Picture of Your Games the 16th

[LadyCrimson]

Just some randoms from here and there.

The "danger" of letting people upload/rename planets, animals and plants etc. This was during an expedition I tried. Normally I see nothing because I stay far far far away from any popular/discovered systems.

Ship? Who needs a ship?

I've tried to capture the visual sensation of discovering/running through some large/kewl cave systems, but I always fail.

Yes, I am your Master now. 
(the creature's natural walking posture is actually already head-bent over but when it "looks" down at you it gets extreme)

[Keyrock]

You run into the darnedest things when things when travelling around mainland Morrowind.

My mace is blocking it, but the rope this "honest rope salesman" tried to sell me is fashioned into a noose hanging from the tree next to him. I'll give him credit for dressing up his scheme to shakedown travelers for money in a creative fashion. However, maybe don't try that on someone very obviously well armed and armored. After I refused to "buy his rope" he attacked me and it ended with me looting a corpse with a caved in skull. He had a couple of nice potions on him and a weak enchanted sword, everything else wasn't worth looting. There's no mechanic for it in the game, but in my head cannon I hanged his corpse from the noose for maximum poetic justice.

While exploring Dwemer ruins I came upon this giant scary looking Dwemer guardian machine. Lucky for me, I have an Amulet of Shadows which I used to sneak past it.

I got this shield for my trouble:

As a medium armor user, the shield is useless to me, but it will fetch a very handsome price. Nice attention to detail in this Dwemer ruin. On the outside the building is all types of collapsed and the front entrance is inaccessible. However, when you go around the ruin and part of the way down the slope (the ruin is on top of a hill), there is a somewhat hidden back entrance. Inside the ruin itself there are stairs that go up, presumably to the toppled buildings and main entrance, but it's all caved in. The modder(s) that made this thought about the interior in relation to the exterior, they did't just slap together rooms willy-nilly.

Edited January 22 by Keyrock

[HoonDing]

[Keyrock]

I ran across a skeleton on the road next to a dead body. I got my mace ready, but then the skeleton didn't attack me as I approached, so I cautiously went up to it and, lo and behold, it spoke. Turns out it was a mage trying out a new illusion spell and things went sideways. It turned his clothes, skin, and organs invisible, but the skeleton stayed visible, and worse yet the spell is not wearing off. The dead body was some poor sod he tried to wave down for help that had a heart attack when he saw a talking skeleton waving and coming at him. I decided to help the guy out and he asked me to first get him a shovel so that he could properly bury the guy.

When I returned with a shovel a pair of Hlaalu guards were there.

Luckily, I managed to talk them down.

There's more to the quest but I'll leave it at that.

[HoonDing]

Not really useful here, but funny Feeblemind worked on Areelu

The random enemies in Threshold were tougher than Derpskari

Storm of justice did >1000 damage, good thing Owlcat boosted his HP I guess

[Keyrock]

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

While it's not pushing any graphical boundaries, it is a good looking game.

It runs like a champ too. Even without any upscaling tech, I can get a playable framerate at 4K at max settings, minus motion blur, but that's not for performance reasons, motion blur is the first thing I turn off in any game. This is my first time trying out FSR3 Frame Generation and it's quite impressive. At quality setting (the highest besides native) I've never seen the game dip below my TV's 120 MHz max. In fact, it's generally in the 140s according to the Steam FPS display. I don't have DLSS3 Frame Generation to compare to, but I'm super happy with the performance and image quality. I don't have a Steam Deck, but I assume this would run buttery smooth on a Steam Deck.

Right now I'm still in the familiar confines of Isezaki Ijincho, I guess the real test will be when I get to Honolulu.

What would a Yakuza... Err, Like a Dragon game be without the UFO Catcher? Aww yeah, I got me a black Oinklet. I stashed the Oinklet in my item box, I don't know if I will lose the possessions I have on me when I go to Honolulu. I'm also curious whether the item box will be shared between both parties, the one in Honolulu and the one in Japan. I'm guessing yes. Right now I'm still in the mostly on-rails tutorial/prologue. I don't know when I'm going to get transported to Honolulu so I'm taking my sweet ass time exploring everything that's not invisible walled off, looking for secrets and such. I guess the party in Japan will be able to come back here, but I'm not taking any chances.

Edited January 25 by Keyrock

[Hawke64]

Control

The facial animations of the NPCs are amusing.

Somehow, the mirror and the janitor outfits look the best, but obtained too late, unfortunately.

Late-game and optional bosses.

Spoiler

Stood on the top of the table. Alas, no reaction from the NPC.

How did they drink through the hood?

Steam seems to compress the screenshots a bit too much. But the game is pretty and the MC is nice, especially the facial animations (just a neutral expression most of the time, like an actual human and not a Customer Service employee).

[Keyrock]

Why is Jesse Faden T-posing in the 4th picture?

I think one of the many things that make Like a Dragon so great is how well written and likable the protagonists are.

