Windows 10 Upgrade to be Free as in Beer (if you don't have an MS account, come in here and @blakeyrat will give you $50)
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Well, we do know that naming things is hard...
So Google didn't even try.
Seriously, I had that app that presents you with weather, news and voice search crash. The popup said "Sorry, the Google app has crashed".
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I quite like it. It's a pretty good reference that any geek can understand. Much better than Siri or Google's Google.
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It's a pretty good reference that any geek can understand.
Unfortunately, because people won't fucking shut up about it!
I played the game (on PC, of course, using mouse and keyboard as Carmack intended), got bored 45 minutes in and went to play something more interesting. But, apparently, best game in the Universe.
Then again, I had the same reaction to Mass Effect. I'm weird, apparently.
DISCLAIMER: Not bashing the story, Might like it. Gameplay wasn't good enough to carry me through it though.
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Unfortunately, because people won't fucking shut up about it!
About what now? I have no idea what you guys are talking about.
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About what now? I have no idea what you guys are talking about.
Ignorance is bliss, in this case. Keep it that way I say.
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Not bashing the story
I have no idea about the story. Things happen, aliens show up, they get shot. At the end of 3, there was a bit where I was driving away from something then an old guy said we'd won the war.
I can't think of any first person games off the top of my head that do a good job of storytelling. Maybe Portal, but that's a pretty simple story anyway. Generally, it's not a great genre to get information across
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I can't think of any first person games off the top of my head that do a good job of storytelling.
Dunno, I think HL2 + episodes did a great job. Now, it's a simple story mind you, but I liked that they did it with no cutscenes and (almost) no instances of taking control from me.
But that's a different discussion. I just footnoted it in case someone comes defending the story rather than gameplay ("Oh, it gets good 3 hours in when the ooga-booga flings the kerfluffle into the black hole!"). And it was also mostly for Mass Effect because I know people who love that game to death for the story. I jsut never GOT to the story because the gameplay put me off too early.
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I can't think of any first person games off the top of my head that do a good job of storytelling.
Deus Ex. System Shock. Probably Half-Lifes - I have yet to play them.
Generally, it's not a great genre to get information across
I can think of many worse ones (have fun trying to have a story in a racing game, or a 3D platformer), and the ones that are supposedly better are a mixed bag (adventure games, for example, just tend to info-dump you without much of a gameplay).
Mass Effect
Yeah, I have an hour or so into this game. The gameplay is somewhat confusing - I shoot things and they die, and I hardly know if I'm doing OK or not.
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You're not alone about Halo, but damn I had some great time playing it on multiscreen on the Xbox.
About ME, you're wrong. @accalia, commander, we need a bot to defend one of the greatest feats of human history!
All heil Sheppard!
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You're not alone about Halo, but damn I had some great time playing it on multiscreen on the Xbox.
I can accept that. I still say it's probably horribly overrated.
All heil clunkily controlled Sheppard!
Again, never got to know the character. Gameplay stopped me.
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Maybe because the game was designed for console controllers and not K+M
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Maybe because the game was designed for console controllers and not K+M
Well, I'll go back to KoToR then, thanks.
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You're not alone about Halo, but damn I had some great time playing it on multiscreen on the Xbox.
Yeah. I did play through the story up to Halo 4 (or whatever the last 360 version was) but the multiplayer was much more fun.
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I felt the Half-Lifes were like The X-Files. There's something huge going on but you never find out what, and in all likelihood even the writers probably don't understand it.
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So, I tried to install Build 9926 in a VMware virtual machine. It didn’t work out very well.
As it turns out, if the x64 build is installed in VMware using any date/time/currency format other than English (US), the install will stay blocked for a long time on this screen:
By “blocked”, I mean “the spinner spins, the CPU is maxed out, and no HDD or network activity occurs”. By “long time”, I mean “Discourse’s InfiniSpinner found a worthwhile competitor”. I mean, in my case, between 8 and 12 hours.
If any of these criteria is not met, the installation will work in a much more reasonable amount of time (~20 minutes).
I… I got nothing.
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I… I got nothing.
I thought shitty software I have to deal with that complains (and refuses to start after it) about system date/time format was the worst on that front.
I have it easy...
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As it turns out, if the x64 build is installed in VMware using any date/time/currency format other than English (US), the install will stay blocked for a long time on this screen:
I didn't experience this.
Host and guest were both English (UK) - unless it's just a general difference between host and guest that does it?
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Then again, I had the same reaction to Mass Effect.
