Octopus Overlords

Retro Gadgets just entered Steam Early Access today. I've had it wishlisted for awhile since it seems to be something I might be interested it, although I have zero LUA programing experience .

Retro Gadgets is a gadget creation station where you invent, build, solder, code and customise your own electrifying gadgets then share them with the world.






You look up from your cosy little workbench. It's dark out, what time is it? It doesn't matter; you've been in the flow and are adding the final touches to your latest retro gadget. Just one more line of code, a spray of paint here, a sticker there – it's done. You power it on... The start-up sound kicks in... the needles on the gauges flutter, and the screen lights up... it's glorious. It's ready to share with the world. Now, all it needs is a name.



Feel the exhilaration of building your own eye-popping real-working gadgets. Lose yourself as you build, solder, code, customise, and play with electrifying gadgets at your relaxing workbench. Build video game consoles, weather machines, lightboards, radios, drum machines... any gadget you can think of. What will you come up with next?

If you are interested, also be aware that it is on sale on Green Man Gaming for 20% off.

jztemple2 wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:47 pm I kind of lost interest in the NFS franchise a number of years ago and don't even remember this one coming out. Shame too since it was 95% off two months ago... oh dear, we were getting hit by Hurricane Ian, I guess I was distracted . Is it worth dealing with if it ever goes to 95% off again?

Hot Pursuit Remastered was 90% off during the autumn sale, so that might also be worth a look if it repeats for the Christmas sale.

jztemple2 wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:47 pm

Rumpy wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:23 pm Is it just me or is NFS Heat boring? I can't remember the last time I've been this bored by a racing game. The whole design just feels so bland. I know Payback was heavily criticized, and for good reason, due to its randomized loot and microtransactions, but I feel that at least it had style and character.

I kind of lost interest in the NFS franchise a number of years ago and don't even remember this one coming out. Shame too since it was 95% off two months ago... oh dear, we were getting hit by Hurricane Ian, I guess I was distracted . Is it worth dealing with if it ever goes to 95% off again?

I got it for free via PS+, and I'd say that even then it's not really worth it. The sad thing is, if they had the setup from Payback along with the straight-up upgrade system from Heat, it wouldn't be so bad. But in NFS Heat, there's barely any sense of progression. Payback had a great drift system, but in Heat they borked it and drifts are much harder to do right.

I look at the map and try to figure out what I want to do, and because of a dearth of events that haven't already been done, it then becomes a grind on races that have already been done. Race during the day to make money, race at night to grind the rep. It becomes very repetitive. I really wish they could have found a way to merge the two , as that would have been more dramatic if there was also a realtime day-night cycle, where the cops come out at night. It's practically impossible to get chased during the day.

It still annoys me Ive never been able to finish Borderlands Pre Sequel. Even after many tries. I finished the first two games online with groups only...i dont even remember the story in those because it was simply rush rush rush rush end. I got stuck on that one hard ass mission where you go out the elevator and try to kill that flying bastard and all the guys keep spawning on you. I think i played it 35 times before giving up. Also I played it solo so big diff.

Im also considering going back to B2 and completely replaying it solo. I got the Kreig pack and liked him but finished the game soon after so saw nothing special with him. If I go back I plan to try him from the start. I hear he is fun and has lots of conversations with himself. I know the Maya part will hurt though.

I have B3. FL4K was recommended to me as the best character. I cant remember now if i liked him or how much I played or why I quit. I wasn't far into it at all. So would like to finish these two before B3. Its like B1..I can never go that far back after finishing B2. But like B2 it was online mp and I dont recall much of it.

Then of course unrelated to the Borderlands games I have Dishonored 2 to get to run right and play. Wasn't big on the first one but did finish it after giving up near the end and returning weeks later and forcing myself to finish it.

Bring back Porsche Unleashed!

jztemple2 wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:54 pm Retro Gadgets just entered Steam Early Access today. I've had it wishlisted for awhile since it seems to be something I might be interested it, although I have zero LUA programing experience .

