ArmsForPeace84Your Partner In FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited March 10
For all of the various freak flags flapping proudly in the refreshing breeze that is Steam's very open marketplace. And for all the various boats floated by whatever lends them buoyancy. My most surreal experiences on the platform tend to be when I review some all-time classic from my youth, on its store page.
Which feels like being asked to review, collectively, my time with videogames as a medium. Imagine asking Levar Burton to encapsulate, briefly, how he feels about books. This is most pronounced when we're talking about a title from the juggernaut that was Microprose in the 1990s.
How it remains the title against which all 4X games are still compared. Not merely to see how they carry on its tradition, but to determine whether their hot date will be stolen away by the entire genre's single, eligible dad. Who, if anything, has grown "statesmanlike" rather than "old."
How it expands on Master of Orion 1, since I know some gamers and streamers who play the original, but somehow haven't checked out the sequel.
Moving on to games released this century, I've decided to stick with Phantom Brigade. The devs appear to be quite engaged with the player base, and on the ball regarding interface and balance tweaks. Also, some players are putting work in, in the campaign, using mechs that don't resemble my MG & Shield focus at all. So I feel reassured that I'm not going to be just rocking the same builds right up through the victory parade. Or if I am, it will be by choice, rather than a narrowing of options.
Pentiment: or Josh Sawyer finally got to use that History degree of his
So... Pentiment is a small historical RPG set in the early Renaissance. The printing press has been invented, Columbus has accidentally stumbled across America, and Martin Luther has some opinions about the Catholic Church. But in the small fictional HRE mountain town of Tassing where the game is set, the Middle Ages are still desperately clinging on by their fingertips. And now someone has committed a ~ murder ~. It's up to our protagonist, mildly educated artist Andreas Maler, to figure out who did it.
Unfortunately for him, Andreas is no Columbo. Hell, he's not even a Cadfael. And he hasn't got a lot of time.
Premise aside, though, Pentiment isn't really a murder mystery. I mean, it is, but it also isn't the point of the game. It's about the past, our incomplete perceptions of the past, and how it influences our ever-changing present. It's also about how ordinary people (probably) lived way back when and how they dealt with the difficulties of their time. And it really is about the ordinary people of the time. Most games set anywhere in the Middle Ages are all about the struggles and schemes of the nobility, but the nobles and the nobility are noticeably absent from Pentiment. The nobles exist, their influence is felt, sometimes they even show up, but this game is not about them and doesn't much care about them either.
Ultimately, Pentiment is an artistically interesting, slow-paced, slice of Late Medieval life light RPG. With ~ murder ~.
Also, it's a game set in Medieval Europe that remembers that Africans, Roma, and Jews also existed at the time. So that's nice.
Pentiment: or Josh Sawyer finally got to use that History degree of his
So... Pentiment is a small historical RPG set in the early Renaissance. The printing press has been invented, Columbus has accidentally stumbled across America, and Martin Luther has some opinions about the Catholic Church. But in the small fictional HRE mountain town of Tassing where the game is set, the Middle Ages are still desperately clinging on by their fingertips. And now someone has committed a ~ murder ~. It's up to our protagonist, mildly educated artist Andreas Maler, to figure out who did it.
Unfortunately for him, Andreas is no Columbo. Hell, he's not even a Cadfael. And he hasn't got a lot of time.
Premise aside, though, Pentiment isn't really a murder mystery. I mean, it is, but it also isn't the point of the game. It's about the past, our incomplete perceptions of the past, and how it influences our ever-changing present. It's also about how ordinary people (probably) lived way back when and how they dealt with the difficulties of their time. And it really is about the ordinary people of the time. Most games set anywhere in the Middle Ages are all about the struggles and schemes of the nobility, but the nobles and the nobility are noticeably absent from Pentiment. The nobles exist, their influence is felt, sometimes they even show up, but this game is not about them and doesn't much care about them either.
Ultimately, Pentiment is an artistically interesting, slow-paced, slice of Late Medieval life light RPG. With ~ murder ~.
Also, it's a game set in Medieval Europe that remembers that Africans, Roma, and Jews also existed at the time. So that's nice.
