Video Games Randomness - Prioritize specific game threads!

[jztemple2]

From Rock, Paper, Shotgun, The 20 best management games on PC. If you don't have time to read the whole article, here is their list.

Here’s the complete list of the best management games:

20. Oxygen Not Included
19. Anno 1800
18. Megaquarium
17. Slime Rancher
16. Dungeon Keeper
15. OpenTTD
14. Surviving Mars
13. Frostpunk
12. Prison Architect
11. Tropico 6
10. Banished
9. Zeus: Master Of Olympus
8. Planet Coaster
7. Factorio
6. Two Point Hospital
5. The Sims 4
4. Cities: Skylines
3. Dwarf Fortress
2. Stardew Valley
1. RimWorld

In the most recent update on January 2020…

We kicked out: Transport Tycoon Deluxe, The Settlers II, Evil Genius, The Sims 2, Tropico 5 and Anno 1404.

And introduced: Oxygen Not Included, Anno 1800, Megaquarium, Slime Rancher, OpenTTD, Tropico 6 and The Sims 4.

[Paingod]

From Rock, Paper, Shotgun, The 20 best management games on PC. If you don't have time to read the whole article, here is their list.

Here’s the complete list of the best management games:

20. Oxygen Not Included
19. Anno 1800
18. Megaquarium
17. Slime Rancher
16. Dungeon Keeper
15. OpenTTD
14. Surviving Mars
13. Frostpunk
12. Prison Architect
11. Tropico 6
10. Banished
9. Zeus: Master Of Olympus
8. Planet Coaster
7. Factorio
6. Two Point Hospital
5. The Sims 4
4. Cities: Skylines
3. Dwarf Fortress
2. Stardew Valley
1. RimWorld

In the most recent update on January 2020…

We kicked out: Transport Tycoon Deluxe, The Settlers II, Evil Genius, The Sims 2, Tropico 5 and Anno 1404.

And introduced: Oxygen Not Included, Anno 1800, Megaquarium, Slime Rancher, OpenTTD, Tropico 6 and The Sims 4.

I tend to really enjoy management games and spend an inordinant amount of time with them. I've bolded the ones I have and blued the ones I'm interested in, but crossed out the ones I don't have any interest in. RimWorld does take quite the cake in this department, but I'd personally rate Factorio higher than they did, probably behind Dwarf Fortress.

[hentzau]

I just had a real itch to play some Lord of the Rings: The Third Age. I really enjoyed it back in the day, and something this weekend (not sure what) brought the game bubbling up to the top of my consciousness.

But my Xbox, the power supply is dead (according to my son.) I'll need to investigate. I'm sure it will look ugly as sin blown up on my 65" TV.

[MonkeyFinger]

From Torchlight Frontiers to Torchlight III:

Spoiler:

Along with this name change comes a major shift in our design approach to Torchlight III. Torchlight III will be released as a premium title. For one box-price, you will own the game and be able to play the way that you want, online or off. Over the past year, we have gathered massive amounts of feedback from our Alpha testers. After reviewing this feedback, discussing with our internal teams, and receiving guidance from our publisher, we determined that this was the best course for the game. This shift helps bring Torchlight back to its roots and makes it the true sequel to Torchlight I & II that it was always meant to be.

Accompanying this transition to a more traditional release, we will also be moving over to Steam as the platform for PC distribution. Everyone who had played our previous Alphas on Arc can expect to receive a Steam key in their email granting them access to further pre-release testing on Steam.

Alongside these changes to business model and distribution method, naturally there are many other exciting changes coming to Torchlight III.

The game now follows the classic Act structure from previous titles. Players start at the Imperial Outpost besieged by goblin hordes. They then follow the trail of nether corruption into lands overtaken by Hyvid and finally reach the [redacted] Peaks and their cavernous underplaces ruled by the electrifying [redacted]

Horizontal progression has been removed, so all Frontier-specific levels, gear stats, and scaling has been removed as well. We are returning our progression systems to better work in tandem with this.

Most zones are now private by default to give a better play experience. Players can still meet each other in public town levels and form parties to play together in instanced combat zones.

When creating your character, you can now select Online or Offline Mode. Characters made in Offline Mode do not require an internet connection to play, but will also not be able to participate in multiplayer games.

