Random Game Thoughts Thread—March 19 - March 25

[Brian Boru]

Royal Envoy

I finished first run thru RE1, got the gold star on ~2/3 of the 93 levels. Decided not to go back over it to get the remaining golds as some of the levels are work—lots of clicking.

RE1 is the hardest of the 4 games in the series, so I moved onto RE2 instead—breezed thru the first ~30 levels with top scores so far, which is expected since RE2 is the easiest of the 4.

Far Cry 6

I've had to start doing more story missions finally, seem to have mostly run out of side jobs to pursue. The chute is proving glitchy—for once, it probably isn't me—sometimes doesn't activate on a jump off a building, which means I end up quite flat and spread out. 'Thin veneer'… yeah, that's it.

I still haven't fully upgraded my Wicked Chicken—or maybe Rampant Rooster, which d'you think suits better?—he's taking a long time with much more finnicky requirements than for the other Amigos. But at least he doesn't get underfoot half as much as Boomer, which helps.

I survived a fight v 2 tanks and 2 choppers a couple of days ago. RAT4 took the choppers… it carries 4 rockets, and 2 is enough for each chopper—not sure if wearing the Gloves which improve damage v aircraft help with that, probably do.

I also have a mod which increases Supremo damage, so once the gas tanks on both tanks were popped—which causes a good chunk of damage to them—it took one out and dropped the second to maybe 1/3 health. Strafing around with explosive arrows did the rest, in between dealing with the various infantry arrivals.

This is the first FC with significant urban environments. I'm not mad about that, but I suspect it's merely a case of getting used to it. There hasn't been any funneling so far, which would be boring for me, so hopefully the fun will continue in town.

Weapons still as I said last week—sidearm useless, and my buffed standard favs are superior to all the Specials or Uniques I find out in the world.

Fallout 4

Game + 7 DLCs currently on sale for $10. Someone here tempted me with it last week, so I must go watch some gameplay.

ETA: Fallout 4 posts/comments were copied or moved to their own thread.

 

[ZedClampet]

Played a lot of NASCAR Heat 5. Wouldn't have guessed it, but it is the hardest racing game I have, and I pretty much have them all. Racing the Daytona 500 may well be the most intense gaming experience I've had in a long time, if not the most intense ever. Going over 200 mph with cars inches away from you on all sides is just nuts.

********

Played a bit of Cryofall, which was a lot of fun, and I've gotten back into Super Mega Baseball 3.

Fallout 4

Game + 7 DLCs currently on sale for $10. Someone here tempted me with it last week, so I must go watch some gameplay.

The Fallout games are basically the only shooters I can stand that aren't co-op.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Took a little break from the daily Dying Light 2 grind to get all Inhibitors, and started playing Monster Energy Supercross 5. This season took place in 2021, so it's yet another Supercross year affected by Covid. It tends to bounce around between a handful of venues, many of which have more than one round. The way different rounds at the same venue are differentiated from a Triple Crown event is each track layout is different, and so they also take place on different days obviously. All Triple Crown events were put on hold until the 2022 season, so there are no such events in this game.

There's not one but two speedway venues featured in this game, Daytona, and Atlanta. Atlanta's tracks are very long, roughly 1/3 longer than Daytona, with lap times being closer to 2 min than 1.5 min. Atlanta Speedway tracks are also the most challenging in the game to ride, especially if it's raining. It tends to turn the whoops into a random bucking bronco affair, where your bike can suddenly decide to toss you right off, often a good ways down the track.

New to this game as well is a new factory bike from Spain I have nicknamed Jumpin Jack Flash, because you know, he says it's a gas gas gas, and the brand name of this bike happens to be GasGas! GasGas is a name taken from "Vamos! Gas a fondo... gas gaaas!!!", which translates to "C’mon, give it full gas!!!". They started out in the mid 80's making primarily bikes for Trials events, also called Observed Trials. It's basically a non speed, very technical course that takes a LOT of balance and bike handling skill to ride.

