Lawnie wrote on 2022-10-03, 11:29:

Will I keep doing these updates? Possibly until 100. Then we'll see where we go from there.

No no! You're committed for eternity now!

At the (spoiler alert) end of Planet of the Apes, the camera will pan past the statue of liberty, to a heavily bearded Lawnie, scratching his latest Vogons update in the sand.

In an ideal world, that is.

I was laughing today with your Barbarian videos and the unleashed wrath about its controls, the effort to map the actions to a controller etc
Then I realized, you never found out that the actions are mapped to the F keys all along, did you? 😂

Lawnie wrote on 2022-10-03, 11:29:

This week's scripted video was my fourth Subscriber Showcase, where I shine a spotlight on people who follow me on YouTube and Twitter. There were some great up-and-comers and some notable names who joined me this time around!

A shame I had to pretty much abandon my YouTube channel, would have been kind of weirdly amusing if I ended up in your showcase.

I pretty much just livestream on Twitch, most of my YouTube activity went to the graveyard because I can't stand what Google/YouTube continues to do to the website. Even ended up just disabling comments on every single video (which I'm well aware of that permanently destroying perfectly okay comments) because that whole extremely vague COPPA BS, among other "Community Guidelines" vagueness made me just disable comments on every single video because I don't feel like getting sued for something that isn't even my fault. (nor my problem)

(You know I realize I probably should update my forum signature on VOGONS, I don't really communicate through Steam anymore, my YouTube channel is dead in the water, and most of my online happenings are on IRC and Twitch)

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-10-03, 12:55:

the camera will pan past the statue of liberty, to a heavily bearded Lawnie, scratching his latest Vogons update in the sand.

YOU MANIACS. YOU KEPT ME UPDATING THIS. DAMN YOU.

konc wrote on 2022-10-07, 14:30:

Then I realized, you never found out that the actions are mapped to the F keys all along, did you? 😂

Fortunately the Lemon Amiga control scheme informed me of this! I just decided to go with the alternate keys instead. I was determined to make it playable and (sort of) succeeded!

DracoNihil wrote on 2022-10-07, 15:08:

A shame I had to pretty much abandon my YouTube channel

I wouldn't beat yourself up about it or anything! There were many times I nearly stopped doing what I was doing, it's a very common thing for channels to just drop off as life gets in the way or their creators focus their efforts elsewhere. Maybe Twitch is better for you anyway.

The only reason my channel has continued throughout the years is down to sheer stubbornness on my part. It would have been far easier to stop.

Update the eighty-eighth!

Like Ringo Starr performing into his eighties, Lawnie has somehow returned and is getting by with a little help from his friends. Thank you for all the responses!

This week was a big one for the channel, with the beginning of the SIXTH season of the Random DOS Game Show, and to celebrate the usual Top 25 countdown from the previous season was in full flow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TErz0clSoSE

All four games on the Random DOS game show are worth mentioning in some capacity, and here's the tremendous and completely non-plagiarised theme from Bubble Blob II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whSZFDp4JGk

My playthrough of that particular game can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFBxzb9brmM

The new season kicked off with Bioware's ill-fated mech game Shattered Steel, which had a lot going for it until you actually had to play it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48yx1y_fJN8

Chatbot Eliza became the oldest game featured on the show when I discovered it was coded by MIT in 1966. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usYQdB4A1HE

And last but certainly not least was Sierra's wonderful Police Quest III, an excellent procedural point and click adventure game worthy of your time! It blew past the time limit with ease! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCn9IipxYTM

That's your lot, now back to making a stupid amount of DOS content for almost no money! What a clever idea! Lawnie... away!

Thanks for Shattered Steel.... I got into Mecha kind of by accident. I was going through a department store looking for games in English (I live in Germany but am of North American persuasion). I came across EarthSiege 2 and loved the fact that it was a Windows game as it had taken me ages to get Strike Commander to work on Windows 95.
Once I played that through I started collecting pretty much any and all Mecha as I found the customization and tactics a lot more satisfying than First Person Shooters. I also found the voice acting and stories interesting. So much so that I really got into reading BattelTech novels and such.
Another aspect was that I was never ever very good at anything physical (mostly due to genetics that make my knees extremely weak , my back prone to being thrown out and a tendency to get a hernia just by crossing my eyes...) be it sports or just doing a lot of work like moving house. The idea of having some sort of exo-skeleton really appealed to me to make up for my physical limitations...

I know this is a DOS thread but I would say StarSiege (EarthSiege 3) and MechoWarriror 3 are the best Mecha games all-round. They both have flaws, StarSiege with its shielding freezing bumper-car tactics for example (when two "HERCS"´ shields tough they freeze for a moment making getting a few good shots in easy).
Anyhoo... thanks for looking at it!

