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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:Painkiller is all about mindless shooting, and it makes no exceptions to this fact. That is precisely why it is such an amazing game. It's not afraid to be simple where it counts. It's as old school as it gets. Personally, I preferred the original Serious Sam to Painkiller. Don't get me wrong here - Painkiller is good, but it didn't quite have that 'Keep shooting and never, ever stop' sense of escalating panic that made me love Serious Sam so much. Tangentially, I think both of them are topped by (the intially lame at launch) Serious Sam 2 with the Insamnity mod though, which essentially turns it into a full 3D version of Smash TV. Amazing fun in co-op. It also cross-ports some levels from SS1. As for Arx Fatalis, as was mentioned, it was originally planned to be Ultima Underworld 3, but EA never, EVER let go of a lisence (it's why we haven't seen a System Shock 3 or Syndicate 3) so they had to rework it into a new property. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 13:38 on Mar 17, 2009 |
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Mar 17, 2009 13:34
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Yodzilla posted:Why would you buy Far Cry? Didn't Ubisoft release it for free a while back? It was a temporary ad-supported thing that only worked in America.
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Mar 26, 2009 16:43
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I'm fairly sure that all these Ubisoft titles are on Metaboli as well (and have been for quite some time), which is always an option for us european types.
Dominic White fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Mar 26, 2009 |
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Mar 26, 2009 16:47
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FLX posted:They just released Septerra Core. For anyone tempted, my advice is to avoid. It's like a JRPG without the good bits. Anachronox was much the same, but at least that had a fun story and characters to tie it together. (Insert standard 'Good bits? Ahahahahahahahaha' reply here). Tangentially, for anyone wanting something (new) in the genre, The Last Remnant recently re-launched on the PC (after an effectively botched/beta-ish 360 release, crippled by horrible technical problems), and Gamespot re-reviewed it and gave it a solid 8/10. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 11:52 on Mar 31, 2009 |
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Mar 31, 2009 11:46
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GreenNight posted:The 360 release is fine if installed to hard drive, but that's neither here nor there. Well, not to get horribly off-topic, the PC version has more content, more features, a lot of rebalanced stuff and the load-times are reduced to almost nothing. Texture popin (especially after a little .ini tweak) is much improved too. It runs at about 60fps solid for me, 4xAA 16xAF, VSync at 1440x900. Way, way better than the 360 version, even if fully installed (which I did).
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Mar 31, 2009 17:52
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The reccomendations for Startopia really can't be repeated often enough. Don't even wait for it to turn up on GoG - I managed to pick up a second-hand copy for about £5 last year. It's still a great game to this day, and it still looks really good even now. The mixture of smooth animations, fun character designs and a really smooth camera/interface all come together nicely. I honestly think that this could be sold brand new today, albeit at a budget price. And if you throw the Unofficial (it's by one of the original developers, but he did it on his own time) patch at it, it gets even better, as it adds a not-unimpressive shadowing engine, which was too much for most PCs of the time, but is no effort for modern machines. It even supports widescreen (well, the polygon aspect ratio is off, but the 2d elements remain correct) and multi-monitor (!!!) setups. That game had features years before their time. Edit: It just occured to me just how far ahead of its time it was - it's eight years old now. Impressive. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 00:00 on May 5, 2009 |
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May 4, 2009 23:24
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guppy posted:Hell yeah. I'm psyched. I'm fairly sure the order is: Mean Streets Martian Memorandum Under A Killing Moon The Pandora Directive Overseer Heard good things about the series, but never played them myself. So, classic adventure goons: Should I grab the 1/2 pack?
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Jun 16, 2009 12:24
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Weedle posted:The copyrights are absolutely enforceable and not at all hazy. Except in the cases where they are - companies have gone bust, buyouts have happened over the years, studios shut down, etc. There's a lot of games that'll never get legal re-releases thanks to stuff like that, and that's why it's good that abandonware sites exist, just so long as they realise that they're to step down once a game is actually being sold again.
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Apr 26, 2010 17:26
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Yeah, Blood 2 was just pretty bad all round. The original is a far, far better game.
