Holding down 'Insert' on the 10-Key will allow you to look around from within Lara's head, this will help with the camera issues in tight spaces sometimes.

tannerstevo wrote:

badmojo wrote:

buckeye wrote:

Playing Tomb Raider 1 for the first time on my XP rig using Glidos. The controls are basically making this an exercise in frustration at least for me anyways. Waiting on a more "modern" iteration coming in the mail: Tomb Raider Anniversary.

It’s not just you, I played it well after release and without nostalgia goggles the wonky early 3D controls were a bridge too far. Great game in a lot of ways though, really nice level design, etc.

To be fair, if you learn the keyboard controls it plays very well.
You just have to take your time, it was never meant to be a fast paced game.

Yeah to be sure this isn't a game you just jump in and play casually. Have been trying to use my xbox 360 pad with it but I think getting used to the keyboard will be best in the long run.

In Unfinished Business the crocs continually piss me off, adding some grenades to the weapons cache would've been sweet.

After wading through some very muddy waters recently I finally got some free time to replay what I personally consider a little gem of a game, Fire Fight.

This is an isometric 8-way scrolling shooter developed by Chaos Works/Epic Megagames and published by Electronic Arts in 1996. Plays entirely from the CD, no install required; the soundtrack consists of 8 Audio CD tunes (the shareware/demo came with 4 MIDI tunes). DirectX 1.0 was also included in the CD. There are 18 missions you have to complete, and they progressively increase in difficulty and skill.

I played the Fire Fight demo first back in late November 1996 when it came as part of a PC World magazine CD software sampler; it only had 4 missions, but they were quite a bit of fun. Unfortunately I didn't have the cash to buy the boxed retail version then, and by the time I did in late 1997 it was gone from store shelves. It wasn't until 2001 that I found this sealed box at a local thrift shop; it was badly crushed, but the CDs and manuals were intact inside. I loaded one of the CDs in the Athlon XP/Win98SE PC I had back then, ran it, and proceeded to complete 6 missions in a row; I think I finished all 18 single player missions in about 5-6 days. I've replayed it a few times since then, but only if I'm in the right mood - the latter missions require quite a bit of concentration or you will fail for sure. This time I'm using my P166MMX/Win95a PC, I'm up to Mission 4 - Frost Bite, and I'm taking it much easier now since some of the missions can get very fast paced and my eyesight and reflexes are not what they used to be 😐

And with that, I will now say goodbye to this thread - and the forums. I'm going to take some time off from VOGONS, I really need to. Nothing personal, just need to take care of things - very important things; once everything is in the clear I'll return. Of course I will continue to play games when time allows since all work and no play makes for a very dull life (or something like that 😊 ). Anyway, until then everyone. Bye.

Played some Canadian Monopoly (Sorry!) on my Socket 370 system (will swap the board with the Socket 462 board again after I repair the VooDoo2 card).

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

And with that, I will now say goodbye to this thread - and the forums. I'm going to take some time off from VOGONS, I really need to. Nothing personal, just need to take care of things - very important things; once everything is in the clear I'll return. Of course I will continue to play games when time allows since all work and no play makes for a very dull life (or something like that 😊 ). Anyway, until then everyone. Bye.

I wish you the best, man. I completely understand.

Back on topic, I typically play one RPG and one FPS simultaneously. Because I have a family, my gaming time is very limited, so games typically take anywhere from 1-3 months to complete. I recently completed Anvil of Dawn after 87 days, and am about 3/4 through the original F.E.A.R. (been playing for 42 days). So yesterday morning I gave Stonekeep a good test, playing the beginning for a little over an hour. The MIDI music is incredible played through the Dreamblaster X2 with the latest GUD soundbank. And I think I'm hooked enough that this will be my next RPG. With the holidays coming up, I'll have a little more playing time than usual (I play early morning before the rest of the family wakes up), so I'm looking forward to some significant progress!

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

Anyway, until then everyone. Bye.