I've said this before and I know it's blasphemous, but Ichiban is a better main protagonist than Kiryu. I mean, I like Kiryu and all, but my man is so ****ing stoic that he looks at Seneca the Younger and thinks "Pfft, amateur." Ichiban is much easier to relate to. He's kind-hearted, excitable, emotional, awkward at times, and really nervous around women. He's like a regular good dude that just happens to be really really good at punching people. Speaking of being nervous around women, he finally musters up the courage to ask out my girl Saeko (this is very early in the game, it's not much of a spoiler) and of course Adachi and Nanba decide to help him out by giving him questionable advice.

Edited January 25 by Keyrock

[HoonDing]

Is that Okinawa?

[Keyrock]

5 minutes ago, HoonDing said:

Is that Okinawa?

Ijincho Isezaki, a fictional district in Yokohama. 

[marelooke]

On 1/25/2024 at 7:37 PM, Hawke64 said:

Control

The facial animations of the NPCs are amusing.

Somehow, the mirror and the janitor outfits look the best, but obtained too late, unfortunately.

Late-game and optional bosses.

  Hide contents

Stood on the top of the table. Alas, no reaction from the NPC.

How did they drink through the hood?

Steam seems to compress the screenshots a bit too much. But the game is pretty and the MC is nice, especially the facial animations (just a neutral expression most of the time, like an actual human and not a Customer Service employee).

In Steam's settings under "In Game" there's an option to save an uncompressed copy of your screenshots.

And to stay on topic here's a screenshot

[Keyrock]

Hangin' with the boys:

The photo app has your usual assortment of filters and such.

There's, of course, karaoke:

Works extra well with Kiryu's grizzled boy band member on a re-reunion tour look.

There's a dating app mini-game:

So far the 2 "hot dates" I got turned out to be a fat neckbeard guy and a homeless dude. 

[the_dog_days]

HOT PIC of . . . hands? Programmed by mirror universe Quentin Tarantino?

[Keyrock]

3 hours ago, the_dog_days said:

HOT PIC of . . . hands?

One of the gags with the dating app is Ichiban getting a really mundane, not in any way sexy picture from his potential date and going all "AWOOOOOOGA!"

Edit: Not all of the dates are jokes, though, you do actually get real dates with the app with cheesecake shots and cringe "romantic" dialogue. @BruceVCwould love it! There's the possibility that there is a sidestory in there if I go deep enough into the mini-game, RGG likes to do that some times. I'll probably go through this mini-game to the end to see if it has a sidestory... And for the cheesecake. 

Edited January 28 by Keyrock

[Hawke64]

20 hours ago, marelooke said:

In Steam's settings under "In Game" there's an option to save an uncompressed copy of your screenshots.

I've been using it, though only JPEG can be uploaded as screenshots through Steam (which now crashes with a 50% chance when I open the Screenshots window). With the uncompressed files and, for example, Imgur, it looks much better.

Control end-game spoiler.

Spoiler

 

[Keyrock]

22 minutes ago, Hawke64 said:

I've been using it, though only JPEG can be uploaded as screenshots through Steam (which now crashes with a 50% chance when I open the Screenshots window).

For me Steam didn't crash but sometimes the screenshot pop-up window would take like 5 minutes to actually display the pictures and sometimes it would never display the pictures... Maybe I just didn't wait long enough. I could close the window, though, and Steam would be fine. I don't bother with that stupid window any more, though. I just made a folder ~/Pictures/Screenshots (I'm a Linux weirdo, that's a Linux path) and set Steam to put all screenshots there instead of the dumb folder buried DEEP within the file structure where you need to figure out the AppID number of the game, it's not hard to find, but, it was just dumb and tedious if I ever needed to find screenshots manually. Now I open up my file manager and I'm there in 2 clicks. The only issue I had was with LaD:IW the in-game pictures you take using the camera app are not technically screenshots, there's no way to get those uncompressed AFAIK and they're saved to a different folder, similarly buried DEEP within the file structure. I solved that issue by creating a symlink to the folder in ~/Pictures/Screenshots and now I can get to that folder in 3 clicks.

Edited January 28 by Keyrock

[Keyrock]

Wait, am I going to get a love story for Ichiban's pet crawdad, Nancy? 

[marelooke]

On 1/28/2024 at 6:49 PM, Keyrock said:

For me Steam didn't crash but sometimes the screenshot pop-up window would take like 5 minutes to actually display the pictures and sometimes it would never display the pictures... Maybe I just didn't wait long enough. I could close the window, though, and Steam would be fine. I don't bother with that stupid window any more, though. I just made a folder ~/Pictures/Screenshots (I'm a Linux weirdo, that's a Linux path) and set Steam to put all screenshots there instead of the dumb folder buried DEEP within the file structure where you need to figure out the AppID number of the game, it's not hard to find, but, it was just dumb and tedious if I ever needed to find screenshots manually. Now I open up my file manager and I'm there in 2 clicks. The only issue I had was with LaD:IW the in-game pictures you take using the camera app are not technically screenshots, there's no way to get those uncompressed AFAIK and they're saved to a different folder, similarly buried DEEP within the file structure. I solved that issue by creating a symlink to the folder in ~/Pictures/Screenshots and now I can get to that folder in 3 clicks.