GasGas racing bikes, especially Supercross bikes, have become very popularly lately. It is said they are fast and handle well. They have a Chromoly Steel frame vs Aluminum. I've been riding this bike in the game and it's definitely fast, and it also sounds a bit like a swarm of hornets. This game has some really crazy assists though, and different bike handling physics that are harder to get used to than in the last two games, so it's hard to tell if it's the bike design itself, or the game that makes them hard to handle.

Compounding the handling physics is the track layouts having some difficult features that take time to get used to, like dogleg bends which are obscured by jumps at their starting point, fast sections with very tight blind turns at the end you must remember to take very slowly, and left and right jogs in the track that feature a jump on the apex side. There's also a couple med sized jumps in the middle or end of very fast sections which are very steeply faced. The one that's in the middle of a super long fast straight at Atlanta sends you WAY up in the air if you take it too fast. The other I call the Diva Jump, because it's like she's saying "Talk to the Hand", as it can actually stop your bike dead like you hit a REALLY tall curb, and send you flying over the bars. First time it happened to me I'm like "DAMN, did you just do that to me"? In my capture of the race on the multiview replay though, I saw the same thing happen to two AI right after. Same thing happened lap 2 then the 3rd lap I come up on her, I'm like creeping up slow, thinking, OK Diva, I have to get over you, play nice now. I got over her OK that lap, but was thinking, when I go from the Med AI I'm on now to hopefully Realistic eventually, she's gonna cost me the race if I have to pay a slow toll each lap.

Speaking of AI, they are more relentless than ever, in both speed and stability. It is VERY hard to gain an advantage via a block pass, because more often than not they will undercut you or slingshot by on the outside. Very rarely can I knock them off their bike either, and often it just slows me down as others get by me. You really have to just tough it out and survive the tricky sections and capitalize on the scant few sections they are slow on.

Other notables are the graphics, mostly at Atlanta, are WAY off. It's primarily the color of the dirt at this venue that is just ridiculous. I've heard and seen others talk the same way about it, and show it in their vids, but the dirt has WAY too much red tint to it. It can literally look like you're riding a track in Hell. What I do is turn my color warmth down to 30 on my TV, and then it looks like someone puked Pepto Bismol all over the track, especially when it's raining. I might mess with the gamma a bit too to try to further improve it, but there's really not much you can do about it. I've seen footage of the actual races on the Atlanta tracks that season, and it's supposed to be light to med brown. The ONLY part they got right was the deep sand, which is closer to white.

In summary, the bikes at times feel OK, at other times are hard to keep straight, or slightly correct you're line when you get too close to the edge of the track. I feel like I'm going off track and crashing WAY more then I did in the prior games. I definitely turned Jump Assist off, because more often than not it would cause me to overjump the last jump in a section and fly over the Tuff Blocks lining the berm at the end. I also after trying my Supercross 4 bike tune profile, made one that is biased completely toward stability vs response. I'll also try turning Steering Assist off. I had the same problems on a Honda bike btw, so I'm pretty sure it's the nerfed handling physics, not the bikes.

 

[ZedClampet]

In summary, the bikes at times feel OK, at other times are hard to keep straight, or slightly correct you're line when you get too close to the edge of the track. I feel like I'm going off track and crashing WAY more then I did in the prior games. I definitely turned Jump Assist off, because more often than not it would cause me to overjump the last jump in a section and fly over the Tuff Blocks lining the berm at the end. I also after trying my Supercross 4 bike tune profile, made one that is biased completely toward stability vs response. I'll also try turning Steering Assist off. I had the same problems on a Honda bike btw, so I'm pretty sure it's the nerfed handling physics, not the bikes.

Speaking of assists, I had to turn them off in NASCAR Heat 5 because you just aren't competitive that way. You do look beautiful driving around the track, but that doesn't impress me when it's essentially impossible to get a top 10 finish.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Speaking of assists, I had to turn them off in NASCAR Heat 5 because you just aren't competitive that way. You do look beautiful driving around the track, but that doesn't impress me when it's essentially impossible to get a top 10 finish.

Yeah I tried a NASCAR game once and it's just not something fun to do on a keyboard. I'd definitely have to use all assists, so I know my speed would suffer.

