Finally finished Risen. The endgame dungeon crawl was expectedly tedious, but having maxed Strength and an Obsidian Twohander helped a lot. I still think some of the undead priest tombs drag on for far too long, especially the one behind the waterfall. But yeah, that's the sucky last quarter of the game.

The end boss fight was as unspectacular as ever. I guess my main gripe with it is that no matter which faction you join (Bandits, Mages, Order) and regardless of your skill set (Magic, Melee or Ranged) you have to fight the Titan up close using the plot specific armor and weapon. Oh well, one overly long whack-a-mole session later, victory was achieved.

As I've said before, Risen is definitively worth playing for the first 3/4 of the game. The music is exceptional, the gameplay is fun and the visuals are quite nice for the time when it was released. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys exploring a masterfully hand-crafted open world. And obviously, it's a must play for any fan of the Gothic series. 😀

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-03-19, 16:22:

As I've said before, Risen is definitively worth playing for the first 3/4 of the game. The music is exceptional, the gameplay is fun and the visuals are quite nice for the time when it was released. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys exploring a masterfully hand-crafted open world. And obviously, it's a must play for any fan of the Gothic series. 😀

I've added this to my list of get when found cheap, sounds like there's a good chance I'd like it.

I also should finally give Gothic 1&2 a real shot, I tried Gothic II twenty years ago but bounced off so hard that I've pretty much ignored Piranha Bytes ever since. It was the controls, made me go "OH GOD" and run away as far as I could the second I realized how the control scheme works.

Sombrero wrote on 2023-03-19, 19:52:

I've added this to my list of get when found cheap, sounds like there's a good chance I'd like it.

Cheers! I believe GOG puts it on sale quite frequently.

I also should finally give Gothic 1&2 a real shot, I tried Gothic II twenty years ago but bounced off so hard that I've pretty much ignored Piranha Bytes ever since. It was the controls, made me go "OH GOD" and run away as far as I could the second I realized how the control scheme works.

If the Gothic 2 controls bothered you, then you might actually prefer Risen, since it has a much more straightforward control scheme (left click = attack, right click = block). Despite that, the combat is still very engaging, with dodging and blocking (preferably using a shield) playing very important roles.

The story of Risen is unrelated to the Gothic games, besides a very minor reference. You can play Risen first without any worries.

Moving on to the original Half-Life (retail CD release). I have only played this game once, back when it first came out, so I've forgotten pretty much everything about it. After reading through a ton of threads on this forum, and checking the relevant page on the PC Gaming Wiki, I think I finally understood how to configure Half-Life to my liking. First, I updated the game to version 1.1.1.0 which seems to be the last official patch for the original CD release. Then, I chose Direct3D for the renderer since I wanted those overbright effects.

Regarding the resolution, I settled for 1280x960 since that's where the Direct3D renderer tops out. Conveniently, this is very close to the native resolution of my 17" LCD monitor (1280x1024), which is why I selected Fixed Aspect Ratio Scaling in the Nvidia driver panel. That setting only appears when using a DVI connection, and in this particular case, it keeps the image nice and sharp with tiny black bars at the top and bottom.

After all that, I limited my monitor's refresh rate to 60 Hz, then used the Nvidia driver panel to turn on VSync and force Anisotropic Filtering to 8x, which can improve image quality. I also created an autoexec.cfg file in C:\SIERRA\Half-Life\valve and added the following lines there:

1gl_d3dflip "1"
2fps_max "60.0"

And lastly, I always run the game with the -32bpp parameter which makes it use 32-bit colors. All of this together results in a smooth 60 FPS experience, completely locked with no drops or stuttering. For the sound, I'm using an Audigy card hooked up to a set of 5.1 speakers which gives me some very nice positional audio with EAX enabled. And, if anyone's curious, here are the full specs of the system where I'm going to be running this.

Well, time to finally (re)play this game, I guess. Should be a fun ride. 😀

Took advantage of Steam spring sales.

Bought Star Wars: Dark Forces at 1,74€

I was never a fan of the series, but I loved the games: used to play a lot of Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (2005) with my friends 🥲

When I discovered this DOOM clone Star Wars themed game, I wanted to buy the original CD release, to play it on my Pentium MMX build, but then on Steam they discounted it so much that I preferred to buy it digital and move the game files to the retro PC.

Did a test today: it plays and feels great 🙂

And just like any DOOM like game, I got lost (at the first level 😅)

Looks like RoTT engine to me. Is it?
(no wonder it's easy to get lost)

dr_st wrote on 2023-03-22, 09:14:

Looks like RoTT engine to me. Is it?
(no wonder it's easy to get lost)

No, it was developed inhouse by Lucasarts, I believe it's called the Jedi engine, and it allows for verticality and multiple levels on top of each other.

It's not a Doom clone, as the engine was entirely made in-house, can have rooms over rooms, and even rotating (even if untextured) 3D objects.
All back in 1995 !

