Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed 2
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
Assassin's Creed Revelations
Assassin's Creed III
Assassin's Creed Black Flag
Assassin's Creed Black Flag Freedom Cry
Assassin's Creed Rogue
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Battlefield 1
Burnout Paradise
Call of Duty
Call of Duty 4
Call of Duty World at War
Counter-Strike Condition Zero
Crysis
Crysis Warhead
Crysis 2
Crysis 3
Doom
Eragon
Grand Theft Auto 3
Grand Theft Auto Vice City
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
Grand Theft Auto IV
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2
Need for Spees Most Wanted
Need for Speed Carbon
Need for Speed Undercover
Need for Speed Payback
Prince of Persia The Warrior Within
Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands
Sleeping Dogs
I own and build retro hardware almost solely for the purpose of reliving old gaming memories. I'm not so much in it for building systems for the sake of building them, or building them to benchmark them. If it's a platform that I didn't game on in the past, then I'm not really interested in building it today. For that reason, the majority of my retro gaming is limited to one DOS system. I do have a WinME system but most the games I have on there play just as well on my modern system with GOG's installers. There's something about DOS games played on real hardware that DOSBox can't duplicate. I think a lot of it is just having a CRT monitor, but a big part of it is the real hardware experience. I don't get as much out of a Win9x system as I do with a DOS 6.22 system.
So yeah, I game a lot. 😀 It's my main hobby...probably game on average 1-1.5 hours a day (more on the weekends, less on weekdays). I focus on games I really enjoyed in the past, games I never got around to playing in the past, and occasionally, modern games in my favorite genres (RPG and FPS). Here's my list of games completed since I got back into gaming 4+ years ago:
Would there be any interest in removing the lists of games and putting them in a spreadsheet?
The game conversations would stay but possibly spun off into a seperate thread.
Was thinking:
a column per username tracking games finished.
Time to finish
When finished
How many times replayed
Finished but don't recommend playing.
No DRM status but link in main thread to other lists.
Mabye another thread tracking where to find the games
A copy of the spreadsheet would be attached to the first post.
DosFreakwrote on 2020-06-14, 00:08:Would there be any interest in removing the lists of games and putting them in a spreadsheet? […] Show full quote
Would there be any interest in removing the lists of games and putting them in a spreadsheet?
The game conversations would stay but possibly spun off into a seperate thread.
Was thinking:
a column per username tracking games finished.
Time to finish
When finished
How many times replayed
Finished but don't recommend playing.
No DRM status but link in main thread to other lists.
Mabye another thread tracking where to find the games
A copy of the spreadsheet would be attached to the first post.
I'd be interested. I'd have to guess time to finish on some of them as I only started tracking that for the last 12 games. I suggest using hours as a metric, not days. Maybe a personal rating? Could be 0-5 stars, or 0-100 numeric, etc.
Played with Serious Sam Fusion using Vulkan.
2560x1440 full details at 144hz
No performance issues
Stuck in city for most of the game
Repetitive
Dumb mindless fun
Firewatch
Finished in 3hr 30ms.
No bugs or performance issues.
Initially thought is was going to be another walking simulator but the story is interesting enough and it keeps you always moving with a large area to explore.
Still too expensive for what it is so buy it at a discount.
Last edited by DosFreak on 2020-08-02, 18:52. Edited 1 time in total.
Not bad, not great. Good time waster. No crashes or performance issues.
Tried to play with KB & mouse but game intended for a controller and took me a bit to figure that out for this game.
Game reminds me of Diablo but without the 5,000,000 clicks. Wants you to be concerned with collecting gems to unlock chests so you can get amulets and rings for fire, cold, damage resistance, etc and raid tombs to solve puzzles to get new guns. Pretty repetitive but worth playing if you want something mindless.
Not bad, not great. Good time waster. No crashes or performance issues.
Tried to play with KB & mouse but game intended for a controller and took me a bit to figure that out for this game.
Game reminds me of Diablo but without the 5,000,000 clicks. Wants you to be concerned with collecting gems to unlock chests so you can get amulets and rings for fire, cold, damage resistance, etc and raid tombs to solve puzzles to get new guns. Pretty repetitive but worth playing if you want something mindless.