In Supercross a lot if not most of it is getting to know the tracks well. In this game it's getting to know as well what parts of it make the bike feel sketchy. The last track I raced was Round 7 of 9 at Atlanta in the 250 West division on a very rainy day. It has a very long section with a med double at the start, then bends dogleg left onto slippery whoops that slightly S bend back right. The start of the dogleg bend has a med size jump at it's apex on the left side of the track. I used to avoid it and slow down to go around it on the right. Then I realized there's a very small jump just before that med jump on the left at the dogleg bend. I found if I stay left the small jump allows me to skim the top off the med jump, or clear it entirely, without taking as radical a left/right bend in the whoops. I still get a bit out of control on those slippery whoops sometimes, but it's actually easier to handle that way, and faster.

The same is true of NASCAR, you need to travel in as straight a line as possible, as too much steering gets you out of control really fast.

In this game you can adjust not just the time of day you race like before, but also the weather. I do a LOT better at Atlanta when it's dry, so I may end up using that feature. I haven't done nearly as well at Atlanta as the other tracks, but my lead against Med AI at the end was roughly 3.5 secs dry, vs .5 sec wet, and it took a TON of tries in the wet over more than one session to get that half sec win, vs just one try in the dry. I also know that dry track can be raced a lot better than I did the first try because just that Diva Jump alone slowed me down a lot crashing on it twice.

 

[Johnway]

Remember a few days ago I mentioned the strange loud crack sound from the plug socket? Well, it turned out to be the pc.

Strangely it happened when I was shutting down the pc. There was a loud bang and it tripped the switch in the house as well. Checked the router and monitor and they're OK.

The pc is not.

The kettle leads all work so it all points to psu. It does have 10 year warranty, but whether they will be able to replace the psu is an entirely different story. The corsair 750rmi is not being sold so a like for like replacement might not happen. We will see. Hopefully I will be back up and running by next week but not hopeful. Praying that the rest of the pc is OK....

 

[Frag Maniac]

Remember a few days ago I mentioned the strange loud crack sound from the plug socket? Well, it turned out to be the pc.

Strangely it happened when I was shutting down the pc. There was a loud bang and it tripped the switch in the house as well. Checked the router and monitor and they're OK.

The pc is not.

The kettle leads all work so it all points to psu. It does have 10 year warranty, but whether they will be able to replace the psu is an entirely different story. The corsair 750rmi is not being sold so a like for like replacement might not happen. We will see. Hopefully I will be back up and running by next week but not hopeful. Praying that the rest of the pc is OK....

Just to make sure, confirm the wall outlet the PC is plugged into isn't the culprit by trying other outlets. I was at my friend's apt once and grabbed a floor lamp of his and plugged it into one of his outlets for need of more light with what I was doing for him. I still had hold of the lamp rod when I plugged it in, and it immediately got very hot and the lamp bulb exploded. I figured it was a corroded outlet that caused a short.

I told my friend to call the apt maintenance staff ASAP and request the outlet be replaced, Since they did that the new outlet has not been a problem.

 

[Johnway]

Just to make sure, confirm the wall outlet the PC is plugged into isn't the culprit by trying other outlets. I was at my friend's apt once and grabbed a floor lamp of his and plugged it into one of his outlets for need of more light with what I was doing for him. I still had hold of the lamp rod when I plugged it in, and it immediately got very hot and the lamp bulb exploded. I figured it was a corroded outlet that caused a short.

I told my friend to call the apt maintenance staff ASAP and request the outlet be replaced, Since they did that the new outlet has not been a problem.

I've been using the wall socket for the day and so far nothing has gone wrong or any issues. The thing is, the PC was plugged into the APC extension lead and that's plugged into the wall socket. I would have expected some fuses to blow etc but no, it seems its the other way, the pc goes and all the plugs, extensions etc are fine.

That said, do i trust the wall socket itself? I don't see any scorch marks, no buzzing etc. But even so, i might just replace it as it does look old and to get some piece of mind. They wall sockets can be less then 5 bucks and it seems simple enough to do when i look on youtube. Embarrassingly, i've never done it before so it could be a horrible job... If i can find a plate and some cut wires/ cables i'll see if i can practice.

