This isn't even the Awakening's main theme, but these two pieces are Fire Emblem in my head. Relatively low key planning music with a sense of urgency.
yeah if you can get the Microsoft Store working for you its amazing
Every game I download has different errors lol, but when I am able to get them to work its an amazing deal
Does the Xbox app use the Microsoft store?
I’ve used that to download a few game pass games and it’s worked just fine, no headaches.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I posted about this elsewhere last night, but the new jackbox Party Pack has a drawing game called Champed Up that fucking rules. it's my favorite drawing game so far, it's like Tee K.O. but about 10,000x better.
You're given a prompt and told to draw a fighter based on it. Like "the champion of slack" so you draw a kid in a flannel smoking weed, or whatever, and you name them.
Then your drawing and the name, but not the promt, are sent to another player. So they just get a picture of weed kid and your name Weedlord Bonerhitler or whatever, and they're told to draw a fighter who can challenge that. Will they guess the prompt correctly or go totally in the wrong direction? WHO KNOWS.
Anyway we had a very good time last night, 10/10, strong recommend
Always bet on tiktok witches.
Never bet on tiktok witches.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
+6
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Zxerolfor the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't doso i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered Userregular
Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
Finished my replay of Obra Dinn. Still fabulous. Also I found I'd forgotten everyone's names and deaths so it was pretty new again. I still have those two special achievements not unlocked but I'm too lazy to go through it again specifically to get them.
and it really is mazelike and claustrophobic and so much of it is fighting your way through tiny apartments and everything is kinda lo-fi enough (from the textures to the level geometry) that it feels kinda dreamlike, and it'll be incredibly moody and emotional in its level design and music and sound
and there'll also be times when you're fighting your way through a sewerage canal or whatever, and you'll look up and you'll see this incredibly detailed city rising above
but then also it is terrible at indicating where you need to go and it really does just throw new things at you without explaining or tutorialising and there's been things that i've tried out of desperation because i can't tell where to go and i guess i've seen this trick in a half life mod and it turns out to be the intended path that gets me out of this area i was stuck in for a while
there's also a few moments when it just killed me to teach me about a hazard and then expected me to deal with it when i reloaded
I just find it super compelling. It's like it's designing all of its encounters and levels "wrong" in a way that really just suits the weird desperate mood it's going for.
I don't think I would remember specific names with Obra Dinn, but I still remember tricks like
(deduction spoilers don't look)
checking the bunk numbers of the men, or identifying them based on their shoes while they're asleep
So
I literally only noticed the numbers on the beds this play through right at the end when I was going back through the scenes double checking some stuff. By that point I’d already figured most everything out. I was like, you have got to be kidding me!
I bought Cook, Serve, Delicious 3 and got entirely addicted right from the jump in a way that I didn't with CSD2. When I played CSD2 a couple years back, something about the Holding Station didn't click with me like it does in CSD3, and also there's now a button to auto-serve prepped dishes (which makes sense in-fiction because you have robot companions in this game).
This game is also incredibly dangerous for me because starting a "day" is like a time warp: for 7-ish minutes, the world around me vanishes and there is only the game. There are no phone notifications. There are no interruptions. There is only The Grill and The Customers. Then I look at the clock in between rounds and 30 minutes have passed in a blink.
Anyway if you liked the other CSD's and you've got 20 bucks, CSD3 is great!
godmode on
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Goose!That's me, honeyShow me the way home, honeyRegistered Userregular
I reinstalled Diablo 2 and have been messing with mods and have a good time. Old games + mods = free new game
Let's see, game music. A lot of the hits have already been covered. But I did listen to the soundtrack from Everybody's Gone To The Rapture 3 times on loop while playing BattleTech today.
