Random Game Thoughts Thread - January 15 - 21

[Brian Boru]

Small work surge at the moment so I haven't started any bigger game after dropping Far Cry 6.

I have my eye on Rise of Nations Extended Edition which I didn't even realize I had in my library! One of the gems unearthed during my Steam library cleanout in recent months, it's a 2014 remaster/upgrade to the 2003 masterpiece.

The unique thing about RoN is that its lead dev was Brian Reynolds, who co-founded Firaxis and was main dev on Civ2 and Alpha Centauri, so he brought various 4X ideas to this RTS game. It was unique and special 20 years ago, and the 94% Steam rating for the EE is motivating.

PCG gave the original 93%, best Strategy 2003, and runner up for GotY—GameSpy GotY 2003. I played it thru 3-4 times back then, and yeah, it was that good.


Or… if you're an older adult who wants to "improve critical cognitive skills", go for it!

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Now that link I shared to my Dad, he'd probably just rather keep working like a maniac than be alone at home. If I could convince him to get a PC I could maybe get him to play something with me.

I carried on with Dying Light 2 which is fine still, I'll probably finish it and some.

Also dabbled in Old World, spent a couple hours in the tutorial so far, seems good. Definite Civ 4 nostalgia in the interface but its obviously its own thing. Seems like theres a bit to get my head around which should take some time, good stuff so far.

 

[ZedClampet]

Having great fun with Colony Survival. By day it is a first person colony sim with Minecraft-like base building. By night it is sort of a tower defense game.

 

[Colif]

OH look, another game wanting to sell you nostalgia

If I want to play old pinball machines on PC, I don't need to buy a physical device that is just a display for digital versions. Pinball is more than just pretty graphics. Or people would just play Zen Pinball and not want the machines that cost too much.

 

[ZedClampet]

OH look, another game wanting to sell you nostalgia

If I want to play old pinball machines on PC, I don't need to buy a physical device that is just a display for digital versions. Pinball is more than just pretty graphics. Or people would just play Zen Pinball and not want the machines that cost too much.

Pinball video games are pretty good, but the real ones are better. I need to get one to go with my basketball shooter. I could turn my basement into an arcade. I may have said on here before that I was getting one, but I never did.

 

[Zloth]

The Path of the Righteous is a long, long path. I ran into a room with three succubi, two incubi, and one other assassin-like nasty that was really rough for my party. I'm just not set up to deal with domination, confusion, insanity, and other head game spells. The fight would start, one or more of my characters would turn on the party, and it would all go bad fast.

The way I got through it was to have my sorceress open the door while everyone else hid around the corner. She would cast a big AoE spell into the room and summon a Shadow. The shadow would draw some mental attacks but was immune to them (these weren't particularly smart succubi), and the sorceress had a pretty good save against them. The incubi would come after her, but they have to cut down the mirror images before they are likely to hit her, which gave enough time for the rest of the party to rush in and start stabbing & shooting.

It was working the first time I tried the strategy, but then the game crashed. The second time, the sorceress blew her save and started blasting the party. The third time worked. I quickly saved the game and, 5 seconds later, it crashed again. Phew!

 

[ipman]

Now that link I shared to my Dad, he'd probably just rather keep working like a maniac than be alone at home. If I could convince him to get a PC I could maybe get him to play something with me.

I was late to the PC game and gaming. My son tried to get me to have a go for quite a while. Then he rather cleverly left a copy of Oblivian just lying around my place. One day bored I took a look, no stopping me now.

I also relaised that all his life I'd introduced him to my culture; music and films (getting him to watch Pulp Fiction when he was 15), so I thought it only fair to take an interest in his culture. Now I can't thank him enough, I need the stimulation of being online researching and the stimulation of gaming.

It gave us a common bond and something to be passionate about. Also I have some younger friends and again when they find out I'm a gamer, common interest. It did really come into it's own during lockdown, helping families connect.

So maybe buy him a PC and just see what happens. It's just great to keep learning new skills and keep the mind sharp.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I was late to the PC game and gaming. My son tried to get me to have a go for quite a while. Then he rather cleverly left a copy of Oblivian just lying around my place. One day bored I took a look, no stopping me now.

