Well, I beat Strife. Kind of. I think that's the hardest Doom engine game I've ever tried, and it finally wore me down in the Proving Grounds level when I was completely out of healing items, money, ammo, and it teleported me into a room of high level hit scan enemies. And not like, an arena where I can theoretically dodge and weave. No, just dumps me in a cramped closet full of guys who will one shot me. First time I used cheat codes since I played games as a kid, but it wore me down that much.

Clearly I picked too high a difficulty level, but 2 levels shy of the ending is a bit late to restart on an easier settings. So I just got frustrated, threw on godmode, and knocked it out. Kind of glad I did, because the insane bulk of absolutely bullshit enemies in the The Lab, and the utter inadequacy of healing items of ammo would have driven me even more insane than Proving Grounds was.

Got the good ending I guess. I enjoyed the first half of the game a lot, especially the stealth aspects. And it was fun getting a much stronger punch dagger as the game went on. But by the time it's just throwing increasingly bullet spongy robots at you that can 1 or 2 shot you, in increasingly cramped quarters, I began to get just straight up bored of the "difficulty".

Namrok wrote on 2024-09-16, 03:30:

Well, I beat Strife. Kind of.

Yes Strife is great... until it isn't. I can't remember where I got to the last time I played but it must have been close to the end, but yeah I just rage quit at some point and haven't ever gone back.

I'm reading John Romero's book currently and he discusses Strife a bit - sounds like it had a troubled development and I think it shows in the later level designs. They must have just been jack of it by then.

It's a great book BTW: Doom Guy: Life in First Person

badmojo wrote on 2024-09-16, 03:53:

Yes Strife is great... until it isn't. I can't remember where I got to the last time I played but it must have been close to the […]
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Namrok wrote on 2024-09-16, 03:30:

Well, I beat Strife. Kind of.

Yes Strife is great... until it isn't. I can't remember where I got to the last time I played but it must have been close to the end, but yeah I just rage quit at some point and haven't ever gone back.

I'm reading John Romero's book currently and he discusses Strife a bit - sounds like it had a troubled development and I think it shows in the later level designs. They must have just been jack of it by then.

It's a great book BTW: Doom Guy: Life in First Person

I can see that. It definitely has the feel that sometime around The Factory they quit doing or quit caring about balance passes. Like there is just straight up not enough ammo in those levels to kill all the guys they put in them! I remember Civvie11 pointing out similar bullshit laziness in an episode about the Blood 2 expansion, which is not a game you want to be compared to. I mean, the game does have stealth mechanics, so that might lead you to believe you are supposed to blend in for those levels, but they are also full of robots that automatically aggro on you. I like to think I can handle your average Doom engine game. I beat Doom, Doom 2 and Heretic on Ultra Violence and found it a great experience. Although I did have to take Episode 4 of Doom down a peg. But Strife was just brutal, and I only played it on Hurt Me Plenty. Too many bullet spongy hitscan enemies. It just left a bitter taste in my mouth by the end. If I ever try it again, I might just go with the baby difficulty so I can enjoy the trip.

I'll definitely pick up Romero's auto biography. I loved Masters of Doom when I read that back in college. Hard to believe that got written back in 2003.

Being a child of the Atari generation, many of those classics hold a special place in my nostalgic brain. Asteroids was one of the first games I dumped countless hours into chasing high scores, both at home and the arcade. I still play it from time to time when I get bored or have a little time to kill.

I just started my journey through Atari's "Recharged" series with Asteroids: Recharged. It's a blast! Literally!

I'm almost at 100% completion and will get more in the Recharged series the next time they go on sale. 😀

Gameplay (Not mine): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48oWOYNq7BU

Just finished the human campaign of WarCraft: Orcs & Humans

Never have finished an entire campaign before. As a kid around the time the game was released I used to play the game with a friend of mine on his PC, I remember taking turns with him, one playing a full mission and then letting the other play the next one. But I also remember we "cooped" one handling the mouse and the other the keyboard. Sounds a bit cumbersome now but I don't think we had much difficulty playing it like that, I mean we also somehow played all the way through Requiem: Avenging Angel like that and that's a damn FPS 😁

Not sure did we ever finish a campaing together, but this is certainly the first time I've finished a campaing on my own. C&C came along soon after which swept us both off our feet and later on the less refined controls made it a hard game to go back to, so WarCraft basically turned into just a nostalgia trip for me, a game I've sometimes booted up, gone "awww" and moved on.

