Video Games: Shadow of the Rise of the Live Madden War III- HD Remaster

[Fez]

My uneasy relationship with my PC continues for now. I had another BSOD crash while playing Conan Exiles (as I do, from time to time), which was one of the issues I had with the old HDD. But I wonder if that game is just fucked; it wouldn't surprise me. And I had to restart the PC 3 times before, the BIOS recognized the SSD. I've also noticed a pattern (though the sample size is small), where the BIOS only recognizes the SSD if I leave the PC off for a few minutes before turning it on; anytime I immediately restart it, there's no recognition. I got a new SATA cable coming from Amazon tomorrow; so I'll test swapping out the cable and also trying another SATA port if I need to.

In the mean time, when it does work, I've played some more Mutant Year Zero. It's fun, though I wish there was either more plot/world-building or much deeper combat. The gameplay has a couple tricks to it that X-COM doesn't, most noticeably the ability to ambush and silently kill enemies without alerting the rest of the map, but overall the combat and character ability development seems shallower than X-COM. Which would be fine if there was a rollicking great story in there, but there doesn't seem to be. There's certainly some story, and the voice acting is solid, but not that much.

I also picked up Book of Demons after discovering I had a 66% off coupon in Steam due to owning Darkest Dungeon. Its fine. I don't know if it'd be worth $20 to me, but it's definitely wroth $7. It's Diablo on rails with a card system to determine your active abilities and equipment. Which is interesting sounding, but in actuality is just a clunkier feeling Diablo. Being swarmed by enemies that freely move around the map when you can only go forwards or backwards (sometimes there's a turn to make) does not feel great; and it's easy to misclick. I'm pretty sure they got the voice actor for Deckard Cain to be the sage here, which is kind of funny.

 

[Slurktan]

14 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I seem to be stuck. I have completed all the yellow missions in chapter 3, or at least I think I have, but I can’t get to the next part of the game. What’s the last mission I need to do?

Also, please tell me I can kill Dutch at some point. I want to be the boss man!!!

I take it you never played Red Dead Redemption 1 with that last question.

The last mission of 3 is Bill right in Rhodes.  What was the last mission you have done?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 hours ago, Slurktan said:

I take it you never played Red Dead Redemption 1 with that last question.

The last mission of 3 is Bill right in Rhodes.  What was the last mission you have done?

Dude, I haven’t really played video games in general since 2010 with the exception of D3.  

It’s been a bit since I’ve done a mission, so I’m not sure. A new yellow one popped up last night, but I couldn’t get to it because I owe an insane amount to bounties and in the process of paying them off, I killed like 50 bounty hunters, so the problems are only worse. I’ve got a ton of jewelry and a gold bar, but I can’t sell them at the fence. Not sure why that is.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

I’m shopping around for a new laptop that I will probably buy in January or February. Does anyone have any recommendations for where to shop or order online in the UK? I’m looking at spending £700-£800, so nothing ridiculously high end, just an i5 and a low-mid range gpu. I’ve been looking online at PC world, but was just wondering if there’s anywhere better to look.

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

I’m shopping around for a new laptop that I will probably buy in January or February. Does anyone have any recommendations for where to shop or order online in the UK? I’m looking at spending £700-£800, so nothing ridiculously high end, just an i5 and a low-mid range gpu. I’ve been looking online at PC world, but was just wondering if there’s anywhere better to look.

I'm also looking to buy soon. I'm really going to avoid PCworld or any of these outlets as you tend to pay a large premium for these prebuilt machines. 

A lot of my gaming friends tend to build their own PCs, but I am nowhere near that level of knowledge. 

However I recommend at least thinking about building your own, you don't need a huge amount of knowledge to do it right. 

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ is pretty good for that.

[Guy Kilmore]

On 12/19/2018 at 10:00 AM, Tywin et al. said:

I seem to be stuck. I have completed all the yellow missions in chapter 3, or at least I think I have, but I can’t get to the next part of the game. What’s the last mission I need to do?

Also, please tell me I can kill Dutch at some point. I want to be the boss man!!!

