News recently dropped that the upcoming Terraria 1.3 update will include some new music from composer Scott Lloyd Shelly. Re-Logic created a new trailer to show off part of a new song you need to check out. One of the coolest parts about the Terraria 1.2 update was the new music and I am very excited to hear we are getting more(amongst other things). I decided to reach out to Scott and ask him a few questions about how the music for 1.3 is progressing and he was nice enough to get back to me.
Scott recommended that we checkout the Terraria GDC blog as they will drop more Re-Logic and Terraria news over the week.
... Read All
News recently dropped that the upcoming Terraria 1.3 update will include some new music from composer Scott Lloyd Shelly. Re-Logic created a new trailer to show off part of a new song you need to check out. One of the coolest parts about the Terraria 1.2 update was the new music and I am very excited to hear we are getting more(amongst other things). I decided to reach out to Scott and ask him a few questions about how the music for 1.3 is progressing and he was nice enough to get back to me.
Scott recommended that we checkout the Terraria GDC blog as they will drop more Re-Logic and Terraria news over the week.
jdodson: I just listened to the new music spoiler from the 1.3 update and I am really happy to hear the update is including more music. How long have you been working on the new music and have you written all of it yet?
Scott Lloyd Shelly: I'm counting 9 tracks right now; I get a request every month or so for a new one. Don't know if they'll be wanting or needing more than that at this point, but I'm always into doing more music for Terraria - totally fun for me.
jdodson: What track in the 1.3 update stands out to you as some you are especially proud of?
Scott Lloyd Shelly: The track that Re-Logic released with the 1.3 music spoiler on YouTube recently is one of my faves - love the DJ!
jdodson: When the Terraria 1.2 update hit we got the Terraria Soundtrack Volume 2. Are we going to get a Terraria Soundtrack Volume 3 when the 1.3 update launches?
Scott Lloyd Shelly: The previous 2 OSTs included 13 tracks each; if we take the 9 from 1.3 and add a few from the Xbox/Playstation ports, we could have a third OST:) (If we all ask 'em really nicely.)
jdodson: Last time we talked you mentioned some of your favorite game scores and composers. Have you heard anything since you really enjoyed? I'd have to put my chips on the Reaper of Souls and Risk of Rain recent scores.
Scott Lloyd Shelly: I'm looking forward to binge-listening to a whole stack of soundtracks; Braid, Freedom Planet, Tomb Raider Anniversary, RetroCity Rampage, Portal 2, Skyrim (4 cds - go Jeremy Soule), but I'm going to take your suggestions and follow up on Reaper of Souls and Risk of Rain. My favourite just for enjoyable listening right now is probably Alessandro Coronas' work on Where Is My Heart.
Terraria's music is seriously some of my absolute favorite game music. It's right up there with my list of faves such as pretty much everything early Squaresoft days (16 and 32 bit era) and CSoTN soundtrack.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 05/27/2015 at 01:15am
I totally agree Jason, the Terraria one of the best i've heard in the last 5 years. That said recently i've been binging on the Double Find Adventure videos featuring music by Lifeformed and I have really been impressed with that lately.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 05/28/2015 at 05:23pm
A new, small video was released today, which comes with something very special at the end. =)
HTC has announced that it is partnering with Valve to produce a VR headset they are calling the RE Vive. It differs from the Oculus rift in that it uses sensors to detect where you head it pointed at in the room. Apparently this change makes the VR experience more seamless and as a result people tend to not get sick as much. The Valve/HTC hardware will also support a 90 hz refresh rate and two 1200 x 1080 displays.
This wasn't the news I was expecting out of GDC but it's pretty damn incredible. If any other news about this breaks, i'll update this post as it happens.
HTC has announced that it is partnering with Valve to produce a VR headset they are calling the RE Vive. It differs from the Oculus rift in that it uses sensors to detect where you head it pointed at in the room. Apparently this change makes the VR experience more seamless and as a result people tend to not get sick as much. The Valve/HTC hardware will also support a 90 hz refresh rate and two 1200 x 1080 displays.
