The Screenshot Thread - October 2017

Tritagonist 2017-10-14 13:48:13 UTC #41

There does seem to be a conspicuous gap between the events of the third and fourth pictures!

In Rise of the Tomb Raider Lara travels through Syria - because she’s …

Well yes. Moving on:

Shadoko 2017-10-14 16:52:40 UTC #42

“Look ! A vast ancien city in a big valley no one has ever found despite modern-day satellites ! Adventure !”

Nice shots by the way !

Blackice 2017-10-14 17:17:04 UTC #43

To be fair, there isn’t - the mirage lady is actually standing on the items shown in the fourth shot! But there is a big gap between shots one and two where all the action happened!

So, I dusted off fraps to see if using its auto-screenshot would capture anything more dynamic… but they were all unusable. Extremely blurry. I’ll have to tinker with the settings and try again I think.

Anyway, here are a few more cutscene shots. You’ll have to imagine all the swinging swords and spurting blood from the action that happened between them!

TheDreamlord 2017-10-14 19:09:23 UTC #44

It’s a decent game, though I think I prefer the first one, now that I have finished both. Maybe the first one was a pleasant surprise whereas this one has its foundations laid already. Lovely TR shots, I absolutely love this game, everything from graphics, gameplay even story (which most people hated)!

The Surge (which seems to suffer from bad color contrast for some reason)

EPICTHEFAIL 2017-10-14 19:47:01 UTC #45

We haven’t had any Elite Dangerous in the new thread yet. Let’s fix that.

Ok, so I already posted that one in the Elite thread, but… come on.

Yeah, the aliens are kind of dangerous, surprisingly enough.

Scanning one of the many new comms transmitters that have popped up in the galaxy over the past few weeks, this one containing clues to something that was discovered near the Pleiades nebula.

Investigating an outpost on a remote moon in the Bubble. Note the smoke trail and burst of sparks in the lower right corner - this was taken about a quarter of a second before I realised a bounty hunter had pursued my very much not battle-ready Anaconda to the surface. Evasive driving (on ice, in minigravity, because I still had to scan the data-link) and a very chaotic hyperspace bug-out ensued.

Tritagonist 2017-10-15 08:38:15 UTC #46

The actual ancient city, temple complex if you will, isn’t much more hidden than this one pictured, but that’s actually a normal Syrian city. If, on a more serious note, such things can still be said to exist…

I see! I was under the impression that the magical creature had shown the Roman the error of his ways, leaving only minor pieces of his armour intact, but I now notice the feet of said Roman in the last shot!

There seems to be a bit of a gap in the stories between the first re-reboot and this one, I suppose I’ll have to read up on what transpired in other media online. The game itself is pretty fun, although I could do without the crafting. We just killed two guys, surely we don’t need to rummage through old dumpsters for little steel parts to craft a gun: there’s plenty lying on the ground!

One of my pet-peeves in games! Contrast, or better yet, black and white points, are often a real mess. Hitman has to be the worst offenders I’ve come across this last year, with the Witcher III being one of the better ones. It’s one of the few things I play with a bit in Photoshop while cropping images for posting.

In Rise of the Tomb Raider, Lara continues her travels through Syria.

Tritagonist 2017-10-15 08:55:07 UTC #47

Back in England things are no less of a mess than in your average tomb. Must be what makes Lara feel at home!

Blackice 2017-10-15 14:14:19 UTC #48

Fantastic TR shots. I really must go back and finish the previous game soon. Perhaps once I’m done with Ryse…

Meanwhile, been playing a bit of local co-op Portal Knights with my son. It’s quite a pretty game.

Wheelz 2017-10-15 15:15:36 UTC #49

For some reason this reminds me a lot of the kids TV show “Bill & Ben the flower pot men”. What do you think of the game?

Tritagonist 2017-10-15 17:21:08 UTC #50

Thanks! If only there were many more games who unapologetically had a real female main character.

Anyway, speaking of main characters… Assetto Corsa has none (unless you want to count Chronos). If the cars like this Lotus Type 49 were even half as cumbersome to drive as their digital counterparts suggest, there is no way guys like Jim Clark aren’t the best F1 drivers ever. It’s wild!

Tritagonist 2017-10-15 17:28:54 UTC #51

Some prototype racing at Spa-Francorchamps in Assetto Corsa.

TheDreamlord 2017-10-15 19:40:22 UTC #52

Fantastic shots! How do you manage to capture such fantastic screens in Assetto Corsa? I should try myself at some point, I have criminally underrated this game.

The Surge

Kiril 2017-10-15 20:10:31 UTC #53

How is The Surge? I really like the look of it, but I don’t like the “git gud” approach of Dark Souls.

