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[Robsoie]

Saints Row IV just got a... change. Epic Online Services is now required, even for singleplayer. For the Steam version, you can revert using the beta branch feature, but I've seen reports that EOS installs even for that. Opinions on the matter are... inflamed.

It's a strange case, i have read so many people on the steam version mentionning that since the "re-elected" update their game crash non stop , even when creating a new character it crashes, or how it performs very badly.
Yet on the epic version i played 2 hours so far and not only it run very smoothly on my now low end system but i had no crash anywhere (yet ?), but in the same time i have no epic launcher installed as i use the open source heroic launcher instead.

I wonder if the epic store version is running on a different code somehow, unless those steam users having problems have some of the steam workshop mods that are probably now incompatible due to the new code base (many people report all their mods will crash the game), or if some higher quality video settings are simply bugged (as i play on everything low and even disabled the post processing as i couldn't stand the motion blur)
Also it seems saves made on the previous version of Saints Row 4 may crash after updated to Re-Elected.

between games that require an always online launcher , games that multiplayer is locked to a specific store, games that modding are locked only to a specific store, games that despite you spending money are not considered yours anymore ... i wish people would support gog more as a store.

[Jopax]

So aside from the brilliant news of a new Armored Core (and it's launching for PC to boot!) a new Hades has been announced. Looks like more of the same, which I'm more than fine with tbh. Other than that, none of the other stuff looked terribly exciting.

[Egan_BW]

I still haven't played Hades so I'm legally not allowed to be excited about a sequel. But Supergiant always make good games ^{_{(even if Bastion is the only one I've played all the way through)}} so I'm happy in that regard.

[Persus13]

What's the pitch on Armored Core as a franchise? Just mechs shooting each other or is there more to it?

[nenjin]

Customize your mech, fight other mechs. What my friend always said intrigued him about Armored Core was FromSoft's kind of trademark desolation in their themes. He said there was always something vaguely supernatural or unsettling about the Armored Core series that made it stand out from other mech games.

[Egan_BW]

That certainly comes across in those painterly backgrounds in the trailer. I guess even if you can't really tell anything from a prerender announcement trailer, you can tell that the art direction is good.

I mean, we already knew that because it's fromsoft, and we vaguely knew that fromsoft were working on AC, so this trailer tells us nothing! Pretty tho.

[Robsoie]

About Saints Row 4 Re-Elected, i noticed that if you block its executable ( sr_hv.exe ) in your firewall, the game will reset its options and keybinding at every further launch of the game, even if you re-change them etc... it will reset them to default the next tiem.
The same as if you set the game to be played Offline.

And then if you unblock the game executable from your firewall (and disable Offline mode), your options and keybinding come back as you modified them before.

That sounds like some options and keybinding (but not video options or the saved games that are not reset to default) things are "cloud saved" , but it should not be because the cloud saving feature is always disabled for all the games i got from the epic store.

Looks like that game does not like to not being able to communicate with the internet despite being played exclusively offline and will annoy you with resetting your keybinding every time if you don't let it go online.
Ah the joy of those drm shit...

[Robsoie]

toyed a bit with the gog freebie "Ghost of a tale" and its originality mixed with Thief-like stealth based gameplay got me interested
Basically you're playing in some medieval era as a little mouse (that belong to a menestrel guild) that has been thrown in jail and is guarded by rats, looking for your wife you need to escape from the place.
You'll meet various character you can talk to, get some quests and help in your hide and seek game with those nasty rats.

Spoiler: notGarrett avoiding a guard (click to show/hide)

The animations are very well done giving you a sense of your cutesy mouse should really do its best to avoid the nasty threatening rats.

So far on my way to a great escape i felt the environment was very cramped, i hope it was just because it's the beginning, though i just emerged outside of that starting underground jail system and i am now in some kind of prison/castle courtyard that is noticably bigger, currently hunting for armor parts to disguise as a prison guard. 

The stealth part isn't too hard but be very cautious when you walk (even in stealth mode) as guards can hear you (fortunately the guards icon is clear so you can see when the icon fill up too much and its time to stay immobile or run to break sight and hide).
You can outrun a guard that spotted you and hide into a chest/barrel until he gets back to its patrol after a few seconds of them being suspicious (so far unlike in Alien Isolation they haven't tried to open the lockers i was hiding into) , you can also temporarly knock out a guard by throwing a bottle to his head if it has not yet seen you (despite bottles are nearly as big as the mouse, note that you can carry several of them) that's needed at some point if you notice said guard carry a key as you can't do a Garrett swift stealing with the little mouse.

With everything on low it's nicely very playable on my old system. But it's on the Unity engine so you may never know... oh and it seems if you alt/tab during a loading time that loading time will wait until you come back to continue loading ...

Oh and it's harder than it looks, so if the nice visuals make you hope this could be a good game for your kids , play it with them as the game has the old school "no hint on where to go or where to find the required item" , so don't expect arrows to point the player to the correct direction.

[Astral]

What's the pitch on Armored Core as a franchise? Just mechs shooting each other or is there more to it?

I've always found it to be the ideal middle ground in mech games between allowing a large degree of customization without being extremely simulation-heavy, and also not feeling too arcade-y, if that makes sense.

The PS2 era games are still great to go back and play from time to time.

[Persus13]

Thanks!

