Dark Souls Remastered (Requires Codex steam emu)
Bounced off this when it first came out but finished Elden Ring a couple of months ago so revisiting this and looks like I'll stick with it.
Don't know if I'll have the energy after beating this one for the sequels any time soon so may take a few years to get to those.

Stray (Use Steamless to play without Steam)
Just got it setup to play without Steam so haven't gotten into it yet.

DosFreak wrote on 2023-01-01, 20:51:

Stray (Use Steamless to play without Steam)
Just got it setup to play without Steam so haven't gotten into it yet.

My 18 yr old son's been playing this and he loves it. I've watched over his shoulder for a bit and it does look like something I'd enjoy. Just have to whittle my backlog down some more and by then it may go on a good sale. 😀

I'm about 10 hours in to 'The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos' and I'm head over heels in love with it - best game I've played in years. The story is engaging, the quests are interesting, and the world is so detailed and believable that I can't believe this is a free community effort. It's a little more scripted than Gothic 1 / 2 and that might impact replayability, but this first play-through has been a wonderful experience. I'm loving the characters and getting to know the town - I'm still in the first town! There's a huge city to explore elsewhere on the island.

I'll be interested to see if the attention to detail is maintained throughout the whole game because it's blowing my mind so far. Exploration is always rewarded, and going back and talking to the various NPCs you interact often turns up new information.

I'm using the GD3D11 DX11 renderer with it and it's working great so far - no crashes and it performs well.

Biomutant

Picked this one up on a whim, it's got a lot to dislike. The narrator is annoying and he speaks for all the characters. The open world is largely pointless traversal. The combat is mediocre, once you learn a couple combos you are pretty much good to go. I liked the graphics, and I liked the weapon/armor crafting, but its not much of an action game or an RPG anyways. Thumbs Down.

The Bard's Tale Trilogy Remastered
I'm nearing the end of Part 1. According to the in-game timer I've played 52 hours and 35 minutes. I could probably have marched to the end game 10+ hours ago, but I'm really enjoying leveling the characters up and finding new items to identify and possibly improve my party. My characters are level 36 and have enough experience built up for several more level-ups. I'm about to exit Mangar's Tower, head to Roscoe's Emporium to identify some items, then hit the review board to see how many level-ups I get out of each character. Then go through my new items and see if they're worth keeping or selling. One highlight of this game (I think it's a new feature of the Remaster) is during combat, you can hit F3 to access the Bestiary and get some stats on the monster's you're currently in combat with. The more times you encounter a monster, the more detail fills in. Eventually, you can determine what their to-hit A/C is, their max HP, what types of attacks they have, and their A/C. The most useful of these is to-hit A/C. Straight up (assuming you've encountered them enough times for the stat to show) you can tell if they even have a chance of hitting anyone in your party. If they don't, then you can take your time and melee them. If they can hit your party members, then that revises the attack strategy. Usually that means spending spell points to cast spells to take them out sooner than later., but sometimes I'll choose to cast an A/C buff that takes my characters beyond their ability to hit me, then resume melee. There's a ton of interesting and useful spell options, but I usually just stick to a small core subset of them. Probably 70% of the spells I've never even tried. But occasionally, I'll have an encounter that warrants some digging through the spells and I sometimes find one that is just right for that situation. Really cool. One of my favorites is Phase Door. It creates an opening in any wall for exactly one turn, letting you walk through. I use this to avoid traps. Especially annoying are the anti-magic traps that kill all your persistent spells and force you to recast them once you are through the anti-magic zone. Another great spell is Apport Arcane which lets you teleport to any location (assuming the level you are teleporting from or to is not in an anti-magic zone). There are lots of great combat spells that fit specific categories. For example, you have very powerful spells against a single monster, you have group combat spells against undead or demons that are more powerful then standard group combat spells of the same spell point cost. There is the more costly Mangar's Mind Blade that does less damage per monster (10-40 HP) but will hit multiple groups of monsters. If both of my wizards cast this spell then they combine for 20-80 HP damage against each and every monster, no matter how many groups of them are in the encounter. Super useful in situations where there are multiple large groups attacking. I'm really digging this game, but it's repetitive enough that I will probably not go immediately to Part 2. There's other RPGs I'll squeeze in before completing the whole trilogy.

clueless1 wrote on 2023-01-02, 14:33:

I'm really digging this game, but it's repetitive enough that I will probably not go immediately to Part 2. There's other RPGs I'll squeeze in before completing the whole trilogy.

Glad to hear you're enjoying this! I think spacing the games out is a very good idea. I played 1/2 mostly back-to-back, and I think doing so soured me on the second game a bit. I took a break before tackling BT3, and really liked it.

This game tends to be slow, dull, and protracted, but it has interesting moments.

