Octopus Overlords

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2020 5:57 pm
The AdventureGamers.com review of INFRA seemed a wee bit less enthused. So take that for what it's worth.

The Adventuregames.com review is spot on. I liked the game but it was too long for what it was. I never finished because I got burned out on carefully searching everywhere. I normally dislike systems where you instantly know what is important without any effort at all but this was way to far in the other direction with too many nooks and crannies that felt like they should have had some minor loot. Of course INFRA isn't a game with minor loot so it made sense. If I remember right I played it right after DX Human Revolution which was probably not a great plan since that game had loot everywhere.

Space Wolf's "campaign 1 final mission" is a PITA.

The mission's primary objective is to protect Egil against the chaos mage but it's not that hard when you have three guys (plus turrets and whatnot). Kill 4 bad guys and that's it. The problem is achieving the OTHER secondary objective: nab the crate, which is behind like a DOZEN chaos marines. And I can't kill them or MOVE fast enough. I can deal with the first four, no problem. I got the group together and turned around and was fighting through the group, but there are like 3 chaos marines left and I was maybe 2-4 turns away from the crate even at max run... when Egil decided he's done. POOF! End of mission. Sheesh, can't you just wait a moment while I finish up?!?!?

It seems the way to run this mission is use one turret and one heavy hitter to protect Egil, and the other two fight the way past the chaos marines protecting the crate and reinforcements.

Over the years I've played a lot of older games on newer hardware, and I've gotten pretty good at getting them working, but I've finally hit a wall on getting an old game to run. No One Lives Forever is, for me at least, not playable on Windows 10. Every trick in the book and hours of research, reinstalls, and tweaks and I have yet to get it to launch. And unfortunately it is lost in legal limbo, so sites like GoG will likely never be able to work with it.

The sad thing is that a lot of other people are reporting the same problems, and that it extends to other Lithtech games - Shogo, AvP2, etc. That's sad, as some of them were great games.

Ah, well. If I had the space I'd try to put together a working Windows XP system somewhere, but I don't have the room for an extra PC.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:05 am Over the years I've played a lot of older games on newer hardware, and I've gotten pretty good at getting them working, but I've finally hit a wall on getting an old game to run. No One Lives Forever is, for me at least, not playable on Windows 10. Every trick in the book and hours of research, reinstalls, and tweaks and I have yet to get it to launch. And unfortunately it is lost in legal limbo, so sites like GoG will likely never be able to work with it.

The sad thing is that a lot of other people are reporting the same problems, and that it extends to other Lithtech games - Shogo, AvP2, etc. That's sad, as some of them were great games.

Ah, well. If I had the space I'd try to put together a working Windows XP system somewhere, but I don't have the room for an extra PC.

Try using the NOLF Revival version instead.

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:17 am

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:05 am Over the years I've played a lot of older games on newer hardware, and I've gotten pretty good at getting them working, but I've finally hit a wall on getting an old game to run. No One Lives Forever is, for me at least, not playable on Windows 10. Every trick in the book and hours of research, reinstalls, and tweaks and I have yet to get it to launch. And unfortunately it is lost in legal limbo, so sites like GoG will likely never be able to work with it.

The sad thing is that a lot of other people are reporting the same problems, and that it extends to other Lithtech games - Shogo, AvP2, etc. That's sad, as some of them were great games.

Ah, well. If I had the space I'd try to put together a working Windows XP system somewhere, but I don't have the room for an extra PC.

Try using the NOLF Revival version instead.

That was my starting point, then the Modernizer, then various tweaks, then fixes from related games (AvP2 had a .dll fix for a similar error that I tried), etc.

Do you use Linux? From what I can see, NOLF seems to run fine on Linux with just a tiny amount of tweaking. There's an install script available on Lutris.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:32 am

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:17 am Try using the NOLF Revival version instead.

That was my starting point, then the Modernizer, then various tweaks, then fixes from related games (AvP2 had a .dll fix for a similar error that I tried), etc.

Alas, I thought you might've been trying to work with the original version of the game. Sorry to hear it didn't help.

