The Miscellaneous PC & vidya Games Thread

[Solmyr]

ALso, City Planner Plays is dissecting the trailer for upcoming city builder City State Metropolis:

It sure looks pretty.

Saw the trailer myself, I sure hope it can succeed where C:S2 failed. Gridless zoning is a big plus.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Caution is advised apparently since there's an earlier game of theirs that isn't really finished

[Syt]

I've not yet picked up MS Flight Sim 2024, but this screenshot from their contests caught my eye:



Because it looked very familiar - it's the area around the train station in Kiel, with the shopping mall next to it on the left.

[garbon]

Today I learned imgur is no longer compatible with the UK.

[Norgy]

Syt, you can see drunken Norwegians getting off that ferry to look for a place for day-drinking. 

[Syt]

Syt, you can see drunken Norwegians getting off that ferry to look for a place for day-drinking. 

 

There was a map on Reddit the other day that showed a map of Europe and who goes where for cheap booze

Whenever friends and I rented a beach house in Denmark for the weekend, we always brought our own beer instead of buying locally.

EDIT: The Norwegenkai has its own wiki entry: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegenkai
(It's opposite the Schwedenkai)

[Syt]

Today I learned imgur is no longer compatible with the UK.

Well, at lest the children are safe.  

[Syt]

Gave my new PC a bit of a spin this weekend. Cyberpunk 2077 and Star Wars Outlaws look a lot better - on the 3080 it was always a compromise between all bells and whistles or 4k, never both. (Though some options still need to be toned down ... guess a 5090 would be able to handle it, but I didn't want to pay and extra €1,000.) Red Dead Redemption 2 also is running at max settings now.

Total War Warhammer III's benchmarks with all graphics options switched on now also stays over 60 FPS in 4k.

And FM24 processes a bit faster (I think ).

I know it sounds crazy, but maybe I can try run Crysis now?   

Downside of the 50s series of cards is, of course that they no longer support 32-bit PhysX, so if you have games that you like and want to play keep that in mind. You can try running it through your CPU or add an older nVidia card to handle the PhysX, but otherwise you either havr to disable the feature in game or skip it altogether. I think the Batman Arkham Asylum/City/Knight games are affected, and I noticed it in Total War Rome II and Total War: Attila (haven't tried to disable PhysX in that one yet, though).

Biggest upgrade otherwise is extra storage space. Old PC had 500GB SSD for system and 1TB SSD for games, plus 4TB HDD for storage (music, video) and games that don't need SSD. But if you're like me and like switching games A LOT, esp. those with a large install footprint, this becomes inconvenient. So I upgraded to 2x 4TB SSD and 1x 8TB HDD. I think I'll be fine ... for now.

[Syt]

I've also been playing waaaay too much Balatro on my phone recently. Finally unlocked all decks, plus completed my first Gold Stack, slowly making my way through the difficulties.

[garbon]

Today I learned imgur is no longer compatible with the UK.

Well, at lest the children are safe.  

[Sheilbh]

Today I learned imgur is no longer compatible with the UK.

Yeah - and I think it happened yesterday because in the morning I could see those pics.

They were under investigation by the ICO - along with TikTok and some other platforms - over controls on access to children. But it seems like they've decided the cheaper/easier option is just to turn off the UK.

[Josquius]

A lecturer I know was complaining Archive.org was being blocked the other day. It's back today though.
Things working really weird with random blocks of sites.

[garbon]

But it seems like they've decided the cheaper/easier option is just to turn off the UK.

Almost like that was a foreseeable consequence...

[Sheilbh]

We truly are the land of predictable, predicted things happening to everyone's astonishment.

See also the UK and EU push to break decryption, justified to stop child sexual abuse image sharing and terrorism, but getting huge pushback from companies like Apple and Meta who have said they'll withdraw services first. As you'd expect, Chinese companies are more relaxed about state mandates of that nature.

But it is, like the Online Safety Act, really difficult to argue against because our law makers have stopped dealing with actual detailed law and consequences and only care about broad principles now. So if you had concerns around the Online Safety Act you were in league with the restless shade of Jimmy Savile and an enthusiast for eating disorder algorithms, if you oppose this decryption push same and you're an al-Qaeda fellow traveller.

[Syt]

I feel dirty, but I gave the new FIFA FC 2026 a spin.

I played a fair amount of the old FIFA games up till 2002 or so (and Microprose Soccer and Kick Off before then). I then tried again FIFA 2014 on PS4 ... I couldn't get to grips with it. The controls felt overly finnicky and even in the tutorials I couldn't get shit done.

So keep that in mind - I haven't played in over ten years and therefore don't carry the "it's just a roster update and reskin" baggage that one tends to have with annual releases (EA Sports, 2K sports, Football Manager or Out of the Park Baseball, WWE ...).

And I was very positively impressed. I have no interest in playing online, obviously, so the money pit of buying player card packs holds no attraction for me.

Onboarding is a lot better than last time I played in '14. It starts you off easy with a "trial" game (I picked St. Pauli v Hamburger SV). Match presentation is VERY TV like with camera angles, replays, info widgets etc. Animations and all (while you do get clipping and the usual jank) also look crazy good to me (who, again, hasn't followed this in 10 years).

Handling is much better (on beginner mode) than last time I tried where I was struggling to even control the ball. The game comes with a bunch of tutorials with clear on screen prompts during matches, and while there's some stuff I didn't like (e.g. tackling for the ball and shooting is both on "B", so I found it too easy to push the button to tackle twice or thrice, with me winning the tackle and then shooting the ball away. But gameplay seems easier to control - passing, tackling, shielding the ball etc. Purists will likely argue that it's "dumbed down".

However, it sets you up to have a fun (winning ) experience from the go, giving you training wheels and starting you off very easy.

The squads included is also surprising. Many countries down to second leagues (or fourth, like in England, or Germany's 3rd tier), many realistic stadiums (St. Pauli with its prominent anti-racism banners) .... full list here: https://www.goal.com/en/news/ea-sports-fc-26-teams-competitions-licenses/blt48e6b26b48acb339

I'm not interested in "manager" or "career" modes. But I was originally planning on returning the game within Steam's two hour window, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy myself and will probably keep it for whenever I feel like playing a round of footy or a quick random tournament.

I guess the takeaway is - only buy these games every 5-10 years?