I hate praising dresden kodack but the time travelers' outfits really just perfectly highlighted the way pop culture compresses history onto charicature.
Could post a Moesha clip but the highlander sword should suffice
Pentiment: or Josh Sawyer finally got to use that History degree of his
So... Pentiment is a small historical RPG set in the early Renaissance. The printing press has been invented, Columbus has accidentally stumbled across America, and Martin Luther has some opinions about the Catholic Church. But in the small fictional HRE mountain town of Tassing where the game is set, the Middle Ages are still desperately clinging on by their fingertips. And now someone has committed a ~ murder ~. It's up to our protagonist, mildly educated artist Andreas Maler, to figure out who did it.
Unfortunately for him, Andreas is no Columbo. Hell, he's not even a Cadfael. And he hasn't got a lot of time.
Premise aside, though, Pentiment isn't really a murder mystery. I mean, it is, but it also isn't the point of the game. It's about the past, our incomplete perceptions of the past, and how it influences our ever-changing present. It's also about how ordinary people (probably) lived way back when and how they dealt with the difficulties of their time. And it really is about the ordinary people of the time. Most games set anywhere in the Middle Ages are all about the struggles and schemes of the nobility, but the nobles and the nobility are noticeably absent from Pentiment. The nobles exist, their influence is felt, sometimes they even show up, but this game is not about them and doesn't much care about them either.
Ultimately, Pentiment is an artistically interesting, slow-paced, slice of Late Medieval life light RPG. With ~ murder ~.
Also, it's a game set in Medieval Europe that remembers that Africans, Roma, and Jews also existed at the time. So that's nice.
I hate praising dresden kodack but the time travelers' outfits really just perfectly highlighted the way pop culture compresses history onto charicature.
Could post a Moesha clip but the highlander sword should suffice
None of us will live to see it but if I were a vampire I’d be totally stoked about the inevitable hollywood-style movie that will come out in 500 years about the civil war and have Abe Lincoln in a Tricorne hat, a revolutionary war coat, a pair of blue jeans, and some Air Jordans carrying an M16 and smoking Marlboros while chugging Monster energy drinks.
Pentiment: or Josh Sawyer finally got to use that History degree of his
So... Pentiment is a small historical RPG set in the early Renaissance. The printing press has been invented, Columbus has accidentally stumbled across America, and Martin Luther has some opinions about the Catholic Church. But in the small fictional HRE mountain town of Tassing where the game is set, the Middle Ages are still desperately clinging on by their fingertips. And now someone has committed a ~ murder ~. It's up to our protagonist, mildly educated artist Andreas Maler, to figure out who did it.
Unfortunately for him, Andreas is no Columbo. Hell, he's not even a Cadfael. And he hasn't got a lot of time.
Premise aside, though, Pentiment isn't really a murder mystery. I mean, it is, but it also isn't the point of the game. It's about the past, our incomplete perceptions of the past, and how it influences our ever-changing present. It's also about how ordinary people (probably) lived way back when and how they dealt with the difficulties of their time. And it really is about the ordinary people of the time. Most games set anywhere in the Middle Ages are all about the struggles and schemes of the nobility, but the nobles and the nobility are noticeably absent from Pentiment. The nobles exist, their influence is felt, sometimes they even show up, but this game is not about them and doesn't much care about them either.
Ultimately, Pentiment is an artistically interesting, slow-paced, slice of Late Medieval life light RPG. With ~ murder ~.
Also, it's a game set in Medieval Europe that remembers that Africans, Roma, and Jews also existed at the time. So that's nice.
I hate praising dresden kodack but the time travelers' outfits really just perfectly highlighted the way pop culture compresses history onto charicature.
Could post a Moesha clip but the highlander sword should suffice
None of us will live to see it but if I were a vampire I’d be totally stoked about the inevitable hollywood-style movie that will come out in 500 years about the civil war and have Abe Lincoln in a Tricorne hat, a revolutionary war coat, a pair of blue jeans, and some Air Jordans carrying an M16 and smoking Marlboros while chugging Monster energy drinks.
