PC gaming is dead! NVIDIA springs a leak, RPCS3 goes AAA, and Steam has Ryzen. Then The Silver Case faces the ChairQAsition. All this plus your hate mail.
Special thanks to:
Brad Smithee (new patreon)
Michael N (new patreon)
AdmiralJT (USB ground-loop breakers)
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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro
Steam News:
Input|
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta#announcements/detail/1465223015955198603
- Launcher mode. AKA that thing that already worked under linux more or less
PC gaming is dead
https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam/steam-17-million-concurrent
- So, china?
- Definitely China and PUBG.
VR still a thing
https://venturebeat.com/2017/11/27/vr-headsets-pass-1-million-shipments-for-the-first-time-in-a-single-quarter/
- One million headsets, this means PSVR, VIVE and Occulus combined
- Looks like windows gamers are picking the rift just cuz it’s cheaper
- Makes sense, it’s not like you are going to continue using it after the novelty wears off.
Steamy RYZEN
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7g4ju6/actual_marketshare_of_ryzen_in_the_steam_hardware/dqgespg/
- Also remember that the CPU only recently came out.
- It’s not like people were chomping at the bit to trash their systems and buy some newsauce
- Also China. Because China
- That is a nice linear progression, but in September the FX CPUs were still leading.
- I was a part of that in September.
- Almost 1% and it’s not even Doctor WHO day.
- AMD made multi-core cheap and performant.
- It also lit a fire under Intel’s arse-organ.
- I think it was the Star Citizen critters that are starting to test builds on Thread Ripper.
GG Glest
http://steamcommunity.com/app/578870/discussions/0/1489992713689154244/
- Got the wet-stinky they needed and took it down to Chinatown.
- There are far worse dollar bin games on steam. Give these guys some support
Rusty
http://store.steampowered.com/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/2152021858897811044
- This critter still runs like arse even on the RYZEN box of business.
- Fixed weird satchel behavior
- The polite way of saying ballsack issues
Skybox
http://steamcommunity.com/games/distance/announcements/detail/1458467616509347615
- Optimized CPU performance and memory usage throughout the game because it ran so poorly to begin with.
- Improved car explosion visual effect.
- And a new skybox system.
- If y’all motherfu*kers are reworking the skybox you need to admit that it’s ready for release.
- This does read like a post launch patch.
Hawt
http://store.steampowered.com/app/674930/Boyfriend_Dungeon
- Something tells me Fighter from 8 bit theater would b e all over this game
- This might actually get me interested in a dating sim, if the dungeon crawling is compelling enough
- “Date your weapons” – I’m sold!
- I’m with Jordan on my enjoyment of this game being very much attached to the actual dungeoneering.
Dominions 5
http://store.steampowered.com/app/722060/Dominions_5__Warriors_of_the_Faith/
- Have you ever felt other 4Xs weren’t really scratching your hardcore strategy itch?
- Enter the Dominion series.
- Do you want thousands of different units, each with their own stats? Hundreds of resources? Tens of management “mini-games” with different impacts on your game?
- This is it.
- Dominions 4 was already a massive monster of mechanical complexity, 5 just cranks that up even higher.
- Just don’t expect Civ level graphics, though.
Black Mirror
http://store.steampowered.com/app/581300/Black_Mirror/
- Ctrl + F pig :(
- Oh yay, another spoopy point and click game
- This looks like it might be UE4 though
Drawful2
http://store.steampowered.com/app/442070/Drawful_2/
https://steamdb.info/app/442070/depots/
- Seems like they are going to Linux their entire library.
- Pictionary for horrible people
- I’d like to see a bit more than a depot, though! Just sayin’…
- Even if this is a hot WINE mess someone will end up gifting it to us.
Mobile game reloaded
http://store.steampowered.com/app/667600/Sky_Force_Reloaded/
- Tell you this right now.
- If you had added online multiplayer I would have just picked up three copies.
- But you didn’t, Brad.
- You brought it to Steam! Steamworks makes network multiplayer that much more easy.
- Just do it!
News:
NVIDIA memory
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/7gm21i/nvidia_vram_bug_affecting_the_380_driver_branch/
- Apparently this bug was introduced late in the 378 cycle and has to do with memory allocation of textures
- There is a bug in the nvidia memory manager that they’re expecting to have fixed in 390
- They will have a workaround for it in 390, but according to Arthur Huillet, they have no fucking clue what’s causing it.
- Turns out, this exacerbates the 3.5GB VRAM issue in the 970s.
- Unless you’re strider, at which point you’re now saying: “I have a 970 and don’t see any of this.”
- Switch between the latest 38*.** version and the old long lived branch while keeping an eye on the VRAM usage and come back to me.
- I didn’t see any significant performance drops but with Mad Max between the current version and 375, the latest version of the driver uses almost a third more VRAM on the 1080.
Zoom zoom
https://www.humblebundle.com/games/codemasters-racing-2017
- Stuff I have and a VP port I don’t want.
- Chances are you already have DiRT Rally at this point, if not maybe pick it up from the $15 level.
Try try again
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/galaxy/release_the_gog_galaxy_client_for_linux
- Keep trying guys. Remember, if you hold your breath long enough too, CDPR will also port Witcher 3 to linux
- How about they get some stuff like incremental updates working first
- We have a generation that thinks online petitions accomplish FK and or ALL.
- Might happen! Just like Carmageddon Reincarnation could still come out on Linux.
