Malix

Malix, 16 dni temu

Way back I played a bit of A.R.E.S: Extinction Agenda (store.steampowered.com/…/ARES_Extinction_Agenda/) - it’s a bit of a score attack game, but controls pretty similarly to Abuse.

If purely multiplayer game is your thing, Teeworlds (store.steampowered.com/app/380840/Teeworlds/ , teeworlds.com) controls just like Abuse. It’s about cure orb-shaped creatures duking it out. It’s free, btw.

Malix, 16 dni temu

Oh, also: Rochard - if you can get it anywhere, it is pretty dope. It’s a bit of a mix of action & puzzle platformer but with Abuse-like controls. It was pulled from steam years ago, dunno if it’s available on consoles still.

Malix, 15 dni temu

honestly, can’t remember the plot at all, it’s been about 3 eternities since I’ve played it. I do recall liking the gameplay tho. :P

Malix, 27 dni temu

Skipping straight to action instead of main menu and options is annoying.

When I started playing [game name here, atm can’t remember it, it’s from warframe people] it immediately started a plot cutscene which wasn’t available later on. I sure wanted to see that plot presented in a 720p medium settings on my large 1440p display.

Sure, in the grand scheme of things the plot in the game is irrelevant as it can be, but damn it, let me enjoy it full screen.

They have likely fixed, but holy hell, why was it like that in the first place. Abysmal new player experience.

Malix, 28 dni temu

That’s looks like the part of the game where you chase the mob guy with the squeaky voice. I recall having to redo the part several times, if the random goons didn’t kill me, the “boss” sure did.

But then again most scenes in the game were like that, the difficulty felt hella swingy all the time.

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

never mind the display, that cockpit is glorious tho. How much of a configuration hell is it with game? Elite (AFAIK) accepts pretty much anything as an input, but what about other games?

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

hmm, if the steam’s controller translation gets in the way, can’t you just… disable steam overlay for the game? That should prevent the translation.

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

oh wow. That sounds like quite a bit of troubleshooting.

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

Curious to know what happened with Bazzite to make you switch. I haven’t used it myself but I’ve only heard good things about it.

Been thinking of trying out cachy, but I already have perfectly good and configured Arch, so haven’t bothered.

Edit: 498 days? Holy… It feels like 365d was just a moment ago

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

is Steam a flatpak or such on Bazzite? AFAIK that makes quite a difference. DE shouldn’t, but… who knows.

Either way, if the change was a positive one, it’s great.

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

ut99 > 2k4! But it is a close call, admittedly.

But also, epic released some absolute bangers in the 90’s, though admittedly as a publisher. eg. Castle of the Winds, One Must Fall 2097.

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

somehow missed zzt entirely, never played it, seen some random screenshots back in the day and thought it was some kind of weird nethack -clone with occasional ascii graphics. But also the only few screenshots I recall looked like nethack, with ascii smiley -character instead lf @ as user avatar.

So… it’s some kind of game engine which you can script to make any kind of game, kinda?

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

only played the shareware, until I found out that the full game was eventually released as freeware.

Then years after I went to game store and bought One Must Fall: Battlegrounds on release day… mistakes were made.

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

that does sound quite cool. I’ll have to check this out, feels like something I would have really enjoyed as a kid.

Thanks!

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

in general: settings which have multiple levels, display it as a slider so I can visually see which ones are actually maxed out and which arent. It’s insanity when most settings have off/low/med/high/higher and randomly some of them have additional levels like epic/ultra/psycho/gigaultrapseudobullshit. You have to go each and everyone through to figure out which have higher settings. Now, this is not a flex, my system can’t run new games on gigaultrapseudobullshitultra++, but older ones? sure.

for fps & tps games: FOV.

otherwise, in no particular order, option to toggle off entirely:

• motion blur
• chromatic aberration

otherwise, must haves:

• subtitles on/off
• master volume/music/sfx/dialogue as separate sliders.
• don’t default volume to max, this is instant ear explosion if you happen to use different audio devices

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

the bane of my eyes. I don’t have glasses, but holy hell this effect starts to strain my eyes when games have it.

