After the murder of Pertinax on 28 March 193, the Praetorian guard announced that the throne was to be sold to the man who would pay the highest price. Titus Flavius Claudius Sulpicianus, prefect of Rome and Pertinax's father-in-law, who was in the Praetorian camp ostensibly to calm the troops, began making offers for the throne. Meanwhile, Julianus also arrived at the camp, and since his entrance was barred, shouted out offers to the guard. After hours of bidding, Sulpicianus promised 20,000 sesterces to every soldier; Julianus, fearing that Sulpicianus would gain the throne, then offered 25,000. The guards closed with the offer of Julianus, threw open the gates, and proclaimed him emperor. Threatened by the military, the Senate also declared him emperor. His wife and his daughter both received the title Augusta.
M.U.L.E. (1983) still holds up, though I'd appreciate some QOL improvements. It's a multiplayer game where you develop your production and then sell your commodities at auction to the other players (or what the bank will pay as minimum). The theme song is a banger.
Sid Meyer's Covert Action is a fun espionage game. Break-ins, wiretapping, following clues, etc. Released in 1990, so on the line.
Abiotic Factor is an interesting crafting game that takes place in a science facility during a mysterious emergency. I'd recommend playing with friends, but I think it'd be fun solo, too.
I also had fun with Subnautica, though that one is a few years old now. I have not tried the sequel, but I'll probably pick it up some day. It's a game where you have crash-landed on an alien ocean world, and you have to explore to make better tools to try and escape.
I've been playing Hardspace Shipbreaker lately, where your character is someone who disassembles spaceships. The fun of the game is moving around in zero-g and safely take stuff apart without setting off the nuclear reactor, or explosively decompressing a ship right next to you. You upgrade your tools as you do more jobs.
There's a popular indie game right now called Megabonk; if you like rogue-light games, it's a fun one. Avoid waves of monsters and upgrade your character by picking the best of three random power-ups as your level goes up.
The rescue where they jump the Galactica into the atmosphere of New Caprica, scramble Vipers, and then jump out again is maybe the coolest scene in TV sci-fi.
I actually don't think I've ever played a game by an Indian studio, which is a shame because I'm sure there are some great storytellers and coders from there who make spectacular games. I should look around and see what available.
A lot of the "old games were better" is because we mainly remember the best of the best. There has always been shovelware.
On the other hand, I do agree that AAA gaming is fairly stale. I believe it's mainly because the games are huge investments that have to be a "safe" bet, which is one way to make art (of any type) boring.
But there are indie studios making amazing games these days, because the incentive there is to differentiate their product from the others. Once an idea gets popular enough, AAA studios will pick it up and grind it into the dirt.
I would disagree with the idea that games are worse now. I think the best stuff is getting made today, it's just harder to find it in a deluge of shovelware. Look in the indie and AA space for interesting games.
It's so hard to get into it; I'd never played one before I picked it up either.
This is a good entry-level lute. I had wanted one for a while before I got mine, but I was worried about spending so much and having it be unplayable.
I fortunately talked to another musician who had one of these already and he sounded fantastic, so I decided to take the plunge. I'm glad I did! There's nothing like playing period music on the actual instrument that would have been used (modern convenience like temperament aside) and reading from historical tabs.
I ran into the guy again about a month ago, and he has an incredible luthier-made theorbo that sounds amazing. Maybe I'll get one of those some day lol!
I play the renaissance lute, which also uses tied frets. I just play in equal temperament because its easier and my ear isn't that good. I'm merely an ambitious amateur though, maybe I'll get into it one of these days.
I play early music, and what we call a viol de gamba is a different thing; the viola is fretless and held under the chin like a violin, while the viol de gamba is a renaissance/baroque-era fretted instrument that is held between the legs and comes in treble, tenor, and bass sizes.
Savall plays the latter.
To further confuse the matter, there's a renaissance-era instrument called the vielle that is played more like a modern violin or viola.
I believe they reverted the power-up on Bluetooth activation (for LCD models) previously, but they reimplemented it in a recent patch.