Labyrinth of Refrain is good fun. I can recommend that.
I remember trying the Switch demo of that one a bit ago, it seemed good fun.
What I like about W8 is that your party members have personalities, which come across as you play the game. I always build a bunch of weirdos that are more a traveling roadshow than a heroic party, with my favourite being the Loner Ranger, because Loner (male) has the most deadpan, unexcited reactions to everything and a Ranger will always be the one to spot stuff.
Found a cool item? "...pick it up..."
Killed an enemy? "Goody for me..."
Spotted an enemy? "...I think it's trying to kill us..."
I can only dream of being this blase about the world around me.
Yeah I think Wizardry is one of the better grid games. W8 didn't have a map though right? I've been so spoiled nowadays that I don't know if I could do it....
Yeah I think Wizardry is one of the better grid games. W8 didn't have a map though right? I've been so spoiled nowadays that I don't know if I could do it....
Or I could just buy some grid paper....
Nope, it has a full auto-generated map whose fog of war you uncover as you explore. You can annotate areas you'll want to return to later, you can even dig through height layers, since some areas like Trynton are easily taller than they are wide. Heck, while the map treats them as discrete layers for readability purposes, the game's height maps are completely fluid and not constrained to levels.
This is why I was lamenting that the genre basically got stuck in a rut, W8 by design can't even be called a gridder any more, there's no grid, fights happen in the world where terrain influences the fight, since you'll want to stick your butt against a wall lest you get surrounded, or find a bottleneck to reduce the number of enemies you need to deal with.
The game even leans into it by having your party in a formation, so depending on where the enemies are relative to your party the formation will expose different targets to them (and in turn influence your melee weapon reach). You have a Walk/Run option, where you sacrifice your initiative order that turn to reorient and move your party (and depending on how much of your complete movement you burn influences how many actions your members have left when you're done. If you just turn in place you get all of them, etc).
Yeah, W8 is still one of my favorite dungeon crawlers (I never did take to calling them gridders). My only real complaint about it is how long combat can sometimes take, especially if more enemies wander by and join mid-fight.
Finished my playthroughs of Crysis and Crysis Warhead.
They remain very enjoyable shooters, with Warhead being the better of the two. Guns feel better in it, there is more shooting compared to the first games walking, and Psycho is a more fun character than Nomad.
Now to move on to Crysis 2, which means Origin.
Or Steam.
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
Last time I replayed Crysis I went into the .ini file and flipped the flag so that the Korean soldiers were actually speaking Korean even on the lower difficulty settings, and it made the experience so much better.
I also have to admit I didn't hate the aliens -- they were irritating as fuck sometimes, but at least they tried to do something different by making them fly, as opposed to later games in the franchise where they put them in exoskeletons and turned them essentially into soldiers just like all the other soldiers.
Yeah, W8 is still one of my favorite dungeon crawlers (I never did take to calling them gridders). My only real complaint about it is how long combat can sometimes take, especially if more enemies wander by and join mid-fight.
I'm playing it with a fan made Enhanced Edition mod, which rebalances the whole game, including reducing the number of spawns and making respawn timers longer, but tweaking the difficulty up some to compensate.
Honestly, I could take or leave the "combat is more challenging now!" portion, I never thought W8 was a particularly easy game to start with, but fighting fewer spawns is very appreciated, it makes some of the road areas way less tedious. And there's always Novice difficulty for when I reach Trynton and need to fight those Ratt Breeders that hit like a truck.
Also, it uses Wizardry 8 Fast, which speeds up combat considerably.
Glal on
+1
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Finished my playthroughs of Crysis and Crysis Warhead.
They remain very enjoyable shooters, with Warhead being the better of the two. Guns feel better in it, there is more shooting compared to the first games walking, and Psycho is a more fun character than Nomad.
Now to move on to Crysis 2, which means Origin.
Or Steam.
While an option, I own Crysis 2 on Origin because I bought a physical PC copy which unlocks in Origin. I'm not buying it again unless GoG end up with it.
Last time I replayed Crysis I went into the .ini file and flipped the flag so that the Korean soldiers were actually speaking Korean even on the lower difficulty settings, and it made the experience so much better.
I also have to admit I didn't hate the aliens -- they were irritating as fuck sometimes, but at least they tried to do something different by making them fly, as opposed to later games in the franchise where they put them in exoskeletons and turned them essentially into soldiers just like all the other soldiers.