Paradroid wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:46 am Do you use Linux? From what I can see, NOLF seems to run fine on Linux with just a tiny amount of tweaking. There's an install script available on Lutris.

Nope. I've tried Linux a couple of times, but as someone who hasn't coded since BASIC and Pascal, I didn't really feel much drive to get past the learning curve of a command-line operating system.

Paradroid wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:46 am Do you use Linux? From what I can see, NOLF seems to run fine on Linux with just a tiny amount of tweaking. There's an install script available on Lutris.

Paradroid?



I have fond memories of playing that game on my trusty Commodore 64.

I've played it with the revival version. I'll check it out today and just make sure, but from what I know it SHOULD be working...?

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:50 am Nope. I've tried Linux a couple of times, but as someone who hasn't coded since BASIC and Pascal, I didn't really feel much drive to get past the learning curve of a command-line operating system.

I assume you haven't used it recently then! It hasn't been a command-line operating system for a long time.

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:52 am Paradroid?

I have fond memories of playing that game on my trusty Commodore 64.

Yep, it's one of my all-time favourite games, and precisely why I chose this username.

Eel Snave wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 12:38 pm I've played it with the revival version. I'll check it out today and just make sure, but from what I know it SHOULD be working...?

Yeah, that's what I thought. I remember playing it under Windows 10 myself, and the NOLF Revival site also indicates it should work on Win 10. So I dunno why Blackhawk is having such difficulty with it.

It isn't just me. Some of the discussions I found had people across multiple Lithtech games having the same issue. It's likely related to some Windows update or something if it was working before.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:58 pm It isn't just me. Some of the discussions I found had people across multiple Lithtech games having the same issue. It's likely related to some Windows update or something if it was working before.

Yeah, it may well have been FUBAR'd by a Windows Update. It was a long time ago that I played it.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:50 am

Paradroid wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:46 am Do you use Linux? From what I can see, NOLF seems to run fine on Linux with just a tiny amount of tweaking. There's an install script available on Lutris.

Nope. I've tried Linux a couple of times, but as someone who hasn't coded since BASIC and Pascal, I didn't really feel much drive to get past the learning curve of a command-line operating system.

you might find this interesting: https://boilingsteam.com/gameros-an-enh ... f-steamos/ GamerOS just puts you in Steam Big Picture mode permanently, nothing to do with desktop (much less command line interface) at all. it essentially console-izes your PC.

So for a quick summary, the good:

A much more up-to-date version of SteamOS, with updates coming in about once a month
Easy and swift installation
No need to install or configure graphics drivers post-installation
Out of the box gamepad support
Out of the box support for emulators up until the GameCube/PS2 era
Steam Buddy allows the user to control GamerOS from another device, including the ability to activate MangoHUD or toggle the compositor used, as well as install Flatpaks
It’s a great way to introduce someone to Linux, as updates are done behind the scenes to make GamerOS as seamless of an experience as possible

and Proton (the Valve-backed and funded version of WINE for Steam, shipped with the Linux version of Steam by default) came out two years ago now, and is absolutely amazing in letting one run Windows games on Linux. total game changer. https://www.protondb.com/

I think Im going to have to turn in my gamer card. Ive done nothing all day and have no urge to. I realized this earlier so played TF2...for almost 3 minutes. I do nothing in life and want to do nothing.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 6:08 pm Ive done nothing all day and have no urge to. ... I do nothing in life and want to do nothing.

you need psychological help.

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 6:35 pm

Daehawk wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 6:08 pm Ive done nothing all day and have no urge to. ... I do nothing in life and want to do nothing.

you need psychological help.

Damn, dude. Yeah, man, that sounds like depression. PM me if you want to talk.

Anyone play Valley? Just finished this one up, and holy crap, what an experience! It's quite the ride and this would be fun in VR. It starts out innocently enough feeling like a walking simulator type of game but becomes so much more, giving you a special exosuit where you get different abilities. I had a blast with this one.

