Hello there! We’re officially into the pointy half of the year now, with a few weeks of outliers ahead before two months of absolutely jam-packed releases. Late August to late October is basically a bomb shelter, and every publisher has squeezed their games in so they’re not blown away when the GTA bomb drops.
This week, I have thoughts on the Steam Machine, if you’ve been wondering whether or not to get in that long and uncertain queue, and I’ve also returned to Final Fantasy VIII. Plus Alice is still playing Rhythm Paradise Groove, and deploys The Fuzzies as a work tool.
Middling machine, or TV-focused triumph?
By Tim
I’ve been extremely fortunate to receive Valve’s Steam Machine at launch. Fortunate that I had plenty of other machines on hand I could sell to put the funds together, and fortunate that I happened to come out on top in the staggered lottery system you need to enter before one will ship to you. I was confident the Machine was the loungeroom PC for me, but I did have some concerns, and a barrage of middling or negative pre-launch reviews didn’t help. But now I’ve had it for a couple of weeks, those worries have melted away. I love it, and many of the reviews missed the point entirely.
I understand why reviewers of PC hardware have certain expectations and certain benchmarks they use to compare components and devices. But so much of the testing I’ve seen showcases the Steam Machine’s performance in 4K, or for ray-tracing, or with absurdly heavy games, or to high framerate targets, giving the impression that low settings, AI upscaling and frequent tweaking is the reality of using this device. But for my purposes, almost every game has run great out of the box at default or high settings, no FSR needed.
This is because I’m not playing the very latest and heaviest AAA games, I’ve set a realistic default of 1440p resolution, I’ve capped the refresh at 60Hz for most games, and I simply don’t care whether a game can run at 80 - 120 fps in VRR; my goal is a solid 60. Most of the games I’ve tried have been indies that you would expect to hit that easily, but I’ve also had instant 1440p 60fps in recent midweight games like Adventures of Elliot and Rogue Prince of Persia, or older AAA fare like Witcher 3 and Marvel’s Midnight Suns.
I already have a PS5 Pro and an Xbox Series X, but I haven’t really spent any time thinking about the performance of the Steam Machine relative to the current consoles. I own hundreds of games on Steam, which those consoles can’t play. I use Steam’s wishlist and recommendation features, and its frequent sales, to keep my library topped up with interesting new gems. And I like messing with mods, tiny indies and community projects that only go to PC. I could access all of this with any gaming PC, but the Steam Machine is a tiny, quiet and TV-friendly device that feels like using a console.
Like the Steam Deck, the Machine also makes it really easy to reconfigure PC games to suit a controller even if the games weren’t designed for that. I’ve been playing the mouse-only Sol Cesto with the Steam Controller, and it rules. And speaking of the Deck, the two Valve machines work wonderfully together, as saves for almost all games sync online once you close them on either device, and so do custom controller layouts. Proton, the software layer that lets you run any Windows software as though it were a Steam game, is getting better all the time; I installed the new TimeSplitters Rewind beta without a second thought.
The big issue looming over many reviews has been price. Is the Steam Machine too expensive for what it is? I would argue no. It’s reasonably priced against a DIY PC build of similar performance, but it’s much nicer to use. It’s 50% more expensive than a current console, but it’s also a full PC built on open platforms, which brings a bit more utility. Its launch is, however, very poorly timed; the wild AI boom prices makes this an expensive moment to grab a new computer of any kind.
What’s on our radar
Tim: I’ve mostly been playing random PC games, as explained above. But I did also delve into Moss: The Forgotten Relic, which is a new collection of two cute and excellent 3D puzzle platformers that I originally played on Meta Quest. It loses a little something in the move to flat screens, but it’s still great. Heave Ho 2 is also out, but I’ve only had a quick play so far. I look forward to being frustrated at my kids for ignoring the objective, refusing to co-operate and spamming the fart button.
Alice: I, too, look forward to spamming the fart button in Heave Ho 2. Another big one this week is Splatoon Raiders which looks superb.
You can’t beat a good couch co-op game (especially when you’re bad at it)
By Alice
I take my Switch 2 with me on most work trips. Often, it just ends up with a chance to see the world from my backpack, because I don’t get any actual time to play off the plane. But on a trip to Sydney last week I got to rediscover why it’s the best multiplayer console around.
On a rainy night in Sydney, a friend and I played Rhythm Paradise Groove in my hotel room. It turns out we are absolutely terrible at the game as a team. Just a generational lack of talent. We went through all the co-op mini games as roughly 4 hours melted away, trading off opportunities to carry the team, and sink our efforts by swinging the beat.
