I am playing "Horizon Zero Dawn" and its expansion pack "Frozen Wilds" on PS4. And OMG! This game is amazing. I resisted for a while buying it as I did not know what to expect but it is definitely the best game I have played this year and possibly for a long time now.

- best graphics I have ever seen (both in terms of amount of geometry and texture size) but also in the pure beauty (and variety) of the world. Guerrilla studios have always had very modern engines which pushed the HW to the limit and this game shows it. ( I also happen to work with their former engine lead in a different company now 😀 )
- one of the best facial animations I have ever seen (since LA Noire).
- fighting is great! The mechanics work very well and you are rewarded for being good
- the story is interesting and definitely drew me in

It is like they got the best parts of Skyrim, Fallout 4 and Uncharted and made a game that is superior (in my opinion) to all 3.

I got it for cheap ($29 - sale on the store) but I would have definitely payed its full price for it. It was sold out at every physical store I went (GameStop or Target) so I had to get it digital.

Uncharacteristically, I've spread myself out between multiple games the past couple of months. I'm spending most of my gaming time between Wing Commander: Privateer and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. But I've jumped into old save games of Terminal Velocity, Descent II, and Clive Barker's Undying in the past week as well.

I played, but never beat Privateer back in the day. I'm finding it significantly longer than I thought it would be. Just grinding still to get a Centurion before I jump into the plot missions, which has taken me a couple of months already. And I'm still not there yet--getting the Orion to Level 5 engines and Level 4 shields should take me another week or two and hopefully I'll be able to trade it all in for a Centurion then. Still, it's a very fun game with incredible music.

clueless1 wrote:

Uncharacteristically, I've spread myself out between multiple games the past couple of months. I'm spending most of my gaming time between Wing Commander: Privateer and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. But I've jumped into old save games of Terminal Velocity, Descent II, and Clive Barker's Undying in the past week as well.

I played, but never beat Privateer back in the day. I'm finding it significantly longer than I thought it would be. Just grinding still to get a Centurion before I jump into the plot missions, which has taken me a couple of months already. And I'm still not there yet--getting the Orion to Level 5 engines and Level 4 shields should take me another week or two and hopefully I'll be able to trade it all in for a Centurion then. Still, it's a very fun game with incredible music.

And that is the whole reason I use a trainer(give me money) when playing Privateer. Not worth my time to grind for months just so I can get a ship capable of beating the end boss.

The game I have been playing lately is Destiny 2. Was purchased for me as a gift and I play with family members and friends.

vladstamate wrote:

I am playing "Horizon Zero Dawn" and its expansion pack "Frozen Wilds" on PS4.

That does sound pretty amazing but I'm not convinced I can do an RPG on the PS4 - I do like the controller but watching my kid play Skyrim drives me nuts when compared to the mouse / keyboard of the PC.

Being a big Gothic fan I'm very interested in ELEX, but will wait for some patches from the devs and some tweak guides from the community (and for it to hit the bargain bin).

On actual retro computers:
Gobliins 1 (DOS build).
Fate of Atlantis (Win98 build).
NOLF (Win98 build)
Halo1 (Win98 build)
FarCry1 (XP build).

I also playing a few games in ScummVM (heresy!) but only for FM Towns releases:
Loom
Indy Last Crusade
The Dig
Simon Sorcerer

And in Amiga Forever (heresy!) for a few games that had better graphics than original DOS ports, e.g. GoldBox D&D games.

Steam retro-ish games (heresy?):
Broken Sword 3 (dunno why, bought the series there so what)
Icewind Dale Enhanced
(want to buy/play)
Planescape Torment Enhanced
Full Throttle Remastered
(not retro at all)
Ethan Carter Redux

And yes in the space of a week or two I touch most of the above games for at least 1/2 hour.

Other retro games I have in my backlist I want to play:
Police Quest 2, 3 + SWAT (PQ1 has addictive MT32 music BTW)
Thief1
Dungeon Siege (bought original CDs+expansions which aren't on GOG/Steam)
Final Doom
Dark Reign (gog)
Xwing/TieFighter special editions (gog)
SiN
Rise of the Triad
90s FMV games (7th guest/11th hour/SpyCraft/TexMurphy games)

Gob library: 48 games - wishlist: 54 games.
Steam library: 102 games - wishlist: 123 games (need more days in the week).

squiggly wrote:

I also playing a few games in ScummVM (heresy!) but only for FM Towns releases:
And in Amiga Forever (heresy!) for a few games that had better graphics than original DOS ports, e.g. GoldBox D&D games.
Steam retro-ish games (heresy?):

Why is that heresy? Games are games. Don't be ashamed of what you play. Who cares what other people think about what you play or what you play on. ScummVM is awesome. So is Amiga. If your favorite game of all time is on a Atari Lynx then so be it. More awesome to be you!

Agreed. No heresy for giving your favorite retro games some love, no matter what format.

There are times when playing certain games on original hardware is really not worth the effort.

I'm looking at you Ultima VII.