All the best JayCeeBee64, we'll be here 😀

Just finished the floppy version of Alone in the Dark so it's another one of those games that I never managed to finish back in the day that's off my list.

I chose the floppy version because I couldn't get the CD audio working from the bin/cue files and because this podcast I listened to said they liked the SB floppy tracks better. Which is funny, because I turned the music off after 5 minutes ^^ It's not that I didn't like it (the rendition of Saint-Saëns' Death Dance is great), but I wish it'd been a lot sparser with just a little flourish here and there to accentuate scenes.

Anyway, the game itself is a great little self-contained action adventure with beautiful, hand-drawn backgrounds and 3D models which, with the possible exception of the "chicken", have stood the test of time. The controls are somewhat clunky and require an amount of premeditation, particularly when going into combat, but I found that, because there is relatively little mandatory fighting, I wasn't put me off too much.

That being said, the game has atmosphere coming out it's ears, even though the framing and background story are somewhat clipped. Suffice to say that it's Lovecraft, which means there are ancient standing stones in the hills of New England and terrors from beyond time lurk in dark caverns underneath the mansions of the landed gentry. The puzzles are fair and varied, the atmosphere is brooding and the mansion's interiors have a believable layout while at the same time providing a fittingly baroque backdrop for the ominous goings-on. Carnby (who I played as) moves through the gloomy scenes and eerie caverns like a little mustachioed tank in a green velvet dinner jacket and stylish red waistcoat. The attic, which serves as a kind of tutorial level, I found particularly memorable, because it is one of the first instances that I can remember of a game giving the player room to familiarize themselves with its controls. It does this while at the same time setting the dark tone of the game and applying just enough pressure on the player by inserting its first timed event – block the windows/trapdoor, or grab the rifle/get ready to fight – which doubles as a kind of "jump scare." There are numerous scripted or triggered events and delightful, appropriatly gothic pastiches throughout the house, including a "deathly" dance scene/action sequence, fighting paintings with objects, a monstrous worm and specters that, when disturbed, chase you down to the sound of ghastly droning and screen shaking.

I loved all the detail and the thought that had clearly gone into crafting these set-pieces. The game is brief, which also means it doesn't outstay its welcome. I wish the developers had just continued on in the same vein with the sequel, making it twice as big while retaining a similar density of puzzles and forboding atmosphere. Alas, they didn't.

Meanwhile, I'm playing Loom together with my wife and I'm looking at different adventure games or even an RPG for a change of pace.

henryVK wrote:

Just finished the floppy version of Alone in the Dark...

Oooh great write-up thanks! The setting sounds great and I have some nostalgia for this one so I'd like to track it down again some day.

My pleasure! It feels seriously gratifying to actually go and finish some of these games.

When I got back into retro gaming in 2016/17 I only managed to get through three games (Cryo's Dune, Dark Sun: Shattered Lands and Betrayal at Krondor) in about two years. With AitD I completed the fourth game within weeks. Granted, they were all adventure games, but still.

Oh, also I find it less and less comfortable to play games at my actual desk. Maybe it's my chair or the fact that I'm over thirty, but playing with a laptop with built-in trackball on the couch seems a lot more attractive these days.

So, this is the first time I'm trying this: I made a simple spreadsheet to track my gameplay time. I just finished the first level of Stonekeep. Granted, very completionistically, but it took 4 hr and 11 minutes over the course of 5 different play sessions on 5 different days. So about 50 minutes per session.

Thoughts on Stonekeep so far: I LOVE this game. I remember it getting mixed reviews back in the day, but so far I'm loving the atmosphere. I typically play in the early morning hours while it's still dark out, with a steaming cup of joe at my side, which seems to lend to a good RPG play environment for me. Highlights: amazing graphics for DOS with the digitized NPCs in a pre-rendered dungeon, and absolutely the highest quality digitized speech and GM music I've ever heard. Annoyance: the only way to identify new items is by picking them up, then reading about them in your Journal. This is a two-step process, and can only be done after you find the journal (a couple of hours into the game for me). I'm finding online guides and old hint books to make for a much better experience.

