Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny

Finished! I really enjoyed this game, but I must admit that I prefer the overall quest and theme of Ultima IV. I still find myself thinking about the contemplative and beautiful ending sequence to that game from time to time. As a game, though, U5 is an improvement over U4in every way. The dungeons are far more tricky and interesting to explore, and actually often feel like real places instead of mazes. Enemies drop chests that often contain weapons, armor, and items, in addition to food and gold. You also have multiple equipment slots, and can even wield two one-handed weapons at once. Combat is much tougher but more interesting, since some of the tougher monsters can be quite a challenge even for high-level characters; you really need to make use of scrolls and spells against them.

The interface is a huge improvement. It's much easier to buy and mix reagents, for example. Characters can target any space around them (even diagonals), and ranged weapons can target any enemy within range. Most crucially, you can select an "active" character in combat, which forces every other character to automatically pass their turn. This makes it so much easier to navigate through the overhead dungeon encounter rooms, and also makes it much easier to focus on building EXP for a particular character.

However, the greatest change is the atmosphere and world. Although the world map is largely the same as in U4, the world feels so much more real. There's a day and night cycle, and NPCs follow (simple) schedules. You can look at things in the environment to get descriptions, push stuff around, climb in bed, sit on chairs, and more. There are awesome little details, too; there are roads stretching between towns, and lighthouses actually function like they should, lighting up the seas.

Britannia is a very dark place this time around. The virtues have been twisted and are now enforced as law by regent-turned-tyrant Blackthorn, and the mood is very dark. Thuggish guards roam the towns, and shake you down for bribes; refuse, and they throw you in jail. The three Shadowlords (Hatred, Cowardice, and Falsehood) travel from town to town enforcing Blackthorn's laws, and their evil influence corrupts everyone within; people will pick your pocket, insult you, or refuse to talk if a Shadowlord is around. In this world, you either keep your head down and stay out of trouble just to stay alive, or you take advantage of the situation and get rich.

It's not perfect, of course. I have some minor complaints, but my biggest gripe with the game is the underworld area, which is unbelievably annoying to navigate at times. Your field of view is very limited, and the game often requires you to "(k)limb" through giant mountain ranges, following very specific paths through them. There are even a couple sections where you are seemingly forced to use the "blink" spell just to get from one area to another, but I could never figure out the rules by which the spell works (it doesn't work like it does in U4). Still, even the annoying stuff is easy to get over because the rest of it is so good. A masterpiece.

---

Now that I actually know how to play the game, I do sort of wish that I had stuck with the Apple II version. It's much slower than the DOS version and technically looks worse, but I actually prefer how it looks; the colorful EGA graphics of the DOS version sort of conflict with the dark atmosphere. I also prefer the Mockingboard soundtrack of the Apple II version to the (unofficial) MIDI soundtrack of the DOS version. If I were to go back to the Apple II version, I'd probably stick with the initial three-person party but spend all my gold just on food for the first hour or so. You build up a decent inventory of equipment and items just from loot dropped by enemies, so you'd slowly be making good progress even if you're just buying food at first. Maybe I'll revisit this version once I've gone through the rest of the series!

[quote=DracoNihil post_id=1421165 time=1778216405 user_id=23777]
Finally got Deus Ex reinstalled WITHOUT being the "Game of the Year" edition so I guess I'll see for myself what GOTY ended up doing to the various maps that the "Map fix patch" and TCRF showed.

Funnily enough when I looked at the final patch, the "Maps" directory of the patch only changes Entry.dx and includes the multiplayer maps. None of it touches the primary levels whatsoever so I really do wonder what the hell happened at Ion Storm Austin when the GOTY version was getting packaged and published...
[/quote]

have you tried deus exe from kenti?

[quote=leileilol post_id=1420956 time=1778141837 user_id=10471]
surprised no data projects on the sam source have been attempted still, especially as the source release is hard to get going on a linux machine with a proper install you'd think one would make a data project to iron the functionality out (and give something other than the id shooter to play)
[/quote]

the source is already compiled

https://github.com/tx00100xt/SeriousSamClassi … ases/tag/1.10.7

[quote=DracoNihil post_id=1421165 time=1778216405 user_id=23777]
Finally got Deus Ex reinstalled WITHOUT being the "Game of the Year" edition so I guess I'll see for myself what GOTY ended up doing to the various maps that the "Map fix patch" and TCRF showed.

