Ben_H

So for people wondering how Grubb is doing this, he mentioned elsewhere he's using PCem. PCem or 86Box (they're projects related to each other) will accomplish the same thing if you want to run old Windows VMs in a more performant way like this. Just keep in mind you have to manually install graphics drivers and things like DirectX yourself for a lot of things. PCem is a bit more convenient for beginners but 86Box is available universally on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Either will do just fine

All of the files you need to set this up are available on the Internet Archive or a few other sites that keep copies of old drivers and the like around.

Oh and don't be shocked if the machine feels slow. Unlike VMWare or VirtualBox, 86Box/PCem emulate the CPU, GPU, and HDD speed of old computers so your VM is literally running at the speed of the computer it is emulating. It took me more than a half hour to install Windows 98 when I did this using 86Box. And for whether to use Windows 95 or 98, stick with 98. It has much better driver detection and device assignment out of the box than 95 and these emulators play much nicer with it. To get devices working on 95, I was having to manually tinker with IRQs and stuff. Didn't have to with 98.

Grubb, did you use 86Box for this? I'm guessing so. I've been trying to do this kind of stuff but VMWare and VirtualBox don't tend to work for a lot of this type of stuff specifically. The bit I've used 86Box makes it seem like a much better option. I guess I should try it more.

edit: Ok you mentioned how this is working later in the video. Cool!

I love that Bakalar brought up Dan not knowing Vinny was Italian with Vinny.

Wow 3 other people voted for EA Sports WRC. I was expecting to be the only one. That game's pretty good but given how quickly it went on sale with deep discounts, I'm guessing it didn't do very well (Also, the whole "yeah we kinda destroyed all your career saves with our last update. Sorry!" thing wrecked a bunch of good will towards it). They even chucked substantial launch discounts at anyone who owned the Dirt Rally games. I think I preordered it for the equivalent of less than $40 USD.

I am shocked, SHOCKED, that I am the only person who voted for iPod Solitaire.

I was literally watching an old Game Tapes yesterday while I was playing BG3 and thought "I wish they'd do more of these" and here we are. Cool! Excited to watch this.

PS: The Game Tapes I watched was the one where they found the Sea Man tape with the fake news report. That whole thing is still hilarious.

BG3 at #1 and boygenius in the same list? This is a quality list. After that boygenius EP, it seemed like such a no-brainer to give those three a proper budget to make a full album but it somehow took years for it to happen. They're all exceptional songwriters individually but together they somehow are even better. The music video for "Not Strong Enough" is also incredible, especially considering it appeared to have been shot on a cell phone and edited together by Phoebe Bridgers' brother.

100%. It's telling that the voice/performance actors have been getting so much attention in a way very few outside of the biggest names have before. They deserve it. They're a huge part of why the game is so good. And it's not just one or two character performances being standouts. All of the party character performances are amazing as are a bunch of the side characters.

I saw it mentioned in the Youtube comments for today's show of all places someone mention "Lae'zel erasure" regarding best debut and I 100% agree. As much as I think Astarion and Karlach both are fantastic characters, Lae'zel is the most interesting character in Baldur's Gate 3 and is an incredibly well-written character if looked at from an academic point of view rather than a meme-ish way like they did. She has potential character growth that very few characters in games do and transforms one of several quite different ways throughout the game depending on what choices you make.

Without getting into any spoilers beyond the first hour or two of the game, basically early on if you talk to Lae'zel it's revealed that she's a product of and fiercely loyal to an extremely insular militaristic totalitarian dictatorship regime that imposes strict control of information and treats everything the leader says as law. In broad strokes, her story explores the implications of someone being removed from that environment and ending up somewhere else completely different. I'm probably underselling it but it's a very well done story. It's a side story that's better than the main plot of many games.

This new version looks great but I'm still quite happy with my LCD Steam Deck. I'll wait until there's a meaningful performance boost in a future version before upgrading. I already mostly just use my Steam Deck for older and indie games so the battery life boost and things like that don't really affect my usage much since I'm already getting more than a full session worth of battery anyway. Exciting for people that were waiting though I'm sure!

I have that demo disk filled with licensed games that they mention at the start. Sheep Raider is indeed actually a pretty fun game. At least the demo was anyway.

I wish I could like the Wasteland games. I liked them in concept so I tried them since they were on Game Pass but aggressively bounced off them. I can't remember what it was exactly but I ran into something in Wasteland 3 that made me not enjoy it (it may have been the humour). I also remember the voice acting being atrocious.

I own Legend of Grimrock and Pillars of Eternity but haven't played them at all. I even backed Pillars on Kickstarter back in the day so I followed its development but never followed through with playing it. I also own Disco Elysium, which I've put a few hours into but it hasn't stuck. I'm not sure what it is but there's something about Baldur's Gate 3 that grabs me in a way these games didn't.

Because of how much I'm enjoying BG3, I'm definitely checking out the Divinity games next.

Oh, and to add one (well kinda) to the list for people who like BG3's combat: The hot 2003 LucasArts release Gladius for the Gamecube/PS2/Xbox (You can buy it on the Xbox store as a classic for like $10). It's a hybrid RPG/tactics game that BG3's combat reminds me a lot of. It's got all the typical CRPG class stuff but a little simplified and it has a fancy gear system. I remember it super fondly. I bought it on a whim because it was used at EB Games for like $8 (it didn't sell well from my understanding). I ended up pouring tons of hours into it. Funnily enough, the "People also like" for Gladius' entry on the Xbox store is almost all CRPGs and the first two entries are the old Baldur's Gate games.