+2
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
edited October 2020
SE++ BATTLETECH MacLeod's Land System
For once we're coming to a new planet with no broken mechs and no injured pilots, and we're able to spend that travel time turning the Wolverine into a Mech that @Der Waffle Mous could use to his best, punching faces. There are mechs I prefer for punching, and roles I like better for a Wolverine, but of what we have now it can do the job well enough, so we load it up with SRM's and an Arm Mod++ that means it punches for 110 damage, put @Der Waffle Mous in the cockpit and turn them loose to see if they can wreck face.
And they start spectacularly.
First mission out, we run into a trio of heavies - more tonnage than we've faced before - and @Der Waffle Mous tears into them, taking on the Caraphact at point blank range...
Pucker up.
..and disabling the Thunderbolt so that we can take it as salvage. A truly defining performance from an in-form pilot, winning our merc company a second Heavy mech with even better potential as a frontline brawler than the Wolverine once it's repaired and readied.
The next mission - an attack on a convey and its escorts - starts just as strong.
@Der Waffle Mous backs up his previous performance with a crucial kill of a near-pristine opposition Wolverine, punching through its rear armour before unleashing a full missile salvo into the breach, instantly killing it in a minimal span of time.
This looks important, probably don't want to lose that.
He follows it up with an attempted coup-de-grace on a fallen Hunchback, and, well...
Where's the Kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!
The Hunchback, both torsos blown off, missing a leg, held together only by a bare handful of central torso struts, stands up, faces @Der Waffle Mous's practically unscratched fully armoured mech, and lands the only blow capable of crippling it: a desperation headbutt to the Wolverine's cockpit, killing @Der Waffle Mous and destroying the mech's head.
Oh, ratfucker.
The Hunchback - and the convoy - last only a moment more, but it's too late for @Der Waffle Mous and his is the second name added to our memorial wall.
Out of context, 'Hit in the head by an enemy Hunchback' sounds more like a scene from a comic pantomime.
With one mech sidelined for repairs, we are forced to use a lighter lance for the remainder of our stay at MacLeod's Land, which nearly causes a spectacular company collapse on the last mission in the system.
We take on a final mission to clear out a ultra-heavy mech from the area. We're running light, with the Firestater taking the forward scout/close range damage dealer role with @Munkus Beaver, @milski, and Smof giving us a 1 light+2 mediums+1 heavy lance for a little under 200 tons of giant stompy action. Not huge amount for taking on a potential Assault mech, but manageable.
When we get there, however, it isn't an assault mech, but a Demolisher tank, backed by a Blackjack, Jagermech, and Thunderbolt; out-massing our team by more than 50 tons. It's a stiff fight, but we still fight them into the ground, getting the upper hand over the oppostion in a tactical slugfest that sees us get our own share of bruises and scratches.
Which is when the OpFor reinforcements drop in.
This is one of the reinforcement Thunderbolts charging down @I Zimbra, as opposed to the original one.
2 more Thunderbolts tanking through the middle, backed by a Rifleman and an Archer who keep peppering our mechs from extreme range. An even larger lance than the one we're already fighting, every mech Heavy and packing enough firepower to press us all the way into the corner of the battlefield. Over 500 tons in total; 6 Heavy mechs to our 1.
We abandon the tactical advance strategy, and start an mobile managed retreat, jumping in and out and constantly moving around the fringes, trying to play to our own advantage: controlling when and where the conflict happens. There's no room for finesse, no room to fully run away, and not enough time to try for disabling or salvaging our opponents; this is straight survival, which means bringing them down as quickly and as fast as we can.
@Brolo and @Sprout both take shots to the head, but survive. The enemy Archer is brought down by concentrated fire from @Baidol and @Sprout into its weak rear armour. @I Zimbra chances an opportunity to set off an ammo explosion in the Thunderbolts central core; it doesn't come off, and instead loses an arm and a leg from his Firestarter. It's a long and ugly drawn out affair that lasts hours, but when the dust settles all four of our mechs and pilots remain standing, while our opponents litter the valley with their debris.
Every mech here about one good shot away from losing a limb or destruction; a good result that was very close to going very differently
It is the toughest battle we've had yet, but we made it though and triumphed.
