What are you playing? (games)

[juansolo]

Bizarrely I found that internal drives were more expensive than externals. I upgraded mine before the firmware release which was a tad annoying as I had to re-install all my games to the new drive... But yeah, I bought an external Seagate 2TB drive, popped the drive out and swapped them over so I now have an external 500GB drive and an internal 2TB one. It would have been so much easier just plugging the bloody thing in had Sony been a bit quicker with the update.

[somnif]

Just picked up Wolfenstein: The New Colossus.

It is glorious. The writing is just as good, and just about everything feels a little updated. Sharper graphics, better kills, more weapons, fun fun fun. Still ever so slightly ridiculous, and just as absurdly paced as New Order was. Why yes, I did just get out of a coma, of course I can instantly join the fight. Wheeeeee.

That said.... its a bit of a buggy mess at the moment. Even with the beta steam patch I keep running into little graphical glitches. Without the patch it seems many people are finding it unplayable (on PC anyway). Bit of a shame, but one they are aware of and working on at least.

Now, back to finding creative ways to introduce these nice Nazi fellows to my hatchet. Or perhaps my laser turret. Or my fire grenades. Or my stompy stompy death boots.

[EBRAddict]

Just replayed "The Talos Principle". Probably my favorite behind Half-Life, Elder Scrolls and Fallout series. It's so relaxing and fun. The DLC is a bit more frustrating but still rewarding.

Steam had a sale this weekend, $10, $13 for game + DLCs. Thanks for the recommendation, I'm glad I picked it up.

[selfdestroyer]

Just picked up Wolfenstein: The New Colossus.

It is glorious. The writing is just as good, and just about everything feels a little updated. Sharper graphics, better kills, more weapons, fun fun fun. Still ever so slightly ridiculous, and just as absurdly paced as New Order was. Why yes, I did just get out of a coma, of course I can instantly join the fight. Wheeeeee.

That said.... its a bit of a buggy mess at the moment. Even with the beta steam patch I keep running into little graphical glitches. Without the patch it seems many people are finding it unplayable (on PC anyway). Bit of a shame, but one they are aware of and working on at least.

Now, back to finding creative ways to introduce these nice Nazi fellows to my hatchet. Or perhaps my laser turret. Or my fire grenades. Or my stompy stompy death boots.

Not sure if you are a AMD or Nvidia guy but..

I had issues with it when changing from 1080p to 1440p. I would get a BSOD and my machine would reboot. I then found out Nvidia released a hotfix for its video drivers found here: http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4575

After installing this I had no more errors with graphic settings in general.

Really enjoying the game so far. They are really pushing the envelope with this one... and I like it.

Cody

[somnif]

I've not run into any bluescreen-level errors, just the occasional texture glitch or jitter. That said, the beta patch required me to update my graphics driver (which I had updated literally the day before) before it would let me play, so I suspect Bethesda knew what was up.

But it does take glorious over the top ridiculousness to new levels. Nazi flying saucers in Roswell, hell yes.

[madbean]

I bought this game called "Capsized" on Steam for like $3. Not the greatest game but wow...the music and art direction are really cool.

[storyboardist]

I've been living in past playing a bit of Portal 2 for my YouTube channel (shameless plug)... And some of the Division for kicks. They've finally fixed it enough that I enjoy playing it again. Though the gear/loot grind can get kinda old.

I'm about to build a new PC in the next week or so. Just waiting on a few packages from NewEgg. Already got the new Assassin's Creed (came with my processor), so I'm looking forward to that.

[chromesphere]

New gaming related build: Neo Geo arcade stick.

Hey John, thinking about building one of these (for my neo geo cd) and wanted to ask, how did you do the wiring / 15 pin cable for this?  Like, did you make the cable, or hack an old controller, etc?

[juansolo]

I bought a Neo Geo controller extension cable from eBay, it was about £12 IIRC, and I just lopped the end off.

The wiring is easy as the Neo doesn't have any weirdness in it. It's just literally wires, a common and one per switch. http://old.pinouts.ru/Game/NeoGeoJoystick_pinout.shtml

The parts I used:
Seimitsu LS-40 Arcade Joystick
Seimitsu PS-14-DN 24mm buttons
Hammond 1550GBK enclosure
A Neo extension lead
12mm cable gland

I went Seimitsu as it's the stuff used by SNK, it's a bit more expensive than the parts I've used in the past, but in all honesty, they're so much better, I think I'd use these from now on because I like them so much.

