LinuxGameCast Weekly 269: The Orange Box

IGN acquires Humble, Steam games get cheap, RPCS3 goes HD, and Overgrowth enters final beta. Then Death Point faces the CHAIRQUISITION!

Special thanks:
Mike G (Newest Executive producer)

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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam News:

What’s in
http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-reflects-on-the-orange-box-ten-years-later/

I bought it twice, once for the Xbox 360 and again for PC some years later when I finally had a decent computer again
I didn’t realize that while developing Portal and TF2 that they were almost a single team
Man, I remember when this business came out of nowhere and everyone lost their collective shite.
At no point did I think any of it would be available on Linux.
Oh, look! The beginning of the end for Valve as game developers.
Well, until that stupid card game comes out.
That’ll be the nail on that coffin.

Cheap steam
https://www.neowin.net/news/steam-games-will-become-much-cheaper-in-select-regions-soon

Wait, it’s not region locked?
Don’t see developers jumping on this on one.
Added fk mothering Israeli New Shekel (ILS).
Valve recommending developers to update their prices from time to time in order to achieve decent sales, in accordance with the respective country’s economy
- Read lower your prices and maybe people might stop pirating your games. And then we get a cut too
- Not 100% sure that’s going to help though
TIL what the Khazakstani currency is

Free VR
https://partner.steamgames.com/vrlicensing

Valve isn’t going to be charging licensing fees for developing VR peripherals and other technology
You still gotta pay for the ASICS, Vives and computers beefy enough to test your shit.
In principle not a bad idea. “Open”ing up technologies like this free developers to try and innovate. Meaning is Valve is really hoping someone will come up with something super cool to justify selling peopleVR

BIG VR
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/10/valve-announces-the-first-big-steamvr-2-0-feature-waaay-more-space/?amp=1

So we’ve heard bits and pieces about the new base stations, but now we get the claim that they’ll allow for 10 times the square footage tracked
- Meaning that you have ample room to crash into shit and break your house!
Just give us the damn holoshed already. But, you know, without it malfunctioning and the holograms becoming real
I really think they should focus on the reverse.
Most people cannot dedicate an entire room to VR.
Hell, a lot cannot clear out the space needed to use the current setup.

Cars
https://www.rocketleague.com/news/rocket-league-patch-notes-v1-38/

Mac/Linux: Farmstead map visuals have been updated
- And by that they mean, they fixed the texture fuck up which made the walls look black.
- Can confirm.
Fixed several issues with in-game grass.

Three hour time limit Exiled
http://steamcommunity.com/games/332650/announcements/detail/1483231600781011653

So this is a sort of PUBG/DOTA/Diablo hybrid?
Either way, it’s going free to play now. Still gotta pay for extra character slots and cool skins
I tried this when it was still in beta/early access.
I’ve never liked PvP in MMOs and a PVP MMO isn’t really changing my mind.
Unity scream of nope!

Needs mayo
http://steamcommunity.com/games/433530/announcements/detail/1447204164024417370

Apparently, it’s not terrible if we are to take the Steam reviews at face value.
- Someone shoot me now! This is the point we’ve come to.
Graphics: Shader Model 3.0 Compatible GPU, 986 MB VRAM
- Damn! I only have 985MB of VRAM!
This is basically world of tanks with da choppas.
I’m curious if these guys have decent joystick support, cuz that might be a wee fun

Steam got Sol…us
https://plus.google.com/+Solus-Project/posts/ZL8C2wBqbfg
https://github.com/solus-project/linux-steam-integration/releases/tag/v0.4

Basically, Solus (Ikey mostly) is trying to fix VALVe’s shit when it comes to library cock-ups affecting the base client functionality
There has already been the nasty side effect of some games not working as a result, but they’ve fixed all the reported issues in a matter of hours.
The worst offenders seem to be Feral ports which rely on a lot of shipped libraries on top of what the runtime already provides.
Or, or, get this.
You could use stock Ubuntu and things just work.
- Unless you’re trying to use the mesa drivers.
- Or watch a trailer in fullscreen on the store.
- Or try to use Steam on Wayland with the NVidia drivers.

News:

Oh hell
http://blog.humblebundle.com/post/166366386976/humble-bundle-is-joining-forces-with-ign
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/307546/Humble_Bundle_has_been_acquired_by_media_giant_IGN.php

You thought Humble had already turned into yet another soulless storefront?
You haven’t seen anything yet, son.
The Humble blog dances around the fact that IGN straight-up OWNS all things Humble.
IGN is owned by j2global who also own
- Ziff Davis
- PC Mag
- Askmen.com
- Geek.com
- Everyday Health
If you thought Linux support was getting a bit sketchy as time went by, it’s not even going to be a priority now.
I hope I’m wrong, but I haven’t seen much of anything Linux related in IGN outside of the Steam Machine bashing.
I’m just waiting for the humble doritos and mountain dew bundle. Cuz I want some cheap soda
Short term this is really going to hurt Humble because the IGN hate train has already pulled out the station even before they’ve had a chance to do something massively stupid.

Border Bundle
https://www.humblebundle.com/endless-rpg-lands-bundle

10 bucks for both borderlands ATM.
- If you don’t have them it’s a good deal.
Guild of dungeoneering seems like a neat little dungeon keeper riff, but it’s not for linux. Boo.