This system is played out. Our mechs need a few days in the shop and our surviving pilots need a few days in the medbay, so it's time to pack this ship up and move on once again.
oh god G String has mostly had reskinned half life 2 enemies but it just introduced a completely original one and it is horrifying and hard to describe. It's a slug but it isn't at all either.
yeah if you can get the Microsoft Store working for you its amazing
Every game I download has different errors lol, but when I am able to get them to work its an amazing deal
Gamepass has a specific (incomplete) list of programs it will not work with, either running at the same time or just installed on the system; it's really annoying.
Mostly anti-virus stuff (other than Windows Defender), anti-keyloggers, and OC programs, but since trial and error made the list in the first place, it could be anything.
I remember that time Tim Schafer liked my tweet about getting all the achievements in the Grim Fandango remaster. It was cool.
a few years ago when I beat Ultima IV, I did as the game told me ("REPORT THY FEAT UNTO LORD BRITISH AT ORIGIN SYSTEMS") and tweeted to Richard Garriott, and he liked and rt'ed me. It turns out he still faithfully does that 35 years after the game came out. It makes me so happy.
I remember that time Tim Schafer liked my tweet about getting all the achievements in the Grim Fandango remaster. It was cool.
a few years ago when I beat Ultima IV, I did as the game told me ("REPORT THY FEAT UNTO LORD BRITISH AT ORIGIN SYSTEMS") and tweeted to Richard Garriott, and he liked and rt'ed me. It turns out he still faithfully does that 35 years after the game came out. It makes me so happy.
Finishing Ultima IV in the modern era is a labor of love. All that managing food/rest, regular ambushes, reagent inventory management, trudging through poisonous (!) swamps at particular phases of the moon to harvest some damn mandrake, chasing moon gates... I love the game deeply, of course. But game mechanics have come a long way since young iolo, with what now feels like infinite time, explored this magical land on the family Apple ][E.
I remember that time Tim Schafer liked my tweet about getting all the achievements in the Grim Fandango remaster. It was cool.
a few years ago when I beat Ultima IV, I did as the game told me ("REPORT THY FEAT UNTO LORD BRITISH AT ORIGIN SYSTEMS") and tweeted to Richard Garriott, and he liked and rt'ed me. It turns out he still faithfully does that 35 years after the game came out. It makes me so happy.
Finishing Ultima IV in the modern era is an era of love. All that managing food/rest, regular ambushes, reagent inventory management, trudging through poisonous (!) swamps at particular phases of the moon to harvest some damn mandrake, chasing moon gates... I love the game deeply, of course. But game mechanics have come a long way since young iolo, with what now feels like infinite time, explored this magical land on the family Apple ][E.
Honestly, some of that stuff has come back in a big way with roguelikes and dungeon crawlers and the rest, and I feel like most of Ultima's actual mechanics are real simple: there are only a few weapons, characters don't have complicated mazes of level up powers, you don't have to "junction" anything or put orbs into gems. The big hurdle for me is the interface, with a different keyboard button for every game function, and the amount of memorization and repetition required. You've gotta get eight runes and eight mantras and go to eight shrines and crawl eight dungeons for eight orbs to etc etc.
But I think if the dungeons were less sloggy and combat was zippier, and you gave the graphics a trendy pixel-art wash and added some chiptuney music, it could actually be a kind of cool indie game in 2020.
+5
Options
BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
Playing Night Road. Into it so far, but also, they pushed an update that seems like it goofed up my game a bit?
it reset the the Xenogenetics chapter, so I'm having to go run that delivery again, but also it keeps giving me dialogue options referencing things that happened later in the chapter
i dunno some vampire must've used some mental magic to make time screwy or something, w/e
EDIT: though i've now failed a couple rolls that i passed last time and that's really annoying!