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

started Red Dead Redemption 1 last night, seems like just hitting esc during cutscene pauses it.

Admittedly I was wanting to go to settings and drop some settings, but that’s only allowed during gameplay, not cutscenes x)

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

it kinda feels like the more expensive a game is, the less value it seem to have.

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

heh, I have Superbook for the exact same purpose! (for the uninitated: it was a “laptop” which used your phone/tablet/etc as the tech, it was basically just a 1080p screen and keyboard for a phone).

Mine took 3-4 factory resets and firmware flashes to get working, and then the damn thing gave up the ghost the same night and hasn’t worked since… not that it has any real use anyway. Good buy /s

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

Chants of Sennaar was great! Had an absolute blast trying to work my way through it. I probably sounded like I was playing Baba Is You when trying to wrap my head around the glyphs (?) and the messages they try to convey.

Figuring out the symbols, their meaning and then using them properly to translate between different people was surprisingly rewarding and fun. I wouldn’t have minded if the game had a bit more gameplay, but at least it didn’t overstay it’s welcome.

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

portal 3

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

I absolutely love the no-nonsense approach of gamefaqs (and the likes). <3

if I’m stuck in a game (usually some 90’s point&click adventure), more often than not I just want an easily ctrl+f searchable walkthrough, and does the site ever provide.

Malix, 2 miesiące temu

man, the mention of printed-faq’s opened a core memory. I had One Must Fall 2097 and Mortal Kombat move-lists printed out

Malix, 2 miesiące temu (edited 2 miesiące temu)

Been chipping away with Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened (the 2023 remake).

For those not in the know, it’s Holmes vs Cthulhu puzzle/adventure game.

I played the original and the remaster ages ago, tried the remaster few weeks back and… apparently it’s the kind of jank I just don’t want to deal with in current day.

A week or two forwarnd and the remake popped up on my promotional emails and instantly picked it up. Gotta say, it feels good to me. Modernized controls, a lot more modern visuals, content has been changed quite a bit, and a DISTINCT LACK OF CREEPY WATSON - HOW DARE THEY!!! (/s)

Among the modern comfort features it seems the game is fairly easy, it allows the player clumsily dummy through the puzzles - though missing some points while doing so (points unlock essentially just clothes/glasses/hats/beards for Holmes and Watson - non-critical but neat stuff). Essentially you can just bruteforce solutions because wrong options get removed from the pool of options when used, until only correct options remain. I guess the higher difficulty levels would fix this, but… eh, sometimes I’m dense. Occasionally you can come to a solution too quickly, which then closes doors to some side-puzzles, eg.

spoilerin New Orleans, I somehow entirely skipped a step due to obtuse ui, later figured out that “the animal who ate the fingers is a raccoon”, but the story had already progressed further, can’t track the darn animal, even if I can visually see the damn nest, but can’t obtain the item anymore. argh.

But I guess I just dummied my way through. OH WELL, not like I’m aiming for 100% completion.

tech-babble about tech:

spoilerI’m playing it on linux and the game runs beautifully. It is a UE4 game, but haven’t seen a single stutter, runs all settings cranked at stable 120 fps, could probably run higher but I don’t see the point for doing so. The native 100% resolution + AA leaves horrid jaggies, but DLSS Quality (+ latest .dll with enforced transformer -model & sharpness) looks better to me. Kinda wish games offered resolution scale settings beyond 100% and/or dlaa (but the game probably pre-dates dlaa?). LOD could allow a bit more distance for the pop-in, some smaller objects switch to low-poly absurdly close (like 2 meters?), in general the lod-pop-in is fairly noticeable on trees and bigger structures. Let me know if there’s some ini-tweak/mod for this, thanks. arch, heroic-launcher, proton-ge, 5800x3d, rtx3090, kde/wayland. 1440p 120Hz.

