Favourite computer games of all time.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Very nice indeed RA. Can you use Climates of Tamriel with that ENB RA?

I really like it   
There's a version of the ENB that's compatible with Climates of Tamriel. I love Frostfall  . I use it with fast traveling disabled. Between that and the realistic needs and diseases mod and the climates mod, I have to be sure about any travel decision. Though I also have UFO and am probably going to try recruiting a mini caravan to travel with. I have the Gypsy Eyes caravan mod that gives you a horse drawn wagon as a player home; it should help with the cold winter.

All in all really fun   

Pettytyrant101 wrote:It looks gorgeous, I never used an ENB as my rig isnt good enough but I always found a mix of Climates and RLO worked well and I am so used to the gorgeous new weather in Climates I dont think I could easily go back.

I did see that when I first installed the ENB my frame rates dropped to .5: Completely unplayable obviously. I couldn't figure out why at first, but then I realized the ENB hogs so much memory on the graphics card. I had to reset the memory parameters for the ENB to get it playable.
Now I'm happily at 40-45 outdoors with 60 inside  

I love Frostfall - RA

Me too definitely an essential- it adds a whole new immersive element to the game- that cave you need to go to might be within a few hours walking distance, but it will be getting dark by then and its up a mountain, so either sacrifice the cool armour for some furs, or risk freezing to death up there overnight. Journey have to planned with stopping places on route for a meal an some heat.
It makes the world itself part of the challenge.

Id also recommend deadly dragons for a lot more variety to both the dragons and the dragon fights (it is harder though) and the Monster mod, also mainly for added variety (I prefer the Lore friendly version myself) and if you are using UFO its probably worth looking around for some interesting companion npc's to drop in to the game world.

Elite Dangerous went into Alpha testing today- but dont get the wrong impression from this- the game is not a space combat game, its open world (universe!)- its just the first stage of Alpha is testing the combat, so a selection of combat scenarios are all thats currently available- looking very nice for Aplha though (worth watching full screen in HD)-

Fallout 1, 2, and Tactics are free on GOG right now   

Someone playing the Elite Dangerous Alpha test- (with flight assist off I might add, meaning control by manual firing of thrusters and Newtonian based physics)-

Another Elite Dangerous Alpha stage vid, and short, as this is a terrible way to take on a large well equipped ship like the Anaconda in a small one man fighter craft like the Sidewinder the player gets in the Alpha, let alone an Anaconda with a fighter escort.  

However it does nicely demonstrate a few things.

Keep and eye on the two wingmen ships at the start and you can see their manoeuvring jets firing as they make adjustments (if you play it with flight assist off thats how good you have to be, to fire of thrusters like that for direction- so much harder and constantly demanding, flying by the seat of your pants making constant adjustments- but you could become one hell of a pilot if you master it)

Lighting is very nice too, the cockpit is lit according to the external light sources.
Keep an eye on the canopy, as the light changes, scuffs, scratches and marks on it become more or less visible depending on the angle of the light striking it.

And I also liked the way he loses his shields when he drifts back and into the wash of the Anacondas engines (an Elite schoolboy error!).

Oh and lastly, the bobble head, lovely touch guys.   

Some Skyrim mods I thought I would recommend, these are all mods to improve immersion in the game world.
I have left off the major big ones everyone probably knows and already uses like Frostfall, Monster Mod, and needs mods.
Most are self explanatory, but for the more obscure ones I include a description of what it does. None of them are absolutely essential in the way I would say Frostfall was although Id not like to go back to playing without them either!

addictive skooma- improves bonuses gained from drinking skooma but gives a long withdrawal from it that reduces stats (especially stamina)

adventurers and travellers

alcohol drunk effect

audio overhaul for skyrim

bandit children- adds children to bandit camps

book covers skyrim

chimneys for skyrim

cloaks of skyrim

dead body collision fix- stops the player and npc from being able to just walk through dead bodies.

diverse guards- increases the guard variety, more facial and body types and more female guards

dogs of skyrim

dynamic things- turns all those non interactive crates, boxes and the like into interactive containers with stuff in them.

