MMaximus wrote:

Have you tried "Pro Tennis Tour" (which was also called "Great Courts" in some countries) - nice tennis game from the XT/286/EGA era. I used to play it at the time but never got very good at it.

Otherwise I used to enjoy "Mario Power Tennis" on Gamecube, and I think I also played "Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour" on SNES at a friends place... but I'm not sure you have any of these systems.

Yes I have tried "Great Courts" (I think that's what it was called here). Not bad from memory but I should try again. I don't have a SNES or Gamecube but am willing to invest for a good tennis game! Thanks for the suggestions.

I have since gone back and tried Sampras Extreme and managed to find some tactics to progress further - I've managed to beat Pete now so was happy with that, but that unlocks a harder tournament that has me stumped again. I've also tried a couple of tennis games on the Xbox 360 I had stashed in the shed, including Top Spin 4 which was well reviewed. They're OK but there's so much guff around the actual games that I find myself thinking about the simplicity of the SMD / PS1 games I've been enjoying.

I messed around with Stalker SoC a bit last night - I'm in the market for an open world game, preferably first person. I've played all the Stalker games to some extent - SoC by far the most, but none of them in years. I downloaded Lost Alpha, which I only recently heard about, and was quite impressed. It's still very much Stalker - it's cobbled together from an old version of the engine and the final assets from what I can tell - but visually looks a lot nicer. Performance was OK - I can't comment too much on the gameplay after only a couple of hours, some of which was spent working out how to turn off that nauseating head-bob. Whoever designed that was totally nuts - maybe it was less awful on a 4:3 monitor.

I also tried the original Stalker SoC + "the complete mod", but all I got for my 700mb download was an instant crash, so I left that there.

badmojo wrote:

I messed around with Stalker SoC a bit last night - I'm in the market for an open world game, preferably first person. I've played all the Stalker games to some extent - SoC by far the most, but none of them in years. I downloaded Lost Alpha, which I only recently heard about, and was quite impressed. It's still very much Stalker - it's cobbled together from an old version of the engine and the final assets from what I can tell - but visually looks a lot nicer. Performance was OK - I can't comment too much on the gameplay after only a couple of hours, some of which was spent working out how to turn off that nauseating head-bob. Whoever designed that was totally nuts - maybe it was less awful on a 4:3 monitor.

I also tried the original Stalker SoC + "the complete mod", but all I got for my 700mb download was an instant crash, so I left that there.

Complete mod seems to be disliked by the Stalker community anyway, it makes the game easier by increasing carry limit and might do other stuff too. The Zone Reclamation Project is the go-to bugfix pack for vanilla SoC. Still haven't tried Lost Alpha myself, I watched it being developed for so long I kinda lost intrest.

Playing Cities: Skylines. If you have limited free time stay as far from it as you can, it's one of those games that turn early evening into night in a blink of an eye.

I am playing Warhammer 40000: Gladius Relics of War. I got it from GOG (but Steam has it too). It is a turn based, hexagonal, strategy game. It resembles Civilization but not diplomacy, only war. However I am a fan of Warhammer 40000 universe and lore and the game is pretty fun.

I playing Beneath a Steel Sky, I like old adventure games, I don`t played them a lot but today I want to play them and buy them on GoG.

Just got into the final chapter before the end boss on Wolfenstein: The Old Blood. Hopefully I'll finish it this coming weekend. I'm also in the middle of Anvil of Dawn on my DOS PC. I'm currently in the Temple of the Moon, I'd guess roughly halfway through the game? It's growing on me and is fun in similar ways to Might & Magic 3 and 4.

Tiger433 wrote:

I playing Beneath a Steel Sky.

I absolutely adore this game.

Tiger433 wrote:

I playing Beneath a Steel Sky, I like old adventure games, I don`t played them a lot but today I want to play them and buy them on GoG.

I have this game boxed, I've had it since 1995 or so methinks. I first played it as a teenager, then as an adult I learned that it was actually a Judge Dredd adventure.

My mind was blown.

It's a fantastic game.

I recently downloaded and started Quantum Conundrum for the first time since I bought it back in 2014 or so. Cool game. Too bad I’m on Linux now, and the compatibility leaves most of the level an untextured black mess. I’ve since filed bug reports with both Steam Proton and WineHQ, since it affects a recent upstream Wine Staging as well.