Controlla
https://hothardware.com/news/ataribox-joystick-breaks-cover
- It’s got a Home and Back button.
- $3.50 says it’s only running Linux if you consider Android Linux.
- Looks nice. Shame it’ll be ditched for the handy dandy 360 controller.
Dwarven Linux
https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/7g3afe/linux_release_is_up/
- “I played the 64 bit version from the VM and generated a world fine.”
- Quality assurance ladies and gents!
- To be fair, it is dwarf fortress.
- You can literally run it in your terminal with ncurses.
Shells
https://itsfoss.com/gameshell-console/
- They have about 5 times their asking price
- Basically a tinkerable gameboy kit for kids. And adults with free time and disposable income
AAA PS3
https://rpcs3.net/blog/2017/12/01/rpcs3-begins-to-emulate-several-awaited-aaa-exclusives/
- That’s some Last of Us progress. Still won’t go in-game, though.
- More demon souls and dark souls 2 progress as well
- Demon Souls doesn’t have online services anymore, so you’re on your own
Game: The Silver Case
Webzone: The_Silver_Case
Devel: GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE INC.
Engine: Unity
Price: £14.99 / US$ 19.99 / CA$ 21.99
Wazzat: The Silver Case – the debut title from world-renowned developer SUDA51 has been fully remastered and localized to English for the first time ever!
Mandatory Disclosure: The Devs sent keys.
Makes with the working
- The remaster was developed using the Unity 5 game engine
- The main problem with the port was that the original source code had been lost, so the audio data needed to be extracted from the PlayStation disc version.
- SWEET MOTHER OF LOUD
- The game is downright unplayable in non-english locales
- If you don’t add LC_ALL=C %command% to the advanced launch options the graphics are pitch black, you can’t load a game and you can’t progress at all.
- This is <current year argument>
- This kind of shit was bad enough when it first happened when Unity games started coming out, it’s even worse now.
Shiny / Sounds
- Remaster?
- I went back and watched some PS1 gameplay and I think a better definition would be “mildly enhanced”
- That said, I like the background music.
- I mean, “HD” remaster in this case just means that all the art assets are HD, which means fewer pixels
- Otherwise, it kind of reminds me of some Strider-esque neue wave cinema
- Which, you know, could work for the genre of the game, but the dialogue is super bad
- Protip: Alternating mental cast members Bill Cosby, Snaggletooth and Frank’n’Furter make this a much more entertaining read
- I almost wish the locale bug made it so I couldn’t hear the sound effects because goddamn, that typing noise is so annoying and loud.
- Graphics look like something out of the PS1 era.
- And seeing as this came out in 1999, it probably was.
- And even then, on the i5 6200U laptop it runs at 10FerPS
- So it’s horribly unoptimized, on top of just looking like shit.
Control
- Oh sweet mother of flaming nope.
- You get a bonus soda for attempting a point-and-click in the PS1 era.
- You also get smashed in the face-organ with a Chair for keeping that bullsh*t in place.
- You knew the control scheme was nightmare-fuel back in 1999.
- Yes, you added a WASD option but getting to it is the problem.
- Hell, I’ve counted three references to how the controls “might seem confusing” in the game proper.
- Keyboard is somehow worse.
- Very much an early 3d console point and click game ported to PC
- And yeah, the control scheme is a wee fucked up
- You do get used to it though. The trick is to just not use a mouse when playing the point and click sections
- The controls work.
- This seems to be the sole thing which did before forcing all locales to C, system-wide.
- They’re still bad, though.
- It does the Myst thing of letting you spin in place and move to another square on the map.
- Not impressed.
FUN
- This is about as much of a “game” as Gone Home: You’re Drunk.
- It’s a visual novel / walking simulator mixed with the occasional puzzle.
- The criminal thing is the hot mess of what they claim to be a game interface.
- I lasted a little over an hour before giving up.
- #bigdickchinchilla
- This was always supposed to be an experimental game
- When you have time, resource and budget constraints, sometimes the answer to your problems is to go way the hell out there
- I never really played any of SUDA51’s other games, so I don’t really have a sense of what makes his sauce super special
- It does some visually interesting things, which again ties back to the limitations, but it doesn’t really make up for the main deficiency
- Since this is a text game though, the experience is defined by the text of the game. And hoo boy
- I get the sense that the dialogue is supposed to be people talking normally, but hot damn. There are some points when people start repeating shit that I thought the game was glitching out
- I also still have no idea who any of these people talking are
- I think I found my most hated game of 2017.
- I thought nothing could top spaceBOUND in the “making me violently ill with anger” category, this year.
- I was wrong.
- This is the kind of game I hate the most.
- The mechanics are there solely to make you work for SUDA51’s masturbatory stiffy over his storytelling.
- The graphics barely even register, since all of the important bits are just glorified JPEGs which get smeared on screen to indicate something is happening.
- There’s so much text on screen at any point I felt like I’d be better off with audiobook version of this game.
- If you want to experience this game like I did, the best way would be to watch a let’s play of the original Myst on youtube (without fullscreening) which was recorded in 240×160, mute the audio, have someone tap along on an old digital typewriter right next to your ears and focus on the text below the video.
- Are you bored yet?
Hate Mail:
B.i.g.
https://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?up39CCn
Bottles
https://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?LNXsT6m
- I’m team used 750Ti.
- That phenom is going to give you an issue with the lack of SSSE3 and SSE4