This wasn't the news I was expecting out of GDC but it's pretty damn incredible. If any other news about this breaks, i'll update this post as it happens.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 03/03/2015 at 03:00am
Wow! I wonder how you physically interact with it and how it looks. I mean, is it just like attaching a small screen in front of your face? I also wonder how much it will cost, my guess is at least $1,000. It'd be cool to at least try it out. I'm only familiar with the Oculus Rift by name, but I know nothing of the OR and VR experience. It's pretty cool how some of our technology has caught up with Star Trek, but we have a long way to go still. One of my most favorite pieces of Star Trek technology is the Holodeck. If we can some how create that technology, or if these VR devices simulate it, well that would be pretty awesome!
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 03/03/2015 at 04:29am
A price point like 1K might put it a bit too far out of the reach of most people. I think a few hundred is a good price, but I really don't know what the consumer version price will be.
I've played an Oculus VR game and the input was me moving around my head. It was a simple Game Jam game but it was such a uniquely beautiful experience, it was like playing Super Mario Brothers for the first time. The game was pretty simple, you moved your head to look at what was in your virtual persons hand and then looked at the right shape it would fit into. After doing that 15 times fireworks streaked across the sky and colors started dancing across the screen. It was a really beautiful and simple puzzle game.
That said, you could port games like Minecraft and Half-life to use VR. So you can move around your head to see things and you can control the game with the typical keyboard/mouse or controller. That said, if Valves VR expects you to walk around you'd need some kind of wireless controller or some other cord free input.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 03/03/2015 at 04:30am
I never considered that something like this might get us REALLY close to Star Trek Holodeck technology but it really does. Even with the developer Oculus Rift it felt like I was in a different place experiencing something totally unique.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 03/03/2015 at 05:14am
That's cool. I knew Minecraft had an Oculus Rift option. You're right about my price guess. I may be off and yeah that would be kind of steep. I'm just assuming the hardware would be expensive, but you make a great point that at that price tag, it wouldn't really be affordable to many consumers. Maybe, also, they would have had to wait for the technology not only to be able to create such a thing, but also so that it would be affordable. Maybe since the PS4 is about $400, this technology will be similarly priced.
Ah, this is another reason I wish I lived over there on the West Coast. If I did, I might actually be able to go to one of those events and try this cool stuff out. Maybe GameStop will have the Steam VR and have a "demo" console that gamers could try out before buying (like they do with some consoles).
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I wanted to show off the new Cheerful Ghost Vinyl Sticker Prints because they are so damn pretty. Cheerful Ghost has been a great video game community for more than 3 years now and it's been obvious to me for some time that we could improve some of our art. Last year a fantastic local game artist Hagen Deloss talked to me about remaking our sticker. We talked over a few weeks, had a few video chats and started tossing around ideas about how we could re-imagine the Ghost.
Firstly the Ghost needs to be happy. One choice I made early on with Cheerful Ghost is to design the site to appeal to people of a pleasing temperament. One part of gaming I dislike is how negative and... Read All
I wanted to show off the new Cheerful Ghost Vinyl Sticker Prints because they are so damn pretty. Cheerful Ghost has been a great video game community for more than 3 years now and it's been obvious to me for some time that we could improve some of our art. Last year a fantastic local game artist Hagen Deloss talked to me about remaking our sticker. We talked over a few weeks, had a few video chats and started tossing around ideas about how we could re-imagine the Ghost.
Firstly the Ghost needs to be happy. One choice I made early on with Cheerful Ghost is to design the site to appeal to people of a pleasing temperament. One part of gaming I dislike is how negative and cynical it is. I want to build a community of likeminded people that were more interested in talking about the things they loved as friends than tear each other apart. I don't mind debate or disagreement it's just served better if all parties are more than civil. My thought was from the color choices of the site to it's mascot we could attract a different kind of gamer. One other requirement was that the new Ghost must be at home and familiar with the old design.
I really appreciate how Hagen interpreted the old Ghost and how that was brought to the final design on this sticker. When people try and convey gaming to a wider audience often times you have the art not reflective of what it's trying to portray. In the case of our new sticker design, Hagen combined a few unique elements I don't often see in video game stickers, branding or advertising. Most notably that the Ghost is having fun talking on a headset playing on a PC. I've seen game site art that may look good but doesn't reflect the site or community. Cheerful Ghost is a community of people that have a deep love for gaming and most notably on the PC. Not to say we didn't all grow up on Nintendo and other consoles, it's just that Cheerful Ghost is mostly a site of PC* lovers.
