Mechwarrior 5

A few years after wrapping up my involvement in the 4th Succession War, I got recruited to fight in the liberation of the Rasalhague Republic. It did not go well. I hung in there as best I could, but about 3 missions short of the end, my resources were tapped out. All my assault mechs were in the shop, several of my pilots had been killed, and I was stuck on a mission that was a gauntlet of mech combat. So I had to walk away from the campaign. But I kind of like how this is handled. You don't have to reload saves, or any funny business. You just choose to abandon the campaign, and back to the sandbox you go. You tried. Whatever rewards you got for as far as you got you keep.

I think the Dragon's Gambit campaign is up next, we'll see how that goes. Scanning over it, the tonnage limits for the missions seem more medium/heavy focuses as opposed to all assault all the time. But I think I'm going to focus more on the actual story campaign I'm supposed to be doing? Except I'm all the way up in Draconis space and that's way down in Marik territory, so I may hit some hot spots along the way. Bills have to be paid after all.

It has been satisfying building up my stable of mechs. I've shifted from selling everything I'm not using to pay the bills, to throwing them in cold storage just to have more spares, versatility, and scratch the collector's itch. I try to only eat what I kill, but I caved and bought several assault mechs when their salvage cost was just way higher than anything I ever had. It was the rare mission that let me even negotiate for more than 30 salvage shares, and assault mechs always seemed to be just a few more points than I ever had. So I bought an Atlas, a proper Awesome, and maybe one more though I forget. Got a pretty awesome hero variant of a Corsair as a mission reward. Hadn't fucked around much with the mech rifles in the game because of their long reload times, but woah boy. You ever want to reach out and rip a mechs arm off from across the map, that is how you do it. They aren't quite hitscan, but they feel close.

Completed Syndicate yesterday evening, the 1993 DOS game not the much later FPS of the same name.

I think I made a mistake hopping on to it right after WarCraft, I did not remember at all just how hands off it was in terms of gameplay. You command a squad of cyborgs from top down view, left mouse click is select/move command while right click shoots. So left click around the map to move around and shoot bad guys by right clicking on them, point and click, not complicated. But that's not what you end up doing 99% of the time. The problem is that it's impossible to visually see enemies that are behind walls/buildings other than combing desperately the area on the screen until the pointer turns into a crosshair, which you might be able to pull off in time if there is only one lightly armed enemy in there but any more, especially if they have anything else than peashooters? No way.

The game taking place in cities in the middle of buildings this is a constant issue. The solution? You can pump your agents full of drugs, one affects moving speed, one accuracy and one their intelligence making them smart enough to shoot enemies automatically on sight. Since you have to do this all the time, and not only because the enemies disappear behind buildings but because there are often too many to shoot manually youself, the click to move / click to shoot gameplay turns into click to move and sit on your ass and watch your agents shoot enemies automatically gameplay. Riveting I tell you.

That makes the gameplay rather boring in the long-term. But there's another issue I did not remember at all and this one is kinda amazing. The game engine doesn't seem to understand depth/z-axis AT ALL. Try to enter a building, which you not only can do but often have to do, so you click on the building and watch your agents turn into headless chickens as the game does not understand that there is a space inside the building and tries desperately guide your agents on that inaccessible spot on the roof/wall you clicked on. An enemy drops a weapon behind a fence and you try to pick it up, but can't because the game doesn't understand it's behind the fence, not fused into it.

Here's my favorite moment from the game: In one mission you need to bring an ambulance to a doctor who waits in a house that sits on slightly elevated platform next to the road. So I get the ambulance, drive it to the house and walk up to the doctor. The doc activates, starts moving and immediately gets stuck on the elevated platform, not able to calculate the immensively complicated rout of walking down the ~3 step stairs to the yard, because pathfinding in the game is exactly what you can expect from a game of this era. So I try to move the ambulance somewhere else, doesn't help, the doc is permanently stuck in limbo. I have to reset the entire mission.

Try number two. I get the ambulance and get to the house, this time I position it so that it should be easier for the 4-D chess galaxy brain pathfinding. The doc finds his way down the stairs, walks directly towards the ambulance, but then as he reaches the side of the road gets confused and starts walking away. The ambulance is on the other side of the road and the guy can't cross the road to it. Instead he slowly walks all the way to the end of the road to get to the other side, then all the way back, and what does he do when he reaches the ambulance? WALKS PAST IT. Won't get in, the guy keeps doing rounds from one side of the road to the other. I try to move the ambulance. Doesn't help. Have to reset again.

