LinuxGameCast Weekly EP215 – Hot Pocket Feedbag

 

Unity previews Vulkan! Hyper Light Drifter counts to 60, Steam sells stickers, and GOG Connect is still a thing? Then Warhammer® 40,000®: Dawn of War® II faces the CHAIRQUISITON! All this, plus your hate mail.

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Steam News:

Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steamy UI
https://gamerant.com/steam-update-details-644/

  • It better come /w a quit showing me movies option that I don’t have to recheck every time I launch Steam.
  • On paper these all seem like good improvements
    • Lets see how Valve cocks it up
  • I’m with Jordan on waiting to see what VALVe’s gonna goof with this.

Skins
http://store.steampowered.com/sale/accessorysalepage/

  • I want one of those dongle backplates
  • They usually charge 10.99 for one of those stickers?
  • €11 for a goddamn sticker?!
  • WHAR Hot Pocket holder?!!11!?

Rated NC17
http://www.pcgamer.com/jj-abrams-to-meet-with-valve-next-week-to-discuss-portal-and-half-life-movies

  • Kinda hope they’re going for the silent protagonist route. Unless Bryan Cranston is playing Gordon. Or Ross Scott from Freeman’s Mind
  • Actually, the best way to handle a Half Life movie would be to drop Freeman as the protagonist and focus on a different area of the world. Freeman’s story is meant to be experienced, not watched.
    • Bryan Cranston *drops MIC*

Early Access Redemption
http://steamcommunity.com/games/300380/announcements/detail/608374003057850920

  • Foxy wants me to apply for a jerb doing voice work but that would only result in me screaming about how this game is nowhere ready to be released from EA.

I would’ve lost money on this one (Thanks Cody Cooper)
http://steamcommunity.com/games/257850/announcements/detail/580226743110138539

  • “Windows only at the moment”
    • I’m reasonably patient for stuff I never thought I’d see.
    • Because clicking export is hard
    • I’m with Jordan on waiting to see what VALVe’s gonna goof with this.
  • They went from an average of 200 players in August to almost 900 in September, coincidence? I don’t think so.
  • The moment this comes out for Linux, I may actually finish it.

Mr. Hackmud
http://store.steampowered.com/app/469920/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_2

  • Because hacking has nothing to do with social engineering or rooting through other people’s trash or waiting for 72 hours before you can find an opening to bypass the Blue team IPS….
  • h a c k m u d is a cyberpunk themed text-based hacking simulator for intel-compatible personal home computers
    • Funnily enough , the linux system requirements don’t even list a processor as necessary
      • Because L33t!

SJW Tetris?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/503460/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

  • What, Gnome Falling blocks isn’t good enough for you? How about recompiling emacs with tetris support?
  • …Was that a macbook running ubuntu unity in the trailer?

News:

Strootkit Fighter 5 (thx LinuxGnuru)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/23/capcom_street_fighter_v/

  • If this ever comes out for Linux, people better poke at it first to see what’s what.
  • Will it prompt me for the root passwd?
  • Ah anti-cheat. That fine line between necessary evil and regular evil
  • Still, there are better ways to go about it than installing drivers that compromise the entire system
  • I’m still waiting to see how the Denuvo situation plays out /w Deus Ex.

GG Epic
https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/more-than-50-000-awarded-in-latest-round-of-unreal-dev-grants-for-education

  • Most of the grants were given to those providing tutorials for UE4.
  • Epic is not just looking out for devels but making sure people will keep developing guides and building a knowledge base.
    • That’s probably a good idea seeing as they’re going up against Unity, aka Baby’s first game engine.

