Huh, thanks for the mention of ProgressBar95. It looks oddly compelling and the price is right. Might have to give it a spin.

SKALD: Against the Black Priory
This is an interesting one. It was originally pitched as sort of a throwback to late 80s RPGs (specifically, Ultima IV and Ultima V), but over the years of development became it's own thing, and is basically a modern CRPG drawn using the C64 color palette with lots of cults and Lovecraftian cosmic horror in the background.

At five hours in so far, it's pretty great. Much like in Ultima, you create your own character and then are joined by other people as you explore the world. You can also "hire" mercenaries, which lets you create additional characters. Combat is turn-based, and thus an improvement over the chaotic mess that was combat in Ultima VII, and character development is a lot of fun with you spending points on (relatively small) skill trees each time you level up. Mechanically, it's much deeper than any of the Ultima games, with stuff like morale taken into consideration during combat. However, the game does ease you into things with relatively simple combat to start out.

The world so far is disappointingly linear, with you basically following a single road though each individual area... but each area is quite large with lots to explore and discover, and there are also plenty of side quests to tackle. There don't seem to be any random battles, with enemies visible on the map and either sitting around or patrolling a limited area. You can even use stealth to sneak around tough enemies or get close enough to launch a surprise attack. I usually prefer random combat, but it's actually quite satisfying clearing each area of enemies, encounter by encounter.

Although the game does not have any kind of automap, the areas are initially blacked out and fill in as you explore them, so it's pretty hard to get lost. The game does track your quests and contains plenty of information without outright telling you what to do, and I've had no need to take notes or draw any maps so far. The game also provides complete information about items and equipment, so there's no need to refer to a manual or walkthrough to figure out if that new sword you found is actually an upgrade.

It's a decent looking game, with the C64 color palette giving it an appropriately dark and moody look. I highly recommend turning "fancy lighting" OFF, which adds a bunch of colored lighting all over the maps, because it's inconsistent with the look of the rest of the game and imo just looks gaudy. The game also has an excellent soundtrack that sounds convincingly retro, though doesn't sound much at all like the beloved SID chip, sadly.

The writing so far is pretty good. The dialog and descriptive text are similar to the writing in Ultima VII in terms of quality and tone, though there is also somewhat frequent swearing that I found to be edgy and somewhat out of place. The writing does stumble a bit when the game veers to much in a Lovecraftian direction, coming off as poor Lovecraft pastiche rather than anything original.

Outside of those minor issues, the game is a blast so far!

After a number of play throughs of Max Payne I've moved on to Max Payne 2. I like it, though not quite as much as the original. They improved the difficulty settings so that normal difficulty is more realistic, so that's nice. And I've learned a few things, such as to be sure and hit save as soon as you get through a long intro cut scene, because if you do not and you die immediately, you get to watch that same scene over and over.

Finished Halo 4. The penultimate mission where you're defending the research facility was solid. Some good combat segments there, and you get to use the armored mech once again. However, the final mission wasn't that great. It had a weird start, with that flying sequence inside the Didact's vessel, where you have to dodge lasers, moving walls, turrets and whatnot. The rest of the level felt a bit repetitive, as you're largely fighting the same couple of enemies, just in huge numbers.

The semi-cliffhanger ending didn't come as a surprise, as this is the first game in a new trilogy, at least from what I gather. I am kind of curious as to where the story will go next, but that'll have to wait until I get a "next gen" Xbox.

Overall, I found Halo 4 to be enjoyable, but not as much as some of the previous games in the franchise. Mostly because of the level design, which wasn't quite as good this time around. More importantly, I felt like Halo 4 wasn't really an improvement over Halo 3, which still remains my favorite entry in the series.

newtmonkey wrote on 2024-07-23, 01:47:

SKALD: Against the Black Priory This is an interesting one. It was originally pitched as sort of a throwback to late 80s RPGs ( […]
Show full quote

SKALD: Against the Black Priory
This is an interesting one. It was originally pitched as sort of a throwback to late 80s RPGs (specifically, Ultima IV and Ultima V), but over the years of development became it's own thing, and is basically a modern CRPG drawn using the C64 color palette with lots of cults and Lovecraftian cosmic horror in the background.

