clueless1 wrote:

X-Wing

This right here. I waited until summer -93 to have enough money to buy it and I was convinced it would be just like BoB and SWOTL and it really wasn't, it was HARD. Many missions from the start had a strict time limit (that you didn't know about) where you had to race to defend some ships before you went hunting the bombers or else you'd fail as a bunch of TIE fighters would arrive and shoot up everything or a Star Destroyer would jump from light speed etc. I never managed to finish more than the first two missions or so.

The last flight sim I remember enjoying was Red Baron II where the AI was so random (or horrible) you never knew what would happen. Even if you played the same mission over and over again things would always turn up different.

Dos platformers like Duke Nukem 2, Halloween Harry, jazz Jackrabbit. I get stuck on a level then loose my savegame when I come back years later.
Warlords 2, takes too long
Warcraft 2, it's taken me years to reach the expansion pack as I go away then start from the beginning (Warcraft 1) again, and still haven't touched the Orc's
Rise of the Triad, the levels are just too big.
Dungeon Keeper, I just loose interest after a while.
Diablo2, I've finished the original game a few times but never the Expansion.

Games I want to finish but just cant get into.
Wolfenstein 3D, Original Dune2, Both cause they are too old so the limitations stop me enjoying it.
Decent series, Dark Forces, It's just too hard!

chinny22 wrote:

Dos platformers like Duke Nukem 2, Halloween Harry, jazz Jackrabbit.

Hah, same here 😀 I love the style and art and atmosphere (I would add more titles here: Inner Worlds, Vinyl Goddess from Mars, Jasper's Journeys, Abuse, Hocus Pocus and Jill of the Jungle to name a few) but actual gameplay isn't this much captivating so at some point I quit and don't bother to resume playing afterwards.

Curiously I never actually played any Doom engine game to completion. I did finish the shareware version of Doom a long while ago (and using a sourceport I believe, possibly Doom Legacy when that was still a thing), but with everything else, including megawads and stuff, at some point I just get bored and stop playing. Maybe I shouldn't go for a lot of levels in one sitting.

I never completed any of the campaigns in Warcraft II although it's one of my favourites. I did get to the last level in Tides of Darkness with the Orcs though. Of course I've seen all the levels with the cheats. However with this particular game (back in the 90s) I used to spend a lot of time playing skirmish. That was fun. When StarCraft came out I tried skirmish too but it kicked my ass right away and only much later, with Brood War I managed to win one round against two AIs playing as Terran.

henryVK wrote:

There's several updated versions of Dune 2 to choose from. Afaik they add C&C style controls, network play, skirmish mode etc.!

Dune Dynasty is the way to go because it's based on reverse-engineered code and is thus more accurate than any other of the remakes.

A lot of the oft-celebrated Apogee shareware games have, uh.... a shareware problem (in terms of putting all the best effort in the first episode with the registered content as filler). I haven't beaten any of the freewared rereleases or even the free Nukems that came with my Duke3D copy. Seems more common with Apogee, and less of a problem for FPS games* as it's a hot new genre and you can easily lock the interesting revolutionary new arsenal out to incite a purchese which can transform a game substantially rather than the "more levels!!! and hintbook!!" usual for the platformers.

* not all of them. Shareware problem is definitely a thing for Blake Stone and the "super" wolf episodes

MrFlibble wrote:

Dune Dynasty is the way to go because it's based on reverse-engineered code and is thus more accurate than any other of the remakes.

Yeah, that's the one! I looked at all of them at one point and remember the quality did vary somewhat.

Come to think of it, I don't think I ever finished any of the Apogee games other than "Raptor: Call of Shadows". I remember getting really far in Major Stryker too but never made it to the end. A lot of these games were just difficult for my 10-year-old self. And, yeah, no hint book to help me either.

I did complete the original Doom a couple of years ago and had a pretty good time of it too 😀

leileilol wrote:

A lot of the oft-celebrated Apogee shareware games have, uh.... a shareware problem (in terms of putting all the best effort in the first episode with the registered content as filler).

This is true, but I also think sometimes its due to getting overly failure with the shareware level.
eg Doom, E1M1 is THE level of doom and rest of the episode is awesome, probably because I played it over and over.
I didn't get the full version till Ultimate Doom, and quite like E4, but not as much as E1. E2 and 3 I dont bother with much.

Where as Doom 2 my favorite levels are mixed throughout the entire game

clueless1 wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

Yeah, it's definitely a flight sim game. How does it compare for you with, say, WC?

WC series is one of my all time favorites. Easy to get into with fewer controls than X-Wing, but still simmy enough to not feel like an arcade game. Heavy on the story, which sucks you in right off the bat. Difficulty is not too bad, though it gets really challenging the last set of missions. The add-ons were way too hard though. Secret Operations 1 and 2 were so tough I gave up about 2-3 missions in.

+1 to giving up on WC Secret Ops, they were next level hard compared to the original game.

xjas wrote:

Sam & Max Hit the Road - I love Sam & Max. I love the comics, I love the short-lived cartoon series, and I love what I've seen of the game, but every time I take a stab at playing it, I decide I need to really sit down and spend a crapton of time giving it a "proper" playthrough (explore everything, do everything) - so have never made it past the first couple areas. I also have the Telltale episodes but have barely even started them because I want to play the original game first.

I should just watch a speedrun sometime.

I love you too bro

For a long time I've wanted to play Wizardry 6-8 with the same set of characters (you can transfer them between all three games despite the fact they span over 10 yrs in release dates) but I don't know if I'd actually make it very far through 6. No automap, no music, PC speaker sounds, overly combat heavy. 7 is a little better, especially if you play Gold which includes automapping. 8 was one of my all-time favorite RPGs, it was such an incredible experience. Just about perfect in every way, RPG-wise. The idea of replaying 8 with characters I developed and carried through 6 and 7 is very appealing, just don't think it would be realistic.

Are the maps fixed or procedural?

Doom I and II as well as Duke Nukem 3D would be my first choices

gdjacobs wrote:

Are the maps fixed or procedural?

Fixed. I have cluebooks, so there are maps available. And there are automapping mods that work with DOSBox, but not in real DOS. So there are options.

Interplay‘s Lord of the Rings. It was the first game I bought from my own money. Never made it very far, since it is pretty complex. Always got stuck in Moria. But I loved it due to its literary template, the nice VGA graphics and the digitized sound effects.