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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, LittlewoodMonster 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:

Unless something big / important comes up, we shall see you Monday for another week of Linux news.

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.
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a0kami Aug 8, 2020
Almost finished Death Stranding.
Also Star Citizen 3.10 is Live, gonna meet up with the gang, the "Linux Users Group", we're an organisation dedicated to play SC on Linux and help each other.
Spoiler, click me
Some of us file wine bug reports for regression or build custom wine builds to get the most out of it.
I think by now we're almost a couple hundred total, just a few active though but getting there.

Very interested in playing the Braid anniversary update and Horizon Zero Dawn when it works well with Proton.
scaine Aug 8, 2020
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Humble Choice is surprisingly AAA this month. Lots of Windows only titles, sadly, but here's a breakdown from ProtonDB. I'll be subscribing this month, so I think I'll help with some of these reports when I get a chance.

Native:
The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters

Platinum:
Vampyr
Genesis Alpha One
Little Big Workshop
Through the Darkest of Times


Gold:
Hello Neighbour (but mostly platinum reports, probably just needs more to push it up)
Automachef (but again, mostly platinum, just needs more reports to push it up)
We Were Here Together (wouldn't touch these devs with a bargepole after they dropped native support for their earlier titles

Silver:
Wargroove (game is platinum, but needs a launch command --skip-intro, or it crashes on start. Also, this has a useless Linux build, so you have to force Proton, or it crashes on start with or without --skip-intro! Such a shame. I'd have bough this at full price months ago if it supported Linux.)
Call of Cthulu (good reports but only if you install media foundations
American Fugitive (as above, needs mf-install, then seems to be getting good reports)

Bronze:
A Case of Distrust (3 borked reports, one guy says it works fine...)

As for what I'm playing - well I've been sick the past few days, so not a lot! A little Killing Floor 2 via Proton, but I'm utterly hooked on Core Defence. It's a fantastic old-skool Tower Defence, but with a modern take, and lovely, if simple, graphics. Very, very addictive. Managed my first perfect run, on the fourth attempt. I love the progression in this game - it keeps me coming back for one more try!




Last edited by scaine on 10 August 2020 at 1:19 pm UTC
Schattenspiegel Aug 8, 2020
Tabletop Simulator: my totally selfless present to me and my gaming buddy who was rekindling his love for VR lately ;-) Lot's of fun so far.
Botonoski Aug 8, 2020
I've been playing Marble Blast Ultra, seems it had been ported to PC unofficially a few years back and the port's release made such a small splash I wasn't made aware of it until I off-handedly googled Marble Blash in a bout of nostalgic reminiscing. For me it's a game strongly attached to some formative mid-2000s memories. Weirdly I never owned the full game as back then I strongly believed that purchasing a game with no physical cartridge/disk was absurd and wasteful (lol), as a result I played the hell out of the demo. I'm not entirely sure how the demo enthralled me for hours with only 5% of the full game's content, but it managed. I'm glad I waited so long as not only do I get to play the full game at no expense, but also on my favorite platform.
mylka Aug 8, 2020
downloaded 80GB borderlands 3
WorMzy Aug 8, 2020
Mostly Hellpoint, although this week we started fostering kittens, and there's an online music festival I'm watching this weekend, so I've not had much time to play!
FredO Aug 8, 2020
Red Dead Redemption II with Stadia. This game is a truly great experience - loving it!
Boldos Aug 8, 2020
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1) WH40k: Dawn of War GOTY Edition. Older, but still good...
2) CS:GO
3) C# 7.1 and .NET Core 2.0 – Modern Cross-Platform Development (yes, I know it is a bit dated, but well... )


Last edited by Boldos on 8 August 2020 at 12:50 pm UTC
Xpander Aug 8, 2020
Borderlands 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.


Last edited by Xpander on 8 August 2020 at 12:53 pm UTC
Alm888 Aug 8, 2020
It is "X4: Foundations" for me again. Now with LibreOffice Calc spreadsheet and "XTools" game resource extraction utility at hand (I wonder, does it count as using WINE for gaming?) to make my own strategy on how to pwn the Galaxy as fast as possible.

I'm reading faction fleet quotas as of right now. Not that impressed by the maximum allowed (and even more so per-sector) Argon battle fleet strength, no wonder The Holy Order basically squashes them like a bugs (they are). :)
saturnoyo Aug 8, 2020
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.
ziabice Aug 8, 2020
Playing the addictive Sky Force Reloaded
Dunc Aug 8, 2020
I haven't been able to settle on any particular game this week.

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 Store
That'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...
Xpander Aug 8, 2020
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.
Liam Dawe Aug 8, 2020
Quoting: Xpander
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.
Borderlands 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.
OG SWAT RV@Linux Aug 8, 2020
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X4 Foundations , I have a small fleet, and fight against the Xenon

ARMA 3, is so addicting, love CTI

Elite Dangerous, fight with my Vulture

PULSAR: Lost Colony , wanna play , but do not understand...
CatKiller Aug 8, 2020
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I've been playing Dishonored. I got most of the way through it on the PS3 back in the day but got distracted by something else and never went back to it.

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.
eldaking Aug 8, 2020
I am deep into RTS these days. Managed to install Warcraft 3 and I am now re-playing the entire campaign, also managed to install Battle for the Middle-Earth 2 which I'm going to play through next, and installed some big mods for Star Wars Empire at War that I plan to at least test. And I keep playing my all-time favorites, Northgard and Offworld Trading Company. Might do some world conquests in Rise of Nations as well, and then if I'm not completely burned out I'll look into what other RTS I can install.

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.
Borderlands 3 FREE WEEKEND..... On my Windows 10 machine, because via PROTON doesn't work properly yet.
tmtvl Aug 8, 2020
No time to play games, I've been busy backing up my music from Google Play Music, which is being phased out by September.
I have caught a bit of a fright now, so I'm seriously wondering if there's a good way to back up my Steam library.
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