At five hours in so far, it's pretty great. Much like in Ultima, you create your own character and then are joined by other people as you explore the world. You can also "hire" mercenaries, which lets you create additional characters. Combat is turn-based, and thus an improvement over the chaotic mess that was combat in Ultima VII, and character development is a lot of fun with you spending points on (relatively small) skill trees each time you level up. Mechanically, it's much deeper than any of the Ultima games, with stuff like morale taken into consideration during combat. However, the game does ease you into things with relatively simple combat to start out.

The world so far is disappointingly linear, with you basically following a single road though each individual area... but each area is quite large with lots to explore and discover, and there are also plenty of side quests to tackle. There don't seem to be any random battles, with enemies visible on the map and either sitting around or patrolling a limited area. You can even use stealth to sneak around tough enemies or get close enough to launch a surprise attack. I usually prefer random combat, but it's actually quite satisfying clearing each area of enemies, encounter by encounter.

Although the game does not have any kind of automap, the areas are initially blacked out and fill in as you explore them, so it's pretty hard to get lost. The game does track your quests and contains plenty of information without outright telling you what to do, and I've had no need to take notes or draw any maps so far. The game also provides complete information about items and equipment, so there's no need to refer to a manual or walkthrough to figure out if that new sword you found is actually an upgrade.

It's a decent looking game, with the C64 color palette giving it an appropriately dark and moody look. I highly recommend turning "fancy lighting" OFF, which adds a bunch of colored lighting all over the maps, because it's inconsistent with the look of the rest of the game and imo just looks gaudy. The game also has an excellent soundtrack that sounds convincingly retro, though doesn't sound much at all like the beloved SID chip, sadly.

The writing so far is pretty good. The dialog and descriptive text are similar to the writing in Ultima VII in terms of quality and tone, though there is also somewhat frequent swearing that I found to be edgy and somewhat out of place. The writing does stumble a bit when the game veers to much in a Lovecraftian direction, coming off as poor Lovecraft pastiche rather than anything original.

Outside of those minor issues, the game is a blast so far!

Thanks for your thoughts on this game! I've had my eye on it since it was mentioned in the Ultima Dragons newsletter about a month ago. Skald was made by Skald Dragon. I don't know them, but the Ultima Dragons is a huge group of Ultima fans that I am a member of. I joined back in the Ultima VII days and recently rediscovered that the group is still around, so now I get their newsletters. The game is on my wishlist at GOG waiting for time and a good sale! Enjoy and I look forward to your next post on it.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-07-22, 04:10:

I just re-installed the best game in the Far Cry series - […]
Show full quote

I just re-installed the best game in the Far Cry series -

Spoiler

Blood Dragon!

I forgot how much I hated the introduction. Worse yet, I didn't realize that it won't save your game until you've completed the entire tutorial missions, so I had to replay the first part multiple times. The game doesn't make it clear that it won't save your game at this part (if you die, it still loads the game after the last completed objective), so I assumed this was a bug. It also tries to connect to a dead server when you pause the game and times out after awhile, which is also super annoying. There's a fix for it, but I haven't gotten around to trying it yet.

Now that I've finished the introduction, it's a lot better. I've only completed one mission after the intro, but it's been fun so far.

This is the only Far Cry game I ever enjoyed, and I 100%'ed it because 80s neon and Michael Biehn.

clueless1 wrote on 2024-07-23, 10:30:

Thanks for your thoughts on this game! I've had my eye on it since it was mentioned in the Ultima Dragons newsletter about a month ago. Skald was made by Skald Dragon. I don't know them, but the Ultima Dragons is a huge group of Ultima fans that I am a member of. I joined back in the Ultima VII days and recently rediscovered that the group is still around, so now I get their newsletters. The game is on my wishlist at GOG waiting for time and a good sale! Enjoy and I look forward to your next post on it.

I had heard of the Ultima Dragons, but didn't know Skald was made by one (or that you are one)!

---

SKALD: Against the Black Priory
I played this for a few more hours over the past couple of days, and it's getting even better. The first couple of major areas are like an extended tutorial, and once you get through those the game opens up quite a bit. It also starts throwing random encounters at you when traveling in the world map, though they don't occur too often (and you can attempt to parley or sneak away).

Combat is not particularly deep, but it becomes very satisfying as you develop your party and start finding/buying nicer equipment. Enemies are also quite unique with their own abilities and whatnot, so it's definitely a step up from even the Ultima games with decent combat (Ultima IV/V/VI ). One fun quirk is that when a character slays an enemy, that character automatically steps forward into the dead enemy's square. This can actually put you in a bad spot, so you have to pay attention.

