Beelzebud wrote on Feb 23, 2014, 14:03:
Mantle: AMD's answer to 3dfx GLide.

but... it isn't. Like, it's not even remotely akin to what GLide was... in the slightest. Plus, also, hasn't AMD said there's nothing stopping Nvidia shipping Mantle enable devices/drivers?

ItBurn wrote on Feb 23, 2014, 14:54:

nin wrote on Feb 23, 2014, 12:25:
Sleeping Dogs for $5 is a hell of a deal. Sadly, none of the DLC is on sale, but it's in no way required to enjoy the game.

Great game. I would say: Don't get the DLC! It totally unbalances the game and breaks the progression. Well you can get the story one, but I didn't care much for it.

the addon packs... there's a few that are "cheat" packs. The rest are costumes and other vanity stuff. PCGamingWiki has tips on what to rename, should you buy by accident, as I did.

the others are the new areas, or alt.universe stuff, which probably shouldn't be missed if you can get a decent price.

El Pit wrote on Feb 23, 2014, 14:36:

Clever Caviar wrote on Feb 23, 2014, 12:34:
it's a very good game, and with good PC support.

Yes, like remapping movement to the arrow keys. Who would want this anyway?

I hear this often, and while games like Sleeping Dogs (3rd person-a-thons) I don't play on keys, is the issue with arrows keys a southpaw thing?

Last time I used arrow keys on PC game was Quake, cos I think that's what it bound them to. Essentially, pre me discovering WASD. But I'm right-handed.

Either way, while it's a shame it's not "perfect", it's fair to say the devs put a chunk of effort in in other, PC-centric places.

nin wrote on Feb 23, 2014, 12:25:
Sleeping Dogs for $5 is a hell of a deal. Sadly, none of the DLC is on sale, but it's in no way required to enjoy the game.

it's a very good game, and with good PC support. The mind boggles what Eidos would have if they'd released modding tools and workshop support also.

If both GTA5 and Watch Dogs came out the same day (PC natch), which would you buy (if only one etc)?

nin wrote on Feb 2, 2014, 12:41:

HoSpanky wrote on Feb 2, 2014, 12:37:
Yay, MK8! Probably one of the last (and my 5th) games I'm getting for the wiiU. Not gonna defend it, it's on a downward spiral. But I'll still have Mario Kart in HD.

Altho one could successfully argue that the recent Sonic racing game already IS MKHD. It's surprisingly great. Played it during a free weekend/$5 steam sale, picked it up after a couple hours of it. Aside from weirdly not seeing my gamepad until I've pressed Enter (reverse porting issue!), it runs flawlessly, no crashing or noticeable bugs.

Still, MK8 will be free, in my case. Hard to argue there.

MK does look awesome, and it's one of the few reasons I'll eventually grab a wiiu (several price drops and years from now).

But I'd still prefer a new F-Zero...

LEGO City and possibly that new Super Mario Cat Plumbers would tempt me to buy the machine, but the price would have to tumble pretty low for me to want to shell out for hardware and so few games.

As for Sonic Racing Harlem All-Stars Transformed on Ice, same here: tried the free weekend then bought it, quite a fun game but I'm not expert on racers. One thing that annoyed the cack out of me with MK on the Wii was that you were seemingly powerless to stop attacks from behind (ooh-err missus etc), and I lost quite a few races because of it. This is now where someone says I was playing it wrong and if only I'd used such and such powerup.

Despite the advice of approx. 1 internet saying "don't bother", I bought AC3 anyway, and kinda enjoyed it 'till at some point it really rankled me. I can't pinpoint when it began to grate, but splitting up an argument on the homestead sticks in the mind as a nadir. After that, the whole thing became a drag, to the point that I'm put off any more AC. Even against the advice of whole wide internet saying AC4 is the proverbial "return to form", "pup's nuts" and "as good as AC2", I'm loathe to get burnt by AC till I can try it out or it's so cheap it doesn't matter - such was the effect of AC3 had/has on me.

As this game is from the same release era as AC3, I'm doubly wary of having a punt, but will be following the opinions/reviews here and elsewhere.

Creston wrote on Jan 13, 2014, 14:13:
"Sales are non-existant anymore, so we can now scrap the DRM."

Too little too late, EA. Shove it.

It's their lack of contrition that sticks in my craw: no mea culpa that maybe it was a bad idea to force it on people. Refusing to acknowledge your errors shows a lack of class, IMO.

Cutter wrote on Jan 11, 2014, 17:33:
So these guys have only made an iOS game before? Not holding my breath in that case.

I'm also not holding my breath 'cos games from this era have been ported badly thus far. Bitmap Bros. games aren't stellar, Flashback got middling reviews. Can't speak on Another World, I thought it was poo on the iPad, but that could have been the general turd-i-ness of touch controls.

edit: ben/been

This comment was edited on Jan 11, 2014, 18:04.

next up, Hunter remake.

hmm, just noticed it's an old Activision. So, no chance then...

This comment was edited on Jan 11, 2014, 17:23.

Jivaro wrote on Jan 10, 2014, 17:41:
If I was them I would say the same thing.

