The Currently Playing & Random Game Thoughts Thread (2 October to 8 October)

[ZedClampet]

Crazy, crazy thing happened to me this morning. As usual, I wasn't getting much sleep and at around 4 this morning I decided to fix a pot of coffee. The pot had leftover coffee from yesterday, and the sink was occupied by potted plants my wife was saturating, so I carried the caraffe to the front door intending to just dump the leftover coffee in the yard. But when I opened the door, there was a man standing in my yard, about 15 or so feet from me. He was standing perfectly still just staring at me. It was still dark, so I could't make much out. He had something hanging from his left hand, but I couldn't tell what it was.

Needless to say, I was a little startled. I didn't even say anything. I just backed up and shut and locked the door. But one thing was for certain, this was unacceptable, whatever it was, so I went downstairs to the gun cabinet, unlocked it and grabbed my 20 guage. I checked to make sure it was loaded and the safety was off and went back upstairs.

When I opened the door, he wasn't more than 5 feet away from me.

I hadn't intended to point the shotgun at him--you never point a gun at anything you don't intend to kill--but fear and my natural instinct took over and I had the barrel pointed straight at his head.

"I don't know what you think you're doing, but I know what's about to happen to you if you don't explain yourself," I said.

I suddenly remembered he was carrying something and tried to look at his hand, but he was holding it behind his back now.

"If you pull your hands from behind your back, I'm shooting you and sorting through the mess later," I said.

At this point a stray thought of reason finally entered my head.

"I'm closing the door and calling the police,."

I shut the door and no sooner than I had locked it then the door handle, which was loose, started to rattle. I yelled for my wife, who answered like she was still in a dream, and told her to call the police. I told her someone was trying to get into the house. And that they were. As part of a job I used to have, I owned lockpicking tools, and now I heard the unmistakable sound of a lock being picked.

"Are you calling the police?" I yelled, and that was when the door swung open.

Okay, as you probably guessed early on, none of that happened.

Happy Halloween month!

Like all Hollywood horror movies from the last 20 years, that was based on a true story because...um...I have a coffee maker.

Anyway, I intend to go through my backlog this week and see if there are any horror games I haven't played and get them going, and, of course, this is the month people tend to launch their horror games, so I have to keep an eye on Steam as well.

 

[Brian Boru]

FFS!

You had me going there!

PS what's wrong with reusing the leftover coffee? Just feed it back into the fresh pot as you use it

 

[Pifanjr]

My kid gets bored of games about as quickly as I do, so we went looking for something new. She said she wanted something with walking and building, so I downloaded Minecraft for her, which was apparently the right thing. Turns out she had seen my nephews play it on their phones before.

However, she still can't really get a hang of controlling the camera and movement at the same time. It doesn't help she isn't used to a first person perspective either and Minecraft doesn't play very well in third person. The controller layout is also a lot different than what she's been used to from other games, which doesn't help.

 

[ZedClampet]

FFS!

You had me going there!

PS what's wrong with reusing the leftover coffee? Just feed it back into the fresh pot as you use it

Because I'm not cheap and leftover coffee tastes bad. I was in either Target or Walmart one time buying coffee filters, and some really old guy came up to me and asked me if I wanted to know a secret. I said that I did, and he told me that you could use the same coffee grounds all week. Just don't replace them and put more water in. I tried to act impressed with this revelation.

Another time I was at the hospital at around 7 in the morning and a nurse came up to me and told me that there was plenty of coffee left over from yesterday and that I could microwave myself a cup. I just nodded and thought, "You charge $20 for a Tylenol, but I can't make a fresh pot of coffee?" They had a coffee shop on the ground floor, so I went down there,

 

[Brian Boru]

Snob!
That was my uncle and niece you met

 

[Brian Boru]

@ZedClampet & @Pifanjr were discussing GOG closing & maybe losing your games. Just saw this in Galaxy:

 

[ZedClampet]

My kid gets bored of games about as quickly as I do, so we went looking for something new. She said she wanted something with walking and building, so I downloaded Minecraft for her, which was apparently the right thing. Turns out she had seen my nephews play it on their phones before.

However, she still can't really get a hang of controlling the camera and movement at the same time. It doesn't help she isn't used to a first person perspective either and Minecraft doesn't play very well in third person. The controller layout is also a lot different than what she's been used to from other games, which doesn't help.

Do you have Game Pass?