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Apr 29, 2010 11:22
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Andrigaar posted:the full game started with some stupid monologue on a subway train There are about four subway train levels in the game. They are the EXACT SAME LEVEL copy-pasted with different enemy placements. I wish I was kidding. Blood 2 was Monoliths low-point. Personally, I don't think Shogo (released around the same time) was much better. The No One Lives Forever games were a major act of redemption though, as was Tron 2.0. On that note, Tron 2.0 recently got a great big fan-patch that even adds proper 16:10 widescreen support, and a big fan-made expansion is currently updating to use that patch at the moment.
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Apr 29, 2010 12:01
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I think that the subway levels were intended to be a running gag. I could just about buy that, if the rest of the game wasn't already a joke.
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Apr 29, 2010 20:49
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One game I'd love to see GoG adopt is Incubation. A very nice Space Hulk-ish turnbased tactical combat game. A lot of the missions played like puzzles, giving you very limited space to maneuver, limited equipment, and some very tricky alien formations to cut through.
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May 2, 2010 15:36
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FLX posted:Yeah, Incubation is great and installed next to Tomb Raider on my notebook as well. The writing and voice acting is really really REALLY horrible though. Seems to be the curse of almost all games translated from German. It seems nobody worth a drat wants to dub from that language.
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May 2, 2010 15:44
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Ha. Guess it was just universally bad voicework. Still a great game, though, and one I'd like to see given a full GoG release.
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May 2, 2010 15:47
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teethgrinder posted:Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic is the latest one, and I absolutely love it. But I don't know where you can find a copy nowadays. I think mine came from an Amazon seller, but they're going for $50 now. I think the very concept of abandonware is made for situations like this. When the only way to get the game is off a scalper trying to sell second-hand for about three times what I paid for it new, I'd much rather not put money in the hands of those jerks. In the end, the exact same amount of money is going to the developers. Especially as the game still has an active modding community. At the very least, the game practically demands the fan-patch which manages to beat the worst of the Stupid out of it.
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May 4, 2010 10:09
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Cream-of-Plenty posted:Has anybody mentioned either of the Heavy Gear games? I fondly remember having a lot of fun with Heavy Gear 2, tweaking the load-outs with mortar systems and crazy recoilless rifles. Plus you could put your team into the roller-tread mode and dart around moonscapes like a bunch of assholes. For its time, a lot of the missions offered a genuine amount of flexibility to how you approached objectives. Now I can't find the game anywhere for the life of me. Maybe it's fallen into licensing-limbo and will never see the legal-purchase light of day. Heavy Gear 2 was great. It had some of the coolest zero-G combat I've ever seen, and the armor system actually worked like armor. Depending on the caliber of weapon used, and the range, shots might deflect harmlessly, chip away at your defenses, or just penetrate altogether and do internal damage. You could unload a machinegun into a heavily armored unit all day long and do absolutely nothing, but something without heavy plating would get chewed up. You could see the level of armor on a target, too. Armor plates were big and chunky things.
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May 5, 2010 11:49
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Nanpa posted:New game out: Enclave It's a pretty good hack n' slash adventure by the guys who went on to make Chronicles of Riddick and The Darkness. I also recall reading somewhere that it had really good multiplayer - perhaps this'll see it getting a revival of sorts?
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May 11, 2010 12:57
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Ah, my bad - I just looked it up, and the game was originally MEANT to be a multiplayer-centric title, but that fell through at some point and they just went for singleplayer. Also, Knights of the Temple is by Starbreeze? KoTT 1 & 2 are both on Metaboli (UK/EU version of Gametap) - guess I'll start downloading both of them to try later.
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May 11, 2010 15:28
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GreatGreen posted:But dear lord, mentioning Rune and Severance: Blade of Darkness has me all nostalgic now. Something I noticed during my last trawl through ModDB - Severance still has an active mapping/modding scene, albeit small. How's that for interesting?
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May 11, 2010 15:51
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keratas posted:It's a fun but dumb hack and slash, graphics look pretty nice maxed out too considering the game is 8 years old. Testament to the fact that Starbreezes staff are largely drawn from Demoscene crews. I remember when Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay came out on the original Xbox, and absolutely blew away pretty much everything else on the system in terms of graphics. Made Doom 3 look rather shabby by comparison.
