Ahhh, the plot thickens! The storyline in Eschalon: Book III is starting to pique my interest even more. 😀 I'm almost 6 hours into the third and final game of this trilogy. Such a good RPG series...

As part of my ongoing quest to explore the best of my Sound Canvas, I started Kyrandia 2 : Hand of Fate on my DOS hardware. Totally missed these games during the original era. Only done the first 30 minutes, but it seems pretty cool. First surprise was that the main character is female. Shows how little I previously knew of the games!

It's imperative that I edit this post hours later to make the essential point, <klaxon> "Tanis Half-Elven detected in previous post's screenshot" </klaxon>. People who know what I'm talking about, raise your mutant tentacles in freak solidarity. What's with that??

He probably used it as a PC portrait and yes I noticed it too 🤣

Shreddoc wrote on 2021-01-23, 01:14:

It's imperative that I edit this post hours later to make the essential point, <klaxon> "Tanis Half-Elven detected in previous post's screenshot" </klaxon>. People who know what I'm talking about, raise your mutant tentacles in freak solidarity. What's with that??

Nicely detected, guys. 🤣. I wasn't thrilled about the male character portraits offered by the game, and they do let you customize, so I decided to make my Ranger look like one of the best Rangers of all time.

badmojo wrote on 2021-01-22, 20:28:

Games are supposed to be fun dagnabbit so I approve of this enhancement 👍

Heheh. Red Baron II (and Red Baron 3D) was praised because of its realism, so one might think I lose some of the game's value by not playing on maximum realism.

However, I'm not playing the game for realism; I'm playing it for its dynamic campaign. Both Their Finest Hour and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe have arcadish "flight model," but it is the dynamic campaign that keep me glued to those games.

Even with cheats, this game is still hard.

Since I have reached the Dalton Era in the slow Bond marathon me and have been doing, I’ve been, painfully, playing through Goldeneye 007 on my N64. I am enjoying the hell out of it, though the slowdown combined with the sometimes too quick AI have been aggravating.

Started Lands of Lore: Throne of Chaos a couple weeks ago and ran into several road blocks in the Urbish mines. Trying my best to avoid having to look up a way through, but some scenarios are so cryptic. Spent the better part of the day, playing catchup and made it to the White Tower with all of the elixir ingredients.

Drittz wrote on 2021-01-24, 03:07:

Started Lands of Lore: Throne of Chaos a couple weeks ago and ran into several road blocks in the Urbish mines. Trying my best to avoid having to look up a way through, but some scenarios are so cryptic. Spent the better part of the day, playing catchup and made it to the White Tower with all of the elixir ingredients.

The White Tower was one of the parts whre I almost threw the towel. The floor where some enemies cast that snake spell at you that did enormous damage from range was ragequit inducing..

I played through the first chapter of Blood last night - I've played the first level a bunch the last year, testing PCs and sound cards etc but never sat down to have a good go at it. It does not disappoint! This game deserves all the praise it gets. Every level was great but I really liked the train and the temple. I'll continue with the 2nd chapter tonight. I'm running it on a Pentium 2 400mhz with midi music through the YMF744 - sounds so good and runs fairly smooth on 640x480.

Finished Have no mouth must screeam. The endgame is ridiculous, I can't believe anyone ever finished it without hints.

Started Phantasmagoria on the same PC. After burning the CDs to get rid of noise, getting midi working, and changing resolution so the videos play fullscreen -- it is actually quite an enjoyable experience. Nothing feels like the mid 90s like FMV games 🤣

kolderman wrote on 2021-01-25, 17:55:

Finished Have no mouth must screeam. The endgame is ridiculous, I can't believe anyone ever finished it without hints.

Started Phantasmagoria on the same PC. After burning the CDs to get rid of noise, getting midi working, and changing resolution so the videos play fullscreen -- it is actually quite an enjoyable experience. Nothing feels like the mid 90s like FMV games 🤣

I've been interested in playing IHNMAIMS, the theme and styling looks nice, music moody and atmospheric but I cant help but feel like the story will drag on. Thats just my impression, I'm not too sure if this is true or not. How do you rate it in terms of keeping you entertained and wanting to finish it? Did you have to pull yourself through or was it enjoyable? I'm interested because it really does LOOK cool.