PSU wise because its EOL i'll need to reach out to corsair to get a replacement. I might be better off buying another one. Corsair has failed me so i might think going to a different vendor. That said, there is an opportunity to buy an 850watt one and future proof it for a 3700 in the future. But that said i'm in no rush to buy a graphics card and no new games peak my interest, My 1070 suffices and i might just get a 3060 or something. Hell, by that point i might just be building another pc at this point.



[Misc]

Anyway before the outage i got my art work to a completed stage and it was just get some finishing touches.



[Gaming]

Gaming wise i was playing phantom doctrine and i'm sad to say we've had our first casualty. Agent Seabass wanted time off to pull off one more heist in her former life. Being a people person to gain agents loyalty had worked up until this point, so i gave my blessings for her leave.

Seabass comes back a few days later dying and holding $1000 in funds. She dies after handing me the money for the cause. Thats great, but i make $210 in 4 hours ingame time and i invested near 3000+ on her training and equipment. Thats what i call a bad deal. That said a thought did a occur why i didn't just load a save and rolled the dice again to see if the outcome changed or not...

 

[Frag Maniac]

I've been using the wall socket for the day and so far nothing has gone wrong or any issues. The thing is, the PC was plugged into the APC extension lead and that's plugged into the wall socket. I would have expected some fuses to blow etc but no, it seems its the other way, the pc goes and all the plugs, extensions etc are fine.

That said, do i trust the wall socket itself? I don't see any scorch marks, no buzzing etc. But even so, i might just replace it as it does look old and to get some piece of mind. They wall sockets can be less then 5 bucks and it seems simple enough to do when i look on youtube. Embarrassingly, i've never done it before so it could be a horrible job... If i can find a plate and some cut wires/ cables i'll see if i can practice.

PSU wise because its EOL i'll need to reach out to corsair to get a replacement. I might be better off buying another one. Corsair has failed me so i might think going to a different vendor. That said, there is an opportunity to buy an 850watt one and future proof it for a 3700 in the future. But that said i'm in no rush to buy a graphics card and no new games peak my interest, My 1070 suffices and i might just get a 3060 or something. Hell, by that point i might just be building another pc at this point.



[Misc]

Anyway before the outage i got my art work to a completed stage and it was just get some finishing touches.



[Gaming]

Gaming wise i was playing phantom doctrine and i'm sad to say we've had our first casualty. Agent Seabass wanted time off to pull off one more heist in her former life. Being a people person to gain agents loyalty had worked up until this point, so i gave my blessings for her leave.

Seabass comes back a few days later dying and holding $1000 in funds. She dies after handing me the money for the cause. Thats great, but i make $210 in 4 hours ingame time and i invested near 3000+ on her training and equipment. Thats what i call a bad deal. That said a thought did a occur why i didn't just load a save and rolled the dice again to see if the outcome changed or not...

Just make sure you locate your breaker panel, or fuse box if the place is ancient, and cut off the power for that wall socket circuit BEFORE replacing it. Each breaker/fuse is typically labeled as to what part of the house it's circuit pertains to.

 

[Johnway]

Just make sure you locate your breaker panel, or fuse box if the place is ancient, and cut off the power for that wall socket circuit BEFORE replacing it. Each breaker/fuse is typically labeled as to what part of the house it's circuit pertains to.

Yeah i'll be turning off the power at the fuse box to disable power to the plug socket(s) before i start work. I'll probably buy a tool to confirm the exact one. (i don't remember which one i flipped back on). Oh and telling family members that i'll be turning it off temporarily. Don't want them to turn it back on when i'm working on it...

 

[Rolfil]

Played through Shadow of The Tomb Raider - had far too much story telling and cut scenes for my liking. Came across House Builder. Still in Early Access but is a pretty good game if you like the Renovation/Build/Simulator type games.

 

[Pifanjr]

I played a bit more of DUSKERS. I finally managed to clear the starting galaxy (well, as much as feasible) and moved on to the next one. At which point I discovered I was basically playing the tutorial so far, as it immediately got much harder. It doesn't help that I lost all but one of my drones not too long before the jump to the second galaxy, so I'm really short on drone upgrades.

