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JEMC on 20 May 2024
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Well, here are the Monday news (there would be too much to do tomorrow if I had let it go):

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Puzzle box game Machinika: Museum is free to keep on Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/puzzle-box-game-machinika-museum-is-free-to-keep-on-steam/
A little adventure-mystery puzzle box game is currently totally free on Steam, with Littlefield Studio's 2021 release Machinika Museum available at a 100% discount "while supplies last." With the kind of detailed 3D backgrounds that might remind you of Myst, Machinika: Museum is a puzzle-box-solving adventure through machines of extraterrestrial origin.
The protagonist—that is, you—is a researcher whose job is to understand this large collection of strange and sometimes bizarre objects, figure out their stories, and even discover the fate of their previous owner. Developers Littlefield call it out as directly inspired by puzzlebox genre revival hit The Room, from back in 2014, which will probably get genre enthusiasts excited enough on its own.
>> It will be free until the 27th.

Ghost of Tsushima is now the biggest single-player PlayStation release on PC
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/ghost-of-tsushima-is-now-the-biggest-single-player-playstation-release-on-pc/
A few days ago, Sony released Ghost of Tsushima on PC. And, this weekend, this game managed to surpass the peak number of concurrent players of God of War, meaning that it’s now the biggest single-player PlayStation release on PC.
>> And if you’re playing with an Intel card, you may have extra “ghosts”.

GOG wants to make me cry with seven new Deals of the Day, that will last during another 46 hours, most of them being Warhammer titles:

Steam has two new deals:

We have a new Humble Bundle: the Brutal Beat’Em Ups Bundle, with up to 7 games to get during the next 18 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/brutal-beat-em-ups.

And Fanatical has mvoed from its May Madness Sale to a new BundleFest

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Nope-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Grim Fandango Remastered HD has just been released and it’s a must-have for all adventure fans
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/grim-fandango-remastered-hd-has-just-been-released-and-its-a-must-have-for-all-adventure-fans/
Hexagon Codes has just released a must-have mod for the classic adventure game that was remastered in 2015, Grim Fandango. This mod upscales the original Grim Fandango assets to high-resolution 2560×1920 with full 32-bit color. As such, you will be now able to enjoy this adventure game in high resolutions.
Grim Fandango Remastered HD tries to adhere to the tone of the original game as much as possible, while sharpening the visuals and eliminating dithering. It does not attempt to introduce 16:9 resolution and is intended to be played in the original 4:3.
The mod will also upgrade the renderer to support high-quality assets with any resolution and 32-bit color. Without this, assets are max 640×480 with dithered 16-bit color.
Another amazing QoL improvement is the following one. On high-dpi systems with UI scaling above 100%, the remaster renders at a lower resolution and lets the system scale it up. However, GrimMod forces the game to always render at the window’s actual resolution. As such, you’ll now get a crisper image.
In short, this is a must for everyone who wants to replay this game. Do note, though, that the mod is currently only compatible with the Steam version of Grim Fandango Remastered.
>> There are no screenshots or videos to see the differences this mod makes.

BioShock Remastered just got a 5GB HD Texture Pack that overhauls over 2300 textures
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/bioshock-remastered-just-got-a-5gb-hd-texture-pack-that-overhauls-over-2300-textures/
Modder ‘FCH823’ has released an HD Texture Pack for BioShock Remastered that overhauls over 2300 textures. This pack is 5GB in size, and it’s a must for everyone who wants to replay this classic shooter on PC.
BioShock Remastered came out in 2016. Disappointingly, though, the remaster still had a lot of low-resolution textures that made the game look blurry. Thankfully, by using this pack, you can get a crisp and high-quality image.
Going into more details, the modder upscaled by two and by four times most diffuse and specular textures, depending on content and original resolution. This includes all types of textures (environment, objects, adverts, etc…) except the UI which is not stored as textures. Moreover, FCH823 reworked a couple of textures by hand to fix some mistakes that were introduced in BioShock Remastered.
>> This time, we have some comparison screenshots to see the improvements.

New Skyrim Mod Adds High Polygon Heads & Hair Physics to All NPCs
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/new-skyrim-mod-adds-high-polygon-heads-hair-physics-to-all-npcs/
Modder ‘TaxEvasionMaster’ has released a new amazing mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition. This mod adds high-polygon heads and hair physics to pretty much all NPCs. And, since this mod will greatly enhance the game’s graphics, we highly recommend trying it.
Going into more details, this mod overhauls over 3000 NPCs. As such, players can expect expressive faces and high-polygon heads. Of these NPCs, 2400 have hair. And yes, the mod overhauls the hair of all those NPCs by adding physics to all of them.
You can go ahead and download the mod from this link. At the end of the article, you can also find some screenshots. These screenshots showcase some of the modded characters, so take a look at them.
Now, if for some reason you don’t like the high-polygon count heads but want the hair physics, you can download this alternative version of the mod. I personally prefer the higher poly heads. But hey, it’s at least good to have options, right?

