Just a quick note. Wanted to play something fun & casual. Remembered a free hover tank game I was playing back in 2014 called 'Warscape Alpha'. It's kind of a mix between Battlezone & BZFlag. Haven't tried multiplayer, but it has maze like levels you unlock as you complete previous levels. You can also unlock more powerful tanks as you progress. The object of the game is to get the key so you can make an escape. If you want upgrades, you try to pick up all the coins. This is all on a timer so no lollygagging. AI tanks get introduced in later levels. It's a fun game for a quick round or two and I highly recommend it. Runs fine on Windows 7 and above. Haven't tried it on earlier versions of Windows. There is also an Apple OSX version.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221027221005/ht … e/download.html

That looks like something I’ll try! I enjoy my main gaming system and have a pretty massive installed library that I try to keep to years 2016 and up. Other systems I have are generally kept period correct matching hardware and software.
Recently I broke my rule and installed “Hard Reset” on my modern system. Wow, I’m really enjoying it! It’s great non-stop shooter action and a blast from the past (2011).
Another great oldie under Win98 that’s a lot of fun is “Slave Zero”. Something fun about picking up moving cars and throwing them. 😀

Well, I finally finished Xenoblade Chronicles 3. As a fan of the first 2 games, this one felt very meh. I have a great many gripes I've already gone into here I'm pretty sure. Also, I didn't count how many stages the final boss had, but I swear it felt like almost a dozen. Way overkill. Just glad it's finally over, which is the first time I felt that way about a Xenoblade game. Storywise, I also felt like the ending was extremely unsatisfactory. Except for an easter egg about XC2 which shows Rex put babies into his entire waifu harem. So good for him.

Moved onto a copy of Majesty Gold I'm playing on my K6-2+ rig. I've dabbled in it a few times, mostly my GOG copy. But naturally, everything is better on the hardware it was meant to be played on. I'm looking forward to a game that takes less than 100 hours to finish.

Eschalon: Book I
I completed this just now. I played as a pure mage and it took around 17 hours total to finish the game.

I didn't go into this expecting much due to it being a turn-based single-character RPG (and not a roguelike), but I ended up getting quite addicted. It was a lot of fun to explore, and I felt the world was just the right size; large enough to feel somewhat sprawling, but small enough to not get lost. I also liked the dungeons and labyrinths, which were full of traps, treasures, and simple puzzles. The story was alright, and ended up being a lot more interesting than I expected at first.

Playing as a pure mage, the game definitely started getting tedious during the last 25%. Attack spells do a range of damage points per spell level, but there are only 6 spell levels. In other words, once you have enough INT to cast your spell at level 6, that is the most damage you'll ever do with that spell. Enemies in the final regions would take anywhere from 5-10 spells at max level to kill (and also many of them have spell resistance), so you end up using up 25%-50% (!) of your spell points just to kill one enemy. Luckily, enemies don't respawn, and you can often avoid them outside of dungeons.

I guess what most holds this back for me is that it's a single-character game. This makes combat a bit too simple to be interesting, and also means that you run out of interesting choices to make during level ups very quickly. It's too bad the developer never used the same engine to make a party-based RPG.

Anyway, except for the tediousness of magic toward the end and the simplistic combat, I really liked this! I'll definitely be playing the rest of the trilogy, but probably not until next year sometime.

newtmonkey wrote on 2022-10-29, 09:18:

Eschalon: Book I I completed this just now. I played as a pure mage and it took around 17 hours total to finish the game. […]
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Eschalon: Book I
I completed this just now. I played as a pure mage and it took around 17 hours total to finish the game.

I didn't go into this expecting much due to it being a turn-based single-character RPG (and not a roguelike), but I ended up getting quite addicted. It was a lot of fun to explore, and I felt the world was just the right size; large enough to feel somewhat sprawling, but small enough to not get lost. I also liked the dungeons and labyrinths, which were full of traps, treasures, and simple puzzles. The story was alright, and ended up being a lot more interesting than I expected at first.

Playing as a pure mage, the game definitely started getting tedious during the last 25%. Attack spells do a range of damage points per spell level, but there are only 6 spell levels. In other words, once you have enough INT to cast your spell at level 6, that is the most damage you'll ever do with that spell. Enemies in the final regions would take anywhere from 5-10 spells at max level to kill (and also many of them have spell resistance), so you end up using up 25%-50% (!) of your spell points just to kill one enemy. Luckily, enemies don't respawn, and you can often avoid them outside of dungeons.