Funnily enough when I looked at the final patch, the "Maps" directory of the patch only changes Entry.dx and includes the multiplayer maps. None of it touches the primary levels whatsoever so I really do wonder what the hell happened at Ion Storm Austin when the GOTY version was getting packaged and published...
[/quote]

they shipped the wrong build for GOTY thats why the music triggers were broken

Deus Ex - 061 - NYC Streets 2 - Ambient didnt trigger at all during game

newtmonkey wrote on 2026-05-08, 15:02:

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny […]
Show full quote

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny

The attachment U5_ending2.png is no longer available

Finished! I really enjoyed this game, but I must admit that I prefer the overall quest and theme of Ultima IV. I still find myself thinking about the contemplative and beautiful ending sequence to that game from time to time. As a game, though, U5 is an improvement over U4in every way. The dungeons are far more tricky and interesting to explore, and actually often feel like real places instead of mazes. Enemies drop chests that often contain weapons, armor, and items, in addition to food and gold. You also have multiple equipment slots, and can even wield two one-handed weapons at once. Combat is much tougher but more interesting, since some of the tougher monsters can be quite a challenge even for high-level characters; you really need to make use of scrolls and spells against them.

The interface is a huge improvement. It's much easier to buy and mix reagents, for example. Characters can target any space around them (even diagonals), and ranged weapons can target any enemy within range. Most crucially, you can select an "active" character in combat, which forces every other character to automatically pass their turn. This makes it so much easier to navigate through the overhead dungeon encounter rooms, and also makes it much easier to focus on building EXP for a particular character.

However, the greatest change is the atmosphere and world. Although the world map is largely the same as in U4, the world feels so much more real. There's a day and night cycle, and NPCs follow (simple) schedules. You can look at things in the environment to get descriptions, push stuff around, climb in bed, sit on chairs, and more. There are awesome little details, too; there are roads stretching between towns, and lighthouses actually function like they should, lighting up the seas.

Britannia is a very dark place this time around. The virtues have been twisted and are now enforced as law by regent-turned-tyrant Blackthorn, and the mood is very dark. Thuggish guards roam the towns, and shake you down for bribes; refuse, and they throw you in jail. The three Shadowlords (Hatred, Cowardice, and Falsehood) travel from town to town enforcing Blackthorn's laws, and their evil influence corrupts everyone within; people will pick your pocket, insult you, or refuse to talk if a Shadowlord is around. In this world, you either keep your head down and stay out of trouble just to stay alive, or you take advantage of the situation and get rich.

It's not perfect, of course. I have some minor complaints, but my biggest gripe with the game is the underworld area, which is unbelievably annoying to navigate at times. Your field of view is very limited, and the game often requires you to "(k)limb" through giant mountain ranges, following very specific paths through them. There are even a couple sections where you are seemingly forced to use the "blink" spell just to get from one area to another, but I could never figure out the rules by which the spell works (it doesn't work like it does in U4). Still, even the annoying stuff is easy to get over because the rest of it is so good. A masterpiece.

---

Now that I actually know how to play the game, I do sort of wish that I had stuck with the Apple II version. It's much slower than the DOS version and technically looks worse, but I actually prefer how it looks; the colorful EGA graphics of the DOS version sort of conflict with the dark atmosphere. I also prefer the Mockingboard soundtrack of the Apple II version to the (unofficial) MIDI soundtrack of the DOS version. If I were to go back to the Apple II version, I'd probably stick with the initial three-person party but spend all my gold just on food for the first hour or so. You build up a decent inventory of equipment and items just from loot dropped by enemies, so you'd slowly be making good progress even if you're just buying food at first. Maybe I'll revisit this version once I've gone through the rest of the series!

