I think i'm down to 2 devices now that would be considered "retro", unless another is hiding somewhere i have forgot about. Used to have racks of the stuff, sitting there collecting dust and taking up space. Just recently i even got rid of my HP calculator collection ( well other than one which i wanted to keep in case i needed a physical calculator of some sort, not really collection ).
All that is left is my Newton, and a PX-8 i got as an anniversary gift.
Sat Mar 19 2022 09:13:40 AM EDT from ParanoidDelusionsSo, I've got probably $30,000 worth of retro hardware.
I could get rid of mine because of the MiSTer.
But it has appreciated so tremendously compared to what I paid for it - I think I'll hold off and donate it to a museum when I pass this mortal coil.
Sat Mar 19 2022 10:16:02 EDT from Nurb432I think i'm down to 2 devices now that would be considered "retro", unless another is hiding somewhere i have forgot about. Used to have racks of the stuff, sitting there collecting dust and taking up space. Just recently i even got rid of my HP calculator collection ( well other than one which i wanted to keep in case i needed a physical calculator of some sort, not really collection ).
All that is left is my Newton, and a PX-8 i got as an anniversary gift.
Sat Mar 19 2022 09:13:40 AM EDT from ParanoidDelusionsSo, I've got probably $30,000 worth of retro hardware.
Some of mine i got free :)
Sun Mar 20 2022 02:04:45 AM EDT from ParanoidDelusionsI could get rid of mine because of the MiSTer.
But it has appreciated so tremendously compared to what I paid for it - I think I'll hold off and donate it to a museum when I pass this mortal coil.
2022-03-15 13:24 from LoanShark
racing--
I used to be pretty into Gran Turismo back in the PS/PS2 days. Kinda
bored with the whole genre though.
I used to be big on racing games when I was a kid. THe realistic ones (such as Grand Turismo) were fine, but I much prefer those with fantastic interactive elements.
I'd rather drive an anti-gravity aircraft dodging plasma blasts than a kart. Unless the kart was loaded with rockets or something.
I have heard the latter iteration of Grand Turismo sucks because it is aimed at online play only.
When i was a kid, about the only driving games we had to play were on the Apple][ and Atari 400... and that was highschool age..
I'd rather drive an anti-gravity aircraft dodging plasma blasts than a
kart. Unless the kart was loaded with rockets or something.
Mario Kart was silly, but fun, yeah.
There's even a mod scene, at least for the old Wii version ... "Custom Track Grand Prix" with its own servers and some really wild courses. And of course, some that are completely broken and glitchy ... making it even *more* fun.
If I had a dedicated gaming space though, I'd love to have one of those immersive racing rigs that you sit in. Or maybe the equivalent for flying games.
2022-03-28 13:01 from LoanSharkI'd rather drive an anti-gravity aircraft dodging plasma blasts than
akart. Unless the kart was loaded with rockets or something.
Mario Kart was silly, but fun, yeah.
I have noticed that, as I grow up, I prefer sillier games.
Somebody pointed to me that games aimed at +18 years old are usually played by kids, while games aimed at +3 years old are usually played by +40 years old dudes.
Mario Kart drives me nuts because the end lap physics are more ridiculous than F1's last minute rule changes in 2021.
I'll have dominated every lap, and in the last lap, without power ups or skids or anything - somehow my daughter playing Princess Peach will get this huge burst of speed... every time.
But... playing in VR, a real driving simulator, Assetto Corsa - it is next level to anything you've ever experienced before. It really highlights the kind of sim where VR makes *total* sense.
Just got on here for the first time in too long - and now my wife is calling me away. I'll follow up on this as soon as I can.
I'll have dominated every lap, and in the last lap, without power ups
or skids or anything - somehow my daughter playing Princess Peach
will get this huge burst of speed... every time.
You sure you aren't just letting her win? Subconsciously or otherwise? ;-p
Not on Mario Kart. I'll get in a groove, have perfect lines, be avoiding all the bananas 6 car lengths ahead of her - and with the finish line in sight, she suddenly gets a perfect line and outrageous pace and blows by me, every time.
It is like she knows some DRS zone magic in the game.
So... along those lines - I've always been a huge racing fanatic, going back to Activision Enduro for the Atari 2600 - the first racing game that simulated day and night, and weather conditions including fog and snow. I graduated to Epyx PitStop, played all the arcade racers along the way - Pole Position, Outrun... my first Amiga title was Ferrari Formula 1 by EA - an F1 simulator that required wheel and gas management and tuning modifications. Test Drive came out and blew me away with how accurate the interior graphics were... for a long time in the early 2000s I had two Thrustmaster desk-clamp steering rigs and did a lot of Need For Speed head-to-head LAN racing events. Gran Turismo on the Play Station was a heavy hitter - until Gotham City Racing came out for the Xbox. I've been watching the physics and graphics improve since before I could drive... going all the way back to Atari Night Driver which was just white posts on the side and a car that looked more like a cross.
Right now, I've got a liquid cooled i7 powerhouse running a GTX 3080 gpu, with a Logitech G920 steering wheel and pedal combo with a manual shifter and a racing frame - basically a racing seat and platform to mount the wheel, pedals and shifter to - and a VR rig to play it all through - and it is the most authentic simulated driving experience in my life so far.
