The Miscellaneous PC & vidya Games Thread

[Norgy]

Haven't tried that one. This one is like "Silent Storm" with zombies and maintaining and upgrading the shelter.

Some of what happens:
- You start out as a lonely crash survivor. The virus is like the one in "The Walking Dead", people turn undead when they die infected.
- If you want to live, there needs to be daily scavening trips. Building materials, food, luxuries. You'll meet undead. They're not so bad, but the living are. Mostly.
- You'll find survivors that aren't hostile that can be a benefit to the shelter. Most living are either motorcycle asstards in some club called the Coyotes (killing them is good, as you can get their armour and weapons) or they're random looters who'll fuck open fire and be like, well, a person who might not like people on his lawn.
- Some survivors will show up at your shelter. One is a preacher. I wish I had put a bullet in him.
- Random encounters on the road add to the challenge, undead in hordes or Coyotes and some other group I found called the Predators. They were real assholes. Their armour was good to have, though.

In short, the game's about keeping people alive, while doing runs where you'll most likely lose some people and not find enough food.Then there are internal politics and events. I survived 32 days as leader before someone at the shelter just ended my reign with a headshot. Frustrating and enjoyable, easy to understand and very hard to master. That's my verdict.

[PRC]

EA shuts down Maxis:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/03/04/its-a-sim-ea-closes-simssimcity-developer-maxis/

Oh man, this is a sad day. Former staff today reported – later confirmed by EA – that the heart of Maxis, the studio behind The Sims & Sim City, is to be ripped out. While satellite studios in Redwood Shores, Salt Lake City, Helsinki and Melbourne remain, the Emeryville headquarters was Maxis as we knew it. It's had a chequered recent history, particularly with regard to the most recent SimCity, but without a doubt this was a legendary developer.

Here's the EA statement, sent to Kotaku:

    "Today we are consolidating Maxis IP development to our studios in Redwood Shores, Salt Lake City, Helsinki and Melbourne locations as we close our Emeryville location. Maxis continues to support and develop new experiences for current Sims and SimCity players, while expanding our franchises to new platforms and developing new cross-platform IP.

    These changes do not impact our plans for The Sims. Players will continue to see rich new experiences in The Sims 4, with our first expansion pack coming soon along with a full slate of additional updates and content in the pipeline.

    All employees impacted by the changes today will be given opportunities to explore other positions within the Maxis studios and throughout EA. For those that are leaving the company, we are working to ensure the best possible transition with separation packages and career assistance."

No reason for the closure is given there, but these things almost always come down to money. Staff who've been with Maxis for over a decade shared the news on Twitter, with lead gameplay scripter and 13-year Maxis veteran Guillaume Pierre revealing that "everyone's out of a job." What EA's claim that staff "will be given opportunities to explore other positions within the Maxis studios and throughout EA" actually entails remains to be seen. The Redwood Shores studio isn't too far away if anyone can land places at it (and if they even want to), but all the others would involve massive upheaval.

Despite the references to Maxis ongoing in some capacity, many are today treating this as a wholesale loss of the studio first founded in 1987 by Will Wright and Jeff Braun. It was born in Emeryville, California and died in Emeryville, California, and by God I'm downcast about this. Surely few would believe that the shortcomings in SimCity were not driven by cold business decisions from above, and while The Sims 4 was perfectly serviceable in most regards, it's a crying shame that Maxis didn't get the chance to truly soar again before the axe fell.

Big hugs and best of luck to everyone affected by this. Whatever wobbles it might have had, Maxis is as iconic a PC games developer as we've ever had. This is a big loss.

[Syt]

Not surprising, considering how SimCity was a huge failure, and Sims4 doesn't seem to generate the buzz they were looking for (streamlining was good for performance, but removing the city story progression left many unhappy, it would seem).

[Neil]

And don't forget Spore.  It seems to me that the last thing Maxis did that sold was Sims 3, and the last thing they did that was actually good was a long time ago.

[garbon]

I guess I hadn't realized that EA hadn't already "broken up the band" so to speak of what was Maxis.

[Grey Fox]

I think I am going to get Sid's Starships on day 1.

[FunkMonk]

Cities: Skylines is looking pretty damn good. I'm tempted to buy it on day one.

[Syt]

Steve Jackson's Starship Traveller (a choose your own adventure book) is now on Steam. It's 9.99, which is probably overpriced considering that I got the mobile version for half that.

Compared to his other books it's not very popular, but it holds a special place for me, because it was my first choose your own adventure book (a classmate brought it to school when we were in 5th or 6th grade).

A definitely-not-Federation starship gets sucked through a black hole into a parallel universe and has to find its way home; to do that you have to find a space and time coordinate to calculate your jump. And it's notoriously difficult to get the correct ones (there's several wrong ones throughout the book).

What made the book for me, though, was that it had a very episodic feel, with each system you visit a small mini adventure, giving it a cool Star Trek vibe, and seemingly branching very widely, giving you the feeling of actually exploring space.

[Syt]

Kerbal Space Program, if instead of spaceships you had car engines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glBjN4pyX30

[Razgovory]

Just blasted through Hotline Miami 2.  If the graphics didn't look like an arcade game from 1987 I'd be a little disturbed by the violence.

[garbon]

Well Steam has gotten very bizarre for me. So far, it looks like I can play all of my games but the store has gotten wonky. While both those pop-up sales notifications and wishlist have changed over to pounds, the main store still currently lists all items in dollars.

[Syt]

You might find fewer games in the store in case something is region locked (I think newer Ubisoft titles are not on Steam UK?).

[garbon]

I'm wondering if it is something that just needs some time to catch up and they'll finally get sorted out. I don't know if my store is correctly pointing to UK or not given that prices are still in dollars. (All of which is really fine as I'm of no mind to make an purchases right now, not while I still don't even have a UK bank account...)

[Grey Fox]

Well Steam has gotten very bizarre for me. So far, it looks like I can play all of my games but the store has gotten wonky. While both those pop-up sales notifications and wishlist have changed over to pounds, the main store still currently lists all items in dollars.

Maybe, some parts are location based, others are based on your billing address. Have you change that in steam payment options?

[garbon]

Well Steam has gotten very bizarre for me. So far, it looks like I can play all of my games but the store has gotten wonky. While both those pop-up sales notifications and wishlist have changed over to pounds, the main store still currently lists all items in dollars.

Maybe, some parts are location based, others are based on your billing address. Have you change that in steam payment options?

Ah that might be it then. No, I've not yet changed my billing as I don't have any payment options connected to where I am now.