We have removed the in-game real-money store.

While this is a huge sea change for Torchlight III, most of what our current players know about the game is still true:

We will continue developing the game with constant feedback from our community through Closed Alpha (and soon Beta!) testing.
We will continue releasing updates over the course of testing. Update 10 is coming Wednesday, January 29 at 10am PT. and brings the complete refactor into linear Acts, a third Frontier area, a fourth playable class, and a whole bunch of other new features and content.
We plan to release the game on PC in 2020 with a console release following shortly after.
We will continue to support the game with ongoing content updates post-launch.
The classes, game content, features and collectibles that have been shown in Closed Alpha will all stay in the game.

[Daehawk]

Wont be buying it or get to play it. The first two were just ok to me because I had to play them solo. Might have been really fun if Id had someone to play with. So no go on this one.

[morlac]

This is good news as the core gameplay is good., though i havent played in awhile.

[dbt1949]

I wish Steam wouldn't send me notices for 10% off games in my wishlist.

[Daehawk]

I wish Steam wouldn't send me notices for 10% off games in my wishlist.

hahaha

[Kraken]

I wish Steam wouldn't send me notices for 10% off games in my wishlist.

Would be nice if you could set a target price. But that's not how advertising works.

[Rumpy]

I have a game in my wishlist called Chains of Satinav, I think, but due to a bug in their database (I hope?) it's set at an incredibly high-markeup of over $120. It's just a simple point&click adventure game! The hilarious thing is that when the game goes on sale it is often slashed to 85% off making it a lot closer to what I'd expect it to sell at by default.

[Jaddison]

I see a bundle of all Daedalic games on the The Dark Eye for $129 but the game itself is $19.99

[Rumpy]

Yeah, the game is part of the series, but I don't have the bundle wishlisted, just that particular game, but it always comes up on sale listing its original ridiculous price as being slashed down to something like $19.99 or lower depending on the sale. It's got to be a bug.

On another topic, been playing Tower of Time via GOG, and omg, it's got to be one of the worst examples of optimization I've ever seen. It's Crysis levels bad. But in some ways, it's even worse as it's not even that great looking a game. It feels like some kind of mobile port rpg complete with mobile-style combat. I don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but while it has Ultra settings, even setting it low seems to give me issues. I've decided to uninstall it and just forget it. It was a freebie anyway.

[Skinypupy]

The Nickelcade by me recently switched from actual nickels and paper reward tickets to cards that you swipe.

Took the kids today and I gotta admit, I really miss the tactile satisfaction of dropping a coin into a machine. Swiping a card just isn’t the same as that satisfying “ker-CHUNK” as your coin drops in.

[Daehawk]

IKR. Miss those days. I watched LGRs latest video yesterday and it was on his Missile Command cabinet. He also missed that thunk so made it accept coins again for play and put a a few hundred quarters in the coin box so it would make that kaching sound.

[Daehawk]

Warcraft III Reforged savaged by reviews.

Personally I didn't care for WC3. WC2 is the king. The heroes crap ruined it plus the graphics.

Hell hath no fury like a gamer scorned. As of this writing the User Score on Metacritic for Warcraft III: Reforged for PC stands at 0.5 out of ten, just a shade ahead of John Blutarsky's GPA. As noted on Screenrant, this gives Blizzard's real-time strategy remake the dubious distinction of being the lowest user-rated game in Metacritic history. It currently sports a 63 metascore based on the opinions six professional critics, but the 18,353 user reviews completely savage the new release. If you sort them by "most helpful, there is one rating of 1 on the first page of results, and the remainder are 0. According to the breakdown, there are 697 positive reviews, 158 mixed reviews, and 17,498 negative ones.

https://www.bluesnews.com/s/207749/user ... i-reforged

[Blackhawk]

*shrug*

It seems like that is almost entirely due to troll-bombing due to people not like Blizzard's new EULA for the editor. This is why user ratings on review aggregate sites and storefronts are 100% useless. Too many of them are the result of coordinated attacks/boosts.

