Don’t Think, Just Jam
I started a screenshot album for my virtual adventures. Check it out if you’d like.
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Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: November 25th, 2023
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4·2 days agoI might be a bit obsessed with Project Wingman at the moment.
Full thoughts
I finished the campaign, bought the DLC, finished it and started another playthrough using two-seater planes (WSO is an actual character and you don’t get to enjoy her when flying solo). I absolutely love this game and I’m happily planting it on my list of favourites from now on.
It has action, drama, surprises and challenge - all tied together into a neat little package. The story actually goes a bit harder then expected and served as an interesting mirror to Ace Combat campaigns. It went in a very different direction than I thought it would.
Mission design is pretty simple - fly to the AO and kill everything. There’s no time limits or special objectives for the most part. They do at least make up for it with varied map design and weather conditions. There’s also a healthy mix of air, land and water targets (sometimes at the same time) to keep things interesting.
I wish they’d make more use of take-off and landing sequences as they show up like 2-3 times throughout the campaign and once in the DLC (this one even includes a full taxi sequence from the hangar!). It’s a simple addition that most people would probably skip but I still love for a bit of additional immersion. Does anyone know if there’s a non-sim flight combat game that utilises these sections in a more regular way?Is it a perfect game? Considering the price and size of the development team I’d say it’s pretty close to being as perfect as it can be given the circumstances. There are some issues like the missile spam and number of enemies at times but over all none of these are serious enough to dampen my excitement about this title.
Oh! Both final bosses, as in from the main and DLC campaigns, can be a bit much in terms of “spectacle”. We go from relatively grounded challenges to enemies that belong in Gundam rather than contemporary military game. It’s a bit of a whiplash compared to the rest of the playthrough.It’s a fantastic title that will become a mainstay on my hard drive for a long while. I really hope these guys make a sequel some day. Direct, spiritual - doesn’t matter. I need more flight combat games from this studio.
3·2 days agoNah, you did. I ended up posting this by reflex just before going to bed and didn’t really think about it. It’s a stupid mistake since I actively avoid posting other series that no longer have scanlation versions. Sorry about that and thanks for the reminder!
Man, it’s been so long I forgot how tiny she is. For a moment I was confused thinking the artist screwed up and ended up drawing a little kid by mistake. Another cute chapter.
The Villainess Behind the Mask
Our villainess manhwa for this week.
MC is used by her cousin to take over the noble family and gets killed when her usefulness is gone. When her magic powers allow her to return to a few hours before the incident she decides to stop with the charade and take back everything that was stolen from her - all while pretending to be a weak and stupid girl to avoid any suspicion.
This one is… not great. It has a solid premise and alright execution but that’s about it.
Characters are not that interesting, the story itself feels more like highlights of the important events, with meat of the plot happening in the background and the writing has this… almost second draft quality in it? Like, characters talk and events happen but it all feels like an early placeholder to replace with the actual, polished content.It’s not a the worst thing ever but it has A LOT of wasted potential. Could’ve been something fun.
Starting Gate -Horsegirl Pretty Derby-
While I’m not interested in playing the recently released Umamusume gacha (I don’t care for horse racing and I don’t like time limited career modes), the little I’ve seen of the characters from the series made me curious about checking out the other media projects. This manga being one of them. It follows Special Week as the new student in the academy, giving us the ability to learn about the setting alongside her.
It’s a solid series - not the best thing ever or something that’ll land among my favourites but it’s fun enough. You can feel it’s not the main product though - there’s something about its structure that makes it obvious that this is just a companion piece. It’s not a bad way to kill some time at least.
She Is Also Cute Today
I didn’t expect this to happen this quickly but I decided to drop this series. I remember having fun with it when it was new but I really don’t feel this one any more and there’s no point forcing myself just in case I once again come around. There’s plenty of other stuff to read.
Lots of good choices in the comments already so I’ll start with what I’m currently obsessed with: Project Wingman and its DLC, FRONTLINE-59.
OTXO is also great if you’re looking for some heart-pounding action, both in-game and to listen.
Neotokyo, the old source mod has two fantastic cyberpunk albums for its OST: GSDF and NSF. Both have their own unique style instead of trying to imitate the classics which is a huge plus.
I’ve seen Drakengard being mentioned already so have some heavenly sounds announcing the end of the world. If you’d like something that doesn’t cause as much mental damage as the first game, Drakengard 3 is your friend! It’s still possesses the mad undertones of the original and some of the boss music can be take it or leave it for some people as the heavy electronic vibes can clash with the medieval fantasy aesthetic (I love them all personally) but it has some absolute bangers as well.
Here are the usual suspects when people talk about this title:- Black Song - surprisingly light considering when it plays in the game.
- The Final Song is a backing track for an 8 minute boss fight with no checkpoints and no place for mistakes (1HP through the whole thing baby!).