Overall, it’s been a nice ride, with maybe some nostalgia-goggles. The vibes & visuals the game have are cool & spoopy. Voice acting in general is (imo) fine, though I must admit I do feel like I miss the original voice acting. Puzzless are idiot-passable, as proven by yours truly.

Can’t wait to finish the game :)

Malix, 3 miesiące temu

I loved this game, up until the difficulty ramped up quite hard and I just couldn’t proceed. Could be a classic issue of gidgud, but the shift was quite sudden, iirc. It’s been quite a while since I last played (early 2021, around ~13 hours, according to steam).

The game looks absolutely lovely, that style is absolute peak.

Malix, 4 miesiące temu

Still no launch date but there’s a demo! I know what I’m doing tonight.

Malix, 4 miesiące temu

Unnamed Space Idle, kinda seems like I’m pretty much at the end of currently available content. Haven’t maxed out all the things, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much left after this. Though I do suspect that unlocking/maxing out the thingies I’m working on might take quite a while, could be the game gets some content update before that happens.

Rogue Trader. No idea really how far I’m into the game, I enjoy the setting, story… it’s just that the gameplay is maybe a bit tedious-ish. At first it seemed awesome when I got my ship and was let loose in the nearby systems, but I can’t help but to feel it’s the “Mass Effect’s planet scanning” again… at least there’s no Mako. I am playing on pretty much baby-mode just to get around the combat, as I’ve felt that’s been pretty tedious in other games from the same company.

Malix, 4 miesiące temu

ooh, DRG:Survivor has been on my wishlist for quite a bit. How does it fare against other survivors games?

I keep hearing the early game unlocks a lot of stuff but at some point it grinds to a halt, dunno how true that is. Thoughts?

Malix, 4 miesiące temu

I take there’s permanent unlocks/stat improvements/etc? Is gear permanent or per run? Surely the dwarves don’t enter the levels unprepared? :D

To me Vampire Survivors started to get a bit obtuse with some unlock requirements (have skills x, y, z, survive this certain level this long, be at this exact place, possibly with a character C, have the hand towel on second hook… etc). I’d assume DRG:S is a bit more straightforward?

Have you perhaps played Soulstone Survivors - it’s the one I’ve played the most, unlocked everything apart from some hidden/masked achivements? If you have, how does DRG compare?

Malix, 4 miesiące temu

I have played Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous, and ran out of motivation with both. I don’t remember either that well, it’s been quite a while since I played them, but I feel like Rogue Trader does share similarities with them. Overall… I do like the game, but man if it doesn’t require me to force myself to play it occasionally. 40k vibes are great, dunno if I’d care about the game if it wasn’t 40k.

I got to admit the warping between systems and exploring planets does get a bit old. I’m sure not all of it nescessary, but if it’s there, I gotta explore it, damnit. Most planets are just there to be scanned and they might have a spot where you plant a moneymaker. Some planets have some small area to walk around and do some skillchecks and most likely have some skirmish for small-ish rewards.

Plot areas are pretty big and have (usually) several moral compass tests, which are basically: “nah, let’s not kill everyone, everyone has good in them”, “I’m gonna burn you alive because religious reasons”, “give me your possessions and you might live”.

One that really makes my head explode is when your group spots a floor trap. If you don’t carefully walk each member around it, literally everyone will step into it otherwise. And there’s A LOT of these traps, though admittedly vast majority of them can be directly defused.

Malix, 4 miesiące temu

You are entirely responsible for me wasting this weekend grinding DRG:S.

This one is pretty darn slick, thank you / [some degatory slur of your choice here] for giving me the push to get it.

Malix, 4 miesiące temu

…and I might even have the hardware to run the average Unity 5 game.

Unreal Engine 5, surely? As that’s what it is. Unity 5 was apparently released back in 2015.

