@ZedClampet @mjs warlord and other factory & automation fans:
Shapez2 has a demo, and Spud has a video.
Shapez2 has a demo, and Spud has a video.
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
Had it on my wishlist, but had no idea about the demo. Thanks!
just been scanning steam and an RTS game that has attracted my attention is Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance. Play as the human resistance to face off against the machines and other resistance factions:
store.steampowered.com
Colour me interested. Wouldn't mind a demo to play.
Save 10% on Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance on Steam
Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance is not just a game; it's an adrenaline-fueled journey where your strategic prowess decides the fate of mankind against the machines. After the machines took over, the greatest threats may not come from the machines but rather from other human survivors.
Colour me interested. Wouldn't mind a demo to play.
I had a peek at that on Steam—released today—as Perafilozof had mentioned it on YT.
It looks great, and in short my reading is that if you like CoH, you'll like this.
Not for me, it's more RTT than RTS when I see things like 'adrenaline-fueled' and no base building.
just been scanning steam and an RTS game that has attracted my attention is Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance. Play as the human resistance to face off against the machines and other resistance factions:
Save 10% on Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance on Steam
Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance is not just a game; it's an adrenaline-fueled journey where your strategic prowess decides the fate of mankind against the machines. After the machines took over, the greatest threats may not come from the machines but rather from other human survivors.
Colour me interested. Wouldn't mind a demo to play.
That's a terrible blurb in my opinion. "Not just a game" is worthless marketing language and it seems dumb to me that in a universe with murder robots it would be other human survivors that are the biggest threat. In a game about playing as the resistance against the terminators I would want to destroy terminators, not fight other humans.
Tbh i think its just a way to say "hey we have more then 2 factions to spice up play style" i suspect in the main campaign you get to play as all 3 factions or just the bog standard average one. i did see some gameplay of it and tbh it all feels a bit basic tbh. Will no doubt get it when its dirt cheap, but i'll wait and see what everyone else is saying. I can't see this more then an average RTS using a big IP tbh.
9-Bit Armies: A Bit Too Far just released into EA on Steam for $20—$18 until March 1st:
store.steampowered.com
2 videos on it so far: Zade 14m and Perafilozof 6m—both of them like it.
This is from Petroglyph who have some of the original C&C team—incl the soundtrack by Frank Klepacki!
9-Bit Armies: A Bit Too Far on Steam
Unleash voxel warfare in 9-Bit Armies: A Bit Too Far. Lead a modern military, build bases, unlock units, and attack in all-out war. Engage on land, sea and air in over two dozen missions, online skirmishes, or co-op. Easy to learn, a challenge to master.
2 videos on it so far: Zade 14m and Perafilozof 6m—both of them like it.
This is from Petroglyph who have some of the original C&C team—incl the soundtrack by Frank Klepacki!
Zloth
Community Contributor
For those who don't know—9-Bit Armies: A Bit Too Far is a follow-on from one of their previous games, 8-Bit Armies
Sarafan
Community Contributor
That's a very interesting game. I don't like the low-poly art style though. I'd love to see a classic 2D RTS that's inspired by Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2.9-Bit Armies: A Bit Too Far just released into EA on Steam for $20—$18 until March 1st:
9-Bit Armies: A Bit Too Far on Steam
Unleash voxel warfare in 9-Bit Armies: A Bit Too Far. Lead a modern military, build bases, unlock units, and attack in all-out war. Engage on land, sea and air in over two dozen missions, online skirmishes, or co-op. Easy to learn, a challenge to master.
2 videos on it so far: Zade 14m and Perafilozof 6m—both of them like it.
This is from Petroglyph who have some of the original C&C team—incl the soundtrack by Frank Klepacki!
Zloth
Community Contributor
Endless Space 2 got a big update! I thought that game was done, but here's the news announcement:
store.steampowered.com
They're trying to fix up the last DLC, which was a pretty big failure, as well as re-balancing the game overall. It's good to see some love given to an old title like that.
P.S. They also fixed the Dark Matters bug that made that DLC more hurtful than helpful.
ENDLESS™ Space 2 - Re-Awakening Update Available Now - Steam News
The Reawakening Update brings you a major combat rebalance, numerous bugfixes and important changes to the Awakening DLC content, especially to the Academy and the Nakalim Faction!
They're trying to fix up the last DLC, which was a pretty big failure, as well as re-balancing the game overall. It's good to see some love given to an old title like that.
P.S. They also fixed the Dark Matters bug that made that DLC more hurtful than helpful.