Rumpy wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 10:02 pm Anyone play Valley? Just finished this one up, and holy crap, what an experience! It's quite the ride and this would be fun in VR. It starts out innocently enough feeling like a walking simulator type of game but becomes so much more, giving you a special exosuit where you get different abilities. I had a blast with this one.

I just started it over the weekend.
I'm calling it a "running and jumping sim". I just finished up the climb up the mountain and the drop into the facility. Got the "sprint" upgrade, but haven't tried it out yet. I'm definitely (mostly) digging it so far.

Still on Space Wolf. Tried Campaign 1 final mission again: this time I got one guy running "south" into the chaos marines concentration, while two follow Egil and take care of the Chaos mage. They managed to do that, but Egil took like half damage. Now everyone head toward the gaggle of chaos marines. Wolf got shot, of course, the combo already took out 3-6 bad guys. And they were killing even more bad guys when Egil was all done. Needed two more turns or three to nab the crate as there's still like 3-4 chaos marines left in our path. It MAY be possible to jumpjet past them, but it'd be almost a sacrificial play. Eeek.

i've been trying on and off for a few years to get my mom's copy of Bookworm Deluxe working again. apparently EA (not too long after they purchased PopCap Games) completely delisted it from every digital download service, including Origin. just tonight, i found that archive.org has it for free:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=popcap

EA doesn’t want educated consumers.

Was thinking back to the mid 90s and pc gaming. Didn't have fancy hardware then. I can remember buying $12 keyboards at Electronics Boutique. Sometimes you'd get one with clicky keys and other times it would be a membrane one. I had MS or Logitech mice that cost about $15. The high tech mouse was the new Logitech 3 button mouse. It had all three buttons on top in a row all the same size and a ball in the bottom to track movement. No scroll wheel, no back and forward thumb buttons, and no dpi switch. That was fancy and I think it cost about $20. Had a lot of fun gaming with stuff like that.



Still remember having to take the mouse bottom off on those old type mice and cleaning the ball and the gunk off the rollers inside. Back then though that was amazing tech to me and new and I didn't mind a bit.

I had a copy of Gazillionaire Deluxe from Amazon, but the authentication service/storefront it ran though was sold our shut down. I think that's the first time I've lost access to a digital game, outside of whatever happened to Stardock and Direct2Drive in the end. Frustrating. I went ahead and bought the new Steam version for $20... seems annoying considering I only spent $2.99 on the Amazon copy. But I figure I extracted countless hours of entertainment from it as a kid using a copy a friend burned for me, so I owe them.

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 1:49 am i've been trying on and off for a few years to get my mom's copy of Bookworm Deluxe working again. apparently EA (not too long after they purchased PopCap Games) completely delisted it from every digital download service, including Origin. just tonight, i found that archive.org has it for free:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=popcap

RPS did a fascinating story on how Bookworm Adventures has been erased from the internet.

I miss old PopCap. They were truly the masters of casual games before getting sucked into the EA vortex of suck.

TheMix wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:16 pm

Rumpy wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 10:02 pm Anyone play Valley? Just finished this one up, and holy crap, what an experience! It's quite the ride and this would be fun in VR. It starts out innocently enough feeling like a walking simulator type of game but becomes so much more, giving you a special exosuit where you get different abilities. I had a blast with this one.

I just started it over the weekend.
I'm calling it a "running and jumping sim". I just finished up the climb up the mountain and the drop into the facility. Got the "sprint" upgrade, but haven't tried it out yet. I'm definitely (mostly) digging it so far.

It gets better as it goes on. I was quite amazed what they managed to do with the narrative. There's a spot towards the end where I kept dying as I couldn't reach the spot I needed. Restarted the level multiple times until I realized that once I had momentum, that I shouldn't stop as I wouldn't have enough of it by the time I reached that spot. So heads up on that. I think you'll know it when you come across it.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 1:57 pm I miss old PopCap. They were truly the masters of casual games before getting sucked into the EA vortex of suck.

I agree. They were exceptional in that I was buying download-only games from them before I ever realized Steam would become a thing.