guard dialogue overhaul

fantasy music overhaul

hunterborn- improves hunting, with a variety of methods, from the quick vanilla manual loot, to taking an hour of game time to skin and prepare (gaining bonus stuff and better quality hides)

immersive patrols- adds Stormcloak and Imperial patrols to the roads

ingredients of tamriel

lanterns of skyrim

left hand rings

light up the night- people have torches

lightning during thunderstorms

lush aspen trees

magic duel- makes a mini game of sorts happen when two magician magic meet

moss rocks

no spinning death animation

radiant and unique potions

rainbows

realistic crime radius

realistic mushrooms

realistic ragdolls and force

run for your lives- makes npc's run for cover when things like dragons attack

shooting stars

sky birds airborne perching

skyfalls and windmills- animated distant waterfalls and mills

skyrim flora overhaul

splash of rain- adds rain splashes to things when it rains

stable Ugrids to load

thieves guild requirements- gives prerequisite skill levels before the thieves guild will consider you for entry.

touring carriages- carriages that travel skyrim in real time, either have a sleep ad skip to your destination or watch the world rumble by.

travellers for Skyrim

think to yourself messages

unique grasses and groundcovers

visible windows

wearable lanterns

wet and cold- mimics the effects of getting wet and being cold, nice compliment mod to frostfall

wild horses of skyrim- some of them are even grey!

winter is coming cloaks

I have most those mods now, Petty   

Speaking of mods, I just got done installing this really cool mod on Mass Effect.



They have an ENB in place that's not apart of the mod itself. It looks really nice. It improves the quality of most the games textures.

Oooh, time to reinstall ME1 I think! (Its my favourite of the three anyway)

It's really cool and I needed something to get me back into the first one; I was almost burnt out on it from doing I don't even know how many complete runs.

I am curious RA do you play as a male Shephard or a female one?

I played through as the male the first time but the second time I played as a female and never looked back- I find the story much more engaging when its a woman mainly because I think the actress (Jennifer Hale) is a lot better than the actor. (the ensuing girl on blue girl action is merely a bonus!)

(Spoilers for dlc leviathan- although I tend to make a more seasoned looking Shephard than this version who seems to have stepped out an anime!))

I did one series playthrough with Femshep because I'd heard Jennifer Hale is a much better actor (She is). I had done about two dozen series playthroughs before as male Shep before though. The line delivery is wildly different despite the dialogue being mostly the same.

All of my previous playthroughs before were on the Xbox and I wasn't in a hurry to rebuy everything for PC: so much DLC. But I hadn't considered the modding community with their HD textures. Odd since it was the modded playthroughs of Skyrim on Youtube that made me want to get a PC in the first place.

So far the Mass Effect 1 HD overhaul is very refreshing. I have practically every planet, corridor and line memorized but the atmosphere feels new now, like going to a friends house whom I hadn't visited in a long time. Mass Effect 1 was beginning to show a bit of its age (though that may be due to how much time I've spent with it) and this overhaul is really refreshing as a result.

Im reinstalling as I type RA and downloading the mods stuff.

Looking foward to it, I've not played through the ME trilogy for a while (although not sure if I will bother replaying 2 and 3- I like 2, not as much as 1 but its close- but 3 is one of the biggest gaming disappointments ever made- damn you to hell EA for ruining yet another original franchise by turning into just another generic shooter   )

I'll probably get the second one and eventually get its twenty odd something DLCs, but I'm not sure about 3. Mostly cause I''l have to install Origin then.

The other two do also have plenty of high resolution texture mods though. Tempting...

I got this other mod today for Skyrim. A follower mod: Hoth. He's custom voiced and a bounty hunter. It's pretty cool; he has a mask.

Nice.    (Can you get the mask separate? Or forge one?)

I don't think the mod author is allowing his pieces of armor to be used separately.

I think it's because in his backstory each armor piece has a story associated with it. I can see how the pieces being forgeable would diminish their significance a little.

Ah, well, fair enough.

I got a new mod today for Skyrim - always so fun to find new cool mods.
It's called immersive first person view.



Your character has a body and shadow in first person. I like it.   

Now you can have first person werewolf, vampire lord and horseback. Plus you can assign this first person view to a key and still use the regular first person view with F.

Downloaded the fps mod RA- had to tweak it a fair bit to stop me feeling motion sick! But the mod comes with plenty options to sort that if like me your too drunk to cope (my head bobs enough on its own without the onscreen view bobbing about too!). Lopping around as a fps werewolf look a lot of fun.

Meant to ask RA what resolution do you play at (I use my tv so 1080p is as high as it goes- although for frame rate reasons I play it a setting down from that as it lets me put the draw distances to max).

But if you have a pc an monitor that can run Skyrim with all bells and whistles on at a high res you might like the All in one Vivid Landscapes retexture pack- heard good things about it- not only lots of detail but parallax scrolling too, so those rocks and roads really are bumpy!