Retro Gadgets is a gadget creation station where you invent, build, solder, code and customise your own electrifying gadgets then share them with the world.






You look up from your cosy little workbench. It's dark out, what time is it? It doesn't matter; you've been in the flow and are adding the final touches to your latest retro gadget. Just one more line of code, a spray of paint here, a sticker there – it's done. You power it on... The start-up sound kicks in... the needles on the gauges flutter, and the screen lights up... it's glorious. It's ready to share with the world. Now, all it needs is a name.



Feel the exhilaration of building your own eye-popping real-working gadgets. Lose yourself as you build, solder, code, customise, and play with electrifying gadgets at your relaxing workbench. Build video game consoles, weather machines, lightboards, radios, drum machines... any gadget you can think of. What will you come up with next?

If you are interested, also be aware that it is on sale on Green Man Gaming for 20% off.

Well, this seems like something I might like.
...might even learn something too.

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 9:58 pm Bring back Porsche Unleashed!

I remember that game . I was a big fan of games with Porches back in the day.

Archinerd wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 10:05 pm

jztemple2 wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:54 pm Retro Gadgets just entered Steam Early Access today. I've had it wishlisted for awhile since it seems to be something I might be interested it, although I have zero LUA programing experience .

If you are interested, also be aware that it is on sale on Green Man Gaming for 20% off.

Well, this seems like something I might like.
...might even learn something too.

My biggest challenge would be that I'm not the least bit creative

Speaking of Retro Gadgets, I found in their Steam discussions a reference to this video which was released a month ago which is a 23 minute introduction to the game. I'm watching it now

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 9:58 pm Bring back Porsche Unleashed!

I'd be up for it, if Porsche is up for it! Better yet, make a sequel. And please bring back cockpit views in NFS games! Chase cam views just don't give you the same atmosphere and feeling of speed.

Problem is that I hear they're notoriously picky about their representation in games, which is why you'd often see RUF with Porsche bodies in games instead of Porsche themselves.

Rumpy wrote:

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 9:58 pm Bring back Porsche Unleashed!

I'd be up for it, if Porsche is up for it! Better yet, make a sequel. And please bring back cockpit views in NFS games! Chase cam views just don't give you the same atmosphere and feeling of speed.

Problem is that I hear they're notoriously picky about their representation in games, which is why you'd often see RUF with Porsche bodies in games instead of Porsche themselves.

It was a big surprise when Porsche Unleashed was released because Porsche was so notoriously stingy about licensing. If I remember correctly, the fact that they got a whole game focused on their brand and history was really the only reason that they agreed. The end result was what I thought to be the best driving game of the time...great cars, impressive physics, cool career/factory driver mode. I was obsessed for quite a while...played enough to complete the whole career, first place in every race, and had every car in the game in my garage. Porsche has always been my favorite sports car, and this game was driving heaven for me.

I haven't come close to playing all of them, but I thought Porsche Unleashed was definitely the best NFS game I ever played.

disarm wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 8:56 am

Rumpy wrote:

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 9:58 pm Bring back Porsche Unleashed!

I'd be up for it, if Porsche is up for it! Better yet, make a sequel. And please bring back cockpit views in NFS games! Chase cam views just don't give you the same atmosphere and feeling of speed.

Problem is that I hear they're notoriously picky about their representation in games, which is why you'd often see RUF with Porsche bodies in games instead of Porsche themselves.

It was a big surprise when Porsche Unleashed was released because Porsche was so notoriously stingy about licensing. If I remember correctly, the fact that they got a whole game focused on their brand and history was really the only reason that they agreed. The end result was what I thought to be the best driving game of the time...great cars, impressive physics, cool career/factory driver mode. I was obsessed for quite a while...played enough to complete the whole career, first place in every race, and had every car in the game in my garage. Porsche has always been my favorite sports car, and this game was driving heaven for me.

