I just spent a few minutes wrestling with Attack on Altair, a side-scrolling ASCII shooter from 1983. Little did I realise that the fire button was F1, as a result most of my time was spent thinking it was some sort of bullet hell dodging game. Until I saw the demo of the AI playing it that was...

Lawnie wrote on 2020-05-06, 15:05:

I just spent a few minutes wrestling with Attack on Altair, a side-scrolling ASCII shooter from 1983. Little did I realise that the fire button was F1, as a result most of my time was spent thinking it was some sort of bullet hell dodging game. Until I saw the demo of the AI playing it that was...

Lolz, reminds me of the time I worked out that you could take a small step in PoP - game changing 🤣

Dune 2000 on my Athlon system tonight.

Ultima: Quest of the Avatar FC
Another day, another dungeon. I've got 5 of the dungeons completely explored now and am very slowly gaining the gold I need to get the +1 Bow for my Avatar (Ranger), otherwise he's got the best equipment possible. I maxed out his STR and DEX, so only INT is left. Comically, he's also the only character in the party that is not level 8, since he ends up wearing down enemies only to have the finishing blow delivered by someone else haha.

Might & Magic: Book One PC
Discussing this game is a bit difficult because it is almost completely nonlinear. Whenever you hit some obstacle that is far too powerful for your party, you can basically just head in a random direction and find something else to do. And like the best RPGs, it's extremely satisfying to come back later to a difficult encounter and steamroll it with your more powerful party. It really is astonishing that this came out in 1986!

Legends of Amberland PC
A very nice indie RPG HEAVILY inspired by Might & Magic III. It's a little simple compared to M&M3 (which itself is simplified compared with M&M1/2), but that makes it pretty much perfect as a secondary game to play in addition to something more difficult or substantial. Highly recommended to any fan of open world turn-based "blobbers" (ala Might & Magic series and Wizardry 7/8).

Dunno if back to back posts are looked down upon here, but here's an update:

Ultima: Quest of the Avatar (FC)
I'm just a couple hours away from finishing this. I finished exploring every dungeon but the Abyss, gathered everything I need to finish the game, maxed out my reagents, and got my Avatar to level 8 with his best equipment. I now only need to do the Abyss.
I'll post my overall thoughts when I finish, but I'm excited to complete this and move on to Ultima 5 (PC of course), which I've never played.

This will be the fourth Ultima I've finished; following Ultima Exodus (NES version when I was a kid; very decent console port imo), Ultima VII (PC version of course, when I was a bit older), and Ultima I (PC of course, which I played for the first time and finished around 12 years ago). I tried to finish Ultima II, but that game is just a pile of garbage imo haha.

Might and Magic: Book One (PC)
It's hard to say for sure, but I feel like I'm very close to the end of this game. I've been playing this on and off with my current party for over one year (started in April 2019) between other games—I had attempted to finish the game several years ago, but was unable due to a weak party and not really getting how the game works; I'd reckon I've spent around 50-70 hours on my current game, in addition to around 15 hours during my previous attempt. This week, I FINALLY pieced together the clues in the game to get an idea of what the ultimate goal is. Based on how much of the outdoor area I've explored, I think I could finish this one in a day or two.

Jedi Outcast. On my Win10 Ryzen desktop.

On my son's socket A XP Pro system sim Safari, age of empires 1 and 2 with all expansions, Math Munchers, Halo, and a few other kindergarten prep games for him. On our main pc tons of Kerbal space program, fallout 3 game of the year, Elder Scrolls Oblivion and Morrowind, Quake 3 arena, Quake 4, half life 1, Half life 2 orange box, RTCW, and a few other. Lots of time to play with the quarantine going on.

newtmonkey wrote on 2020-05-09, 17:59:

Dunno if back to back posts are looked down upon here, but here's an update: […]
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Dunno if back to back posts are looked down upon here, but here's an update:

Ultima: Quest of the Avatar (FC)
I'm just a couple hours away from finishing this. I finished exploring every dungeon but the Abyss, gathered everything I need to finish the game, maxed out my reagents, and got my Avatar to level 8 with his best equipment. I now only need to do the Abyss.
I'll post my overall thoughts when I finish, but I'm excited to complete this and move on to Ultima 5 (PC of course), which I've never played.