Update the eighty-ninth!

Like a head cold during school season, Lawnie is inevitable in his return!

This week's first scripted video was a look at ten more fantastic source ports, and a follow-up video to my previous entry about it. I still refuse to play OpenRCT2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xivn1nAIqI

The second scripted video? Why a review of Fallout of course! No, not that one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8WEDUaqme4

This week in Random DOS game land, there were two standouts but for very different reasons! Rebel Moon being the first, a Doom-meets-Marathon shooter that actually played quite well. It got a lot of views and discussion, but more because of who made it rather than the game itself! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl6YShrUrRw

The other title? Might & Magic IV, one of the greatest old-school grid-based RPG games ever made. It broke the time limit effortlessly and I had a lot of fun with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUFSjUpyWhw

Honestly? I had fun with every video I put out this week. Here's to that continuing! Until the next one! Lawnie... away!

Update the ninetieth!

Like a tannoy in a train station, Lawnie has spammed Vogons at least ninety times with the same sort of message now!

The first scripted video this week was AO486 Impressions, a video about the MiSTer core that does hardware emulation of a 486. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Tfbb78nCPY

The second scripted video was a quick review of one of my favourite classic racing games, Formula One Grand Prix, or World Circuit as you Americans know it as. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NiITkxdZc4

We were blessed with quality again in Random DOS Game land, with Akrania precursor Spirit of Adventure bringing the old school RPG goodness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJR5XRGLLbU

Then of course there was an Apogee platformer, which can never go wrong. Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure was fun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-wRtazm3xA

And I got my first taste of the well-crafted Busytown edutainment titles, and I liked it! Richard Scarry, take a bow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kserj8P4Vmg

That's plenty of videos to keep you warm during the cold months, enjoy!

Lawnie... away!

Lawnie wrote on 2022-10-23, 12:54:

Update the ninetieth! […]
Show full quote

Update the ninetieth!

Like a tannoy in a train station, Lawnie has spammed Vogons at least ninety times with the same sort of message now!

The first scripted video this week was AO486 Impressions, a video about the MiSTer core that does hardware emulation of a 486. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Tfbb78nCPY

The second scripted video was a quick review of one of my favourite classic racing games, Formula One Grand Prix, or World Circuit as you Americans know it as. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NiITkxdZc4

We were blessed with quality again in Random DOS Game land, with Akrania precursor Spirit of Adventure bringing the old school RPG goodness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJR5XRGLLbU

Then of course there was an Apogee platformer, which can never go wrong. Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure was fun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-wRtazm3xA

And I got my first taste of the well-crafted Busytown edutainment titles, and I liked it! Richard Scarry, take a bow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kserj8P4Vmg

That's plenty of videos to keep you warm during the cold months, enjoy!

Lawnie... away!

Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure is a classic which I really need to revisit. It's been nearly a few decades. Major time suckage.

Anyway, I'll start by checking out your review.

Glad to see you've joined the MiSTer crew. Good innit. I haven't used ao486 much, yet, but the arcade and console cores have been keeping me busy.

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-10-24, 02:10:

Glad to see you've joined the MiSTer crew. Good innit. I haven't used ao486 much, yet, but the arcade and console cores have been keeping me busy.

That's pretty much my exact use case too! I'm planning on hooking up a cheap video recorder to it and getting some footage of me playing that isn't from a phone camera at some point next year. The console cores are just so much more mature for it compared to the AO486. I know it'll get there eventually, but there's more barriers in the way than your standard one-size-fits-all system.

Having said that, I hooked up my old Raspberry Pi 2 to it and it's blasting out soundfonts/MUNT quite happily, so I was pleased at that despite the reduced polyphony because of using a Pi 2 instead of a 3/4.

Update the ninety-first!

This week's scripted video went viral (sort of)!

The reason? Well aside from sharing it about social media, it's simply titled DOS Gaming IS Better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFPYKbdhY3A

In Random DOS game land things were much less impressive, but there was one exceptional title: Desert Strike! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByPKOIldSzg

This isometric arcade helicopter game has been a big hit on multiple systems, and the DOS version doesn't disappoint. It's also old school hard-as-nails and I'm terrible at it! Good times!

Will there be more games soon? Will there be more Lawnie to come? Of course there will! Until then!

Update the ninety-second!

Like a swan finishing migration down river, Lawnie has returned for all to marvel at!

