cerebralhawks

On a Windows machine, the GOG version of Fallout 3 works right out of the box in Windows 10. Not sure about 11, but no reason to believe it would be different.

The issue was, Fallout 3 had DRM that was shut down ages ago. Games for Windows Live. Xbox Live for Windows. Bethesda refused to remove the DRM and it was actually illegal to do so in the US. GOG had it without DRM first. Like a decade later Bethesda officially removed it from the Steam version.

There's like one other thing you have to do and it has to do with memory and I'm not sure how necessary it is, but again, the GOG version does it automatically.

But screw Windows and its bullshit. I can run the GOG version of Fallout 4 on my Mac, albeit with a few hacks. I have to disable gore because something about the gore animation fucks up the translation layer. There are a couple others but the biggest change is, no gore. I mean the exploding heads. I think it still has blood. It's not censored. Anyway, the flying eyeballs were a bit much, it got old quick. So no issues there. I've also run Deus Ex, but that's Unreal Engine 1 and not really relevant. Haven't tried running Fallout 3 yet.

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, LucasArts, 1988. It's a computer game though. It was never on the NES.

Deus Ex (2000) was popular for mashing together tabloid stories to make a story, but Zak did it first. And it was way cornier. You play a tabloid reporter who is sent to Seattle to investigate a two-headed squirrel when he learns of an alien invasion (whose leader is an Elvis impersonator). The game is awesome and IIRC you almost can't lose at it, at least not now. The game came with DRM in the form of codes written in black on maroon and it was hard to read; when the game asked for a code, if you got it wrong, you were sent to jail for copyright theft. The first time they'd let you out, but the second time ended the game. The one on GOG does not ask for codes. They took that out. You can also die in Egypt to the Sphinx. You can run out of air on Mars. You can soft lock the game on Mars (to avoid this, make sure each of the co-eds on Mars takes an extra tram token with her if she rides the tram, the token dispenser at the other end is broken).

Also, Zak can typically be had for about a buck on GOG sales.

Uninvited, ICOM Simulations, 1986. Another computer game, but this was ported to the NES, along with its more popular cousin, Shadowgate (also an 80s game, from 1987). Short if you know how to beat it. I think they both can be ran in like 20-30 minutes? Zak can be speed ran in about an hour and a half if you're good, and if you're lucky in the mazes, but I'm not sure what the records actually are. These games are long in how they took you ages to figure stuff out before the Internet was a thing.

Hack, 1984, high school students. Not to be confused with the .hack PS2 games (the anime they're based on which later became Sword Art Online). No, this was a top-down D&D type game and one of the first roguelikes (Rogue being the original). I never actually played Rogue though. And Hack was later rebranded to NetHack (though, it's not about hacking online) and you can play it on just about anything. Android and iOS ports exist. I don't think it's on consoles though. But it's a free game, anyone can play it right now. There's probably even a way to play it in your browser. For the longest time, I've said a modern port was impossible. Diablo was kind of based around the same idea (delving through randomly generated dungeons) but Diablo didn't do half the shit Hack did. Didn't do a quarter of the things. Noita is a more modern (Windows only IIRC) roguelike, but it's completely different in form. Still pretty varied in what all you can do. You'll be able to beat the main boss and complete the game after playing for a couple weeks and learning the game, but that is not the main goal of the game. I don't think anybody's figured that out yet. People are still figuring stuff out. There are still mysteries yet to be solved. To the best of my knowledge, Noita has not been "beaten" yet. As in... by anyone. Anyone who can prove it, anyway. Maybe the developers have done so. And maybe some idiot savant out there has, but hasn't publicised it yet. Anyway, Hack can be beat — you delve down 35+ levels, retrieve the Amulet of Yendor (that's Rodney backwards, but I don't know who that is if anyone), which only spawns past a certain level — and then escape with it. I think I did it once? Got the Amulet half a dozen times or more (but not a full dozen) and died many times taking it back up.

There are a lot of good answers, probably some good simulators of things that already exist, programs people have made... I would test the ship's AI/learning capabilities, show it some old photos of my family and of memories past and see if it can recreate things like that. Since I don't have video of these people, I'd have to fine-tune their personalities and I'd have to remind myself I'd always be looking back — being that they aren't real people, I wouldn't be able to ask them about things they don't really know about or anything like that. It would be (more) interesting if we had input from a bunch of people who knew them, to sort of fill out the personality and try to remove biases.

But yeah, I think I'd start by showing it every photo I have of my childhood home and try to go back there, just to see it again.

And yeah, you can kinda/sorta do stuff like that now, there are programs... but that's my answer.

Apple made one recently. It was over 8 minutes long and dumb AF. It was about the recent thing where a bunch of Windows PCs got the blue screen.

I've seen Linux computers at Walmart and Best Buy before, but I've never been to London.

So, they do exist.

My laptop runs certified UNIX, whatever that means... but I bought it at the Apple Store. ;) (It's a MacBook Air. It runs macOS. I don't know why people say macOS is certified UNIX, and I don't care, it's just funny to me.)

Voyager for the lulz. But honestly it's what I use on both platforms.

