I'm mostly an RPG/FPS person so that's what I'll mention.
We got a remaster of Oblivion that was excellent, The Outer Worlds 2 was a lot better than the last one, and we got Dragon Age: The Veilguard which Dragon Age fans didn't like because it was more like Mass Effect and YouTube "personalities" didn't like because there was an option to establish your player character is trans when establishing their backstory. As a Mass Effect fan I absolutely adored it though, so I'm playing through it again right now. STALKER 2 finally came out, and it didn't have A-Life for some reason, but it does now... it's also has mod support now too, even on console.
Oh! Speaking of games with mod support on console, we also got Arma Reforger on both PC and console, so that's opened up mil-sims to a wider audience. and while we're talking about military shooters, Black Ops 6 came out and it was terrible, and they just kept making it worse all year to the point where even the CoD fanboys didn't even care when the beta for Black Ops 7 came around. Activision panicked and made a bunch of changes that the community had been begging for years for, but it was too late and when BO7 came out most people didn't care. Especially since the campaign was Co-Op only and weird. Multiplayer is solid but nobody cares and ActiBlizz is in full panic mode. This whole situation wasn't helped by the fact that Battlefield 6 had a beta that managed one of the top concurrent player counts on steam because it was so well received. The multiplayer of BF6 was well received on launch, but people complained that the maps are small (they are) but with the first season they released a BR called RedSec and it's just okay, but it came with a couple new big maps and also every update to BF6 makes it worse in some way so now people are kinda souring on the game.
As an asexual woman, I love that Sabrina Carpenter has been able to express her sexuality in a way she wants, that shows how it makes her life more enjoyable, instead of the all too common thing where women are sexualized for the benefit of men.
I did some test on my deck when I first got it seeing the difference in load times when a game was installed on its m.2 SSD vs a Micro SD card and the difference was there but pretty negligible. a long load time that took 16 seconds on SSD took 18 on Micro SD. It isn't something I'd personally notice unless I was timing it.
One of the things the article is complaining about is that many apps look like they are free in the store with an optional subscription, but once you've downloaded them you find out basic features are locked behind a subscription.
Personally the worst trend I've started seeing is "free" apps that are great for a few days until you find out they've been silently giving you a free trial of the premium subscription and now you'll have to pay up to keep using basic features. They're hoping now that you've spent some time learning and using the app you're invested enough to start paying to keep using it. You could be getting yourself into one of these apps and not even know it til a week later, it's infuriating.
The thing with "easily serviceable" is that no matter the actual difficulty, once you need to involve a screwdriver to take apart a controller (anything other than a door you can easily open with your hands) you've lost like 85% of people. Most average people are not comfortable taking apart electronics to do ANYTHING and will just buy a new one and toss the old one in the trash when it stops holding a charge. But AA batteries? everyone is comfortable with replacing rechargeable AAs.
that's honestly the best move, even if it is more expensive it's totally worth it.
Hell, these corporations could even make more money selling you additional packs you could swap if you didn't want to use rechargeable AAs. It needs to be the standard, it would keep so many controllers out of landfills when their batteries go bad. Microsoft kind of does this with the standard Xbox controllers, but in typical Microsoft fashion they make your first rechargeable pack a separate purchase. I'd still way rather have that than the built in batteries though.
I normally watch some motorsports and things haven't been too bad. I've loved watching F1 but I don't want to sign up for AppleTV just to watch next year. I haven't decided if I'm going to bother watching on pirate sites or just remove it from the list of motorsports I follow.
I do watch the occasional ball sports game with my dad, or a hockey game with my wife if she wants to, and oh my god the ads ads ads. They're constant and it's unbearable. Especially all the gambling ads, it makes me have a pit in my stomach thinking about all the money they're taking from people by preying on addicts.
I mean I used to have opposite views because I grew up where a lot of that stuff is normalized and I didn't question it until it was challenged, so I can understand being misinformed, hell I'm still misinformed sometimes. But if they're not open to having their mind changed, and just want to hurt people, I have very little empathy for that.
Sadly a lot of popular indie games, I really like a game where I can feel like I'm living another life in it, get to be someone else for a while, and that just isn't a thing in most indie games because of the limited scope that comes with a small development team. There's games like MotorTown or Stardew Valley, that have what I'm looking for, but those are unfortunately rare so I often have to turn to AAA games and damn it's hard finding a good one of those.
It's my favorite game, but that's because it does a very good job of immersing me in the world, characters, and story. I can see how if you just want to get to the next bit of gameplay it would be annoying, but I really like to soak up a game and feel like I'm living another life in it, so it's perfect for me.
whatever part of your brain that's supposed to make you feel satisfied or accomplished when you beat a hard game isn't present for me, the only thing I got out of finishing dark souls was relief that that annoying game was over and I could finally get my friend to shut the fuck up and stop telling me I just didn't like it because I hadn't finished it.
I'm all for hating on CoD, but the DLC "content" is skins and minor cosmetics, it really doesn't add anything to the game and isn't necessary at all. Also the CoD Points are for cosmetics as well. There's a lot of shitty things you can and should say about Vanguard, but it is not pay to win.
I still haven't found a proper replacement for Redline. It was the only energy drink to actually give me energy.
Only thing that's come close are hard drugs and I don't do that shit anymore.