I remember that time Tim Schafer liked my tweet about getting all the achievements in the Grim Fandango remaster. It was cool.
a few years ago when I beat Ultima IV, I did as the game told me ("REPORT THY FEAT UNTO LORD BRITISH AT ORIGIN SYSTEMS") and tweeted to Richard Garriott, and he liked and rt'ed me. It turns out he still faithfully does that 35 years after the game came out. It makes me so happy.
Finishing Ultima IV in the modern era is an era of love. All that managing food/rest, regular ambushes, reagent inventory management, trudging through poisonous (!) swamps at particular phases of the moon to harvest some damn mandrake, chasing moon gates... I love the game deeply, of course. But game mechanics have come a long way since young iolo, with what now feels like infinite time, explored this magical land on the family Apple ][E.
Honestly, some of that stuff has come back in a big way with roguelikes and dungeon crawlers and the rest, and I feel like most of Ultima's actual mechanics are real simple: there are only a few weapons, characters don't have complicated mazes of level up powers, you don't have to "junction" anything or put orbs into gems. The big hurdle for me is the interface, with a different keyboard button for every game function, and the amount of memorization and repetition required. You've gotta get eight runes and eight mantras and go to eight shrines and crawl eight dungeons for eight orbs to etc etc.
But I think if the dungeons were less sloggy and combat was zippier, and you gave the graphics a trendy pixel-art wash and added some chiptuney music, it could actually be a kind of cool indie game in 2020.
The other thing that drives me nuts about Ultima games and that I would change (IV, V, VI, and VII) is that they created these (especially for the time) incredibly detailed medieval life simulators where people have daily schedules, everyone has a bed they return to at the end of the day, time passes, you can use objects with other objects in cromulent ways (cook meat on a fire, etc) - stuff that many modern games still just take a pass on - and yet it's to no purpose; the only content in the game is main story content. There's nothing that happens that isn't related to collecting all the gems or whatever that you need in the final dungeon. They had the perfect framework for a Skyrim-like experience (but with better writing) but nobody in 1991 had had the idea how to take that to the next level.
+7
Options
BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
Explore a magical world of dreams in this epic 2D action-adventure that mixes a handcrafted non-linear world with ARPG elements. Join Rem in his journey through the dream world where the only way out is inside the mind of the Dreamers.
"Kine is a charming 3D puzzle game about three musical machines hoping to find their big break. Guide these dreamers through a delightful tale of love, labor, and loss as they struggle to form a band and find success on the main stage.
Manipulate and maneuver each character by taking advantage of their unique abilities.
Navigate a stunningly beautiful world filled with a wide variety of 3D puzzles while listening to an award-winning original soundtrack.
"
I remember that time Tim Schafer liked my tweet about getting all the achievements in the Grim Fandango remaster. It was cool.
a few years ago when I beat Ultima IV, I did as the game told me ("REPORT THY FEAT UNTO LORD BRITISH AT ORIGIN SYSTEMS") and tweeted to Richard Garriott, and he liked and rt'ed me. It turns out he still faithfully does that 35 years after the game came out. It makes me so happy.
Finishing Ultima IV in the modern era is an era of love. All that managing food/rest, regular ambushes, reagent inventory management, trudging through poisonous (!) swamps at particular phases of the moon to harvest some damn mandrake, chasing moon gates... I love the game deeply, of course. But game mechanics have come a long way since young iolo, with what now feels like infinite time, explored this magical land on the family Apple ][E.
Honestly, some of that stuff has come back in a big way with roguelikes and dungeon crawlers and the rest, and I feel like most of Ultima's actual mechanics are real simple: there are only a few weapons, characters don't have complicated mazes of level up powers, you don't have to "junction" anything or put orbs into gems. The big hurdle for me is the interface, with a different keyboard button for every game function, and the amount of memorization and repetition required. You've gotta get eight runes and eight mantras and go to eight shrines and crawl eight dungeons for eight orbs to etc etc.
But I think if the dungeons were less sloggy and combat was zippier, and you gave the graphics a trendy pixel-art wash and added some chiptuney music, it could actually be a kind of cool indie game in 2020.