I just think it's so funny that Apollo was iOS only and the developer said it would never come to Android. Voyager is based on Apollo (I think the Apollo source was posted when the app was blocked by Reddit) and it works just fine on Android. I guess because the source was posted and people who care were able to port it. But as far as I can tell it looks and feels like a native iOS app (that was the design goal of Apollo)... on Android. Then again, my Android TV has AirPlay built in, and when you go into the AirPlay settings, Apple's design language is all over it. We think of Apple/iOS and Google/Android as polar opposites and bitter rivals, but the truth is, they sometimes work together (beyond Google paying Apple millions to keep their search default on iOS). And the two design languages are, not only "just that", but also not mutually exclusive to one another.

iOS also has a system-wide function called Shake to Undo. When I first switched, it annoyed the crap outta me until I realised it was a feature, not a bug. Fortunately, it's a feature that is easily disabled.

I don't allow any shake-to-whatever gestures on my phone. They're stupid and they have too many false positives for my liking.

And before Android users complain about the feature being exclusive, STFU, you get extensions. I have Firefox on an iPhone 16 Pro Max, and I have it on a Galaxy S10. It's way better on the S10... which is 5 years older. (So is the typing, for that matter. iOS keyboard sucks.)

No, but there's next to nothing on Mac that isn't on Windows, or has some equivalent on Windows.

I run Macs. I don't like Windows. I've used Windows for years, and still use it at work. For 99% of my usage, there's nothing that stops me from using the other platform. It's just a preference. In fact, there are free apps on Windows that cost money on macOS. And I've paid for some of them.

Hearing that we were missing half the game in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

This one IS a bit of a spoiler... but not much. For one, everyone knows it. Two, the game came out in the 1990s. That's why everyone knows it. So anyway.

So you play this game. It's like a Super NES game, but it's on the PlayStation. It has CD quality music and voice acting (actually pretty shitty voice acting, but, I mean, it's CD quality audio). Actually, let's qualify that with a 45 second video. Aside from Dracula's final line in the exchange, the lines are poorly read from a poorly written script and it shows. And yet, it's still awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tV33Ewf_hw

Anyway, it's a fairly long game as far as Super NES games go. You go through the entire castle, you eventually confront the bad guy (who isn't Dracula — he's dead, and has been dead, you kill some other guy) and the credits roll. You won. Fine game. However, shortly after the game came out — it didn't really take that long, but we weren't all on the Internet then, so it took longer to get to some people — that if you did a few very specific things, you would instead see this ball above the last boss. Attack that instead, and the last boss is revealed to be a puppet, and he lets you pass... into the inverted castle. It's the whole ass castle, but it's upside down and has harder monsters. And take a wild guess who you fight at the end?

Its Game Boy Advance sequel, Aria of Sorrow, attempted a similar thing. Beat the last boss and you win, but do it with three souls equipped and... well, I'm actually not gonna spoil that. A cool thing happens. And you can go to this final area, it's not a long area. If you win, you win the game harder... but if you lose in that final battle, you get this awesome cut scene that calls back to the video I posted above. So while they reused the gimmick, they did it in the best possible way.

None of the Castlevania games have captured that magic since. Bloodstained, the spinoff by the creator of Symphony of the Night, kind of does a similar thing in a couple spots, and it does have the false final boss, but I think it's more clearly called out and I think you're meant to know it's not the end of the game. And I feel like it's not a win if you take it, the game kinda laughs at you. Another game that poked fun at this was Shadow Complex, the shameless ripoff of Super Metroid on Xbox 360/Live Arcade. (Great game though!) After losing your girlfriend to paramilitary thugs in the Pacific Northwest and exploring a bit of their compound, you eventually get back to your car (Jeep?) and you have the option to leave. Credits roll and you pop an achievement called "Plenty of Fish in the Sea." They knew you'd try it and rewarded you for doing so, but it's clearly not the real ending (it's too soon).

"Too expensive" means "beyond what the market will bear. Objectively, the Switch 2 didn't cost enough — there was some other higher price that would have given Nintendo numbers such that while it might not have sold quite as well, what it would have sold would have made up for it. Would the market bear a $500 Switch 2? Maybe. $600? That, I doubt. $450 was a bit high for my liking, but the market bore it just fine and now it's thriving.

In a vacuum, that is a fact; however, for most of the things people get warrants out on them for, they know what they did. If they don't know it was wrong/a crime, I would say that's more on them than on the system.

You can get warrants for unpaid moving violations. For stuff like that, I think notification by mail would be more efficient. Like "you haven't paid this so now there is a warrant out for your arrest," just to inform the person. Yes, going against the reason for not notifying, they may still commit several more moving violations (like speeding) before being caught, but tons of people do this, sometimes right in front of cops, and a lot of cops look the other way. Now if someone has done something violent, left a victim, no, you wouldn't want to notify them because of the chance that they'd either go do more harm to the victim (and now the police/the system is liable) or they will do more crime that will result in more victims, and again, liability.

Yes, all of that. I forgot about Xposed, the name and what it was. It's been years since I was involved with any of that (strictly as a user).