But, yea, BL4 is a “wait for ~20 €/$ sale for the ultimatebundle with all the dlc”. Haven’t really felt the need for BL since Pre-sequel killed it for me. Got BL3 on sale and… eh, it was kinda stuttery mess as well, when I played it.

Malix, 5 miesięcy temu

I’ve had a logitec g502 for years, the rubber (?) grips on the sides have dents shaped like my fingers…

Malix, 5 miesięcy temu

could be my tinfoil hat receiving thoughts via radio waves: maybe it’s by design? the coating will get grimy eventually, so the user is more likely to buy a new device.

Malix, 5 miesięcy temu

…were those reviews from some specific languages?

Malix, 5 miesięcy temu

I dunno how useful that would be. Way back in the day eg. youtube had a star rating system for videos, and users gave 0-5 stars… except they found out that overwhelmingly vast majority of users only used 0 and 5, nothing in between.

While a more granular review system would be nice, it’s just the users that don’t and won’t use it properly. Even if some users would use scores other than [min] and [max], they would be such a droplet in an ocean.

Even with the current thumbs up/down people get it wrong. Give it a thumbs up but write a scathing review.

Malix, 5 miesięcy temu

fair enough, youtube probably wasn’t a good comparison, but GOG should be. They have written text alongside the 1-5 star review. Now, there are grades 2-4, but in general 1 and 5 seem to be the most used ones.

Malix, 5 miesięcy temu

Way back when I switched from sata hdd’s to sata ssd’s, the experience in general was a lot snappier - but this was like ages ago and on Windows (8.1 or 10, can’t remember). Games loaded faster depending on the game.

Some months ago I was playing cyberpunk 2077 on win10 & sata3 ssd, and later on moved over to linux on pcie4 nvme on the same machine, and the loading times seem to be pretty much the same. But, admittedly way too much changed and fairly large timespan in between to draw any conclusive results.

Malix, 5 miesięcy temu

So far, everything mostly works. Occasionally I have to tinker with some environment variables to get some games working, but so far everything I have tried has been playable.

I have ryzen 5800x3d, 32 GB ram, rtx3090, 1440p 120hz gsync screen, nvme + bunch of other drives. Running Arch (wayland, kde plasma), games installed from steam/gog + few standalones from regular installers. Mostly I use proton-ge, but some games run fine with just wine. ntsync + wayland enabled.

some games (eg. PEAK) have MASSIVE flicker unless I explicitly disable wayland support for them (PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=0), and then it’s fine.

Only thing really lacking is performance, eg. Cyberpunk 2077 with RT is slower than on Win10. It still does about 60 fps, but the dips below are way more harsh. AFAIK this is a thing accross the board with DX12 games with current nvidia driver, supposedly there’s a fix cooking, but we’ll see.

I don’t play competetive pvp games at all, so I can’t speak for those. But so far friends only co-op & single player games have worked just fine.

Malix, 5 miesięcy temu

are you using the env variable to enable it for the game? AFAIK it’s not enabled by default, and It dawned on me that I have it enabled on /usr/share/steam/compatibilitytools.d/proton-ge-custom/user_settings.py (the config file for proton-ge). But it could still be nvidia issue, wouldn’t surprise me

Malix, 6 miesięcy temu

Oh, the Project Zomboid has coop? Didn’t know that. Is it friends-only or on some common server or what? Are the survival aspects (difficulty) adjustable?

Malix, 6 miesięcy temu

if you don’t mind me asking for bit more details: how is death on single/multiplayer? Is it roguelitey-death-and-that’s-it or is there respawning?

Malix, 6 miesięcy temu

Sounds cool. Thank you!

Gotta rummage through the available mods, but def considering picking this one up now.

Malix, 6 miesięcy temu

Thank you for the info. But, nah, playing with random peeps not really my thing, me and my gaming circle basically just want friends-only.

So… if I’m parsing this right, the latest version doesn’t do multiplayer, but earlier ones do? Or is this “B42” some beta-branch you need to manually select in steam->game properties?