Super cool, I realized I was thinking of the wargame A Few Acres Of Snow by martin wallace (the designer of the modern classics, Brass Birmingham and Brass Lancashire)

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/79828/a-few-acres-of-snow

Where did this art come from? It seems like the cover to a tabletop wargame about the french and indian war or something.

I approve.

Because that is part of the cycle of collapse and shock doctrine these corporations rely on to keep from being clowned on by moderately competent smaller game studios who actually are excited by the challenge to convince people to buy their art instead of shoving derivative slop down their customer’s throat as the cinematic monochoice for entertainment product category no. 1254…

If you mow the grass, the longterm benefit of preserving a strict monoculture is well worth the temporary mass destruction (from the perspective of the person driving the mower, it smells quite pleasant actually).

To be clear, the blades of grass are the smaller game studios on Microsoft’s lawn.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine

Try out the apache helicopter in the free, moddable game Operation Harsh Doorstop with a gunner, preferably someone on mic so you can hear them laugh maniacally as they play the most absurdly destructive, armored brigade annihilating, combination of a rollercoaster, shooting gallery and indecent powertrip imaginable.

As a pilot you can see where the gunner’s crosshair is aiming, so they function as your nose to sniff out dense targets for your rockets. The box indicates the valid traverse angles the gunner turret can fire in.

The attack helis are basically a dragon from skyrim in this game, except they can see you from a mile away and hit you before you even realized they were at a firing angle OR come from just above the tree tops at 100mph and roast you with rockets …and they can switch between the two strategies so effortlessly it makes them extremely hard to anticipate when crewed by an experienced CAS pilot.

https://youtu.be/TxWgoWVD_Eg at 2:58

In short, in some ways they are fairly realistic.

It is kind of terrifying (until you get a stinger or AFV cannon trained on a pilot that has gotten too cheeky).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2947290153

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3141572317

Of course, Rising Storm 2 is great it’s just I play on steam deck so ironsights don’t cut it for medium to long range on a small screen lol.

Also, OHD is only going to get better!

The main dev is a youtube creator/streamer named bluedrake, I know the kind of kneejerk response that sentence likely created in your head (I mean, same lol) but he isn’t another milquetoast fps streamer, listen to the way the dude talks about his project, I genuinely believe someone would have to encase that guy in stone to stop him from making the kind of game you and I want and blasting it out to the world for anyone to get their hands on and start building cool shit we can all play.

https://youtube.com/@bluedrake42

I mean he has been on an AI kick (to be fair he got sick of the state of battlefield-like industry and decided to go back to school to get a masters in data science so he could use the tools for good, a grift this ain’t), but he honestly seems genuinely interested in practical tools to empower small independent game developers, with tutorial videos to boot, maybe I will eat my words but I think his interest is totally genuine in spreading awareness about cool tools anyone can use to mod and make games like his.

idk like yeah he is hyping ai to help make models to import into blender, so shrugs I’m cool with it.

This video is definitely worth a watch, he is very thoughtful

https://youtu.be/IkJ9dtCbqOw

I accidentally put myself on the top 10 board for highest level taxi driver for a bit (I am like top 20-30 currently) just because the driving feels THAT dialed and I can treat it like a chill open world point to point racer on my steam deck that I can pause or put into autopilot whenever I want.

I don’t really care enough to pursue getting back on the leaderboard, the driving just feels so good my ADHD brain was actually able to focus on something repetitive and incremental enough to be competitive and it briefly made me feel like a wizard.

Have you tried powersliding the box van yet? Put the biggest engine you can into it, load it up with fragile vases and other delicate delivery items, slam it into drift mode and then start ripping the most massive, nearly industrial sized powerslides you have ever seen.

… or get a garbage truck and get into the zen of being chill and collecting trash, you do you, that is another reason I love Motortown, it is about giving you complete agency in the driving vibes you want while being challenging and rewarding.

I mean, I regularly fly helis on european servers from us west coast, sometimes it is laggy but overall it works fine.

I am sorry you didn’t have a great first experience, it is a community project and there are definitely bugs, I didn’t mean to oversell how polished the game was, I just love it and am having such a blast with finally having an accessible, moddable spiritual successor to Project Reality.

I would say give it another shot on a lower ping serv, but I also don’t want to be pushy (or try a different mod like Casualfield, it has COD style hit reg indications if you think weird hit registering problems are happening that will clear it up whether shots are landing or not) movement is similar to other semi-realistic tactical shooters with a touch of inertia and a mantle obstacle button, it shouldn’t in my opinion feel like a puck on an airhockey table lol.

Regardless, whatever you do keep your eye on the project, I think it will be a platform for a lot of cool projects but you are seeing it an early stage.

For me, it is already a blast to fly attack runs in the apache, crew IFVs or play on infantry only servers, but I am sorry if it isn’t there yet for what you are looking for!

edit on the topic of hit registering/landing shots, bullets travel VERY fast in this game (translating to a minimal but real bullet drop) but it isn’t instantaneous (or hitscan). If you are used to games like battlefield especially in the context of sniping you are likely acting like it is way less point and click than it is (or maybe it seems hitscan when it isn’t and that is the basis for it feeling off?). They slow down bullets in more arcadey games like battlefield to make it more intuitive. Try putting the crosshair on the leading edge of your target and aiming for roughly chest level, you should generally be able to get rounds on target just doing that, otherwise maybe there is a netcode issue idk?

This is the current vehicle mod, though a new OHD update is coming out soon.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2947290153

This is a guide for current vehicle mod.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3141572317

I love OHD, the gunplay is great and I think the community development focus is really cool and will plant the seeds for lots of new games no one has even thought of yet!

It is my pleasure to share !

