Ductos

Ductos, 10 days ago to Godzilla

Watched #GodzillaMinusOne

Without a doubt, the BEST #Godzilla movie I've ever seen and will (?) ever see!

What a wild ride...never seen a $15 million budget used so well. The best effect work I've seen in ages.

And this film WILL make you FEAR Godzilla! Never before has he been depicted as such a force of nature. You actually care more for the humans this time around.

See it! #movies

GIF from the movie "Godzilla Minus One": Godzilla charging his iconic blue Atomic Breath.

arstechnica, 25 days ago to random

OpenAI pauses ChatGPT-4o voice that fans said ripped off Scarlett Johansson

"Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson," OpenAI insists.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/openai-pauses-chatgpt-4o-voice-that-fans-said-ripped-off-scarlett-johansson/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

arstechnica, 1 month ago to random

Before launching, GPT-4o broke records on chatbot leaderboard under a secret name

Anonymous chatbot that mystified and frustrated experts was OpenAI's latest model.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/05/before-launching-gpt-4o-broke-records-on-chatbot-leaderboard-under-a-secret-name/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

nixCraft, 1 month ago to random

I’m Officially leaving Mastodon. Clearly, I spend too much time here. Take care, everyone. I'll be back in 15 minutes. 🙃

atomicpoet, 1 month ago to random

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines is a great 90s PC game. It is genuinely a great RTS. Perhaps it’s one of the greatest Spanish-made games of all time. Commando was a big success, selling 1 million copies, and many people remember it fondly.

But it’s also not user-friendly, and it takes a really long time to understand. I’ve had this game for 10 years. Multiple times, I abandoned the game because the learning curve was just too much. Only recently, because I was highly motivated to finally “crack” this game, have I finally understood how it works.

The biggest problem is there’s no hovertext around buttons. There’s nothing that tells you what anything does. It therefore takes a lot of trial and error to figure things out.

Yes, there’s a tutorial but it isn’t very interactive. But even without the tutorial, it’s easy to forget things. Hovertext would be so easy to implement just as a nice reminder, and it would improve quality of life drastically.

That said, once you get past those humps, there’s fun to be had with Commandos. What separates it from other RTS games of the era is that, instead of base-building, you command a small group that goes on stealth missions behind enemy territory.

And you have to be quite careful with how you neutralize the enemy because the moment they see you, they will do everything in their power to kill you. The moment you lose one man, the game is over.

The stealth invites a lot of creativity. You could blow up a building to create a distraction while your other men disable the perimeter. Or you can crawl your towards the machine gunner, knife him in the back, then blow up a gas canister to kill the rest of the enemy in one go.

Graphically, this is quite 90s in its aesthetic. Sometimes I forget that isometric perspectives were the height of 3D graphics, especially on PC. I like the textures and the environments. However, sometimes your men are hard to see.

I wish this game had a soundtrack. However, the silence builds up the suspense. The ambient sounds make me feel like I’m walking a tightrope.

At one time the developer, Pyro Studios, was a premiere developer of RTS games. They made an expansion pack and two sequels. Praetorians and Imperial Glory were two other RTS games they made. Unfortunately, Planet 51 didn’t succeed, and Pyro Studios was forced to lay off many employees. Last I checked, they make mobile games.

Nowadays, this is an inexpensive game. Steam sells it for C$5.69, while GOG.com includes the original game and the Beyond the Call of Duty expansion pack together for C$8.19. That’s pretty good value!

If you can get through the steep learning curve, Commandos can be fun.

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines screenshot (RTX 3080 Ti)
Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines screenshot (RTX 3080 Ti)
Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines screenshot (RTX 3080 Ti)

arstechnica, 1 month ago to random

Chaos at Tesla: What analysts think about Elon Musk’s cuts and layoffs

Can things be turned around at Tesla, or is this the beginning of the end?

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/05/chaos-at-tesla-what-analysts-think-about-elon-musks-cuts-and-layoffs/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

atomicpoet, 1 month ago to random

WOW!!!

Where was I when Betrayer was released?! It completely passed me by when it was released in 2014. But this game – this! – is the definition of a hidden gem.

Betrayer is a Souls-like open world game where you scour colonial Virginia trying to figure out why Fort McHenry is abandoned and no one lives there. Soon you discover a bunch of Spanish Conquistadores and indigenous people that are possessed by something malevolent, attacking you relentlessly.

But what I really love about this game is the art style. By today’s standards, Unreal Engine 3 is dated. But it turns out that when you make a game entirely black-and-white, only apply red for accents, you have something that looks incredibly unique.

This game has atmosphere, lots of it. And you feel the creepiness in your bones. This game doesn’t hold your hand, and you better get good and fast.

Apparently, this is the only game that Blackpowder Studios ever made. But if this is their sole game, did they ever make a statement. It turns out the reason this is so good is because many folks on the team previously worked at Monolith. You know, the same people who made Blood, F.E.A.R., and so many PC classics.

I can’t believe this game is now free on GOG.com – without DRM too.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/betrayer

Ductos, 1 month ago to random

Beginning to have real fun with #Fallout4. Rescuing Nick Valentine was my highlight so far.
TIL you can cook and mix chemicals too.

timrichards, 2 months ago to movies

Just saw 'Civil War' with @NarrelleMHarris at Cinema Nova.

Christ that was harrowing - depicts the final days of a civil war in the USA, with a military assault on Washington DC at the end. The main part of the film is a road trip by four war journalists from NYC, trying to get to DC before the end.

