General Discussion [ Page 82 ]

Goodbye Xbox

Goodbye Skyrim,
Goodbye Kinect
Goodbye Madden
It's the Red Ring of Death

I've had my Xbox since 2007, and it kept getting less and less reliable. First it just "couldn't read" perfectly good disks occasionally, then it decided that black wasn't a color it want to display and instead replaced it with pink.

Now it's finally dead.

I don't think I will replace it. My daughter loved the Kinect games, but other than that, I just didn't use it enough to warrent buying it new. Xbox will be out soon enough, and in the meantime I need a new computer ;)

Dat Firehose: Baldur's Gate, Big Picture & More

Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition was recently released by Beamdog exclusive to the Beamdog game platform.

http://www.baldursgate.com/news_2012nov28.en.html

Steam has officially released Big Picture Mode. Having a sale on Big Picture Mode friendly titles to celebrate.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/9495/
http://store.steampowered.com/sale/big_picture_release

Skyrim's Dragonborn DLC is dropping on XBox 360 tomorrow. No word on if any Skyrim DLC is coming to PS3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRmdXDH9b1s

Congratulations to Mojang as Minecraft has sold 8 million copies. Someone also made a Minecraft Dishonored mod.

... Read All

A Bit of Awesomery! Welcome Internet.

A few days ago @panickedthumb posted an Interview he gave with Ryan Gordon of the amazing Linux game porting fame. Recently the interview has been picked up all over the web and as such we are getting a lot of new visitors.

If you are wondering what Cheerful Ghost is, take a peek here:
http://cheerfulghost.com/about

I am going to collect all the places on the web the Interview is being picked up in this post, if you see it somewhere let me know:

http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/12/02/1749251/interview-with-icculus-on-gnulinux-gaming
https://twitter.com/search?q=cheerfulghost&src=typd
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI0MDI
... Read All

Game Shop: Crash Bandicoot Walkthrough

New episode of Game Shop. Really starting to enjoy this show. The first few episodes didn't really hook me, but these later ones are.

Humble THQ Bundle

https://www.humblebundle.com/

"Seven legendary titles to rock your gaming library. The Humble THQ Bundle is here with a colossal onslaught of esteemed titles. Pay $1 or more for Steam keys for Company of Heroes (and its two full-blown expansions Opposing Fronts and Tales of Valor), Darksiders, Metro 2033, and Red Faction: Armageddon. And if you pay over the average price you’ll also receive the extraordinary Saints Row: The Third!"

Where to begin. First off gratz to the Humble folks, this is a pretty cool next step for them. Its cool seeing the Bundle be able to keep doing Bundle after Bundle. They have tried some awesome stuff, the Android Bundle, The Author/Book... Read All

BR Supporter wrote on 11/30/2012 at 04:42am

I picked up this bundle for metro and red faction. I already had everything else but who could pass up such a great deal. Sadly, you do not get giftable copies of the games you already own.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/30/2012 at 04:57am

Ah that makes sense. I think I will pick this up too at some point as I really don't need any new games for the time being.... So... many... games...

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/01/2012 at 12:59am

I just picked it up. Excited to crack open Metro 2033.

BR Supporter wrote on 12/01/2012 at 04:18am

Tried a bit of red faction Armageddon today. It was pretty fun but i haven't got all that far in it. I do hate the fact that there is very limited graphical changes. Made the game not run as well as it should be able to on my PC.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/01/2012 at 06:37am

I have a powerful rig and Metro 2033 is a slideshow with down resed graphics.

BR Supporter wrote on 12/01/2012 at 05:43pm

Mine is pretty crap. I can usually get games to play well if i can turn down the graphics though.

Will_Owens wrote on 12/03/2012 at 02:34pm

I got this mostly for Metro 2033. I hope it runs better than what you all are describing.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/03/2012 at 02:56pm

If you do let me know what you did to make it work well. Eventually I need to upgrade my video card but so far Metro 2033 was the only game that seemed to need it.

BR Supporter wrote on 12/03/2012 at 03:32pm

I was talking about red faction

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/03/2012 at 04:11pm

Right, I should have used the @will. That said, @br what settings are you running red faction with? At some point I am going to install that too.

BR Supporter wrote on 12/03/2012 at 08:45pm

Lowest settings it allows, which isn't much. It doesn't really look any different on any graphical settings. At least to me it doesn't. I got a very slight performance boost from lowering the graphics.

beansmyname Supporter wrote on 12/04/2012 at 09:51pm

Picked this one up for Metro 2033 and Red Faction, as well. Ok. That and the SR3 soundtrack, so I'd own a legitimate copy of it.

