newtmonkey wrote on 2025-08-02, 15:21:

I'm looking forward to reading your posts as you play through the series!

Cheers! And yeah, I'm definitively playing through the entire trilogy. Guess I've become invested enough in the story and the characters, despite not liking some of the gameplay changes.

Not sure if I should go for Andromeda after that. I do have it as a physical disc for my PS4. Maybe I'll try the unpatched version 1.0 just for the memes. "My face is tired" and all that jazz. 😁

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-08-02, 17:35:

Not sure if I should go for Andromeda after that. I do have it as a physical disc for my PS4. Maybe I'll try the unpatched version 1.0 just for the memes. "My face is tired" and all that jazz. 😁

I've got Andromeda on PS4 also; it's actually got a cool space/planet exploration feel, but it has nothing to do with the previous games, so I quickly lost interest... maybe some day. I remember it having a weird auto-save system where you cannot save whenever you want, and the first couple of hours of the game were very linear and annoying.

I prefer Andromeda to all the other games. I think I've said this before. The first game should have been called "Space Station Conversation Simulator". The next two were much better, but Andromeda is my favorite. I actually bounced off of the first Mass Effect twice before finally being able to push through it. Was awful.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-08-01, 07:31:

Very odd choice to monetize the game in a manner which affects the plot to some degree.

Yeah, it's unfortunate. Comparing at the runtime with or without any DLC (I played both) it really feels like I got half a game at first, then the full game 1.5 years later, when all the DLC were released. Especially without Lair of the Shadow Broker, which is amazing.

ME3 was even worse in that department, with day-one DLC for a character very tied to the core lore... 😒

Finished Deus Ex Lady in PCem

DracoNihil wrote on 2025-07-31, 07:33:

Just finished replaying "Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri", who knew giving everybody including yourself double M-B Accelerators is the key to winning.

I hate how you get this weapon literally at the END OF THE GAME and no sooner. So you only have one campaign mission to enjoy such a ludicrous weapon. Oh well atleast the limited skirmish option lets you equip the weapon to try it out in more varied environments.

One of the top 5ive 90s games for me. Had so much fun with TN. I emailed Looking Glass about how much I liked the game and they sent me a Terra Nova t-shirt. Like an idiot, I lost it over the years (probably in a move). Fun fact: the two demos that were released for this game had missions that were not in the final release.

Started Full Throttle but noped out pretty soon. I just don't like the game all that much. Wasn't a big fan back in the day either, looks like time hasn't changed that. When I reached the craptastic motorcycle combat thing with awful controls I started to actively dislike the game, so it was time to move on.

To Grim Fandango Remastered. The remastered version as it adds mouse controls, the original only had keyboard controls that aren't great. But turns out the new mouse controls aren't perfect either, you have to use a janky combination of keyboard and mouse which I never got comfortable with.

As for the game itself I have to say I really love the setting and the stylized noir look of the game. The characters are all great and the voice acting is top notch. But the gameplay leaves a lot to desire for. At least being able to scan the screen with the mouse helps a lot, in the original you had to sniff every corner using tank controls with incredibly slow turning speed.

Inventory is straight up crap. You see one item at a time. ONE. You have to cycle between them one by one. Maybe it was intended to be easily portable to the consoles of the era, which of course never happened. Goes straight into my list of top pain in the ass inventories of all time.

Another problem of the game is how large some areas are, or maybe more like how slowly you traverse in these areas. There's no double clicking a door or a pathway to instantly teleport there like in Full Throttle, so you have to run all the way to the area transition manually. You can run, but it isn't fast enough for these kind of distances. Thanks to that especially year 2 of the game gets extremely tedious. Full Throttle had a instant transition function in 1995 but they didn't think that would be a good addition to a game that would have benefitted from it far more in a 2015 remaster? Great job guys.

Pretty mixed feelings about the puzzles too, they can be pretty obscure at times. I ended up just trying everything in hopes it does something all too often. Especially one puzzle that requires timing was bewildering, I didn't even realize there WAS a puzzle there until I gave up and looked up a hint. Part of it comes down to the engine and being constantly hampered by the previously mentioned gameplay issues, also the low resolution prerendered backgrounds made it difficult to notice hotspots a few times. Maybe most of the puzzles were perfectly fine, but in my opinion their previous game Curse of Monkey Island had much more logical puzzle design overall, not to mention far more enjoyable gameplay.