I guess what most holds this back for me is that it's a single-character game. This makes combat a bit too simple to be interesting, and also means that you run out of interesting choices to make during level ups very quickly. It's too bad the developer never used the same engine to make a party-based RPG.

Anyway, except for the tediousness of magic toward the end and the simplistic combat, I really liked this! I'll definitely be playing the rest of the trilogy, but probably not until next year sometime.

That was fast. 😀 I want to say Books 2 and 3 are each about 20 hours longer. Expect 35-50 hours to complete each of them. I'm a very slow player and it took me 50 hours for Book 2 and 44 hours for Book 3. I believe I played with a Ranger for all three games and remember being happy with that selection. I agree with your statement about the developer never making a party-based RPG with this engine. It was surprisingly good. What's next?

I'm still on Ultima VI. It's weird, I'm not super crazy about it, but it's just entertaining enough that I keep chugging along. Currently have 27 hours into it and I'm just about to get the Rune of Valor from Jhelom. This would make 6 out of 8 runes. I got to Jhelom through undersea tunnels from west of Trinsic (a cave entrance called Heroes' Hole), but when I realized I needed Sherry the Mouse, I bought a ship and sailed back to Britain to ask her to join my party. One of the only times I didn't travel a long distance via Moongate. The fast-paced, repetitive song that plays when you board your ship becomes very grating, so I may just use moongates to get back to Jhelom! For now, while in Britain, I'm exploring the sewers below the castle since I hadn't done that at the start of the game.

damjank wrote on 2022-10-25, 20:01:

Doing Shadowcaster right now 😀 ...but hte line is long 😖

I played that game from start to finish back in August of 2017. I remember it being fairly short (15-20 hours?) and pretty decent. I gave it a C (70/100). What made it more entertaining for me was playing on original hardware with high quality GM and the fact that I was an Origin fanboy back in the day. I remember finding some kind of bug or easter egg, but I can't remember specifically what at the moment. Maybe I documented it in this thread back then. Shrug.

Edit: Found it!
Re: What game are you playing now?

AndrettiGTO wrote on 2022-10-27, 22:44:

Recently I broke my rule and installed “Hard Reset” on my modern system. Wow, I’m really enjoying it! It’s great non-stop shooter action and a blast from the past (2011).

Ya know, I've been meaning to try out Hard Reset. I really enjoyed the original demo, but never got around to buying the game. Finally picked up the Redux version on GOG. There's a camp that says the original is better/harder and then of course many that say the Redux version is best. Since I loved the original demo from 2011 I've been waiting for a DRM-free version of that to appear, but it looks like that's never going to happen so Redux will probably be my next game to try out. I absolutely love the cyberpunk atmosphere from the original demo. I was hoping the original Hard Reset would show up on some other DRM-free platform like Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition did.

clueless1 wrote on 2022-10-29, 12:26:

What's next?

Shadowrun Returns
Finished (lol)! I was already 7 hours into this, and it turns out it's a 10-hour game.

Overall, I liked it. I didn't think the Shadowrun setting would appeal to me (cyberpunk + fantasy), but something about it clicked and I enjoyed it. It has you investigating a murder in a very linear RPG with "tactical" turn-based combat (somewhat similar to X-COM), with your team formed from whatever character the mission forces on you together with other mercenaries you hire from a merc network. You only get to upgrade your own character, but I really didn't mind. It was always exciting to earn enough "karma" points to purchase another level in one of my key skills.

Although there's a lot of combat, it's definitely quite focused on story and dialog, though the writing overall is quite good and not overly verbose. No complaints at all, though the story does take a weird and somewhat uninteresting turn for the last couple of missions. Some of the dialog options are only available for certain character builds, so there's some role-playing to do during conversations, and it would probably be fun to replay this as a completely different character.

If I have one complaint (besides the ultra linearity), it would be that there aren't a lot of option for equipment. You're better off just sticking with a single type of weapon, since each type has its own skill rating, and there simply aren't that many guns of each type throughout the game. Oh well, not a big problem in such a short game.

I must also mention the stellar soundtrack and background/protrait art throughout the game. Together with the writing, it all comes together to give the game a lot of atmosphere.

