hybridial

I guess I'll court controversy and say I got so burned out on FPSes I can't stomach playing them at all right now. I just need a lengthy break from them I suppose. I've turned more to CRPG and Strategy type games as of late like Solasta, The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk (still to play most of the DLC), Jagged Alliance 3, Xcom 2 and the recently released Skald - Against the Black Priory.

I watched a few movies recently, Murder by Decree, Red Heat, The Mummy (1959), A Shot in the Dark and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Murder By Decree was alright, I liked the cast, I think though it just wasn't as strong a story about Sherlock Holmes investigating the Jack the Ripper killings could have been. Red Heat was average, I think it fails in being funny enough to be anything more, John Belushi just isn't doing very much, and Schwarznegger actually feels like he's playing a stoic asshole rather than himself, if that makes sense and it'd have been more entertaining if he'd been more tongue in cheek with the performance. Hammer's first take on The Mummy was pretty good. Hard to imagine Christopher Lee actually being bandaged up and playing the titular monster like a blind Jason Vorhees but he was still not quite the star he'd become in 1959 I suppose. A Shot in the Dark is wonderful, the second half is hilarious, the ending is especially hilarious, wonderful movie. Star Trek VI I'd seen before, seen all the OG Trek movies, it's possibly my favourite but I think they're all good (Even V, which falls a bit short but not for lack of effort in my opinion.)

Okay, I am just posting to say I found a solution to this problem, and I guess if it can potentially be helpful to anybody else I will post what I did. The problem also occurred with Eduke32 and NotBlood, but I found adding these source ports to Steam, and enabling Steam Input actually fixed the problem and allowed the controller to fully work with them.

I thought I'd try here on the off chance someone is able to help. It's a really odd issue with controller support, on my new computer which is Windows 11. On my previous Windows 10 computer, my Xbox controller worked flawlessly with Quakespasm-Spiked. On this new one, for some reason the program only acknowledges the triggers, they work but nothing else does at all. This seems to be the case no matter which usb slots are used, and also the behaviour happens in a fresh version of QSS I downloaded, with both the remaster and original pak files, and also happens with Ironwail which I've never used and only downloaded to test it for this issue so it seems to be a problem occurring with all Quakespasm based source ports. The controller works fine with anything and everything else. Any help would be appreciated.

Game of Thrones. Honestly most TV but that's probably the biggest one to bring up. Of course by the last season from what I've heard, I avoided quite a big disappointment if I did happen to get invested.

I would say Shadowrun Dragonfall, for the simple reason out of all those games, it is easily the most accessible game. You can't really go too wrong with your build, it's a fairly linear (but extremely good) storyline in a really cool setting (I love the setting so much I think I own every fucking novel released for it and I think there's over 70 of them now). As for what I can say of the others, Arcanum is just too jank and dated for me, I just could never jive with it at all. And I'm also going to be a lone voice here and say I get why Deus Ex is a legend, but I didn't find my experience with it all that hot, it gives you choice of stealth, combat, character building and all that, but none of that is very fun at least to me in the context of playing it properly after Human Revolution. System Shock 2 on the other hand I think other than losing it a bit in the end is a phenomenal game but be prepared for a difficult one. Fallout 1 is also a game I like a lot, way more than 2 really, but it's combat and mechanics are a bit of a slog. But Fallout 1's length and precise pacing keeps it from wearing out its welcome and it has a vision to it that I think only New Vegas, not even 2, just New Vegas actually follows. But Dragonfall first I think because it's one of the most underrated CRPGs ever made in my opinion.

I think that's a bit harsh on well, the more notable ones like Dusk, Prodeus, Ion Fury, Hedon, Cultic and whatnot. Actually I don't even think Hedon is a retro game, because it's got too many ideas in it that aren't really anywhere in the 90s games, and really excellent ideas at that. I genuinely found it to be one of my favourite games of the last decade or so. I'd echo Severed Steel and Terminator Resistance. I'd have played more of Robocop but it's optimisation on the Series X is pretty bad, Terminator runs flawlessly though. Otherwise, eh, I'm not sure, I've played quite a lot of indy games I've enjoyed but maybe you're not that into 2D games which most of them are, stuff like Huntdown, Cyber Shadow and Infernax.

Mortal Kombat on the Mega Drive. By coincidence I had got hold of a Mega Drive cheat book beforehand with the cheatcodes, and a magazine I had listed the fatalities. I had no clue how you did any special moves and didn't for ages until like a guy who babysat me one time showed me them all, but I was doing the fatalities from day 1 (well, mostly Scorpion's, it was the easiest one to get right.)

If we're talking about that, Solasta is better. It flat out adapts the rules a lot more accurately than BG3 does even though it's only based on the SRD license. But it's way more authentic than BG3 is to the combat system if that's what you care about. But at the end of the day, that is not to me what makes BG1 and 2 great, after all I played them sometime after I had read some of the forgotten realms fiction and a long time before I ever played a single game of D&D ; it has a lot more to do with the content to me, and ultimately I think the choice to call BG3 a sequel to those games was as grossly cynical as it gets from a marketing standpoint. It was likely WotC that made that call and not Larian, but it absolutely is a kick in the teeth to people who wanted something like the old games in terms of general feel. Changing to turn based doesn't bother me but an absolute shitshow of a continuity will. I haven't talked much about BG3's content beyond my complaint about Viconia because I mostly don't care. I don't think it's anything that great but I'm not gonna waste my time arguing about that, some people aren't really understanding what I'm actually trying to say and they don't care; and I have no interest in talking anymore about this. You are right, and I know you're right, but I can't help but take it personally to a degree.

