Einherje wrote on 2021-09-06, 14:12:

Jed118 wrote on 2021-09-06, 12:30:

OMG I remember this box art from the computer store I used to work at in the 90s. This game any good?

If you haven’t tried Dungeon Keeper or its sequel, you’re in for a treat. You manage a dungeon as an evil overlord and lure nosy heroes to their doom. Good times 😀

Yeah cool game! I liked the part that you could go into first person perspective and use different skills with your minions. Nice touch!

Joakim wrote on 2021-09-06, 15:54:

Yeah cool game! I liked the part that you could go into first person perspective and use different skills with your minions. Nice touch!

True! One of its many, ambitious features 😁

I think Dungeon Keeper is a rare example of a lot of different ideas that comes together in a nice way. It meshes management, strategy, and RPG elements well imo.

It was one of the few games to be translated to Swedish. (It was horrible though.)

I think I grew tired of the game when those devil minions needed to be bathed in gold all the time or they would get unhappy. Kind of like the theme hospital had those annoying rats you should shoot with your mouse. Bullfrog features I guess.

Bear with me - my gaming experiences tend to lag a few years behind everyone else. I like it this way. It's a lot cheaper, and I never have to wait for anything's release. That said, reading about it won't be the most interesting thing among those people for whom such recountings are the tired old hat of ~3 years past!

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Almost finished SMS Voyage: A Sorceress' Vacation. Guessing I'm on the last level, or close enough - one more session should do it. It's been a short, fun lark. Last time I spent hours in the Alex Kidd engine it would have been around the 80's/90's transition, just as I was embarking upon teenhood - finishing Miracle World, a gradual task which took 1-2 years on my original SMS. Das good old days.

It's been fun to revisit that shonky, slidey old gameplay of uncertain hitboxes and frustratingly devious trap setups. Like many things of old - and perhaps, even life itself! - half the game is mastering the shortcomings, and by the time you truly realise how much fun you're having, it's nearly finished. 🤣

In programming the game decades after the system's heyday - when 'all' is now known - it's clear that technical capabilities were able to be pushed to their limits. As such the graphical and sound quality is quite outstanding for a Master System game. Some of the levels and sprites had me shaking my head in disbelieving admiration - thinking how, had this been done on the SMS back around 1990, it would have raised the standards and expectations for all. (it would have also raised about 50,000 shades of moral outrage back in those days, when one of the character dialogs includes the word "shit", hahaha..)

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In prior posts over the past year I've made clear that I really loved Zelda Wind Waker HD, my first and extremely belated Zelda experience. It rather surprised me in it's sheer heart and mastery of, well, just about everything that's good and great about video gaming.

Over the past week it finally became time to embark upon the big gun I've been holding in reserve on the criminally-underrated Wii U (one of my favourite consoles!) : Breath of the Wild. "They say" it's one of the great video gaming experiences, and I'm totally and unashamedly buying into that. I'm 8-10 hours in, which at my slow OG gamer's pace means I've just exposed my 3rd map section.

First impressions are that the game takes key enjoyable elements from Wind Waker, adds it's own, and places it all in a world whose technical realisation is one big Holy Shit moment. The hybrid graphics style which constantly hints at the sparkle and cel shading of Wind Waker while imbuing a detailed modern realism is sheer perfection. Even just the map alone is a work of technical art - as a former cartographer-of-sorts it makes me stop and blink appreciatively. Vast choice with just the right amount of guidance is afforded by the more-ish open world Shrine system combined with the there-when-you-want-it main storyline.

All overlain by that top-tier polish and shine that Nintendo puts on all it's flagship offerings. And the comprehensive control system that only 100% works on the original Nintendo controllers, with the combination and locations of all the buttons matching what the game tells you, and extra functions like gyroscopes for aiming and puzzles working just right out-of-the-box with no fussing.

So, it's fun gaming times here at Shreddoc central station!

jwt27 wrote on 2013-05-25, 15:28:

And I'm halfway into Morrowind again, after I finished that I'll see if Arena and/or Daggerfall is something for me.

badmojo wrote on 2013-05-31, 02:19:

Some excellent games - Sanitarium is a classic, particularly in the early stages. And Daggerfall is one that I plan to have a red hot go at one day when I have the time.