This will be the fourth Ultima I've finished; following Ultima Exodus (NES version when I was a kid; very decent console port imo), Ultima VII (PC version of course, when I was a bit older), and Ultima I (PC of course, which I played for the first time and finished around 12 years ago). I tried to finish Ultima II, but that game is just a pile of garbage imo haha.

Might and Magic: Book One (PC)
It's hard to say for sure, but I feel like I'm very close to the end of this game. I've been playing this on and off with my current party for over one year (started in April 2019) between other games—I had attempted to finish the game several years ago, but was unable due to a weak party and not really getting how the game works; I'd reckon I've spent around 50-70 hours on my current game, in addition to around 15 hours during my previous attempt. This week, I FINALLY pieced together the clues in the game to get an idea of what the ultimate goal is. Based on how much of the outdoor area I've explored, I think I could finish this one in a day or two.

I finished Ultima IV on the Apple II probably my junior year in high school. It was epic and so much fun. For whatever reason, I could never get as into Ultima V and abandoned it. It might've had something to do with all the disk swapping. It came on 4 double-sided 5 1/4" floppies and even with a dual floppy drive, there was so much going on, plus only the Britannia disk could be used to save your game, it was hard to become immersed in the story. Also, I remember it being a much more complex game overall.

Good luck on M&M! That's one I'd love to take a stab at one day. I've played and beaten MM3 and 4, and came close to beating 6. MM3 and 6 are actually on my playlist and I'm sure I'll get to them sometime in the next year or two.

Well here I am playing Gothic II yet again, this time with the Night of the Raven expansion which I've only dabbled with in the past. I made it all the way through the base game last time so fancied myself a bit of an expert but NoTR has me dying all over the shop - good times.

A new version of the DX11 renderer was released recently and it fixes the rather annoying disappearing NPC issue + adds in the weapon trails from the original game - well worth the effort of setting up (my instructions included below if interested).

1the order of this is important!
2
3-- install the GOG version **with** NoTR
4-- Rename gothic.exe to gothic2.exe in /system
5-- install gothic2_fix-2.6.0.0-rev2.exe
6-- install Gothic2_PlayerKit-2.8.exe
7-- install G2NoTR-SystemPack-1.7.exe
8-- extract replacements_dds.7z (base game normalmaps) to system\GD3D11
9
10**DX11:
11-- extract Gothic2-GD3D11-17.7-dev11-fix2.zip into the /system folder
12-- defaults should be fine but in game press F11 and check that
13    - FOV to 90 (both sliders)
14    - frame limit = off
15
16-- extract 'Vurt's Gothic II Graphics Overhaul v0.7-4-0-7.7z' to system\GD3D11\replacements
17-- install widescreens_patch_GII_NOTR.exe and select 1080P
18
19**Mouse speed:
20-- edit ..\system\Gothic.ini:
21mouseSensitivity=3.5
22zMouseRotationScale=3.5
23zSmoothMouse=0
24
25** to play the vanilla version of the game:
26-- install G2_Classic-1.1.exe
27-- change the icon to run this:
28    "C:\Games\Gothic 2 Gold\system\GothicStarter.exe" -game:G2_Classic -start
29-- or for NoTR:
30    "C:\Games\Gothic 2 Gold\system\GothicStarter.exe" -game:GothicGame -start

Messing around with some Doom mods DracoNihil suggested. I just had to record this level end stats screen for posteirity. 😜

That completion time is 100% legit... and accurate.

xjas wrote on 2020-05-09, 23:34:

Messing around with some Doom mods DracoNihil suggested. I just had to record this level end stats screen for posteirity. 😜

Hey, nice. Don't forget about Combine_Kegan's other project too: "Combined_Arms"

Assassin's Creed Odyssey

The Assassin's Creed games never did much for me but I'm tackling this one. Plan is just to do the main quests so I don't get bored by all the open world BS..

clueless1 wrote on 2020-05-09, 21:23:

Good luck on M&M! That's one I'd love to take a stab at one day. I've played and beaten MM3 and 4, and came close to beating 6. MM3 and 6 are actually on my playlist and I'm sure I'll get to them sometime in the next year or two.

Thanks! Actually, I just completed the game this morning haha...
Thanks also for your thoughts on Ultima V. Luckily the PC version can be played off a HD, so I won't have to worry about disk swapping 😀

Might & Magic: Book One (PC)
I was a lot closer to the end than I thought! I ended up only being a few hours away from finishing the game.

