samharper

What we've been playing

3 hours ago

Rymdkapsel! I've gone years without thinking of that, an exceptional little game, played it on an Android tablet. Great Vita port too.

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Travelling across Europe is a dream come true with the venerable Euro Truck multiplayer mod

samharper

4 hours ago

I loved TruckersMP but felt it was ruined when they added normal road cars, griefers everywhere. So the official convoy mode has been a godsend (having the NPCs back means it doesn't feel as empty as the mod could), especially since it's got built in job synchronisation. But it's encouraging to read griefers are not the issue they once were, there is something weirdly reassuring about spending 30 mins in a traffic jam caused by other real players overloading the road infrastructure!

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The joy of making the same mistake twice

samharper

2 days ago

@Foolish_Monkey Even then I think there's a difference, the skill ceiling in RL is insanely high and it takes hundreds of hours to get that good. Whereas even with the best UI in the world, we'll use Assassin's Creed Odyssey as an example, it has a relatively low skill ceiling you hit after about an hour then it's literally just the same thing for another 80 hours. I feel this way about Destiny as well, it reveals its hand very quickly, it's not super deep but it expects you to keep doing it for hours and hours and hours. Yes it gets substantially harder with some raids later on, but it is a very monotonous grind to get there where you're basically at the same level for dozens of hours.

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Zone of the Enders HD Collection leads September's Games with Gold

samharper

4 days ago

Worth noting the extensive patch was on PS3 only (as stated in the linked article...) so this still has a very borked version of ZoE2, at least the slowdown won't be as much of an issue.

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F1 2021 delivers a performance masterclass on PS5 and Xbox Series X

samharper

5 days ago

The most visually irritating thing for me has been how low resolution the self shadowing is on the cars, the halo just leaves a horrible, poorly filtered blocky mess. But really the only reason it's so noticeable is because the rest of the game looks so good so from that regard, yeah, it's super impressive.

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Impressive fan-made The Simpsons: Hit & Run remake gives us an idea what a full remaster could be

samharper

6 days ago

@Britesparc The Simpsons Game came out at the same time as the movie (but doesn't have anything to do with it). It's a pretty average 3D platformer with a terrible camera and split screen co-op, saved by some surprisingly decent writing, impressive for the time cel shading and piss taking of a lot of EA IP.

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Nine years later, Kingdoms of Amalur staff receive final paycheck

samharper

1 week ago

@freethinker101 You've linked the wrong article there buddy :D

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Hades is currently the highest-ranked game for current-gen consoles

samharper

1 week ago

@MmmmmBaby Extra weird having an article using numbers to grade games on a website which stopped using numbers to grade games years ago because it's not a good way to grade games.

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Metal Gear Solid movie star says he loves the "strangely isolated, mournful, lonely" game

samharper

1 week ago

Normally when actors talk about the game their film is based on it's obvious they only heard about it when someone waved the nice cheque under their nose but I actually believe what he's saying. He's good enough to elevate a bad film so here's hoping he's given some good material to play with, the way he's describing his experience with the game is exactly what they should be going for IMO. I'd actually base it on Metal Gear myself, the skeleton of the story is there already but not fleshed out at all, so would give them a bit more room to do some... stuff that isn't genes and memes and nanomachines. Also means they can cast Kurt Russell as Big Boss.

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How 343 made Halo Infinite's bots play like humans

samharper

1 week ago

Bots this good + splitscreen makes me wish this came out in the before times where people would come round for some split screen fun :(

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EA vows to consider "the player perspective" when delisting games in the future

samharper

2 weeks ago

@Markusdragon The security issues thing can be a real problem to be fair, games with SecuROM or Starforce DRM are a total pain to get working on modern systems. Not that it necessarily applies in this case but even on PC it's possible for a game to become outdated through a weird mix of technology issues and incompatibilities and be unplayable on a modern system. Sometimes it's saveable through no-CD patches which are almost always unofficial, if the game wasn't very popular it's possible to be entirely SoL.

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Crysis 2 Remastered first look: what to expect from Crytek's next game

samharper

2 weeks ago

Is the multiplayer coming back? Was the best bit of the package imo, the streamlined suit abilities worked extremely well in some surprisingly vertical maps.

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Farewell, Emma!

samharper

2 weeks ago

A real loss for EG imo, one of the best writers on staff, always interesting and, importantly, accurate(!) reporting and the features were great. Best of luck in whatever comes next!!!