Thankfully the setting and the story does some heavy lifting. The setting is genuinely great, it's very original and unique. The characters are to my liking too. It was fun to explore the land of the dead and see what happens next. These are the things that kept me playing and tolerating the obvious flaws of the game.

A flawed gem? I don't know, I'm a bit conflicted. Just too many gameplay issues. Had this been designed as a classic 2d adventure with more compact areas I might feel differently. The setting and the characters carried the game for me and it did leave a smile on my face at the end, in fact the entire last year was quite enjoyable. Worth playing once but I won't be in a big hurry to revisit it.

liqmat wrote on 2025-08-03, 12:32:

One of the top 5ive 90s games for me. Had so much fun with TN. I emailed Looking Glass about how much I liked the game and they sent me a Terra Nova t-shirt. Like an idiot, I lost it over the years (probably in a move). Fun fact: the two demos that were released for this game had missions that were not in the final release.

It really is a fantastic game, just sad it's so short and not well balanced. The stealth mechanics are very easily abusable to the point being in a Scout Suit with EM Dampener and staying at maximum range of a Particle Beam means being able to constantly pot shot a enemy in plain sight and never aggroing them. They just remain forever clueless.

Honestly when the Scout Suit first becomes available in the campaign I almost always use that. The enemy AI cannot keep up with the insane movement speeds.

Wizardry VI
I was annoyed at first with the interface; it feels like playing a console game at times, as there are no keyboard shortcuts and you have to laboriously work through menus to do absolutely anything. However, you soon get used to it, and once you do do, it's just amazing. Even the most throwaway encounter is fun, because it's an excuse to use your less-used skills, in the hope of earning more skill points when you eventually level up.

Exploring the world is simply amazing. You run into a bunch of locked doors, and you can actually unlock most of them with either thief skills or strength... but some doors require specific keys, so eventually you come back with the right key and unlock them. It's unbelievably satisfying to do so.

But what really makes the game is designer/writer D.W. Bradley's prose. Like I said before, he's very fond of purple prose and malapropisms. Even so, his writing is often awesome: his description of a bunch of pirates eyeing you as you walk in the door reminded me of Moby Dick (imo the best novel ever written), even though it makes no sense whatsoever for a bunch of pirates to be in some dungeon.

More interesting is the story of the decadent king and queen, which you discover through environment storytelling and room descriptions. It's disturbing when you discover through reading some diary that the king was regularly visiting some 14 year old maid every night. All this stuff is in the background of a dungeon crawler, and I love it. It makes you feel uncomfortable while you're playing it, like a really good, subtle horror movie.

newtmonkey wrote on 2025-08-03, 18:40:

Wizardry VI I was annoyed at first with the interface; it feels like playing a console game at times, as there are no keyboard s […]
Show full quote

Wizardry VI
I was annoyed at first with the interface; it feels like playing a console game at times, as there are no keyboard shortcuts and you have to laboriously work through menus to do absolutely anything. However, you soon get used to it, and once you do do, it's just amazing. Even the most throwaway encounter is fun, because it's an excuse to use your less-used skills, in the hope of earning more skill points when you eventually level up.

Exploring the world is simply amazing. You run into a bunch of locked doors, and you can actually unlock most of them with either thief skills or strength... but some doors require specific keys, so eventually you come back with the right key and unlock them. It's unbelievably satisfying to do so.

But what really makes the game is designer/writer D.W. Bradley's prose. Like I said before, he's very fond of purple prose and malapropisms. Even so, his writing is often awesome: his description of a bunch of pirates eyeing you as you walk in the door reminded me of Moby Dick (imo among the best novel ever written), even though it makes no sense whatsoever for a bunch of pirates to be in some dungeon.

More interesting is the story of the decadent king and queen, which you discover through environment storytelling and room descriptions. It's disturbing when you discover through reading some diary that the king was regularly visiting some 14 year old maid every night. All this stuff is in the background of a dungeon crawler, and I love it. It makes you feel upset while you're playing it, like a really good, subtle horror movie.

You've played through Wiz6 before, haven't you? When I played through it in 2019, it was the start of one of my favorite RPG experiences of all time. I completed Wiz6 in 111 hrs, then transferred my party to Wiz7, which took 201 hrs to finish, and transferred that party to Wiz8, which took 148 hrs to finish. The trilogy took me from September of 2019 to September of 2020. That was my best year of RPG gaming ever. 😀

newtmonkey wrote on 2025-08-03, 18:40:

Wizardry VI I was annoyed at first with the interface; it feels like playing a console game at times, as there are no keyboard s […]
Show full quote

Wizardry VI
I was annoyed at first with the interface; it feels like playing a console game at times, as there are no keyboard shortcuts and you have to laboriously work through menus to do absolutely anything. However, you soon get used to it, and once you do do, it's just amazing. Even the most throwaway encounter is fun, because it's an excuse to use your less-used skills, in the hope of earning more skill points when you eventually level up.