I looked online to see if the jump in difficulty was normal and it turns out it is. I'm not a big fan of how much more time-sensitive the game becomes once you reach the second universe, I would have preferred having more time to plan and move around. It also turns out the little snippets of lore don't actually lead to an answer as to what happened to everyone else, which is disappointing. I wouldn't have minded the increased difficulty as much if I knew I was getting a wrap-up of the story in return, but now I don't really have a reason to keep playing.

I did enjoy my time so far though. If you got the game for free I would definitely recommend checking it out.

 

[ZedClampet]

Having a really hard time keeping my enthusiasm up for NASCAR Heat 5. Because the game doesn't give you enough information, I accidentally was forced into joining a Cup team instead of starting my own, and it's not a good Cup team, which means it's impossible for me to win races. The goal for the season is top 20 finishes, but that's annoying to shoot for, so I've been running only 1 or 2 races a day. Meanwhile, however, I'm building up my finances so I can start my own team at the end of the year. There is actually an option to simulate races instead of actually running them, but then it just puts me in the bottom 5 each race and I don't earn as much money.

***********

Been playing some Cryofall. It's okay, but it gives you missions like "Visit the barren wastes," but doesn't give you any clues as to where they are, so you have to wander all across the huge map trying to figure out where you are supposed to go, basically setting out in a random direction and hoping you come across it.

 

[Pifanjr]

I decided to uninstall DUSKERS and move on to the newest freebie from Epic: Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War. I decided to just jump in and the game does a pretty good job at explaining what to do, so that was nice. I haven't gotten very far yet, but so far it reminds me of Warlock: Masters of the Arcane, in that it also seems like a more combat focused version of Civilization. Which is fine by me, I quite liked Warlock: Masters of the Arcane. It doesn't have the same level of replayability of Civilization, but it should still be good for several dozens of hours of fun.

 

[ZedClampet]

I decided to uninstall DUSKERS and move on to the newest freebie from Epic: Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War. I decided to just jump in and the game does a pretty good job at explaining what to do, so that was nice. I haven't gotten very far yet, but so far it reminds me of Warlock: Masters of the Arcane, in that it also seems like a more combat focused version of Civilization. Which is fine by me, I quite liked Warlock: Masters of the Arcane. It doesn't have the same level of replayability of Civilization, but it should still be good for several dozens of hours of fun.

I like it. My only complaint was that the combat was relentless pretty quickly.

 

[Frindis]

Epic Games will most likely have a spring sale in two days. I need to compose myself and wait before throwing money at this game: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/tchia. Tchia looks absolutely fantastic. It is the game I have been waiting for since I never got that switch for playing
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Biomutant flopped big time.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d-5T_cAT7Y

 

[ZedClampet]

Epic Games will most likely have a spring sale in two days. I need to compose myself and wait before throwing money at this game: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/tchia. Tchia looks absolutely fantastic. It is the game I have been waiting for since I never got that switch for playing
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Biomutant flopped big time.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d-5T_cAT7Y

Got a fantastic review on PCG. Scored a 90.

 

[ZedClampet]

Gawd, I feel so lazy. Guido is out of town, and I promised him I would work on some Warhammer 3 mods that he downloaded but don't work, and I just am not feeling it.

Modders aren't keeping their TWW3 mods up-to-date, and it's just killing him, so I told him to make his ideal mod-pack, and I would recreate the mods for him, but every time I open the pack file manager, I think, "Yeah, maybe I'll do this tomorrow." Problem is that he's coming back tomorrow..

Thing is, some of these mods aren't simple database adjustments and involve scripting, which takes me awhile because I have no idea what I'm doing.

*sigh*

Guess now is the time. I'M GOING IN!

 

[Pifanjr]

I like it. My only complaint was that the combat was relentless pretty quickly.

I played a bit more and I'm a bit disappointed in the limited customizability of the units, especially the leader units. Warlock: Masters of the Arcane has a ton of perks you can stack on units with special resources, level up perks and artifact items. Plus more buffs you can get with spells and unit abilities. Gladius doesn't give regular units any perks on level up and the leader units only have a couple of abilities. At least research can unlock extra abilities and buffs for regular units.

