Sombrero wrote on 2023-05-25, 16:08:

I distinctively remember having to completely disable page file and create a new one every single time I quit playing Bloodlines, otherwise the game would crash without exception the next time I played it. Evidently the page file kept getting corrupted, I guess it wasn't happy with 1GB of RAM and did awful things to my hdd.

Ouch, that sounds a bit worse than what I experienced back then. IIRC, I mostly had to deal with random crashes, insanely long loading times, terrible frame rates and of course constant HDD swapping. It's such a different experience without all that, when using an overpowered rig, and the engine fixes from the Unofficial Patch.

Great game though, especially as a Malkavian. Where else you can have a conversation with a street sign?

Heh, I've seen that on YouTube. Should be fun to actually play through it. 😁

Doing a runthrough of Gateway to the Savage Frontier.

I remember finishing this game and its sequel on Amiga back in the day. The PC version feels somehow inferior but I can not put my finger on why. Anyway, hope to finish this quickly. Gold box SSI AD&D is the CRPG I grew on and I still love them..

predator_085 wrote on 2023-05-22, 07:09:

@Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman Thanks a lot for your recommendations.

I new to the flight sim genre but in general I would not mind trying out more complex games. So gunship 2000 might be a game for me.

You're welcome. Unlike Their Finest Hour, Gunship 2000 is still playable with keyboard, but you'll be slow and clumsy, that you can only win at the lowest difficulty level when using keyboard. A joystick is highly recommended.

I'd also recommend this book if you plan to go against Crack or Elite troops.

A great strategy guide, and a very enjoyable book on its own.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-05-21, 20:18:

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe is such an amazing game, I spent hours and hours and hours playing it as a kid!

Indeed, and level bombing is more manageable than that in Their Finest Hour. In TFH, I always suck at level bombing so I always hand it to the friendly AIs, while I do the job of escorting them.

predator_085 wrote on 2023-05-22, 09:25:

appiah4 wrote on 2023-05-22, 07:56:

I really think Jane's USAF and AH-64D Longbow are the most accessible yet fulfilling flight sims ever.. You then graduate to Jane's F-15 & F/A-18 and Longbow 2 from those. Then, Falcon 4.0.

Thanks for the advice. It sounds good to move from the bottom to the top with the sim games. Falcon 4.0 is a game I always wanted to play. But due to the lack of a Joystick and the high complexity the game is supposed to have I never considered playing it. But this could change at one point in the future. As soon as I have joystick and my retro rig is completed I will start playing other flight sims first but at one point I want to try out something as complex as the Falcon game.

Never played Falcon 4.0 myself, but read reviews about it. Bugs aside, the game is said to be very realistic that you'd sometimes fly a patrol mission without encountering any enemies whatsoever. Not my cup of tea.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-05-22, 14:51:

In the same genre as Falcon 3/4 (this thing was hugely modded) there is also F/A-18 Korea.

Briefly played its predecessor, Hornet 3.0. Gun kills are still possible in that game. I remember playing F-16 Combat Pilot, and was frustrated by the inability to score a gun kill due to the game's highly realistic nature. If anyone can score a gun kill in F-16 Combat Pilot, please share your tips.

After completing Half-Life several times, I decided to go from Normal to Difficult, and it certainly is harder. Both head crab zombies and head crabs got me a few times because I was having a hard time getting used to how much harder they are to kill.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-05-26, 03:52:

After completing Half-Life several times, I decided to go from Normal to Difficult, and it certainly is harder. Both head crab zombies and head crabs got me a few times because I was having a hard time getting used to how much harder they are to kill.

Yeah, enemies are bullet sponges at hard, worst of them being the alient grunt.

Yesterday I completed Half-Life at hard: challenging, especially the last levels.

appiah4 wrote on 2023-05-25, 16:29:

Doing a runthrough of Gateway to the Savage Frontier.

I remember finishing this game and its sequel on Amiga back in the day. The PC version feels somehow inferior but I can not put my finger on why. Anyway, hope to finish this quickly. Gold box SSI AD&D is the CRPG I grew on and I still love them..

I was always curious about the Gold Box games. They were released before I got my first PC, so I never played them back in the day.

Got a few of them during a GOG sale, so I do intend to check them out eventually. How do they compare to something like Icewind Dale?

I'm in about halfway through the Brotherhood missions, which is the second gang I took on. In the meantime I read up why many people say SR2 is the best in the franchise. Apparently because it takes its characters more seriously and by seriously, I mean Tarantino seriously. Which is a true statement, but at the same time the characters get a lot less time to shine, so it's a lot harder to empathize with them, while the side content is just as wacky as in the sequels which is in stark contrast with any degree of seriousness.

As for that side content, I don't have the drive to 100% the single player. I think from this point I won't do much outside of the story missions.

Just reached Hollywood in VTM: Bloodlines. It's obvious that the developers put a lot of effort into the Malkavian protagonist's peculiar way of speaking. In particular, some of the Dementation dialog options are hilarious. Convincing the girl from your past that you're actually her pet turtle was certainly one of the highlights. 😁 It's also amusing how most human NPCs think you're stoned all the time, while vampires recognize your clan and offer some interesting remarks.