I finished up the 4th chapter of Blood last night and my god what a ride. I enjoyed it thoroughly all the way and made a concious effort to try and play it properly without cheesing the entire game with the napalm launcher, conserving ammo and finding the most efficient ways to kill each enemy. After playing thru Duke3d completely the other month I gotta say that Blood was a way better experience. It never felt like a key or switch hunt but the challenge was in the combat instead. The only level that got to me was the haunted mansion because I think I missed something really obvious at one part of the map and needed to find where a key was (I assumed I had the key that I picked up earlier before I died and reloaded a save) but overall every level was fairly unique and it all made sense, flowing the way it should. The best maps were the carnival/circus, the hospital (sick ward) and pretty much all of episode 4.

I think the weapons were the most fun thing about the game and definitely the guns akimbo. More fun than a quad damage powerup tbh. Oh and I literally had a nightmare last night about a cultist being a mass murderer coming to get me. I haven't had that kind of engagement in a LONG time. 9/10.

foil_fresh wrote on 2021-01-29, 02:15:

kolderman wrote on 2021-01-25, 17:55:

Finished Have no mouth must screeam. The endgame is ridiculous, I can't believe anyone ever finished it without hints.

Started Phantasmagoria on the same PC. After burning the CDs to get rid of noise, getting midi working, and changing resolution so the videos play fullscreen -- it is actually quite an enjoyable experience. Nothing feels like the mid 90s like FMV games 🤣

I've been interested in playing IHNMAIMS, the theme and styling looks nice, music moody and atmospheric but I cant help but feel like the story will drag on. Thats just my impression, I'm not too sure if this is true or not. How do you rate it in terms of keeping you entertained and wanting to finish it? Did you have to pull yourself through or was it enjoyable? I'm interested because it really does LOOK cool.

I would say quite enjoyable. The thing that makes it stand out though is that it is very much not a standard adventure/puzzle game. You really need to get into the head of the person you are playing to think through to solutions. There is a psychological aspect. There are some puzzles that leave you feeling like "no one could have thought of that", and a few logic bugs it seems where if you do things in the "wrong" order, you might get stuck. But it's very, very unique as a game in terms of concept (well it's based on a unique concept from a book). Just don't bother with the endgame -- as in just get a walkthrough and play it that way, even with that it's tricky to get everything right.

kolderman wrote on 2021-01-29, 02:31:

foil_fresh wrote on 2021-01-29, 02:15:

kolderman wrote on 2021-01-25, 17:55:

Finished Have no mouth must screeam. The endgame is ridiculous, I can't believe anyone ever finished it without hints.

Started Phantasmagoria on the same PC. After burning the CDs to get rid of noise, getting midi working, and changing resolution so the videos play fullscreen -- it is actually quite an enjoyable experience. Nothing feels like the mid 90s like FMV games 🤣

I've been interested in playing IHNMAIMS, the theme and styling looks nice, music moody and atmospheric but I cant help but feel like the story will drag on. Thats just my impression, I'm not too sure if this is true or not. How do you rate it in terms of keeping you entertained and wanting to finish it? Did you have to pull yourself through or was it enjoyable? I'm interested because it really does LOOK cool.

I would say quite enjoyable. The thing that makes it stand out though is that it is very much not a standard adventure/puzzle game. You really need to get into the head of the person you are playing to think through to solutions. There is a psychological aspect. There are some puzzles that leave you feeling like "no one could have thought of that", and a few logic bugs it seems where if you do things in the "wrong" order, you might get stuck. But it's very, very unique as a game in terms of concept (well it's based on a unique concept from a book). Just don't bother with the endgame -- as in just get a walkthrough and play it that way, even with that it's tricky to get everything right.

ok cool 😀 i usually keep a walkthrough handy because i'm usually playing point n click games purely for the story and/or jokes. it just better not be boring, and the cheesier the voice acting the better 😜

I'm finally playing the first Monkey Island game!
BTW I'm going to complete it later.

