BeardyHat's recent activity
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
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Comment on Food: Your personal year in review for 2025 in ~food
BeardyHat Link ParentI'll have to look into the bean sprouts, I do like them. Plus it's all a good way to introduce more veggies into my kids diet. I did find one for, I think, broccoli if I remember right, which was...I'll have to look into the bean sprouts, I do like them. Plus it's all a good way to introduce more veggies into my kids diet. I did find one for, I think, broccoli if I remember right, which was basically the same recipe, just with broccoli.
I can't find the original recipe I used for the Harira, but it's pretty similar to this, the only difference (I can recall) between this one and the other is that the other one called for sprinkling flour into it towards the end of cooking to make it more stew like. That sounded odd to me, as in my experience, flour tends to clump if you don't add it at the very start of the recipe. So instead, I dissolved some corn starch in cold water and put that in at the end and it gave a nice, thick consistency.
As for the bread, it's just this recipe.
Edit: actually, here's the original recipe I used. I think this one is better, though honestly the first one I linked was pretty damned good too.
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Comment on Food: Your personal year in review for 2025 in ~food
BeardyHat Link ParentProbably the first time I ever cooked, I was making a chili for my girlfriend's (now wife) family. I had no idea what I was doing and ended up dumping half a small bottle of cayenne into it. It...had a minor disaster with the dish described above, when I tried some fresh peppers to replace the cayenne powder. The mix I bought included a habanero pepper, and even just half made the dish almost too spicy for me to be able to eat it. It tasted like a raging fire, with a slight hint of what I normally expect from the dish.
Probably the first time I ever cooked, I was making a chili for my girlfriend's (now wife) family. I had no idea what I was doing and ended up dumping half a small bottle of cayenne into it. It was so ridiculously spicy, my in-laws still talk about it as "Beardy's Butt Burner Chili."
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Comment on Food: Your personal year in review for 2025 in ~food
BeardyHat (edited )LinkI've got a couple of big hitters this year, adding two new recipes to my repertoire (technically three, I guess, but I consider two of them to be part of the same dish) that my family quite likes...I've got a couple of big hitters this year, adding two new recipes to my repertoire (technically three, I guess, but I consider two of them to be part of the same dish) that my family quite likes (actually my kids complain a bit about the stew.)
First recipe being Spinach Bonchon, a Korean side dish that my kids really like, with my older one actually constantly requesting it. It's very simple, basically boiled, wilted spinach with green onions, garlic, sesame oil + seeds, soy sauce, gochugaru and salt. It's fantastic.
The second being two recipes, which would be Moroccan Harira stew with Moroccan bread to go with. Ingredients are too much to list here, but it's a very hearty stew that is vegetarian, but could be easily made to be vegan by using veggie broth (though does chicken broth count as vegetarian? I'm neither, but that's what I usually use when I make this.). It's absolutely packed with vegetables, lentils and chickpeas and really has a unique flavor that my wife loves. I'm also a big fan and as an American, it's a nice alternative to chili as something I can make a lot of and then keep in the fridge to eat over the week. The flavors only get better after a day.
When I made this particular stew, I figured I should have some authentic bread to go along with it, so I looked up a receipe for what is apparently called Khobz. I usually end up making two loaves of this Moroccan bread and we end up eating both over the week, even if we don't have any stew to go along with it; it's very quick and simple, needing only about an hour to rise, so it's easy to quickly make day of when I'm planning on making Harira.
Edit: I guess I should also say that this year I've become a baker. I've been cooking for like 18 years now, but never really liked baking much because it feels so much less loose to me than cooking and I often failed. But this year my wife and I finally started watching The Great British Baking Show for the first time and it inspired me to give it a try. I won't say it's a passion for me, but it acts as a supplement to my cooking, as I often find myself needing bread and rather than going to the store to pick up a bag of burger buns or something, I realize I can often just whip them up pretty quickly on my own and they'll taste better and not be full of bullshit like at the store. By far one of my favorite baked goods to make is Indian Naan, as it's very fast to make and tastes delicious.
It's really fun to be able to just throw something together and have some fresh baked goods to go along with dinner.
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Comment on The 2025 Steam Winter Sale is live (runs Dec 18 - Jan 5) in ~games
BeardyHat Link ParentI love State of Decay 2. I've only played it solo, but it's a game that forces you to make choices, so someone would have to decide what the next upgrade for your building is. Also, it would...I love State of Decay 2.