Haven't seen the graphics issues you're describing in Metro 2033 and my current PC rig is a core i3 with an integrated Intel HD 3000. Of course, I had to set the graphics to low, resolution down to 1280x720 and it stutters a bit, but it's playable.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/05/2012 at 02:23am

Yeah I ran it in 720p, DirectX 9 and it was a pretty bad slide show. Ill check again, maybe I am doing something wrong.

beansmyname Supporter wrote on 12/07/2012 at 10:52pm

Do you have a DirectX 10 option? I think that's what finally made it playable for me. I know Saint's Row was unplayable in DX9, but DX10 got me around 20 fps.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/07/2012 at 11:42pm

I was using DX9 and 11. Ill try 10 :D

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/12/2012 at 05:42am

Ok, good call @beanismyname I just tried DX10 and it works SO much better. So smooth, I might be able to upscale the resolution.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/12/2012 at 05:43am

Yep it can totally handle the higher resolution too. Strange DX9 and 11 both didn't work well.

Oh well, thanks for the tip!

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Skrillex Quest is a Fantastic Browser Game

http://www.skrillexquest.com/

Skrillex Quest is a gamevertisement featuring his latest single Summit. The game is styled after Zelda, Binding of Issac and Sword and Sworcery. Oh right and did I mention its totally awesome? I beat it a 15 minute sitting so its not too long. The premise is you are Player 1 and The Glitches are destroying your world. Its not entirely clear what you need to do but as you do stuff, you just kind of advance. One hint, try to collect as many Dead Princess Keys as you can.

The image is of my final score after my first play through. I imagine now that I know what to expect and what to do it would be easier a second time.

Dat Firehose: SimCity, Minecraft & Game Genie.

I have lots of little bits of gaming info that don't make sense in a larger post. Every week I will release them in a General Discussion post called "Dat Firehose." I will keep all the updates to two or less sentences and a link.

SimCity's creative director Ocean Quigley puts in his two cents about the new UI in the upcoming SimCity 2012:

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/11/27/simcity-creative-director-shows-off-more-of-games-interface/

FigurePrints is a company that takes your digital things in Minecraft, World of Warcraft and XBox Live and prints them out for you to own.

http://www.figureprints.com/minecraft/Default.aspx

Castle Into Darkness is a new Indie game that recently... Read All

Nintendo Zappers "Shopped" in Movies

Nintendo Zappers Photoshopped into movies has been making the rounds on the intar-tubes and I felt it was worth sharing. Something seems awesome about seeing the Terminator holding out the classic orange plastic light gun.

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Zappers/5951853

Double Fine Amnesia Fortnight Winners Selected

Four games were selected for the Humble Double Fine Amnesia Fortnight event. Spacebase DF-9, Hack n' Slash, The White Birch, and Autonomous.

The game for the video I featured in this post above is the one I am most interested in, Spacebase DF-9. It seems in a way like Sim Tower in space, something that would be totally awesome. Regardless, all the games look really interesting and I wonder what will come from The White Birch and others.

I hope much rad-sauce comes from this and other companies follow suit. If you have a relationship to your customers why not make them part of your creative cycle?

The White Birch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mGjI80x_eo

Hack n' Slash:
... Read All

New Site Design Live

As you can now see, the new site design is now live! I have been at it for the last few weeks working on getting things just so and I am happy with the results.

I am going to look for a replacement color for the notification menu purple in the upper right for when you have outstanding notifications. There may be a few other things I fix over the next few days as well.

I hope you like the new design and let me know what you think of it!

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 11/25/2012 at 10:52pm

Looks great on my Samsung Galaxy!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/25/2012 at 10:57pm

Great. I tested it a lot on Mobile! Well the iPhone I do t have an Android.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/26/2012 at 03:56am

Dig it. With the design conforming to screen size, I have HUUUUGE youtube videos, but that's kinda cool.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/26/2012 at 04:14am

Yep they take up the maximum width they can :D

If It is distracting I can dial it down some.

BR Supporter wrote on 11/26/2012 at 04:36am

Mobile version works great. I love the new design. I'm using a galaxy s2 by the way.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/26/2012 at 05:12am

Awesome, good to know thanks!

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/27/2012 at 03:35am

I love it as well. As I am using a laptop I don't normally use when browsing the site I can't determine if this is a new change or if this is this particular computers fault. I will confirm when I go home in a few days.

The issue is that the box you type in is incredibly small I can't read what i'm writing or what it looks like. Very hard to scroll as well.

Keep up the awesome work on the site though.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/27/2012 at 03:48am

The comment box was quite small. I just increased it to a good height for mobile and desktop just now :D

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/27/2012 at 03:50am

I also make the Ghost in the header a bit larger as well as a few other tweaks here and there.

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/27/2012 at 08:53am

It's perfect thanks for fixing it.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/27/2012 at 03:44pm

No problem.

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