LinuxGameCast Weekly EP165 – Controlling Link

The Link and Steam Controller receive the business! Wasteland 2 gets cut, Humble downsizes, and Unigine updates their benchmarking tool. Then Outlast faces our CHAIRQUISITION! All this, plus your hate mail.

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http://store.steampowered.com/app/238320

Hate Mail

Steam News:

Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Empty gives a full rundown of the Areola Controlla and the Steamy Link

Areola Controlla

Can it be set to constantly vibrate?
On a scale of Liam to Nintendium, how fragile is it?
Platforming, is it possible?
Can you swap the movement from the left areola to the right one and have the left one emulate the mouse?
How comfortable is the damn thing to hold and use for prolonged periods of time

Steamy Link

How does this treat the host PC?
Everytime I stream to the TV it leaves the game open on the desktop.
Does the Link fix this?
- Wouldn’t think so considering it’s really just optimized and hardware accelerated VNC/SPICE
Did you try it over wifi? What with the next story and all.

Speeed
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/homestream#announcements/detail/741198242343408343

Optimized code for game streaming over Wifi
Sure, you can argue that nobody in their right mind would try to stream games over wifi, but this is supposed to be the gaming chromecast. It has to work with as few wires as possible.

Boxen
http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/15/alienware-steam-machine-review/

“I don’t know if the game is simply more resource-intensive than I realized, if it’s poorly optimized for PCs or if it’s just a bad Linux port”
- That’s in reference to Shadows of Hodor
- We already addressed performance issues in our review, which you can go watch on youtube
At this point, I don’t think the Alpha is the best steam machine out there, what with the non upgradable GPU (because seriously, who upgrades CPUS all that often)
Unfortunately, it’s really the only one out in stores, and it has the alienware brand name recognition.
If anything, all this article does is make me want to pick up a steam controller
The most interesting thing about this article and others of its kind, isn’t the articles themselves.
What is interesting is how many indie developers have gone: “Oh shit, they’re actually shipping them! No, no our game is Mac and Windows only but we totally have a Linux version coming you guys! Please, we were always going to release it. We promise.”
- I’ll take “things that will never happen at Stainless Games” for $200 Alex.
Case in points: Telltale’s Minecraft Story Mode, The Long Dark, Broforce, The Solus Project – the list goes on!

Storm Updated
http://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=332970

Ah, the game that has been busted for 4+ months.
It fixed the instacrash from earlier this week.
It’s still a ghost town.
I still can’t even join a single server unless I pull all the sliders down to rock bottom.
Still crashes when I try to join a server. Bad new dudes

Director’s Cut
http://steamcommunity.com/app/240760/discussions/0/520518688941619778/

Moar Unity 5!
Moar voice acting!
Moar VATS!
- “Precision Strikes system allows you to target individual body parts on enemies in combat, which lets you inflict negative status effects on them.”
  - ~~Just like in Fallout 1 & 2, you can take your sledge hammer and hit people in the crotch with it!~~
  - No you can’t, it’s all just one big “Torso” area.
If you already finished the game (you monster!), you can play it again because they rebalanced the entire thing.
We do not have any special agreements in place with Microsoft or Sony for existing backers and owners
- Awww yeah! Platform lock in Boiyeee.
And of course, unlike some companies who use the kickstarter model to fund games, these guys wait until the final product is in everyone’s hands before working on a remastered or directors cut edition

Sup BRO
https://twitter.com/Broforce/status/655451193196482560
http://store.steampowered.com/app/274190/

Hipster-pixel online multiplayer FK YEAH
This was a fun game, back when it was called METAL SLUG

Push it back… again
http://steamcommunity.com/app/300380/discussions/0/535151589890325574/#c483366528910092063
http://store.steampowered.com/app/300380

“there are some game breaking crash bugs and graphical glitches in it.”
- You’re sending me mixed messages, Brad.
After a successful Kickstarter and over a year in Early Access even the Windows version is missing little things like online multiplayer.
That said, I believe you actually have a Linux build unlike the lot behind Carmageddon: Reincarnation.
- Only because they’re using Unity!
- And Carmageddon was built from scratch on an entirely new engine, that was designed specifically to run in Windows.
- If we are to take other reviewers’ experience, it failed in even doing that.
- So no, Carmageddon isn’t coming and Stainless should be sued.
  - You can probably tell I’m still bitter about it.

Paint it back
http://store.steampowered.com/app/385250/

Isn’t it awesome when people read?
iDevice game
It showed up on Android last year but went poof!
I just wanted to see the sun blotted out from the sky.