[Iduno]

I was reminded of Are We There Yet?, a puzzle game from 1991.

Anyone know how to run DosBox on my phone?

[n9103]

adosbox is a common one, as are a half dozen others.
Strongly recommend getting a PC QWERTY on-screen keyboard layout before trying any.
The biggest difference between all the different apps is what kind of UI they offer, so free/demo versions are definitely recommended to find your style.

[Robsoie]

That Goldsphere game is great, but some missions can be silly

Jikan (that's the player character name)
I need your help, well your computer, to read that odd usb key, as my PDA can't read it for some reason.

Skidan (the rookie village head honcho)
I'll do this thing you need but before i do you will have to kill this Controller that is hiding in the vehicle station for me.
But be warned it's going to be slightyl harder than you think because at that point of the game you have a ridiculous pea shooter that deal nearly no damage and that you need to reload every shot, so i give you a nice knife and as currently there's no other way for you to have a decent weapon you'll have no choice.
Here choose the one you want .

Jikan
Wait, you expect me to go kill a controller with a knife ? Man that sounds crazy as a requirement for just for reading an USB key on your computer. You may be even worse than old Sidorovich that you're replacing there.

Skidan
Yeah, i see how you can find this difficult, but don't worry : go ask Malandrinus for help, he owes us both one anyways.

Malandrinus
Ok i'll help you my friend, let's go

Jikan
That's really cool, we may have a chance if we're at least 2 , even if very small one

....Later at a safe distance from the vehicle station....

Manlandrinus
Here's the situation : the controller is on the 2nd floor of that building, here take my spare binoculars i have a better one anyways.
I'll bravely stay there and see if the controller get excited so i'll tell you when it happens so you can run away.
Now go and stab this bastard to death.
Oh wait, i forgot, that controller has a zombie army in the vehicle station that he use as eyes so if a zombie spot you it will alert the controller and he will come to kill you, so you must do a stealth approach, i suggest you that point before there's a lot of vegetation to hide your presence.

Jikan
Wow, that sounds even harder than it was before, but i need that USB key read, and even despite you're a damned coward not helping, i'll still need to stab this controller.

Manlandrinus
Oh but wait again, before i forget more : the game is scripted to allow you to stab to death the controller only if he's calm and not alerted to your presence, as if he knows you're there the knife will do pitiful damage as usual and he'll kill you way before you'll be able to do any serious damage.

Jikan
That's crazy and silly but it was not unexpected considering how stupid this whole "stab the controller" mission pitch is and the refusal of anyone to give me a gun that can actuall do damage instead of that stupid  homemade pistol, i had plenty of money from all those artifacts i sold but still none even want to sell me anything other than this pea shooter.

Spoiler: ... easily 25 reloading later ... (click to show/hide)

even got the Butcher achievement for that (that supposedly increase my stabbing damage, it came in handy in a mission later)

Spoiler: the solution to that ridiculous mission if you want to avoid reloading so many time (click to show/hide)

Just completely forget about stealth approach, i don't know what the mission scripter was thinking but he certainly borked it, as after all the attempts i did i understood that :
- zombies can see the same at day and night (so basically you're only making things harder for you if you wait for night time)
- zombies can see through vegetation, regardless of you being inside the vegetation or hiding behind it (that's certainly a bug as it can't be intended as it's the main reason stealth does not work on this mission)
- zombies can see you the same if you're immobile, standing, crouching or low crouching
- there's no classic "patrol for you to learn on when to sneak between 2 patrol" that is in usual stealth game , because even if they're patrolling the zombies will randomly switch between walking slowly and sprinting for no reason, making it simply impossible to find a safe time or space between patrols to move, it's just too random.

So the solution is to have no care about stealth as it just does not work at all in that mission (it will work on another one in which you need to steal a key from some mercs camping in the wilderness) and do this :
- Have enough healing, bandage and pain killer
- Sprint into the vehicle station
- Obviously get spotted but quickly find a zombie
- Stab the zombie to the head with the alternate knife strike until the thing is down, continue stabbing it until it's truly dead (as zombies going down do not mean they're dead), of course do your best to backpedal during the fight to avoid the zombies strikes (that's why you should have healing item as mentionned before as it's not always easy to avoid a hit)
- Once the zombie is dead, sprint away from the vehicle station until your cowardly friend tells you that the controller calmed down.
- Do it again to kill another zombie and again run away far enough for the controller to calm down.

after killing all the zombies you can now slowly walk up to the 2nd floor of the main building and hope the controller is in position to be killed from behind with your knife.

[Dostoevsky]

What's the pitch on Armored Core as a franchise? Just mechs shooting each other or is there more to it?

One thing to note that wasn't mentioned in the other replies is that they're very movement-heavy. Manual aiming generally isn't a thing; weapon & mech stats determine lock-on timing & sensitivity, while your attention is mainly focused on movement.

Also, while it's not simulation-heavy the mech customization gets extremely granular if you want to optimize e.g. your mech's weight balancing.

For a pretty extreme example of the gameplay, see this twitter clip. It's a pretty unique gameplay experience, if not always the most fun. Also prior entries were hurt by long load times combined with short mission lengths - hypothetically a modern entry would alleviate at least the former. (This would also make remaster/rereleases of the prior games pretty appealing...)

[Egan_BW]

Speedy bots!