 

[ZedClampet]

@ZedClampet & @Pifanjr were discussing GOG closing & maybe losing your games. Just saw this in Galaxy:

How do you have an offline game installer? I guess you are just downloading the game in a highly compressed form along with something that unpacks it.

 

[Pifanjr]

Because I'm not cheap and leftover coffee tastes bad. I was in either Target or Walmart one time buying coffee filters, and some really old guy came up to me and asked me if I wanted to know a secret. I said that I did, and he told me that you could use the same coffee grounds all week. Just don't replace them and put more water in. I tried to act impressed with this revelation.

Another time I was at the hospital at around 7 in the morning and a nurse came up to me and told me that there was plenty of coffee leftover from yesterday and that I could microwave myself a cup. I just nodded and thought, "You charge $20 for a Tylenol, but I can't make a fresh pot of coffee?" They had a coffee shop on the ground floor, so I went down there,

It's crazy to me that people see no issue with caffeine dependency when they're willing to subject themselves to stuff like this. Or am I vastly overestimating how disgusting week old coffee grounds are?

Do you have Game Pass?

No, why do you ask?

How do you have an offline game installer? I guess you are just downloading the game in a highly compressed form along with something that unpacks it.

It works the same as the installers that discs (used to) have, I assume. So yes, it's just the compressed files and some instructions for registry keys and such.

 

[ZedClampet]

There's nothing I enjoy more than really taking my time and uglifying what was once a perfectly beautiful Ferrari.

And the same sort of thing on a McLaren

 

[ZedClampet]

It's crazy to me that people see no issue with caffeine dependency when they're willing to subject themselves to stuff like this. Or am I vastly overestimating how disgusting week old coffee grounds are?

IDK but I assume it would be mostly mold and bacteria at that point.

No, why do you ask?

I thought she could try Disney Dreamlight Valley. I wouldn't really recommend it if you had to buy it because I've never seen her play games, but from reading your descriptions she would need a lot of help for some things.. But if you got it as a part of Game Pass, she'd probably have a lot of fun doing stuff like fishing with Goofy and gardening with Mickey.

 

[Pifanjr]

I thought she could try Disney Dreamlight Valley. I wouldn't really recommend it if you had to buy it because I've never seen her play games, but from reading your descriptions she would need a lot of help for some things.. But if you got it as a part of Game Pass, she'd probably have a lot of fun doing stuff like fishing with Goofy and gardening with Mickey.

Ah, yeah, I don't think I'll be able to get that through family sharing from any of my friends

I think there's still a few Epic freebies that might be worth trying, I'll just need to go through the list... I should really download Galaxy on the desktop so I can make a collection of kid friendly games in one spot.

 

[ZedClampet]

Ah, yeah, I don't think I'll be able to get that through family sharing from any of my friends

It's a little embarrassing, but I have a goal I want to reach before I quit

My kids both liked a game called "Shoot the Roach". All you had to do was move the mouse over a roach and left click (aka shoot the roach). It was always a sort of bright-colored chaotic scene and the roaches were often doing funny things (funny things to a kid). You just went from one scene to the next... Anyway, I'm not sure why I told you that because I have no idea how you would get a copy except off of ebay or something.

 

[Zloth]

GOG closing?? I haven't even heard a rumor like that?

 

[ZedClampet]

GOG closing?? I haven't even heard a rumor like that?

They aren't closing. They just lost some money when they tried to compete with the DRM stores, but they have refocused back to classic games and will be fine.

They should have never committed to zero DRM. They should have put a time limit on it or something, like no DRM after the game has been out for 36 months.

Of course, the problem is that the anti-DRM gamers are lunatic fanatics and possibly dangerous, so GoG will always be a niche store.

 

[DXCHASE]

So my story for today is that, in short, my son has a new pre-built pc which can be found here (it says 999, but they had a 100 dollar coupon). I was weary at first because i didnt know anything about "Skytech Gaming", but the PC has been working fantastically all weekend. Id rather build one for him myself too but thats currently not an option. 0 Bloatware was found on this PC too. Had 900/1000 gb available, but made more room after getting rid of various windows programs.

The story behind this is, once i built my new pc, my wife got my old one and my son got her old one. We cant really afford to build all new pc's for ourselves so this is how we pass on PC's.

