Almost halfway through Quake II (Drilling Area of the Mines) and a little over halfway through Crusader: No Remorse (Mission 8 ).

I keep doing a mission or two of XCOM 2 every day; had this on my backlong for too long and I need to finish it before next Steam sale to justify buying War of the Chosen.

My Baldur's Gate run is currently on hold, I'm at Candlekeep and will go back to that after XCOM 2, unless I start a random indie game, a random retro game, or Divinity Original Sin instead..

Been binging on Diablo 2 again for quite a while now, it's just too addicting for me to stop once I start 😅 . So far I have four characters to choose from - Barbarian (level 61), Amazon (level 45), Necromancer (level 32), and Sorceress (level 22). Never played as Necromancer before, and I must admit it's a lot of fun to raise 7-8 skeletal mages and a clay golem to fight for you while watching from a safe distance (and have an annoyed sidekick give you amusing looks at the same time 🤣 ). If I can find the will to stop, I'll probably give Terminal Velocity a turn; it's been years since I last played all three episodes.

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

Been binging on Diablo 2 again for quite a while now, it's just too addicting for me to stop once I start 😅 . So far I have four characters to choose from - Barbarian (level 61), Amazon (level 45), Necromancer (level 32), and Sorceress (level 22). Never played as Necromancer before, and I must admit it's a lot of fun to raise 7-8 skeletal mages and a clay golem to fight for you while watching from a safe distance (and have an annoyed sidekick give you amusing looks at the same time 🤣 ). If I can find the will to stop, I'll probably give Terminal Velocity a turn; it's been years since I last played all three episodes.

That's funny, I'm playing too! I made a single player sorceress and got her to 35.. now i'm playing a hardcore sorceress online.

I usually always play hardcore necromancers, so I'm changing it up a bit. Summon necros are great for hardcore mode.

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

I'll probably give Terminal Velocity a turn; it's been years since I last played all three episodes.

I played that recently. I ended up retiring after the first episode, as it was just more of the same and episode 1 took me pretty long to complete. In general, the episodic format of the mid 90s (eg. Duke Nukem, Quake) did not work well for me. When I beat or finish a game, I like a long build up to a single ending. Breaking it up makes it feel like three separate games.

clueless1 wrote:

Almost halfway through Quake II ...

How's Quake II working for you? I did get into it once years after it was released but I haven't been able to muster any enthusiasm for it since. Quake 1 is a bit the same actually - a technical marvel but didn't have the soul of DOOM I felt.

badmojo wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

Almost halfway through Quake II ...

How's Quake II working for you? I did get into it once years after it was released but I haven't been able to muster any enthusiasm for it since. Quake 1 is a bit the same actually - a technical marvel but didn't have the soul of DOOM I felt.

Really well! I'm playing it on Easy, which is perfect for me. It allows me to focus on the puzzles and gives me just enough of a challenge on the combat. Once I got more intentional about hitting F1 at the "Computer Updated" message and paying attention to my objectives, it got more intuitive. It's actually one of the better FPS games I've played! Plus, there's that warm fuzziness of playing it on V2 SLI.

clueless1 wrote:

badmojo wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

Almost halfway through Quake II ...

How's Quake II working for you? I did get into it once years after it was released but I haven't been able to muster any enthusiasm for it since. Quake 1 is a bit the same actually - a technical marvel but didn't have the soul of DOOM I felt.

Really well! I'm playing it on Easy, which is perfect for me. It allows me to focus on the puzzles and gives me just enough of a challenge on the combat. Once I got more intentional about hitting F1 at the "Computer Updated" message and paying attention to my objectives, it got more intuitive. It's actually one of the better FPS games I've played! Plus, there's that warm fuzziness of playing it on V2 SLI.

Recently I have been playing Quake II for a couple of hours, and I have to say that mi opinion is better than when released.
But I feel more attraction for Doom. 😈

About other games, yesterday I've found a CD with the game Ignition... in the same box that the DVD I've been looking for, The Last Starfighter!!! 😎

I've spent the better part of the past month playing Gothic 3, a long-time favourite of mine. I extolled its virtues the last time I played it but I made a significant improvement to my install this time around - I modded the sound the hero makes when he dies 😵. The default sound is so freaking annoying, and you hear it a lot in the early stages of the game. To fix it I borrowed a death sound from Quake 1 - far more dignified. Simply extract the attached RAR into your install directory and profit.

I really do love this game but it's exasperatingly long; I'm going to fall short yet again I suspect, but I've had fun doing it:

Doki Doki Literature Club

oeuvre wrote:

Doki Doki Literature Club

This may well be the only game in its genre that ever appealed to me, I'm also very very curious about it but I can't get myself to play something in the genre anyway.

appiah4 wrote:

oeuvre wrote:

Doki Doki Literature Club

This may well be the only game in its genre that ever appealed to me, I'm also very very curious about it but I can't get myself to play something in the genre anyway.

