Another week full of game updates, new releases and plenty still to come. Time for another of our weekly chats about all the wonderful gaming we've been doing.
This week saw some interesting releases for Linux including Desperados III, A Long Way Down, Crusader Kings III, a new set of Stadia Pro games and plenty of upcoming releases mentioned like The Jackbox Party Pack 7, BOY BEATS WORLD, art of rally, Tenderfoot Tactics, Songs of Syx and plenty more from our Gamescom round-up. Certainly no shortage and that's only off the top of my head from this last week.
My current love that I keep going back to is Super Bomberman R Online, which is currently a time-limited exclusive on Stadia. If you have Stadia Pro, it's free to claim until November 30 (and Stadia Pro still gives a month free on sign-up) and it seems there's plenty of players on it, I've had no troubles finding matches.
I've never been that big of a Bomberman fan but something about having 64 people running around various arenas is hilarious. The way it's done is very much like a Battle Royale, a little Fall Guys even. You're initially split into many arenas, with each round having a few taken away so you need to run across to another. It's frantic and brilliant fun.
I'm also mourning the loss of my trusty Logitech F310 gamepad, it had a good 5+ year run but it's time to wave goodbye as it has decided that it no longer wishes to stay connected for more than a few seconds (tested across multiple machines).
Opening it reveals no obvious fault that my total amateur tech mind can find to fix. So, it's time to shop for a new gamepad. While the Gioteck WX-4 Wireless I have still continues on, the PC/Linux support overall is still too lacking right now and as much as I still love the Steam Controller, and confessed much love before, there's times where a stick is just needed and for local multiplayer titles another is required. Sure would be nice if those older hints of a new Steam Controller came true don't you think?
So, do I go for another trusty Logitech F310? For the price, the F310 is still one of the best PC gamepads around. Perhaps the wireless F710? Or one of those fancy units from 8BitDo? Although the last 8BitDo I had needed some manual repair only a few months after picking, with a button acting like it was always being pressed, so their build quality doesn't feel too great overall.
Feel free to give over your gamepad suggestions for Linux gaming in the comments this week. What are you using, what's your favourite with great game support? Other than that — over to you in the comments: what have you been gaming on Linux lately?
GUILTY GEAR Xrd -REVELATOR- - Steam
I picked this one up to play with a friend. I played part 1 via of Mednafen many years ago and had a great time at locals playing with others but did not get too competitive with it. My main is May because that is who I used back then but I'm going to pick another soon.
Mortal Kombat 11 - Stadia
Been playing this one a bunch with my wife. I'm going to check out the crypt soon but for now I've been skipping it but now my wife wants some of the costume pieces for her characters from it. My new main is Geras. I've gaining ranks with Johnny Cage.
Mable & The Wood - GOG
I'm on the 5th boss now in Act II. This game was free awhile back on GOG and it's good. It would be better if the map was more helpful. I do like it very much and plan on ending it asap.
Left 4 Dead 2 - Steam
Saturday night gaming is getting really good with my friends and family online. This past Saturday we did a 4 hour run of L4D2's Scavenge mode. Versus seems to be too full glitches with a bunch of problems that have been in the game for years so we stopped playing that but this mode and survival are great.
Blade Strangers - Steam
I'm liking this game a lot. Currently, I'm playing it online with one of my older kids who is on the other side of the US but it's been real smooth. This is the most recent game I got so not much time has been put into it but I'm currently maining Isaac.
Otherwise, I've tried Succubus: Prologue a FPS so violent, so grotesque, so perverse. Definitively not for everybody and once the shock value is passed the game is meh, great art but meh.
Next, I've finished The suicide of Rachel Foster a walking sim with light adventure elements and a good story. It plays like Gone Home mixed with Firewatch. Everything is great about this game, I liked it.
I'm in the middle of A plague tale : Innocence and I love it. Runs great on Proton 5.0-9 (60 FPS, 1080p full options ). The art and level design combined with the mastery with the engine gives a wonderful result so much that it could be the most beautiful game I've played so far. The story is gripping, characters are great and you get attached to them, gameplay is well made and responsive, level design is linear and I like it since I'm fed up with open world that prey on my play time that gets reduced more and more. Overall, I recommend it wholeheartedly.
