Still on Deus Ex: Human Revolution and I just got to the point where you visit Shanghai for the second time. I was caught off guard by the ambush, but quickly understood the situation, loaded a previous save and adjusted my gear and tactics accordingly. The stun gun worked overtime, and I had to reload a lot until I managed to knock out all enemies in time.

Saving the pilot girl on a non-lethal playthrough was pretty hard, but it sure felt satisfying. I liked her character a lot, so there was no way I'd just let her die there. This reminded me of a similar encounter with Paul in the original Deus Ex, and they nailed it this time as well. Kudos to the devs for allowing players to turn a seemingly hopeless situation around once again. Seriously, this game is great in pretty much all aspects except for the shitty boss fights.

Recently Age of empires 640x480 and c&c red alert 640x400. Hits on another level on a Sun x7149A (diamondtron 2070sb rebadge) [colour calibrated i1 display pro and luminance corrected - green 77cd/m2 and white 115 cd/m2] with sound from a logitech z623.

I've been playing a lot of Super Mario Brothers lately, emulated with NESticle on my Socket 7 machine. I'm sure there have been studies done as to why this game is so awesome - it's just perfect. I used to be able to finish it but am dying mid world 7 currently. NESticle of course allows you to save state so I'm going to take advantage of that to get some practice with worlds 7 and 8 - I don't have endless hours to run through the whole game each time anymore. Even when using the warp zones it's 20 mins or so each time.

Nice. I'm similarly "stuck" in SMB around world 7. Been playing it on my childhood cart in a Retron 1 HD. It's been an experience. I don't think I've put any serious effort into it maybe since I was 5 years old, and even then I had a game genie. That said, it is a much easier game than I remember. I play maybe once or twice a week, and I can basically play it straight through without warp zones, only maybe getting hit by flying cheap cheaps.

badmojo wrote on 2024-08-18, 22:49:

I've been playing a lot of Super Mario Brothers lately, emulated with NESticle on my Socket 7 machine. I'm sure there have been studies done as to why this game is so awesome - it's just perfect. I used to be able to finish it but am dying mid world 7 currently. NESticle of course allows you to save state so I'm going to take advantage of that to get some practice with worlds 7 and 8 - I don't have endless hours to run through the whole game each time anymore. Even when using the warp zones it's 20 mins or so each time.

Wow, NESticle. This brings back memories. It was the first NES emulator I used, and how disappointed I was that it could not play my copy of TMNT3 without softlocking in one particular location. It may have been a limitation of the emulator, or a slightly buggy ROM, but the same ROM worked when I switched emulators.

TMNT3 was a game I wanted to play, because years prior I got to play it with a friend on real hardware, and was amazed (being a TMNT fan in general). Never mind that it's not an easy game and I sucked in general. 😆

As to Super Mario Brothers, to my shame I never played those games, despite getting SNES ROMs for them. My sister has, though, and to the best of my knowledge she has even beaten some of them.

Also been playing Street fighter zero 3 and marvel Vs Street fighter on the Saturn every once on a while using saroo hd cart and two traces cut for the vcd on the Saturn PCB to remove issues for saroo cart. Use the odv via scart and VGA to crt

Think I'm entering the final stretch in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, having just finished the integrated DLC missions. Honestly, I wasn't impressed with this content, and felt that it negatively impacted the pacing of the story.

I didn't mind the mandatory stealth sections, but I can see how those might be annoying for other people. That said, I found the DLC levels to be a bit boring, compared to the base game. They basically amounted to long, tedious dungeon crawls, with not much else to break up the monotony. Also, I concur that this DLC would have worked better if it had been kept as an optional, standalone thing, instead of being forcibly shoved into the main storyline.

Lastly, due to some plot shenanigans, you get no tangible benefit from this entire ordeal, and ultimately end up right where you started in terms of skill points. In my view, that design decision turns this DLC into a completely pointless detour.

Finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The third boss was a walk in the park compared to the second one, but there's a reason for that. By that point, I had fully upgraded my Heavy Rifle and got a few of those damage resisting augmentations as well. This changed things dramatically. I didn't even bother looking for alternative solutions this time, just used an EMP grenade and then shot him in the face till he dropped. This stealthy hacker has learned his lesson: always carry the biggest available gun for boss encounters. Also, I didn't take the "upgrade" that was offered earlier, as that seemed too suspicious, and it payed off big time here.

The final level was kinda meh. It felt weird that the ending you get is determined by which button you press. But then again, that's not too different from the original Deus Ex, although it was much better executed there. Still, I wish they had taken more of the player's actions over the course of the game into account, with a Fallout style slide show showing the fate of certain individuals and places etc.

Overall, I found this game to be very enjoyable, with the notable exception of the boss fights. The story was very good, the many ways to traverse levels and reach your objectives were spot on, and the combat and stealth gameplay got pretty solid after a few upgrades. It's definitively a worthy entry in the Deus Ex series.

Just got the GW2 expansion installed on mine and my wife's systems.!!?Definitely can't wait to play Janthir Wilds when she gets home from work tonight. Right now watching Mighty Teapots stream of what's going on

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-08-20, 17:54:

This stealthy hacker has learned his lesson: always carry the biggest available gun for boss encounters.

Back then during launch I was very confused by all the people having trouble with the bosses, I was all like "what you mean, you aren't carrying all the biggest guns??" 😁

I've often seen people talk about Skyrim/Oblivion how every character build turns into stealth archer that sneaks in, picks off a few enemies silently until they get spotted and then go in guns blazing. That's exactly how I've always played DX:HR and it works great. But I do understand the criticism from people who like to be more stealthy, the devs clearly didn't think everything through.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-08-20, 17:54:

The final level was kinda meh.

I've personally always liked it, I find it rather cathartic. Again goes to show how people have their own styles.

I very much agree it's a good game, it's a damn shame Square Enix caused so much damage to the sequel the series got buried once again.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-08-20, 18:24:

I very much agree it's a good game, it's a damn shame Square Enix caused so much damage to the sequel the series got buried once again.

I haven't played the sequel either, but I do have it on GOG. Is is not as good as this one?

BTW, I checked the Xbox 360 version of DX:HR. I kinda like the golden filter that it uses for the visuals. Also, the DLC is in a separate menu and not integrated into the main plot. Lastly, it looks like you only regenerate once energy cell in this version, compared to two cells in Director's Cut. This isn't a big deal, but it can make stealth a bit harder since you need to replenish energy whenever you want to execute a stealth takedown while cloaked.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-08-20, 21:28:

I haven't played the sequel either, but I do have it on GOG. Is is not as good as this one?

I haven't played it myself, but the gist of it is something like this: right after DX:HR was released one of the lead devs left doors banging saying it was impossible to work with Square Enix, then as DX:MD was nearing release Square went full cartoon villain greed mode with very off-putting marketing, billion bs pre-order editions and micro transactions shoehorned into the game that caused a lot of public negative feedback.

But the worst of it is the game apparently has so messy and disjointed story it has caused people to speculate Square Enix during late in the development forced the devs to cut the story into two so they could effectively split the game into two games they could then sell. I don't think that has been confirmed but the fact that has even risen up as a possiblity kinda tells you something.

As a bonus annoyance even the game, as far as I know, sold well but Square Enix still decided it didn't make enough profit and buried the series even though they had just brought the series back successfully and had an excellent developer team to make them. Their business practices didn't work too well for them in the long run, at least their western side is in ruins these days.

That said I've heard the level design is very good, so if you can ignore any issues with the story and just focus on the gameplay it's probably still a good buy, at least from a big sale. Knowing myself I'd just get angry from constantly seeing what the game could have been so I haven't personally bothered.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-08-20, 21:28:

BTW, I checked the Xbox 360 version of DX:HR. I kinda like the golden filter that it uses for the visuals.

