What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)

[What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)]

PC

Metro Exodus (96 min)

Sid Meier's Civilization VI (914 min)

 

Oculus Quest

Beat Saber (355 min)

 

So even after removing most of the mods from Stellaris, it was crashing on startup, so I'll wait for a stable release and the mods to catch up to it. In the meantime, Civ 6's Frontier Pass monthly release ended, so I went back to play a game of that. And what followed was the shortest game that I've won of any version of Civ, ever. I tried one of the new civs, the Gauls, and went with a True Start Huge Earth map, meaning a map of Earth where civs start in historically accurate areas. Odd thing is, the Brussels civ was also in the game, and the players gets the initiative on turn order. So I quickly placed my city, leaving Brussels unable to place within a 9 hex area of where the settler was. 2nd turn I attacked the settler, took it, eliminated Brussels, and effectively started with 2 cities. Gaul is a culture-rich empire, with some early military advantage. Aside from Brussels, Europe was crowded, as expected. Expansion was difficult, so I declared war on Spain early, taking Madrid and rich area on the Iberian peninsula. Then, my culture started taking over. Scotland's cities fell first, joining my empire of their own volition, followed by 3 city states, Cardiff, Geneva, and Valletta, as well as one of Babylon's cities. Vilnius and Preslav were able to resist, but I made sure I kept suzerain status over them. Then I just built up my culture and won with a cultural victory in 1470. So, kinda cheat-y, but if I'd had let Brussels settle, it would have been a short game the other way, lol.

 

Tried Metro Exodus yesterday, and I'm not sure about this one. I like stealth games, but this one has no HUD whatsoever, and trying to both stay hidden in dark areas, and try to figure where I need to go is super frustrating. And the stealth AI is not great, either. Might give it another go later, not sure. 

[Best NHL Video Games]

On 5/23/2021 at 3:11 AM, Lord Mushroom said:

Maybe you would like Wayne Gretzky´s 3D Hockey. Published by Atari Games.

 

 

The release of this game was when young me first learned that an upgraded version of something does not necessarily equate to better.

[Console companies making big PC push]

18 hours ago, Swami said:

I read Sony will be making a big push to PC gaming. Since console companies lose a lot of money on the console itself, would it benefit them to migrate heavily to PC or would pirating be too much of a concern? Is it a problem for Steam?

The Sony PC games so far are on Steam, so it actually benefits both.

[Console companies making big PC push]

13 hours ago, Keatah said:

As far as the stupid wanker coin minerz. I hear that Nvidia is making it so eternium minerz can't use their cards anymore. Not unless they buy a miner's edition or the compute version or something. MM-hmm..

It's just a market move to save face. Etenium is about to shut down its mining, and it does nothing to stop mining other kinds of crypto, so this really does nothing but sow confusion.

[What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)]

PC

Defense Grid: the Awakening (368 min)

Stellaris (489 min)

Tabletopia (218 min)

 

Oculus Quest

Beat Saber (363 min)

 

My Stellaris game developed a game ending bug that would pop up when a certain date hit, so I can't finish it, but I was contemplating restarting at a higher difficulty anyway, as I was rolling over the galaxy and it was getting dull. I'll turn off most of the non QoL mods this time around, hopefully that helps.

 

This is my 3rd playthrough of the first Defense Grid game, I really enjoy it. Played Orleans on Tabletopia and came in 2nd somehow after getting royally screwed by an event on the 2nd turn.

[Art of Atari.]

2 hours ago, high voltage said:

I've got that one and the Poster version. They are great (well, my Poster version is still sealed)

I think there's a third version?

 

Me too. My poster version is open, but I have yet to put any of them up... I need to remedy that. I need to see if there are easy to get frames that fit these (I bought some posters from Eurpoe that were A4...getting those frames over here was not easy or inexpensive).

