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Gideon Weems
Member #3,925
October 2003

Quote:

Two days without a post! :o

Everyone was awestruck by the beauty of Edgar's bloblobloblob.

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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Probably hypnotized! ;)

---
“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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Johan Halmén
Member #1,550
September 2001

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Years of thorough research have revealed that the red "x" that closes a window, really isn't red, but white on red background.

Years of thorough research have revealed that what people find beautiful about the Mandelbrot set is not the set itself, but all the rest.

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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So I'm playing Vampire The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Anyone play any cool games?

video

It's SO MUCH better than the original Masquerade game--which is an almost unplayable 3-D Diablo clone(ish).

ALSO, I figured out the reason my computer sucks. It's the damn CPU. (!@$@! you, AMD.) There are people who play PUBG with my exact card (GTX 1060). The guy with the AMD FX-8350 gets 30-40 FPS in 1080p. NOT 4K. NOT 1440p. Freakin' 1080p with a brand new GTX 1060.

Okay, fine, maybe it's the game. (It is, partially...)

Another guy has the same card, but a i5 7500, and he gets 130 FPS. That's over FOUR TIMES the framerate for the same videocard! My next upgrade will definitely be an Intel.

Who cares if you have eight cores... if they're all slow?!

Even if you're playing a typical game, recording with NVENC (GPU), and running some random stuff like Steam/Discord/uPlay/etc on a dedicated CPU, you're max using... ~4 CPUs.

I wish against wishes I wasn't about to lose my job. Then I'd have some money to buy a CPU. :(

Anyway, back to Bloodlines. It's part... Deus Ex, Thief, Fallout 1/2, and more. The combat is one of the least interesting/fun aspects, actually. The puzzles, dialogs, and stat system is really fun.

Oddly enough, this is the first game I've ever played where I thought "Okay, these clothes are too sexy. This is just stupid." and it actually detracted from the gameplay. Nobody walks around in thong armor. And I "get it" they're vampires and hyper-sexual but this game super shows its age. Everyone SUPER looks straight out of "hip 2004" fashion. Like they were ripped from an Orgy music video.

video

It's pretty funny. But when I got upgraded armor thinking "Hey, at least she'll be wearing clothes", no, she went from $lutty Cheerleader, to $lutty Cowgirl (complete with $ssless chaps), and now, $lutty Cop. Like, we're talking Halloween costumes. It's embarrassing for a 30 year old man to be playing this.

But you don't have to be a female. And there are like 8 playable classes ("clans"), and only the one I choose happened to coincidentally be the sluttiest. The male models are also hyper sexual.

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HULK. SMASH.

The clans also support "backstories" which give big modifiers (that I didn't know about when I made my character). For example, if you're a "$lut" it's easier to seduce people, but you can't gain XP as fast because you're dumb. Lulz.

There's lots of humor. ESPECIALLY if you play a Malkavian clan (which I do in the vids), which are demented/insane/schizophrenics where all your dialog options are crazy / odd. Like, talking to a taxi driver, you refer to it as a yellow beetle flying into the sunset.

Either way, it's a real (enjoyable) time sink. I've been playing 2-3 hours each time and the time just flies by.

There's very little in terms of RPG "loot" to get. However, the environments are fun to explore / break into, much like Deus Ex. And it's much more open-world than Deus Ex.

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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I'd love to discover a new to me single player game with story. It seems they're quite hard to locate now that I'm an adult and can buy them anytime I want (except for pesky bills and things). You'd think somebody would want to take my money.

Probably the last one that really impressed me was Life Is Strange (and the prequel, BtS). If you haven't played it, and you like an interactive story, consider it. IMO it's worth getting at full price, but it often goes on sale so you can always watch for it.

Any other suggestions? I prefer relatively short games because I'm an adult and I cannot afford to spend 500 hours on most games. If it's amazing then maybe, but few games are amazing enough to tear me away from CSGO for extended periods of time. I really just want a weekend or week long game or something.

Half-Life 3 would tear me away from CSGO, but Valve failed to deliver. >:(

I started The Witcher III, but it's not what I expected, and generally I find it quite hard so far. And not very rewarding. The story sequences are really immersion breaking too. And since when can you not pause FMV sequences in goddamn 2018?

