It's not specifically that indie games or indie devs are "automatically" good, but that you and I, and many others, can very much MAKE our own games these days if you have the time and put the effort into it.
Also, a big part of why there is a large swathe of shitty woketard indie games is specifically because those are the kinds of little studios that are almost always taking shortcuts and whatever DEI money passes are available to speedrush their projects.
A good indie game takes a fair bit of time to complete, and thus they are far less numerous and frequent.
Agreed on every character you mention.
Reminds me, that I'd want to give a special mention to Daniel Graystone and possibly Joseph Adama from Caprica.
Not always the perfect fathers, but they tried their best under some extraordinarily difficult and fucked up circumstances.
Related to this, I'd include Dishonored (the first one). Especially due to how the game framed the story and events in such a way that at least to me, I couldn't stomach coming home to my character's daughter if I'd been murdering people left and right. A rather unique and heartfelt way to motivate me towards going for the non-lethal approach.
Another game character and fatherly figure I'd mention would be Miller from the Metro games.
Hercules, as played by Kevin Sorbo.
Regardless of how his character's entire family was murdered by Hera in the first episode of the series, his character almost consistently represents a fantastic male role model. And there were frequent points in the series where they'd give a solid glimpse into what kind of father and husband his character was.
Another solid example would maybe be Jack O'Neill from Stargate. Guilt ridden over his son's death, and eventually managing to start the healing process, the writers made a point of emphasizing just how protective he was of children in a variety of different situations.
(Richard Dean Anderson himself is a good example too, choosing to leave his career behind so he could devote his time to his daughter.)
Jim Gordon as portrayed in Gotham was a solid male role model and father figure. One of Bruce's many mentors after the death of his parents, confidant, protector, and friend.
And Bruce Wayne in Batman Beyond is another good example as a solid father figure to Terry, after Terry had lost his own father.
It was also pretty fun too because they made Alex's character both respectable and at the same time amusingly meme-worthy, almost in the same scene.
And it worked, wasn't jarring or cringe because it was just earnest fun, leaving all the drama of politics out of it.
Plus I'd wager that a lot of those Asian countries are very economically competitive with each other even today.
IE, heard a story from a friend about a tech guy visiting from I think it was either Singapore or Taiwan. Let's just say that he didn't have a lot of positive things to say about the intelligence of Chinese workers.
Actually encountered a random "lip smacker" just last night. Probably the 10th one in said game for the last few months. They're absolutely incapable of being quiet.
Even when the technology offers them the option, they're either too stupid and lazy to configure things correctly or they have too much compulsion to make as much senseless noise as possible. Sometimes both.
It sort of takes the idea of progression in something like an old-school tabletop or pen and paper RPG, and then tries to stretch it out much much further for the sole purpose of extending the amount of "game time" a player is expected to go through to reach their goals.
Which is then further compounded when it's so easy for the developers to add what amounts to an infinite potential for grind and loot, without end. Which is something that you technically could do in something like a tabletop RPG, but it would be glaringly obvious and wouldn't really fit into a finite campaign-adventure.
I suppose I'd just assumed that in some sense the entire molecular makeup of a person was scanned and more or less converted into data throughout the process. I suppose I haven't revisited the idea in a very long time though.
Hadn't given any thought into the actual "beam" portion of the functional idea, which does change the concept quite a bit. Not sure if I'd say if it's more realistic, but it does hinge on a very different kind of implementation than I'd been assuming.
Oh, for sure. That transporter idea you mention reminds me of Galaxy Quest actually, which was a much neater idea (the little goop-pod thing around the start of the movie).
Probably my biggest gripe with transporters is the barely addressed existential conundrum, where for all intents and purposes, they're creating a "duplicate" of a person, and destroying the excess copy.
Yet somehow, this same technology is hardly ever used to heal someone of serious injuries, or to prolong someone's life beyond the natural limits. Save for the odd episode where they may touch on such questions, but shoo it away as inconsequential, and never bothering to visit it again.
Back to the main writing, I probably skip about 1/10 of TNG and DS9 episodes I recognize as cringe or rather dull.Then with Voyager it's about 1/4-1/3, and that's assuming I'm feeling bored enough to actively watch it.
I'll admit, at least some of the tech-side of things (IE transporters) definitely feel a little silly as I've matured and developed a more grounded perspective on science and technology.
Even so, I think the political and ethics angle was well established and well executed, especially for its time. Even if a little overly idealistic.
I also think TNG era managed to create some legitimately fun, interesting, and thematic alien cultures, even if they occasionally adopted a few bits and pieces from historical Earth cultures.
I've never been able to get into most of the books though, largely because of how often it carried a similar kind of episodic approach, which doesn't make it very easy to narrow down a selection to read. I'm also not sure how well managed the book canon was compared to the Star Wars EU.
First result on a search engine peek:
Also, probably worth trying to avoid built-in Realtek for any subcomponents you really intend to utilize. Their driver support can be pretty godawful with Windows, I'm sure it's only going to be even worse on Linux.
Also, AMD GPU's have some reputation for being a little more Linux-friendly due to open-source driver support. Not sure if that's changed much in recent years though so be sure to double check on how accurate that is. (I can't do it right now, since I have to head out.)
I think another big part of it too is that they're essentially so hateful and cynical about almost everything, and this is one of their many trolly "fuck everyone else" moves, for an easy paycheck.
On top of shoving that narrative up everyone's ass.
Depends on the kind of shooter it is:
What kind of guns there are, what kind of enemies you face, what kind of weapons they're armed with, and what kind of combat environments you can expect.
Generally though, I like a good mix of the two. Even better when different guns and gun attachments/customization options allow you to min-max a bit to balance out the performance factors that affect the overall direction of how the gun handles.
Also, fuck instagib "hitscan" ballistics/hit detection. I legitimately can't believe Counterstrike is still using that shit.
I could see some fun or interesting applications for something like this, IF, I repeat, IF, it was my own software that I'd designed and trusted, and I kept it 100% localized, secure, and "off the grid". (Also, I'd want a quick toggle for it so I'd only use it for specific situations. No autorun, that kind of thing.)
No way in hells do I put any trust in ANY company with this however.
I will admit that occasionally, it is as simple as developers taking shortcuts due to time/cost. Particularly in the visual department.
However, there are also a lot of clearly deliberate examples of extra effort being spent on creating ugly and "diverse" characters too. Or changing things in dialogue, story, and gameplay, just to cater to ideological sentiments.
Frankly, the DEI/SBI stuff is mostly a solid indicator if a game's going to be trash, because a studio that turns to that is clearly looking for "gimmie bucks" in place of sales based on quality.
I was pretty bummed out about what they did with the Evil Dead game. Like I'll admit, the general direction wasn't exactly a bad idea for that kind of setting, but at the same time the overall gameplay design was just "Meh".
I think the devs put almost too much time into the grind, loot, and reward mechanics than actual fun. Which is very much NOT in keeping with Evil Dead and Bruce Campbell's style..