I'm actually quite surprised how good the digitized characters come off. From screenshots and YT videos it looks absolutely cheesy, but experiencing it in front of an actual CRT is a completely different story.

Here's to many more hours of entertainment!

DUSK and Amid Evil are tons of fun. Ion Maiden as well (but there's not much to that one yet). They aren't just retro/nostalgia cashgrabs. They're labours of love the actually do hearken back to the days when shooters were actually good and I enjoyed them. All of these developers know what they're doing and do it well.

MusicallyInspired wrote:

DUSK and Amid Evil are tons of fun. Ion Maiden as well (but there's not much to that one yet). They aren't just retro/nostalgia cashgrabs. They're labours of love the actually do hearken back to the days when shooters were actually good and I enjoyed them. All of these developers know what they're doing and do it well.

Nice, thanks for the recommends. I added them to my wishlist. I was hoping they'd be DRM-free on GOG, but Steam will have to do.

Okay, let's talk Stonekeep. Back in 1995, I had this game, and for whatever reason, I don't remember getting further than level 2 before giving up on it. Maybe it was the bugs. But since I started playing this game a week ago, I've been in RPG heaven. I did have one issue with a bug that caused me to have to reload an old save and replay about 40 minutes. But that's been it so far. The bugs are pretty well-documented, so it's easy today to avoid them. The bug I experienced was one that is not well-documented. I found a GOG forum post from 2014 that helped me figure it out. Basically, during level 3 (Sewers), if you drain the sewers BEFORE you get to Wahooka, he never appears. Thus you never get the key that unlocks a chest that gives you access to the Shrink Rune.

This game, for whatever reason, really pulls me into its world. The GM music (both in composition and instrument quality) is hands-down the best I've ever heard in a DOS game. I'm using the Dreamblaster X2 with the latest GUD soundbank. It sounds as good to me as the Roland (based on YouTube soundtrack recordings). The digitized speech is super clean and appropriately echoey for being in an underground environment. The graphics, even in VGA resolution, are some of the best I've seen in DOS. The digitized characters are well-done and fit well into the rendered environment. The character acting and voices are top notch. The story is gripping. Even some of the weird things, like unlimited inventory, are fairly well explained through the story (your spirit is removed from your physical body before entering the underworld, and are given a magic mirror and scroll which allow you to see yourself for equipping, and magically carry unlimited inventory). Even the keyboard shortcuts for navigating the inventory scroll really add to interface efficiency. The magic system takes getting used to, but is also well-implemented once you get through the learning curve. The skill-based advancement feels right. The more you use specific weapon types, the better your skills grow with those weapons. The level design and layout is incredible. Lots of secret areas that allow you to go back and forth between levels and reach new places. For example, after you complete level 2, you go to level 3 (sewers) with seemingly no way down any further. One you drain the sewers and access a hidden stairway, you get back up to a new location on level 2, which, when you apply a statue to a pedestal gained from level 3, opens a secret door that leads down to level 4. That type of stuff.

Another thing that has really added to my enjoyment of this game is documenting my play time on a spreadsheet. I've never done this before, but now that I've gotten a template I'm happy with, I can't see not doing this for every game I play moving forward. Here's what it looks like:

So far I've sunk 12.5 hours into the game. Level 1 took 4:11, Level 2 took 4:05, and level 3 took 3:42. I spent 31 extra minutes on level 1 skill spamming in a room of endless ants coming out of a drain.

clueless1 wrote:

MusicallyInspired wrote:

DUSK and Amid Evil are tons of fun. Ion Maiden as well (but there's not much to that one yet). They aren't just retro/nostalgia cashgrabs. They're labours of love the actually do hearken back to the days when shooters were actually good and I enjoyed them. All of these developers know what they're doing and do it well.

Nice, thanks for the recommends. I added them to my wishlist. I was hoping they'd be DRM-free on GOG, but Steam will have to do.

