Random Game Thoughts Thread—March 26 - March 32

[Brian Boru]

If I put April 1st, you wouldn't have believed it, right?

Far Cry 6

Fun bit on the last part of mission Firebrand, to destroy the statue of the Castillos in El Presidente Square in Esperanza. Simple way is to take over the mortar to the west and fire a couple of rounds—job done. Just for the heck of it, I wanted to see if I could…

…and waddayaknow, a perfect chute landing via air drop!

I was busy taking out the troops and 2 tanks below when a nasty chopper appeared firing cannons, so I ducked behind Anton's ankle—nope, didn't try to bite. BUT… the cannon fire destroyed enough of the statue, mission accomplished!

So today's lesson: Don't git gud, git luki!

 

[ZedClampet]

Early last year, Rebecca Ford hinted that maybe she wasn't going to be the community manager at Digital Extremes for the game Warframe anymore. I then read a lengthy post on reddit from someone claiming to have inside information that said she was tired of the "boy's club" atmosphere and the constant harassment. That was really disappointing to me because I had watched so many developer livestreams, and they all seemed like such good people. I wasn't playing Warframe anymore, so I never checked back in on the situation.

Then yesterday I finally found out that the reason she wasn't community manager anymore was because she was promoted to creative director. What's more, in an interview with PC Gamer, she stated how proud she was of how Digital Extremes treats women and for how it had hired over 60 female employees since she joined the company (apparently that's a lot for a game developer).

Moral of the story? Don't listen to the idiots on reddit.

 

[Johnway]

more testing and so far everything is behaving as expected. Even the power socket isn't surging/arcing or whatever it was doing when i was turning on the pc. So i guess the PSU was on the fritz causing issues.

With my life back on track i was able to finally finish off the artwork today. not going to call it just yet, i want to sleep on it, look at it from a few angles and see what else i can do to improve it or correct anything.

Gamingwise, still playing phantom doctrine. Again, progress has stalled as i pause the story, get money and level up the team. its getting to the point that i'm facing enemy agents with health pools higher then my agents. But the good news is that now that we have body engineering and we have a vast selection of chemicals to (randomly?) inject into my agents. On the whole its been positive as they've all gained stats, but i'm not entirely sure what each one really does statically as it varies. Sometimes i have to get several negatives before i get a positive outcome, other times the same chemicals just don't deliver the best results. That said, i have 2 agents that are so good that they have a high pool of health and have enough plenty of movement points and action points so they can kill and dispose of that person alone. Normally its best to bring 2 people one does the dirty work and one is on clean up detail.

The cork board is starting to get a bit boring as i manually process them all. I can put an agent in charge of all the work to streamline the process there as well, but i'll lose the achievement. The other problem is finding someone to staff it. Some have perks to be good at it, but they're more useful in the field. So far at home i've got the substandard agents on the boring stuff.

 

[Zloth]

So today's lesson: Don't git gud, git luki!

Or perhaps the lesson is to mind your surroundings?

I almost posted more hate about EA. I tried running Mass Effect again and the fool thing started insisting on upgrading Origin again, which would have blocked all future achievements in the game. Through some searching and deleting of a few exe's set to upgrade the system, I got another night of play in. I wonder how much longer it will last? It's pretty clear EA is never going to fix this issue.

 

[ZedClampet]

Or perhaps the lesson is to mind your surroundings?

I almost posted more hate about EA. I tried running Mass Effect again and the fool thing started insisting on upgrading Origin again, which would have blocked all future achievements in the game. Through some searching and deleting of a few exe's set to upgrade the system, I got another night of play in. I wonder how much longer it will last? It's pretty clear EA is never going to fix this issue.

Why fix a game you are selling when you can rain down fiery death on all the companies you buy?

@Brian Boru I would like to suggest that starting with April 1st, that we create a new thread and that this becomes a monthly rather than a weekly thread. This way it won't get too out of hand, but also won't start completely over so frequently. Kind of a middle ground. Also, I have some ideas for the first post, if this plan is approved, and would like to be the one to post it. Although, ideally, the first post would be updated throughout the month, and I don't have that capability. Only a mod could do that.

 

[Brian Boru]

Royal Envoy 2

Finished the 93 levels in the Collector's Edition. This is the easiest of the 4 RE games, so only ~10 to go back to to get 3 stars.

starting with April 1st, that we create a new thread and that this becomes a monthly rather than a weekly thread

Sure thing.

would like to be the one to post it

K yourself O
This was your baby originally, Zloth and I just filled in when you were away—so you take it over again for as long as that works.

ideally, the first post would be updated throughout the month … Only a mod could do that.