Until now, somehow reading an old review of the game motivated me enough to deal with the four unit selection limit and a bit clunky controls and start playing. Sure, the four unit limit isn't great and the keyboard shortcuts aren't the most convenient I've ever seen, but neither turned out to be a real problem. The game is so easy and simple it requires very little microing.

Only my first encounter with an enemy catapult got me a bit worried, it rudely rolled in from the fog of war and splattered most of my defensive line around the county with one shot from a mile away. But turned out they are extremely easy to deal with, just scout ahead far enough to spot them early and send a knight to deal with it once the way is clear. While the enemy likes to group up before attacking they don't stay grouped once they start advancing, meaning the slow catapult is still slowly making its way far behind while the main group has already reached the player. Once the rest of the attacking force has died or passed you by you can simply just stroll in with a single melee unit and kill the catapult, which overshoots the single shot it gets off before getting demoted into firewood, it can't shoot units right next to it.

Also got very unpleasant flashes of WarCraft II during the second to last mission after a warlock ran in, dropped some cloud of crap down and ran away, I remember basically nothing else of WCII but getting very annoyed by that. But it was just as easily dealt with as catapults, just get them early, preferably with summoned units.

All in all I'll be damned if I didn't kinda enjoy playing the game. Sure its a bit clunky and simple, but as someone who likes his RTS's rather laid back I was perfectly ok with that. I'll probably end up doing the orc campaign too at some point.

It's funny you say that, because Catapults always bring my playthroughs of WarCraft 1 to a screeching halt. I understood I should scout ahead and intercept with Knights, but for whatever reason one always is still able to sneak up on me and kill 6 or 8 guys before I can figure out what's happening where. I should git gud clearly.

I got my toes wet playing Master of Orion today though. Just a short game on a tiny map against two of the easiest opponents, to wrap my head around it. Was a good time. First game I beat on my wooden DX2. I look forward to trying it on a harder difficulty over several nights, instead of belting out a relatively quick 90 minute game. I did find a strategy guide in issue 114 of Computer Gaming World I want to peruse. I'm under the impression the staff at CGW did a lot to playtest and provide feedback on MoO while it was in development, so I'm sure their strategy article will be rather thorough.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-09-17, 17:59:

Until now, somehow reading an old review of the game motivated me enough to deal with the four unit selection limit and a bit clunky controls and start playing.

I tried replaying WarCraft 1 a few years ago, and this was pretty much why I couldn't get into it. The control scheme felt too cumbersome to use, and I just didn't have the patience to deal with that. Glad you managed to power through it though!

Back in the day, I spent countless hours on that game, and I remember enjoying it a lot. Pretty sure it was one of the first RTS titles that I ever played.

Namrok wrote on 2024-09-18, 03:08:

It's funny you say that, because Catapults always bring my playthroughs of WarCraft 1 to a screeching halt. I understood I should scout ahead and intercept with Knights, but for whatever reason one always is still able to sneak up on me and kill 6 or 8 guys before I can figure out what's happening where. I should git gud clearly.

You just need to keep your eye on the minimap like it's a baby playing near stairs, swimming pools and minefields. Dropping game speed helps, giving time to react. I did that for the last two missions to avoid that annoying clicks per second reaction speed test feeling I dislike in RTS's.

Also that wooden chassis of yours is awesome.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-09-18, 03:45:

Back in the day, I spent countless hours on that game, and I remember enjoying it a lot. Pretty sure it was one of the first RTS titles that I ever played.

It sure was my first too. Yeah, the controls make playing the game feel like riding an all wooden bicycle from early 19th century especially at first, but the game thankfully expects so little from you it doesn't really become a real problem at any point. Other than being an constant annoyance, even made my left hand feel a bit strained at first having to stretch it in ways it really wasn't used to 😀

appiah4 wrote on 2024-08-05, 07:16:

I never got into Prince of Persia 2 by the way, is it a (EDIT: good) game?