Driving games are actually probably my top gaming pursuit. It is something I really enjoy - and... though I prefer simulators, I love GTA, Crazy Taxi... even "arcade" driving games - often a lot of the same principles of finding the best line still apply to getting the best score - you're just cornering at G forces that defy physics, launching through the air and landing without bending the frame and blowing the wheels off the axles...
Driving... fast... has always been a passion of mine... since I was like... 4 or 5. My first cartoon I was completely absorbed with was Speed Racer.
Tue Apr 12 2022 12:53:07 EDT from LoanSharkI'll have dominated every lap, and in the last lap, without power ups
or skids or anything - somehow my daughter playing Princess Peach
will get this huge burst of speed... every time.
You sure you aren't just letting her win? Subconsciously or otherwise? ;-p
finished up all the main storyline on Valhalla.
great storytelling. but the game suffers from bad difficulty scaling, in the same way as other games that have a "recommended level" for quests. unless you skip all the side quests *and* much of the treasure hunting, your characater will be over-levelled at the default difficult setting.
skyrim did this better.
the final boss-fight with Fenrir was long, but *easy*.
2022-04-29 10:25 from LoanShark
finished up all the main storyline on Valhalla.
great storytelling. but the game suffers from bad difficulty scaling,
in the same way as other games that have a "recommended level" for
quests. unless you skip all the side quests *and* much of the treasure
hunting, your characater will be over-levelled at the default difficult
setting.
skyrim did this better.
the final boss-fight with Fenrir was long, but *easy*.
Many RPGs with combat systems deeply based on character levels suffer from this.
Think, for example, of the Final Fantasies. If you spend your time exploring and farming and doing optional tasks you will be overgeared and overleveled once you return to the main story line.
This happened even with Pokemon. If you farmed for a while before the first Gymn in the first pokemon generation you would be able to beat most of the game with ease because your uber-pokemons would just crush any opposition with their pinkies.
Yeah. It's hardly exclusive to this game, but I feel that it's gotten much worse in the last decade or so, as games have gained vast quantities of side quest/optional content. There's just a lot more there to get you over-leveled.
Elder Scrolls did a good job of scaling the difficulty to your character's level. More games need to do this.
So... along those lines - I've always been a huge racing fanatic, going back to Activision Enduro for the Atari 2600 - the first racing game that simulated day and night, and weather conditions including fog and snow. I graduated to Epyx PitStop,
Ooooh, I loved Enduro (on the 2600) and PitStop (on the C64).
Am I remembering correctly, that the 2600 didn't have enough space for them to simulate both sunrise and sunset, so one of them ran backwards? I have a faint memory of that.
2022-05-05 15:57 from LoanShark
Yeah. It's hardly exclusive to this game, but I feel that it's gotten
much worse in the last decade or so, as games have gained vast
quantities of side quest/optional content. There's just a lot more
there to get you over-leveled.
Elder Scrolls did a good job of scaling the difficulty to your
character's level. More games need to do this.
I don't know about Elder Scrolls. I am not a fan of dynamic difficulty scaling, though.
I think it is just a bit better to have the game be a bit sandboxey so there are many challenges to pick and you may pick ones fitting your desired level of difficulty. This is not imcompatible with having a main story.
I think it is just a bit better to have the game be a bit sandboxey so
there are many challenges to pick and you may pick ones fitting your
desired level of difficulty. This is not imcompatible with having a
main story.
there's a balance. I would have had to really ignore all the side stuff and deliberately avoid any treasure-hunting, even in areas that the game's main storyline forces me to go to... or I would have had to increase the main difficulty setting after I started to really get over-levelled. which, I dunno, I tend to like defaults in most games, but not this one.
It's all subjective, but I think this game suffered a little more than most from this problem.
next up in the queue is Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition.
graphics look a little bit dated in some areas, but they've got an early DLSS implementation and after some drunken struggling to debug the settings (it really does help to sober up for this shit), I finally got it working decently well in 4K with DLSS on a 3060 ti. probably could have enabled most of the Gameworks options, but performance is marginal and only Turf Effects seems worthwhile.
this game responds **very** badly to real-time settings changes, you will often have to restart it after a graphics settings change, otherwise you end up with 2-4fps in cutscenes due to some bug.
2022-05-24 15:29 from LoanShark
next up in the queue is Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition.
graphics look a little bit dated in some areas, but they've got an
early DLSS implementation and after some drunken struggling to debug
the settings (it really does help to sober up for this shit), I finally
got it working decently well in 4K with DLSS on a 3060 ti. probably
could have enabled most of the Gameworks options, but performance is
marginal and only Turf Effects seems worthwhile.
this game responds **very** badly to real-time settings changes, you
will often have to restart it after a graphics settings change,
otherwise you end up with 2-4fps in cutscenes due to some bug.
That sounds very lame to me. A JRPG should not be demanding when it comes to computer resources. A JRPG that makes your computer lag is a bottom of the barrel program.
If FF VII made it with its lame graphics it is obvious you don't need powerful effects for a successful JRPG.