Unvanquished splits in two! NVIDIA gets VR-Ready, Steam teases a new UI, and Microsoft does something stupid… again. Then DiRT Rally faces the CHAIRQUISITION! All this, plus your hate mail.
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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro
Steam News:
Win10
https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/28/windows-10-will-soon-block-non-store-apps-like-os-x-does/
- I’m guessing Steam will just end up in the windows store.
- Storeception?
- I wonder how long this back and forth will end up going for. A centralized app store for windows isn’t going to be all too popular with existing devels. The newer crop are used to dealing with play/itunes bullshit
- This is exactly what VALVe saw coming, this is exactly what “Team” Sweeny has been railing on on Twitter.
- But hey, DX12 is the future, innit?
- Last I checked.
Steam UI
https://twitter.com/SteamDB/status/826888948660191232
- If Steam does decide to revamp the UI, that looks like it could be great.
- Maybe I’ll even stop using the Metro skin.
Braaaains
https://steamdb.info/app/207610/history/?changeid=2744647
- If this turns into anything, hopefully Telltale will start bringing their other games over.
- I just want Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People on linux
River City
http://store.steampowered.com/app/422810
- Another FNA port from flibitbijbitbo.
- Another kickstarter game that delivers
Toooormeeeeeeent
http://store.steampowered.com/app/272270/
- Speaking of kickstarters
- Still cheesed that the beta never made it to linux, but the game performs reasonably well
- Don’t know how I feel about the changes they made to the numenera rulesy stuff to make it more video game friendly. I’ll get back to you on that
Ninja levels
http://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=280160
- Something tells me that we’re going to get a mario-maker esque paradigm with any user generated levels for Aragami: Either super easy pushover levels or super hard fuck you they’re fundamentally broken
- As much as it pains me to agree with Jordan, I don’t really see this being what helps Aragami stay relevan
News:
Nvirtual Reality
https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-driver
- SteamVR on Linux means people are gonna need proper driver support.
- NVidia kicks things off, nothing new there, with the Vulkan 375.21.13 beta driver.
Ryzen
https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/AMD-Ryzen-7-1800X-Review-Now-and-Zen
- “primarily through Vulkan low-level API optimizations”
- Makes sense.
- Woo! 6700k represent!
- More or confirmed my suspicions. Never bet on AMD
- It curbs in Multi-threading, synthetic single-threaded was sort of alright but, and this is Linux GAME Cast, compared to the 6700K and the 7700K ($280 and $330 going prices respectively) the $499 1800X sucks big donkey balls!
- Hell, even the $240 i5 7600K kicks its ass!
- If you only absolutely care about gaming performance, just save up and perpetuate Intel’s market dominance.
- AMD’s excuse this time? Games have been optimized for Intel’s processors over the past few years and thus their performance sucks.
- I’m paraphrasing a little, but not a lot.
- Now AMD, I have a question, whose fault was it that Intel has dominated the market for the past 10 years? Was it maybe because you haven’t released a processor which can hold a candle to one of their midrange ones in single-thread performance in over a decade?
Unity update
https://blogs.unity3d.com/2017/02/28/updates-from-unitys-gdc-2017-keynote/
- Considering they pretty much dominate the mobile market, they’re pushing a lot of Vulkan and Metal
- Which is half good.
- Doesn’t seem to have anything directly linux related
- Vulkan button!
- No mentions of SDL… Much to the surprise of absolutely nobody.
Shocking (RTheren)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598858095/system-shock/posts/1820162
- Ah, they decided to use the big boy engine.
- Strange choice. The demo they released on steam was actually quite performant on linux, despite being unity
- The reasoning seems to be console support. Make of that what you will
- “OSX and Linux versions will be unlocked when our first stretch goal is reached.”
- That’s why I remembered being iffy about this game.
- That and the fact System Shock 2 is a WINE job.
Fly away
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Changelog_2017.1
- SPEED!
Open Cards
http://arcmage.org/
- AKA Magic the Gnuthering? Gnu-gi-oh? GNU/Legend of the Five Rings?
- GNU/Stone
- Mo’ Like Hearthstallman
- GNU/Stone
- The crowd development methodology has been successful for tabletop RPGs as of late. Interesting to see what applying that philosophy to CCGs will result in
- So… what’s this talk about defending cities?
Unvanquished
https://www.unvanquished.net/?p=985
- Fancy schmancy new weapon skins
- They’ve also done a bunch of refactoring of their code base, so some longstanding issues can finally be addressed, and changes are going to be easier to make
- Split the engine from the game code.
- Now other projects can use it.
The “Feed Sophie Houlden” Fund
https://itch.io/s/6285/the-march-2017-sophie-checked-her-bank-account-and-regretted-doing-so-sale
- Soph really needs to get a patreon going.
- Still, if you don’t own one of these games, give at least one of them a look. She’s got a good head for game design.
- Are any of these titles on Steam?
- Bang! Bang! Bang! is.
- Seriously, there is not a single Greenlight game that we have mentioned that failed to get there.
CHAIRQUISITION:
Game: DiRT Rally
Webzone: https://www.feralinteractive.com/en/linux-games/dirtrally/
Devel: Codemasters Racing Studio / Feral Interactive
Engine: EGO Engine 2.5
Price: €49.99 / US$ 59.99 / CDN$ 66.49
Wazzat: DiRT Rally is the most authentic and thrilling rally game ever made, road-tested over 80 million miles by the DiRT community. It perfectly captures that white knuckle feeling of racing on the edge as you hurtle along dangerous roads, knowing that one crash could irreparably harm your stage time.
