Steam

Project Stream is a Future in Which Gamers Win While Consumers and Pirates Lose

February 28, 2019 Editorials

It’s no joke that game piracy really hurts the industry. How it hurts the industry, I do not know. Most of the pirates I’ve seen probably don’t have enough money to buy the games they “steal” but nevertheless it’s a problem. I mean, if games don’t make money then investors don’t invest in games and then we’re stuck with GoFundMes and Kickstarter games that have as much success making it past the first released alpha build as you do getting your order right at the local fast food restaurant. The key to piracy is that the games code is executed within the PC that it is installed in. If you play, for instance, Fallout 4 then there is very little online connectivity built into the game. Everything, from NPCs to damage calculations, is ran through your processor and graphics card to present the game to you. The game’s code is…

Epic Games Store is a Schism The Gaming Community Doesn’t Need

May 8, 2023 Editorials

Update: It’s 2023 and the following still remains mostly true. The EPIC Store continues to be a pain in the gaming community’s side. Fighting Steam is the past time for many people in this world it seems, as we’re now seeing the Epic Store vs. Steam battle keep raging on. Which is much like the golden ages of MMOs where almost every month a new WoW killer was coming to fight the champion, who won the war via attrition and investors tired of sending their money down a bottomless pit. Now Epic Games, Discord and even Kongregate the flash game site is trying to lure you into replacing Steam with their awesome storefront. This isn’t new, Razer started selling games in their zCoin software forever ago. Twitch has the ability to buy some games, but the purchases often help the streamer. Humble Bundle was once a monthly bundle of games…

Bethesda the Grinch that Stole Christmas

December 31, 2018 Editorials

With Christmas all wrapped up you would think the trauma of the yuletide flooding everything would be over and for some, you would be right; however, there are hundreds of children whose trauma is continuing into the new year thanks to Bethesda! My brother-in-law who is 14 really wanted Fallout 76 and it was the one thing he was looking forward to. He went absolutely ballistic with joy when he opened it just repeating “Thank You!” over and over again! That is until the trick came into play; Apparently, Bethesda thought Christmas was Halloween and opted for a trick instead of a treat. He could not play the amazing game he had just got because Bethesda in their wisdom decided to make Fallout 76 an online only game and require a separate subscription service. No adult should see a child suffer because the game they are most excited to play,…

Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak Review

December 30, 2018 Reviews

Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak was recently on the Steam Winter Sale so I finally picked it up, several years after release, because I noticed many top RTS articles had it prominently featured and I absolutely loved the Homeworld series. Deserts of Kharak was an interesting experience because it removed the Z axis from the original Homeworld series and placed the game flat on the ground, but kept the generally same gameplay. If you’ve played Homeworld before, then I’d say get it when it’s on sale or even when it’s not, because it’s more of the same but different enough that you’re not drowning in a formulaic experience. Persistence exists, so resources gathered are kept map to map along with units and their promotions. Units have an almost Atlus / Shin Megami Tensei vibe to how they play against each other’s weakness. Armored vehicles take strike vehicles out, but strike vehicles…

Is Atlas Worth Purchasing Yet?

November 12, 2022 Editorials

2022 Update: Atlas is still not worth getting yet. Should you buy into Atlas right now? I’m going to say no, but caveat that clearly with I haven’t played and I’m simply sharing the advice that I’m following myself. Atlas has right now an overwhelming amount of negative reviews and a lot of chatter online about how buggy, broken, etc. that it is. There is also the fact that it’s allegedly just an ARK DLC wrapped around a new standalone game, ala Fallout 76, which was a DLC wrapped around Fallout 4’s engine with multiplayer added. There is also the fact it’s still one of the most watched games on Twitch this far out. So why do I say you should hold off buying? Well, it’s to let the community sort out if it’s going to adopt it or not. If you haven’t bought it yet, I would hold off…

Fallout 76’s Game Freebies Alienate Community

December 30, 2018 News

Bethesda recently announced that they will be giving gamers a free copy of both Fallout 1 & 2, along with Fallout Tactics, as an extra bonus for all of the problems and issues that gamers have ran into. Normally, such giveaways are just a bribe, but in this instance, I actually like the gesture. It’s nice that gamers are able to get something extra with a game they purchased and for the problems they’ve experienced. What’s even nicer, the free software is actually something that most gamers won’t even think of or consider. Fallout 3 was the third main Fallout game, a huge departure from Fallout 1 & 2 which were top down ARPGs. Back when Fallout 3 came out, Fallout 1 & 2 were still popular games because it was 2008, ten years since the release of Fallout 2. It has now been ten years since Fallout 3 and…