May the force be with you! Good Joystick is a MUST. A close eye on the tactical maps (before and influght) is also very important. Sound is good but the music is also important. Subtle changes in the tune can hint to a new wave of fighters/bombers departing from nearby star destroyers. Have fun - its ine if the most genuine start wars experiences out there (personal opinion)

Aui wrote on 2024-03-23, 01:18:

May the force be with you! Good Joystick is a MUST. A close eye on the tactical maps (before and influght) is also very important. Sound is good but the music is also important. Subtle changes in the tune can hint to a new wave of fighters/bombers departing from nearby star destroyers. Have fun - its ine if the most genuine start wars experiences out there (personal opinion)

I haven't played X-Wing in years, but I'd assume that rudder control is also a must, as pedals or a joystick with twist are essentially a requirement for any serious flight sim. Personally, I can't play a flight sim without pedals, but some people are fine with a twist joystick for rudder.

I think one button on the joystick allows you to roll the ship. I also remember that a cheap joystick will be worn out after finishing the game 😀

Aui wrote on 2024-03-23, 02:59:

I think one button on the joystick allows you to roll the ship. I also remember that a cheap joystick will be worn out after finishing the game 😀

Oh, that's disappointing. Pedal or twist support would be so much better, as you would be able to control roll and yaw at the same time.

Not sure if there is a full HOTAS / pedal support but I never had such a setup back in the day. But Im definitively sure you wont get far with keyboard+mouse.

Going randomly through episode 2 of Wolfenstein 3D, since it is game of the month at DOS Game Club.
All the enemies are hitscanners and are lethal at close range. You must use gratuitous save/load or learn the levels by heart (which I have neither the time nor the interest to do).

Under a Killing Moon
I started Day 3 yesterday, and made some decent progress. At one point you have to tape together a note that's been torn up, and then figure out a cipher based on a few clues from another note... maybe this is something that's actually in a lot of adventure games, but it was new to me and I really had a blast figuring it out! I even wrote it out on paper. A simple puzzle that was completely fair, but required you to do a bit of work outside the game to solve it. After that, the next step was to search a room using the 3D engine, so I decided that was a good spot to end for the day.

Nethergate
There is a remake from 2007 (Nethergate: Resurrection), but the developer tends to dumb his games down each time he remakes them, so I'm playing the original game released in 1998.

What makes this game unique is that it's a "historical fantasy" game taking place during Boudica's failed uprising against the Roman Empire in AD 60/61. You can choose to play as either Romans or Celts. The storyline differs depending on which you choose, so I decided to play as the Celts this time, and then probably will select the Romans when I play the remake. Although it is "historical," it's definitely a fantasy version of history, with plenty of monsters and magic.

As for how it plays, it's very similar to the Exile/Avernum series from the same developer; that is, a somewhat traditional party-based RPG with turn-based combat in a large open world. So far, it's pretty good! The Celt game is a bit tough to start out, since Celts refuse to wear armor, so you really have to rely on magic to protect your fighters in combat. Although the world is quite open to explore, the game does point you at a first "dungeon," and so far it's a good one. This is one thing I've liked about all the Spiderweb Software games I've played so far; you don't just explore some random cave, as there's always some kind of story behind each location.

Alone in the Dark (2024)

The original Alone in the Dark from 1992 is one of my most beloved games of all time, and one of the main reasons why survival horror is my favorite genre. While the two sequels kept the gameplay of the original, the horror/lovecraftian elements were abandoned with the departure of creator Frédérick Raynal after the first game. So while they were not bad games IMO, they didn't hold a candle to the original.

Much less can be said of the "remakes" and "reboots" of the franchise during the last couple of decades, which range from mediocre to complete garbage, and again, very few elements from the original other than some character names.

Considering all this, I was hesitant to try this new reboot of AITD, but having just completed the game with one of the two playable characters, I'm pleased to report that it was worth it. No, it doesn't bring nowhere near as many new things to the table as the 1992 game (which pretty much birthed a genre) and can feel derivative at times when it comes to combat in particular, but it was very respectful of the themes and overall feel of the original.

