Medieval: defense & conquest on Android whilst I'm abroad to pass the time. It's too hot outside. Just finished it, pretty fun game, raise cash to improve army and YOLO. Really enjoyed playing it, 8/10

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-09-20, 11:52:

Yeah, the second one isn't as good in terms of story. They tried to pander to a "modern audience" and it shows in all the bad ways. I still like the gameplay though, and I think the level design is better than in the first game.

Hehe, here's a curveball for you, I think the story is very undercooked in the first game and Corvo having an actual personality in Dishonored 2 is an improvement. My issues with it are in the gameplay side in a way or another.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-09-20, 11:52:

I didn't try Prey (2017) yet, as the setting doesn't seem very appealing to my tastes.

As a huge System Shock 2 fan it was a big disappointment for me. It clearly found at least some audience as there are people out there who love it, but I could write a long list of things in it I didn't like one bit. At least one of those things (two if we count the blurry-vision graphics) is shared by Dishonored 2, which is absolutely drowning the player under an avalanche of readable notes. Don't get me wrong, I love emails and suchs in immersive sims but holy hell you can't take a damn step in these two without running into one!

Sombrero wrote on 2024-09-20, 12:14:

Hehe, here's a curveball for you, I think the story is very undercooked in the first game and Corvo having an actual personality in Dishonored 2 is an improvement. My issues with it are in the gameplay side in a way or another.

Heh, I did like Corvo being voiced by the same actor who portrayed Garrett in the Thief games. And him commenting on various events in the game was great indeed. But I still kinda prefer the plot of the first game. I also like Corvo's power set better than Emily's. In particular, her Far Reach is very imprecise compared to Blink. But I don't remember having other issues with the gameplay.

BTW, there are a few levels in Dishonored 2 that really stand out in a positive way. Not sure if you got that far, but the "Clockwork Mansion" and "A Crack in the Slab" missions are a real treat, especially the first time you play them.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-09-20, 12:47:

BTW, there are a few levels in Dishonored 2 that really stand out in a positive way. Not sure if you got that far, but the "Clockwork Mansion" and "A Crack in the Slab" missions are a real treat, especially the first time you play them.

Yeah, I absolutely agree, I did get to see Clockwork Mansion which really was awesome, but not A Crack in the Slab unfortunately. In fact the farthest I ever got was the level just before Crack in the Slab and after I saw the level on a longplay video on youtube I regretted stopping because christ do these people know how to make a level.

One of my biggest issues with the game, maybe the biggest, is that I got bored in the "in between" levels where you need to make your way into the actual level. The main levels were great, amazingly good at times, but those city street in betweens just didn't do it for me. Especially without the weepers of the first game, those mosquitos that replaced them were just annoying in my opinion.

Decided to go back and finish the original DOS Heretic which I stopped in the middle of Episode 2.

dr_st wrote on 2024-09-20, 17:49:

Decided to go back and finish the original DOS Heretic which I stopped in the middle of Episode 2.

Fun. I was probably going to start that soon myself. the Dos Game Club has it as their game for October, and I figured I'd finally join them instead of just listening to the podcast.

I forget where I heard or read this, but supposed John Romero was obsessed with Heretic having essentially "the same" weapons as Doom. So everything has it's Doom equivalent. You might hear that and go "Huh, that's lame." But IMHO, I think this wisdom was born out in other Doom engine games. Having never really enjoyed Hexen, and having just finished Strife and finding it's gunplay versus hitscan bullet sponges unfun at best, it really highlights how amazing the game design in Doom and also Heretic really was.

That said, by the time you get into the back half of episode 4 and most of episode 5, they are still scraping the bottom of the barrel. I remember I generally still enjoyed it, I think even on Ultraviolence, but it was turning into a bit of a slog. That said, I found even a tedious mediocre Heretic level was still better than a "good" level of less inspired 2.5D FPS games of the era.