[What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)]

PC

Stellaris (1269 min)

 

Oculus Quest

Beat Saber (302 min)

 

More of the same from last week.  My Stellaris game is going well, I probably should have bumped the difficulty a bit, as I'm easily the most important nation in the Galactic Assembly and my vote pretty much decides what galactic laws are enforced. However, we are still a peaceful, diplomatic people (with a "big stick" navy, to dissuade my more ambitious neighbors). No one wants to enter into a Federation with me because I won't start aggressive wars...I guess it's not based on the Star Trek idea of "Federation" lol, so I have a lot of friends but no official allies. Might make the endgame crisis difficult to deal with....

[What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)]

PC

Stellaris (519 min)

 

Oculus Quest

Beat Saber (251 min)

 

So I spent most of last week both taking a day to recover from vaccine reaction, and a few days upgrading/repairing my PC, so times are quite low. I started a game of Stellaris, as there was a 3.0 update recently and a sale on DLC, so as a Lithoid race that doesn't eat food, but minerals. They're a more passive, diplomatic, spiritual race, so I think most of the wars I'll be involved in will be defensive, which is fine; it's been a while and a lot of things have changed since I last played a couple years ago.

[Using a bright wallpaper]

Do you have the text drop shadows turned off? Or maybe it'll help to turn them off. The instructions for that are here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/126714-add-remove-drop-shadows-icon-labels-desktop-windows.html

[The official MS-DOS thread]

I missed Darklands the first time around and it's always sounded intriguing, but the Digital Antiquarian's overview of the game made me appreciate the developer's chutzpah, but I'm definitely going to give it a pass...

[What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)]

Probably the longest named game on the tracker, too, hey?

 

PC

RimWorld (1347 min)

Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004) (64 min)

 

Oculus Quest

Beat Saber (328 min)

 

Finally done my RW game. Endgame was brutal once again, but I only lost 3 people, well, and most of my animals. Most attacks, I send my animals into the "barn" (a cave with a door, straw floor, and feed trough, but it works), but one group pod dropped onto my grazing field, and instead of come to attack my colonists, the went into the barn and slaughtered most of the animals. Jerks. But I got my 10 core colonists off planet. Not everyone gets to leave, because there's only so much room in the shuttle. In fact, after the credits roll, the game comes back, and you can continue playing with the colonists that were left behind.

 

But time to move on. I certainly will play again, there's still different starts and scenarios I want to try, but the 150-200 hours games take a while to get through. I got a hankering to play Pirates!  I was going to fire up the C64 to go old school, but I noticed I had the 2004 remake on GOG, which I'm pretty sure I played a bit on the Xbox 360 back when it came out, but I started up a game, and it's still pretty fun. I still think the original is the best version, but this one is fun. Unfortunately, my wireless keyboard doesn't have a numpad, which this game uses excessively, so I need to use my mouse, which is tough for the timing minigames. I just don't have the difficulty cranked up and it's working out alright.

[The official MS-DOS thread]

1 hour ago, Billy Beans said:

Another great game from the same time is of course Sid Meier's Pirates! It was so easy to lose track of time in that game.

That was my first PC game. I had played Pirates! for the first time on my uncle's C64 while visiting my grandmother's farm in he summer.

 

Later that year, my parents told me they were buying a PC and while out of town for a bowling tournament, my and my buddy when across the street to a little PC store and I saw the DOS version of Pirates! sitting there, and bought it two weeks before I could play it.

 

My parents never really learned to use the PC for business use, so I took it over, and I've been mainly a PC gamer ever since.

[Report: PS3, PS Vita stores will close for good this summer]

Sony and Microsoft are really good at reading the room, what with these announcement flip-flops...

[What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)]

PC

RimWorld (1180 min)

 

Oculus Quest

Beat Saber (386 min)

 

More RimWorld? Yep, more RimWorld. Was thinking of moving things along to the endgame, but it hard to plan too far in the future with this game, as it likes to throw curveballs. Less then a year after the climate change event, some gigantic space creature took up residence between me and my precious sun, so now it's the Long Dark event, which is now just starting it's 2nd year, and more than a 3rd of my power was generated by solar. So now I'm burning cloth (wood is back to being a precious commodity), and I had to build a couple more watermills, expanding my overground footprint more than I like. Plus, the plants have all died, and animals are scarce as a result, so thankfully I was already set up for hydroponics underground and no one is starving to death, unlike what nearly happened when this event happened in my last game.

