RedEye9 wrote on Aug 20, 2020, 13:13:
Steve Bannon arrested and three others charged with fraud in border wall fundraising campaign.

I knew exactly what Trump's response would be before I read it. Distance himself and minimize Bannon's role in his administration. Sure enough, from a CNN article:

"Well I feel very badly. I haven't been dealing with him for a long period of time," Trump said, noting that he was "involved in our campaign" and "for a small part of the administration very early on."

It's like deja vu.

Yes, they get way more bang for the buck with multiplayer content. It still doesn't mean I have to like it.

Rhett wrote on Aug 15, 2020, 14:14:
Insane to me that people are still buying GTA 5, much less playing the MP. It's so grindy, like playing a second job.

Also disappointing because it means less focus on single player content from Rockstar. I would have loved some single player DLC for GTAV or RDR2. Oh well.

Sempai wrote on Aug 14, 2020, 16:27:
As an old starcraft player this looks super interesting. How's the combat level of the game? Does anyone have any solid beginner guides videos they could share?

KatherineOfSky on youtube has lots of good tutorials, and it looks like she's got a current series of beginner tutorials going for new players jumping in as 1.0 is released.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTIV3KbAvaGEyNjoMoNaGtQ

Nilhaus has tons of tutorials, at all levels.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD80bzqJh1N7lOqn7n0vKTg

However, be aware that the combat is not the focus of the game and is pretty basic. There isn't much depth to it. It's fun at first, but many experienced players will just disable the biters (the bug looking things) so they can concentrate on expanding their factories without interruptions. There are different types of turrets you can use to automate defenses, along with several ammo types and weapons, so it's not barebones, but definitely something to be aware of.

This game deserved a better port. I hope they are able to fix the performance issues so it can reach a wider audience.

Quinn wrote on Aug 7, 2020, 04:03:
First, can anyone explain in noob-terms what an initial shader compilation actually does? I've experienced it before, Detroit: Become Human took forever during the first time I started the game up. I don't have issues with it, since it's just one time, but I have no clue what it does.

In many (most?) games, I think shaders are compiled as they are needed during gameplay, which can reduce performance. A one-time shader compilation process can improve performance but it does have the drawback of having to recompile if there are hardware or driver changes, as the post states. If you don't know, a shader is just a program that runs on the GPU that performs calculations which are used to apply effects to game assets, basically.

I thought that we would get GTA6 before the next-gen consoles come out so they could double-dip on sales but obviously that's not happening. I guess GTA Online is still going strong so there's no rush to push out the next game any time soon. Looks like it will be a long wait before we see any more GTA or RDR single player experiences.

As long as they keep a guy on board that can rubber stamp Assassin's Creed and FarCry sequels, they'll be fine. But if that guy leaves...

Yea that HZD video didn't need to exist. Some minor spoiler stuff but it's mostly just listing technical aspects, like 'supports 4k'. Better to just read the Complete Edition PC FAQ on the Steam page for those details. If the port is good, then the game is absolutely worth buying. I didn't Platinum it like Half Elf (I tried but failed the hardest difficulty) but I did everything and discovered everything there is in the game, because I loved the world they built.

Sacrifex wrote on Jul 29, 2020, 11:44:
As much as I want to wildly throw my money at this with reckless abandon, I'm still waiting on reviews for how it runs. The specs not coming back as that crazy seem like a good sign that this could be a good port, but, I'm not about to jump in and find out that it's a garbage fire under the hood. Been burned by one too many ports in my day.

Even if it runs well, the most important thing to me is the controls, and they could definitely fudge that up. If it doesn't play well with a mouse+kb then it's a bad port. Either way, I don't think I'll buy it simple because I already played the crap out of it on the PS4, but I do hope it gets a good port. Can't wait for the sequel.

So it's going to be pretty and it's going to have great voice work. I'm still going to assume it's a reskinned FarCry 3 (like 4 and 5 were) until I see some gameplay though. At the very least, they better change that enemy tagging sound effect. That *bom* sound is stuck in my head and won't leave. It haunts me.

Yea there's no reason to do the 'Game Pass' thing for Cyberpunk. I think most people will either buy everything (including DLC) at full price near release, or wait for a GOTY bundle that includes it all in a discounted package. They won't need that little bit of extra cash up front that they would get from offering a game pass. It would just hurt them in the long run.