I've only played it solo, but it's a game that forces you to make choices, so someone would have to decide what the next upgrade for your building is.
Also, it would probably encourage people to go out and explore on their own, bringing back supplies, because it seems like it might be difficult to go out as a group, because everyone has to dodge the zombies then. Though it would make some special zombie encounters a little easier and you'd probably want to do that to kill hearts around the map.
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Comment on The Windows 11 crisis in ~tech
BeardyHat Link ParentYeah, it's just always something for me and I figure it must be with the way drivers interact with Intel CPU's and Nvidia GPU's? I just don't know. I've had similar problems in the past, where I...Yeah, it's just always something for me and I figure it must be with the way drivers interact with Intel CPU's and Nvidia GPU's? I just don't know. I've had similar problems in the past, where I had an Intel AX210 wifi card; worked fabulously under windows, but in Linux the connection was intermittent and slow. I could even Steam Stream over my local network, because it was constantly suffering really bad latency and making it unplayable.
This has just been consistent for me with whatever distro, where I encounter weird little problems and often I'll spend awhile troubleshooting them and getting them ironed out, but then it's only a skip away from another bizarre issue I have to start figuring out. After so many, I just get tired of ironing shit out all the time and move away from Linux again.
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Comment on The Windows 11 crisis in ~tech
BeardyHat LinkI don't have the bandwidth to switch to Linux. All of my PC's, with one exception are Intel/Nvidia or Intel/Radeon or just Intel/Intel. My one computer that is all AMD could make the switch, but...I don't have the bandwidth to switch to Linux. All of my PC's, with one exception are Intel/Nvidia or Intel/Radeon or just Intel/Intel. My one computer that is all AMD could make the switch, but it's my primary server/host PC and I don't feel like spending a week or more reconfiguring everything.
I would love to switch to Linux full time and have done it in the past. I even have a couple of minor, functionary PCs around the house doing tasks using exclusively Linux. But whenever I switch to it full time on any of my PC's, I run into issue after issue that causes me a complete stoppage of what I'm trying to do so I can focus on fixing that particular issue. My most recent experience was about two weeks ago, using Debian; loved the style of the OS, loved that I could configure it exactly how I wanted it to function; it was snappy, worked great. But, it doesn't handle my Intel processor correctly, which ended-up being the major issue and why I ultimately switched away from it again.
Trying to play a simple game, the processor would run briefly, then suddenly throttle itself down to 200mhz and lock itself there. It doesn't do this in Windows; using the same software, the CPU will throttle to 800-1000mhz, which ends-up making what I want to play completely functional and playable.
Or on my other laptop (Intel/Nvidia) running Mint. MOST stuff works, but random odds and ends crop up, where I spend hours troubleshooting and looking for solutions. For some reason in one particular game I happened to be playing at the time, the fans just straight-up refused to go over 2000rpm, resulting in massive throttling and performance loss. These issues abound anytime I use Linux, it's constantly one little thing after another that I end-up spending hours on trying to figure out and not doing what I actually want to be doing.
I don't hate Linux; in fact, I quite like it and I want it to an alternative to Windows, but it just always feels halfbaked. Thrown together by too many cooks, so there's always an issue here an issue there, something that never gets resolved. Windows notifications and nags don't bother me; I can turn most of them off and even when they do pop-up, it's a simple click and they're gone. Linux issues bring everything to a complete halt for me and I need to focus on getting that task sorted before I can move on to doing what I actually wanted to do in the first place.
Again, it may just be a hardware issue. My Steam Deck works great and I'm regularly interfacing with the desktop and doing stuff within there; I have an AMD/AMD desktop PC and I could throw a 1tb disk in there just to try out Linux on it and see how it goes, but it also means reconfiguring lots of things, not because Linux, but just because it's my primary server that does a lot of the work in my house. I'd love to have an AMD only laptop just to experiment with, but that is far outside my budget at the moment.
So until then, I'll continue to deal with the Windows nags and annoyances, because it's still the fastest way to do what I want to do on my PCs.
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Comment on Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options. in ~tech
BeardyHat Link ParentThis is all I do. I've had my TV for about 5 years now and it's never been connected to my network and is specifically blocked from doing so. It's a little slower to interact with than my old dumb...This is all I do. I've had my TV for about 5 years now and it's never been connected to my network and is specifically blocked from doing so.
It's a little slower to interact with than my old dumb TV, but it works just fine as a monitor for my HTPC. It turns on and off easily and doesn't give me any fuss.