Glad to hear it! There were quite a few people throwing crap at it calling it the "piss filter" back then, I sometimes felt like I was the only one who liked it.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-08-21, 03:20:

I haven't played it myself, but the gist of it is something like this: right after DX:HR was released one of the lead devs left doors banging saying it was impossible to work with Square Enix, then as DX:MD was nearing release Square went full cartoon villain greed mode with very off-putting marketing, billion bs pre-order editions and micro transactions shoehorned into the game that caused a lot of public negative feedback.

I see. That sounds similar to what they did with Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which had at least five different editions when it initially came out.

Think I got DX:MD from one of those "all time high discount" things that GOG occasionally sends to everyone who's subscribed to their newsletter. Just checked my email archive, and it was 6 EUR for the "deluxe edition" after using that discount, so I might as well play it.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-08-17, 22:01:

Ugh. I've gotten to the point where I'm supposed to win a boxing match against a bunch of zombies and it has exposed a flaw in Doom 3 - the interminable loading times when you die! Yes, I'm repeatedly dying here game, please hurry up about getting the game loaded so I can die again! And now my last quick save I only have ten percent health so the zombie kills me with his first punch; my next to last quick save (I had many but I guess they delete as you go along) would take me back by an hour.

It seems that what's happening on that level is that you are momentarily supercharged and can one punch kill the zombies, but only for a few seconds so, if you don't get them right away you're lost. Though I'm not sure if you can go back to using your weapons when they are still alive? Regardless, I finally gave up and went back to an early enough save so that I could dispatch them with melee punches and move on. And I also discovered that F9 eliminates most of the interminable wait time after you die. So F5 and F9 are a big help when you run into a rough spot.

I like to watch videos of other people playing the game, but only after I've made it through once on my own. The lack of screen tearing on the videos I saw made me look at the video settings more closely, and I realized that you have to enable v sync in the advanced options menu. High quality with v sync enabled looks very good on my 939 system, so I'm happy with that.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through, and I think it's an enjoyable game, but it does get a little tedious at times ("Was that locker code in an email or a log?") when compared to some of the greats like Half Life and HL2 and Halo CE. I think a big reason why is because those games had combat in both closed and open areas which mixes it up, but Doom 3 keeps it all indoors (with a couple of minor exceptions when you're going through air locks from one complex to another). It's also interesting to me how it both looks better and worse that HL2.

Started playing Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. I'm using the GOG version on my Win7 rig, but it's sadly too old to fully max out this game. It does run ok at 1080p when using the "High" graphical preset which matches the console visuals per Digital Foundry. I bumped up Anisotropic Filtering to 16x, turned off Chromatic Aberration and Sharpen, but didn't change much else.

At those settings, my GTX 970 can hit 60 FPS in some areas, but the built-in benchmark drops to low 40s during heavy load. For that reason, I used Rivatuner Statistics Server to enforce a 30 FPS cap for a more consistent experience. I don't mind that frame rate since I'm using a controller, and this PC is currently hooked up to a large TV set for some couch gaming.

The controller mappings are different at the default settings, but thankfully, they do give you the option to revert back to the DX:HR layout. Unfortunately, this also switches the cover system from "toggle" to "hold" and there's no way to change that. This bothers me since I could set it to "toggle" in DX:HR and found that it worked much better as you spend a lot of time in cover while playing stealthily.

Anyway, I just finished the prologue mission and got to the hub area. So far, it feels like DX:HR with upgraded graphics. I haven't seen much of the story yet, but I kinda wish that more characters from the previous game had returned. Sarif did make a cameo appearance via video call, while Pritchard and Megan only got mentioned in passing. No sign of Malik though. That said, I did like the explanation for the new augmentations, as well as the reasoning behind taking away your upgrades after the prologue. I thought it worked well enough within the game's setting.

Finished Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Didn't enjoy it as much as Human Revolution, but it wasn't a bad game either. The story felt a bit disjointed, and it didn't really seem like Adam accomplished all that much. I did like that the ending depicted the consequences of your actions throughout the game via Eliza's news report. Despite the lackluster main plot, many of the side quests were really well made. I especially liked the one where you're helping some detective solve a murder mystery. There's another one with the underground newspaper that has some interesting implications later on, depending on how you handle it.

