Quoting: TheSHEEEPCan you actually play the game alone? Well, I mean, I know that you CAN, but how is it?
I don't usually have people to play with and I loathe playing with totally random people. But I'd like to give the game a try as it seems really interesting.

Quoting: Alm888And what it has to do with gaming on Linux, again?

Is launching any random Windows game through WINE worthy of a news article?

To prevent useless comments like these, articles now have tags that can be ignored.
So you no longer have to suffer the terrible fate of reading Wine-related news, and other people don't have to suffer comments like yours.

You can and it's okay up to hazard level 3, if you're decent at FPS and spend a bit of in-game cash to upgrade the drone you command. But to be honest, this is a game where, almost always, "random people" are awesome. Like I say, the little touches in the game make, the way it actively encourages teamwork (driller making areas accessible, engineers laying platforms for scouts to grapple to, gunners laying down ropes for getting across chasms, or setting up shields during a swarm), just makes you happy when someone joins your game.

Honestly, when I get out my drop-pod after joining a game, I hit V, my character hefts their axe and shouts "Rock and stone, brother" and almost immediately, everyone else present will hit V and I'll get a chorus of "For Caaaaal", or "Rock and stone to the bone!" back at me. It's just pretty goddam awesome.

Should Liam be reporting about Windows games that work perfectly on Steam Play? Yep. I wouldn't be playing this indie masterpiece if he didn't. Or Overwatch. Or Path of Exile.

These games are near-as-damn PERFECT on Linux. I'd like to hear more of that, not moan about the purity of the platform. Great to see Sin streaming Rage 2 yesterday too - even better that they've just removed Denuvo from it. Playing AAA games on day 1 doesn't happen very often for us. This is a crucial technology for us, whatever your (Linux) politics are.

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Quoting: soulsourceThe devs had an awesome talk at Unreal Fest last year, about how their levels are being made/generated (it's a semi-procedural approach). I guess the slides are online somewhere?

Found this article [External Link], but no slides that I could see.

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This is an absolute gem of a game - I have nearly 100 hours in this already. It's all the small touches I love: the way the dwarves will just shout voice lines randomly, the way you can use your laser point to call out enemies, or ores, the way you can "salute" your comrades by hitting the 'v' key. It just fosters this camaraderie you don't see in many games. Love it.

Rock and stone, brother!

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Quoting: Para-Gliding

Quoting: fagnerlnI love kingdom rush, but on smartphone feels like a P2W. How ironhide's game hold on PC?

Nooo, really?
I finished all Kingdom Rush on android without paying. You need stars so sometimes play again a stage to get the star, but you can easily finish them without paying (and without special artefact that you can buy using the gems)

Yeah, but on Android, they spike the difficulty to encourage you to buy gems for things like bombs and freeze. It's a bit of a rip-off. On PC, the games are much better balanced and don't have any micro-transactions at all. Not even hero purchase - you unlock the heroes as you progress through the story.

Kingdom Rush 1 had beautiful balance (since heroes always start the mission at level 1), albeit a few spikes. Kingdom Rush 2 and 3 use the model of permanent XP for your heroes, so you might have to grind one or two earlier missions if your heroes level is too low to comfortably complete later missions, but nothing too arduous. Indeed, you'll probably only notice that grind if you constantly switch heroes. Stick with one and you can probably just fire through the whole campaign.

Edit to add that although it's a short review and nearly a couple of years old now, [here's my earlier article which covers the Kingdom Rush games.]

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I love the original, and was surprised (when I checked) to discover that it's my fifth most played game, with an astonishing 150+ hours. I hate to be that guy, but Sandstorm doesn't seem to have the same vibe, so it doesn't surprise me that both games have active players.

Plus, I'm only interested in the co-op experience. I haven't played any Insurgency in PvP - not a single match. I tired of all PvP games after a decade of Quake 2 and half a decade of Counterstrike. I'm just not interested in PvP anymore, and that seems to be where Sandstorm is focused.

I'll maybe pass on this one, but it's great to hear that we might have the option of a purchase at some point down the line.

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Yep, I've only played 20 minutes tonight, but I love it. Early game is a real departure from the usual Tower Defence mechanic. It actually feels really, really reminiscent of Command and Conquer. Indeed, in the second mission, you only get your hero to control, no units, no towers, just you against the hordes. Great vibe!

I had to re-map wasd for map movement, which was surprising, but takes all of ten seconds. And I had an odd bug where my mouse would sporadically freeze, but only a few times - I'm running 16.04, which is beginning to show its age, so I might have to take the plunge and install something a bit more recent.

So far, much polish, lovely visuals, great audio as always and on normal difficulty, just the right amount of challenge.

I'll play more later, although real-life will keep from the PC for a few days and definitely look out for a PIN article after I've gotten my teeth into it. Ironhide rock, and I can already tell that this will be another victory.

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Quoting: liamdaweAdded a note from Ethan.

Dude, c'mon! First there's a new SteamOS, THEN there's an update to Steam Play and THEN Ethan Lee has baked all this audio lovliness in.

There's ONE like button. I can like an article ONCE. And then it's liked.

That's hardly fair.

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Quoting: jensAm I correct that this version does not yet has VK_EXT_host_query_reset on board?

That's literally addressed in the article! :)

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Quoting: const

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: MohandevirDid they actually explained why they did not release the Linux version on Steam?

Really, this was answered indirectly when they showed the market share charts and talked about Linux being ignored. Too small, same answer as always for the bigger publishers.

But yet they will support the Mac which is not that much bigger than linux.there argument is invalid.just an excuse

The difference is named all the time - Mac is a platform, Linux isn't. The funny thing is Stadia might actually help us to turn Linux into a platform. A problem Valve nearly solved, but still couldn't.

Hmm, I don't think it's fair to say they couldn't. There are something like... what? 4000 games on Linux now? The only thing missing is the big AAA companies. So it's not a "platform" issue, I think. Just the numbers don't stack up.

I'm afraid I won't touch Stadia. I like Spotify. I even (eventually) like Netflix. But I've no interest in streaming games over the internet. Bad enough renting games from Steam, streaming them from Google just doesn't hold any water for me.

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Weirdly, I started downloading this game last night. It's a 22Gb download though, so I didn't get around to actually playing it! I'll give it a go in SteamPlay, as I was/am a huge fan of Victor Vran, and this seems to have even more players.

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