The game re-imagines the story of the original game but is not a carbon copy, many events and characters are changed but again feeling really faithful to the key aspects of both the 1992 game and the Lovecraft mythos it referenced. It has more of a psychological horror vibe but in general it was nice. I'm not a massive fan of story-heavy games with lots of long cutscenes and this game doesn't overdo it so that's cool. I saw in a review that events during the game are considerably different between the two playable characters, so at some point I'll be doing another playthrough with Emily instead of Carnby.

Gameplay is pretty much identical to modern Resident Evil remakes, both in terms of combat and puzzle-solving but that's not a bad thing considering AITD was one of the major influences on the creation of RE. The combat might feel a bit janky and unresponsive at times, but playing on standard difficult there weren't any aggravating moments other than the final boss (won't spoil it here, but it has really annoying adds that got me stuck into the geometry a lot of times). Puzzles are nice but on the easier side, considering I played with the "Old School" option which meant there was no assistance or clues and I really didn't get stuck on any of them for more than 10-15 minutes.

Graphics and sound design are very nice, and in the later part of the game when the lovecraftian elements kick into full gear there are some awesome cosmic horror vistas.

All in all, I was satisfied to play what is pretty much the first AITD game worth of its name in almost 30 years.

Might & Magic III

I'm now 54 hours in on this gem. I'm not really sure how far in I am, feels like maybe 60-70%? My characters are between levels 14 and 18. Certain tasks and quests will provide huge XP bonuses to just some characters, hence the big disparity in levels between the characters. My Ninja (thief) gets a lot of XP for picking chests, so she is a bit ahead of all but my Paladin, who got a massive XP bonus in one of the dungeon chests.

This is one of those RPGs that can feel never-ending, which may or may not be your cup of tea. I personally prefer RPGs that are more linear and give you a good idea of how far in you are and how much further you have to go. And because it's vintage 1991, a lot of QoL features that keep track of things for you are missing. I have a massive spreadsheet built up with my characters, their items, levels, XP, spells, etc. It makes it way easier when upgrading equipment to spread the AC around more evenly or know who will benefit most from a special weapon.

The graphics are gorgeous for the most part. Monster animations are a highlight as are lighting effects. The music is high quality, but can get repetitive after awhile. The UI continues to surprise me. Just this morning, I noticed when I cast Protection from Elements (you can pick from Fire, Cold, Electricity, or Acid), a gem in one of the four corners of the display window turns from red to green. Upper left=Fire, upper right=Electric, lower left=Cold, lower right=Acid. I tried searching for this feature online and in the manuals, and could not find more than a glancing mention of it. It's one of those undocumented (or poorly documented) features that is so cool to discover.

Traveling the world is made easy with the Magic Mirror and Lloyd's Beacon spell, but sometimes it's just as fun to hoof it and explore the terrain.

My gaming time is drastically reduced, so this is taking me forever. I only have about 5 hours a week to play at this point, so it's very slow-going. I started this game just before Christmas!

Quake Champions

Finished Control: Ultimate Edition, DLCs included.

I liked it: great level design, fun and challenging gameplay.
Also, really good from a graphical standpoint, thanks to the RTX mode 🙂

Didn't get much of the story, but that's probably because I have a small attention span, and I get bored reading all the notes and listening to audio logs 😄

clueless1 wrote on 2024-03-24, 16:20:

Might & Magic III

It's good to read your thoughts on this one! I got maybe 20 hours into it, but liked it so much that I decided to start the series from the beginning, since I figured it would be difficult to go back the (bad) EGA graphics and PC speaker sound after the beautiful M&MIII! I still need to get through M&MII as it's kind of a slog compared with the first game, and I'm sometimes tempted to just skip it for now and continue with III.
Anyway, I'm glad you're enjoying it!

---

Nethergate
I've been playing this on and off over the past few days. It runs nearly perfect in Win 10 64-bit, though I had to set the .exe to compatibility mode. The only real issue so far is that the save game dialogue box doesn't let you actually type a name for the file! I figured out a workaround though... you can save one file just by hitting enter, and the game will give it a default name. From then on, you can just copy-paste the file within the save dialogue box to create another file, and then rename it to whatever you want.
I guess the only other issue is that the game runs in a 640x480 window, so even at 1920x1080 the window is tiny. I've been using the IntegerScaler tool to clean scale the window to 1280x960, which looks great, but then you cannot view the automap as it opens in a separate window. Not a huge problem, since I can just switch IntegerScaler off if I want to look at the map.
I'm really getting into this one now! It's always fun when you start to figure out how to play a somewhat complex RPG like this. The plot is pretty interesting, and the setting is very unique (even if you do spend a lot of time early on slaying goblins, etc.). I'm looking forward to seeing how this one goes.