The probably have him eating one of the God-awful jello meat recipes from the mid 20th century
Sodaz, of many excellent game fan animations of Warhammer 40k and Titanfall 2, finally finished his Halo project. Best animation of its type since Monty Oum passed.
It's definitely a fan animation, the quality isn't such that I'd be likely recommending it to anyone who isn't a Halo fan. But being a Halo fan, this was a lot of fun to watch, and the climax actually got me.
Pentiment: or Josh Sawyer finally got to use that History degree of his
So... Pentiment is a small historical RPG set in the early Renaissance. The printing press has been invented, Columbus has accidentally stumbled across America, and Martin Luther has some opinions about the Catholic Church. But in the small fictional HRE mountain town of Tassing where the game is set, the Middle Ages are still desperately clinging on by their fingertips. And now someone has committed a ~ murder ~. It's up to our protagonist, mildly educated artist Andreas Maler, to figure out who did it.
Unfortunately for him, Andreas is no Columbo. Hell, he's not even a Cadfael. And he hasn't got a lot of time.
Premise aside, though, Pentiment isn't really a murder mystery. I mean, it is, but it also isn't the point of the game. It's about the past, our incomplete perceptions of the past, and how it influences our ever-changing present. It's also about how ordinary people (probably) lived way back when and how they dealt with the difficulties of their time. And it really is about the ordinary people of the time. Most games set anywhere in the Middle Ages are all about the struggles and schemes of the nobility, but the nobles and the nobility are noticeably absent from Pentiment. The nobles exist, their influence is felt, sometimes they even show up, but this game is not about them and doesn't much care about them either.
Ultimately, Pentiment is an artistically interesting, slow-paced, slice of Late Medieval life light RPG. With ~ murder ~.
Also, it's a game set in Medieval Europe that remembers that Africans, Roma, and Jews also existed at the time. So that's nice.
I hate praising dresden kodack but the time travelers' outfits really just perfectly highlighted the way pop culture compresses history onto charicature.
Could post a Moesha clip but the highlander sword should suffice
None of us will live to see it but if I were a vampire I’d be totally stoked about the inevitable hollywood-style movie that will come out in 500 years about the civil war and have Abe Lincoln in a Tricorne hat, a revolutionary war coat, a pair of blue jeans, and some Air Jordans carrying an M16 and smoking Marlboros while chugging Monster energy drinks.
There was a tabletop RPG a while back - Diana, Warrior Princess - built around this sort of perspective/premise. As the title suggests, it came out in the wake of Xena, Hercules, etc and sought to apply the same level of *cough* historical accuracy and scholarship to our era. (The title character is a conflation of Wonder Woman and the former Princess of Wales, whose foes include the evil of Landmines.)
Pentiment: or Josh Sawyer finally got to use that History degree of his
So... Pentiment is a small historical RPG set in the early Renaissance. The printing press has been invented, Columbus has accidentally stumbled across America, and Martin Luther has some opinions about the Catholic Church. But in the small fictional HRE mountain town of Tassing where the game is set, the Middle Ages are still desperately clinging on by their fingertips. And now someone has committed a ~ murder ~. It's up to our protagonist, mildly educated artist Andreas Maler, to figure out who did it.
Unfortunately for him, Andreas is no Columbo. Hell, he's not even a Cadfael. And he hasn't got a lot of time.
Premise aside, though, Pentiment isn't really a murder mystery. I mean, it is, but it also isn't the point of the game. It's about the past, our incomplete perceptions of the past, and how it influences our ever-changing present. It's also about how ordinary people (probably) lived way back when and how they dealt with the difficulties of their time. And it really is about the ordinary people of the time. Most games set anywhere in the Middle Ages are all about the struggles and schemes of the nobility, but the nobles and the nobility are noticeably absent from Pentiment. The nobles exist, their influence is felt, sometimes they even show up, but this game is not about them and doesn't much care about them either.
Ultimately, Pentiment is an artistically interesting, slow-paced, slice of Late Medieval life light RPG. With ~ murder ~.
Also, it's a game set in Medieval Europe that remembers that Africans, Roma, and Jews also existed at the time. So that's nice.
I hate praising dresden kodack but the time travelers' outfits really just perfectly highlighted the way pop culture compresses history onto charicature.