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May 13, 2010 00:24
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I'm waiting on I-War 2, which was a huge improvement over the first. A little less simmish, but it hit that magic sweet-spot of convincing pseudo-realism and beefy action gameplay that I like so much. Apparently it has some trouble with NVidia cards, which is something for GoG to look into, but it actually has aged shockingly well, and even supports native widescreen and 16:10 resolutions. There's also a fairly sizeable pile of mods for it, including an Elite-style open universe mod. Also, the default guns you get on your main ship in I-War 2 are among the most bowel-looseningly powerful-sounding weapons in the history of videogames. If you have a subwoofer, you will feel joy.
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May 25, 2010 14:47
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Anonononomous posted:You couldn't do all the cool moves you could do in 1 in 2, though, as they removed some manual thrusters I'm pretty sure they didn't. You have two flight-modes in the game. One is simulated 'atmospheric' style flight ala X-Wing/Freespace, but you could disable all the assists and get full thruster controls. Full lateral movement, and you could accelerate to absolutely ludicrous speeds, and just float infinitely off into deep space. Only problem is that it'd take ages to slow down again. I bound the controls to a 360 controller perfectly one time. Analogue triggers for main thrusters, left stick for maneuvering thrusters, and right stick for lateral thrusters. D-pad for the menus. Only awkward thing was twisting, which I bound to clicking down the left or right sticks, but otherwise it's a fantastic setup. Bumpers just above the triggers handled primary and secondary weapons, and the face buttons handled changing weapons and targetting. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 15:08 on May 25, 2010 |
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May 25, 2010 15:06
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Something to keep in mind is that I-War 1 has aged pretty badly. It had a weird, super-chunky UI setup even back in the day, and it just seems strange and offputting these days. I-War 2 has aged far, far better. The UI is very modern, and was fairly ahead of its time when it first came out. There's a bit less internal ship systems management, but I consider that a good thing - I'd rather just focus on flying and shooting and stealing peoples stuff to sell.
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May 25, 2010 15:28
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Anonononomous posted:You lost manual control of your dorsal and belly thrusters. Or I never found out how to use them. I think they're unbound by default, but you can activate them. There was an official control configuration app somewhere - there's a big fan-site with all the mods for the game on it. Lemme see if I can't find it. Edit: Yep, still around. Although I think I should back up everything to a single DVD sometime just for archival purposes.
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May 28, 2010 14:27
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Elias_Maluco posted:There aint much micro-management, actually. A lot less than in X-COM, for sure. Yeah, JA2 is basically the closest thing we're going to get to an A-Team game. You assemble a team of ridiculous caricatured soldiers of fortune (some more professional than others), and go on a mission to liberate an oppressed nation from their tyrannical (and equally cartoonish, monologuing, and minion-abusing) queen. The 1.13 patch improves on it no end, and most of the tweaks made to gameplay are very intuitive. Just details like how it takes a moment to lift a gun up to aim it, but successive shots, so long as you don't lower the weapon, will be slightly faster. It's a classic, and has aged far better than X-Com. The continued fan support being a major part of that. Edit: Unless already linked, here's the latest all-in-one fan patch with easy install options. It really does upgrade the game a massive amount. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 20:48 on May 28, 2010 |
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May 28, 2010 20:33
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drat, it's been a while since I last played JA2, and the fan-patch really has gone from strength to strength. Having a great big configuration app instead of editing INI files is a great choice. Really lets you tweak the game to you exact personal preference, should you have one. Integrated multiplayer as well now, huh? These guys really are something else. I'd also forgotten just how charming the little character quirks were. Nails, a biker, and one of the more reliable mid-range priced mercs, won't let you touch his leather jacket, and will tell you off if you try and take it out of his inventory. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 21:52 on May 28, 2010 |
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May 28, 2010 21:50
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thedaian posted:New release coming this week, too. If it's I-War 2, I'll buy it in a heartbeat, because I seem to have misplaced my original copy of it. Then I'll create an Xbox 360 controller profile and share it with the internet, because twin-sticks + analogue triggers is probably the best way to play a game with 6DoF movement.
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Jun 1, 2010 14:24
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glug posted:Blah blah not an old game, etc. On a tangential note, Armored Princess (which is less of an expansion, and more a reimagining of the first game, becoming somewhat less linear and more randomized in the process) is actually getting a real expansion pack fairly soon, which includes a full editor suite. King's Bounty is about to get a lot better.