For you who liked pop1 it is at the top of my list
Cinematic Platformers (Prince of Persia, Another World style games) list
I only placed it so low there cause of its difficult/unusual controls (for newbies), not enough checkpoints (for ns) and low locations variety (for ns), and general difficulty (for ns).

Sombrero wrote on 2024-09-17, 17:59:

Until now, somehow reading an old review of the game motivated me enough to deal with the four unit selection limit and a bit clunky controls and start playing. Sure, the four unit limit isn't great and the keyboard shortcuts aren't the most convenient I've ever seen, but neither turned out to be a real problem. The game is so easy and simple it requires very little microing.

The lack of mouse right-click auto commands is something one really misses after getting used to it in Warcraft II. I wished back in the day that there would be an upgrade of WC1 using the controls of WC2. I think there is some user-made remake now allowing for something along these lines.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-09-17, 17:59:

Also got very unpleasant flashes of WarCraft II during the second to last mission after a warlock ran in, dropped some cloud of crap down and ran away, I remember basically nothing else of WCII but getting very annoyed by that. But it was just as easily dealt with as catapults, just get them early, preferably with summoned units.

For a long time I was stuck on the second-to-last mission of one of the campaigns. This is the first mission where the enemy starts with three bases, and they really can overwhelm you by a constant stream of attackers. Then I understood that all I need to do is survive until I can get four warlocks/conjurers and summon 4 daemons/elementals at once. Just one group like that will decimate a base entirely (or almost) in a single go. After that it is a mere technicality.

dr_st wrote on 2024-09-18, 08:24:

For a long time I was stuck on the second-to-last mission of one of the campaigns. This is the first mission where the enemy starts with three bases, and they really can overwhelm you by a constant stream of attackers. Then I understood that all I need to do is survive until I can get four warlocks/conjurers and summon 4 daemons/elementals at once. Just one group like that will decimate a base entirely (or almost) in a single go. After that it is a mere technicality.

I had the advantage of already being aware of the unit balance, or rather the glaring imbalance of the game going in. Just a few archers will utterly sweep the floor with most attackers and since you get almost two of them for the price of one knight you can spam them out quickly.

And then there's the end game summons. I didn't train a single regular barracks unit during the whole last mission, I went straight into conjurers and started pushing out elementals that steamrolled through the entire map. There really was zero point doing anything else, especially since the enemy was also periodically sending daemons at me and they seemed to beat the living crap out of other units even worse than elementals.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-09-18, 09:16:

I didn't train a single regular barracks unit during the whole last mission, I went straight into conjurers and started pushing out elementals that steamrolled through the entire map. There really was zero point doing anything else, especially since the enemy was also periodically sending daemons at me and they seemed to beat the living crap out of other units even worse than elementals.

As they say - One on one, a Daemon will defeat a Water Elemental.

Currently playing:

Fallout London:
I didn't know anything about it until release, and it's a really impressive piece of work.
Playing on my modern-ish Windows 10 machine.

Half-life 2:
My first time through and I only loaded it up to test that it was working after installing. Just kept on going... Really great game (as everyone else already knows, I'm sure!).
Playing on my Pentium 4/Windows XP machine.

TIE Fighter:
Played through many times but this time I'm using a Thrustmaster F-22 with a preprogrammed button for "SSS '''' " - IYKYK. Also my first time with a fully-loaded AWE32 playing the soundtrack and it's brilliant.
Playing on my Pentium 133/Windows 95 machine.

Raptor: Call of the Shadows:
First time trying to play through the entire game and I'm always terrible at shoot'em-ups but I'm having fun and I just scrounged together enough cash for the twin laser.
Playing on my 486-DX2/MS-DOS machine

Well, note to self. Save early and save often in Master of Orion. Not sure why, but it locked up pretty hard on my DX2 system. But I was also playing my GOG version instead of my CD version because the CD check annoys me. I did play for 90 minutes a few days ago without freezes with the CD version...