And great shots all round folks!

EPICTHEFAIL 2017-10-15 20:27:34 UTC #54

I gather from reviews it’s quite a bit slower and clunkier than Dark Souls, with a far higher proportion of dick moves and enemies with really hard to read attacks (when they don’t cheat and kill you with attacks faster than yours the moment you attack). So a lot like Dark Souls 2, really.

TheDreamlord 2017-10-15 20:36:58 UTC #55

Pretty much what Epic said. I like it so far, Deck13 have really improved upon Lords of the Fallen in every single way. Graphics, performance, tech, and gameplay are superior. My main issue is the dick moves of the opponents, which are very frequent and very unfair, it feels like the game is cheating. I absolutely hate jump attacks that follow you when you move. The enemy move telegraphing is not very good either. On the technical side, it runs perfectly, but it staggers for a second or so on area transitions (the areas are much smaller than you’d think, so it’s an issue) and I noticed it also when some overlays appear. Other than that, yeah, if you like Dark Souls you should give it a go. So far I am enjoying myself.
Oh, I also wish there was a greater weapon and customisation variety. And finally, the whole mech/exoskeleton thing looks rather inelegant, but horses for courses of course.

Kiril 2017-10-15 23:29:03 UTC #56

I didn’t like Lords of the Fallen at all, I loved the look of it and got annoyed at the first boss fight and quit so I think I might wait until The Surge hits a bundle and then get annoyed by it.

Finished Scanner Sombre. Its very short, just over an hour, it got kinda scary near the end but I’m a big scaredy cat, so it just be me. The sound is fantastic as well as the aesthetic. Everyone should play it, or at least the demo. Its great. The screenshots aren’t great and don’t convey the sense of wonder I suppose of seeing the image form from dots. The water is stunning in it, and you can’t see it, but you know its there. Your mind fills in the image, its odd.

NO KINGS OR GODS JUST DOTS!

Tritagonist 2017-10-16 07:48:35 UTC #57

Thanks, and… I don’t know! I use the in-game replay photo mode, try to find a way to show both track and car in the composition, and fiddle with the (broken) depth of field settings a bit. It probably helps that Spa-Francorchamps is a wonderful track, and one of Assetto Corsa’s best efforts.

I’ve put this on my Steam wishlist; such a unique aesthetic!

In Rise of the Tomb Raider, Lara emerges from caverns of ice into a snow-covered Siberia. A fragile sense of security is cut short by the appearance of a Russian bear. A real one - just her luck!

Blackice 2017-10-16 09:27:12 UTC #58

I’m really liking it - started playing it on my own now as well! It’s mechanically very simple (basic combat, light rpg levelling system, simple fetch quests) and relies on the usual survival game gameplay loop of hitting stuff to make better stuff to be able to hit more valuable stuff. But I quite like games like that at the moment… It’s a shame it doesn’t have a creative mode with no enemies and unlimited resources as I think my son would much prefer that.

I’ve thought this ever since playing GP Legends. Just getting around one lap felt like the greatest gaming achievement ever.

I think your awesome AC shots are down to some sort of magical mastery of the DoF because they always seem to look better than anyone elses!

Tritagonist 2017-10-17 08:39:56 UTC #59

While that’s good to hear, there’s no magic involved. This is all with the default photo filters and default photo mode. Said mode has two DoF dials, one of which sets the the point of focus, the other (factor) supposedly does something else - but it’s apparently rather broken and any other setting than 0 just blurs the whole thing. There is a lot you can do to address some of these issues, but I haven’t had the enthusiasm for it to go digging around ini files to create some custom filters. It’s worthwhile to do so however, as a quick test I did last night (with someone else’s custom filters) proves you can properly set the focal ratio via the ini files (so not the extremely narrow one of the default cameras, which makes everything seem like it was taken with a f1.8 lens). Maybe I’ll play around with that some more the next time the old USB wheel gets pulled out of the closet!

For now, it’s just the normal stuff: Ferrari SF15-T at Imola. I hadn’t driven here in quite a while. It’s a quirky track, not a favourite, but it definitely does have some very challenging corners. Annoyingly, these are all in the second half of the lap (Acque Minerali, Variante Alta, and Rivazza). A mistake there ruins the lap, and these hybrid F1 cars need to then go another lap to recharge all their batteries before they can be fully deployed again. Anyway, onto the screenshots:

Tritagonist 2017-10-17 17:48:26 UTC #60

Rise of the Tomb Raider

You’d think people would have discovered these tombs, given how close to the surface they are - but hey! Why not let Lara take the credit. She needs a bit of a confidence-boost now that she’s going to be infiltrating old Soviet bases.