[No One Lives Forever - 21 years olds this year and still amazing]

Amazing couple of games, for sure. It's seems difficult to write a truly humorous game, but these were funny.

[What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)]

PC

RimWorld (1155 min)

Tabletopia (222 min)

 

Oculus Quest

Beat Saber (287 min)

 

Still working on the RW campaign. Built a road out of the mountains, so now I can travel to other towns and to quest areas more quickly.  A global warming event last two freakin years (I'm just finishing year 5) and turned my boreal forest biome in to arid scrubland; iguana and agave instead of squirrels and berries. So that was weird, but it increased my growing season from 30% of the year to year-round for a while. Going to go raid a nearby enemy encampment for the first time soon, hopefully that goes well.

 

Played a game called The King's Dilemma on Tabletopia last night.  Cool game, might pick up the physical version sometime.

[Cyberpunk 2077]

You get to drive pretty much right away as a Nomad.

[What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)]

PC

RimWorld (2745 min)

 

Oculus Quest

Beat Saber (423 min)

 

Lots of time off last week, so the gaming minutes got a boost. The RW game continues. I've been nearly wiped out twice, once by stubborn mechanoids where I lost a couple colonists, and yesterday a fight with a huge mob of elite soldiers that were too smart to march into my killzone entrance, so I had to trade fire out in the open against their superior weapons. Luckily they split up going around my base to find a weak spot, so I could concentrate my forces on just part of their force. Filled the hospital, but everyone pulled through and I've upgraded the kit by looting the attackers. Still really enjoying this game, but looking forward to moving on to something else when this game finishes.

[What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)]

PC

RimWorld (1801 min)

 

Oculus Quest

Beat Saber (293 min)

 

Still playing RW, though I'm out of the obsessed phase, thankfully.  But still working on the mountain base, which I wanted to move completely underground (aside from the heavily fortified entrance) when I first planned it out, but I need the power from my waterwheel generators and keeping a small meadow area with grass and hay for the animals is nice, so I've got small outdoor "alcoves" on either side of the entrance.  Also, having outdoor entertainment options is good for most of the colonists who get cranky if they stay underground for too long.

 

Definitely not "Neolithic tribal" anymore, with my lightbulbs and gun turrets, but it's taken a lot longer to get there, and I'm still missing a lot of amenities you start with, or easily acquire, normally. Still trying to figure out what my endgame goal will be, but I may need to go Empire again, as building my own spaceship to escape the planet would be difficult for this run...

[annoying online gamers]

Playing online is just generally annoying. I stick to single player (or only multiplayer with friends) and have a lot more fun.

[What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)]

PC

Among Us (183 min)

RimWorld (2599 min)

 

Oculus Quest

Beat Saber (287 min)

 

Played a bit of Among Us with my socially distanced friends this weekend. Probably do some more on the long weekend after the new Airship map update comes out.

 

And I followed through with my threat after finishing the RimWorld game by restarting with a Lost Tribe start in a mountainous boreal forest biome.  One of the random colonists I started with was not tribal, but an 8-year-old Empire psychic knight with 2 bionic eyes, stoneskin implant, and prestige cataphract armor (aka, the best hi-tech armor in the game). But aside from being 8, he also had an death acidifier (destroys all equipment on death), and a royal jelly addiction (royal jelly being a narcotic substance you can get by destroying insectoid hives).

 

So that was a boost in a game I thought was going to be pretty tough, made tough by a couple insectoid hives in caves on the map that I was not going to be able to deal with with my stone age weaponry (yeah, the kid got the awesome armor, but was stuck with a club, like the rest of the tribe), but his knight status got some perks and I was able to call for some extra food and an Empire troop squad to "help" take care of the insectoid hives.