So, two more years?
http://blog.wolfire.com/2017/10/Overgrowth-Beta-6—The-Final-Beta

The DN4E of Linux games is finally getting released.
I could never bring myself to pay 29.95 for the privilege of testing it.
- You and me both. And I actually liked Lugaru
I want to know what lit the fire under their arse-organs.
Because they went from cocking about to GET IT SHIPPED!
I am curious to see what all these years of development did, but not £25 curious.
Also, if the Duke Nukem forever analogy holds it’s going to be pretty disappointing.
- Or maybe I’m just fucking jaded.

RPCS3 gets high
https://rpcs3.net/blog/2017/10/08/introducing-high-resolution-rendering/

Now you can force the emulator to do the upscaling.
Incidentally, have any of you ever tried running PS1 games at higher resolutons?
- My roommate and I were playing megaman legends at 1650×1080 and it looked pretty bad
- You still need those HD textures in order for it to not look bad
I wonder what Persona 5 looks like at UHD *gets carted off by DMCA lawyers*
That comparison with Demon’s Souls going from 720p to 4k is not helping my wanting to play it so goddamn bad!

Spider game
https://etodd.itch.io/deceiver

Play as a Tachicoma while someone spews Ayn Rand at you
Listen, if I wanted to hear to a bunch of that crap, I’d go talk to the Atomic Ass
Closed alpha?
Also, i’m not downloading the itch app.
Still not a fan of the neon aesthetic.

Suprise! AvP 2017
https://icculus.org/avp/files/
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/761iop/the_alien_versus_predator_source_port_was/

We used to do LANS of this back in high school. It was in the rotation with CS 1.5 and Quake 3
Not sure what exactly the update contains. Perhaps some bug fixes? Maybe someone who plays this can send us some haet mail

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Death Point
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/595920/Death_Point/
Devel: Andiks LTD.
Engine: Unity
Price: £10.59 / US$13.99 / CA$14.99

Wazzat: Death Point is a classic stealth-action, which not only should inspire player but also surprise him. At first glance, you get almost traditional game, tightly staffed with hard levels and various tasks. Instead you are immersed in a different world, fully associating yourself with the main character.

Mandatory Disclosure: The dev(s?) sent us keys

Makes with the working

V-

I’ve seen better option menus in Flash games.

J-

You can disable vsync,but that’s about it
Also, it seems to love my hotel room TV

P-

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

V-

OMG the Rusian guy faking a southern voice is fkn hilarious.
Also, the intro movie made me LOL with some of animation rigging
It looks like a mobile game so think PS1 with a HD texture pack.
Don’t really know about the sound because the VO at the beginning made me nope my headset.

J-

This dialogue is fucking atrocious. Oh my god.
Other than that, this is a pretty standard unity title. Nothing mind blowing, just sort of meh

P-

Total-

Control

V-

Can’t rebind a damn thing because “click export” mobile port.
It also moves fky as hell because it’s designed for touch.

J-

Yup, these are some mobile port controls
If you got a steam controller, you can get around it,but that should never EVER be a prerequisite

P-

No key rebinding, no mouse options and spacebar to interact.
The UI is also all over the place because touchscreen.
That doesn’t translate well to when you have to move the mouse all around to get to things.
Hope you don’t have any other control biases, outside of WASD/Movement arrows, because they won’t help you here.

Total-

FUN?

V-

I like throwing a mobile “port” in the mix every now and then.
Unfortunately Death Point comes from the type of developers who want to charge $13.99 for their $4.99 mobile game.
That by itself would not be a bad if they had gone back and properly adapted it for PC.
Hell, I would cut them some slack if an attempt was made, it wasn’t.
Far as the game, it’s generic top-down sneak around stealth simulator on a budget.
Nothing new, nothing original, and irritating to control.

J-

Stealth games are a little tricky to pull off. It requires that you have the player wait around a bunch, so you have to design the game with a good deal of tension to make the wait seem worthwhile
This game just doesn’t do that.
Hitmango did this a lot better. AND THAT SHIT WAS A MOBILE PORT TOO!
Checkpoints are just spawn points, meaning that if you want to walk away from the game, you gotta restart the entire level you’re on
And FSM help you if you die. Get ready to listen to the same godawful dialogue over and over and over and over and over and over
The Fucky ass controls don’t help much either. An hour of this crap was all I could tolerate

P-

I have a few genres I like.
I have others in which I find a game I like once in a blue moon.
Then there is the Stealth genre.
I absolutely loved the original Thief: The Dark Project and the sequel.
I don’t think any other stealth games have ever come close to those for me.

Total-

Final –

Hate Mail:

Moving
https://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?8OesJ3q

Outside of the price difference, Portugal and the UK are in the EU still.
So, yeah. Outside of certain NA only keys (Humble’s Mighty No. 9) I haven’t really needed a VPN for anything.
I haven’t gone back to Portugal yet, to check if the games I got here work, but I expect they will.
The only thing I did in Steam, because they kept bugging me about it, was to change my account region to the UK.

Second Hit
https://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?LLeRnxQ