I encourage everyone local to Portland to reach out and grab one of the new sticker prints from me. Wick and I will be showing Starship Rubicon this summer at a few events and i'll be handing them out there too. At 5" this sticker is ready for your laptop and it's Vinyl construction makes it great for the bumper of your car. As the site marches forward I am going to continue to work with Hagen on integrating the new Ghost design into the site as well. No ETA on when that will happen but it will be in 2015.
If you are interested in checking out more of Hagens work check out his website or talk to him at any PIGSquad event.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 03/02/2015 at 12:22am
Awesome!!!! I love it and it seems to fit very well and looks professional. I think it'd be cool to have some. Perhaps I'd put one on my PC. I could also put one on my fridge with the CG magnet. I could also add one as a bumper sticker to my PT Cruiser, which already has plenty of bumper stickers on it (they're all Democrat kind of stickers).
I appreciate all you've done with this site. I also appreciate your goal of a community of positive gamers. I'm not really used to seeing much negativity with regards to gaming, though I've seen some of it. I think here, we're pretty positive.
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The great crew at Introversion has dropped the latest in the Alpha series for Prison Architect. They have been hard at work on a Tablet port of the game coming to newer iPads and high powered Android tablets. They've also added some really useful features like the ability to untangle your wires and feed prisoners confined to solitary. This release also contains the ability to get a one time payment for new prisoners to help you fund the construction of your prison. Currently, the early game of Prison Architect allows you to get money through grants and your monthly prisoner income. If you've played the game you know this is a pretty tight fiscal scenario as you often... Read All
The great crew at Introversion has dropped the latest in the Alpha series for Prison Architect. They have been hard at work on a Tablet port of the game coming to newer iPads and high powered Android tablets. They've also added some really useful features like the ability to untangle your wires and feed prisoners confined to solitary. This release also contains the ability to get a one time payment for new prisoners to help you fund the construction of your prison. Currently, the early game of Prison Architect allows you to get money through grants and your monthly prisoner income. If you've played the game you know this is a pretty tight fiscal scenario as you often spend through your money quickly. The old alpha used to let you easily create spaces where your prisoners could work and make you way more money to fund the prison. That was changed as you had to jump through some really interesting new hoops to do that. Now they have brought things back a bit with the new one time prisoner grant award.
Introversion has hinted they may add more grants but this is a good addition until that happens.
*Note*As the game is *still* in Early Access in 11/2019, some of this content may have changed.
Intro: Stranded Deep is an Early Access archipelago sandbox survival adventure game with RPG elements. If you've ever seen the movie Cast Away, then you'll be familiar with the story of Stranded Deep. At the beginning, the game gives you a very brief crafting tutorial by telling you how to make a flaming martini. Once you go back to your seat, the plane you are on suddenly begins to crash into the ocean. You must swim your way out and onto the ocean's... Read AllOverview
Still in Early Access as of 11/2019
Crafting and survival
Ship wrecks and other islands to explore
RPG elements
*Note*As the game is *still* in Early Access in 11/2019, some of this content may have changed.
Intro: Stranded Deep is an Early Access archipelago sandbox survival adventure game with RPG elements. If you've ever seen the movie Cast Away, then you'll be familiar with the story of Stranded Deep. At the beginning, the game gives you a very brief crafting tutorial by telling you how to make a flaming martini. Once you go back to your seat, the plane you are on suddenly begins to crash into the ocean. You must swim your way out and onto the ocean's surface and hop in a life boat, which has a paddle. You will then find yourself facing a small island, which you can paddle to (hold the left-mouse button to constantly paddle instead of continuously having to click it).
Inventory and items: When you open your inventory with the Tab key you'll see you have some basic survival tools, a paddle, pocket knife, lighter, and a bottle of water. You can drop items by selecting them and then pressing "Q." On the island you'll notice some sticks, rocks, potato plants, yucca plants, and crabs lying around along with palm trees that contain coconuts,. You may even notice a ship wreck nearby. You're going to need to eat and drink eventually. If you want something quick, you can climb a tree and grab some coconuts, but you're going to need to hit them a few times with your pocket knife. This will turn them into a "drinkable coconut," which is good for one use. After that, drop it, and hit it some more and it will turn into coconut halves that you can eat. Beware of drinking too much coconut juice as it will give you a negative status effect.