The combo of the silly scenarios, being terrible in a supportive environment, and having the game constantly calling my friend a homo (homie was the suggested name, and we made appropriate adjustments) meant that we spent the whole night in hysterics. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.
Online multiplayer is good and important, and a great way to stay in touch when you’re in your 30s and scheduling is impossible. But you can’t experience the same level of silliness that you can when you’re sleep deprived and can play off each other’s facial expressions. It’s why I’m sad that other console makers are prioritising games that sell more online subscriptions, over just stupid fun couch multiplayer games.
Rhythm Paradise Groove is an enjoyable game to master solo, and my quest to Git Gud continues. It earned its spot on my GOTFHOTY list already. But it’s now one of my favourite in-person multiplayer games, and has earned a permanent download slot on my Switch 2 for years to come.
Bricks, Boards and Beginnings
by Alice
Over the weekend I got to try something a little different: interviewing an actor while playing a board game. Normally when I go on my friend’s board game show Five or Eight, I’m the one being interviewed over a game. This time I got to do the interviewing, and it was really interesting to see how having something to do with our hands changed the dynamic.
The game, of course, makes a big difference. We played The Fuzzies, which is like Jenga, in that you have to deconstruct a pile of stuff without it falling over, but unlike Jenga the pile is made up of colourful fuzzy balls and there are cards that increase the difficulty if you make a mistake.
From my side, it made it a little more difficult to remember the questions I wanted to ask (I definitely ended up on some unexpected tangents), and play the game left-handed (holding the mic in my right hand). But it also meant there was no room for me to be nervous or starstruck about interviewing an actor from one of my favourite shows.
What I noticed from the actor’s side is that it seemed to make her more comfortable to have a chat. It wasn’t just a stranger asking lots of questions with a camera pointed at her, there was also an activity. I’ve watched series where this is done, and obviously I’ve been interviewed by a good friend while playing a game, but it’s different seeing how it changes the dynamic when you’re the one interviewing. Frankly, I now think all interviews should be done over a silly board game.
It gives you something to do with your hands while you try to think of a response, it instantly creates a rapport because you’re both trying to learn this new thing, and it means the viewer isn’t just watching radio with pictures.
Also, the game is generally just really fun. They should start doing this in job interviews, too. Maybe the Iranian peace talks would go better with a bit of The Fuzzies, too. Can’t hurt to try.
Retro Esoterica
by Tim
In all the years we’ve been doing this newsletter, I’ve written about Final Fantasy I-VI multiple times, but somehow never covered my favourite entry in the series. While VII is clearly most fondly remembered in general (and was the debut for the series outside Japan and North America), it was its black sheep follow-up Final Fantasy VIII that radicalised me into becoming a lifelong fan of the series.
I knew the name Final Fantasy because I had discovered NES emulators for the first time and was hooked on a fan translation of III. It was 2001, I had money to spend on a brand new game, and found a copy of VIII for $40. That’s $10 per disc! Watching the FMV opening and hearing Liberi Fatali for the first time is an experience that’s still etched in my mind, and to be honest I don’t think I’ve ever had a relationship with a game as engrossing as my first few playthroughs of Final Fantasy VIII.
I love the goofy characters, and especially gloomy introvert protagonist Squall, and the gradual unfurling of the world and the stakes. The continent feels rich and lived in, with a world map so open and sprawling that you feel like you’re exploring and finding things on your own, even if the game is actually pushing you along an intended path. The game has some of the best music in the series and, although they might not look like much now, the FMV sequences were memorable rewards for reaching certain points in the story. Which, by the way, starts in a school but ends up involving space travel, time travel, monsters from the moon and an immortal sorceress.
The internet’s recollection has not been kind to this game. There are so many systems that can “unbalance” or “break” the experience, especially if you’re trying to optimise or minmax a run to be as efficient as possible. But that’s not how the game was meant to be played. I had a lot of fun experimenting with different builds, which in this game are all centred around levelling up your summons and assigning them to party members. Sure, I ended up with some summons that did negligible damage, some characters I avoided using, and a love-hate relationship with the excellent collectible card game Triple Triad which allowed you to lose all your hard-won cards if you did the wrong thing. But that’s all part of the fun.
Played today on the versions for modern consoles, you can enjoy the story and make the battling completely trivial with a button press, which I guess shows even Square Enix has no confidence in its 1999-era system design. But if you can stick it out, I still think there’s a lot of satisfaction to be had in playing it as intended.