Did I mention you have to take this incredibly slow piece of crap car and slowly drive it to get to other side of a gate in the beginning of the mission, which feels like it takes eons especially during the third time? I get the ambulance AGAIN, get to the house AGAIN and leave it on the same side as the house this time. The doc gets stuck on the same spot as the first time, on the platform next to the road. I try to move the car, which takes it right past the doc, who stands on the platform NEXT to the road, but the top of his sprite goes on the road. My team drives past. Splat. Doc's a roadkill, mission failed. The game does not understand z-axis.

You know that mixed feeling of helpless desperation and rage that leaves you just laughing? Yeah. On the fourth time I left the ambulance on top of the pedestrian crossing and the doc found his way to it that time, mission complete.

Oof. I have fond memories of the game and have considered it as one of my favorites from DOS-era, but it's one I struggle with a bit these days. It's best served as smaller chunks, mission here mission there, not for sitting down and playing for an hour. It certainly has its share of jank and questionable design, but I still had a smile on my face during the end credits. Though maybe I was just relieved it was finally over 😁

Sombrero wrote on 2024-10-11, 08:37:

Completed Syndicate yesterday evening, the 1993 DOS game not the much later FPS of the same name. […]
Show full quote

Completed Syndicate yesterday evening, the 1993 DOS game not the much later FPS of the same name.

I think I made a mistake hopping on to it right after WarCraft, I did not remember at all just how hands off it was in terms of gameplay. You command a squad of cyborgs from top down view, left mouse click is select/move command while right click shoots. So left click around the map to move around and shoot bad guys by right clicking on them, point and click, not complicated. But that's not what you end up doing 99% of the time. The problem is that it's impossible to visually see enemies that are behind walls/buildings other than combing desperately the area on the screen until the pointer turns into a crosshair, which you might be able to pull off in time if there is only one lightly armed enemy in there but any more, especially if they have anything else than peashooters? No way.

The game taking place in cities in the middle of buildings this is a constant issue. The solution? You can pump your agents full of drugs, one affects moving speed, one accuracy and one their intelligence making them smart enough to shoot enemies automatically on sight. Since you have to do this all the time, and not only because the enemies disappear behind buildings but because there are often too many to shoot manually youself, the click to move / click to shoot gameplay turns into click to move and sit on your ass and watch your agents shoot enemies automatically gameplay. Riveting I tell you.

That makes the gameplay rather boring in the long-term. But there's another issue I did not remember at all and this one is kinda amazing. The game engine doesn't seem to understand depth/z-axis AT ALL. Try to enter a building, which you not only can do but often have to do, so you click on the building and watch your agents turn into headless chickens as the game does not understand that there is a space inside the building and tries desperately guide your agents on that inaccessible spot on the roof/wall you clicked on. An enemy drops a weapon behind a fence and you try to pick it up, but can't because the game doesn't understand it's behind the fence, not fused into it.

Here's my favorite moment from the game: In one mission you need to bring an ambulance to a doctor who waits in a house that sits on slightly elevated platform next to the road. So I get the ambulance, drive it to the house and walk up to the doctor. The doc activates, starts moving and immediately gets stuck on the elevated platform, not able to calculate the immensively complicated rout of walking down the ~3 step stairs to the yard, because pathfinding in the game is exactly what you can expect from a game of this era. So I try to move the ambulance somewhere else, doesn't help, the doc is permanently stuck in limbo. I have to reset the entire mission.

Try number two. I get the ambulance and get to the house, this time I position it so that it should be easier for the 4-D chess galaxy brain pathfinding. The doc finds his way down the stairs, walks directly towards the ambulance, but then as he reaches the side of the road gets confused and starts walking away. The ambulance is on the other side of the road and the guy can't cross the road to it. Instead he slowly walks all the way to the end of the road to get to the other side, then all the way back, and what does he do when he reaches the ambulance? WALKS PAST IT. Won't get in, the guy keeps doing rounds from one side of the road to the other. I try to move the ambulance. Doesn't help. Have to reset again.

Did I mention you have to take this incredibly slow piece of crap car and slowly drive it to get to other side of a gate in the beginning of the mission, which feels like it takes eons especially during the third time? I get the ambulance AGAIN, get to the house AGAIN and leave it on the same side as the house this time. The doc gets stuck on the same spot as the first time, on the platform next to the road. I try to move the car, which takes it right past the doc, who stands on the platform NEXT to the road, but the top of his sprite goes on the road. My team drives past. Splat. Doc's a roadkill, mission failed. The game does not understand z-axis.

You know that mixed feeling of helpless desperation and rage that leaves you just laughing? Yeah. On the fourth time I left the ambulance on top of the pedestrian crossing and the doc found his way to it that time, mission complete.

