#…something you’d see on a Skyrim loading screen…

[bananahell]

Immersive armors mod additional

#IMMERSIVE ARMORS MOD ADDITIONAL HOW TO#

#IMMERSIVE ARMORS MOD ADDITIONAL MOD#

#IMMERSIVE ARMORS MOD ADDITIONAL MODS#

At the time of composing, LOOT doesn'testosterone levels assistance SSE just yet, though the developer is actively functioning to obtain a stable release published soon.

#IMMERSIVE ARMORS MOD ADDITIONAL MOD#

Mod writers generally offer info in mod explanations on the Néxus should their data files need to end up being configured in a collection purchase, and there are usually even tools obtainable that can check to discover if there are any problems with your setup.Download and instaIl LOOT, which wé strongly suggest you operate each and every period you modify your weight purchase or install/remove a mod.

#IMMERSIVE ARMORS MOD ADDITIONAL MODS#

I am genuinely so disappointed to see that the fallout of a single thread has been turning a large portion of this community against an excellent mod.This list is essential because some mods and data files need to end up being loaded by the video game in a particular purchase. If you like the armor that it features, you should absolutely add it to your load order. TLDR: Immersive armors is not bad, Immersive Armors will not break your game, and Immersive Armors is not going to make your mod list unstable. This is one of those times where something got repeated often enough and now everybody believes it. nif or two in in the OG Skyrim version of the mod that can cause CTD issues, but the SSE version of the mod is fine. The "issues" with Immersive Armors have been grossly overstated by this sub after a single thread stirring up drama about the mod that was posted by a guy who clearly did not understand how meshes work. Sforzinda's has a different design mindset that uses vanilla assets but also includes stuff that's less dark-ages-viking-realism mashup and more vanilla+ mashup that's a lil fancier I guess without looking like MMO-outfit territory or from another game.īut yeah, you guys are right - this mod is fucking filled with issues that makes a list unstable. most of the time, using armor from one of the author's mods doesn't prevent using armor from other mods by that author), though it required a good deal of playing around with leveled lists for me to get them all working the way I wanted. I'm commenting this just to point to the fact that for someone who likes nordwarua's stuff, there's lots of mostly non-exclusive options (e.g. I'm using a combo of nordwarua vanilla armor replacers, realistic armor, heavy legion, new legion, minor faction armors, faction armor replacer, guard armor replacer, race armor expansion (along with some others that I think are less what you'd be looking for), and some specific cuirasses from sforzinda imitations/fourth era as well. See the rules page for more information.Screenshots in the context of asking for help are acceptable.Please take your screen archery to /r/SkyrimPorn. Screenshots do not contribute to the discussion of modding or mod creation.No Screenshots (except to ask for help).Memes and gameplay stories do not contribute to this whatsoever. This is a sub centered around the discussion of modding and creating mods.Sexual content ( galleries / screenshots that involve sexual acts) is not. Posting about and discussing the use of these is fine. There are a wide variety of body meshes and armors that are NSFW.When you sign up for Nexus you agree to a ToS that says you will not do these things. No we don't care about your views on the finer points of copyright law.This includes sharing/rehosting a mod without the original author's express permission.If you promote piracy or seek help in modding a pirated game you will be banned.

#IMMERSIVE ARMORS MOD ADDITIONAL HOW TO#

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[nitewrighter]

Hi hi! I always admired your writing, my favorite thing about it is how natural you can make people interact with each other.

But my question to you is, where do you draw inspiration from? Or if you have any references?

I have a fantasy story where the MC through some shenanigans, becomes a defacto student teacher, so most of the other characters she interacts with is high school aged students or other faculty staff. So we're looking at a about a decade difference older and younger. And im not sure how to write them without it feeling awkward or stilted.

Aw, thank you very much! I'd say I take inspiration from a whole lot of different places, both from my own life and from the media I consume. Both my parents are teachers who had summers off, so we would be able to travel a lot as I was growing up, and I got to see a lot of places, and I grew up in a big family, so there were lots of gatherings that put me in contact with lots of aunts and uncles and cousins, so you kind of grow up with a wide variety of interactions... I also roleplayed a lot in forum text RP's on gaiaonline when I was in high school and even in my first two years of college, which were themselves collaborative storytelling but also put me in contact with a lot of other amateur writers' voices and a lot of very distinct characters--sure a lot of them were anime knockoffs, but behind those anime knockoffs were very earnest and passionate voices. And I do have a degree in creative writing and was writing both academically and as a hobby in college (hoo!). But I've also always been hardcore into fantasy and science fiction from a young age, and also like... and like, that's kind of a whole melting pot in my brain. And I grew up reading a lot because I'd often be stuck after school with my parents working late grading papers. There's a lot of voices in my head and when I write I just.. tend to hear them. So lots of reading, lots of writing. Lots of getting out into the world. No small amount of Video Games.

As for your writing question, I think part of making dialogue feel natural is being willing to embrace the awkward. In the case of a student teacher, I can tell you that I actually work with a lot of people 10+ years my senior, and age differences with your coworkers really aren't as awkward as you think once you're past your mid-20's. There's some hierarchical stuff, because there's clear differences in levels of experience, but most of the time you're just... doing your job. I think basically the two questions you want to ask yourself when you're writing dialogue is:

A. What is this dialogue meant to accomplish? (Plot-wise, characterization-wise, exposition-wise... there's a lot of functions for dialogue! If you're just having characters talk for the sake of having them talk, you might find yourself stuck!)

B. How will the characters's own voices/characterizations, and their perception of the other character, affect this goal?

Let's say.. your MC is talking with a kind of stodgy, tenured-type teacher--real old school kind of guy. This is a guy who's very used to his routines, not really in the space to have a young person with approximately 20 minutes of experience disrupt what ain't been broke for 20 years for him. And oh lord, she looks like she has ideas. But they're still coworkers, so he's blandly polite but pretty terse.

"Oh no," you're saying, "Where's the banter? Where's the flow?"

Well that's just it: This ain't a marvel movie. Dialogue does not need to jingle keys in your face and be constant back-and-forth to be engaging. This is the part where all the "show don't tell" that all those writing classes have been talking about actually comes in. What's it like in the room? What are both of their body languages like? Does talking to this guy inexplicably make her sweater feel itchier, or is she just refusing to itch because she doesn't want this guy to think she's fidgety? Is she looking around the room for something, anything to talk about (environments are people too!!). Would they have misunderstandings? Uncomfortable pauses? Who wants to get out of the conversation first? The dialogue itself is only a part of a whole scene--so don't be afraid to zoom out to the scene.

As for the decade younger crowd, you can apply questions A and B as needed but keep in mind results may vary in terms of these whippersnappers' relationships to authority. No teacher is everyone's favorite teacher, and some kids are just straight-up assholes.

Anyway, Hope this helps.

[girls-scenarios]

We’re Recording

Idol: Lua (Weki Meki)

Prompt: I saw that the requests for Weki Meki and EXID are open so could u do a Lua scenario where she sits on her s/o's lap while they are streaming and just starts asking questions about the game?

Writer: Admin Kiwi

A/N: I ended up making the game the Sims because I’ve been obsessed with it lately, but haven’t really watched someone play a game on stream in a long time so I hope this is still accurate? Also I haven’t been posting as much as I want to because the weather took a sudden shift here and made me sick, but I’m doing better and I hope you all enjoy!

♡ Tip Jar♡

It was a normal Thursday, like any other. You had everything set up and ready to go, your headphones on the desk beside a bottle of water and the Sims loading screen on the computer. Lua was somewhere in the house, but you weren’t too worried about it as you sat down and stretched your arms up over your head. She’d showed up in a couple of your streams, so your followers wouldn’t be that surprised if she walked in.

After taking one more sip of water, you put on your headphones and moved in closer to the computer, clicking the screen recording option before starting the stream. It always took a few minutes for everyone to get on, but since you’d announced the stream on Twitter, quite a few of your followers were already there. You grinned and waved before clicking into your Sim house, greeting everyone.

“Hello, welcome back to my stream everyone! Is everyone in the mood to do some Sims challenges?” You opened up the chat, reading the comments. Most of them were just cute gifs, but people had responded, making you laugh. Your fingers were itching to get playing, so you sat up straight and clicked onto your character. “Alright, let’s get into this. This week, we’re trying to start the zombie apocalypse, so buckle in tight because it’s about to get crazy!”

 -

The first half of the stream went smoothly, with your stream gaining more hits than usual and your character successfully beginning the virus through the mod you’d installed. As you were obsessing over a zombie dog, though the door to your room opened. You didn’t hear it, headphones blocking out the sound, so you didn’t notice anyone was in the room until a hand touched the back of your neck, making you jump and squeak, spinning around only to see Lua there, laughing softly.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just curious about what you were playing.”