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Comment on Reading my first Stephen King novel - What are your favorites? in ~books
BeardyHat LinkI've read IT, The Shining and Running Man, out of those, I enjoyed The Running Man most, but The Shining is definitely a close second.I've read IT, The Shining and Running Man, out of those, I enjoyed The Running Man most, but The Shining is definitely a close second.
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Comment on Twenty years of digital life, gone in an instant, thanks to Apple in ~tech
BeardyHat Link ParentI do my backups very basically. 8tb storage drive in my PC, another external drive connected via USB that backs up every night. That same 8tb is just a network share that I can connect to with any...I do my backups very basically. 8tb storage drive in my PC, another external drive connected via USB that backs up every night. That same 8tb is just a network share that I can connect to with any of my other devices. Super simple and maybe not super robust, but it does the job and I'm not worried about data loss.
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Comment on The dapper daredevil who documented America’s skyline in the making in ~arts
BeardyHat LinkThis is super cool, but also gives me anxiety just looking at any of these photos. Adrenaline junky I am not.This is super cool, but also gives me anxiety just looking at any of these photos. Adrenaline junky I am not.
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Comment on I can't describe it, but I know it when I see it in ~life
BeardyHat LinkI have just straight up banned YouTube in my house. It's far too addicting and just gets into weird stuff all the time; I banned it many years ago and then we steadily reintroduced it relatively...I have just straight up banned YouTube in my house. It's far too addicting and just gets into weird stuff all the time; I banned it many years ago and then we steadily reintroduced it relatively recently, strictly under our supervision, but even then when stuff isn't necessarily outright objectionable, a lot of the stuff aimed at kids has this addictive property to it.
We were letting our oldest watch about 20-30 minutes or so each night before bed, but every time we turned it off and told them it was time for bed, they would exhibit what I would call withdrawal symptoms. Begging and pleading not to shut it off and then refusing to go to bed and generally just having a meltdown. This happened consistently for a week and then I remembered it was the exact same behavior they exhibited years ago before I initially banned YouTube. So I told my wife it's going back on the ban list, at least partially. No longer will they have control over it, but instead we, the parents, get to choose what is watched, so now we're able to watch a little bit, but we watch strictly Educational or Edutainment content.
It seems to be working better so far, but if that becomes a problem I will again ban it completely.
My kids are 5 1/2 and 8 for reference.
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Comment on Whatever happened to _____? in ~talk
BeardyHat Link ParentThis honestly could be other developmental stuff. My youngest son was born in April 2020 and he's doing great; ahead of his class as far as work goes, his Kindergarten teacher actually asked us if...This honestly could be other developmental stuff. My youngest son was born in April 2020 and he's doing great; ahead of his class as far as work goes, his Kindergarten teacher actually asked us if she could give him harder things to do, because he's often done with his work before she's done passing it out.
He's smart, funny, clever and a little emotionally volatile, but that's due to the genes between his Mom and I than anything to do with being a COVID baby. I also don't know a single kid who could read by 4, so you were definitely ahead of the curve there.
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Comment on Whatever happened to _____? in ~talk
BeardyHat Link ParentAnecdotally, I have two nephews, a niece and a family friend that all had to do this, roughly ages 7-10 at the time and they're all doing pretty well. They're all smart kids, involved in various...Anecdotally, I have two nephews, a niece and a family friend that all had to do this, roughly ages 7-10 at the time and they're all doing pretty well. They're all smart kids, involved in various clubs in school, well spoken and not particularly different than I remember during my time as a teenager 25+ years ago.
Online school looked absolutely miserable (one nephew and my sister in law lived with us at the time) and completely useless, but the kids I know seem to have come out pretty alright.
Actually, I also know some other family friends who were between 15-18 at the time and they also seem to be doing very well. One is an active duty military member and other has worked odd jobs (not unusual for someone their age) and is now working on starting their own hair stylist business.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
BeardyHat LinkI have been absolutely obsessed with Darkest Dungeon 2 for the past three weeks or so. I bought this game back in 2023, having played over 200-hours of the first game on my PS Vita a couple of...I have been absolutely obsessed with Darkest Dungeon 2 for the past three weeks or so.
I bought this game back in 2023, having played over 200-hours of the first game on my PS Vita a couple of years ago. It really didn't click then and ended-up leaving a bad taste in my mouth after about 12-hours. I never went back to it since then, but a few weeks ago, I started thinking about playing Darkest Dungeon on my Vita again, which got me thinking about the second game and how I should maybe give it another chance, reminding myself that the philosophy of the game is different.