My wifes pc (originally mine hehe) was built in...2014, the next one (the one i just replaced) being originally built in 2015. Ive made various upgrades to both (gpus/ssds) over the years, but the mobo, ram, cpu coolers etc. pretty much remained the same.

So, having 3 pc's was great because, as all 3 of us play Destiny 2 together, we'd finally be able to do it on 3 separate pc's, so we were good for about maybe 2 weeks or so. My sons pc (from 2014 mainly) started shutting off every time we played together. It kept doing this after all the various different things I tried doing (cleaning case/card, re-thermal pasting card, reinstall drivers etc.) It really just seemed to be that id probably have to replace the PSU or something like that and thought id be better and a good Christmas gift to find something completely new. Thing is it can be expensive, even for a budget build.

Then i found this pc on amazon for 899 (with coupon, also came with a mouse and keyboard which isnt listed in the description) and i have to say it wasn't a bad purchase at all. It was here within 2 days and was windows 11 compatible, so i upgraded it for him. He basically went from a 980/i5 4750k to a 10400F/rtx 3050. I know its not the most supreme upgrade, but he games at 1080p and this set up can handle that quite well after testing.

I also replaced the ram (only had 8gb) with 16gb DDR4 ram i had purchased a couple months back on sale thinking id use it in a new build, but wound up winning a DDR5 bundle.

It was also great because amazon allowed for the pc to be shipped with me arranging to pay a certain amount each month for it (5 payments total). Below is a pic of the PC and my son, to say the least, is excited.

PS. Yes, im probably going to replace the cpu cooler, but he doesnt overclock and the machine has been keeping cool after playing for 3-4 hours of destiny 2 on it.

 

[Zloth]

The opening theme to Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has been driving me crazy very quickly. It sounds a lot like.... SOMETHING until the orchestra comes in. I think a game from Amplitude? The first notes of Endless Legend match (even if the beat doesn't) but I could swear there was a song that was a better match.

Of course, the problem is that the anti-DRM gamers are lunatic fanatics and possibly dangerous, so GoG will always be a niche store.

I'm pretty sure the company owners are part of that group.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'm pretty sure the company owners are part of that group.

Not as irrational because they put a DRM game in the store, and everyone freaked out, so they had to remove it.

 

[ZedClampet]

Guido is feeling the pressure in our Empire campaign, and loudly announced that he needed a break. For the last two sessions, he's basically gotten nowhere because he has so many different invaders. I moved two armies to the northwest where he was at war with 3 factions and told him I'd take care of the entire western and southern battles, but he's still fighting most of the elf, norscan and chaos factions all along the east and northeast. Personally, I think one major problem is his love for tanks. He could be fielding some more value armies if not for those.

 

[ZedClampet]

So I've been having weird problems with my primary gaming laptop for almost a year now.

Why has it gone on for a year? Because I'm a moron. The problem was an outdated USB 3.1 driver, which I could have sworn I checked way back when all this started. But apparently I did not.

All sorts of insane things were happening because of this outdated driver. The last few days have been a mess. Steam kept crashing, among other things. It was taking me 30 minutes to reboot. Then in the midst of everything failing and crashing again, on a hunch I reached over and disconnected both USB hubs. Instantly, everything, including Steam, came back to life. So using my trackpad, I went in and checked the USB drivers, and, sure enough, they were outdated. After updating them, I plugged everything back in, and things are working like they haven't worked in almost a year. I absolutely can't believe how much trouble I've been through during the last year because of a USB driver.

 

[Zloth]

Had some issues myself today. I tried playing Pathfinder:WotR, but the game kept crashing. I was in a dialog heavy area so re-doing what I had done was fast and easy, but the crashes were happening so often that I would be lucky to make it through an entire battle before it went down again. (There's no saving mid-battle in this game.)

Rebooted. No help. Verified files. No help. Then I flat out deleted almost all the files in the game directory and verified again. THAT fixed it!

There are several thousand files so I can't be sure that some extra file didn't somehow get put in the game directory, but it sure seems like this was yet another case of Steam's Validation failing to notice a corrupted file.

 

[ZedClampet]

Thanks to the mod who moved my misplaced post!

 

[Brian Boru]

Shoot the Roach … get a copy

New & used on Amazon:

Amazon.com: Shoot The Roach : Video Games

Amazon.com: Shoot The Roach : Video Games

www.amazon.com

no DRM after the game has been out for 36 months

Sounds good. I remember Civ4 needed the CD in drive to play. After Firaxis did the last official patch 2-3 years later, they included 'no CD' in the patch, which was nice.