No problem, post clear edit instructions either in a post or a PM and we'll take care of it.

But you do realize no one will believe it if you start on April 1st, right?

 

[DXCHASE]

Heres a weird story on how easy it is for a purchase to be made if youre not "careful" i guess.

So, i was looking at Resident Evil 4 remake over the weekend while playing Diablo 4 and thought that i would pick it up sometime soon but not right away since i had diablo to play. I put the game in my cart on greenmangaming.com and then made the foolish mistake of looking at my cart for the type of purchase options i would have for the game.

Well, my chrome browser has a paypal/honey extension that i guess automatically charges when im presented with paypal as an option on this site because as i was looking at my cart, the screen auto-refreshed and told me that i had purchased the game. I was mad at first because i obviously didnt want to buy it, but i hadnt put in a discount code to see if it would work, it just charged me straight out (its 50 bucks on gmg as opposed to 60 on steam). I thought, no big deal i wont activate the game ill just return it.

Go to return it, get told they cant refund because it was a game that didnt fall under its return policy.

So now i have Resident Evil 4 remake. I also had to explain to the mrs. that im out 50 bucks when im living dollar to dollar over here buying a game when i just bought two diablo 4's the week before to play the closed beta (marriage )

 

[Brian Boru]

Far Cry 6

Supply Drop missions—aka Interceptions

Stumbled across the Province Complete details, which show what's done, and not, to count towards the % complete score.

'X' key expands and collapses this info panel in the Map screen, does it for whatever province has cursor focus. Green stuff is complete, white isn't. You can see the Interceptions 4th item down, 3/3 complete for this Lozania province.

Red 'Recon Points' on the map give you the location of a drop, so each one is a two-step trip—first to the Recon Point, second from there to the Drop… and you have limited time to get there, typically 3m.

With my aversion to driving, boating, and flying, I was going to skip these—I made one in time by wingsuiting and sprinting, but that depends very much on the terrain between start and end… I failed a couple of others, and concluded 'Skip those'.

But with a lot of other stuff done, I took another look. You might recall my chopper adventures a week or two ago, where landing in tight spaces wasn't my forte. Well I had another look at my options:

Tried the little Buzzer, and it's ideal for squeezing and maneuvering, while also having some firepower if you want to get into trouble with it—but it's not the choice for a combat chopper:

That's cockpit view above, note the machine gun in the controls list. The Recon Point I'm heading for is the red icon top center. Of course, when you're flying over hostile territory, it's always wise to have a squadron with you:

In short, Buzzer proved a champ for this job, easy to fly and great for access to tight spots.

 

[Brian Boru]

paypal/honey extension

Hmm, I have that too, and never encountered a 'forced' purchase. Then again, I don't recall putting a product in my cart that I didn't want to buy, so maybe that's the trigger—but it shouldn't be.

It's possible you clicked without knowing it when the 'Confirm' message was ready to appear—or had a click in the mouse buffer waiting for a target, who knows

 

[Pifanjr]

I played some more Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War today. I started a Necron game and almost finished the game within 2.5 hours this time. It goes a lot quicker once you know what to do and you put the animation speed to the highest level.

I was a bit disappointed at how similar the Necrons are to the Space Marines. Space Marines can only build one city while Necrons can build multiple, but every extra cities give a loyalty penalty to every other city, which reduces their income and production, so I've only build three of them and it doesn't really feel like having more cities opens up more options. The units feel fairly similar, even though I focused on vehicles instead of infantry this time, because units don't have enough special attributes or abilities to really feel unique.

I would've played something different if I had slept more than 5 hours last night, but I was too tired to play something new or find something else to replay.

 

[ZedClampet]

I played some more Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War today. I started a Necron game and almost finished the game within 2.5 hours this time. It goes a lot quicker once you know what to do and you put the animation speed to the highest level.

I was a bit disappointed at how similar the Necrons are to the Space Marines. Space Marines can only build one city while Necrons can build multiple, but every extra cities give a loyalty penalty to every other city, which reduces their income and production, so I've only build three of them and it doesn't really feel like having more cities opens up more options. The units feel fairly similar, even though I focused on vehicles instead of infantry this time, because units don't have enough special attributes or abilities to really feel unique.

I would've played something different if I had slept more than 5 hours last night, but I was too tired to play something new or find something else to replay.