This week's scripted video extoled the virtues of Radix: Beyond the Void once more by including it in the 100 More Worthwhile DOS Games list. It's a massively underrated 6DOF shooter in the vein of Doom. Now thanks to its 2.0 patch and RAD source port, this game can be enjoyed by all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iEdT4X8SDc

In Random DOS Game Land Warlords II Deluxe was a must-play for fans of Heroes of Might & Magic, King's Bounty, or Disciples. If you know you like that sort of game, here's another for you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVU8iSQQcWc

As well as this, Hexen's tough-as-nails expansion Deathkings of the Dark Citadel appeared, and I did not get along with it in the slightest! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RJFKu5aU3I

That'll do you for this week! Expect more to come!

Lawnie... away!

Hi Lawnie,

Just wanted to thank you for putting out these videos. You've been doing a great job on them and the production quality is excellent. I only found your channel recently, so there's a lot of content that I can browse through.

Keep up the good work!

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2022-11-06, 20:54:

Just wanted to thank you for putting out these videos.

Thank you Nemo! It's a lot of effort, but it doesn't feel like work when it's something you enjoy, you know? Just gotta keep this forward momentum going and have more people notice me over the coming year!

That and play lots and lots of DOS games...

Update the ninety-third!

Lawnie is back! And better than ever!

This week's scripted video was called Anemoia. And focused on how the youth of today are messed up and want to live in a past they never got to experience, and how this naturally pertains to DOS gaming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcLZNFGj0-E

I also did a collaboration on Angel's channel where we talked about our favourite old Star Trek games. That can be found here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdTIzPcNQeQ

All the Random DOS games were technically good this week, with Commander Keen's second adventure suffering from no sound due to a recording error. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO4L4M-7Ztw

Tsumera was an interesting Chinese pinball game with good physics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qzqi7WKCcs

NASCAR Racing 2 was a superb sequel to a game I had already included in my Top 25. Papyrus do really good motor sports simulators. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGHc6yBPxtQ

And finally H!Zone wasn't bad because id tech 1, but it wasn't good either because the levels were mostly shovelware and the 12 new episodes apparently aren't amazing either. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzLRCGhF0S4

Enough links for you? I sincerely hope so! Lawnie... AWAY!

Lawnie wrote on 2022-11-13, 11:19:

This week's scripted video was called Anemoia. And focused on how the youth of today are messed up and want to live in a past they never got to experience, and how this naturally pertains to DOS gaming.

Well thank goodness I grew up with 486 and Pentium II PCs. I lived through the 90's!

Update the ninety-fourth!

Like a crazed mad man, that Lawnie is back at it again!

This week, quite frankly, had an enormous amount of content.

The first scripted video was a rant about the lack of ideas from modern developers and the problems they face. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRe1-Gx42V8

The SECOND scripted video was a recap of my second season playthrough of Championship Manager 01/02 as manager of Chester City. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QchHAZGSwxI

The final part of the Star Trek gaming discussion with Angel came out on his channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG376C5upqY

And in Random DOS game land? They were all pretty good too!

Brett Hull Hockey wasn't for me, but hockey fans corrected me and said it actually looked decent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtyH8cd53cY

Self-Control is a nice tile-based Polish puzzler. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdry-_xESZo

Rage Against the Machine is an aptly-titled Berzerk clone that's lethal! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPMsNIHqQnY

And then we have Frontier: Elite II. Probably the best space exploration game ever made for DOS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjmd1nMMeSc

That's HOURS of content. You're going to be sick of my voice at this rate! Until next time... LAWNIE. AWAY!

Lawnie wrote on 2022-11-20, 12:54:

And then we have Frontier: Elite II. Probably the best space exploration game ever made for DOS.

Aw man, I feel bad for you fumbling around in that. Even dogfighting in Frontier is not a straightforward thing to figure out.

Really was ahead of the time, and you did bring up a rather amusing point. People being all wow'd at No Man's Sky and Outer Wilds, yet they've never seen this or NOCTIS IV for that matter!

I started a topic on Reddit about this and posted a video on my channel about it, but for the few Vogons that haven't already seen either of those and frequent this thread:

Recently I made a Megalist of 960 DOS games that were highly-regarded by publications back in the day or people looking back fondly upon them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnnMgOKbsyU.

For the Community Additions Edition I open the floor to the internet to come up with 40 DOS games that I missed, 40 titles that weren't covered by the all-encompassing list, be they obvious selections or obscure classics.

The list can be found here for now: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DaVZZAIcrXnt … 5oBy2I6Z9d/view

Feel free to take a look and decide what's missing and tell me in the comments if you come across anything.

...have at it!

A couple of my favorites as a kid were Solar Winds and EGA Trek. I'm not seeing Traffic Department 2142 in there either. Maybe the obscure roguelike Omega?