Linux Game Cast 563: Pay to Pedro

Heroic Game Launcher adds Epic DLC, SkateBIRD calls it done, NVIDIA learns to play nice with AMD chipsets, Entropy : Zero 2 gets a Linux build, and gaming on RISC-V with Box64.

Special thanks to:
Kyjorei (new patron)


Listen:

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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:41 Steam beta scrolling update
01:56 Steam Deck survey time!
02:55 Pedro didn’t write anything
NEW GAMES
04:24 Pawperty Damage
06:32 Erra: Exordium
09:04 Poly Bridge 3
12:36 Elteria Adventures
15:30 Thunderday
GAME UPDATES
17:02 Entropy Zero 2 goes native
18:54 State Bird is done
NEWS
27:24 NVIDIA beta drivers vs AMD chipsets
31:32 Heroic Games Launcher adds Epic DLC
34:12 X86 gaming on RISC-V with BOX86
39:06 Stone Kingdoms 0.5 update
REVIEW
41:44 Them’s Fightin’ Herds
HATE MAIL
58:32 Save game backups

 


Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam: New Games

Pawperty Damage

  • A game custom tailored for disgruntled collegiate mascots.
  • I get some PS2 Rampage vibes from this and I’m here for it
  • Doesn’t have online multiplayer though
  • Furzilla?


Erra: Exordium

  • Dieselpunk Dex
  • The 2D art style is cool and apparently it works great on deck
  • That looks very good!
  • I shall play it when it’s done with the Early Access run.


Poly Bridge 3

  • If there’s one thing the LGC crew is a sucker for, it’s physics puzzles
  • Needs more portals
  • Some of the ones it shows in the trailer look proper fucky!
  • Another exciting installmanet of wiggle bridge, fuck, nooo!
  • 100+ new levels and something involving jumps?


Elteria Adventures

  • Fortnite meets minecraft?
  • This one has tinier blocks to allow for finer detail. Hopefully this game is multithreaded to hell and back
  • If you ever wondered about what anachronism looks like in practice, it’s those character models on those voxels.
  • This looks like OG Unreal models imported into Minecraft.
  • Gameplay looks a bit like Rust.
  • Collect resources, build things, murderate.


Thunderday

  • Big thanks to RobotCat Games for shooting us keys on Curator Connect.
  • It’s a Nuclear Throne style of twin stick shooter.
  • Those tend to be popular with that particular crowd.

Steam: Game Updates

Entropy on Deck

  • Half life 2: Are we the baddies edition gets steam deck/steam input support
  • It’s a free mod that adds some squad management stuff to HL2
  • HL2 plays ok with a controller


Birb Done

  • One last big ass-level and that’s it. Stick a fork in it, chicken is done
  • Everyone loved the little trailer with the skateboarding birb
  • Not everyone liked the vidjagame.
  • I did, but I was by far the most positive of us.
  • Selfie stick mode.
  • WHAR fisheye camera mode?
  • The sim-like controls turned me off from the start.

News:

New beta drivers

  • It’s not a big fan of gamescope.
  • Improved the performance of Minecraft Java Edition on RTX 3000 series GPUs.
  • Like, how do you notice performance issues in Minecraft on a 30 series?
  • Added support for suspend and resume when using GSP firmware.
  • Better support for wayland on PRIME systems that have an AMD IGPU, which i think is going to be a pretty common configuration as time goes on


Epic DLC

  • Quite a bit more progress on allowing other games to be launched via Heroic, not just GOG and Epic ones.
  • Now you can add browser based ones which it seems to be playing natively.
    • No netflix though.
    • I guess they’re not distributing widevine yet
  • If you look at the languages Heroic is built on, it’s effectively a browser of its own right.
  • Epic Store DLC can now be installed individually through the UI
  • GOG downloads now display their actual size
  • Linux Native GOG games show up in the launcher now.


RISCV Boxes

  • x86_64 programs can now run on RISC-V with reasonable speed.
  • Openarena (as a test) is running at 63% of native.
  • The VisionFive board is running a dual core 1.5ghz processor, but it goes from 2-8gb of memory and the blog post doesn’t say which one
    • The onboard media processor is apparently capable of UHD 60 h264 and h265 decode and 1080p 30 h265 encode


Stone Kingdoms 0.5

  • It’s very faithful to the original Stronghold.
  • The UI gives me all the nostalgia for that game and how much I genuinely hated it.
  • It’s a very chonky release
  • A bunch of new building types, bug fixes and a campaign mode
  • Apparently previously it was just free play, which they still support

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope
– Not sure if want
– Check it out
– Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Them’s Fightin’ Herds
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/574980/Thems_Fightin_Herds/
Devel: Mane 6, Inc.
Engine: Z-Engine (Skullgirls)
Price: £15.49 / $19.99 / $22.79

Wazzat: Them’s Fightin’ Herds is a 2D fighting game featuring a cast of adorable animals designed by acclaimed cartoon producer Lauren Faust. Beneath the cute and cuddly surface, a serious fighter awaits!

