youxia

I'm also looking forward to Day 2 in the Night City this eve. It's nice to be excited about a game again...been a long time. Some random things: -let's say it: penis. It's got to be the first in gaming, eh? The option to "increase size" is a bit surreal. WTF? I mean, what's the point of it? Don't tell me it matters later in the game somewhere Is it the good ol' CD Broject Red, of the sexcards infamy, striking again? (also, I'm not sure I want to know what the ladies' options are in this regard...) -one good thing about future: there are no annoying peopel glued to annoying smartphones! Hotpants seem de rigeur thou... -for a time I seriously thought there is a big midget* population in the NC and wondered what's up with that. Now I suspect these are just future version of stret urchins, though they do look a bit overdone. *disclaimer: this word has been used as a non-pejorative

Played some more. My rating went from 8.5 to 9.5. Mainly thanks to gfx, which is simply sensational (I managed to get RT framerates under control, staying over 60 fps most of the time now). And the fact that while it's a bit early to tell, it looks like the gameplay is a mix of Watchdogs 1 and Deus Ex, ie lots of stuff to do outside main story, plus you can utilise different approaches, which is a great thing. Had also a first serious bug. Was supposed to threaten some lady cop so she'd skip town, but our chat turned sour and guns were drawn. She was tougher than me so I ran away. She didn't chase me thou, just got back to her pre-mission position in her flat, and when I came back she was fixed there and did not defend herself. That's pretty bad, but I expect such stuff should be ironed out in a patch or two. Apart from that just had a couple of little gfx glitches. I feel sorry for reviewers/gamers who can dismiss such an interesting title because of some absolutely normal tech growing pains.

A few hours deep in. Not sure what to say. There is some annoying stuff, glimpses of greatness (carrying this girl outside from ice bath was a next gen moment) and a lot to take in. Need to go back and play some more... One thing is sure though: ray tracing slaughters framerates even in 1080p on my rather powerful rig (Ryzen 5600x + RTX 3070). Ouch.

The headline is indeed a bit clickbait-y, but he has a good point in general. This is an extremely underwhelming console generation, which does not feel "next" at all. They are freshly after the release, and yet most talk is not really about games, but some tedious pcmasterrace-style details and squabbling over minuscule loading/resolution/fps differences. Before that (and maybe one before) every gen was a massive advance you could see it even lookin at launch/early games . With this one, I doubt there will be any big breakthrough surprises even year or two ahead. That's becasue gaming in general seems to have hit a creative wall, it's been like that for quite a few years, perhaps even a decade. It's all about regurgitating old ideas and templates without pushing forward and taking risks. The only game released recently that feels next gen is MS Flight Simulator, but it's "just" a flight sim after all. I will play Cyberpunk 2077 tonight but I'm not hoping for any jaw dropping moments. It'll be entertaining perhaps, but the same old stuff nonetheless. My only hope for something genuinely far-out is with TES VI, but god knows when it will be released. R* could do something similar with GTA too, but they don't care about truly pushing the envelope because their MP is such a cash cow.

Right, please name one big & complex modern game released without glitches (including The Witcher 3, which is something the complainees conveniently forget about )

These consoles have only been out for few weeks. It really is too early to tell what the real differences regarding their performance might be. The handful of available titles aren't proof of anything, since the devs had little time to learn these machines. These difference will never be big in multiplat titles anyway, since the publishers push for parity. As always, they will come out in 2nd wave exclusives, though even then I doubt it will be something where you can clearly say "oh, this could've never be done on ......".

Will give it a go, I love early PS stuff. And if it's as "bad" as ET, it means it's probably actually okay, or at least interesting.

You guys better don't try any of the Souls series then I don't mind "grey" games at all, as long as gameplay is sound and it makes sense stylistically. On PS2 it was a hardware/palette limitation, though, if you think about games like Jak & Daxter... Apparently there are massive patches already available for Cyberpunk. Never mind "day one", now you can get a patch before the actual game, s'funny. I had a nice surprise yesterday, the Ryzen 5600x I had preordered and was told will get only "somewhere in the early 2021", due to shortages, got delivered out of the blue. So I had to quickly buy a new motherboard too, because otherwise I'd have to wait for the BIOS update for this Ryzen until January. Oh, the joys of trying to keep up with pcmasterrace...