I am also working on Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, but it's Windows only so I can only play it when I have my work laptop at home, and I feel like setting it up. Usually it's easier to just play CSGO in Linux.

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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Just create your own story-driven, single-player game. Then when it's done, take an amnesia pill to forget about it so you can enjoy it anew!

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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bamccaig said:

I'd love to discover a new to me single player game with story.

- Star Control 2 (see the FOSS HD remake, Ur-Quan Masters). It's simply amazing. Half of Mass Effect 1-3 are straight ripped off from SC2 without any attribution. (Like, almost lawsuit worthy.)

- Star Control 3. People give it SO MUCH !@$@! but it was a fun play-through.

- Styx: Master of Shadows, a sneaking game. It's slightly too long, and overstays its welcome near the end as the difficulty ramps up and the game mechanics don't scale and it gets more frustrating and dependent on perfection/luck in certain places. However, then why mention it? Because it has ONE OF THE BEST STORIES I've ever seen in a game. They actually managed to make a brand new character (Styx) who has this kind of Spiderman like sarcasm/cynicism. And even with the flaws, you KEEP PLAYING because you need to see how the game ends.

- Styx has a sequel Shards of Darkness with a pop-in co-op mode support. I bought it, but haven't played it yet.

- System Shock 2 and Deus Ex you probably know, but if not, play them. Just do it.

- SOMA has flaws but is a very scary game with a HUGELY interesting story that I can't tell you at all without revealing spoilers. The entire game is about exploring the story. Ironically, the monster sections are some of the least fun aspects... the world is so interesting, and pure scifi that makes you ask what it means to be human, that the scary sections are somewhat klunky and get in the way.

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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Star Control 3 was okay. It was a pain in the buttocks getting used to that 3D space map, but I got used to it. What I didn't like was when I FINALLY completed it, than there was a bug and I NEVER did see the ending to it due to the bug. >:(

---
“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
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Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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Welp. There goes my job. :-/

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
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DanielH
Member #934
January 2001
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I've heard great things about Indeed.

Not much of a game, but playable non-the-less. ;D

Oh! You were referring to

Welp. There goes my job.

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
avatar

Thanks for the suggestions, Chris. I'm installing uqm to see what it is. Sequels kind of turn me off usually because it's rare that a sequel is where the gem occurs, and if it's story related you might have missed things you won't know about.

I've added Styx: Master of Shadows to my wishlist so if it goes on sale I'll be ready. It doesn't immediately stand out as something I'd like based on the art style so $30 seems a bit steep. But if it goes on sale I'll snatch it up.

Deus Ex I played a bit of, but I don't think I ever finished it. I didn't learn of it until like mid 00s so it was already kind of dated, and honestly I didn't get it. Meanwhile, I thought that DX: HR was great, and even DX:MD is fun to me even though it got a lot of bad reviews somehow.

I also got a copy of System Shock 2 in the mid-00s which again I think was just a bit dated. And probably it didn't help that it was overhyped so my expectations were high. But I think the main reason I never really got into it is that it seems like a time sink. It seems like it requires a lot of time to play, and I was already an adult before I learned of it. It's not the weekend type of game. It feels like it'll take a month to get through. I can't remember because it has been too long since I've fired it up, but I think I might have just been getting my ass kicked too. I probably will need a walkthrough to go through it (to save time, which I don't have). I did grab SS2 on Steam when it went on sale so I already have it. I just need the time to go through it and realize what I've been missing.

How the Hell did I not learn of SOMA until now?! I fucking worship the Penumbra series, and Amnesia was looking promising too until I got blocked by a game breaking bug. Which reminds me, I need to try Amnesia again and see if I can get past it now. It's been a while. SOMA is added to my wishlist now too. I'd probably buy that at full price because I have a lot of faith in Frictional Games, but I'm going to put it off for now. I want to make sure I'm ready and able to play it before I buy it.

There was a sale of Steam today so I bought a new game (to me): Superhot. I had never heard of it until now, but it's fucking awesome. It's 50% off on Steam today so consider it. Basically it's a fancy game where time is tied to the players movements. There's a bit of story weaved into it too, but I think clearly the gameplay is the main focus. Still, the story is well done for this type of game. And I fucking love the main menu and general art and UI style. It's brilliant.