Disclosure: Feral sent us keys
Makes with the working
V-
- The benchmark is full of LIES!11! …in a good way.
- Getting 35 on Ultra in the bench and 70/90 in-game ┐(´-｀)┌
- Splits all 8-cores at an even 50%
- I froze ONCE but that was not reproducible.
J-
- I was salty during the stream for the whole curl thing. Cutting STEAM_RUNTIME_PREFER_HOST_LIBRARIES=0 when you launch steam lets you play it.
- Runs reasonably well otherwise
- Benchmarks shows 50FPS@UHD on Ultra, 55 on UHD w/High
P-
- In game proper, it seems to keep all cores at 30-50%
- I spent a good 20 minutes fine tuning the settings for the benchmark and when I went in-game the Steam counter said it was doing about twice as many.
- I have a recurring freeze if I keep the Steam Overlay open in game for too long.
Total-
Shiny / Sounds
V-
- Like GRiD, DiRT delivers the eye candy.
- Even at medium is more than a bit of alright.
- Fortunately I’m able to play it on Ultra at a solid 75 FERPS and it’s borderline jaw dropping… for a racing game.
- Car models are spot on and the rally tracks deliver plenty of new and exciting environments to gawk at.
- Sound sounds.
- Hell, I even kinda like Mr. shouty direction pants.
J-
- Ees purdy
- The tracks look pretty damn, good, as do the cars
- Despite the fact that I have some british asshole screaming in my ear, I the co-driver’s voice prompts aren’t too bad
P-
- Damn this is a good looking racing game.
- I mean, wow!
- And for once, I get to enjoy the Ultra graphics on a Feral port too, so bonus points there.
- There was no race music, but I guess that’s the point. And what a point.
- If you have a pair of reasonable headphones, you can hear the turbo kick in through the mud and rocks hitting the undercarriage.
- Codemasters made a damn aesthetically pleasing game.
Total-
Control
V-
- My Dreamcast Fishing Controller WAS NOT RECOGNIZED!
- SDL2 is best SDL.
- I drive with my arse.
- This is clearly meant to be played with a Wheel and I’m just not going down that rabbit hole.
- The Xclone contolla got the job done, just.
- You really do feel like you are trying to drive a car with a controller.
J-
- It…vibrates.
- I get the sense that this game really does require the Josh Walrus patented driving rig. Shame my other co-hosts don’t have supported racing wheels so they could comment on it
P-
- If you start the game with your controller off, turning it on won’t help you.
- You need to quit and restart with the controller already On, if you want to play with it.
- I don’t know whether that’s the fault of Feral or the CRS.
- That said, I ended up saying “Fuck it!” and just went at it PCMR style.
- All things considered, playing with the keyboard isn’t horrible in this game.
- It still made wish for a proper Wheel with a stick shifter, every single race.
Total-
FUN
V-
- Does flailing about screaming obscenities count as fun? I think so.
- This is codemasters return to form.
- They took a bit of flack by releasing GRiD because it was a sim / arcade hybrid that did little more than piss off both camps.
- GRiD is straight up sim with just a slight dash of arcade mixed in.
- Ya know, just enough to let you get through a course with a contolla, poorly.
- So that brings us to the price, and $59.99 is nothing to sneeze at.
- We have review copies so i’m able to enjoy the legit madness of trying to drive with a controlla.
- It’s beyond intense and I get genuinely cross everytime I cock up… which is often.
- I liked the ability to start my career way back when with the OG Mini and hiring crew members is a nice touch.
- There are also a metric FK load of option for setting up suspension, braking, etc.
- And if we’re being honest most of that pegs my give-a-FK-o-meter @ naught.
- Multiplayer is RallyCross and I can take it or leave it.
- Where DiRT really shines is the actual rally racing.
- Really digging it because it’s a blast. No more no less. Yes, even with a contolla.
- Will this game make me buy a wheel (which is supported) oh hells no but it’s still a bit of alright.
J-
- I tried you guys.
- I can sorta deal with arcade racers, or kart racers, but this sort of racing simulation game does nothing for me
- It certainly looks very pretty, and I imagine that if you like racing games, you’ll probably like this one
- I don’t think this will change the minds of people like me
P-
- Much in the same vein as GRiD Autosquirt, DiRT Rally delivers a hybrid between realism and arcady fun racing.
- What makes DiRT Rally the better game when compared to GRiD, is how it lets you pick just how simulation-y or arcady you want the controls to be.
- The moment you start the game, after you’ve sat there for a minute or so waiting on the shaders to compile, it gives you a choice as to whether you want manual or automatic transmission, as well as a few other options.
- Are you an idiot like me, who decided to play the game with the Keyboard? Well, then you get to also pick whether you want a dedicated clutch button for those tighter turns when a clutch kick is all you need, a dedicated button for windshield wipers and how you want to do launch control.
- That is almost as comprehensive as Euro/American Truck Sim… And I like those games too.
- No matter how I look at this game, I always enjoy it.
- Even though I suck at it and feel the need to rage quit, after a couple of minutes I’m right back in and trying that track again.
- I could go on wrapping my lips around the game’s proverbial genitalia but I think y’all got the point…
Total-
Final –
Hate Mail:
AM2R
http://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?xermBvp
- Oh, I’m sorry. Did I just shit all over your favorite fan project? Where are your counter-arguments to anything I said?
- Oh, what’s that? You don’t have any and decided to imply I had negligent parents and assumed my lack of intelligence instead. Good job!