Could post a Moesha clip but the highlander sword should suffice
None of us will live to see it but if I were a vampire I’d be totally stoked about the inevitable hollywood-style movie that will come out in 500 years about the civil war and have Abe Lincoln in a Tricorne hat, a revolutionary war coat, a pair of blue jeans, and some Air Jordans carrying an M16 and smoking Marlboros while chugging Monster energy drinks.
There was a tabletop RPG a while back - Diana, Warrior Princess - built around this sort of perspective/premise. As the title suggests, it came out in the wake of Xena, Hercules, etc and sought to apply the same level of *cough* historical accuracy and scholarship to our era. (The title character is a conflation of Wonder Woman and the former Princess of Wales, whose foes include the evil of Landmines.)
Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
Gonna try and pick-up Clash soon - this game is set in the same weird and wonderful world as the ZenoClash series. The setting alone is intriguing enough to make me want to pick it up.
I watched Iron Pineapple play some of that as part of his Souls-like series. Was...interesting to see the various mechanics. Particularly the bit where you play a dice game before a fight that can give bonuses or penalties.
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Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
I watched Iron Pineapple play some of that as part of his Souls-like series. Was...interesting to see the various mechanics. Particularly the bit where you play a dice game before a fight that can give bonuses or penalties.
And to think that in the Zeno Clash games, the people of Zenozoik were accused of not being civilized.
I finally set up Xbox cloud streaming (and thus Game Pass) on my Steam Deck. Microsoft supports this (officially in beta) by having added specially baked in Deck control support to a Deck-specific edition of the Edge browser. You install that in desktop mode like any other application in the Discover store, enter in one Konsole (i.e. terminal; think command line if you're not Linux-y) command to enable the browser and the Deck's controls to talk to each other, add the browser to Steam, add a couple of things to the launch arguments in Steam so the browser will launch directly into cloud gaming full-screen, set the Steam Input template to "gamepad with mouse trackpad" (since the browser still expects a mouse for accessing streaming controls & guide button - I had to further add trackpad clicks to be mouse buttons but that's in Steam Input and takes seconds) and you're pretty much good to go unless you want to add custom Steam artwork which obviously I did (I'm forever fiddling with stuff like that anyway, steamgriddb.com is awesome). Go back out to the main game mode UI, and launch it whenever. All you have to do then is log in with your Xbox credentials.
So far I've played three games on it - the Goldeneye re-release, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and Fortnite.
Goldeneye ran flawlessly. Not much else to say there.
ME:LE started by syncing saves (typical when going between hardware on Xbox games) but for some reason during that process the title came up in Polish (Mass Effect Edycja legendarna - thank you to Google Translate for identifying the language). The game ran in English but the framerate wasn't great and there was a touch of artifacting - my guess is, based on the bit of Polish, is that for whatever reason I was playing from a Polish data center or something. It remained responsive enough to be playable. I only tried this one because my Xbox save is in a very different place to my Steam save (the Deck runs the PC version well natively).
Finally, I tried Fortnite, which I now play semi-regularly with some IRL friends (what have I become, etc etc... it's actually fun, who knew?). This one sort of mattered as I have actually needed a portable to play this on a couple of times, and dual-analog-ing on a Switch is a bit of a struggle for me. And the PC version flat-out will not run on a Deck (because Epic refuse to support Linux for it, so the only way to run it natively on a Deck is to actually install Windows on it). Well, it ran like a champ, looked great, ran buttery smooth (aside from one ten-second-or-so moment where I got a lot of slowdown, but that hasn't recurred and didn't impact my game at all thankfully), controlled perfectly (once I'd re-done my settings which oddly didn't carry over) and was basically a joy.
When I've tried Xbox cloud streaming on my actual Xbox (a One X), there's been perceptible lag. Just enough to completely throw off my aim in even a slow-paced shooter. But on the Deck I simply couldn't feel any at all, and you'll note the three games I've tried so far are all (to different degrees) shooty games. I did the Dam mission in Goldeneye, a round in the Armax Arena in ME:LE, and so far two solo BR rounds in Fortnite. And it's been great. (Next step, testing playing with the friendos, and making sure party chat still works - both over the Deck's speakers/microphone array, and via headset. But haven't got to that yet.)
