Geneforge 2
I've been getting pretty addicted to this one, similar to how I got addicted to the first game in the series last year. I've ended up putting a good 8 hours into it over the last week, while also playing Dragon Quest III (FC).

It's very similar to the first game, though that's not a bad thing; after all, all the AD&D Gold Box games, and the first three Wizardry games, are very similar, but all of them are awesome. The Geneforge formula just works. You have a large (mostly open) world to explore, factions to join, and an entertaining mystery to solve. Geneforge 2 doesn't add anything at all to this formula, but the world design is even better and the mystery is even more interesting.

At this point in the game, I've finally settled into my character build, and the great mystery has revealed itself (though I of course have not solved it yet).

I must praise the Geneforge engine and UI. Once you get used to it, it's very intuitive and, for lack of a better word, comfortable. Exploration is in real-time, but the engine switches to turn-based mode once you encounter an enemy. You have a little automap on the bottom-right of the screen that draws itself in as you explore (in decent detail), and you can click anywhere in the automap to move the camera instantly to that point. You can drag the mouse to select multiple party members, and can easily split your party up to send your creations out on hunt-and-kill expeditions while your weak main character stays back near the entrance.

You also have a quest journal that gets updated automatically, and on top of that you can click an icon to copy any screen of text to a separate journal. The only thing the game is missing, is the ability to add notes to the automap.

It's a fantastic game so far! I definitely plan on playing through this one by the end of the year.

Demetrio wrote on 2023-05-10, 11:20:

In the meanwhile, I installed the pre-steam CD Half-Life on my Pentium II build, for testing purposes, but I ended up playing un […]
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In the meanwhile, I installed the pre-steam CD Half-Life on my Pentium II build, for testing purposes, but I ended up playing until the tentacle boss 😁

Good God, that is actually a real room in the game. The amazing, inspired, creative design is evident.

newtmonkey wrote on 2023-05-10, 15:24:

Geneforge 2 I've been getting pretty addicted to this one, similar to how I got addicted to the first game in the series last ye […]
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Geneforge 2
I've been getting pretty addicted to this one, similar to how I got addicted to the first game in the series last year. I've ended up putting a good 8 hours into it over the last week, while also playing Dragon Quest III (FC).

It's very similar to the first game, though that's not a bad thing; after all, all the AD&D Gold Box games, and the first three Wizardry games, are very similar, but all of them are awesome. The Geneforge formula just works. You have a large (mostly open) world to explore, factions to join, and an entertaining mystery to solve. Geneforge 2 doesn't add anything at all to this formula, but the world design is even better and the mystery is even more interesting.

At this point in the game, I've finally settled into my character build, and the great mystery has revealed itself (though I of course have not solved it yet).

I must praise the Geneforge engine and UI. Once you get used to it, it's very intuitive and, for lack of a better word, comfortable. Exploration is in real-time, but the engine switches to turn-based mode once you encounter an enemy. You have a little automap on the bottom-right of the screen that draws itself in as you explore (in decent detail), and you can click anywhere in the automap to move the camera instantly to that point. You can drag the mouse to select multiple party members, and can easily split your party up to send your creations out on hunt-and-kill expeditions while your weak main character stays back near the entrance.

You also have a quest journal that gets updated automatically, and on top of that you can click an icon to copy any screen of text to a separate journal. The only thing the game is missing, is the ability to add notes to the automap.

It's a fantastic game so far! I definitely plan on playing through this one by the end of the year.

I've got the Geneforge games on my wishlist, but after my experience with Avernum: Escape from the Pit, I've been hesitant to try any other Spiderweb games. Your posts encourage me to keep them on my wishlist and eventually try them out.

clueless1 wrote on 2023-05-10, 22:35:

I've got the Geneforge games on my wishlist, but after my experience with Avernum: Escape from the Pit, I've been hesitant to try any other Spiderweb games. Your posts encourage me to keep them on my wishlist and eventually try them out.

I know you didn't care for Avernum, but the Geneforge series is quite different and worth a look imo! I've heard the remake is just as good as the original if not better (no mechanics dumbed down whatsoever). Geneforge series has a stronger "hook" to it, and the areas are self-contained so it feels more like meaningful exploration and less like aimless wandering. It also gives you a bit more direction than Avernum.

I played Shogo for 30 minutes for the first time on my modern pc. A great game with a unique setting. Unfortuantely the gog version likes to crash on a regular basis. So I will move this game on the already quite big list of games to play as soon as I have finished my first retro pc build.