- This Silence Is Mine - if you want to listen to someone who’ve been through hell and back singing asking for the sweet release of death. It’s raw, it’s emotional and it perfectly encapsulates all the themes of the D3’s protagonist, Zero. Still one of my favourite OST songs of all time despite listening to it for at least a decade now.
Last but not least, Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse. It’s filled with fun and energetic tracks which fit perfectly with the light comedic tone of the series. Jake Kaufman’s masterpiece and probably my favourite OST in the series.
3·6 days agoJust to get it running? Not really, I think setting WINE version to WINE-GE-8-26 was the only requirement.
Personally I also:
- Installed widescreen patch.
- Adjusted Steam Input settings to:
- Gamepad with joystick.
- Changed D-pad to keyboard arrows and Start to Escape.
- Changed steering to controller in game.
With this setup everything works perfectly fine for me.
I did browse the themed sale a bit actually and tried the previously mentioned RR3 (demo). Unfortunately for me it doesn’t play well with multiple monitors and that’s a no-go for when I play on desktop. I want to try Richard Burns Rally some day, especially after seeing the huge RSF mod adding tons of tracks and cars to the game. Need to clean up my hard drive for that though as I’m a bit swamped in games at the moment.
I’ll probably won’t be jumping into anything else new for now as I have DIRT Rally sitting in the backlog pile, waiting for its turn in the spotlight. Thanks for the recommendations though, I’ll keep them in mind!
I haven’t played most of the games on your list (either at all or in a while), doubly so on the Deck, so my perspective is a bit limited. Sorry.
CMR04 is on the simcade side of things. Definitely more realistic than Old School Rally, should be relatively close to Rush Rally 3 or Richard Burns Rally (maybe slightly less realistic than those). I think Codemasters found a nice middle ground in terms of driving model with this game. It’s definitely one of the best rally games from that era at least.
In terms of battery life, I’m able to squeeze between 5 and 6 hours on full charge with this one.
Colin McRae Rally 04 - I finally set it up on my deck 2 or so weeks ago and that has been my main game on the device since then. It required a little bit of control tweaking but other than that it runs and plays great.
Awesome battery life too though that’s to be expected with such an old game.
It’s not perfect but it is pretty great great - definitely better than what I’d expect from an indie Ace Combat clone made three people. Just watch out for the ridiculous amount of enemies in some missions.
I really want to get into Armored Core someday, starting with the PS1 original. I’ve heard gameplay changes pretty significantly every few games and I’d like to test which type will be the most fun for me. Are you familiar with the series in general or just like AC6?
TL;DR:
- Colin McRae Rally 04
- Project Wingman
Lots of rambling
Still playing Colin McRae Rally 04, mostly on Steam Deck this week.
I think I’m finally used to playing this game with a stick - not that this was particularly difficult but after years of doing so exclusively with keyboard it did happen easier than expected.
I didn’t migrate any of my progress from the desktop so I’m just slowly getting into the groove with 2WD Championship. It’s one of those games where I don’t really mind having to unlock everything again (maybe I’m just unconsciously worried there won’t be enough content otherwise).
Besides that I finally started playing Project Wingman. I got it during GOG’s summer sale but outside of testing it for performance as well as Linux and HOTAS compatibility I didn’t really touch it otherwise.
I’m 40-60% into the game, I think, so things might change but I like it a bit more than either of the Ace Combat titles I played so far (not by much but still). Game feels great to play, looks awesome and I really appreciate how they’re able to use the fantastic soundtrack to make even the early missions into extremely hype affairs.
I enjoy it way more than I expected to, to the point it became my favourite game in a long while.I also decided to try playing it in VR. First reaction: it’s freaking playable on my machine?! Awesome! Second reaction: this is really cool. Feels less intense than anticipated but really cool nonetheless.
Bonus points for finally getting a chance to SEE the designs of enemy aircraft - I was never able to get a good look at them when playing in pancake mode (I’m talking about large support planes you can’t buy for yourself).Unfortunately for me, this will most likely stay as a fun experiment rather than something I’ll continue with. While the game runs well enough, I can already tell the performance during later missions will take a dive to unplayable levels and there’s no point in dealing with that. I’ll most likely try a few more missions and just wait for a proper VR playthrough until after I upgrade my ancient hardware. One day…
While there aren’t any game breaking issues so far I do have a few small nitpicks about the game:
- Excessive missile spam in some missions - it’s not even difficult, just tedious.
- I keep getting tripped over my key binds as they differ slightly from what I’m used to in Star Citizen (my main HOTAS game at the moment).
- I wish there were more key binds for enemy targeting - I miss the ability to select the target I’m aiming at instead of having to cycle in whatever order the game decides to go with.
- Had an issue with enemy helis bugging out and not moving in one of the mission. They just hanged in place with their noses aimed at the sky.