The other thing that drives me nuts about Ultima games and that I would change (IV, V, VI, and VII) is that they created these (especially for the time) incredibly detailed medieval life simulators where people have daily schedules, everyone has a bed they return to at the end of the day, time passes, you can use objects with other objects in cromulent ways (cook meat on a fire, etc) - stuff that many modern games still just take a pass on - and yet it's to no purpose; the only content in the game is main story content. There's nothing that happens that isn't related to collecting all the gems or whatever that you need in the final dungeon. They had the perfect framework for a Skyrim-like experience (but with better writing) but nobody in 1991 had had the idea how to take that to the next level.
The main limiting factor there will be storage limitations. Back in the 80s you had RPGs that shipped with physical books, containing the text of various scenes in the game because they couldn't fit them on the floppies. And later on, well, Ultima VI came on 7 floppies, and Ultima VII was split across two titles totaling 15 floppies, plus one extra if you count the Forge of Virtue expansion.
+4
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BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
I backed that one and I'm jazzed at how it's looking. Been avoiding any spoilers (like the demo) so I can just submerge myself in noir come release day.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I remember that time Tim Schafer liked my tweet about getting all the achievements in the Grim Fandango remaster. It was cool.
a few years ago when I beat Ultima IV, I did as the game told me ("REPORT THY FEAT UNTO LORD BRITISH AT ORIGIN SYSTEMS") and tweeted to Richard Garriott, and he liked and rt'ed me. It turns out he still faithfully does that 35 years after the game came out. It makes me so happy.
Finishing Ultima IV in the modern era is an era of love. All that managing food/rest, regular ambushes, reagent inventory management, trudging through poisonous (!) swamps at particular phases of the moon to harvest some damn mandrake, chasing moon gates... I love the game deeply, of course. But game mechanics have come a long way since young iolo, with what now feels like infinite time, explored this magical land on the family Apple ][E.
Honestly, some of that stuff has come back in a big way with roguelikes and dungeon crawlers and the rest, and I feel like most of Ultima's actual mechanics are real simple: there are only a few weapons, characters don't have complicated mazes of level up powers, you don't have to "junction" anything or put orbs into gems. The big hurdle for me is the interface, with a different keyboard button for every game function, and the amount of memorization and repetition required. You've gotta get eight runes and eight mantras and go to eight shrines and crawl eight dungeons for eight orbs to etc etc.
But I think if the dungeons were less sloggy and combat was zippier, and you gave the graphics a trendy pixel-art wash and added some chiptuney music, it could actually be a kind of cool indie game in 2020.
The other thing that drives me nuts about Ultima games and that I would change (IV, V, VI, and VII) is that they created these (especially for the time) incredibly detailed medieval life simulators where people have daily schedules, everyone has a bed they return to at the end of the day, time passes, you can use objects with other objects in cromulent ways (cook meat on a fire, etc) - stuff that many modern games still just take a pass on - and yet it's to no purpose; the only content in the game is main story content. There's nothing that happens that isn't related to collecting all the gems or whatever that you need in the final dungeon. They had the perfect framework for a Skyrim-like experience (but with better writing) but nobody in 1991 had had the idea how to take that to the next level.
The main limiting factor there will be storage limitations. Back in the 80s you had RPGs that shipped with physical books, containing the text of various scenes in the game because they couldn't fit them on the floppies. And later on, well, Ultima VI came on 7 floppies, and Ultima VII was split across two titles totaling 15 floppies, plus one extra if you count the Forge of Virtue expansion.
Playing Night Road. Into it so far, but also, they pushed an update that seems like it goofed up my game a bit?
it reset the the Xenogenetics chapter, so I'm having to go run that delivery again, but also it keeps giving me dialogue options referencing things that happened later in the chapter
i dunno some vampire must've used some mental magic to make time screwy or something, w/e
EDIT: though i've now failed a couple rolls that i passed last time and that's really annoying!
