Gemini000 wrote:

Ancient DOS Games Episode 48 - The Elder Scrolls I: Arena is online! (Please Note: This episode contains mature content!)

@9:20 in your Arena video you say: "the game plays incredibly fast and yes this is the correct speed the game's supposed to be played at."

Please note that in the readme.txt file (which is included with the CD version 1.07), it says: To slow down game play [for a Pentium], modify the arena.bat file by adding:
"-delay:#"

to the end of line that starts with @A where # is an integer between 1 and 9. 1 is fast, 9 is slow. We recommend 3 as a good speed. If, after starting the game [on your Pentium] using this feature, you find the speed still is not right, you may adjust the delay using the + and - keys.

retro games 100 wrote:

@9:20 in your Arena video you say: "the game plays incredibly fast and yes this is the correct speed the game's supposed to be […]
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Gemini000 wrote:

Ancient DOS Games Episode 48 - The Elder Scrolls I: Arena is online! (Please Note: This episode contains mature content!)

@9:20 in your Arena video you say: "the game plays incredibly fast and yes this is the correct speed the game's supposed to be played at."

Please note that in the readme.txt file (which is included with the CD version 1.07), it says: To slow down game play [for a Pentium], modify the arena.bat file by adding:
"-delay:#"

to the end of line that starts with @A where # is an integer between 1 and 9. 1 is fast, 9 is slow. We recommend 3 as a good speed. If, after starting the game [on your Pentium] using this feature, you find the speed still is not right, you may adjust the delay using the + and - keys.

This doesn't actually affect the "speed" of the game, just the framerate. With the framerate lower, yes, the game plays slower, but of course the framerate becomes very unnatural as well. Worse still, this ALSO affects the controls, as playing at a low framerate will cause control inputs to miss or get stuck every so often, plus the mouse cursor becomes difficult to move around.

Frankly, it's easier and more comfortable to play the game without the delay setting active, at least, once you know what you're doing. :P

Ah, I see what you're saying. 😀 And yes, I've also noticed that adverse affect on keyboard controls, when the framerate is lowered. BTW, there are some useful additional keyboard controls found in that readme.txt file, which cannot be found in the main manual.

One general tip I found to circumvent a likely bug is that if you get stuck after having dropped down from a ledge, either try casting levitate to raise yourself away from the "stuck area", or try a "standing still" leap (using the SHIFT-J keyboard combination).

A-ha, I got a bit uncertain after sending in my guess but I'm glad to find you actually did some coverage for this game. While I knew the game is rather unknown, I had no clue it was actually this obscure.

Would be amazing to get to play through the demo with four players, all using different playstyles and character classes. Overall the game is really nice and I hope your video will help it reach new fans.

My friend also featured it on the site http://dosmp.com/, which is why I'm originally even aware of it.

As for 97, it's a classic case for an ADG episode hint. I've played the game but as usual, I can't recall the title.

will you make a review of Weird Dreams? 😉

Food determines how much health you can regenerate and water determines how much mana you can regenerate, IIRC.

robertmo wrote:

will you make a review of Weird Dreams? ;)

Not anytime soon as I've got every episode planned up to 101, but I'll add it to the requests list all the same. ;)

Ancient DOS Games Episode 97 - Galactix is online!

Not a big game this week. I had to worry about all kinds of other stuff outside of ADG so I couldn't afford the time. Though now that most of that's taken care of, next week's a MUCH bigger game, at least, as far as I'm aware.

I'm sure a lot of people will know from the hint what game's coming up next, but truth be told I'm entering uncharted waters with this one... I've NEVER played it before. Sure, call it a crime against humanity if you must, but again, remember, strategy is my WORST genre. Populous and Dungeon Keeper have been the only two older strategy games I've ever had any skill at and I played a bunch of others. (Curiously, I seem to be OK at the more recently released game Endless Space.)

I'm stuck on the page with a twirly after I hit play. Is this only me or everyone else as well?

blackjudas wrote:

I'm stuck on the page with a twirly after I hit play. Is this only me or everyone else as well?

I think Blip's having issues at the moment. I've noticed that Blip problems typically happen late at night Eastern Time and only last an hour or two at most. Sometimes they only last a few minutes.

Granted, this one seems to be lasting a bit so I dunno... :/

I got an idea!

A Steam community group

with that, we can have like........ 7 people support adg and get updates through steam announcements!!!!

I guess it depends on how many viewers also use Steam on a regular basis. :P

Viewership isn't actually doing too terrible. Recently crossed 200,000 total views for the entire show and monthly views is currently about 12,000.

