LinuxGameCast Weekly 236 – Bone Shaker

SteamVR for Linux is LIVE! Chatbots invade CS:GO, Rocket League gets Hot, and RetroPie needs your help! Then Disgaea 2 faces the CHAIRQUISITION! All this, plus your hate mail.

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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam News:

Voting conrollas
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta#announcements/detail/576862522017702594

Oh, you can finally vote for the controller layouts that actually work and weren’t thought by and for lobster people.
- Big talk for a lobster person

Turing test
https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/20/counter-strike-chat-bot-invasion/

This should be sorted in Q2 2037 because VALVe time.
It’s great, the lag spikes from when a server gets hit stretches into the full seconds.
Good ol’ public shaming. The only way to get valve to acknowledge or do anything

VR Penguins
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamVR-for-Linux/blob/master/README.md

We will interview the Empty who shall explain how it makes with the working.
- Well it didn’t work so strike that. Might try again next week.
At least linux gets VR before Mac. Haw haw
- Wonder how many dongles it would take.

250
http://www.roadtovr.com/valve-gabe-newell-steamvr-apps-games-revenue-25000-other-truths-of-the-vr-market/

Gaben reiterates Valve’s more measured approach to VR.
We’re still waiting on that killer app that makes everyone want to at least give VR a spin.
Still, shit ain’t going anywhere until TCO drops waaay down
“I can’t point to a single piece of content that would cause millions of people to justify changing their home computing.”
- In the meantime, this is where the focus is when Linux has 4x as many people on Steam than VR users.
  - One isn’t a sexy piece of paradigm shifting hardware
    - And when I say sexy, it’s because it fucks your face
This comes as a shock to absolutely noone.
Subsidized development deals for VR are the norm.
Oculus is well known to throw out some wet stinky in exchange for exclusives.

Steamy Sounding
https://valvesoftware.github.io/steam-audio/

Integrates into all your favourite game engines. Or if you want to just write shit in C because you hate yourself and the world
Supposedly provides a ton of nifty sound tech like giving you appropriate echo based on where you are in a level, where you are in the room., etc.
I’m curious to see what comes of it.

Serious VR
http://steamcommunity.com/games/552450/announcements/detail/508182627702316801

Our favourite psychopaths from Croatia deliver again.
Helluva price for an early access title.
I played a little bit of the precursor to this at a friends house a while ago
If you’re a psychopathic early adopter like empty and want to try this out, take my advice: Give yourself ample room or you’re gonna crash into shit

Rocket Cars 1.29
https://rocketleaguegame.com/news/patch-notes-v1-29/

DLC… the update.
They also released a patch for the patch the very next day.
They apparently also changed something with the physics interactions between the cars and the ball which has a bunch of people up in arms.
I personally didn’t notice anything, but then again I don’t play the game as much as some other people.
- Trugs mentioned the reintroduction of spit-crashes and he is not the only one.

Dark Horizons
http://store.steampowered.com/app/266470/

I want to slap whoever thought it was a good idea to have that much motion blur in that trailer.
Less than half the price of Heavy Gear Assault and it looks like a proper Mech game.
Will this thing have proper joystick support though? Can you go and build your sweet ass mechwarrior rig?

Tux Cart goes for Green… light
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=850895445

Still local multiplayer only.
Gotta go for the Green before it gets noped.
- Or risk paying a fuckton of money to get it on Steam.
Online multiplayer (our top priority)
- Oh, now that you want people to play it it’s a top priority.
- They have been promising that for two+ years.

News:

GOOD
http://www.thejimquisition.com/a-statement-regarding-romine-v-stantons-dismissal-with-prejudice/

I’m not in love with Senor Sterling, like some of my other co-hosts, but honestly, this would have been thrown out of court regardless
Bad reviews != slander, at least in US courts. What with review/parody/etc being protected under fair use
A dismissal with prejudice will stop the FKR from trying to sue him over the same shite.
In a way, I’m disappointed this didn’t make it to court.
Because if it had, there’d be precedent set for this in the US of A and it would probably stop further incidents.

Civ Bundle (added by @aenertia)
https://www.humblebundle.com/civilization-bundle

If you want Linux games, you need to pay more than the average.
Still, it’s around €8 for Civ 5 and the expansions. If you want Beyond Earth and its expansions, you’ll need to drop $15.

Castle 6.0
https://castle-engine.sourceforge.io/wp/2017/02/18/castle-game-engine-6-0-release/

Write games in pascal? Good new folks!
UI scaling now works
New pipeline for exporting from blender and importing to castle
They’re also moving from sourceforge to github.

Endless Sky
https://endless-sky.github.io/2017/02/21/stable-release-0.9.6.html

Scons -j8
It… compiles.

Come drink some WINE
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/02/blizzard-windows-xp-vista-support-wow/

Those poor internet cafes.
Does this mean that they’re going to be dropping d3d9 support? If that’s the case, Che and Linda gonna be pissed.

A+B (Added by foxy)
https://godotengine.org/article/only-two-buttons-dozens-games

I guess this could be challenging for kids who grew up with a SNES and later.
It’s good to see interesting games like this come out of game jams. And more godot devs is good
The sauce is available and the ones they mention in the article all seem to have Linux versions.
It’s good see some developers took the “Two Buttons” theme and did something which wasn’t just a game limited to two buttons, though some of these can be played with only two buttons.

