Messages

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Hardware and Tech / Re: What Was Your Longest Lasting PC Computer

« on: May 14, 2024, 01:30:30 pm »

It's a Pentium 3 PC from around 2002 and it was my sister's. It has an Abit VH6-T board and originally a Celeron 600, 256MB RAM and Geforce MX200, a few years later it was upgraded with a Pentium 933 and a Radeon 8500LE. Later our dad got it who wasn't that tech savvy, but wanted to learn how to use a computer because of work. That was around the later-mid-2000s, around 2007 or so. Then went to the bottom of a wardrobe for the next couple of years. When I moved out I took it and still have it with unchanged specs and the same Windows XP install I did for my father back in the day, though the optical drive is faulty.

The second longest was my previous daily driver I bought in February 2009. A Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H board with Athlon X2 5050e, 4GB RAM and Radeon HD4670. It was upgraded to a Phenom II X3 720 and HD5770 around 2012 and a Phenom T X6 1055T and HD7850 around 2014-2015, and at some point around the Phenom X3 upgrade another 4GB RAM was added. I used this PC until September 2019 and sold it in December the same year. That's a little over 10 years. I kept the case and the 3.5" memory card reader though which I still use for my XP nostalgia PC. Sometimes I regret selling it. I didn't get that much for a PC that old and it would also make a great XP nostalgia PC. It's probably in a landfill by now.

My current daily driver is No.4 on the list with 5 years of service life barely a year behind the PC I used in my high school years, but I will upgrade it with a Ryzen 7 5700, another 16GB RAM and an RX7600 and continue using it for a few more years. I can easily see it taking the No.2 spot.

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General / Re: Games you must play before you die.

« on: April 26, 2024, 10:27:45 am »

Nice list but personally, i'd swap ME3 (bad writing, not just the ending and some meh level designs) with ME1, just way better writing all around, driving the car was annoying but nothing is perfect.

ME1 is a pre-2010 game so that's why I left off my list. For example The Witcher 1 is absent for the same reason. If I'd make a full list about games of all time, I would have included both, but it was just meant as an update for a list about pre-2010 games.

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General / Re: Games you must play before you die.

« on: March 21, 2024, 12:41:26 pm »

You mean updating/expanding the list with games came out since 2010?

Fallout: New Vegas
Red Dead Redemption
Dark Souls
Portal 2
Mass Effect 2&3
Alice: Madness Returns
Dishonored
The Witcher 2&3
Grand Theft Auto 5 (single player)
Metro: Last Light
Wolfenstein: The New Order & The Old Blood
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Ori and the Blind Forest
Doom 2016
Dirt Rally
NieR:Automata
Cuphead
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Wasteland 2
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Resident Evil Village
Elden Ring

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General / Re: Games/Series you love, but also don't...

« on: March 09, 2024, 03:43:02 pm »

That would be most of the games that got rebooted or got a sequel after 10+ years recently.

Tomb Raider? I abhor everything starting from the 2013 reboot. Though I probably would like the recently released remaster of the originals.

Mortal Kombat? I liked everything up to and including the 2009 reboot, then just lost interest.

Far Cry? I have absolutely no interest in anything that came after Blood Dragon.

Fallout? 4 was bad, 76 was abysmal, and I have no trust in Bethesda that they will ever make a good game again. At least not as long as they have Tod Howard.

Saint's Row? I like it up to 4.

Mass Effect? I love the first especially... then there is Andromeda.

Wolfenstein? Absolutely love it up to Old Blood. Anything after... eh... and then there is Young Blood.

Prince of Persia? The last good one was the 2008 reboot (why is Classic region locked on X360 btw? the store will go down in a couple of months and I can't get it). Forgotten Sands is best left forgotten, the new side scroller is said to be good, but not Prince of Persia.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Where do you draw the line? New Game Prices

« on: February 29, 2024, 01:07:50 am »

But I follow a strict guideline. $1 an hour is what I would pay.

Hours carry value but they themselves are not value. The value of a game hour and the quantity of hours are usually in an inverse relationship. The more hours there are, the less value each individual hour has. If I recall my best, most vivid gaming experiences, the overwhelming majority are from games shorter than 30hrs. Even if I consider RPGs alone, it's still just around 60. For the games I've played hundreds of hours, most of it just a haze with some standout moments here and there.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Where do you draw the line? New Game Prices

« on: February 28, 2024, 12:59:51 pm »

At 40€. I see no reason for game prices to rise above what offline playable physical games were. You get less ownership rights due to online DRM and forced updates, you can be kicked off the platform which hosts your games, the distribution costs went down compared to physical media, while the market grew more than 10x over the past 20 years which offsets the increase in development costs.

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Modern Video Games / Re: What are your thoughts on Simulator Games?

« on: February 22, 2024, 06:50:11 am »

I don't even have any interest in commercial/civilian flight sims and MS Flight Sim was a huge hit. These other budget minimum wage job sims are outright beyond my comprehension why someone would pay to play them. They look/sound relentlessly boring.

But there is the sub-genre of meme games like Goat Simulator, I am bread, Surgeon Simulator and Viscera Cleanup Detail: Santa's Rampage. I think these can be fun short term, but they are mainly made for streamers/gaming youtubers who in turn make them go viral.

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Modern Video Games / Re: What are your plans when everything goes digital only?

« on: January 22, 2024, 12:59:32 pm »

I already refuse to pay full price for something I have much less ownership rights over what I had with offline DRM physical games. Not more than 20€. Imho for a good 10 years the majority of physical copies are already made pointless because of online DRM. You get a dust collector with the same ownership right you have for the digital release.

When digital only mutates into subscription service only, and that will happen, don't hold onto any illusions about it, I'll quit playing modern games.

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General / Re: 2024 Gaming/Collecting Goals

« on: January 21, 2024, 02:12:12 am »

Collecting goals:

There are a handful of games I'd really want to add to my collection.

Gaming goals.

Beat 12 games over the year. For me a 52 games challenge is impossible. I usually play longer games that takes around a month to beat. Usually more.
My backlog is 43/103 (games I started at some point but didn't beat/games I never started). So basically 146. I'd like to work some of it off.

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Classic Video Games / Re: how would you rank your collecting experience per console

« on: January 20, 2024, 05:58:15 am »

My main interest was always in PC gaming. Gaming consoles just weren't a thing when I was a kid. There were some knockoff SNES clones going around, but not much. In high school I had a friend with a PS2, but I've only played it once. So not much nostalgia fueled motivation to collect anything from before the X360 which was my first console I bought when GTA4 came out.

So yes in the Tier 1 there is the Xbox 360.
Easy to get into, still fairly cheap with a lot of brand new aftermarket accessories, but game prices started creeping up the past year. Also the online store is about to shut down in a couple of months which will most likely also increase physical game prices.

Tier 2 is PS3
I got it 2-3 years after the PS4 released. Accessibility and prices are similar to the X360. I mostly collect exclusives and distinctly Japanese style games for this one.

Tier 3 I have some interest in to actually get into and/or almost got into already. That is the PSP, PS2 and PS Vita.
The deciding factor is the availability of physical games I'm interested in.

Tier 4 are platforms I had a fleeting interest in and have a low chance of getting into them
PS1, PS4+, Xbox Classic, Xbox One+
There are some games I'm interested in, but for the retro consoles, it's much easier and more accessible to emulate while the new ones are far to internet dependent for my taste.

Tier 5 are platforms I have absolutely no interest in and wouldn't pick up even for free except maybe to sell them.
Everything I didn't mention before, but especially Nintendo. They either don't appeal to me on a fundamental level, other platforms do better what they do or availability is so low I don't feel like worth the effort.

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General / Re: Your Own Opinion About Collecting Today

« on: January 02, 2024, 08:16:47 am »

My honest opinion is that it only exists for older/retro games. Anything that requires online activation and/or internet connection is no longer owned so it can't be collected. A game library on a content delivery platform, like Steam, PSN, Uplay and the rest is just a catalogue of games you have access to right now, but the games can be altered against your will or taken away whenever the publisher or the platform owner feels like it.

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General / Re: Do any of you folks use gameplay trackers

« on: January 02, 2024, 07:53:38 am »

I also use Exophase for modern-ish platforms (Xbox, PS, Steam, GoG, etc.).
An app called Game Time Tracker alongside with an old version of Launchbox for Windows XP (nostalgia PC). I used to use Metropolis Launcher as an all-in-one solution, but it was unbearably slow. I'm still looking for something that works with Windows 98.

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General / Re: What video game has the smartest playerbase? Requiring most intelligence to play

« on: January 02, 2024, 07:46:15 am »

I'd expect hardcore CRPGs to be pretty high on the list. There is a lot of math behind... and in front of the curtain. Joggling base stats, skill levels, treats, perks, status effects, ap cost, cooldown times and half a dozen modifiers for each of these. It's like playing XCOM or Jagged Alliance with a few more layers of complexity on top.

Another one I wouldn't be surprised about are business sims.

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General / Re: What Difficulty Do You Play Your Video Games On Average Without Cheats

« on: January 02, 2024, 07:31:19 am »

Even I don't know. But I play everything without cheats for the first time.

I tend to lean towards the hardest available difficulty, because/when it makes you be more engaged with the mechanics, unless I know the game is unfair.

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General / Re: My Top 30 Pick Ups of 2023!

« on: January 02, 2024, 04:32:59 am »

Most things I picked up last year were not overly exciting.

Dragon's Lair 3D for PC, fairly uncommon if you look for a non-budget version.
Beyond Good & Evil for PC, also early CD version, not particularly common, but not unobtanium either.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance for PS3, again something that is getting on the uncommon side, but not rare.
MotorStorm: Apocalypse for PS3, this one got rare in my region, but not particularly uncommon.
Need for Speed: Underground 2 (EU) for PC, non-budget version, this one did become a collectible over the years. Uncommon especially if you want it cheap.
Need for Speed: Road Challenge for PC, is also a bit on the uncommon side.
Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time for PS3, this one also became very uncommon and its price trends upwards.

This is about all of the least generic stuff I picked up.

Other than games, I finished building a nostalgia PC:
Pentium II 450MHz (Deschutes), Diamond Viper V550 (Riva TNT), InnoVision Mighty 3DII (Voodoo II 12MB), Creative Sound Blaster AWE64