You can hide chat and you’ll barely even notice it’s online. And I don’t see how it’s grindy - in fact they made the base game so easy your companion can kill everyone for you.
If you just play the base game content from 2011, it’s 8 completely voice acted stories that are interconnected into one big story. And it’s free.
It's not a popular opinion, and I'm sure I'll get downvoted for the reminder, but what is $5 then in 2024 dollars? Just to keep a perspective that inflation does happen, and $5 is not a lot of money now.
However, if you're getting less of a product with a lot of eye candy to hide that fact, then get the pitchforks back out. In the end it's a matter of if it's worth the cost, no matter what the amount is.
So with the enhancements since then $10 is probably a fair price. I just figure being okay to pay $12 but bailing for a few more dollars for a "luxury" product seems overblown, but again...it's up to the buyer on if they feel they are getting a good buy.
I never was a Runescape player, but I was hardcore Ultima Online in the early days. Looking at the newest versions out there, it's intriguing, but also so much more complex now that I think I'd enjoy watching gameplay more than playing it now. Age catches up to you.
I think the worst thing about their subscription price is that it is very close to the same price as WoW or FF14, but with runescape you can only have 1 character. If you enjoyed a quest or lower level content, you have to create a new account with its own subscription. If you want to try an Ironman or hardcore character, that’s a whole other account and subscription.
Small note. This is only for new members. From their email to existing members:
“If you’re already a paying Member via a monthly or 6 monthly subscription, then nothing will change, as long as your subscription remains active, we will continue to honour the same price you’re paying now as part of our “Grandfather Rate” which is explained in more detail in the FAQ below.”
as long as your subscription remains active, we will continue to honour the same price you’re paying now as part of our “Grandfather Rate”
So you’re locked in basically to that rate until you cancel. It’s not for new members specifically. But there’s not always going to be content that you enjoy playing. People who stay subscribed to an MMO forever are people who have tons of money to just throw away. I play World of Warcraft, and I have never just subscribed for a year at a time. Sometimes I get busy and I don’t have time to play, or there’s nothing I enjoy in the current patch.
Thanks for the recommendation! I have a long list of games I want to play make graphs from, and I just checked and that game already on it. So one day, it should come
I grew up playing FPS shooters like Doom, Quake, Tribes, Team Fortress, Counter-Strike, etc, but I had avoided Fortnite for awhile because it just seemed like a kid’s game, whatever. Then my oldest son started getting into it and we’d play matches together, and suddenly I felt out of my element. The addition of building mechanics adds in a whole other element that you don’t really have to think about in other games. Granted, it’s not realistic being able to build shit that quickly, but whatever, it’s a game. And seeing some of the skill involved with these people running/gunning/building elaborate forts and the sort of battles that play out between two people gets insane sometimes.
Another interesting aspect of it is all the cross-marketing that goes on, you’ve got almost every major franchise represented in some way, shape, or form. It reminds me of Ready Player One. It sounds dumb, but Fortnite is probably the closest thing to a Metaverse that we currently have. I mean, hell, Emperor Palpatine somehow returned in between the movies in Fortnite (a dark day for Star Wars fandom).
God, that Star Wars thing legitimately pissed me off back when it happened. I still feel kinda bad about it, but I’ve mostly gotten over Star Wars as a whole by this point thanks to Disney.
I tried fortnite once a couple years back and I had no idea what I was doing. I tried to play their weird among us mode but I kept dying within like 30 seconds.
Well, double check that your bonds are ALT for the details menu and the number keys for the skills. If it still fails, you could always bind a mouse region to click on wherever the skills are and use it as a mode shift
That's not the original trilogy. The first Prince of Persia was 1989. But all I can tell you is that Sands of Time was awesome on the PS2. I don't imagine it would've felt as satisfying without a controller if you didn't have one on the PC back in the day. The combat mechanics seemed made for it.
I can’t tell you which version is the best for you (and your hardware). The first thing I would lookup if the particular version for the emulator is working well (have in mind, the reports are not always up to date): Dolphin for GameCube, PCSX2 for Playstation 2 and Xemu for Xbox.
