banana Archives

AppWizard

December 20, 2024

Only 15% of all Steam users’ time was spent playing games released in 2024

Steam users played 50% fewer games in 2024 compared to the previous year, influenced by Game Pass, emulation, and the Nintendo 3DS XL. Only 15% of total gaming time was spent on titles launched in 2024, while 47% was dedicated to games released in the last one to seven years, and 37% to titles over eight years old. The free-to-play game Banana gained significant attention, and the action-adventure game Black Myth: Wukong led in single-player concurrent players. Long-standing games like Counter-Strike, Dota 2, and PUBG dominated the Most Played charts, making it challenging for new live service games to succeed. Steam offers over 200,000 titles, with around 18,000 released in 2024, making the 15% of playtime on new games seem reasonable.

AppWizard

December 12, 2024

Steam sets new record for concurrent players

On December 8, Steam recorded 39,205,447 concurrent players, surpassing its previous high of approximately 38 million set in September 2024. This increase was driven by the launch of major titles such as Path of Exile 2, which peaked at 578,569 concurrent players, and Marvel Rivals, which reached 480,990 concurrent players. Established games like Counter-Strike 2, PUBG: Battlegrounds, and DOTA 2 also contributed to the high player counts. As of December 11, 2024, the top 25 most-played games on Steam included titles primarily in the competitive shooter genre, with Counter-Strike 2 leading the list.

AppWizard

November 15, 2024

Best PC Games to Play (2025)

PC gaming is thriving with a wide variety of titles catering to different tastes. Notable PC games include: 1. Baldur’s Gate 3 - Features deep role-playing mechanics and engaging storytelling with turn-based combat and character customization. 2. Elden Ring - An action RPG with challenging combat and an expansive open world, including a new DLC titled "Shadow of the Erdtree." 3. Cyberpunk 2077 - Set in a futuristic world, it combines action with narrative depth and character customization. 4. Red Dead Redemption 2 - Offers a richly detailed open world and compelling narrative in a Wild West setting. 5. Disco Elysium - A detective RPG focused on dialogue and decision-making within a unique world. 6. Hades II - A fast-paced roguelike where players battle through the underworld. 7. Half-Life: Alyx - A benchmark for VR gaming with a gripping narrative. 8. Doom Eternal - An intense first-person shooter against demonic forces. 9. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - An epic RPG with an expansive world and intricate quests. 10. Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Features strategic turn-based combat and cooperative multiplayer gameplay. Top games currently on Steam include: 1. Counter-Strike 2 - 563,733 current players, 1,442,806 peak players. 2. Dota 2 - 312,401 current players, 797,599 peak players. 3. Banana - 212,617 current players, 483,731 peak players. 4. Call of Duty® - 208,292 current players, 313,313 peak players. 5. Rust - 90,821 current players, 182,603 peak players. 6. THRONE AND LIBERTY - 84,819 current players, 229,014 peak players. 7. PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS - 83,168 current players, 755,939 peak players. 8. Grand Theft Auto V - 61,381 current players, 172,551 peak players. 9. Baldur’s Gate 3 - 55,111 current players, 107,242 peak players. 10. Factorio - 48,876 current players, 118,166 peak players. PC Gamer’s Top 10 Games of 2024 include: 1. Baldur’s Gate 3 - 97% rating. 2. Disco Elysium. 3. Elden Ring. 4. Minecraft. 5. Persona 5 Royal. 6. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. 7. Half-Life 2. 8. Balatro. 9. Stardew Valley. 10. Doom (1993). Popular multiplayer games include Counter-Strike 2, Valorant, Apex Legends, and Among Us. Free-to-play games with critical acclaim are Dota 2, Fortnite, Path of Exile, and Warframe. Classic PC games include Half-Life 2, Portal, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Minecraft. Recommended games for low-spec hardware include Stardew Valley, Terraria, FTL: Faster Than Light, Celeste, and Undertale.