- Navigating menus in VR is seriously borked. Mouse cursor doesn’t show up and when it does its visual position is completely unrelated to where it physically is. Aiming with my had is a complete guesswork as that too has no reticule to use as a reference point. Last but not least, keyboard works for the most part but can’t be used (or just doesn’t work for me) with certain elements of the settings menu (like trying to go through key binds to a specific position). Setting things up was a HUGE pain.
- Dunno if it’s just numbers magic or an actual mechanical difference but combat distances seem to differ between VR and desktop modes. I’m pretty sure distances during the latter are at like a third of what I’ve seen during my VR playthrough. I need to do some more testing.
- I miss the afterburner from AC, it was fun to use.
Finally, I have a question for those more familiar with the game: does the number of enemies change with difficulty? I’m playing on hard and the amount hostiles can be pretty ridiculous at times. It’s (mostly) fun and it’s properly challenging but it can look pretty stupid sometimes.
Appreciate the sources! Guess it’s as good time to dive in as any.
To be fair BBC’s point (or at least how you described it) doesn’t really conflict with my current understanding. Yes, the countries have to accept it to proceed BUT it can be rejected by having enough votes against (few countries representing specific number of citizens from what I’ve read). I’m just not sure it can be vetoed by a single country.
But yeah, it would be nice to have an actual confirmation. Especially since, as they mention in the source article, this agreement is not legally binding and serves a starting point to further negotiations.
I’m a bit spotty on what falls into which category so I might be wrong about this but I thought this was one of the areas of competence where singular countries can’t veto the whole thing and need specific number of votes instead?
Either way, I do hope someone gets grilled about this before the vote.
I didn’t prepare my comment before as I usually do and I pretty much forgot everything I was going to write today so I’ll just make a
shortmore rambling version this time. Oh well.My villainess entry for today is Villainesses Have More Fun - woman gets pulled into a novel, just wants to bum around as a rich kid instead of acting her part.
This one is more of a power fantasy than most of the series I post but for whatever reason I really DO have more fun with this so I can let this slide (I’m not a fan of pure power fantasies normally). It’s light and funny and a decent way to waste your time. Also:
(No, I will not provide context.)Numba 2 is… NOT A VILLAINESS STORY! You probably didn’t expect that!
The Girl From the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún is a moody and kinda sweet story about a young girl in a land of strange, dark creatures. It’s pretty great though reading it feels a bit heavy due to the atmosphere.
I came back to this series after a good few years and it’s still as interesting as it was at the time. I’m also not in a head space to read it so I’ll most likely postpone this for some later date. But I want to know what happens next though…Another series I came back to is She Is Also Cute Today - something I remember liking quite a bit back when it was new. Well, for whatever reason I’m really not feeling it this time. There are some funny moments here and there but as a whole it doesn’t do much for me unfortunately.
I’ll keep reading from time to time to see if I can get back into the groove but this one might end up dropped before long.There was one more thing I wanted to write about today but, as mentioned at the start, I completely forgot what it was. I pretty sure it had something to do with yet another series I binged through last week but it’s gone. Maybe next time.
16·11 days agoThis is still just a tentative deal that has to be ratified by all the countries so there’s still hope.
Friendly reminder that you can use this site to find your MPs in the European Parliament. Remind them that they are there for and because of us, and let them know what you think of this kind of deal making.
If EU doesn’t stop this recent festival of stupidity the European project will go nowhere fast. There’s already a huge problem with the rise of euro-scepticism and these bellends just add fuel to fire. I’m tired boss.
It’s so freaking cute how hype she is about it.
This excitement is half the fun, I guess. Should make for some interesting memories in the future.
I never got too deep into distros honestly. My early attempts were very rough, very short and limited to Mint and basic Ubuntu I think (they were in a worse shape back then). When I made my last attempt to switch I stumbled onto Pop!_OS and found it to be exactly what I needed. It looks good, runs well and has all the necessary drivers and libraries to play games without issues. I’ve been using it for almost 7 years now and I’m quite happy with it.
It’s Ubuntu based too so might be worth a look if that’s what you’re interested in. It IS using a customised GNOME for now but they’re working on their own desktop environment to replace it with. They also have a handy tutorial if you’d rather change it yourself.
Man, I’d be terrified to have a kid honestly. I’ve had enough experience with taking care of people to know I REALLY don’t want to deal with that if I have a choice - I’m too much of a self-sacrificing idiot for that. Good luck though! My friends with kids are happy about their choices so I hope you’ll end up the same way.
My first experience with Linux made me swear I’ll never going to touch it again, funnily enough. Now here I am, running it as a main OS on everything I can and having a great time with both games and any kind of personal projects I can come up with. Heck, the fact that some games run better than on Windows is still kinda crazy to me at times even though I understand why. It’s amazing how much things progressed.
It’s not but I make do. You’d be surprised how well hobbies and lack of sleep can help with that! I appreciate the sentiment though.
Same here, it was a really nice surprise. I love how well so many old titles work on the penguin.
It really is. I could really use more surprises like this.