Humanoid

There's a little promo going on where if you buy an AMD product you can redeem one free game. Buuuuut, the system is allowing any previously purchased product to redeem as well, even those bought years ago, as long as they're in the inclusions list (https://www.amd4u.com/amdgamepromo/files/2016_AMDGamePromo_TC.pdf). Yes, amd4u.com is a legit AMD site, one they've used for promotions for years. https://www.amd4u.com/amdgamepromo/

Source is the only engine that's ever given me motion sickness.

Yep, it's still at its launch price.

There was, of course, Ultima 7's risk-free http://it-he.org/ultima7.htm#gambling]gambling that let you mint so many coins out of thin air that your PC would run out of RAM.

Rare occasion where something costs more in the US I guess. $600AUD RRP here and I got it for a touch over $500AUD. ($427 and $356USD respectively) They also need an amp, but a cheap T-amp will be plenty for desktop use, the Lepy 2024 is a mere $24 on Amazon. The active speaker in my Audioengine A5 pair died, which made the passive one attached to it rather useless, As a result of that experience I'm not so hot on active speaker solutions anymore. Passive speakers will last pretty much forever without having to worry about any electronics failing. Fortunately I was able to talk to another Audioengine retailer (the original had long since lost distribution rights) and have them sell me a refurb single passive speaker to pair up with my surviving one so I can at least salvage some use out of it, again with the use of a cheap T-amp. I'll probably give them away now though since I have both the old and new Monitor Audio sets which are superior.

I replaced my Monitor Audio Bronze BR2 speakers with the newer model, the Bronze 2, which is simply the 2015 revision of the same speaker. The BR2 was originally released in 2006. To be perfectly honest, there's no way I'd be able to tell the difference, but the new set is much prettier, and that counts for a lot. (Yes, the naming convention is stupid: the original Bronze B2 was replaced by the BR2, then the BX2, and then the 2) Side-by-side comparison:

Maybe they should just be some raggedy old boots that hold nothing but sentimental value. After all, no one murder-hoboed Minsc just so they could vendor Boo for a million bucks. Narrativewise there's no reason a newbie adventurer would even have stuff worth thousands of gold, they'd be foolish to not sell it themselves ...if they haven't already been mugged of them by somebody else. D&D sourcebooks have guides for how much in assets a character of a given level should have, right? There's a reason those guidelines exist, and while that's not to say they're absolute guidelines, if you choose to go outside them, it's your responsibility to account for the potential outcomes. Does the dialogue even acknowledge these "important" boots? Or was this just the result of a 10 second thought bubble of "oh hey we should give every character a unique item, let's give this guy some ....boots? We haven't used boots yet right guys?" Alternatively they're an already-rich guy who decided to go adventuring for the hell of it, Stede Bonnet-style, decking himself out in improbably blingy gear that just screams "rob me". In this case they'd be perfect prey for any sort of remotely evil character, and it's a reasonable assumption that they'd kill this naive fool for his phat loots.

I haven't customised much of anything in XCOM 2, since everyone is essentially disposable. One thing I did do was that I messed around with the game files to have all the character names (which includes not just soldiers, but every NPC in the game) pulled out from a custom set of names. Appearances are all completely unchanged, although if I see a guy with a ponytail and hipster glasses again I might use them as bait. I enjoy character creation as much as anyone, but my limit is one. One custom player character is all I have the energy to bother with. In The Sims I'll play a single sim, and if I want a bigger household I'll let it happen organically by moving some NPC in. Wasteland 2 was too much for me, designing four characters to complement each other was just too much work and consequently I still haven't gotten around to playing the game. (Yes I know there are premade ones, but it's not the same) Appearance-wise obviously being totally hawt is important, but within the context of the character design. A typical character of mine might be a female catburglar, and I decide she's got a boyish figure, short hair, and an angular face - all conducive to that line of work. Then I make as nice-looking a character as possible within those parameters. Or I design a greying playboy. He's got a mustache because those were in when he was in his prime. He's still in good shape, but can't hide the lines on his face, and he's decided recently to give up on dyeing his hair. In a game like The Sims I'd do this by designing his appearance as a young adult to be a typical good-looking young guy, making all the adjustments there, then toggling the age setting up and leaving it as is. Props - clothes mostly - I can't generally be bothered with on character creation. I'll pick the one or two colours that will be their primary theme, pick clothes that match top and bottom, but that's it, no fiddling around with shoes, accessories, makeup, etc. Game permitting, I'll keep the neat-looking stuff I manage to pick up during the course of the game and build up a wardrobe that way, but that's obviously only really relevant in open-world sort of games, notably Bethesda ones.

