Ruining It For Everyone Else Since 2004
I logged into TF2 to test the TF2 servers and saw this interesting list on my screen:
So now you can Twitch Stream your TF2 session and have it show up in game. I wonder if you can stream TF2 through Steam while watching one of the Twitch streams. OMG Streamception!
It almost always seems to be shitty weather whenever I happen to get a day off from work. Good thing I have a large gaming arsenal to take on the stormy weather!
I made some outfits in Gmod today. Nothing too spectacular, mainly just placing hats on my playermodel and a nice sixpack.
😛 Then I did a little bit of ESO for awhile and finished the Castle Rilis quest, where you escort a Rilis family member in finding their family helm. As expected I ended up having to kill him after the fact… Oh well, at least I completed one quest.
Then we did some Gmod Cinema for awhile, catching up on some funny videos. We did have a couple other users on the server, one tried to obstruct my brothers view of the movie screen by sitting on his head. This was remedied by turning the asshat invisible. 😛
We then ventured off to the main sandbox, which has been neglected for quite sometime. And like tradition we crashed the server with our special breed of Man Hacks. 😛 Typical.
Oh yeah! Even did a bit of TF2 this morning. As usual everyone sucks in MvM, and I played for a bit with someone on the main server… Relaxing. 😛
Happy Holandaise!
I survived another year of Christmas, gripers and all. I’ve either been working or in bed fiddling with the Steam Controller some more, and thanks to the latest sale it looks like I have more fiddling with it. I woke up tonight to presents in the form of games. So I revenge gifted a bit in return.
Speaking of the Steam Controller I’ve been playing more FPS games with it. I mentioned TF2, but I’ve also been dabbling in the Serious Sam games. It still takes some getting used to but I’ve been doing better than expected, at least when playing the campaigns. Survival mode in Second Encounter has been tough to adapt to, but in BFE and Revolution I get about the same survival time. I actually had to write my own config for Serious Sam Classics: Revolution. It took some time to get the buttons in the right places but I got a good setup for it now, at least for me anyway. I even uploaded the config in case anyone else wanted to take a stab at it.
Another nice feature I found was finding game configs for non-steam games. I run my gog copy of Witcher 3 through Steam, and when I’m in Big Picture if I check community made configs I see a small list of configs. Pretty handy.
The client likes to randomly crash on me when using it for too long, and there’s a bug where certain games will get stuck in an infinite loop when you try to launch them. For me that’s just been Portal 2 though. Other than that everything has been going well. With the weather being extremely cold lately it’s been nice to kick back someplace warm and play anything I want.
Yesterday I took it for a field test on one of my TF2 servers to see how it stacks up compared to other controllers or a Keyboard and Mouse. I went in as a Pyro with the default layout tweaked a bit to my liking. Not many people know it but the Steam Controller comes with a built in Gyroscopic sensor not too different from what you would find in a VR headset or a smartphone/tablet. I used that combined with the right touchpad and managed to get the drop on my enemies multiple times. Keyboard and Mouse will always be king IMO but this makes it great if you want to get away from your desk and just sprawl out in another area while doing basically the same thing.
The response time over wireless was amazing, in fact I didn’t notice any latency when I pointed my controller towards an enemy. The gyro sensor does take some getting used to though. I played it with some racing games and it does take some practice if you want to use the Steam Controller as a steering wheel, but it’s fun once you get used to it!
The Steam Controller also supports DOS games. I tried to play some Wolfenstein 3D but didn’t really care for it on the controller. However it handled the original 1996 Tomb Raider like a champ. I didn’t use the D-Pad as I find it to be too stiff compared to your typical controller, but the analog stick worked perfectly. Someone made a config that makes it handle kinda like the old Playstation controller. It was comfortable and I think even better since it has extra places for button assignments. For example sidestepping was assigned to the bottom bumpers of the controller instead of it’s more traditional spots like LT and RT, which to me felt more natural.
Overall I still haven’t regretted the pre-order. In fact it keeps getting better and better with every update. They recently introduced a shortcut menu that you can use to bring up keyboard shortcuts. It’s handy if you play games like Skyrim which have a big keyboard layout.