The gameplay changes a lot for that series as you go on, and there are some story issues too. I understand why both of those things are the case — the gameplay because the first game had significant problems there (you might prefer ME2 and 3) the story because they couldn't design the whole lot from beginning to end without triggering executive “oh shit RISKY!” — but they remain clear things. OTOH, ME was the first RPG to be fully voiced, making it enormously more immersive than its contemporaries, and it broke a long run of “RPGs must involve ripping off Tolkien”.
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I played the game (on PC, of course, using mouse and keyboard as Carmack intended), got bored 45 minutes in and went to play something more interesting. But, apparently, best game in the Universe.
The FPS genre can basically be divided into "pre-Halo" and "post-Halo" eras. Whether or not you liked the game, it was hugely influential. To the extent that Wolfenstein: The New Order actually based its marketing campaign around being a pre-Halo FPS.
I'd agree that it's certainly no Marathon or Starsiege Tribes, but it's still a hugely influential game that's changed the entire genre.
I have no idea about the story.
The story of the first game is kind of meh, but the second has some of the best writing in a FPS game, ever. (Then the third game is basically a giant dog turd. Just lying there. Look at the turd. The turd is Halo 3.)
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I can't think of any first person games off the top of my head that do a good job of storytelling.
Marathon. System Shock 2. Since I'm thinking of it, Wolfenstein: The New Order is shockingly well-written.
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OTOH, ME was the first RPG to be fully voiced,
Lands of Lore was fully-voiced in 1993. Quest for Glory 4 in '94.
Kids these days.
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hugely influential
So was CoD4. And Justin Bieber. Something being hugely influential doesn't make it automatically as good.
Filed under: well, CoD4 was decent, but overall rather "meh"
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the gameplay [in Mass Effect 1] had significant problems
The thing I don't understand about Bioware is they seem to get things right in one game, and then break them horribly in later games. KOTOR had decent inventory management, and then ME1 came along and was awful about it. I feel like I had a couple other complaints along that line, but I can't remember what they were.(I'm not even counting deliberate gameplay refocusing like the ME1->2 transition, where I think they killed a lot of what I liked about ME1 but which is a matter of personal opinion.)
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I jsut never GOT to the story because the gameplay put me off too early
true fact ME1 almost sent me away. i played ME1 and it was good the story nice but the combat system was CRAP! seriously. i went through on hard (i think, it's been a bit) and almost quit because of how bad the combat was.
but i made it through because the story really was compelling.
then i played ME2 and the combat got better but the story was a bit lacking so i wasn't heavily einvested (still having fun though)
then ME3 and it all clicked....... goddess above do i love ME3!
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@accalia, commander, we need a bot to defend one of the greatest feats of human history!
hmm... right. that is my long name.... time to change that don't you think?
Mass Effect great games, great games, but they have their warts as all games will
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then i played ME2 and the combat got better
This is one of those "no accounting for taste" things. :-)I really disliked the removal of much of the RPG part (okay, that's not "combat" exactly), didn't like how limited the sniper rifle was in ammo, and as a rule despise fast health recharging1, so I actually prefer ME1 on the gameplay front. On a control front I dislike the combination of the "take cover" and "run" buttons; I think that one issue has accounted for more combat control frustration than I had in all of ME1
1 I played Vanguard though, and had an absolute blast... and I don't think "charge" would work with a more typical health-pack/slow-recharge system like ME1. So I'm conflicted for that class only.
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as a rule despise fast health recharging
+1060 base health, +1.2 (+2% of max health) health per second
On a level 25 Alchemist, that's 159.95 health restored per second, assuming you have no other items.
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What's a typical amount of total health?
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Around 1000-2000. 3000+ would be considered a tank.
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So on the order of 10sec to charge from nothing. That's pretty fast.
Though I was also implicitly talking about FPSs; I haven't played a MOBA (or other strongly-hero-based RTS) game though, so I don't know if my criticism would extend there.
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I didn't experience this.Host and guest were both English (UK)
I tried it again with Englisk (UK), and it worked fine. Tried with a random locale from the menu, blocked on Getting Ready again. Maybe it only works with English locales?
<a href="https://www.google.fr/search?q=windows+10+vmware+"getting+ready"&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8">I’m not the only one with this problem, apparently.
What’s really weird is that the localized versions have the same problem. If I take the French version and leave the default locale setting (French), it doesn’t work, but if I put an English locale, it works...
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The thing I don't understand about Bioware is they seem to get things right in one game, and then break them horribly in later games.
Different teams? They're big enough to run several projects at once without sharing lots of people.
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I felt the Half-Lifes were like The X-Files. There's something huge going on but you never find out what, and in all likelihood even the writers probably don't understand it.