Congratulations! I still haven't started this game, but I'm going to try to stick with the Apple ][ version once I do. I will certainly take your advice under consideration!

clueless1 wrote on 2026-05-08, 22:34:

Congratulations! I still haven't started this game, but I'm going to try to stick with the Apple ][ version once I do. I will certainly take your advice under consideration!

Thanks! I'm looking forward to reading your comments when you get around to playing it. If you do start to get frustrated with it, I was able to develop some strategies working my way through the DOS version that made things far less frustrating. I won't post any spoilers here, but here are some general hints:

- Food seems like a massive issue at first, but you really don't need to have lots of it until you start delving into the dungeons and exploring the underworld. My mistake early on was camping too often just to restore HP; I should have made better use of the many potions, scrolls, and regeneration rings that I found.
- DEX is probably the most important stat in the game, since it determines how quickly you act in combat, how often you hit, and even how many times you get to act each round. INT is sort of important since it determines your magic points, but you will mostly be limited by reagents than magic points. STR merely determines what you can equip, and magic equipment weighs nothing.
- Toward that end, you might want to consider save scumming if a character levels up and gets a boost to a useless stat (for example, INT for a fighter).
- I started with a party of three, then slowly added characters throughout the game once I could easily afford food and equipment. Besides the Avatar (a fighter/mage), I ended up with one fighter, two bards, and two mages.
- Dual wielding is very powerful, since you get to attack each round with both weapons at full power with no drawbacks. I had the Avatar and my fighter dual wielding the entire game, and had my squishier bards and mages equipped with shields.
- I found enough gems, torches, and keys from treasure chests to last me the whole game, so there's probably no need to waste money on buying them.
- You end up making 99% of your money by selling equipment dropped by monsters during combat, not from opening up treasure chests in dungeons (as in U4).
- The day/night cycle combined with NPC schedules seems frustrating at first, but nearly every NPC is active from sunrise to sundown. When I would arrive at a new town, I'd camp outside until 5AM or so before entering, and that would give me plenty of time to fully explore the town and talk to everyone. The game is very good about giving clues for outliers, so there's no need to tediously explore every area during the day and at night.

twiz11 wrote on 2026-05-08, 16:09:

have you tried deus exe from kenti?

"DeusExe" has nothing to do with the maps. All that does is come with a lot of integrated native code hooks to force things like Canvas to render at a lower res and be nearest-neighbour integer scaled back up so the GUI isn't made for ants anymore. And also replacing the mouse input routines with a "RawInput" method which gets rid of the weird latency and acceleration in mouse movement that's been a inherent problem in Unreal Engine games up until I think UDK-era Unreal Engine 3?

It also comes with yet ANOTHER "FrameRateLimit" that causes problems like the ones already in UTGLR and kentie's D3D10Drv. Especially if your system uptime is in excess of 3 days 1 hour total.

twiz11 wrote on 2026-05-08, 20:49:

they shipped the wrong build for GOTY thats why the music triggers were broken

Deus Ex - 061 - NYC Streets 2 - Ambient didnt trigger at all during game

That's also what I've read but apparently it's more than just "Mission Eight" music not being played back (which Shifter and BioMod both brute force fix anyhow) there's apparently supposed to be a emergency hatch in the elevator at Queen's Tower and the gas purge valve at the MJ12 Hong Kong Helibase was supposed to actually properly kill all the guards in the barracks but never properly worked in the GOTY shipped map.

Also I think you've accidentally enabled the "Disable BBCode" switch in your post options, your quote BBCode tags were not parsed and made your replies look very noisy.

Just started playing Slay the Spire ][.

It's a lot like the first one but with all new enemies and 2 new characters so far at this point in pre-release. I usually don't play pre-release games but I was really jones'n for a good rogue-alike-collect-a-card-a-thon game. I like it as much as I did the first one so far except to say it seems a bit more challenging in general, perhaps that's just me, or perhaps some balancing still needs to happen.

DracoNihil wrote on 2026-05-09, 05:29:

"DeusExe" has nothing to do with the maps. All that does is come with a lot of integrated native code hooks to force things like […]
Show full quote

twiz11 wrote on 2026-05-08, 16:09:

have you tried deus exe from kenti?

