What other games are we all playing?

I play a lot of games as well as ED. A lot of Steam Early Access games particularly.
However, one game has taken over from all of them lately, and it's a free one.


It is one of those games where the hype and reviews actually underrate the game rather significantly.
I mention it here largely because I was so surprised to see no mention of it in the forum search - whereas most of the other games I play are at least mentioned somewhere. Can't believe I am the only one who reads this forum that plays it. There is quite a bit of overlap with Frontier Games type stuff with some of the game features, realism, simulation, management, RPG.

Anyway - back to the game...
 
Resubbed to Ubisoft+ for a month or so. Catching up with Ghost Recon: Breakpoint (annoying FPS drops to single digits after entering maps/menus) and Farcy6 (annoying use of language: Random usage of Spanish rather than English for no apparent reason in the middle of a conversation. Next time do it all in Spanish and just let me deal with subtitles). Will persevere for now.....
 
Been trying to play some Daggerfall (the original), but the bugs make Odyssey seem well polished.

Got stuck in a dungeon cause the teleporter doors didn't work. Even after using the clipping issues to escape via the void, flying around with levitate to navigate the areas I should have been able to reach, an exhaustive search revealed that the quest objective was bugged as well, so failed that one after about six hours. Fortunately I had a recall spell setup, so I was able to just leave without losing anything, other than the rep hit from failing an uncompleted mission.

Several hours after that, I tried to load a game, only to have it crash to DOS with some inventory error. Loaded the save immediately before that...same crash. Save prior to that one works, but is about two hours back...
 
I don't check for patches for 25+ year old games very often, but I did notice that there was a new version of DaggerfallSetup with meaningful changes since the last time I configured the game some six years ago.

So, I went ahead and made a new install (with all the community fixes, but none of the fan made extra content), then used the newest version of DOSBox-X (tuned to my tastes, for Daggerfall specifically) to resume playing my latest working save game (which had most of the patches, so should be compatible, after running 'fixsave'). Seems to be working well so far. Still Daggerfall and still a mess of bugs and weirdness, but I haven't had any completely game breaking technical issues since the overhaul.

If anyone wants to try the setup I'm using, I've put it all in an archive that is small enough for SendSpace to host: https://www.sendspace.com/file/5aa607

What's inside:
  • Fully patched Daggerfall, with custom control config that you'll probably want to reset and reconfigure as they are set to my tastes.
  • Newest version of DOSBox-X, defaulting to a 1280*960 OGL window
  • Reality_GMGS soundfont set for best quality vs. file size midi playback via the MPU-401 interface

Ideally, one would extract this archive to a ~1GiB RAM drive using drive letter X: made with something like ImDisk then just run the .exe in the DOSBox-X folder (don't forget to save the drive to an image file if you want to keep any changes/progress). Of course, you can extract it anywhere you like, but you will then need to edit "dosbox-x.conf" to point to the mount directory for Daggerfall and the correct location of "Reality_GMGS_falcomod.sf2". You can also change the default window size, or any other parameters you like.

Also, the default CPU speed is set to 80k cycles/ms which, while good for general gameplay on any moderately fast modern core, will stutter significantly during the few FMVs the game has, as well as the initial provence selection menu; you can turn this down with the GUI as needed. I don't recommend setting auto cycles or manually setting cycles much past 120k for gameplay as things start to act a little weird once you push past this point, especially with regard to movement.

Of course, one can just install DaggerfallSetup themselves and then tune to taste that way. Or, play the less buggy and much better looking Daggerfall Unity. I like the old school DOS version though, and have a setup I like for it.
 
Fallen in DEEP with XCOM Enemy Unknown + Long War mod. Iron Man mode going in totally blind (as in I’ve never played the mod before OR the vanilla base game, either). It is absolutely amazing, maybe some of the most engaging exciting gaming I’ve played in many many years.

