Retrovirus, now on Gamestop Impulse, with Joystick support!

[Mobius]

23rd August: Retrovirus goes live on Gamestop Impulse: http://www.gamestop.com/pc/games/retrov ... sFeatures/

If you are dirt poor and can't afford $19.99 then there is an updated free Demo available from gamestop also: http://www.gamestop.com/pc/games/retrovirus-demo/104513

The Beta is scheduled for November release, and I think there will be two Alpha updates in between.

This release includes Alpha Joystick support, and it is working incredibly well for an Alpha. The Live Stream today was a great watch, and well worth taking a look at: the new sounds, and new lighting will blow you away - and the caverns of the BIOS will make you think "Pure Descent".

Check it out: http://www.own3d.tv/cadenzainteractive

The way the ship is flying with the Joystick is beautiful - even without Trichording present, and the sliding power of the ship is now improved, with sliding acceleration easily up to Descent's performance. The new way the "Boost" feature works will take some time to get to grips with properly, and begin exploiting well. The way boost works changes depending on whether you were piloting a direction before hitting the boost or not. You can actually boost along a sliding axis, as well as the forward/backward axis!

The Joystick (in my case, Logitech 3D Pro) is exceedingly sensitive, and even with the X, Y and Twist axis sensitivity turned down to 5%, it requires a steady hand to aim and navigate well. I anticipate a change when the "Classic" gameplay mode is developed and released. For now though, the Joystick is simply hacked into the game such that you can achieve dizzying turning and ship rotation speeds. This might even be something you would really like, if you had great joystick control and a KICK455 graphics card installed, but my old HD 4850 is not really able to pump enough frames to make superfast turning a good experience at 1680.

I know I'm going to end up needing a new AMD 6990 or similar, because I want to push this at 5040 x 1050 across three screens, and with eyecandy maxed out, that will be a considerable challenge.

Thoroughly recommend you dust off the joystick, and get over to Impulse to get the game, and have some fun! The game is coming along really well, and I have just been playing in the Challenge mode - in the time trial. What a great flight training level this is, and what fun it is to collect rings like Sonic, to build up your speed until it goes into Ludicrous Speed mode.

This is shaping up to one seriously awesome gaming experience, but don't take my biased word for it - go check it out for yourself!

[Alter-Fox]

I'd love to pre-order or get the new alpha but I doubt it will run properly on my laptop yet even though I see they've started and I just spent 91 dollars to... do something I can't tell you yet. Something that coincided with me taking a certain file offline. But I can't say what it is... yet. Crazy exciting though and you'll all find out eventually even if you don't care BWAHAHAHAHAAAAA. Besides, you can't get the new content in the alpha without pre-ordering, right?

And Sonic the Spaceball! XD
Wait do they actually call it Ludicrous Speed?

[Avder]

Hmm, I'll have to download that and give it a whirl. Are all the controls mappable yet?

[Krom]

Right when I'm going to be away from the home PC for a week... I'll have to check it out when I get back.

[Foil]

...Downloading now.

[Edit] Crashes on load - appears to be related to sound. I'll report on their forums.

[Mobius]

Yes, all the controls can be mapped, to any button or axis on any device which is, or emulates a mouse or joystick.

The crash onload may well be a conflict with the screen resolution not being natively supported in this build. You may get the game to start by selecting a "standard" resolution on the desktop before launching. It runs perfectly on my machine. I have the game running from my desktop, so it doesn't need admin rights to launch. (Remember, if you customise the control scheme as non-admin, you lose the settings if you run as an admin).

The "Ludicrous Speed Mode" is strictly my term for the speed you can acquire if you don't miss any acceleration rings in the Challenge mode. It really does get you moving PDQ!

I have been playing the game for many hours now, and I have got lost several times (MAP!!), died several times, and suicided several times.