You cleared your throat, trying to play off being scared even though you knew chat was going crazy by the sounds of pings in your headphones. With deft hands, you reached back and closed the chat, an idea popping into your head. “I’m playing the Sims,” you said, turning the chair back around.

“The Sims? The Sims isn’t scary. Why did you jump like that?” She didn’t notice the blinking light on the side of the screen as she sat on your lap, peering at the screen. “Wait, is there something wrong with that dog?”

“It’s a zombie dog.”

She blinked and turned back to look at you, confused. “What? How did you get zombies in there?”

“I installed a mod that makes it possible to have zombies.”

“There’s a mod for that?”

“There’s literally a mod for everything, babe. How long has it been since you played the Sims?” Chat was going crazy even more, and you hoped that she couldn’t hear the sound as you wrapped your arms around her waist.

“Um, a long time. I played with you that time!”

“That was months ago. And that was just the normal game with no mods.”

“It was still the game.” Her eyes widened as more zombies appeared on screen. “That looks scary.”

“Only if someone is sneaking up behind you while you’re playing it,” you said, making her whine and turn her head to look at you again.

“I told you I didn’t mean to scare you! You just had your headphones on so you didn’t hear me.” She kissed your cheek, a peace offering, and the sound of the chat went nuts again, making your face heat up. You weren’t expecting her to go that far.

“Alright, you’re forgiven,” you said, gently touching your cheek with a smile. “You need to learn more about gaming, though.”

“I know a little bit, don’t act like that. I can play Skyrim.”

“Everyone can play Skyrim.”

“I played Outlast with you!”

“That game came out ages ago!”

“Still, it was scary.”

“True, true. Have you played any games recently?”

She leaned back against you, thinking. “Tetris and Mario Kart.”

“Those don’t even count,” you teased with a grin, and she huffed, sitting up.

“You’re so mean. Can you do a split, (Y/N)? Can you do a cartwheel? Can you do rhythmic gymnastics from memory?” She raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms, and you put up your hands.

“Okay, point taken. I’m sorry for teasing you.”

“Apology accepted.” As she went to look back at the screen, you turned back on chat, and her eyes widened. “Wait. Is that....” She spun back around. “Have you been recording this whole time?”

“You walked in while I was streaming,” you said, giving her your best innocent voice. “This is payback for scaring me.”

“You play dirty, oh my god, that’s so embarrassing.” She covered her face with her hands and you laughed, wrapping your arms around her again to keep her from getting up and leaning forward to read the comments.

“They think we’re cute, though. Look. ‘omg goals’ ‘why are they so cute’ ‘wow they make me feel lonely’ and then there’s a lot of hearts,” you pointed out, and she peeked out through her fingers.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” she said with a sigh, shaking her head, but there was the hint of a smile on her lips, and you knew she wouldn’t stay mad at you long.

“You’re the cute one, not me.” Chat erupted again, and she wiggled out of your arms.

“Just for that, I’m revoking your cuddle privileges for the rest of the night.”

“Babe! That’s not fair!”

She grinned and leaned towards you, and you gulped. “Then give me a kiss. On the lips.” Chat was going insane, and you knew you had to do it. Damn your girlfriend for being just as mischievous as you.

“Fine.” You leaned forward, making it quick, and when you sat back, lips tingling and face red, she grinned.

“Thank you. Cuddle privileges are no longer revoked.” She turned on her heel and headed out of the room, and you were almost afraid to look back at the chat as you cleared your throat and put back on your headphones. The amount of people on the stream had almost doubled, and your eyes widened at the sheer amount of comments coming in.

“Woah. Maybe I should invite my girlfriend onto every stream,” you joked, shaking your head as you looked the chat. Most of them were saying that you’d ‘lost at your own game’ and ‘took the L” but you just grinned. “I definitely lost to her this time. But I can’t say I mind.”

The chat erupted again, making you laugh as you turned back to your game, but a new stream idea was already blooming inside your head.

“Hey guys, what do you say about a series where I play my girlfriend in the Sims?”

[bubble-tea-bunny]

peachy

[sweet pea x reader]

author’s note: got skyrim for switch and evo was this weekend so i’ve been really distracted sorry guys haha. was trying to write a reggie fic but it was giving me some trouble so i wrote this to take a break from it. hopefully that one will be out next. i actually really like the premise and am determined to make it work!   

word count: 2,051

The bell jingles quietly when he comes in. Rain has been pouring all day and it’s best enjoyed from inside Pop’s, where it’s warm and there’s good food and the neon lights bounce off water droplets and the wet cement. In a world of gray the chock’lit shop is a bright red beacon, and maybe if they were strong enough to reach, the lights would paint the clouds red too. Through the roar of the raindrops, if you listen hard enough, you might be able to hear the humming of the tall sign.

Sweet Pea dries his boots on the mat by the door and brushes his hair back, for it had been soaked on the walk over here. But his fingers do little to fix the mess it’s become, and a few strands fall forward again to rest against his forehead. Little water droplets trail down his face that he wipes away before he goes to find Fangs in one of the booths.

You’re taking the order of some customers two tables away and he has to walk past you to get to Fangs. He hears you repeating the dishes they asked for, and you smile when they confirm that it’s all correct. It’s still on your face even as you turn away to head back towards the kitchen, even as you glance up at him when he rounds you on his way to his friend. It doesn’t occur to him to smile back. Not really his thing. (In his defense, there wouldn’t have been time to give one back anyway, since neither of you stopped walking.) But he does glance over his shoulder briefly to look at you again, his brows furrowed. He’s never seen you before.

Fangs confirms it for him the moment he slides into the seat opposite, vinyl squelching with his movements. Seems Pop got a new waitress, he comments, then takes a sip of his cola. She’s cute. Sweet Pea neither confirms nor denies the statement as he instead occupies himself with looking through the menu. The rain outside starts falling harder.

When you come by, notepad out and grabbing the pen tucked behind your ear, his eyes pass over your name tag. [Name]. From what he can tell so far, you wear the name well—soft and sweet, like your lipsticked grin. Maybe it’s practiced, given your job, or maybe it’s genuine. He figures it doesn’t matter either way. It turns people into ice cream on a hot day. They can’t help melting in the midst of it. Fangs is proof enough of that, with the way he’s looking at you. Sweet Pea would laugh if it weren’t his turn to order.

After you’ve left, he looks over at Fangs. “I think you’re drooling,” he teases.

Fangs rolls his eyes. “Shut up.”

There aren’t many people in the diner, so their food doesn’t take long to be prepared. They’re talking about tonight’s meeting at the Wyrm but promptly quiet down about it as you return with what they’ve ordered: a burger and fries for Fangs, and a milkshake and slice of peach pie for Sweet Pea. Enjoy, you say with a smile, and they do.

Fangs is practically inhaling his food, and Sweet Pea watches on in amusement. He hadn’t been particularly hungry, so he’d opted for dessert. His pace is much slower as he neatly cuts off pieces of the pie with his fork before spearing it through and bringing it up to his mouth. It’s perfectly warm, contrasted with the perfect chill of his vanilla milkshake. He’s always had a sweet tooth, and the sweets at Pop’s were the best possible sweets to load up on.

The cherry atop his shake has stained the portion of whipped cream that it rests on, turning it pink, and he plucks it up between thumb and index. Tilting his head back, he lowers the cherry into his mouth and bites it off, then sets the stem off to the side. As he chews, his gaze slides over to you, where you stand at the counter refilling sugar pourers, and his eyes follow the length of your legs, starting from your ankles, up your calves and up past your knees and up still until he reaches your thighs and he can only go halfway before your uniform dress cuts him off, and he’s left wondering what the rest looks like underneath. You seem to feel him watching and glance over at the same moment he swallows, and you grin. The cherry’s aftertaste is pleasant on his tongue and he’s thinking he’d rather have you to sate his sweet tooth instead.

He can try to deny that your presence in the diner has not, in fact, encouraged him to eat there more often, but that’s exactly what it is. Sometimes he comes in alone and sits on one of the stools at the counter, and your smile always seems to get a little bigger when he shows up. He’ll order a burger and some soda and he’ll finish off with a slice of pie—peach, as usual.

You keep him company while he eats, leaning on the counter with both forearms poised in front of you, and he’s trying to ignore the way your stance is pushing up your breasts and the way they strain against the fabric of the dress. He forces himself to look you in the eye and you’re smirking slightly. It’s hard to miss from this distance. And it’s at times like these—when the stares might be getting a little too intense and the tall milkshake glass is empty so he’s looking for another sugary fix fast and the shade of butterscotch on your painted lips makes them look like a prime candidate—that your attention is pulled away by a party of three in one of the booths.

Try not to miss me while I’m gone, you state with a chuckle before you go to help that table. He tries and he’s only really half successful. It’s boring eating in silence, and he hates when you have to check on the other customers. He enjoys having you to himself, hogging you to the point he forgets there’s anyone else here at all.