Oof. I have fond memories of the game and have considered it as one of my favorites from DOS-era, but it's one I struggle with a bit these days. It's best served as smaller chunks, mission here mission there, not for sitting down and playing for an hour. It certainly has its share of jank and questionable design, but I still had a smile on my face during the end credits. Though maybe I was just relieved it was finally over 😁

Hah, when I built my first retro PC syndicate was one of the first games I tried. I actually never played it back in the day, but I had friends who gushed about how cool it was, especially the PERSUADERTRON. Admittedly, that primed the pump a bit for me and I went through as many missions as I could shamelessly exploiting that weapon. it was fun, I'll give it that.

Aside from that, I echo many of your complaints. Some missions involved long, slow traversals across terrain that required a lot of tedious micro management to compensate for the shitty path finding. Slightest thing goes wrong and you have to restart. Some of them were clearly designed to encourage you to take a car or a train to your destination, and sometimes I'd try to. But often that was just an extra invitation for something to bug out.

The missions I remember causing the most hair pulling were any sort of protection or escort mission. There was one where an escort target took a very oblivious fixed path right into enemies with lot of spash damaging weapons. Even when I won the encounters, blast radii or weapon spray, sometimes even friendly, would have already killed the escort objective. I did overcome these obstacles in time, but elected to skip the American Revolt expansion having read it was even more bullshit than the original game, which at least had a charming mix of overpowered fun loving jank and frustrating level design and bugs.

Namrok wrote on 2024-10-11, 14:00:

Some of them were clearly designed to encourage you to take a car or a train to your destination, and sometimes I'd try to. But often that was just an extra invitation for something to bug out.

I remember reading a review of the game that mentioned Bullfrog had been banging on drums how the game had fully functioning cities with trains and all. Sure there are trains, going from point 1 to point 2 and back again and nobody uses them except you. I constantly saw dead bodies on those tracks, the smart citizens kept wandering in front of those trains.

Namrok wrote on 2024-10-11, 14:00:

The missions I remember causing the most hair pulling were any sort of protection or escort mission. There was one where an escort target took a very oblivious fixed path right into enemies with lot of spash damaging weapons. Even when I won the encounters, blast radii or weapon spray, sometimes even friendly, would have already killed the escort objective. I did overcome these obstacles in time, but elected to skip the American Revolt expansion having read it was even more bullshit than the original game, which at least had a charming mix of overpowered fun loving jank and frustrating level design and bugs.

Haha, yeah, I was filled with horror when I got the first escort mission, apparently they already sucked balls even back in 1993. Piles of enemy agents barreling towards you, most of them running behind buildings where you can't see them and more importanly the time bomb they drop as they die. And where does the brain dead idiot you are supposed to escort directly go to, just guess. Thankfully I soon realized you can shoot at the time bombs to make them go off, made it much easier.

Correct decision with American Revolt! I wasn't as smart and once tried it, the avalanche of bullshit it threw at me made me realize my error in record time.

clueless1 wrote on 2024-10-08, 10:34:

Add me to the list of people initially really impressed with Crysis, but losing interest after the first 1/3 of the game.

Cheers!

Yesh... I have begun a rage quit session with Crysis 2 recently. Damn mech boss thing is driving me crazy. I am definitely towards the end of the game (I hope).

Gave System Shock Remake a shot. I backed it during its kickstarter but the further its development progressed the less I liked what I saw. By the time it was released I had pretty much given up on it. That was about year and a half ago now, the disappoitment had faded and I felt I was ready to accept it as it is and give it a honest chance.

I started to actively dislike it under an hour. I didn't even get to play long enough to get bothered by what I thought was going to be my biggest problem, the ye olden level design, it's how the game LOOKS that started to drive me mad. It has this fuzzy out of focus look to it that made me feel like there's something wrong with my eyes, I was constantly having trouble seeing clearly at a glance, having to stop and squint my eyes. I'm not sure what exactly is causing it, but the game uses Unreal Engine 4 so it's full of modern shitty AA implementations, chromatic aberration and other post-processing crap. Add the rather odd neo-retro art style with somewhat pixelated textures to that and I found myself looking at a door wondering is that a door or what the hell is it supposed to be.

I noticed other things too I wasn't too happy about, like how the name of items you were looking at were displayed on the very top of the screen, forcing you constantly to look back and forth, and to make it even worse the name of the item lingered there a second or two even if you are already looking at something else! Going through a shelfful of items was annoying, since the game is full of garbage items. Speaking of garbage items the game seems to have same kind of collect crap and bring them to a recycler to get stuff mechanic as Prey did, which I profoundly disliked in Prey. I really don't want to be a space janitor.

