Humanoid

Anyway, glad the free respec exists. It's probably a bit controversial with traditionalists, but frankly it was turning into a slog with my magic having essentially no interaction with any of my teammates' abilities. Might not be so crippling when fighting cannon fodder, but it's a big handicap with the tougher targets where we essentially have to expend twice as much collective effort. Going to experiment with both damage approaches during act 2: first as a fighter+archer duo, then the all-out magic spam. Might see if any mods exist to help with the issue as well. EDIT: Might have to do some economic exploitation to get back on my feet after spending all my gold on spellbooks for abilities which I can no longer use. EDIT2: Also came unstuck by a silly scripting oversight. One random book in a room containing a dozen random books is required to progress. But reading it doesn't trigger anything and the player is left none the wiser that that particular book is the important one. No, you have to pick up the book (which magically updates the quest log but otherwise is completely non-magical) to progress because reasons. Books being worth a measly 1 gold each encourages the player to read them where they are instead of picking them up, which becomes a bit of a trap.

Probably still do better then Ouya.

Very early on in DOS1, I kept getting party wiped very often with my dual lone-wolf co-op party while being able to take no actions whatsoever, so I understand where it's coming from. But it's an extremely inelegant "solution" that has a net negative effect on gameplay. I haven't played long enough to be able to decide what a redesign should look like though. Unify the armour types? Give effects a proportional chance of success based on armour values? I don't really want the extra resist stats from DOS1 back, so I don't mind if armour becomes sort of analogous to it, but not in the all-or-nothing implementation of it that currently exists.

Just implement the HuniePop minigame into all RPGs, best romance mechanic ever.

You just have to break the chains holding the dragon down, the anchors are right next to it but targetting them is a little finicky, at first I thought I couldn't do it and would probably have just left, fortunately my co-op partner succeeded where I failed. And yeah, the AI is omniscient when it comes to what you're vulnerable to. Even if you're a disguised undead it will immediately use heal spells to attack you. Glass cannon needs to be comboed with high initiative (wits) to guarantee that you take the first action every combat.

Well the other part of jumping the gun is that I'm only through Act 1, so I don't even know how I'll feel about it when I finish it, let alone a few weeks after when I've had time to digest it. (I'm also assuming the new Zelda game is favourite for GOTY. Not that I'd know - it would be nice to find out for myself once I can justify getting a Switch...)

No slowdown (admittedly I'm playing on a fairly beefy desktop) or other technical issues, other than remaining deathly afraid of tabbing out, to the extent that when I play, I have my laptop next to me instead. Don't feel like systematically testing whether it's still an issue. Anyway, week one report is that I'm happy with the game, though it feels that the calls for it to be GOTY and such might be jumping the gun a bit. That said, on reflection, I've only played maybe two or three new release games in 2017 and this is the best of them, so I guess that's technically meeting the criteria. I'm guarded on giving it that kind of accolade though since I'm not even convinced it's better than the first game. In terms of writing, sure no one would ever dispute that (though I'm not generally a fan of the usual prisoner setup). But mechanically I don't see any net improvement, and a number of ease-of-use bugbears remain. Indeed there's a fair bit of regression in areas like power scaling and world design coherence (like the way vendors are essentially arbitrary NPCs that are given spellbooks to sell because reasons). Ultimately I'm leaning towards the earlier game as the better one at this point because of one factor though, and that's my combat experiences so far. Playing with a dual lone-wolf multiplayer setup, I feel my options are more limited this time around because there's very little synergy between physical and magical abilities. The new armour system is obviously the main reason for this, and it might be more reasonable with a full party, but the net effect is that we tend to pick our own targets and deal with them individually instead of working together. It feels less of a co-operative experience, and for a game where co-op is one of its main selling points, that's kind of a big deal.

Seems a bit odd that you can escape without knowing you've escaped.

With new hotfix (yesterday) they fixed direct connections and some other issues. Funny/irritating thing about that was that I actually had to rollback the hotfix (x.47) on Galaxy because my multiplayer partner was still on the older version (x.999). GOG had put the hotfix up on Galaxy, but not on the direct download page, so two as GOG players we ended up being unable to connect to each other. That'll teach me, after giving Galaxy another chance. Oh well, at least the problem's been solved one way or another. I do still have issues with the game occasionally failing to come back after tabbing out though. Almost as if the game was written on Gamebryo...

I've played direct connection multiplayer the last couple of nights (the last session finishing just half an hour ago) with this method and it's worked without a hitch, not sure what else would affect it. I'm hosting and have forwarded ports 23243-23262, co-op buddy has not changed anything.

Turns out the "direct connection" feature being unselectable just means you have to type in the IP address of the host instead of the special code for joining. Works fine despite the checkbox. Might need to forward ports if you're behind a router.

Fire Emblem Heroes is better than I thought it would be, but it's backed by a very cynical (borderline predatory) business model involving spending premium currency for a 6% chance to get the rarest tier units. That said, it's thoroughly playable without spending a cent, so it's fine to recommend to anyone without a history of gambling addiction. Ironically perhaps, this mobile iteration of the series ends up being more tactically interesting than the disappointing mainline series release this year (FE Echoes). TL;DR: Very good core gameplay for a mobile game, shame about the slot machine aspect surrounding it. Fake edit: Statistically you get enough free premium currency to get (on average) about 3 "five star" units a month from random rolls, assuming you exhaust the available content. One more is usually provided "free" through grinding during a monthly event, and another one or two can be acquired per month through acquiring a different currency that allows you to upgrade a lower rarity unit.

