There’s definitely something special about that era of games. The community would really shine and make creative stuff with relatively limited tech.
https://youtube.com/@excavation_goldsrc
This is the mod that’s blown me away the most. They somehow made the limitations of the Goldsource engine look stylish, all the while having some incredible animations and model design. Unfortunately development is temporarily paused but hopefully they pick it up again soon.
Whats funny is that most 20 year old multiplayer games today (at least on PC) are still perfectly playable because the server tech was given to the community, at launch. Battlefield 2 hasn’t been available for purchase anywhere officially in well over a decade, there’s still a dedicated, albiet small community.
I understand that with large, persistent worlds, it’s hard to release that server tech, but at least some form of it should be published. Ie, a smaller variant that maybe just lets a couple people join up as a co-op party, rather than dozens of people running around a large map at random, like in The Crew.
Ive seen some genuinely impressive GoldSource mods pop up in recent years.
I didn’t mean to imply it was a 1-1 comparison. I just used it as an example of a situation where a person or group of people were taking part in something really terrible, and were talked out of it by someone who was actually willing to take the time, and put in the effort. It can work. Not saying it always will in every situation, but it can.
Just to play devils advocate: Daryl Davis. A black man who has convinced over 200 members of the KKK to quit, by having civil conversations with them.
Edit: he directly convinced something like 50, but estimates more than 200 have quit because of his efforts
The PS3 fat could only read PS2 disks because it had stripped down PS2 hardware included. It was effectively a PS2/3 combined. This was part of what drove the cost up, so they gutted that hardware from the slim.
PS4s can’t read PS3 disks because the PS3 used a bespoke PowerPC based chipset that was a colossal pain in the ass to develop for. So for the PS4 to have backwards compatibility, they would have had to either A, include PS3 hardware in the PS4 (expensive) or B, create an efficient software translation layer/built in emulator (see “pain in the ass”).
From what I have heard, they smartened up with the PS5. It’s basically just a faster PS4. At it’s core, it’s based on very similar hardware, so it’s easy to make PS4 games run without issue, but the boost in performance allows games designed specifically to take advantage of it.
Good point, I shouldn’t have used the world ‘literally.’ I was just trying to make the point that there are plenty of creative ways where tremendous amounts of money could end up back in someones pocket when by all means it should have gone elsewhere.
And yes, your example is perfectly believable and I wouldn’t at all be shocked if that kind of thing happened frequently.
As a guy who still plays those old school FPS games, they’re for me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Ghost Recon Wildlands, but the og GR with the Heroes Unleashed mod is unmatched. Ready or Not is visceral, but SWAT 4 feels better and has infinitely better AI.
I personally think it’s a cool way to increase situational awareness while using a scope. Also, being an obvious callback to the old Delta Force games, there’s definitely some nostalgia there. I at the very least hope it’s an option that can be toggled on or off.
I’ll never support Bungie again. I bought D1 and D2 before it went free to play, only to have the game I bought removed from the face of the Earth.
ShadPS4 is what people are using to play Bloodborne on PC, and it is a traditional emulator, not a translation layer. It has a native Linux port already, no need for additional trickery. Not sure about XBox as I don’t really follow much XBox homebrew or emulation.
Ace of Spades which, for the record, is open source (in the form of OpenSpades), totally free, has mod support, and self hosted servers.
This specifically is a bit of an open secret afaik. There are a few semi prominent examples of big studios pouring a bunch of money into junk, not advertising it or just skipping theatres entirely, then watching it sink.
I had a conversation with my sister about that recently.
The amount of shows and movies that have $100,000,000+ budgets is rising, yet more and more of them feature very limited sets, small casts of mostly mid range talent, and a dozen executive producers all putting up their own money (this is all especially prominent with big shows on streaming networks, cough Star Trek cough The Acolyte)
Here’s my comparison: a group of 10 investors come out and announce they’re spending a billion dollars to develop a new luxury car. They drum it up as being the next big thing. Then, when it comes out, it’s about as nice and luxurious as a base model Toyota Camry. Fine, but not “a billion dollars” fine. Immediately, everyone would be wondering where the hell that money went? There’s definitely a chance it was just squandered, but you have to wonder. When you have a group of private investors with executive power over the project, what goes on behind closed doors?
For all we know, they’re literally just passing massive checks in a circle to one another to say “yes, it says right here in our bank records that we spent a combined $100,000,000”, meanwhile only 25% actually goes into the production, and they pocket the rest. Then, when the flock of people have to come and check out the new megaproject, all they need to recoup is a few million more than they spent (far less than the perceived budget), and they can run for the hills.
Anywho, crackpot theory time over. But think about it, if my simple brain can think this stuff up, why can’t the hollywood bigwigs, who actually have the capital to make it happen?
Most of my favourite movies from when I was a kid are still great movies for me as an adult.
I would bet my next paycheck this is not the case for any kid who grows up seeing this movie. A good kids movie should age with you.
My vote is always for plain ol Debian. If you don’t need a bleeding edge system, Debian will just work.
This kind of opens up its own point: people need to accept that non-free software isn’t the devil. It actually can be really good for a community to have large entities investing real, actual USD dollars into it, and creating products and services that people want to pay for. It absolutely shouldn’t be the only option, FOSS is a beautiful thing and I love that the Unix community puts a huge emphasis on it. But, without some heavy hitters putting some money on the table, Linux/BSD will always be niche. They won’t go away, but they won’t blow up either.
Dusk. Quake meets Evil Dead. One of the best games I’ve played in years. It’s definitely more of a straight up shooter than a horror game, but the themes/setting/art style nail the spooktober vibe. I replay it every autumn and always have a great time
Underrail
I would love to see a Palworld update that changes the balls to cubes. Same animations and effects, same textures, just stretched over a cube.