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Flying by memory

samharper

2 weeks ago

@LordDemigod Something I've not seen suggested much, but might help people in your case, is switch it to the legacy flight model in the options and turn every effect down to its minimum. Then the plane should just... fly, like FSX and earlier with all the assists on.

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Eight months later, I barely use any of PS5's new user interface features

samharper

3 weeks ago

These consoles really need to allow you to force 50Hz output on chosen media apps, NowTV and BBC iPlayer on PS4/Xbox One/Series are, well, juddery showing 50/25fps footage on a 60fps feed. The consoles already have 50Hz and 24Hz support for DVDs and Blu Rays respectively, it's just having the ability to enable that for apps that's missing.

Also bring back XMB, my TV still has it and I miss using it on a PS :(

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This Breath of the Wild mod adds "ray-tracing" and looks glorious

samharper

3 weeks ago

nintendohirethisman.mp4

3 5

Codemasters pulls out 3D Audio and puts back ray-tracing in F1 2021 on PS5

samharper

3 weeks ago

From the notes

Quick Practice will no longer cause excessive wear to components.

That's been an issue every year since they introduced component wear, it's pretty amazing that they need to push out a fix for it every year!!

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The Steam Deck will perform equally well whether you're mobile or have it docked

samharper

3 weeks ago

@septimus It's not like Thunderbolt is impossible on an AMD platform https://asrock.com/mb/amd/x570%20phantom%20gaming-itxtb3/

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Twitch lowers UK subscription pricing

samharper

4 weeks ago

@Eratosthenes Ł3.99 = $5.56 today. A sub in the US is still $5.99 (Ł4.30), add 20% tax on and that becomes $7.19 (Ł5.16). So we've gone from paying 17p more post tax to Ł1.17 less (of course different states have different tax and none of them have 20%, but the streamer in the other side doesn't get the paid the tax amount anyway). Not complaining but we are now getting it cheaper than they are.

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samharper

4 weeks ago

@ibz100 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOZzFXolGJc

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samharper

4 weeks ago

Under the existing pricing structure, UK subscribers were paying approximately $7 USD per sub, significantly higher than the $4.99 paid by Americans.

To be fair, the US price doesn't include tax, the UK one does. By contrast the subs are now quite a bit cheaper here than they are in the USA once that's taken into account.

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samharper

4 weeks ago

@Acrid back in my day streaming was the water streaming down the Clyde floating ships which were puttin good boys in work, ya know?

7 1

Ghost of Tsushima's multiplayer Legends mode getting standalone launch

samharper

4 weeks ago

Potentially stupid question: can PS5 Legends players play with PS4 users?

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AFK 'bouncers' are ruining Rainbow Six Siege in Japan

samharper

4 weeks ago

@TenMinJoe I still don't understand how this can't work with the X button, surely you can remap crouch? Or X already does something in game?

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McDonald's designed a hideous PS5 controller, accidentally exposed it to the world

samharper

4 weeks ago

@Hxy3000 I mean, it says in the article they do! "Sony PlayStation has not authorised the use of its controller in promotional materials related to the proposed Stream Week event and we apologise for any inconvenience caused"

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samharper

4 weeks ago

@DaleTheMagicalWhale It was released to Australian media, without first asking Sony if this abomination was ok to promote

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Half-Life 2 Remastered Collection is fan-made but reportedly has Valve's "consent"

samharper

4 weeks ago

@tubaros The FOX engine would like a word, 1 full(ish) MGS game, one spin off, 7 PES games, one demo, and that's it.

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Sony renews PlayStation Home trademark again

samharper

1 month ago

Please make me queue to play bowling again. Please.

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Final Fantasy 16 cutscenes filmed first in British English

samharper

1 month ago

@tiny-okay That's Final Fantasy Origin isn't it? :D https://youtu.be/no-MCGxZcsQ

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samharper

1 month ago

@MrTummyGiggles Starting to realise I didn't think about that very hard :D

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samharper

1 month ago

@welsh_will Yes of course, how could I forget about the Black Flag guy!!

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samharper

1 month ago

@HobartPaving Yeah absolutely, gold standard tbh. And also the only one I can think of.

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samharper

1 month ago

@Anrkist Something not English would be nice for a change if we're talking "British", can't remember the last game I played with someone from N.I. in it... Witcher 3? There's not a lot! Also bonus points for a non dwarf Scot or anything Welsh at all...

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Why Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart's 40fps support is a potential game-changer

samharper

1 month ago

I've wished for a long time that games which run between 50-60fps had a 50Hz output mode, even if it was just in PAL regions. Atl east we're getting somewhere now, the space in-between 30 and 60fps can still bring massive gains in fluidity.

