Carnage

A lot of companies are a bit like Vought (they don't really care about social topics, as long as it makes money, so they suck in being sincere) and I feel They Boys actually does a very good job in portraying how the real world works in that regard. The first three Resident Evils were THE games of my childhood so I'll probably give this one a chance, like I did with pretty much all Resident Evil movies. The first Mila Jovovich Resident Evil is the only really enjoyable one, as it stayed close to its roots. The second one wasn't too bad, but I just hated that Nemesis was being controlled by Umbrella. The 3rd and 4th one I still enjoyed, but it started to get a bit too much with the special zombies, which to me strays too far from it's roots. The 5th one was horrible and with the last one they redeemed themselves a little bit again. I still have to watch the reboot they made last year, which supposedly stays close to the roots of the first two games.

If they do a remake of Soul Reaver, I hope they include the content that didn't make it in the original due to time issues. There's a guy on YT that went through all that content and would make the game even better. A 3rd person version of the first Blood Omen would also be great.

From the press release I understood that they were already working on it. "The acquisition brings a compelling pipeline of new installments from beloved franchises and original IPs, including a new Tomb Raider game." "Crystal Dynamics is actively working on several AAA projects, including the next mainline Tomb Raider game that will deliver next-generation storytelling and gameplay experiences." And here's the whole press release: https://embracer.com/release/embracer-group-enters-into-an-agreement-to-acquire-eidos-crystal-dynamics-and-square-enix-montreal-amongst-other-assets/

And Crystal Dynamics is supposedly working on a new Tomb Raider game. I still have hope that new games will be developed in the "not so popular" franchises. If they are going to be satisfactory, who knows. I quite enjoyed the gameplay of Thief 4 but I didn't compare it to the older games and just saw it as a game on it's own.

Arkane Studios is very good in this IMO. I'm playing Prey at the moment and it feels so satisfying to discover every nook and cranny of the space station and finding ways to get into locked off areas, even though most sections you don't really have to go to for the story. Dishonored another great example, although I think they did a better job in the first one than the second one.

Not sure if this is good news for franchises such as Deus Ex and Thief as there's not much known about their intent yet, but apart from those franchises I'm hoping for a remake or complete new game in the Legacy of Kain series. https://www.reuters.com/technology/square-enix-sell-tomb-raider-swedens-embracer-2022-05-02/ Edit: oops, just saw jaxa's status update after posting this.

A response by the developer to this question: "As far as I know, OpenGothic is a reimplementation of ZenGin engine. All mods that use any form of reverse enginnering won't work with OpenGothic, ReGoth and other projects. Probably there are plans to make it compatible somehow with some mods but I don't think our mod will be compatible as it features too many new changes to the engine code. Anyway, if any help is required to make it compatible, we will of course discuss it with OpenGothic developers!"

No, you need the have Gothic 2 Gold Edition unfortunately. Gothic 2 is indeed a lot better than 3, like thebigh said. There's a huge mod for 3 though that makes it a lot better than the original, not sure if you played it with that one. Gothic games can be difficult though and 2 is probably less forgiving than 3 and this TC mod continues along that path. Some areas or monsters are not meant for low level characters.

I think the story is 10 years before the one of the game, so apart from a few characters that you might or might not remember you don't need to know the story of the original game. There's also a DX11 mod that improves the visuals quite a bit and is supposedly compatible with this mod.

In my younger years Gothic I and II were the best RPG's for me, along with Morrowind. At the end of last year a total conversion mod was released for Gothic II Gold. It's called The Chronicles Of Myrtana: Archolos and it was actually Mod of the year on MODDB. It features a completely new open world, improved skills systems, gameplay mechanics and complex story, and I think something like 30-40 hours of gameplay. I haven't tried it myself yet due to time issues, but I just wanted to share it here in case some people are interested. If anyone has played it, I would also love to hear their opinion (without spoilers ;)). https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-chronicles-of-myrtana

Warhammer: The End Times Vermintide is free on Fanatical.com theHunter: Call of the Wild base game is free in the Epic Store

I wonder if this is even allowed with the privacy laws in the EU. I know Google is an American company but if they want to operate in the EU they also have to comply with the laws there. I haven't lived in the EU for quite some time now, so I'm not really up to date about what is and isn't allowed, but as far as I know a company can only ask for an ID in very special cases.

Yeah thought the same, maybe it's a bit exaggerated or otherwise very badly optimized. I think I read somewhere in the discussions on Steam that the camera system has been reworked and is now less janky. At the moment there also doesn't seem to be a save system during levels (9 levels in total). And indeed it's developed by one person in Unity.

Seems quite interesting, maybe a bit rough around the edges. Available on Steam.

