What games are you playing ?

[Barton]

I've been playing lately Contagion, which is currently available on steam for early access. The game is quite unpolished since it is in beta, but it is really enjoyable. If you like Day Z, then you might enjoy Contagion since it is quite similar minus the whole survival aspect of the game. There are two coop modes which I don't think are worth playing yet since only one map is available. Most people enjoy the PvP mode which is basically FFA with 8 players. That sounds small but there are a ton of NPC zombies and eventually human players turn into zombies once they have died, so there's a lot of action especially if you get on a full server. I'll edit this post later to include the official game trailer which does a good job explaining all the different modes in the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvznLC6mHVM

Personally, I would recommend the game to people since it's cheap ($15) and quite entertaining. I can't say though that I am happy with the current update for this game. They made quite a lot of balanced tweaks that I don't really like. Even though they nerfed the zombies pretty bad, they overall got buffed since now they can outrun human players which wasn't the case before, and their melee damage was increased. Before it was possible for me to take on 2-4 human controlled zombie players, but now with the damage buffs and increased stamina that they have, it's nearly impossible for me to survive an attack from a horde of NPC zombies and two zombies players. Nonetheless, the game is still fun and I'm sure it will be much better when the developers add new maps and give people the ability make their own maps and host them on their own servers.

[Whirlingdervish]

I played a little bit of the Dayz standalone alpha yesterday. I'll report back when I have some more solid stuff to mention, but so far it looks pretty cool.

There's a lot of potential in it, and thats just judging from the barebones alpha

[Sgt. Dick]

If we did not already know what 2dum looked like, he would probably claim this was him 
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/12/19/worlds-best-gamer-on-how-to-turn-hobby-into-profitable-career/?intcmp=features

[The Happy Friar]

Blood Dragon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbe5DS_ZU04

In the future, everything has neon.  That's how you know it's the future.

[|iR|Focalor]

With how much they want for new video game titles these days, about 70 bucks , as a consumer I'm gonna do the smart thing for me and my money and try it before I buy it. And I know most new games have demo versions available for just this kinda thing, but since I have the option of torrenting a complete version, that's exactly what I prefer to do. If I play around with it enough to discover that I'm gonna want to continue playing around with it for an extended period, THEN I'll go and buy a full copy.

Case in point... NASCAR '14. I'm a redneck, of course I love me some NASCAR. I was big fan of all the Papyrus NASCAR games since when I was in high school. Owned and played ALL of them constantly. NASCAR Racing, NASCAR Racing 2, NASCAR Racing 1999 edition, NASCAR Racing 1999 edition Grand National and Truck Series expansion, NASCAR 2002, and I still to this day play Papyrus' final and best nascar game, NASCAR 2003. Papyrus did an excellent job making the physics and performance the most realistic true-to-life simulation out there for stock car racing. Even the pro drivers in NASCAR use it for practice because it's such an accurate simulation. And that's why a lot of die-hard Nascar fans STILL play the old 2003 edition by Papyrus instead of the newer and prettier EA and Eutechnyx games.

First thing I did when I fired the game up was go into the option and turn off ALL the driving aids. Turned off steering help, turned off braking help, turned off traction control, turned off spin control, EVERYTHING! I wanted to see if this fancy new game could convince me that it was a decent "simulation". First track I loaded up was Atlanta Motor Speedway, which should be a challenging track for someone their first time around it in a game. Because it's got such wide sweeping turns, the car setup is usually very loose to allow the rear of the car to slip slightly out towards the wall in the middle of turning so you can turn at a sharper radius. And because of the loose setup, usually on fresh cold tires the first 2 laps should be very challenging to keep the rear of the car from spinning out once you leave the pit stall and make it all the way back around to the entrance to turn one at full speed. You gotta kinda gingerly handle the wheel and balance the car through turns to keep it from spinning out from under you.

Anyway, my first time out... NO PROBLEMS at all. Car sticks to the track like glue. And no problems indicates a BIG PROBLEM. This damn thing is apparently made to appeal more to the arcarde racing crowd than the die-hard simulation racing crowd. Running the wheel back and forth quick on a fast straight should fishtail you into a spin pretty easily. Nah. It will fishtail you out... eventually, but you gotta kinda WORK to make it do it, which is not very realistic at all.

Anyway, other than that, the game is pretty good looking I guess. Graphics are nice, and it runs pretty smooth. If it doesn't, it has plenty of options you can scale back to possibly improve performance. But overall, I'm quite disappointed in the game. I was really hoping that FINALLY someone could put out a new Nascar game that would be on par with the old Papyrus simulation physics. I mean even the old Papyrus games had settings for simulation and arcade style driving. I don't see why these new games can't tailor shit the same way. Makes perfect sense to me for them to at least ATTEMPT to. That way they can please both the die-hard simulation crowd AND the arcade racer crowd. What a let down. Definitely not gonna be spending any money on this one.

