Once I get my rig back up and running I intend on enjoying the following in their original glory:

Sim City
Quake
Doom 2 using Doom95
Kings Quest
Need For Speed 3
Driver
The Oregon Trail (Have NEVER played this but I am so excited to have found a DOS CD for it!)
Shogo (Childhood favorite game)
Max Payne

I intend on playing the story driven games to completion, but things like Doom 2 I've played so many times I'll mostly just be playing to enjoy the true SB16 audio on my Altec Lansing speakers. I'm most excited for Max Payne and Shogo, as I haven't played either in at least 6 years without major issues forcing me to stop within 30 minutes.

Malik wrote:

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Kadath wrote:

After finished Cobra Mission: Panic in Cobra City [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_Mission:_ … c_in_Cobra_City] on pure MS-DOS 6.22 // 486 DX-33, I'm playing a 'modern' one, X-COM: Enemy Unknown on XBOX 360.

Cobra Mission has cool, anime-like intro music. But IIRC the game only support Sound Blaster FM Music. I wish it could use General MIDI.

Aah....Cobra Mission... before I had internet (just before I got my first modem) played this ... mainly for the you-know-what.. 🤣

Don't forget Knight of Xentar. 🤣

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Don't forget Knight of Xentar. 🤣

Thanks Kreshna! I'll try it too in future 😉

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

Since I didn't see one like it anywhere, I took the liberty of scanning the Hint Manual booklet and use Acrobat 6 to create a PDF. Here's the download link:
...
For those that want the original scans (lossless PNG) in a single ZIP file, get it here....

Thanks! I cleaned up the lossless PNG files to make the attached PDF. It is now grayscale, black text on white background. Still lossless and crisp, no JPeg compression.

Guess what?

Which Dune game? 2000?

Played some Rage Racer, a PSX game in RetroArch 😀

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Guess what?

You are just torturing the enemy player (red)!

I am having a lot of fun with Elite: Dangerous using my newly acquired HOTAS (Saitek X52). I am playing with both normal screen (2D) and VR (using HTC Vive). I must admit the VR experience is amazing. I can stretch my neck in the cockpit and see the front my ship. Also fighting is A LOT easier because I can look up and in any other direction without moving the ship therefore giving me near infinite maneuvrability.

Feeling a bit empty after finishing U7: Serpent Isle. 🤣. I'm deciding on the next RPG, it's down to Albion and Legend of Grimrock. Non-RPG: I got partway through level 15 on Descent II last night. Weird level, I can't seem to find the guidebot (which is usually right at the level start).

EDIT: I ended up choosing Legend of Grimrock. Got to level 2 in my first sitting. So far it's very enjoyable. Great atmosphere, and very nice graphics (especially coming from primarily DOS games!). Easy to play with a shallow learning curve, which I prefer in my old age. I'm not crazy about the hand-eye coordination required for realtime combat, it's not terribly hard, but while I'm learning the controls, it's far too easy to turn instead of side-step accidentally. And too many clicks required to cast a spell. I personally would've preferred turn-based, but I can live with it and learn to enjoy it.

Tandy 1000 - Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny
486 - Hoyale Card Games for Windows 3.1, Diablo for Windows 95, Dungeon Hack, Retro City Rampage
286 - Prince of Persia
Modern - Five Nights at Freddy's, Retro City Rampage

clueless1 wrote:

I got partway through level 15 on Descent II last night. Weird level, I can't seem to find the guidebot (which is usually right at the level start).

The little guy is quite a ways in level 15. See if these screenshots I took help (if you haven't found it yet):

Thanks man. I haven't played it since I posted, so this may come in handy when I fire it up next. I forgot to mention, I did find the first two keys already. That's a first, find two keys before guidebot. 🤣.

Legend of Grimrock.

The jury's still out on it, I'm almost done with level 2. I'm not a fan of the high dexterity requirement for real-time combat, but it hasn't been too hard so far. I'm more of a turn-based fan. Great atmosphere despite the thin plot. Absurdly low memory footprint for how good it looks. Easy to alt-tab to the desktop and Task Manager reports only 600MB in use!

edit: I think I have to start over. I realized I gave my Rogue the Daggers skill, but he's in the rear, so can't use daggers from the back row. I wrongly thought that throwing knives used the Dagger skill when they actually use the Throwing Weapon skill. So I've been giving all my level-up skill points to Daggers, thinking I was helping him throw knives better. 😒

edit: I did start over and create new characters. Better to do it early on. Now my back row rogue specializes in missile weapons rather than daggers. Already made it to level 3, I'm playing on easy so I should be able to get through this rather quickly, which I prefer, given I just spent 2.5 months on Ultima 7: SI 🤣.

Microsoft Midtown Madness on XP. I originally just wanted to test my Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback steering wheel, but then got addicted.

