An update, I had to stop playing this. It was really pissing me off. The control are so stupid and complicated for no reason.
Secondly, why do all the ships stop doing what you tell them when the get attack, then just sit there. Its like they are the dumbest people you could have in charge of a ship. Protect this ship, On the way to the ship, fights an enemy then just sits there. doesnt continue onto the task I asked it to do. Once I do get them to where I want them, if I move the ship I asked them to defend, they dont follow it.
If I understood right, units only respond immediately to any threats in "Aggressive stance". But yeah, it's a bit of mess right now. Devs announced a two month delay, not sure if that's enough time to rework the UI and some dumb behaviours, but there's a cool game beneath the ridiculous controls, so hopefully they manage something.
Though I wish they did something with combat too, especially the smaller ships. Flying around each other in circles barely doing any damage just adds to awkwardness. I even tried spamming attack orders to turn them around faster haha
Though I wish they did something with combat too, especially the smaller ships. Flying around each other in circles barely doing any damage just adds to awkwardness. I even tried spamming attack orders to turn them around faster haha
This sounds like a simple AI pattern to cater to large scale so you don't destroy CPU / performance. I hope its really that and there is more dynamic to the other ships in combat? Surely there is
If I understood right, units only respond immediately to any threats in "Aggressive stance". But yeah, it's a bit of mess right now. Devs announced a two month delay, not sure if that's enough time to rework the UI and some dumb behaviours, but there's a cool game beneath the ridiculous controls, so hopefully they manage something.
Though I wish they did something with combat too, especially the smaller ships. Flying around each other in circles barely doing any damage just adds to awkwardness. I even tried spamming attack orders to turn them around faster haha
They need to fix the Camera system I cannot even get past the tutorial. I thought using the Classic camera would bring me right back, but that is not what is happening.
They need to fix the Camera system I cannot even get past the tutorial. I thought using the Classic camera would bring me right back, but that is not what is happening.
The classis camera is missing controls. There are several keys it will not let you remap.. which is stupid. Some of the binding choices.. R for Guard instead of G, like the original? W for Move, instead of M.. I am not sure what even the M key does, pulls up a grid that I find useless atm..
The player AI, that runs your little ships or you fleet, is completely useless. There are so many missing details to that. Atleast the original is still fun to play I guess.. Not sure I will be buying, until it goes on sale. I most likely wont play it. If the main story line plays and feels like this War Game mode. blah.,. its really small maps, sure you can fly around objects and use them for cover and what not, but it makes how bad the controls are stand out so much.
This sounds like a simple AI pattern to cater to large scale so you don't destroy CPU / performance. I hope its really that and there is more dynamic to the other ships in combat? Surely there is
It gets better when there are more powerful ships on the screen but there's really not that much going on to worry about CPU load compared to many older RTS games, at least that's my impression. Plus there's a tactical pause + option to set game speed to 25-50-75%, so I don't think there's a good reason for things to go that slowly if you can slow them down to your own taste at will. But it does look pretty, on the other hand, nails the aesthetic of older games perfectly.
No wonder. Considering how much input (no pun intended) Niels made for this game...
I'd be glad to play it, as well as AC1, DR1/2 on DD wheel like Sim Stearing 2 54 (with AKM54K, not H), combined with Heusinkveld Ultimate Combo Kit. Heck I'd even play Porsche Unleashed with DD wheel. But alas.
The interesting thing is, that the most fun and realistic racing (and not only them), games like, rFactor, Automobilista, and even Race/RRR (and vanilla AC1 to some extent) do really have somewhat mediocre graphics. Not bad, but nothing to brag about. However that's doesn't make these games playing anywhere worse, than Gran Turismo, or Project Cars, Forsa Motorsport. As visuals are in such sweet spot, as it really close to real atmosphere and colour palete, abd do not impact the performance, or impair the gameplay with ridiculous effects like in NFS.
BTW I did a personal stunning discovery, right before my G25 has gone. What I've found is the incredibly good and accurate FF and steering behavior, that old game had. For me personally it was on par with AC (Assetto Corsa 1). I'm not sure whether this is a commendation to PU or rebuke of the AC. But this is my experience.
I'm not a sim racing nerd myself, and maybe AC is not a pinnacle of sim racing. But it yet worth to give a credit the moddability of that game, and especially Content Manager, and SOL and Rain FX, that bring the somewhat mediocre unfinished game, to another level. Yes vanilla/barebones AC is literally unplayable without many crucial mods.
One of the games that unfortunately didn't pave it's way to PC, was DRIVECLUB. I don't know if there's any connection between why DiRT Rally looked that much toned down/realistic, and so much visulally akin to Driveclub. But soon after Sony disbanded the Evolution Studios (Driveclub's dev team), they've joined Codemasters.
