This is the reason why I never finished the game on the first place. This is the reason why I eventually threw the box and its entire contents to the trash can in rage and frustration. Recently, I re-purchased the game in GoG.com, decided to give it a second chance. Oh, how wrong I was.

See, the picture below shows the mission result of X-Wing Historical Mission 5: Rescue at Mon Calamari. Yes, I have successfully destroyed waves and waves of enemy fighters and bombers to protect my friendlies, and all Calamaris have been successfully rescued as well. Yet the game designers cheerfully gave me the middle finger by failing the mission, simply because a group of Y-Wings, which, by the way, was totally beyond my control, turned chickenshit and abandoned their mission goals, whatever the goals are.

Fuck this shit, Holland, I'm outta here!

What's worse is that I already cheated to give myself a fair chance in that accursed mission, using X Wing Ship Editor v 5.0 to beef up my wingmen, and to make it easier for me to destroy enemy spacecrafts (wingmen remain stupid despite using beefed up ships). And I have successfully destroyed all of them, including a goddamn Star Destroyer, using a hundred of proton torpedoes or so. And yes, Calamaris from both crafts (one freighter and one container) have been rescued successfully. Yet the entire mission failed just because the Y-Wings didn't complete their mission goals. What the fuck?

Isn't the mission goal to rescue the Calamaris? Which, by the way, I have successfully achieved?

For years I've been wondering why X-Wing's gameplay is so poorly designed, especially since LucasArts' previous flight sims, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, Their Finest Hour, and even Battlehawks 1942, are all playable and enjoyable. Also, TIE Fighter, which is X-Wing's successor, is perfectly playable and highly enjoyable.

Perhaps I'd try the mission again after using the ship editor to set TIE Fighter's and TIE Bomber's speed to 1, making them basically stand still in space, and their hitpoints to 1 as well, so they will be instantly destroyed by a single hit. Just to satisfy my curiosity if the mission is winnable that way.

The X Wing series is indeed very interesting. I never could get int o them though because I never had a Joystick. The same can be said about other nice space games like Freespace and the Wing Commander series.

But I am really thinking of trying to get an old joystick when my retro system is finished to finally play the system. I am into these old space games but was "tramatised" when I played the first Rebell Assault game with a joystick.

Rebel Assault was FMV garbage, don't let that taint your interest in joystick use.

Started playing Doom 3: RoE. The expansion introduces some cool new toys, such as the Gravity Gun Grabber. It does feel very satisfying to throw fireballs back at those annoying imps, and their new albino cousins. The Super Shotgun is also great, but I still think it should have been included in the base game as well.

The new artifact which slows down time pretty much turns you into Max Payne. Very powerful, though I would have preferred if it charged by killing demons, like the Soul Cube did. That said, I didn't like the environmental puzzles which require you to slow down time. This is supposed to be Doom, not Prince of Persia. Thankfully, those don't seem to pop up very often, at least for now.

In terms of level design, I think the expansion is leaning more toward action than survival horror, when compared to the base game. This is a welcome change, but I'm only a few levels in, so we'll see if that holds up throughout the rest of the campaign.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-15, 15:26:

The expansion introduces some cool new toys, such as the Gravity Gun Grabber. It does feel very satisfying to throw fireballs back at those annoying imps, and their new albino cousins.

I've always felt there was a insane amount of emphasis placed on the "Grabber" in particular because of how overpowered rebounded fireballs are and the fact you can instant kill lost souls by just throwing them into the walls.

Shagittarius wrote on 2023-05-15, 13:39:

Rebel Assault was FMV garbage, don't let that taint your interest in joystick use.

Thanks. I won't. Rebell Assault was indeed one of these not-so-good FMV games. I think the Wing Commander Games, the x wing series, and Freespace are going to be much deeper space action games that are still quite enjoyable today with the right equipment.

Finished Doom 3: RoE. The expansion campaign only had 12 levels, and many of them were pretty short. Granted, there were some unique segments, like the one where you traverse through an underground toxic area with a limited air supply. You could feel the increased tension with enemies popping up all around and the obscured vision due to the hazmat suit. Anyway, after a few boss fights, the artifact eventually got upgraded with the berserk and invulnerability powers which activated together with the time slowdown. That was kinda overpowered, but I have to admit, it felt pretty enjoyable to use it.