 

[Pifanjr]

So my story for today is that, in short, my son has a new pre-built pc which can be found here (it says 999, but they had a 100 dollar coupon). I was weary at first because i didnt know anything about "Skytech Gaming", but the PC has been working fantastically all weekend. Id rather build one for him myself too but thats currently not an option. 0 Bloatware was found on this PC too. Had 900/1000 gb available, but made more room after getting rid of various windows programs.

The story behind this is, once i built my new pc, my wife got my old one and my son got her old one. We cant really afford to build all new pc's for ourselves so this is how we pass on PC's.

My wifes pc (originally mine hehe) was built in...2014, the next one (the one i just replaced) being originally built in 2015. Ive made various upgrades to both (gpus/ssds) over the years, but the mobo, ram, cpu coolers etc. pretty much remained the same.

So, having 3 pc's was great because, as all 3 of us play Destiny 2 together, we'd finally be able to do it on 3 separate pc's, so we were good for about maybe 2 weeks or so. My sons pc (from 2014 mainly) started shutting off every time we played together. It kept doing this after all the various different things I tried doing (cleaning case/card, re-thermal pasting card, reinstall drivers etc.) It really just seemed to be that id probably have to replace the PSU or something like that and thought id be better and a good Christmas gift to find something completely new. Thing is it can be expensive, even for a budget build.

Then i found this pc on amazon for 899 (with coupon, also came with a mouse and keyboard which isnt listed in the description) and i have to say it wasn't a bad purchase at all. It was here within 2 days and was windows 11 compatible, so i upgraded it for him. He basically went from a 980/i5 4750k to a 10400F/rtx 3050. I know its not the most supreme upgrade, but he games at 1080p and this set up can handle that quite well after testing.

I also replaced the ram (only had 8gb) with 16gb DDR4 ram i had purchased a couple months back on sale thinking id use it in a new build, but wound up winning a DDR5 bundle.

It was also great because amazon allowed for the pc to be shipped with me arranging to pay a certain amount each month for it (5 payments total). Below is a pic of the PC and my son, to say the least, is excited.

PS. Yes, im probably going to replace the cpu cooler, but he doesnt overclock and the machine has been keeping cool after playing for 3-4 hours of destiny 2 on it.

It would have blown my mind if my parents had bought me a brand new computer, especially one that looks as amazing as that one!

Had some issues myself today. I tried playing Pathfinder:WotR, but the game kept crashing. I was in a dialog heavy area so re-doing what I had done was fast and easy, but the crashes were happening so often that I would be lucky to make it through an entire battle before it went down again. (There's no saving mid-battle in this game.)

Rebooted. No help. Verified files. No help. Then I flat out deleted almost all the files in the game directory and verified again. THAT fixed it!

There are several thousand files so I can't be sure that some extra file didn't somehow get put in the game directory, but it sure seems like this was yet another case of Steam's Validation failing to notice a corrupted file.

I doubt this is the fault of Steam. My best guess is that it was a file written by the game that got screwed up. Steam can't verify files that get added/changed by the game after installation, as they would have no way of knowing what the file is supposed to contain.

 

[Johnway]

Not much to report tbh. Since i've got the joypad out i might as well play joypad esstential games. Atm i'm playing shovel knight. Something i bought back in 2018 and never got round to playing until recently. Since its the treasure trove edition i'm going to be busy with that one. Nearly beaten the base game though, but will be trying to get some achievements before i complete it. Some good stuff, but at the same time some really irritating platforming and much of it my fault. Enough to irritate me. Like losing 5000 of the 9000 cash i had on hand from bottomless pits and spikes.

As for other games, i think i'm going to give up on la mulana. The game is far too insidious for me to keep playing it. Some people like the challenge but i think the difficulty is from the serious amounts of BS i have to suffer through. These range from game mechanic limitations, lack of QOL ideas, no healing, cryptic puzzles, short attack ranges to the BS of instanta kill traps (a kin to a middle finger in the face of the player) and just changing the games mechanics as a puzzle. Corridor of illusion/garden of eden is a prime example. of this, you have to navigate a maze of invisible portals and to navigate you have to stand at a random spot and push down to progress. in no point in the game up until that point do you need to pull mario pipe level stuff to progress. in fact it does this twice as far as i remember. BS.