This inspired me to start a new thread! : )

 

[Pifanjr]

Say goodbye to absurdly cheap Game Pass: Microsoft is killing the $1 trial

I'd buy that for a dollar, but Phil Spencer won't let me.

www.pcgamer.com

I never gotten around to trying it, as my gaming time has been too limited these past years to choose any particular month as the one to dive into the game pass options. I'm not really short on interesting games in my backlog though, so it's not like I'm missing out on all that much either.

 

[Zloth]

In X4, I set up a custom start with the factions to be at each other's throats, so now nobody has anything left to defend themselves against the evil Xenon threat. It worked well for a couple dozen hours, but now it's becoming impossible to get the parts needed to repair stations, never mind building new ones, because demand is so high. There's so much war going on that the economy can't keep up! The Xenon are going to win this one for sure. I guess that means I'm going to lose?

 

[ZedClampet]

Say goodbye to absurdly cheap Game Pass: Microsoft is killing the $1 trial

I'd buy that for a dollar, but Phil Spencer won't let me.

www.pcgamer.com

I never gotten around to trying it, as my gaming time has been too limited these past years to choose any particular month as the one to dive into the game pass options. I'm not really short on interesting games in my backlog though, so it's not like I'm missing out on all that much either.

I may actually get rid of Game Pass. I find that if I really like a game on Game Pass that I just buy the game unless Microsoft is the publisher, and I feel comfortable that the game isn't going to be suddenly removed.

******

I notice a lot of people posting articles in this thread. Meanwhile, I'm posting new threads for articles because I felt that was more visible for visitors to the site, and thus maybe healthier for the site, while articles in here are sort of buried.

Doesn't make a difference to me either way, but Mods (@Frindis @SWard @Kaamos_Llama@Brian Boru@Colif --sorry if I forgot or promoted anyone) do you have a preference where we post articles, or should we just keep on keeping on....

 

[ZedClampet]

Played The Sims 4 this morning. First time ever playing a Sims game. Was kind of funny. Not sure I'll play again.

I told my guy to fix a grilled cheese sandwich, but he was already making eggs and bacon, so I had him put the eggs and bacon in the frig. After he ate, he walked outside and apparently people were welcoming him to the community or something. I told him to tell a joke (because apparently his job is as a comedian), but then he got embarrassed, and I had to get him to do a pep talk in front of the bathroom mirror.

While he was pepping himself up. A woman walked into the house, went straight to the refrigerator and ate the eggs and bacon. I just met her! Then another woman came in and sat down at the table, told a story that ended with "blah blah blah" and everyone laughed. I'm not sure whether my character did well in the conversation or not.

So the women left and my goals were to become better at programming and to write a comedy routine, so I bought a desk, an office chair, and a computer, but I couldn't get him to do anything. Every time I asked him to get to work, some weird picture showed up over his head that I couldn't make heads or tales with. I checked his needs, and everything was in the green, but he was just sitting on the couch refusing to do anything. I thought, "Wow, this is perfectly simulating my nephew!"

I got tired of him doing nothing so I decided to quit and bore you guys to death with a long story about it

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I may actually get rid of Game Pass. I find that if I really like a game on Game Pass that I just buy the game unless Microsoft is the publisher, and I feel comfortable that the game isn't going to be suddenly removed.

******

I notice a lot of people posting articles in this thread. Meanwhile, I'm posting new threads for articles because I felt that was more visible for visitors to the site, and thus maybe healthier for the site, while articles in here are sort of buried.

Doesn't make a difference to me either way, but Mods (@Frindis @SWard @Kaamos_Llama@Brian Boru@Colif --sorry if I forgot or promoted anyone) do you have a preference where we post articles, or should we just keep on keeping on....

Depends on the article I suppose. You've a good point if you make a dedicated thread its more visible to people who might not always stick their heads in here, so that sounds better to me. Its not against the rules or anything to post them in here though obvs.

 

[Pifanjr]

Every time I asked him to get to work, some weird picture showed up over his head that I couldn't make heads or tales with.

I think he probably couldn't find a path to the computer. Sometimes stuff blocks the Sims that isn't immediately obvious and the icon that shows they can't reach it isn't very clear either.

Depends on the article I suppose. You've a good point if you make a dedicated thread its more visible to people who might not always stick their heads in here, so that sounds better to me. Its not against the rules or anything to post them in here though obvs.

Personally, I put an article link in here because I just have a one off comment to make about it and don't expect it to generate a new discussion.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Personally, I put an article link in here because I just have a one off comment to make about it and don't expect it to generate a new discussion.