Resident Evil HD REMASTER just got a must-have AI-enhanced HD Texture Pack that overhauls all 2500 backgrounds
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/resident-evil-hd-remaster-just-got-a-must-have-ai-enhanced-hd-texture-pack-that-overhauls-all-2500-backgrounds/
Resident Evil fans, here is something special for you today. Modder ‘Arcturium’ has released a new HD Texture Pack for the remastered HD version of the Resident Evil Remake that came out in 2015. This is a must-have mod for everyone who wants to replay this classic RE game. So, let’s take a closer look at it.
Going into more details, RESCALE is a background restoration mod that aims to bring the fidelity of the original backgrounds to the PC version. As the modder noted, this pack overhauls all of the game’s 2500 backgrounds. And, as you will see, this is a must-have mod.
The modder used as many backgrounds as he could from the original Gamecube release for his upscale and restoration project. Although these backgrounds are three times smaller than the ones used in the PC version, they haven’t been altered by Capcom’s upscaling process. As such, they often look much better. And, when that wasn’t possible, the modder enhanced the PC backgrounds.
The end result is pretty amazing, at least in my opinion. At the end of the article, you can find some comparison screenshots between the vanilla and the modded textures. These screenshots should give you a pretty good idea of what you can expect from them. So, be sure to check them out.
>> The difference is much bigger than with the previous Bioshock mod.

There's a mod to fix Gale's beard, making Baldur's Gate 3 playable at last
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/theres-a-mod-to-fix-gales-beard-making-baldurs-gate-3-playable-at-last/
Of course, the one essential Baldur's Gate 3 mod remains the one that removes the party limit, as is true of so many RPGs. But if I was going to download a second mod for my current playthrough, Gale Edits—Piercings and Beard would be a strong contender.
There's an issue with facial hair in Baldur's Gate 3 that's most noticeable on Gale's handsome mug, and it's that parts of beards can abruptly shorten or vanish entirely as the face beneath them moves. It's as if the skin's movements aren't fully matching the hair's movements, leaving parts of it to get consumed and temporarily disappear, resulting in a patchy beard rather than the full glory Gale of Waterdeep's chin deserves.
As well as making sure Gale's beard remains lustrous at all times, the Gale Edits mod is compatible with the same modder's Piercing Improvement—Physics mod, which makes your earrings dangle properly rather than staying firmly in place when you're, say, suspended in midair after falling out of a mind flayer flying ship.
>> There are no screenshots or videos.

Here's a Baldur's Gate 3 mod that lets your party scrabble around on 4 legs like a plague of sleep paralysis demons, if you're into that sort of thing
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/baldurs-gate/heres-a-baldurs-gate-3-mod-that-lets-your-party-scrabble-around-on-4-legs-like-a-plague-of-sleep-paralysis-demons-if-youre-into-that-sort-of-thing/
Baldur's Gate 3 has a smorgasbord of mods to choose from—adding quality-of-life features like introducing voice lines you otherwise wouldn't hear, letting your companions chip in during conversations, or making Withers hot. I don't like thinking about that one.
Good news! There are more horrors to repress. This latest terror from the twisted imaginations of the game's fanbase comes scrabbling out of the deep like your most tenacious sleep paralysis demon—quite literally, I regret to say. Run On All Fours booked it onto Nexus Mods last week, and I have not been able to get the mental image out of my head since.
"Today I woke up and chose violence," writes the mod's author, FluffySpider, on the mod's description page—well, they actually used strikethrough on the "choose violence" part, but I felt it only right to leave it in untouched—"[and] swapped the running animations for humans. Why? I have no idea lol."
Despite the auteur's insistence that this is "a joke mod, so treat it like one", I can't quite reckon with that. Jokes are usually pleasant things. They are designed to make us laugh, japes and jests delivered on a humble stage of a pub that smells like stale beer, or in a noble's courtroom—accompanied by the clicking of a jester's bell-jangled heels. This mod, as you can see below, carries no such charm:
The most concerning implications come from FluffySpider's slapdash application, which is rather selective. In the mod, only "non-beefy" humans (as in, the less muscular body type) are impacted. This implies that, at some point, human evolution in the Forgotten Realms diverged—divvying up all of humanity into swole gigachads and, uh, dog people.
As FluffySpider reveals, however, there are some hybrid cases: "Some other races seems to use a few human animations, so they can briefly stand on all fours after running." Upsetting.
>> Besides the headline pic, there’s also a gif. That is, if you’re interested in seeing it.