Unrelated talk here but do you know that the 1987 TMNT series had a episode that parodied Zak McKracken? (The episode name is "Zach and the Alien Invaders")

I've hit the first really challenging area in Eschalon: Book III. Actually, there are some challenging aspects to this game even when played on easier skill levels. For example, you need to learn skills in order to do certain things, like fight with specific weapon types, use certain kinds of armor, cast spells, repair weapons, mix alchemical potions, pick locks, etc. You can learn/grow skills at level up, by buying or finding skill books to study, or by paying a trainer. When leveling up, you get 3 skill points to distribute. You can use all 3 to learn a new skill, or you can improve up to 3 skills that you already know. Obviously, it's best not to waste skill points on learning skills -- learn your skills from book or trainers, then you get more bang for you buck with the skill points at level up. Well, money is not easy to come by early on. Sometimes you get lucky and find a valuable item, but the merchants in the early part of the game don't have as much money to buy your stuff, so sometimes you have to hold onto a valuable item for awhile to find a better merchant who can afford to buy it from you. It's quite easy to overspend your money too early, then have no easy way to get more money for necessities (like arrows if you're a ranger). Fortunately, I picked Foraging as one of my initial skills so I'm able to feed myself and find water without having to spend much money on food. Then there's the matter of deciding which skills are important for your build and how much to invest in them. For example, in order to break open some crates, you have to have a bludgeoning weapon or break it with your bare hands. There is a bludgeoning skill you can develop, or unarmed combat. My ranger specializes in bows with unarmed combat as a secondary attack. You can find/buy "weapons" for unarmed combat -- namely, brass knuckle type weapons. it turns out to be a decent mode of combat. A skill you don't need to invest too much in is cartography. The auto-map won't fill if you don't have this skill, and when you learn it it will fill with very little detail until you improve the skill to about 3. You can continue to spend skill points in cartography to get very detailed automapping, but in reality, stopping at 3 is fine for getting around.

So that makes this RPG a bit different than most in how important skill development is so early on.

I introduced my 6 year old son to Sim Tower last night and he loves the game. He woke us up around 3 am cause he turned his computer on and started playing and forgot to lower the volume on his speakers.

Got through to chapter 4 of Phantasmagoria (easy so far). But I have to say...I though going back to play some old 90s FMV titles would be like a chance to laugh at how bad some games were back then...but so far I am actually really enjoying it. It is engaging, interesting and draws you in...much like good movie would. I know this considered one of the best FMV titles made...but it still makes me wonder if the genre has become unfairly maligned.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-01-30, 15:26:

I introduced my 6 year old son to Sim Tower last night and he loves the game. He woke us up around 3 am cause he turned his computer on and started playing and forgot to lower the volume on his speakers.

Niiiiice! Its just the beginning for him! I remember when I had around his age and did the same but playing Accolade Grand Prix. Good times!

A few weeks ago my dad wanted to play SimCity again and I introduced him to DOSBox. He played it for a while, I guess that he got bored because of natural disasters ruining his city. And now, when I asked him, he was playing Sokoban. He’s now on level 18...

He very much loves my old maxis games. He's got a 5 star safari park in Sim Safari as well. He's also got quite the space program going in Kerbal Space Program.

domomex89 wrote on 2021-01-30, 01:42:

I'm finally playing the first Monkey Island game!
BTW I'm going to complete it later.

Unrelated talk here but do you know that the 1987 TMNT series had a episode that parodied Zak McKracken? (The episode name is "Zach and the Alien Invaders")

haha! I haven't played the game but i'll be sure to check out the turtles episode, sounds great 😀

I hope you enjoy Monkey Island.

I received my VLB video card for the 486 about 6 weeks early (2 weeks to Aus from The UK?!?!) so I set it up yesterday and decided to kick off by playing DOOM! I've never finished the full version so I decided it's time to do such. I'm a few levels into the 3rd chapter on the middle difficulty and beside one level where I spent a good 30 mins looking for a switch (cut short thanks to a youtube walkthrough) I've really been loving it. I should have it wrapped up by Tuesday. Not sure yet if I should go after with Doom 2 or play Heretic instead. Part of me wants to jump into Doom 2 and then Doom 3 (because I'd really like to play Doom 2016 which I've barely touched) yet the other idea is to start from the beginning and work my way forward with all the FPS titles I missed out on.