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Topics - TheBronzePickle

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Other Games / Escape from Tarkov - Yet Another Slavic Apocalypse Simulator

« on: December 23, 2017, 01:30:10 pm »

Tarkov, a city in the heart of the Norvinsk Special Economic Zone, was originally set up as a haven for international economic cooperation between companies of the East and West, a haven for business growth and increased trade between the two sides attempting to reconcile after ages of Cold War competition.

That dream has been shattered. After the abuses of several international corporations, Tarkov has become the center of a proxy war. Chief among the abusers, the supercorp Terra Group has hired on the aid of the PMC USEC to secure their holdings and cover up their misdeeds. The Russian ministry, wanting to get to the bottom of the disaster that is now Tarkov, have created their own PMC, BEAR, to investigate and put an end to Terra Group and other companies' unethical business practices. Meanwhile, those civilians who haven't evacuated have taken up arms themselves, becoming Scavs who roam the city and take what they can.

Escape from Tarkov is a simulationist multiplayer FPS taking place in the city of Tarkov, where two PMCs vie for control of the abandoned factories, warehouses, and offices. Currently, the game consists of timed runs through relatively small maps, fighting the local Scavs and other PMC operators while collecting gear and completing quests. At the current stage, the game is already fun, with highly detailed, heavily customizable guns with comprehensively simulated ballistics and a not-particularly-realistic but engaging health system that gives combat depth without sacrificing ease of understanding.

A new patch is set to launch on the 28th that will increase the already-satisfying weapons roster, as well as doubling the size of one of the maps, adding a new customizable helmet, and hopefully fixing some long-standing bugs. However, the game has suffered an issue with severe desync, especially on the European servers, and as the game is online multiplayer only, this can be a crippling problem. They've made great strides to fix these issues, but while I personally haven't had any issues in a while, there are quite a few who still suffer.

Another warning is that the game is quite ambitious. The very small team working on Tarkov hopes to make the area of Tarkov into one continuous map running like an MMO, as well as adding hundreds of different weapons modeled as accurately as possible both visually and mechanically. It may take years for them to reach their goals, if they ever do. That said, the current iteration of Tarkov is quite playable, acting more as an arena shooter and treasure hunt. If you have a taste for simulation-level gunplay but not the patience to get into a game of ArmA, Tarkov might be your thing.

https://www.escapefromtarkov.com/ -Main site, same as link above.
https://www.reddit.com/r/EscapefromTarkov/ -Reddit, not linked from main site like most of the other resources.
http://tarkovballistics.blogspot.com/ -Some guys who test the various weapons to determine the less obvious numbers, like the amount of damage the bullets actually do. A useful resource if you want to get into the meta without experimenting for yourself.

Other Games / Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair

« on: July 29, 2016, 02:17:01 am »

Do you like B-movies? Specifically low-budget action films? Ever wanted to play a game built around those classic tropes: half-rate acting, excuse plots, and the cheapest props and effects money can buy all put together to make little more than a spectacle of action? Well, if you haven't heard of the Earth Defense Force series (or have, but only have experience with the unfortunate Insect Armageddon, a shitty knockoff by a US company that missed the point completely), then I've got a game for you.

Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair, alternately just EDF 4.1, is the first PC port this series has seen since the aforementioned disappointment Insect Armageddon. Which, of course, means it's the only real PC port of the series. It's also a really, really good port, with a lot of people commenting that it runs far better than on consoles even with below-average computer specs. This is good news, because when there can be easily hundreds of enemies on screen getting blown up by a few dozen spectacular explosions with just one player, the game can be quite taxing.

Now, this action comes with some drawbacks that may deter some people. Visually, the game is somewhat meh. This is an intentionally low-budget game made by a team of 25 people, and you can see the effects as enemies get replaced with low-poly sprites in the distance, and even up close their textures and animations harken back to the late PS2 era. The plot is silly and a bit deranged, serving little more purpose than to fling you at more enemies, sometimes without even good reason. Finally, the voice acting is intentionally laughable, with NPC soldiers shouting cliches, chants, and occasionally bursting into a verse of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, rewritten to be about the titular EDF.

