I got up this morning to a waiting email from the developer of Skyrogue, explaining how to fix a control issue I'd been having. 'I'll just try that out quickly & see if it solves it,' I thought (it did.)

Suddenly it's 3 PM and I haven't even had breakfast yet. 😜 Goddamnit.

Seriously, this is good stuff. HIGHLY recommended.

xjas wrote:

Suddenly it's 3 PM and I haven't even had breakfast yet.

That's the mark of a truly good game. I'm not much of a flying game guy (other than the Wing Commander series, Strike Commander, Pacific Strike, Wings of Glory), but I will seriously take a closer look at Skyrogue, because I trust your opinion.

I'm still deep in Pillars of Eternity (it is taking an eternity to beat...) and Metro 2033. Really enjoying both. There are parts of Metro I'm not crazy about, but the story is brilliant and keeping me drawn in. So far, I've logged 44 hours in PoE (still in Act II finishing up some quests in Defiance Bay) and 9.5 hours in Metro 2033 (I'm knee deep in the 4th out of 7 Chapters).

badmojo wrote:

Good luck! It’s a bit of an odd duck but I found a lot to like there, before ultimately missing the constant stream of wolves / bandits that most open world RPGs throw at you to keep things interesting.

So I had misgivings before playing of there being no magic (there is if you count the potions) and thinking that this game would be tedious but I'm 6hrs in so far and it's pretty good. Obviously the beginnings of games are pretty slow but it's good about teaching how the world works. Ran into some bugs not nothing game breaking just annoyances. The checkpoint save system is annoying me, I'm currently fighting myself to not install the mod so that you can save anywhere so I'm sure I'll break down eventually.

I do like how difficult combat can be and how good it feels to earn something rather than just clicking buttons a bunch of times until your opponent is dead.

The game is also pretty demanding 25+ fps in the first major town you show up in at 2560x1440 with full details with an i7-6700k and 1080 TI but still playable.

DosFreak wrote:

So I had misgivings before playing of there being no magic (there is if you count the potions) and thinking that this game would be tedious but I'm 6hrs in so far and it's pretty good. Obviously the beginnings of games are pretty slow but it's good about teaching how the world works. Ran into some bugs not nothing game breaking just annoyances. The checkpoint save system is annoying me, I'm currently fighting myself to not install the mod so that you can save anywhere so I'm sure I'll break down eventually.

I do like how difficult combat can be and how good it feels to earn something rather than just clicking buttons a bunch of times until your opponent is dead.

The game is also pretty demanding 25+ fps in the first major town you show up in at 2560x1440 with full details with an i7-6700k and 1080 TI but still playable.

I ended up modding quite a few things but fixing the save system was first, really wasn't happy with that. And yes this is the first game in many years which had me googling around for tips on improving performance - there's a mod out there (just a refined user.cfg) which helped my framerate a lot outside of towns, but my i5 just doesn't cut it in towns and sits at 100%. I've been hoping that a patch will come along to fix that but it doesn't look to be happening. I'm only aiming for 1080p @ 60Hz over here.

The opening act is all on rails but once you're set free then it's a fantastic world to explore with amazing levels of detail. The question this game makes me ask myself though is how much realism do I want in a computer game?

clueless1 wrote:

xjas wrote:

Suddenly it's 3 PM and I haven't even had breakfast yet.

That's the mark of a truly good game. I'm not much of a flying game guy (other than the Wing Commander series, Strike Commander, Pacific Strike, Wings of Glory), but I will seriously take a closer look at Skyrogue, because I trust your opinion.

I'm still deep in Pillars of Eternity (it is taking an eternity to beat...) and Metro 2033. Really enjoying both. There are parts of Metro I'm not crazy about, but the story is brilliant and keeping me drawn in. So far, I've logged 44 hours in PoE (still in Act II finishing up some quests in Defiance Bay) and 9.5 hours in Metro 2033 (I'm knee deep in the 4th out of 7 Chapters).

I just finished replaying 2033 Redux started replaying Last Light. The series really deserves more praise. It's a shame the upcoming game is infested with always online DRM and a GoG realease is nowhere in sight 😵

On a related note, I noticed that the sound positioning is a bit messed up in those games. Whenever something is above or below you (like those scorpion bug things or rats that crawl on ceilings and holes), the positioning gets all messed up and if its slightly behind you it sounds like its in front and vice versa. I keep expecting enemies to attack me from the front only to get stung in the back and vice versa. Happens with both integrated audio and on an X-fi card.

Munx wrote:

I just finished replaying 2033 Redux started replaying Last Light. The series really deserves more praise.

I probably should've sprung for the Redux versions. I'm playing the original Metro 2033 that was a temporary giveaway on Steam a little while ago. The engine is poorly optimized and gives micro stutters even with >60 fps framerates. Plus, it randomly crashes on startup and forces Safe Mode and video reconfiguration. The best workaround I found was after finishing a play session, shut down the Steam client. Next time I launch the game, it simultaneously starts Steam and almost never crashes. 😒

Currently almost done with Chapter 4 with 10 hr 51 min time logged in the game.