I'm stuck in MM1 as my party is barely able to hit enemies. They miss like 70% of the time. When they hit, they do hit hard though. So I often die easily, and can't really make it through an entire dungeon or any of the tougher towns.

And yeah, mapping... I photocopied the maps from the clue book and I write on them my own findings as I visit each cell in every region.

dr_st wrote on 2024-03-23, 07:42:

Going randomly through episode 2 of Wolfenstein 3D, since it is game of the month at DOS Game Club.
All the enemies are hitscanners and are lethal at close range. You must use gratuitous save/load or learn the levels by heart (which I have neither the time nor the interest to do).

I recently finished Wolf3d and Would use 2 saves . One at the start of the level and one somewhere near the end or middle. Some levels were insane on later episodes, but overall I found it a fun and not overly difficult game.

I started X-wing. With B-wing and Imperial Pursuit expansions. I love the game, but have never finished it. I plan to complete it this time around. I need a decent controller though as playing with the mouse is too difficult for flight.

Law212 wrote on 2024-03-25, 18:32:

dr_st wrote on 2024-03-23, 07:42:

Going randomly through episode 2 of Wolfenstein 3D, since it is game of the month at DOS Game Club.
All the enemies are hitscanners and are lethal at close range. You must use gratuitous save/load or learn the levels by heart (which I have neither the time nor the interest to do).

I recently finished Wolf3d and Would use 2 saves . One at the start of the level and one somewhere near the end or middle. Some levels were insane on later episodes, but overall I found it a fun and not overly difficult game.

Out of curiosity I decided to play E3 on the easiest setting (played E2 on the default 'Bring em on'). What can I say - on a lower difficulty it is a walk in the park. I'm almost at the boss and never even came close to being killed.

dr_st wrote on 2024-03-25, 22:26:

Law212 wrote on 2024-03-25, 18:32:

dr_st wrote on 2024-03-23, 07:42:

Going randomly through episode 2 of Wolfenstein 3D, since it is game of the month at DOS Game Club.
All the enemies are hitscanners and are lethal at close range. You must use gratuitous save/load or learn the levels by heart (which I have neither the time nor the interest to do).

I recently finished Wolf3d and Would use 2 saves . One at the start of the level and one somewhere near the end or middle. Some levels were insane on later episodes, but overall I found it a fun and not overly difficult game.

Out of curiosity I decided to play E3 on the easiest setting (played E2 on the default 'Bring em on'). What can I say - on a lower difficulty it is a walk in the park. I'm almost at the boss and never even came close to being killed.

I played through on Bring em on. Maybe one day ill try Death Incarnate

Felt like continuing with scifi shooters after Unreal II so hopped on Red Faction.

GeoMod still to this day feels really fresh innovation, so much so I still had trouble to take it into account. There's a button I need to press but the door to the room is locked and I can't reach the button through windows, how the hell am I supposed to OH YEAH!

Finished StarCraft's Zerg campaign. Wasn't too difficult except for the mission where you need to prevent Dark Templars from escaping. Keeping track of them while dealing with attacks from all directions made that one pretty challenging. The final two levels weren't as difficult, but they still took a long time to complete, because the maps were absolutely humongous.

I really like how StarCraft's three campaigns form a cohesive narrative. All of them are canonical, and their events take place one after another. I greatly prefer this to the "whichever side you pick wins, but it may not be canon" take from the C&C games.

Also, it's great how the developers made the factions play differently from each other. Terrans can repair their stuff, Zerg have regenerating units and buildings and the Protoss have shields. Starting a new campaign with an unfamiliar faction always feels refreshing.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-03-26, 16:09:

Felt like continuing with scifi shooters after Unreal II so hopped on Red Faction.

Haven't played that one yet, but I did watch Digital Foundry's video on it.

The destructible environment thing looks amazing, especially considering when Red Faction originally came out.