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8 days agoMan, I’ve been waiting for years. With GFL1 done and GFL2 in the state it’s at, I might finally get back to something that requires thinking when playing.
Don’t Think, Just Jam
I started a screenshot album for my virtual adventures. Check it out if you’d like.
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Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: November 25th, 2023
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I’m not too hot on the use of AI for a translation patch but it was pretty limited here so I guess it’s fine. I’ll add it to our VN Patch list. Thanks!
4·14 days agoThings didn’t really improve on my side so a focused playthrough of anything in particular is still a no-go, I did however manage to fix my issue with Division 2.
For some reason, installing Ubisoft Connect through Lutris makes it only work with specific setup and specific version of Proton (GE-Proton 9.27) - that however no longer works correctly with TD2. The app itself launched fine but the game wouldn’t run due to issue with Easy Anti-Cheat not booting. At the same time, changing WINE version failed to launch UC in the first place so I couldn’t even check if it would help with the game.
What was the solution then? Just install UC through the Heroic Launcher, that’s it.
I’m now using GE-Proton 11.1 and the game runs without any issues. I spent so much time trying to make things work as usual and it turned out the solution was this simple. Ehh… At least it works. Mindless slaughter it is (for now)!
In that case 1+2 remake is definitely a solid choice. Maps, gameplay and general vibes are lovingly recreated from the originals - it really feels like playing the classics in modern skin.
Not the OP but THPS 1+2 is a pretty solid remake (sans some missing songs). There’s a lot of love and passion put into it and it plays really well.
3+4 on the other hand… that one missed the mark in my opinion. It’s missing way more skaters and music, and removed the career mode from 4, replacing it with normal time-limited runs. It feels more like a DLC for the first remake than a proper standalone release.
That’s just my opinion after playing for a bit at my friend’s place though. If I want to play the series I go for original releases anyway so feel free to take it with a grain of salt.
10·15 days agoGacha games (especially these days) are usually more censored on Chinese servers than on global ones to avoid government interest. That’s why you can have long running titles like Azur Lane being kinda crazy with their skins without getting into trouble while other ones (Snowbreak) crash and burn because their devs felt a little too comfortable skirting the rules.
Not saying whether any of that is good or bad but CN servers do tend to err on the side of caution with their designs.
2·16 days agoI mentioned last week I’ll be taking a break from reading but I stumbled upon an interesting manhwa during one of my random searches so I’d like to write about it a little bit.
My Possession Became a Ghost Story is a pretty unique story with a villainess theme thanks to a very specific twist.
MC is completely oblivious to what’s going on around her and just tries to live out her transmigration fantasies based on stories she read in her original life. She literally filters out all the incoming information and interprets them in the usual tropey way you’d find in titles like this. Doing so leads to things like her thinking everyone hated the original character because she was a villainess (she was a great person everyone loved) or meeting a knight who suspects her of a crime and thinking he’s a love interest (dude has a difficult time trying to act normal in front of her because of how she sees her).
On the other hand, everyone else from the estate knows she’s not the original person (MC literally took over a dead body in the middle of a funeral) and think she’s some kind of demon or other cosmic horror possessing the corpse. Pretty much everyone sees her as a creepy dreamlike/ghostly “creature” which gives ominous vibes (like the already mentioned knight).
It’s a pretty engaging read which feels like you’re going through two separate stories at the same time. Horror elements are well done and feel quite creepy whenever we get a look other people’s perspectives (the art in these segments is fantastic!). MC’s misunderstanding is understandable since no one treats her like a person and explains what’s going on to fix her misconceptions. Her perspective on the other hand can be a bit hit or miss, especially since she feels extremely dense at times, as if she was completely unable to look past her delusions about how things should play out and actually engage with what’s happening around her. Thankfully, that part isn’t egregious enough to harm the experience.
TL;DR: MC tries to live out a tropey transmigration comedy while everyone else exists in a cosmic horror story.