Every review I've read basically says that it is a standard remaster with a few bugs that need ironed out (which Blizzard is good at) and a few multiplayer features turned off that were in the original release. IE - the ~63 critic review is about right, higher if you like Warcraft and understand that this isn't a new game, much higher if you don't care about multiplayer.

[coopasonic]

The Nickelcade by me recently switched from actual nickels and paper reward tickets to cards that you swipe.

Took the kids today and I gotta admit, I really miss the tactile satisfaction of dropping a coin into a machine. Swiping a card just isn’t the same as that satisfying “ker-CHUNK” as your coin drops in.

I see you've never worked in an arcade and had to empty the coin boxes or clear a jam.

[Rumpy]

In Metro: Last Light Redux, I think I've screwed myself. I thought I had plenty of filters. But I'm at the swamp just before activating the ferry after getting the fuel for it, and I run out of filters and die suffocating right after activating the ferry. This sucks because of the linearity of the game and how few filters you can actually find along the way. And there's no way to activate unlimited filters or godmode to get through it.

[Daehawk]

In Metro: Last Light Redux, I think I've screwed myself. I thought I had plenty of filters. But I'm at the swamp just before activating the ferry after getting the fuel for it, and I run out of filters and die suffocating right after activating the ferry. This sucks because of the linearity of the game and how few filters you can actually find along the way. And there's no way to activate unlimited filters or godmode to get through it.

I always worried about that but I never ran out so figured it was made to always have enough. I see I was wrong.

[Rumpy]

Maybe I haven't scrounged up enough, but I thought I'd looked in every nook and cranny. It's not like the game gives you many opportunities to pick some up, or that you can backtrack to see what you've missed like in an open-world game. The parts that are more open tend to be very brief. In fact, in terms of FPSes, I think this game or the series itself is one of the more blatant corridor-style level designed games I've ever seen. Or maybe it's the fact that the setting itself means the game is literally on rails, and the cities feel more like lifeless dioramas, like I'm wandering through a museum of survival.

[Kasey Chang]

I forgot to let my Steam continue downloading last night... And Dirt Rally 2.0 is... 100GB. (!)

I don't really feel like going back to WRC5 game, after winning WRC-2 class. Interestingly, GameSave Manager doesn't know how to store the gamesaves. Had to create a custom entry.

[jztemple2]

First of all, DiRT Rally 2.0 is 100GB? Wow

Secondly, GameSave Manager... hmm, I used something like this back in the pre-Steam era but hadn't really thought about it since then. You find it useful?

[Kasey Chang]

(ignore this)

[Kasey Chang]

First of all, DiRT Rally 2.0 is 100GB? Wow

97GB, including the 3DLCs (seasons), close enough.

Secondly, GameSave Manager... hmm, I used something like this back in the pre-Steam era but hadn't really thought about it since then. You find it useful?

I like to keep a local backup of stuff, even if I have everything cloud-saved.

[disarm]

First of all, DiRT Rally 2.0 is 100GB? Wow

I remember when Redneck Rampage was released in 1997 as one of the first 100MB game installations... people couldn't believe a games was that big, and many were unable to play due to lack of HD space. Now you can download a 100MB app to your phone almost anywhere on a matter of seconds.

[Rumpy]

I managed to get through the swamp eventually. I reverted to an earlier save and pushed on through it. Interestingly, it seems that no matter which location you search first, either the plane or the gas station, the first one will always yield empty cans and your second one will find you with gas. So, no matter what, you do have to do a bit of searching and deplete some of your air rather than going directly to it. Interesting design choice.

[Daehawk]

First of all, DiRT Rally 2.0 is 100GB? Wow

I remember when Redneck Rampage was released in 1997 as one of the first 100MB game installations... people couldn't believe a games was that big, and many were unable to play due to lack of HD space. Now you can download a 100MB app to your phone almost anywhere on a matter of seconds.

Ive related this before but when the Diablo demo released it was 60 meg. me and my friends laughed thinking they made a mistake and released the full game. Little did we know.

[stimpy]

So there is a remastered version of Wasteland coming out soon.
Never played the original. Any thoughts on whether this is worth buying?