Exploring the world is simply amazing. You run into a bunch of locked doors, and you can actually unlock most of them with either thief skills or strength... but some doors require specific keys, so eventually you come back with the right key and unlock them. It's unbelievably satisfying to do so.

But what really makes the game is designer/writer D.W. Bradley's prose. Like I said before, he's very fond of purple prose and malapropisms. Even so, his writing is often awesome: his description of a bunch of pirates eyeing you as you walk in the door reminded me of Moby Dick (imo among the best novel ever written), even though it makes no sense whatsoever for a bunch of pirates to be in some dungeon.

More interesting is the story of the decadent king and queen, which you discover through environment storytelling and room descriptions. It's disturbing when you discover through reading some diary that the king was regularly visiting some 14 year old maid every night. All this stuff is in the background of a dungeon crawler, and I love it. It makes you feel upset while you're playing it, like a really good, subtle horror movie.

I should play Wizardry VI again. I really enjoyed it's single contiguous world and class system. The dialog system seemed really unique to me too, but maybe I just haven't played enough RPGs of that era. At first I was let down by it's singular tileset, and how much it really strained the imagination to stick with a single grey castle-ish graphics set despite going through caves, waterways, mountains, I think I remember a shipwreck, and was there even a forest? But I got over it. Even if it did feel like the story took a hiatus between the introductory area and the final area.

clueless1 wrote on 2025-08-03, 21:37:

You've played through Wiz6 before, haven't you? When I played through it in 2019, it was the start of one of my favorite RPG experiences of all time. I completed Wiz6 in 111 hrs, then transferred my party to Wiz7, which took 201 hrs to finish, and transferred that party to Wiz8, which took 148 hrs to finish. The trilogy took me from September of 2019 to September of 2020. That was my best year of RPG gaming ever. 😀

I did play Wiz6 before and got quite far into it, but never completed it as I lost my save at some point, probably when transferring a bunch of games from DOSBOX to actual hardware. I was dreading restarting for the longest time, but I actually got hooked right away (rolling up a party is so much fun). Right now I'm in the mines/mountain area, which is a quite a step up in difficulty from the castle.
I enjoyed reading through your Wizardry adventures here, and I'm really looking forward to playing Wiz7 and Wiz8 (both for the first time!), and will definitely take the same party through all three games.

Namrok wrote on 2025-08-03, 22:06:

I should play Wizardry VI again. I really enjoyed it's single contiguous world and class system. The dialog system seemed really unique to me too, but maybe I just haven't played enough RPGs of that era. At first I was let down by it's singular tileset, and how much it really strained the imagination to stick with a single grey castle-ish graphics set despite going through caves, waterways, mountains, I think I remember a shipwreck, and was there even a forest? But I got over it. Even if it did feel like the story took a hiatus between the introductory area and the final area.

Good points all around, and so far I think I agree 100%. I too got over the singular tileset pretty quickly (it helps that the monsters are all very colorful and drawn and animated incredibly well). Did you ever play through Wiz7 and Wiz8?

newtmonkey wrote on Yesterday, 18:48:

Namrok wrote on 2025-08-03, 22:06:

I should play Wizardry VI again. I really enjoyed it's single contiguous world and class system. The dialog system seemed really unique to me too, but maybe I just haven't played enough RPGs of that era. At first I was let down by it's singular tileset, and how much it really strained the imagination to stick with a single grey castle-ish graphics set despite going through caves, waterways, mountains, I think I remember a shipwreck, and was there even a forest? But I got over it. Even if it did feel like the story took a hiatus between the introductory area and the final area.

Good points all around, and so far I think I agree 100%. I too got over the singular tileset pretty quickly (it helps that the monsters are all very colorful and drawn and animated incredibly well). Did you ever play through Wiz7 and Wiz8?

I always meant to but never did. So many games, so little time.

Made a lot of progress in Mass Effect 2. The combat has gotten easier now that I've acquired some shield and weapon upgrades. It's still dangerous to leave cover, but not as much as in the beginning. Oh and, whoever decided that "take cover" and "jump over obstacle" should be mapped to the same button needs to be fired immediately, and must never be allowed to work in the gaming industry again.