I also played Dark Forces a bit for the first time. Although this game is older than Shogo it runs much better on my modern day PC. It is quite interesting but not as good as Jedi Knight. It is still funny to see a Doom like shooter in a Star Wars Setting.

predator_085 wrote on 2023-05-11, 06:48:

I played Shogo for 30 minutes for the first time on my modern pc. A great game with a unique setting. Unfortuantely the gog version likes to crash on a regular basis. So I will move this game on the already quite big list of games to play as soon as I have finished my first retro pc build.

I also played Dark Forces a bit for the first time. Although this game is older than Shogo it runs much better on my modern day PC. It is quite interesting but not as good as Jedi Knight. It is still funny to see a Doom like shooter in a Star Wars Setting.

Give it some time. Once you are in a little deeper and have more options it becomes the good parts of Jedi Knight, just without the force.

BetaC wrote on 2023-05-11, 07:25:

predator_085 wrote on 2023-05-11, 06:48:

I played Shogo for 30 minutes for the first time on my modern pc. A great game with a unique setting. Unfortuantely the gog version likes to crash on a regular basis. So I will move this game on the already quite big list of games to play as soon as I have finished my first retro pc build.

I also played Dark Forces a bit for the first time. Although this game is older than Shogo it runs much better on my modern day PC. It is quite interesting but not as good as Jedi Knight. It is still funny to see a Doom like shooter in a Star Wars Setting.

Give it some time. Once you are in a little deeper and have more options it becomes the good parts of Jedi Knight, just without the force.

Thanks I am going to do that. it is not that I do not like the game I just have to keep my expecations in check. I have never played Dark Forces when it was new. My first Game in the series was Jedi Knight so I get to used to the first game of the DF series.

Rebel Assault, Shadows of the Empire and Jedi Knight were the first SW games I ever played so they became my bench mark for Star Wars games and they are quite different than Dark Forces.

Dark Forces is way less cinematic then the above mentioned games but it is still quite good to deliver a deep Star Wars Atmosphäre. The Art work of animated pictures is also very nice. I plan to finish the game for sure.

Continuing on with Doom 3. Didn't have a lot of time to play over the last couple of days, and I think I may have actually underestimated the length of this game. The levels do feature quite a bit of backtracking, so that could be a contributing factor as well. Still, they never felt overly maze like, which I did appreciate.

I'm not having too much trouble with the enemies so far, but the game difficulty does vary a bit based on the level layout. Basically, if there's space to move around and circle strafe, it's a piece of cake. But if you're stuck in a narrow corridor and enemies start spawning all around you, things do get more challenging.

On that note, I don't like how the game kind of discourages exploring. For example, you find a semi-hidden place containing armor shards and some health packs. After picking those up, a bunch of enemies spawn out of thin air and attack you from all sides, thereby negating any benefits that you may have gotten from those items. This happens very often and represents some pretty questionable game design.

In terms of story, the plot twist with the identity of the military guy didn't surprise me, and I refused to follow his orders and send that transmission. FYI, Betrüger means "deceiver" or "cheater" in German, so I naturally trusted the guys opposing him, which turned out to be the correct decision. We'll see if this has any long term consequences, aside from that one transmission that I got.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-11, 19:05:

On that note, I don't like how the game kind of discourages exploring. For example, you find a semi-hidden place containing armor shards and some health packs. After picking those up, a bunch of enemies spawn out of thin air and attack you from all sides, thereby negating any benefits that you may have gotten from those items. This happens very often and represents some pretty questionable game design.

Serious Sam often does things like this too, heh.

Lately I've been playing C&C Remastered Collection. It's fun playing the GDI campaign again. Good thing they took out the sandbag walls, that made it too easy to gimp the ai.
Thus far overall enjoyable 😀

Good thing I still know all those tricks I used to do back then as well. I'll check what I can mod in it later. I used to create maps and missions for C&C, but I reckon modding in this remastered version of C&C will be different in some ways.

I think I'll focus on side activities for a time. Yesterday I beat 4 levels of mayhem and 6 levels of fight club. For the last 2 levels of mayhem I think I need to improve fire and bullet resistance.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-11, 19:05:

Continuing on with Doom 3. Didn't have a lot of time to play over the last couple of days, and I think I may have actually under […]
Show full quote

Continuing on with Doom 3. Didn't have a lot of time to play over the last couple of days, and I think I may have actually underestimated the length of this game. The levels do feature quite a bit of backtracking, so that could be a contributing factor as well. Still, they never felt overly maze like, which I did appreciate.