 

Then, when everyone went to sleep in the makeshift cave home I rigged up quickly, I found out what royal jelly withdrawal does...the kid morphed during the night into a megaspider (one of the tougher insectoids). His human body "died", so because of the death acidifier, so did his armor (I gave the helmet and his shield belt to others to spread out the protection, thank goodness). So that sucked, but he remained as a pet, at least until he became wild because none of my remaining colonists were good with training animals, and I eventually needed to kill him.

 

So it was nice to have a bit of armor, some food, and the hives taken care of, but after that, I only had 4 starting tribespeople. Haha. And it's been a struggle with the cold biome and people getting stir crazy living underground. And carving out the mountain takes a lot of advanced planning and 2.5 game years in, and I'm still mining out the rooms and I've got a lot of piles of sandstone lying around (which makes people cranky due to ugliness). Being tribal, advanced tech takes a lot longer to research (I had to store my food outside the first winter while I raced to research both electricity and cooling) and my weaponry is all stolen from dead raider bodies. And travel is tough, being in the mountains with snow most of the year.  So, both frustrating and fun.

[What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)]

PC

RimWorld (3234 min)

 

Oculus Quest

Beat Saber (268 min)

 

I'm in the endgame of my RW campaign.  Hoo boy, what a ride.  I have to protect the Empire's visiting Autarch for 2 weeks and everyone that hates the Empire wants to come and kill him. Pretty nerve-wracking last night getting hit over and over by different raids and attacks. The worst mechanoid attack happened at the same time some infected ship chunks landed outside my base, so I shelled them to awaken the bugs and they helped me out with the bots, and when they started coming after me, and allied tribe came and mopped them up for me.  Full hospital and a ton of construction that didn't quite get done before another mech ship landed.  EMP shells helped me though that one and now another tribal raid has shown up. 4 days to go, so I think I'll make it, but we'll see.

 

And while I thought I might want to move to something new after this, now I want to try playing with a lost tribe with fire instead of electricity for energy and sharpened sticks instead of guns for weapons to start. Boreal forest mountain region, maybe. This game is cool.

[What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)]

PC

RimWorld (2719 min)

Terraforming Mars (183 min)

 

Oculus Quest

Beat Saber (280 min)

 

RW still has its tendrils in my brain. I'm waiting for the shoe to drop and want top play something else, because while all of my siblings have some level of ADHD, for me, I just get bored of things rather quickly (with a few notable exceptions, right, Beat Saber?). But for now, I go to sleep and wake up and thinking about how to improve my base or deal with annoying colonists.

 

Played a game of Terraforming Mars Sunday morning, and came in 2nd to my brother.  The back is feeling better, so working some BS back into the day.

[What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)]

22 hours ago, wongojack said:

I have never played RimWorld, but from your description, I thought I understood what type of game it was - until you mentioned this.  AI Storyteller?

Ah, yeah, that's what the game calls it. Fundamentally, it's a resource management sim with some survival and  tactical team combat. But at the beginning of the game, you choose the AI that determines the events that happen in the game, which, along with the decisions you make, creates a "story". In fact, the creator has said that the goal of the game isn't to beat it, because it will likely beat you, but to see what happens along the way.

[What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2021)]

PC

RimWorld (2659 min)

 

Oculus Quest

Beat Saber (91 min)

 

I hurt my back last week (thus the low BS time), but that did give me a bit more time off to play RimWorld. The colony I was working on went very, very wrong in a mechanoid attack. It wasn't completely annihilated, so I may go back to it if I'm looking for a real challenge, but it was pretty demoralizing, and I really wanted to install a bunch of QoL and extras mods for a new game. I tried a different AI storyteller, and it seems to be quite a bit easier, though I have also learned a lot from past mistakes. One of the colonists rides around on a giant constrictor snake named Bo, so that's cool.