your choices shape the odds. I used to have a similar viewpoint as you, but learned to really embrace randomness and the design challenges it presents.

I say this as a Magic player, where even the greatest players in the world can get screwed or flooded on mana. The possibility of screw/flood increases the importance of card draw/card selection, makes the playability of low-mana cards more important, and makes heavy color pip investment, multiple colors, and higher mana costs a very serious concern.

Oh, I already have it, I just needed a good reason to hop into it and really give it a shot over the holidays.

I’m fine with games that push you to change your combat; combat that’s only there as a stat check and grind doesn’t feel like a compelling reason to have combat.

I’m like, one toe deep in 4 different turn-based RPGS. What does this one do particularly well?

Hey, don’t forget about good old Riding the Dilu Horse. +2/+2 and Horsemanship that stuck around, with no counters or attachment.

Wyrmspan is awesome.

If you enjoy Wingspan, Wyrmspan feels like a Wingspan where you can actually “build” in a cohesive manner, and everything feels a little tighter/tougher due to the reduced number of resources you can get per action initially. The ability to earn more actions within a round becomes pivotal. And it feels like there are different viable paths to victory, whereas Wingspan really felt like "get early pink ability birds, then focus on high point value birds.

My board game group has switched over without looking back, and we had already invested in the Nesting Box and every expansion for Wingspan.

Thanks!

I didn’t know/understand the integrated memory thing.

It seems like this thing is like 80% of the way to an amazing machine. Hall Effect sticks and a great screen and chip set, but the Windows 11 nonsense and the short RAM keep it from being an auto-recommend.

If SteamOS goes public, I’d really hope to see how this device fares.

Aside from the cruddy software, I don’t understand these complaints?

Yes, it’s Win11. Terrible interface, awful setup, and I’m not a fan of it.

16GB of RAM is what’s in my Steam Deck, and the Ally X goes above that with 24GB.

This seems to be a 1080p, 120Hz, OLED display. Is your issue the lack of HDR/color depth? Or are the resolution and refresh rate too high for the battery? Or is it actually like, RGB lighting on the handheld?

Okay, would people recommend playing 1, 2, then 3, to get the experience as it was first given? Or going 3, 1, 2?

I wonder if people realize that cyberpunk is meant to be a dystopian satire, and not just a cool aesthetic. It should feel like a condemnation of a number of modern practices (including our over-commercialization and hypercapitalism). I guess the issue with Deus Ex is that reality has jumped the shark so hard that it doesn’t even look like much of an exaggeration in some spaces, and more like the logical outcome of another decade or two.

I’m sure there are some weird tech bros out there that see it as a utopia, and that’s where I stop being able to see eye to eye with them. Who would want to live in a world where the cycle of poverty is more vicious than ever, where literal under-cities of people have to subsist on artificial light and synthesized foods that keep them alive, but only barely?

Oops. I did all of mine like 8 hours ago.

You’re right, I guess I wasn’t thinking it all the way through. Guess it’s up to SE to decide if they want to hire more artists and spend their time polishing bits of older content.

Usually when a dev studio says “budget”, it’s primarily a time budget, not just money. Yes, money can be used to hire more staff, but everything we know about software development says that output doesn’t scale linearly with man-hours.

Fixing hats in the way they would like (which isn’t just the modded method of having ears or parts of heads clip through whatever hats/helms exist) would require them to go through every headpiece created so far and rework them for the races’ head shape. Is it possible? Yes. Is it the best use of their time and effort? Probably not. It’s a live game; they’re always pushing on for the next bit of content.

I can build a new PC or whatnot, but one thing that has helped the Deck along is that it’s established a clear standardized set of specs that some developers have chosen to build for. Obviously there have been plenty of games that won’t run on the deck, but sites like ProtonDB basically create a sticker for “this runs well on the Deck.”

It’s a real shame; Irvine has lots of great food, and it’s another large east-Asian population center within the LA-OC metro area, but it’s also so staunchly Republican that I can’t stand to watch local news down there.

That’s nothing against the university, though. I have family who got their degrees there, and I even took summer classes on campus once. I dig the school and it was my fallback when I applied for colleges (back when it was possible to have a fallback).

I haven’t delved into this game much, and I’m not well-versed in 40K lore, but do you only get to play as the Ultramarines, or do they have other legions/chapters to customize as?

I dislike the Epic Launcher and almost every move they’ve made as a company, but I’m glad that competition exists. People should have choices of where to get games, in ways that make sense for them. Unfortunately, I don’t really see a reason to choose EGS other than exclusives and freebies, but hopefully they actually develop it into a valid candidate.

In general, having more publishers and storefronts and developers in a place of stability is good for the industry. It sucks when studios have to get shut down because the funding isn’t there.

Any big finds in this list?

I’ve personally really enjoyed Sea of Stars. I don’t know if it’s too short or too long, because it did drop out of my attention for a bit, but the good moments are great. One of 2 games where I actually teared up/cried last year.

I like Into the Breach a lot! I’m not much for roguelike/roguelite games because I feel like I’m not improving/learning at the rate that the game expects, but Into the Breach is just so cool and fun, and it’s the tactics-based game that has made me think the most on every individual move. Each team plays so differently, and they do make use of the run-based system in interesting ways.