Alright, I could keep going but I'll stop my ranting here. Seems there's plenty of people who have liked the game, so at least there's that. The game isn't a complete catastrophe, it's clearly just not for me personally. Can't win them all, I'll move on to something else.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-10-14, 06:58:

chromatic aberration

Yeah, that crap is sadly everywhere nowadays. For some reason, every developer under the sun loves slapping it onto their games. Heck, I've even seen it in recent anime and movies.

I'll never understand the fascination with an effect that was actively sought to be avoided back in the day. It looks like shit, making it harder to see stuff on the screen, and it needlessly irritates my eyes. Next, I'm betting someone will actively seek to reproduce the rainbow pattern distortion of an old RF cable and call that "artistic".

P.S.

I'm talking about chromatic aberration in general, and not about its implementation in the System Shock remake. I haven't played that game yet.

I enjoyed half life 2 again.. as mentioned before - best levels were the early ones, if only i could spend more time "alone" in the city and the escape finding out about things before being recognised everywhere and constantly hunted. Many FPS and RPG games follow the pattern of starting out relatively anonymous and without a major quest, i prefer this - true of oblivion, fallout and even the wonderful deus ex was better for me in the first half.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-10-14, 06:58:

Gave System Shock Remake a shot. I backed it during its kickstarter but the further its development progressed the less I liked […]
Show full quote

Gave System Shock Remake a shot. I backed it during its kickstarter but the further its development progressed the less I liked what I saw. By the time it was released I had pretty much given up on it. That was about year and a half ago now, the disappoitment had faded and I felt I was ready to accept it as it is and give it a honest chance.

I started to actively dislike it under an hour. I didn't even get to play long enough to get bothered by what I thought was going to be my biggest problem, the ye olden level design, it's how the game LOOKS that started to drive me mad. It has this fuzzy out of focus look to it that made me feel like there's something wrong with my eyes, I was constantly having trouble seeing clearly at a glance, having to stop and squint my eyes. I'm not sure what exactly is causing it, but the game uses Unreal Engine 4 so it's full of modern shitty AA implementations, chromatic aberration and other post-processing crap. Add the rather odd neo-retro art style with somewhat pixelated textures to that and I found myself looking at a door wondering is that a door or what the hell is it supposed to be.

I noticed other things too I wasn't too happy about, like how the name of items you were looking at were displayed on the very top of the screen, forcing you constantly to look back and forth, and to make it even worse the name of the item lingered there a second or two even if you are already looking at something else! Going through a shelfful of items was annoying, since the game is full of garbage items. Speaking of garbage items the game seems to have same kind of collect crap and bring them to a recycler to get stuff mechanic as Prey did, which I profoundly disliked in Prey. I really don't want to be a space janitor.

Alright, I could keep going but I'll stop my ranting here. Seems there's plenty of people who have liked the game, so at least there's that. The game isn't a complete catastrophe, it's clearly just not for me personally. Can't win them all, I'll move on to something else.

well, your description put me off! for which i'm grateful btw. the visuals you describe and the item mechanic seem irritating

gerry wrote on 2024-10-14, 09:59:

well, your description put me off! for which i'm grateful btw. the visuals you describe and the item mechanic seem irritating

If the game otherwise seems interesting to you I'd advice giving some gameplay video on youtube a look to get a better idea would you personally like it. I tend to be rather demanding and hard to please, the polar opposite of the type who can pick up nearly any game and enjoy it.

Either I know what I like and stick to it or I'm just picky, take your pick 😁

Sombrero wrote on 2024-10-11, 08:37:

Completed Syndicate yesterday evening, the 1993 DOS game not the much later FPS of the same name. […]
Show full quote

Completed Syndicate yesterday evening, the 1993 DOS game not the much later FPS of the same name.

I think I made a mistake hopping on to it right after WarCraft, I did not remember at all just how hands off it was in terms of gameplay. You command a squad of cyborgs from top down view, left mouse click is select/move command while right click shoots. So left click around the map to move around and shoot bad guys by right clicking on them, point and click, not complicated. But that's not what you end up doing 99% of the time. The problem is that it's impossible to visually see enemies that are behind walls/buildings other than combing desperately the area on the screen until the pointer turns into a crosshair, which you might be able to pull off in time if there is only one lightly armed enemy in there but any more, especially if they have anything else than peashooters? No way.

The game taking place in cities in the middle of buildings this is a constant issue. The solution? You can pump your agents full of drugs, one affects moving speed, one accuracy and one their intelligence making them smart enough to shoot enemies automatically on sight. Since you have to do this all the time, and not only because the enemies disappear behind buildings but because there are often too many to shoot manually youself, the click to move / click to shoot gameplay turns into click to move and sit on your ass and watch your agents shoot enemies automatically gameplay. Riveting I tell you.