As a customer I would rather have a day to day update...from any developer...but I don't complain about the lack of them because I know I wouldn't do it if I was in their shoes. I just appreciate it that much more when regular status updates are provided.

I get why they do it, but there's no real cleverness at play: Valve don't talk until they're confident of the outcome one way or the other.

Prez wrote on Jan 10, 2014, 17:48:

Tanto Edge wrote on Jan 10, 2014, 17:33:
Insert obligatory "Go fuck yourself" here.

Thanks for doing that so I don't have to say it myself! EA just continues to boggle the mind with their lunacy. Why do gamers continue to allow themselves to be treated like this?

There's probably an MBA (or 100) there, saying "no, this is all good, trust me!"

I find EA's attitude towards gamers...astonishing. Truly they view any and all as just peons they can do what they wish with. It's sad only because, due to their size, they inevitably have some good trapped in the talons.

I had my own issues with their Mass Effect ports, and the subsequent no-Steam kerfuffle afterwards. In addition, Simcity 2013 was hardly an amazing showing, a Need For Speed locked at 30fps and broke if it went higher, and then Battlefield 4. Just wow. It boggles the mind anyone there has as much pride in their job as they should feel entitled too - it's such a sorry show for a year from a supposedly big publisher.

Ray Marden wrote on Jan 6, 2014, 12:38:
Er...what?

Maybe there is this really big group of slightly timid, but slightly interested PC gamers in the making that just need to have a prebuilt box, but I'm not otherwise sure who this is aimed at. The OS hasn't managed to double gaming performance, right?

Expecting these to die off,
Ray

I have nothing against folk who build their own, and know how to tweak, but after years of doing it myself, I can, and do see the attraction in off the shelf. I like PC gaming for reasons other than OC'ing and having a range of devices to choose from, that will let me play my library of games, is appealing.

Post Arkham/Sleeping Dogs, I think a James Bond game, using parts of the mechanics of those games would be pretty damn nifty. Stealth, gadgets, awesome combos, Q dialling in with yet more gadgets, a big world/city with an unravelling plot to work out: would be neato.

Acorn Electron, bought from a schoolfriend at the time.

After that, Atari ST (with copious amounts of time spent in Pro12, Pro24, and then Cubase v1), then PCs, with sideways moves to Macs, Linux, BeOS at various points.

Funny thing, I remember my father viewing me as crazy for buying an 8GB PC hard drive as opposed to 6GB, and (his words) "what are you going to do with all that space?"

Creston wrote on Nov 30, 2013, 13:23:
Fucking Disney giving EA the star wars license.

mmm, yeah, what a combo. EA *and* Disney.

I was once at a meeting with Disney. The Disney rep prefaced it by telling us how touched he'd been by how much Disney meant to so many people around the world. Parents were literally thanking Disney for bringing so much joy into their lives. Kinda set the tone for the rest of said meeting really.

The Half Elf wrote on Nov 24, 2013, 10:02:
When was the last time a Lego game had DLC?

They've done a few character packs, but consoles only.

New game has some PC DLC, possibly.

a shame they'll almost certainly not make this some DLC to the original LEGO:LOTR. I'm sure the reasons are all to do with sales and charts, boxed editions, but it'd be neat to see your map slowly fill up with all the quests for both Hobbit and LOTR.

PsychoMoggieBagpuss wrote on Nov 15, 2013, 11:05:

MajorD wrote on Nov 15, 2013, 10:49:
@PsychoMoggieBagpuss: Thank you, much appreciated.

You're welcome!

Something to tide you by while you download

Thief
System Shock 2


Obviously you'll want to grab the latest SHTUP and rebirth mods for SS2, the first provides higher res texture, the second high res enemy models. Can get those here , some other good mods and that over at https://www.systemshock.org/ as well (for both SS and thief).

I can't remember if this is correct or not, but does the newdark patch allow textures to be loaded outside of the packed texture files the game shipped with? meaning, {gamedir}/textures/wall01.png would override what came in {gamedir}/walls.tex, for example (I don't remember the exact file structure of the game).

Jerykk wrote on Nov 15, 2013, 23:00:

As for this? I don't even particularly feel like it's a Thief game. Different actor, different story, different gameplay focus, it's just leveraging the IP really.

So.. how is the gameplay focus any different from the previous games? They aren't turning this into CoD. The focus is still on sneaking around and stealing stuff. As for the different voice actor, yes, the actor is different but what really matters is the writing of the character. As far as I can tell, Garrett still acts like Garrett. The new VA even sounds like the old one. As for story, yes, they are changing the details but the overall setting and tone and very similar to the other games.

Everything I've seen and read makes the new Thief seem like a Thief game. It's certainly not a carbon copy of the original but it retains all the important elements.

agreed. It's some guy in leathers, sneaking around some medieval steampunk world, nicking stuff from pompous rich people. Seems very much like the Thief I grew up with. It has some changes also, but lots of other IPs go through changes, revisions, re-imaginings, reboots. Sometimes that works and you get new, interesting takes on things, sometimes it falls flat.