Cordeos

My only issue with this is that Oblivions UI was also pretty bad. I agree that designing for both console and PC influenced the interface, but that doesn't mean its bad. Consoles require efficiency in menu navigation, something many RPGs were just awful at.

The game Star Trek: Bridge Commander wanted to be? I always loved the concept of a game where you were a starship captain issuing orders on the bridge so I'm pretty excited about this game. Its almost funded and i really hope its at least better than Bridge Commander. I don't know how much randomness this game will have, if it will be more like FTL where the encounters are fixed but they happen in different orders and locations or if the game will have fixed locations and events. Anyone else here back it? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fugitivegames/into-the-stars/posts/1103891

Does anyone know if they had planned on the game being longer or larger than it was? It feels like after Year 2 the sections are slimmed down and empty of people and puzzles that can be completed realitively easily.

I really have to disagree with your assessment of Skyrim's UI. In Morrowind each menu was independent so to go from quests to map you had to close quests and open maps. There was no real sorting or filtering in the Morrowind menus. The in game map was significantly less useful than the physical map that came with the game. I agree Skyrim made trendy choices in terms of UI, but they also made ease of use choices which i really appreciate. The Morrowind Quest UI was super annoying to use, to the point where I used the wiki on my phone over dealing with it during my most recent play through. The map gives you almost no information without hovering over areas. The inventory using images instead of words made items with the same icon indistinguishable. Morrowind Quest UI: Morrowind, map, invetory, spells, Character Stats UI

That new log book feature thing might track some of it?

Only issues I have encountered with the PC version is some lag in the cinematics and one sound bug, where the noise from a tattoo gun followed me till I saved and reloaded.

Its self imposed in that you are forcing yourself to use those games bad magic systems

No fast travel is also a great way to experience all kinds of things you miss. I did this in Skyrim and was so happy to really see the great world design that I missed the first time through. I did a play through of Fallout New Vegas where I was playing as a mass murderer. My character was named Kratos. I maxed out strength and endurance, ignored all other stats. Focused on melee, unarmed and explosives. I didn't do any quests or even talk to people, I just attacked instantly. The game was quite hard until I got to the boomers, loaded up on grenades and blew everyone up. Hitman Blood Money, Don't bring any guns on a mission. This can make the game easier in that you can pass through metal detectors without problems, but usually means you don't have any silenced weaponry for long range stealth kills.

Tonight I will be playing grim fandango on my Surface Pro 3 hooked up to a projector and an Xbox One controller. The way it was meant to be played obviously.

Audible.com also now has a ton of history classes recorded by professors if you are interested, I have found them to be really solid. I listen to tons of history audiobooks on audible because i have found the history podcasts to be too much surface scratching, not enough in depth.

On games aging better or worse than movies. I feel like it really depends on if a more modern game has improved on older ones. It was really hard to go back and play Morrowind after playing Skyrim because the UI has improved so much. On the other hand I will play Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun over Command and Conquer 3, because I feel that Tiberian Sun was the better game. (Might be related to less innovation in UI happening in the RTS space). My favorite fighting games are still Bushido Blade and One Must Fall, despite those games being old. Modern fighters just don't scratch the same itch. Improvements in playability is probably the major reason some games do not age well. Modern games have really improved on menus and controls. We were just used to bad UI in the old days, but going back now can be hard. Although old films can have bad acting, bad cinematography and hokey stories so maybe i'm wrong on that. Just like today tons of bad movies that will be mostly forgotten were produced in the early age of cinema. I remember my local PBS station used to show random old movies and TV shows, usually ones that were easy to license and as a result a lot of them were horrible. I specifically remember a film that revolved around a father who was complaining about the costs of his daughters wedding. He was upset because catering was ten dollars a person, which seems pretty reasonable now. These are the movies that will be forgotten. Games are becoming the same way, there are a lot of throw away games from even the early days that are not worth going back for except on a nostalgia kick. Games that had bad controls or horrible stories don't need to be played by younger gamers and probably wont be. However games like Half Life 1 was well designed enough and had an excellent story that I feel it will stand the test of time. Sorry this post is so messy, but I am supposed to be working will probably edit and post more thoughts later. Also the Crusader Kings 2 thing. I have often married my heir to someone in the line of succession to another throne, then assassinated multiple other heirs so my grandchild will get both my kingdom and theirs.

When using a controller on the PC version, do the prompts show up on everything you interact with or is it just during tutorials?

I assume if the game does well they will add more races as they did in Dawn of War 1.

The baseball team of all women with beer guts and beards reminded me of a team I build in some version of NBA 2k for dreamcast. Physical traits had no effect on ability in that game, so I made a team of max height and either the minimum or maximum weight, essentially football linebackers and spaghetti noodles. Because the game was designed around the standard basketball player sizes, the larger players would sort of merge if they were too close together. Later I added some extremely short players which made the game hard because I couldn't see them behind my sumo wrestler players. Good times.

I'm super excited to use put the HD version on my projector.

Maybe just go with a vanilla ruler and no DLC? Not sure what would happen if a saved game was used with a DLC miss-match. I would totally be interested in this. Maybe have people post what happened during there rule in here before passing the save on. We could build up a nice little story.

An interesting graphics glitch in Kerbal, or they are now using black squares as fuel.

I honesty don't remember having trouble with the original control scheme. What does tank controls even mean?

Beyond Earth is part of the free weekend this week if anyone wants to give it a try.

Good thing its already been reviewed in 1998 http://www.ign.com/games/grim-fandango/pc-3100 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/grim-fandango-review/1900-2537300/

i think I actually prefer the first game. Something about the collection of characters in #2 just puts me off.

My favorite game of all time (Not going to say its the greatest game of all time, as that feels too bombastic) Is Grim Fandango. I love that era of LucasArts puzzle games, before they because a Star Wars only shop. It has a very unique and interesting art style based around Day of The Dead art. It has a very fun film noir story, with interesting well voiced characters and great writing. The soundtrack is live recorded jazz and fits the game extremely well. There are so many excellent nods to other works in it, like an entire section of the game being based on the film Casa Blanca. Whenever I go back and play it, I will notice something else I had never noticed before.

If anyone wants a copy of this game, I got 3 extra ones from a recent humble bundle that none of my friends want. Let me know!

Have you tested out those areas with lower settings? If so does the frame rate drop not occur? I have played several games that have areas that lag due to something happening in the background with no relation to graphics. Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance for example, would occasionally slow to something like 50% normal speed then get back to 100% for no reason I could figure. Bad code in the game itself, not the graphics may be at fault.

My Apollo game is giving me more hope, earlier in it I defeated an attacker and grabbed several of their cities to reduce the size of my boarders. I had smashed most of their army by the time we made peace and another nearby faction immediately declared war on the weakened attacker and captured what was left. last night two factions, similarly powerful to myself declared war on me on the same turn. Then a third much weaker faction joined in a few turns later when my forces were stretched thin by the other two. I believe I can win, but if the last strong faction joins in, I will be in serious trouble and may have to retreat back to my starting continent. This is the kind of dangerous AI I love to play with.