Character building is simple but fun. The skilltrees are set up so that each class basically has two major variations (for example, a thief can either be a melee or ranged specialist), though of course you can mix and match a bit.

So far, so good!

newtmonkey wrote on 2024-07-23, 17:41:

SKALD: Against the Black Priory

I really like the look of this one, thanks for sharing. Wishlisted.

Just finished replaying Dishonored 2 on my PS4 and got the "Flesh and Steel" trophy. To obtain that, you need to refuse the Outsider's mark, and complete the entire game without having any magic powers. It was the last trophy that I was missing, so I finally got the platinum as well.

I avoided this for so long because playing without powers can be very tedious, especially if you're also going for a non-lethal approach, as I did. Often, it's necessary to carefully study enemy patrol routes before planning the best takedown strategy, since you can't just stop time or teleport at your leisure. It took me about twice as long to complete each mission this way, compared to playing normally. Platforming is also much harder without the Blink power, as it's sometimes difficult to determine the safe distance for jumping and mantling. All of this together increases the difficulty quite a bit, so a "no powers" run is a good challenge for veteran players.

On the plus side, you're allowed to equip any bone charms that you find, but you cannot craft custom ones. And finding runes is still useful, since it provides some much needed gold for restocking ammo and upgrading your equipment. Also, if you make an effort to find every blueprint, and carefully manage your upgrades (especially the crossbow, sleep darts and stun mines) playing without powers becomes a bit more viable. Ultimately, I managed to finish this run in "low chaos" and without killing anyone, it just took a lot of time and patience.

All in all, I highly recommend Dishonored 2 (and its predecessor) to any fans of the stealth genre. It's a very fun game, which can be completed in a variety of ways, providing good replay value. Lastly, the protagonist is voiced by the same actor who portrayed Garrett in the Thief games, which earns Dishonored 2 some bonus points in my book.

My first playthrough in about 15 years and my first ever on Linux. It's surprising after all this time how much I remember about this game though some parts come much earlier than I remembered. Over all I'm not rushing through the game and I remember it being short so I'd expert an around 7-8 hours playthrough.

RandomStranger wrote on 2024-07-28, 07:47:

My first playthrough in about 15 years and my first ever on Linux. It's surprising after all this time how much I remember about this game though some parts come much earlier than I remembered. Over all I'm not rushing through the game and I remember it being short so I'd expert an around 7-8 hours playthrough.

Prey is a very nice game indeed.

If you have the means to do so, I would recommend playing it under WinXP using an X-Fi card, since its EAX 5.0 implementation is quite good. It's especially interesting due to all the gravity shenanigans when enemies end up firing at you from all possible directions.

Sure, I have both the retail game and a PC with an X-fi card. I just decided that this time I'll play it on my daily driver.

Control

I am not liking the progressively more difficult keyboard controls in this game. There is a point where you can evade with CTRL, and jump evade with SPACE and CTRL, but sometimes you need to run while doing these things, so SHIFT-CTRL-SPACE combinations. Ugh. I actually took my hands off the keyboard, placed my left index and middle fingers on SHIFT and CTRL, used the index finger of my right hand on W and right hand thumb on space to get through a crazy jump sequence. Not my idea of fun. I will stick with it a bit longer, but if this continues to escalate in difficulty, I may have to DNF this one. I love shooters (preferably first person) but when the difficulty and/or controls get too complicated, it's not for me. I'm only about 7 hours into this one, so it won't be a huge loss if I bow out.

I played through the first episode of Blood for the first time ever - I've messed around with it over the years but never made it all the way through for some reason. I really enjoyed it all told. The default difficulty was about right - still plenty of save scumming required but I'm just a bit crap at shooters I think. The level design was generally very good but did get a little bit maze-like towards the end - some great variation in theme and location in there though.

I immediately jumped into episode 2 and am not enjoying it nearly as much. The difficulty level jumps noticeably so I had to drop that down and start again, and some of the new enemies are just annoying. I can feel my enthusiasm waning.

badmojo wrote on 2024-07-28, 23:25:

I played through the first episode of Blood for the first time ever - I've messed around with it over the years but never made it all the way through for some reason. I really enjoyed it all told. The default difficulty was about right - still plenty of save scumming required but I'm just a bit crap at shooters I think. The level design was generally very good but did get a little bit maze-like towards the end - some great variation in theme and location in there though.

I immediately jumped into episode 2 and am not enjoying it nearly as much. The difficulty level jumps noticeably so I had to drop that down and start again, and some of the new enemies are just annoying. I can feel my enthusiasm waning.