Just completed the first episode of Duke Nukem 3D (L.A. Meltdown) two nights ago on my 486 DX4 100MHz machine. I might start Lunar Apocalypse at some point but however I am busy with the AMD K6-2 machine.

I'm finally able to play Jedi Survivor, because EA released a version for the PS4 which works very smoothly. Their PC port is an absolute mess (even with the latest update) and I constantly get freezes and stuttering, because the game can't precompile shaders...

Typical EA quality, I guess. It's a really good game with a very broken PC version.

Demetrio wrote on 2024-09-10, 12:41:

Started playing Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. […]
Show full quote

Started playing Turok: Dinosaur Hunter.

Collected all the keys in level 1; now I'm going crazy trying to find the 2nd key in level 2 🤕

Game for now is ok: graphically is really good, considering it's from 1997.
Gameplay is good, but I'm not liking the platforming sections and the confusing level design (low rendering distance doesn't help in this case).

Sometimes there are frame drops, but I think it's normal cause I'm maxing it at 640x480.

Playing it on my Pentium MMX 233 build, paired with a Voodoo 1.

Continuing my journey.

Now I'm on level 4.

So I started the orc campaign of WarCraft: Orcs & Humans.

When I earlier mentioned the cumbersome controls weren't too painful in the human campaign I meant it, this is because you have to do so little. Mostly just watch orcs run into your defenses, keep an eye open for approaching catapults and then once ready start issuing attack commands to groups of four towards the enemy base. It doesn't matter too much if the handling isn't the slickest if you hardly need to touch the steering wheel.

But the orcs... First of all their spearmen, the orc equivalent of archers, have shorter range than archers so every single time archers attack (which is very often) you have to actively give orders and reorder your defense lines. Second of all humans get priests who can heal while orcs do not. Not a problem in it self, but holy balls the way they use them! Groups of 3-5 priests amongst other soldiers who heal like crazy, instantly, from a mile away everyone and everything that gets even breathed on at speed the player can only stare with their jaw on the floor. It's not annoying at all, no sir!

The best aswer to that seems to be catapults, scout them out and death from above. But perhaps you are noticing where I am going with this: you need to be much more proactive as an orc.

With this kind of control scheme.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeegggggghhhhhhhhh.

installed and played Wing Commander 1 today on my 386DX40 with roland lapc-i and a CH FlightStick Pro. No better way to play it i think..

Still on Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. I forgot that this game had rope arrows, which is a nice callback to the Thief series. Using those, and exploring the areas thoroughly, I discovered a surprising number of secret locations. One of them had a pair of Lightning Daggers which are very helpful against Orcs. Some of the other weapons and armor that I've found have skill requirements which currently prevent me from using them, but their stats are superb, so I'm saving them for later.

Combat is still fun, though it can get a bit rough when you get surrounded. I still mostly resort to kicking opponents into things/off ledges but I've gotten my melee skills high enough to dish out some decent damage as well. The only thing that bothers me is the swaying camera. This is annoying, even with head bobbing turned off and sv_rollangle 0. You pull out your sword, the camera sways. You jump, the camera shakes. Equip a bow, the camera moves in an unnatural way. I really hate it when games treat the player's head as a "rubber band holding the camera" and make the viewport flail around wildly after even a minor physical exertion. It makes me nauseous if I play such games for longer periods.

Anyway, I just started Chapter 6 and I'm on my way to retrieve that skull thing. The big reveal should be right around the corner, if I'm not mistaken.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-09-21, 16:19:

The big reveal should be right around the corner, if I'm not mistaken.

One of my favorite cutscenes of all time! and not only for the nudity mind you.

That's for the english version though, I remember searching for that cutscene on youtube years ago and stumbling on the german version... let's just say the voice of the Demon Sovereign is a bit less fitting 🤣

Sombrero wrote on 2024-09-21, 16:41:

One of my favorite cutscenes of all time! and not only for the nudity mind you.