[Daehawk]

https://www.pcgamesn.com/ea-games-steam

EA quietly hiked a ton of game prices on Steam, from Mirror’s Edge to Dragon Age

According to a SteamDB graph for the game, SimCity 4: Deluxe had a consistent, ‘regular’ price of £9.99 / €9.99 / CA$19.99 when not on sale, reaching at least as far back as December 2015. Now, however, the price tracking chart records a steep incline upwards on February 5, 2020. The new prices shown are significantly higher: £17.99 / €19.99 / CA$26.99. For British pounds sterling, that’s an 80% increase in price. In Euros, that’s double the original price.

Similarly, as MJuniorDC9’s Reddit post highlights, Mass Effect Collection (which includes Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2: Digital Deluxe Edition), has changed from a ‘regular’ price of £22.99 / €27.99 / CA$34.99 to £29.99 /€34.99 / CA$45.99, and Crysis 2: Maximum Edition from £19.99 / €19.99 / CA$29.99 to £24.99 / €29.99 / CA$39.99, according to the site.

Given the release dates of these titles were all years ago – 2003, 2012, and 2011 respectively – this is a little surprising.

[Rumpy]

The Canadian prices... *sigh*

[dbemont]

Hoping someone can help an old guy who is losing his memory...

A couple months ago I watched a video about an upcoming post-apocalyptic game that is EA or beta or whatever. Start of the game, a few characters were working with 3-4 existing resources, building up a base. And then a new character had the special ability to go and explore, which was like entering a whole separate map.

If I remember right, it was only available through Epic Games. Anyone know what game this might have been?

[Daehawk]

Hoping someone can help an old guy who is losing his memory...

A couple months ago I watched a video about an upcoming post-apocalyptic game that is EA or beta or whatever. Start of the game, a few characters were working with 3-4 existing resources, building up a base. And then a new character had the special ability to go and explore, which was like entering a whole separate map.

If I remember right, it was only available through Epic Games. Anyone know what game this might have been?

Surviving the Aftermath?

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p ... rmath/home

[jztemple2]

Hoping someone can help an old guy who is losing his memory...

A couple months ago I watched a video about an upcoming post-apocalyptic game that is EA or beta or whatever. Start of the game, a few characters were working with 3-4 existing resources, building up a base. And then a new character had the special ability to go and explore, which was like entering a whole separate map.

If I remember right, it was only available through Epic Games. Anyone know what game this might have been?

Surviving the Aftermath?

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p ... rmath/home

Just be aware that this game, which is being developed by Paradox Interactive, is in essentially Early Access, with new content being released each month. You can read more about it at their website. They have just released their fourth update and have supposedly five more to go. I've just ordered it using my Epic Holiday $10 off coupon.

[Rumpy]

I picked up a used copy Project Cars 2 for the PS4 awhile back, and this game has a particularly nasty gamebreaking bug that has been around for a long time that they never managed to fix, and now the game is no longer receiving patches. How this game managed to get to market in this shape is baffling. It's related to track conditions, tire temperature and the number of AI cars on the track and the physic calculations in the game. You'll be racing, perhaps even in first place, when your car starts first to wobble, which can at times be subtle, which then as the race progresses your steering will randomly jerk hard to the right or left, possibly causing you to spin out or head directly into a wall. I was in first place during my last race and thankfully I had achieved a big enough gap from the rest when this issue sent me straight into a wall. It was into the last minutes of the race when I dropped down to 2nd while trying to recover, with no time to try and gain it back before crossing the line. This isn't an issue of failing to handle the car correctly, it's an issue with the physics being utterly broken.

[Kasey Chang]

Yeah, sounds like definitely a memory allocation issue if it starts to cumulate like that, esp. if they also model tire wear and/or road surface condition changes. But then, they probably figured it's not going to be an issue if people just race shorter races and f*** the long race people.

[Rumpy]

It's definitely an issue given the type of races you do and how many AI there are at any given time, ie up to 20 cars or more and often in rainy conditions, where races are up to 15min and more. It's an absolute gamekiller considering what you're supposed to be doing in this game. You can't even do the basic necessity in this game.

[dbemont]

Hoping someone can help an old guy who is losing his memory...

A couple months ago I watched a video about an upcoming post-apocalyptic game that is EA or beta or whatever. Start of the game, a few characters were working with 3-4 existing resources, building up a base. And then a new character had the special ability to go and explore, which was like entering a whole separate map.