I finally set up Xbox cloud streaming (and thus Game Pass) on my Steam Deck. Microsoft supports this (officially in beta) by having added specially baked in Deck control support to a Deck-specific edition of the Edge browser. You install that in desktop mode like any other application in the Discover store, enter in one Konsole (i.e. terminal; think command line if you're not Linux-y) command to enable the browser and the Deck's controls to talk to each other, add the browser to Steam, add a couple of things to the launch arguments in Steam so the browser will launch directly into cloud gaming full-screen, set the Steam Input template to "gamepad with mouse trackpad" (since the browser still expects a mouse for accessing streaming controls & guide button - I had to further add trackpad clicks to be mouse buttons but that's in Steam Input and takes seconds) and you're pretty much good to go unless you want to add custom Steam artwork which obviously I did (I'm forever fiddling with stuff like that anyway, steamgriddb.com is awesome). Go back out to the main game mode UI, and launch it whenever. All you have to do then is log in with your Xbox credentials.
So far I've played three games on it - the Goldeneye re-release, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and Fortnite.
Goldeneye ran flawlessly. Not much else to say there.
ME:LE started by syncing saves (typical when going between hardware on Xbox games) but for some reason during that process the title came up in Polish (Mass Effect Edycja legendarna - thank you to Google Translate for identifying the language). The game ran in English but the framerate wasn't great and there was a touch of artifacting - my guess is, based on the bit of Polish, is that for whatever reason I was playing from a Polish data center or something. It remained responsive enough to be playable. I only tried this one because my Xbox save is in a very different place to my Steam save (the Deck runs the PC version well natively).
Finally, I tried Fortnite, which I now play semi-regularly with some IRL friends (what have I become, etc etc... it's actually fun, who knew?). This one sort of mattered as I have actually needed a portable to play this on a couple of times, and dual-analog-ing on a Switch is a bit of a struggle for me. And the PC version flat-out will not run on a Deck (because Epic refuse to support Linux for it, so the only way to run it natively on a Deck is to actually install Windows on it). Well, it ran like a champ, looked great, ran buttery smooth (aside from one ten-second-or-so moment where I got a lot of slowdown, but that hasn't recurred and didn't impact my game at all thankfully), controlled perfectly (once I'd re-done my settings which oddly didn't carry over) and was basically a joy.
When I've tried Xbox cloud streaming on my actual Xbox (a One X), there's been perceptible lag. Just enough to completely throw off my aim in even a slow-paced shooter. But on the Deck I simply couldn't feel any at all, and you'll note the three games I've tried so far are all (to different degrees) shooty games. I did the Dam mission in Goldeneye, a round in the Armax Arena in ME:LE, and so far two solo BR rounds in Fortnite. And it's been great. (Next step, testing playing with the friendos, and making sure party chat still works - both over the Deck's speakers/microphone array, and via headset. But haven't got to that yet.)
Man between a PSVR2, Xbox Series X, and a couple of board games I have spent entirely too much money lately but I'll be damned if this doesn't make me want a Deck.
The deck is cool but I wish other stores ran natively on it like steam does since I already have a bunch of games on other clients (not by choice)
After picking up gamepass I'm seriously pondering the dreaded windows install. I fear missing the suspend feature that has always worked for me, plus the fine refresh/frame limiter rate controls. Not to mention the Deck-ish big picture is still a bit buggy. (after exiting a game, the BP interface does not get focus and you have to mouse click, for one.)
The deck is cool but I wish other stores ran natively on it like steam does since I already have a bunch of games on other clients (not by choice)
After picking up gamepass I'm seriously pondering the dreaded windows install. I fear missing the suspend feature that has always worked for me, plus the fine refresh/frame limiter rate controls. Not to mention the Deck-ish big picture is still a bit buggy. (after exiting a game, the BP interface does not get focus and you have to mouse click, for one.)
I would try the streaming first if you have access to it. At this point there isn't anything I've run into that would make trying to shoehorn Windows into the Deck worth it for me, but obviously YMMV (I have very little I care about stuck away in other storefronts that don't work, don't play Destiny, etc etc).