Heh, I don't remember what I did when I played this back in the day, but this time I'm definitively choosing Xana! 😁

That's for the english version though, I remember searching for that cutscene on youtube years ago and stumbling on the german version... let's just say the voice of the Demon Sovereign is a bit less fitting 🤣

I'm playing Dark Messiah in English. Generally, I only play games in German if they were originally made in Germany, such as the Gothic/Risen series. Some of the humor gets lost in translation there, and the English voice overs for such games are rarely as good as the German ones.

Well, after losing all my progress one night to Master of Orion locking up, I fired it up again tonight. Didn't have a single issue during a very long play session. I have a sneaking suspicion something about the GOG copy, maybe some way they chose to defeat the copy protection, introduced some bug on real hardware. I don't know. But I rolled this game on my CD copy. Anyways.

Chose the Sakkra as my species, on a medium map, easy difficulty, against 4 CPUs. I was planning on abusing their fecund nature to just swarm over planets and extend my dominion. Unfortunately, this starting position was not as good as my previous attempt as them, nor did my explorations into Planetology allow me to settle any of the hostile planets around me. I quickly found myself boxed in by the Humans and the Klackons. So, after some arming up, and some deliberation, I attacked the Humans, being the weakest species on the map. 2 turns later there was an election for Galactic President or whatever, and the Klackons won. Well damn. I guess I should have timed when I made my enemies better.

I decided not to give up so easily, and contested the results of the election through the only means available to me. Genocide. I was expecting just a relentless tide of ships that would wear away at my empire like a force of nature. Instead, despite every other race immediately declaring war on me, not much happened. My hostilities with the Humans continued, and I reduced them to one far off colony on the other side of the galaxy. But for the most part, I was left alone. I started working on the Alkari and the Meklar next, as their empires were rather deeply intertwined. Throughout all this the Klackons still mostly left me alone. The Alkari fell rather swiftly to my craft, and extensive networks of spies made sure their planets were bereft of any defense. However, my ships leaned too hard into laser technology, and lacking advanced enough bombs or missiles, if my spies failed, my ships didn't have much that could penetrate the planetary shields. To add insult to injury, the Meklar developed a repulsor beam that kept their ships out of range of my lasers while they rained missiles down on me.

This sent me back to the drawing board, but luckily my spy network had plucked clean the advancements of the Klackons, as well as the others when I realized my expansion had come to a halt. It took a few iterations on designs, but eventually I came back with the biggest ship I could possibly build, with anti-missile shields, technology that enormously increased the range of my lasers (now upgraded to plasma cannons), and repair facilities that healed damage faster than my foes could repair it. Their construction took agonizing years while my increasingly ineffectual fleet was losing ground. But when I deployed my first one in a battle I assumed was hopeless as a test of it's capabilities, it crushed all opposition that did not flee, completely unscathed. I dubbed them "Dragons".

My Dragons were immortal, and as their numbers slowly grew, I went from taking one planets every few turns, rebuffing reconquest attempts in between, to taking two, to maxing out at taking 4 planets in a single turn with my copious subjects overflowing the helpless defenders on the ground. But eventually, even a galactic tyrant gets tired. To wrap things up I just began glassing the remaining holdouts. 3 turns later and about 10 colonies wiped from the galaxy, only the Sakkra remained.

I think I fucking love this game. The abstract nature of just having production sliders on planets, a good enough rally point UI, and having ships stack in a giant doom pile, keep the end game from bogging down like nearly every other 4X I've played always does. I grew up playing the shit out of Master of Orion 2, but you know, I think I like this one even better. Maybe it's a bit more "casual", but it's hitting all the right notes for me at this stage of my life.

Namrok wrote on 2024-09-21, 18:08:

I think I fucking love this game. The abstract nature of just having production sliders on planets, a good enough rally point UI, and having ships stack in a giant doom pile, keep the end game from bogging down like nearly every other 4X I've played always does. I grew up playing the shit out of Master of Orion 2, but you know, I think I like this one even better. Maybe it's a bit more "casual", but it's hitting all the right notes for me at this stage of my life.