In truth; really fucking poorly :D I'm an absolute victim to my whims constantly when it comes to what to play, what not to play, sudden mood swings making me not enjoy stuff, I'm all over the place. I install and uninstall stuff constantly. My only advice on this is don't follow my example if you can avoid it.

This is the root of my problem with it. Well, that and I think the engine is trash which I think is hard to argue with, that thing is as creaky and jank and unpleasant to use as Bethesda's frankenstein version of Gamebryo. Solasta might be a much less pretty and a more modest production but at least it has an interface and camera that feel like they were created this decade and not back when Neverwinter Nights originally shipped. BG1 and 2, prehistoric? nah, they still have a better interface than Larian's games and better gameplay design in many areas and definitely better writing with a more interesting premise. I also like it's tone a lot more and I enjoy their aesthetic a great deal. BG3 just does not do it for me mostly. But I will say that in general, shitting on "legacy" characters is a common trend nowadays which is only going to lead to people feeling betrayed. I'll just give Larian that they're probably not at fault here and WotC is (but their engine is their fault and it SUCKS :P)

Yeah, calling it BG3 when it's 20+ years removed, made by completely different people and made on an engine and with gameplay design that is about as far away as it possibly could be, I knew when it was first announced that it'd never be what I wanted it to be. It leeches off the name, when it should have just been a whole new game. Then at least I can shrug at focusing on the Illithids who to me aren't very interesting. But as it is, I kinda hate it.

I mentioned Leona Heidern before I did forget a character, quite a major character for me and I absolutely should bring her up... because Baldur's Gate 3 fucking RUINS her. Apparently less Larian and more Wizards of the Coast to blame, which I would not be shocked by because Wizards are a clownshow when it comes to handling their setting continuity nowadays. But yeah, I really should have brought up Viconia DeVir. Her BG1 and BG2 incarnations because in BG3 it's a fucking doppelganger impersonating her. It's literally not the same character, it simply cannot be and I want to stress this because BG3 was a big hypefest and people have played it who never touched BG1 and 2, and I want to make it clear to them that her appearance is complete fucking bullshit that never should have been allowed. Why? Everything she does in BG3 is contradictory to what the character in BG1 and 2 would have done. Yes she is a Drow and all the baggage that comes with that, but her key moment in life, the one thing that put her in a situation to where she can even appear in those games, is she refused to sacrifice an infant to Lolth. And if she would refuse Lolth and disavow her faith over that, she'd FUCKING DO THE SAME THING TO SHAR if Shar asks her for a similar act which she definitely perpetrates according to BG3. And no this is something you can't explain away as a change in personality over the 100 odd year time gap, because it's not something that should be excused at all. It should just not be. I also just reject BG3 as a sequel to BG1 and 2, it's a D&D Forgotten Realms game sure, but attempts to connect it with 1 and 2 only lessen the whole endeavour. Okay rant over. Viconia, Bioware's best written romance, best written morally ambiguous team mate and I use her to poke dragons to death with her finger (after some mage help with Lower Resistance and Greater Malison)

I played through episode 1, and overall I think that part of the game is alright, but based on reading various criticisms of the game including from @mrthejoshmon just now and Civvie 11's video from the other day as well as what time I've spent trying to play episode 2, it's clear to me what went wrong; and I would directly compare it to Quake: Arcane Dimensions in several key ways. Like AD, Wrath's maps mostly have different individual designers. As such both feel like showcases. The issue Wrath has is it seems to create a campaign out of showcase levels. This is where it went badly wrong because as Civvie brought up in his video, they had to try to balance every map for every potential difficulty level and order you play them in and taking into account resources carry over the whole time. This was just a bad call, and the original designer of Wrath talked about this in a comment he made on Civvie's video where he admits his ideas just didn't really pan out. And to be honest this is my criticism of episode 1; which mostly is balanced and feels complete... but it makes me rather play Quake or Quake AD because those are just better. Episode 2 and 3 is what happened when they didn't even have time to polish this flawed approach. AD works great with a similar idea of a set of big showcase levels because they are all individual, every one is considered a fresh start and they don't really try to tie it all into a campaign as such. This just fits much better with the map design on show in AD, but it did not work for Wrath because of the differences.

Honestly, it's Doom, and it's Quake, and it's all the rest under that umbrella. Retro shooters to me are the easiest games to zen to. It's part of why I have no real interest playing super hard maps or the like, I have a pace I'm comfortable with, and when I just want to do nothing but descend into a relaxed mode of sensation, I turn to them. I also turn to them when I get stressed with whatever else is going on in my life. It's why my attitude towards say Doom Eternal is that it's a different beast from Doom 1 and 2 and I like it but not for the same pick-up-and-play reasons.