The scent of peaches reaches his nose as you walk away, and he’s confused because there’s no peach pie in sight. His gaze follows you in silent speculation as he pops another French fry in his mouth. He might be craving peach pie but not enough to hallucinate the smell. And he smirks to himself as he turns back to his plate, the small mystery quickly solved: you smell like his favorite dessert.

It’s your color too. He’d mentioned offhandedly once that the two of you should catch a movie at the drive-in, and you were quick to say yes. The evening he picks you up is the first time he sees you outside of your work uniform—you wear a peach dress. He wonders if it’s purposeful.

“You look good,” he says, turning his attention back on the road as he pulls away from the curb.

You smile lopsidedly, fingering the hem of the dress, fabric soft against the skin of your thighs. “Thanks.”

Tonight the drive-in is showing an old black-and-white flick. Sweet Pea gets a spot in the middle of the lot but a little farther back, since he hadn’t arrived early enough to score one near the front. While you run to the concession stand to grab a soda, he twists the dial on the radio in search of the correct station. Upon your return, a rush of cold air floods the car as you open the door and close it behind you. The ice cubes in your drink clink together as you set it down in the cup holder. Not long after, the parking lot lights dim and the screen begins showing the intro credits.

Sweet Pea isn’t keeping track of how long it is before his eyes start to linger away from the movie and over to you. And it’s not as if the movie is boring. It’s actually really interesting, and it has its funny parts too. But you’re emanating a heat that’s hard to ignore. You haven’t seemed to notice anything, still focused on the film. The lights are bouncing off your face, and he can’t quite tell if that’s what’s causing the brightness in your eyes or if it’s something else.

One of the characters makes another joke and you laugh, and it pulls a smile from him. You glance at him only to find him already watching you, and you tilt your head. “You okay?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

You aren’t satisfied with the response, however. And he’s not surprised. It hadn’t been a very convincing one, and it’s probably written all over his face that there’s something on his mind. Your brows furrow in concern and the smile drops. “You aren’t bored, are you?”

“No, not at all,” he assures. “I’m just… a little distracted.”

This puts the smile back on your face, but it’s slowly morphing into a smirk. Small, but unmistakable. “By what?”

Sweet Pea has his left hand poised on the steering wheel, tapping his fingers on it as he gives you a smirk of his own. “I have a feeling you know by what.”

You laugh and there’s a sparkle in your eye. You turn your body to face him properly and now the projector screen casts half your face in light and half in shadow.  Am I at least a nice distraction? you ask quietly, and the following period of silence is filled with the audio of the film filtering through the radio.

He hums quietly in confirmation, and it sounds almost like a purr. You’re leaning closer to each other without really meaning to and his gaze flickers from your lips up to your eyes as he says in a hushed voice You’re my favorite kind.

Your smile’s sweet enough to give him cavities, but so does the way you taste. Your lips are syrupy and sugary from the cola you’d been sipping. His left hand leaves the steering wheel to tangle itself in your hair. The movie is mere background noise now, and the glare of it turns you into silhouettes for cars farther behind in the lot and maybe they can see you, but neither of you cares. Besides, it’s highly unlikely you’re the only car whose attention has strayed.

You pant heavily and tilt your head back to allow Sweet Pea space as he slides his lips along your jaw. He lays a kiss on the soft spot beneath your ear before continuing down the column of your neck. And the smell of peaches is strong the whole time, making him smirk as he finds your pulse point. When he nips at it, hard enough to make you gasp, equal parts from shock and from pleasure, he’s pretending it’s the hottest day of summer and you’re the prettiest peach in the orchard.

The scent lingers in the car even after he drops you off. Fangs can smell it when he’s in there the next day and he immediately knows what (or rather who) it’s from. “New air freshener?” he inquires with feigned innocence as Sweet Pea gets into the driver’s seat. “Didn’t think you liked peach.”

Sweet Pea closes the door and glances at his friend, who’s smirking widely. He sighs but he’s smiling slightly as he shrugs. “It’s grown on me.”  

It’s raining again today, and as they hit the road, Fangs asks So… Pop’s? and for a few beats it’s just some pop song floating on the air and the pounding of raindrops on the windshield and the squeak of the wipers every several seconds. Where else? Sweet Pea responds, and Fangs chuckles. There really is no better place from which to watch the rain pour. 

At the diner, they’re engulfed in warmth and a cherry neon glow. You come by their table to take their order even though you know it will just be their usuals and you’ve long since memorized what they are, and as Sweet Pea meets your gaze, he decides he’s a bigger fan of the glow on your cheeks.

[lu-cia-lu-nacy]

Ask me how I liked the ending of BotW. Go ahead. Make my day.

lol jk I'm going to rant about anyway. The TL;DR is at the bottom of the post. Obviously, spoilers ahead. Buckle up, kids.

There I was: in front of the beast that is Calamity Ganon, the ugliest motherfucker I have ever had the displeasure of fighting in a final boss battle. The battle itself was great, but left something to be desired. Not only was Ganon at half health due to the Champions getting a shot at him before the battle officially began, but it also was terribly easy to just barrage the guy with Ancient Arrows without receiving a single scratch in return. By the time he was at a quarter health, he had gone beast mode with his defenses, which finally gave me the challenge I was expecting all along. At that point, the boss battle felt real, felt difficult, and, ultimately, felt gratifying.

Dark Beast Ganon was a great second phase to the battle, imo. I had to shoot at him on horseback while evading his efforts to trample me or kill me with Malice. Of course, Zelda swoops in when Ganon is weak and then seals him away, the words, "Destroy Ganon: Completed" filling the screen as she does it. Link's interaction with the princess afterwards was bittersweet. In fact, the entire ending was bittersweet, what with Link trying to remember who she is and Zelda finally coming to terms with Link being chosen to be the Hero of Hyrule for a reason. As the credits rolled, I was left to contemplate the ending that left me feeling both satisfied and a bit melancholy.

And then the title screen came up.

Perplexed, I selected the "continue" option in hopes of looting the Sanctum in which I fought Ganon. I noticed a star next to the save file I created, so I assumed that meant my save file was altered to accommodate my victory.

I assumed wrong, becAUSE GANON WAS STILL THERE IN HIS EGG-CACOON-WHATEVER THING, WAITING TO BUST OUT AND FIGHT ME AGAIN.

At first, I thought it was my fault that I didn't save in between the boss phases, so I begrudgingly fought Ganon again with the few Ancient Arrows I had remaining all while remembering to save. I defeated him again, I saw Zelda and went through the Emotional Rainbow™ again, and I went through the credits again...only to end up at the title screen. Again.

And there it was. That tiny, little, piece of shit star next to my save file, that does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO THE GAME BECAUSE GANON IS STILL ALIVE AND WELL.

At this point, it's past 1:00 AM and I am livid. I check the forums to see what the deal is, only to find that other gamers are saying, "lol that's just how the game is otherwise we wouldn't have Blood Moons and we'd run out of things to do."

THAT'S WHAT DLC IS FOR, MY DUDES

YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THE DEVELOPERS OF THE LEGEND OF ZELDA REALLY THOUGHT THE BEST WAY TO REWARD A GAMER FOR COMPLETING THE FIRST EVER LOZ OPEN-WORLD GAME AND DEFEATING CALAMITY GANON IS PUTTING A STUPID STAR NEXT TO THE SAVE FILE??? The "Destroy Ganon" quest isn't even shown as completed in my Adventure Log! What the fuck, yo

I felt like Hidemaro Fujibayashi just strolled up to me, stuck to my shirt a gold star sticker that's barely the size of a thumb tack, and simply said, "Good job!" as he strolled back out. You'd think an open-world LoZ game would have done SOMETHING more to commemorate the gamer defeating the almighty Calamity Ganon. All those hours spent exploring, taking down monster camps, regaining control of the Divine Beasts, completing side quests, tirelessly grinding to upgrade all my armor, finding shrines, upgrading my Heart Containers and Stamina Wheel, learning exactly how to take down Guardians--it feels like all of that was invalidated by the game's lack of recognition of Ganon's defeat.

Look at a game like Skyrim. Believe it or not, there is a main quest, and believe it or not, one can sit down and defeat that main quest, thus "completing the game." As many Skyrim players know, just because you complete the main quest, doesn't mean you're done playing the game. There are boat loads of other quests and tasks and whatnot to do in the game that will keep you from putting it down, but the game will still recognize you managed to complete the main quest. Breath of the Wild is a huge game, yes, but so is Skyrim. So is Dark Souls. So is Fallout. Why couldn't Nintendo follow in the footsteps of these other open-world games by allowing Ganon to remain defeated all while still giving you plenty of quests to complete? I feel like Nintendo really dropped the ball when it came to how they handled what the player could do post-Ganon, and that's why I really despise the ending.