Funny thing about the bug: it doesn’t occur when replaying a D3D9 apitrace log taken from Windows 10, but it does happen run direct from Linux. Also, the Linux log is way smaller than a Windows log. Both are linked from my Proton bug report. Beware: The Windows log is 225 MB, compressed, and unpacks to about 1.2 GB.

Though I wanted to take a short break from Doom&Co, my choice fell on Heretic and gosh I'm glad it did. It really is a very different game. Maybe I haven't played enough of fantasy and RPGs lately, but the first impression is so favorable, I'm afraid to play it on an account of being disappointed by something not quite perfect. Somehow it reminds me of my beloved "Dark Messiah of Might and Magic" - the same vivid colors and vibe. Once I'm done with 3 original episodes I'll update to the Shadow of the Serpent Riders.

While emotionally prepping for the first game, I installed World of Warcraft (Classic) and hooked up to the best private server out there (Light's Hope, vanilla blizzlike everything). According to many people WOW became progressively worse with every expansion since "The Burning Crusade" with it's flying mounts. I'm anything but a MMO player (except for some Elite Dangerous), but I did get to lvl20-something in mid 2000s. Atm a level 12 mage, not sure if I'll stick for long (afaik it takes about a year to get to lvl60 in vanilla). Generally I like slow paced games, but it's way too tranquil for my liking (don't care for PvP much) and time consuming (excuses like "just for 30 minutes" and "one more quest" are quickly getting old).

I'm in the last 1/3 of Anvil of Dawn on my Pentium DOS PC. Been playing for a couple of months now, about 5 hrs a week. Inching along, but making progress. Super fun game! Also playing F.E.A.R. (GOG version) and having a blast! I'm currently in the Bad Water interval, roughly 20% into the game.

I wanted to get back into an existing save of Gothic II I had from a while back but couldn't be bothered pulling my P4 out of the shed, so I ended up installing the GOG (Gold) version on my modern PC and then found myself messing around with various community patches and mods to make it feel a little less 2002. (Even in 2002 it was feeling a little 1999).

I'm always amazed at what hard working nerds do for these old classics and my only complaint is that what has been seen cannot be unseen - there's no going back to the release version after this. The steps I took are listed below and some pics follow - Fraps never takes a great quality screenshot but they hint at how nice the game looks. Performance is fine and I haven't had a single crash in a couple of hours play.

1the order of this is important!
2
3-- install the GOG version **with** NoTR 
4-- Rename gothic.exe to gothic2.exe in /system 
5-- install gothic2_fix-2.6.0.0-rev2.exe
6-- install Gothic2_PlayerKit-2.8.exe
7-- install G2NoTR-SystemPack-1.7.exe
8-- install GD3D11-X17_1.exe
9-- extract replacements_dds.7z (base game normalmaps) to system\GD3D11 
10-- extract 'Vurt's Gothic II Graphics Overhaul v0.7-4-0-7.7z' to system\GD3D11\replacements 
11-- (**optional, I ended up not doing this**) install widescreens_patch_GII_NOTR.exe and select 1080P
12
13-- turn vsync on in Nvidia control panel
14
15-- fix the mouse speed using Logitech gaming software, values:
16	polling rate: 500
17	X: 3200
18	Y: 3200

badmojo wrote:

to make it feel a little less 2002. (Even in 2002 it was feeling a little 1999).]

That's exactly how I felt about the first Gothic at the release as well. Still, from what I know the experience makes it up for all of it's visual shortcomings, so I'll definitely try to get into it at some point.

clueless1 wrote:

I'm in the last 1/3 of Anvil of Dawn on my Pentium DOS PC. Been playing for a couple of months now, about 5 hrs a week. Inching along, but making progress. Super fun game! Also playing F.E.A.R. (GOG version) and having a blast! I'm currently in the Bad Water interval, roughly 20% into the game.

How is this going for you? It's one of my most anticipated 'retirement project' games of its era, I have no idea how I missed it in its initial launch period. I was super into internet and games websites and whatnot too, maybe it was a very low key game for its time?