In terms of dialogue, sometimes what I select on the conversation wheel doesn't correspond to what Shepard will actually say. For example, I choose something normal sounding such as "I don't like where this is going." while Shepard ends up threatening that person's life and getting +10 Renegade points in the process. Speaking of that, it's kinda clunky how those Paragon/Renegade cutscene prompts only last for a few seconds. I usually put the controller down during longer cutscenes, and when that icon suddenly pops up, I barely have enough time to pick it back up and respond.

Also, looks like the devs really ramped up the romance stuff for this game. It now feels like every woman on the ship wants to jump Shepard's bones. And due to the aforementioned conversation wheel issue, it's sometimes difficult to pick out the line which lets them down gently. Apparently, every response except for one translates to "We'll bang, ok?". No wonder that meme became so popular. 😁

Lastly, I just finished the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC. It was pretty good, with some interesting story revelations, but the weird pacing reminded me of those lengthy ME1 plot missions. No time to restock or upgrade, just go go go go! What you get as a reward seems like a secondary base of operations or something. Haven't bothered with it too much, since I'm focusing on building up my squad's loyalty by doing their side quests. I've been on Disc 2 for a while now, and it feels like we're getting close to the endgame, so I want everyone to be at their best.

newtmonkey wrote on Yesterday, 18:45:

I enjoyed reading through your Wizardry adventures here, and I'm really looking forward to playing Wiz7 and Wiz8 (both for the first time!), and will definitely take the same party through all three games.

I found some of my posts from 2019 and re-read them. It's crazy how much detail I have forgotten in six years! I even found a post where I made a Dungeon Crawling Playlist on YT. I don't even remember doing that! I guess I'm getting old. One thing is clear, I was having probably more fun with the Wizardry 2nd Trilogy than I am now with the KCD series.

clueless1 wrote on Today, 10:53:

I found some of my posts from 2019 and re-read them. It's crazy how much detail I have forgotten in six years! I even found a post where I made a Dungeon Crawling Playlist on YT. I don't even remember doing that! I guess I'm getting old. One thing is clear, I was having probably more fun with the Wizardry 2nd Trilogy than I am now with the KCD series.

There's something to be said for games that are more primitive graphically, but that exercise your mind, whether through challenging/interesting combat or by forcing you to imagine that a bunch of gray bricks are actually a mountain (like Wiz6). It's always exciting to run into some new weird monster or NPC, and D.W. Bradley's room descriptions are one-of-a-kind awesome. And leveling up is always a treat, as you watch your stats increase and then get to spend some precious bonus points on your skills.

Of course, some games are just really special, and I think anyone who likes a good RPG and who can get beyond the graphics and interface , would have a blast with Wiz6.

If you still have that dungeon crawling playlist up on YT and it's public, I'd love to see it!

newtmonkey wrote on Today, 11:15:

If you still have that dungeon crawling playlist up on YT and it's public, I'd love to see it!

Here ya go, bud!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL88X-y … 1lUCnm2cY1eyGiB

Best played on Shuffle.

clueless1 wrote on Today, 11:37:

Here ya go, bud!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL88X-y … 1lUCnm2cY1eyGiB

Best played on Shuffle.

Thanks! There are some really great tracks on here, along with a lot of new stuff I've never heard before. This is gonna be great to play in the background for Wiz6.

Wizardry VI
This time around I'm using a very nice automap mod (last time I was manually mapping using the Grid Cartographer application), but it's not easy even with an automap. All it does it trace your steps, so it's up to you mark up squares, leave notes, and figure out where to go; in such a massive game, simply figuring out where you need to go is quite a challenge.

I'm deep into the mines and loving it. I actually made it past this part last time I played the game (several years ago), but I didn't appreciate it for what it is back then. At that time I found the mines to be confusing and annoying; now, they are a joy. There have been many times that I've got totally lost, but I don't care. I just randomly wander around, slowly getting stronger with each fight, until I find some area I've never explored, or until I get some key or item that opens up a new path. It helps that the combat is so satisfying; even when it's not particularly difficult, it's still a blast to optimize how you approach each fight.

What a game! Simply dropping in for 5-10 minutes is a blast and feels worthwhile. This is something that RPGs with fixed encounters don't get; even if you "waste your time" getting lost and fighting a few battles in a game like this, you're still making progress because your characters are getting a little bit stronger.