Contradiction!

Turns out they've changed the way hit rolls worked, it's now a single roll for all shots, and critical chance is actually a percentage for the shot, not the percentage if it hits. i.e. at 50% chance to hit and 50% chance to crit displayed, it actually means you will crit half the time and outright miss half the time, never doing regular damage. https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/45aac0/psa_crit_mechanics_changed_in_xcom2_50_hit_50/

Necromancy is slavery? What is this, zombie SJWs in Faerun?

The old rule of thumb was that a laptop GPU tended to be about half the speed of its desktop counterpart. However within the last few years, that number has crept up a bit, and it's fair to estimate 75% for the latest generation of nVidia mobile GPUs. AMD have really neglected the mobile space lately so nVidia is even more dominant here than in the desktop market, and unlike the desktop market, the advantage is a largely justifiable one. The value proposition of an iMac is not terrible, at least for light-or-non-gaming purposes, since the very good screen is effectively included at a subsidised price. It kind of needs to be, because it'll be a shame to have to junk the screen once the rest of the parts become obsolete, and therein lies the problem with all-in-one solutions. The display is good enough to be relevant for the next decade. The CPU is good enough to be relevant for the next half-decade. The GPU is, however, likely only relevant for the next year or two. It's sufficient to play the nominated games, sure, but is "sufficient" really acceptable at this level? At any rate though, comparing a 27" iMac to a mid-range laptop is a bit weird since they're different use-cases. If space is an issue, you can still build a full-featured desktop PC in a small mini-ITX case such as the Fractal Design Node 304, Corsair 250D or Silverstone Sugo.

About as relevant as EU Berserkers then, who were scary exactly one time: the first time you meet them and they Bull Rush you through cover.

Please tell me it's something else flanking you and not one of those two guys.

Either the line of sight calculations are janky as hell or they've changed the rules in a big way. Anyone have an experience like this? There's no way under the rules as I understand them that an enemy at the purple rectangle should be able to see a soldier at the red rectangle: the adjacent full cover means he's not peeking out, so he should be completely hidden from anyone on the left of him, unless they move down far enough to flank him. http://i.imgur.com/URcdReT.jpg As you can see, my first attempt at Commander Ironman faceplanted at the first hurdle, but I'm calling hax.

So I tried to ponder which Bioware expansion was the best, before it occurred to me that ToB is the only Bioware expansion I've ever played, unless you count the free DLC mission for ME1. (I even include SWTOR expansions, which I have access to but I'm finding I completely lose motivation to play any character the second their class story is done) As for Beamdog, I'll start paying attention to what they're doing only if they finally scrap the Infinity Engine for good, stomp on its corpse a bit, and burn it to cinders.

Perfect timing for this mod to be released for me - removes the pointless animation delays I was complaining about: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=620600092

Yeah, probably end up with a similar difficulty curve in the end, hard (mostly because of risk) early missions, but without the insurance policy of being able to one-shot enemies with grenades in the first month. Standard zero-risk procedure used to be to take shots but save one grenade on the final action if they all miss. No longer possible with these health pools.

So yeah, only had time for the two tutorials today, and my intention is to start an Ironman game tomorrow so this save is being scrapped anyway. Obviously I'm way behind everyone else, but first impressions: - Yeah, performance isn't fantastic - 290X (underclocked admittedly), 6700K (stock), 1440p, medium settings perform okay, but that's a low bar to clear. That said: - Maybe it's just the most stop-start, somewhat jerky nature of the animation that add to the impression of poor performance. There seems to be more 'cinematic' pauses when moving, shooting, etc, where the first game would just have your soldiers perform the action no-fuss. It's like a half-second longer to start running, and another half-second to stop running, and it's discombobulating, (I turned the action cam immediately off, of course) - Speaking of which, the bloody overwatch delay is back. I just want to be able to mash the Y key and put my whole squad on overwatch in a heartbeat, but nope. - My first bug was also related to overwatch, in that my remaining soldiers refused to do after the first one did, despite the command being on the action bar. (A quick search revealed the workaround which was to hit the shoot button to get the target selection menu then back out again) - Tactically, the opposition seems to have more HP than XCOM which changes the dynamic of early-game. It seems shootouts are unavoidable at this point: decisive single-turn victories aren't possible to to the volume of hitpoints, so without reliable one-turn knockout blows I can do little but pray the return fire misses. Some people may have disliked the more chess-like aspects of the previous game and wanted something more simulationist like Jagged Alliance say, but I wasn't one of them. - The classic fall-back and rely on the AI engaging idiot mode is impractical due to the time limits. I guess that's the intention but it doesn't feel great to effectively have to tank shots as a result - even hunkering down seems a bad idea with the need to push damage as much as possible. I always considered the mark of good play in the previous game was not letting the aliens get a single shot off (at least not without debuffs), but that's likely well and truly out the window. - UI elements are a bit too small for my liking. I assume this is partly driven by there being no need to accommodate consoles anymore, but things like the alien indicators when targetting are unnecessarily tiny now. Also noticeable in the level-up UI, where expanded description for abilities is hidden behind a tiny little button. - I laughed when Bradford talked up the advantage of CLOSE RANGE.