Considering the view numbers have been levelling off despite the LGR crossover, the TechRepublic article, and constantly being at the top of the index page on the DOSBox website, I'm probably only going to do one more season of ADG after this one, then move on to other show ideas I have. (That still equates to over a dozen more fillers and 50 more proper episodes!)

Ancient DOS Games Episode 98 - X-COM / UFO Enemy Unknown is online!

Despite being the most requested game, the vast majority of guesses this week were wrong. XD

In any case, really tired at the moment so I'm just gonna leave it at that. :P

Gemini000: You are not the only one who gets killed easily in this game, heck even the remake I played of this game is hard. And I got my ass handed to me in the remake.

Ah, my favorite game of all time along with Grim Fandango (completely unrelated genre 😜)!
I have some really fond memories and whenever I feel down or bored I just install it and lose myself into it. It's the epitomy of Turn Based and Squad Based Strategy Games. The concept is kinda simple, but the game as a whole is pure genius. It's practically two engines in one game, a managerial engine (GeoScape) and a battle engine (BattleScape). While I can't help but disagree with some of your points, I liked your review as a whole!

I realize of course that the GUI may seem completely alien at first, but I've truly come to appreciate how much stuff you can do with it (especially the GeoScape). As for the icons, well this was a time when you couldn't really have small popup windows for each button to explain what it's supposed to do unfortunately! The manual though explains it in detail, though I'm not sure it's supplied with the Steam version, so that's why you may have had problems with it (or you didn't read the manual 😜). Btw, at around 12:00 you seem to be having a problem locating where the enemy is. You can click on the "1" icon on the left and then the camera just centers on the enemy! Seeing you moving around, I really wanted to just move my mouse and help you 😁!

I came to know of this game through my older brother. In fact, we used to have a collection of strategy games called the Ultimate Strategy Archives. This included such classics as Civilization, Heroes of Might and Magic, X-Com... That's how we got to play these games for the first time! I was wee little when my brother used to spend hours upon hours on X-Com. I was bored the hell out of my socks back then, I pretty much hated strategy games as much as you do nowadays 😜. However, as I grew up I started playing strategy games and came to love a lot of them, this being my favorite.
X-Com 2 was kinda fun, but I never cared all that much for it. Apocalypse was quite interesting, I sat down and played for quite a decent amount of time a few years ago. I just really hate the pallete they used. Who the hell though using so much white and red was a good idea!? xD

I really can't wait for Firaxis' remake/reboot of sorts (not the crap FPS from 2K Games), if you haven't seen it yet, definitely take a look. Me and my brother have already put some money aside to get the Collector's Edition 😀.
Here's what I do everytime I sit down and play X-Com. Go here http://www.xcomufo.com/x1music.html and download the first two tracks, mute your MIDI or just remove the midi files from the games data folders and listen to those amazing mixes.

All hail X-Com!!! 😁

I'm fairly good at strategy games. I tried playing X-COM a while back and had no idea what I was doing, why certain things would happen, or what I was expected to do about them.

The menu beep.... i think it's the same beep as amber-lock for missiles in Mechwarrior 2? Hmm.

Anyhow, top episode!

(Small note: Greenwich is pronounced something like "Grennich".)

The menu beep originates from Sound Ideas 6000, IIRC

F2bnp wrote:

I realize of course that the GUI may seem completely alien at first, but I've truly come to appreciate how much stuff you can do with it (especially the GeoScape).

Well yeah, this is the benefit to button-heavy UIs is that, once you know how to use them, they're faster than typical UIs. It's learning how to use them in the first place that takes a huge amount of practice and most such UIs don't offer the user much guidance. :P

F2bnp wrote:

Btw, at around 12:00 you seem to be having a problem locating where the enemy is. You can click on the "1" icon on the left and then the camera just centers on the enemy! Seeing you moving around, I really wanted to just move my mouse and help you :D!

The first two times I tried doing that I just ended up moving my unit towards the location underneath where the "1" icon was so I stopped trying. :P

The mouse cursor is extremely picky about its position... I'm not 100% convinced that the tip of the cursor is actually the point that's registered. :o

leileilol wrote:

The menu beep originates from Sound Ideas 6000, IIRC

That explains why I've heard it in like, five different games and two different movies. XD

leileilol wrote:

The menu beep originates from Sound Ideas 6000, IIRC

Yeah it's a fairly common sound effect. Whenever I hear it though I think about X-Com, since that's where I first heard it from.
Heck, whenever I hear it I look around to see if anyone is playing X-Com 🤣

Edit:

By the way, I just found something quite hilarious:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACC3BuB7nNc&feature=related 🤣