That makes the gameplay rather boring in the long-term. But there's another issue I did not remember at all and this one is kinda amazing. The game engine doesn't seem to understand depth/z-axis AT ALL. Try to enter a building, which you not only can do but often have to do, so you click on the building and watch your agents turn into headless chickens as the game does not understand that there is a space inside the building and tries desperately guide your agents on that inaccessible spot on the roof/wall you clicked on. An enemy drops a weapon behind a fence and you try to pick it up, but can't because the game doesn't understand it's behind the fence, not fused into it.

Here's my favorite moment from the game: In one mission you need to bring an ambulance to a doctor who waits in a house that sits on slightly elevated platform next to the road. So I get the ambulance, drive it to the house and walk up to the doctor. The doc activates, starts moving and immediately gets stuck on the elevated platform, not able to calculate the immensively complicated rout of walking down the ~3 step stairs to the yard, because pathfinding in the game is exactly what you can expect from a game of this era. So I try to move the ambulance somewhere else, doesn't help, the doc is permanently stuck in limbo. I have to reset the entire mission.

Try number two. I get the ambulance and get to the house, this time I position it so that it should be easier for the 4-D chess galaxy brain pathfinding. The doc finds his way down the stairs, walks directly towards the ambulance, but then as he reaches the side of the road gets confused and starts walking away. The ambulance is on the other side of the road and the guy can't cross the road to it. Instead he slowly walks all the way to the end of the road to get to the other side, then all the way back, and what does he do when he reaches the ambulance? WALKS PAST IT. Won't get in, the guy keeps doing rounds from one side of the road to the other. I try to move the ambulance. Doesn't help. Have to reset again.

Did I mention you have to take this incredibly slow piece of crap car and slowly drive it to get to other side of a gate in the beginning of the mission, which feels like it takes eons especially during the third time? I get the ambulance AGAIN, get to the house AGAIN and leave it on the same side as the house this time. The doc gets stuck on the same spot as the first time, on the platform next to the road. I try to move the car, which takes it right past the doc, who stands on the platform NEXT to the road, but the top of his sprite goes on the road. My team drives past. Splat. Doc's a roadkill, mission failed. The game does not understand z-axis.

You know that mixed feeling of helpless desperation and rage that leaves you just laughing? Yeah. On the fourth time I left the ambulance on top of the pedestrian crossing and the doc found his way to it that time, mission complete.

Oof. I have fond memories of the game and have considered it as one of my favorites from DOS-era, but it's one I struggle with a bit these days. It's best served as smaller chunks, mission here mission there, not for sitting down and playing for an hour. It certainly has its share of jank and questionable design, but I still had a smile on my face during the end credits. Though maybe I was just relieved it was finally over 😁

The making of Syndicate. Very interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf94GyekoBM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPcrM2eQg88

Sombrero wrote on 2024-10-14, 06:58:

Gave System Shock Remake a shot. I backed it during its kickstarter but the further its development progressed the less I liked […]
Show full quote

Gave System Shock Remake a shot. I backed it during its kickstarter but the further its development progressed the less I liked what I saw. By the time it was released I had pretty much given up on it. That was about year and a half ago now, the disappoitment had faded and I felt I was ready to accept it as it is and give it a honest chance.

I started to actively dislike it under an hour. I didn't even get to play long enough to get bothered by what I thought was going to be my biggest problem, the ye olden level design, it's how the game LOOKS that started to drive me mad. It has this fuzzy out of focus look to it that made me feel like there's something wrong with my eyes, I was constantly having trouble seeing clearly at a glance, having to stop and squint my eyes. I'm not sure what exactly is causing it, but the game uses Unreal Engine 4 so it's full of modern shitty AA implementations, chromatic aberration and other post-processing crap. Add the rather odd neo-retro art style with somewhat pixelated textures to that and I found myself looking at a door wondering is that a door or what the hell is it supposed to be.

I noticed other things too I wasn't too happy about, like how the name of items you were looking at were displayed on the very top of the screen, forcing you constantly to look back and forth, and to make it even worse the name of the item lingered there a second or two even if you are already looking at something else! Going through a shelfful of items was annoying, since the game is full of garbage items. Speaking of garbage items the game seems to have same kind of collect crap and bring them to a recycler to get stuff mechanic as Prey did, which I profoundly disliked in Prey. I really don't want to be a space janitor.

Alright, I could keep going but I'll stop my ranting here. Seems there's plenty of people who have liked the game, so at least there's that. The game isn't a complete catastrophe, it's clearly just not for me personally. Can't win them all, I'll move on to something else.