Yeah, and EA had an exclusive Porsche license for years. If other games within that timeframe wanted to use Porsche, they technically couldn't and used the RUF as a compromise. But from what I understand, the RUFs don't use Porsche bodies anymore, and they aren't even allowed to compete against each other if they're both in the same game.

Never cared for racing games and when I did try these I hated it. But that info on the way Porsche does stuff with their name is interesting.

disarm wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 8:56 am

Rumpy wrote:

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 9:58 pm Bring back Porsche Unleashed!

I'd be up for it, if Porsche is up for it! Better yet, make a sequel. And please bring back cockpit views in NFS games! Chase cam views just don't give you the same atmosphere and feeling of speed.

Problem is that I hear they're notoriously picky about their representation in games, which is why you'd often see RUF with Porsche bodies in games instead of Porsche themselves.

It was a big surprise when Porsche Unleashed was released because Porsche was so notoriously stingy about licensing. If I remember correctly, the fact that they got a whole game focused on their brand and history was really the only reason that they agreed. The end result was what I thought to be the best driving game of the time...great cars, impressive physics, cool career/factory driver mode. I was obsessed for quite a while...played enough to complete the whole career, first place in every race, and had every car in the game in my garage. Porsche has always been my favorite sports car, and this game was driving heaven for me.

Yeah, and EA had an exclusive Porsche license for years. If other games within that timeframe wanted to use Porsche, they technically couldn't and used the RUF as a compromise. But from what I understand, the RUFs don't use Porsche bodies anymore, and they aren't even allowed to compete against each other if they're both in the same game.

FWIW, if you're not averse to (re)playing an abandonware repackaging, the MagiPack.games version of Need for Speed - Porsche Unleashed makes it fairly simple to get running on Windows 10/11.

Don't know how many of you have been following Ready or Not, "an intense, tactical, first-person shooter that depicts a modern-day world in which SWAT police units are called to defuse hostile and confronting situations". Anyway, on their community content update today, they posted two videos made by some serious player groups, some actual professionals in the field. They are pretty amazing in the feel of realism the players give them.

Two takeaways for me: 1) it's a shame I don't game with friends. This game just cries out for multiplayer. And 2) I'm getting old and some of the gameplay in the second video started giving me a little bit of motion sickness . Fair warning to any of you who might have a tendency towards it. Otherwise however, these are pretty cool. I did start the videos past the introductory materials so as to drop you right into the action.

I posted this image over on the CK3 thread, thought I'd repeat it here. It's the top of the list of games played by hours on Steam. On Ubisoft my top game played is Ghost Recon Breakpoint with 217 hours. On Epic it's the only game I've played there in any amount of hours, SnowRunner with 150 hours.

Ubisoft : Division 2 - 287 hours
Epic: Satisfactory - 283 hours, though that game benefits for leaving it open when not playing to collect resources passively, so the real #1 is likely Borderlands 3 at 124 hours
Microsoft: It's probably good that I can't see my Forza Horizon 5 play time

coopasonic wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 10:42 pm

I also have lots of hours on Kerbal Space Program, but it was when I got a copy directly from Squad back in the alpha days. One of those games I played so much before it hit 1.0 release that I didn't care to put that much time into it afterwards

coopasonic wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 10:42 pm Microsoft: It's probably good that I can't see my Forza Horizon 5 play time

I'd forgotten about my FH time, but I don't think it was that much.

I went to the Rockstar Social Club to try to find my time on GTA V, but there isn't a "played time" listed. Also when I got GTA V I think I was still on the XBox.

And there were many, many hours on many games like Forza back when I was on the Xbox and the Xbox 360. And I can't even begin to remember all my time on GTA3 on the PS2 and then again on the PC when I replayed the entire game

Half of those are shared playtime with a house spouse. PUBG, Conan, Don't Starve are certainly her some of her top games. And then I got her her own machine and account.

coopasonic wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 10:42 pm

Ubisoft : Division 2 - 287 hours
Epic: Satisfactory - 283 hours, though that game benefits for leaving it open when not playing to collect resources passively, so the real #1 is likely Borderlands 3 at 124 hours
Microsoft: It's probably good that I can't see my Forza Horizon 5 play time

You're at 250 hours and 54 minutes on Forza Horizon 5.