Done with Jedi Knight 2. Overall, it was a solid game, but the last couple of levels were really poorly designed. The fight with the admiral in that super armor was probably harder than the end game battle. That wasn't the problem though. Escaping that level while floating in low gravity and with depleted shields was a much, much bigger hurdle. Whoever thought that sequence would be fun to play was dead wrong. The Yavin levels were also kinda tedious, with the fog, rain and swampy terrain. The final battle inside the Jedi Temple was cool though.

That said, there were a lot of things that I liked about the game. Using the various Force powers felt awesome. Force Pushing grenades back onto the stormtroopers who fired them was epic. Using Force Speed to find an opening when fighting Dark Jedi felt great. And Force Pulling stormtroopers off ledges was hilarious. All in all, the combat was super fun. The puzzles were hit and miss, but none of them annoyed me too much. Platforming and stealth sequences toward the end felt kinda forced, but thankfully they were fairly short.

I had planned to continue onward to Jedi Academy, however, I think I'll take a break from this game series. It was fun and all, but I need a change of scenery.

newtmonkey wrote on 2022-10-29, 16:43:

Shadowrun Returns Finished (lol)! I was already 7 hours into this, and it turns out it's a 10-hour game. […]
Show full quote

clueless1 wrote on 2022-10-29, 12:26:

What's next?

Shadowrun Returns
Finished (lol)! I was already 7 hours into this, and it turns out it's a 10-hour game.

Overall, I liked it. I didn't think the Shadowrun setting would appeal to me (cyberpunk + fantasy), but something about it clicked and I enjoyed it. It has you investigating a murder in a very linear RPG with "tactical" turn-based combat (somewhat similar to X-COM), with your team formed from whatever character the mission forces on you together with other mercenaries you hire from a merc network. You only get to upgrade your own character, but I really didn't mind. It was always exciting to earn enough "karma" points to purchase another level in one of my key skills.

Although there's a lot of combat, it's definitely quite focused on story and dialog, though the writing overall is quite good and not overly verbose. No complaints at all, though the story does take a weird and somewhat uninteresting turn for the last couple of missions. Some of the dialog options are only available for certain character builds, so there's some role-playing to do during conversations, and it would probably be fun to replay this as a completely different character.

If I have one complaint (besides the ultra linearity), it would be that there aren't a lot of option for equipment. You're better off just sticking with a single type of weapon, since each type has it's own skill rating, and there simply aren't that many guns of each type throughout the game. Oh well, not a big problem in such a short game.

I must also mention the stellar soundtrack and background/protrait art throughout the game. Together with the writing, it all comes together to give the game a lot of atmosphere.

I semi-enjoyed this game until the plot point where the invincible bugs appeared. That's when I quit, because I realized it was quite sterile and boring..

I hear the sequel, Dragonsomething? is much much better, but the first one soured me pretty bad on the franchise so I never tried it..

appiah4 wrote on 2022-10-31, 11:32:

I semi-enjoyed this game until the plot point where the invincible bugs appeared. That's when I quit, because I realized it was quite sterile and boring..

I hear the sequel, Dragonsomething? is much much better, but the first one soured me pretty bad on the franchise so I never tried it..

You might consider finishing the game, as it's almost over by the time the plot derails into bug ghosts. 😀

I've heard that Dragonfall is quite an improvement over SR, with a sort of hub structure with you taking missions and forming teams to earn money (i.e. what SR should have been). I liked the combat and overall atmosphere of SR enough that I plan on playing DF probably in early 2023.

I've been playing Gothic 1 for weeks and have finally finished it... sort of. The Gothics are my favourite RPGs (1 to 3 anyway) but I've never finished 1, only 2 and 3. Overall G1 is a fantastic game, with a brilliant map to explore and countless memorable moments - just magic really. But as always with Piranha Bytes games along with the ecstasy there is agony, particularly in the second half of the game when the plot takes you away from the beautiful open world, and in to infuriatingly convoluted under ground levels with lame puzzles and countless, joyless boss-fights and fetch quests to drag the whole thing out.

And I only sort-of finished it because I stabbed the 5 damn swords through the 5 damn demon hearts to kill the final boss and... nothing. The final boss kept right on tossing fireballs at me. I checked a walkthrough and confirmed I did it right, then loaded an older save and tried again. Nothin.

