Gaming

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8441446

Civilization VII is set for a major update that finally let players stay as one civ through all Ages, as the boss of parent company Take-Two has admitted: “we got it wrong.”

Civilization VII is over a year old now, and has fewer players on Steam than both Civilization VI and the 15-year-old Civilization V. When Civilization VII launched, players highlighted issues with the user interface, a lack of map variety, and a lack of features they’d come to expect from the franchise. But some veteran Civ fans also didn’t get on well with the dramatic changes developer Firaxis made to the game.

At launch, a full campaign in Civilization VII was one that went through all three Ages: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. Once the Age is completed, all players (and any AI opponents) experience an Age Transition simultaneously. During an Age Transition, three things happen: you select a new civilization from the new Age to represent your empire, you choose which Legacies you want to retain in the new Age, and the game world evolves. The Civilization games had never had such a system, and it proved divisive.

While Firaxis launched a number of key updates in a bid to turn sentiment around, and Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick indicated to IGN that he was confident Civilization VII would eventually prove to be a successful project, developer Firaxis suffered layoffs in September, and the game is still stuck on a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam — its core platform.

Speaking to Game File now, Zelnick took responsibility for Civilization VII’s struggles.

“Every time there’s a new Civ, the team at Firaxis thinks about: ‘How do we push the envelope far enough that it makes sense to buy this new game? And how do we preserve what people love enough so that they’re not disaffected?’ And we got it wrong with Civ VII, but it wasn’t for want of trying. And again, I take responsibility for it,” he said.

“So we’ve made a bunch of fixes. We’ll continue to make fixes. The game is a really good game. And it’s certainly a profitable enterprise for us. But this is one where I think what we tried to do was a bridge too far, from the consumer’s perspective.”

I love nothing more than hazardous weather in video games, the long dark is pretty good with its intense blizzards that you can get lost and die in minutes, I also love no man's sky. The whole building a base in an extremely hostile environment that if you step outside for too long you're a goner.

I'm a sucker for these games, I need more. You guys got anything for my itch? Bonus points if it's super intense and dangerous

Like, games that you have played through multiple times, but you still like to replay them from time to time because you can just relax and have a good time without too much hassle.

For me some are Dark Souls 1&2 and Borderlands 1, I can play them without too much thoughts about what I'm doing, but still be focused enough so no bad thoughts appear.

It's pretty short at around 4-5 hours. I found the gameplay was excellent. I found difficulty was just right. It never got too frustrating, but I always felt challenged. It never got boring, and it was really fun to see how the environment kept changing as the game progressed. It also does a really good job of doing story telling through gameplay. I find a lot of games tend to have a game portion and a story portion. Here, they managed to blend both story telling and the game completely seamlessly. Highly recommend if you enjoy this genre of a game.

This is an old clip from an interview with Gaben talking about piracy. Its well known video, but not everyone may have saw it, so I put it here too.

• On Invidious, a wrapper for YouTube: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=EQweFurRz4g
• Or on YouTube directly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQweFurRz4g
• Or even on odysee: https://odysee.com/@postscriptreal:e/Gabe-Newell-on-Piracy-(Full-Version-HQ):2

Video description:

This is the un-abridged, web-exclusive version of ABC Good Game's interview with Gabe Newell, which contains the full version of Gabe's take on Anti-piracy. Despite what the title and YouTube says, this video is actually in 180p, due to it being a web-exclusive download for a show in Australia, where out of all the other first-world countries, we had (and still have) the worst internet known to man. I have attempted to smooth out the video output so it looks less "pixelly", you can find the original video on ABC's site for Good Game, it's from Season 5, Episode 24. This upload is much less compressed than the other uploads found here on YouTube.

It's too sweet a game to write anything bad about.

If I had to nitpick, I would say the material is there for a great story but the plot meanders a bit. It's basically a quest to find a Macguffin, it's funny and chaotic and a lot of the charm is due to the characters interacting with one another but as for the plot itself... it's kind of boring. One thing leads to one thing then we're doing something else, it doesn't feel as tightly knit as the character dialogue in the game

Aside from a few QTE annoyances, I did enjoy a lot of the action scenes. They're very well choreographed and provide a fun and engaging experience

I don't hate any of the main characters, they're like a family and even the worst people of them have a GOTG-type vibe to them that makes it fun to keep following their stories.

Obviously it's a Telltale game so most of your choices don't impact the plot much but it was still nice to experience this game as a narrative where you can choose what to say, the added customization options were really fun too as was the last action sequence that gives you a lot of choice on how things play out

Overall, it's some of the best comedic games I have played and a great Telltale game. Definitely my fav for now as the only other one I have played is that disappointing Expanse one.