Also just finished Defiance Bay in Pillars of Eternity. Heading out now to Dyrford Village to continue the main quests and have logged 53 hours in the game to this point.

clueless1 wrote:

Munx wrote:

I just finished replaying 2033 Redux started replaying Last Light. The series really deserves more praise.

I probably should've sprung for the Redux versions.

I bought the Redux pair yesterday for the PS4, as the Playstation Store has a sale on, seven quid for the two games. I do have Metro 2033 on the XBox 360, but I've never gotten around to playing it, and I've heard that the Redux versions do play slightly better (not always a given, ask the people who've had so much trouble with the Bioshock remasters, for example).

moto racer! on a banshee card, it runs really nicely in windows xp.

but i really want to play redline racer. i'm building a P3 machine at the moment for windows 98 gaming but have been having an incredibly hard time getting it to work. it doesn't run on win xp and the patch i got won't work with 3dfx.

motocross madness is next! loved that one as a kid, even tho i only played a shareware demo off a sampler cd...

in australia we have a store called "Harvey Norman" which is a retail chain of tech stores to get TVs/computers/audio/whitegoods etc. We have an exhibition called "ekka" every year, and at the ekka we see performances, eat fair food, watch fireworks and get showbags full of candy/toys/magazines/sticker logos etc etc. One year we had a Harvey Norman showbag, i was stoked! the sampler CD had Motocross Madness, Star Wars episode 1 (not the racer game) and a few other mentionable demos that ran on our 4mb graphics card. it also introduced me to MP3 files cos i guess they wanted to fill the CD to the brim (they were all non copyrighted tracks i suppose). there was even a grand theft auto 2 t-shirt in it!

Getting back into Dawn of War II Retribution multiplayer with Elite Mod.. Nothing else can rub that RTS itch quite the same way.

foil_fresh wrote:

in australia we have a store called "Harvey Norman" which is a retail chain of tech stores to get TVs/computers/audio/whitegoods etc. We have an exhibition called "ekka" every year, and at the ekka we see performances, eat fair food, watch fireworks and get showbags full of candy/toys/magazines/sticker logos etc etc. One year we had a Harvey Norman showbag, i was stoked! the sampler CD had Motocross Madness, Star Wars episode 1 (not the racer game) and a few other mentionable demos that ran on our 4mb graphics card. it also introduced me to MP3 files cos i guess they wanted to fill the CD to the brim (they were all non copyrighted tracks i suppose). there was even a grand theft auto 2 t-shirt in it!

Played that Motocross Madness demo to death, basically just catapulting the bike up the the steep walls around the edges of the track for hours .. Star Wars: Phantom Menace game, on the other hand, was a bit of a dud ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's also funny how Motocross Madness 2 added vegetation, but trees weren't obstacles but purely decorative. What's up with that? Also had those weird floaty-but-direct controls.

Had a major Pillars of Eternity week (almost 20 hrs!...wife is doing a theatre production so I'm alone most nights during her rehearsals). This game has been great since day one, but sometime around the middle of Act 2, it got crazy good! I'm 73.5 hrs in and I think I must have another 20 hrs at least to go. I must be a super slow player because the comments I've seen indicate other people at around where I'm at have typically played 30-60 hrs. There's a LOT of reading in this game (much of it optional) and I find myself digging into the lore so maybe that's part of it. But this is part of the conundrum of being an RPG enthusiast and working family man. An 80 hr game could take 3-4 MONTHS to finish! I really wish someone would capitalize on adults with jobs RPGs and cater them to be closer to 20-30 hrs. I had the idea awhile back of building games to automatically cut out optional side quests at the beginning when you tell it how many hours you want the game to be.

My other playthrough is Metro 2033 and I'm getting pretty close there. I'm smack in the middle of chapter 6, and I imagine I should be done with this game within a few hours. I haven't played this game very often (averaging about 20 minutes a day) so it's also slow-going. Part of the problem is the save checkpoints make it hard to jump in for a few spare minutes because I don't want to not be able to reach a checkpoint and have to start over if I run out of time. But so far I'm 14 hrs into this game. Very fun game, btw. The battles are a little too intense for me (I get anxiety easily so it forces me to keep my play sessions short), but the parts with no fighting I LOVE! Amazing story, brilliant voice acting, and very believable...except for the monsters. They are just too fantastic-looking to be actual nuclear mutants IMO. And the rest of the game being as realistic as it is makes the goofy fantasy monsters seem even more unrealistic.