Help Pi
https://retropie.org.uk/2017/02/legal-help-needed/

Signal boost to help these guys out. The put together a really nice project and some jerks are trying to troll them by registering retropie as a trademark
Because our podcast is very popular with lawyers for some reason

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Disgaea 2
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/495280/
Devel: Nippon Ichi Software
Engine: Custom
Price: 19.99 / CDN 21.99

Wazzat: When Adell and his family accidentally kidnap the Princess of the Netherworld, all hell breaks loose. Adell races to return the Princess to her home, where he hopes to defeat the Overlord and break the curse on his world.

Mandatory disclosure: They sent us keys

SCOOTS WHAT U DOIN?

Makes with the working

V-

Monitor times out.
This is annoying when you are halfway across the studio conked out on the wub sofa.

J-

P-

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

V-

Ever play Ocarina of Time on a N64 emulator?
Yeah, it’s less jarring than this critter.
By default you get wicked hi-res menus (and art) mixed with some melted pixel graphics.
However, if you disable the pixel filter things start looking legit.
I’m not saying it prevents the characters from clashing with the 2006 3D background but it helps.
The English voice “acting” killed my houseplant.
The Dooood screaming penguins salted the earth it was planted in.
The background music is passable but it’s on a short loop.

J-

This is a PS2 game. It came out many moons ago
HD remake this is not. Those sprites look bad
They could really use with some variety on the background music. 5 hours in and I’ve just sort of learned how to tune it out
The voice acting is pure unadulterated fromage and I kind of like it for that reason, even if the main dude with the girl’s name sounds like a whiny bitch half the time

P-

I was a bit disappointed here.
The character sprites were just up scaled and they don’t look good when you’re playing at 1080p.
The background music starts to grate after a while and the voice acting, I get that were going for purposefully camp voice-acting.
But being campy on purpose is still being campy.

Total-

Control

V-

Worked OOTB with the Xclone conrolla and you can rebind all the things.

J-

My only nitpick is that the camera and square selection can eat a gigantic bag of dicks

P-

Total-

FUN

V-

2006 was a different time.
Pluto is downgraded from a planet, Borat gets released, and Googs buys the Tubes.
And as you might have guessed, Disgaea 2 arrived on the PS2.
You see, kids, 2006 was a different time.
Trigger Mc. outrage culture didn’t exist and having a teacher in a kids classroom dressed as a dominatrix wielding a flog talking about punishment was the norm… in Japan.
This is my first JRPG and surprisingly I don’t completely hate it.
Yeah, turned-based games make babby Venn cry but Disgaea 2 found a tissue… for my issue.
Seems I can grind through TBS if you attach it to a properly unhinged storyline.
I don’t find said storyline LOL funny, more like WTF funny.
Then again, WTF and Japan go together like poutine on a Canadian.
Gameplay is generic as all hell and at times a borderline spreadsheet simulator.
2+ hours in and I’m only slightly beginning to figure out what the hell is going on.
You battle, win, get points, buy armour and shite, heal the team, and replace the lost ones.
There is also some kind of warrant system that I have yet to wrap my mind-organ around.
Hell there are many sub-systems in this game that both anger and confuse old man Venn.
However, that’s not a bad thing since it allows me to put Disgaea 2 firmly in the “stuck on a desert island” category.
Meaning if I had a shite load of time to kill I would definitely pick this critter up.

J-

I’ve apparently gone into a fugue state and lost several hours playing this game without realizing it
Seriously though, this is the exact sort of micromanagey, grindy bullshit that makes my autism super happy.
Everything from managing equipment, to trying to evenly level my characters to setting up all sorts of nifty combos
It gets four chairs from me by virtue of that alone
The icing on the cake is the wonderful dialogue, which legitimately got a few belly laughs out of me
The only real gripe I have with it is the camera, but even then it’s not enough to harm the overall enjoyment of the game

P-

The only real complaint I have, is that for a remastered edition of a PS2/PSP game the graphics are a bit… meh.
But let’s face it, this is a Tactics JRPG. It’s a genre which focuses almost exclusively on Narrative and Mechanics.
Unless, it’s made by Square Enix… but that’s not the case, here.
Disgaea 2, which I keep typing as Disagea 2, the narrative is mostly optional and it gives you the chance to skip it at the start of almost every scene.
That’s the mark of someone who is well aware of the load of anime and JRPG tropes they crammed into their game and realize that some people just aren’t into that.
The casual incest implications, the unwavering confidence of the hero which inevitably gets dashed at the midpoint of the game, the female main character which acts as the love interest, audience surrogate and main driving point for the plot.
I’ll be honest, I just started skipping the story and got on with the combat.
Because that’s where the meat of this game is.
The combat may be meat, but the seasoning is in the micromanagement.
I spent a good hour just micromanaging all the party members and their equipment after I finished the little sister summoning side-quest… and I wasn’t bored.
I wanted to make sure everyone had proper equipment and was at least competent should I need them in combat.
Hell, you can even go into an item and improve it by beating its “inner dungeon”.
I like it, I like this game.