The devs clearly set out not to just make Darkest Dungeon but better and more, but instead refine a lot of the mechanics and make something that felt a little different, especially given it's more of a Roguelite game. In the first game, you build teams of Heroes to explore various dungeons, bringing supplies enough to try and complete an entire run of the dungeon and balancing those with collecting as much loot as you can to bring back to your village to upgrade it. Your Heroes are a big part of that game, but they're really not important in it; early on in that, if you have Heroes who are low level, no skills and end-up very stressed out after a few runs, you simply kick them to the curb and hire someone new. It's too expensive to fix them and upgrading your village is far more important, because those are the upgrades you always have.
The game was criticized a lot for this, I think. It really gives you the impression that the Heroes are your most important resource and I've seen that complaint levied at it often. I think due to this, Red Hook decided to go in a different direction and actually really focus on the Heroes for the second game, as they do become the most important thing in the game. Through the course of a run, you're trying to maximize your Candles, a currency that's used at the beginning of every run to permanently upgrade your Heroes, Stagecoach (your conveyance through the runs) and unlock more items to use on your Heroes. You maximize those Candles by visiting marked locations on your map, completing Hero goals and bringing special items to the Inns at the end stages of each map. You'll get at least a few candles for every run, but it definitely feels like you need to have an understanding of the game to really make some progress upgrading stuff; I really felt like I hit a stride when I beat the first chapter for the first time and got something like 72 Candles, allowing me to unlock new Heroes and upgrade my existing ones to a point where they're significantly more powerful.
Anyway, that's the basic gist of the game, but one thing that really strikes me about it is that it's the most XCOM-like game I've played since XCOM and XCOM2. I feel like often in forums, Steam on gaming websites, games are described as "XCOM-Like" when they're nothing of the sort. Games are often described this way when the superficially resemble XCOM with tile-based, turn based combat and that's about it. What truly makes a XCOM, XCOM is what I like to call the genre of "Plate Spinning Games".
So what is a Plate Spinning Game?
It's a type of game where you're forced to balance a bunch of choices with each other and one choice in one area can often have negative effects in another. You have limited resources, so you really need to think about how you're going to balance that with the other choices you're going to need to make and how to mitigate the negative effects of those choices. Often, you might be forced to make a "Suboptimal" choice because it's expedient in the moment.
So how is Darkest Dungeon 2 a Plate Spinning Game?
There's just a lot to manage. When I begin a run, I'm sometimes sitting at the Party build screen for ten minutes, trying to pick which Heroes I want to take, how they mesh with each other and then ultimately what skills they ought to have. Position in the Party matters a great deal and you need to choose your skills based on that. You can have a Party build with excellent damage to the front row or two of the enemy, but if you can't address the back rows of the enemy, you'll ultimately be doomed.
But there's so much more. You need to manage your Stagecoach, which may take damage through a run. So you need note how much damage it can take in its areas and choose your route through the map based on that. If you take too much damage on it, you're going to be forced to spend resources to repair it and if it gets fully damaged during a run, you'll be forced to stop and repair it, which means a difficult fight.
You also need to manage the Flame on your Stagecoach. Choosing a route through the map will either diminish or reinforce your Flame and your Flame is important because it gives your Heroes a chance to form positive relationships which each other, which is extremely powerful. If you don't manage your Flame well enough, your Heroes will form negative relationships, which can potentially doom a run (though they can sometimes be mitigated with smart play), as well as making enemy encounters harder as you proceed through the map.
You're managing your Heroes health and Stress levels. The more stressed they get, the more likely they are to form negative relationships or have meltdowns during combat, which can turn an encounter in favor of the enemy. Managing Health and Stress requires managing that Flame and making good choices as you proceed to the map, which can help heal your Health or Stress.
You'll need to manage your Heroes skills as well. You might see that soon you'll encounter a boss and while you can make the choice whether to fight the boss or not, you need to ensure that your skills can take care of the Bosses quirks. So you can switch out your skills before an encounter to make sure you've got the right setup.