Beepi and tools: Pressing the "F" key will show you your watch, which includes the time, date, temperature, and how many days you've survived. A left-click will give you your vitals including health, hunger, and thirst. If you hit a yucca plant with something (like your pocket knife), you'll notice it turns into lashings, an important crafting ingredient. After you've gather some sticks, rocks, and lashings, you can begin to make tools such as a crude axe, hammer, or a camp fire. The camp fire can be upgraded into a fire pit, which can then be upgraded to a fire spit. You can also make a smoker, which will help with food preservation.
Ship wrecks: You'll want to visit any nearby ship wrecks you see and check them because they contain hard cases, lockers, and cabinets which contain any of one the game's many useful items such as medical supplies, tools, flares, and more. If you've found that you see a ship wreck above the surface of the water, but can't find a way in, chop down a tree and drag it (hold right-click) into a position so that you can climb up it and get onto the ship. If you go into the water you will see many sea creatures such as fish (some of which are poisonous like the lion fish), sea turtles, sting rays, and sharks. Most sharks in the game are aggressive. You can kill them and cook them, which will fill up your hunger bar.
Healing: If you get hurt in the game, you'll need to find some medical supplies. Antibiotics currently heal poison, but the item's name will soon change to anti-venom or similar. Even though your character's arms may look more like a male, you'll find that you can get sick and have a female-sounding cough, which will heal over time or with vitamins. If you fall off a tree and break your arm, you'll need morphine to repair it. If you get bitten by a shark, you'll need to either craft bandages from cloth and duct tape or find them in ship wrecks.
Not as useful items: There are many items in the game, some are useful, while others are not. Flares say they could save your life, but they currently won't. However, they do apparently scare away sharks. Whistles can be blown, but have no current use. There are also a couple of items that "nod" to Cast Away such as the character "Wilson" (a volleyball) and a "Dedex" package.
RPG elements: The game now contains RPG elements. As you do things to survive, youâll be able to work on increasing your skills in various areas. For instance, the more you increase your crafting skill, youâll be able to unlock higher tiered craftable items.
Stranded Deep is Early Access and $15 on Steam. It is expected to be completed by the end of the year, but the developer's are trying to give new content monthly.
I found out about the game by watching Paul Soares, Jr.'s YouTube Channel (link below). He also mentioned another YouTuber, GenerikB (link below), so I've been watching both of these guys play the game. The graphics are really great and realistic looking. One of my favorite moments was when I saw Paul meet up with a humpback whale, which made me want to play the game. The bottom of the ocean is very detailed as well.
There are still some bugs, issues, and missing content, but that's Early Access for you (still in development). Still, it's fun and I recommend it. Sadly, there is no demo for the game yet.
The release date of Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number will be March 10th. I've been waiting for this since I heard the news drop that we were getting a level editor out of PAX East last year. The above review video is of the first three levels of the game and they look like everything I loved about the original with some new goodness tossed in. I still head back to Hotline Miami and have a blast so the included difficultly modes seem like a welcome addition.
Mark your gaming calendars as Dennation Games will release Hotline Miami 2 on PC, Mac and Linux at launch on March 10th.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/274170/
The release date of Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number will be March 10th. I've been waiting for this since I heard the news drop that we were getting a level editor out of PAX East last year. The above review video is of the first three levels of the game and they look like everything I loved about the original with some new goodness tossed in. I still head back to Hotline Miami and have a blast so the included difficultly modes seem like a welcome addition.
Mark your gaming calendars as Dennation Games will release Hotline Miami 2 on PC, Mac and Linux at launch on March 10th.
As I travel the expanse of the information superhighway I read many words and see lots of things. Some of it incredible, some meh and occasionally things too dastardly to express with casual words. I took part in a Double Fine Bundle that included funding Broken Age to get access to documentaries of it's creation and development. As part of that I get emails about the games progress from Double Fine and the most recent video(shared above) I thought was worth sharing.
Tim Schafer industry legend and proprietor of great hair mentions that Broken Age part two is in beta and nearing release. This is great news as I wanted to wait till the entire game was released before I... Read All
As I travel the expanse of the information superhighway I read many words and see lots of things. Some of it incredible, some meh and occasionally things too dastardly to express with casual words. I took part in a Double Fine Bundle that included funding Broken Age to get access to documentaries of it's creation and development. As part of that I get emails about the games progress from Double Fine and the most recent video(shared above) I thought was worth sharing.
Tim Schafer industry legend and proprietor of great hair mentions that Broken Age part two is in beta and nearing release. This is great news as I wanted to wait till the entire game was released before I dove in. To the end of the video he talks about something that recently happened with Peter Molyneux and Godus, a Kickstarted game. Essentially Godus is in some form of development limbo and hasn't lived up to some fans expectations. I don't want to re-litigate the drama here, but suffice it to say people didn't respond well to the situation.
In the video Tim states "The last thing i'd like to do is send our support to our friend and fellow developer Peter Molyneux. In the last few weeks we've seen some extremely rough treatment of Peter on the Internet and in the games press and I think that it's unfortunate and unfair and I don't think that it's healthy. Obviously things did not go as expected with his game and because of that people are making some nasty accusations of Peter and I can really relate to that believe it or not. I'm not saying that developers like Peter and I shouldn't be responsible and shouldn't be accountable to deadlines I'm just saying the reaction to recent events and the tone is really way out of proportion to the seriousness of the events themselves. Out of the many goals of this documentary that we are making(Broken Age) is to show actual game development and to show that the developers are human beings. I think it's clear that the problems that Peter is having are not unique to him and in fact they happen to most projects. If we stay transparent and keep involving players in our development that more and more people will start to see the process and how games are made and the effort involved and how game development goes the way it does. Knowing what goes into the games they play I think actually players will enjoy playing them even more."
I think Tim makes a very rational point which seems to fly in the face of our reactive and hostile online culture and this isn't something new to me as we talked about this in the second episode of the Cheerful Ghost Roundtable titled "The Internet Hate Factory."
I watched the message from Tim the same day I read an article by Anthony Burch, the writer of Borderlands 2. Anthonys article is titled "Five Things I Didnât Get About Making Video Games (Until I Did It)." It's a interesting article outlining his start as a writer of often negative articles about games. He seems to regret his often hyperbolic tone as his experience with making Borderlands 2 showed him how hard the process is. Increased knowledge of things often allow people an increased understanding and I appreciate Burchs article as it shows how someone can build some empathy by being an integral part of the creative process.
I am not saying I haven't been disappointed by games i've Kickstarted or purchased. It's just that at the end of the day there is a human being on the other end that often just wants to make the best thing they can. When considering a fixed budget and time many games slip in quality and promised features. Whereas this does bother me, I try not to let it eat at my soul such that I need to reflect that pain at someone else. As someone that has stepped in the game publishing and soon development process I can say it's a challenging prospect and we try our best.
That said, if developers create things you don't like, don't buy them. If a studio produces things you don't find fun, stop pre-ordering them. It seems that the video game industry is going the route of digital downloads, which is very convenient but doesn't allow us to return the game if it is terrible. This isn't optimal and as i've considered the subject of video game refunds I can't think of a system that would work to please everyone. Some people want to return a game they've sunk 300 hours in, which I don't understand at all. I can understand an immediate return if the game crashes or is immediately terrible but when some games are 8 hours should you be allowed to return a game after you completed it in a day? That said, I try to stick to purchasing games from developers I trust and when something new comes down the pike, I often wait till I hear from my friends about it. That means that you don't always have the latest and greatest game, but it also means you can buy really great stuff.
I don't think this issue will be solved overnight but I've adopted some strategies to keep myself happy with the games I buy(no early access, no pre-orders from unknown developers, etc). As gaming continues on it will offer us even more ways to buy games and it will be up to us to make the right purchases. And when things go south we should turn on the Internet Hate Factory, that's really not the kind of world we should want to live in.