It didn't entirely work for me as it lacked context; the filmmakers deliberately left the aims and nature of the warring sides vague, I suppose so they could say "It could happen here" without having to spell out the details. Given the 6 Jan events I think we now know it could happen, so IMO the plot could have done with more stakes to care about.

Having said that, it was a dramatic road trip movie with a lot of violence and some good work by the main actors, including Kirsten Dunst. Let's hope it doesn't actually come true.

#Movie #Movies #Film

Ductos, 2 months ago to random

#OJSimpson passed away. Huh.

Anyway...

GIbiz, 2 months ago to random

We speak to the team behind Ubisoft's NEO NPCs on the potential and challenges around player-facing gen AI

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ubisoft-if-there-is-no-value-in-gen-ai-for-creatives-it-is-not-going-to-be-adopted

Ductos, 2 months ago to Disney

TIL #WarrenBeatty is keeping the rights to #DickTracy from falling back into #Disney 's hands by producing schlocky little specials with him wearing his costume from the 1990 movie every few years, which automatically renews his rights to the character. The last one will let him keep the rights up until 2027 - when the character falls into Public Domain.

It's his revenge for not letting him make a sequel and Disney's attempt to make a TV show without him. #movies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwKncYwtec4&pp=ygUYd2FycmVuIGJlYXR0eSBkaWNrIHRyYWN5

atomicpoet, 2 months ago to random

It’s hard to fathom that Epic was once a small indie developer, so let me provide further perspective.

In 1994, I went to a dollar store and purchased a 3.5” floppy disc for $1. On it was the first episode of a game called Xargon.

I was blown away. This was not because it was an amazing title with great graphics but because it was $1 and almost (but not quite) as good as a SEGA Genesis game. It had nice VGA effects but skimped on certain details such as the shooting animation: a laser just appeared out of your character’s midsection.

Nevertheless, Xargon offered tremendous value because I couldn’t even rent a SEGA Genesis game for $1. For this reason, I decided to keep an eye on the company that made it – a little indie developer called Epic MegaGames.

A couple months later, I saw another shareware title by Epic MegaGames. The game was called Jazz Jackrabbit, and it was as good as any SEGA Genesis title. And this is probably due to it being a Sonic the Hedgehog clone – the big difference being that Jazz Jackrabbit had a gun whereas Sonic did not.

I didn’t care if Jazz Jackrabbit was original. This was basically Sonic the Hedgehog for $1, with graphics practically on par, so I loved it.

A few years passed and I forgot Epic MegaGames.

Then suddenly, they released a eye-popping FPS called Unreal with its own engine called, appropriately enough, the Unreal Engine. I couldn’t believe it. This was the same company that made Xargon and Jazz Jackrabbit?

Yes, it was. And ever since then, Epic has been not only been a AAA developer, but the makers of one of the most popular game engines on the planet – the Unreal engine.

Epic is definitely not the only indie developer making cheap PC games to transform into a AAA studio. In the PC gaming world, it happens quite often.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0noUv-8a5Wc

RE: https://atomicpoet.org/objects/e47057a7-6489-41e4-85bb-00e4a3e2f7f0

darth, 2 months ago to gaming

I am not a fan of #Ubisoft.
#Gaming #VideoGames #StarWars

atomicpoet, 2 months ago to random

All this time, I thought DOOM 64 was just your basic port of Doom to the Nintendo 64.

But nope! It’s got improved graphics with different level designs! It wasn’t even developed by id Software but by Midway.

An enhanced re-release to PC, made by Nightdive Studios, made me realize how different it is from Doom. Actually, it feels more like Doom with a side order of Quake.

Ductos, 2 months ago to random

I'll be just glad when DSC finally ends. It's a high gamble trying to follow up on THAT episode for any Trek show - let alone for a show like DSC.
They didn't even bother to explain what a "Red Directive" is, meaning the entire reason they're on the hunt to begin with is just left open.

They always pull plot convenience right out of their collective behinds. #StarTrekDiscovery

Ductos, 2 months ago to random

The day they release #Balatro for mobile, is the day I begin caring for mobile games.

Ductos, 2 months ago to StarTrek

Might have missed it and since it's the title of the first episode of Season 5, I do have to ask:

What is a Red Directive anyway and have they ever mentioned this before on any other occassion? #StarTrek #StarTrekDiscovery

pallenberg, 2 months ago to mastodon

Es gibt einen riesigen Unterschied zwischen Show-Off & Liebhaber!
Ich sammle seit 20 Jahren Uhren. Was nicht heisst, dass das Rolex, Omega, TAG & Breitling am Handgelenk haengen muessen.

Ich mag einfach die Uhren, die mir gefallen & die 35 Euro Casio DW290-1V gehoert da einfach zu.

Moin #Mastodon & euch einen gesunden Start in dieses Wochenende.

arstechnica, 2 months ago to random

“Pink slime” local news outlets erupt all over US as election nears

Number of partisan news sites roughly equals those doing actual, legitimate journalism.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/pink-slime-local-news-outlets-erupt-all-over-us-during-election-year/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

CultureDesk, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to books

In celebration of the 50th birthday of Stephen King's first novel, "Carrie," NPR polled its readers on their favorite King books. Here's what they chose. Which is your top pick? Tell us in the comments if there's a gem that didn't make the cut.

https://flip.it/f9sriI

#StephenKing #Books #Bookstodon @bookstodon #Fiction #Reading #Poll

Ductos, 2 months ago to Sony

Remember #BloodborneKart, the game that was forced to change its name a day before release by #Sony?

It now releases on May, 31st this year on #Steam and #ItchIo under the new name #NightmareKart - and it won't cost you a dime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH0_71lBW0c

nocontexttrek, 2 months ago to StarTrek

#startrek