You'll also need to make sure you're managing your Heroes combat items and trinkets. Combat items can give you little minor boosts in combat, from reinforcing your flame, to mitigating negative tokens on your Heroes and/or providing healing to them. But combat items are limited and also cost resources (but can also be found) to buy more of. Trinkets reinforce a lot of your Heroes skills and resistances, but can also come with negative effects on lower level trinkets. You might be able to give your Grave Robber extra damage, but at the cost of Her speed, which may end-up either a wash or negatively effecting you if you can't kill and enemy before it harms a party member.
There's just all kinds of little, constant, interesting decisions to be made in the game and it all reminds me of playing XCOM2. in which your managing all the facets of your strategic layer, putting Engineers where they need to go, doing the right research, etc, etc, so that you can be better off during the actual battles. I feel like with Darkest Dungeon 2, Red Hook really took Sid Meier's adage of "A good game is a series of interesting decisions" to heart and made a game absolutely rife with them.
I just love it to pieces right now and I think it's supplanted Darkest Dungeon for me. Much as I love that game, my main complaint with it is that I constantly had to be looking things up and I'm not the only one, which I know for a fact. That game can be so obtuse and difficult to play for people with a Goldfish memory like myself that someone made an app for all the stuff that goes into a run in that game. Making sure you know what the right items to bring are, what items interact with what and so on. Darkest Dungeon 2 just gives you everything you need to know right from the jump; everything is explained in tooltips, icons are everywhere, you always know what's going on so you can make the best informed decision in any given moment.
That's all I have to say about that.
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Comment on RAM is so expensive, Samsung won’t even sell it to Samsung in ~tech
BeardyHat Link ParentI was running my air fryer the other day and tripped my breaker. Long story short, I went to shut down my PC and reset my UPS and while doing so, I heard a "poof-zap". Was a bit worried for a...I was running my air fryer the other day and tripped my breaker. Long story short, I went to shut down my PC and reset my UPS and while doing so, I heard a "poof-zap".
Was a bit worried for a minute, but turns out it was just the UPS that blew and not any of my components. Pretty thankful for that, but I'm still not going to plug my PC back in until I get another UPS, which isn't cheap either.
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Comment on Oxygen therapy chambers have led to horrific deaths. Why are influencers raving about them? in ~health
BeardyHat LinkWell thanks, I'm traumatized now. Had never heard of this before and I do not like the first few paragraphs.Well thanks, I'm traumatized now.
Had never heard of this before and I do not like the first few paragraphs.
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Comment on Do you feel like you’ve had many lives so far? Why, why not? Which? in ~life
BeardyHat LinkI don't think I feel like my life is any different, really. I mean, it is different and I'm different, but I don't feel fundamentally different from the little kid I used to be, the teenager I...I don't think I feel like my life is any different, really. I mean, it is different and I'm different, but I don't feel fundamentally different from the little kid I used to be, the teenager I was, the young adult and now the middle-aged man.
I still an pretty obsessed with video games and computers
still love cars
still love the same type of music
still live in the State I grew-up in, if 30-miles away from my original hometownI suppose I had eras, but they still seem like me. There was the era in early childhood/teen when I was a hypernerd; later in my teens when I was still nerdy, but got more comfortable with myself and became slightly cooler; my Metal tee-shirt years during college, living in the city years; But again, none of those feel terribly different.
I guess I just haven't had drastic changes in my life. I never moved far away, dated the same girl for 4-years before that break-up and then have been with my wife for going on 19-years now. We own a house, some cars, have a dog, cat, two kids, I still mostly have the same friends I've had since I was a kid/teen, with some new additions. But I never really imagined my life being any different.
Maybe I lack vision or ambition, but I kind of always just viewed myself living basically the same life my parents did. Never cared to make drastic changes and just wanted a simple domestic life.
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Comment on November 2025 Backlog Burner: Conclusion and Recap in ~games
BeardyHat LinkMode: Standard Bingo! Finished 3/25 Interactive fiction Comedy Military/realistic shooter FPS ✅ Darkest Dungeon 2 Cozy Third-person shooter ARPG Metroidvania/search action Base building Shop...Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 3/25 Interactive fiction Comedy Military/realistic shooter FPS Roguelike
✅ Darkest Dungeon 2Cozy Third-person shooter ARPG Metroidvania/search action Base building Shop keeper Horror ★ Wildcard Sim racing Survival horror Arena/boomer shooter
✅ CulticAction-adventure Management Walking simulator God game Driving/piloting
✅ Pacific DriveCity builder Exploration Real-time strategy/tactics
✅ Advance Wars: Days of RuinSoulslike Not much to update on my part since my last post in week 4, other than the fact that I am utterly, hopelessly in love with Darkest Dungeon 2.