"DeusExe" has nothing to do with the maps. All that does is come with a lot of integrated native code hooks to force things like Canvas to render at a lower res and be nearest-neighbour integer scaled back up so the GUI isn't made for ants anymore. And also replacing the mouse input routines with a "RawInput" method which gets rid of the weird latency and acceleration in mouse movement that's been a inherent problem in Unreal Engine games up until I think UDK-era Unreal Engine 3?

It also comes with yet ANOTHER "FrameRateLimit" that causes problems like the ones already in UTGLR and kentie's D3D10Drv. Especially if your system uptime is in excess of 3 days 1 hour total.

twiz11 wrote on 2026-05-08, 20:49:

they shipped the wrong build for GOTY thats why the music triggers were broken

Deus Ex - 061 - NYC Streets 2 - Ambient didnt trigger at all during game

That's also what I've read but apparently it's more than just "Mission Eight" music not being played back (which Shifter and BioMod both brute force fix anyhow) there's apparently supposed to be a emergency hatch in the elevator at Queen's Tower and the gas purge valve at the MJ12 Hong Kong Helibase was supposed to actually properly kill all the guards in the barracks but never properly worked in the GOTY shipped map.

Also I think you've accidentally enabled the "Disable BBCode" switch in your post options, your quote BBCode tags were not parsed and made your replies look very noisy.

i think its all been fixed, i think deus ex showed us that we werent invincible even at that time and 911 wasnt a spur of the moment thing

twiz11 wrote on 2026-05-09, 17:25:

i think deus ex showed us that we werent invincible even at that time and 911 wasnt a spur of the moment thing

I honestly don't think a game like Deus Ex could have gotten made in this current political climate this decade, yeah.

Very odd how so many of the conspiracies featured in the game feel way too on the nose today.

old games had more leeway since there wasnt i say real time communication on the net in as lavish as good video chat you had to think before you wrote stuff down

I think studios back then could go with a vision without fear of "social media" backlash, echo chambers, clickbait, outrage culture etc.

Meanwhile i finished Far Cry again which i'd hope wouldn't cause a fuss now (probably would though..)

such an enjoyable game, strange to think its 22 years old! it still looks good imo

gerry wrote on 2026-05-11, 12:03:

I think studios back then could go with a vision without fear of "social media" backlash, echo chambers, clickbait, outrage culture etc.

Meanwhile i finished Far Cry again which i'd hope wouldn't cause a fuss now (probably would though..)

such an enjoyable game, strange to think its 22 years old! it still looks good imo

2004 was a great year for pc games: Far Cry, Doom 3 and Half Life 2.
Far Cry was the first game I played with my then new Athlon 64 socket 939 + 9600 128MB. I still have all the parts in working condition.

Those games are still very much enjoyable, even with the old engines.

2 games that I played, Pariah and Chrome, should have a remake + update.
That's me being nostalgic.

twiz11 wrote on 2026-05-09, 17:37:

old games had more leeway since there wasnt i say real time communication on the net in as lavish as good video chat you had to think before you wrote stuff down

oh there were still lots of corporately-hosted accessable chatrooms in 1999. You think they weren't discussing The X-Files?

I decided to drag my Apple IIc out from storage and give a few RPGs a try. I was happy to see that it still works great, though I probably need to give the volume dial a spray of contact cleaner... only the maximum volume position works, and dialing it down from that simply mutes the speaker.

The Dark Heart of Uukrul
I considered playing the PC version, but the game was originally developed for the Apple II, and then ported to other platforms by someone other than the original authors. I've found over the years that ports often screw around the balance (for better or worse), and I like experiencing games "the way they were meant to be played," so this seemed like a great excuse to play the game on my IIc. Luckily, it's a great version of the game. It looks quite nice for an Apple II game, loads quickly, runs nicely, and supports dual disk drives to minimize disk swapping.