I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with a more detailed list once I play a bit more but here are some things off the top of my head.
TD2 -> GRW:
- Smoother climbing/mantling system.
- Slightly slower movement speed.
- Armour pieces which serve purpose beyond looks (even if how it works is pretty gamey in TD).
- Navigation system (route line visible directly in the environment rather than on the mini-map).
- Camera which doesn’t change shoulder offset on its own.
- Weather reactions (different animation sets for different weather conditions).
- Slightly better character customisation (body).
- Some of the (less crazy) cosmetic items.
GRW -> TD2
- Stance system (crouching and crawling).
- Character building (I know TD is a live service looter shooter but boy do the meta changes and all of the build or progression systems get overwhelming at times).
- Gun controls (ability to switch fire mode, change scope crosshair and holster your weapon).
- Number of customisable gun parts.
- Ability to approach action in a more stealthy way and in less linear fashion (for some missions, not everything has to be a tightly directed spectacle).
- Less bulletspongy enemies (not to the level of GRW but a little more squishy than in current TD).
- Environment affecting character look (for example: crawling in the dirt covers your character in mud).
- Better compatibility between all of the outfit elements (some combos in TD2 don’t mesh well together - as in physically, not even in terms of style).
- Ability to save outfit sets.
There are also some elements I keep going back and forth on, like whether I prefer the “hard” cover system of TD (you have to commit to entering/exiting cover) or the “soft” system of GRW (your character automatically adjusts position based on proximity to cover). Both have their good and bad sides so it’s a pretty tough choice.
Eh, it’s just my brain being weird. While it’s not great, it’s something that happens from time to time so I try not to let it get to me too much.
On a brighter side, it gives me a bit more time to work out my Stalker role-play scenario, so there’s that at least.
I mentioned last week that things aren’t great and that’s still the case, leading to a situation I can’t really focus on anything specific and been bouncing between various titles trying to find something to occupy my time. Didn’t have much luck so far but I’m still trying.
Bouncing between a bunch of games
My first idea was to play some Division 2 however that game had other plans. I once again have issues with Easy Anti-Cheat except this time my usual workaround doesn’t work so I can’t even load beyond the main menu.
Next was Assassin’s Creed Unity, which ended in another failure. This time the issue had with the game not reacting to any input from my controller (well, I could press start on the title screen but nothing else). I tried playing directly from UPlay, I tried launching everything through Steam to use Steam Input - still no reaction to the controller, regardless of what I did.
I tried playing with keyboard and mouse but that was a miserable experience so I stopped immedietly after the prologue section. Playing this way is just too stiff and not fun at all.Alright, my library is pretty big so I can go further - how about Terraria? I had it in my backlog for years but only tried it for less than an hour total. Let’s go with that. Well, I did. Then I went back to Starbound (Glad Giraffe beta specifically). Terraria might be a better game I man do I not vibe with its art style. Not only that, I actually find Starbound to be more intuitive (why can I destroy blocks with a pickaxe but can’t do the same to background walls for example?) and enjoyable to play. It’s one of those cases where a thing doesn’t have to be the best, it just have to be the best “for me”.
So yeah, Terraria was also a bust.I also tried Heroes of Might and Magic III but as much as I like the game, I’m just not in the right headspace to play titles like this.
Two titles I actually managed to stuck with for now are: Ghost Recon Wildlands and D1AL-ogue.
I have some mixed feelings about GRW. Graphically it looks great (except for characters’ hands, which look like everyone is 80 year old) and the gameplay feels just as good. Gunplay is smooth and satisfying, weapon customisation is simple but does its job well. I also really enjoy its movement system, even if there are some times where it controlled more like The Division (there are also some things I’d from this game I’d love to see in TD).