Speaking of boss encounters, that electro demon battle was a chore to get through. Took me some time to understand what I was supposed to be doing with the generator tanks. The mechanic with pressing those tiny panels in the middle of combat felt too fiddly for a boss fight. But whatever, it was worth it for the invulnerability upgrade. The last few areas were reused from the original campaign and didn't play that great due to the cramped corridors, despite being more action packed. Then again, the fully upgraded artifact basically puts you in god mode, and you can oneshot a room full of enemies as soon as they spawn.

The bone dragon end boss was kinda underwhelming. The main danger in that fight was falling from the platform due to the meteor impacts and lost soul attacks. But aside from that, slowing down time and feeding that thing a few charged BFG rounds was enough to take it down. Honestly, I had more fun during the fight with a bunch of Hell Knights and Mancubuses (Mancubi?) in that foggy cave with the pillars, which happened just a few moments earlier. Still, it did feel good to see Betruger's skull crumble into dust, so the entire romp was worth it.

predator_085 wrote on 2023-05-15, 07:56:

The X Wing series is indeed very interesting. I never could get int o them though because I never had a Joystick. The same can be said about other nice space games like Freespace and the Wing Commander series.

But I am really thinking of trying to get an old joystick when my retro system is finished to finally play the system. I am into these old space games but was "tramatised" when I played the first Rebell Assault game with a joystick.

X-Wing is indeed interesting, certainly interesting enough to drive me to play the game over and over again despite its unfair difficulty. However, if you're looking for a Star Wars space sim game, TIE Fighter is certainly a much better game.

Haven't got the chance to play the accursed mission again though, my daughter is rather unwell.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2023-05-17, 16:37:

predator_085 wrote on 2023-05-15, 07:56:

The X Wing series is indeed very interesting. I never could get int o them though because I never had a Joystick. The same can be said about other nice space games like Freespace and the Wing Commander series.

But I am really thinking of trying to get an old joystick when my retro system is finished to finally play the system. I am into these old space games but was "tramatised" when I played the first Rebell Assault game with a joystick.

X-Wing is indeed interesting, certainly interesting enough to drive me to play the game over and over again despite its unfair difficulty. However, if you're looking for a Star Wars space sim game, TIE Fighter is certainly a much better game.

Haven't got the chance to play the accursed mission again though, my daughter is rather unwell.

Thanks for your recommendation. Tie Fighter looks very interesting as well. Will check it out for sure.

You're going to need that joystick for TIE Fighter, I still remember the pain of dogfighting A-Wings with a TIE Bomber using mouse. Those mouse feet probably got the same amount of travel playing TIE as with six months of normal usage.

Great game though, highly recommend it. I did try X-Wing after TIE but was never able to get in it, IIRC it didn't have clearly visible target brackets around your targets like TIE had, making it annoyingly hard to find them. Though I probably wouldn't have survived its legendary difficulty anyway.

Sombrero wrote on 2023-05-17, 19:26:

You're going to need that joystick for TIE Fighter, I still remember the pain of dogfighting A-Wings with a TIE Bomber using mouse. Those mouse feet probably got the same amount of travel playing TIE as with six months of normal usage.

Great game though, highly recommend it. I did try X-Wing after TIE but was never able to get in it, IIRC it didn't have clearly visible target brackets around your targets like TIE had, making it annoyingly hard to find them. Though I probably wouldn't have survived its legendary difficulty anyway.

Yes I know. I will get joystick after my system is finished. There are many flying games I want to try out, all the star wars space sim games,the wing commander series, freespace and maybe even some ww2 flying games. Thanks for your recommendation.

I decided to install Doom 3: BFG Edition (from GOG) having just finished the original game and its expansion pack. Basically, I want to play through the Lost Mission bonus campaign for Doom 3, and then try the new "No Rest for the Living" episode for Doom 2. Both of these are included with the BFG edition.

Some of the changes in this release are nice, while others kinda feel like downgrades. I do like the native support for widescreen resolutions and 120 Hz refresh rates. But the absence of EAX makes the soundstage really flat. Surround sound still works, it's just not very immersive or precise, compared to how it was in the original version of the game. Lastly, for some baffling reason, the developers made all of the cutscenes completely unskippable.

Anyway, this bonus campaign is supposedly fairly short. It's cool that both the Super Shotgun and the Grabber from RoE are back. You do kinda need them since the devs start throwing Archviles at you from the second level. Gameplay wise, it seems to be closer to RoE than the original Doom 3 campaign, meaning more action and less aimless wandering around, which suits me fine. Areas are also a lot brighter and easier to navigate. We'll see if the trend continues.