If you want to go with my layout I can post the drilling template if you like.

[chromesphere]

Ah ha!  Extension cable, good idea.  I've done this building colecovision controllers in the past (hacking extension cables).  Yeah its all switching by the look of it like the MVS arcade machine would use (jamma etc).  Nice and simple, no active circuitry good one.

I usually use Sanwa in my arcade sticks but i might try Seimitsu for something different (and being the neo geo brand of choice makes it more appropriate), thanks for all the info mate, very helpful!

Paul

[sonnyboy27]

Ah ha!  Extension cable, good idea.  I've done this building colecovision controllers in the past (hacking extension cables).  Yeah its all switching by the look of it like the MVS arcade machine would use (jamma etc).  Nice and simple, no active circuitry good one.

I usually use Sanwa in my arcade sticks but i might try Seimitsu for something different (and being the neo geo brand of choice makes it more appropriate), thanks for all the info mate, very helpful!

Paul

I read all of your comments in your accent.

[juansolo]

The other reason to use the neo extension rather than just buying some 15 pin D plugs is that they're way longer than a standard D. Something I only noticed after I'd ordered some 15 pin D plugs... The ext lead just makes life simple.

[juansolo]

So I thought I'd do another catch up on the retro goodness.

Being in the UK we're used to dealing with multi-standards and what have you. Indeed it was rare in the past not to have a chipped console so you could play imported games. All those RPGs that the US got that we didn't, or the Japanese shoot-em-ups. Well I've been sorting out the few consoles I have left that aren't capable of playing originals from other regions (annoyingly it's really easy to play pirate stuff but not the real thing... Backward I know).

First up was my Dreamcast. Already sat in a US shell from Cody as my UK shell had yellowed particularly badly (I'll retrobrite that at some point, but I like the red swirl of the US console), it was otherwise a standard UK console. I've swapped out the bios chip in that for one that can play originals from any region. Also my DC sounds like a tornado when running so I had a friend 3D print me a fan housing and a replacement eject mechanism that goes around a bigger Nocturna fan. It's now a thing of beauty.

The PS2 has been a bit weirder. I have a chipped PSX, no probs there, but a stock slim PS2 that was running FreeMcBoot. As I say, that still means I can't play NTSC originals so I decided to chip that (that's fun...). However, in the meantime I managed to bag a PS2 Debug Station from Rockstar Games (was used during the development of GTA San Andreas apparently). These elusive beasts are region free out of the box and should, in theory play anything...

We'll that's sort of true. It'll play any PS2 disc from any region no problem. Marvelous. However, and this goes for any of these Debug Stations, even though it's region free, it'll only play PSX software correctly in the standard that the machine is by default. So PAL ones play PAL games fine, but if you play an NTSC game it gets a big border at the bottom and runs a little slow. Likewise if you had a NTSC Debug Station and put a PAL disc in, you'd lose 100 lines of the picture and it'd run too fast... That was annoying as I thought I could get down to just having one machine to play all my software.

This was made weirder by the fact that there was a similar story with my freshly chipped PS2 slim. It'll play any PS2 software from anywhere no problems also. But PSX software, that particular model has a problem where it will burn out the coils on the laser mechanism for some unknown reason. Mine even without chipping it, it's just an inherent fault. There is a work around, but annoyingly, where I fitted the chip is where the mod needs to be done, and there's no way I'm pulling that bugger back out again! It's not a nice thing to fit. So now I have 2x PS2 and a PSX... Typical! Though I'll probably end up using the Debug Station as the primary one as it's now got a HDD in there to run some games that I simply can't get here.

I think that's me up to date... I got a Atari 7800 also that took some serious restoration, not sure if I haven't mentioned that one already.

[juansolo]

Missed one, here's the inside of the slim. The thin green wire is Kynar. Some of those connections required my reading glasses and a magnifying glass.

I've also added a couple of things I knocked together for gaming night, a different type of game. I wonder who'll figure out what they are...

[chromesphere]

Dice box  ahh...tray