I'm not having too much trouble with the enemies so far, but the game difficulty does vary a bit based on the level layout. Basically, if there's space to move around and circle strafe, it's a piece of cake. But if you're stuck in a narrow corridor and enemies start spawning all around you, things do get more challenging.

On that note, I don't like how the game kind of discourages exploring. For example, you find a semi-hidden place containing armor shards and some health packs. After picking those up, a bunch of enemies spawn out of thin air and attack you from all sides, thereby negating any benefits that you may have gotten from those items. This happens very often and represents some pretty questionable game design.

In terms of story, the plot twist with the identity of the military guy didn't surprise me, and I refused to follow his orders and send that transmission. FYI, Betrüger means "deceiver" or "cheater" in German, so I naturally trusted the guys opposing him, which turned out to be the correct decision. We'll see if this has any long term consequences, aside from that one transmission that I got.

It's not that long. Around 10-11 hours at a leisurely pace. And yes, it's not overly difficult. The only thing I really didn't like about it is the shotgun. It sounds weak and the spread makes it more of a melee weapon. Back then it almost broke my relationship with shotguns in games.

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-05-12, 11:45:

The only thing I really didn't like about it is the shotgun. It sounds weak and the spread makes it more of a melee weapon. Back then it almost broke my relationship with shotguns in games.

Agreed, and sadly, it's the one weapon for which ammo is the most plentiful.

I heard they added the super shotgun in the expansion, so I'm looking forward to trying that out later on. Going up against enemies like Revenants with the regular shotgun just doesn't feel that great.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-12, 12:04:

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-05-12, 11:45:

The only thing I really didn't like about it is the shotgun. It sounds weak and the spread makes it more of a melee weapon. Back then it almost broke my relationship with shotguns in games.

Agreed, and sadly, it's the one weapon for which ammo is the most plentiful.

I heard they added the super shotgun in the expansion, so I'm looking forward to trying that out later on. Going up against enemies like Revenants with the regular shotgun just doesn't feel that great.

There isn't much difference between the double-barreled shotgun in RoE and the basic shotgun. It's still mostly useful in melee range, but does double damage, the sound is better, but still feel weak like most weapons in Doom 3.

I think the best weapon against revenants is the plasma gun. It takes out their missiles right after they launch them.

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-05-12, 12:24:

There isn't much difference between the double-barreled shotgun in RoE and the basic shotgun. It's still mostly useful in melee range, but does double damage, the sound is better, but still feel weak like most weapons in Doom 3.

That's too bad, I was hoping it would be as awesome as it was in Doom 2. It was my favorite weapon in that game.

I think the best weapon against revenants is the plasma gun. It takes out their missiles right after they launch them.

Yup, I think the Plasma Gun is probably the best overall weapon so far. That said, I did recently find the BFG 9000, though I have yet to test it. Listening to all those audio logs finally paid off I guess.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-11, 19:05:

Continuing on with Doom 3. Didn't have a lot of time to play over the last couple of days, and I think I may have actually under […]
Show full quote

Continuing on with Doom 3. Didn't have a lot of time to play over the last couple of days, and I think I may have actually underestimated the length of this game. The levels do feature quite a bit of backtracking, so that could be a contributing factor as well. Still, they never felt overly maze like, which I did appreciate.

I'm not having too much trouble with the enemies so far, but the game difficulty does vary a bit based on the level layout. Basically, if there's space to move around and circle strafe, it's a piece of cake. But if you're stuck in a narrow corridor and enemies start spawning all around you, things do get more challenging.

On that note, I don't like how the game kind of discourages exploring. For example, you find a semi-hidden place containing armor shards and some health packs. After picking those up, a bunch of enemies spawn out of thin air and attack you from all sides, thereby negating any benefits that you may have gotten from those items. This happens very often and represents some pretty questionable game design.

In terms of story, the plot twist with the identity of the military guy didn't surprise me, and I refused to follow his orders and send that transmission. FYI, Betrüger means "deceiver" or "cheater" in German, so I naturally trusted the guys opposing him, which turned out to be the correct decision. We'll see if this has any long term consequences, aside from that one transmission that I got.