However, there's a whole boatload of these voice options, and anyone with soldiers following them can have their followers join them in glorious war cries. There's also a surprising amount of different voices you'll actually hear, which can help keep it fresh. As for the visuals, they're a necessary sacrifice to keep the game running smoothly, and while there aren't really any ways to adjust the game for higher-end computers which can take more punishment, it also means that fairly old computers with underwhelming stats can still join in the fun. It also means that the game can support a truly ridiculous amount of stuff going on at once without even minor slowdowns, except in the most insanely frenetic scenarios (such as several truly massive field battles involving literally thousands of enemies).

There is one warning, however. The game uses SSE 4.1, so anyone using a Phenom II or older AMD CPU needs to download an unofficial patch (stickied in the game's Steam Discussions) in order to actually play. It's an easy fix to apply, though, and was made by a professional developer, so it's safe.

Other Games / HELLDIVERS: Now on PC

« on: December 08, 2015, 12:06:03 am »

HELLDIVERS
Originally for the PS3, PS4, and PS Vita, Helldivers has just been released to Steam.

Helldivers is a hectic isometric shooter where you play as an eponymous Helldiver, a specially trained soldier who drops down onto a planet via a drop pod and completes various objectives using a wide array of firepower and tools, most of which can be called down through special beacons.

The base game at $20 USD (not sure about other currencies) doesn't really offer much in the way of gear, but the deluxe edition ($40 USD, once again unsure about other currencies) has a much wider variety, including vehicles like mechs and tanks, anti-tank weaponry, more tactical options for your personal loadout, and even some special attack weapons. And, trust me, you need all the help you can get, as the game has a very wide range of difficulties ranging from 'easy for a solo player' to 'very hard for a full team of veteran players'. If you don't have the cash to spare, though, it's fine, as you still can use some of your allies' gear like vehicles and heavy weapons.

Speaking of teams, the game allows you to play with up to 3 other players, and you can even call for aid in the middle of a game if you find yourself overwhelmed. Even if you run solo, though, you have an influence, as every mission you complete and planet you take adds to the overall war effort, pushing back one of the three enemy factions: the insectoid Bugs, the rugged Cyborgs, and the technological Illuminate.

Other Games / Dawn of War 3: It Might Be a Thing

« on: July 05, 2015, 01:54:48 pm »

https://www.namecheap.com/domains/whois/results.aspx?domain=dawn%20of%20war%203

No idea what any of that stuff means? Me neither.

But apparently the domain dawnofwar3.com, registered back in 2008, has gotten some ownership updates about two weeks ago, late June. It is now owned by SEGA, and is being handled by Relic's IT department. What does this mean for the game? It's still up to speculation since this is the only evidence anything might be happening at all, but it's worth keeping an eye on.

Other Games / ArmA 3

« on: March 04, 2013, 06:57:49 pm »

I figured this would matter enough to some people and was separate enough from ArmA 2 to warrant a thread of its own.

Link to Website

ArmA 3 is about to launch, sort of, as an alpha, available on Steam Tuesday (tomorrow, maybe today for some of the world). You have to pay into it, but there's a few options available, from 25 euros to join the alpha, beta, and to get the game when it's released plus 3 guest passes for the alpha, to 70 euros for that plus a whole lot of other goodies including getting all future DLC for free, a digital soundtrack, and every single game and DLC in the ArmA franchise so far.

As for some of the new features present in ArmA 3, I'll let Dslyecxi, founder of ShackTac, avid ArmA gamer, and worker for BIStudios, show the rest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiLXDwsVlXg

Edit: A nice video by Dslyecxi detailing why ArmA 3 is something you should maybe be interested in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcbQk5VXKNE

Edit 2: Now in Beta.

Edit 3: Now 'Out'.

DF Suggestions / A Little Elbow Room (Procedural, Random Removal of Species and Variants)

« on: June 26, 2012, 11:51:15 pm »

Well, me and a friend were talking about how the animal sponsorship drive added a lot of content to Dwarf Fortress. Perhaps a bit too much content. What with giant and -man versions of every single animal in the drive, it's sort of made worlds a bit cramped as every or nearly every single population has to be fit in. So, I got an idea.