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F1 2021 patch pulls ray-tracing on PS5 "to aid stability"

samharper

1 month ago

I'm encountering all sorts of weird issues on the PS5 version, first race I did it said "Press F7 to hold clutch" which was interesting, motion blur is forced off no matter what, frame rates in replays can be pretty poor (sub 30fps tearing mess, maybe for the best RT disappears for now), split screen forces player 2 into using manual starts if player 1 uses them and broken mirrors, all the menus have PS4 button icons, the wheel tethers zipping all over the shop in a crash... yeah, needs work.

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All-women speedrunning event Flame Fatales unveils schedule

samharper

1 month ago

@jerjef https://cmns324.wordpress.com/2018/04/09/why-arent-there-more-women-in-e-sports/ - good article with references for your further reading pleasure

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samharper

1 month ago

@jerjef It's not so much a case of people telling other groups they don't belong (although that 100% happens) but it's as much a case of "oh this person doing this thing is like me, I can do that".

Whataboutery isn't a valid argument in this scenario, men in primary education has nothing to do with the underrepresentation of women and minorities in events like this when you look at the demographics of the area. People of all genders and races have access to videogames and speedrunning, isn't it weird these events are predominantly (not entirely, predominantly) populated by white males in their 20s and 30s?

3 6

Stadia announces new revenue schemes to try and tempt more developers

samharper

2 months ago

There's something in there about paying out more depending on how long people play your game on the sub, i.e. "How to kill short games." Basically the only benefactors from this are GaaS and there's alreay waaaay too many of them.

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F1 2021 review - old dog, new tricks

samharper

2 months ago

Bummer there's no classic cars, used them a lot in the previous games. Still, the story mode being worth looking at is a good sign, I remember quite enjoying The Journey in FIFA 17.

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What we've been playing

samharper

2 months ago

Kinda peeved off with iRacing for this Le Mans shenanigans for two reasons

-League I'm in hosted a huge LM24h event last month with 8 splits and live moderators, because iRacing told them there would be no official 24h race at Le Mans

-It's ruined the rest of the European Endurance Series schedule because nobody wants to do 24h at CoTA, or basically any of the other rounds.

Saying that, I'm still extremely excited for the Spa 24h with the GT3s...

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Death Stranding Director's Cut adds a racing mode

samharper

2 months ago

Ultra-wide... on a PS5... huh? It doesn't currently support ultra-wide output, unless we're talking about letterboxing...

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New machine learning cheat threatens competitive console play

samharper

2 months ago

@jabberwocky Cronus has some good use cases - I used one to use my Logitech G27 on a PS4 for years because of that stupid security chip situation, didn't fancy spending Ł300 to buy basically the same wheel with a PS4 sticker on it.

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Codemasters bosses exit developer following EA buyout

samharper

2 months ago

Project Cars developer Slight Mad

Slightly Mad isn't it? Also looking for what is happening with the Mad Box which was "definitely" happening according to Ian Bell... :D

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Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown's location is finally revealed

samharper

2 months ago

@gordonpown Unlimited - the free roaming games in the Test Drive series
Solar Crown - the championship featured in Test Drive Unlimited 2

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Atari moves away from free-to-play and mobile to focus on premium PC and console games

samharper

2 months ago

The link in the article points to your Downloads folder on your PC Wes :D

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The 20 best racing games to play in 2021

samharper

2 months ago

@BellyFullOfHell Driveclub was amazing, unfortunately it's now only available physically and all DLC is de-listed, as well as the servers being down, unfortunate when the game has a lot of online features.

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samharper

2 months ago

Every update rFactor 2 receives somehow seems to make it worse and worse (the new UI is somehow even less functional than the old, extremely poor one), a real shame because the "official" DLC is amazing. I hope they can turn it around.

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Reconnecting with the way most people actually play games

samharper

2 months ago

For me it's not so much long games (I'm fine playing through a game for a year) but the missable PLAY NOW OR NEVER SEE IT AGAIN live service stuff that makes me enraged. Forza Horizon 4 one of the worst ever for this. But even totally single player games like Assassin's Creed or Hitman stick it in. It's very, very annoying.

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Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick's $155m pay package approved by shareholders

samharper

2 months ago

Why does every photo of him look like it's from 1995?

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Call of Duty: Warzone PS4 becomes first back compat game to support 120hz on PS5

samharper

2 months ago

@D4RC That's only on PSVR though right? IIRC Blood and Truth also got 120Hz support, but since the PS4 already supported 120Hz output for VR it's not really the same thing.

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