I easily spent 70+ hours on this, and I didn't even do everything. However, I've held onto my save file if I ever decide to go back and do all the stuff I missed.

Overall, I was very impressed with this game, and would easily rank it among my top 10 games of all time. For an RPG released in 1986, it's very user-friendly. The interface takes some getting used to, but once you do it's not clunky at all. On top of that, the game is so nonlinear that you can always just head off in any direction if you get stuck, so it's never frustrating.

I imported my party into M&M2, but will take a break from the M&M series to complete Ultima: Quest of the Avatar.

M&M2 is actually my favourite of the old school M&M games. I know people love Xeen but there's a charm to the interface and CGA graphics that just does something for me. It took a lot of what the first game did right and then expanded upon it. Also check out the various ports of the first two games, there are some interesting takes on the series to say the least. A lot of people genuinely prefer the Genesis version of M&M2 to the PC.

AC Syndicate

Lawnie wrote on 2020-05-10, 09:32:

M&M2 is actually my favourite of the old school M&M games. I know people love Xeen but there's a charm to the interface and CGA graphics that just does something for me. It took a lot of what the first game did right and then expanded upon it. Also check out the various ports of the first two games, there are some interesting takes on the series to say the least. A lot of people genuinely prefer the Genesis version of M&M2 to the PC.

Hi Lawnie, thanks for posting that. I actually started playing around with M&M with my imported party just to see what it was like, and could feel myself getting addicted right away haha. I explored the first two towns and had to then force myself away.

I did play (but not complete) the Genesis version of M&M2 when it first came out, but I think I'll stick with the PC version since I don't recall the Genesis version offering anything of benefit other than more colorful graphics.

Personally I love M&3, 4 and 5.

I never played 6 and 7 but I hear they are awesome so I hope to play them some day.

Is 8 really as bad as people say?

Oh, and I uninstalled Divinity: Original Sin after sinking 25 hours into it. It just never grew on me. I hope Baldur's Gate 3 does not end up like this....

One of the things I love so much about Wizardry 8 is how transparent the game is with all the stats. If you're an RPG stat freak, this game is for you.

The main character page shows inventory and equipped items, main stats, party items, and available spell points for each realm (upper right).

This page shows known spells and points in each realm as well as resistance modifiers.

The skills page shows all character skill levels in each category. Yellow text indicates best in your party for that skill.

The main stats page focuses on combat and weapon modifiers, abilities and traits, and current personal effects.

The secondary stats page replaces combat and weapon modifiers with armor class modifers.

These all change in real-time. So if you change out armor or weapons, you can see how it would affect all your stats. Very helpful when you have two similar items that you're trying to decide which is best for your character.

I'm currently a little over 15 hours into this game, just finishing up exploring the road to Arnika before heading into Arnika proper. It's pretty cool how you can see enemies walking around from a distance. You can hide and watch them walk by, you can get their attention so they start approaching you, and then you can lead them to landscape that is advantageous to combat, such as a canyon corner or hallway. If you can keep them from being able to surround you, or even better, force them to only be able to attack one at a time, it makes fighting large mobs much more manageable.
edit: by the way, the super high kill numbers are due to the fact that I'm using a party that's imported from Wizardry 7. Among the things that import are kill stats. It would've been nice to be able to see kill stats just in Wiz8, but oh well.

I'm a big M&M fan as well - I played III, IV and V when they were released and really enjoyed episode VI that came out a few years later.

I remember being quite disappointed by M&M VII, as I felt it was too much of a recycling of VI with barely anything new added - just more of the same. I think at the time New World Computing went into full money-grabbing mode and started treating the whole M&M franchise as a cash-cow. I never bothered with M&M VIII or any subsequent episode.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-05-10, 12:49:

Is 8 really as bad as people say?

8 does away with the party dynamics that made the previous games so memorable. The engine is the same as 6 and 7 but you only create one hero, the designated champion. Everyone else is a pre-made hireling that you have to recruit for some reason. It's a playable game but it's a real step down from 7, I'd still give it a go if you enjoyed 6 and 7 as it's more of the same style.

9 is the one you want to avoid like the plague. I don't know if anyone has tried to fix it recently but when I last played it... yuck.