Oh well I'm claiming to have finished it and despite the shit end-game (which G2, G3, and Risen suffer from too), Gothic 1 is an awesome experience.

badmojo wrote on 2022-11-01, 11:15:

And I only sort-of finished it because I stabbed the 5 damn swords through the 5 damn demon hearts to kill the final boss and... nothing. The final boss kept right on tossing fireballs at me. I checked a walkthrough and confirmed I did it right, then loaded an older save and tried again. Nothin.

You didn't miss much. After stabbing all the hearts a movie plays and then the credits roll. You can probably find the end movie on YouTube.

Oh well I'm claiming to have finished it and despite the shit end-game (which G2, G3, and Risen suffer from too), Gothic 1 is an awesome experience.

Yeah, the end game dungeon slog was always the weak point of the Gothic/Risen games. The free roaming and exploration are the best parts and they are what draw most people to these games again and again.

I have started Elden Ring; great game, it feels the same way Gothic did when I played it for the first time.

The game is huge, I am 30 hours in and barely passed the first boss. It is still a souls game at its core, although very accessible.

Steam updated to conversion rate for my local currency from 1.8 vs the USD to 10.0 vs the USD (it is in reality 18.5 vs the USD so they are still being fairly generous) so I thought I would grab a few dozen cheap games.. It seems I bought mostly action platformers and adventure games. The last 10 games I played have all been either shooters or RPGs so it's time for a bit of change for me.

In other news Titanfall 2 is almost over, and I loved every minute of it. I can't recommend it highly enough. It also looks pretty damn amazing for being 6 years old! Enjoy some nice screenshots for now, I will write up a full review once it's completely done.

Frayed Knights: The Skull of S'makh-Daon
This is a party-based first-person RPG, with free movement in a 3D world and turn-based combat. I guess the closest thing would be Wizardry 8 or Wizards & Warriors. It's a little clunky (it's basically the work of a single developer), but it plays fine once you put a little time into it.

One of the greatest things about this game is the world design. It's definitely not an open world game, but it's cool to explore a truly 3D space in an otherwise traditional RPG. The dungeons are really good, with plenty of puzzles, gimmicks, and verticality.

There are also some very cool mechanics in this game. You can rest anywhere, but your chance of having a random encounter while resting increases if you try to rest in an area where you're out in the open. It's better to find some corner of a room to rest.

You also have what's called a "drama star" system, where you build up "drama points" the longer you play; you do retain these points if you save and quit and then continue from the main menu later, but lose them all if you reload a save. You can cash in these points to do all sorts of things, including reviving incapacitated characters for free. It's a cool system to reward you when you roll with the punches, but doesn't really penalize you for not engaging with it.

Having said all that, there are a couple of things that may be dealbreakers for some.

First is the humor. It's a "parody" RPG, with characters breaking the fourth wall constantly. The title maybe tells you all you need to know about the humor in this game (personally, it's not my cup of tea).

Second is the fixed party. You don't create any characters, but instead must play as four set characters. They all have their own roles and personalities, and the story of the game is told through them interacting with each other. You can choose how they develop as they level up, but you probably don't want to go too much outside of their fixed roles (fighter, thief, cleric, mage).

Grim Dawn
A Diablo II clone, but a good one. I got seriously addicted to this over the past few days. It has a look/atmosphere somewhat similar to the movie, Brotherhood of the Wolf, and some fun mechanics like being able to dual-class, freely add components/augments to equipment at any time, and unlock abilities and bonuses in any of 82 "constellations." This gives you several things to consider as you build your character, which is fun in a game like this.

It's a great game to just play for an hour here or there as I have time. It's not anything complicated (at least not on Normal difficulty), so I can just jump in, enjoy slaughtering a billion skeletons or whatever, and get some awesome loot. Fun!

newtmonkey wrote on 2022-11-02, 18:14:

Grim Dawn
A Diablo II clone, but a good one. I got seriously addicted to this over the past few days. It has a look/atmosphere somewhat similar to the movie, Brotherhood of the Wolf, and some fun mechanics like being able to dual-class, freely add components/augments to equipment at any time, and unlock abilities and bonuses in any of 82 "constellations." This gives you several things to consider as you build your character, which is fun in a game like this.