Also, it seems curved monitors suit particularly good for sim Racing purposes. This might be one of few areas, these xx:9 screens do well. A single Ultrawide, curved, instead of tripple flat screens, bolted to the 80/20. Hmmm...
Both franchises originally made by Relic entertainment. Which now have proven their name. Sadly SEGA is going to bury this once great studio, the way EA did with DICE and countless of other studios. They're running Relic towards shameful demise.
As about COH 1, it is still very much playable. I think even more than COH2 (Not bad game), and especially that flop "DOWIII of WWII" that is Company of Heroes 3. And if you like that type of games, you can take a look at Joint Task Force. It's not an RTS though, but RTT. It's pretty cheap during sales, and definitely worth of taking a look on. There's even demo on Steam.
The problem is SEGA, turned all relic's games into Total War. Nothing against that game. But that doesn't bode well, and the other franchises lose their uniqueness due to this "style merger" and smearing the boundaries between each other. IMHO, SEGA shouldn't had ruin the already established well credited game series like COH and DOW, and to go under like they did. As a result turn them into MOBA monstocities.
Also, Relic shouldn't been wasting their potential on Total War series (a la how Criterion did with Battlefield, and DICE with NFS). There's in-house game studio for that.
Another problem with SEGA, is that they sadly do not assist moddng comunity with all the old literally abandoned Relic's games like DoW1, CoH, and Space Marine, nor fix the themselves.I think instead of running the valuable studio down the drain, and make it lose the 40K license and waste millons of bucks on the games, that literally nobody would play, they'd better release the old Essence engine source code. Or, straight away sold Relic to THQ Nordic, where the majoirty of ex-THQ studios reside now.
The one huge problem with old Relics as well as Iron Lore/Crate Entertainment, and other games under the ex-THQ management, like DOW1, Titan Quest/Grim Dawn respectively, etc is that they completely lack the multi-threading. Basically, single core and single thread being used on full, while even on ancient dual-core CPU, the second one is just idling. The performance is complete disaster. It's nonexistant, at all. I'm not even mention UA mod's performance, with literally tens of thousands units (titans included), that appear on the screen simultaneously.
There were some small endeavours with custom MT solution for Soulstorm, by adding code strings and some dll's from DOWII. But that was abandoned, and there's no alternative even to that. And the SEGA, seems not going to haste in fixing these abandonware games, they actually still sell with hefty price tags.
It baffles me, how some individual, singlehandedly almost managed to add multi-threaded crutch to such an old game. And yet SEGA is unable to find the resourses to add the actual proper fix, to the game, hundreds if not thousands still play daily. Valve used to add/integrate community patches into their games, with great outcome. And it's actually Valve, that now supports the server connection for all DOW and COH games. I don't get, why SEGA is unable to get their head from their arse, and provide support they had to give decade ago. And that's not taking into account, the massive modding community, and huge modding potential, be it Ultimate Apocalipse mod, or Unification mod, or any other one. There should be gratification and encouraging on behalf of the publisher towards the trustful community. Instead they poop on the heads with the garbage, nobody asked for.
To rub the wounds, SEGA intentionally removed the LAN option from both, DOW1 and 2. Many people went to GoG to buy DOW complete collections, with the expectations togfinally get LAN, just to end up being loyally screwed. As these GoG versions are nowhere different to the Steam counterparts
There are other interesting, games. Some of them are amazing mods for LotR BFMEII like Age of the Ring, or Edain Mod, or even The Elder Scrolls: The Battle for Tamriel.
I didn't play them yet. As I don't have the legal copy of Battle for Middle Earth II, and there's no way to buy it (that's technically possible to get it from abandonware sites., but...).
But that game itself was a masterpiece. By both visually and game mechanics, and also sound (much like Tiberium Wars). The era, when EA had the best game sound, and studios making interesting games with brilliant design.
Sadly, EA have no willing to sell these old games, as it will prevent their MTX driven garbage.
To sum up, there's no problem to find the interesting game. The problem is to have HW capable of running them. And the time to invest in playing.
There are some other forgotten gems of RTS like Machines: Wired for War, Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, and Dark Reign. There's no way to describe how much these games are much superior, than majority of even modern RTS games.
It wonders me, how the entire industry has silently passed by these games, and never being affected by the ideas those games carried. Maybe except the somewhat recent Call to Arms, and few others, that have direct first person control of single unit. The concept, that Machines did back in 1999. The whole idea, of being able to populate every building with the units, and wipe or intercept the entire army of enemy units, by controlling just one, was and still seems very unique.
The Dark Reign. That was the hands down the best well thought game in terms of unit control and behaviour. Even from my limited experience, there was no games matching that strategic and tactical complexity and vast set of tools, this game had 27 years ago.