Sombrero wrote on 2023-05-17, 19:26:

You're going to need that joystick for TIE Fighter, I still remember the pain of dogfighting A-Wings with a TIE Bomber using mouse. Those mouse feet probably got the same amount of travel playing TIE as with six months of normal usage.

You need joystick for any LucasArts' flight sims, even those as old as Their Finest Hour and Battlehawks 1942. I remember trying to play the said game using keyboard: very frustrating, very irresponsive. And that's why I think TFH and BH1942 should be included in the most demanding games of their era. Not CPU demand, but peripheral demand. And I still don't understand why LucasArts' made those games as such, because they're arcade flight sims anyway. Many retro flight sims like F-15 Strike Eagle II, Jetfighter: The Adventure, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, LHX Attack Chopper, and even the highly realistic F-16 Combat Pilot, are perfectly playable using keyboard.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2023-05-18, 17:24:

Sombrero wrote on 2023-05-17, 19:26:

You're going to need that joystick for TIE Fighter, I still remember the pain of dogfighting A-Wings with a TIE Bomber using mouse. Those mouse feet probably got the same amount of travel playing TIE as with six months of normal usage.

You need joystick for any LucasArts' flight sims, even those as old as Their Finest Hour and Battlehawks 1942. I remember trying to play the said game using keyboard: very frustrating, very irresponsive. And that's why I think TFH and BH1942 should be included in the most demanding games of their era. Not CPU demand, but peripheral demand. And I still don't understand why LucasArts' made those games as such, because they're arcade flight sims anyway. Many retro flight sims like F-15 Strike Eagle II, Jetfighter: The Adventure, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, LHX Attack Chopper, and even the highly realistic F-16 Combat Pilot, are perfectly playable using keyboard.

Would you recommend the other retro flight sims you have mentioned too? I am interested in checking out as many flight games as possible.

Last game I completed was VA11_HallA_Cyberpunk_Bartender_Action]VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action
The cozy feeling when playing, the very soothing soundtrack, the gameplay (more varied that mixing drinks, which was already fun by itself), the writing, the colorful array of characters, the multiple endings, the aesthetics, the pixel art, ... I loved every second of it.

I urge everyone to play it (especially since it's available everywhere: PC/Mac/Linux/PS4/Switch), or at least enjoy the soundtrack. 😀
A very tighly written VN. It took me around 20 hours to complete, and it didn't overstay its welcome at all.
When post-game depression hits hard, you know it was good !

As a side note, the score screen really looked and sounded like it came from an Amiga game. And as an Amiga fan, that's the cherry on top. 😁
An Amiga demake of the game would be cool !

Now I await the sequel like a desperate sucker... 🙁 (that is the "when it is done" project named 'N1RV Ann-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action')

But hey, the remake of System Shock has finally gone gold, so you never know...

Good bye, Glitch City...

NovaCN wrote on 2023-05-01, 11:54:

I would have recommended Ace Attorney, Snatcher, and VA-11 Hall-A if you hadn't already named them so that saves me some time. F […]
Show full quote

xcomcmdr wrote on 2023-05-01, 09:09:

I admit I didn't play a lot of visual novels (Snatcher, Ace Attorney series, and some of VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action only comes to mind), and I already knew it was an horror game and that's exactly what I was looking for. So in that sense, I wasn't disappointed.
In DDLC Plus, there is a lot more background about the different characters, I found it very touching and (sometimes) close to home.

If you have any recommendations about VNs (especially free ones), I'm all ears. 😀

I would have recommended Ace Attorney, Snatcher, and VA-11 Hall-A if you hadn't already named them so that saves me some time.
Fair warning, most of these are going to be far longer (and very different) than DDLC, but here are some of my personal favorites in the visual novel space:

Collapsible section because this is a very long post

Speaking of Ace Attorney, while I think this other series is just decent and nothing really spectacular, if you want something that's a lot like that, the Danganronpa series (minus an action game spinoff) is basically Ace Attorney's gameplay transplanted into a high school setting with a "death game" premise and some light dating sim elements sprinkled in. The overarching narrative is eye-rolling but some of the cases are really good, and I enjoyed the more action-oriented take on the Ace Attorney courtroom scenes where debate occurs in real-time and you need to actually time your responses.