It was definitely handled better than Far Crys mutants. Ugh.
Wow, is this thread really all the way back here? Let's bump this up with, and I don't think I'm exaggerating here, quite possibly the most important news in human history:
This one's right up there with Blade Runner in terms of sought-after titles for a digital re-release. These days IO is pretty much just known for Hitman, but FF was kind of a sleeper hit whose post-release scarcity amplified its cult status. Nothing about it is terribly complicated - from its squad management to its alt-history premise - but there's cleverness in its simple, effective design. All the carnage is literally bloodless, side objectives connect the various maps in interesting ways (take out a landing pad to ground enemy choppers, blow up a bridge to stop troop transports, etc.) and overall it's easy and fun to command a walking wall of guns against a seemingly inexhaustible enemy. For such a basic story the presentation is quite strong, with some nice little details suggesting both the passage of time and a wider conflict happening across the city. It boggles the mind that the console ports had multiplayer modes while the PC version didn't, but what can you do.
Also, Jesper Kyd did the soundtrack and it fucking rules:
While American guerillas fighting an occupying Soviet force hits just a bit differently now than it did in 2003, tell me that song doesn't make you want to grab a dozen of your pals and storm a command post guns blazing.
Anyway, currently 30ish% off right now, just under $10 USD. How GOG keeps getting these titles probably deserves its own documentary series, but I'm super glad to see this again.
TIL that GOG Galaxy 2.0.13+ has a local privilege escalation security vulnerability that they've been sitting on since April, with a CVE and everything. What this means is that a malicious application on a system that has GOG Galaxy installed can do anything, even modify Windows system files, even if GOG Galaxy isn't initially running. This might not sound terrible since you have to download and run an exe for the exploit to work, but consider how many people ran random games made by internet strangers in the Itch.io BLM bundle, and it gets a bit scarier.
Anyway, ignoring this would be atrocious behavior for any software developer, but GOG also appears to have lied about fixing the issue and tried to pull a fast one on the security researcher.
Momentarily ignoring the much more concerning exploit bit, I've never played Freedom Fighters, but I've had its soundtrack on my playlist loop since 2003. It's dope.
Some of those I didn't even know were on PC. Is that Metal Gear the MSX version?
Looks like an updated MSX version, the text looks much higher res than originally. It says copyright 1987 2006 Konami in the title screen screenshot, so if it's from 2006 it might be the (or a modded form of the) version from MGS3: Subsistence.
Some of those I didn't even know were on PC. Is that Metal Gear the MSX version?
Looks like an updated MSX version, the text looks much higher res than originally. It says copyright 1987 2006 Konami in the title screen screenshot, so if it's from 2006 it might be the (or a modded form of the) version from MGS3: Subsistence.
But basically, yeah, MSX rather than NES I think.
I had to go look up what you both were talking about. Never knew there was a computer called the MSX2 and that Metal Gear came out on that originally. I learned something new today.
Some of those I didn't even know were on PC. Is that Metal Gear the MSX version?
Looks like an updated MSX version, the text looks much higher res than originally. It says copyright 1987 2006 Konami in the title screen screenshot, so if it's from 2006 it might be the (or a modded form of the) version from MGS3: Subsistence.
But basically, yeah, MSX rather than NES I think.
I had to go look up what you both were talking about. Never knew there was a computer called the MSX2 and that Metal Gear came out on that originally. I learned something new today.
the MSX was mostly in the east. It never really penetrated in europe or the US, mostly because the commodore or the ZX spectrum were already out in europe.
Some of those I didn't even know were on PC. Is that Metal Gear the MSX version?
Looks like an updated MSX version, the text looks much higher res than originally. It says copyright 1987 2006 Konami in the title screen screenshot, so if it's from 2006 it might be the (or a modded form of the) version from MGS3: Subsistence.
But basically, yeah, MSX rather than NES I think.
I had to go look up what you both were talking about. Never knew there was a computer called the MSX2 and that Metal Gear came out on that originally. I learned something new today.
the MSX was mostly in the east. It never really penetrated in europe or the US, mostly because the commodore or the ZX spectrum were already out in europe.
Yeah, that's what I read. Really interesting stuff seeing all the different Personal Computers back in the 80's and 90's... Today we only have two left, Android and iOS (I'm kidding, but seriously that is what it feels like some days).
Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
I haven't played the MSX version of Metal Gear, but I know they made some changes for the NES version, some for the worse (like the final boss being a big computer instead of a mech).
Some of those I didn't even know were on PC. Is that Metal Gear the MSX version?
Looks like an updated MSX version, the text looks much higher res than originally. It says copyright 1987 2006 Konami in the title screen screenshot, so if it's from 2006 it might be the (or a modded form of the) version from MGS3: Subsistence.
But basically, yeah, MSX rather than NES I think.
I had to go look up what you both were talking about. Never knew there was a computer called the MSX2 and that Metal Gear came out on that originally. I learned something new today.
the MSX was mostly in the east. It never really penetrated in europe or the US, mostly because the commodore or the ZX spectrum were already out in europe.
Yeah, that's what I read. Really interesting stuff seeing all the different Personal Computers back in the 80's and 90's... Today we only have two left, Android and iOS (I'm kidding, but seriously that is what it feels like some days).
It's like there was some sort of mass extinction event, and one species was left to fill all the newly vacant niches.
Naaah, the one on the left is just the Burgess Shale, where life experimented with all sorts of ridiculous shit before settling down.
I like it. In this scenario, flip phones were the trilobites. They used to be everywhere, in such numbers and varieties that it seemed inconceivable that they wouldn't be the dominant lifeform forever, and then... they were gone.
Some of those I didn't even know were on PC. Is that Metal Gear the MSX version?
Looks like an updated MSX version, the text looks much higher res than originally. It says copyright 1987 2006 Konami in the title screen screenshot, so if it's from 2006 it might be the (or a modded form of the) version from MGS3: Subsistence.
But basically, yeah, MSX rather than NES I think.
I had to go look up what you both were talking about. Never knew there was a computer called the MSX2 and that Metal Gear came out on that originally. I learned something new today.
the MSX was mostly in the east. It never really penetrated in europe or the US, mostly because the commodore or the ZX spectrum were already out in europe.
Yeah, that's what I read. Really interesting stuff seeing all the different Personal Computers back in the 80's and 90's... Today we only have two left, Android and iOS (I'm kidding, but seriously that is what it feels like some days).
It's like there was some sort of mass extinction event, and one species was left to fill all the newly vacant niches.
Naaah, the one on the left is just the Burgess Shale, where life experimented with all sorts of ridiculous shit before settling down.
I like it. In this scenario, flip phones were the trilobites. They used to be everywhere, in such numbers and varieties that it seemed inconceivable that they wouldn't be the dominant lifeform forever, and then... they were gone.
I had to Google that, well, I DuckDuckGo'd it, and your post (from which you're quoting) was the first thing that came up!
it's the gosh darned horrible PC ports from way back in the day
I'll pass.
In what way are they bad? serious question; I am looking pretty seriously at these atm. I beat Metal Gear on the NES when I was, I dunno, like 8 or 10? and I kinda wanna try again.
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
Hmm, well according to /r/pcgaming these are the 'bad' ports, but there are fan mods you can get to fix most of the glaring issues: one for MGS1 and one for MGS2.
Unmodded the main issues were resolution and controller support, but it looks like these mods fix both of those.
Posts
What I like about W8 is that your party members have personalities, which come across as you play the game. I always build a bunch of weirdos that are more a traveling roadshow than a heroic party, with my favourite being the Loner Ranger, because Loner (male) has the most deadpan, unexcited reactions to everything and a Ranger will always be the one to spot stuff.
Found a cool item? "...pick it up..."
Killed an enemy? "Goody for me..."
Spotted an enemy? "...I think it's trying to kill us..."
I can only dream of being this blase about the world around me.
Or I could just buy some grid paper....
Nope, it has a full auto-generated map whose fog of war you uncover as you explore. You can annotate areas you'll want to return to later, you can even dig through height layers, since some areas like Trynton are easily taller than they are wide. Heck, while the map treats them as discrete layers for readability purposes, the game's height maps are completely fluid and not constrained to levels.
This is why I was lamenting that the genre basically got stuck in a rut, W8 by design can't even be called a gridder any more, there's no grid, fights happen in the world where terrain influences the fight, since you'll want to stick your butt against a wall lest you get surrounded, or find a bottleneck to reduce the number of enemies you need to deal with.
