Don’t Think, Just Jam

I started a screenshot album for my virtual adventures. Check it out if you’d like.

  • 12 Posts
  • 60 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: November 25th, 2023

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  • Just to get it running? Not really, I think setting WINE version to WINE-GE-8-26 was the only requirement.

    Personally I also:

    • Installed widescreen patch.
    • Adjusted Steam Input settings to:
      • Gamepad with joystick.
      • Changed D-pad to keyboard arrows and Start to Escape.
    • Changed steering to controller in game.

    With this setup everything works perfectly fine for me.

    I did browse the themed sale a bit actually and tried the previously mentioned RR3 (demo). Unfortunately for me it doesn’t play well with multiple monitors and that’s a no-go for when I play on desktop. I want to try Richard Burns Rally some day, especially after seeing the huge RSF mod adding tons of tracks and cars to the game. Need to clean up my hard drive for that though as I’m a bit swamped in games at the moment.

    I’ll probably won’t be jumping into anything else new for now as I have DIRT Rally sitting in the backlog pile, waiting for its turn in the spotlight. Thanks for the recommendations though, I’ll keep them in mind!


  • I haven’t played most of the games on your list (either at all or in a while), doubly so on the Deck, so my perspective is a bit limited. Sorry.

    CMR04 is on the simcade side of things. Definitely more realistic than Old School Rally, should be relatively close to Rush Rally 3 or Richard Burns Rally (maybe slightly less realistic than those). I think Codemasters found a nice middle ground in terms of driving model with this game. It’s definitely one of the best rally games from that era at least.

    In terms of battery life, I’m able to squeeze between 5 and 6 hours on full charge with this one.


  • I mean, Valve’s silence isn’t really surprising to be honest. They generally tend to keep quiet and let things go away on their own whenever possible. I’d be more surprised if the came out in force on this issue.

    They did respond to the recent claim by Mastercard about them not being responsible for this recent mess - that’s something, I guess? Here is a Kotaku article (don’t kill me, that’s the source I have for this) and here is the relevant part:

    “Mastercard did not communicate with Valve directly, despite our request to do so,” Valve’s statement sent over email to Kotaku reads. “Mastercard communicated with payment processors and their acquiring banks. Payment processors communicated this with Valve, and we replied by outlining Steam’s policy since 2018 of attempting to distribute games that are legal for distribution. Payment processors rejected this, and specifically cited Mastercard’s Rule 5.12.7 and risk to the Mastercard brand.”

    There’s a bit more in the linked article but that’s pretty much the gist of it.





  • TL;DR:

    • Colin McRae Rally 04
    • Project Wingman
    Lots of rambling

    Still playing Colin McRae Rally 04, mostly on Steam Deck this week.

    I think I’m finally used to playing this game with a stick - not that this was particularly difficult but after years of doing so exclusively with keyboard it did happen easier than expected.
    I didn’t migrate any of my progress from the desktop so I’m just slowly getting into the groove with 2WD Championship. It’s one of those games where I don’t really mind having to unlock everything again (maybe I’m just unconsciously worried there won’t be enough content otherwise).


    Besides that I finally started playing Project Wingman. I got it during GOG’s summer sale but outside of testing it for performance as well as Linux and HOTAS compatibility I didn’t really touch it otherwise.

    I’m 40-60% into the game, I think, so things might change but I like it a bit more than either of the Ace Combat titles I played so far (not by much but still). Game feels great to play, looks awesome and I really appreciate how they’re able to use the fantastic soundtrack to make even the early missions into extremely hype affairs.
    I enjoy it way more than I expected to, to the point it became my favourite game in a long while.

    I also decided to try playing it in VR. First reaction: it’s freaking playable on my machine?! Awesome! Second reaction: this is really cool. Feels less intense than anticipated but really cool nonetheless.
    Bonus points for finally getting a chance to SEE the designs of enemy aircraft - I was never able to get a good look at them when playing in pancake mode (I’m talking about large support planes you can’t buy for yourself).