I'd like to be playing this, but apparently due to underestimating multiplayer server load they had to disable the Direct Connection method required for cross-play between GOG and Steam. It doesn't even add up, why is a "direct" connection even affected by their servers? Looks like the solution is to either use third-party software (namely Hamachi, which is so last decade) or to wait until they add more server capacity and flick the switch back on. Ugh.

AoE2 obsoleted AoE1 in every conceivable way, so really the only thing AoE1 has going for it is for people who prefer the bronze age setting. That, I feel, would be better handled by a total conversion type project, like that Age of Star Wars game. It's like playing old version of FIFA or Madden or whatever, the only reason to go back is basically to mess around with players long since retired. XCOM 2, the trailer basically told me nothing about whether my issues with it are going to be addressed. I'll give it a proper look once it launches but it's telling that now, even having access to content I've never played before, I'd much rather launch a new game of Long War 1 that anything to do with the sequel. (I bought the deluxe edition that had the season pass but haven't played a single piece of the DLC) The Dishonored DLC I'll likely play sometime, but I've barely started the main game. Which means Mount and Blade 2 is the winner so far by default - and that's despite it looking like more or less a HD remake for now.

First-person perspective pirouettes. Nothing could possibly go wrong. Now if they could get the sex scenes working in first-person...

It was in the Humble Monthly that just finished today. Obviously too late to get it that way now, but it probably means some unused keys are floating around.

Good to see NV in the number 1 slot. (Oblivion is 2nd and FO3 third)

Now I'm picturing The Wicker Man. The Nicholas Cage one, naturally.

Might be a stretch calling this a "build", but I picked up a cheap Celeron NUC (NUC5CPYH) to use as a HTPC for a bedroom HT system I'm planning (likely using LibreELEC + Kodi). I recently bought the house I'd been renting for the past decade so I can finally do this, and it helps that I have some spare bits and bobs lying around I can reuse. Old: Crucial M4 128GB SSD Some sort of generic USB TV tuner I got free from some parts purchase long ago Monitor Audio BR2 bookshelf speakers (I'll need to figure out wall mounting) Logitech K400 Plus wireless keyboard+touchpad New: Intel NUC5CPYH (Celeron N3050) 4GB DDR3L SODIMM SMSL Q5 Pro DAC/T-Amp Logitech Harmony 650 universal remote (yes it works with the cheapo amp) Some sort of 55-60" TV, waiting for an EOFY deal Unfortunately my bedroom layout isn't great for this, as the wardrobe doors are directly in front of the bed, and the TV will have to end up about a metre to the right of my viewing position. I considered a roll-down projector screen in front of the doors, but I decided that the projector noise would be too loud for a general purpose solution.

Fitting that it costs as much as a cup of coffee, because the main gameplay of Alan Wake is collecting coffee thermoses.

Oh right, I assume the additional card would have to be DP-1.2 compliant, yeah. The PhysX thing with having cards from both vendors installed is due to an intentional change nVidia made a couple years back. People were running AMD cards and using a secondary card for PhysX acceleration. They didn't like people doing that, so they simply made a driver change that disabled hardware PhysX if an AMD card was detected. Standard nVidia behaviour really.

Pretty much any old card, actually. But you can still arbitrarily add another graphics card just for the additional outputs, that's no problem. Theoretically the AMD card should work but I don't know how well it does so in practice. Try it out since you have on already (but set up a restore point beforehand in case drivers cause issues). Otherwise just buy the cheapest nVidia card with DisplayPort that you can find. But yes, DisplayPort 1.2 runs *one* 4k display at 60Hz. When to split the signal, it will only drive 30Hz, or lower resolution displays at 60Hz. PhysX dedicated cards aren't a thing people do anymore, no.

The GTX 1070 is advertised as having 1.3 and 1.4 "ready" DisplayPorts, and the 1.3 standard supports dual 4k displays at 60Hz. However despite the standard being finalised in 2014, it doesn't seem to be ready to market yet, all the MST hubs I see at the moment only support DisplayPort 1.2. (You'd run into the same problem with daisy-chaining DisplayPort too). With that in mind, your best option is probably to add that second video card (assuming your motherboard doesn't have a DisplayPort with its integrated graphics). Doesn't the GTX 1070 have 3x DisplayPorts though? Can you just use two of them for your 4K devices and use a 1.2 hub for the last?

Looks like GOG Connect gives you the full DLC too even if you only own the base game on Steam.

Really? I've never even seen a 4K Blu-Ray. They don't seem to sell them anywhere in Sweden. Renting stuff has been dead since the nineties.. Yeah, you're right in that it absolutely is a niche market. But it's a valuable one, where standalone players still cost hundreds of dollars and those who do invest in 4K media tend to do so heavily. I have neither a 4K display nor a 4K playback device, but I do have hundreds of regular Blu-ray titles so it's a transition I can see myself making in the future (also bearing in mind that the quality of Internet connections still varies massively even between exclusively first-world nations). Granted I don't know a whole lot about what exclusives are available on both sides of the console divide (of those I think I'd hypothetically buy into, I can think of Horizon on the Sony side, and nothing on MS's), but to me the greater media capabilities would be more of a selling point than a few exclusive game franchises. Of course, this is the perspective on a non-console-owning PC gamer, and for those primarily gaming on console, the criteria would be rather different.