What are you playing? (games)

[madbean]

I haven't felt the need to play anything lately and there hasn't been anything new out that remotely interests me. I'm really hoping that Cyberpunk 2077 comes out this year, though. I plan to lose a good portion of my life to it. That and The Outer Worlds from Obsidian.

[juansolo]

I attempted to mod the video output of my Atari XE and trashed it. Now it didn't cost me much, so that's not what irks me. It's that I cannot for the life of me figure out what I've done. I've backed out the changes, I've replaced everything in the path that could possibly go bad, I've gone over it with a magnifying glass looking for damaged traces. I gave in so passed it to Cleggy who traced the signal paths and checked all the voltages. Short of borrowing a scope, we're stumped and I'm really annoyed with myself for somehow breaking the thing.

So I've bought an 800XL that's spares or repair with a view to getting that running instead.

Edit: Cleggy is a fault finding ninja! Bodge wire deployed.

Edit2: Cleggy managed to trash his, and I managed to fix that one, so favour returned!

[alanp]

Finished FC5, and what pisses me off the most is the cult's drug, Bliss.

It's some amazing magic do-all that sounds like nothing I've ever heard of, in terms of indoctrination, telepathy, coercion, and bla bla bla.

I think that it isn't a drug, so much as it is straight up Warhammer 40,000 Warp Corruption. Geez.

[somnif]

Finished FC5, and what pisses me off the most is the cult's drug, Bliss.

It's some amazing magic do-all that sounds like nothing I've ever heard of, in terms of indoctrination, telepathy, coercion, and bla bla bla.

I think that it isn't a drug, so much as it is straight up Warhammer 40,000 Warp Corruption. Geez.

Farcry games always have ridiculous drugs. FC4 had the drug that sent you into your ancestral past and let you learn fighting techniques and such from them.

[selfdestroyer]

I had a tooth extracted on Friday morning so I spent the whole weekend taking tylenol 3's and playing games.

I beat Far Cry: New Dawn, If you liked FC5 then this is a great 12 hours or so added to it. The story was actually pretty good.
Started Metro: Exodus, Really loving the graphics in this games but the voice acting.. its terrible. Not in a so terrible its good kind of way.. just terrible. So I decided to play it in Russian with English subtitles and its a lot better.

Played 10-12 games of Apex Legends and now realize I am TERRIBLE at the battle royal games. Im going to leave them be for now.

[juansolo]

Well I thought my XE was toast so I bought a spares/repair 800XL as something to either restore or scavenge for parts. I tend to do this as these are the ones on eBay that are at sensible (ie cheap) prices. They're usually missing PSUs, have lived in attics for 20 years and 'well it worked last time I used it in 1997' sort of thing. However you can tell a lot from a photo, like this one, other than being dirty, actually looks quite intact. Also, you can see the brown PCB for the keyboard, which marks this as an earlier machine with a mechanical keyboard. Basically even if I can't repair it, the keyboard, Pokey and GTIA easily cover the cost.

So it lands and unlike both previous XE's (mine had a dodgy PIA, Cleggy's had a dodgy joystick port and GTIA), this one actually works perfectly! It was filthy however so it got stripped and cleaned thoroughly. It's not even yellowed enough that I'm considering retrobriting it, it just doesn't need it. First jobs have been simple enough; pull and replace all the electrolytic caps and perform the 'make the video not shit' mod. Which is down to Atari doing some really random stuff with the video output of the XL and XE machines when it comes to part values. Also, they generate Luma/Chroma native (S-Video), but the XL oddly doesn't output it despite having all the bits there to be able to. It doesn't take much to put it back in, but unless you want it switchable, you lose composite (don't use it, so don't care). I've also pulled the RF modulator, because I have plans for it's enclosure (it'll get gutted and used for a mount for a 3.5mm jack plug so I don't need to drill the case to add stereo out).

So that's where it's at at the moment. I've got a Ultimate 1MB upgrade on the way for it (much more than a memory upgrade) and a stereo board. When they land they'll be dropped in and it'll be done. But it's just nice to pick up an excellent machine for very sensible money. Now just need to get some old 7800 Ballblazer or Commando carts to scavenge some Pokeys!

[selfdestroyer]

Wow that is a clean 800XL!

[juansolo]

Wow that is a clean 800XL!

What it looked like in the auction:

[alanp]

I saw some videos of Metro Exodus that looked like fun, so I went to the Steam page. Not available on steam, see Epic Store. I am ***NOT*** getting yet another damn launcher (not to mention username/password) and, after finding out that Deep Silver pulled the dick move of doing this a week before release, I don't really want to reward this behaviour with money.

