PC gaming. - The Bear and Badger

mrsmr2

I see the Last of Us PC release is going well.

I was planning on upgrading my PC when the prices return to some sort of normality. But with the state of releases this year I have no incentive to. My PC will still play the stuff I want to play. The few non rubbish AAA games will have to be on console for me.

b0r1s

My understanding is Sony have been pretty solid with their PC releases. Isn’t this the exception?

mrsmr2

Most but not all plus there are more than Sony releases on PC ;-)

b0r1s

Anyone want any of these Humble Bundle games?

1. Aliens Fireteam
2. Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp
3. Revita
4. Founders' Fortune

hunk

If noone's interested I'll have Aliens fireteam?

b0r1s

It’s yours mate. Are you Mr of Unlocking, cos your sig and networks say different ;-)

Edit - ignore, sent you details, you can tell it’s my first time gifting anything.

hunk

I am indeed the 'mr of unlocking'.
Cheers Boris, you're a don!

Scout

Anyone want Life is Strange 2 from the same bundle?

hunk

@Scout
Ooh, I'm interested! But, don't want to be greedy as I already got aliens fireteam elite from boris.
If anyone else wants to pick it up, go for it! Quite enjoyed the og Life is Strange, the sequel should be good even if it turns out to be more of the same.

b0r1s

I really enjoyed the original but couldn’t get into before the storm, have started it three times and just get bored.

Scout

No worries hunk. I'll try the gifting thing later.

Pseudoscot

So ended up pulling the trigger on a travel laptop. I went with the Lenovo Yoga Creator 7.

https://www.technoworld.com/lenovo-yoga-creator-7-15imh05-82ds000huk-laptop

Seems like it is going to do the job well. Setup was fairly straight forward and it seems to run a few of the games I want with no problems. I'm now working my way through the steam library to decide what to put on it.

Kow

Rimworld!

Scout

Steam code for Blacksad going if anyone wants it?

Kow

Desktop Dungeons is free on Steam. No idea if it's good or not but free is free.

Brooks

I can't quite believe this is just a bunch of graphics.

Minnesänger

Brooks wrote:

I can't quite believe this is just a bunch of graphics.

Yeah, been keeping an eye on that one, very impressive stuff.

Facewon

That's a bit nuts. I assume VR and the rig required is gonna be pretty wild. I also assume the blurring of faces is to skip over the uncanny valley issues.

Minnesänger

Facewon wrote:

That's a bit nuts. I assume VR and the rig required is gonna be pretty wild. I also assume the blurring of faces is to skip over the uncanny valley issues.

It's not VR - it's using a fisheye lens to mimic a bodycam, with the associated body shake. But yes, there's a lot of smoke and mirrors there to produce these visuals (and i don't mean that as a criticism). Games are basically Big Lies in how they're constructed and it's all about being smart and finding the right fudges.

The use of an intentional lens camera view - the slight grain, the distortion allowed, the shake - means that a lot of things that would normally stick out get covered over - the texture work is good, sure, but it's still recognisable videogame textures...until you add grain and shake and your brain fills in the gaps, especially once you add in more "human" reload animations from this perspective, rather than a floating gun, something you can do because the game is a tactical shooter.

Yes, the blurred faces also helps remove any issues when it comes to that too, as that is something that would stick out.

They're making really good use of UE5 features (especially in lighting) which adds so much believability to a scene, and the game is in early dev where they've only really shown off those kinda abandoned concrete kinda environs which, again, aren't super hard to make look super real, especially once you got some quixel megascan stuff and the like in there.

Basically - it will look good, but it's also a small group of people being very smart about how it is all put together.

JonB

Minnesänger wrote:

Brooks wrote:

I can't quite believe this is just a bunch of graphics.

Yeah, been keeping an eye on that one, very impressive stuff.

Is it really just a hero cop sim though? Because if so, no thanks.

Minnesänger

JonB wrote:

Minnesänger wrote:

Brooks wrote:

I can't quite believe this is just a bunch of graphics.

Yeah, been keeping an eye on that one, very impressive stuff.

Is it really just a hero cop sim though? Because if so, no thanks.

Yup.

Kow

Black people murder simulator? None of the enemies in the game are armed.

Blue Swirl

NRA game of the year.

Kow

Press F to shout about the Constitution.

Blue Swirl

Genuine lulz.

Paul the sparky

Minnesänger wrote:

Facewon wrote:

That's a bit nuts. I assume VR and the rig required is gonna be pretty wild. I also assume the blurring of faces is to skip over the uncanny valley issues.

It's not VR - it's using a fisheye lens to mimic a bodycam, with the associated body shake. But yes, there's a lot of smoke and mirrors there to produce these visuals (and i don't mean that as a criticism). Games are basically Big Lies in how they're constructed and it's all about being smart and finding the right fudges.

The use of an intentional lens camera view - the slight grain, the distortion allowed, the shake - means that a lot of things that would normally stick out get covered over - the texture work is good, sure, but it's still recognisable videogame textures...until you add grain and shake and your brain fills in the gaps, especially once you add in more "human" reload animations from this perspective, rather than a floating gun, something you can do because the game is a tactical shooter.

Yes, the blurred faces also helps remove any issues when it comes to that too, as that is something that would stick out.

They're making really good use of UE5 features (especially in lighting) which adds so much believability to a scene, and the game is in early dev where they've only really shown off those kinda abandoned concrete kinda environs which, again, aren't super hard to make look super real, especially once you got some quixel megascan stuff and the like in there.

Basically - it will look good, but it's also a small group of people being very smart about how it is all put together.

I don't know how it's controlled? Like, the gun looks to be aiming separately to where the head is looking, so how are you doing that without VR? And the leaning out from cover seems more fluid and natural compared to something like R6 or PUBG lean toggle. Bit fishy if you ask me

Minnesänger

Paul the sparky wrote:

I don't know how it's controlled? Like, the gun looks to be aiming separately to where the head is looking, so how are you doing that without VR? And the leaning out from cover seems more fluid and natural compared to something like R6 or PUBG lean toggle. Bit fishy if you ask me

They're using a free aim system and i expect there's some weight applied to body movement - needed in order to make the body cam feel natural. Probably some fancy inverse kinematics-esque jiggery pokery that simulates and predicts where movement should be.

Paul the sparky

I feel something like that would be a mare to control, yet here's this guy taking cover and aiming smoothly. And how is he moving, aiming, and selecting a dialogue option all at the same time?

Just gives off a whiff that it's not a guy actually playing it, but a vertical slice animation of what they're trying to do with the end product. There's a Last of Us first person mod which gives off the clunk this is missing. It's too smooth and slick to be gameplay for me, even heavily scripted gameplay

Minnesänger

Paul the sparky wrote:

Just gives off a whiff that it's not a guy actually playing it, but a vertical slice animation of what they're trying to do with the end product.

Honestly, would not be surprised at that - they put their pitch deck up in their press kit and it states clearly they're shopping for publishers and investors.

Brooks

Did anyone else immediately think an Owlman was gonna leap out into the shot.

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