The game even leans into it by having your party in a formation, so depending on where the enemies are relative to your party the formation will expose different targets to them (and in turn influence your melee weapon reach). You have a Walk/Run option, where you sacrifice your initiative order that turn to reorient and move your party (and depending on how much of your complete movement you burn influences how many actions your members have left when you're done. If you just turn in place you get all of them, etc).
Or Steam.
I also have to admit I didn't hate the aliens -- they were irritating as fuck sometimes, but at least they tried to do something different by making them fly, as opposed to later games in the franchise where they put them in exoskeletons and turned them essentially into soldiers just like all the other soldiers.
Honestly, I could take or leave the "combat is more challenging now!" portion, I never thought W8 was a particularly easy game to start with, but fighting fewer spawns is very appreciated, it makes some of the road areas way less tedious. And there's always Novice difficulty for when I reach Trynton and need to fight those Ratt Breeders that hit like a truck.
Also, it uses Wizardry 8 Fast, which speeds up combat considerably.
While an option, I own Crysis 2 on Origin because I bought a physical PC copy which unlocks in Origin. I'm not buying it again unless GoG end up with it.
It was definitely handled better than Far Crys mutants. Ugh.
Rarr.
FREEDOM FIGHTERS IS NOW ON GOG
This one's right up there with Blade Runner in terms of sought-after titles for a digital re-release. These days IO is pretty much just known for Hitman, but FF was kind of a sleeper hit whose post-release scarcity amplified its cult status. Nothing about it is terribly complicated - from its squad management to its alt-history premise - but there's cleverness in its simple, effective design. All the carnage is literally bloodless, side objectives connect the various maps in interesting ways (take out a landing pad to ground enemy choppers, blow up a bridge to stop troop transports, etc.) and overall it's easy and fun to command a walking wall of guns against a seemingly inexhaustible enemy. For such a basic story the presentation is quite strong, with some nice little details suggesting both the passage of time and a wider conflict happening across the city. It boggles the mind that the console ports had multiplayer modes while the PC version didn't, but what can you do.
Also, Jesper Kyd did the soundtrack and it fucking rules:
While American guerillas fighting an occupying Soviet force hits just a bit differently now than it did in 2003, tell me that song doesn't make you want to grab a dozen of your pals and storm a command post guns blazing.
Anyway, currently 30ish% off right now, just under $10 USD. How GOG keeps getting these titles probably deserves its own documentary series, but I'm super glad to see this again.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
Freedom Force was so great.
Any now I've just seen that it's already on GoG! This game deserves better than it got.
Anyway, ignoring this would be atrocious behavior for any software developer, but GOG also appears to have lied about fixing the issue and tried to pull a fast one on the security researcher.
Steam | XBL
Oh heck yeah!
Steam: betsuni7
Looks like an updated MSX version, the text looks much higher res than originally. It says copyright 1987 2006 Konami in the title screen screenshot, so if it's from 2006 it might be the (or a modded form of the) version from MGS3: Subsistence.
But basically, yeah, MSX rather than NES I think.
Steam | XBL
I had to go look up what you both were talking about. Never knew there was a computer called the MSX2 and that Metal Gear came out on that originally. I learned something new today.
Steam: betsuni7
Yeah, that's what I read. Really interesting stuff seeing all the different Personal Computers back in the 80's and 90's... Today we only have two left, Android and iOS (I'm kidding, but seriously that is what it feels like some days).
Steam: betsuni7
I had to Google that, well, I DuckDuckGo'd it, and your post (from which you're quoting) was the first thing that came up!
https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/39526886/#Comment_39526886
So I slapped another Awesome on it. Well deserved.
Steam | XBL
I'll pass.
Steam | XBL
In what way are they bad? serious question; I am looking pretty seriously at these atm. I beat Metal Gear on the NES when I was, I dunno, like 8 or 10? and I kinda wanna try again.
Unmodded the main issues were resolution and controller support, but it looks like these mods fix both of those.
Snake does a backflip off of a missile mid-air. In a game with levitating psychics and nanomachines and ninjas, that's just silly.
Metal Gear is dumb anime bullshit and Twin Snakes leans as hard as possible into it. It's great.
Compared to the later games, MGS is basically ARMA.
Well, 2 and 4, anyway. 3 was probably as rooted in reality as 1, if not slightly more so.
Ghosts and dudes shooting bees or lightning and stuff notwithstanding.
Steam | XBL
Obligatory: