What's that? It's the weekend? It can't be already can it? Yes. It's time for the weekend chat about what we've been playing and what you've been playing.
There's been so many good Linux supported releases lately I've been a bit spoilt for choice including these just in the last week: DemonCrawl, UnderMine, The Battle of Polytopia, Littlewood, Monster Crown, Core Defense and Hellpoint (plus plenty more I've missed).
Recently though, I've been having masses of fun in Orcs Must Die! 3 on Stadia with a co-op partner. Getting to test out all the different trap combinations, it's genuinely good fun. It was fun enough by myself but now with a partner, it's far more amusing especially trying the later difficulties. Good manic entertainment.
As for actual Linux-desktop games, Jupiter Hell sucked me right in once more. Jupiter Hell is the spritual successor to DRL (D**m, the Roguelike) and it's one of the most furious roguelikes I've ever played. While turn-based, it's so streamlined and fluid it feels almost realtime. It's also quite gorgeous in places. Jupiter Hell has evolved quite nicely during Early Access and it's easily worth a look.
I also spoke to the developer of Haque, a rather fantastic glitch fantasy roguelike from 2017. As great as it is, the Steam build had a bug where a file was named "Haque_Text.zip" but the game was looking for "haque_text.zip". Linux case-sensitivity strikes again. They mentioned they will fix it as soon as possible.
Additionally: it appears that there's another big CPU security issue, this time not just affecting Intel. According to the paper it should affect Intel, ARM, IBM, and AMD CPUs.
Lastly, NVIDIA put up a new Vulkan Beta Driver 450.56.06 with the sole change listed as new support for the VK_EXT_4444_formats extension that landed with Vulkan API spec 1.2.149 that we reported on here.
Deals Reminder:
- F1 2018 is free on Humble Store
- Humble Choice giving away all 12 games this month for the Premium/Classic subs
- Valve's QuakeCon Sale has plenty of games that work with Proton - GOG also has a QuakeCon Sale
- Humble Raw Fury 2020 Bundle - 3 days left
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Humble Double Fine 20th Anniversary Bundle - 5 days left
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Humble also has a Game Design & Animation book bundle for anyone interested in that side of things
Over to you in the comments: what have you been gaming on Linux lately and what are you looking forward to the most across this year?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: XpanderBorderlands 3, because free weekend. Honestly, i have to say, this game is pretty bad. Runs okaish, looks ok, if blurs and TAA are turned off, but combat is so boring and dull. not enough feedback from guns or hits on the enemy or yourself, feels quite bland. Just cant enjoy it because of that. Lucky that it was free this weekend, so now i know i wont buy this game.
I disagree. Borderlands 3 has the best gunplay of any borderlands game. Shooting weapons is much more satisfying than it was in BL2 or BL:pre-sequel. The guns have more weight to it.
The problem with BL3 is that the history is pretty bad, the bad guys are terrible, most of what you do makes no sense and the characters are all 11/10 on the scale of craziness and random-lol, which results in none of them standing out from the others and the funny dialog falling flat. You need some normal people to make the crazy ones stand out. You need low times to make the high times stand out. You just get used to it and then you are bored.
Pretty bad game overall. I finished BL2 like 4 or 5 times. After finishing BL3 I just uninstalled it.
BTW: I played BL3 on windows and the bugs were all over the place. I would get disconnected from my friends. Loading times would get stuck. We all had problems with it. Mind you we were playing on steam so the game was out for a long time already. I regret paying 30 bucks for it.
PS: It does look good playing on max settings. Most characters from the old games had a cameo but it wasn't enough to enjoy them. Most of the time they would appear in a recording or something and just disappear for the rest of the game. I was under the impression that at least Tiny Tina would have a bigger role. It's not the case.
I picked up Fallout 4 again, and tidied up some loose ends that I'd left, tinkered a bit in Minecraft, fired up KSP for the first time in months (possibly inspired by Bob & Doug returning home and Elon launching his giant soup can), trundled around a couple of racing sims... but that's been the story of my week. Nothing seems to hold my attention for very long. I hate it when that happens.
So, frustrated that nothing I'd played before was grabbing my interest, I installed Shadowrun: Dragonfall, because it's been in my library for years and I'd never got around to it before. I've played Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun: Hong Kong, but not the middle one (I think I picked up Hong Kong in a bundle before the other two). And in both of those, it turns out I got about 12 hours in and lost interest. I dunno... I like the combat system in theory - it's basically cyberpunk XCOM - but I just find something unsatisfying about it in the long run compared to those games. Which is weird, because Shadowrun definitely has a better story.
QuoteF1 2018 is free on Humble StoreThat'll do me!
Although the way my mind is at the moment, I'll probably end up driving a couple of practice sessions then leaving it...
Quoting: saturnoyoI disagree. Borderlands 3 has the best gunplay of any borderlands game. Shooting weapons is much more satisfying than it was in BL2 or BL:pre-sequel. The guns have more weight to it.
It doesnt excuse the situation though. If its the best borderlands game combat wise then, i cant imagine what the old ones feel like.. For me at least the combat was the worst i ever got from Triple A game in a while.
Quoting: XpanderBorderlands was never really known for actually having good gunplay though, anyone who says it does is mad. Most people went in for the style, the loot, the characters and stuff like that.Quoting: saturnoyoI disagree. Borderlands 3 has the best gunplay of any borderlands game. Shooting weapons is much more satisfying than it was in BL2 or BL:pre-sequel. The guns have more weight to it.
It doesnt excuse the situation though. If its the best borderlands game combat wise then, i cant imagine what the old ones feel like.. For me at least the combat was the worst i ever got from Triple A game in a while.
OG SWAT RV@Linux Aug 8, 2020
ARMA 3, is so addicting, love CTI
Elite Dangerous, fight with my Vulture
PULSAR: Lost Colony , wanna play , but do not understand...
That one and the sequel had good reports on protondb so I picked up both of them on Steam, although I've only tried the first one so far. It works perfectly in Proton, although the Xbox button prompts when I'm using a PS3 controller are quite irritating.
To break it up a little, I tried installing Sid Meier's Railroads with Proton; it never worked on Windows, and is generally very buggy, but seems to be working ok with Proton. Might play a little Rimworld or Europa Universalis 4 to unwind as well; kind of feel like starting a new Factorio game, but I will wait for 1.0 to drop first since it is so close.
Comandante Ñoñardo Aug 8, 2020
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