Just now, I've completed Wizardry 8 to complete the Dark Savant Trilogy. All told, this trilogy took me just over a year in time to complete:
Wizardry 6: 111 hours in 72 days (8/30/19 to 11/10/19)
Wizardry 7: 201 hours in 131 days (11/12/19 to 3/22/20)
Wizardry 8: 148 hours in 133 days (4/26/20 to 9/6/20)
This was easily the most epic, satisfying RPG experience I've ever had, and I've played almost every major RPG out there. The endgame of Wizardry 8 alone was the most satisfying endgame I've had the pleasure to enjoy. There are three possible endings, depending on your choice:
1) you can choose to join the Dark Savant to be evil Cosmic Lords along with him
2) you can choose to write the Dark Savant out of existence by changing the Book of Destiny
3) you can choose to tear out the page in the Book of Destiny that leads the good Phoonzang along the path to becoming the evil Dark Savant
I chose 2, but went back to a save and played through ending 3 as well.
Wizardry 8 is a turn-based RPG with a combination of High Fantasy and Sci Fi elements. There is even a Modern Weapons skill for some weapons like laser guns and rocket launchers. They are not overly powerful and balance well in the game. In fact, the High Fantasy weapons are better overall.
The major highlights of Wizardry 8 are the story, character development, and turn-based combat system. There are so many types of spells and many of them provide new, unique ways of buffing, debuffing, flat out attacking, or healing. This is a major part of the strategy that makes combat so satisfying. For example, if you have a Monk or Psionicist, you have access to Eye for an Eye. This spell, if cast before your enemy can cast the same, will reflect all of their magical attacks back at them. Bards use musical instruments that cast spells. As you progress through the game, you find more powerful instruments that cast high level spells, such as Freeze All or Pandemonium, which can incapacitate multiple groups of enemies, giving you a fighting chance when hoards of 20+ monsters attack your party of 6. And speaking of combat, one of my few complaints about this game is the sheer amount of it. The best way I found to mitigate this is by playing the game on Easy. Unfortunately, this also makes some of the battles less challenging then they'd otherwise be. But I'm okay with that.
The graphics are somewhere between Half-Life 1 and Unreal 1, with a very Unreal-like art style. Overall, I found them beautiful. Yeah, lowish poly counts, but they did well with what they had.
The voice acting was top notch, very professional and copious.
The music was brilliant, moody and catchy. There could've been more variety, but again, I think they did well with what they had. For example, there are different variations on combat music depending on how difficult the monsters are. If they are higher level then your party, there's a more forboding tone and a sense of danger. If they are lower level, it sounds more upbeat and adventury.
There's tons of weapons and armor to choose from, both in shops and as loot. And lots of options for training. Want to focus on dual-wielding maces? Go for it, that's one less weapon skill you have to devote level-up points to. And skills grow by themselves with use, so you could stand in fire, take damage, then cast heal to improve your spell casting abilities. If you have a character with alchemy, you can practice mixing low and medium heal potions into heavy heal. This will improve your alchemy skill AND you can sell the heavy heal potions for a steep profit. This was one way I made enough money early on to afford better weapons and armor for my party.
There's a large variety of weapons and armor that are specific to certain races or professions, so it's neat to find these to help your players stand out. Some weapons are short range (maces, daggers, swords, axes), while some are extended range (lances, pikes, some flails, some staffs, bows, slings and thrown weapons). By the end, you should find some very high-level magical weapons that fit each of your party members to a tee. My Elven Bard had the Elven Bow, the most powerful bow in the game that only elves of certain professions can use. She acquired this bow in Wizardry 6 and kept it through the party transfers to Wizardry 7 and 8. This made this particular weapon more special and meaningful to me.
Skill advancement is another big strategy in the game. At each level up, you get 6 points to distribute amongst your attributes and 9 points to distribute among your skills. Spell casters typically get to choose one spell per level-up, so wisdom here is crucial. Sometimes spellbooks could be found or bought, so you could potentially buy spellbooks, hold onto them til you can learn them, which leaves you free to pick other spells during level ups. Diversification is also important. Having multiple spell casters lets you learn spells that complement one another without duplicating effects.