The classic Jagged Alliance is free on Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/283270/Jagged_Alliance_1_Gold_Edition/

I always wanted to play the old Resident Evil games (1-3) to relive the good old childhood memories, as I don't have the hardware to play the new ones and all the reboots are pretty bad or are missing a lot. Problem was compatibility with Windows 10 of course but found a rebirth patch that fixes that. For the patches you need the MediaKite (1) and SourceNext (2 and 3) versions of the games though and those can all be found on the internet archive. Edit: The Clue and The Sting by Neo Software were also very enjoyable games (burglary) and certainly worth a try if you haven't yet.

Just a few quotes from the latest IPCC report Zerg about extreme weather. - Heat Waves: “It is virtually certain that there has been increases in the intensity and duration of heat waves and in the number of heat wave days at the global scale”. - Heavy precipitation: “the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation have likely increased at the global scale over a majority of land regions with good observational coverage” - “However, heavier rainfall does not always lead to greater flooding.” - Flooding: “Confidence about peak flow trends over past decades on the global scale is low, but there are regions experiencing increases, including parts of Asia, southern South America, the northeast USA, northwestern Europe, and the Amazon, and regions experiencing decreases, including parts of the Mediterranean, Australia, Africa, and the southwestern USA.” - Flooding: “there is low confidence in the human influence on the changes in high river flows on the global scale” - Hydrological drought: “There is still limited evidence and thus low confidence in assessing these trends at the scale of single regions, with few exceptions” - Meteorological drought: “The regional evidence on attribution for single AR6 regions generally shows low confidence for a human contribution to observed trends in meteorological droughts at regional scale, with few exceptions” - Ecological and agricultural drought: “There is medium confidence that human influence has contributed to changes in agricultural and ecological droughts and has led to an increase in the overall affected land area” - Tropical cyclones: “There is low confidence in most reported long-term (multidecadal to centennial) trends in TC frequency- or intensity-based metrics” - Winter storms: “There is low confidence in observed recent changes in the total number of extratropical cyclones over both hemispheres. There is also low confidence in past-century trends in the number and intensity of the strongest extratropical cyclones over the Northern Hemisphere…” - Thunderstorms, tornadoes, hail, lightning: “observational trends in tornadoes, hail, and lightning associated with severe convective storms are not robustly detected due to insufficient coverage of the long-term observations” - Extreme winds (between 60S and 60N): “the observed intensity of extreme winds is becoming less severe in the lower to mid-latitudes, while becoming more severe in higher latitudes poleward of 60 degrees (low confidence)” - Fire weather: “There is medium confidence that weather conditions that promote wildfires (fire weather) have become more probable in southern Europe, northern Eurasia, the US, and Australia over the last century” So although a lot of alarmist articles would like you to believe otherwise, it's really not that bad. Like I said before, I'm not denying climate change and I'm also not denying that we as humans play role in it, the data just doesn't support that our role is as big as they want us to believe. It's important to calm down a little bit and approach everything more realistically.

On that we can certainly agree, but that requires a change in everybody and goverments will have to start thinking about what they can do to make the cheap but polluting products, produce, etc. less inviting. There's a limit in what they can do at the moment though, because putting a high tax on cheap poluting products from China for example in favour of more expensive products that do everything to minimize the strain on our environment, is likely going to cause trade wars and such. Everything works based on what people want and as long as there's a market for the cheap polluting products, companies will continue to deliver.

Like I said mate, lets just agree to disagree. I can give you some graphs now that shows something from a different perspective and then you can show/tell me something different and so on, it's just a never ending circle and we'll never agree. The important thing is that we both care for our planet in different ways and I hope you're doing your part and not just screaming "the end is nigh" and then just continue living like normal.

Researchers that aren't in favour of "climate change is predominantly caused by humans" usually don't get the funding of the ones that are. And of course there the subsidies and such. So going against it isn't the way to make money. I don't deny climate change and neither does Sebastian, the available data just doesn't show that we are predominantly to blame for it. I'm not interested though in a whole discussion about who's right or not. I respect everyone's opinion about the subject but from past experiences I know it's just better to agree to disagree as we all get our information from different sources. The most important thing though is that if you want to help your cause, is you start being the example. You can't change what other people do and there's very little we can do to change what the leaders in the world do. I care for the environment, so I try to be mindful in the things I buy and consume, haven't driven a car in the last three years (because I don't need to), etc. I personally think the biggest problem in the world is over population, as it puts a lot of strain on the natural resources and wildlife. With 25% less than we have now we would put a lot less strain on everything.