Finally, a small question : How do you motivate yourself to work on your personal project ? I'm currently in a high procrastination period, so much It's been a month or more since I've touched my two Godot project I've got on the burner. Same with my music, I pick my guitar for 5 minutes, scratch it a little and put it back. What's your trick ?
Maybe it's just a period... Really busy at work.
Last edited by TobyGornow on 7 September 2020 at 7:34 am UTC
- Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
- Dark Souls III
- Death Stranding (with Proton-GE)
All run perfect!
Terraria is one of those games where you can feel somewhat lost if you don't take look at a guide at some point. It's more fun to play it when you have idea that there is better weapon or armor out there, you just have find all the ingredients and in case of ores, you might have to upgrade your pickaxe. There's lot of different things to do.
Truth to be told though, I gave up before final boss. I didn't feel like going back to previous boss in hope of getting random loot that would be needed to be able to craft a better weapon.
I can see that. I think my issue is that I want a perfect balance between "open world" and lore/story/progression, which is almost impossible to do in a procedural setting. I just didn't feel compelled to continue and progress. I think I'll return to it sometime later, when I'm more in the creative mood.
I was also put off by the night time. It felt like just waiting while the game progressed without purpose. I know I could craft or something, but if I ran out of supplies, I just had to wait.
I totally agree that getting sucked into more open ended game can take more effort. Good enough tutorial can help by introducing some core concepts.
For example Factorio demo was great as it was possible to experience some things in advance that in freeplay require bit of effort to set up. It would be bit different to start with pickaxe in hand and all the instructions are that you need to build a rocket. Once you get far enough, you kind of forget the main goal while trying to optimize things and tackle problems as they appear. When that works, it's better than quests that barely have any relevance to the world.
This weekend started replaying "This is the Police", it's not a very popular game but I quite like it.
It has more than 6000 user reviews and a "very popular" rating on Steam.
For comparison, the last Deponia game, which also came out in 2016, only has about a quarter as many user reviews, and is from a relatively well-known franchise.
Not trying to be argumentative, but making a point that a game can be considered popular even though it's not mainstream.
And even if it isn't, don't feel bad for liking a game that most people don't like.
- Once more, I made a friend discover Overcooked. This game never disappoint
You know the sequel has a native Linux version? Great game, with lots of extra content available.
Yep, I bought it almost day one, but haven't played it yet. We were supposed to discover the game with 3 friends... and then there was lockdown
Playing a lot of Unrailed together with friends on the couch and even over remote play together. Awesome game which surprisingly everyone who plays seems to like. Absolutely recommend :D
Forgot to mention Unrailed as well, but it is fun indeed !
small question : How do you motivate yourself to work on your personal project ? I'm currently in a high procrastination period, so much It's been a month or more since I've touched my two Godot project I've got on the burner. Same with my music, I pick my guitar for 5 minutes, scratch it a little and put it back. What's your trick ?
Maybe it's just a period... Really busy at work.
Unfortunately, I am king of unfinished projects (I probably have ~40 projects in Ableton Live, and only 3-4 that I finished). It all comes down to what you want to do with the result: for me, I am more interested in trying weird stuff, rather than producing full songs. What do you want to do with Godot ? Self-learning ? Showcase ? I usually find it easier to finish something when I have a clear idea of what I want to do with it.
Also, sometimes it is just enough to simply open your project, see where it's at, and take it from here
The game does feel less responsive than Diablo 2, so, for me at least, it's easier to die in the former than in the latter. However, TQ seems to have more viable builds, and experimenting with those is my favorite part of the genre.
Performance is good, although there are about 3 small areas in the game where fire objects force fps down, if not enough to make the game unplayable.