And TA Kingdoms, still looks nice even today. People avoided that game, as it was not in the same style as original Total Annihilation, designed by Chris Taylor. But it still was a both visually great, and had interesting unique gameplay.
As about JTF (2006). it's still looks and plays great, even 18 years later. The closest comparison is Call to Arms (2015). The only downsides of JTF really are, lack of detailed vehicle damage, akin COH and MechCommander, lack of better camera control and zoom, again as COH had; a bit better detailed infantry models, and maybe a bit better pathfinding, and movement/physics of some vehicles..
Some people did not have upgrade since 2007, and thus the limitations remain intact. This made to stay behind the entire game industry scene progress/regress, for good or for bad. But that's another painful topic I won't even touch.
So due to aforementioned circumstances, it helped to lower my graphics demands, and enjoy the game disign above the visuals. Surely, I would be glad to have everything maxed out in every single game I've played. However expectations should meet the possibilities.
So it's not a problem to play some older games again and again, even decade later. There are a lot of ones that has great replayability, and still not end up boring.
The true puzzle and secrets (not the bland console minigames injections), were a good part of of old game design. That's what made games of different genres and styles to be interesting and catchy. And surely it brought the variety to the endless boring destruction of waves of the enemies.
Just like only small additions of craft into Dark Messiah (remains from Arx Fatalis), or puzzles in Neverwinter Nights, etc... Heck, even Portal and HL2 secret places were fun.
P.S.: Not many know now, about the fun games of 5.25" floppy era, such as Police Quest, King Quest, and obviouly Space Quest series. Those had a keyboard only written input, with no mice support whatsoever, and had the quite tricky puzzles aw well. .
Agreed. Some of the puzzles in the earlier Tomb Raider games from Core Design had me scratching my head for hours, but I still enjoyed them. I think it's essential for keeping the grey matter in shape, amongst other exercises
On the other hand, some of the timed sequences, such as those in The Wreck of Maria Doria in TR2 were ball breakers, but incredibly satisfying when completed.
Black Mesa is €2.99 on Steam! Playing and my immediate thought is that Anton Hansson did a really poor job translating. "Google translate" level bad, which honestly isn't surprising seeing but still annoying.
Black Mesa is €2.99 on Steam! Playing and my immediate thought is that Anton Hansson did a really poor job translating. "Google translate" level bad, which honestly isn't surprising seeing but still annoying.
Black Mesa is €2.99 on Steam! Playing and my immediate thought is that Anton Hansson did a really poor job translating. "Google translate" level bad, which honestly isn't surprising seeing but still annoying.
Great discount.
As about translation... Some bigger studios have this problem. The translation outside some "primary" languages like Deutsch, Francais, and Espanol, can be pretty rubbish, even for the first party localization. So I'd rather play original English, than suffer this lazy "favor". And, almost all games simply do dot have my native language at all. So this is another reason to play this way.
Played through this survival horror game Fobia - St. Dinfna Hotel made by some indie Brazilian devs. It's a bit of a shameless take on Resident Evil 7, but I really like RE7, and this game ain't half bad either. But unlike RE7 you will find "indie stuff" going on here. You can tell there were corners cut here and there sort of thing. Lots of assets only in Portuguese (yet somehow they afforded English speaking voice actors) so you have to read plain text popups to translate it, lots of textures are low res, etc. But again, still worth playing despite its blemishes. The story leaves you with more questions once you finish the game. There's neat bits about it, but it's confusing or leaving too much up to your imagination. They don't really explain some things basically. But the combat is decent, gameplay is great, puzzles are plentiful and awesome. Way more good than bad. Recommended for fans of the genre!
Now as I'm drunk as shit, I'm playing Dead or Alive 6 on PC against the computer opponents. Just need a smoke break. Damn even this "old" game looks nice at 4K maxed out
Granblue Fantasy Relink. I got into the gacha game late last year (via Fantasy Versus Rising) and picked this up on release day. It's a great game with one hilarious flaw: the real proper game doesn't start until you complete the story. The story is short (~9-12hrs) but once you complete the story a whole bunch of game mechanics and features open up.
It plays like a casual Monster Hunter. You do instanced-based missions against big bosses with a party of four (either AI or online) and you grind out for materials to improve your characters weapons. I've never really got into the Monster Hunter games but this one really clicked for me and i'm having a blast.