It’s still alive
http://unknownworlds.com/ns2/faster-speeding-bullet-ok-not-fast/

Now you only have enough time to make tea; gotta skip the toast.
Oh Natural Selection 2, you broke my heart
I loved the original, but you’re just way too unstable
And then you done became a community supported project that barely ever gets updates
Oh, you weren’t just compiling your shaders at launch. You were also compiling textures.
If that’s what these people think optimization is, they need to go back to coding class!

News:

Headless Modesetting Beta
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/92712/en-us

A KMS driver using DRM means that I don’t have to deal with huge text when switching to PTY anymore!…Eventually
- It has supported 1080p on my ttys for awhile.
This looks like it’s more work being done to support Wayland Mir
And more attempting to fix the 3.5 GB issue on the 970
Apparently some of the OpenGL 3.0 extensions and contexts still hadn’t made it to the official ARB list. This beta corrects that.

One more thing
http://mesamatrix.net/

R600 almost has opengl 4.1 you guys! My steambox is finally almost useful!
Unfortunately, the last thing on the chopping block is the tessellation shader.
- Good luck with that
- Intel also has to deal with that on their road to getting openGL 4.2 support. Maybe we can get some co-operation from those two teams
  - …Nah
- They might actually get the tessellation shader working, in fact I’m willing to be they already have.
- It’s just the performance that sucks big fat titties.
- Tessellation and shader performance were always where NVidia kicked AMD’s ass.

What are you sinking about?
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9717/amd-corporate-fellow-phil-rogers-leaves-company-joins-nvidia

First AMD Roy
Then Dr. Zen (Jim Keller)
- Totally misread that as Hellen Keller. Goddammit Venn.
Now captain HSA is jumping ship.
S’why I didn’t feel any guilt dropping $500 for in intel CPU
It’ll be a shame when next year that price’ll jump to 700/800 when Zen fails to perform
Another CPU guys that jumps ship and he’s off to NVidia.
- Wild Speculation: x86 compliant NVidia CPU inbound!
  - Not gonna happen.

Let’s get ready to …find a job
http://www.polygon.com/2015/10/12/9513937/humble-bundle-cuts-jobs

Humble, you became a store that uses charitable donations as a marketing point.
Wait, 12 is about 20%.
That means their full staff is around 60? HOW?!
“The current Humble Indie Bundle 15 cuts $3.75 to Humble Bundle as a default “tip” on a $25 purchase.”
- birdculture.jpg dickmove.jpg
Of course a day later they announce the new capcom bundle
Sooooo wil Overgrowth get released?
- That’s all the people they let go!
Polygon? Really?!
- Do we really want to give more traffic to the people that fucked our SEO for Linux game reviews?
- Especially since they haven’t posted anything tagged Linux since July.
  - They broke the story ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Updated benchmark engine
https://developer.unigine.com/devlog/20151009-unigine-2.0

Sure it makes with the pretty, but what about performance?
Moved their GUI to a QT based solution. Good stuff
They’ve also added a bunch of motion capture and VR stuff as well
Only six games have been made shipped /w Unigine.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope
– Not sure if want
– Check it out
– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Outlast
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/238320
Devel: Red Barrels
Engine: Unreal Engine 3
Price: €/$ 19.99 / CDN$ 21.99

Wazzat: Hell is an experiment you can’t survive in Outlast, a first-person survival horror game developed by veterans of some of the biggest game franchises in history. As investigative journalist Miles Upshur, explore Mount Massive Asylum and try to survive long enough to discover its terrible secret… if you dare.

Makes with the working

V-

Aside from your standard UE3 load times this critter runs like silk-sauce

J-

Runs at a smooth 60FPS at 4k
Mind you, most of the game is darkness, so I’m not sure how hard a feat that actually is

P-

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

V-

Grain effects… grain effects everywhere.
It’s a gimmick.
I’ve never experienced grain (sober) IRL.
If I’m unable to disable that shite you loose a chair automagicly.
- That said, it looks better than SOMA.
- Alright, not “better” but it’s definitely on par.
^ is annoying and sucks some of the fun out of the game.
Aside from that the soundtrack is passable, and the voice acting gets the jerb done.

J-

It gets the ooky spooky down for sure, but it’s not particularly original in how it does it
Bad Framing, shakycam, I keep expecting a giant guinea pig to show up and try to eat me
Someone really hates those violin strings though
At some points, the tense chase music sounds a lot like the fight theme from Star Trek. Kind of kills the immersion
The voice acting is decently done, but again, no points for originality. Crazy murderous psychos 1 through 8? Check
The breathing sucks…Get it? Ha ha ha
Visually, the game is about on par with what you’d expect for a game that came out last year.