[|iR|Focalor]

Just in case anyone was wondering what Nascar Racing 2003 looks like to play... Made a quick video of me running a couple laps at the Daytona road course using the NCTS09 mod, which is one of the more recent truck series mods. It's loads of fun to drive. This particular game is about as close to a true to life simulation of what it's like to drive an actual nascar race car, which is why a lot of the actual Nascar drivers still use this game for practice instead of the newer games. The truck I'm using is one I painted myself to use for racing with BTR last year. Should also be noted that the engine and spotter sounds are not stock, they're add-ons. Spotter sounds I believe are the Jimmy Johnson spotter pack that someone painstakingly made using actual recordings of Jimmy Johnsons race radio. And the engine sounds are some add-on "Real Life Engines" sound pack I found and sound a little more realistic than the sounds included with the game.

<span data-s9e-mediaembed="youtube" style="display:inline-block;width:100%;max-width:640px"><span style="display:block;overflow:hidden;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%"><iframe allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" style="background:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aeEUYZc9A2g/hqdefault.jpg) 50% 50% / cover;border:0;height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;width:100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aeEUYZc9A2g"></iframe></span></span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/aeEUYZc9A2g" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/aeEUYZc9A2g</a>

It looks a lot easier than it actually is. Just from watching the video, you think, "Yeah, you just mash the gas and steer, big deal." Not exactly. The cars handle very tricky. You punch the gas too hard in the middle of a flat turn and the rear will spin out. Also, using the transmission can be a little tricky at first. On road courses, you have the option to use an automatic transmission, but it's much better to use a manual gearbox in order to decelerate into turns properly and control the weight distribution through the curves. Sliding through turns is bad because it wears the tires faster and makes the car harder to control. There's so much shit you gotta do to keep the car pointed the right direction. It takes much longer than you'd think to get a real "feel" and understanding for how the cars handle and perform.

[Fraginstein]

Anyone remember an X rated Doom 1 clone called  Rodger Ramrod?   

[|iR|Focalor]

Hitman Absolution.

This game is the SHIT. Already played all the way through it not long after it first came out a year or so ago, and spent a pretty good amount of time doing it too. But it's just one of those games that has excellent replay value. There's so many ways that you can complete missions through "accidents", stealth kills, whatever, but part of the fun is trying to find new and interesting ways to complete the tasks. And the great thing about this particular game that differs from previous installments is how it allows you to use shooting from cover. Whereas before in previous Hitman games, the object of the missions for the most part was to always remain undetected and sneak everywhere (so you wouldn't get overwhelmed by enemy gunfire and killed), now you have the viable option of just shooting it out with anyone and everyone while jumping from cover to cover.

Really cool game. Beats the ever-loving shit out of the Call of Duty games for replay value, definitely. The game has it's own challenges and achievements that unlocks certain abilities, but then you can always set your own challenges for yourself just for fun (where the replay value comes into effect)... like killing every last single person running around in Chinatown using nothing but the axe or the fillet knife.

[ImperiusDamian]

Hitman Absolution.

<snip>

Really cool game. Beats the ever-loving shit out of the Call of Duty games for replay value, definitely. The game has it's own challenges and achievements that unlocks certain abilities, but then you can always set your own challenges for yourself just for fun (where the replay value comes into effect)... like killing every last single person running around in Chinatown using nothing but the axe or the fillet knife.

Sounds like it's worth a look!
I've been playing old-school games lately. Right now I'm trying to finally complete the Pharaoh campaign (anyone remember that one? Old-school city builder from the same people as Caesar 3). Is it sad that I've had this game since it came out in 1999 yet I have NEVER fully completed the main campaign??

[|iR|Focalor]

I got about halfway done with this latest re-play-through of the game, trying to complete every chapter without using disguises ("suit only" challenge), without getting spotted ("infiltrator" challenge), and without killing anyone who wasn't designated as a target. Figured that would give me the "Silent Assassin" rating for every level where it was possible to attain it. But I didn't completely realize that it doesn't really matter in this particular Hitman game if you attain that rating. You don't earn more money per mission to purchase weapon upgrades by attaining higher ratings like you did in Hitman Blood Money. So now I've started over AGAIN from the beginning trying to find all the collectible/throwable items (brick, metal pipe, bottle, knife, statue bust, etc) as well as completing all the challenges for each chapter. Some of them ain't so easy. For instance, there was one challenge called "Housekeeping" where the goal was to stealth kill and dispose of 10 goons on the 7th floor of a hotel without being spotted once. And it sounds simple enough, but then again, you've also got several maids and hotel guests walking around that you have to make sure don't spot you killing someone or dumping the body somewhere or find any bodies before you can dump them.