I'm fully aware that we as humans have to do a better job in caring for the environment but I personally think that the current "we as humans are predominantly to blame for the current climate change" is just part of a huge political machine which is fueled by extreme climate models that don't draw a realistic picture. I always prefer to look at real data and in the Netherlands for example the sea has been rising at the same rate for over more than 100 years (+/- 2 mm a year). But in other places world wide an increase isn't showing either. Satellites show an increase, but there are so many factors that can distort the data coming from these and although satellites are becoming more accurate, they still are very far from tide gauges for example. I understand it, climate change is a big money maker, but if our leaders would really care for our CO2 emissions, they wouldn't be flying in private jets to their climate meetings. I know that the current measures could help with improving our environment, but then just say that you want to do that. Becoming CO2 neutral is an impossible task and apart from that there have been numerous studies that the effect it's going to have will be minimal and the cost will be tremendous. There are so many ways that we can really care for our planet without having to pay so much. Below I'm sharing an article by Sebastian Lüning a German climate researcher. Think of it what you like, we are all free to believe what we want of course. Here's the original German article for German speakers. "Who erased the medieval warm period? The latest UN report has distorted climate history. The traces lead to Bern. By Sebastian Lüning In the Middle Ages, Switzerland and other parts of Central Europe were as warm as they are today. The so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP) is scientifically well documented in the region: between 800 and 1300 AD, many Alpine glaciers shrank dramatically and some were even shorter than today. The tree line shifted upward. Permafrost thawed in high alpine areas that are still firmly in the grip of ice today. Those high temperatures are clearly demonstrated by tree rings, pollen, chironomid fossils, and other geological reconstruction methods. Controversial temperature curve For a long time it was assumed that the Medieval Warm Period was a regional, North Atlantic phenomenon. But this warm phase also occurred in many other areas of the Earth, for example, in the Antarctic Peninsula, in the Andes, in North America, at the North Pole, in the Mediterranean, in East Africa, China, and in New Zealand. Together with expert colleagues, I have evaluated many hundreds of case studies from around the world in recent years and published the syntheses continent by continent in peer reviewed journals. Three of those publications are cited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its recently published Sixth Climate Report. The Medieval Warm Period was then followed worldwide by an abrupt drop in temperature. During the Little Ice Age of 1450-1850, the climate cooled to the lowest temperature level in the past ten thousand years. Unfortunately, one searches in vain for this information in the new IPCC report. The IPCC maintains its own view of the climate history of the last thousand years. In the Summary for Policymakers, a controversial temperature curve is prominently displayed right at the beginning, giving the impression that only minimal pre-industrial climate changes have occurred in the last two millennia. With the onset of industrialization around 1850, the curve then shoots up by more than a degree. This method of representation is also known as the "hockey stick": the climatically straight pre-industrial period according to the IPCC forms the shaft, and at the end of it is the hook of the hockey stick, representing the rapid modern warming. It is a case of déjà vu. Indeed, the third IPCC report in 2001 contained a similar hockey stick graph, designed to make politicians believe that the current warming was unprecedented and therefore entirely man-made. Over the past two decades, however, paleoclimatology has made great strides and data has been diligently collected. From this emerged more realistic temperature trends with a pronounced Medieval Warm Period and a later Little Ice Age. All the more bitter now is the reversion to the old hockey stick times. How could this have happened? What were the possible motives for this renewed distortion of climate history? The debatable new hockey stick temperature curve comes from the international paleoclimatology group PAGES2k, whose coordinating office is based at the University of Bern. Climate scientist Thomas Stocker, who has collaborated on IPCC reports since 1998, teaches and conducts research at this university. In 2015, Stocker even ran for the general chairmanship of the IPCC, but he lost to South Korean Husung Lee, who recently presented the report of Working Group 1. Stocker co-authored the Summary for Policymakers of the third IPCC report, in which the Hockey Stick played a central role. Now, over twenty years later, the "new" hockey stick comes from Stocker's university, where he heads the Department of Climate and Environmental Physics. Just a dumb coincidence? There are many indications that the new climate curve may have been commissioned for the sixth IPCC report. Five of the nineteen authors of the contributions to the new hockey stick curve are from Bern. But a significant portion of the PAGES2k researchers could not technically support the new hockey stick version and left the discredited group. Evidence thanks to tree rings Meanwhile, the departed scientists published a competing temperature curve with clear pre-industrial temperature fluctuations. Based on tree rings, those specialists were able to show that summer temperatures in the pre-industrial past had already reached the current temperature level several times. This work by Ulf Büntgen of the ETH research institute WSL and his colleagues was not included in the latest IPCC report, although it was published in time for the editorial deadline. Interestingly, the controversial PAGES2k curve had already been included in the first draft of the sixth climate report, although the corresponding publication had not even formally appeared yet. How could this happen? In the second version of the summary for policy makers, the curve was then shrunk to postage stamp size, at the edge of a larger composite figure. This was the last version available for comment by the IPCC reviewers, of which I am one. So it was all the more surprising when the hockey stick image suddenly appeared in the final version at full size. The laws of leverage apply The IPCC is concealing from the public the fact that many experts and reviewers consider the graphic to be highly problematic. For one thing, the new hockey stick contains a whole range of highly anomalous data whose use is difficult to justify. For example, PAGES2k integrates a Bauring dataset from the French Maritime Alps, although the creators of the original case study explicitly advise against using it for temperature reconstructions. On the other hand, it omits data showing strong pre-industrial natural variability of climate. Extensive criticisms made during the report review process and formally published in publications were ignored by the IPCC authors. In light of this behavior, a peer review process makes little sense. The fundamental problem is that both the IPCC authors and editors are appointed by a politically elected IPCC board. Thus, the selection of researchers involved in the IPCC report already establishes a line of thinking that can hardly be watered down later. The laws of leverage apply here: whoever has the upper hand gets his way. The arbitrariness of the IPCC is also evident from another example. Even in the first draft of the report, the IPCC explicitly mentioned the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age in a summary table in Chapter 1 of " The Physical Science Basis." The erroneous reference to a regionally limited phenomenon in the North Atlantic was removed in the second draft in response to expert criticism. However, in the final version, which could no longer be seen by the experts, both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age had been surreptitiously dismissed and replaced by meaningless text under the umbrella term "the last millennium." Three small asterisks explain to the reader that the terms "Medieval Warm Period" and "Little Ice Age" could not be used in the report because they would be too ill-defined and regionally variable. That's how easy it is to rewrite climate history, and hardly anyone notices. Why is this important? The pre-industrial temperature trend is highly relevant to the division ("attribution") of modern climate change into human-caused factors on the one hand and natural factors on the other. Since natural climate factors play a minor role in climate models, those models can only generate hockey stick patterns. Thus, any real pre-industrial warm or cold phase poses problems for the models because they cannot reproduce it. They are designed not to. This raises uncomfortable questions about their suitability and usefulness for future climate development. Ultimately, they are uncalibrated simulations that really shouldn't be released for future modeling at all until they match the climate record. In other words, if a climate model provides answers to the question of what the past was like, and those answers are miles away from reality, then the prediction of the future is likely to be just as strongly off. Uncomfortable topics It is particularly curious that the climate models of the so-called CMIP6 type, which were prepared specifically for the sixth IPCC report, turned out to be largely unusable. Due to errors in cloud modeling, they produced temperature graphs that were far too warm. Therefore, the IPCC stated that it would put more emphasis on historical temperature trends in the current sixth report. However, since that historical approach - as described above - is highly controversial, the IPCC has now blown up this "saving grace" as well. In its official press releases, the IPCC largely omits these uncomfortable issues. And in most media reports, the public does not find out about them either. This will continue to reverberate in the scientific community for a long time. For it is only a matter of time before critical climate scientists systematically address the inconsistencies in this biased IPCC report. The incident demonstrates how political tactics undermine the scientific integrity of the IPCC and undermine trust in the institution."