As a big fan of Earthbound I have been really excited for Mother 4. Since Nintendo doesn't seem interested in making a new Mother game, fans took it on themselves to work on something new. The Mother 4 team has been busily working on the game and last year mentioned a 2015 release date. Today they dropped a new trailer and a tentative release date of June with the new trailer game footage. I like how similar the feel is to Earthbound while proving a more modern take on the classic pixel art.
Oh and Mother 4 will release for free on PC, Mac and Linux.
"Mother 4 follows the journey of three kids and the leader of a biker gang. With dark rumors of "Modern Men" running... Read All
As a big fan of Earthbound I have been really excited for Mother 4. Since Nintendo doesn't seem interested in making a new Mother game, fans took it on themselves to work on something new. The Mother 4 team has been busily working on the game and last year mentioned a 2015 release date. Today they dropped a new trailer and a tentative release date of June with the new trailer game footage. I like how similar the feel is to Earthbound while proving a more modern take on the classic pixel art.
Oh and Mother 4 will release for free on PC, Mac and Linux.
"Mother 4 follows the journey of three kids and the leader of a biker gang. With dark rumors of "Modern Men" running wild, these unassuming heroes set out to uncover the truth, no matter how dangerous. From bustling urban streets to secret volcano bases, all kinds of oddball thugs and impossible monsters stand in their way... but everything should be okay if they don't forget to write home!"
Unfortunately, GTAV has gotten delayed again for PC players. April 15 is the new date. From Rockstar:
"Our apologies to PC gamers worldwide who have been counting down the days until the launch of the game, but a bit more time is needed to ensure that the game is as polished as possible, and to make certain that both Heists and the GTA Online experience are ready to roll out on day one for PC. As a gesture of thanks for your understanding, we will grant anyone who has pre-ordered the game an additional $200,000 in-game cash for use in GTA Online."
I'm glad they're delaying it, if not delaying it means that we get a buggy game.
In better news, online heists are hitting... Read All
Unfortunately, GTAV has gotten delayed again for PC players. April 15 is the new date. From Rockstar:
"Our apologies to PC gamers worldwide who have been counting down the days until the launch of the game, but a bit more time is needed to ensure that the game is as polished as possible, and to make certain that both Heists and the GTA Online experience are ready to roll out on day one for PC. As a gesture of thanks for your understanding, we will grant anyone who has pre-ordered the game an additional $200,000 in-game cash for use in GTA Online."
I'm glad they're delaying it, if not delaying it means that we get a buggy game.
In better news, online heists are hitting March 15!
Considering how many high profile games have been launched with game breaking bugs in the last year, yeah, take all the time you need Rockstar.
That said, I'm really excited to see heists are finally coming! If anyone on PS3 needs help getting geared up/ready for heists, I'd gladly meet up with you to run through some missions/jobs/races/whatever for fun and profit.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 02/25/2015 at 01:13am
Oddly enough, I don't feel disappointed. I remember how eager I was to get the game on the PS3 and if it kept getting delayed like this, I would have been disappointed. However, I still have it, so if I wanted to play it right now I could. Instead, I've been playing a handful of different games lately, therefore I see this news as giving me more time to play them. That includes the PC version of San Andreas, which I got by pre-ordering the PC version of GTAV. Since I pre-ordered and they're giving me even more in-game cash, I'm going to be rich!!!! One other thing I like about this news (as opposed to other games I'm waiting to get an update for), at least Rockstar is giving us some dates, even if that date keeps changing.
I agree with the sentiment here, i'd rather the developers make the game a great port than toss out some junk. With as long as PC ports can be sold(indefinitely if updated to run on modern systems) it makes more sense to start with a strong port of the game so it has a longer shelf life.
It's kind of sad when PC games like Fallout 3 are having issues when it's not an old game at all.