Yea I figured as much, thats why I said it depends on the article.

 

[Brian Boru]

do you have a preference where we post articles

No. I've posted threads for some, but mostly mention them in other threads—a lot would be quick responses to the never-endng "What's a good ABC to buy?".

Otherwise, decide on per-article basis. So I guess the TLDR from me is

just keep on keeping on

Every time I asked him to get to work, some weird picture showed up over his head that I couldn't make heads or tales with. I checked his needs

Ok. So did you check his, ahem, social needs? You just let two women—apparently, very friendly sociable women—walk out without so much as an invitation to the doing-the-washing-up party?

Poor guy is probably just sitting there pining and fantasizing about how good suds are with hot dishes…

 

[Brian Boru]

Distant Worlds: Universe currently $3 on GOG, includes all the extras for the original game afaics.

Doesn't include Distant Worlds 2 which released a year ago.

 

[Brian Boru]

Far Cry 5

Digital Foundry has a nice 10m video about Far Cry 5's 60fps Upgrade Impresses! PS5 vs Xbox Series X/S vs Last-Gen Consoles

 

[ZedClampet]

Thanks for the trouble, Epic. We decided to play a game of Gladius, but the Epic overlay doesn't work for either of us, and the game crashed when we tried direct connect, so, yeah, the plan to play failed. Also, I've played it on Steam and never had any problems with the game, but the Epic version won't shut down at all for either of us. You try to shut the game down, and it just hangs there until it crashes a few minutes later.

 

[Brian Boru]

Fun 17m video from Gameranx:

20 Things You CAN'T STOP Doing in Video Games

Got me on at least 15 of 'em, how about you?

 

[Zloth]

Got me on at least 15 of 'em, how about you?

Now there's one that can be a topic.

20. No, only if I think there's a strong chance the barrel will be used against me. Ammo is too valuable and there's a SLIGHT chance I can use that barrel against some future enemy.

19. Sometimes. DEFINITELY save first - I've gotten stuck in geometry far too often.

18. A little but, if it doesn't work... ugh. Try it the second time I start the game, too - sometimes you only have to watch those things the first time. I've "modded" games to get rid of those things lots of times.

17. Errrrr, no. But the entry made me think of that Dead or Alive song. Not the game, the group.

16. Hell yeah! (And, every time I see Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, I have to yell out "Das Boot!!")

15. Yeah, mostly. If I'm worried about getting slowed down, I might consider leaving it then coming back later to pick it up.

14. Yeah. That's the sign of a smart gamer. You see this?

It means check around the room and make certain there's no other way to go. If there is, take it. It might even be smart to turn around and go back out the door you came in to see if anything changed.

13. Uhhhh, no, don't think I've done that since Half Life 2. (And I used the crow bar - I ain't wastin' ammo like that!)

12. Yeah, I guess? It doesn't seem like many games make it optional. Either you have to go in or you can't go in (or the water kills you the instant you touch it).

11. Are you MAD!?!? Well, in some games you are clearly supposed to be crazy, but normally lava means instant death! (Very important in South Park: The Fractured But Whole!)

10. I check out all the rooms as I go in. (Exception: see #15)

9. Heck yeah. Especially in JRPGs.

8. I ammo hoard, but not like that! Leave that ammo clip behind! Then, when you need to reload, you run back to that spot and get the ammo. If there happens to be ammo right in front of you when you need to reload, run back to the ammo clip anyway. {I'm even worse about healing items.}

7. Do I learn a lesson? Yes! I learn to not pick up health stuff pointlessly. That way I can use my potion in this difficult battle, run back several rooms, and pick up the one I left there! If I haven't been able to do that, I've got a special save game name ("Ouch") for saving after I've been hurt bad and I'm not sure if I can survive.

6. !?!? No.

5. Did you hear that little "you didn't do a regular save" bit? That ain't likely to happen. I save a LOT. If I find I got to a boss too early, I go back a save or two and play on. (If it's a grind, I consider quitting.)

4. Whaaa!? No.

3. Rarely. I'm more likely to run around wearing a mish-mash of different armors to get a +1 bonus. Though, now that I think about it, that may be changing as the graphics in games get nicer.

2. Well, I make finding quick travel points a priority, but not that much of a priority! So no.

1. Not even once. But I don't game on a couch or sitting in a La-Z-Boy chair, either.

 

[ZedClampet]

Tech luminaries including Musk and Wozniak beg AI pioneers to hit the brakes

PC Gamer Article