On to other morally dubious games, I think I have a nice weapons loadout in FC5

1: 45/70 rifle, extended mag, scope, silencer. I suspect it's 45 Long Colt based, but I have no idea. I only know what 45 Long Colt is due to the anime series Trigun.

2: Blood Dragon premium rifle. I think it's 50 cal, but again, no idea. Get the scope, mag, and silencer upgrades. This one is for things that Just Don't Die, like those small brown skunk things (the game calls them wolves, dunno why), bears, and those irritating cultists with brains enough to get bulletproof vests and helmets. The 45/70 is for long range shooting of things that die easy, like radio alarms, and cultists dumb enough to run around with just a jersey for armour.

3: Alternate between an upgraded RAT4 rocket launcher, for ornery flying things and big-ass driving things, and a M60, for facing multiple enemies of any sort. There's no kill like over-kill.

4: A revolver with the most damage you can find, upgrade it if you like. It's mostly for firing out the window as you drive anyway. Revolver, because in games they tend to do more damage than non-revolvers. (Mafia 1 was the only exception I can remember offhand -- the 1911 in that game did more damage than most revolvers.)

5: Meh. Baseball bat, pipe, whatever you like.

[HamSandwich]

Been playing Nioh quite a bit - lots o' fun.

Super excited about the Final Fantasy rereleases coming out on the Switch.

[somnif]

Played Subnautica this week. Most tense and terrifying thing I've played in years.

Fun as hell, but the sound design and darkness is so unnerving. Loved it.

[thesmokingman]

I saw some videos of Metro Exodus that looked like fun, so I went to the Steam page. Not available on steam, see Epic Store. I am ***NOT*** getting yet another damn launcher (not to mention username/password) and, after finding out that Deep Silver pulled the dick move of doing this a week before release, I don't really want to reward this behaviour with money.

On to other morally dubious games, I think I have a nice weapons loadout in FC5

1: 45/70 rifle, extended mag, scope, silencer. I suspect it's 45 Long Colt based, but I have no idea. I only know what 45 Long Colt is due to the anime series Trigun.

2: Blood Dragon premium rifle. I think it's 50 cal, but again, no idea. Get the scope, mag, and silencer upgrades. This one is for things that Just Don't Die, like those small brown skunk things (the game calls them wolves, dunno why), bears, and those irritating cultists with brains enough to get bulletproof vests and helmets. The 45/70 is for long range shooting of things that die easy, like radio alarms, and cultists dumb enough to run around with just a jersey for armour.

3: Alternate between an upgraded RAT4 rocket launcher, for ornery flying things and big-ass driving things, and a M60, for facing multiple enemies of any sort. There's no kill like over-kill.

4: A revolver with the most damage you can find, upgrade it if you like. It's mostly for firing out the window as you drive anyway. Revolver, because in games they tend to do more damage than non-revolvers. (Mafia 1 was the only exception I can remember offhand -- the 1911 in that game did more damage than most revolvers.)

5: Meh. Baseball bat, pipe, whatever you like.

45/70 is the 45-70 cartridge... .45 cal, 70 grains of black powder ... mostly long rifles and gatling guns ... 45 long colt was a pistol cartridge that was also used in carbines

[Muadzin]

I don't play much, but when I do its mostly old stuff again. These days I bought Sid Meier's Colonization from GOG and it is GLORIOUS! I'm reliving 1994 all over again. Back then I didn't even have a computer to play it on so I secretly installed it onto several university computers. Ah, the many days I wasted playing this game. Still great fun. 

[juansolo]

Been playing Rikki and Vikki on the 7800. A new release! Also the most expensive game I've ever bought with the postage and import duty/fees costing as much as the game itself. Buying new games from the States isn't fun, their postal system is broken when it comes to charges and ours just takes the piss at this end when it comes to imports. Anything more than £15 in total value, inc postage, is taxed at 20%. For performing this charge the post office charge a flat rate of £8 on top of that. The postage alone on this game was $24... So yeah $60 game ends up costing $113. It smarts a little and I've only done it once before and had a beaner send it to me with some other stuff to ease the fees, so it wasn't so bad last time. But these games tend to have very limited runs and because of this, when they're gone, prices for them get even more stupid.

Anyhow, slight moan aside, R&V is easily the best game on the 7800 (a console I really like for it's arcade conversions). Great fun!

[selfdestroyer]

The Division 2... Wish I could have brought my character over from the beta, oh well. Just means I need to play it more. lol