I personally think it's just best to accept that some people have different views, no matter how extreme these might be and take them with a big pinch of salt. It might not always be easy but in life you'll always encounter people with different views (some more extreme than others) and learning to accept that will make everything a lot more bearable. They might even think the same about you, as ones view on things doesn't automatically make it the 'correct' view. We all receive information from different parts and there are so many other factors that decide how we view certain topics. If they're really offending of course, you can always report them, but most of the time a senior member of this forum will soon tell them to calm down if they are.

Symphonia free on GOG https://www.gog.com/game/symphonia

I've selected the first option but I want to add that I would do that with a kid that's able to distinguish fiction from reality and that's it's more a 50/50 option between the first and second. As a kid I've seen and played a lot of stuff that wasn't for my age and it never affected me. I think the biggest problem is the time you're allowed to play as that does a lot more damage than the content itself. In my time there was a cartoon called Alfred J. Kwak and one of the antagonists was called Dolf and was a perfect reflection of Hitler. Pure propaganda. In today's age such a cartoon wouldn't be allowed anymore, just like there were so many cartoons that today wouldn't be allowed anymore. None of these have affected me or anyone I know, but addiction certainly has (not me as my parents were strict in time allowance, but some friends had big problems).

The Complete Edition of Horizon Zero Dawn can be downloaded for free in the Playstation Store for PS4 and I also think for PS5 till May 14/15th.