When I first bought it and started it about two years ago now, I really didn't like it. I felt like it very much didn't live up to the original game and I just wasn't having fun in the slightest over the 12-hours I played it. And now? I'm so glad I restarted it. At this point I've put 30 more hours into it and I feel like I'm constantly discovering new things to tweak about my party builds and new ways to play the game more effectively. I just started a new run a day or two ago and I was feeling very unenthused with the party build I chose; it just didn't feel like it was going well at all and I was just sort of stumbling along.
So I decided to change up a few skills to address what I felt were some weak points in my Party and suddenly, we're just utterly kicking ass. It helps that my Heroes got a couple of positive relationship buffs, but I've also just figured out how to more effectively play them with the different skills I chose and again, they are just absolutely crushing it. I have somehow made it to the final region before the boss battle (in the second act) and I have also managed to do something apparently challenging in nearly completing the quest for the Crusader in a single run; I just need to make it to the Quest boss in the next region and I'll be golden. Only problem is, I'm notoriously bad at the bosses in this game and I've only ever won one boss battle in the many, many times I've tried.
At any rate, I've pretty much dropped everything else. I do finally want to go back to Cultic and see if I can make it past the part I got stopped-up at, but I think I'm otherwise done with Pacific Drive. As far as Advance Wars goes, that's one that I'll return to eventually, but I am feeling done with for right now. I didn't complete anything on my list nor get a bingo, but I'm happy with what I accomplished which is to find a game in my library that I'm content to stick with for awhile.
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Comment on CGA-2025-12 🏴☠️🏝️🍌 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games
BeardyHat Link ParentJust wanted to come back and mention, I struggled to get the Ultimate Talky Edition patched on Linux. The patcher refused to find the appropriate file in my Steam folder, but in the process of...Just wanted to come back and mention, I struggled to get the Ultimate Talky Edition patched on Linux. The patcher refused to find the appropriate file in my Steam folder, but in the process of searching for a solution, I managed to turn up a prepatched version on Archive.org. I'm not going to link it here, but suffice to say, it made the process of getting the Talky Edition working on Linux a piece of cake.
So, since Thursday I have done nothing (gameplay wise) but play Mechwarrior 5, because I finally got around to installing the VR mod. It is absolutely incredible. I have been unable to tear myself away from it, nor stop thinking about it since I got it working and I'm a person who doesn't really like MW5 nor really care for VR. My VR headset generally sits in a cabinet unused for long periods.
But my God, I can't help but play this and just be completely enraptured, awed and absolutely stunned by how much more amazing MW5 is, in spite of its flaws (of which all are still true), just piloting a mech in VR and feeling like you are there. Playing my campaign, piloting my Griffin and looking over to the left of my cockpit to see my giant shoulder mounted missile launcher is unlike any other experience I've had in gaming up to this point.
The modders put in incredible work, remodeling great swaths of the game, including cockpits, the initial Home screen, the star map (which is awe inspiring to navigate) and all kinds of other things. The HUD, aside from stuff like your crosshair and heat, has been completely moved to be diegetic, so when you're in your mech, you're looking at screen readouts on your actual dash/cockpit panel. Your map, your weapons, your Lance, enemy targets, mission info, everything. Often, I've found myself in a mech I'm unfamiliar with cockpit wise and I have to look around to actually get my bearings and find where each of the screens are, so I can get that information as I run a mission.
Not just that, but being in different mechs actually feels different. My Griffin has this wide open windscreen where I can see around my instrument cluster, around my legs and have wide peripheral vision through the huge amount of glass. Other mechs can feel downright claustrophobic, like my little Commando's I have in my Lance, who just have a tiny windscreen in a part of the head, significantly decreasing battlefield awareness.
It's just incredible. I had been playing a lot of Darkest Dungeon 2 and was branching out into emulating Breath of the Wild again, but MW5VR has completely shut that down and I have zero motivation to play either of those games right now and simply want to exist within the Battletech universe.
One thing that is a little disappointing is that it doesn't work great with my HOTAS setup. The HOTAS itself works fine and brings an even further level of immersion, considering you can see your pilots hands on the stick and throttle, which move in-tune with your own inputs. This did make the game a lot harder for me, but it just felt so good I didn't want to stop using it.
Altogether an absolutely incredible experience. I showed my oldest, as he loves Battletech and MW5 as well and he's become similarly obsessed with it.