Nothing is too niche for modders to remaster, not even a '90s Star Wars FPS expansion pack where you play as Luke Skywalker's weird non-canon wife rescuing my favorite Expanded Universe dork
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/nothing-is-too-niche-for-modders-to-remaster-not-even-a-90s-star-wars-fps-expansion-pack-where-you-play-as-luke-skywalkers-weird-non-canon-wife-rescuing-my-favorite-expanded-universe-dork/
Luke Skywalker had a weird wife named Mara Jade who was a femme fatale ex-Sith assassin with a purple lightsaber. Chewbacca died at 225 years old when Star Wars' Aldi-brand Borg dropped a moon on him. The first Death Star plans were not stolen by a ragtag bunch of rebel soldiers that included beloved martial arts leading man Donnie Yen, but rather a dadish guy in a Henley who looks like he's heading to the last farmer's market of the season on a brisk Sunday in the fall.
Yes, the old Star Wars Expanded Universe was a bit of an odd duck, and you can maybe see why Disney shunted it to the side in favor of a new continuity. All the same, that astounding (non) canon of books, comics, and especially games still has a stranglehold on my psyche, and it's always heartening to see its more funky outgrowths still get some love. Enter Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith Remastered by a modding team led by General Tantor on ModDB, which recently got a big 3.0 update.
For those not as plugged into Star Wars' weirdest era, Mysteries of the Sith is probably the most overlooked entry in the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series. You may recall NightDive's recent remaster of the original Dark Forces, the first Star Wars FPS. That game was followed by Jedi Knight, another great shooter in its own right that introduced lightsaber combat to the series. Raven Software (now of CoD: Warzone fame) would continue the series with Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy, still the best lightsaber dueling games ever made in my book.
Mysteries of the Sith was a standalone expansion to Jedi Knight where you play as Mara Jade, Luke Skywalker's aforementioned weird wife, sent to rescue series protagonist and Henley enthusiast Kyle Katarn after he falls to the dark side because he was hanging out in the wrong swamp. It was a perfectly fine, weird little side story, and more Jedi Knight is never a bad thing.
It can certainly be rough on the eyes though, in a similar way to many early 3D games. Like with General Tantor's remaster of the base Jedi Knight game, Mysteries of the Sith Remastered gives the game a generational model and texture facelift, bringing it more or less in line with the later Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy graphically.
The 3.0 update now fixes a bug that caused the new, higher poly models to revert to their chunky original selves during cutscenes, and this version also brings an upscaled UI and custom-modeled lightsaber for Mara Jade to boot.
>> The article has an almost 4 minutes video detailing the improvements of this 3.0 update.

GAMING NEWS

Here are some brand new screenshots for Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2
https://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/here-are-some-brand-new-screenshots-for-senuas-saga-hellblade-2/
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 will be released in a few days and Microsoft has shared some new screenshots for it. These screenshots show off some of the environments, as well as some of the characters. So, go ahead and take a look at them.

This was the original story/plot for Assassin’s Creed Shadows
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/this-was-the-original-story-plot-for-assassins-creed-shadows/
Twitter/X user ‘InfinitaleComic’, who has previously worked on Assassin’s Creed Shadows, shared the plot/story that the game originally had. This plot is completely different from the one we’ll be getting in this new AC game. So, let’s take a look at it.
According to InfinitaleComic, the game’s story would be centered around “The Sword of Eden” (aka “Excalibur”, “Honjō Masamune”, “Genghis Khan’s Sword”, etc.). Apparently, this sword gave its latest wielder, Oda Nobunaga, an unfair advantage in his quest to conquer Japan. In the game, players would play as a young monk named Yamauchi Taka.
In the game, after Nobunaga gets assassinated by Hattori Hanzo, Taka would have become a part of the Brotherhood. Then, under Hanzo, he would be trained as an Assassin (Shinobi). The Brotherhood would try to transport the recovered sword out of Japan but would be beset by Jesuit (Templar) ships. And, as a result of that, the sword would be lost.
>> You’ll also find some artwork from that original game.

Leaked gameplay footage surfaces for Ubisoft’s canceled The Divison Hearland
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/leaked-gameplay-footage-surfaces-for-ubisofts-canceled-the-divison-hearland/
A couple of days ago, we informed you about the cancelation of Tom Clancy’s The Division Heartland. And today, we present you a leaked video from it, showing over 3 minutes of gameplay action from one of its closed beta phases.

Unreal Engine 5-powered Black Myth: WuKong gets an official WeGame Event trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/unreal-engine-5-powered-black-myth-wukong-gets-an-official-wegame-event-trailer/
Game Science has released an official WeGame Event gameplay trailer for its upcoming third-person action game, Black Myth: WuKong. This short but sweet trailer packs one and a half minutes of brand new gameplay footage from it.



Please excuse my bad English.

Currently gaming on a PC with an i5-4670k@stock (for now), 16Gb RAM 1600 MHz and a GTX 1070

Steam / Live / NNID : jonxiquet    Add me if you want, but I'm a single player gamer.