That's the golden rule. If you can maintain it, then there's no problem. But, yes, I suppose many people fail at either the first and/or second part of it.

I use this one: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Great-Amiga-Atari-XE-XL-ST-C64-C128-Mouse-Gamepad-Joystick-USB-adapter-TOM-Rev2/233755189984?hash=item366ce522e0:g:rXAAAOSwr7ZW6~aI It's very versatile - you can use it on many different machines, can connect keyboards/gamepads, and use non-PS/2 mice (unlike the cheaper ones which need PS2). Works nicely with my wireless Logitech. It is a bit pricey thou, especially seeing that you need an extra cable for ST, thanks to that crazy design.

Are you really saying that there are side quests which don't involve any gameplay, just conversations? I haven't played Valhalla myself but find it hard to believe. I'm actually playing AC: Origins atm and sure, there are some rather trite side quest dialogues. But this is a pop-level game, I don't expect it to have Shakesperean dialogues, especially in side quests. On the other hand, they are not so bad either, and do make sense in the context of the entire game and setting. The voice acting of the main character is quite good, and his utterances quite brief, which helps a lot.

Been a long time in the making, but finally launching in 10 days. Anybody looking forward to it? I'm actually not that huge a fan of CDPR & The Witcher, but there is no denying they make solid games. And this is one of the most biggest AAA releases on the calendar. Seeing as I've just got a new PC rig and jumped back into modern gaming (after several years of being strictly retro) I'm quite eager to try it out. The thing that interests me most is the open world & first person combo, very happy they didn't go with 3rd person. It's my prefered kind of gameplay when it comes to these "big" games, even if most likely CDPR's take will be much more traditional and rigid, and not as dynamic/emergent as it is in Bethseda's games. Even so, it's probably safe to say it will still be a grand adventure with plenty of content to keep me busy for quite some time. What I'm not too keen on is the general art style of this game. I grew up, and fell in love with, the old school cyberpunk - the bleak gritty noir of Neuromancer and Blade Runner. Meanwhile, C2077 seems to be a totally (post) modern affair - it's all over-the-top technicolor hipster-punk, at least on the visual side. Hopefully the written part will be a bit more mature. Also very curious about how it will handle itself in regard to performance. PC requirements seem rather low for this kind of next-gen, AAA affair (GTX 1660/Ryzen 3200 for 1080p?). It will be interesting to see how it plays out in reality.

This, and your other arguments are conjecture. Switch is a hot property not because of shortages, but because it's a great console (which, in turn, causes shortages, combined with other factors). Would you buy a rubbish, or even mediocre product only because there was some mad rush to get it? I doubt it very much. I did not say "it's Covid". I've mentioned several things which build up a bigger picture, and Covid is one of them. Ditto scalpers, who are obviously are not the primary cause (there isn't one), but do add to the existing shortages. Because they would be buried if they pulled a big one like this. Pricing your console at 499 instead of 500 is a marketing trick. Causing artificial shortages is a huge con and would cause huge outrage, especially in the market which is populated by tech-savvy You should get "down with the kids" a bit more. Try uber-popular sites like n4g.com for example, where every little thing is instantly dissected and used to either bash or brag. Platform wars are very much alive, same as it always was. And sales numbers are not a little thing, they're the thing. That does not mean that quarter-profit oriented corporations wouldn't love to sell more right now. Anyway, if you want to believe that this is a deliberate then of course it's fine by me. I just prefer explanations which are perhaps bit more complex than singular conspiracy narratives, but seem to have a bit more grounding in reality. That's not to say that this industry are a bunch of well meaning, consumer-oriented, good guys - far from it. They are all ruthless and will pursue profits at all costs. But a high risk/little gain strategy like this seems very unlikely. They prefer long cons such as planned obsolence and erosion of right to repair.