There's definitely still a few bugs in the game. Sections talking about stuff that hasn't happened. Options to use powers or weapons you don't have. Stats and inventory changing incorrectly. I've said before, but I think the game is just a bit too ambitious for the engine. Hopefully they'll get worked out, but I still love the game.
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BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
I remember that time Tim Schafer liked my tweet about getting all the achievements in the Grim Fandango remaster. It was cool.
a few years ago when I beat Ultima IV, I did as the game told me ("REPORT THY FEAT UNTO LORD BRITISH AT ORIGIN SYSTEMS") and tweeted to Richard Garriott, and he liked and rt'ed me. It turns out he still faithfully does that 35 years after the game came out. It makes me so happy.
Finishing Ultima IV in the modern era is an era of love. All that managing food/rest, regular ambushes, reagent inventory management, trudging through poisonous (!) swamps at particular phases of the moon to harvest some damn mandrake, chasing moon gates... I love the game deeply, of course. But game mechanics have come a long way since young iolo, with what now feels like infinite time, explored this magical land on the family Apple ][E.
Honestly, some of that stuff has come back in a big way with roguelikes and dungeon crawlers and the rest, and I feel like most of Ultima's actual mechanics are real simple: there are only a few weapons, characters don't have complicated mazes of level up powers, you don't have to "junction" anything or put orbs into gems. The big hurdle for me is the interface, with a different keyboard button for every game function, and the amount of memorization and repetition required. You've gotta get eight runes and eight mantras and go to eight shrines and crawl eight dungeons for eight orbs to etc etc.
But I think if the dungeons were less sloggy and combat was zippier, and you gave the graphics a trendy pixel-art wash and added some chiptuney music, it could actually be a kind of cool indie game in 2020.
The other thing that drives me nuts about Ultima games and that I would change (IV, V, VI, and VII) is that they created these (especially for the time) incredibly detailed medieval life simulators where people have daily schedules, everyone has a bed they return to at the end of the day, time passes, you can use objects with other objects in cromulent ways (cook meat on a fire, etc) - stuff that many modern games still just take a pass on - and yet it's to no purpose; the only content in the game is main story content. There's nothing that happens that isn't related to collecting all the gems or whatever that you need in the final dungeon. They had the perfect framework for a Skyrim-like experience (but with better writing) but nobody in 1991 had had the idea how to take that to the next level.
The main limiting factor there will be storage limitations. Back in the 80s you had RPGs that shipped with physical books, containing the text of various scenes in the game because they couldn't fit them on the floppies. And later on, well, Ultima VI came on 7 floppies, and Ultima VII was split across two titles totaling 15 floppies, plus one extra if you count the Forge of Virtue expansion.
I'm reminded of Phantasmagoria, and it's 7 CD length due to it being entirely FMV.
+1
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Zxerolfor the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't doso i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered Userregular
edited October 2020
I had the disk version of Return to Zork back in the day, which was 12 1.44mb floppies. Parents had to get a soundblaster for the game to work. I never got pass that door under Boo's crib, fuck that game.
On the other hand, the sound in X-Wing was fuckin sick.
Posts
Does the Xbox app use the Microsoft store?
I’ve used that to download a few game pass games and it’s worked just fine, no headaches.
Always bet on tiktok witches.
Never bet on tiktok witches.
Goes through the exact same backend.
There were a few people I had to brute force (damn topmen), but I managed to actually deduce the vast majority of fates.
I have never felt so smart in a game that consistently made me feel dumb as hell while I was overlooking small details.