P-

I would like an option to disable the grain effects and radial blur, not just motion blur.
If you have Texture sharpening enabled in the NVidia settings, you’re going to see red pixel lines around shadows. My guess, it’s a bug with ambient occlusion and texture filtering in some games.
- Having an option to disable AO wouldn’t go amiss, either!
I want to choke the main character to death, just so he learns how to hyperventilate properly.
You can also tell exactly where the enemies are even in pitch darkness, based solely on your character’s ESP enabled hyperventilation. Can’t see a damn thing yet, if they’re really close to you, your character’s breathing will give them away.
The background music was alright during those bits where it was subtle.
But then came the lady singing some sort of Opera-bit accompanied by twangy-ass music and it broke whatever little immersion I had left.

Total-

Control

V-

Default gerbil is a little twitchy but that’s how I likes it.
Slide slide slippty slide
I’ve Shift to Nope since you can outrun anything in the game.

J-

Yeah, the camera is way too twitchy
Otherwise, standard FPS/Horror Fare. Nothing special

P-

Even with the slider almost all the way down, the mouse is far too sensitive for my taste.
But since this game doesn’t exactly require precision aiming I can excuse it.

Total-

FUN?

V-

Jump scare + hide in something… the game.
AKA Press Left button to hide.
These games simply do not work for me.
I can buy the monsters, Jesus priest, and the scientist.
I can’t, however, believe for one second that I would not have located a plank, hammer, metal rod, 16-inch Purple Double-Headed Dildo (available at Blairs Emporium, use offer code LGCDD for 10% off at purchase), A CHAIR, SOMETHING! To defend myself.
It’s hella difficult to make /w the scared when I’m all “That, that thing over there. I could totally make a weapon out of that”
- Or at least solid snake the motherfuckers when they’re not looking
Now let’s address the most unbelievable aspect..
A FK mothering night vision camcorder that runs on a AA battery.
Yes, it uses a single 1.5v battery.
At the end of the day it’s a competently done jump scare game that is not fugly.
If you like teh horror pick it up on sale.
Seriously, the price of this game drops more often than an IIS server

J-

The camera positioning is designed to set up jump scares. It’s annoying
- “Jump Scares from this side, this side OR this side? Which is it gonna be!?!”
Must this man slam every door he comes across? That’s racist
I’m also not a big fan of the trapped in the asylum cliche. Doesn’t help with the investment
My big issue with this sort of survival horror genre is that it feels like a chore. You have no recourse, it’s just a bunch of tedious stealth stuff. And it is tedious
Good thing this dude has the last camcorder in existence that uses AA batteries. If he was using one with an li-ion battery, he’d have been screwed in a few hours\
The night vision is a neat replacement for the traditional flashlight, but it just kept reminding me of the Paris Hilton Sex tape.
I didn’t mind SOMA, because it at least had a neat and original concept. This? Bleh
I literally had to choke through playing an hour of this game. I hope that statement illustrates my distaste for it

P-

I like the horror genre.
I don’t like games that have to rely on jump-scares to keep themselves relevant.
And even then, most of the “jump-scares” aren’t really particularly scary.
As hard as this game tries to build up an atmosphere, it fails miserably
Some of the background tracks are distracting as balls.
I found the red pixel bug to be far more interesting than the entire first hour of the game.
I put in another 20 minutes or so after yesterday’s stream, just so I would be sure I wasn’t going to change my mind. I didn’t.
I like horror games, especially the Frictional brand of horror (Penumbra, Amensia: The Dark Descent, SOMA).
It’s not that I think jump-scares aren’t a valid horror trope, they certainly are.
Doom 3 was the perfect example of how to make a horror game that relies on jump-scares. I love Doom 3.
This game is trying the Frictional thing of dropping you in defenseless and saying have at. But while SOMA and Amnesia Dark Descent reinforced your powerlessness with creative atmosphere building and audiovisual clues, this game just relies on gore and jump-scares hoping they’ll be enough to keep you going.
They’re not, Brad. They’re really not.

Total-

Final –

Hate Mail:

#DoinItRight
http://slexy.org/view/s21QEevHrA

Control
http://slexy.org/view/s21C35wCuO

Lab0
http://slexy.org/view/s2jqFAltf9

Skullgirls may have turned out good eventually, but they’re not off the hook just yet
It took three years for us to get our mitts on it. This kind of shit can’t fly in the future. If lab zero shows themselves capable of maintaining stable and timely cross platform releases, then we can start supporting their crowdfunding endeavours.
Trust is earned.
Conversely, Feral and Deep Silver, while once in our good books, are starting to lose the faith we’ve put in them