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Sarafan
Community Contributor
Big surprise! EA released classic C&C games on Steam as a part of bigger package that includes all non-remastered C&C franchise. What more Tiberian Sun from this package works like a charm straight out of the box and doesn't require any fan made patches or dgVoodoo 2 tinkering. It also supports cloud saves. Tiberian Sun was the most problematic game from the franchise on modern computers. Even fan made patch had a big flaw which caused long load times on most machines.
The only major downside of the Steam version is that you have to manually edit two files to get widescreen resolutions. Apart from that some players may complain that at 1080p the assets are too small and at lower resolutions the graphics quality is much worse than it should be. This is caused by the fact that the game runs always in 1920x1080 (no matter what you choose) and brutally scales everything to the chosen resolution. This means that 720p or even 800x600 is simply zoomed to fit vertical pixel number of 1080. But that's not a huge problem, if we consider the fact that the game finally works as intended after all those years.
I haven't checked the other games from the package yet, but I expect that Red Alert 2 will work in a similar way. I also hope that C&C: Renegade also works without any problems on modern PC.
store.steampowered.com
The only major downside of the Steam version is that you have to manually edit two files to get widescreen resolutions. Apart from that some players may complain that at 1080p the assets are too small and at lower resolutions the graphics quality is much worse than it should be. This is caused by the fact that the game runs always in 1920x1080 (no matter what you choose) and brutally scales everything to the chosen resolution. This means that 720p or even 800x600 is simply zoomed to fit vertical pixel number of 1080. But that's not a huge problem, if we consider the fact that the game finally works as intended after all those years.
I haven't checked the other games from the package yet, but I expect that Red Alert 2 will work in a similar way. I also hope that C&C: Renegade also works without any problems on modern PC.
Command & Conquer™ The Ultimate Collection on Steam
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Great news about TS. I don't suppose the Steam versions get rid of the EA launcher, do they?
Sarafan
Community Contributor
Actually they did. Not sure about C&C4, which relies on network infrastructure, but Tiberian Sun works without EA launcher. Only Steam required. I suppose that this applies to every other C&C game from the package (apart from the mentioned C&C4).
Sarafan
Community Contributor
I've decided to tinker a little with the files from the newest Tiberian Sun re-release. It appears that the game uses a modified version of DDraw wrapper that is used to make Rogue Spear (and some other games) working on modern hardware. This allowed me to add a parameter that forces the game to launch natively in lower resolutions than 1080p.
To make the game run in widescreen you have to edit DDrawCompat.ini. Simply in the line "SupportedResolutions" add the resolutions that you want to play with. This will not make the appropriate resolutions appear in game menu however. To apply specific resolution you have to edit SUN.INI as well. Under "Video" section there are lines "ScreenWidth" and "ScreenHeight". Just put the desired values there.
However, as I noted in one of my previous posts, this doesn't actually force the game to run natively in 720p for example. It will still launch in your desktop resolution and simply scale the lower resolution to 1080p. The graphics quality is much worse this way than running the game natively in lower res. To force lower native resolution add in the file DDrawCompat.ini line "DisplayResolution =1280x720" (of course with values of your desired res). And voila! It just works! You have a fully compatible Tiberian Sun without any quirks from fan made patches or dgVoodoo2 and with proper graphics quality. Just be sure that the same resolution values are put in SUN.INI.
There are people who will prefer the scaled version though because it's a lot more pixelated. It gives a feeling of an RTS game from mid 90s or even predating this time. It has some charm without doubts. Especially if you pair it with 800x600 or 640x480 resolutions. You can also for example tinker a little with the scaling method used by the wrapper to make it more pixelated or blurred. It all comes down to modifying or adding specific lines and parameters to DDrawCompat.ini: https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/wiki/Configuration.
Have fun Commanders!
To make the game run in widescreen you have to edit DDrawCompat.ini. Simply in the line "SupportedResolutions" add the resolutions that you want to play with. This will not make the appropriate resolutions appear in game menu however. To apply specific resolution you have to edit SUN.INI as well. Under "Video" section there are lines "ScreenWidth" and "ScreenHeight". Just put the desired values there.
However, as I noted in one of my previous posts, this doesn't actually force the game to run natively in 720p for example. It will still launch in your desktop resolution and simply scale the lower resolution to 1080p. The graphics quality is much worse this way than running the game natively in lower res. To force lower native resolution add in the file DDrawCompat.ini line "DisplayResolution =1280x720" (of course with values of your desired res). And voila! It just works!
You have a fully compatible Tiberian Sun without any quirks from fan made patches or dgVoodoo2 and with proper graphics quality. Just be sure that the same resolution values are put in SUN.INI.There are people who will prefer the scaled version though because it's a lot more pixelated. It gives a feeling of an RTS game from mid 90s or even predating this time. It has some charm without doubts. Especially if you pair it with 800x600 or 640x480 resolutions. You can also for example tinker a little with the scaling method used by the wrapper to make it more pixelated or blurred. It all comes down to modifying or adding specific lines and parameters to DDrawCompat.ini: https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/wiki/Configuration.