If you like sci-fi thrillers, some of my favorites are the Steins;Gate and the Zero Escape series.
The former is about some college kids who stumble upon the secret of time travel when they invent a device to send text messages back in time (and this later leads them into the depths of an international conspiracy); just make sure to play the original version and not Steins;Gate Elite, which is a recursive adaptation of the anime adaptation and a pretty blatant cash-grab. The non-linear sequel, Steins;Gate 0 (basically it's a what-if story where the events of the first one's true ending go slightly differently) is also really solid. Really my one gripe with S;G is that it completely lets down its transgender character and the second half of her narrative is easily the worst part of the game. Anyway, Steins;Gate is unique for the way you interact with its world: the majority of your interactions comes via the ability to pull up the protagonist's cell phone at any time, and your path is primarily determined by whether or not you answer it when it rings, and when you send and how you respond to text messages.
Zero Escape is a trilogy of games that are essentially a more strange high-concept version of Saw, where a cast of characters are trapped in some dangerous location and need to cooperate and compete with one another in order to escape. In addition to the traditional visual novel gameplay, your reading is also periodically interrupted so you can solve point-and-click escape room segments, the same puzzles that your characters face. In the first two, the narrative branches based on things like which doors you enter and by extension which escape rooms you explore; the third is more experimental and nonlinear. The first ZE game (Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors) is the strongest of the three, but the second is also really good, and the third is... fine. Although I do strongly recommend the original Nintendo DS version of 999 (emulate it if you have to) as it was designed around that specific hardware and the narrative really loses something when it's all crunched down into one screen in the later ports. I don't want to spoil it but the short version is there's a late-game plot twist that doesn't have nearly the same impact in the remaster.

AI: The Somnium Files is the current series from the writer behind Zero Escape and it's also quite solid. It's a sci-fi detective thriller that I thoroughly enjoyed despite some admittedly pretty major problems with inconsistent tone. So far it consists of two games: the original and a sequel called NirvanA Initiative. In these, you get similar puzzle segments to what you would see in ZE, but with some new gameplay twists (and more surreal puzzles since they take place inside dreams). They also tend to have multiple solutions, with the plot branching based on which answer you found.

If you're familiar with the games of Goichi "Suda 51" Suda and his company Grasshopper Manufacture (games like Killer7, No More Heroes, Lollipop Chainsaw, Killer Is Dead, or Let It Die), you might enjoy The Silver Case and its sequel The 25th Ward. The former was his first ever game, and it's another detective thriller. Really, mystery/thriller is a far more common genre in the visual novel space than people tend to think, and it suits the format pretty perfectly.

Fate/stay night is one of the most popular VNs of all time for a reason: while the franchise that followed it is mostly garbage (in my opinion), the original visual novel holds up extremely well. It's a modern fantasy story that tackles some really interesting themes, particularly in its latter two routes (there are three, but you're required to complete them in a specific order). The original release contained several pornographic scenes, which were clearly ghostwritten and of a notably lower quality than the rest of the game, but later re-releases (subtitled Realta Nua) removed them and it's a much better product as a result. Unfortunately, there is no official English localization and the PC version of said re-release is no longer sold, but a fan translation that includes several additional improvements exists and can be found with little difficulty (search for "fate stay night realta nua ultimate edition"), and the game itself can still be found via unofficial means if you know what I mean.

The When They Cry series is famously good albeit very, very, very long. It so far consists of three games, released episodically: Higurashi, Umineko, and (the currently ongoing) Ciconia. Higurashi is a horror story, Umineko is more of a murder mystery (and is possibly one of the best VNs ever penned, though it's around 2.5 times as long as War and Peace in terms of word count), and Ciconia is sci-fi.

I've personally rather enjoyed the works of Christine Love (Digital: A Love Story, don't take it personally babe it just ain't your story, Analogue: A Hate Story, and Hate Plus; I have not played Ladykiller in a Bind yet) but her earlier works are definitely on the rough side and Ladykiller is um, adult in nature. Still, Digital and don't take it personally are both very short and available for free.

I haven't played it myself yet, but I hear overwhelmingly positive things about The House in Fata Morgana. It's horror.