Don't get me wrong: I still love the game to bits. I still love anonymously bombing unsuspecting Bokoblin camps, or taking down Guardian Stalkers, or completing my Hyrule Compedium. I'm sure the game will still be fun to play because I still have about 30 shrines left and I plan on getting the DLC. Nevertheless, as a gamer, you want to feel satisfaction when you finally defeat the boss--not disappointment and frustration.

TL;DR: The boss battle had its moments, but left something to be desired. The fact that BotW will only recognize Ganon's defeat by putting a star next to your save file is infuriating, discouraging, and plain stupid. Other open-world games allow you to complete the main quest, get recognition for it, and still give you plenty of baddies to fight or quests to complete; why couldn't Breath of the Wild do the same thing? The ending would have been much more gratifying if they allowed Ganon to stay defeated and incorporated post-defeat content, but the fact they didn't makes me feel like I wasted my time preparing to fight Ganon in the first place.

[fromtheground39-blog]

10 Years of Gaming PCs - 2015 - 2019 (Part 2)

ah PC gaming in one way or another. It'S provided countless hours days weeks, even years of entertainment to generations of enthusiasts around the globe or discs, as it were. These last 10 years have been something of a roller coaster, ride for enthusiasts and novices alike, and today we begin our story, one of sloth and greed, of loss, rebirth and a never-ending thirst for more so make yourself comfortable. As we take you back in time and celebrate PC gaming in the only way, we know how I feel like a bunch of gaming PC's, it's gonna be fun. You ready, oh, and it's brought to you by actually powered by C sonic and brought to you by LG's ultra gear. Ultra wide gaming displays yeah any news crew ever to the first chapter of our story begins way back in the long long ago, time known as 2009, the 44th President of the United States of America was inaugurated. The Twilight series made its debut and James Cameron's Avatar became the highest-grossing film of all time, depending on your take on those events. It was either a great year or one that you'd rather forget but fear. Not 2009 was a pretty good year for PC gaming. We got Borderlands, Batman, Arkham Asylum left, 4, dead, 2 and Dragon Age Origins just to name a few to run those games Intel had just launched the core. I series as a replacement for the core twos that had gone toe-to-toe with AMD in the years prior. As a result, while the Linfield core i7 handily outperformed its core 2 quad predecessors, the price for those older chips fell steadily as the new platform found its legs and they remained a highly popular choice for builders, especially with early ddr3, costing a pretty penny and not Significantly outperforming the outgoing ddr2, so our build then is equipped with everything we need to make a great 2009 gaming machine, a Core 2 quad, q96 50 with gorgeous Zellman flower cooler on it, 4 gigs of ddr2, 800, dual Radeon, HD, 59, 70s in crossfire and, of Course, Windows 7, all for just under 18 hundred US dollars at the time, so I was actually pretty into both of these games. I guess I'll go with Dragon Age. It'S probably the more graphically demanding of the two and a have. You actually tried these games. I loaded them up to make sure they launched in that they're in the right resolution. But aside from that, Oh nope, you're, gonna, have to create a character and everything I actually probably don't have to do that I could. I could remote into my computer at home and load up my safe. I think I still have it alright. So, theoretically, I've thrown my old save file for a lira in here, but I don't know vps hosting seattle if it's actually gonna work. There'S a previous folder that has like a portrait stuffin, it man. I remember this. Alright, let's see if it's in their caverns whoa. Actually that ain't bad. I think I was kind of an evil character, which is why my face ends up looking kind of like scary and stuff arcane bolt winters grasp slowdown, you hoser finding the controls a little clutch in it in this after this. After so long, all right, obviously don't know any of my my binds here. Oh it's immune to fire, not that makes sense how about some lightning for you there. You know it's funny new games or they definitely look better, but this looks all right. Doesn'T it yeah? I mean like most of the graphical fidelity is made up in the lighting. I think, because the textures don't really hold up very well today, no they've aged for sure that was definitely a trip down nostalgia Lane. But one thing I won't miss is how loud gaming machines were back then and how bad the cable management options were. This case sucked the following year, saw Bioshock 2 hits Steam libraries along with Battlefield, Bad Company, 2 sip 5 Mass Effect, 2 and Starcraft 2 wings of Liberty. Carrying on this pattern of sequels AMD's new Phenom, 2 X, 6 offered more threads than the core twos did at a price much lower than the core AI series, particularly when it comes to the supporting hardware. This made it a favorite among enthusiasts, looking for something better than a Core 2 quad and a multi-threading workload without breaking the bank, because, while it was slower per thread, it held its own in most titles, wider availability of ddr3 made for a lower early adopter tax. Although ddr2 would remain much less expensive for some time to come, our 2010 gaming PC, therefore, is equipped with a phenom, 2, x6 10:55 T 4 gigabytes of ddr3 1333 and twin Radeon, HD 6970 s still rocking Windows, 7 or again just shy of 1800 dollars in 2010 well remember when you could right-click on Network crap in the bottom right and then you would well ok when it wasn't broken like that yeah and then you could just go to your network configurations. I did do that all right. So what are we trying to run out here again, 34, 40 by 1440, so full ultra wide. As you can see, it doesn't exactly scale the intro graphics, very well. No, but once again the textures are a little rough and a mocap technology definitely had a long way to go back then, compared to now you can definitely tell when things like godrays are hard-coded versus dynamically generated by the engine by the light sources. Yeah in this case, if you removed all the geometry in the scene, those godrays would still be there. He looks like he just smelled something bad, so this game apparently scales to ultra wide by narrowing your vertical field of view. That'S not a great gaming experience. Ultra wide support has definitely gotten a lot better over the years, so our number 10 bulb is actually cut off, and so is our point decrease button here. Well, I'm not sure how to proceed from here. To be honest, wha-wha 2011 brought us a huge number of hot titles like portal to Sky roll. Oh, that's! A pretty dead beam, sorry Skyrim, deus ex human revolution and everyone's favorite masochism, simulator, Dark Souls but 2011 was also a dark year for AMD. With the release of Sandy Bridge and Intel's new consumer LGA 1156 platform, until not only had a very fast line up of CPUs at their disposal, but a cost-effective one at that, AMD's response in the form of bulldozer failed on all counts, giving them a reputation as The cheap option that would take years to overcome now because in the early days hyper threading had a tendency to negatively impact gaming performance. There was very little reason to go with the high end core i7 2670 500k with 4 gigs of ddr3 ram, whose price had come down a fair bit since 2010. Now, this time around, we've gone green team for our graphics card, because in videos, GTX 590 outperformed AMD making it the goat card for over-the-top monster machines. But it was also around this time that enthusiasts began to shy away from dual GPU solutions due to the prevalence of micro, stuttering. The GTX 590 would be among the last such consumer cards from Nvidia this year we picked up check this link right here now an SSD for the first time, bumping our total build price to nearly 1,900 dollars, and that SSD option is something we'll be keeping in. All future builds unlike Windows, 7. For which, sadly, the road ends here, one thing that was a big deal that we didn't cover in the blurb for this year is that the define was pretty much the defining case of this time. Unlike the p180 series from an tech that preceded it, it was actually affordable, so you could get a nice looking quiet, discreet case. Without now I actually never actually played Skyrim when I was big into oblivion, but I never played this one. This is the one that everybody played. I know right, I got ta say the texture quality, even just in the loading screens, is feels more than a year ahead of what we were just looking at. That'S a huge difference, and this is even without the modding community. Coming in and fixing it for us yep, however, the 8k texture packs that were available for this wasn't actually 8k, but you know: should we just jump to one of the towns sure you watch out boom yeah you like that boom right fist, let's just oh he's, Got a sword boom, wow, wow, wow, oh great, a sword. Go nice, just got a knife or maybe he only had a knife in the first place. Wow. Oh, I have an axe. How do I equip it? Let'S go axe, some shiz lightning axe, oh wow! This is how waiting works in this game, yeah that is so ugly and unnecessary wow. This is really a much much better looking game, though it's still, it still doesn't hold up that well compared to modern stuff, like you can really tell a lot of the assets and the trees are obviously reused. Shadows are very lifeless feeling mm-hmm. It'S a shadow map. The trees don't move, you know, yeah no breeze, but one of the things that was really great about this game was draw distance like you could really look out into the distance and feel like you were in an immense world. Well, the world didn't end in 2012. It wasn't an outstanding year for gaming as a whole, either standouts include far cry 3 XCOM enemy, Unknown Borderlands, 2 and csgo. The CPU world, meanwhile, arguably came to a halt. Ivy Bridge was a modest tick to Sandy bridges, talk representing a die shrink and not much else. Pci Express 3.0 became a thing and they updated the integrated graphics and improved quick sync