April 2015 General Chat

1st April 2015

So, here we are. Spring is in the air, daylight is getting longer.

Some of you, me included, may have a few days off from work or study, so that’s always cool.

What gaming plans do you have this month?

This Month’s Sci-Fi Movie

In June 2014, I started to use a poster from a classic Sci-Fi move as the background for the post image.

This month it is from The Monster That Challenged the World (1957). Giant mollusk monsters attack California.

Sounds like a typical 1950’s sci-fi movie: GIANT something ATTACK somewhere

28 Comments

  1. Can i please get some suggestions for the next mod to appear on Critical Jim?
    I have my own ideas but interested in what you guys think.

    I’d also like to know why you feel we should take a look at it.

    and don’t say THE CITIZEN RETURNs because i’m not wasting my life like that!

    1. JG

      Fine. Then do the Citizen II. 😛

      I watched about a half-hour of your first episode and I was kind of bored. Not by you or Daz, but by the mod itself. It made me realize that I never played the extended version of Station 51, and I think “extended” is the understatement of the year. It was like watching an episode of MST3K where even the witty commentary couldn’t save it. It really is just the same battle ad nauseum. Sorry.

      I don’t have too many mods that come to mind that are A: widely known and B: demonstrate a wide variety of gameplay flubs instead of the same one over and over again. Outside of, naturally, the Citizen. I know I am diametrically opposed to the style of gameplay in Leon’s maps, but those are so long that they probably aren’t appropriate for your format.

      1. Yeah it didn’t leave us many places to go as its a one trick pony…

        Silent Escape caught my eye..

    2. What about one of Leon’s releases?

    3. JG

      Consider doing Aberration. I had completely forgotten about it until Phillip posted it this morning.

      1. I have already suggested it to him.

  2. Drop some acid and do The Great Forever Tomorrow. 🙂 Kidding about the acid, not so much about the mod. I loved playing TGFT and Gateways but only on god mode.

    1. I’m not familiar with either of them but will check them out.
      Thanks for the suggestions…

  3. Hey, what happened to Toaster-Ville? I was jsut about to start on my map when I noticed the post was gone? Is it not happening?

    1. It was an April’s Fool Joke.

      1. Whoops! Haha, didn’t even notice that ;D
        Man, I really wanted to show off my mad bread texturing skills. 🙂

  4. I don’t expect anyone will care, but I won’t be able to review a lot of mods for the time being. As much as I’d like to, my wife gave birth to our daughter, Ivory-Rose Morris, on the 31st. I’ll be taking the night shifts though so hopefully I can get in the odd review here and there. Definitely gonna be keeping an eye on the live events though. I can watch twitch and feed baby at the same time! Haha!

    1. JG

      Congratulations, Urby! I became an uncle last month, so there’s new life for me to dote over as well. 😉

    2. Congratulations!! I guess the suppression field got taken down in your City 🙂

    3. Of course we care. Congratulations on the birth of your child.

  5. My gaming plans are Grim Fandango Remastered and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. I also have 5 HL1 mods on my waiting list, but that’s just have to wait …

      1. E7 Black Star, Residual Life, Intolerable Threat, The Challenger Deep 2 and Focal Point. Yeah, I know, they were released a long time ago, but I’m that kind of a player that almost never plays games/mods right after the release. IMHO, the games should mature and receive important patches, and when the most horrible bugs are fixed, you really enjoy your first playthrough 🙂

    1. JG

      I’m addicted to Cities: Skylines at the moment. It’s a city simulation game that does everything that SimCity 5, and for that matter SimCity 4, failed to do. It’s also fully integrated into the Steam Workshop, so people can easily make their own mods (buildings, game rules, scenarios, etc).

      1. I love how basically 100% of the reviews state “and it’s not EA!”

        It looks very pretty, but I don’t think I’d want to play it. I was never particularly great at Sim City and micromanagement isn’t my cup of video tea.

        1. JG

          I actually don’t think Cities is big on micromanagement. In fact, it has just the right amount of hand-holding to tell you that something’s wrong, but not specifically how to fix it. It invites the player to come up with creative solutions and prefers to be more “gamey” than hardcore sim. There are only a few constants – citizens need various city services and jobs. If something has gone awry, chances are you’re missing one of these. So you can bring up the heat maps and see what services are deficient. Maybe the residents lack a school. So, we can plop down a school and watch as all the buildings “ding” and level up, triggering mass renovations and improvements across the area.

      2. Oh man. Skylines totally ate into my pre baby free time. Sucks not being able to play it at the moment…

      3. JG

        My city so far!

        http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/34117057615979038/A81AA3BD10AD0DA10CCD2EDA5BF6C7A1C2ABC05C/

        I’m not running with any mods. I’ve unlocked all 9 tiles and have a population of just over 116,000. From this distance, you have to squint to see the buildings way off in the distance, just to give you an idea of how enormous the maps are. There are mods which can unlock about two dozen tiles, however. You could conceivably have a city that’s easily twice this big.

        The area in the foreground is the last to be developed. It has a somewhat funky road structure because I’m zoning industry around the natural resources. It’s one of many little challenges you invent for yourself playing the game.

        Because you can see all the people and their cars, the game really is like a little ant farm. It’s mesmerizing to watch in-motion how the whole thing works.

        See my Steam gallery for more:
        http://steamcommunity.com/id/riomaki/screenshots/

  6. Hello, this is Phillip but I’m using another account to see what the new local avatar management plugin works like from a non-administrative point of view.

    Please ignore this comment.

  7. Herr_Alien

    https://youtu.be/d2hh_zUSxa4?t=1112

    Like, what ? 😀 The voice … sounds so damn familiar.

  8. I’ve been away from modding for a couple of months (the joy of studying for exams at the hardest university in the country) but I just heard the news about Valve selling paid mods on the Steam Workshop and I’d love to know your thoughts on it.

    Really looking forward to catching up on HL mods this summer!

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