I also relaised that all his life I'd introduced him to my culture; music and films (getting him to watch Pulp Fiction when he was 15), so I thought it only fair to take an interest in his culture. Now I can't thank him enough, I need the stimulation of being online researching and the stimulation of gaming.

It gave us a common bond and something to be passionate about. Also I have some younger friends and again when they find out I'm a gamer, common interest. It did really come into it's own during lockdown, helping families connect.

So maybe buy him a PC and just see what happens. It's just great to keep learning new skills and keep the mind sharp.

Sounds great, nice that how that worked out for you!

Unfortunately the last game the old man played was when we used to pass back and forth the Gameboy trying to beat each others hi scores on Tetris. We also live about 2000KM apart so it would be a good way to stay more closely in touch, but hes old school and stubborn as well. You never know, I'll have to incept him somehow.

 

[Brian Boru]

Old World

That's top of my 'will definitely buy and play as soon as I do' list. Please share your experiences in this thread…

Old World Experiences...

Now that Old World is out of Epic jail, I picked up the game last night and have played it a few hours today. It's still very early, and my brain is fried, but it's certainly a sharp game that most closely resembles Civilization but has a bit of Crusader Kings in it too. I'm not going to get...

forums.pcgamer.com

…and there's an older thread too if interested.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

OH look, another game wanting to sell you nostalgia

If I want to play old pinball machines on PC, I don't need to buy a physical device that is just a display for digital versions. Pinball is more than just pretty graphics. Or people would just play Zen Pinball and not want the machines that cost too much.

I saw a couple of months ago that Weird Al was selling a Weird Al-themed pinball machine similar to that. I think it probably plays a bunch of his songs while you're playing.

Pinball video games are pretty good, but the real ones are better. I need to get one to go with my basketball shooter. I could turn my basement into an arcade. I may have said on here before that I was getting one, but I never did.

The basketball shooter is one of my favorite things when I go to an arcade. I love that. I wish I had a big rec room for stuff like that. I'd love to have a pool table, too. All I have room for is my arcade cabinet in my office.

 

[Pifanjr]

I played a bit more of Kerbal Space Program this morning. I need more science to unlock more advanced parts so I can get to the Mun, so I decided to just do a few contracts that award science points, trying to do multiple in one go. Which resulted in me putting a jet engine on the nose of my rocket in one case and on the inside of the rocket in another case.

I definitely have more to learn about how to control the speed of my rocket, let alone the direction it's going in, as it took me several tries just to get to the right speed at the right altitude and then deploy the right parts. Not including retries, I did do 6 contracts in 3 flights, which gave me enough money to upgrade the construction building.

The last contract I tried was to fire a solid engine while in orbit. The problem with solid engines is that they cannot be turned off once ignited and I can't bring another engine in orbit to adjust my course afterwards. I managed to complete the contract twice now, but the first time I botched the return into the atmosphere, resulting in a fatal explosion, and the second time I failed to get back into the atmosphere altogether, leaving my pilot stranded in orbit.

 

[Frindis]

Playing some Red Dead Online. Gotten a couple of nice horses and high-end weapons through perhaps a tad too much grinding as a collector. A collector collects stuff like coins, flowers, fossils and then sells a full collection to a buyer for maximum profit. It takes a looooong time if you try collecting every item, but a lot of fun when you get that nice stack to put in your wallet.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Dying Light 2 niggle of the day. When you die and respawn, everything you did before has already happened. Items gone from your inventory, enemies you killed still dead on the floor in the same space.

The other day when I was trying to get through one mission, I decided I would use some mines to lay a trap for some volatiles I had to get past. At that point I could take one or two of them usually, but in this case there were 4 and a room full of normal zombies. I placed the mines in a row, got the aggro and ran backward, but accidentally tripped a mine myself as I ran back past and died without killing a single mob. Respawned just down the corridor and no more mines.

Games not exactly hard on normal so it hasnt bothered me much, but when it happens really quite frustrating.

 

[Pifanjr]

My friends and I continued our Warhammer 3 campaign. I like Skarbrand's faction mechanics, but it's a struggle to get any income. You basically just have to keep razing cities, hoping that you don't have to protect your territory or suffer too many losses. The most disappointing part though is that I hardly actually get to play any battles with Skarbrand, as I can autoresolve almost every battle without major losses.

My friends however got to play a bunch of battles manually, mostly because they made poor choices, which did give me the opportunity to take control of the AI army and fight manually that way.