I'm one of those that did like the game. I'm also a fan of the original -- I played it on release as a 25 yr old gamer. My issues were with the soundtrack (and how long it took them to complete the game). I wanted an exact duplicate of the OST, but the more I played SSR, the more I enjoyed and appreciated the new soundtrack. It's been 15 months since I played this, so I can't remember the details enough to compare to your experience, but I don't remember the visuals being as you describe them. I will have to fire it up again sometime.

clueless1 wrote on 2024-10-16, 10:45:

Sombrero wrote on 2024-10-14, 06:58:

Gave System Shock Remake a shot. I backed it during its kickstarter but the further its development progressed the less I liked […]
Show full quote

Gave System Shock Remake a shot. I backed it during its kickstarter but the further its development progressed the less I liked what I saw. By the time it was released I had pretty much given up on it. That was about year and a half ago now, the disappoitment had faded and I felt I was ready to accept it as it is and give it a honest chance.

I started to actively dislike it under an hour. I didn't even get to play long enough to get bothered by what I thought was going to be my biggest problem, the ye olden level design, it's how the game LOOKS that started to drive me mad. It has this fuzzy out of focus look to it that made me feel like there's something wrong with my eyes, I was constantly having trouble seeing clearly at a glance, having to stop and squint my eyes. I'm not sure what exactly is causing it, but the game uses Unreal Engine 4 so it's full of modern shitty AA implementations, chromatic aberration and other post-processing crap. Add the rather odd neo-retro art style with somewhat pixelated textures to that and I found myself looking at a door wondering is that a door or what the hell is it supposed to be.

I noticed other things too I wasn't too happy about, like how the name of items you were looking at were displayed on the very top of the screen, forcing you constantly to look back and forth, and to make it even worse the name of the item lingered there a second or two even if you are already looking at something else! Going through a shelfful of items was annoying, since the game is full of garbage items. Speaking of garbage items the game seems to have same kind of collect crap and bring them to a recycler to get stuff mechanic as Prey did, which I profoundly disliked in Prey. I really don't want to be a space janitor.

Alright, I could keep going but I'll stop my ranting here. Seems there's plenty of people who have liked the game, so at least there's that. The game isn't a complete catastrophe, it's clearly just not for me personally. Can't win them all, I'll move on to something else.

I'm one of those that did like the game. I'm also a fan of the original -- I played it on release as a 25 yr old gamer. My issues were with the soundtrack (and how long it took them to complete the game). I wanted an exact duplicate of the OST, but the more I played SSR, the more I enjoyed and appreciated the new soundtrack. It's been 15 months since I played this, so I can't remember the details enough to compare to your experience, but I don't remember the visuals being as you describe them. I will have to fire it up again sometime.

I also very much like the remake, BUT nothing compares to System Shock 2. Still my absolute favorite in the series. It still gives me the spooks even with all those low count polygons.

clueless1 wrote on 2024-10-16, 10:45:

I'm one of those that did like the game. I'm also a fan of the original -- I played it on release as a 25 yr old gamer. My issues were with the soundtrack (and how long it took them to complete the game). I wanted an exact duplicate of the OST, but the more I played SSR, the more I enjoyed and appreciated the new soundtrack. It's been 15 months since I played this, so I can't remember the details enough to compare to your experience, but I don't remember the visuals being as you describe them. I will have to fire it up again sometime.

I still have no idea what was causing my issue with the visuals, but a quick google search suggests I'm not the only one who has trouble with it. Did you play on higher resolution than 1080p? Higher resolutions could help at least with blurry AA and I'm still in peasant 1080p land. Or maybe there's just something in the game that triggers something on certain people like motion sickness. All I know is I had trouble focusing my eyes on what I was seeing on the screen and it strained my eyes constantly.

About the soundtrack, I loved the remixed track that plays during the intro but I wasn't terribly into the one that played once the game started. I checked the soundtrack on youtube and it sounded very bland and forgettable to me, maybe it works better in the game if it eventually grew on you.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-10-16, 11:21:

clueless1 wrote on 2024-10-16, 10:45:

I'm one of those that did like the game. I'm also a fan of the original -- I played it on release as a 25 yr old gamer. My issues were with the soundtrack (and how long it took them to complete the game). I wanted an exact duplicate of the OST, but the more I played SSR, the more I enjoyed and appreciated the new soundtrack. It's been 15 months since I played this, so I can't remember the details enough to compare to your experience, but I don't remember the visuals being as you describe them. I will have to fire it up again sometime.

I still have no idea what was causing my issue with the visuals, but a quick google search suggests I'm not the only one who has trouble with it. Did you play on higher resolution than 1080p? Higher resolutions could help at least with blurry AA and I'm still in peasant 1080p land. Or maybe there's just something in the game that triggers something on certain people like motion sickness. All I know is I had trouble focusing my eyes on what I was seeing on the screen and it strained my eyes constantly.