Had heard a lot of complaints from OG X-Com purists poo pooing this game, so held off on trying any version of nuXCOM for years, but I gotta say that for my money this is a fantastic adaptation of the overall spirit and structure (and tension!) of classic X-Com. There are definitely a lot of “gamey” abstractions re: perks and the way actions take place through a turn (and yeah I think I would have preferred something more modular and versatile akin to oldschool Time Units), but overall it comes together beautifully and it’s just insanely addictive. Whatever shortcomings the design has, it feels like the beautiful presentation and more functional interface more than makes up for the flaws (which are mostly subjective flaws anyway).

Currently on my second run after an absolute protracted trainwreck of a first campaign attempt. The cycle of win/loss/retreat/regroup/rebuild creates an incredible atmosphere of encroaching doom that you’re always struggling to stave off for just a little longer.

Second attempt has been going better but still threatens to tip into inescapable doom if I don’t play smart. Every decision feels meaningful and there are potential heavy tradeoffs for everything when it comes to expending resources and time. Love. It.
 
Fallen in DEEP with XCOM Enemy Unknown + Long War mod. Iron Man mode going in totally blind (as in I’ve never played the mod before OR the vanilla base game, either). It is absolutely amazing, maybe some of the most engaging exciting gaming I’ve played in many many years.

Had heard a lot of complaints from OG X-Com purists poo pooing this game, so held off on trying any version of nuXCOM for years, but I gotta say that for my money this is a fantastic adaptation of the overall spirit and structure (and tension!) of classic X-Com. There are definitely a lot of “gamey” abstractions re: perks and the way actions take place through a turn (and yeah I think I would have preferred something more modular and versatile akin to oldschool Time Units), but overall it comes together beautifully and it’s just insanely addictive. Whatever shortcomings the design has, it feels like the beautiful presentation and more functional interface more than makes up for the flaws (which are mostly subjective flaws anyway).

Currently on my second run after an absolute protracted trainwreck of a first campaign attempt. The cycle of win/loss/retreat/regroup/rebuild creates an incredible atmosphere of encroaching doom that you’re always struggling to stave off for just a little longer.

Second attempt has been going better but still threatens to tip into inescapable doom if I don’t play smart. Every decision feels meaningful and there are potential heavy tradeoffs for everything when it comes to expending resources and time. Love. It.
XCOM 1 (the newmake) was bad. Underlying game loop was great but campaign was horribly paced and forced. Crap balance. XCOM2 did it much better. I also played Long War but it was discontinued and I left it away with the Fallen Chosen and it worked just right out of the box. The timed missions are my biggest gripe but they actually work, too. The turn based combat just is a good gameplay loop. I hated the forced campaign because I would just stall campaign and play endless battles on and on without ending campaign.
 
Bannerlord updated and I went in to revisit it. Sieges are fixed now and I turned to console commands to hack new character together without grinding out the early game - yet again. It's fun a couple times but it's always the same basically. I like it for the battles, sounds and giggles slamming heavy blunt weights onna stick on caste attackers on ladders.
 
Star Wars Squadrons is free to play for the next 48hrs on Steam. Exploit this deal while you can

When you say 48 hours ....

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O.M.G Sorry for the #fakenews. A couple of folks might have been wanting to tar and feather my a$s after #EpicFail to do that
😂 😂😂.
Edit: on upside, Steam had discounted it 70% to $12 USD until Feb 3. Only downside to this is the monthly sub (currently 67% off at $5 USD for next 3 months then regular $5 USD per mo after). The annual sub also seems discounted during this period. And fact you need to launch the game on Origin ,😣
 
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O.M.G Sorry for the #fakenews. A couple of folks might have been wanting to tar and feather my a$s after #EpicFail to do that
😂 😂😂.
Edit: on upside, Steam had discounted it 70% to $12 USD until Feb 3. Only downside to this is the monthly sub (currently 67% off at $5 USD for next 3 months then regular $5 USD per mo after). The annual sub also seems discounted during this period. And fact you need to launch the game on Origin ,😣
What monthly sub?
 
Yes, EAplay is subscription to EA game catalogue. Buying EA game on Steam doesn't require to buy EA catalogue sub and you can run purchased games from Steam without subbing EAplay. Steam might sell subs on EAplay. Origin is EA's own launcher/sales platform which is required in general to launch EA game. Just kinda like ED launcher and Ubiplay or whatever it's called.
 
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