support, but neither of those things were earth-shattering at the time. Still, as gamers moved on to the new architecture, the lessons of the previous generation carried forward to this one to so many went with the core i5 this time around, and so did we, the 35 70k powers, our rig this year, along with 8 gigabytes of very Inexpensive RAM and the Radeon HD 7970, which, despite its slightly lower performance out of the gate, mostly kept pace with Nvidia's Kepler and eventually I performed it in the long haul, thanks to its larger frame buffer. At least this build costs less than last year's at just over 1,800, but we're now also running Windows 8, so have fun. With that, I never actually played Far Cry 3, even though I played the first one and loved. It played the second one and literally had my save game tanked because it had autosave and then it auto saved when I was too far from anywhere to recover from some poison or something oh, tennisforum.com/members/346995-routerhost.html?simple=1#aboutme the malaria yeah. So I couldn't I couldn't do anything so my save game got played. This is a crappy game anyway. So yeah didn't bother with this one, even though it was supposed to be good yeah, they skewed a little bit less towards the realism aspect of this one. You know, as far as I know, I was the first North American retailer to bring in the define r2 really yeah. We brought in almost a container of them at a time when they were basically a completely unknown brand. It was like a huge gamble for me as a product manager. They had their issues. I remember there was a big scandal where there learn the facts here now their front USB was like wired up wrong or something Oh, and they had to send us a bunch of like replacement USB harnesses, and I was like what am I gonna do with these, like. You expect me to have someone go in the back and replace all your stupid front panel, cabling literally open every case. I guess they expected them to like be shipped with the cases or something that was ultimately the solution making the customer deal with it, but it was not a good time. People were not happy. Facial animations have come a long way in even just a few short years now. They'Ve come a long way further. Since then, these releases here with specular, highlights, are much better than previous. Yet like we're getting to the point now where I'm not gonna play this game and go oh there's a little yeah see the highlights on those packages yeah, and you can see them in people's eyes too yeah the eyes, especially it gives them a lot more Life vegetation still looks pretty static. Mutants on this is pretty good as well, but I can tell that, like it kind of cuts off around there part of it too, is that they've also applied a depth of field effect. That was something that didn't come into play until around this time. Yep 2013 brought comparatively few, but major releases like battlefield, 4, dota, 2 and Saints Row. 4 AMD wasn't having much fun, though, and their desperate attempts to compete by both lowering their prices and increasing their clock speeds and therefore power consumption never quite managed to break them. Free of the rut they found themselves in has well, then, was the next talk, and this time around, we actually did get a bit of a performance boost, even if it was a single-digit one. Thanks to a move to Intel's 22 nanometer FinFET manufacturing process, hyper-threading also became more useful this year. As the concept of streaming your gaming began to take off in earnest, and the core i7 4770k was also clocked higher than the core i5 variant. So that's what we went with along with 16 gigs of fast ddr3 ram and a geforce gtx 780 Ti Kepler. Second outing certainly did a lot better than the first and unfortunately, for AMD. Radeon, still to this day, hasn't made a return to the top of the benchmark chart. This year, windows 8.1 made its debut, but I don't know that anyone actually cared outside of the fact that it was a free upgrade for Windows 8 users which I guess might have helped a little with the ballooning prices of enthusiasts PC hardware. This build all told commanded, a total of just over 2,100 u.s. dollars now. This is where we get into the games. That really make me say, is this even that old like I could play this game today, and it would be perfectly fine. This is battlefield. 4 textures look freakin, awesome, high res lighting. Reflections are handled differently depending on the type of surface that the light is hitting can actually see objects that move into the god rays, get illuminated by them. Like my gun. A lot of the improvements here aren't even just in technology they're, also in style like you, can really just tell how much more attention to detail is put into mocap yeah character models. These are so detailed compared to the ones that we were looking at at the beginning hall that bloom, yeah and lens flare love it like a really complex lens flare to the final year, represented in this first part of our series is 2014, which was another relatively Light year for high-profile releases with Dark Souls, 2 alien isolation, shadow of Mordor and The Sims 4 representing as for hardware and it's Ivy Bridge all over again. But worse. Tik-Tok and boars law largely fell apart this year and instead of a new microarchitecture or anything of substance, we got Haswell refresh literally just the core clock, improvement and, admittedly much needed more efficient Tim. We did get a new chipset to go with it, though, which, for the first time implements nvme support, not that anyone had any use for that at the time. But hey a features, a feature. So we went with a core i7 4790k, along with 16 gigabytes of ddr3 just like last time, but now we're dropping our hard drive in favor of a faster large SSD. The other main difference is in Nvidia's Maxwell based GTX 980, a complete rework of Kepler that improved efficiency and overall performance to running on the same process. Node. That was a pretty impressive feat and AMD wouldn't release their response until the following year. Mercifully, total cost is down significantly this year, and this will also be the last year that we build with Windows 8.1 with that said, I'm sure that there are still some fans of it out there somewhere. So this is alien isolation and yeah. One of the things that you'll notice - it's got Medicaid, yes, yeah, that's kind of the aesthetic of this, but it was also something that kind of became popular in around this time. Right. Real-Time Instagram filters yeah. So, as you can see, it's like fine when we're looking right at it, but if we move the camera yeah you get that red fringing on it yeah. I think I'll go green over here. That'S cute, yep lighting effects are so natural and it's amazing how much of a difference that makes I mean the graphics card manufacturers are constantly talking about how lighting is such a key component to making a game look more natural and more immersive, but, as we've gone Through this six years of gaming PC's, it's like yeah, certain things have improved like textures, but lighting is definitely the one that has been the most game-changing pardon, the pun, yeah and, like this watery effect here, the way the light plays off. Of that. That'S something that just didn't happen in previous generations, so much subtlety to it like just areas on the carpet that are more lit, like we've, got actual light, bounces yeah. So as we come out here, we can see that you know the carpet here. Well, it's not really carpet but like it's way less well, you lost shiny than this. This trim is yeah. It used to be that, like going back to really old games like doom three, just like the entire environment felt shiny if they wanted to have light reflecting off anything like they elect subtlety yeah, Full Article and in this case you can kind of see here like the way They did with the bump mapping here yeah. It looks shiny, but also greedy at once, which is a really difficult thing to pull off on previous generations. I remember it being a big deal to even be able to reflect the environment scope before this. Oh yeah yeah used to be like he was read an orchestra. You could have something that was either like a static scope or you could have a low resolution or a high-resolution reflection yeah, and there was a significant performance penalties for enabling it. It was a discrete menu option. Man, this the steam effects here, looked great yeah. The fact that, like when you go by them and the the light is no longer I mean it's that's kind of a screen space thing, but it kind of also works because it no longer is in your your field of vision. So it kind of just fades out so this first half of the last decade represented a steady decline in hardware improvements in innovation year over year. But somehow, on the software side of the gaming industry, they still managed to squeeze far more realism and image quality out of said hardware. Now some believed that this decrease in performance improvement would continue ad infinitum as a result of the death of Moore's law and the future. Indeed looked pretty dim. In 2014, it seemed as though PC gaming would begin to drop off, along with the decline in PC shipments. In general, but stay tuned folks, because for part two, where we go from 2015 all the way up to today. Well, let's just say if you're new - and you don't already know how this ends, I think you're gonna be surprised at where things go from here. What will be a surprise is this segue to our sponsors for today's video, LG and C sonic, who provided these monitors and, of course, literally powered all of our systems here? So if you guys are looking for a great gaming experience, LG's Ultra Gear gaming monitors are a fantastic choice. We'Re gonna have those linked in the video description and also down. There is gonna be some c sonic power supplies, no matter what kind of a rig you're, building small form-factor large power, sipping power, chugging, doesn't matter see Sonic's got you covered. So thanks for watching guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do, but it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description also link down, there's our merch store, which has cool shirts like this One and that one and that hoodie and our community forum, which you guys should totally join