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Jul 10, 2020, 19:24:
I love Mr. Esposito's work, but I'm sure his character will end up having long monologues while your PC character is locked in place/captured/unarmed whatever, 3-4 times during the storyline. Far Cry is long past formulaic at this stage.

I'm hoping they'll make some attempt to tweak the formula a bit but I doubt they will. The games keep selling well and they don't want to risk messing that up. So I think we can safely expect another reskinned FarCry 3. I'd be happy to be proven wrong though.

jdreyer wrote on Jul 6, 2020, 15:18:
What's the controversy? The dual protagonists that you're forced to play as? The death of a popular character?

These are the same questions I've been asking myself while playing through the game. I'm enjoying it quite a bit and I think I've got maybe an hour or two left before the end. I've yet to encounter anything that I would have imagined causing this kind of controversy. It just seems like a... normal zombie apocalypse game. I'm glad we get to play as the protagonist character for a little bit to give her perspective. I've read a lot of people just hating on her looks, like women with muscles don't exist or something. When I'm done with the game, it will be interesting to go back and read the leaks from prior to the game's release (I managed to avoid them) because I'm just really confused at all the controversy that this game has generated.

Slashman wrote on Jul 6, 2020, 17:57:

Ahumado wrote on Jul 6, 2020, 16:30:
SW 2 was trash. SW 1 was great and there was nothing you know what about it

Wow there are about 13,000 Steam reviewers that disagree with you on SW 2 and also a 78 on metacritic. That's some trash right there indeed.

It certainly isn't trash IMHO but they did kind of fail at the 'looter' aspect of 'looter shooter' with SW2. The loot was pretty lame and unimaginative. They should have left that part out. Enemies felt a bit bullet spongy too, presumably to encourage grinding for good gear I guess. The game was pretty fun otherwise but with SW3 really need to overhaul or remove that aspect of the game.

Mr. Tact wrote on Jul 3, 2020, 18:48:
I like the game, but it definitely needs more features and some polishing still. I look forward to what it will look like as time and updates go by...

Yep. I played quite a bit of Update 3 and had a lot of fun, but I think I'm done with it until release. It's coming along nicely but still needs a bit of work. I definitely feel like I've gotten my money's worth though. I really enjoyed the exploration aspect. It's a beautiful world they've created, though it could use less floating flora.

Quinn wrote on Jul 3, 2020, 18:41:
I don't like the esthetics. This won't be a day one buy for me. It reminds me of ELEX -- the weird hybrid of future and past technology -- and my brain just thinks it's dumb

Not at all have I convinced myself that I won't like it, though, but I'll wait for the usual reviewers I trust (Worth a Buy, Skill Up, that's about it).

I felt the same way before taking a chance on it back when it was first released. I thought the robot animals/dinosaurs were especially ridiculous. But I took a chance and bought the game and I had a blast with it. It's all explained in a satisfying way. If the PC port is done well, I may purchase it again.

Great game and this is well deserved. Whenever I died in this game, it never felt undeserved or cheap. I felt like I was improving with every play through and it never got boring. I stopped playing a while back simply because I had other games to get to. I should check it out again. I haven't played in at least a year.

jacobvandy wrote on Jun 17, 2020, 20:24:
The number one rule of early access is, don't buy in unless you want to play it as it is now.

That's how I roll but it seems that most EA game purchases are based on potential to be great. Going through Steam reviews, I see a lot of EA games being recommended by reviewers while acknowledging that the game in its current state is pretty bare bones. I buy some EA games but I'm pretty careful about what I purchase and when I see positive reviews pushing games based on potential, it raises some red flags for me.

Basically, "this game has so much potential!" is code for "there isn't really a game here yet, but check back in a year or so."

TorchMaster wrote on Jun 13, 2020, 19:11:
I'm following this. When I first tried to get into Dwarf Fortress, I had less of a problem with the ascii graphics than the inscrutable menu commands. I thought the game desperately needed context-sensitive menus that were better organized.

That's my main issue with the game as well, and I hope they make some improvements in that area for the Steam release, although nothing has been shown yet. He did say in the video that they're looking to 'improve the usability of the game' as well so that's a good sign. If it's just a graphics upgrade then I'll probably just skip it and stick with the current version.