Rumpy wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 10:02 pm Anyone play Valley? Just finished this one up, and holy crap, what an experience! It's quite the ride and this would be fun in VR. It starts out innocently enough feeling like a walking simulator type of game but becomes so much more, giving you a special exosuit where you get different abilities. I had a blast with this one.

Loved, loved, loved this game.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 1:57 pm

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 1:49 am i've been trying on and off for a few years to get my mom's copy of Bookworm Deluxe working again. apparently EA (not too long after they purchased PopCap Games) completely delisted it from every digital download service, including Origin. just tonight, i found that archive.org has it for free:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=popcap

RPS did a fascinating story on how Bookworm Adventures has been erased from the internet.

I miss old PopCap. They were truly the masters of casual games before getting sucked into the EA vortex of suck.

good timing on the publication of that article. one of the comments speculates that the IP was removed due to similarities with Boggle (a Hasbro property, back when EA had an ongoing partnership with them) and another says it may have been too similar to Apogee's "Word Rescue", but no real answer is forthcoming.

Rumpy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 2:12 pm

TheMix wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:16 pm

Rumpy wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 10:02 pm Anyone play Valley? Just finished this one up, and holy crap, what an experience! It's quite the ride and this would be fun in VR. It starts out innocently enough feeling like a walking simulator type of game but becomes so much more, giving you a special exosuit where you get different abilities. I had a blast with this one.

I just started it over the weekend.
I'm calling it a "running and jumping sim". I just finished up the climb up the mountain and the drop into the facility. Got the "sprint" upgrade, but haven't tried it out yet. I'm definitely (mostly) digging it so far.

It gets better as it goes on. I was quite amazed what they managed to do with the narrative. There's a spot towards the end where I kept dying as I couldn't reach the spot I needed. Restarted the level multiple times until I realized that once I had momentum, that I shouldn't stop as I wouldn't have enough of it by the time I reached that spot. So heads up on that. I think you'll know it when you come across it.

I might be ready for that already. I ran into a spot ascending the mountain where I died multiple times before I learned that I needed to run down the ramp for that little extra speed boost. And then jump without slowing down and grab the crane hook mid-jump. The trick was running down the ramp and then turning 90 degrees without slowing. (I actually went looking online and found the hint. Hopefully I'll remember it going forward.)

TheMix wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 3:03 pm

Rumpy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 2:12 pm

TheMix wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:16 pm

Rumpy wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 10:02 pm Anyone play Valley? Just finished this one up, and holy crap, what an experience! It's quite the ride and this would be fun in VR. It starts out innocently enough feeling like a walking simulator type of game but becomes so much more, giving you a special exosuit where you get different abilities. I had a blast with this one.

I just started it over the weekend.
I'm calling it a "running and jumping sim". I just finished up the climb up the mountain and the drop into the facility. Got the "sprint" upgrade, but haven't tried it out yet. I'm definitely (mostly) digging it so far.

It gets better as it goes on. I was quite amazed what they managed to do with the narrative. There's a spot towards the end where I kept dying as I couldn't reach the spot I needed. Restarted the level multiple times until I realized that once I had momentum, that I shouldn't stop as I wouldn't have enough of it by the time I reached that spot. So heads up on that. I think you'll know it when you come across it.

I might be ready for that already. I ran into a spot ascending the mountain where I died multiple times before I learned that I needed to run down the ramp for that little extra speed boost. And then jump without slowing down and grab the crane hook mid-jump. The trick was running down the ramp and then turning 90 degrees without slowing. (I actually went looking online and found the hint. Hopefully I'll remember it going forward.)

Oh yeah, the skyhooks I found tricky to use as they would often catch me out before I noticed them, as it gets tricky to point at them when you're moving which is what you sometimes have to do. There's a part high up in the trees with many of them and I died a lot there before reaching the checkpoint. There's a part towards the middle with a big tree and a part where you can climb up via electrical conduits which saves a lot of trial and error and makes the trip much shorter.