I may have racked up 400+ hours on the previous game, but I gloriously I failed the XCOM2 tutorial. I'm so used to how Long War does explosives (which don't do a damned thing to hard objects without perks) that I freely grenaded the truck I was standing on without a second thought. Ooops.

My copy finally arrived, I think the delay can be attributed to it arriving via New Zealand. I can tell it's an NZ copy because it has a NZ ratings sticker over the Australian one. Props to 2K for shipping the game properly on four dual-layer DVDs, i.e. basically the complete game. Feels a bit weird to praise a company for doing something that should be standard practice, but after the crap Bethesda pulled with Fallout 4, I'm just happy to see someone do the right thing. On the other hand, it's not a very physically impressive "Deluxe" edition, being just the regular edition plus an empty steelcase being stuck together in a flimsy outer box. But I guess the point is the DLC season pass that comes with it, since it's pretty much priced as the price of the regular game plus the season pass.

1440p on a 27" monitor is completely standard and is already a very fine dot pitch compared to the usual ~22"-24" 1080p, so there's no issue with the resolution at all. You'll just have a 2x2 set of pixels on the 5k monitor acting as a single pixel providing the OS does the scaling sensibly. 5k may be a gimmick for now, but at least it scales down in a reasonable way (and I assume it's impossible to buy a non-5k model now). 4k monitors of this size are dumb because when scaled down 2:1, you end up with 27" at 1080p which has effectively huge and noticeable pixels. And yeah, the iMac GPU will outperform those cheaper laptop GPUs, probably anything short of gaming-oriented or at least high-end multimedia laptops. So the only decision is on whether going for the higher spec models is worth it, and that's a matter of guessing what games you'll be playing for the next 5 or so years. For what it's worth, the gap between the M380 and M390 is a fair bit bigger than between the M390 and M395.

It'll play (the Windows-only games with bootcamp of course) since Macs these days *are* PCs, but bear in mind that iMacs use laptop GPUs so they're significantly weaker than their desktop counterparts. You'll run games at half the native resolution at best, i.e. 2560x1440 (which is completely fine, no PC can game at 5k), and often will have to drop down to medium-low settings. The main consideration is that these machines are non-upgradable for the most part, so what you spec initially is what you'll be stuck with for the rest of the life of the machine (which I assume will be 5+ years). I know you said you're only interested in the named games (Total War is probably the only system intensive one there), but over the next five years or whatever, you may find games that you really want to play but will struggle to do so. The odds of that happening, however, is not something I can answer. EDIT: Point is, a typical PC probably receives a mid-life GPU upgrade, at around 2-3 years in. This pretty much resets its age to make it fully competitive with new machines at that point. No such possibility with an iMac.

I have no idea what the reference is, but I use a custom name list that automatically grabs a random name for each soldier when I recruit them. This particular name list is just the memberlist of some other forum I participate in. There's a handy web tool here to generate the namelist in the correct format. Both of them would be scripted. I believe the June terror mission will pretty much always be zombies with some Chryssalids, which would almost always be the third terror mission as you've seen. Zombies that are pre-placed on the map never spawn more Chryssalids, so you can take all the time you want with them. I had a screenshot earlier in this thread featuring them, it looks alarming but there's no risk whatsoever. As long as you can take out the 'lids, you can hold off the zombies indefinitely. Likewise, this one I just did, is the 9th (I think, could be 11th) Terror mission which will always be all Chryssalids with one queen. By this time, the player should have enough firepower that it isn't a problem. In the screenshots above, I goofed by placing my Rocketeer in a poor position and she couldn't get a Shredder rocket off, and of course Acid doesn't work on them. But even without those modifiers, I still managed to kill it, even if just barely. Would have been trivial with Shredder.