Just started Thief: The Dark Project. Playing on my P3-933 with Voodoo2 SLI and Audigy EAX. 17" CRT monitor at 1024x768. 😎

clueless1 wrote:

Just started Thief: The Dark Project. Playing on my P3-933 with Voodoo2 SLI and Audigy EAX. 17" CRT monitor at 1024x768. 😎

EAX over A3D?

I'm currently playing Detroit: Become Human - my first Quantic Dream game since Omikron way back when.

infiniteclouds wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

Just started Thief: The Dark Project. Playing on my P3-933 with Voodoo2 SLI and Audigy EAX. 17" CRT monitor at 1024x768. 😎

EAX over A3D?

I'm currently playing Detroit: Become Human - my first Quantic Dream came since Omikron way back when.

Quantic Dream has only gotten worse with each game.

I finished Dragon Quest XI and I have to say that while I liked it loads better than Final Fantasy XV it was still a disappointment. This game really felt more like a walking simulator than an RPG, everything was so heavily balanced with no chance of random loot or better spells than you were designed to have at any point. Really to me it might as well have just been in a straight hallway the entire game, the illusion of free travel never really felt free to me since you were so heavily balanced, it really just felt like being on a leash the whole time.

The combat was passable but everything felt so capped that it was more like you could either win the fights or you were doing something wrong, it never really felt like I was making a difference, most of the abilities seemed to have about the same effect and your characters level and weapon make most of the difference with effectiveness so its all capped by the constrictive design.
Sidequest were dumb for the most part consisting of go fight this monster and use this specific move felt like it made up a good 25% of the quests.

I found the characters to be insipid or annoying...really not much to write home about.

So meh overall for Dragon Quest XI, not enough of an RPG and too much of bad characters and childish story telling.

I'm starting Metro Exodus, w/RTX enabled now...

I've been playing Oxygen Not Included for a couple days. - https://www.klei.com/games/oxygen-not-included -

Its one of those games that seems real simple on the surface, but is really very challenging. first couple games you fail miserably, but every failure is just an opportunity to do it again, correctly. Just in the day, I lost track of a good 5 hours. I had a colony going for 220 days when I discovered a hot steam vent, and didn't cap it in time. lost 1/4 of my population and its in a death spiral as there aren't enough people to keep machines going, plants harvested, etc.

Well worth the $25 I paid to be in early access.

clueless1 wrote:

Had a major Pillars of Eternity week

You nearly had me with this one but I just can't come at that isometric, dialog heavy gameplay. Sounds amazing though all the same.

I've been spending a lot of time (and money) on an experimental setup for my consoles and C64, using a RetroTink 2X, and HDMI to VGA converter, and a VGA monitor. The PS1 and SMD look incredible (using a HD RetroVision cable for both) and the C64 looks pretty good too. So far my testing has mainly centered around "Pete Sampras Tennis '97" on the PS1 - I freaking love that game.

But I'm starting to feel the pull of an open world RPG - it might be time I finally got serious about Gothic 1.

badmojo wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

Had a major Pillars of Eternity week

You nearly had me with this one but I just can't come at that isometric, dialog heavy gameplay. Sounds amazing though all the same.

Most of the major dialog is voice-acted (quite well). In fact, I was surprised at just how much voice acting there was. Then there were those conversations where you can tell they added something later because that last line is the only one that is not voice acted in the whole conversation.

The biggest strength in this game is the development of the NPC characters that join your party and how their stories tie into the overall theme of the game. The plot is pretty complex, but they did a pretty good job of fleshing it out over the 80 hrs it took me to finish it. And that endgame...SO satisfying!

badmojo wrote:

So far my testing has mainly centered around "Pete Sampras Tennis '97" on the PS1 - I freaking love that game.

I've really only gotten into one tennis game, Virtua Tennis on the Dreamcast. Any idea how it compares?

Personally I was really disappointed with PoE. Coming from other Obsidian games where the choice/consequence was so deep -- I stopped playing after the first major city where, no matter your actions and who you side with, things play out the same -- reminded me of Telltale. I also wasn't a fan of all of the backer/kickstarter credit stuff built into the game world and the writing in general didn't grab me.

Loved their work on New Vegas.

infiniteclouds wrote:

Personally I was really disappointed with PoE. Coming from other Obsidian games where the choice/consequence was so deep -- I stopped playing after the first major city where, no matter your actions and who you side with, things play out the same.

Without finishing the game, how do you know things play out the same? 😀 I think what you're getting at is, there doesn't seem to be right/wrong or better/worse choices -- just different. But in the end, the choices you made throughout the game are laid out before you in this epic endgame sequence I mentioned, including the ultimate consequences of those choices.

clueless1 wrote:

I've really only gotten into one tennis game, Virtua Tennis on the Dreamcast. Any idea how it compares?

No I haven't ever seen a Dreamcast in real life I don't think. I've played many a tennis game in my day but can't really quantify why this one in particular stands out - it's pretty no-frills. The controls are great and I never feel cheated, those are probably my core requirements of any sports game.