8/10 ⭐

The game is just about shooting, driving and stealing shit. It is not this out this world experience haha. The amount of "GTA coming out some day" content that I get is way too much.

I stupidly injured my left hand and it's going to be out of commission for the next 3 months. I usually play Sim racing games and first person shooters.

What games would be available to me in order to keep streaming while only using my right hand? Ideally racing themed.

I can somewhat use my left hand to hold a controller but not use any of the buttons on the left side or the stick and pad.

PS: Don't stick your fingers in a blender without powering it down first. Trust me.

Edit: Thanks for the suggestion everyone, it turns out I already own a lot of these through humble bundles. Time to work through that backlog!

I am looking for a game that will make me laugh a lot. I already played Disco Elysium and I am currently playing Stanley's Parable

Yes i am aware that is a Generic Title and im not trying to be all "Grrr these Modern Games are destroying us >:((((((" :P
but more so on the Side of that you now have access to all these Games for like usually a few Bucks here and there due to all the Sales on Platforms like Steam and GOG for Example :P
But it just feels like you cant decide and have too much to play and choose from X_X
and thats not really a "Oh Digital Gaming Bad" per se as i do notice it with my Physical Collection as well of course that i cannot decide what i wanna play >.>
But more so that Gaming just feels "more difficult" and also a ton more Toxic and Mean maybe? >.>
Like for example when i look at old Conventions like E3 or even Gamescom from the 2010s im like "Holy Shit look at all these Cool Games" but obviously nowadays its just "meh" really >.>
Afterall E3 is Dead and Gamescom is basically overrun by Influencers all Day >.>
But for example also Game Trailers kinda feel Weird in a Sense? >.>
Like i do not wanna bash Editors of these Trailers of course but for example i watched the Borderland 2 Trailer a few Months back and i really enjoyed it personally same with the Bioshock 2 or Super mario Galaxy Trailers for Example :P
Like i am unsure if "well structured" is the right Word as obviously modern Game Trailers are also well structured tho its just that something feels different >.>
Unsure if my Text really makes sense tho as its a bunch of Weird Nonsense im typing out as i suck at expressing myself via Text but maybe someone can relate? >.<

Halo Infinite's art director and a developer who's worked on the franchise for 17 years, Glenn Israel, is accusing senior Halo Studios staff of "numerous unethical and/or unlawful acts."

In a series of LinkedIn posts, the long-time Halo developer says he either witnessed or was personally subjected to "blacklisting, fraud, rampant favoritism/cronyism" and "multiple harassment campaigns designed to provoke the constructive discharge of "unwanted" employees otherwise in good standing" between January 2024 and June 2025 - a few months before his eventual departure from the Xbox Game Studio.

"After filing several documented complaints with Microsoft ‘s Human Resources department in June 2025, a senior Global Employee Relations (GER) representative threatened retaliation on first contact and promised to quash any further investigation," Israel continues. He also claims that "senior Halo Studios representatives engaged in a four-day-long act of harassment intended to manufacture a cause for my termination," and that Microsoft's HR departments apparently "failed to take any appropriate disruptive action" during and after the alleged incident.

Israel adds that "the catastrophic mismanagement of Halo Campaign Evolved created an opportunity for senior Halo Studios representatives to temporarily reassign the art team from my unannounced project and falsely characterize my role as "redundant", a plainly retaliatory act."

The Halo Infinite lead makes a number of other allegations aimed at both Halo Studios and Microsoft as a whole, and in a follow-up post, he also says he suspects that "Microsoft routinely contrives or otherwise exploits layoffs to rid itself of employees who have filed proper and effective complaints."

As an ex-MSFT employee myself:

Yup, this is endemic throughout the entire company, and it's been this way for a long time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLAu1Cy9_SQ

As usual, Sumoning Salt has a massive video documentation about a games world record achievements. Its a long video, but very well narrated and put together. I personally recommend watching the video at 1.4x playback speed, if not at least 1.25 times. The video opens with Mark Cerny, the head of Playstation, being the first who did a speedrun on the game Spyro.

There are no timestamps at the moment. If they are added to the video, then I will update this post with the timestamps for listing purposes (if I notice them later).

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8140021

Tlatoani: Aztec Cities has fully released!

It's an isometric citybuilder game in the style of Caesar and other Impressions Games titles, but with an Aztec theme, and is very well researched (I helped out a bit!)

Check it out if you can, it's 30% off for $13 for the launch!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3161270/Tlatoani_Aztec_Cities/

TLATOANI - 1.0 RELEASE TRAILER | PARADOX ARC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khkSv3SqlZU&lc=UgyR2uggCHE0apYEri54AaABAg

A bit of thrash metal for inspiration.