Well, they still may. They're in early access still and while Ion Maiden is on GOG despite that, it remains to be seen if DUSK and Amid Evil will make it there after their true release date. DUSK releases in early December so I guess we'll find out then. They haven't mentioned any other platforms though, admittedly.

Nice one @clueless1, sounds like a good time.

I’m in my own RPG heaven over here with Gothic II – what an amazing game. The story is presented in chapters which are triggered when you reach a significant milestone. The same game-world is used for each chapter and gets ‘reset’ somewhat when each chapter starts, i.e. some mobs / items are re-spawned, and new NPCs / mobs are added. I could see that annoying some players but I love it, because a) it means that the world is contained enough for my rusty old brain-box to remember and b) it’s a really nicely crafted world that I love exploring (and re-exploring).

The downside is that there appears to be no rhyme or reason to some parts of the world initially, but now that I’ve progressed to what I’m assuming is nearly the end game I’m questing into those areas and am finally able to beat seemingly impossible foes. The ‘resets’ are made less jarring by the NPCs, who do a good job of responding appropriately as the world changes round them and who will give you new quests as time passes. And if you're not interested in slow-jogging over old ground then teleport stones are introduced later in the game, so that's a nice touch I think.

There’s plenty of grinding required of course and this is most evident in the Valley of Mines, which is a pretty grim setting, but exploration is generally rewarded with XP or unique loot. I still haven’t experienced a single crash or any serious bugs so that’s a bonus.

MusicallyInspired wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

MusicallyInspired wrote:

DUSK and Amid Evil are tons of fun. Ion Maiden as well (but there's not much to that one yet). They aren't just retro/nostalgia cashgrabs. They're labours of love the actually do hearken back to the days when shooters were actually good and I enjoyed them. All of these developers know what they're doing and do it well.

Nice, thanks for the recommends. I added them to my wishlist. I was hoping they'd be DRM-free on GOG, but Steam will have to do.

Well, they still may. They're in early access still and while Ion Maiden is on GOG despite that, it remains to be seen if DUSK and Amid Evil will make it there after their true release date. DUSK releases in early December so I guess we'll find out then. They haven't mentioned any other platforms though, admittedly.

Have you played Project Warlock? If so, what's your opinion?

X Rebirth !

I am actually having a lot of fun with this one. I am waiting for the next X game, X4, coming out in few days.

clueless1 wrote:

Have you played Project Warlock? If so, what's your opinion?

Going to butt in and say it's pretty slick. Has a Hexen feel to it IMO. I have to lower the res on my 6 year old gaming laptop (670M GPU) to get a decent frame rate. I'm not upgrading until Cyberpunk 2077 comes out so I'll just deal.

FarmVille '76. I mean, Fallout '76.

Playing Final Fantasy XV, there's something enjoyable about this game or I wouldn't keep playing it but it's hard to put my finger on exactly what. It's also a game that I can't play late at night because it puts me to sleep, theres a lot of travel time where nothing is happening in this title. When I think about it overall I think its pretty below average but I'm not ready to give up on it yet.

Also playing Thronebreaker : The Witcher Tales - This is fun but its more of a puzzle game based around the rules of Gwent with premade decks and scenarios rather than a full deck collecting/building game. I don't know how far I am into, maybe the deck building opens up more later?

Also Playing: Battlefield V : Played through the single player scenarios with Raytracing which was really cool, the best was the 2nd scenario. Played a few multiplayer matches but I find i still dont really care much for multiplayer frag games...I pretty much got my fill of those in the 90s. I'll try again to get into otherwise Ill just play the final single player scenario they are releasing in december and call it done.

clueless1 wrote:

Have you played Project Warlock? If so, what's your opinion?

I haven't. What I have heard, though, is that it's a great idea and that they've got the makings of something that could be really great on their hands, but it "just isn't there yet". It doesn't reach a pinnacle point or "hit the spot". I also heard the difficulty gets super easy later on in the game. Very same-y without much variation to keep you interested in playing.

But I can't corroborate any of this because I haven't played it.