This is a pure dungeon crawler with a four-person party and turn-based combat. The party is fixed in that you have to have one warrior, one paladin, one priest, and one wizard, but you can create your own characters by answering a series of questions, which determine that character's stats. What really makes the game interesting is the dungeon itself, which has lots of evocative text describing rooms, and a surprising amount of context-sensitive interactivity. For example, you can listen at doors to detect encounters, or choose to jump over or climb down pits. An early secret door gives you a few options: push it, run your hands along it, or press it with a stick. Another great feature is that it has a built-in automap. There's a single save slot and the game constantly saves as you play, but there's also an in-game option that quickly creates a backup save you can restore if you really mess up.

I really like this so far! I'll probably keep playing this one for now.

The Magic Candle
This is another one that has what seems to be a good DOS port, but the Apple II is the original version. From what I've played so far, it's a fine version of the game. Like many Apple II RPGs, it supports dual disk drives and loads quite quickly. IMO it looks better than the C64 version, which was released around the same time. The only annoyance with it is how it controls--specifically, how you move around. You can use the cursor keys (not ideal), or you can hold CONTROL down while using the WASZ cluster. The latter is kind of annoying, but I think I could get used to it.

Luckily, the game supports a joystick, and enabling this mode doesn't disable the keyboard. That means you can easily walk around with the joystick, but use the keyboard for doing everything else, which is pretty much the best of both worlds.

I'll need to sit down and read the manual for this one, because it seems really interesting and complex.

Phantasie II
I completed the first game several years ago and really enjoyed it. The sequel is basically a new scenario for the same game, sort of similar to the first couple of Wizardry sequels. That's fine with me, because the first game was pretty awesome. I imported my winning party, saved, and just explored around the starting town to make sure the game is working fine. So far, so good.

Nox Archaist
This one has a Mockingboard soundtrack, so I played it on PC. This is a "new" Apple II RPG released back in 2020, and it basically plays and looks like Ultima V, though it's even more impressive in some ways. I had played this before for around 10 hours, but I bought the expansion pack since then and saves are not compatible, so I started over. There's also a nice optional tool you can install called the "Nox Archaist Companion" that hooks into the game and extends the interface to give you on-screen stats for your whole party, logs all of your conversations to a text file, and allows you to quickly adjust the speed of the game. Very convenient!

Demon's Winter
Deathlord
All I did for these two was to set them up, since you can't actually play them from the original disks... you have to use an in-game utility to make backup copies to play from.
Demon's Winter is the sequel to Shard of Spring, which I played though a few years ago and enjoyed despite its simplicity. Demon's Winter is a much larger, more complex and interesting game (I know because it was my favorite game on the C64 when I was a kid), so I'd definitely like to complete this one soon. Maybe later this year.
Deathlord is an infamously time-consuming (massive) and difficult game. It looks and plays like an Ultima game, but actually has combat more like Wizardry, complete with permadeath and the game constantly saving to disk. That's fine in Wizardry, since the game really doesn't take long to complete, but imagine if Ultima V was much larger and much, much more difficult, and if your party died you just had to start over. That's ridiculous. So, the game actually has an in-game option to backup your party in case something truly awful happens (party wiped out, level drained several levels, etc.). It's game I eventually want to play through, but probably not anytime soon.

Some MK 2 on my new 486

Law212 wrote on Yesterday, 14:39:

Some MK 2 on my new 486

Loving it. MK2 has the best atmosphere from all legacy MKs, maybe all MKs in general. 👍

Forgot to post about some newer games I've been playing:

Mortal Kombat 1
I've loved the MK games since the very first one, which I often played at the local arcade back when it first came out. Here in Japan, the modern games are banned (which is ridiculous), but you could get MKX on Steam through legit resellers (GreemanGaming, etc.). I had to resort to getting a PS4 just to play MK11, since it is totally banned on Steam, though you could probably fool around with a VPN to get it.

MK1 was for several years in the same boat, and I didn't want to get a PS5 just to play it... but I did some research on a whim a few days ago, and it turns out that one single reseller (Fanatical, they are legit) actually somehow sells keys that can be activated on Steam in Japan without a VPN. I have no idea why it works, but it does.