About the soundtrack, I loved the remixed track that plays during the intro but I wasn't terribly into the one that played once the game started. I checked the soundtrack on youtube and it sounded very bland and forgettable to me, maybe it works better in the game if it eventually grew on you.

I played at 1080p. Just checking my graphics settings now. Resolution scaling 200%, motion blur disabled, FOV 90, every graphical setting maxed out, and DLSS set to quality. Here's a screenshot:

clueless1 wrote on 2024-10-16, 22:14:

Sombrero wrote on 2024-10-16, 11:21:

clueless1 wrote on 2024-10-16, 10:45:

I'm one of those that did like the game. I'm also a fan of the original -- I played it on release as a 25 yr old gamer. My issues were with the soundtrack (and how long it took them to complete the game). I wanted an exact duplicate of the OST, but the more I played SSR, the more I enjoyed and appreciated the new soundtrack. It's been 15 months since I played this, so I can't remember the details enough to compare to your experience, but I don't remember the visuals being as you describe them. I will have to fire it up again sometime.

I still have no idea what was causing my issue with the visuals, but a quick google search suggests I'm not the only one who has trouble with it. Did you play on higher resolution than 1080p? Higher resolutions could help at least with blurry AA and I'm still in peasant 1080p land. Or maybe there's just something in the game that triggers something on certain people like motion sickness. All I know is I had trouble focusing my eyes on what I was seeing on the screen and it strained my eyes constantly.

About the soundtrack, I loved the remixed track that plays during the intro but I wasn't terribly into the one that played once the game started. I checked the soundtrack on youtube and it sounded very bland and forgettable to me, maybe it works better in the game if it eventually grew on you.

I played at 1080p. Just checking my graphics settings now. Resolution scaling 200%, motion blur disabled, FOV 90, every graphical setting maxed out, and DLSS set to quality. Here's a screenshot:

Screenshot looks like crap. I think it was compressed when I uploaded it. 🙁

clueless1 wrote on 2024-10-16, 23:32:

Screenshot looks like crap. I think it was compressed when I uploaded it. 🙁

I don't think it's something you could tell from a screenshot, it's too suddle. Even I didn't notice anything was wrong at first, the apartment the game starts in looked perfectly fine to me. Had to play for a bit before I started noticing it. I'm starting to think chromatic aberration is a part of the cause, if not the main culprit. Apparently even the UI is affected by it. Eh, no matter, I don't think I'd be much of a fan of the game even if there was some miraculous fix to what ever the visual issue I'm having with it.

/Edit: Now that I've had my morning coffee I noticed you mentioned having resolution scaling 200% and DLSS set to quality, if these help with it I wouldn't know with my 10 year old haswell system with GTX 1660 Ti. I'm riding the cutting edge of technology I know, have had little reason to upgrade especially ever since GPU prices went full clown mode.

On other news I started playing Legend of Grimrock again and I'm loving the atmosphere. I've played it once before but technically never finished it, managed to accidentally quick save a second before unavoidable death with no way out during the final boss and the previous other save was too far back to bother. I don't think I've managed to do that ever before.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-10-17, 03:03:

On other news I started playing Legend of Grimrock again and I'm loving the atmosphere. I've played it once before but technically never finished it, managed to accidentally quick save a second before unavoidable death with no way out during the final boss and the previous other save was too far back to bother. I don't think I've managed to do that ever before.

Loved that game. I have Grimrock 2 on my shortlist, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-10-17, 03:03:

I don't think it's something you could tell from a screenshot, it's too suddle. Even I didn't notice anything was wrong at first […]
Show full quote

clueless1 wrote on 2024-10-16, 23:32:

Screenshot looks like crap. I think it was compressed when I uploaded it. 🙁

I don't think it's something you could tell from a screenshot, it's too suddle. Even I didn't notice anything was wrong at first, the apartment the game starts in looked perfectly fine to me. Had to play for a bit before I started noticing it. I'm starting to think chromatic aberration is a part of the cause, if not the main culprit. Apparently even the UI is affected by it. Eh, no matter, I don't think I'd be much of a fan of the game even if there was some miraculous fix to what ever the visual issue I'm having with it.

/Edit: Now that I've had my morning coffee I noticed you mentioned having resolution scaling 200% and DLSS set to quality, if these help with it I wouldn't know with my 10 year old haswell system with GTX 1660 Ti. I'm riding the cutting edge of technology I know, have had little reason to upgrade especially ever since GPU prices went full clown mode.

On other news I started playing Legend of Grimrock again and I'm loving the atmosphere. I've played it once before but technically never finished it, managed to accidentally quick save a second before unavoidable death with no way out during the final boss and the previous other save was too far back to bother. I don't think I've managed to do that ever before.