Travis Admin Post Author
wrote on 02/25/2015 at 04:56am
Well, Fallout 3's issues mostly stem from the fact that there are little inconsistencies between XP/Vista and modern versions of Windows. Once you get those sorted out, the game works far better on PC than it does on either console it was released for.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 04/09/2015 at 01:48am
Yesterday, GTAV for the PC became available for pre-loading for those of us who pre-ordered it. I've never pre-loaded a game before, until now. The game will be available next Tuesday. I think it's interesting to notice that the download is a whopping 59 gigs, which surprised me and makes me think it's the biggest game I've ever seen. I obviously didn't pay much attention to the hard drive space requirements when it said it requires at least 65 gigs. Apparently the PS4 and XBox One versions require 50 gigs. I'm glad to see that those systems seem to have 500 gig hard drives. I'm also happy that my PC has a near 3TB hard drive, so the space requirement for the game isn't a big deal for me. It's just taking a long time to download. I had to pause the download earlier as I noticed it was creating lag in my Diablo III:RoS game play.
I know this game is awesome because I played it on the PS3 and I've noticed how incredibly popular it has become since it's original release. It was, after all, greatly anticipated. I am hoping that the controls on the PC are great. It's been a long time since I played GTAIV on the PC, so I don't recall how well it worked with they keyboard and mouse. I have played San Andreas in recent months, a GTAV pre-order bonus, and I was not impressed with they keyboard and mouse game play. So, I have high hopes for GTAV. I'm also hoping that it will work nicely with the XBox 360 controller I have for my PC, if they keyboard and mouse set up doesn't work as well.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 04/09/2015 at 02:33am
I will, Jon! I noticed that the retail version contains 7 discs. I thought it would have been on Blu-Ray discs, but it seems to be on DVDs, but you're right, most PCs probably don't have Blu-Ray. I, for one, didn't choose to get a Blu-Ray drive on my PC.
Travis Admin Post Author
wrote on 04/09/2015 at 09:26pm
Yeah they're still pretty rare! I'm looking forward to finally playing it on PC but I'm not shelling out another $60 on a game I've already completed and nearly completed a second time. But yeah, I'm totally looking forward to it!
On a side question, with you being on the PC version are you able to join our Cheerful Ghost crew? I don't know if crews are console exclusive.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 04/10/2015 at 09:10pm
I'm glad you mentioned that, Tim. It seems that none of the versions of the game are able to work cross-platform, which is a shame because I'd love to join the CG crew. This does tempt me to create a PC version of the crew and hopefully some day you and others will join me. It will probably be a long time before I get into the online aspect of the game, which I barely spent time with on the PS3. I do know that I can bring a copy of my character over, which is great because I like how he turned out (visually). If I find any information about cross-platform online game play, I'll let you know, and I'll try to see if it works or if it ever will.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 04/13/2015 at 12:28am
Awesome, I saw a brief bit of that last night on another site. The game will be available tomorrow at 7PM (EST). I'm looking forward to "whoa" moments as I know my PC is going to handle it sweetly, even though I'll miss out on the 4k resolution.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 04/14/2015 at 04:15am
I played very briefly today since I wanted to get in and out so that I could get GeForce Experience to optimize the game for me. What very little of it I played looked simply awesome and that was before GeForce Experience optimized it for me (increasing many of the settings because of my GPU). I don't recall being able to go into first-person mode on the PS3 version, but it's been a long time since I've played it and I only played through it once. Initial movement was done with WASD keys and I noticed that the configuration has a controller option, though I haven't tried that yet. It may be a while before I jump into it deeper due to (in short) time management, game juggling, and other interests. I may report more in the future.
Travis Admin Post Author
wrote on 04/14/2015 at 07:15pm
First person is new.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 04/15/2015 at 12:24am
Even while driving, Travis? I played a bit more today. I made it to Franklin's house and saved my game. I'm tempted to try out the controller, I think it might make moving around easier. I obviously haven't played very much, but in what little I did, it seems that they keyboard and mouse controls are definitely much better than GTA: San Andreas. Still, there are a lot of keys usable. For instance, triggering a character's special ability uses the CAPS LOCK key, while switching between characters is the left ALT key.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 04/15/2015 at 07:12pm
Today I decided to try out the controller. The one I have is a USB XBox 360 controller that's clear and lights up blue, I bought it specifically for my "new" PC, although I've hardly used it. I thought using a controller with the game would make moving about more fluid and I think I was right. I also thought a controller would simplify the controls, I think I was right again. I was surprised because, after plugging in the controller and starting the game, it recognized the controller instantly and could tell that I was using it, so it displayed the controls for it instead of the keyboard. I did start a new game with it.