Gameplay wise, there are a few improvements from DX:HR, such as being able to perform stealth takedowns from behind cover. These look great, and when executed properly, Adam will automatically hide the now unconscious opponent out of sight. The hacking mini game has some new additions as well, like the "fog of war" stuff, but it's mostly the same as before. There are also more ways to upgrade and customize weapons now, using the new crafting system. Other than that, the core gameplay is very similar to Human Revolution. Lastly, there is only one mandatory boss encounter (at the very end of the game) and even that fight can be resolved non-lethally, if so desired.

As mentioned before, I was a bit disappointed by the absence of NPCs from DX:HR. Sarif is the only one who makes an extended appearance (via video calls) as he's tied to a quest related to the new augmentations. As for Malik, you can find a small gift from her in your apartment after coming back from a certain mission, but she doesn't appear in the game otherwise. Megan is mentioned in several conversations, and you do eventually find out what she's been up to, but Adam never directly interacts with her. Pritchard isn't present in the main story, aside from a brief mention, but there's a separate DLC where you can help him out with some stuff (I haven't played this yet, just read the description in the DLC menu).

The new NPCs that you interact with are mostly fine, and the cast has been greatly expanded compared to the first game. However, there's less development for individual characters due to the game having so many of them now. Also, maybe it's just me, but I felt that Adam had a better connection and rapport with his crew from Human Revolution. Regarding the adversaries, I did like the more prominent roles that Page and Manderley play here.

Overall, I would still recommend the game, but it's clear that this was meant to be the second part of a trilogy. Unfortunately, we didn't get the final installment, and with the publishing rights now sitting with Embracer, I wonder if we ever will. Apparently, they recently canceled the third game and fired many of the developers.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-08-28, 09:40:

Overall, I would still recommend the game

Alright, maybe I've been too hard on the game all these years. I was just so bummed out by the marketing and pushing micro transactions on to a single player game back then I've just kinda ignored it ever since. I'll grab it from GOG since it's on sale and and give it a go at some point.

Haven't really been playing anything since june, but now I'm slowly getting back to it. First I happened to read a review for WarCraft: Orcs and humans from an old game magazine and just had to start playing it, I guess I'm around half way through the human campaign. Also I just set up a Doom source port with Andrew Hulshult's remixed soundtracks for Doom 1&2, sounds pretty banging.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-08-28, 10:25:

Alright, maybe I've been too hard on the game all these years. I was just so bummed out by the marketing and pushing micro transactions on to a single player game back then I've just kinda ignored it ever since. I'll grab it from GOG since it's on sale and and give it a go at some point.

Yeah, I read in a review that you could buy Praxis kits for real money at launch. Not sure if that still works now, due to Squeenix no longer being in charge, but it was beyond scummy. For those who aren't familiar with the game, Praxis kits are one time consumable items which grant skill points that are used for "leveling up" your character.

Anyway, I'm glad if my little write up was able to nudge you towards getting DX:MD. 😀 The game turned out ok, considering what the greedy publisher forced the devs to do. In my view, it's still worth playing, as it does offer some high quality single-player content.

I quit Baldur's gate 3. Felt unfinished when I came to act 3. Maybe some other time, after modders fix it and remove 'shove' 🤣.

So i started playing that brand new star wars Outlaws game. Feels a little like a Thief-Tomb Raider-Assassins creed blend in space. It is kind of cool, at least the visuals are awesome.

I like to alternate between old and new game and the next game might be retro. Maybe a Lucas arts adventure game there are a few left.

Just started Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon. The Ubisoft Launcher says I last played it in 2016 which is certainly incorrect. Played about 1 and a half hours and the launcher just doesn't seem to detect the game running. Weird, but as long as it doesn't affect gameplay, I don't care much. Lutris tracks my sessions and I can update my exophase profile manually like with my offline and 7th generation consoles.