It isn’t worth all the flashy graphics and cinematic flair, play a game with modding support that can actually grow (and then not be abruptly shutdown with no warning).

Check out Operation Harsh Doorstop the free and quickly growing tactical shooter with large maps, vehicles and already functioning mod support with mods that do everything up to tweak the basic gunplay to feel more like COD. Want to just go fly a heli around a giant island for casual fun and ignore the shooty bits? go for it!

OHD is themed like a modern tactical shooter, but the main developer is laser focused on making an accessible platform for people to make the next awesome big map (with vehicles) shooter on (or who knows what kind of game it will be? Rocket league came out of UT2004 buggies being used in custom gamemodes as one example…).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/736590/Operation_Harsh_Doorstop/

Also check out Easy Red 2 the superb, crossplatform WW2 shooter with a plethora of period accurate vehicles (including planes which are a blast) and scenarios that usually get ignored. $9 is highway robbery for this game. AI is great too, you can do stuff like drive a halftrack up to an objective and easily order troops to dismount and attack. Gunplay in this game feels great, so does supporting the dev who seems very devoted to the game and adding lots of historical detail that an EA boardroom would laugh their asses at for the dev putting so much effort into things that don’t necessarily make the trailer look cooler.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1324780/Easy_Red_2/

Motortown has by far the most realistic and fun driving mechanics of any game that will run on the deck besides beamng, and the fun thing about Motortown is all the different jobs like taxi, trucking, pizza delivery and many others. It has racetracks and a custom racemaker but it isn’t strictly a racing game though I almost exclusively play it as such (timed taxi rides). I basically play Motortown like Midnight Club: Please Help My Taxi Driver Has A Deathwish -edition

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1369670/Motor_Town_Behind_The_Wheel/

Offroad Mania is a rockcrawling quasi-racer. It has superb handling and softbody tire physics. Of note is the infinite obstacle course mode.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1222040/Offroad_Mania/

Don’t sleep on the open source (with splitscreen) Stunt Rally 3, it is on the Discover app store in desktop mode. Don’t pass over the game just cus it at times has a silly theme, the tire grip mechanics are great and highspeed gravel driving feels great. In particular the rewind button is very nicely integrated too.

https://github.com/stuntrally/stuntrally3

There is also the venerable open source physics vehicle sandbox Rigs of Rods . Yeah it is old but it is still in development and the aged graphics = lots of battery life

https://www.rigsofrods.org/

If you want just a damn good rally game that does what it says on the tin and feels good mechanically check out Rush Rally 3.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2020860/Rush_Rally_3

If you want more combat driving than racing checkout:

Endgame Road To Salvation

it has splitscreen, and it is awesome! The most apocalyptic caravan simulator you can imagine

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1264920/Endgame_Road_To_Salvation/

Chaos On Wheels

splitscreen, this one is a really good car combat game like twisted metal or vigilante 8. It isn’t really a racer I suppose.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623120/Chaos_on_Wheels/

Ashes Of The Union

roguelite monster fighting car combat game

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3091390/Ashes_of_the_Union/#app_reviews_hash

If you want to tool around (splitscreen) in arcadey cars in a family friendly humans fall flat crossed with gta game checkout Wobbly Life

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1211020/Wobbly_Life

The all time best racing game on the deck is most certainly Bunny Hill however (of course it is splitscreen!).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1424350/Bunny_Hill/

One final odd suggestion, you can definitely fly drones in a drone simulator with onboard steam deck controls I don’t care what quadcopter people say. Liftoff is a blast, has a racing community and the freestyle maps are a joy to swoop around.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/410340/Liftoff_FPV_Drone_Racing

ah, so “vark” is much like “dog” in english when it is used in animal names like “prairie dog”!

thanks for explaining!

I was gonna say “pig-wolf” sounds kind of goofy but it is actually pretty precise in behavioral desciption then isn’t it?

I am assuming it is not in fact actually closely related to a wolf/dog?

Also, this has got me very curious what just a “vark” looks like given the suggested naming scheme going on here.

this is your response? seriously?

Do you realize that this kind of statement spits on solidarity with anyone but cynical centrists?

I don’t know if you actually understand how much you isolate yourself.

Do you think this is going to make conservatives like you who hate palestinians?

Do you think this is going to make people more progressive in their politics than you like you?

Perhaps you believe you are the voice of some less vocal silent majority and those people will find solace in your words? (where I don’t know)

For awhile maybe they will but you are on a quickly disappearing sandbar…

Honey, the thing is when you scream into the void like this with nothing but acidic cynicism, people begin to back away in disgust.

Fascists will never see you coming out of the night in your acts of resistance because to predict your actions consistently requires actually understanding what makes you tick, and to do that requires recognizing at some level that you have something they do not, integrity in your beliefs, whereas their mental landscape is a barren monoculture of childish hate and bullshit.

Make no mistake if they think twisting the algorithm is going to make the voices of the left less disruptive they have no fucking clue what it is like to fight people who believe in their beliefs because they ernestly think they will help and save people.

We were going at Biden and Harris with kid gloves on because we knew Trump was going to be much worse, but the kid gloves are off and leftists will do everything up to and including dying for what we think is right… because we aren’t full of shit like the cowards in power are.

I dare them to kick us out of social media conversations, we are just going to become more radicalized into taking direct action instead of asking nicely.

For real, centrists are often insufferable in their refusal to reflect on their beliefs unless you can prove to their face they hold a small percentage minority view and then they acquiesce like the intellectual cowards they are. That is the reason you call them centrists and not some other word that points to a set of beliefs with any degree of substance.

The Palestinian Genocide is one of these instances.

lol, Biden sure as hell didn’t negotiate any ceasefire either, Netanyahu handed it to Trump as a PR gift while Biden sat there smiling.

this is amazingly accurate