LGR did a retroreview of FEAR very recently, it really made me want to go back and replay it. I played it on an an AthlonXP/Radeon 9600PRO when it came out. I should install this game on my Athlon64/X1950PRO system if only to run the benchmark. Does the GOG version have the original game ISO in it?

appiah4 wrote:

LGR did a retroreview of FEAR very recently, it really made me want to go back and replay it. I played it on an an AthlonXP/Radeon 9600PRO when it came out. I should install this game on my Athlon64/X1950PRO system if only to run the benchmark. Does the GOG version have the original game ISO in it?

I don't have Fear on GOG, but it's extremely unlikely it comes with images of the dvd/cd's, they would just make the installer way larger for no good reason. Their games usually only have them if the game needs them for some reason, like DOS games that don't install everything on hard drive and wants to read movies/audio from the disc etc.

appiah4 wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

I'm in the last 1/3 of Anvil of Dawn on my Pentium DOS PC. Been playing for a couple of months now, about 5 hrs a week. Inching along, but making progress. Super fun game! Also playing F.E.A.R. (GOG version) and having a blast! I'm currently in the Bad Water interval, roughly 20% into the game.

How is this going for you? It's one of my most anticipated 'retirement project' games of its era, I have no idea how I missed it in its initial launch period. I was super into internet and games websites and whatnot too, maybe it was a very low key game for its time?

LGR did a retroreview of FEAR very recently, it really made me want to go back and replay it. I played it on an an AthlonXP/Radeon 9600PRO when it came out. I should install this game on my Athlon64/X1950PRO system if only to run the benchmark. Does the GOG version have the original game ISO in it?

@appiah4, which game are you referring to when asking how is it going for me? I'm guessing Anvil of Dawn based on the fact you bolded it?

Yes, Anvil of Dawn was the game I was asking about. Sorry for not being clear.

appiah4 wrote:

Yes, Anvil of Dawn was the game I was asking about. Sorry for not being clear.

I really am enjoying Anvil of Dawn. It's pretty simple and basic as far as RPGs go, but as a middle-aged man now, that's not a bad thing. There's a place for complex RPGs and simple ones alike. The story is decent, the character development is almost non-existent though. You pick from a handful of characters all with unique abilities, but then you can modify those abilities to whatever you choose. So the choice comes down to which character portrait you prefer. The graphics and MIDI music are top-notch. The artwork is beautiful. The voice acting overall is very good. BTW, everything is fully-voiced (thus requires playing off of the CD on a real DOS machine). It's first person, kind of Ultima Underworld like, but without free movement. Movement is in steps, but smoothly animated. Combat is very simple, with typical strike and back up to avoid getting hit. Magic is simple too. As a fighter, you can use and practice magic and be good at it. Most areas are grid maps that in typical fashion you clear out, look for secrets, find the required artifacts, then move on to the next area. It's not super long as far as RPGs go, from what I've read it can be finished in 30-50 hrs, depending on how completionist you approach it. There is an encumbrance limit, but you can carry over your rating, your stats just go down. No eating/drinking required. The monster death animations are a highlight. 😉

Still working on Gothic II over here and what a masterpiece this game is. It's such a densely packed world that I still feel like I'm finding new stuff after all these years - every nook and cranny is worth exploring and it makes the world feel lived in and ancient.

I'd started playing with the Night of the Raven expansion because most of the patches / mods I listed above seemed to require it, but I much prefer the original game so added one more step to my installation:

1-- install G2_Classic-1.1.exe
2-- change the icon to run this:
3	"C:\Games\Gothic 2 Gold\system\GothicStarter.exe" -game:G2_Classic -start

This doesn't quite revert everything that the expansion adds (some monster A.I. is still from NoTR for example) but it's 99% of the way there, and you still get all of the engine improvements which I've decided I can't live without. The GD3D11 patch really brings the world to life, with beautiful lighting, sun shafts, wet textures when it rains, etc. It's not perfect - the sun will apparently do a quick lap of the planet at times and the occasional NPC will become invisible, but what it brings is well worth those bugs.

Lo Wang!!! Got Shadow Warrior at a flea market, never played this game before. Tried the 3DFX patch but wasn't impressed so went back to the original graphics. Love playing these DOS games that I never had a chance to when they actually came out.