Not sure if it counts, but I do play Doom often. I play various WAD packs and I play on modern hardware using modern Doom client - but it's still Doom, and a sh*tload of fun!

I too play Doom on more modern ports because the mouselook in original Doom pisses me off. Mouse vertical axis being hard bound to forward/backward movement is a huge pain in the ass.

clueless1 wrote:

Agreed. No heresy for giving your favorite retro games some love, no matter what format.

I didn't mean it against the platform, but against the use of an emulator. What I would give for a working original FM Towns from Japan or an Amiga 1000! (ok at least it is possible to actually buy the latter).

I took my fighter all the way to the top in 4D sports boxing, I don't think I've ever done that before despite playing this game on-and-off for ~20 years. I'm currently reading Mike Tyson's autobiography so his insights obviously made all the difference 😵

I'm not sure what I'll play next - getting to my man-cave is problematic at the moment due to an in-progress renovation to the back-half of our house so I might need to play something on the PS4 - hey I wonder if there's a good boxing game...

I love a good boxing game. Punch Out on the NES is always fun, and I used to run tournaments in SSI's Ringside Seat on the Apple II. That was a blast...I'd make brackets on paper of all of history's best heavyweights, then let Ringside Seat sim them out. I remember Ali and Marciano winning most of the time, with a darkhorse sometimes coming out of nowhere on occasion (Holyfield).

Playing Privateer as we speak. Almost got my Orion maxed out, at which point I'll trade it in for a Centurion and start the plot missions. Also getting closer on RtCW. On Mission 5 Pt1 (Ice Station Norway).

Been playing 3 Count Bout on my Neo-Geo CMVS that I made.

Playing Cosmo's cosmic adventures on the 386DX 😀

Recently played this game again to test my newly-acquired Bowers & Wilkins DM302.

My intention was to wait for ELEX (the latest open world RPG from Piranha Bytes) to go on sale before buying, but one thing led to another and I found myself adding it to my GOG cart. It’s early days admittedly but I have mixed feelings about it so far - PB have always excelled at world building and I suspect they’ve done it again here, but I was hoping that they might have progressed their tried and tested game mechanics a bit for this game given it looked like such a big departure from Gothic / Risen, which are quirky high fantasy / pirate offerings. But so far it’s all fundamentally the same old same old they’ve been banging out since Gothic 1. The first item I came across was the good old healing plant. The first weapon I picked up was a bow-and-arrow.

Don’t get me wrong I love Gothic / Risen but where those games were endearingly unpolished and unique with interesting voice actors and a funky translation to English, ELEX appears to be somewhat derivative (of The Witcher, Fallout for example). The voice acting / dialog is no longer interesting, it’s B grade, and the combat and character animation seems to have gone backwards somehow – both were starting to feel pretty refined in Risen 3.

Anyway like I say, it’s early days. The jet pack is fun and adds some potential interest, and maybe the combat will improve with time. My highest priority ATM is to find a helmet to cover up the hero’s petulant, confused-looking mug. Nothing will correct his abrasive voice acting but PB have never managed to find a decent actor for the English hero for some reason.

The engine looks pretty good though I think, although it was ReShade to the rescue yet again to correct the colours and blurry MSAA:

Well, I'm stuck on both Privateer and RtCW. 🙁 On Privateer I'm on Palan Mission 2 and have had my ass handed to me multiple times. I'll keep at it. On RtCW, I'm at the Super Solder on Mission 5 Part 3 and even watching a walkthrough of someone beating it with relative ease, I haven't been able to do it yet. This is my frustration with FPS and games in general that reward youthful reflexes. Maybe this is why I like RPGs so much. 😊

clueless1 wrote:

Well, I'm stuck on both Privateer and RtCW. 🙁 On Privateer I'm on Palan Mission 2 and have had my ass handed to me multiple times. I'll keep at it. On RtCW, I'm at the Super Solder on Mission 5 Part 3 and even watching a walkthrough of someone beating it with relative ease, I haven't been able to do it yet. This is my frustration with FPS and games in general that reward youthful reflexes. Maybe this is why I like RPGs so much. 😊

That mission doesn't require youthful reflexes, just a dose of luck and a lot of "evasive" maneuvering to kill those god awful enemies. As much as I love RTCW, I've always hated that level 😒 ..

I've been addicted to old console fishing games lately to be honest. Namely Black Bass, Super Black Bass, and King Salmon for sega genesis.. used to play them all back when they were new.

clueless1 wrote:

On Privateer I'm on Palan Mission 2 and have had my ass handed to me multiple times. I'll keep at it.

I'm a bit rusty with my memory but is that the one mission where you get ganged up on by this guy who's jealous that you're working with the girl he normally always works with? I usually just quickly blow the guy up before he even has a chance to finish his sentence then leave.

clueless1 wrote:

This is my frustration with FPS and games in general that reward youthful reflexes. Maybe this is why I like RPGs so much.

I still had a blast playing UT99 with you, by the way. And speaking of RTCW and super soldiers, I can't for the life of me deal with those on the XBox version of the game...