Edgar, I tried to find Starflight, but it seems like an old DOS game. Do you have a link where I can find it? Apparently it can be played online at "archive.org", but when I tried I couldn't get past the "display" prompt because it wouldn't read numeric keys.

Append:

SUPERHOT IS THE MOST INNOVATIVE SHOOTER I'VE PLAYED IN YEARS!

Use this discount and join me now : http://superhotgame.com/discount/#A15C9A8808EE

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
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bamccaig said:

Edgar, I tried to find Starflight, but it seems like an old DOS game. Do you have a link where I can find it? Apparently it can be played online at "archive.org", but when I tried I couldn't get past the "display" prompt because it wouldn't read numeric keys.

Good luck. Even if you get DOS Box up and run the game, you'll still need a key to play it. I have the software SOMEWHERE... but I doubt I can find the key again.

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
avatar

you'll still need a key to play it.

https://www.gog.com/game/starflight_1_2

ehem ::)

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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That's my favorite space game of all time.

Absolutely!!! It had an epic story and that ending was the best ending to a game I have seen, totally blew me away. Just do not play Starflight 2 before you play 1 as it gives a clue as to what the ending of 1 was, and you really do not want to ruin that.

---
“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

Peter Hull
Member #1,136
March 2001

You can play starflight on:
https://classicreload.com/starflight.html
I tried but I have no clue what to do

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
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Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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... I ... who are you wanting the money to go to?

The owner of IP (whoever that is), put it up for sale on GOG. GOG sells old games. "Good old games". It's as legit as any Steam purchase or any other store.

They actually work toward fixing/porting some games that don't run on DOSBox out-of-the-box. For example, Red Guard, has all the CD music tracks converted to MP3s and they have some sort of emulation layer that makes the game think it's playing a CD. That's neat.

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
avatar

I just wanted to make sure it is up on GOG with the original IP owner's consent. I don't want proceeds to go to some game company that just rips off old games and sells them.

Never used GOG before so w/e.

It does mention it comes with all the manuals and everything, so the key is included in the starcodes.

Question is, how do you get DOS box to run at a reasonable rate?

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
avatar

Electronic Arts isn't even the developer. They're just the publisher. They were likely responsible for marketing and distribution, and maybe invested to get the development done. The ideas were probably mostly those of underappreciated talents within the development company (Binary Systems, apparently). And what's more, both games are 3 decades old. Does anybody deserve any money anymore? The development team is probably long retired. They've probably already been paid handsomely for their work (at least, if any of your purchase today would even reach them; it's probably just free money for EA). How would it benefit society to make crooked corporations richer?

That all said, GOG is legit as far as I can tell. I just started using it. It seems like Steam with fewer bells, but with more DRM-free content.

I don't want proceeds to go to some game company that just rips off old games and sells them.

Electronic Arts? :-X

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
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Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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bamccaig said:

That all said, GOG is legit as far as I can tell.

They're 100% legit. They're the same company that made Witcher 1-3. :P They're not some random company in China selling below-MSRP steam keys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOG.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_Projekt

"By September 2017, it was the largest publicly traded video game company in Poland, worth about US$2.3 billion.[4] "

Quote:

Binary Systems.

Then send a check directly to Greg Johnson.

The person who owns the IP gets the money. If someone buys the IP from the publisher that originally funded it... then the new company gets the money. When Atari went out of business, someone bought many of their IP's, and now "they" sell "Atari" games and get the profit.

But if all you want is the legal right to play the game.. then you pay whoever... currently owns the game.

I have 387 games (99% were on sale!) from GOG so far. Monkey Island. Jagged Alliance. Deus Ex. Unreal Tournament. Vampire Bloodlines. Far Cry 1 and 2. The list goes on. GOG does "DRM free" games. You can always download a physical file and it's "Yours Forever (TM)" like buying a boxed copy used to mean. So I feel like I'm supporting a "Good Idea (TM)" when I buy from GOG over Steam or some other service like uPlay (::vomit::). The games will run forever, without a connection to a home server. (Few exceptions exist with newer games that call home, for multiplayer support. Many people give those games 1-star reviews.)

[edit] To be clear: GOG is no different than Steam. They're a store that sells games that the IP owners upload. Except GOG has a huge community of people who request new "old games" to add and get refurbished to run on modern systems. For example, patching a Glide game to run in OpenGL/DirectX so you can play it.

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin



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