Tech Optimizer

November 9, 2024

Visualize vector embeddings stored in Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL and explore semantic similarities

Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition now supports the pgvector extension, enabling users to store and manipulate vector embeddings in relational databases. This integration facilitates data analysis and visualization, particularly for semantic similarities, especially when used with Amazon Bedrock, which offers foundation models like Amazon Titan Text Embeddings. The Titan Text Embeddings model can process up to 8,000 tokens and generate vector representations with 1,536 dimensions. Due to the impracticality of visualizing high-dimensional data directly, dimensionality reduction techniques such as PCA are employed. The outlined process for implementing PCA with Amazon Bedrock and Aurora includes preparing a dataset, generating vector embeddings, storing them in an Aurora PostgreSQL database, and visualizing the data. To implement the solution, users must sign in to a Jupyter notebook instance, install necessary libraries, and import sample product catalog data. The sample dataset consists of 60 products categorized into groups like Fruit, Sport, Furniture, and Electronics. Users generate vector embeddings for product descriptions using the Amazon Bedrock model and store the data in an Aurora PostgreSQL database with the pgvector extension. The pgvector extension supports various indexing techniques, including IVFFlat, which is used for efficiency with smaller datasets. Users can retrieve records from the PostgreSQL table for visualization and apply PCA to reduce dimensionality. Finally, a three-dimensional scatter plot can be generated to visualize the embeddings, illustrating how similar products cluster within the embedding space. To prevent unnecessary charges, users are advised to delete resources created during this process, such as the SageMaker Jupyter notebook instance and the PostgreSQL cluster.

BetaBeacon

October 18, 2024

Android Racing Games: Which Ones You Should Try?

There are various racing games available for download on Android phones, including popular car games like Asphalt, horse racing games like Horse Racing 3D, Mario Kart Tour for wacky races, F1 Mobile Racing for Formula 1 fans, Grid Autosport for a realistic experience, Need for Speed: No Limits for street racing, and Rebel Racing for a west coast feel.

AppWizard

September 24, 2024

Steam hits its new highest-ever record for concurrent users: 38.3 million is the new record

Steam has achieved a new record of 38,348,144 concurrent players, surpassing the previous record of 37.2 million. This growth includes a surge of over 500,000 players in the last 36 hours. The platform has consistently grown throughout the year, with the launch of Black Myth: Wukong contributing to this increase, attracting 2.3 million concurrent players at launch. Counter-Strike 2 leads with approximately 1.4 million daily players and close to 1 million concurrent players. Other popular titles include Dota 2, Banana, PUBG, Satisfactory, Deadlock, Baldur's Gate 3, Grand Theft Auto V, and Rust.

AppWizard

September 22, 2024

Steam sets new record as it passes over 38 million concurrent players

Steam has surpassed 38 million concurrent players, reaching a peak of 38,367,277 players, an increase of one million in a month. The most played game is Counter-Strike 2, followed by PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS and DOTA 2. Black Myth: Wukong is in fourth place, while the free-to-play game Banana is fifth. NARAKA: BLADEPOINT is sixth, with Apex Legends, Satisfactory, and GTA 5 completing the top ten. Valve's upcoming title Deadlock is in eleventh place with over 150,000 players in the last 24 hours. Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 has outperformed titles like Call of Duty and Elden Ring. Helldivers 2 has fallen to 26th place, with Elden Ring and Team Fortress 2 at 21st and 24th, respectively.

AppWizard

August 27, 2024

Tropico 4 is free on GOG to kick off the 2024 Back to School sale

Tropico 4 is available for free on GOG for three days, ending August 29. It has a 72% review score and the Tropico 4 Complete DLC Pack is half price. GOG's Back to School sale features over 5,800 games with discounts, including 80% off on titles like Alien: Isolation Collection and Gris. The sale lasts until September 10.

AppWizard

August 27, 2024

Steam sets a new record with 37.2 million concurrent users online

Steam reached a record of 37,266,324 concurrent users, with 12,534,703 actively engaged in gameplay. This marks the fourth time this year that Steam has surpassed its previous records, following peaks of 34, 35, and 36 million users in March. The surge is attributed to popular games, particularly Black Myth: Wukong, which achieved a peak concurrent player count of 2,068,291 and an all-time high of 2,415,714 players just four days prior. Black Myth: Wukong is now the second most-played game in Steam's history, behind PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS.

AppWizard

August 27, 2024

I let out a ‘hell yes’ when I saw this game stars a worm-fox trapped on a dying world, and an even louder ‘yes dude, yes’ when the trailer got to the Metal Gear mechs

Uruc is an indie game developed by first-time developer Stefan Haasbroek, who is also a progressive metal artist. The game features a protagonist resembling a charming creature without limbs, set in a world filled with grotesque worms. The visuals draw inspiration from anime and artists like H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński, and the gameplay leans towards traditional metroidvania mechanics. Uruc explores themes of cosmic horror and existential dread, aiming to resonate with players on a deeper level. Currently, there is no release date or presence on platforms like Steam or itch.io, but Haasbroek is crowdfunding through BackaBuddy and shares updates on YouTube and Bandcamp.