Sadly, Episode 1 is by far the best part of Blood. The later episodes have their moments, but are a real down grade. These days, Blood seems to get a lot of internet hype, but the full game is far below the quality of Duke 3D and while Shadow Warrior is also a mixed bag, it's over much quicker so doesn't overstay it's welcome.

badmojo wrote on 2024-07-28, 23:25:

I played through the first episode of Blood for the first time ever - I've messed around with it over the years but never made it all the way through for some reason. I really enjoyed it all told. The default difficulty was about right - still plenty of save scumming required but I'm just a bit crap at shooters I think. The level design was generally very good but did get a little bit maze-like towards the end - some great variation in theme and location in there though.

I immediately jumped into episode 2 and am not enjoying it nearly as much. The difficulty level jumps noticeably so I had to drop that down and start again, and some of the new enemies are just annoying. I can feel my enthusiasm waning.

Stick with it, it's a great game! I have some tips (apologies if you already know this stuff):

You do need to play it a bit differently from other FPS, almost like a survival horror game than a shooter. This is especially true during the first couple of levels of each episode, where ammo and weapons are limited. The game does hand out a lot of TNT, and this weapon is great for chucking around corners (especially its alt fire, which causes it to bounce off walls before exploding)... it's really best to assume that there are enemies around every corner!

It's also important to crouch a lot, because this can break line of sight with the hitscan cultists. Crouching is so important that I play with crouch assigned to mouse button 2.

newtmonkey wrote on 2024-07-29, 01:24:

I have some tips (apologies if you already know this stuff):

I didn't know either of those things, thanks for the help! Yes I must admit that I do a lot of run-and-gun and it gets me into trouble. It does make me feel like a badass though if I can charge into a room full of those machine-gun priests and survive the carnage 😀

SuperDeadite wrote on 2024-07-29, 00:28:

badmojo wrote on 2024-07-28, 23:25:

I played through the first episode of Blood for the first time ever - I've messed around with it over the years but never made it all the way through for some reason. I really enjoyed it all told. The default difficulty was about right - still plenty of save scumming required but I'm just a bit crap at shooters I think. The level design was generally very good but did get a little bit maze-like towards the end - some great variation in theme and location in there though.

I immediately jumped into episode 2 and am not enjoying it nearly as much. The difficulty level jumps noticeably so I had to drop that down and start again, and some of the new enemies are just annoying. I can feel my enthusiasm waning.

Sadly, Episode 1 is by far the best part of Blood. The later episodes have their moments, but are a real down grade. These days, Blood seems to get a lot of internet hype, but the full game is far below the quality of Duke 3D and while Shadow Warrior is also a mixed bag, it's over much quicker so doesn't overstay it's welcome.

i'd still hold Blood higher up as a game, there are great moments and some nice environments throughout - but agree it isn't as consistent in quality as duke3d and in the end isnt as good overall

it also requires a slightly more 'survival' oriented approach, in some ways less fun than duke at times

Just completed Black Mesa (Half-Life Remake). It was awesome, looked amazing, and the expanded Xen levels were a blast!

Also, it looks like I accepted the same job I did back in 1998, though this time around there is no Sierra in sight. 😜

What to play next...decisions decisions.

Moved on to Baldur's Gate III. It runs pretty good on my old i5-3570 with a GeForce GTX 1070 and 16 GB of ddr3 and some old SSD.

The frame rate is very good but the load times is too long. It was just barely playable before I found an option to enable slow harddrive compensation. Anyway cool that you can even run it at such an old system (the GPU was upgraded at some point).

Oh and the game: the visuals are quite stunning. I'm having a but of trouble to get into the new ruleset. Some classes are totally new to me and it's a bit confusing. What is a warlock..? I think two real caster classes is enough but idk.

It has way too much focus on romancing, ad every character (of every sex) is flirting with you just because you are nice to them at some point. Imo it should not be pushed on the player in this manner. Maybe there is a mod..

Anyway combat is good. Quests are so far quite interesting and there is a good level of exploration to do. Ai is quite smart, if you miss just a tiny area with the crowd control spell, you can bet the ai controlled dog will see it and use it to avoid it. 😂

I get why they say that melee are op in this game. They get so many attacks it's getting kind if stupid already at level 5/12.

The game is still kind of buggy, though some of it can be due to my low specced computer. Nothing deal breaking.