Humanoid

Observed it was down to $20 on Origin Mexico, so I decided to become a temporary Mexican. No time to play the game anytime soon though, and at a 25GB+ download it's probably just as well.

And with a space game your painted backdrops would be super easy to make.

Well PoE does need a few more portraits....

They should send a nice letter to EA thanking them for the state of SimCity 2013. Also Paradon totally should be the name of some dinosaur.

Well, if you can't wait for the store to open (I assume any such move, if it does indeed happen, will be after all the Kickstarter-related logistics are well and truly over with), there's this option which should net you a T-shirt.

I could quicksave but not quickload for some reason.

Yeah, encountering the same bug and a quick search in the tech support forum shows it's pretty much universal for multi-display users. It's slowing me down so much that I've stopped playing for now: hopefully the patching process for the game is nice and speedy, given no need to run things like this past a publisher or having to pay the console vendor to release it.

Well in an ideal world you'd want both, naturally. But since this is mostly about RPGs (as opposed to the aforementioned MoO2, or say, XCOM), the relative value of each is somewhat skewed. An RPG with terrible but skippable combat still delivers pretty much all I need out of an RPG, the opposite wouldn't hold interest for long. (And even if it varied enough over the course of a game to be consistently interesting over a single playthrough, odds are against it remaining fresh on any subsequent playthroughs) Furthermore, being freed from the obligation of having to create a combat system at all is not necessarily a hindrance. Unrest had a system so rudimentary it may as well have not been there (given that the opportunity to even engage in combat was barely there, there are a couple of fights total in the game and in an average playthrough odds are you don't even see either of them), but what it did mean is that essentially all of the game's content was down to the writer (and if not the same person, the scripter), who would have freedom of generating content without being constrained by what the other teams could do. I don't mind the potential to skip all content either. I was disappointed to learn that in New Vegas the ability to leave the Mojave and return to California (via the Mojave Outpost) was scrapped before release. It's not like it'd have been expensive content to produce, and it'd hardly be a trap to new players either. On another note, while I have almost nothing to say about Far Cry 4, the "hidden" ending where you effectively skip everything was a wonderful concept. It was called an "easter egg" ending when news of its existence broke, but honestly, it shouldn't have been: it's one as core and logical as any other outcome. P.S. It's past 2am here so I'm going to go pass out now before I lose my last traces of coherence.

On the other hand, not having that filler content would potentially encourage more repeat playthroughs of a given title. A big issue with properly branching paths is the tedium of having to go through all the filler again - content which by definition has little scope to vary between playthroughs - just to experience the 'new' (to the player) material. Cutting out the filler thus increases the development value of the other content which might otherwise be seen by the average player once if at all. Right now the best path for a player wanting to do that would be to turn on cheat mode and enable insta-killing of all the repetitive mooks that are in the way.

Well I backed on Kickstarter back when there was, oh, less than a dozen different ships planned, and I've had no real reason to keep track of the dozens they've added since. The ships page shows the intended role of each ship which might be helpful, because what each person wants in their space sims is pretty divergent - explorer, fighter jock, peaceful merchant, pirate - all would prefer vastly different starting options. Hell, some of the ships are fleet carriers for massively multiplayer style raiding. Personally, as a long-time Privateer fan I'll play and earn my new ships ingame. I will start with a Freelancer because of the two options available for the amount I felt like pledging, it's the one that's more likely to provide that Privateer-esque experience.

My preference for streamlining would start by making active combat a purely optional feature. Sort of like MoO2 did, except hopefully a bit less binary in outcome.

Well you can start with that or any other of the packages listed on the store page. The first two items listed are 'complete' in that you get access to alpha and beta testing, which at the moment exists in the form of "Arena Commander", which is the game's dogfighting module - i.e. it's a combat demo, no persistent world or economy stuff is implemented yet. You can also buy alpha (and later, beta) access separately if you don't want either of those starter ships. (It's not exactly made clear on those product pages but the Mustang option is for those who prefer a pure fighter, the Aurora is the merchant-oriented option) And yeah, you can buy additional ships - and acquire a whole stable of them - either for real money now, or by 'earning' them in game later.

