Yeah, it kinda degraded the experience that Valve originally set out to do. It used to be very stylistic and served as a game mechanic so each character had a very specific set of guns. The hard strengths and weaknesses were easy to tell in the most chaotic of gun fights. Now I don't mind some of the alternatives they had (like the backburner to the regular flamethrower) because it only slightly tweaked the original weapon sets. However, to completely change the play style of the character becomes a detriment to the game. There was no need to turn the demoman into a melee sword character or to give each character 10+ weapons to choose from for each of the primarys/secondaries/melee.

That said, it still is a fun game but it definitely has lost some fundamentals as time passed. Just like any actively updating game, if you don't keep up means you will always be at a disadvantage.

Most people are not going to find a full replacement for reddit because it still offers a ton of news/content. However, my participation on reddit has been radically reduced.

Zelda is not even releasing this year. This list has no credibility and is ridiculously biased.

I'm not 100% leaving reddit but the time spent is going to be reduced. I'm going to avoid the comment section and check on the smaller subreddits for news of stuff I enjoy. If I want to talk about something I'm going to do it here.

I love the fact that fallout is based on physical world locations. I live in Las Vegas and it's amazing to be able to see these locations in this game. It is a wonderful combination of realism and fantasy that actually makes the overall experience that much more worth it. I'm not just talking about the familiar landmarks that everyone knows. There is a particular desert stretch south from the starting area that is flat and barren. I used to drive by that area when I was younger and it really caught my attention. It's not just buildings but the geography as well.

I really need to play this game again.

Smash 4 is by far has the most content out of all the smash games with now 53 characters. With all the rules, game modes, custom maps, final destination stages, a complete portable version and 8 player smash honestly makes it the best one in my book. Sure the other games have their place but Nintendo has really outdone themselves with this one.

Yeah, having a meaningful discussion rarely happens on reddit and often it's just those who want to pick a fight. I'm glad this site is not another Reddit clone, it's better than that. You can't downvote and upvotes have greater weight to them. The lack of subcommunities actually unifies the site and prevents stupid moderation and censorship.

I never liked apple because when I was younger I could play all my games on a windows desktop. I could not wrap my head around the fact people were paying double for a computer that had half the features of windows. Now they do have more options now that multiplatforming has become big but still I rather have more than less for the money spent on it.

Well at least the app will be there when you are ready to upgrade your phone. I'm not super worried about it though because phone games don't offer the amazing experience as a console/computer game.

I have an android and can't play it either.

Yeah, not the best solution but definitely better than none. Since Windows 10 is coming out I bet I can nab a Windows 7 key dirt cheap until I need to upgrade.

There is always something better coming out. Not to say the stuff we have is bad because somethings, like my galaxy S4, will last a long time because I won't need the new features. However, as performance and speed increases means that electronics outdate very quickly and some people really do want the new shiny thing. I find that spending a little bit more money on electronics to get ahead tends to last much longer.

Another problem with biodegradable electronics I can see is some of the metals used are either toxic or something we should be recycling anyways. While it be neat to see the plastic waste be reduced, it doesn't prevent the other waste from contaminating the environment. At least it is a start but not a full solution.

Awesome. All I need is a Windows OS cheap. Guess I should start saving money now.

Awakening is actually really good. Some of the issues I had with the previous games have been addressed in this game and it's still a tough cookie to beat. The game plays a little like pokemon with hard strengths and weaknesses and you really do need to focus on having a good varied team. I like the fact you can pair units up together (either a tile next to them or join them together on the same tile) to give your units a slight boast in accuracy and dodging. Sometimes the team up characters will cancel out all damage and even give a 2nd support attack by the paired unit. The problem I've so far is I have permadeath on normal mode and it's kicking my butt on mission 19. I think I'm going to start my game over so I can actually finish it on easy because I think I hit a huge difficulty spike.

The game really makes you question every decision you make. I like the permadeath option because you really need to be careful of where you place your units. It can be terribly frustrating to be near the end of a mission, only to carelessly leave one of your units in a spot where there is no way to save them. You can avoid this by checking all the unit's attack range. You can turn permadeath off if you want but only at the start of the game. Also with weapon durablitiy means you need to save your best weapons for the right times. With extra battles, it gives you a chance to level up your characters and get additional gold so you can purchase new weapons so durability isn't a big issue. I love the fact you can upgrade your weapons as well but its very expensive.

A neat thing I noticed is there is two upgrade items for your characters. One will rank them to the next special class that makes them really powerful at level 10 (like evolution in pokemon) the other will change their class to something else. Each class I believe has at least 2 special ranks to choose from and again repeats the theme of hard choices.

Story is actually pretty good. A little predictable but I haven't gotten to the 3rd part of the game yet which I want to. Each mission takes about 30-60 minutes to complete with 30 story missions. This doesn't include the dialogue and other planning phases. I haven't even touched the additional DLC. So you are getting a game with at least 30 hours of gameplay and maybe much longer depending how long you take to finish each match.

I'd get Awakening as soon as you can because Fire Emblem games tend to disappear and rise in price. I think there might be an eshop purchase so it might not be that bad but if you want a physical copy then you need to grab it while you can.

What I'm excited about the next game is online battles. It would actually give more reason to play the game because now you can compete with other players. Also I hear it will have two separate stories which means you need to play the game twice to fully enjoy everything.