One thing I wasn’t ready for was how fragile you are in this game - I like it. It forces you to approach missions more tactically instead of running in guns blazing.Writing is… fine. It does its job but it’s not really my cup of tea. Voice acting (at least for the main character) can also be hit or miss depending on the line. I do however like the approach to in-combat callouts. They are calm, professional and feel perfect for characters who suppose to be an elite combat unit.
Despite all of those things ranging from good to decent, I have a difficult time actually clicking with this game - no idea why. Might be my brain’s fault.
All in all, it’s a decent time waster that should tide me over until I’m ready to go back to Stalker. Probably won’t be something I’ll keep returning to regularly, unlike TD, but it’s enjoyable enough.
D1AL-ogue is a cyberpunk visual novel with puzzle elements, heavily inspired by VA-11 Hall:A. You play as an android repair man instead of bartender but the vibes, gorgeous visuals and (not as great) music leave no doubt about that inspiration. Puzzle gameplay is simple but fun, and each “stage” for visiting character is followed by a dialogue segments about various topics.
Writing could use a bit more polish (studio is Korean, I think, and there are some weirdly worded parts here and there) but it looks like devs are working on an expanded version of the game and improved English localisation so we can expect that to change in the future.
Game is free on Steam so if anyone’s looking for VA-11 Hall:A vibes, this title is a good choice.
I didn’t have the time to write my comment beforehand as I usually do so here’s the slightly delayed update for this month.
I’ve updated our VN Patch List with two new unofficial translations: one for Majikoi A+ Disc and another for Daiakuji.
The first one technically released a few months ago but it was more or less a soft launch with some of the localisation still missing (mostly UI related, I believe) and a few general issues. Recently released V2 of the patch is intended as a final version which is why it finally made it onto the list.
The latter is fresh and full from the get go though I can’t say I know much more than that.On a gaming side, I started playing D1AL-ogue. It’s a cyberpunk story heavily inspired by VA-11 Hall:A (even has a direct reference to it on one of its main screens). The main difference is that drink mixing is replaced by cyber repairs in the form of a simple puzzle game. It has great are and really enjoyable, if a little clunky at times, writing. Music choices on the other hand are… not bad but they certainly aren’t as good as in its inspiration. There’s also no playlist, just a bunch of songs you’ll have to change manually if you want to avoid looping.
As mentioned before, puzzle gameplay is pretty simple but there’s fun to be had in this simplicity. You just match colour blocks on a round play space and position them according to instructions. It’s a neat way to differentiate yourself from other “clones”.Game is completely free so if you’re interested in android mechanic simulator/VN, I’d say it’s worth a shot.
Edit: Devs dropped a new post talking about working on an expanded version of the game and improvements to English localisation. They’re also planning a crowdfunding campaign for said expanded version so it looks like they’re planning for it to be a significant update. Love to see it!
Thanks for the heads-up, I’ll keep that in mind!
I really love the old school art style but reading the description… I don’t think I have the processing power to handle story like this again. I’m still can’t get over Narcissu. Ugh, maybe I’ll just chuck it onto my backlog anyway, just in case.
I’m not having a great time and will most likely take a break from regular reading for a while. Before that happens however I’d like to write about two series I’ve been looking into recently.
[Beijing Chronicles}(https://mangadex.org/title/9e432a31-61ad-4092-8392-80b486001cc3/beijing) is an anthology of short stories about the life in Beijing before and during the 2008 Olympic Games. Multiple authors, vastly different topics, perspectives and art styles. It’s not exactly the greatest thing ever but I found it to be an enjoyable and interesting read, showing a pretty mundane side of life in the city. It’s also pretty short, sitting at 11 chapters.
Deadlines Are Raining in the Status Window - another comedy manhwa with transmigration focus. Main character ends up in the body of a villainess, decides she wants nothing to do with the main plot and bails to the countryside to lay low, earn money and go to a famous academy for a fresh start.