I'm also stuck on the so-called cookies puzzle in Still Life. I love detective stories, especially those with realistic puzzles and logical actions (the first thing you do here is work a crime scene), but the game has its share of more conventional (read challenging) puzzles too, one of which is now sapping my will with its merciless number of possible combinations. I'm loath to look up the solution though, so I persevere.
DXVK need a lot of improvements in relation to UE4 games.
This weekend started replaying "This is the Police", it's not a very popular game but I quite like it.
It has more than 6000 user reviews and a "very popular" rating on Steam.
For comparison, the last Deponia game, which also came out in 2016, only has about a quarter as many user reviews, and is from a relatively well-known franchise.
Not trying to be argumentative, but making a point that a game can be considered popular even though it's not mainstream.
And even if it isn't, don't feel bad for liking a game that most people don't like.
:) Yeah, you're right, it is popular. I got a number of the Deponia games free sometime back but have not yet tried it, how would you rate the series?
Finally, a small question : How do you motivate yourself to work on your personal project ? I'm currently in a high procrastination period, so much It's been a month or more since I've touched my two Godot project I've got on the burner. Same with my music, I pick my guitar for 5 minutes, scratch it a little and put it back. What's your trick ?Ha! If someone can answer this one for you, I'll be fascinated to see it too!
Maybe it's just a period... Really busy at work.
This weekend started replaying "This is the Police", it's not a very popular game but I quite like it.
It has more than 6000 user reviews and a "very popular" rating on Steam.
For comparison, the last Deponia game, which also came out in 2016, only has about a quarter as many user reviews, and is from a relatively well-known franchise.
Not trying to be argumentative, but making a point that a game can be considered popular even though it's not mainstream.
And even if it isn't, don't feel bad for liking a game that most people don't like.
:) Yeah, you're right, it is popular. I got a number of the Deponia games free sometime back but have not yet tried it, how would you rate the series?
I'm not the biggest fan of the writing and characters, but they have some nice puzzles of the classic adventure game variety.
There's a bit of cringe sprinkled here and there and the main character is hard to like, but as classic adventure games they're not bad at all. Some clever ideas and genuinely funny moments. Worth playing IMHO.This weekend started replaying "This is the Police", it's not a very popular game but I quite like it.
It has more than 6000 user reviews and a "very popular" rating on Steam.
For comparison, the last Deponia game, which also came out in 2016, only has about a quarter as many user reviews, and is from a relatively well-known franchise.
Not trying to be argumentative, but making a point that a game can be considered popular even though it's not mainstream.
And even if it isn't, don't feel bad for liking a game that most people don't like.
:) Yeah, you're right, it is popular. I got a number of the Deponia games free sometime back but have not yet tried it, how would you rate the series?
I'm not the biggest fan of the writing and characters, but they have some nice puzzles of the classic adventure game variety.
I was going to stealth through both the Machine God / Heist timelines, but am now considering a full replay as mad ninja killing machine
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, where Proton *vastly* outperforms Native [60fps Ultra vs 25fps Low]. The game is absolutely stunning and has rocketed up my all-time favourites list. I'm just about to hit the final stage [London], playing as a stealthy non-lethal hacker.
I was going to stealth through both the Machine God / Heist timelines, but am now considering a full replay as mad ninja killing machine
I wasn't very good at stealth, so things usually ended up me having to knock everybody unconscious that would be running into my general direction. Bank was one of the worst places. Lot of security to get past.
Might have been easier to play it like regular FPS and just kill everybody...
I wasn't very good at stealth, so things usually ended up me having to knock everybody unconscious that would be running into my general direction. Bank was one of the worst places. Lot of security to get past.
Might have been easier to play it like regular FPS and just kill everybody...
Gah. They really did mess up the pacing badly towards the end. Prague is just a painful grind even with max stealth.. and of course it eats up all the Energy you need for London. I'm now at the last quest in the game and finding it a total nightmare... tempted to just blast through it purely so I've done it.
And I now discover I totally should've done the Heist mission, since it's impossible to get the best ending without it. Damn. This is a major damper on what was, up to now, arguably the best game I've ever played
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