The deck is cool but I wish other stores ran natively on it like steam does since I already have a bunch of games on other clients (not by choice)
After picking up gamepass I'm seriously pondering the dreaded windows install. I fear missing the suspend feature that has always worked for me, plus the fine refresh/frame limiter rate controls. Not to mention the Deck-ish big picture is still a bit buggy. (after exiting a game, the BP interface does not get focus and you have to mouse click, for one.)
I would try the streaming first if you have access to it. At this point there isn't anything I've run into that would make trying to shoehorn Windows into the Deck worth it for me, but obviously YMMV (I have very little I care about stuck away in other storefronts that don't work, don't play Destiny, etc etc).
That works for the xcloud games, but not for the PC gamepass specific ones.
If you're going to go for windows, it's pretty easy to just install it to a SD card and swap it out when you want to do windows stuff
I got a legendary bloatfly and took it out to receive a troublemaker fatman.
Sadly, I attempted to resolve two mere robots at the nearby checkpoint, only to die as I forgot to heal.
What's worse is that this is the second time this happened, the last time involving a minigun from a legendary deathclaw.
Am I having a stroke?
Probably.
Or you're experiencing a common reaction to a Royce post.
Maybe I need to stop typing when I'm having a moment of rage
Simply put in 2 different sessions I found the left and right hands of the devil in random battles and then immediately lost them because I didn't heal before picking another fight.
Started in on Octopath Traveler 2. Seems solid so far, definitely feels a lot like the original in a lot of ways. The stories I've touched so far seem pretty solid. Did the Thief and Hunter so far, working on the Apothecary right now. Gonna push from there to the Merchant and Warrior if possible, picking up whatever people are on the way. After that I'll sweep back through and pick up everyone else I missed. Guess I don't really know how well the writing will be for all the stories. The intros so far are solid but they do feel like little self contained things so far. Maybe they'll open up a bit after the introduction chapters for everyone.
I got a legendary bloatfly and took it out to receive a troublemaker fatman.
Sadly, I attempted to resolve two mere robots at the nearby checkpoint, only to die as I forgot to heal.
What's worse is that this is the second time this happened, the last time involving a minigun from a legendary deathclaw.
Am I having a stroke?
Probably.
Or you're experiencing a common reaction to a Royce post.
Lemme translate:
While playing Fallout 4, I was fighting boss level Bloatfly enemy, which after I defeated it, I was able to loot a very good weapon from its corpse.
Sadly, after this, before I saved my game, I tried to fight two robots that I thought would be easy, only to have them kill me because I forgot to heal, thus causing me to have to reload an earlier save from before I fought the Bloatfly. Since the fly was a random spawn enemy, it did not make a reappearance on the reload, so I couldn't to regain the cool weapon.
What's worse is this is the second time this happened, the last time involving an equally awesome weapon from a very large difficult murder machine enemy that looks like the cross between a Minotaur, a bear, and a crocodile.
Decomposey on
Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
I got a legendary bloatfly and took it out to receive a troublemaker fatman.
Sadly, I attempted to resolve two mere robots at the nearby checkpoint, only to die as I forgot to heal.
What's worse is that this is the second time this happened, the last time involving a minigun from a legendary deathclaw.
Am I having a stroke?
Probably.
Or you're experiencing a common reaction to a Royce post.
Maybe I need to stop typing when I'm having a moment of rage
Simply put in 2 different sessions I found the left and right hands of the devil in random battles and then immediately lost them because I didn't heal before picking another fight.
To be fair, as a massive Fallout nerd I understood this one. The novelty threw me!
Posts
Which feels like being asked to review, collectively, my time with videogames as a medium. Imagine asking Levar Burton to encapsulate, briefly, how he feels about books. This is most pronounced when we're talking about a title from the juggernaut that was Microprose in the 1990s.
Ultimately, in reviewing the classic Master of Orion 2, I focused on two things:
Moving on to games released this century, I've decided to stick with Phantom Brigade. The devs appear to be quite engaged with the player base, and on the ball regarding interface and balance tweaks. Also, some players are putting work in, in the campaign, using mechs that don't resemble my MG & Shield focus at all. So I feel reassured that I'm not going to be just rocking the same builds right up through the victory parade. Or if I am, it will be by choice, rather than a narrowing of options.