Those poor choices eventually caused both my friends to lose all their armies and one of them decided to give up on the campaign altogether after that.

 

[Zloth]

Which resulted in me putting a jet engine on the nose of my rocket in one case and on the inside of the rocket in another case.

Did you try making jets to fly around? I remember that helping stats a lot. I also explored Kerbal a little.

P.S. Jets can land by parachute if you balance them nicely!

 

[Colif]

what do windows do? let in light...

too much glare on your TV screen?

Why not mount screen to window, that fixes it .... right?

took me 1 minute to think of how dumb this is. How bright does screen need to be to overcome all the light pouring in through all the other window?

It only really works at night time...

hard to watch tv in dark during the day if its mounted on the windows...

We need to make the TV into the window. One way would be mount an external camera on centre of back of screen and just have it show what is outside but proper see through will take cleverness.

In other countries, their sales pitch less insane. Here they selling it based on using no power cables - seems it has 4 batteries inside - https://au.pcmag.com/tvs/98100/this-wireless-tv-relies-on-swappable-batteries-for-power

4 batteries last a month, depending on how much you use TV. That last part is a kicker though as they don't give averages so if you only use a few hours a night, it might last a month. But what if TV is always used, all day.... 2 weeks? constantly swapping batteries gets old fast.

Other companies are working on actually wirelessly powered TV's.

Any way to keep selling new displays. Running out of tricks, people still remember 3d so its too soon for that one trick pony to be pushed out. Problem with that is 3d morphed into VR and its still around. No time for people to forget.

 

[Pifanjr]

Did you try making jets to fly around? I remember that helping stats a lot. I also explored Kerbal a little.

P.S. Jets can land by parachute if you balance them nicely!

I don't really have the parts to build a jet yet. I have an engine, but no air intakes and the only wings I have are tiny. I also don't have proper landing gear. There's a research that unlocks a bunch more, so I'm waiting until I can afford that before I continue.

 

[Pifanjr]

I played a bit more Kerbal Space Program this morning. I managed to get the solid engine into orbit and with some fiddling around with a maneuver node I managed to burn all of its fuel in such a way I ended up with a nice, slow decent into the atmosphere.

I then did two more small contracts where I needed to activate a specific part at a specific height and speed range. I completed each of them on the first try, though with one of them I overshot and I got lucky enough to get the right speed on the way back.

Which gave me enough science to unlock advanced rocket parts, which allowed me to build a rocket capable of reaching the Mun. The first try I spent a long time fiddling with a maneuver node to get me close to the Mun before noticing the rocket actually passed it already and was halfway down its descent to the Kerbin. The second time I started actually using the quicksave feature (which I had not been using up until this point), but ended up not needing it, mostly because I brought far more fuel with me than necessary. In hindsight I'm pretty sure I didn't even need the new parts to reach the Mun.

On the way back I managed to slow down the rocket over two passes through the atmosphere. I wasn't sure what height to approach at to make a safe landing, but apparently I chose well, as I ended up landing safely back on Kerbin.

After I stopped playing I looked up some tips on getting more science. Turns out you can get a bunch just by walking/driving around the Kerbal Space Center, so that's my next goal. After that I might try to get my crew leveled up a bit more and bring some science parts on another fly-by of the Mun.

 

[ZedClampet]

I played a bit more Kerbal Space Program this morning. I managed to get the solid engine into orbit and with some fiddling around with a maneuver node I managed to burn all of its fuel in such a way I ended up with a nice, slow decent into the atmosphere.

I then did two more small contracts where I needed to activate a specific part at a specific height and speed range. I completed each of them on the first try, though with one of them I overshot and I got lucky enough to get the right speed on the way back.

Which gave me enough science to unlock advanced rocket parts, which allowed me to build a rocket capable of reaching the Mun. The first try I spent a long time fiddling with a maneuver node to get me close to the Mun before noticing the rocket actually passed it already and was halfway down its descent to the Kerbin. The second time I started actually using the quicksave feature (which I had not been using up until this point), but ended up not needing it, mostly because I brought far more fuel with me than necessary. In hindsight I'm pretty sure I didn't even need the new parts to reach the Mun.