As someone who spent countless hours on Master of Orion 2 as a kid, I just couldn't get into the first game. I played the games out of order, so the first one always felt too simplistic to me, but your post makes me want to give it another chance.

Also, I remember the Sakkra being very powerful in MOO2, due to their subterranean nature, which practically doubles their population size compared to other races. Not sure how that works in the first game though.

Just reached Chapter 8 in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. The undead enemies under the temple with the skull were annoying due to the need to finish them off after they fall to the ground. This could get messy if they fell down in murky water, thus becoming less visible. Also, I'm not sure if the poison resistance skill which I picked up does all that much. I still get poisoned on a regular basis, though the damage might be applied a bit slower.

Anyway, soon after finding the skull and seeing the big cutscene, I got some major gear upgrades. In particular, forging the Fire Sword and finding the Lightning Shield made melee combat a lot easier. Blocking an attack with the Lightning Shield temporarily stuns certain enemies (Orcs at least) allowing you to whack them repeatedly with the Fire Sword, which sometimes even sets them aflame. My melee skills are almost maxed now, and I also invested a bunch of points into Endurance to get access to heavier armor.

After getting through the crappy giant worm escape sequence, I finally left that damn temple, only to get thrown into another set of catacombs. Meh, I think this game really shines when you're out in the open, and can use your skills more freely, but I guess I'll slog through this dungeon as well. Not much more to go, I think.

Control

This is more a commentary on how poor a job Steam (and probably GOG) do on tracking playing time in games. Because of the save point system and also so I don't have to wait for the game to load every time, I have been minimizing Control to the desktop when I know I will play another session in the same day. I also track my playing time by spreadsheet, so I know that my actual playtime is 19 hours, even though Steam thinks I've played over 100 (!) hours. You would think Steam would be smart enough by now to know that when the game goes to the menu and/or is minimized, to pause the game timer.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-09-22, 13:51:

The undead enemies under the temple with the skull were annoying due to the need to finish them off after they fall to the ground.

In particular, forging the Fire Sword and finding the Lightning Shield made melee combat a lot easier.

Yeah I started ignoring those zombies eventually, the poison is annoying and they just kept coming so I started to run past when I could.

That lightning shield reminds me, when I last revisited the game its HDR implementation drove me nuts. While the game was released during that awful time when bloom and HDR were the new toys and all the subtlety for using them flew out the window it still didn't bother me back then so much that I had to disable HDR entirely, unlike now. I managed to suffer through the rather strong near constant changes in lighting but that lightning shield pushed me over the edge, I couldn't use the thing with HDR on without burning my eyes.

You had any issues with HDR as you have played? Because while I remember noticing some places back then where HDR went on full supernova mode I never had to resort to disabling it, which left me wondering did the GTX 1660 Ti I used to play the game now just plain render some things incorrectly. I used an AMD HD 4870 in the past and I wasn't too bothered by HDR back then.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-09-22, 15:39:

That lightning shield reminds me, when I last revisited the game its HDR implementation drove me nuts.

Here's a screenshot from my system so you can judge for yourself:

I kept HDR on, though I do kinda see the issue with the Lightning Shield that you mention. However, it either doesn't bother me as much, or my GTX 970 renders the effect more subtly. I did notice some increased weirdness with that shield when you're holding it while using an elevator and traveling up/down. The shield's glow seems to go completely bonkers during those times.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-09-22, 15:39:

You had any issues with HDR as you have played? Because while I remember noticing some places back then where HDR went on full supernova mode I never had to resort to disabling it, which left me wondering did the GTX 1660 Ti I used to play the game now just plain render some things incorrectly. I used an AMD HD 4870 in the past and I wasn't too bothered by HDR back then.

I had a few moments when this mid-2000s HDR implementation made it very difficult to see what's going on. Mostly in areas where bright light is shining from the ceiling. BTW, I set my FOV to 90, which helped a bit with the nausea that I was experiencing previously.