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Jun 10, 2010 12:41
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I wholeheartedly reccomend Arx Fatalis for $4.19. As was mentioned, it's Ultima Underworld 3 in all but name. They've even got the runic spell system, but it's gesture-based and remarkably fun to use.
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Jun 11, 2010 13:36
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Gashroom posted:Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos is here. Woohoo! I'll be buying that in a few minutes. Later, I'll put together an Xbox 360 control profile for it, as it performs brilliantly on that controller - full analogue 6DoF movement in your hands. There's also this site loaded with cool tweaks, fan-fixes and mods. The Gold Rush sandbox mode mod is the #1. The game has aged spectacularly well. It was waaaay ahead of its time, and even nine years later, it holds up shockingly well. It even does native widescreen! Before I ever knew widescreen monitors existed! Edit: Hell, I-War2.com even has a bunch of mods done by the developers, including an in-game-viewable walkthrough for the campaign. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Jul 6, 2010 |
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Jul 6, 2010 12:13
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Essobie posted:I saw I-War 2 and "6DoF" and thought there was head tracking support. I'll probably pick this up anyway, but IS there head tracking support for this game? Nah, the game came out in 2001. Was there even halfway reasonably priced headtracking gear back in those days? I-War 2 is my favourite space combat game ever, personally. It's more simmish than than average, but not quite as unrelentingly hardcore as the original game. It makes you feel like you're thundering around space in a real spacecraft, rather than a plane on a starfield. It's also largely non-linear. Doing actual raid-and-loot piracy, operating out of your own personal pirate base is awesome, and actually part of the plot rather than something you can do if you want to avoid continuing the story.
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Jul 6, 2010 14:46
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Alchenar posted:No it isn't. The closest doing piracy becomes to being part of the plot is when you have to pirate a certain value of cargo before the next mission would trigger. Other that that the game is mission 1 followed by mission 2, with occasional sections where it's 'do mission 5a, 5b and 5c in any order you want, then mission 6'. Managing your base inbetween missions is part of the campaign, and they encourage piracy as one of the key ways of raising funds. Scripted piracy wouldn't be fun, anyway.
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Jul 6, 2010 15:23
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Okay, regarding the I-War 2 controls, I'm currently putting my 360 profile back together. Got the sticks working as intended (left stick is pitch and yaw, right stick is lateral X and Y), and the analogue triggers handling forwards/back thrust. The problems is that to do this, I needed to bind that shared axis to Lateral Z thrusters, rather than Throttle, and it's not an analogue function. Holding the trigger ramps you up to full burn, and letting go cuts it to zero. It's not nearly as inconvenient as it sounds, and this setup lets me dance around my enemies like a giant steel hummingbird, but I've already found myself accidentally shooting past my targets at absurd speed when I only meant to approach. Anyone able to come up with a more elegant solution? Dominic White fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Jul 6, 2010 |
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Jul 6, 2010 16:32
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Ravenger posted:To be honest that's probably the best method anyway. I used to use WASD for thruster override and they weren't analog either. If you're having trouble overshooting, just take it a little bit more gently, and use the autopilots if you're really out of control. It's no problem for me after a brief bit of readjustment, but X and Y movement are analogue, but Z thrusters aren't. Then again, you don't really need to be precise with 'go fast', wheras lateral movement has to be more specific. You can also set nice simple cruise speeds using the keypad +/- keys. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Jul 6, 2010 |
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Jul 6, 2010 20:25
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Hotwire posted:Does GoG's version fix the issue with windows7/vista where the graphics go hilariously batshit broken depending on your videocard? Dunno if anyone else is having problems, but I'm running Win7 64bit on an ATI4850 without issue so far. Edit: Also just took down approximately a hundred times my own tonnage flying an instant action run in a space-tug. All assists off, all thrusters on manual. I've fallen in love with this game again. The ship textures have aged somewhat, and it goes a little heavy on the coloured lighting, maybe, but other than that, it doesn't feel like a nine-year-old game at all. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Jul 6, 2010 |
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Jul 6, 2010 20:37