On the way back I managed to slow down the rocket over two passes through the atmosphere. I wasn't sure what height to approach at to make a safe landing, but apparently I chose well, as I ended up landing safely back on Kerbin.

After I stopped playing I looked up some tips on getting more science. Turns out you can get a bunch just by walking/driving around the Kerbal Space Center, so that's my next goal. After that I might try to get my crew leveled up a bit more and bring some science parts on another fly-by of the Mun.

All this Kerbal talk has made me reinstall the game. That's the first step. Now I just have to stop playing other things long enough to get back into Kerbal.

********

Colony Survival. In my first post about this game, I said that if you had two people with the same job that you couldn't assign them different tasks. That was obviously wrong. I figured that out the next time I played. Just wanted to correct that.

One nice thing about the game is that you have a lot of options on your level of difficulty, which mostly comes from the nightly monster raids. First of all, if you just want to have a nice, peaceful game, you can turn those off altogether. But even if you are playing on hard, you can play in such a way that basically turns off the monster raids. You can, for instance, build a wall around your settlement and not have a door. There's a penalty for this. You are considered to be under siege and a certain amount of food gets burned off every night. In both my co-op and SP game, we've concentrated a lot on food, so we can actually just stay closed for now.

 

[Johnway]

Sigh.... I'm working on some another game art picture for chivalry 2 (more of an obligation) but the problem is that i've stopped playing it. The skill barrier has become increasingly insurmountable and i spend more time playing on losing teams and/or spending much of the game dead. I still have it installed on my pc and i'm just going to call it quits and move on after i'm done with the art. Speaking of art its still early stages i'm still planning etc. need to do a materials study soon before i begin doing any real work.

 

[Frindis]

I grinded too much as a collector in Red Dead Online last week (around 40 hours in three days), so I gave myself roughly one week off from playing the game. Other than that I have been watching the latest previews of Atomic Heart which is releasing next month and it looks interesting. I noticed Joshua Wolens from PC Gamer not finding it to be his cup of tea in his article covering his 4 hours demo run, but it is impressions so far, so time will tell.

 

[Zloth]

took me 1 minute to think of how dumb this is. How bright does screen need to be to overcome all the light pouring in through all the other window?

I don't think that's what it's really about. It uses suction cups of some sort, so glass will work best, but I'm guessing a lot of walls will work. For a while. It only weighs 20lbs, so I guess you could take the whole TV down and put it away when you're done watching?

It has no remote, either. It watches for hand gestures.

 

[Brian Boru]

My new quickie game is Jewel Match - Snowscapes from ~8 years ago. It's one of those more complicated Match 3 games which have various 'rooms' for each level—ie it's not just stuff dropping from the top into a static screen. I find those relaxing when well produced, which this one is.

Its killer mechanic for me is a mode which has limited moves, but isn't timed. So it's a plan your play experience rather than click like mad to get enough matches made before time runs out—I'm absolutely not a fan of the latter, not even in StarCraft! I've played 15 of the 100 levels so far and the move limit hasn't been an issue.

Great UI if you're new to the genre, all actions and special powers are explained when they first appear in the early levels.

 

[Brian Boru]

Jewel Match - Snowscapes

This has crashed twice in 20 levels. Not a biggie as levels are 10-15 minutes. Once shut down, gone, had to relaunch—second screen froze and Alt-Tab no good… it let me out to interact with my 2nd monitor, but wouldn't release main monitor until I killed the process.

I haven't looked into it, and won't unless frequency increases.

 

[ZedClampet]

The AI workers in Colony Survival are the best I've personally ever seen. There are hundreds of them now, working away. They also take lunch breaks and visit the tool store when their tools break. Our colony is very complex, and never once has an AI gotten stuck or lost. This is hugely more complex than in a 2D game like Rimworld. These guys climb over obstacles to find a way to where they need to go. Build something new on the path they are used to taking? No big deal. They will just go a different way. And now I've even seen them swim. Guido accidentally flooded the floor of our base that has our farms on it, and the AI were swimming to their posts and continuing to work their flooded gardens. As we were putting down blocks all over the place to get rid of the water, they were climbing the blocks, jumping back into the water and swimming to plant their fields. Through all of that, the farmers kept the food coming and not a single worker missed a meal.

Compared to games like Atlas, where if a worker was following you and ran into a tree, you had to go back and lead them around the tree, this is borderline miraculous.