I'm not into romance sims or dating games at all but this one was quite enjoyable. Worth playing, doesn't take very long (2-3 hours) and even if you don't enjoy it... it's definitely a unique experience. Also it's free and don't read about it anywhere else other than their site due to spoilers.

Just finished Crusader: No Remorse. I checked out No Regret, but don't think I will play it through right now. I'm actually looking hard at Dark Sun: Shattered Lands for my next game. Just read through the manual and peeked at the clue book to refamiliarize myself with the lore. I'll start creating some characters and see how it holds my interest. 😀

Quake II from the comfort of my bed with a Dualshock 2*.

*Connected to the XP box via a PS1/2 to USB adapter cable. Recognized in Windows as a 'PLAYSTATION 3 controller,' but works fine.

Just started Lords of Xulima, another one of those modern RPGs trying to hearken back to "oldschool" RPG gameplay. It was released in 2014 and has gotten mixed reviews. Some love it, some think it's meh. I'm only about an hour into it, but so far I think it's a keeper. The combat reminds me of Might & Magic. It's turn-based, and along the right edge you see the order of combat (based on Speed/Initiative and modified by health, injuries, etc). You have typical front row tanks and back row buffs. The graphics are very pretty and the music so far has been top notch in a High Fantasy orchestral sort of way. World travel is depicted isometric-style (you only see a single character representing your party), while combat has a first person perspective.

Gaulen is the main character in the story, but the rest of the party can either be created by hand or you can use pre-made characters. I've created mine (Arnellis is the name I typically use for "my" character, and the rest are favorite names I've borrowed from other memorable RPGs).

Just finished the Stormcloak quest in Skyrim. At least I think so (we've taken Solitude).

I wish this game wasn't so one-sided in it's depiction of the Stormcloak vs Imperial war. I identify with the Stormcloaks but the game developers are constantly making jabs at me for it. They could have depicted the Stormcloak argument (and it's people) much more thoughtfully than they did. It would be a better game if they had done so.
I've noticed this with modern Bethesda games in general. The writers pick the factions they like, exaggerate the details to make it painfully obvious which side they want you to be on, and then write the dialog for the opposing side with transparent sarcasm. I find it lazy and childish. They could do so much better if they were willing to try.

Anyway, I'll give this game credit for finally letting me fight the Empire, even if I didn't like the execution. Stormcloaks win. 😀

I haven't touched the main quest. I've seen a lot of it in youtube LPs but it didn't grab my interest.
I guess it's time to start the "shouting" thing and get into a bunch of endless fights with bulletproof cliff racers. But at my current level it might not be so bad.
Either that, or try to catch up on the thousands of miscellaneous quests that have been thrown at me and forgotten. I'll probably be doing that primarily.

I started playing Descent 3 again.

Still had it in an original box, but last I touched it must've been when I was a young teenager.

Back then I sucked at it and found it extremely hard to beat, even on lowest difficulty. But I think that might've been the fault of a crappy analog joystick that was way too small, always slipping on the table and didn't center properly.

Nowadays, with a SideWinder Force Feedback Pro, I am just blasting through the levels. This game is insane fun! 😎

I just wish I knew how to enable A3D with my SB Live...is it even possible?

Been playing Lords of Xulima for about a week and just started Half-Life a couple of days ago. I even got to experience the elevator bug.

Xulima is very satisfying. The combat really stands out, but it's got a pretty good story too, and the graphics are gorgeous, not to mention the soundtrack.

In Half-Life, I just got to the tentacled creature on the Blast Pit level. This is already farther than I got in the game when it first came out. I can't remember why i'd stopped playing it so soon, as it's been brilliant so far.

schmatzler wrote:

I just wish I knew how to enable A3D with my SB Live...is it even possible?

It appears Descent3 supports A3D 2.0, and the SB Live only does A3D 1.0 (through software emulation), so no. Well, there was a thing called A2D which was supposedly an A3D 2.0 emulator from Aureal themselves...but it doesn't actually offer full A3D 2.0 support...it just translates a subset of possibly commands to EAX, i.e. you lose the key positional audio stuff.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/kirben/3dsoftware.html

That Lords of Xulima does look interesting but I confess that I’ve never really given any turn based combat games the time of day - I’d like to change that one day, I feel like a fraud ATM claiming that I’m an RPG fan.

I haven’t played through through Half Life for a few years but I remember thinking it was all brilliant, except the last couple of levels. But then I often give up during a game’s boss battle because I rarely find them and enjoyable (fraud).