It is heavily canted toward games I've played with friends/family.

How are you guys making those time played with game icons lists? And is it the webpage of the desktop client launcher?

Daehawk wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 2:27 pm How are you guys making those time played with game icons lists? And is it the webpage of the desktop client launcher?

It's a view option in the Steam client when you're looking at your library. You can sort by category (if you created categories), size on disk, hours played, etc...

Daehawk wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 2:27 pm How are you guys making those time played with game icons lists? And is it the webpage of the desktop client launcher?

Steam library page in the desktop client (initially said app here, but guess some of you olds don't like that term in this context), scroll down to "all games" in the right pane and change the sort to hours played

coopasonic wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 2:36 pm

Daehawk wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 2:27 pm How are you guys making those time played with game icons lists? And is it the webpage of the desktop client launcher?

Steam library page in the desktop client (initially said app here, but guess some of you olds don't like that term in this context), scroll down to "all games" in the right pane and change the sort to hours played

Don't forget that us "olds" invented the internet. You're welcome

And stay off my lawn!

Oh I thought it was Epic for some reason. TY. Also I think Steam is the only games app Ive never used icons for..just a list on the left. probably because theres like 800 games in there.

I saw this for sale on GMG. Im not pushing its sale or anything. Thought it looked interesting though. What do you guys think?

I try to only use apps when referring to mobile and tablet software.

I dont recall playing AC2 near that long at all.

Daehawk wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 6:43 pm I saw this for sale on GMG. Im not pushing its sale or anything. Thought it looked interesting though. What do you guys think?

Looks interesting, but apparently there are some bugs that need to be fixed before it's ready for Prime Time.

These incredible LAN party photos remind us how much work it used to be to play games together

For a subset of PC gamers, happiness was a basement crammed with off-white tower PCs, interlaced extension cables, two-liter bottles of full-sugar Coca-Cola, and enough players to fill out both the Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist sides on de_dust. LAN parties represent a blip in time. The multiplayer revolution was well underway by the late 1990s—Quake and Doom had conquered college campuses, and Microsoft was preparing a new console with a built-in ethernet port—but cyberspace itself had not yet caught up to our insurgent bandwidth demands. The 100-player headcounts of Warzone and Battlefield were but a dream. The only way to circumvent that deficiency? A bunch of LAN cables and enough friends willing to schlep their machines to the makeshift arena for a big night in.



This is the subject of LAN Party, an upcoming photobook from writer and game designer Merritt K, which reproduces over 400 greasy snapshots of the era, specifically the years between 1997 and 2004. Flip through the book's 176 pages and you'll find pyramids of empty Mountain Dew cans, fat CRT monitors perched precariously on kitchen tables, and a whole inventory of regrettably X-Treme fashion decisions. It is a loving tribute to gamer putrescence.

Look at all those CDs of warez

One of my cases had a built in handle to lug it around...was still damn heavy.

Bah, that's hyper advanced stuff there. I remember hooking up two 1541's to a Commodore 64 for an afternoon of Fast Hack'em game trading. AND YOU KIDS GET OFF MY DAMN LAWN!

So what was the last great game you guys played. I try games and play games and move on to other games. But the one that keeps re entering my head at times and thoughts is Days Gone that I finished recently.

So I recently got a notification that a game I've had on my Steam wishlist, and to which I hadn't been paying any attention, will be releasing tomorrow. It is...

...which appears to be a cross between Crusader Kings and an RTS. I started a new thread on it.

Unreal Engine 5.1 .....The .1 is important.

Finished NFS Heat's main story and that was rather middling. I remember Payback having a much better more engaging story. This one constantly felt like something was missing. Kept hoping it would open up more. Never did.

What I'd love is a NFS from the perspective of the cops rather than the racers. Start as a rookie, work on chasing and arresting racers, work your way up to better vehicles, better equipment etc.