Anyways, there goes a nights worth of play.

Currently replaying Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Arkane's kicking simulator first person action RPG from 2006. Being one of the later WinXP titles, it supports widescreen resolutions, allowing me to play it at 1920x1200 using the proper 16:10 aspect ratio of my monitor. Surround sound is also supported, and the game offers various speaker configurations from its options menu. Works great on my 5.1 setup.

The graphics still look decent, which is not surprising since this game is based on the Source engine. The gameplay can be pretty janky at times, but I do enjoy the physics based combat, with kicking enemies into spikes, fire pits and all that. I'm going for a melee build, with just a touch of magic for dark vision, healing and telekinesis. Interestingly, I can see glimpses of design choices that would get refined in Arkane's later titles like Dishonored. This game is nowhere near as polished, but it's still kinda fun in its own way.

P.S.

The retail version of the game can be used on WinXP, as long as you only select the single player component during installation. The multiplayer component requires Steam.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-09-20, 10:36:

Currently replaying Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

I used to really enjoy Dark Messiah, for a time I more or less went back to it yearly. But when I revisited it last winter I didn't find it as fun as it used to be. My main problem with it were underpowered sword attacks. Early game it's a real issue, it then gets better with weapon and skill upgrades but then it gets silly again once orcs and especially ghouls enter the picture.

It's of course somewhat offset by going wild with the best kick in gaming, booting things into spikes/fire/gorges/down the stairs and who knows where, which is still fun as hell, but the combat overall just wasn't as enjoyable to me as back then. Maybe I should give it a try as a mage for once, it was pretty funny to make the floor slippery with ice spell scrolls and make things slip their way off the ledge.

Backstabbing is also fun those rare times you can do that, either I suck at stealth in this game or it's not super balanced towards it even though you can do a stealth build.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-09-20, 11:06:

Backstabbing is also fun those rare times you can do that, either I suck at stealth in this game or it's not super balanced towards it even though you can do a stealth build.

It's not you, the stealth mechanics in this game are not well developed. I played a stealth character in the past, and it wasn't a great experience. That's why I went for a melee build this time. 😀

BTW, if you haven't tried them already, I can wholeheartedly recommend the Dishonored games. Same developer as Dark Messiah (Arkane Studios), but much more polished. They are like a mix of Thief and Deus Ex, allowing you to play stealthy (the games can be completed without killing anyone) or guns and sword blazing. You're not penalized for using either approach, but there are consequences in terms of how the world changes based on your actions.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-09-20, 11:13:

BTW, if you haven't tried them already, I can wholeheartedly recommend the Dishonored games. Same developer as Dark Messiah (Arkane Studios), but much more polished. They are like a mix of Thief and Deus Ex, allowing you to play stealthy (the games can be completed without killing anyone) or guns and sword blazing. You're not penalized for using either approach, but there are consequences in terms of how the world changes based on your actions.

Sure, in my books the first Dishonored is great but I wish I could say the same for the sequel. Over the years I tried like 4 or 5 times to get in it before having to accept that I just don't like it.

It's too bad as it has some truly fantastic level design, but as a whole I don't find it very enjoyable for several different reasons. Same thing with Prey that came around the same time, I'm just not a fan of the way Arcane decided to do certain things.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-09-20, 11:35:

Sure, in my books the first Dishonored is great but I wish I could say the same for the sequel. Over the years I tried like 4 or 5 times to get in it before having to accept that I just don't like it.

It's too bad as it has some truly fantastic level design, but as a whole I don't find it very enjoyable for several different reasons. Same thing with Prey that came around the same time, I'm just not a fan of the way Arcane decided to do certain things.

Yeah, the second one isn't as good in terms of story. They tried to pander to a "modern audience" and it shows in all the bad ways. I still like the gameplay though, and I think the level design is better than in the first game.

I didn't try Prey (2017) yet, as the setting doesn't seem very appealing to my tastes.

Medieval: defense & conquest on Android whilst I'm abroad to pass the time. It's too hot outside. Just finished it, pretty fun game, raise cash to improve army and YOLO. Really enjoyed playing it, 8/10