[moonmurph-gamedev]

Task 3

To start my prototype menu system I imported all the graphics I created in photoshop to my project in unreal engine.

I created a separate folder for them to keep it organised and I used the same resolution in photoshop for UE4. I made sure my canvas size in photoshop was 1920x1080 which is what I’m working in. I’ve chosen three bright colours and stuck with them throughout all the graphics. The only other colours are the white rectangles which act as a highlight for the buttons.

During task 2 I looked at ‘Hello Kitty Roller Rescue’ a game which I speak about in my history of games which was my first introduction to the playstation. It uses these white rectangles to clearly show the buttons. The splash screen and menu are very loud so it is important to highlight what the player needs to select so they know where to look.

I created a menu widget and used different canvas panels to contain the different pages of the menu. 

Here’s the splash screen. The prompt to press X takes the player to the next menu. It’s also informing them that X is the select button.

After pressing X the canvas panel is collapsed and the main menu opens.

Here the player can select to Start the game, exit the game or view the credits. Each of these also collapse and open a new canvas panel. (Except for start which simply closes the menu)

If the player does select ‘Credits’ they are brought to the credit sequence. This is simply a placeholder as I’ve not added any credits yet. The credit title however is animated to tilt side to side.

The player can exit the credits which will collapse the canvas panel and return them to the main menu.

Once the player has started the game they can pause the game by pressing ‘P’ (This is placeholder as it will later be ESC on keyboard or Start on gamepad.)

I opened up the project settings and added Pause in the action mappings. I then created a blueprint which paused the game. 

If the player selects ‘Exit’ it closes the pause menu and resumes the game.

On the pause menu the player can select ‘HELP’ this opens up the Help menu which displays the character controls.

The player can view the controls then select ‘Exit’ to return to the paused screen. They can select ‘Exit’ once more to resume playing the game.

Video Showcase

I’m really happy with my prototype menu so far. I especially like how the normal appearance and hovered appearance change. It makes it clear to the player what they’re about to select. I plan on adding a sound for when they select to make it more satisfying. I’ll need to ensure the sound isn’t shrill or annoying.

Issues that I came across whilst developing my menu system was that I had to manually place the graphics and size them. This caused some of them to look stretched. I realised I could go back into photoshop, view the PNG and get the exact size from there. 

This allowed me to display the graphics at the exact same resolution so they look uniform. 

Interactive Elements

 I plan on creating an environment to be displayed behind the splash screen/main menu for before the player spawns. I’ll also add interact-able in game assets to make it more fun. It’s common in games to have interact-able elements to menus.

Skyrim lets character rotate and view in game models. I think this is a great system to keep the player entertained during loading screen and also showcase your models. 

Bayonetta allows the player to practice combos. This is a great system for a fighting game however my project isn’t a complex fighting game so a system like this won’t be needed. 

I’ll look into ideas for what interactive element I’d like to implement into my menu system.

I decided a fun idea would be to have clickable assets which react in different ways. I created a cute bird model in maya and exported and textured in UE4.

I created three different animations. Two Idle animations and one ‘shocked’ animation for when it’s clicked on.

I imported the mesh, imported the skeleton and the three animations and created a blueprint class actor. I then set the animation setting to ‘play animation blueprint’ I then began creating my animation blueprint.

An issue I came across was all the birds were doing the idle animation in sync which looks unrealistic. I used the random sequence player to add my two idle animations/  This means the birds will randomly do 1 of 2 animations at different speeds. 

Another issue I came across was when the birds were clicked on and played their ‘shock’ animations they lost their idle animations forever. This was fixed by making the idle animations as an ‘IDLE’ state in the animation blueprint and making use of montages.

Here’s a preview of my untextured smallscene which acts as the background for the Main Menu and Level Select. As the player uses the menu they can also play around with the birds placed around the scene. 

Audio

I finally got around to adding audio. I downloaded simple boop noises in WAV form and used the modulator node in UE4 to adjust the pitch and speed.

This allowed me to create two sounds one for selecting and one for going back.

Something that’s really fun that I found when using animations blueprints is you can have different ‘mins’ and ‘max’ so every time the sound is played it varies in pitch/volume. This is really useful for characters footsteps as it makes them sound more realistic. For my menu I made the pitch modulation quite small to not be too jarring.

I used the ‘Play Sound 2D’ node as it’s what you’d use for sounds which don’t exist in the game world like the interface. The other node is ‘Play Sound at Location’ which would make use of spatialization in the 3D Space.This is useful for alerting players through audio which direction the source of the noise is.

BugTesting

Most of the issues I came across were easily fixed with some workarounds however when I had issues with figuring out where in the code it went wrong I made use of my dual monitors to watch the code and see if it stopped at any points. 

I also used breakpoints which freeze the project once a certain node is fired. This is great as it shows me exactly where it is in the project where nodes are firing.

Another simple way but slightly longer is adding printstrings to code which directly show text on the viewport when nodes have fired.

Updated Video

Evaluation/Feedback

I’m really pleased with my menu and the intractable birds. I learnt a lot about animations, canvas panels, cameras and player controllers. Anonymous feedback from my peers said that the seagulls was one of their favourite parts. This shows I should think about adding more ludic elements to my game. They don’t necessarily have to have any importance to the game narrative but players seem to just enjoy interaction. Feedback I received to improve the seagulls was to have some fly past during camera  transitions. I think this is a great idea to make the scene more alive.

This was also the first time I used audio in UE4 and I was surprised at how simple it was. Unfortunately during my presentation and showcase of my menu, the speakers were not working so my peers couldn’t properly hear the audio. It can however be heard in the demonstration video I made.

Some feedback I received which I was really pleased with was that my ‘art style followed the same style throughout and suited my target audience’ I’m happy that my peers thought so because I spent a lot of time during pre production trying to keep my references a similar style and properly picture what I wanted to create. 

The UI for example (health bar, skill bar) was received quite well. It kept to the same style suited for a younger audience. 

All constructive criticism was to keep building on what I already have. To my knowledge there wasn’t anything missing that was required and the menu functions perfectly. It’s now just about going back and polishing what I���ve created. At the moment my menu system is functional and clear which I’m happy with. 

I’m going to keep working on my menu system as I want to eventually make the Level Selects buttons physical objects in the small scene rather then a widget on the view port. I also want to add different interact-able elements such as clicking on lights to make them flicker or clicking on billboards/posters to change colours or pictures. I’ve created materials before where the colours change, this can be done by making the colour a parameter and making a material instance.

I implemented all the minimal elements on the assignment brief which work properly. I’ve bug tested my menu and made changes when necessary such as the animation blueprint with the seagulls. I also changed the pitch slightly on the audio to make it less shrill. 

I enjoyed this Unit and I’ll be keeping this menu system in my current project which I’ll be using for the other units.

[etechwire-blog]

10 things PC gamers hate

New Post has been published on https://www.etechwire.com/10-things-pc-gamers-hate/

10 things PC gamers hate

There's no denying it – PC gaming is the king of gaming. Hardware is at the top of its class (and price range), the games look their absolute best. To top it all off there's the infinitely customizable element of the platform. But friends, it's time to vent.

Letting off steam while playing games on Steam is essential to keeping your body temperature down – even if your GPU temps are flaring up. You won't win online if you sit there quivering with rage no matter what 'smooth gliding' setting your 20 million DPI optical mouse sensor is set to.

So count to 10 slowly and delve into the top things we love to loathe as PC gamers. Think of it as a form of therapy.

TechRadar's fourth annual PC Gaming Week is officially here, celebrating our passion with in-depth and exclusive coverage of PC gaming from every angle. Visit our PC Gaming Week 2018 page to see all of the coverage in one place. 

Rage Factor: 2/10

The feud between PC and console gamers is pretty much prehistoric, dating back to when Turok himself was still battling dinosaurs. Thought of as the pesky upstarts of the industry, consoles are blamed for diluting gameplay (and not to mention graphics). It even causing the death of PC gaming itself in the noughties. 

That turned out to be a load of rubbish, of course, as PC gaming continues to flourish.

The relationship between the two sets of gamers is set for an interesting turn as Sony and Microsoft enters the next age of consoles. Both the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X are more like PCs than ever with bumped up specs and letting users tweak their graphics settings. 

Does that make them PC gamers? Man, hating is so confusing in 2018.

Rage Factor: 6/10

Ever wondered why your shoes have holes in? Or why you never have enough cash to go out?

That's because you're a PC Gamer and all of your pay packet has been spent on upgrades. This isn't just a one off spend either, it's incremental. 

Perhaps you want to install an Nvidia GTX Titan Xp to game in true 4K. Oh wait, you can't, because you spent all of your money on the GPU already and have nothing left for the new processor to really reap the benefits. 

Of course, all of the above is also a benefit of PC gaming, but having to spend a month's wages on a handful of components to get the best experience going is never going to be ideal. Upgrading is never-ending, so you'd better hope your wallet is too.

Rage Factor: 9/10

Windows is a a lot more stable since the heady days of Windows 95 and Direct X is friends with most hardware, but occasionally there'll be one jigsaw piece in your elite gaming machine which has some sort of driver issue with a game.

Just as a boss appears, or even before the game begins, a critical error will inevitably pop up across the menu screen. Whatever it is, Device Manager will be a reluctant friend for a few hours.

Compatibility issues are as old as PC gaming itself, and they don't seem to get better over time. If you've ever experienced an stubborn problem that you can't solve after spending weeks reading websites and forums, downloading a game to a console and playing it off-the-bat with no issues almost makes you want to turn into a filthy casual. Almost.

Rage Factor: 5/10

NOOBs (always capped) come in all shapes and sizes, and they're always annoying. Whether they're participating in eSports or clan warfare, PC gamers are mostly a skilled bunch that don't take kindly to these newcomers in games.

Certain malicious (or bored, one of the two) PC players enjoy nothing more than trolling with NOOBs. Like cats play with their prey, which can greatly reduce the amount of rage they feel when having to share the same server with them.