Speaking of NPCs, the voice acting in this game is superb, as is the overall sound design. Pretty much every major character has a distinct and very appropriate voice. The music is also pretty good, especially the tracks which play in various clubs, which are quite fitting and memorable. Also, I was glad I had EAX and surround sound turned on during the Ocean House quest. That area makes good use of both, and they enhance the unique atmosphere of the place even further.

I always liked the goal-based XP awards in Bloodlines. These give you more options to complete the task, aside from combat, especially since enemies rarely drop any valuable loot. I'm mostly using Obfuscate to sneak around and Persuade/Dementation to avoid fights.

However, there are some segments where the game forces you into combat to advance the plot, despite your diplomatic and stealth skills, so I put a few points into melee weapons for that. If memory serves, I'm now approaching the point of the game where combat sections become more frequent, so I'll have to level up my fighting skills to the max.

I made a push today and finished Bioshock 2 Remastered. Wanted to get it done before System Shock Remake was released on Tuesday. I wasn't crazy about BS2, but it was entertaining enough! Took me about 4 months to finish it. Final playtime was about 23 hours. Still playing Icwind Dale Enhanced and don't think I'll get that done before SS is released, but oh well. It will eventually get completed. 😉

About to play the original Unreal! Too busy this week however so it will probably take a while for me to beat

Made some more progress in VTM: Bloodlines. At the moment, I'm enjoying some of the optional content more than the main plot stuff. Specifically, the pier murder mystery and the stealth missions that the Nosferatu hacker gives you were cool side quests. Velvet's requests in Hollywood were nice too. Also, using Dementation to convince the restaurant critic that he was eating worms got a chuckle out of me.

While interacting with prominent NPCs like LaCroix, Nines, Jeanette and Velvet, I remembered that I was super impressed by their facial animations back in the day. Even now, they still look very nice, and the characters are able to convincingly express a wide range of emotions. This even extends to things like posture and body language. Not sure if they used mo-cap for any of this, but it turned out pretty well.

Anyhow, the Hollywood section was fun, but King's Way and the sewers beneath it are definitively the worst levels in this game. All you do there is walk around similar looking areas and fight the same enemies for like 20 minutes. It gets really tedious after a while. There are no quests or anything to break things up, just pure combat and a couple of environmental puzzles. That entire section feels very rushed and unfinished, and considering the game's troubled development, it wouldn't surprise me if this was indeed the case.

But, I finally I made it to Chinatown, and things are looking up again. I think I'm also getting close to the end of the game, so it shouldn't take too long to finish it.

Playing System Shock 2, Thief 3, and World in Conflict. Modded the first two for graphical improvements and to make them (hopefully) stable on Win10.

Three gangs down, only Ultor's left. So far I'd say it's the Brotherhood missions that I enjoyed the most, and that's where I really felt the Saints are villains. I don't know how long the Ultor mission line is, but I think for now I'll get back to the side content, still no intention to 100% the game, but having some of the unlockables won't hurt.

Also yesterday I encountered some weird bug where all the homies were busy when I tried calling them, no matter when or where, in or out of missions. Didn't try today if restarting the game fixed it. I can recruit random gang members and they are just as good as the named homies.

OldGameGlitches wrote on 2023-05-29, 14:04:

Playing System Shock 2, Thief 3, and World in Conflict. Modded the first two for graphical improvements and to make them (hopefully) stable on Win10.

What are you modding in Thief 3?

I started playing the first system schock game for the first game and the experience was a mixed bag. I do not the mind the graphics of the game. They still appeal to me in postive way and the atmosphere is still top notch. Have some trouble with the controls though and it will take some time unitil I get used to it. I want to finish the game at some point in the future for sure.

Get the remake, it just came out.

The original is too cluncky, with too much of the same corridors in maddening mazes to be enjoyable.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-05-29, 17:23:

OldGameGlitches wrote on 2023-05-29, 14:04:

Playing System Shock 2, Thief 3, and World in Conflict. Modded the first two for graphical improvements and to make them (hopefully) stable on Win10.

What are you modding in Thief 3?

Sound and textures.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2023-05-29, 18:45:

Get the remake, it just came out.

The original is too cluncky, with too much of the same corridors in maddening mazes to be enjoyable.

Oh it is already out ? That's cool and the best option then. The controls are really way too clunky. In general I have no issues with some clunky controls bu the controls of system schock are way too much. The remake really sounds like the better way to play the game today.

It launched today, the 30th of May, on PC.

Demetrio wrote on 2023-05-25, 10:49:

Now I'm tackling Half-Life: Opposing Force, which I played years ago.

Continuing my journey through Opposing Force: encountered Black Ops, both male and female, and some more Race X aliens.

As I remembered, the game is really fun, with good story/atmosphere and a great variety of weapons, both new and from Half-Life.

I'm enjoying this playthrough, except for the ichthyosaur... that thing is a bullet sponge and, combined with its low-frame attack patterns and atrocious player's water movement, it becomes maybe the most OP HL enemy 😁

Moreover, I was surprised to hear that the CD version I have has the italian dub (really good for a 1999 PC game 🙂).
In fact, when I played the game on Steam years ago, it was english.

Also the music is great!