I think it took me two tries to stick with Legend of Grimrock too. Got as far as the first troll on my first playthough, beat it on my second many years later. I've actually been intending to play it again at some point. I actually started Grimrock 2 at some point as well, but just... lost interest. Maybe it was too open, I don't know. I just felt like I had no direction in the sequel and my attention got snatched away by other things.

I finally beat Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries just in time to jump into the sequel. In it's final form, or at least I assume it's final given that they've released a sequel and appear to have moved on, I think it's possibly the greatest love letter to Succession Wars era Battletech that has ever existed. I was listening to an interview, and the narrative director for Clans said when they began work on MW5: Mercs, the president of the company wanted what was essentially a remake of the very first Mechwarrior, coincidentally the only one I've never played. It too took place in 3015 and was a very open world sandbox. So I'd say they knocked that out of the park.

After all the DLC, the world is teeming with life and activity, and no longer feels as sterile as it did on release. I especially loved the campaigns they added for many of the major conflicts including the 4th Succession War, the Rasalhague Republic's fight for (short lived) independence, and the war of 3039 between the Federated Suns and the Draconis Combine. Your involvement in these campaigns is non-central, since that is covered in exhaustive detail in the canon sources, but it's fun to be involved. I don't think any serious Battletech fan would insist on some sort of Forest Gump like retconning about how actually your character was there for all the major events in the Inner Sphere.

It actually took some concerted effort not to get distracted and focus on actually beating the vanilla story campaign. I kept getting recruited for exclusive contracts for the DLC campaigns. I didn't finally beat it until 4043 or so, and by then I had over a lance of assault mechs, and even 6 different 100T mechs to deploy at my leisure. I think my favorite ended up being the Annihilator, both the PPC and the LBX AC/10 variants. They are slow as hell, but for the most post you just plod along, not dodging anything, coring everything that attempts to challenge you. Just an unstoppable force. Also helped that I replaced a few single heatsinks with doubles to save on weight, and armored up significantly.

Another thing that impressed me about MW5 is that every play style I tried was fun. Missile boats were fun, laser vomit was fun, dakka dakka builds were great. I even threw a claymore on a Highlander and had a blast slicing limbs off left and right... after I'd shot a leg out from the guy so I could catch up first. This is a first for me playing a MW game because IMHO every MW game before this had a habit of certain weapons just being OP, and the games being so difficult that if you weren't exploiting OP weapons, you were just getting your ass pounded. In MW2 autocannons were horrifically underpowered and PPCs were just goofy and ineffectual, where as laser vomit and LRM20's ruled the day. I know MW3 became notorious for ER L Lasers being OP and just sniping all enemies from long range was the most viable single player strategy. MW4 seems a little better when I played it, but even so the game seemed to revolve around dual LBX AC/20 autocannons, because the AI would always just run right up to you at point blank range. I had to turn off reactor explosions because I died so often to them dying on top of me and then exploding.

So yeah, highly recommend it. I think the base game and all the DLC often goes on sale for the price of a full game these days ($50-ish), and despite being 5 years old now, I think it's totally worth it.

Secret of the Silver Blades
I just completed this game. It was a pretty disappointing experience, as it was quite a step down from Curse of the Azure Bonds, which itself was a major step down from the amazing Pool of Radiance (one of the greatest RPGs ever created).

One of the best things about Pool of Radiance, outside of its nonlinear structure and "open world," was that most (all?) areas have only a limited number of random encounters, so you can eventually clear out each map, making exploration and backtracking painless. Of course, CotAB and SotSB drop this feature, so your exploration is constantly interrupted by the same handful of random encounters over and over. SotSB takes it to a whole new level of ridiculousness, however, by forcing you to explore a repetitive 10-level dungeon with basically nothing in it, followed by two extremely long and linear tunnels with basically nothing in them. By the time you get to the second tunnel map, the game doesn't even give you the option of fleeing or parleying during random encounters, just to make things even more tedious. Fortunately, the final couple of areas (castle dungeon and castle) are decent, with lots of stuff to find and some fun unique encounters.

Although SotSB is not a particularly difficult game (even for my honestly rolled party of mostly single class characters), there were some tough encounters here and there that required careful use of items and spells. I found the final battle to be more difficult than the surprisingly easy last battle in PoR, but far easier than the one in CotAB, so at least the game ended well.

---

I haven't decided whether to transfer my party fully or only partially into Pools of Darkness (a few of my characters are probably far too weak for the legendarily difficult final battles), so I will probably put that off for now and instead start up Champions of Krynn. I'll have to do some reading to figure out what kind of party I want to create for that one, and would welcome any advice on taking a single party through all three of the Dragonlance games!