The game does look and feel great, although I must admit there were a few times where the game lagged a bit. I know I don't have the best hardware that's currently out there, although my PC is very close. For anyone interested, my PC is an Alienware Aurora-R4 with a 3.7Ghz Intel i7-4820k with 16GB of RAM, and a GTX 690.
Travis Admin Post Author
wrote on 04/15/2015 at 09:42pm
I think first person driving controls have always been around. Don't quote me on that though.
Every time I read your PC specs I shake my head(because it's a beefy setup) and want to upgrade my rig. That said, I am not really due for newer horsepower this year. I think i'll just get a steam machine and maybe just drop an SSD in my Desktop to get some more boot speed.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 04/16/2015 at 12:36am
That bit of lag I experienced makes me feel like my PC isn't up to par with the game and is disappointing. Perhaps I should try with a fresh reboot and running fewer programs (I usually have Chrome and Steam up at least). I saw where the game also shined with the latest GPUs (specifically noticed the Geforce one) and an SLI configuration. That nearly tempts me, but I don't think I'll do any upgrading for a while. I'm not even going to think about it until some time after my warranty expires.
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 04/16/2015 at 03:18am
After a bit of research ("Googling"), I found out that I'm not the only one who's noticed some frame rate drops at times. Many people with various hardware and various graphics settings have experience this issue. So, it is my thought that it could be an issue with the game. Some people say that the game isn't playable, but that isn't the case for me. It happens sometimes, but not too much where I can't play it.
I ran the in-game benchmark and my PC performed quite well on almost every scene. There was one scene that started slow, but then jumped back up to where it should have been. All other scenes performed quite well, although the game didn't give me a final report.
So, I decided to do some benchmarking on my own and I'm quite impressed with what I found out. I downloaded the 3DMark demo from Steam and ran the 64-bit version of Firestrike, which is for high performance Windows gaming PCs running DirectX11. The report from that benchmark is spectacular! My PC performed better than 93% of all results. Here is a link for the results, I'm hoping you can access it: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/4596441
NVidia released a driver that fixes up some issues for some people. You might want to look and see if this works with your video card, might get you closer to 60FPS with no stuttering.
"Steam is bringing the best games and user-generated content to exciting new destinations. At GDC 2015, weâll be giving demos of the refined Steam Controller, new living room devices, and a previously-unannounced SteamVR hardware system."
This is exactly what I wanted to see from Valve, in addition to new games. Maybe... we can hope right?
Some new info straight from the horse's mouth...
"Steam is bringing the best games and user-generated content to exciting new destinations. At GDC 2015, weâll be giving demos of the refined Steam Controller, new living room devices, and a previously-unannounced SteamVR hardware system."
This is exactly what I wanted to see from Valve, in addition to new games. Maybe... we can hope right?
Azurephile Super Member
wrote on 02/25/2015 at 01:15am
That's going to be interesting, especially the SteamVR system. It seems only recently that VR become something people are working on, maybe technology has progressed enough to make it possible.
After trying the Occulus I can say that VR really will be something special. I can see why many companies are jumping on it, it really will be a big part of gaming if not computing in general.
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There are console-exclusive songs? I had no idea.
A bit more about it on one of the Terraria wikis. Search for "exclusive" on the page.
http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Music
Awesome! I love this piece of music they released!!!! I found out about this spoiler from the Terraria forums (http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/sampling-the-sounds-of-1-3.13064/). Someone also posted a link to the soundtrack (https://re-logic.bandcamp.com/album/terraria-soundtrack). It is cool that we can listen to the soundtrack and buy both volumes. I think Terraria has a great soundtrack!
Terraria's music is seriously some of my absolute favorite game music. It's right up there with my list of faves such as pretty much everything early Squaresoft days (16 and 32 bit era) and CSoTN soundtrack.
I totally agree Jason, the Terraria one of the best i've heard in the last 5 years. That said recently i've been binging on the Double Find Adventure videos featuring music by Lifeformed and I have really been impressed with that lately.
A new, small video was released today, which comes with something very special at the end. =)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXam7gSObek
Niiiiiiiice!
Confirmation!
Since you haven't posted it, I'm going to! :)