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Okay, for those of us who aren't having horrible technical problems (seems to be that ATI folks are fine, NVidia is having trouble) with I-War 2, here's my finished 360 controller config file. Drop it in your I-War 2\Configs directory and select it in the in-game controls menu. Here's what stuff does. Keyboard binds remain unchanged: D-Pad - Navigates menus, including HUD Left Stick - Pitch/Yaw. Hold stick down to roll. Click it to disable autopilot. Right Stick - Lateral Thrusters. Click it to toggle flight assistance. Analogue triggers - Throttle forwards/back Right Bumper - Fire Left Bumper - Cycle Guns Select - Cycle Missiles Start - Target nearest enemy/Skip Cutscenes and dialogue A - Selects stuff. Targets object under reticule. B - Cancels stuff. Targets mission-critical objects. X & Y - Scroll through target list. I almost never have to touch the keyboard. Feels so nice. As I'm running a 16:10 monitor, I also dug into the flux.ini file and added 0.2 to every field_of_view entry. Aside from a spikey little polygon edge I can see at the edge of the cockpit while accelerating hard, it looks nice. Edit: Updated it, with the Undock button removed, as it was conflicting with missions where you have to tow stuff. Just hit U on the keyboard to drop stuff, or select it from the HUD menu. Edit 2: Oh, hey - turns out the Target Under Reticule button is multifunctional. Press it repeatedly to cycle subsystems for targetting, or to tag pirated cargo for Jafs to haul off. I just completed two missions without touching the keyboard. Oh, and as for that warning of that early mission where you get jumped by a pair of corvettes? I just flew straight at them and chewed them up. Barely took any damage. Fancy thruster maneuvers really screw up enemy targetting. This game is awesome. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Jul 7, 2010 |
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Jul 6, 2010 22:50
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Ravenger posted:I was one of the designers on I-War 2. I would like to offer you a complimentary internet high-five. It's my favourite space combat game ever, and even dethroned Freespace 2, once I got my head round the controls. It's a crying shame it never got a sequel. Hell, the game still holds up amazingly well today - all it really needs is a graphical lick of paint and some modern shader effects. It really does play shockingly well with a 360 controller. Aside from the lack of analogue Z-axis throttle (or rumble - couldn't get the force feedback to play nice), it feels like it was designed to be played with one. It's a pity that there's a whole mess of legal crap surrounding any full fix-attempts. Are you in contact with any of the other devs? Now that the game has been re-released minus DRM, an 'unofficial official' fix-pack/update would be an amazing swansong for the game.
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Jul 7, 2010 12:45
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Ravenger posted:If I had the rights I'd be publishing code details so the wider community could get a new graphics DLL done, or at least fix the old one, but unfortunately I don't. The rest of the team have long moved on, I doubt they would be as enthusiastic as me to get the game running well on modern machines, but you never know. Anything you can do would be awesome. Even if it's just 'leaking' some of the source code (at least, the stuff pertaining to whatever is causing Nvidia cards to flip out) and letting the fans fix stuff. I doubt anyone would particularly care if a small part of the resources for a nine-year-old game appeared in the wild. It just kinda sucks that the game is on GoG, but only ATI folks can play it reliably. Everything works fine here - perfectly, even. 60fps solid at all times on a Win7 64bit system.
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Jul 7, 2010 19:04
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:As far as I know, it's the last game of its kind. Is there any other game that's like it that has come out since then, and is any good? Since then? Not really. Before then? Startopia, which has aged fantastically (it could pass for a fairly large-scale indie release these days - only thing it really lacks is native widescreen) and is easily the best game in its genre. I picked up a copy for £2 a while back (it's dirt cheap everywhere - it was part of the Sold Out super-budget range), and it's fantastic. It took Dungeon Keeper, and made it complete. It also bombed, and the studio behind it sank without a trace. gently caress. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jul 11, 2010 |
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Jul 11, 2010 22:38
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Just a friendly reminder that I-War 2 is still probably the best space combat sim ever, and if you have an ATI card (word is that Nvidia hardware has some trouble, although the GoG forums may have solved that by now), you should buy it if you lie the genre in the slightest. Even if you didn't like I-War, even. I could never get into the first game, but the second is far more accessible. A little less sim-ish, but it also lets you do so much more. Running your own little pirate flotilla from your secret nebula fortress is all kinds of badass. Aside from some low-res textures, it hasn't aged. It looks sharp, detailed, and even supports native 16:10 widescreen years before widescreen monitors even existed. Earlier in the thread I also posted an Xbox 360 controller config that'll let you fly like a goddamn demon.
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Jul 22, 2010 20:48
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