Mandatory Disclosure: Venn bought us keys



Venn:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Slams right into the left monitor.
  • Gamescope to the rescue.
  • Fighting game so as you might expect 4K 60 all day with the 3060.
  • Gamepad has phantom inputs using the native build.
  • More than once my character tore off to the left or right without prompt.
  • Tapped that Proton button and things cleared up.
  • Multiplayer works cross Proton / native.

Fun?

  • Released in 2020 and fresh off the April 5.0 update I figured it’s about time to give this one a review.
  • That, and it was on wicked sale over the weekend.
  • I grew up playing 1v1 fighting games in arcades and later on home consoles.
  • Then some asshat invented combo systems and I noped right the hell out.
  • I still enjoy watching competitive fighting and keep threatening to buy an arcade stick to see if my old arse can git gud.
  • Hell, combos are not my major gripe with modern fighting games, nay. It’s the story modes.
  • I will never understand the desire to put a story mode in fighting games.
  • It’s like plot in a porno.
  • Somebody must like it because it keeps showing up.
  • Anyway, this one has some overwold BS that you can skip and get into the fighting proper.
  • It has the standard fare, training mode and the like.
  • Easy to access moves list.
  • Remember last week (or week before last) when I mentioned some games maintain a core group of online players?
  • There exists a group of 20 or so players on one EU server and that’s what they do.
  • They play Fighting Herds.
  • If you plan on playing on forever alone mode it will be against the AI and it can be a wee on the cheaty side.
  • Especially on lvl 2 difficulty.
  • This is extra jarring since lvl 1 difficulty lets you get away with semi-educated button mashing.
  • Yeah, plenty of characters to choose from, reasonable move list, combos a little on the fast side for me.
  • 4-button fighting mechanic.
  • Keeping track of the magic meter for attacks is manageable.
  • The “my little brony” thing has passed so you have to judge Them’s Fightin’ Herds on merit.
  • Hey, it has it. Solid little fighting game that’s easy to pick up and of course, ZOMG ponies.
  • Keep in mind, you will want to bring a friend for multiplayer.


Jordan:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • It really likes that leftmost monitor
  • Runs like a gem cuz Cybik did a good job
  • You can de-fullscreen and movie it over, but if you start the game up again you’ll end up back where you were
  • Ooh boy that movement is sensitive. And they make you do platforming with it in the story mode
  • I get the sense that this is really meant to be played with a fight stick though.
  • Multiplayer is nicely integrated in steam

Fun?

  • Fan works filing the serial numbers off and selling the new thing has an interesting track record of success. See 50 Shades of Gray
  • I bring this up because this is pretty much my little pony skullgirls, as previously mentioned. To a fault
  • Did you like the ultra precise comboing guilty gear style anime fighter that was skullgirls? You’ll probably get a kick out of this
  • Conversely, if you’re a brony or pegasis who wants to sink their teeth into a fighting game relevant to your interests, it might be up your alley
  • I however, am neither of these types of people so my ability to comment on the quality of the game is minimal
  • The characters are all well designed and their movesets are pretty expressive of their general gimmicks and personalities. I tried the fancy deer, the dragon and the manic alpaca. You also use the american cow in the story mode
  • The story mode is going to make you master the movement of this game because as mentioned, you need to platform your way to success. Which is about where I tapped out on that.


Pedro:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Random bits of trivia before we start:
    • The original name of the game was My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic and it featured the characters of the show
    • Lab-0 gave the engine to Mane 6 specifically for Them’s Fightin’ Herds because they liked what they saw.
  • With that out of the way, it runs out of the box.
  • Thanks Cybik!
  • It works on the Deck but I ended up playing it on the Desktop with the USB Saturn controller.
  • For the simple reason that the game kept detecting extra directional inputs when I released a diagonal press.
  • It’s a little too sensitive, but we’ll get to that.
  • It sounds amazing and the graphics are pretty good.
  • If those land mammals look familiar it’s because they were drawn by Lauren Faust, the MLP person.

Fun?

  • Did you like Skullgirls?
  • Are you ok with the idea of Flufferpundle beating the shit out of Lady Moorinicus the III?
  • If you answered yes to either of those questions, you’ll probably like the idea of Them’s Fightin’ Herds.
  • I say “the idea of” because, much like Skellington Gals, Easy is too easy and Medium is like hitting the proverbial brick wall on the difficulty curve.
  • I have no doubt I could probably git gud, I did beat the single player story campaign in Cranium Damsels on Nightmare difficulty with every character.
    • And I only hated myself, the game, and literally everything else when it took me several dozen tries to beat Fukua with Filia.
  • My one complaint is how sensitive the input detection is.
  • If I let go of a diagonal the game registers another input in one of the two related directions, which is just enough of a window for the AI to skullfuck me with its hooves.
  • I genuinely had quite a lot of trouble getting past the second opponent on Normal.
  • If I had a bit more time, this would very much be a game I could get into.
  • But I don’t…

Verdict:

Venn:
Jordan:
Pedro:


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