Rage Factor 10/10

Despite having several boa constrictors length of fibre optic cables snaking into your house, there always has been (and always will be) lag. 

One minute you're next to a friend in Overwatch and the next they've warped to the other side of the map before you can say, "Cheers love…" It's not big, it's not clever and now you've been dumped off the server too. 

Lag is particularly rage-some as, if you're living with other people or parents, it can be very difficult to do anything about your stuttering internet connection. Maybe it's time to get three paper rounds and start saving up for that studio.

Rage Factor: 3/10

OK don't get us wrong, Desktop Clients are fantastic, mostly. 

There's the convenience of not having to leave the house to buy a new game, and there are constant bug fixes and online support. But much as people miss vinyl when compared to MP3s, there's something comforting and exciting about opening a game box. 

Yes: they clutter up the house, but having an actual physical map for the whole of Skyrim is a little bit magical. The other issue is the need to be constantly online to play, and the numerous niggles when downloading.

Sometimes there's no beating a physical product.

Rage Factor: 6/10

The ultimate way to display your PC gaming prowess is by constructing your very own dream machine. However that dream can quickly turn into a nightmare. And it's not just the cost, but the painstaking amount of time and effort just to get it to actually boot up. 

Whether it's attaching the cables to the motherboard correctly, getting freaked out by how much thermal paste to apply to the processor or merely losing an important screw, PC building can take a few years off your life with stress. 

And don't talk to us about buying pre-built rigs – what do you think we are, rich?

Rage Factor 3/10

If there's one thing PCs lack it's interaction between several people in the same room. There's nothing quite like playing bowling together on a Sunday afternoon or flexing your dance moves to the sound of Beyonce.

PC games may encourage human interaction in online gaming but there's a level of jealousy (perhaps not rage) that can be levered at our sociable console brethren. 

Check out our list of best PC games to play in the living room article if you're seeking a tasty slice of local multiplayer action.

Rage Factor: 9/10

Everything's not all sweetness and nice in the world of PCs: trolls lurk everywhere and not least online. FPSs are fertile ground for them. They'll teabag you, diss your playing style, camp like it's going out of fashion and try to rile you until you rage quit. 

And it's not just that – PC gamers can be hardware snobs too. Maybe they've been snooty about which type of RAM you decided to buy or have slated the fact you've downloaded a GameBoy emulator. Steer clear of all of these types as they will only make you rage.

Rage Factor: 4/10

Upgrades are great when they work, and it's even better to revisit an old game to see the framerate go through the roof. 

This particular writer remembers never being able to play Wing Commander 3 (yes, I'm that old), so when I finally upgraded to a hallowed Pentium processor I revisited the then-ancient game to find out it was no longer compatible. 

Error messages were flying around and I wasted a few good hours on something I was destined never to see. So perhaps just resign yourself to never ever witnessing over 60 fps in The Witcher 3, not even in 2020.

[rageworks]

In 1997, Matt Stone and Trey Parker gave us South Park. The wildly inappropriate misadventures of four third grade boys has become a phenomenon that has bridged generations and continues to entertain today. Obviously, someone other than the creators and Comedy Central would try to cash in on this. Many games have been made over the years with varied success. In 2014, Ubisoft brought us South Park: The Stick of Truth – the first game to make players feel like they were actually in a South Park episode. Its success has led to the release of South Park: The Fractured But Whole. Time to see if Coon and Friends are worthy of the franchise they seek.

Inside South Park: The Fractured But Whole

Our game starts after the events of Stick of Truth. The New Kid (aka Douchebag aka YOU) is the king of Kupa keep and must defend it. Suddenly, The Coon (Cartman) appears and says he is from the future. He has to assemble Coon and Friends to save a cat named Scrambles to get money to start their film franchise. The Freedom Pals, led by Mysterion (Kenny), stand in their way to said franchise. Other obstacles include the indomitable villainy of Professor Chaos and an unknown mastermind spreading real crime throughout the town. Will Douchebag (now known as The Amazing Butthole) along with the rest of Coon and Friends be able to rescue Scrambles and save South Park? Only time will tell.

‘Member When Gameplay Was Engaging?

You have installed South Park: The Fractured But Whole and are ready to play. It’s South Park, so you never know quite what to expect. You took a dump (not kidding), chose your hero class and got your first mission from The Coon. Everything is great and you are legitimately laughing and having a good time. Everything would be great save for one nagging issue. The gameplay is extremely basic. The main characters of the game are all fourth graders, but (most of) the people playing the game are adults. Considering that Stick of Truth was originally going to be a Skyrim clone, we deserve better from its sequel.

You see in the image above the different hero classes available to your character. As you progress you’ll be able to simultaneously wield up to four of those power sets, each having its own super attack. Of those forty total attacks, you get to choose three regular and one ultimate. Summons and fart powers allow you some extra variation but the game is so simple that a fourth grader (who shouldn’t be playing this) can master it. I played the game on mastermind (highest) difficulty and aside from roughly three boss fights, nothing is remotely difficult. At times the game throws sheer numbers at you to compensate.

Your cell acts as a menu and is way more complex than it needs to be. The inventory quickly clogs with random items you will never need, distracting from those you do. Costumes are plentiful but largely uninspired. A costume creation system would have been awesome. Leveling up is almost useless; instead of improving your stats it unlocks artifact slots and these give you stat boosts. Ultimately, you will breeze through most of the game if you just max out your character’s might stat.

 Cartoon Clarity from ‘The Coon’

The graphics of South Park: The Fractured But Whole are nowhere near worthy of the platforms they are on but they are perfectly true to the television show. Creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker were adamant about both this game and Stick of Truth keeping true to the show’s visuals. Fortunately, that only adds to the title’s charm. Imagery like stuffing hamsters up your butt and a certain prison boss fight would be downright obscene with today’s graphics. Everything would be great if not for random glitches in animation like broken items appearing to be fixed, slowdown and long load times. This is what I personally experienced but results seem to vary from one player to the next.

Make That GROUPER BUTT SHAKE!

With a show that has aired for two decades and a video game history nearly as long, one would expect a lot from South Park: The Fractured But Whole in terms of sound. In combination with the story, this is where the game truly shines. Every character, down to random NPCs are fully voiced and stores feature music from all over South Park history. The original music for the game is equally as impressive. You have an “ending theme” for when you die that sounds like something you’d hear after a major death on The Walking Dead. Bosses have their own themes including a special polka instrumental of “Kyle’s Mom Is a Stupid Bitch” for the Mrs. Broflovski fight. Top that with the entire (current) voice cast of the show and you have a winning recipe in the sound department. Unfortunately, just like with the graphics, the game is plagued with audio glitches. I ran into multiple instances where the audio for items and individuals no longer on screen continued to play. There were also random voice sync issues. Thankfully, these were much less of a problem than the graphical bugs, but you would think these things would be cleaned up before release.

 Verdict: Just How Fractured is The New Kid’s Butthole?

It seems silly to say that this game is a must for South Park fans when you probably would skip this review if you weren’t one. The thing is that it is an RPG and I have to grade it as such. If you are a fan of RPGs but not a South Park fan then this game is absolutely not for you. The gameplay itself is subpar by almost any console standards. NES RPGs had deeper combat than this game (not to down those titles). Fortunately, the writing, voice acting and music of the game cover for its major shortcomings. South Park: The Fractured But Whole, as it is, should have been a movie instead of a game. It is heavy in its social commentary on race and that may turn off some fans, but the story is clever, even by South Park standards. The fan service covers nearly every season of the show with nods to everything from Mecha-Streisand, Fishsticks and beyond. As for a purchase I would recommend picking this up on Black Friday; by no means should you pay full price.

  Scott Malkinson

St. Nicholas

They worship the devil

Kyle 2

professor Chaos’ true form

Ummm… what the sign says

Jennifer Lopez, aka Mitch Conner

Wonder who that fish is?

Semen

“He’s still lookin’ good”

Craaaaaaaaaab People

Butters will be grounded for this

The Raisins Girls don’t play!

Raisins on a rampage!

Smack them hoes!

So uh, you have to perform a lapdance

Slick’s Nit-Picks: South Park: The Fractured But Whole In 1997, Matt Stone and Trey Parker gave us South Park. The wildly inappropriate misadventures of four third grade boys has become a phenomenon that has bridged generations and continues to entertain today.