And lastly, I loved the RPC (Recruitable Player Characters) system. You can have a party of up to 6 players, and two slots are available for RPCs. There's a total of 12 potential RPCs in the game. When you meet them, you can ask them to join you. They are different races and professions, with unique voice actors and personalities. Some are annoying, some are charming. And the cool part is part of their personality is where they will refuse to go. When you enter a new map, they may say "Nope, won't go there. I had a bad experience there as a child. If you continue going, I'm going to leave you guys, but I'll go back to where we first met so if you want me to rejoin you, you know where to find me." You can develop RPCs like your own characters, level up points, improving skills with use, etc. They WILL use up their portion of XP though. So if your party of 6 kills a 600 XP monster, they each get 100 XP. If you have two RPCs, then each player (including RPCs) will get 600/8=75 XP.
I could go on and on, but you get why I loved this game and trilogy so much. If you have the time and the patience, it is one of the best RPG experiences you can go through. RPG fans should not pass this game up. If you don't want to play the trilogy, just play Wizardry 8.
Just finished Bioshock Remastered. Took me 32.5 hours over 35 days. It was one of the better FPS games I've played in my life, but it would've been much better if I hadn't already beaten System Shock 2. The similarities were so close (mainly a different setting - under the ocean in the early 1950s vs on a space station in the future) that it did bother me for awhile. It was a good story and the artwork and music were amazing! I didn't use nearly the arsenal of weapons, plasmids and tonics that were available, so it was easy not to run out of ADAM as many of the options for spending it weren't interesting or useful enough to spend on. It was cool on the few occasions that things like Incinerate or Telekinesis came through to help me out (like melting ice to open a door or pulling items from out-of-reach places). I took the path of rescuing all Little Sisters and was glad I did when I got to the ending. Overall I'd give it an 82/100.
Next up, I'm in the mood for an RPG. Candidates are:
Avadon: The Black Fortress
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura
Betrayal at Krondor
Darklands
Pool of Radiance via Gold Box Companion
Underworld Ascendant
I'm leaning towards Betrayal at Krondor or Darklands so I can use my DOS PC, which I haven't played on since Wizardry 6 roughly a year ago. Any opinions?
edit: also looking at Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession! Not a high fantasy setting, but something about it seems to capture my interest. Still deciding...
Just completed Origin's CyberMage: Darklight Awakening. This was a game I bought when it just came out and could not get into. High system requirements, weird concepts, unusual keyboard control scheme...
A little over a month ago, fueled by nostalgia, I gave it another go. My 50 year old self was much more patient and appreciative of this game's quirks and I got into it fairly quickly. The control scheme isn't so bad once you get used to it! My P200MMX still struggled with performance in SVGA, but I was much more tolerant of reducing the screensize to improve framerates. The story is interesting, the gameplay is fun, the music is catchy and of high quality. A lot of the spoken audio is not very clear, so following along in the Cluebook was helpful. Speaking of the Cluebook, it is very well done and pretty much required (for me anyway) to get through some parts of the game. The levels are really cool, but a couple of them are super complex with multiple levels within each level. The automap does a really good job of letting you know which level you're on and drawing only that portion of the map. As for gameplay, it's got a lot of System Shock in it with a sprinkle of Duke Nukem and Unreal. It's a slower-paced game than the latter two, but a little faster-paced then System Shock. You can look up and down though the game is too old for mouselook. You can fly via jump jet or aircar. They do a better job of perspective correction then Duke3D. This game is definitely a high quality, fun effort and a killer sleeper game. Well worth the 23 hours it took me to finish it.
Just finished this masterpiece! It took me 31 hours to complete and due to me being on vacation, was able to average about 2 hours a day, so I finished this somewhat quickly in 16 days.
Thoughts...I was a bit annoyed with the early parts of the game, especially the air boat sections, as they were a little too "on rails". But the story held, and the 2nd half of the game was brilliant! I absolutely loved the pheropod sections and getting into the Citadel and unleashing the full potential of the gravity gun. I'm actually probably going straight into Episodes 1 and 2 instead of picking another game. It's rare that a game is good enough that I continue playing DLC or added chapters, but HL2's story was so awesome that I have no qualms with doing that with this one! Onward ho!