Yeah, I'd say that's the best value for money at the moment, though if on a tight budget there are cheaper options - just that they're a fair bit slower than it while still costing ~$120 minimum. An R7 265 is the lowest I'd realistically go for gaming.

Well, given you've done the obvious checks, my sledgehammer approach to determining whether it's a software or hardware problem: take out the system drive, and do a fresh install on a spare drive. Observe if problems still happen. Well, after the first sledgehammer approach, taking a desk fan and point it into the open side of your case. GPUs have a much greater tolerance for high temps than CPUs do, and while 95C is high, it's not to the point where it can definitively be said that it's the source of the problem. If you can be bothered, you could remove the cooler to replace the thermal pads which would have degraded with some fresh paste. As for a replacement card, most cost effective solution right now for relatively cheap would be the R9 280, which has been as low as $150 at times. Quick price check right now shows $165 after rebate. Next step up is the R9 290 for about $250, then the GTX 970 in the $300+ bracket. Between these three cards, they should have any reasonable gamer covered. EDIT: A good replacement cooler such as the appropriate Arctic Accelero model, assuming your problem is even with the cooler, would run to about $50, probably not worth it for a card of that age.

I upgraded my home theatre audio to a pair of Monitor Audio Silver 8 floorstanders and a Silver Centre for an oddball 3.0 setup. No real space for a sub or surround speakers but with most of my movies being PCM mono/stereo soundtracks, I didn't feel they'd be particularly missed. As a result of that upgrade, I had a spare pair of Monitor Audio Bronze BR2 bookshelf speakers spare, so I figured I may as well use them as desktop speakers. Bought myself a Topping VX1 amp to power them, a fairly basic and "cheap" 2x25W class T amplifier. Not a huge upgrade from my Audioengine A5 powered speakers - unsurprising given they cost the same - but undoubtedly superior. For what it's worth, the VX1 also boasts a DAC - it's toggleable between RCA and USB inputs - but I have no real reason to use it over the one in my Essence ST soundcard. However I imagine this route to be a pretty good one for anyone trying to move past onboard sound, the VX1 is basically the same price as a standalone USB DAC/headphone amp (such as the popular FiiO entry level models), so in essence you're getting the power amp portion for 'free' and save having another bulky box as your desk.

I want 100GB of full HD FMV!

It's not my style of RPG, not now and not 20 years ago, but it's the type of thing I usually back anyway because, hey, why not for $15? But then I see it's $25. It's not a huge difference but it's that tiny psychological thing that gives me pause.

Sure, but I'm thinking more in the eventuality that the whole combat subgame, clearly designed around having a party, would have to be overhauled. Something much less likely to be covered by modding tools. Of course, I might be completely wrong and W2 might be perfectly fun as a solo ranger - anyone tried?

Not convinced that the W2 engine would make for compelling solo-protagonist gameplay.

Underground? Sounds like a sequel to Descent to Undermountain.

Eh, the general setting of Arcanum is generic enough that you could do a game with the same general aesthetic without using the licence and it'd come out more or less the same.

Japanese zoo simulates emergency management procedures by dressing employee up in an anthropomorphised snow leopard costume.

Beta 15 for XCOM Long War is now available, introducing more new features than can be listed here - so here's the changelog. As of this beta, I believe Long War is now essentially feature-complete, I don't believe there are plans for a b16, just revisions of this now current patch before a final release.

I probably bias towards single player, though that's because multiplayer has an inherent handicap in that the game genres most commonly seen in multiplayer - FPS, RTS, ARPG - are those that I don't enjoy playing regardless. On the other hand, I've been a WoW player for the majority of its lifespan, so that sort of balances out the lack of multiplayer in pretty much every other title I play. That said though, I'd played it in a fairly insular manner since a few months in, withdrew completely from the pick-up-group scene (i.e. strangers) the moment I found a guild (then subsequently co-founding my own out of the ashes of that first one).

It was good enough to play through despite my dislike of Star Wars, so that's a bit of faint praise from me. But like KP, not something I ever see myself playing again. (In itself that's not really an indictment, some of the games I'm happy to call my favourites have been play-once-then-shelve)