Live long and preview
https://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/09/29/introducing-the-vulkan-renderer-preview/
https://plus.google.com/104339689434081533648/posts/2CoPhJ8dhxQ

  • So far they’ve only tested Nvidia on linux. I’m interested to see the results with an intel IGP
    • It works! Slows as balls on my cheapo laptop, but it works.
  • They also Added a nice point and click option to translate all your shaders to SPIR-V
  • Now with 100% more demos, you’re welcome:
  • If you’re on Ubuntu, make sure you’re using the graphics-drivers ppa (even if you’re not installing the nvidia drivers from there)
  • These demos need libvulkan1-1.0.21.0, which that PPA has.
  • Otherwise you’d have to setup the Vulkan SDK manually.
  • That Viking demo is hella smooth… when it works.
    • It’s a wee chuggy for me at the higher presets. Still it works
      • It’s all about the Pentiums cores.

New Games in GOG Connect
https://www.gog.com/connect

  • GOG Connect is not exactly taking off.
    • I totally forgot it was even a thing
  • This was a bigger haul.
  • According to GOG, I got $145.51 worth of games from this last batch.
    • 119.94 for me

Here Figgy Figgy
http://venturebeat.com/2016/09/29/figs-non-accredited-game-investment-platform-is-now-sec-approved/

  • So Fig isn’t a scam in the same way Subprime mortgages weren’t
  • Since the last time we’ve covered this, we all know that there’s some sketchy stuff going on to make Fig work, and we have to take it on good faith that we won’t get screwed over
  • Does this do anything to allay your fears? Send us some hate mail!

Face function
https://openmw.org/2016/openmw-0-40-0-released/

  • Version 0.40 came out August 25th
  • Someone done goofed!
  • In fact, if you scroll all the way down, you see the LGC 212 pingback.

Penguin Brother
https://github.com/SuperTux/supertux/releases/tag/v0.5.0

  • They’ve added an in game level editor. That’s something, I guess

CHAIRQUISITION:
CHAIR – Nooope

CHAIRCHAIR– Not sure if want

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR– Check it out

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR– Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Warhammer® 40,000®: Dawn of War® II
Webzone: 
https://www.dawnofwar.com/
Devel: Relic Entertainment (Brought to you by Feral)
Engine: 
Essence Engine 2.0 (The same nightmare fuel that brought you CoH)
Price:
20.00 (60 For some DLC, 80 for all)

Wazzat: With a focus on fast-action RTS gameplay, Dawn of War II brings to life the science fiction universe of Warhammer 40,000 like never before. Experience the intimate brutality of battle as you play through your chosen race’s epic campaign.

Mandatory Disclosure: Feral sent us keys


Makes with the working

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • There’s something about sitting through 30sec of unskippable bullsh*t only to be met by a loading screen.
  • However, the load times are definitely from 2009 #authentic
  • It started dropping trading cards @ launch but that’s not a bug.
  • Averaging 45@1080 according to the benchmark on High.
  • According to Thomas P it transferred his progress over from the operating system that shall not be named.
  • Multiplayer is the busted.

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Oh Hai 5 minute unskippable cutscene on first launch
  • Pulling 60@UHD According to the benchmark. Not bad for a 7 year old game
  • Don’t see a Dip below 55 on UHD during gameplay.

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Everything on Turbo with AA on and the frames will occasionally dip to the 20’s
  • If I cut AA off, the lowest it’ll dip is 42.
  • That said, I did try it on the cheapo laptop with everything down to low and and it averages out 41 FerPS on the benchmark.
  • Feral sure does love their Intel CPUs.

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Shiny / Sounds

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • It looks and sounds like a game from 2009.
  • It’s not ugly but don’t expect anything you haven’t seen before.
  • That said, for a strategy game it still looks a bit of alright.
  • It has sounds but it took Oz from Shat to realize they were not playing.
  • Not bad, but forgettable.