I can really recommend Daggerfall Unity for some much needed quality of life improvements over the original. As much as I love gaming on old systems, vanilla Daggerfall has not aged well.

Get it here:

https://www.dfworkshop.net/

I have mixed feelings about these remakes. Imo it needs to be a big improvement or I might as well play the original. But ok I played Morrowind with the graphics mod and it was much better. For instance the character faces stop looking like undersides of a shoe and the draw distance makes it more immersive imo.

I'm also thinking about venturing into the past and try out old elder Scrolls games. But I need to get into the correct mindset first. 😁

I got started on Pillars of Eternity II - Deadfire. It is a slow start (as expected at lower levels), but I missed kicking ass with Eder, so I'll wait for it to pick up.

Joakim wrote on 2021-09-07, 09:12:

For instance the character faces stop looking like undersides of a shoe...

This made me chuckle. Same goes for the faces on System Shock 2 characters. Later graphic mods for that wonderful game are a must.

Joakim wrote on 2021-09-07, 09:12:

I have mixed feelings about these remakes. Imo it needs to be a big improvement or I might as well play the original. But ok I played Morrowind with the graphics mod and it was much better. For instance the character faces stop looking like undersides of a shoe and the draw distance makes it more immersive imo.

I'm also thinking about venturing into the past and try out old elder Scrolls games. But I need to get into the correct mindset first. 😁

The mindset for arena is "find the way to break it and actually enjoy it". Also only do minor things like the Oghma Infinitum outside of the main quest, especially if you're playing on DOS hardware. Daggerfall's mindset is the same, but is helped with the unity version of the game making it less jank.

Maybe some of you know this game but have you ever seen it in German text? ^^ Actually the developers (Blue Byte, the makers of Battle Isle, The Settlers games and many Anno titles under Ubisoft's label) originally came from Germany 😀

Einherje wrote on 2021-09-06, 18:41:

Joakim wrote on 2021-09-06, 15:54:

Yeah cool game! I liked the part that you could go into first person perspective and use different skills with your minions. Nice touch!

True! One of its many, ambitious features 😁

I think Dungeon Keeper is a rare example of a lot of different ideas that comes together in a nice way. It meshes management, strategy, and RPG elements well imo.

That sounds like something I want to try!

King's Field 2 (USA), after beating King's Field (Japan) and King's Field 1 (USA) recently. These must have been a real treat for any dungeon crawler fans that bought a PlayStation early on.

Started playing Heretic for the first time since mid-90s. Never finished it then, that's the plan this time. Was going to play with midi music but my midi card is busted, so rocking genuine OPL3 sound on a Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro instead.

I am about 40 hours into Pillars of Eternity II - Deadfire. My party is at Level 11 (20 is the cap) and I believe XP grind ups the gear at around Level 12/13 if the first game is anything to go by. So far, I am enjoying it a lot, though I can clearly see why it had slow sales and a cold reception after the first one because it really changed a lot of things in terms of gameplay and rules. The "introduction" section whereby you have your ship ready to sail and you feel yourself comfortable with doing so is basically the equivalent of doing dumb MMO quests on a newbie island, and then the exploration stuff gets going very slowly. The second island you find yourself on (with this game's hub city) is kind of an uninteresting drag and the setting itself is probably not as broadly appealing as the first game (carribean pirate adventures vs generic fantasy). I found the returning charactes to be great but the new companions are a mixed bag, and I thought the sidekicks were pretty pointless overall. I ended up loving the ship management aspect a lot mroe than I enjoyed the keep management/upgrade aspects of the first game. The graphics have also seen a huge upgrade, and it amazes me that they managed to pull off such a great imitation of the Infinity engine with Unity - the game looks just like Baldur's Gate 2.