(deduction spoilers don't look)
and it really is mazelike and claustrophobic and so much of it is fighting your way through tiny apartments and everything is kinda lo-fi enough (from the textures to the level geometry) that it feels kinda dreamlike, and it'll be incredibly moody and emotional in its level design and music and sound
and there'll also be times when you're fighting your way through a sewerage canal or whatever, and you'll look up and you'll see this incredibly detailed city rising above
but then also it is terrible at indicating where you need to go and it really does just throw new things at you without explaining or tutorialising and there's been things that i've tried out of desperation because i can't tell where to go and i guess i've seen this trick in a half life mod and it turns out to be the intended path that gets me out of this area i was stuck in for a while
there's also a few moments when it just killed me to teach me about a hazard and then expected me to deal with it when i reloaded
I just find it super compelling. It's like it's designing all of its encounters and levels "wrong" in a way that really just suits the weird desperate mood it's going for.
Steam // Secret Satan
So
This game is also incredibly dangerous for me because starting a "day" is like a time warp: for 7-ish minutes, the world around me vanishes and there is only the game. There are no phone notifications. There are no interruptions. There is only The Grill and The Customers. Then I look at the clock in between rounds and 30 minutes have passed in a blink.
Anyway if you liked the other CSD's and you've got 20 bucks, CSD3 is great!
MacLeod's Land System
For once we're coming to a new planet with no broken mechs and no injured pilots, and we're able to spend that travel time turning the Wolverine into a Mech that @Der Waffle Mous could use to his best, punching faces. There are mechs I prefer for punching, and roles I like better for a Wolverine, but of what we have now it can do the job well enough, so we load it up with SRM's and an Arm Mod++ that means it punches for 110 damage, put @Der Waffle Mous in the cockpit and turn them loose to see if they can wreck face.
And they start spectacularly.
Pucker up.
..and disabling the Thunderbolt so that we can take it as salvage. A truly defining performance from an in-form pilot, winning our merc company a second Heavy mech with even better potential as a frontline brawler than the Wolverine once it's repaired and readied.
Mohammed Ali vs Sonny Liston
The next mission - an attack on a convey and its escorts - starts just as strong.
This looks important, probably don't want to lose that.
He follows it up with an attempted coup-de-grace on a fallen Hunchback, and, well...
Where's the Kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!
The Hunchback, both torsos blown off, missing a leg, held together only by a bare handful of central torso struts, stands up, faces @Der Waffle Mous's practically unscratched fully armoured mech, and lands the only blow capable of crippling it: a desperation headbutt to the Wolverine's cockpit, killing @Der Waffle Mous and destroying the mech's head.
Oh, ratfucker.
The Hunchback - and the convoy - last only a moment more, but it's too late for @Der Waffle Mous and his is the second name added to our memorial wall.
Out of context, 'Hit in the head by an enemy Hunchback' sounds more like a scene from a comic pantomime.
With one mech sidelined for repairs, we are forced to use a lighter lance for the remainder of our stay at MacLeod's Land, which nearly causes a spectacular company collapse on the last mission in the system.
When we get there, however, it isn't an assault mech, but a Demolisher tank, backed by a Blackjack, Jagermech, and Thunderbolt; out-massing our team by more than 50 tons. It's a stiff fight, but we still fight them into the ground, getting the upper hand over the oppostion in a tactical slugfest that sees us get our own share of bruises and scratches.
Which is when the OpFor reinforcements drop in.
This is one of the reinforcement Thunderbolts charging down @I Zimbra, as opposed to the original one.
2 more Thunderbolts tanking through the middle, backed by a Rifleman and an Archer who keep peppering our mechs from extreme range. An even larger lance than the one we're already fighting, every mech Heavy and packing enough firepower to press us all the way into the corner of the battlefield. Over 500 tons in total; 6 Heavy mechs to our 1.
We abandon the tactical advance strategy, and start an mobile managed retreat, jumping in and out and constantly moving around the fringes, trying to play to our own advantage: controlling when and where the conflict happens. There's no room for finesse, no room to fully run away, and not enough time to try for disabling or salvaging our opponents; this is straight survival, which means bringing them down as quickly and as fast as we can.
Run away! Run away!