And by far the most niche suggestion on this list, which I've been dancing around naming for a while due to this, is Echo (not the shooter, a visual novel that happens to share its name). It's free on itch, and like DDLC it's a cross between dating sim and psychological horror, albeit much more subtle and on much more of a slow burn. And, though I concede the similarities between the two are purely superficial, it's also leagues better than DDLC in every conceivable way. It's about a journalism major going back to his dying childhood hometown over spring break, both to work on a project about the town's history and to meet back up with his childhood friend group one last time. It doesn't go well: old secrets resurface, cracks appear in the group's cohesion, and this is all before the town's supernatural horrors make themselves manifest. Across its five character routes, Echo tells a truly harrowing story, each narrative adding something new to the whole, answering some questions while raising others, and connecting to each other route in subtle ways that you probably won't even notice until you've finished all five and can start making those connections for yourself. In spite of some minor continuity issues with itself resulting from the way it was written (gradually updated and finished over six years), it's all very tightly-plotted and every single route is also really good on their own. TJ's route, for example, is one of the most viscerally uncomfortable things that I've ever played in my life, while the good ending of Leo's route hit me in a way nothing else has and forced me to take a break for a while, Flynn's is a winding mystery with multiple shocking turns, and Jenna's thoroughly engrossed me with its powerful themes and also has one of the most terrifying jump scares I've seen in my life (Carl's is definitely the weakest of the five but it's still better than some entire VNs).
The thing is, the reason I've been so cagey about recommending this one, is that it happens to be extremely gay (the protagonist himself is bisexual and four out of the five routes involve romancing other men) and all of the characters are furries. And there are a couple of sex scenes, which are not skippable. The thing is very clearly geared for a highly specific audience (the overlap in the venn diagram of queer furries and psychological horror fans is unquestionably pretty narrow).
Yeah, it's really not for everyone, but it is also one of the best visual novels that I've ever played (and it's free). Pretty much as soon as I finished it, I started writing about it, and now a month later I'm about halfway through the script for a feature-length video essay on the thing because there is so much to analyze and talk about. I am not going to link to it because off the top of my head I don't know what this forum's policy is regarding adult content, but I will just reiterate that it is extremely good.

I could probably think of a few more if I had the time but this post is already getting way too long.
And if you're curious, my personal top 5 favorite VNs of all time are in fact all on this list. In no particular order: 999, Steins;Gate, Umineko, Fate/stay night, and Echo.

Thank you very much for all those recommendations ! 😀
Very appreciated.

Exiting the world of VNs for a little bit, after having loved Lost Odyssey so much, I tried FFVI on the SNES. The intro really sells it. But the combat, while fine, made me realize that I suck at it too much and I may come back to VNs sooner than expected.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-18, 17:19:

Some of the changes in this release are nice, while others kinda feel like downgrades.

I personally think most of the replacement shaders are downgrades in BFG edition. But, I'm probably biased to how gritty things looked in standard Doom 3. The character models in particular seem quite messed up in several places too, in BFG edition.

The biggest gripe for me is BFG is a complete fork, you have to use a different source port for it, and of course every single mod would have to be re-built around BFG edition for this very same reason.

Finished the Lost Mission bonus campaign from Doom 3: BFG Edition. With only 8 levels, it was even shorter than RoE. The maps were fairly action packed though, with larger quantities of powerful enemies being regularly thrown at you.

The fights on those last couple of hell levels were particularly good. I managed to conserve some ammo by playing "dodgeball" with Hell Knights using the Grabber, which was kinda fun. Thanks to that, my BFG and rocket ammo was full during the end boss fight, and that made things a lot easier. It felt refreshing to have a straightforward, non-gimmicky boss for a change, even if it was basically just a reskin of the guardian from the original game, minus those flying things. It made the battle flow much better

Overall, I found the Lost Mission campaign to be fairly enjoyable. I think the developers finally dared to pit more than 3-4 enemies against you at the same time, because this was released in 2012, and PCs from that era could easily handle it. It's a fun little extra for fans of the original game, and a nice send off to Doom 3.

Still playing SR2, just got past Assault on Precinct 31. Preparing for the mission I bought some higher tier weapons. One of them is the AR-50 XMAC. It was expensive, but for some reason it has infinite ammo. Is that normal or just a bug? I also finished fight club and all assassinations, the last batch twice, because I forgot that the game doesn't autosave on completing activities.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2023-05-19, 07:14:

Exiting the world of VNs for a little bit, after having loved Lost Odyssey so much, I tried FFVI on the SNES. The intro really sells it. But the combat, while fine, made me realize that I suck at it too much and I may come back to VNs sooner than expected.

Final Fantasy VI has a really weird difficulty curve: it gets a lot more manageable once you're a little ways into it and have a few Espers to enhance your characters' abilities. But uh, I should probably warn you that the SNES version is glitched to hell, with the bugs around Relm's Sketch ability being so severe that in rare cases it can even permanently brick the physical cartridge.

I started playing Prey (2006) a bit on my modern-day pc. It works quite well only the screen tearing is a bit annoying. You can fix that issue by enabling v sync though. I think the setting is really cool with mixing up a alien invasion scenario with native american mythology.