I forgot how to make spoiler tags, so read at your own risk.

 

No.  I do have good news for you, there is a whole game based around doing just that. 

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

I’m shopping around for a new laptop that I will probably buy in January or February. Does anyone have any recommendations for where to shop or order online in the UK? I’m looking at spending £700-£800, so nothing ridiculously high end, just an i5 and a low-mid range gpu. I’ve been looking online at PC world, but was just wondering if there’s anywhere better to look.

Yeah, PC World is terrible. I've used Cyberpower for my last 3 PCs and been very happy with them.

[Kalbear]

I like iBuyPower and have bought 3 good machines from them. 

That said, I'd recommend not doing a laptop if you're wanting it for gaming. 

[Werthead]

Laptops can handle gaming much better than they used to, but they do end up being rather problematic: a good gaming laptop is too heavy to be easily portable and tend to run quite hot, which impacts on lifespan. The Acer Predator Helios 3 is a good example of a great gaming laptop with a first-rate spec for a reasonable price, but as the reviews note, a sustain gaming session leaves the thing too hot to comfortably have on your lap (and the cooling fans kick into overdrive, making it rather noisy).

Steam sale on today and I picked up Thrones of Britannia, Surviving Mars, Stellaris and Attila (which I missed out way back in the day). I need to get my gaming groove back on and get diving into these games (I've taken a break after my enjoyable Fallout 3 replay).

[Jace, Extat]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Laptops can handle gaming much better than they used to, but they do end up being rather problematic: a good gaming laptop is too heavy to be easily portable and tend to run quite hot, which impacts on lifespan. The Acer Predator Helios 3 is a good example of a great gaming laptop with a first-rate spec for a reasonable price, but as the reviews note, a sustain gaming session leaves the thing too hot to comfortably have on your lap (and the cooling fans kick into overdrive, making it rather noisy).

Steam sale on today and I picked up Thrones of Britannia, Surviving Mars, Stellaris and Attila (which I missed out way back in the day). I need to get my gaming groove back on and get diving into these games (I've taken a break after my enjoyable Fallout 3 replay).

I liked Attila. I demand a thorough review!

Meanwhile I just bought like $80 worth of Crusader Kings 2 Expansions. Very excited. Can't fucking wait for Man the Guns to come out on Hearts of Iron IV, I've been practicing my resource management to be a naval power like England or Japan.

[A True Kaniggit]

The sooner Man the Guns comes out the better. I need to get revenge for my last disastrous playthough as Japan, when, in late 1948, the invasion of North America was completely annihilated because the American, Canadian, and Mexican forces pushed through the Rockies despite me dropping over 50 nukes on them. Thus forcing the surrender of 2.5 million brave Imperial soldiers.

[A True Kaniggit]

10 hours ago, Werthead said:

Laptops can handle gaming much better than they used to, but they do end up being rather problematic: a good gaming laptop is too heavy to be easily portable and tend to run quite hot, which impacts on lifespan. The Acer Predator Helios 3 is a good example of a great gaming laptop with a first-rate spec for a reasonable price, but as the reviews note, a sustain gaming session leaves the thing too hot to comfortably have on your lap (and the cooling fans kick into overdrive, making it rather noisy).

Steam sale on today and I picked up Thrones of Britannia, Surviving Mars, Stellaris and Attila (which I missed out way back in the day). I need to get my gaming groove back on and get diving into these games (I've taken a break after my enjoyable Fallout 3 replay).

Heads up, I'd probably save this one for last. The latest huge update just hit and Paradox is still trying to balance the new gameplay. They released the first patch yesterday and it improved some things, but it probably won't be finished until after the holidays.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

Laptops can handle gaming much better than they used to, but they do end up being rather problematic: a good gaming laptop is too heavy to be easily portable and tend to run quite hot, which impacts on lifespan. The Acer Predator Helios 3 is a good example of a great gaming laptop with a first-rate spec for a reasonable price, but as the reviews note, a sustain gaming session leaves the thing too hot to comfortably have on your lap (and the cooling fans kick into overdrive, making it rather noisy).