Nothing like using Source Filmmaker and the TF2 universe to sell your product.
I wouldn’t buy one, but it does look pretty handy for someone who would want to expand their gameplay to another location without the need of building an HTPC.
I have some more gmod funtime footage to go over at a later date. I’d like to start filming some other stuff too as I feel like I’ve been uploading too much gmod in general. But it’s just too much fun with friends. 😛 I did try to capture some TF2 MvM footage but nothing noteworthy happened.
I figured I would do something different as an end of the year blog post. I’m going to talk about games that I’ve finished this year. Yes! Out of all the games I have there are actually some titles I can honestly say that I’ve finished!
This was up there in terms of games that I could not put down at all. Every night when I got home I HAD to get further into this game. I was captivated by not only the beautiful graphics and the extremely pancake thin french fries. But also the characters and their roles in how everything played out. I kept wanting to find out more about Elizabeth, Booker and those creepy twins that followed me around.
Seriously I almost expected them to appear in some random hallway, saying “Come play with us Booker, forever and ever and ever and ev…”. Yeah… That game was one hell of a circle jerk. But I loved every moment of it. I still need to play the rest of Burial At Sea Part 2 though… and finish the other BioShock games. 😛
I finished this game as a siren, and now I’m replaying it as a mechromancer. I had a hard time getting into Borderlands 1, but that might have been because I had no one to really play with. Plus gamespy always pissed me off (but with it being steamworks now I’ll have to reconsider). I loved the writing behind Borderlands 2, all the characters were amazing and there were even moments that had me busting my gut from laughter. I think Handsome Jack has to be one of the best villains ever created! And the whole storyline was an absolute pleasure to get wrapped up in, and even more fun to play with friends and family. I intend to play all the other classes too. Still need to tackle the DLC for those, but now that the steam sale has arrived, and I’ve been passing around DLC left and right. I think I’ll be able to get around to that. I imagine by the time I play through all the classes AND finish Borderlands GOTY, Borderlands the PreSequel will be cheap enough to snatch up. 😛
I don’t have much to say about Jazzpunk because really, it speaks for itself. I’d say it’s really up there with The Stanley Parable in terms of uniqueness. It’s so abstract, nonsensical and filled with the kind of humor that you would expect from Get Smart or The Naked Gun Movies. You never really know what you’re going to encounter next in Jazzpunk. One minute you’re standing in the middle of a beach, the next you’re playing Wedding Qake, or fighting some honda.
And last but not least…
When I first saw this appear on Steam back in the winter of 2013 for pre-order I was surprised that a Metal Gear title of any kind graced the PC master race. I was aware of the fact that this release had no Snake or Big Boss… But that didn’t stop me from getting it. At the time I didn’t really know who Raiden was or where he fit into the Metal Gear universe since I never played MGS2, so I was willing to give the game a fair shake. In all honesty I liked the game a lot more than expected. Don’t get me wrong, at first it was hard for me to really get into. Not because of the lack of it being a Metal Gear Solid game, but because it was a bit hard to learn for me even on easy. But after a few bad days of work and wanting to slash through the world in anger I got a nice taste for the game as well as properly practicing the controls. Plus when this video was shared with me I suddenly had the desire to continue playing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JA5uw4d-Y4
It was fun. I look forward to seeing more Metal Gear titles appear on PC, and I wouldn’t mind seeing all the older ones ported over as well, and maybe even a sequel to this one. 😛
Well, that’s it for 2014. Lets see what the new year has for us, regarding gaming, technology, and real life matters. I look forward a happy, better, newer year.
Last night I went out of my way to make sure all my games were up to date for lunch. Only to find Steam had an update waiting for me when I connected to the wifi at work… Didn’t even get anywhere near completion. -_-
On a brighter note I fixed my TF2 servers. Not only can people wear their Halloween cosmetics all the time again, they can also show off the awesome spells they collected! Made sure to enable it for Quickplay and MvM too. Oh, and the bots have special weapons again on the custom server. Hooray for diversity!
Speaking of servers it appears my main group has been getting some more members. Most of the traffic seems to come from the Elevator Source server. Who knew that giving people a place to stand around and do nothing would be such a hit?