AK Bell

Looks like the RP Flip sliders are going to be clickable, and hall effect.

I'm still not sure on them though. 

44 minutes ago, thesnwmn said:

 

Because they've got to try to make money? I'm not sure of your reasoning. I'm simply saying that not willing to pay a subscription for a company that can make money in ads means you realise that people need to view their ads for that to work.

 

We can all run an ad blocker and get the Eurogamer subscription experience (without the Top 5 Burgers in games articles) for free but that's not sustainable really is it? We are hoping that enough other people will pay for me by viewing ads on Eurogamer or that Gamer Network will keep Eurogamer open even though only their site making money is Sims News because for whatever reason those gamers don't user ad blockers much.

 

 

Of course the issue isn't really ads right? It's the intrusiveness and tracking of ads. If ads were static and designed to fit the site structure then maybe we'd tolerate them more. But instead they're a fucking travesty and make many sites almost unusable. As a result people with ad blockers turn it on and it's on everywhere. They don't (mostly) bother checking each site and so don't see ads anywhere.

 

My reasoning is that despite some people using ad blockers, advertisers still think it's wise to advertise on these sites because enough people won't be using the ad blocker. So these sites must still be making some decent money from it or why bother?

My issue isn't so much the adverts or even the tracking. But yes, a major issue is how intrusive it can be. And it's more intrusive because of how shit they are, often slowing and fucking the website up, because it's using some "clever" service that isn't really on the website and it has to cope with whatever pops in there. 

It feels like they should approach it more like print media where they sell pages to publishers. Keep it simple. Just stick an image advertising the thing onto the webpage directly like an other image. Surely that would confuse most ad blockers and it would make the website better?

EDIT: I should add I don't use an adblocker. If it's full of crappy adverts making the experience worse, I simply don't use it any more. If it's fine, then they deserve the money they got for the adverts I ignored with my eyes and brain instead. 

1 minute ago, thesnwmn said:

 

Assuming everyone isn't running an ad blocker.

then why do company's still pay for advertising?

Just a reminder that this place doesn't run itself. 

I'm happy to pay for something if I know the money is actually going to the content maker and it's their only real means of making money. I'm not so keen on funding Eurogamer, a subsidiary of Gamer Network, large enough to make money from advertising. 

2 hours ago, ScouserInExile said:

For once, my "play on pc with friends" didn't trigger yesterday, despite both joining and host a lobby on AoE. Kinda annoying.

 

Anyone got any recommendations for really easy Achievements? Preferably on cloud? I've finished rinsing Townscaper (which has made me want to play it), the easy Killer Instinct ones and the Golf With Your Friends ones. I'm now looking for those "just start a game" ones. 

I rattled through the three required for the women of game pass quest with Contrast. It looks like a generally quick and easy one to rattle through the rest

https://www.trueachievements.com/game/Contrast/walkthrough/3

2 hours ago, AK Bell said:

I made decent use of streaming from Xbox One to PC too. I was a bit gutted to find it missing from Xbox Series X/S but it's back now. Despite being a bit crappy compared to even xCloud. There is no good reason for that when the Xbox and PC are relatively on top of each other. Similarly, I got Steam Link working too but why is it so relatively poor locally. Really liking Game Pass's streaming. I'm using it loads. But they need to get it working for paid games soon. 

 

Just after posting this I learned of XBXPlay on Android. It's £6 but does a much better job of streaming directly off my XBSX. It's 1080p so doesn't look rubbish, runs all the games so I can play 360 on it and the store isn't blocked. 

So yeah, I'll stick an extra point on my score for cloud gaming. That I didn't give. But it's quite high now. 

I've always liked streaming. I had one of them OnLive boxes ages ago and I thought that worked well enough. I loved it. The important thing was that I could play something on the big telly, and then when I was booted off so the missus could watch some shite or other, I could carry on playing on my underpowered laptop. The subscription was good value, the arena to watch others play was fascinating, and it worked even on my shit 6Mb internet as long as nothing else used it. 

I made decent use of streaming from Xbox One to PC too. I was a bit gutted to find it missing from Xbox Series X/S but it's back now. Despite being a bit crappy compared to even xCloud. There is no good reason for that when the Xbox and PC are relatively on top of each other. Similarly, I got Steam Link working too but why is it so relatively poor locally. Really liking Game Pass's streaming. I'm using it loads. But they need to get it working for paid games soon. 

I didn't bother with Stadia. The writing was on the wall from the off now matter how good the tech was. Selling games on it was never going to be a good model and devs had to jump through too many hoops to make a game for it when they should have done more to just get PCs working fine on it. 

From my experience it really depends on the game. Weirdly you're going to have a good time with a lot of fast pace shooters as long as they're multiplayer. They already put loads of work in with predictions, smoke and mirrors, optimisations, etc that they play great on streamed. I remember Unreal Tournament 3 working really well on onlive but some single player ones sucking. Codemaster driving games were terrible, but other driving games were fine.

It's the same today. I just had a very not fun experience with Mirror's Edge Catalyst. You can argue it's all fast reaction stuff but you could set that up to work out half of it before you've even taken off jumping from an edge. And if you fuck that up you're not even going to notice the lag as you fall to your doom. 