I actually tried reading it before but due to an unfortunate case of “wrong place, wrong time” I couldn’t really get into and decided to leave it for later. Well, it’s now later so lets try again.My second attempt started way better as I immediately had a lot more fun than on my first run. “Had” when reading the first arc anyway. Once I got to a point where MC started meeting and fangirling about main plot characters the story lost me completely as she’s the worst and most obnoxious kind of fan - one I really can’t stand, let alone want to read about. The moment she’s with them (especially one of them) she turns from a blunt money hungry opportunist into a total creep ready to demean herself for a bit. It’s not funny, not for me.
So yeah, as much as I enjoyed my second attempt the parts I don’t like are enough to make me stop. It’s a shame but what can you do?
Speaking of stopping - I’ve been actually quite a bit more proactive in dropping series recently, already clearing my library of about a dozen or more titles in the last week alone. I guess I’m a bit tired of reading for the sake of reading at this point. I did it mostly to occupy my mind and since it doesn’t seem to work that well any more I might as well try something else for a bit.
Praise be to all of the authors of alternative start mods! NV is definitely a great vanilla solution but I still like the ability to skip the main story premise completely.
Yeah, that’s pretty much how I play these days as well. Mod the game to the brim, pick a setting appropriate role (preferably one with little to no intentional combat) and go with that. Being a mundane part of the world is just much more enjoyable to me, probably due to uniqueness that comes with it.
It’s a bit easier to roll with it in more linear titles but sandbox games? I’ll take the “boring” stuff over glazing just for being the main character any day. I just wish more games had a more systemic rather than curated approach to their features to allow for things like this without mods. That’s just my unreasonable wish though.
I’m working on the initial premise and background details for my role-play focused playthrough of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly so I decided to take a break from that for a now. Well, mostly - I’m still adding mods and tweaking the numbers so I jump in from time to time to test things out. Proper gaming sessions however are on hold until I’m ready to start from scratch.
Mod list got another boost since last week, here’s how it look right now:
Updated mod list
- AlifePlus - extension to Stalker’s A-Life system focused on general NPC behaviour.
- AlifeTactics - extension to Stalker’s A-Life system focused on NPC combat tactics.
- AlifeGuard - extension to Stalker’s A-Life system focused on NPC cleanup.
- AlifeBalance - extension to Stalker’s A-Life system focused on NPC respawn management.
- (New) AmmoCheck Enhanced - animated ammo check + secondary reload type (faster then normal but you drop replaced mag).
- (New) Animated Campfire Ignition - pretty self explanatory.
- Anomaly Feminine Player Audio - more consistent audio quality for LASS. Used it from the start but forgot to mention it before.
- Anomaly Notebook - adds an in-game journal you can use to write your own notes. It’s kind of janky to use but it works.
- Anomaly: Real Distant Mutants Sounds - fixes broken mutant noises that suppose to play at certain distance ranges.
- (New) Arszi’s Mutant Bleeding - pretty self explanatory.
- Arti and RavenAscendants Mags Redux - detailed magazine and ammo management.
- Beloved Photo - a simple immersion addon which allows you to use an otherwise junk item to look at it, that’s it.
- Blindsides Weapon Reanimation and Rebalance - dependency for other stuff.
- Boomsticks and Sharpsticks - dependency for other mods, improved weapon animations are a nice bonus.
- (New) Camera Reanimation Project - I.N.E.R.T.I.A. - more reactive and smoother camera behaviour.
- (New) Campfire Cooking - allows you to roast meat on campfires, without the need for cooking sets. The end result isn’t as good (well, that’s configurable) but it can help in a pinch.
- (New) Cordon early-game tweaks + easier Fanatic training - tweaks to week 1 difficulty in Cordon and change to the tutorial quest (it makes no sense to make it a two person excursion to hunt a family of boars, especially with Stalker’s AI).
- (New) Dark signal audioscape: Anomalies and blowouts - improved sounds for anomalies and blowouts.
- (New) Dark signal audioscape: Mutants - improved mutant sounds.
