I seem to recall a game (although the name escapes me) that would ask you to look up or down during the tutorial and then offer to change the setting based on how you reacted. That seems like a reasonable approach to me.
I don’t typically invert controls, but I think it makes sense for games to support them in various forms. For example, in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, you could have non-inveted controls for controlling the characters, and inverted controls when in a vehicle.
I’d like to see preferences like this stored at a platform level (Steam, Epic, Xbox, Playstation, Switch, etc.) and then exposed to the game via an API so that I don’t have to select them for every game individually. Sure, let me override them, but the defaults should be my global preferences. I get tired of having to hunt down where the setting is to turn on subtitles in every game, so just let me select it once at the system level and be done with it. I think there’s probably room for some sort of accessibility standards that could be adopted across platforms. It’s a win-win because everyone benefits including those who most need those settings to be consistent.
Funny thing is when they say “you tilt your head forward to look down and back to look up”, it’s more of a “just so story” than they think.
To look down, yes the top of your head goes forward, but the rest of you retracts. Try it sometime, paying attention to all the muscles involved. Feel where your chin goes. As someone who has held an actual rifle, sure your head tilts back when you look up, but your chin, arms and shoulders all go forward.
I mean, do whatever you want, just don’t claim it’s more natural. If it feels good to you, great. Do that. You don’t need to bullshit to defend it.
So I started playing Rimworld a little while back.
I’m liking it so far, but this is the kind of game where, almost 200 hours in (yikes!), I’m still not entirely sure exactly what kind of game I’m really playing.
I feel like I could have a lot to say about it, but I’m also acutely aware that there’s often a very fine line between a considered review and a boring story about what happened this one time when I played Rimworld.
I will say this, though: It’s surprising how few details it takes to give a pawn (as they’re called) some sort of distinct personality. Each one is basically a name and a few quirks, and that’s somehow enough for my brain to distinguish one from another and fill in the details of their inner lives and interpersonal interactions.
I’ve had more than one colony with a rich and dynamic social history, and it’s been quite fun.
They were all destroyed in horrible ways, of course, but that’s just the nature of the game at my current skill level, as far as I can tell.
Players are divided into five skill tiers; I’m currently in tier 3, but I’m on the verge of making it into tier 2. Tier 5 is clueless newbies, tier 4 has competent pilots but minimal team tactics, tier 3 has simplistic teamwork (e.g. “let’s all run around the flank and try to catch the enemy from behind”), tier 2+ has less simplistic teamwork (e.g. “let’s set up an ambush behind this choke point, so we can slaughter the enemy flankers when they charge into our firing line”).
I have a bunch of mechs these days, but I still mostly prefer to hop around in my favourite Catapult-C4. Optimised for mobility, sensors and mid-range firepower, but can also manage long-range artillery duties and some close-range brawling.
Haven’t played, but have been gifted it. I have friends who have mentioned it.
Not helpful, I know, sorry. Will probably play, but at the moment I (somewhat embarrassingly) have been sucked back into Skyrim (I never got around to finishing a bunch of the achievements, ok? And, in spite of the bugs, there’s so fricking much to explore…)
Completed Spider-Man on PS4 yesterday. If you’ve got a console and haven’t played it, it’s really quite a lot of fun. Along the lines of the Arkham games, with less complex combat and less po-faced seriousness. Swinging around NY is absolutely amazing. Bonus Stan Lee cameo!
Things had been going fairly well-- I managed to advance all four of my fighters into Champion level of Arena-- two weeks running! And I was continuing to level up in Adventure mode, hoard soul and crystals, smack down the Raid Boss every so often… good times.
Then the developers decided to release an upgrade. From what I’ve been able to gather from reviews and comments online, there have been changes to quite a few elements of the game-- particularly in the extras like the Tower, Arena and Raid Boss. You can only play five times a day in those areas. I don’t like the sound of that at all…it sounds like, do badly enough and you’re eventually mathmatically eliminated from ever reaching Champion again. I figured, I’ll give it a week or so and see if they’ll release another patch…
Nope. And last night I found out I can’t play Raid or Arena at all unless I upgrade to the new version, which doesn’t seem to be very popular.
Oh well. Guess I have to try it out and see if it’s really that bad.
First reactions (after only about 20 minutes gameplay, one character): At least one of the gripes is justified, but so far, it’s not too bad.
Yes, there are limits to Tower, Raid Boss, and Arena-- but in Arena, at least, you can buy additional “keys” to play with Crystals (higher level in-game currency.) I’m thinking I won’t have to avoid or play through Daily Quests that insist on 15 bouts when I don’t feel up to it any more… but if I want to go further, I can. So I’ve still got some control over how much I participate, and that’s good.
One issue that deserves the kvetching is level payoffs. The amount of Soul (lower level in-game currency) one earns from completing the levels has been halved, give or take. I don’t like that at all. We’ll see if that sticks, or if it gets patched. I’m hoping for a patch. Quality gear and upgrades can be expensive, and if they make it too difficult to earn Soul, they’ll lose players.
One thing I’m not 100% sure of yet-- there have been distinct changes in level design, in both graphics and content. Keep in mind, the game encourages playing and replaying levels, to the point where I sometimes felt like I could run them in my sleep. (I think I did once or twice.) Not any more! Some beasties have been redesigned, and they don’t show up in the same places or patterns they used to, either. I strolled into one level expecting the typical mayhem, and found myself face-to-face with a brand new miniboss! Overall, this is a good thing, because the game is less routine and more exciting. But… I used to be able to see a Daily Quest and know the fastest way to beat it. There was some comfort in that. It’s not true any more, so I may have to re-learn a few things… which should be fun.
And from what little I’ve seen, the graphics appear even better– and that’s saying something! I’m going to go check out more. I’ve got a few more Quests to complete before midnight.
MWO runs frequent in-game events, where small rewards are offered for various achievements (“do x amount of damage with weapon type y” etc). Each subsection will have a thematic title, such as “arrows from the sky” for doing long-range missile damage, or “sneaky ninja” for spotting enemy units while undetected,
They’ve just launched a new one, and the subsection titles include:
Seeing as we all have time to burn, I fired up the ol’ Kerbal Space Program.
After a few basic orbital hops, I got a mission to rescue a Kerbal from Munar orbit. So, I slapped together a robot spaceship with an empty crew capsule, and headed for the Mun.
Launch: fine.
Transit to the Mun: fine.
Match orbits and rendezvous: fine.
Belatedly realise that he was in a retrograde orbit and our intercept speed was about 750m/s: oops.
Fortunately, I had massively overbuilt my rocket, and had enough ΔV to spare that I could completely reverse my orbit.
However, this left me a little short of fuel for the return transit. But, with a little fiddling, I managed to find a burn that would get me home.
With 5m/s ΔV to spare. And a fairly steep reentry.
This was when I realised that I’d forgotten to boost the amount of ablator on the heatshield to account for the Munar-velocity reentry.
But, too late now. Cross fingers and go for it.
The capsule made it back to the ground. With about 0.05% of ablator to spare…
Can anyone recommend a good and cheap gaming mouse?
My current one won’t register more than two button presses at the same time (despite having five buttons), which is rather limiting in MWO. Something with a button on the right-hand side of the mouse (as well as the usual left-hand side ones) would be good.
I had a Logitech G502 for a while, loved its shape. Switched to a smaller Corsair Harpoon, which is more precise but the thumb buttons are harder to reach.
The G502 is OZ$85 for the corded model ($185 for cordless), which is a bit much for my budget. Anyone know anything about the G402?
Does the Corsair cope okay with 3+ simultaneous button presses?
Mostly I’m just looking to solve the no-more-than-two-buttons-at-once problem. Three simultaneous button hits is a fairly routine requirement in MWO (one for targeting laser, one for main weapons, one for secondary weapons, etc).
the corsair harpoon handles multiple mayoresses nicely. I’m tempted to get a new shell printed for it to better accommodate my bear paw hands, but it handles.beautifully so I live with it.
Logitech 302 is pretty nice as well, Logitech are absolute dears and have a record of sending a free replacement long after warranty has ended.
I’ve made pretty good progress in I Love Hue. I worked through all of the square puzzles, and now I’m into the stages with hexagons. For example, I get to turn this:
It’s a bit trickier than the earlier square-spectrum puzzles, even if the color theory is basically the same (brightest/most saturated tiles at the edges, shading to dullest/most muted in the center.) It’s still enjoyable, and a good calming activity for the quarantine.
):
I’m going to go check out more. I’ve got a few more Quests to complete before midnight. 