That said, between Pillars of Eternity 1, Pillars of Eternity 2 and Tyranny, Tyranny is definitely the game I enjoyed the most and would consider replaying if I ever do that.

kolderman wrote on 2021-09-14, 04:28:

Started playing Heretic for the first time since mid-90s. Never finished it then, that's the plan this time. Was going to play with midi music but my midi card is busted, so rocking genuine OPL3 sound on a Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro instead.

I never finished Heretic or Hexen back in the day either. They're good games but iirc a bit difficult and just not as fun as Doom or ROTT.

Continuing my late-to-the-party first Breath of the Wild playthrough, I'm about 30 hours in. It seems like I am 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through the game.

The sheer refinement and balance of all the elements that make up the game are continually astounding. Such excellence is of course a common, perhaps even expected, hallmark of modern console-producer titles, but here it's executed to such a high level that one begins to understand the superlatives of reviewers.

The accolades are fully understood once the technical prowess of the game is added to the above. Speaking of which, I recently stopped playing BOTW on my Wii U, and began using the Cemu emulator instead. This along with the available Graphics Packs / enhancements gives the game greater visual fidelity - quite significantly so, even on my modest Zen+ and RX570 system. I also got a Dualshock4 controller to use with it, and apart from being a very nice controller generally speaking, it's also a luxury to play BOTW with it. The motion controls work seamlessly. That ability to intuitively fine tune your arrow aiming with controller motion is a must in these games imo.

Good times.

It's awesome to hear how much you are enjoying Breath of the Wild, Shreddoc. I know a lot of people, salty to this day over the weapon degradation system. Although I personally thought it added an interesting sense of economy to the game, and also forced you to use and become proficient in a broader variety of weapons. Besides, enemies were generally dropping level appropriate gear constantly.

Lately my guilty pleasure has been playing Grim Dawn while I listen to old Art Bell episodes in the background. It's all pretty mindless, but it's a good way to destress after long days. It's also fun listening to all the alien, paranormal and conspiracy theory talk. Some of it is extremely dated. Some of it hasn't changed one iota. It's also weird to have this artifact from a time when a person like that could have a national platform and people were generally tolerant of it. I do miss those days.

I've been in a play / mod loop with Gothic 1 - the first quest has been to make it look and play awesome 😋 I've dabbled with G1 over the years but have played way more of 2 and 3 - the more primitive controls always put me off but I should have tried harder because what a fantastic game this one is too. Getting it just right was a long and winding road - I wasn't sold on the DX11 render for a long time but finally got it looking good with reshade and much tweaking of the fog.

Something really useful I noticed was that you can turn on "Gothic 2 controls" via the system pack's INI file and this made the game much nicer to play, particularly given how firmly G2 is emblazoned on my synapses. I'm finding keyboard / mouse to be uncomfortable these days so I'm playing the game with a wireless Logitech F710 gamepad and JoyToKey. It did take some work to get the mapping just right but it's fantastic now - so nice to be able to sit back and relax. They're not twitchy games these so there's always time to prepare for a fight.

It's not a big world but it's packed with interest - amazing stuff considering when it was released. Beats the pants off Morrowind IMO 😁

badmojo wrote on 2021-09-17, 07:00:

It's not a big world but it's packed with interest - amazing stuff considering when it was released. Beats the pants off Morrowind IMO 😁

Back in the day, I remember playing Morrowind for the first time and thinking how lifeless its world felt. Of course, this was shortly after I had finished Gothic.

Well, at least Morrowind had those endless hordes of Cliff Racers to keep the player company, heh.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-09-17, 07:11:

badmojo wrote on 2021-09-17, 07:00:

It's not a big world but it's packed with interest - amazing stuff considering when it was released. Beats the pants off Morrowind IMO 😁

Back in the day, I remember playing Morrowind for the first time and thinking how lifeless its world felt. Of course, this was shortly after I had finished Gothic.

Well, at least Morrowind had those endless hordes of Cliff Racers to keep the player company, heh.

yes! morrowind is one of those games i wanted to like more, but for all its accomplishments it seemed to lack something 'alive'

not that it was a bad game in my view, it was still good - but not worth persisting with in the end