The Miscellaneous PC & vidya Games Thread

[celedhring]

I missed that Curious Expedition 2 has come out. The game has traded its pixel look from the previous release to something more of a Hergé/Tin Tin style:

The art indeed is gorgeous and certainly brings back the nostalgia as an avid Tintin reader as a kid. I'll keep an eye if it gets an Ipad release.

[Syt]

One thing I'm not getting amidst flight sim and truck sim and their impressive realistic graphics and weak gameplay (not the point, I know) is why can't a more active game do the same?
When you have games set in real world cities they're usually shrunken and altered versions.

Truck Sim is also shrunken and altered. Cities are a few streets (usually around a commercial area) with a few landmarks, and the overland routes are roughly at a scale of 1/17 or 1/15 or so. These games don't try to simulate true scale (unlike Flight Sim) but aim at (idealized) verisimilitude.

[Caliga]

One thing I'm not getting amidst flight sim and truck sim and their impressive realistic graphics and weak gameplay (not the point, I know) is why can't a more active game do the same?
When you have games set in real world cities they're usually shrunken and altered versions.

I think you're perhaps trying to compare say American Truck Simulator to like a Grand Theft Auto game with your comment, right?  As in, why can't GTA have a fully-sized real city?

I think the answer is because those games are filled with characters, etc., and like a realistically-sized Manhattan would be impossibly large to populate such that it would actually be interesting, unless you want players spending 20 minutes or more of real time driving between each way point.

edit: But like Syt said, the trucksim games aren't scaled 1:1 to real life anyway, whereas Flight Simulator actually is (but offers a time compression feature).

[Grey Fox]

I bought a Logitech G29.

Damn it.

[Caliga]

I bought a Logitech G29.

Damn it.

[The Brain]

G29 for Pecker! No more frequent flier bitch miles for my boi!

[Syt]

There have been a few attempts at recreating real life cities going back to the DOS era. I think one of the most successful ones was L.A. Noire, and even that only showed part of the city (and a complaint at the time was the lack of side activities compared to GTA games, which I don't agree with - Noire wasn't meant to be that kind of game).

[Solmyr]

I think Night City in Cyberpunk 2077 comes quite close to recreating the bustle of a real-sized city. Unfortunately, it's also an example of what will happen if someone tries to recreate a bustle of a real-sized city.

[Grey Fox]

I bought a Logitech G29.

Damn it.

Now I need to build a stand.

[Syt]

The Gamer ( ) did a list of 10 Most Realistic Recreations of Cities in Games. Playing it a bit loose with "realistic" considering it contains Fallout games and The Division.

https://www.thegamer.com/video-game-cities-most-realistic-assassins-creed-the-division/

10: NYC/The Division
9: Rome/AC: Brotherhood
8: San Francisco/Watchdogs 2
7: Boston/Fallout 4
6: Washington DC/The Division 2
5: NYC/Marvel's Spiderman
4: Hong Kong/Sleeping Dogs
3: Los Angeles/L.A. Noire
2: Seattle/Infamous Second Son
1: Paris/AC: Unity

I suppose they could have added AC: Odyssey for its faithful recreation of e.g. the Parthenon in Athens.

[Razgovory]

I've been playing Half-life 2 and it's two extra episodes and I noticed a few new things that didn't age well.  One of the main characters is named Alyx Vance, the daughter of the scientist Eli Vance.  Another scientist named Issac Kleiner, keeps saying "your lovely daughter" when talking about Alyx.  It's kinda creeped me out.  The game dangles the idea that Alyx Vance might be a love interest of the player Gordon Freeman.  Gordon is a silent protagonist so he doesn't have much personality and he's about 20 years her senior. Admittedly he is biologically in his 20's because he spent the last 15 years frozen in time or something, but it still kind of weirds me out.

Man, times have changed, or at the very least, I have.

[Syt]

I got an achievement for driving the Hwy 550 through the Colorado Rockies. The screenshots make it look great: https://blog.scssoft.com/2020/09/colorado-million-dollar-highway.html

Unfortunately, I was passing it in the middle of the night, with a prefab house on my trailer through some hairpin curves, so I didn't quite enjoy it as much.

[Josquius]

One thing I'm not getting amidst flight sim and truck sim and their impressive realistic graphics and weak gameplay (not the point, I know) is why can't a more active game do the same?
When you have games set in real world cities they're usually shrunken and altered versions.

Truck Sim is also shrunken and altered. Cities are a few streets (usually around a commercial area) with a few landmarks, and the overland routes are roughly at a scale of 1/17 or 1/15 or so. These games don't try to simulate true scale (unlike Flight Sim) but aim at (idealized) verisimilitude.

I see.
Thought it would be like train sim and on a realistic scale - I get how a lot more is possible there when you've a very finite path to deal with.

[Syt]

I bought a Logitech G29.

Damn it.

Check out Forza Horizon 4 if you like arcade racers. Quite fun, with hundreds of real (and some fantasy) cars to unlock.

[Grey Fox]

I bought a Logitech G29.

Damn it.

Check out Forza Horizon 4 if you like arcade racers. Quite fun, with hundreds of real (and some fantasy) cars to unlock.

Oh yeah. I buy Xbox consoles for Forza Horizon games. I've probably played hundreds of hours of FH4.