 

[ZedClampet]

I played a bit more and I'm a bit disappointed in the limited customizability of the units, especially the leader units. Warlock: Masters of the Arcane has a ton of perks you can stack on units with special resources, level up perks and artifact items. Plus more buffs you can get with spells and unit abilities. Gladius doesn't give regular units any perks on level up and the leader units only have a couple of abilities. At least research can unlock extra abilities and buffs for regular units.

I really haven't played games like this unless you count Civ and Total War, so I'm not as picky : ) Was looking for a game during the Steam sale that was a good mix of strategy and tactics, and I really couldn't settle on one, so any recommendations would be appreciated.

 

[Johnway]

I like it. My only complaint was that the combat was relentless pretty quickly.

I remember playing it for a bit and leaving somewhat underwhelmed by the whole thing tbh. The main one being that strategy all boiled down to "kill them all", no diplomacy to speak of. Which is a strange thing to say considering all my 4x games usually end in "kill them all" and its wh40k so there is only war...

I think having the options for diplomacy being missing makes it feel a bit light weight. The other one is probably the individual nature of the campaign. No competing with other factions to look for a special item, global event etc besides hording resources. I might be wrong though...

Speaking of light weight, the lack of unit types was a bit disappointing. Again, i didn't play enough of it to determine whether every unit useful vs lore friendly/relevant but when i see DLC for units coming out, i suspect there was scope for more, but they want the customer to pay for it. But it seems like most of the stuff is there.

The lack of factions is another thing, with only 4 in the base game i think its a bit light weight. Probably just me, as chances are i would lament the lack of factions and probably play one faction, have my fill and never play the again and if i bought all the factions i would be wasting money.

All the additional DLC is just optional choices and for factions i don't really care for. Of course, it might be a different story if your fav faction wasn't in the game and expected you to cough up more money...

 

[Pifanjr]

I really haven't played games like this unless you count Civ and Total War, so I'm not as picky : ) Was looking for a game during the Steam sale that was a good mix of strategy and tactics, and I really couldn't settle on one, so any recommendations would be appreciated.

I think Age of Wonders is one of the most well known 4X/Tactics hybrid series. There's a new one available for pre-order now and the older games are currently 75% off. I've personally only tried Age of Wonders III, but I bounced off of it, though I don't really remember why.

There's also Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes, which I've played for a couple of hours and I remember liking it, but I don't remember why I stopped playing. Probably just got distracted with something, as I also remember planning on returning to it.

It's currently on sale too in a bundle with a bunch of other games: https://store.steampowered.com/sub/123930/

 

[Brian Boru]

Xcom 2

Don't often see a good game 95% off—this is currently $3 on GOG.

 

[ZedClampet]

Xcom 2

Don't often see a good game 95% off—this is currently $3 on GOG.

If that was a rec for my strategy/tactics, I already played that, although I didn't do the DLC or the Long War mod (it's not called Long War, but it's by the same people). Good recommendation, though. Reminds me I need to get back and play the other campaigns.

You/anyone try any of these? I'm not a fan of installing a bunch at a time, but if you think it's a good idea…

I want to like this game cos clearly there's huge value in it, so I'm trying to give myself an easy intro and fairly low learning curve

I'm not familiar with FO4 mods. I find these sorts of lists handy sometimes:

Best Fallout 4 Mods (PC Gamer) As of November 2022

 

[Johnway]

As i wait for my PSU to be replaced by warrenty, i'm starting to get impatient waiting for a response from corsair that i've been doing some searching for a replaceement psu and my god its like walking a minefield. No psu is perfect and i'm going slowly crazy looking PSU and specs. The main things i'm looking atm are the inrush voltage and perhaps the ATX 3.0 factor for future proofing and i'm concerned at the few reviews for a lot of the PSUs. I then can't decide if it want a 750 or 850 watt etc.

I did have my eyes on corsairs rm750x as pcg recommends, but corsair so far has failed me immensely. EDIT: on the other hand i had a RM750i so it wasn't the higher quality one. Which probably might be a factor. If thats the case it does beg the question if corsair will upgrade me to the rm750x as the rm750i isn't supplied.