[geeklyreport]

Nintendon't Give a Fuck

So, March 3rd then. If you’ve pre-ordered you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. This is of course the date Nintendo’s new home/handheld combo console is unleashed worldwide onto the gaming public, and, for nearly all of those gamers who’ve pre-ordered, this is when the real excitement builds. Even those who aren’t at all interested can at least accept that they know the feeling well; the anticipation on the way to the store, finally getting your hands on your new beautiful box of gaming, hurrying home, the unboxing - oh the unbridled joy of the unboxing - and then the hookup, the final power button on, then at last! Wait what the shit are these fucking updates? Fuck you! How long to completion? Fine, I’ll go make a sandwich….. Then at last! You come face to face with the home screen and the real fun can begin. As a long time gamer who’s gone through this with the master system, an Amiga 500, an n64, a dreamcast, a ps2, 3 and 4, all the Xboxes, a Gamecube and both Wii’s, not to mention countless handhelds, the above process is something I’ve experienced and very much enjoyed quite a lot, and the reason I watched the Nintendo switch event with baited breath. I was already sold. Then it all came crashing down. Nintendo seemed intent on nuking all the goodwill and excitement they’d accumulated in the preceding weeks and months; unchecking all the boxes they’d previously ticked. I should probably reiterate at this point that I’m getting on a bit and use gaming as a form of relaxation. A lot of my friends have had kids, prioritised other things over gaming and nearly all live in a different time zone (I moved to Canada 4 years back). I have a wonderful partner who encourages my gaming hobby, yet doesn’t venture much beyond the free games she can get on her iPhone. Armed with this information, my opinion on what we’ve seen on the Nintendo Switch should make a little more sense. I don’t think I’m alone either, based on the reaction elsewhere. We’re people who’ve grown up with Nintendo and enjoy gaming as Nintendo originally provided it. And it appears they’re throwing us aside (once again), kicking us when we’re down and then spitting in our faces while they take a big steamy dump on our chests. While there are people into Nintendo defacating all over them, that's just not for me. Do you like Nintendo exclusive games? Of course you do! Well how about a game that you really want and can buy on our previous console (which we prematurely killed off because we fucked quite a lot up with it)? We’ve got you covered! Want to see what our console is really about and experience all the new tech Nintendo incorporated? Pick up 1-2 Switch! It’s a full price mini game compilation that they should definitely have packed in. You’ll likely play for a few days before casting it aside as it offers no replay value! It also makes you look like a tit and can simulate masturbation! If you look like a tit and there’s no one else around to see you, are you still a tit? Most definitely. Hey older gamer! You remember how much fun Bomberman was right? Well we’ve got a new one! The single player is still bunk but the multiplayer is still super fun, super simple and that’s right, definitely worth full price! So what if it has been surpassed in terms of depth by flash and mobile games on the last decade? How about some retro and indie games that, given you’re an avid gamer, you’ve already bought and played at least once on different consoles?! Why not rebuy them and play them on our new console while we get our shit together! I mean come on, there's no way to transfer that world of goo purchase from the Wii, so why not give Nintendo your money again? And that, along with a dancing party game and a plastic toy collect-a-thon, is the launch lineup. Done. Nothing else. Before you say it, I know consoles don’t traditionally have massively strong catalogues of games on day 1. I didn’t expect the switch too either. I did however want to see a couple - just two would’ve been enough - worthwhile unique experiences that I could sit down and enjoy. That alone would justify a console purchase for a grumpy twat like me. ‘80 plus games this year!’ I hear you cry. Ok but how many of those are games that I’ve already bought and enjoyed though? And how many are likely to perform better on those other consoles? If I want to play Skyrim, world of goo and the host of other older games that make up a significant portion of that 80, I just need to fire up my older consoles and save myself having to rebuy them. Even the upcoming Nintendo exclusives have managed to irk me (Mario admittedly does looks great though). I loved Splatoon, absolutely adored it. So much so that I played it to death less than two years ago. Two years I might add, is a very short time in Nintendo sequel terms, with good reason. Nintendo likes to give themselves more time than most to perfect their games, nurturing the things that work and tweaking until they’re just right. Releasing Splatoon 2 so soon smacks of desperation to have enough content on a new system, and leads me to believe it’ll likely be closer to an upgrade than a true sequel. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe asks those who’ve likely already bought the original to re-up, in order to play on their shiny new console. One of the main selling features being an upgrade to my former favourite game mode, battle, which Nintendo completely ballsed up for this iteration on Wii U. They’d previously refused to acknowledge they’d made an error with the originals battle mode, yet here they are trying to sell you the same game, on a new console, based on the fact that they’ve fixed the chuffing thing we complained about three years ago! To date Nintendo haven’t announced this as DLC for the Wii U version, which I’d totally buy, or any kind of upgrade program. I don’t expect either to materialise, which is a huge shame (for me). Let’s get this straight; most of the switch early adopters likely own a Wii U. Nintendo aren’t re-releasing games out of the goodness of their hearts. This is an easy way to flesh out the line up and make more money. Nintendo, like 99.9 percent of businesses, exist to make money, and given the state of the launch lineup and incoming game, it’s been suggested that this has been rushed out to hit the end of the financial year. It's a hard point to argue with, especially given the lack of online details. Nintendo are finally moving with the times in charging for online – a move that I don’t actually mind despite the ridiculous rent-a-rom-a-month system – you’d think, however, that they would probably catch up with the competitors in other areas, such as linked accounts and transferring purchases right? Wrong. Nintendo have a penchant for getting avid fans to rebuy games over and over but in today’s market, that just doesn’t fly. When your main competitors have systems in place to allow their customers to retain purchases and to transfer games from old systems to new, you really have no excuse. Nintendo’s silence on the virtual console element of Switch doesn’t bode well either, so expect to rebuy all those same virtual console games for the convenience of having them all in one place. I’d love to be proved wrong on this, I really would. Given Nintendo’s history in successfully fleecing gamers repeatedly in this regard, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Now I know this is all very negative, but I’m not making this shit up and I genuinely wish things were different. The consoles price, while a little higher than I’d have liked especially given that there’s no pack in, is in line with launch prices for competitor’s consoles, if not with the GameCube or the Wii. Hands-on reports have it that the console itself feels wonderful, like a sexy new piece of tech. Once you get it in your hands you apparently can appreciate why it costs what it does. Brilliant. This is something we all wished we had for the Wii U and I’m genuinely pleased to not have plasticky feeling components or compromised touchscreen tech. However, I do feel that there are other tech elements that they’ve put into the joycons which shunt need to be there and are responsible for accessories being priced extremely high as well. Nintendo truly appear to have taken a break from shitting on customers, so they can throw as much against the wall in the hope that some will stick. Getting a new set of joycons will set you back a chunk more than a dual shock 4 or new Xbox one controller, so if you want to play Arms, which looks like a wonderfully Splatoonish treatment of punch out, you’re talking $500 Canadian plus $80 for the game, which is a huge outlay, given the innards of the console itself. Additionally, if you’re like me and want to play games in the classic manner (on your arse in a comfortable chair) and don’t intend on using the portability features too much, you’d likely want a pro controller (the Wii U one won’t cut it from what I’ve heard); that’ll be another $90 please, which dwarfs the sweet spot cost of controllers that we’ve become accustomed to. HD rumble sounds intriguing and I hope we get to see enough innovative uses of the technology to justify its inclusion. Realistic wanking mini games won't cut it and if this tech doesn't end up changing traditional games much beyond what we currently have, the gamble of having it included everywhere wouldn’t have paid off. The less said about the ‘gesture sensor’ the better; I have an unkind hand gesture ready to be read. Again, the tone of this opinion piece is so negative, in part I think that’s down to my anger at how Nintendo shattered my expectations. If you pick one up at launch you’ll likely have loads of fun with it but I’m just so disappointed. Given what Nintendo showed us last year, it would’ve been so easy to get right. Having all of Nintendo’s internal developers beavering away on one machine, sharing knowledge is a fantastic idea. A portable console with a boost to specs and performance when docked would’ve been wonderful! Instead I’ve read that performance actually suffers when docked. W. T. F. I would’ve been perfectly ok with the additional console cost associated with the joycons. The ethos behind them is sound. If they were just well made, detachable controllers that enabled multiplayer on the go, that would be fine and justifiable. But no, Nintendo have to throwback to the Wii’s success again (seriously just let it fucking go) and make them arm waggling enablers with potentially unnecessary tech included. The worst thing potentially about the new technology I might add, is that Nintendo will feel they need to include it in games, whether it adds anything or not, in order to justify its inclusion in the console. Sigh. Just let the devs make great games! I don’t need to give the game a thumbs up or tap a plastic model to it to get maximum enjoyment, or to get content that should be in the game in the first place. If anything, that shit reduces my enjoyment and amplifies my inner grumpy gamer. Given all this it should be pretty clear that, despite still feeling that new console pull, I won’t be grabbing a Switch at launch. Every time I get the urge and think ‘well maybe it’ll be worth it’, I just remind myself of what my minimum expectations are for a new console, and the urge passes. I will still inevitably pick one up, either at the first price drop, or when the there’s a few more must have (true) exclusives, but I can’t help but feel like this is a huge missed opportunity for Nintendo. We were there for the taking but they had to go and Nintendo the fucking thing. Oh, the neon red and blue looks fucking ridiculous too...