- Dark signal weapon soundscape - improved ambiance sounds, dependency for other mods.
- Decreased Bush Hearing Distance - NPCs can’t hear you walking through bushes from the other side of the map.
- Dialogue Expanded Expanded - more NPC dialogue (direct, PDA messages etc). Had to do some manual merging with this one due to the conflict with LASS and fix some incorrect characters caused by different encoding, I think? I also left a ton more cause I was too lazy to go through all of the issues.
- (New) Dodge System - exactly what it says, a simple weight and stamina based dodge system.
- (New) Dynamic Reload Speeds - dependency for AmmoCheck Enhanced.
- (New) Dynamic Time-based Tonemap Extended - adds dynamic image tone adjustments based on time of day.
- (New) Early geiger warning - pretty self explanatory. Vanilla warnings are pretty useless since they happen right before you step into the radiation zone, leaving little to no time to react.
- (New) Even More Hideout Furniture - more items for Hideout Furniture.
- Food, drug and drinks animations - pretty self explanatory.
- FDDA Enhanced Animations - Food and Drinks - animation improvements for the above.
- (New) Fixed Vanilla Models & Textures - model and texture fixes for characters.
- He’s with me - prevents friendly factions from attacking your companions, even if they are from opposing force. Not sure if I’ll stick with this one but it’s on for now.
- (New) Hideout Furniture - allows you to make proper hideouts with placeable stashes, light sources etc.
- (New) Hideout Furniture Expansion - more placeable items for the above.
- HTS Bars - hunger and thirst status bars. For whatever reason base Anomaly doesn’t show them even though both are tracked and affect gameplay experience (I don’t mind the latter but I like to have information about such things).
- HUD icons time - displays remaining time for status effect icons on the HUD.
- (New) Improved Gestures Tool - allows you to play NPC animations (sitting or laying down, leaning on stuff, various actions etc). Purely for immersion.
- Instant Tooltip+ - pretty self explanatory.
- Inventory Anrifreeze - lazy loading for in-game containers, helps with the hitching when opening things with lots of items.
- (New) Keep Crafting Window Open - pretty self explanatory.
- LASS (check full mod name) - female player character.
- LASS Population Addon - adds female stalkers to the NPC pool.
- Ledge Grabbing / Mantling - adds a simple climbing/mantling system to the game.
- (New) Meadow terrain material mask fix - pretty self explanatory.
- Michikos Weather Revamp Revised - more natural look for all weather conditions (bright and colourful for clear skies, dark and moody for rain etc) and restores moving clouds to some of them. Also comes with an option for dynamic wind behaviour (changes based on the weather and location).
- Modular Miscellaneous Tweaks - Bottled Water Adjusted** - change number of uses for mineral water from 3 to 5, restores the same amount of thirst (just divided by 5).
- Modular Miscellaneous Tweaks - Talk to Everyone** - as the name suggests, it allows you to talk to every NPC instead of just team leaders.
- MSBS Grot - cool gun that doesn’t really appear in games often (ARMA 3 and Girls’ Frontline are the only titles I can think of right now).
- (New) New Walk & Run Animation - pretty self explanatory.
- New Zone Mutants can’t see through foliage - pretty self explanatory.
- New Zone NPC’s can’t see through foliage - pretty self explanatory.
- NPC Weapon Jamming - pretty self explanatory.
- Overheat Gunsmoke - restores Anomaly’s bugged feature of gun barrels letting off smoke after lots of shooting.
- (New) Pre-Blowout Murder - adds an early warning system and tension builder in the form of crows populating the sky right before blowouts.
- (New) Remove “(BaS)”/“(BaS+Van)” label from “Boomsticks and Sharpsticks” - pretty self explanatory.
- Sickhowl’s Grass Tweaks - more lush version of vanilla grass grass and trees with little to no performance impact.
