Baldur's Gate (PC)
I finally finished chapter 3, which is the furthest I've ever got in this game. I'm really enjoying it. Even though it's real-time with pause, it really does feel like playing a Gold Box game at times—not so much the ruleset (because both BG and Gold Box obviously use AD&D rules), but in how encounters are designed. The end of chapter 3 has you fighting a camp of brigands with the final battle taking place in a small tent. This limits your use of the overpowered Web spell (though it's probably possible to aim it just right so it doesn't affect your party too much), and you are faced with a couple of strong melee characters along with a somewhat powerful spellcaster and then another guy shooting poison arrows at you from afar. Like with the Gold Box games, careful selection and use of spells gets you through the battle without much trouble. I am beginning to appreciate the real-time with pause combat here; it's very cool sending your melee characters off to engage with an enemy while you pepper enemy spellcasters with arrows and magic missiles to disrupt spell casting. Yes, you basically do the same thing in the turn-based Gold Box engine, but it's very satisfying to see your party doing it all at once.
I gotta say, this game is really something special. A great open world RPG full of interesting encounters and locations—and although you just select areas to explore from a map, most of the areas are actually completely contiguous (in other words, you could remove the map from the game and it would still make sense; you aren't warping from one area to the next). I understand that BG2 is more plot-heavy and the areas don't really connect, and if so that's a bit of a shame.
Dark Souls (PC)
Having completed DS3 and thus the entire trilogy (and also Demon's Souls), I decided to start over with the first. I made a ton of progress in this over the last week, and am only a few areas from the end (and the DLC). Such a fun game! This is my third time through and I am still finding new stuff.
Bloodborne (PS Now)
This game will never be released for PC, and I am not gonna buy a PS4 just to play it. Then I found out that you can stream this game on the PS Now service. Surely it can't work? A difficult game like this that relies on timing? I gave it a try, and somehow it works. It's not perfect—gameplay is streamed at 720p with noticeable compression artifacts, and there is a noticeable input delay... but the delay is actually consistent, so you can get used to very quickly. It's not ideal but it's a hell of a lot better than paying $400 just to play a single game! I was able to take down both the optional and mandatory boss of the first area without much trouble, so the input delay is definitely something you can get used to.
I like the game a lot, but I think I would have been disappointed if I had spent $400 to play it. I miss having all the difference class builds from the Dark Souls series, and the world is really not very interesting visually. It actually reminds me Demon's Souls more than anything, as both games are dark and mostly gray/brown.
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Jackhead wrote on 2021-05-26, 16:19:
Wizardry 6 on MS-DOS 6.22 (k6 3+ @500 with setmul@ min)
I'd be interested in hearing your experiences with this! I got halfway through the game a couple years ago, but got busy with other stuff and never completed it. I gotta get back into it one of these days, I really liked what I played.