Have fun Commanders!
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Sarafan
Community Contributor
I've found a series of videos on YouTube where someone plays Tiberian Sun in tremendous quality while keeping very good assets size:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V5uegQ1tpI&list=PLnCGGadjNmJzdoq13GeVHrdc9h1M2z_Zu&index=2
The game here looks almost as if the assets were remade in higher resolution. I was curious enough that I decided to contact the author of the videos. There's an app which allows to enable resolution upscaling in any game (even if it doesn't support AMD FSR or NVIDIA DLSS). It's called Lossless Scaling: https://store.steampowered.com/app/993090/Lossless_Scaling/. The author of the videos used it to upscale the game from a resolution lower than 720p to 4K! And this is the final effect. I tried upscaling the game from 720p to 1080p and the result is also decent.
The app also features a Frame Generation module which allows you to use a quite similar to FSR 3 and DLSS 3 technology in any title - new and old alike! This allows to greatly increase the FPS for free (apart from a slight mouse lag increase) even on GPUs and games that don't officially support Frame Generation.
Also this app made me seriously consider a 4K (or at least 1440p) screen. If you can play games in 4K with 1080p rendering performance, then why the hell not? Maybe the quality isn't as ideal as in 4K native rendering, but it's not that far behind IMHO.
The game here looks almost as if the assets were remade in higher resolution. I was curious enough that I decided to contact the author of the videos. There's an app which allows to enable resolution upscaling in any game (even if it doesn't support AMD FSR or NVIDIA DLSS). It's called Lossless Scaling: https://store.steampowered.com/app/993090/Lossless_Scaling/. The author of the videos used it to upscale the game from a resolution lower than 720p to 4K! And this is the final effect. I tried upscaling the game from 720p to 1080p and the result is also decent.
The app also features a Frame Generation module which allows you to use a quite similar to FSR 3 and DLSS 3 technology in any title - new and old alike! This allows to greatly increase the FPS for free (apart from a slight mouse lag increase) even on GPUs and games that don't officially support Frame Generation.
Also this app made me seriously consider a 4K (or at least 1440p) screen. If you can play games in 4K with 1080p rendering performance, then why the hell not? Maybe the quality isn't as ideal as in 4K native rendering, but it's not that far behind IMHO.
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Oh that is good, thanks for the research.
This guy is clearly a gamer of discernment and sophistication—also has Crysis and Far Cry among his playthrus
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
Automate bases to explore and terraform a huge open world in Eden Crafters
The promise of factory building on a voxel world warrants some attention.
www.pcgamer.com
I don't know what to think about this. The trailer and description make the game seem like a potential juggernaut, but their previous game, Technicity, is very amateurish and clunky. It's hard for me to imagine this working out well, but they released a demo for Technicity, so maybe we can try before we buy.
Sarafan
Community Contributor
Some people are very excited recently about the Dune Imperium computer game. It's an adaptation of table-top strategic game. The original is very good. I had the pleasure to play it a few times. People who played the computer version say that it's almost 1:1 adaptation. Too bad that the player base is not so big. There are around 750 people playing this game simultaneously at peak. This probably won't change, but you can play with computer rivals that perform quite good. There are also challenges. The game is on my wishlist. I even consider buying it without a sale, but will probably wait at least to the next month.
store.steampowered.com
Dune: Imperium on Steam
The award-winning board game of strategy and intrigue in the iconic universe of Dune. The Spice must flow.
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ZedClampet
Community Contributor
I have to do some research on this. It's so hard to figure out whether I'll like a strategy game or not. You can't just watch a gameplay trailer, if there even is one. Guess I'll watch someone play it.Some people are very excited recently about the Dune Imperium computer game. It's an adaptation of table-top strategic game. The original is very good. I had the pleasure to play it a few times. People who played the computer version say that it's almost 1:1 adaptation. Too bad that the player base is not too big. There are around 750 people playing this game simultaneously at peak. This probably won't change, but you can play with a computer which performs quite good. There are also challenges. The game is on my wishlist. I even consider to buying it without sale, but will probably wait at least to the next month.
Dune: Imperium on Steam
The award-winning board game of strategy and intrigue in the iconic universe of Dune. The Spice must flow.
Sarafan
Community Contributor
Keep in mind that it’s nothing extremely complicated, especially if you compare it to 4X computer games. It offers a lot of strategic depth though. The best thing you could do is to check it out by playing the board version. You can also try it for two hours on Steam, but from my experience this won’t be enough to check if it gives you fun.
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
I really don't have anyone to play a board game with. I might go the two hour route.
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