Most of my early gaming was just demos from magazines. A favourite was ATR : All Terrain Racing Xmas Demo. Had a jolly holiday tune and a fun course to race. It was ages later that I actually played the full game, which has good tracks too and feels good to race, but was too bloody hard. 

The Project IGI demo on PC was great. It just had one compound but you could tackle it a number of ways and really work towards nailing it. It was also way more stable and fun than the actual game itself. 

Edit: here it is 

That Edge homepage reward worked today. I did have to refresh the page to see that was the case though. 

Being limited edition an all, I'm guessing it is going to be a 3+ in all but shape. 

4 hours ago, klargon said:

It does have the annoying bridge jump bug in it, although the best track has no jumps. It’s easy (but not really above board) to switch it to Fully Loaded if you so desire. Don’t forget, tap URDLULDRUDUD on the main menu to unlock everything.

I prefer the original. It has a better, simpler polar wharf. I spent ages looking for it again for consoles, unknown to me that this was on steam at all, never mind the good one.

Not a fan of them circle pads. I guess there wasnt really any other option though.

6 minutes ago, SuperCapes said:

Play with others on PC is not working for me, sigh. Lost like £1s worth of points...

 

Thanks @womble9 will activate that tonight! 

It worked for me earlier today. It might just be a blip. Try again later or odds are you'll find you have it tonight or tomorrow morning. 

I really want a series of Captain Dipshit making sure his ship isn't doing stuff every week. 

There seems to be some kind of error. A Retrorevival game at the back is a Xbox 360 game. 

To suggest away from my previous anbernic love in, maybe find a Retroid Pocket 2+ rather than the 3/3+ as its 4:3 and got a bit of oomph still.

You can probably get away with something older like a 351. But if you do go 353, maybe go with the P rather than M. Its meant to be more ergonomic, and cheaper. 

V and VS, but not sure on the vertical myself. 

Cheapo RG35XX with custom firmware  might do you too, if you don't need sticks. It had mame on Garlic OS but I've not tried it yet as I never have much joy getting it to work on anything.

4 - 06/03 - Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion Story  - Xbox Series X (Game Pass)

Yet another one I was just playing for the regular achievements for sweet, sweet Microsoft Points. But unlike the other ones, I thoroughly enjoyed it and found it hard to stop when I got enough achievements for however many pennies with was worth that week. It's a pretty basic Zelda clone with some decent puzzles, but it feels nice to play and it genuinely funny in places. Not laugh out loud funny, but deep, cut to the core of society funny. 

Just now, yakumo said:

Don't be silly, thanks for bringing it to my attention. Might be easier to whack it on for bro since it be easier for him to navigate and use.

Yeah, and it should only improve. It seems the hardest thing to do is crack getting something running on it in the first place as they don't really have legit access to do so. It should pick up pace now like Garlic. 

After looking at loads of expensive mods and covers, I cheaped out and now protecting the RG35XX in a hard drive protector. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01BE2BATC 

Also got one for my mini PC (Quieter3q). Not keen on the colour but it's half the price of anything else without having to go to a car boot sale. 

sorry, I was out and about when I posted about it

I played Chrono trigger for the first time recently too and this isnt in the same league. To be honest, it was a bit flat for me and I'm struggling to go back to it. I want to like it... 

The last time the ME Andromeda quest popped up, I loved it and ended up rinsing the game. It's my favourite. 

6 hours ago, Paulando said:

Honestly, nothing comes close to MiniUI for me on the Miyoo Mini. It’s the only one that could be an official mini console front end.

MinUI had just been brought over to RG35XX. Looks pretty slick but sounds like the actual emulation isn't as far along as GarlicOS 

14 hours ago, yakumo said:

 

 

Also regarding the Odin Lite, are you guys just using Retro Corps guide to setting it up?. 

Yep

RG35XX turned up yesterday, and I already had to get it open to sort out the dpad with a bit of electrical tape. 

But now it's running great. The dpad actually feels so nice you can have a decent game of Sensible Soccer on the Amiga, and that shouldn't work at all on anything other than a joystick. 

Other than that, it's working great with Garlic OS on. Sometimes I might have to lower the filtering on PS1 from x4 to x2, and Amiga has been a bit of a challenge getting a good framerate out of PAL games, but that's nothing to cry about for something that cost £50.

The battery could be better but should get me back and forth to work no bother. I am considering a replacement battery but it might be overkill. I'm quite aware I could really pimp this ride too and have it end up costing a fortune. It's £20 for them better back buttons, not including delivery. For the games you'd be playing, you'd barely be using them other than to trigger saving state. Then there are the front buttons. And stickers. 

I don't feel it's missing sticks. It's PS1 down so anything that needs a stick will be Odin territory anyway. It's a perfect companion as there is little overlap. 

The screen looks amazing and everything you run on it fills it up pretty well. Odin feels like it's being wasted on 8-16 bit, with it looking blown up and having borders. 

Yeah, it's pretty nice. It only took a month from ordering on AliExpress, and that included a mess up by the delivery people that the seller sorted out with no bother. Definitely easier to get that a Miyoo Mini Plus, and unless you're fussed about wifi for retro achievements I reckon there isn't much difference between them now.