Maybe I'll load up Fraps or something and try to get a video of some of the gameplay.

[|iR|Focalor]

Maybe I'll load up Fraps or something and try to get a video of some of the gameplay.

Tried to record a video... but ended up spending about 2 or 3 hours pounding my head against the wall trying to figure out how in THE FUCK to record my voice with the headset mic without it playing back through the headphones. Because due to the slight delay between the time you actually say something and the time it comes through the headphones to you, it ends up making you talk slow and slur words like you're fucking drunk. And if this were Windows 98, there'd literally be no problem trying to mute the mic playback. Done such things a thousand times when recording music and shit on my older music studio machine. But either Windows 7 or this Lenovo HD Audio bullshit or the Soundblaster Tactic Alpha headset I'm using... one of them... or all of them... is completely fucked up because I've tried a thousand different ways plugging shit in through every possible jack, and I still can't get a mic to record WITHOUT it playing back through my fucking headphones. Googled, googled, and googled some more. Nothing fucking works. Ya know... what the fuck was wrong with the simple input and output volume panels with everything having it's own WORKING mute button like in Windows98? Nah, we gotta have 14 different windows and drop down lists and tick boxes that all accomplish the same fucking thing. Some fucking Microsoft brilliance for you.

Anyway, if I can't get this bullshit working by tomorrow, then I'll at least just record a video of me going on an axe murdering rampage without any color commentary.

[Whirlingdervish]

if you are going to make a habit of recording your gameplay and uploading clips, you might try something like dxtory.

I think it's about 30 bucks, but it's a highly recommended tool for doing just that.

http://exkode.com/dxtory-features-en.html

it encodes the different audio sources separately so you can avoid any weirdness.
should be lots of tutorials on how to use it as well.

There are some free alternatives as well that are better than fraps, like OBS

https://obsproject.com/

[|iR|Focalor]

Yeah, another odd thing that happened yesterday was when I first tried to use Fraps to record gameplay, I opened it up, and even though it was open, nothing I did would make the yellow fps counter appear in any corner, nor would it start recording at all whenever I pressed the hotkey for it. It was a slightly older version of it (from 2007 I think), one that I think DS hooked me up with for recording Nascar demos to videos. And at one point, it was actually working for me because I have the videos posted in this very thread. So I ended up uninstalling it and then snagging one of the latest versions of it from piratebay. This one works, and it doesn't split them into different video files automatically when they get larger than 2gigs.

I didn't seem to have this problem the few times that I used TeamSpeak when racing Nascar with BTR. I had a button on the wheel set as a "push to talk" button, and I can't really remember, but I don't think I used to hear myself in my headphones when I was using it. Then again, I also think I was using a different set of headphones that WEREN'T plugged in through this front-side USB adapter I'm using now, and I also had a different cheapy pair of headphones+mic (plugged to the front 3.5mm mic jack I think) that was just sitting around my neck while I had my other over-the-ear headphones on and plugged through the speakers that were plugged in through the rear soundcard 3.5mm jack. Weird thing is, these headphones have a Y-cable at the end with one plug for headphones and one plug for mic, and I tried plugging both into the non-USB jacks, and still couldn't find a way to successfully mute the mic playback into the headphones without muting the mic input completely. And yeah, I also tried going to the speaker playback window and muting or turning the mic slider all the way down, and that still effected the mic input level. I also tried tinkering with the separate Lenovo HD Audio software that came on this thing, and nothing would lower the mic playback volume without effecting the input volume it was recording. Like I said, I tried everything and nothing worked.

All I can think of is maybe somehow this damn machine is intuitively recognizing the mic on this headset as part of the headset... which makes no sense due to the fact that it's got 2 individual plugs that I'm not even using via the USB adapter that combines them into one when it's in use. I don't see how a computer could possibly recognize what kind of mic you're using through a 3.5mm jack. But alas I guess I'll have to try finding those other cheapy headphones+mic and see what that gets. Doubt it'll get any different results. At this point, I think I've screwed up my audio settings somehow by messing with everything so much.

[|iR|Focalor]

<span data-s9e-mediaembed="youtube" style="display:inline-block;width:100%;max-width:640px"><span style="display:block;overflow:hidden;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%"><iframe allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" style="background:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQmfySOKiyg/hqdefault.jpg) 50% 50% / cover;border:0;height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;width:100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dQmfySOKiyg"></iframe></span></span><br /><a href="http://youtube.com/v/dQmfySOKiyg" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://youtube.com/v/dQmfySOKiyg</a>

[[BTF]Sigma]