Pretty much what I do, since I also upload my screenshots to my own domain I haven't opened the Steam Screenshots window in very long time.

Anyway, haven't really been feeling like playing much that really engages the brain, thankfully there's the kinda brain dead, but cinematic, nature of much of Star Citizen's currently available game loops, like cargo hauling (well, when not dodging (wannabe) pirates anyway)...

Star Citizen regularly has a soft reset, where one of the things that resets is your starting location. Recently I've been using that opportunity to move around the Stanton-system and until the last reset (earlier this week), I was based out of Hurston (capital: Lorville), home of Hurston Dynamics.

Spoiler

Sunrises/sunsets, can't get enough of them...
(It's honestly pretty epic when you fly from the dark side of a moon straight into the sunrise on the other side. I should really check if I ever managed to record that...)

 

Spoiler

A Drake Caterpillar, probably my favourite ship in the game, looks-wise, heading for the Lorville Spaceport.

More Caterpillar action above Lorville, this time at night. Gives me some Night City vibes (though Area 18 on ArcCorp feels a lot more like Night City down in the city itself)

Loading up on cargo at a misty Outpost on one of the moons around Hurston (probably Ita)

"I swear officer, I have no idea how that ended up on my ship!"

My favourite "large" combat ship: the Constellation Andromeda. Tanky, big pew pew, and missiles for daaaaays.

Landing one of these elegantly is a bit of an art. Hitting the chin against the floor is a pretty real possibility with the landing gear that far back...

Finally saved up for one of these: an Aegis Eclipse. Resulting in probably one of my favourite screenshots so far.

Spoiler

They never see me coming...

...but do they feel it!

(Those are Size 9 torpedoes, three of them, they one-shot pretty much everything in the game, right now anyway, and assuming they hit. That latter thing being rather less likely when there's a player at the controls)

My, so far, last addition to the fleet is a MISC Reliant Tana because it has a great "bubble" ****pit, while still being decently fast in atmosphere, which makes zipping around planets taking in the sights a pretty great experience.

(and if that ship makes you think of some other ship in some other universe, the person that designed this apparently ended up moving to LucasFilm...)

Edited January 29 by marelooke

[Keyrock]

In any other game series I would be quite surprised by a multi-part crustacean love story quest.

[LadyCrimson]

Not that it applies to this fora, but just to say, I still don't use Steam Overlay/their screenshot taking options. Although I did notice in NMS that even with Steam's overlay off, using NMS's built-in photomode to take a shot (vs. my 3rd party screen-capturing it instead) seems to stick shots into Steam's game embeddable pic folder system automatically regardless. Although it still sometimes takes terrible quality even with that uncompressed aspect checked etc.

Anyway, I like my 3rd party screenshot/vid programs and my own file system organization schemes too much. So on the very rare occasion I want to embed a pic link into a steam forum instead of text link, I use Steascree. I have for years. It's no longer updated/worked on, but I probably used it last a year or so ago - it still worked just fine.

https://steascree.download/
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steascree

[Keyrock]

I got a new waifu:

Handy with a sledgehammer AND will threaten people with a drill? Keeper.

I'll also post the following screenies with no context whatsoever:

[LadyCrimson]

I can only pick one? How unfair.

Yes, that is a cat all right.

Success, now to go hide it under the shelf in the garage for later.

...it's kind of cute, but it's no Stray.

[LadyCrimson]

This horizontal flying jetpack was cool. I'm guessing that's what Starfield needed. 

Is it just me, or do most games these days not know how to do non-cluttery/non-annoying UI's? All these elements were huuuuge on the 55" TV.
This demo wouldn't let me alter UI size scale either - that at least would help.

[Keyrock]

Guild Saga: Vanished Worlds demo:

Turn-based tactical RPG with 16-bit-ish Pixel graphics. Really nicely made, though, a lot of attention to detail.

The camera zooms in and focuses on a person when you talk to them and it's very smooth and slick.

The animations are nice and there's all types of idle animations; capes fluttering, people shifting their weight, that sort of stuff.

It's not only turn-based but also grid-based. That will be a turn off (no pun intended) to some, but I'm a big fan. I like how in grid-based you can give specific shapes or directions to spells and abilities, like the movement of chess pieces. It makes positioning even more important. What surprised me is that it's always grid-based, not just in combat. This doesn't bother me, but it might you.

[Keyrock]

@LadyCrimsonbeat me to it, but I also played the Outcast 2 demo:

There's a lot of optimization work ahead. While I would mostly get a good framerate on my fairly high-end system, there are HARDCORE frame stutters and hitches aplenty.

The game does look nice, though. Well, the environment looks great, the character models... See for yourself:

The animations during conversations are quite stiff.

The combat is functional but uninspired action combat:

On the positive side, you have a jet pack that doesn't suck. I can think of another game that could benefit from a jet pack that doesn't suck (stares at Bethesda).

You can even use the jet pack to swim really fast, like a motorboat.

 

 

Edited February 9 by Keyrock