@Brolo and @Sprout both take shots to the head, but survive. The enemy Archer is brought down by concentrated fire from @Baidol and @Sprout into its weak rear armour. @I Zimbra chances an opportunity to set off an ammo explosion in the Thunderbolts central core; it doesn't come off, and instead loses an arm and a leg from his Firestarter. It's a long and ugly drawn out affair that lasts hours, but when the dust settles all four of our mechs and pilots remain standing, while our opponents litter the valley with their debris.
Every mech here about one good shot away from losing a limb or destruction; a good result that was very close to going very differently
It is the toughest battle we've had yet, but we made it though and triumphed.
This system is played out. Our mechs need a few days in the shop and our surviving pilots need a few days in the medbay, so it's time to pack this ship up and move on once again.
It genuinely terrifies me.
Steam // Secret Satan
Mostly anti-virus stuff (other than Windows Defender), anti-keyloggers, and OC programs, but since trial and error made the list in the first place, it could be anything.
New Vegas is 10 years old today, holy fuck
A Visit to the Casino:
E: apparently all my links were dead. Have some YT instead.
a few years ago when I beat Ultima IV, I did as the game told me ("REPORT THY FEAT UNTO LORD BRITISH AT ORIGIN SYSTEMS") and tweeted to Richard Garriott, and he liked and rt'ed me. It turns out he still faithfully does that 35 years after the game came out. It makes me so happy.
Finishing Ultima IV in the modern era is a labor of love. All that managing food/rest, regular ambushes, reagent inventory management, trudging through poisonous (!) swamps at particular phases of the moon to harvest some damn mandrake, chasing moon gates... I love the game deeply, of course. But game mechanics have come a long way since young iolo, with what now feels like infinite time, explored this magical land on the family Apple ][E.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
Honestly, some of that stuff has come back in a big way with roguelikes and dungeon crawlers and the rest, and I feel like most of Ultima's actual mechanics are real simple: there are only a few weapons, characters don't have complicated mazes of level up powers, you don't have to "junction" anything or put orbs into gems. The big hurdle for me is the interface, with a different keyboard button for every game function, and the amount of memorization and repetition required. You've gotta get eight runes and eight mantras and go to eight shrines and crawl eight dungeons for eight orbs to etc etc.
But I think if the dungeons were less sloggy and combat was zippier, and you gave the graphics a trendy pixel-art wash and added some chiptuney music, it could actually be a kind of cool indie game in 2020.
it reset the the Xenogenetics chapter, so I'm having to go run that delivery again, but also it keeps giving me dialogue options referencing things that happened later in the chapter
i dunno some vampire must've used some mental magic to make time screwy or something, w/e
EDIT: though i've now failed a couple rolls that i passed last time and that's really annoying!
http://www.audioentropy.com/
The other thing that drives me nuts about Ultima games and that I would change (IV, V, VI, and VII) is that they created these (especially for the time) incredibly detailed medieval life simulators where people have daily schedules, everyone has a bed they return to at the end of the day, time passes, you can use objects with other objects in cromulent ways (cook meat on a fire, etc) - stuff that many modern games still just take a pass on - and yet it's to no purpose; the only content in the game is main story content. There's nothing that happens that isn't related to collecting all the gems or whatever that you need in the final dungeon. They had the perfect framework for a Skyrim-like experience (but with better writing) but nobody in 1991 had had the idea how to take that to the next level.
this is kickstarting now
Noir Racoon Detective game Backbone is content complete, aiming for a Q1 2021 release. Devs say that might be affected by COVID, though.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/10/noir-roleplaying-detective-adventure-backbone-is-content-complete-with-a-new-trailer
the clear answer here is EVEN MORE floppies
There's definitely still a few bugs in the game. Sections talking about stuff that hasn't happened. Options to use powers or weapons you don't have. Stats and inventory changing incorrectly. I've said before, but I think the game is just a bit too ambitious for the engine. Hopefully they'll get worked out, but I still love the game.
HELL YEAH
On the other hand, the sound in X-Wing was fuckin sick.