The last time France used it was in 1977, so while it might have started a while back they only stopped using it less than 50 years ago.

Halocene. They got noticed for their covers of a variety of songs but they’ve also got their own music as well. Here’s a couple of my favourites.

Hold Me Help Me

Maleficent

Devil Inside Me

They’re currently touring as well through Europe and back around the US later this year.

They posted a completed save file on their website and instructions on where to save it on your PC to be able to use it. So it’s not your own cloud save, but it does give you a completed save.

Oh, sorry, please don’t read it that way! It’s a game I very much enjoyed when I played it, and I do still today watch speed runners race it occasionally. The bug didn’t impact my enjoyment of it in the longer term, it’s just a fun fact I remember about it from when I did play it all those years ago that I thought I’d share.

Chrono Trigger have played and loved as well, but it’s not one I’ve gone back to and replayed, which was one of my key criteria in this list, longevity (for me - I realise Chrono Trigger does have it between the multiple endings and New Game+ mode).

I have a very distinct memory of first playing it via emulator on ZSNES, and running into a bug in a section in the future that required you to hold L and R and activate some controls to open a door. For whatever reason the emulator wasn’t handling that properly and I got stuck. Eventually went back to it on Snes9x and was able to progress, but that stuck out.

Haven’t heard of Song of Saya though, thanks for the recommendation!

You’re right, you really can. That being said if it’s purely personal favourites I’d put FF6 into that list as well. I would love if they gave that the Remake treatment.

Hmm, tough choices. In no particular order.

The Legend of Zelda - A Link To The Past This game was great when it was released and it’s great now, and thanks to the randomiser community it’s now infinitely replayable as well.

Super Metroid A series that literally helped define a genre, Super Metroid was everything that I suspect they wanted Metroid and Return of Samus to be but the hardware couldn’t keep up. The world is built for speed running as well with so many shortcuts that experienced players can utilise, and again, with the randomiser community making it infinitely replayable (not only on its own, but with a crossover with ALTTP!), this game easily makes it onto my list.

Final Fantasy VII My original introduction to JRPGs and a game whose story and mechanics still hold up today even if the graphics don’t as much. Obviously a lot of people feel the same way thanks to the Remakes, which while slightly out there have had so much nostalgia to play through them.

Final Fantasy XI The original Final Fantasy MMORPG and my introduction to MMORPGs generally, I put about 10 years into this game and still to this today occasionally reinstall it and see where I was last up to.

Final Fantasy XIV I tried several times to start FFXIV, but never got past the first few dungeons until COVID lockdowns hit, and since then am fully on board. The story, while a slow burn, is so good, and being a live service game means there’s always new content coming or changes to learn. But really, the story in FFXIV is easily good enough to qualify as a mainline FF title, and any FF players who haven’t tried it yet, should.

Doki Doki Literature Club You have to play this blind. Don’t watch a let’s play, and avoid any spoilers if you can. It’s worth it. But when it’s all done, if you’re playing on PC, people have written entirely new mods and story for it, and the good ones really know how to make you connect with the characters.

Persona 5 Royal I discovered the Persona series with Golden, and was super excited to play Persona 5 when it released, but Royal is the definitive version that you’ll want to play. The story is great, the gameplay is lots of fun, and the combination of JRPG and slice of life makes you feel a lot more connected to the loveable cast.

Factorio Just perfectly tickles that itch for resource management. The factory must grow.

Metal Gear Solid 2 A main memory I have of this game is the first time playing it where I bought out a whole box of those chocolates they sell for fundraising - was supposed to sell them to other people but they were great for late night snacking while I played. The stealth, the tension, the weird everything towards the end, it was a trip from start to finish.

Duke Nukem 3D Duke wasn’t my first foray into FPS games (Wolfenstein 3D manages that title). But it holds a special place in my heart as it was the first game I ever played online multiplayer on. But I did it before the internet, so literally had a modem to modem connection running over an IPX network. Realistically, there’s been plenty of better FPS games since, both modern and classic, but the irreverent humour, plus the fact I was a teen who probably wasn’t supposed to be playing a game with strippers and highly pixilated tits in it, just edges it into my top 10.

To be fair, with no data to back it up, this is just an anecdote. So saying it’s stereotyping ageist bullshit is a perfectly valid response to it. I just felt it fit the question quite well so I went and dug it up and shared it. If you feel differently, no stress!