Lets say that there was a system where some of that extra baggage would be taken out at random for each world. Say, a random pick-through of all the 'giants' and 'men' that caused a certain number (preferably adjustable) to not show up. Of course, I know just enough about programming to know that it would probably be a pain in the ass. Of course, that makes my proposal unlikely to happen, but it also means that there's incentive to make it really pretty. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right, as they always say. You could even throw in the potential to remove entire species, maybe even major things like civilized races and megabeasts, from the list, and maybe make the lack of certain species and variants show up in the arena too. You could even make the missing species part of mythology with all the interactions and implications thereof.

I can think of two main advantages. One, as I said, is to get rid of a little (or a lot of) clutter in a world without having to manually work the raws. Another is variation. Each time you gen a new world, you're suddenly going to have different fauna to add to the other variables in each world. One game, you might have no giant badgers to fear but lament the loss of your beloved penguins that you enjoyed keeping as pets. The next, you might celebrate the fact that the deserts are no longer plagued by giant scorpions up until you realize that the desert's also missing your favorite prey animal and you're running out of food.

My internet is unfortunately acting a bit odd, but I'll be checking up whenever I can for questions, comments, concerns, that sort of thing. I'll try my best to respond to queries and requests.

General Discussion / A Personal Apology from Bronies

« on: November 18, 2011, 07:46:02 pm »

I'm putting this thread up just so that we few who have participated in the... unfortunate rule breaking we've done on this forum can apologize. I personally don't expect it to change your mind, Toady, but it's still always good to say sorry.

I'm sorry, and I hope that the acquaintances I've come to know on this forum will find their way here so they can express their own regrets.

Other Games / APB: Reloaded

« on: November 13, 2011, 02:54:35 pm »

As some of you may know, there was a game called APB not too terribly long ago. It was a third-person shooter MMO, and it went bust pretty quickly.

APB Reloaded is basically the same thing, only they've made it freemium. Almost all of the game's content is available to free players, and the few things that aren't won't really be missed, since the game's a lot more about your personal skill than gear and level.

The story is basically that the city you'll be playing in, San Paro, has been having crime problems the last few years. Gotham City-level crime problems. The most recent mayor decided the best way to solve this would be to pass the City Security Act, basically making vigilantism legal and paid for through city funds. In game, you'll either play as the Crims who are trying to steal and kill for riches, fun, and other various motices, or as the Enforcers whose job is to stop the Crims. Both sides have access to all the same gear except that the Enfocers can opt to use less-than-lethal weaponry for a slightly bigger reward.

Gameplay is like an MMO version of Grand Theft Auto. You drive around in cars that you can customize and decorate, you can change your clothing (which is all just for looks), you have a good number of guns which you can customize with a number of different upgrades (most of which have disadvantages to keep them from being overpowered), and there's a large amount of in-game editors that let you do all kinds of stuff, from making your own decals and tattoos to plaster all over your car or yourself to making your own theme music that people will hear when you kill them or complete a mission as the winning team's leader. There's even an in-game music player that you can upload your own tunes to and listen to while driving, although unless the tunes are made in-game and the people around you have the same music noone else will be able to hear it.

The game's still in beta, so expect bugs to pop up. They're not the best at getting out fixes quick, but they're constantly working on improving the game.

www.gamersfirst.com/apb/ Is the site. You'll have to download the gamersfirst client in order to get the game, but it's worth it.

http://www.apbrwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page is the wiki if you like wikis. It's not perfect, but it'll give you a general idea of how to get what you want.

And if you happen to see a very stereotypical Chinese Enforcer named Nanode out on the streets, that's me.

Other Games / Tabletop Games for Very Small Groups (2-4 Persons)

« on: June 07, 2011, 09:18:57 am »

I was hoping to start an RPG up with a few of my friends, but I can't get enough of them to commit for the bigger tabletop games. I can GM, but I don't know if that would be feasible with so few players. Any recommendations?

Other Games / Naval RTS

« on: July 31, 2010, 07:12:57 pm »

Are there any good RTS games out there concentrating on naval warfare, or at least including a good naval part? I know Total Annihilation and related games and I can't afford Empire: Total War, I'm personally hoping for something with realism, but a lack thereof would be acceptable too if its still good. Note: I do not want "space" navies, just water based, 2d navy.