It's a great game to just play for an hour here or there as I have time. It's not anything complicated (at least not on Normal difficulty), so I can just jump in, enjoy slaughtering a billion skeletons or whatever, and get some awesome loot. Fun!

Grim Dawn is the only ARPG besides Diablo II that I've genuinely liked. It does have some small team + low budget related issues but if it can get someone like me who doesn't generally like APRG's to play it for dozens of hours it's safe to say it's pretty good. I recommend also getting the first expansion if you don't already have it, I my opinion it has the best content in the game. Very atmospheric. I didn't even hate the roguelike dungeon in it while I very much dislike the ones in the base game, the chaos one is pure garbage as far as I'm concerned.

I couldn't stomach Neverwinter Nights OC anymore and noped out. I've always thought of it like a simple and kinda charming little romp but now my feelings went from awwww -> hmh amusing -> if they spend five years making this, what the hell did they do all that time? -> aaAAAARGH! There aren't many games that I once upon a time liked but just can't tolerate anymore but it's clearly time to finally put NWN OC to rest. I moved to the first expansion which I do like a bit more. If OC seems like something a couple complete amateurs cooked up in their moms basement this one feels like someone there actually had at least some idea, but maybe not enough time or resources. I think I'm nearly at the end, the first half of the expansion was better than the latter half. At least the first part had a nice area to explore while the latter part reeks of half-assing possibly due to time/money running out. I'll finish it but I'm not sure at all will I ever replay it or should I continue to the second expansion like I planned, I might end up just tarnishing any good memories I have of it too.

I decided it was time to finally beat the Allied campaign of Red Alert and it was going without too much pain until I reached the indoor part of mission 10. It's utter balls. I'm taking a break from the game before continuing. Also it's become apparent why I never did like the Allied campaign as much as the Soviet campaign, it gets ...messy. Allieds have weaker units so they need more of them. The AI is more aggressive than in the original C&C and attacks from multiple directions, on some missions it even gets free units form outside of the map to attack you. Soviets have V2 rocket launchers that can open fire on your defences from a distance. All these things that require frequent responding while pathfinding is just as bad as in the original C&C. Have you ever seen what happens if you drop a fox in a middle of chicken herd? Me neither, but play RA on Allied side and you get a pretty good idea.

I'm a simple guy, I just want to sit on my hands and listen to Frank Klepacki go to town while the attacking enemy melts on my defences, but mean Red Alert is forcing me to *do* things. What the game thinks I am, some kind of online playing actions per second RTS hero? 😆

Sombrero wrote on 2022-11-02, 21:45:

I decided it was time to finally beat the Allied campaign of Red Alert and it was going without too much pain until I reached the indoor part of mission 10. It's utter balls. I'm taking a break from the game before continuing. Also it's become apparent why I never did like the Allied campaign as much as the Soviet campaign, it gets ...messy. Allieds have weaker units so they need more of them.

The Allies do get one interesting unit - Cruisers. Those things can wreck an enemy base in seconds, but you get them so late in the game that it barely matters.

But yeah, you need to produce massive quantities of tanks and such to stand a chance during the campaign.

Heretic: Shadows of the Serpent Riders, vanilla through a pcem 486 keyboard only.......replayed and completed

E1's a bit guide dangit with the cathedral

E2 is more brown than quake, a lot of the new monsters would camoflauge often

E3 started to make monster closets a habit. At least there's way more blue to contrast the brown. snakes

E4 was a mess of bad balance.

E5 is a stressful endurance

E5M6 had a horrible softlock that led to a hour of confused backtracking, and clueless shootable walls to progress

Oh yeah, Episodes 4 and 5 were quite brutal in heretic. even more difficult than Doom's episode 4 though I'll admit I haven't played heretic nearly as much as I've played doom. Speaking of Doom off and on for a while I've been doing a challenge to beat every level on ultra-violence with a pistol start. That means getting a 100% kills, 100% items, and 100% secrets. And well E3M4 was quite a pain. I'm on E3M5 right now and damn it's also really kicking my butt. I've made it through the on UV many times but ever really 100% a lot of levels not via a pistol start either (I've done pistol start on HMP). I'm not doing this on a retro machine, I'm using a source port called Woof!.

I also recently started Dishonoured. My family had it on the PS3 but I never really played it myself. I bought the base game on Steam during the sale and it runs pretty good under Proton.