Gaming
From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it's gaming you can probably discuss it here!
Please Note: Gaming memes are permitted to be posted on Meme Mondays, but will otherwise be removed in an effort to allow other discussions to take place.
See also Gaming's sister community Tabletop Gaming.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
Short Version
I was a console player, now I am on PC. And I harvest the power of emulation alongside playing modern games.
Long Version
I'm an 80s guy and was fortunate enough to experience the 90s in its full glory; from Snes Jrpgs to the transitioning to 3D to the first consoles with internet connection. Nowadays I am a PC player and play ton of games through emulation. And the little cute Steam Deck on my side is the extra fun.
I played this year Breath of the Wild from the Switch, but through emulation on my PC in 60 fps, higher resolution and with my Xbox gamepad. Got all or almost all shrines in the game with over 130 hours playtime (Edit: Played it this year on Yuzu BTW. They started suing while I was playing.)! And besides that, I play old Romhacks and mods of old console games for the SNES, in example translations, bug fixes or just new stages (like DLCs from the community!). Or play games to beat highscores and times from your friends or other players in the community. There is so much to explore through emulation.
If you have a good PC and the patience, then I recommend you to get into emulation a little bit. Maybe not as hardcore as I do, but for your favorite consoles and games. You can play games that you missed back in the day in example, or just waste 20 minutes testing old games and then go back to modern games. It's such a fun experience.
I used to do emulation but stopped for a while. now it seems more difficult, but a family member just gave me quite a few old games (and I'm planning to ask for some others, like Banjo Kazooie and Pokemon SoulSilver hahaha) so I'm looking forward to getting back into that! I also miss the pokemon fangames that weren't actually for emulators, have some good memories of those.
I love modding things and appreciate the modding community for games a lot. most recently modded game I played was Stardew Valley, but it made me miss the steam workshop and auto updating mods :c
I still haven't touched Breath of the Wild but I own it for the switch.
For sheer versatility you can't beat PC, so that is going to have to be my choice. Having flexibility between KB+M and controller, having access to mods and tweaks and (typically) having a wider array of graphics/performance options to tailor to your preferences makes for an unbeatable package.
That being said (and it pains me to say this given my distaste for Nintendo), I absolutely loved the 3DS. The dual screens were cool, it had good ergonomics for me and a nice weight in your hands and there was something very satisfying in the mechanics of flipping it open or listening to the click as you slam it shut. It's just a really nice device to use.
PC. Most often mouse or keyboard and mouse. Sometimes gamepad, then maybe streaming to my TV and sofa. I have a SteamDeck, but it's not getting much use. Like my Vive.
I enjoy PC as I can emulate classic console, DOS, etc. games too. My OS of choice is Linux
Tabletop in person. I miss it. Secondly, in-person co-op. These are two mediums are being extinguished because of how difficult it is to profit from humans relating to one another in person and giving each other things for free.
My favorite console has got to be the original Xbox. I would play it all day when I was younger and to this day I still use it because emulation is iffy for a lot of titles. Games from that era from like 1999 to 2006 hit home for me and I love replaying the greats like Knights of the Old Republic, Halo 2, and 007 Nightfire.
For everything else I do a lot of steam gaming and emulating on my linux pc, steam deck, and mobile. I use mobile for casual, quick, or pauseable games, steam deck for games that "feel" right like racing games and old adventure games, and pc for longer gaming sessions, or mouse and keyboard games like Starcraft and Age of Empires.
It's hard to beat pc because it can litterally do everything better (except maybe portability) and you can customize it into anything, so it's definitely the objective winner, but og Xbox is still my biased favorite.
Playstation/Xbox.
I love multiplayer shooters, obviously hate cheaters. If I have to install a rootkit on my primary machine to play and still come across cheaters, I may as well just get a console with heavily discounted hardware cost and peace of mind that the only thing people can really abuse are xim/cronuses. Also it feels nice that everyone in the match will be on a level playing field in terms of hardware specs and I’m never tempted to buy a new graphics card, CPU or cooling just to eek out a few extra fps.
Crossplay off all the way.
I get the charm of a console for gaming. Just switch it on and go. Still prefer a PC at the end of the day though. For once my preferred genres are very unrepresented on consoles and since I dabble in DIY I do not have that level of freedom on a console or mobile phone. Well, do some extend. Fiddling around with key remappers that hijack on the accessibility system is horrible. Anyway, I enjoy tinkering and this is not really something consoles are known for, no?
This said it is very amazing that I can just e.g. fire up Waydroid nowadays, connect an X360 controller and play AmongUs with the little one on my Linux PC. That level of possibilities is mind boggling.
My desktop which I got hooked up to a monitor and also a TV, so I switch between the two depending on if I want something super responsive or a cinematic couch experience.
Been also supplementing that with my Steam Deck where I can pick up playing the same game and continue my progress with a handheld.
Mouse and keyboard are my bread and butter, I don't particularly enjoy gamepads, but the Steam Deck gets around this thanks to having touchpads and gyro, so I don't mind using it when nothing else is available.
Steam Deck on lunch breaks, travel, and shorter sessions at home. PC when I want max settings gameplay. I tend to play games that can wrap up a loop in ≈30min on the Deck and more graphically intense/immersive/grindy games on the PC.