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Oh Hai Steve Blum
  • It looks like a AAA game from 7 years ago. It’s aged pretty gracefully otherwise
  • The warhammer aesthetic is there in full force
  • One problem I do have is that All your units tend to look the same, so figuring out which hotkey to press to

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • You look at this game and you immediately go: “Hey, that’s a 40k game!”
  • The space marines have their chainswords, the Eldar have their Magic and porcelain masks, the Orks are pretty thick in the head and, as long as you’ve seen Alien, you can probably design a Tyranid that is immediately recognizable.
  • The aesthetics are unmistakable.
  • And since this is an RTS, you’re not going to be paying too much attention to how each individual unit looks.
  • As long as, when the camera is zoomed all the way out and you can tell from the silhouettes which squad is each and what to expect from the enemy squad, you did a good job.
  • But since you’re playing the space marines, every squad that isn’t the scouts looks pretty freakin’ much the same.
  • But that is more a problem with the faction choice than the game’s aesthetics.
  • There are only so many ways in which you can make a monster of a man in power armor look different to the other monster of a man in power armor standing right next to him.

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Control

V-CHAIRCHAIR

  • Please tell me this thing has rebindable controls?
  • *throws chair*

J-CHAIRCHAIR

  • Some of my squad directives seem more like suggestions at times
  • Especially when I’m taking heavy fire
  • Dear god, someone please tell Sega to start using WASD for camera movement in RTSes
  • It also has the starbound problem of making the UI itty bitty at UHD

P-CHAIRCHAIR

  • It’s hard to cock up the controls in an RTS on PC when you have a mouse.
  • Somehow Relic managed to do just that.
  • Like Jordan mentioned, you’re not giving orders you’re giving suggestions.
  • When you click to move a squad into cover you expect them to land where the little green/yellow dots are, like a sane person would.
  • Yet, for some reason, sometimes that squad will outright ignore cover, walk around it and stand there out in the open gormlessly shooting at the enemy.
  • You’d think, if you were putting out an RTS you’d want your controls to be at least reliable.
  • I’m okay with the keyboard bindings. If nothing else than just to hear both Venn and Jordan complain they can’t use WASD to move the camera, when I’m usually the one complaining I can’t use the directional arrows to move in a game.

Total-CHAIRCHAIR


FUN

V-CHAIRCHAIR

  • For an RTS it’s a bit on the slow side.
  • Then again for a RTS it plays a lot like a tactical squad based game.
  • I enjoyed my first three hours but it’s already becoming a bit repetitive.
  • Granted the prospect of new and upgraded units/weapons will probably keep me coming back.
  • If you know what the hell a Warhammer is give it a go.
  • If not, proceed with caution.

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • I usually hate RTSes. I don’t hate this one
  • Possibly because there’s less resource management and unit micromanaging
  • Or maybe it’s because I love warhammer 40K
  • Actually, it’s mostly that
  • Also WHAR TAU? WHAR NECRONS?
  • Still, it does away with a lot of the RTS elements I don’t like, which gets it some points in its favour

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Whenever we throw chairs at an RTS game, I always say it’s not my cup of tea but I usually mention 2 exceptions: Warcraft 3 and Dungeons & Dragons Dragonshard.
  • I may be using Dawn of War 2 alongside those, in future reviews.
  • What I liked about Warcraft 3 and TripleD, were the “RPG” elements and Hero Units.
  • I probably wasn’t the only one since nowadays we have MOBAs popping up left and right which are literally just the Hero Units and the RPG elements.
  • I hate MOBAs because in attempting to become something they’re not, they lost all charm.
  • Dawn of War 2 certainly doesn’t have a lot of charm, either.
  • For the main campaign you’re playing as the goddamn space marines!
  • The single most unimaginative faction in this setting.
  • Still, faction choice aside (and you can actually play the other 5 factions in Retribution), this is definitely an RTS I genuinely enjoyed.
  • Doesn’t get the perfect score here simply because you’re not in control, you’re giving suggestions.

Total-CHAIRCHAIR


Final –CHAIRCHAIR


Hate Mail:

Squad
http://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?4LYdbAT

Portal
http://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?NTBLA7S

  • I’ll refer you to my idiot savant comment
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