    Unfortunately for me, this will most likely stay as a fun experiment rather than something I’ll continue with. While the game runs well enough, I can already tell the performance during later missions will take a dive to unplayable levels and there’s no point in dealing with that. I’ll most likely try a few more missions and just wait for a proper VR playthrough until after I upgrade my ancient hardware. One day…

    While there aren’t any game breaking issues so far I do have a few small nitpicks about the game:

    • Excessive missile spam in some missions - it’s not even difficult, just tedious.
    • I keep getting tripped over my key binds as they differ slightly from what I’m used to in Star Citizen (my main HOTAS game at the moment).
    • I wish there were more key binds for enemy targeting - I miss the ability to select the target I’m aiming at instead of having to cycle in whatever order the game decides to go with.
    • Had an issue with enemy helis bugging out and not moving in one of the mission. They just hanged in place with their noses aimed at the sky.
    • Navigating menus in VR is seriously borked. Mouse cursor doesn’t show up and when it does its visual position is completely unrelated to where it physically is. Aiming with my had is a complete guesswork as that too has no reticule to use as a reference point. Last but not least, keyboard works for the most part but can’t be used (or just doesn’t work for me) with certain elements of the settings menu (like trying to go through key binds to a specific position). Setting things up was a HUGE pain.
    • Dunno if it’s just numbers magic or an actual mechanical difference but combat distances seem to differ between VR and desktop modes. I’m pretty sure distances during the latter are at like a third of what I’ve seen during my VR playthrough. I need to do some more testing.
    • I miss the afterburner from AC, it was fun to use.

    Finally, I have a question for those more familiar with the game: does the number of enemies change with difficulty? I’m playing on hard and the amount hostiles can be pretty ridiculous at times. It’s (mostly) fun and it’s properly challenging but it can look pretty stupid sometimes.



  • To be fair BBC’s point (or at least how you described it) doesn’t really conflict with my current understanding. Yes, the countries have to accept it to proceed BUT it can be rejected by having enough votes against (few countries representing specific number of citizens from what I’ve read). I’m just not sure it can be vetoed by a single country.

    But yeah, it would be nice to have an actual confirmation. Especially since, as they mention in the source article, this agreement is not legally binding and serves a starting point to further negotiations.



  • This is still just a tentative deal that has to be ratified by all the countries so there’s still hope.

    Friendly reminder that you can use this site to find your MPs in the European Parliament. Remind them that they are there for and because of us, and let them know what you think of this kind of deal making.

    If EU doesn’t stop this recent festival of stupidity the European project will go nowhere fast. There’s already a huge problem with the rise of euro-scepticism and these bellends just add fuel to fire. I’m tired boss.




  • This excitement is half the fun, I guess. Should make for some interesting memories in the future.

    I never got too deep into distros honestly. My early attempts were very rough, very short and limited to Mint and basic Ubuntu I think (they were in a worse shape back then). When I made my last attempt to switch I stumbled onto Pop!_OS and found it to be exactly what I needed. It looks good, runs well and has all the necessary drivers and libraries to play games without issues. I’ve been using it for almost 7 years now and I’m quite happy with it.

    It’s Ubuntu based too so might be worth a look if that’s what you’re interested in. It IS using a customised GNOME for now but they’re working on their own desktop environment to replace it with. They also have a handy tutorial if you’d rather change it yourself.


  • Man, I’d be terrified to have a kid honestly. I’ve had enough experience with taking care of people to know I REALLY don’t want to deal with that if I have a choice - I’m too much of a self-sacrificing idiot for that. Good luck though! My friends with kids are happy about their choices so I hope you’ll end up the same way.

    My first experience with Linux made me swear I’ll never going to touch it again, funnily enough. Now here I am, running it as a main OS on everything I can and having a great time with both games and any kind of personal projects I can come up with. Heck, the fact that some games run better than on Windows is still kinda crazy to me at times even though I understand why. It’s amazing how much things progressed.



  • Man, I didn’t expect people to remember me. Uhm… hi! ヾ(・ω・*)

    I’ve been busy with less fun stuff for a while and when I did play games it wasn’t for long enough to warrant a post unfortunately. I’m hoping for a more permanent return soon as I’m eying to start some titles that will fit this community again.

    CMR04 is great! Still holds up really well, has a nice balance between arcade and sim in its driving model, looks simple but in a readable way and has a mod for widescreen resolutions on PC. It also has no problems on Linux which is a big win for me. Probably my favourite rally game of that era.