Xemu is by far the least desirable option. Immense hardware requirements and relatively limited compatibility. It’s a miracle it’s functional at all. I would only use it for games that you cannot play through any other means - so the small number of Xbox exclusives that were never ported to other systems and don’t work through backwards compatibility on newer Xbox consoles. Midtown Madness 3 comes to mind. I’m glad I finally got to experience this forgotten game by the Battlefield developers - but it was barely playable at 640x480 on a Ryzen 5 5600. The experience reminded me of very early PS2 emulation and not in a good way.
PCSX2 is usually decent and has made immense strides in recent months, but it usually runs multiplatform games worse than Dolphin, which is the gold standard for console emulation. However, not all ports of games are better on Gamecube. While the console is more powerful than the PS2, the limited amount of storage on the system’s proprietary discs resulted in quite a few compromised ports (edit: and the PS2 has a few hardware tricks up its sleeve that no other system of the time can replicate, particularly in the effects department). Still, it’s usually the best course of action to try Gamecube/Wii emulation first and resort to PS2 emulation only if you’re noticing downgrades. There’s also the little issue with PS2 games that some rely on the controller’s analog face buttons for certain mechanics (e.g. short jumps, long jumps, throttle/brake, certain attacks), which are not present on newer controllers most people are likely to be using. Sometimes this can be rebound reasonably well, e.g. to a modern controller’s triggers, but not always.
All of the above also applies to AetherSX2/NetherSX2 and the Android port of Dolphin, by the way. On mobile devices in particular, the lower hardware requirements of Dolphin are worth keeping in mind - although lower-end devices are likely to struggle with Gamecube and Wii games anyway. This is not an issue on PC anymore; even basic PCs from over a decade ago will run Dolphin flawlessly, whereas PCSX2 can be punishing even on modern CPUs with certain games at higher resolutions. The original PS2 version of Shadow of the Colossus for example is so demanding that it’s actually a better idea to emulating the slightly enhanced PS3 port through RPCS3 instead.
Nice write up. It depends on you hardware too (if its strong enough). Some games might be best played on Xbox, so it makes sense to try Xemu. I personally prefer Dolphin and PS2, because they are integrated into RetroArch as cores (in Linux). At least he is looking for the best graphics, and that should be the Xbox versions. But I didn’t try the Prince of Persia games yet.
This depends on the hardware you are playing on, the version of the emulator and the specific game. I don’t have any experience with Prince of Persia games, so cannot make a recommendation. I personally play on RetroArch, which means the PCSX2 core is renamed to LPSX2 and is a little bit lacking behind the standalone emulator. So I would tend to use Dolphin for Gamecube emulation instead. But if you are using standalone emulators, then it might be different story.
When researching the web, people seem to talk about the PS2 versions of the Trilogy being the best. So based on that loose info, I would probably tend to recommend that one. But check out compatibility for each game in the links I gave you.
Don’t give a damn about communities and YouTubers and what other people think - that will never help you with anything, ever. Simply check out if you like the game by yourself.
Faster hardware doesn’t always translate to better graphics. The PS2 is the second-slowest system of its generation, just ahead of the Dreamcast, but it’s capable of unique graphical effects that other systems and even the PC cannot easily replicate due to the PS2’s unique ability to quickly process huge numbers of transparent textures; only recent PC hardware can replicate this through shaders; it was impossible at the time. That’s why all ports of GTA San Andreas look dull and lack the complex effects of the PS2 original, even if they are better in some regards (like shadows). Mods can replicate this sometimes, but in case of San Andreas, this was only achieved in recent years - and I’m not aware of any other game having received the same treatment by modders.
This also applies to the Sands of Time trilogy. PS2 versions are better looking than other console versions and the PC ports. The best experience with it is through emulation. You get the high frame rates and resolution of the PC version, but the unique atmospheric effects that are only present on Sony’s system. Higher-res textures alone can not make up for this, let alone the ones you linked to, which just deliver ugly AI upscaling noise instead of actual detail.
I already have a special place for ps2 in my heart. Furthermore all the prince games were developed firstly for ps2 and then ported to other platforms. I will try them on pcsx2.
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Aktywne