It has nothing to do with RoTT or Wolf3D either. It is its own thing.

Be sure to play it with the Force Engine: https://github.com/luciusDXL/TheForceEngine 😀

xcomcmdr wrote on 2023-03-22, 12:42:

It's not a Doom clone, as the engine was entirely made in-house, can have rooms over rooms, and even rotating (even if untexture […]
Show full quote

It's not a Doom clone, as the engine was entirely made in-house, can have rooms over rooms, and even rotating (even if untextured) 3D objects.
All back in 1995 !

It has nothing to do with RoTT or Wolf3D either. It is its own thing.

Be sure to play it with the Force Engine: https://github.com/luciusDXL/TheForceEngine 😀

Thanks for the info 🙂
I like to play old games on hardware they were intended for so I'm gonna stick with the vanilla engine.

Demetrio wrote on 2023-03-22, 12:55:

Thanks for the info 🙂
I like to play old games on hardware they were intended for so I'm gonna stick with the vanilla engine.

Right way to go! There's nothing wrong with the original game/engine, imo. It plays great!

Speaking of DOS era 3D shooters, I just finished the original Shadow Warrior. I had a save from years ago before the intermediate boss battle in Level 11, and finally decided to dedicate several hours (over several days) to finish the game (all the way to level 20).

It stays true to the realistic environments from Duke3D (that actually look like real-life places, within the limitations of the engine), and takes it a bit further, as the engine has been improved to better support moving sectors, vehicles, etc.
Nice variety of environments - castle ramparts, caves, temples, battleship (or was it a submarine), live volcano.

Some level layouts felt a bit too obtuse for me and I got stuck, but at least the levels are not very long.
The level displays secrets/total and kills/total counters at all times. The latter is not very useful, though, because enemies spawn following specific events in the middle of the level, so the total is not constant.

Nice variety of fun weapons. Not so many enemies, but it's OK. What I liked the least was the (relative) abundance of instant (or near-instant) death traps, even when playing on Easy. I didn't want to spend too much time replaying, so was using mid-level saves freely.

Enjoyable game. There are a couple of expansions, which I might try out at some point, but now I want to play something else.

Demetrio wrote on 2023-03-22, 08:18:

Took advantage of Steam spring sales. […]
Show full quote

Took advantage of Steam spring sales.

Bought Star Wars: Dark Forces at 1,74€

I was never a fan of the series, but I loved the games: used to play a lot of Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (2005) with my friends 🥲

When I discovered this DOOM clone Star Wars themed game, I wanted to buy the original CD release, to play it on my Pentium MMX build, but then on Steam they discounted it so much that I preferred to buy it digital and move the game files to the retro PC.

Did a test today: it plays and feels great 🙂

And just like any DOOM like game, I got lost (at the first level 😅)

If you end up liking it, there's a full game mod for Jedi Academy that wonderfully recreates the game, with more modern features and gameplay.

Shadow Warrior extensions are more enjoyable than the base game.

Work 🙁

xcomcmdr wrote on 2023-03-22, 20:31:

Shadow Warrior extensions are more enjoyable than the base game.

Great to know, now I have something to look forward to. 😀

matze79 wrote on 2023-03-22, 20:43:

Work 🙁

I've been playing this game a lot too, and I'm not winning.

dr_st wrote on 2023-03-22, 09:14:

Looks like RoTT engine to me. Is it?
(no wonder it's easy to get lost)

that reminded me of wandering around lost in rott back in the day, all those same looking areas! still it was fun place to get lost at the time, such great music and general weirdness to the design to keep you interested

gerry wrote on 2023-03-23, 08:12:

that reminded me of wandering around lost in rott back in the day, all those same looking areas! still it was fun place to get lost at the time, such great music and general weirdness to the design to keep you interested

Yes, the music was awesome. It was reused in quite a few user-made DOOM levels.

Funnily, I only now remembered that I once played through the shareware episode of RoTT. I have almost no memory of anything from it. At some point I might have the patience to play through the registered version and forget that too. 😁

I think I'm about half-way through Half-Life (heh) having just reached the "Apprehension" level. It's been pretty fun so far, though some levels were more annoying than others (e.g. On a Rail). I also struggled a bit with the long jump mechanics, but otherwise, even the platforming segments were mostly ok.

I really like how Half-Life implemented the earth-based weapons. They feel realistic, for lack of a better word, especially compared to something like Quake 2. Their sound effects are also top notch. OTOH, I did notice a distinct lack of open areas, and given the plot of the game, that kinda makes sense. Still, it feels like I'm always fighting in cramped corridors, on narrow walkways, in elevators etc. where there isn't enough room to circle strafe and such.

On the technical side, I noticed that the game lags for a second or two when it loads a CD audio track. These seem to only play on rare occasions, which makes this even more jarring. Also, switching from/to the save game menu sometimes crashes the whole thing. But overall, it's been a good experience so far.

Is that audio from a physical CD or an emulated one?