This is my sword. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Young Moon, Young Moon is 6'4.
Young Moon never been to war before.

badmojo wrote on 2023-01-02, 06:22:

I'm about 10 hours in to 'The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos' and I'm head over heels in love with it - best game I've played i […]
Show full quote

I'm about 10 hours in to 'The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos' and I'm head over heels in love with it - best game I've played in years. The story is engaging, the quests are interesting, and the world is so detailed and believable that I can't believe this is a free community effort. It's a little more scripted than Gothic 1 / 2 and that might impact replayability, but this first play-through has been a wonderful experience. I'm loving the characters and getting to know the town - I'm still in the first town! There's a huge city to explore elsewhere on the island.

I'll be interested to see if the attention to detail is maintained throughout the whole game because it's blowing my mind so far. Exploration is always rewarded, and going back and talking to the various NPCs you interact often turns up new information.

I'm using the GD3D11 DX11 renderer with it and it's working great so far - no crashes and it performs well.

G3_4.png G3.png

Hey, thanks for this. I had no idea this was even available. Looks great.

One thing I like about this game is attention to detail. Thanks to hex editing, my character has superhuman agility and combat skills, that not even Gargos --a sub-boss-- can even lay hand on me. And it is actually reflected in combat animation, where all Gargos' attacks are easily parried or dodged by my character, while all those parries and dodges are meticulously shown during combat. (Combat are semi automatic in this game, so it is quite an enjoyment to watch it unfold.) For a game made in the year 2000, that is quite impressive. If Quest for Glory is remade, I hope the combat modelling and animation would accurately reflect your stats vs those of the enemy.

One thing I don't like about this game: levels are HUGE, that it takes considerable amount of time to move from one location to another, making the game unnecessarily slow paced and protracted. Imagine roaming in Ultima VI, only everything is scaled according to the real world. Worse, those huge places are mostly empty, unlike, say, Ultima VI, where places are rich with objects you can take and/or manipulate.

In any case...

Pffft, easily blocked. Try harder, demon.

Nyaaah, nyaaah! Can't hit me!

Yes, the second picture clearly shows that my character leaned back as he dodged the demon's attack, while the demon's weapon swung harmlessly against empty air. Such attention to detail that makes me love this game. Unfortunately, there are things that make me hate this game as well.

Currently on a 100% playthrough of GTA San Andreas. I've been trying to make a good build for it for 1600*1200 (which is part of the 100% completion 😉 ) and due to a lot of parts dying on me I'm going for a frickin' 9500GT alongside a Core 2 Whatever. It's a silent 9500GT so it's got DDR2 running at 400MHz (800 effective). It does at least overclock a chunk without needing external power and it is fast enough to do a constant 30fps on GTA:SA (which has physics tied to the frame rate).

It's quite a long game so I'm going to be a while!

Well, I finished Prodeus. That was ok. The bestiary was more or less directly copied from Doom, but somehow lacked the great combat design Doom did. Maybe the weapons were too powerful, where as the enemies stayed the same. Maybe all the extra movement options you have really neuter stuff like Pain Elementals when you can double jump over the Lost Souls it spits at you. I was actually feeling a little bored of combat towards the end. The level design stayed fantastic throughout though.

Of course Prodeus's main gimmick is it's downright excessive sprite work. All the objects in the game are Doom engine style pixelated sprites. Which I believe were generated by taking stills of a 3d model from an excessive number of angles. So much so you barely realize they are just sprites as the angle you are viewing them from changes. Only really became obvious when I was moving above or below a sprite and the perspective seemed a tad off at certain vertical angles. It was a fun effect that I largely stopped caring about maybe 1/3 through the game?

I can see this game having been a different direction Doom 2016 could have taken. I enjoyed the combat design of Doom 2016 better, but I appreciate that Prodeus kept the relatively short and punchy level design of Doom. Has 15 minute levels, 30 if you are taking a very leisurely pace, 5 if you are going only for speed. The hour or more levels of Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal just exhaust me.

I think I'm going to try to go back and finish Gateway to the Savage Frontier now. Got enormously distracted when I saw Prodeus on sale, but that's out of my system now.

I've been playing Halo: Reach from Halo: Master Chief Collection on PC. On Legendary difficulty, the mission Long Night of Solace is kicking my ASS. I've played the same space combat bit for 2 hours straight and died about 200 times, and still have not managed to get past the second Covenant wave (Seraphs). It's driving me insane.. I don't wan this to be the first Halo game I failed to complete on Legendary difficulty 🙁

appiah4 wrote on 2023-01-03, 14:32:

I've been playing Halo: Reach from Halo: Master Chief Collection on PC. On Legendary difficulty, the mission Long Night of Solace is kicking my ASS. I've played the same space combat bit for 2 hours straight and died about 200 times, and still have not managed to get past the second Covenant wave (Seraphs). It's driving me insane.. I don't wan this to be the first Halo game I failed to complete on Legendary difficulty 🙁

Yeah, I remember dying countless times on Legendary, but it can be done 👍
The one I've never managed to beat was Halo 2...

