General Game Discussion for February 2026

[Zed Clampet]

I don't have info on versions, or loading screens except its possibly because it is a Time Assisted run and they can react to the loading screens really fast.

Its possible it uses all the most recent glitches as well, since it went out of bounds there for a while. Could account for the deaths.

He says it's legacy version in the description, and I'm not sure what "reacting" to a loading screen means. You can't do anything. Your screen freezes while it loads. In Half-Life this happens very frequently. I doubt he's being dishonest. I'm just trying to figure out how he did it. The loads don't take long. Maybe it's possible that his Internet and system are so fast that they don't interrupt the game?

 

[Colif]

react = Tool-Assisted Speedruns (TAS) are created by using emulators to play games frame-by-frame, allowing for, 100% accurate inputs, extensive save-state usage, and re-recording to achieve theoretical perfection. Creators use tools like BizHawk or Dolphin to slow down gameplay, optimize, and manipulate game memory (RAM) over weeks or months.

Tool-assisted speedrun - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

they can react instantly as they run game frame by frame. They aren't playing the game as such

what you saw could have taken months to create.

Often TAS find things actual speedrunners later do.

Google AI offers this for loading screens in HL and TAS:

Here is how loading screens are managed or removed in Half-Life TAS:

• Software Mode (GoldSrc/HL1): Running the original Half-Life in Software Video Mode can remove the visual "loading..." text, making transitions look like brief, instant stutters rather than full-screen pauses.
• SSD and Fast Hardware: Using a fast NVMe SSD largely mitigates loading screens to sub-one-second times, making them functionally nonexistent.
• Engine-Level Map Merging (Mods/Custom Builds): In special cases like Sven Co-op, map geometry is merged, removing loading screens between areas. However, in vanilla HL1, this is not possible without breaking the game engine.
• TAS Frame Data Manipulation: In TAS, loading screens can be bypassed in video records by deleting the frames that contain the load screen image and re-syncing the movement, effectively editing them out of the final video.
• cl_showloadingscreen 0: In some Source engine games, using this console command may hide the loading graphic, though it does not eliminate the pause in gameplay.

 

[BeardyHat]

Hopefully if there ever is a HL3, it will be longer

Don't blink or you lose track of what is happening. Although the start is slow

'I love TAS, showing what is possible

I have no idea how people figure any of this out.

 

[Pifanjr]

I ended up staying up way too late playing Dave the Diver. There's just so much to do. I might be doing a bit too much in fact, as in my rush to complete every quest that's given to me I've started to lag behind in income and thus in the upgrades I can buy.

Though I do have a lot of fish to sell, either in my restaurant or just by selling the raw ingredients directly and as far as I know there's no time limit so I could just grind some money if I do hit a wall.

 

[Colif]

I have no idea how people figure any of this out.

TAS + AI bots could make their jobs easier. Just run every possible situation and narrow down to the best ones. When you can replay the same moves over and over, its just a matter of incremental changes to find the ones that work best.

Its not playing the game at this point, but occasionally you will find something new

And then later humans can try to replicate the actions to beat the actual games

@Lutfij favourite game

 

[BeardyHat]

Been kind of running a whole bunch of games lately. I've dropped off Diablo 2, which is mildly disappointing, as I was hoping to finish the second act for the first time in my life, but I got stopped up at the second act boss and completely lost interest when I started grinding to be able to kill it. Not my thing.

But, I'm still making some progress in Half-Life 2, almost at Nova Prospekt now and I've been playing a Campaign in Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront, what a name. The campaign is fun because it reminds me of playing tabletop wargames, where you have access to a limited amount of resources to initially build out your force, but as you complete scenarios, you acquire more resources and can research new units, putting them into play if you can afford it. I also really appreciate that if I can disable enemy vehicles on the battlefield, I can then repair them and claim them on as my own.

Funny though, for the first time ever since I've been playing this series (previously Men of War), the AI actually did that to me. They disabled my M3 Stuart light tank and then turned it around on me; apparently one of my gun crews disabled it again before it got very far, but I was sort of shocked to see the computer tell me it belonged to the enemy; never seen that happen before, so wonder if it's in a new patch.

Also, also, I finally got a start on the Quake Brutalist Jam 3, which has been quite fun.

Jam - Quake Brutalist Jam III

Quake Brutalist Jam III is a megalithic community project more than a year in the making. It features an entirely new arsenal, a set of new monsters, new powerups, and a complete visual overhaul of Quake's existing roster. The community came out...

www.slipseer.com

I'm surprised at the amount of effort that went into it, with new guns, new enemies (mostly reskins), new sounds, new player character and so far, of the three levels I've seen, the design is pretty fantastic. Looking forward to playing some more.

Lastly, I'm still just happy to have my laptop back. I love it even more with the high refresh screen, it's been so great to play on in general and I can really feel the quality upgrade over my using my T480s.

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm getting ready to be done with Dave the Diver. I'm still enjoying myself, but I wouldn't mind if the game ends soon and I wouldn't keep playing to finish all the side quests.

The game randomly decided to make me play several games of pretty much a direct copy of Balatro, except only the first ante. Which is kind of fun, but also if I wanted to play Balatro I would've just played the actual game.

 

[Zloth]

You know how action adventure games will throw in a sequence where you have to go through a bunch of jumps, acrobatics, quick shots, QTEs, and who-knows-what else while something horrible is happening all around you - like the building you're in is getting sucked up into a tornado? (Here's a bunch from the Tomb Raider reboot stitched together.) A) We need a name for those things and B) Jedi Survivor had one of the best I've ever seen!

I think it's one you really have to play for, though. The game had just given me a new power that lets me push myself forward in the air while jumping, and then another power that lets that push forward go through certain force fields. I was somewhat used to the power, but then the game drops me into one of these sequences with all sorts of big Star Wars ships and machines attacking, and a companion to provide yet another special power to help me along. It was awesome! I managed to die a couple of times, so I didn't bother to save the footage. Looking back, though, I really should have just quit out instead of saving after the sequence was done so I could do it again.

The game randomly decided to make me play several games of pretty much a direct copy of Balatro, except only the first ante. Which is kind of fun, but also if I wanted to play Balatro I would've just played the actual game.

For those of us who haven't got it, though, it would be like a free demo.