The Perk system is excellent (although the Perk Interface needs work) and after a few hours playing I managed to accumulate a 50% increase to the Boost speed, 10% increase in normal speed, 10% faster cycle regenerating speed, Shotgun Double Tap (Fire twice for the price of one shot), 25% increased damage when attacking from behind (mmmm!), 10% additional damage with the Rifle (Penetrating shot!), and there are plenty more to get.

It's important to collect as much memory as possible: each Perk costs you 1.5MB. So make sure you investigate all areas for memory fragments to scavenge. Access the Perks with the "P" key.

Sadly there's no way to save your progress just yet, but the game responds well to being tabbed out of.

The NET game option is now available, and later tonight I'll install this build on my laptop and run a Dedicated online Deathmatch server. Hopefully some others (including Cadenza) will stick up a few servers for us to frag each other silly in. That is what I am most interested in checking out.

My playing last night makes me think that online play will be very challenging indeed, while being very familiar to you, but with some control twists with the Afterburner/Booster, that take a little adjusting to.

I have my Joystick down to 2% sensitivity now, and it's playable, but still pretty sensitive!

ENJOY!

[Sergeant Thorne]

Pre-purchased one copy so far! Man this game looks good! I reserve judgment on some aspects, and it runs like molasses on my laptop (hopefully a fixable issue... we'll see). I can't wait 'till we see some modding tools! Retrovirus promises to be interesting, but I want some purple goo and napalm!

[ReadyMan]

Downloaded the gamestop app, the the RV demo, but it crashes on startup....right after clicking "play" a popup opens saying "AntiVirus Release has stopped working."
How odd since AntiVirus isnt even its name.
Uninstalled, then reinstalled. Same problem. Waste of time.

Guess they've got a ways to go before they should be releasing a demo....

[Mobius]

Readyman, the game runs fine for most people. There IS an issue with the screen resolution not fitting a "standard setting" right now. It can often be resolved by hacking the INI file in the Retrovius folder in C:\Users\[username]\Appdata\Roaming

ResolutionWidth = 1024
ResolutionHeight = 768

Something like that. 1280 x 800 works for wide screens.

[ReadyMan]

Glad it works for "most people".
All I did was follow their instructions...so I doubt it's user error. interestingly, I have no file in the location you mention.
My rig is streamlined, with no current issues (running 5760x1200).
Their forums are spartan, with no mention of this issue, or the resolution fix you mention.

[Sergeant Thorne]

Their forums are frickin' dead. However if you do register and post a problem they seem to be pretty knowledgeable. I'd give them a shout right here, Readyman, unless you're content to wait for a future release.

[ReadyMan]

Thanks Sarge. I posted there, so we'll see if they respond.
It's an annoyance, but I guess it shows how much I'd like to see a descent-like game again.

[Mobius]

It sounds like the game is not initialising correctly, otherwise it would create that folder in your USER account, I think.

Have you tried running the executable as an admin? Tried copying it out of the Progam Files folder? I run RV directly from a desktop folder, without issue. I'd be very happy to zip up the small files in the Roaming folder, and email them to you if you like. It's only 139KB RARed. The path should be: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Retrovirus

email me: chris dot h dot davies at gmail dot com

Remember, this *IS* an Alpha - and there has been no testing outside of Cadenza prior to three weeks ago. There are bound to be many many bugs crop up, and issues which haven't cropped up before. Yes, it is frustrating, but every bug found prior to the December release date is a GOOD thing. Not for you though, obviously.

There will be three more "Full" releases before December, with some minor patches in between. The Beta will be the November release. Until then, you can expect the game to be pretty fluid as feedback guides the development, and fairly buggy while they are identified and ironed out.

I can tell you that Cadenza have a very great deal of respect for the Descent community, and are doing everything they possibly can to attract you, make you happy, and keep you as a player of Retrovirus. We are a very large part of their target market! The forum over there is not very active (except for yours truly ) but that's because not many people are posting - not because the team ignores it: they do in fact take great care to read EVERY post and respond if appropriate.