But like in the first X-Files seasons there where enough hints and clues to keep it interesting and no obvious plugs, except maybe for the horrible time in xeno. In HL1 & HL2 there where several times slight clues that would make sense much later on. Like seeing the G-man walking away through a window. Only to find yourself at that location on the other side of the glass a good time later. Or the times you would see locations again from the open sequence. It's all small stuff but it makes the story feel much more real.
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Yeah, I was talking about Halo. I like Mass Effect, although I agree with the people saying the second one ruined some things
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Half-Life doesn't have a story. (Well, ok, it has a super-simple one.) It just has a well-defined setting that Valve calls a story.
That really cheese me off when idiots who have never played Marathon say Half-Life was the first game with a good story. Uh, sorry? The story is "guy gets randomly attacked by teleporting aliens and monsters and repairs like 4 separate generators somehow." Any ONE of the AI's stories from Marathon is way better than that, and there were 3 AIs. And of course Durandal is one of the best characters in gaming... his plan is so goddamned insane, I love it.
A well-defined setting/universe is a good thing, of course, but it's not a story and shouldn't be confused for one. Good games, say, the Bioshock series, need both.
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Half-Life doesn't have a story. (Well, ok, it has a super-simple one.) It just has a well-defined setting that Valve calls a story.
Agreed. They made a damn good job of getting you into it using that cardboard-thin story though, so my enjoyment level was still high on the "story" level (because I can't think of a better term to describe it).
Marathon
I a lot about that game and it did seem interesting. There appears to be an open source port of it available at http://source.bungie.org. Any idea if it's any good?
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Go into it with the understanding that Marathon came out in 1994. But yes. The third game isn't as good as the first two.
I actually should replay it myself, it's been years.
Actually that's quite cool. I know they did the Xbox Live Arcade port of Marathon 2, I didn't know they released the data files for all three games. (Last time I checked, admittedly years ago, Aleph One was just an engine capable of running the Marathon data files, but you still needed to purchase the data files somehow.) Good on Bungie.
It also runs Marathon total conversion mods, too. There's one called Excalibur that I recall being quite good.
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Go into it with the understanding that Marathon came out in 1994.
Usually have more fun with those than ones from 2014
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You won't say that around the 3rd or 4th jumping puzzle.
That doesn't make Marathon a bad game, that makes it a product of its time.
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i played ME1 and it was good the story nice but the combat system was CRAP!
My experience with DragonAge: Origins in a nutshell. I should not have played a mage...
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I should not have played a mage...
crap. that was what i was planning on running when i play that game....
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My experience with Dragon Age: Origins is that the damned game was so goddamned talk-y that I literally forgot the combat controls during the 45 minutes between one combat sequence and the next.
I feel like Bioware really wants/wanted to make movies, not games.
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The FPS genre can basically be divided into "pre-Halo" and "post-Halo" eras. Whether or not you liked the game, it was hugely influential
QFT -- Bungie basically turned the genre upside-down and shook it a bit.
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My experience with Dragon Age: Origins is that the damned game was so goddamned talk-y that I literally forgot the combat controls during the 45 minutes between one combat sequence and the next.
Heh. That's why I pretty much gave up on ME1. Well, before it happened. After like 45 minutes of clunky combat I ended up on that Citadel thing and figured out it will take ages to run around it and get the feel of the place.
So... 45 minutes of non-stop combat, followed by 45 minutes of walking around and hitting the talk button? Nope, sorry game, thy pacing doth sucketh, quit, good-bye.
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So... 45 minutes of non-stop combat, followed by 45 minutes of walking around and hitting the talk button? Nope, sorry game, thy pacing doth sucketh, quit, good-bye.
yeah... there was that.
of course i didn't mind it so much because it was a nice break from the crap combat.
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I thought DA had awesome combat. Mage's were super fun and super over powered too :P
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Lol, my experience was somewhat inverted: I wanted it to be all talky bits but I kept getting interrupted by being jumped by monsters and then I had to do combat which was annoying. I don't think well on my feet, I prefer menu-driven RPG combat , and button-mashing won't get me through anymore as a mage. I had to turn the difficulty down to easy, and I'm still not done with the game.
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Did you try Shadowrun by any chance? It's really solid if you're into the classic CRPG combat style.
BTW, if interested, you can skip "Returns" all together tbqh, get "Dragonfall: Director's cut". The Dead Man's Switch campaign (which is pretty much the whole of "Returns" right there) is included if you want to play it, but it's honestly quite... meh. Dragonfall is awesome though.
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My experience with DragonAge: Origins in a nutshell. I should not have played a mage...
And again, there's no accounting for taste; I've played all of the Bioware RPGs from KOTOR forward except for DA Inquisition; DA: O had my favorite combat system. :-) It felt like... a realtime version of chess.