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 HoC - Soundscape Overhaul for Anomaly - improved ambiance sounds. I’m a bit mixed on this one - on one hand a lot of the new sounds add quite a bit to the atmosphere, on the other some changes (especially in regards to fake mutant noises) act pretty much as sound pollution, making it harder to react to real threats (in a bad way).
- Sascha’s S-40 Sirens - period and region appropriate siren sounds for emissions.
- Simple FPS Monitor - pretty self explanatory, useful for tweaking my graphics settings.
- (New) Skies Redux - prettier skyboxes.
- (New) Sleep restores health - pretty self explanatory though I did change the default HP restoration from 3% per hour of sleep to 1% since I want to use it as a minor bonus rather than an intended way of healing.
- (New) Sorting Plus - type based item sorting.
- Stealth - bunch of tweaks to the stealth and detection system.
- (New) TB’s 475 New Stash Locations - pretty self explanatory.
- (New) TB’s Angry Chimera Growls - new audio cues for Chimeras.
- (New) TB’s Bugged Stashes Fix - removes unreachable and bugged stashes from in-game use.
- Tactical Movement Speed - change movement speed depending on weapon status (holstered, lowered, drawn, aimed).
- (New) Thirst Blur Tweak - removes the annoying blur effect from the first (safe) stage of thirst.
- (New) Transition between locations without confirmation - pretty self explanatory.
- (New) Weapon Cover Tilt - makes player raise their weapon when standing close to a cover.
- Weighted Probability Weather Manager - improvements to the weather selection system.
- xlibs - dependency for other mods.
Since I’m taking a break from Stalker, I decided to use this opportunity to jump back into The Elder Scrolls Online. My time with the game has been… fine. Harder combat is cool and all but everything else?
I’m trying to follow the quests (both local and main story ones) to give myself some goals but the whole thing is pretty boring to be honest. It’s not that writing is terrible or anything like that, it’s just I really hate being the chosen one. I’m SO BORED of this position it’s difficult to get invested into anything that’s happening in the story. “You’re special” - yay… (๑ - ᆺ -)
I dunno, maybe if I played with a group I could feel better by acting as an unimportant support character but as it is now, I’m just going through the motions. Run around, follow the quests, kill some boring bad guys, rinse and repeat. I don’t think classic MMOs are for me any more.
I thought about trying Skyrim multiplayer instead since that’s more role-playing focused (including non-combat roles) but that requires joining project’s discord server which is an instant “no, thanks” for me.I’m going through a bit of a rough patch right now which affects my motivation to some extent but even in better circumstances my feelings towards the game weren’t much different than now. Time to browse through my library again.
Man, the full release Starbound was such a… I don’t want to call it a disappointment but it’s definitely a shame what happened with it. It went through so many cool mechanics throughout the development and threw away like half of them (not to mention the near complete rewrite of the lore). Such a weird situation.
I barely touched the 1.0 version but I still play some of the beta builds from time to time - they might lack in content but boy do they grab me in a way the full release never managed to.
To be clear, I’ll be writing them regardless of whether I decide to post anything online or not. I’m simply not sure whether they’ll be worth anyone’s time outside of the game. As I said though, I’ll most likely pair them with screenshot posting so there should be something worthwhile there.
I’ll let you know if I decide to go through with it.
Jumped in for a moment to see how things feel compared to 4.8 and the results were… mixed to say the least.
Some highlights:
The last one one is especially mind-boggling both because it’s been a problem for years but also WHY IS THAT EVEN A THING?! These items should be assigned to a store and all of the operations (listing, search handling etc) should be managed automatically by the store system. This? This feels like they manually set up all of this stuff for each individual item available at the store. I don’t want to believe that’s the case as it would be too depressing but it’s really hard to think otherwise after all these years.
Can’t say I’m too thrilled based on my first impressions but I’ll try to give it an honest shot over the weekend. Hopefully the rest of the game will leave me with better feelings than this.