Played through this survival horror game Fobia - St. Dinfna Hotel made by some indie Brazilian devs. It's a bit of a shameless take on Resident Evil 7, but I really like RE7, and this game ain't half bad either. But unlike RE7 you will find "indie stuff" going on here. You can tell there were corners cut here and there sort of thing. Lots of assets only in Portuguese (yet somehow they afforded English speaking voice actors) so you have to read plain text popups to translate it, lots of textures are low res, etc. But again, still worth playing despite its blemishes. The story leaves you with more questions once you finish the game. There's neat bits about it, but it's confusing or leaving too much up to your imagination. They don't really explain some things basically. But the combat is decent, gameplay is great, puzzles are plentiful and awesome. Way more good than bad. Recommended for fans of the genre!
There are so many games of the genre out there. It's milking cow just like zombie, survival games. Too bad that I'm not in a mood for horror games anymore. No people around to be scared together, no thrill from 20+ years ago.
well, i had doubt due to the nProtect kernel level anticheat ... (still don't like it ... but whatever) and the launch was wonky for AMD GPU users (strangely running it on the Ally was fine but not on the RX 7900 XTX ) driver timeout fiesta, in short ...
Helldiver 2 ... i am kinda a sucker for the copy-pasta humor taken from Starship Troopers, WH40K and others ... and since the "Super Citizen" edition (aka base + DLC) is priced lower than your usual games, AAA are above 69chf for me, Helldiver 2 was 49chf in pre order
now it work, finish the tutorial, hilarious, launch a solo mission, fun and challenging ... co-op? hum with friends, maybe, i can't handle players dumber than AI whose only blast is to TK you
so,
1. i fight bugs (literal bugs, although more looking like Defiance bugs than Starship Troopers, not complaining, i played the hell out of Defiance back in the days )
2. i drop a beacon for a flag which i watch raise while listening to a glorious democratic hymne played by a drone ... absorbed in the process ... did not notice the bugs ... got sliced in half, 1st death
3. proceed to the extraction zone launch the signal, clear the bugs be cautious, drop a MG to make democracy and liber-tea spreading easier ...
4. got squashed by my own dropship... 2nd death .... still ended with a K/D ratio of 83/2
5. nevertheless, "Tis is but a flesh wound." Victory for democracy
nono no no no need for fireworks, afterall
ok ... DLC is mostly cosmetics (save for one mediocre weapon) plus if you don't like it, the game will be cheaper... no right to complain and technically you can get things you would get with premium currency by farming in game ... so, it's "pay 2 advance faster" and not "pay to win" in the end (also ... p2w in a PVE game... does not exist ... )
but! my cape has a grain of sand from super earth! it make me better than normal citizens! fact!
well, i had doubt due to the nProtect kernel level anticheat ... (still don't like it ... but whatever) and the launch was wonky for AMD GPU users (strangely running it on the Ally was fine but not on the RX 7900 XTX ) driver timeout fiesta, in short ...
Helldiver 2 ... i am kinda a sucker for the copy-pasta humor taken from Starship Troopers, WH40K and others ... and since the "Super Citizen" edition (aka base + DLC) is priced lower than your usual games, AAA are above 69chf for me, Helldiver 2 was 49chf in pre order
now it work, finish the tutorial, hilarious, launch a solo mission, fun and challenging ... co-op? hum with friends, maybe, i can't handle players dumber than AI whose only blast is to TK you
so,
1. i fight bugs (literal bugs, although more looking like Defiance bugs than Starship Troopers, not complaining, i played the hell out of Defiance back in the days )
2. i drop a beacon for a flag which i watch raise while listening to a glorious democratic hymne played by a drone ... absorbed in the process ... did not notice the bugs ... got sliced in half, 1st death View attachment 334014
3. proceed to the extraction zone launch the signal, clear the bugs be cautious, drop a MG to make democracy and liber-tea spreading easier ... View attachment 334013View attachment 334012
4. got squashed by my own dropship... 2nd death .... still ended with a K/D ratio of 83/2 View attachment 334011
5. nevertheless, "Tis is but a flesh wound." Victory for democracy View attachment 334010
ok ... DLC is mostly cosmetics (save for one mediocre weapon) plus if you don't like it, the game will be cheaper... no right to complain and technically you can get things you would get with premium currency by farming in game ... so, it's "pay 2 advance faster" and not "pay to win" in the end (also ... p2w in a PVE game... does not exist ... )
but! my cape has a grain of sand from super earth! it make me better than normal citizens! fact! View attachment 334009
As soon as you said Defiance you had me. That used to be crazy Saturday mornings. It was one of the only MMOs that I thoroughly enjoyed. Next time I get paid Helldivers 2 will be mine.
I've been playing Ready or Not and Mechwarrior 5 with friends and Outer Worlds on my own. Outer Worlds is such a shame since the outer space portion is essentially fast travel between biomes. The space ship is just an oversized elevator in which you can have conversations with companions. It feels really shallow by comparison with FONV.
Not really playing anything lately. But here to make a response.
That suits this purpose really well