When I did my run of Doom 3 a year or two ago, I think the thing that stuck out to me most in retrospect is how awkward the middle of the game was. The beginning had some pretty solid horror elements. The end had some pretty good run and gun elements. The transition between the two just didn't work.

I partially blame it on how "safe" Doom 3 played with the hardware limits of it's release. It was a ball busting game even on fairly beefy systems, and they never populated a scene with enough imps or grunts to make them threatening after you got the plasma rifle. Every time they put an imp behind a door ready to jump at you after you'd gotten the plasma rifle was just them not knowing what else to do. Because the computers of it's time would have melted if they'd thrown 10 imps in a room at you to really stress your plasma rifle. So instead it's a consistent drip of 2 or 3 grunts or imps that require no target prioritization at all. You can nearly instantly vaporize them before the next get drip fed to you.

But like I said, this is only the awkward middle. In the beginning when you are bouncing between the shotgun or machine gun, a firefight between some properly positioned imps or grunts can be engaging enough. And towards the end when it's a steady stream of Revenants and Hell Knights and you have liberal use of your rocket launcher, it's fine. But that fucking middle is just so boring.

I remember buying a 512MB GPU just to play Doom 3 and HL2. Now, you could play both games - as they were - on the latest AMD APU, with the settings maxed out.

Namrok wrote on 2023-05-12, 13:26:

When I did my run of Doom 3 a year or two ago, I think the thing that stuck out to me most in retrospect is how awkward the middle of the game was. The beginning had some pretty solid horror elements. The end had some pretty good run and gun elements. The transition between the two just didn't work.

My thought exactly. I was so bored during those slow paced segments in Delta Labs. But I think I'm now entering the final stretch, having just acquired the Soul Cube.

The action did seem to pick up a bit during that hell level. However, the guardian fight was super dumb. I initially spent about 5 minutes chasing down those flying things with the chaingun until I understood that I'm supposed to aim at the blue light and not the guardian. One charged BFG shot later and it was all over. That was so anti climactic.

Also, hell knights without horns? They just look like overgrown imps. Lazy design, devs.

I've decided to just pick up some of the easy achievements on my way through the Sons of Samedi missions. So far I don't really see why is this supposed to be best in the series. Maybe it's something like "I liked it before it was cool". It feels like a less polished version of SR The Third.

Found my copy of Drakan again and tried to run it on my old laptop. To my surprise, the installation worked and I could check it out but there were many graphic glitches. The atmosphere still got me and I will finish the game again as soon my first retro system is completed.

@Joseph_Joestar. I feel similar about Doom 3 as you. I also think the game has it's great moments but the middle part of the game is not so good. The first half has a good horror vibe and the last part works fine as classic shooter.

Speaking of shooters I also tried to fire up the gog version of Return to castle wolfenstein again on my laptop and it worked quite well. I still think it is a nice shooter. The only weird thing was that game was running over nglide besides the fact it is open gl game.

It does not look bad considering the fact that we are talking here about vodoo2 emulation (the vodoo 2 was rather old when RTWC came out) .

Finally finished Doom 3. This game was a technological masterpiece when it shipped, and it holds up pretty well to this day, both in terms of graphics and sound design. In particular, EAX4 is used superbly, and I definitively recommend running the game on a sound card which supports it. The atmosphere is very different without it.

Ultimately, I chose not to install the duct tape flashlight mod, and opted to experience Doom 3 in its original form. It wasn't too annoying, just tedious. That said, there were a couple of segments where you're fighting in overly dark rooms. As mentioned before, most of the enemies are gray colored, which makes them difficult to see in such conditions. Those were the few instances where I would have appreciated a permanently mounted flashlight, otherwise it was fine.

I liked the fight with the traitor sergeant. You get briefed on the BFG's strengths and weaknesses beforehand, so you know how to counter it. The end boss battle was cool as well. Those fodder enemies gave me more trouble than the big bad, by constantly lunging and trying to knock me off the platform. But they served their purpose by powering the Soul Cube, which made short work of the Cyberdemon.

All in all, the Doom 3 campaign had too many slow paced levels for my tastes, and I found those parts kinda boring. The last couple of areas did pick up the pace and had a bit more action, but on the whole, the game didn't really gel with me. For people who like the slower, survival horror vibe, it will probably be much more enjoyable. But to me, as an old school fan of the first two games, this just wasn't a great Doom experience. Hopefully the RoE expansion fares a bit better in that regard. I'll be playing that next, since the end cutscene seemed to set it up.