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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   2462 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 9, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Vidya Games?

I got Order of the Sinking Star last night. Well, technically Thursday night, but it took so long to download on Switch 2 that I went to bed before it finished. Fucking love it. In typical Blow fashion, every puzzle is solvable when you first encounter it if you think hard enough. At least I think that's the case. Blasted though about 85 boards before I passed out around 1 am. Supposedly there are 1400 puzzles in the game, so that'll be fun.

Performance on Switch 2 isn't great. I almost wish I got it on PC. But I just have issues with too many distractions on PC. The compulsion to have youtube on in the background, discord notifications, etc. I drag my lovesac in front of the TV and zone in for hours on Switch. Single purpose devices are good for that I guess.

I guess Jonathan Blow has said some obvious common sense things, because the comments section of every review are about what a terrible piece of shit he is. In the year of our lord 2026 people are still mad at him on reddit and in game review site comment sections about thinking that COVID 19 was a lab leak. There was a time when this would bother me, but now I just laugh.

Endless Legend 2 is pretty good (tho only ok if you actually play past early game), I'm glad to say it is not entirely over for Amplitude after all. Has the usual advantages: quality visuals + music effectively conveying grandeur, decently creative worldbuilding, anchoring to common universe, familiar FIDSI icons, varied mechanics. Has most of the usual flaws: grandeur is paper thin (world feels tiny, centered on squads of hero plus 5 units max), pacing and balance issues, clown parade of too many factions with quirky mechanics.

Notably loved the monsoon->tidefall mechanic - ocean recedes in multiple pulses, revealing new areas, initial landmass less than a third of total. Had no idea the mechanic is there, fun to be surprised. "New world" style maps (second, empty landmass locked behind midgame tech) are my favourite in Civ5-style 4X games, you get to enjoy the dynamic parts of early game twice. If only limited colonial wars were a common mechanic.

Shame about the terrible balance - Endless difficulty is trivial if you avoid early war. On normal pacing, you can saturate the mechanics (finish tech tree, build everything in capital and spam 6 units out a turn) before last tidefall. On slower, it's only worse. Combat is too bursty. Terrain manipulation (dams, terraforming, scouring) has zero depth to it, disappointing. Generic, common events firing for ~all factions/heroes: a human, a machine-coral hybrid, an animated stone statue, a fucking zergling are all just westoid millennials deep down inside.

I do wonder what happened with Amplitude sometimes. I remember loving Endless Space and Endless Legend, although I think the first Endless Legend had some of the issues you describe. I think I remember finishing the tech tree way before it felt like I should have.

I donno, the whole Space 4X genre goes through weird phases. Arguably the best one ever made is Master of Orion 2, and it's just the fact that it's an older DOS/WIN9X game, and the fact that it had terrible sequels, that even gives other games a fighting chance. For the longest time Galactic Civilizations 2 was the MOO2 successor, but then the company got into some political hot water over the CEO's common sense statements, and I don't think GalCiv 3 or 4 were ever as good. Also the Paradoxification of the genre took over and even good Space 4X games became highly variable on which of the dozens of DLC you had installed and active at any one time. Because nobody makes sequels anymore, they just make DLC for the same game for 10 years.

At least Piranha games tried with Mechwarrior 5: Clans. A shame the effort almost killed the company and they went crawling back to Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries expansions. Not that I can complain too much.

Arguably the best one ever made is Master of Orion 2, and it's just the fact that it's an older DOS/WIN9X game, and the fact that it had terrible sequels, that even gives other games a fighting chance.

I've yet to play a 4x space game that kept me coming back the way MOO2 did. By modern standards, it's so unbalanced as to be broken AF, but even so, like the earlier iterations of Civ, it had a level of accessibility and that, "just one more turn," gameplay feedback loop that, IMAO, is far too rare these days.

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