Not the same user you replied to but I want to build a new PC pretty cheap that will be able to run both the new Fallout game and Dark Souls 3. If I wanted to replace my current rig with everything new (except keyboard/mouse/monitor/speakers) could I do it with a $300-400 budget? It doesn't need to run max settings but I want to give my current rig to someone else so I will need to replace most items.

Zelda Wii U for sure. Dark Souls 3, and Fallout 4 when I got a computer that can run it. I might also grab the new fire emblem game once I finish awakening. My anticipated games have been shrinking lately due to circumstances involving college/job stuff.

I highly agree. That site was all about getting upvotes. No one cared who you were or why you were posting. Heck, most of the 'conversations' I had was people telling me how wrong I was to post an opinion. How dare I post something that isn't popular? I guess it's the bottom comment dungeon for me.

I admit that sometimes I was wrong and some good responses on rare occasions. Most of the time, I didn't bother posting anything because I didn't want to deal with all the stupid responses. I actually like the fact we can mute those we don't want to respond to us. I hope I never need to use it but it definitely will make people think twice before posting.

I used reddit for the small communities for news updates but it was incredibly discouraging to participate there. Then the whole mod protest by locking up subreddits made me realize that the entire administration (both admin and mods) is completely dumb. It's not fair that mods who claim the name for a subreddit first are untouchable and can ban anyone or any post they don't like. A few days ago I saw a mod remove a post because it was against the rules of posting "a fan submission" (a really neat fan video) but then someone else posted the exact same link and got to the front page but no action taken. That made me start my search for a better site.

It's actually nice to see full, positive conversations in the comment section. Not to mention that reposting and karma whoring seems almost nonexistent on this site which means that there is actual content on this site.

I'll will still use reddit for now until things pick up. I believe we will see more traffic as people seek better alternatives. The fact this site is struggling with the new load of users is a good sign.

The best game mechanics ever created distilled in the form of digital crack.

Love Splatoon. The neat thing about Splatoon is because it is a team game the stuff I learned from TF2 and other team games carried over into this game. The downside is it only has half of the content on the disc is available right now and the rest are being pushed as "weekly updates". The 3 minute matches and 4 hour map rotation makes it difficult for me to stay and play for any period of time.

Town of Salem is pretty neat if you can make it past the first round. It's one of those time killer games where you can just keep playing and playing. Agar.io is another one of those time killers that is free. Warning May lose several hours playing.

It's actually been a pretty positive experience with Dota 2. I've met maybe two people who have mics and rarely did they speak at all. I am aware of the mute feature which I will use if it ever gets to that point. I'm actually really excited for the Beta because of the custom maps. Warcraft 3 was a lot of fun but my parents wouldn't let me play it online when I was younger. Now that I'm on my own, it's great to see the community has sorta moved there and I hope my other friends who don't like dota that much might give it a shot.

I don't like a lot of communities because the fanboyism nature can turn into fanhate (ie Smash melee and 4, Dota 2 and LoL). However, I like to see myself as someone who enjoys all kinds of games. I've enjoyed them my entire life and I'm not picky as long as the game is fun. I normally don't play sports/racing/fighting games because they don't appeal to me. I also don't collect game stuff. Rarely will I buy the merchandise for the games (posters, figurines, collectors editions). I got a decent PC, Wii U and 3DS but I think I'm going purely PC soon after Nintendo cycles out the systems.

Dark Souls is a refreshing challenge that I've been slowly chipping away when I get the chance. I love the throwback feel of the NES difficulty and the exaggerated level design. Its a feeling I got when I first played Ocarina of Time and I thought I never get a similar feeling back. The beauty of the game is that much of it was planned really well. The lore is incredibly deep despite the very little information given and even the environment tells stories in neat ways (some corpses you find are dead in certain places for a reason). Now the best part is each monster and battle requires planning and thinking. You can't just go and slash things like in Zelda. You got to time your hits, dodge/block damage coming in because most creatures can kill you in 3 hits or less. If you like the Iron Knuckle fights of Ocarina of Time, imagine Dark Souls with fights like that on steroids.

The bosses feel threatening, more threatening than any game I've played because these are ancient beings that survived and they will tell you how they live that long. I beaten it a few months ago and now currently half way through the second game. Still love the first game just a little bit more but still a good game. Just a bit of advice, the leveling system is a bit vague in Dark Souls. Never level up resistance and check to see which weapons works best your stats. Each stats have a soft cap around level 40 and the weapon upgrades are more important than the levels themselves (equipment requirements being the only other important information). I'd recommend reading a wiki article about this.

I'm also starting to learn Dota 2 by reading all the guides and playing bot matches. Having a friend to play with is also nice (and I be willing to play with others when I get the chance). The only problem I have with Dota is because the matches require you to finish before leaving means that I really don't have time to play at times. You need a good hour and a half to finish most games safely without interruption. Hit me up if you or anyone else is interested. I got about 30 games down but I'm still noobish in the game.

The only other game I'm currently playing is Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. It's a roguelike game that includes a mod for pictures for those who don't like ASCII (text) graphics. It plays like Project Zombiod but has a ton more content. It's pretty awesome because it has the fallout vibe to it as well. The story is everything that went wrong for doomsday did go wrong. Your objective is to survive, collect, build a base, find a working vehicle (or repair/build one) and see how long you can survive. What I love about this game is watching other people play is actually pretty entertaining. They don't know what will happen but often they know how to get started. Which is great for beginners.

If you have a series of games you enjoy then maybe I can suggest some others.

No downvotes, subreddit mods and actually encourages conversations with tags? This is pretty neat. I'll give hubski a shot.