A cooling pad is a cheap, relatively trouble-free method of countering this issue. I got one about six months ago and it works great, my laptop fans rarely cut on. Set your laptop on it, plug it into a USB port and go. 

[Fez]

I had 42 games on my Steam wishlist yesterday, at least half went on sale and I realized that I'm just not interested in actually playing most of them. I seem to really be scrapping the barrel now of what i'm still interested in getting that I haven't picked up in previous sales. I ended up getting 4 games and deleting a whole bunch of my wishlist; its now down to 22 games, and most are newer games like Obra Din and Gris, which are games I'm still interested in but are new enough that they aren't are sale yet. Others are ports of old games like ChronoTrigger, which I'm not in any urge to play again, I just want to have a playable version in my collection again; but I don't need to get immediately.

Part of it may also be that I have so games to play right now, that I am still interested in playing, that I'm less motivated to seek out other games. For instance I'm still playing AC: Odyssey, and I have the new Tomb Raider already sitting in the library to be the next big AAA I start after Odyssey is done, so I'm less interested in picking up another AAA game.

I picked up: Infra, CrossCode, WH40K: Mechanicus, and Recettear. Which are all smaller games that intrigued me in one or another. Only started up Recettear, and its so clearly a Japanese game because the first thing you discover is how difficult it is to change any of the settings or controls. It seems to be a game about opening an item shop in a city to sell junk to would-be adventurers to pay off your father's debts to a fairy loan-shark. The main character's catchphrase is "Capitalism, ho!" I think there may also be a dungeon crawling side to the game; but so far its been a simple economy game, buying low, selling high, and haggling.

[Corvinus85]

I have the Flashpoint DLC on my wish list for BattleTech, but it's not on sale, and the reviews are mixed. I think I'll wait. Anyone try it yet?

I'm considering getting Stellaris, as its price is really low right now, but I don't have a good experience with Paradox grand strategy games. I actually got it once before, and didn't have the energy to get past all the tediousness in the beginning, nor was I able to get into Crusader Kings II.

[A True Kaniggit]

2 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

I'm considering getting Stellaris, as it's price is really low right now, but I don't have a good experience with Paradox grand strategy games. I actually got it once before, and didn't have the energy to get past all the tediousness in the beginning, nor was I able to get into Crusader Kings II.

Wait what?

[Corvinus85]

47 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Wait what?

I used steam's return policy.

[A True Kaniggit]

1 minute ago, Corvinus said:

I used steam's return policy.

Thank the Video Game Gods. I thought you bought a hard copy, broke it, and so had to buy a new one.

I almost thought we were back in the 1800's.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Ugh, I feel like I’m trapped in Chapter 3. But at least I found a new fence, sold like $800 worth of looted jewelry, payed off my bounties and bought a ton of bullets.

Also, how do you swap guns from people you’ve killed? It doesn’t seem to let me despite following the directions.   

[Slurktan]

9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Ugh, I feel like I’m trapped in Chapter 3. But at least I found a new fence, sold like $800 worth of looted jewelry, payed off my bounties and bought a ton of bullets.

Also, how do you swap guns from people you’ve killed? It doesn’t seem to let me despite following the directions.   

It will only give you the option to swap guns if it is something different then what you are carrying.  Usually you will just pick up the bullets.

Also a tip for bounties... if you have large ones go out of state to pay them.  For example since you are in chapter 3 I presume you are committing most of your crimes around Rhodes and the two plantation manors.  Go to the Emerald Station mailbox which is out of state then you wont have to deal with the pesky bounty hunters before you pay it off.   If you have bounties in New Hanover (Valentine, the Ranch, Van Horn, and Annesburg) go to Rhodes or Saint Denis. Have a ton of bounties in Lemoyne and New Hanover... go to Strawberry(which is in West Elizabeth) and pay them off there.

Also if you want to travel a little faster between bigger towns, stable your horse then take a stage or train to somewhere next to a stable far away. (If you don't stable your horse it will stay put meaning you will have no horse on hand without stealing) You can also fast travel from camp but you need to upgrade that.