Oh damn, thanks! I almost missed this.
I love it, just inject it into my veins!
So... Pentiment is a small historical RPG set in the early Renaissance. The printing press has been invented, Columbus has accidentally stumbled across America, and Martin Luther has some opinions about the Catholic Church. But in the small fictional HRE mountain town of Tassing where the game is set, the Middle Ages are still desperately clinging on by their fingertips. And now someone has committed a ~ murder ~. It's up to our protagonist, mildly educated artist Andreas Maler, to figure out who did it.
Unfortunately for him, Andreas is no Columbo. Hell, he's not even a Cadfael. And he hasn't got a lot of time.
Premise aside, though, Pentiment isn't really a murder mystery. I mean, it is, but it also isn't the point of the game. It's about the past, our incomplete perceptions of the past, and how it influences our ever-changing present. It's also about how ordinary people (probably) lived way back when and how they dealt with the difficulties of their time. And it really is about the ordinary people of the time. Most games set anywhere in the Middle Ages are all about the struggles and schemes of the nobility, but the nobles and the nobility are noticeably absent from Pentiment. The nobles exist, their influence is felt, sometimes they even show up, but this game is not about them and doesn't much care about them either.
Ultimately, Pentiment is an artistically interesting, slow-paced, slice of Late Medieval life light RPG. With ~ murder ~.
Also, it's a game set in Medieval Europe that remembers that Africans, Roma, and Jews also existed at the time. So that's nice.
I hate praising dresden kodack but the time travelers' outfits really just perfectly highlighted the way pop culture compresses history onto charicature.
Could post a Moesha clip but the highlander sword should suffice
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
None of us will live to see it but if I were a vampire I’d be totally stoked about the inevitable hollywood-style movie that will come out in 500 years about the civil war and have Abe Lincoln in a Tricorne hat, a revolutionary war coat, a pair of blue jeans, and some Air Jordans carrying an M16 and smoking Marlboros while chugging Monster energy drinks.
The probably have him eating one of the God-awful jello meat recipes from the mid 20th century
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
IMPORTANT UPDATE: We adopted a dog.
But not showing me the dog with the pilots or anywhere else is a near criminal omission!
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
There was a tabletop RPG a while back - Diana, Warrior Princess - built around this sort of perspective/premise. As the title suggests, it came out in the wake of Xena, Hercules, etc and sought to apply the same level of *cough* historical accuracy and scholarship to our era. (The title character is a conflation of Wonder Woman and the former Princess of Wales, whose foes include the evil of Landmines.)
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
Fuck yeah
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
If that sounds interesting then here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1532690/BLACKTAIL/
Gifted me a game on Steam
Its envelope green
Thanks @Pixelated Pixie for Streets Of Rage 4 - Mr. X Nightmare!
And to think that in the Zeno Clash games, the people of Zenozoik were accused of not being civilized.
Congrats to @The_Spaniard!
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
I've been keeping an eye on this game. I like mechs and turn based, so I'm sure I'll enjoy this chocolate & peanut butter combination.
One minor thing though: why does Leon have to *grunt* every single time he raises his gun? Weirdo
Steam | XBL
So far I've played three games on it - the Goldeneye re-release, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and Fortnite.
Goldeneye ran flawlessly. Not much else to say there.
ME:LE started by syncing saves (typical when going between hardware on Xbox games) but for some reason during that process the title came up in Polish (Mass Effect Edycja legendarna - thank you to Google Translate for identifying the language). The game ran in English but the framerate wasn't great and there was a touch of artifacting - my guess is, based on the bit of Polish, is that for whatever reason I was playing from a Polish data center or something. It remained responsive enough to be playable. I only tried this one because my Xbox save is in a very different place to my Steam save (the Deck runs the PC version well natively).