I fired up Deus Ex Human Revolution for a second time. Great game, but I still prefer the first. It also is a pain to get running well on Windows 10.

I also play flight sims year round. Been playing IL-2 1946 and Rise of Flight.

Demetrio wrote on 2023-01-04, 07:56:

appiah4 wrote on 2023-01-03, 14:32:

I've been playing Halo: Reach from Halo: Master Chief Collection on PC. On Legendary difficulty, the mission Long Night of Solace is kicking my ASS. I've played the same space combat bit for 2 hours straight and died about 200 times, and still have not managed to get past the second Covenant wave (Seraphs). It's driving me insane.. I don't wan this to be the first Halo game I failed to complete on Legendary difficulty 🙁

Yeah, I remember dying countless times on Legendary, but it can be done 👍
The one I've never managed to beat was Halo 2...

I did that on the OG XBOX. I remember "Gravemind" being a pain in the ass but up until now "Cortana" from Halo 3 was the hardest I had ever seen. "Long Night of Solace" is on an entirely different level though. Part of it comes from an FPS game deciding to become a VERY DIFFICULT space shooter half the way - I hate this kind of shit..

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2023-01-04, 08:12:

I fired up Deus Ex Human Revolution for a second time. Great game, but I still prefer the first. It also is a pain to get running well on Windows 10.

I also play flight sims year round. Been playing IL-2 1946 and Rise of Flight.

I have the first game on my backlog. Should I go for the vanilla game or the Director's Cut?

Go for the GMDX Mod. Accept nothing else.

https://gmdxmod.com/

The worst you can do is DX Revision, IMO.

GMDX is the best and most faithful overhaul of the game and its mechanics, while aiming at preserving the experience.

Never go vanilla. At least add the New Vision and HDTP Mod, and the modern DX10 (or OpenGL) renderer. Also, add the Deus Exe launcher.

But GMDX combines all of those and more. It is the best version of DX for anyone.

(I may love this game a little bit)

appiah4 wrote on 2023-01-04, 10:23:

I have the first game on my backlog. Should I go for the vanilla game or the Director's Cut?

I'm going to go against the flow and recommend the vanilla game for your first play through.

The graphics are pretty rough by today's standards, but the game itself is mostly fine otherwise. No idea how well it runs or doesn't run on modern systems though, but if you have a retro rig from the early-mid 2000s it should play it effortlessly. Be sure to turn on EAX and surround sound if you have a 5.1 speaker system. Positional audio is done reasonably well and is actually useful when you're using stealth.

appiah4 wrote on 2023-01-04, 10:23:

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2023-01-04, 08:12:

I fired up Deus Ex Human Revolution for a second time. Great game, but I still prefer the first. It also is a pain to get running well on Windows 10.

I also play flight sims year round. Been playing IL-2 1946 and Rise of Flight.

I have the first game on my backlog. Should I go for the vanilla game or the Director's Cut?

I feel like I've answered this question once before but what the hell:

Vanilla:
- Has this visual golden tint you either like or not. I personally like it as it gives the game an unique look, they took it away from Director's Cut since enough people didn't like it but as a result it looks bland to me. I suggest you google some comparative pictures/videos and make your own mind
- Boss fights have less options, they were designed by some other studio who apparently weren't told clearly enough the nature of the game and as a result they are very basic "shoot the boss to the face till they die" fares that may bother stealth oriented players
- Does not have the The Missing Link DLC baked in the game

Director's Cut:
- Visually looks bland to me, very subjective though
- Has expanded boss fights with more options how to deal with them, a clear improvement
- Has The Missing Link DLC baked in the game which is a HUGE negative to me personally, it does horrible things to the pacing of the game by forcing you into a slow paced stealth oriented DLC content just when the game starts to ramp up the pacing at the end. This is the reason why I personally only play vanilla.
- APPARENTLY was built on an older version of the engine for some reason and has bugs vanilla doesn't have. Can't verify this myself, I don't remember running into a single bug on my only playthrough

Take your pick, I personally think the game is good enough to try both versions to see which you like more.

Edit: We are talking about Deus Ex: Human Revolution here right? And not the first game 🤣

I totally misunderstood the question. 🤣

I also preffered the vanilla experience, appart from the boss fights.

@Joseph_Joestar:

Even at the time (2000), DX1 looked like a 1998 game. The New Vision mod is worth it even for new players. It's "only" updated visuals, but it makes the game look much better. Which is a must have for a 23 years old game.
It's far more easier on the eyes, especially without those rose tinted glasses.