I don't believe the shortages are artificial, as in caused by manufacturers. It just seems like a huge, risky gamble. Imagine the fallout if they got caught, the reputation damage would be massive. Also, there is zero proof that it is actually beneficial to sales. If anything, I'd have though that getting out as many machines as possible and building a bigger, "winning" user base is a better argument in the psychological side of marketing. The other thing is that in a crazy, must-have-it-now Xmas market it's very likely that if your product is not there, the buyer will go for something which is actually available at the moment - ie competitive console/PC or perhaps even something entirely else. Way I see it, it's just a mix up of many different factors - complex supply chains, stockpiling/distribution problems, huge demand, Covid, SCALPERS!!11!, etc. It's the same with any other hot electronics items atm: I had to give up on getting Ryzen 3300X, the wait was just ridiculous. The 5600X I ordered will rrive "probably in 2021". Same with GPUs, and so on.

More options are always a good thing. I was interested in Backbit, but heard it has low D64 compatibility.

No.

Oh, totally agree. I was thinking more about the trend where people dislike procgen in general and advocate the "handcrafted" approach, ie ready made levels. But that's what we have traditional RPGs for. This complaint is quite often encountered these days because of the flood of roguelites. The old guard is often not happy about these design choices. I'd say that in a really good RL you never know what's going to happen Eg in Linley's Dungeon Crawl, which I'm addicted to, you can start as a high-INT character, with some nice Fire magic to boot and yet still die within 20 moves (or less). And yes, sometimes the best fun is struggling for survival with a lame kobold, then finding some awesome gear or getting a boon from your god and turning the tables on the "bad" guys (well, actually in LDC you often play as the bad guy yourself

In roguelikes players utilise their imagination. And good procedural algorithms can produce amazing results.

It's not "strange", "curious", or "amusing" but extremely depressing. They are not some well-meaning people experimenting with brand revival, but a bunch of cynical hucksters who will flog the Atari license to literally anybody, no matter how shady or doomed their project is. It'd be much better if Atari was left to R.I.P and remained an industry legend, instead of being feasted on by these ghouls.

MiSTer is great but it's not an original machine. I bought STFM last year, for about 150USD. It's enough for me because it's not my main 16 bit crush (that'd be Amiga) and so I'm fine with using just Gotek on an unexpanded setup. If you're more of casual Atari fan, like me, I'd say this is probably the most reasonable choice. If you go down the more advanced route (STE/UltraSatan/etc) then you'll probably need to spend 2, maybe even 3 times as much.

Hunting PVMs is not worth the hassle, regardless of the fact that there are zillion scalpers with alert bots set up on all the major sites such as Craiglists, and it's extremely unlikely you will ever get one this way. They also have already been to all the TV studios and done all these tricks which could've worked 5 years ago. Decent consumer sets are free/super cheap and still available all around. The image quality of modern Trinitron, for example, is not that far off from PVM anyway. I actually I find their thicc scanlines a bit intrusive, it works well for text but not for art itself in games.

I wouldn't say that waiting for system on which you could expect to play bigger-than-life franchises such as FF, MGS and Gran Tourismo (plus most likely a heap of new ones) was "idiotic" or "stupid". Not everybody could afford buying consoles on a whim (unlike now, when the demographic has shifted to include more people with incomes).

"Diehard fans" of any platform usually hate at least one other console/microcomputer, it's in their DNA. This phenomena is by no means exclusive to Sega people. As for Sony, die hard fans of anything hate it in general, because it has barged into a well established scene out of nowhere and took over.

Gigabyte Gaming OC. I used a local brand (Silentium PT2) which I bought for my Ryzen 3600. Never used it for the proc because there already was some preapplied new stuff on it, and it seems to be doing fine, for now at least. That Silentium paste is an equivalent of MX-2 I think. I looked up some "paste benchmarks" (lol) beforehand and the difference between the top brands (say MX-2 to top Carbnonaut) was max ~2C.

Right, a "full story", where the main sources are CEO of Wata, the body which profits from the whole "grading" sham, and one of the three buyers (yes, three of them chipped in to buy "shares" in this game...lol). That buyer sits on the board of Wata, which I'm sure is a total coincidence (they said it is so it must be true) 🙃