Finally, I tried Fortnite, which I now play semi-regularly with some IRL friends (what have I become, etc etc... it's actually fun, who knew?). This one sort of mattered as I have actually needed a portable to play this on a couple of times, and dual-analog-ing on a Switch is a bit of a struggle for me. And the PC version flat-out will not run on a Deck (because Epic refuse to support Linux for it, so the only way to run it natively on a Deck is to actually install Windows on it). Well, it ran like a champ, looked great, ran buttery smooth (aside from one ten-second-or-so moment where I got a lot of slowdown, but that hasn't recurred and didn't impact my game at all thankfully), controlled perfectly (once I'd re-done my settings which oddly didn't carry over) and was basically a joy.
When I've tried Xbox cloud streaming on my actual Xbox (a One X), there's been perceptible lag. Just enough to completely throw off my aim in even a slow-paced shooter. But on the Deck I simply couldn't feel any at all, and you'll note the three games I've tried so far are all (to different degrees) shooty games. I did the Dam mission in Goldeneye, a round in the Armax Arena in ME:LE, and so far two solo BR rounds in Fortnite. And it's been great. (Next step, testing playing with the friendos, and making sure party chat still works - both over the Deck's speakers/microphone array, and via headset. But haven't got to that yet.)
If you have a Deck and Xbox cloud gaming access (which includes the vast majority of console Game Pass stuff), it's well worth setting it up. MS' instructions for doing so are here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/topic/xbox-cloud-gaming-in-microsoft-edge-with-steam-deck-43dd011b-0ce8-4810-8302-965be6d53296
Steam | XBL
Man between a PSVR2, Xbox Series X, and a couple of board games I have spent entirely too much money lately but I'll be damned if this doesn't make me want a Deck.
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Setting seems pretty cool:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2024390/Mato_Anomalies/
I kinda want to see a game copy SSSS with all asian languages to see the shit talking.
I also would want the same with an african setting, and everyone using Arabic gets punched as a running gag for 3 chapters
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
After picking up gamepass I'm seriously pondering the dreaded windows install. I fear missing the suspend feature that has always worked for me, plus the fine refresh/frame limiter rate controls. Not to mention the Deck-ish big picture is still a bit buggy. (after exiting a game, the BP interface does not get focus and you have to mouse click, for one.)
I would try the streaming first if you have access to it. At this point there isn't anything I've run into that would make trying to shoehorn Windows into the Deck worth it for me, but obviously YMMV (I have very little I care about stuck away in other storefronts that don't work, don't play Destiny, etc etc).
Steam | XBL
3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
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Yeah he might have a Goku-approved handgun with black-hole inducing mass in it : D
I got a legendary bloatfly and took it out to receive a troublemaker fatman.
Sadly, I attempted to resolve two mere robots at the nearby checkpoint, only to die as I forgot to heal.
What's worse is that this is the second time this happened, the last time involving a minigun from a legendary deathclaw.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
https://www.pcgamer.com/dandd-rpg-solasta-is-getting-gnomes-tieflings-and-a-high-level-campaign/
Raises the level cap to 16 AND adds tieflings!
....oh and gnomes I guess for some reason.
I'm in.
I may have a soft spot for tieflings.
That works for the xcloud games, but not for the PC gamepass specific ones.
If you're going to go for windows, it's pretty easy to just install it to a SD card and swap it out when you want to do windows stuff
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Am I having a stroke?
Probably.
Or you're experiencing a common reaction to a Royce post.
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Maybe I need to stop typing when I'm having a moment of rage
Simply put in 2 different sessions I found the left and right hands of the devil in random battles and then immediately lost them because I didn't heal before picking another fight.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Lemme translate:
While playing Fallout 4, I was fighting boss level Bloatfly enemy, which after I defeated it, I was able to loot a very good weapon from its corpse.
Sadly, after this, before I saved my game, I tried to fight two robots that I thought would be easy, only to have them kill me because I forgot to heal, thus causing me to have to reload an earlier save from before I fought the Bloatfly. Since the fly was a random spawn enemy, it did not make a reappearance on the reload, so I couldn't to regain the cool weapon.
What's worse is this is the second time this happened, the last time involving an equally awesome weapon from a very large difficult murder machine enemy that looks like the cross between a Minotaur, a bear, and a crocodile.
To be fair, as a massive Fallout nerd I understood this one. The novelty threw me!
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