If I remember right, it was only available through Epic Games. Anyone know what game this might have been?

Surviving the Aftermath?

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p ... rmath/home

Thank you, thank you! I was going nuts trying to figure out whether I dreamed a game preview or whether this was an actual thing.

[Kasey Chang]

Decided to try "303 squadron: Battle of Britain", about a Polish squadron training in the UK.

It's somewhat interesting as it has a couple different segments: when you're not flying you can explore the RAF base with a bicycle, and go to the mechanic and ask to change a few things on your plane, if available. Like do you want a constant pitch prop that gives you higher top speed, but less acceleration, or a variable pitch prop that gives you better acceleration but less top speed? But you have to play "plane mechanic" as you need to take apart the parts and put back the parts that you want to replace. And it wasn't quite explained what went where. I saw "light weight feeder" for the guns, I tried to take it apart, and put them in, but I didn't get a choice. Hmmm?

Unfortunately, I can't get it to detect my standard Xbox 360 gamepad (!?) and playing by keyboard sucks, as is the merciless collision model... Hit another plane and it's instant death. And let's just say driving a plane by keyboard sucks.

The combat was both and brutal. I was playing on EASY, and when you hit the enemy plane, this went as far as "x-ray vision" , where you get a bullet time of your bullet hitting the enemy plane, penetrating the fuselage or wing, and causing the catastrophic damage that finally wiped out the plane. But it's also distracting as hell in the middle of a battle. Driving the plane by keyboard doesn't help, esp. with the enmey varying its speed quite a bit, or doing max rate turns. More than a few times I crashing into the enemy... or some friendlies crashed into me.

[Daehawk]

I remember seeing a trailer for that movie a few years ago or so.

[Kasey Chang]

Decided to go back to the audio puzzler "unheard", where you are somehow able to get sound in every room before a crime had happened, and you need to go back and forth and listen to all the conversations (as people move around). And you need to figure out who and why. You need to match up all the characters to names, and answer 2-3 questions on who did it and why. And expect multiple twists, like someone is lying about who he is, or multiple levels of plots and counter-plots, as different groups of people on the scene are actively plotting against one another.

Just finished the 4th case, and it's kinda masochistic, as there were multiple audio tracks and you need to "walk' your avatar around the various rooms as you can only listen to one room's audio at a time. There's an achievement if you never use the progress bar or Rewind/Fast-forward buttons. And really, who would do that?

EDIT: Finally got Dirt Rally 2.0 installed, and it's HARD AS F***. One wrong turn, and your whole event's over with catastrophic damage. One scrape along the wall wrong and your car spins 720 into the bushes. There is no "school" or such to get used to the cars, and they really do feel different. The tiny Austin Mini feels very different from the Lancia Flavia, even though they have roughly the same vintage and same FWD config (and roughly the same engine size).

EDIT2: Tried WRC6 for a little while, can't quite get used to the car, but it's my first stint out. I'm surprised they put it in a WRC car right away. I was expecting a J-WRC car.

Tried GRIP combat racing, and while the idea that you can flip upside down, and keep racing is kinda cool, IMHO, the AI is a bit too brutal, at least on the simple level, since you aren't actually taught how to go faster. The weapons don't do permanent damage, so it feels more like Mario Kart where the weapons just make the enemy car spin out and you sometimes get a shield to defend yourself. They talk about going on those green accelerators, but I keep doing that and I'm still not going fast enough. Seems you need to flip between up and down strategically and tactically to not only avoid being hit, but also to get on the faster parts of the track, and you can't learn the track by going at it only a few times.

Decided to go in a completely different direction. Decied to try Murdered; Soul Suspect, where a murdered police detective had to explore Salem as a ghost and solve his own murder as collateral damage of a serial killer, and help a LOT of lost souls in between as well. The problem is it is very easy to "miss" clues along the way, and even entire side cases. The "count" they gave you is completely misleading, as some clues don't appear until you try to "solve" something. And the demon portions are extremely difficult (demons can kill you and chase you down, but if you come at one from behind, you can kill it by doing a specific trigger sequence. It's a bit of a hassle, IMHO.