I’ve been really getting into Strife (DOS 1996) lately after years of dabbling with it and then getting distracted by something else. People were disappointed with the presentation of it back in the day apparently because it uses the VGA only DOOM engine, but I think it looks excellent when played now, out of context. And the various gameplay mechanics the devs eked out of ID’s tech1 make it a really interesting experience – simple role playing, friendly NPC’s, sexy voice over, comic book-esque cut scenes.

I estimate I’m about 3/4 of the way through and sadly the level designs have started to devolve into confusing mazes with illogical switches to doors you can’t see – or even hear for that matter (I managed to break a keyboard in frustration at one point, haven’t done that in a while!). But I’m impressed that the level designers held out this long; the earlier levels were really memorable and fun. The voice acting is amazingly good for that era and the GM soundtrack is a winner.

I’m playing on a P166MMX + Acer magic s23 + NEC XR386 and it plays / sounds great.

Partway in on level 7 on Legend of Grimrock. There's a puzzle at the end of level 6 that unlocks a secret room that was just maddening to complete! Requires crazy speed and hand-eye coordination and it probably took me 50 attempts before I got it.
Here's this puzzle for anyone interested in seeing it:
https://youtu.be/-GC9mqAjP3w?list=PLF541B0D024F694E9&t=790
It took this let's player a few attempts and he obviously has played this game a few times already.

About halfway through the game, here's my review so far:
Positives:
-great graphics and atmosphere. Though there's no in-game music (a negative), the ambient sounds definitely help set the mood.
-puzzles are usually just the right difficulty for me. I unashamedly use walkthroughs for my playthroughs, but in this game I find I seldom need the walkthrough to clear a section. I'm mostly using them to find all the secrets. 😉
-very addicting gameplay. I'm always wanting to see what's around the next corridor before I stop playing.
-can be played in short sessions, since there's not a deep story. There's not much loss in continuity if you don't play for a few days since there's no story to forget.
-not exhaustively long for an RPG. About halfway in, I've invested 11 hrs. howlongtobeat.com gives a range of 16-29 hrs, and so far it's looking like I will finish the game in under 25 hrs.
-the game is very efficient: uses about 600MB of ram. Alt-tabbing to the desktop from the game is instant.
-auto-mapping feature is well-executed.
Negatives:
-too much emphasis on hand-eye coordination for an RPG. Many of the battles and puzzles end up feeling like a platformer.
-as mentioned, no music during gameplay. Great main menu music though!
-real-time combat is fine for all but the mage. But casting a spell takes a minimum of 3 clicks, which adds to the platformer feel of this game. I'm 47 yrs old and my reflexes aren't what they used to be. And I'm from an era where you didn't need fast gaming reflexes to play an RPG. I'm playing on easy skill, and don't think I could manage any higher. It's just the right difficulty on easy (for me).

Overall, I'd give it a 75/100. Very enjoyable and looking forward to finishing it. Hoping there's not an impossible boss at the end that my reflexes aren't good enough for.

Great mini-review thanks! I like a game that can just be picked up and played for a short period; that doesn't work so well for a lot of RPGs.

I've lost interest in my Strife playthrough - maybe I'm just dense but the later levels seemed to be designed to confuse the player, and I didn't have it in me anymore.

Until something else comes along I'm back to my old favourite, Links 386 Pro. I recently discovered that there's a CD-ROM edition which has animated course fly-overs with cheesey 90's music playing in the background - yay!

badmojo wrote:

Great mini-review thanks! I like a game that can just be picked up and played for a short period; that doesn't work so well for a lot of RPGs.

I've lost interest in my Strife playthrough - maybe I'm just dense but the later levels seemed to be designed to confuse the player, and I didn't have it in me anymore.

Until something else comes along I'm back to my old favourite, Links 386 Pro. I recently discovered that there's a CD-ROM edition which has animated course fly-overs with cheesey 90's music playing in the background - yay!

No problem! BTW, I was a Links junkie back in the 90s. They had online ladder tournaments, and even Ryder Cup tournaments. I helped represent the US along with some of the world's best, like Paul Willey and Roger Davis. Seems like it was another lifetime.

edit: just noticed you're in OZ. That reminded me of one of the better Links386 players back then - Slattery. He was from OZ. But Willey was easily the best, and most famous. He won lots of money in tournaments, which was especially notable given he has MS.

On my P1:
Dune, dune 2
C&C tiberian dawn, red alert
Scorch
Castle of the winds
Settlers 1, 2
Quake 1, 2
Aoe 1, 2
Doom 1, 2
Megrace 1, 2, 3
Z
Blood & Magic
Lands of Lore
Warcraft 1, 2
Starcraft
Moo
Diablo
Jazz jack rabbit
Duke nukem 3d
Pod
Red baron
Block man
Pacmania
M.A.X.
New HDD required 😵