Anyway, I played around with it and it's alright. It looks awesome, but I think I prefer the previous two games. It's a reboot of the series, which is dumb, but it at least does something interesting with it (it's an in-universe reboot as a result of the end of the previous game). Anyway, it's just an excuse to get all the classic characters together again, which is fine. I did the first few tutorial lessons and played the story mode a bit, but will have to sit down and put some real time into it to see what I think.

Mortal Kombat Kollection
The original release was a complete disaster, but after many patches it's finally reached a good state, so I finally bought a copy. This is basically a collection of emulated games wrapped with a lengthy documentary, similar to the Atari 50 game. It includes MK 1-4 arcade, a bunch of the console/handheld ports, and even the three PSX games. It's fun if you're a fan, and the PC version is definitely the way to go, since the console versions are plagued with input lag even when playing offline.

dr_st wrote on Yesterday, 16:33:

Law212 wrote on Yesterday, 14:39:

Some MK 2 on my new 486

Loving it. MK2 has the best atmosphere from all legacy MKs, maybe all MKs in general. 👍

I agree. while I do like MK 1 because it started it all and I remembmer in Comm class in high school all we did was play mortal kombat 1 on the computers. But MK 2 has a better atmosphere, more cahracters better charavter sprites. I think the MK 2 iterations of these cahracters are my favourites. I also love the dark ton of MK 3, and I do love MK trilogy on PC, but MK 2 just has it all.

newtmonkey wrote on Yesterday, 16:58:

Forgot to post about some newer games I've been playing: […]
Show full quote

Forgot to post about some newer games I've been playing:

Mortal Kombat 1
I've loved the MK games since the very first one, which I often played at the local arcade back when it first came out. Here in Japan, the modern games are ridiculously banned, but you could get MKX on Steam through legit resellers (GreemanGaming, etc.). I had to resort to getting a PS4 just to play MK11, since it is totally banned on Steam, though you could probably fool around with a VPN to get it.

MK1 was for several years in the same boat, and I didn't want to get a PS5 just to play it... but I did some research on a whim a few days ago, and it turns out that one single reseller (Fanatical, they are legit) actually somehow sells keys that can be activated on Steam in Japan without a VPN. I have no idea why it works, but it does.

Anyway, I played around with it and it's alright. It looks awesome, but I think I prefer the previous two games. It's a reboot of the series, which is dumb, but it at least does something interesting with it (it's an in-universe reboot as a result of the end of the previous game). Anyway, it's just an excuse to get all the classic characters together again, which is fine. I did the first few tutorial lessons and played the story mode a bit, but will have to sit down and put some real time into it to see what I think.

Mortal Kombat Kollection
The original release was a complete disaster, but after many patches it's finally reached a good state, so I finally bought a copy. This is basically a collection of emulated games wrapped with a lengthy documentary, similar to the Atari 50 game. It includes MK 1-4 arcade, a bunch of the console/handheld ports, and even the three PSX games. It's fun if you're a fan, and the PC version is definitely the way to go, since the console versions are plagued with input lag even when playing offline.

I'm not a fan of the modern MK games. I really liked when Deadly alliance came out, Then Deception was even better. Then armageddon came out and they ruined the quest more because the story went nowhere and they took 1 style from each cahracter away to give to the new cahracters so some of my faves from deception felt nerfed.

I did like MK 9 a lot. and played it a ton online on xbox 360 and then on PC. MKX was OK but i felt it wasnt great. I also was disappointed that animations for MK still felt jerky and awkward. MK 11 just sucked and i dont know why. I just didnt like it and I really hate all the guest cahracters. When MK 1 was being shown and the first thing they showed were guest cahracters I said nah. not playing this one. I never understood why the attack animations looked jerky and awkward and then someone made a video comparing street fighter animations to MK and it was night and day.

The MK cahracters have certain moves that would be so awkward to do in real life. and nothing crazy but just like a front kick or a poke but they do them in odd stances. while in SF the cahracter balances themselves properly for each move. Anyway im ranting. I love MK but dont like the last 2 or 3 games.