Given the praise (and the fact that it is currently $3 on Steam), I picked up Valley.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 4:23 pm Given the praise (and the fact that it is currently $3 on Steam), I picked up Valley.

It's quite pretty. Generally pretty relaxing (i.e. the jumping puzzles haven't been too bad yet). And the music has been excellent.

TheMix wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 4:45 pm

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 4:23 pm Given the praise (and the fact that it is currently $3 on Steam), I picked up Valley.

It's quite pretty. Generally pretty relaxing (i.e. the jumping puzzles haven't been too bad yet). And the music has been excellent.

I’ve had this recurring dream for years of running through wide open spaces and leaping over huge distances, exactly like how you move in Valley. Maybe that’s a thing for everyone, but it was actually incredibly eerie when I first started playing how similar it was to my dreams.

I need to go back and play it again...

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 7:36 pm

TheMix wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 4:45 pm

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 4:23 pm Given the praise (and the fact that it is currently $3 on Steam), I picked up Valley.

It's quite pretty. Generally pretty relaxing (i.e. the jumping puzzles haven't been too bad yet). And the music has been excellent.

I’ve had this recurring dream for years of running through wide open spaces and leaping over huge distances, exactly like how you move in Valley. Maybe that’s a thing for everyone, but it was actually incredibly eerie when I first started playing how similar it was to my dreams.

I need to go back and play it again...

Mine are either running uphill, steep enough that I'm using my hands, and unable to go fast enough, or running as if I were in water, again unable to go fast enough. I'm never running specifically to or from something, but there is always a sense of urgency. I've also had similar dreams where I've been in a fist fight and it's been like I'm underwater.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was conceived via dreams

Still on Space Wolf, did another couple campaign missions, nabbed the crate each time, usually with some good tactical moves, IMHO.

There was a level where I was supposed to clear out the map of cultists.

Took out another chaos mage, this one killed a Space Wolf hero, when I killed 7 of his minions. And he can summon "demons". But with some judicious use of firepower with just two guys (third guy and the wolf managed to nab the crate) was able to take him down when I got the a terminator next to him with a power axe. Though it was rather close (one guy was down to 10% health).

---

Still playing, but the game relies so much on infinite spawns that it's not fun to play anymore.

Latest mission was one example: locate and destroy the drop-beacon that allow the chaos marines to drop in all over the map. No problem with that, as they drop in 2 or 3 at a time, and with a little prep time, I can take them out.

But the game started throwing reinforcements off the sides (3 every 2-3 turns), cultist reinforcements (2 at a time), AND droppods (4 at a time), it's just no longer possible, esp. since I had just wiped out one wave when the next wave showed up, and so on. In fact, one wave spawned NEXT TO ME. Enemies now have 400+ points of health so even my best weapons don't kill them dead in one shot (in fact, frequently they survive with 5-35 points of health left)

At the end I had to do a sacrificial play... One terminator ran forward to hold off like 10+ chaos marines, while the other two shoot the beacon. The terminator went down, and while some of the chaos marines are blocked by their own, others moved forward and started engaging the remaining two, and one guy is down to 1/3rd HP when finally the beacon went kaput. And this is with decent use of turrets and so on. Oh, AND I had to take out a Chaos Dreadnought (a mech with a couple THOUSAND HP). In fact, the mech started with 12000 HP, and one of our gunships strafed it, taking out 9000 HP, leaving 3000 or so for our 3 guys to deal with (the other 1000 was from other damage from 2 other Space Wolfs that showed up and my guys). Oh, and that Dreadnought has missiles and heavy plasma that does 120-160 damage per shot. Yikes.

Thought you said Star Wolves for a moment. Loved that series. Dont know Space Wolf.

We're being invaded!!

Thanks to Blues....

Tencent Opens US Studio

This week Tencent Holdings launched a new U.S. game studio in California called LightSpeed LA, reports Reuters. They say the Chinese giant is looking to create AAA games and enhance their for global appeal. Word is the studio is being headed up by Steve Martin, a Rockstar veteran who's a wild and crazy guy: