RMWeb Gamer's Lounge.

[Classsix T]

19 hours ago, scottystitch said:

I downloaded Dirt Racer 2.0 from Playstation Plus.  I find it very very difficult.  There's obviously something fundamental that I'm not doing.  I guess I'll persevere, but at the moment I'm glad I didn't pay any money directly for it. 

 

Best

 

Scott.

Rally racers can be many things to many people I've found, even within the same franchises. I got on famously with the rally stages in Gran Turismo 3, but the same blowed in one of the later GT titles.

Drifting is often the same, Need for Speed does drifting really well, GTSport, mmm...not so much.

It might be something to do with whether the Devs sees their title as a simulator or an arcade racer, though those parameters are often in flux. 

Though the car looked pretty beat up at the end, I comfortably managed Dirt Rally 2.0s introductory stages and put any dinks and scrapes down to my own fault, largely unfamiliarity with how pace notes translate into on course reality. I'll give Codies the benefit of the doubt with this one and stick with it. Jo's stamp of approval also carries weight.

 

Monster Energy Motocross, now that really does suck (down to the nature of the sport itself not necessarily the game), its deletion from the hard drive is a mere formality.

 

C6T. 

[Steadfast]

3 hours ago, Classsix T said:

I'll give Codies the benefit of the doubt with this one and stick with it. Jo's stamp of approval also carries weight.

My opinion having weight? 

I've played all the Colin McRae/ Dirt games, and Dirt Rally 2.0 is definitely a stiff learning curve. 

You'll be awful when you first play it, no doubt about it. After my first few stages I was really struggling, despite my experience with the previous series. Punctures and damage at every attempt. Stay small, get used to the R2 cars, some of the classics etc. Use the Dirtfish compound to practice throwing the car around. Listen to what Phil's telling you, the co-driver isn't there just to add weight to their side of the car! I don't play it enough to be a world beater, or anywhere close. The day I realised I don't have the time to play it enough and was never going to be above about 1300 in the online times I relaxed a lot more and enjoyed the drive, nailing a clean stage. Unfortunately, I have other games, hobbies and a day job that mean I don't have a 2 grand sim rig and 23 hours a day in the game, so I'll never be a world beater.

But I love rallying, and the Codemasters games always have a passion to them, built by people who love motorsport. They get real world co drivers, fantastic audio and development by real drivers. The Solbergs were heavily involved in DR2.0. 

The WRC games are pale imitations by comparison, naff sounds, clunky graphics and horrendous co driver. 

So take a step back. Go steady and learn your craft. As it all clicks into place, you'll be proud of finishing that stage with no damage or getting greens on all the sectors. A year after release, I'm still scared of the Audi Quattro...

Hope this helps, a big part of the game is learning, but also confidence. Confidence that what you've learned is right, and that cutting that corner and missing the tree stump by 6 inches was the right call!

 

Jo

[Classsix T]

Last batch from Mass Effect: Andromeda, promise!

 

"Everyone, remember where we've parked."

 

 

C6T. 

[Classsix T]

2 hours ago, Steadfast said:

My opinion having weight? 

 

Jo

Hey, I'm of the thinking Aliens Colonial Marines isn't that bad, despite all other published opinions to be on the contrary. What do I know!? 

 

C6T. 

[Reorte]

Those playing racing games - I assume you use a wheel. I tried a fairly cheap one years ago, but without force feedback found it a bit lacking. Is there on you recommend? (PC compatible) At the time I thought it would be nice to have some feedback through the brake pedal too (or even just a good response to foot pressure), I found it very easy to lock wheels under braking with little feedback to help avoid that other than to learn by rote how hard I could press.

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by Reorte

[Steadfast]

I play on a standard Xbox One controller, and I know some of the top times are set on controllers. I would love a wheel and something to mount it on, but to do it justice it'd cost more than I can justify and I'd also have to bin the sofa!

 

Jo

[Reorte]

I was thinking about a wheel because I like what I've seen here of Dirt Rally 2. It also has VR support, which sounds interesting - or perhaps just utterly vomit-inducing.

 

[big jim]

8 minutes ago, Steadfast said:

I play on a standard Xbox One controller, and I know some of the top times are set on controllers. I would love a wheel and something to mount it on, but to do it justice it'd cost more than I can justify and I'd also have to bin the sofa!

 

Jo

I was in a charity shop in Cockermouth earlier in the year and there was a steering wheel in there for £30, a quick google said it would work with Xbox 360 and PC not Xbox one so I left it, a Logitech G29, still selling for the best part of £200, gutted I didn’t pick it up as since then I renewed my PC with a higher spec gaming one one than before and have the likes of forza horizon 4 on it! 
 

maybe with lockdown it might still be there if the shop has been shut! 

[big jim]

4 minutes ago, Reorte said:

I was thinking about a wheel because I like what I've seen here of Dirt Rally 2. It also has VR support, which sounds interesting - or perhaps just utterly vomit-inducing.

 

 

I managed about 3 minutes on dirt rally VR before feeling sick, same with gran tourismo VR 

[Steadfast]

Yeah I'm not a VR fan, makes me feel dizzy.

I look every so often at the likes of Cex (who knew it sounded like gender, and isn't said C.E.X???) at wheels, but nothing that makes me jump. I'd need somewhere to mount it, and I know it'd be a new learning curve to learn games all over again with a wheel.

Could be fun riding a horse in RDR 2 with a wheel though hahahaha!

 

Jo

[Classsix T]

I use the controller (DualShock4) for racing. Never owned a wheel.

 

I'm mentally locked in to using X=accelerate/square=brake the only disadvantage I find is those buttons are no longer pressure sensitive and that can mean coasting or blipping the throttle in corners, which incidentally proved very awkward in Dirt Rally in the front wheel drive car as you need traction to pull the car around the corner.

 

I do OK on tarmac, I'd be loathe to spend a large amount on a wheel & pedal set-up unless it brought significant performance improvements, and frankly I don't think it would.

 

C6T. 

 

 

[big jim]

The problems with wheels are setting them up realistically, short of having some outlandish s+m looking Bondage rig cluttering up your gaming room complete with bucket seat playing games with them on your knee just doesn’t work, that’s why I never picked the one in the charity shop up as it would have just cluttered up the corner of the living room by the PC 

[Reorte]

Currently my computer is in the living room but under a desk with a dining room style chair (the monitor does duty as a TV). Kick the pedals out of the way under the desk and clamp the wheel to it (can get shoved in a cupboard when not in use). The biggest problem is I'm running out of USB ports but I doubt that a wheel and pedals are high bandwidth so I could  probably shove them both into one. But I did look at what a decent wheel offers, then I looked at the price...

Edited April 16, 2020 by Reorte

[Classsix T]

Hello friends, I hope you and yours are well, staying safe.

 

Something a little different tucked away in the PS Store, Episode 1 of The Council is currently free, effectively acting as a demo for the 5 episode interactive story game. Not played it yet myself.

 

I've been having some difficulties getting Project Cars 2 how I like it, being so used to GTSport. PC2 has far more user adjustable parameters for driving/handling. Starting with the Ginetta Juniors, the car would fishtail wildly as I fought the driving "aids" attempting to bring the car under control. By tweaking steering sensitivity and amount of traction control & anti spin, I've managed to get the car more or less how I like it, but it tends to straight line under braking though there's little indication that the front wheels are locking. Need to shift the brake balance rearward I guess?

My success in GTSport is largely down to circuit knowledge and 'feel' for the cars, knowing where I'm going to be if I change or continue the controller input. Having to learn all over again in PC2! Certainly not complaining about fresh tracks to pound mind you.

 

C6T. 

[big jim]

I’ve set the Xbox one back in the man cave on the big screen, Dom has bought (well done lots of chores to earn the money for) the new fallout 74 update game which he’s enjoying playing 

 

I downloaded a cracking little puzzler to the switch called unravelled 2, enjoying that

 

the youngest has found A Lego dimensions set that we bought a couple of years back and never played and set that up on his xbox 360, that’s cost me a fortune this week buying characters for it, lucky they are quite cheap now on eBay and Amazon 

 

gonna have to set the PS4 up again soon, that’s been unplugged for a good 6 months after we took it off Dominic due to it affecting his school work and I found it in a cupboard in the spare room while having a tidy up last week 

Edited April 27, 2020 by big jim

[Classsix T]

This'll make your head hurt...

 

 

C6T. 

[SHMD]

I'm still enjoying Fortnite, another win in Solo's...

 

 

 

Kev.

 

[beast66606]

Ive just spent a weekend playing CoD for free, great fun - I was rubbish for the first few games, but once I was used to the maps and weapons again I improved dramatically with a good kill/death ratio normally finishing top or second,  I even owned one of the Faze team on one particular map so chuffed I get revenge on Faze for my Warzone death meantioned earlier in this thread.

 

 

[MJI]

I am STILL bashing away in Destiny.

 

Trying to earn an exotic heavy machine gun.

 

In Destiny 1 I rarely botherd with any non heavy exotics, just using an arc exotic machine gun, a bonkers solar rocket laucher (I miss it), and an extreme tracking void rocket launcher.

 

In 2 I tend to stick with the Destiny 2 version of same machine gun.

 

A simple score chart for the game

 

PvP 3/10

Story 3/10

Maps 7/10

Gunplay 9/10

Shooting aliens in the face 10/10

[Classsix T]

Huh, live and learn, or old giffer doesn't know what new tech is capable of, you decide. 

 

A morning sesh of GTSport is usually undertaken with the downtime between races switching over the TV to watch Frasier etc. A song came on and I looked it up on the mobile Spotify app. Found it and playback resulted in the mobile linking to the PS4, no playback on the phone. OK, but then flicking the TV back to GTSport, there it was, happily over playing with GTSport's own soundtrack disabled. How cool! (Jungle Love - Steve Miller Band BTW. Dad rock, probably not so "kewl".)

 

So, rather late in the day, this opens up the possibility of some rather more choice background music for those titles where the player spends an amount of time doing not very much. I've never been a huge fan of in-game bgm, action titles especially, it ruins the immersion with a full orchestra blaring out. Mass Effect did bgm very well otoh. 

 

I suppose it's too much to ask that Spotify only plays over the bgm and in-game dialogue is unaffected? 

Never satisfied me!

 

C6T. 

[Classsix T]

It seems the received audio channel (in GTSport at least) does only replace the in-game music, sound effects are unaffected. Excellent. 

 

Next job is to plug the TV audio out into the JVC amp and thence through the big ass Celestion speakers!

 

C6T. 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Classsix T

[Classsix T]

On 27/04/2020 at 17:30, Classsix T said:

Something a little different tucked away in the PS Store, Episode 1 of The Council is currently free, effectively acting as a demo for the 5 episode interactive story game. Not played it yet myself.

 

C6T. 

The full 5 episode version of The Council is available in PS Store for little more than £6 (more about that anon) so I thought I'd give the freebie a quick look. 

Rather enjoyable as it happens. I immediately thought of Monkey Island but of course it's a lot more modern. It's an intelligent, cerebral and console friendly point & click alike in a 3-D third person environment, OK to look at. Dialogue choice and consequence mechanism is akin to that in Deus Ex or Detroit Become Human. Recommended.

 

Competent point n click for the Amiga, found in the recent tidy up. Mind that lava Indy!

 

So the Store. Front of house, Sony trumpet the current (spring) sale, natch, plus there is other pages that'll promote different genres. It was only through doing a little digging I found out some titles I was genuinely interested in were also discounted. Another reason it'd be nice to be able to bookmark them to find out quicker if they're on reduction.

A word to the wise then, check out the "Games Under..." panels, just in case a title you're after isn't included in the current sale pane. Fume.

 

C6T. 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Classsix T

[SHMD]

^

Spoiler alert 

 

Is that the Indiana game where at the end you had to line up the curser with a pixel to form a cross to complete the game?

 

 

Kev.

[Classsix T]

I'll let you know* Kev, I never got that far into it. It was a "temporary" swap with a golf game I had (and wished I'd kept hold of) back in the 90’s.

Eleven (count 'em!) disks, I probably didn’t get past disk 3. 

 

(* if and when disk 2 turns up!)

 

C6T. 

[Reorte]

My first Dirt Rally attempt - spectacularly bad!