The reality is going to be different to everyone, and it’s as much a learned behaviour as anything else. It’s not like collectively an entire generation got together and decided “it’s ‘no problem’ now instead of ‘you’re welcome’, okay?” Language evolves over time after all, and knowing why that happens and the actual causes for it are something that will require a lot more analysis than a couple of anecdotes from the internet.

Here’s a response I’ve seen about this around the net for a while now that feels right.

–

"Actually, the “you’re welcome/no problem” issue is simply a linguistics misunderstanding. Older ppl tend to say “you’re welcome,” younger ppl tend to say “no problem.” This is because for older people the act of helping or assisting someone is seen as a task that is not expected of them, but is them doing extra, so it’s them saying, ‘I accept your thanks because I know I deserve it.”

“No problem, however, is used because younger people feel not only that helping or assisting someone is a given and expected but also that it should be stressed that your need for help was no burden to them (even if it was).”

“Basically, older people think help is a gift you give, younger people think help is a requirement.”

https://didyouknowfacts.com/why-young-people-say-no-problem-instead-of-youre-welcome-and-why-older-people-hate-it/

What’s even wilder is if you look at the code of that package, all it does is include the is-odd package and then return !is-odd. And the is-odd package isn’t much better, it does some basic checks on the input and then returns n % 2 === 1.

This cover of Gangnam Style is one I’ve always enjoyed.

https://youtu.be/uEHQpYwGIDI

Halocene’s cover of Unholy is pretty good as well.

https://youtu.be/GBEU9tE8X_E

I’d second afraid.org, have been using them for years and they’ve always been great. They also support dynamic DNS so if you’re on a dynamic IP address you can have the address be updated automatically when your IP address does.

More relevant to the question, I’m pretty sure you can create NS records for a subdomain as well. I was experimenting once a few years back with a DNS tunnel service and was able to get the DNS side of it configured. Never did get the service itself working but it was more of a curiosity at the time so didn’t spend a massive amount of time on it.

Wouldn’t it just mean the cheat tools also move into the kernel space and keep doing what they’re already doing? Whether people will trust that or not I have no idea but I’ll wager people willing to use cheats in an online PVP game probably won’t care that much.

There’s probably an element of survivorship bias there. If a car is still around from the 70s it’s probably because it’s been taken care off. Given some time you’ll probably say the same thing about cars from the 90s, the ones that are still around are well maintained or restored (cause the ones that aren’t have all been scrapped).

Or, and hear me out here, work more for less money.

You’d be correct. And he was a cheater in that movie as well.

All it will take is a trustworthy company to launch a 3rd party app store.

This really is the key to this being successful I think. Right now a lot of the nervousness around opening iOS is because of the fact that people (rightly or wrongly) trust and have a relationship with Apple.

The people who are concerned about third party app stores really are worried about the implication of having to trust a new third party with their device, their payment details, their personal info, etc.

Put someone reputable behind an alternative and it becomes an easier sell.

That’s fair, and I admit it’s one possible outcome of all this. I just think that if the EU mandates that both Apple and Google have to support them that it’s going to shift the needle on it as the alternative infrastructure will be properly supported on every major platform. As you get that infrastructure, get payment providers in place to drive it all, the friction of switching will drop, which makes it a more appealing option for developers.

Nobody is asking you yet. Once it becomes an option I guarantee some apps will decide that they’d prefer to use a third party store over the App Store and if that happens to be an app you use then you are essentially being asked to use other app stores.

This isn’t advocating for or against it, I’m just saying that if you think that this is purely additive and those who don’t want it can just not interact with it and get the same experience they have today then you’re being naive.

Regardless, it’s going to be interesting to watch. Smaller niche apps that don’t need discoverability will probably benefit, since if you need a niche app for something you’re probably prepared to put the effort into using a third party store. Large apps I suspect will go a hybrid model if they do anything at all (use both the App Store and a third party store, with the third party store having a lower price, although I guarantee it won’t be 30% less), and stuff in between will likely stay on the App Store unless there’s enough of a network effect to get enough users to a third party store to make it worth switching.

With the number of people renting on the rise due to house prices in many countries around the world, running cables isn’t an option for everyone (and even when it is, not everyone wants to actually do it).

Having more options available for people to move large amounts of data around their home is never a bad thing.