It also means more people can play on more hardware, it typically focuses the experience, it makes the interactive elements more visually distinguishable from the background graphics, it’s cheaper/faster to produce so less incentive to bloat with MTX to recoup massive investments, the scope is smaller so can be better aligned with a singular cohesive artistic vision, and the limited graphics encourages stylisation and artistic decisions when ‘photo real’ becomes not an option to target.

Also you don’t need to wait 10+ years for a game, just to receive a bloated mess where you only engage with 20% of the content yet had to wait for 100% of the development time, since at that point the investment demands it has to appeal to every possible consumer, only to still get a buggy unfinished release due to the massive scope. /rant. Anyway, indies are great and i love short games too.

Including Oblivion. I enjoyed it but it was a huge disappointment to me coming out of Morrowind. Bethesda reputation for me has been on Morrowind credit this whole time.

Maybe a good balance could be a human voice actor for main dialogue, supported by ai trained on their main dialogue to voice sidequest and deep lore dialogue. It could enable fully voiced dialogue-heavy games that would otherwise be too expensive to produce, something like generative RPGs or Morrowind, if all the books could be voiced, and more easily translated while remaining fully voiced. But keeping humans to fill the main campaign contributions, emotional beats and determine character personality. I’m just comparing Morrowind to Oblivion, which was voiced, but the dialogue and conversation trees were heavily reduced in volume as a result.

I didn’t think it was possible to make Google Assistant worse at this point tbh… but I’m sure Google can prove me wrong.

Maybe they could switch things up and offer a single modern mini phone model, under 5".

Then it will go out of fashion again, and teeth will be the new tribal tattoo that people are stuck with, and the following generation will be all about smooth gums.

Imagine junkies of this drug would look like tarkatans.

shoota

naruto-running from his light

I tried a few, and settled on Splitser. It’s good.

MK2 was my first, and i still think it’s one of the best, or the most classic. MK1, the roster is too small and it’s too basic. MK2 is where it embraces the classic MK vibes. UMK3 remixes that with more modern styling and character elements, which was interesting in progression, but I think you could skip straight from MK2 to Trilogy and just drop in the deep end of the character craziness.

MK4 was also an interesting one in terms of characters and the shift into 3D for the first time. It wasn’t… great… but it was interesting.

After that, I wasn’t a big fan of the early modern 3D MK games, I couldn’t even play them all since they didn’t come out for PC (yes, I’m still bitter), but again I feel like you could skip these straight to Armageddon for early modern-era character craziness. It’s basically a generational sequel to Trilogy.

Then we get to the ‘last gen’ modern era of 9, X, 11, which i thought were great fun, and worth playing. The story is a ridiculous soap opera, but that’s critical MK DNA. Mechanics further refined, good character options. Other people already discussed these.

I haven’t played 1 yet, but it’s clearly another soft reboot, and looks really good to me.

Ofc this is all just my view on it. I have nostalgia and bias towards MK2, (3) and Trilogy :D

Fair enough, but then it’s the same issue to try and convince them to add you on WhatsApp (or iMessage) if they use Telegram. The point is that these are all platforms that we similarly end up stuck on, depending on what most people in our community landed on. In that way it’s not so different to the situation in the US.

People only want to use one messaging client for all their contacts, and as long as the clients remain closed platforms, we are prevented from just using whichever client we individually prefer, we have to use the platform decided on by the community, or fight an uphill battle to get everyone to reluctantly install a second messaging app just for us.

Default launchers need ‘covers’ functionality, where a folder is opened via swipe, and tapping just launched the first app in the folder without needing to open it. It’s the main thing keeping me on custom launchers. That and icon packs.

Europe is a pretty similar situation with WhatsApp, where everyone is kind of forced to use that same platform, just luckily WhatsApp is available on iOS and Android.

Or Facebook Messenger, which I kind of have to use to talk to my relatives and some friends around the world.

Doesn’t have the same weird pressure to use one device manufacturer like in the US though, but trying to get someone (let alone everyone) to add you on Telegram or Signal can be a similar struggle, if they don’t see a value in the effort required to switch apps just for you.

I didn’t buy the Pixel almost entirely because it doesn’t support HDMI video out through the USB-C port. I use that to watch movies from my phone on hotel TVs, or my AR glasses, etc. So I went with the S22. Also has Dex, in case you want to use the phone as a tiny computer with an external monitor, keyboard and mouse.

Microsoft’s To Do app is good for that. Free and no ads, and at least for now remains focused and unbloated. It syncs via your Microsoft account, but I think it also can work offline without one.

I want to want to spend more time with the game, but i also want it to not let me. Eject me forcibly from its world once the story has naturally concluded, with fond memories of the tightly edited purposeful experience.

Really depends on the game. But roughly something between 3-20 hours is my preferred range. I thought Sayonara Wild Hearts was fantastic and the perfect length for the story and experience it set out to convey (took me about 2 hours to beat).

Thanks, I’ve been looking at it! It’s beautiful, definitely on my radar.

I feel the opposite. I pay for the narrative and experiencing the game’s mechanics and interactive art, not to flush as much of my life away as possible. When I see people complaining a game was too short, I am basically ready to add it to my wishlist.