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theoscout · 2 years ago

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So I finished reading all three of the Strahd stories written by PN Elrod and I have a lot of thoughts (btw I call her version 'Caretaker Strahd' and consider him a different character to 5e Strahd)

SPOILERS FOR THE STORIES UNDER THE CUT

strahd is so definitely a gamer, I could totally imagine him showing off his setup and pc if he lived in modern times

he'd have those cool ones that flash when you type on them and really expensive gear too, he's somehow found out how to play video games despite computers not even being invented in his time

That thing he does where he possess someone else is SO UNDERUSED omg, what are the limits? Can he possess wolves and bats if he turned into them first? Possess dire wolves?? Dragons???

since vampiric charm in 5e only works on humanoids I'd assume that his version of it also only works on humanoids, except that he was able to possess another vampire in the same way so maybe his works on undead too

WHICH MEANS HE CAN BUILD A FLESH GOLEM AND POSSESS IT

fanfic where Strahd builds a mecha and kicks ass

i'd imagine his first mecha would be a robotic version of himself that uses the weird potion as fuel so he can go to other domains (and also has a self destruct button to avoid another 'Azalin's ANGY' incident

his second one might be a giant wolf with him in wolf form piloting it with the magic ball, because a four legged mecha is easier to build than one with 2 legs

also I can't shake the thought of him asking for Barovians to pay taxes in the form of blood donations

I mean for one thing he wants to survive and not let people know he's a vampire but come on are you going to eat your townsfolk when you run out of prisoners?

it's slightly better when he says that he can use his mind control powers to make them forget that he drank from them but stillllllll :(

according to Azalin the most experimentation he's done about going into the mists is the thing with holding a string and running in, and tbh that's like the only thing I agree with Darcelus on

like dude you've been alive for hundreds of years and you're too horny about some redhead to investigate wtf is going on?

makes you wonder how much he knows about the sunlight burning him as well

if I were a vampire I would be testing this out every day and try to develop some kind of sunlight proof outfit to go outside with, and if people ask what I'm wearing I'll just say I have a skin condition

OH and since people are bound to take notice of his mechas he's building, maybe he can excuse this by saying he needs blood to power his mechas

so now he doesn't need to bite his villagers :D

and about the way he can make an outfit that sunlight proofs him- I have an experiment in mind. If he can metabolise, then he can cut pieces of his hair and put them under sunlight and look at them under a magnifying glass to see how they burn. And he can slot materials such as cloth etc between the sunlight and his hair to see if it blocks out the sun, and maybe he leaves it there for a few hours to see if it ACTUALLY blocks out the sun and isn't just burning there but slower

maybe the vision part will be harder to do since IDK if UV ray resistant glass even exists here, but maybe he just casts a spell on the costume so he can see out of it

and he can just put on an entire suit of armor over it assuming it's cloth and then he can go out in public in daylight- he doesn't need to breathe so suffocation isn't a problem

alternatively he can hide his ridiculous clothing by casting disguise self but he probably has already solved that problem

i sure hope vampires don't sweat

I don't think they do but if he does, I don't think he'll like it one bit

I lowkey headcanon him as autistic because he's good at keeping a straight face, hates being social (to the point where he will throw letters at people from the shadows rather than talking to them directly), once stared for ages at a wall because he was angy, identifies with animals more than people, and idk he probably has some sensory issues from how strongly he reacts to certain smells

or maybe I just can't feel pain idk lol

i wonder if Sergei and/or Tatyana were polyamorous, he sure as hell never asked them first

wonder how much it would explode his head if it turns out centuries later that they were poly all along and he killed Alek and Sergei for nothing

but also >:]

Strahd said that kissing women felt nice but he doesn't really want to do it because he hungers for blood and he has to repress it, why does he hunger for people aside from Tatyana it seems?

hmmmmmm I have never ever seen ANYONE react to a person irl like how Strahd reacts to Tatyana, and it seems like I'm not the only one who finds it sus. Not just like in 'gee you really shouldn't be this obsessed over a girl' kind of sus, sus to the point where people theorise that she's a succubus or something. SO I'm thinking, does Strahd look inside and wonder why he's so attracted to Tatyana? like... he's not very curious or scientific the way Azalin is, so he probably didn't investigate it and he isn't the introspective type AT ALL so there maybe isn't a lot of looking into it that he did

my headcanon is that something happened between him and Tatyana in another life, maybe he was already cursed from there or something

because his crime wasn't that bad in comparison to other darklords.... killing two people vs mass murder

crack theory- Tatyana is a darklord as well and stuck in the same domain as Strahd, in a past life she cast a spell on him that made him fall in love with her madly, but her curse is that he will never be able to be with her and that she won't recognise him from the past life

because ngl her situation seems worse than Strahd in some ways

still I would REALLY love to know if there was any more background to Strahd's obsession over her other than 'tatyana's hot'

just scrolled to the top and remembered that since Strahd has some sick writing skillz, he would make an amazing youtuber as well

he'd be able to write something like the DSMP for money and entertainment purposes

that is a cursed line why did i write that lmao

wonder how he'd do as a streamer

I don't think he'd be a streamer since he seems to love his privacy and his autobiographies seem reserved for meeting people he really trusts and showing them his life story without having to sit down and explain it through because he hates social stuff

so his autobiographies are partially propaganda but really it has a lot of secrets so it's possibly to get people to like him

Azalin said that Strahd had a weird/ random sense of humor so I would really like to see how he responds to memes or if he would make them

Strahd REALLY goes out of his way whenever possible in his autobiographies to be like "actually no I'm not that nice, I'm doing this semi nice thing because of xyz" to the point where I'm suspecting he's trying to cover up the fact that he cares about stuff more than he actually does but he's trying to be intimidating

he obviously feels emotions and is sad about Sergei and Alek but he's an emotional repression person and probably tries to hide ANY kind of pain that isn't Tatyana related

I really want to know what would happen if he met Sergei or Alek's ghost.................................................

I feel like a bunch of scenes in the books may have been for fanservice to some degree lol (cough cough strahd taking off his shirt cause he doesn't want it to get ruined by swords cough)

idk what Strahd has going on for Van Richten but it's funny how he just saw one random guy and went 'ok I trust you, here's my entire life story' twice

another user said Strahd was trying to seduce Van Richten because of how he let him go free after Van Richten read his first autobiography, then probably arranged an illiterate thief to carry his other autobiography to the exact bookstore where Van Richten likes to hang out so he could read it in the perfect time frame, and then send a minion to pick it up afterwards lol

TWAA was so full of cartoon physics it was funny to imagine lol

Why did Strahd imagine such oddly specific scenarios such as Azalin going mountain climbing while casting spells and himself trying to grab a carrot off Azalin while Azalin twirls it around on a fishing rod like Strahd's a minecraft pig

Strahd's so done with Azalin by the end he just lets Azalin bow his spectral form like a sockpuppet :sob emoji:

#strahd von zarovich #sergei von zarovich #tatyana federovna #i strahd #I strahd the war against azalin #pn elrod #books #my posts #azalin rex #caretaker strahd #that's my tag for anything elrod strahd related #one thing I've noticed about how much I think about the books now #is that I'm pretty sure that even Caretaker Strahd can't stand me #i mean a lot of people irl can't stand me and they aren't even aloof aristocratic vampires with ptsd #so being able to read his autobiographies and see a bit of his thought patterns is something I'd most likely never do even irl #Even If I Literally Met Someone Just Like HIm #rudolph van richten #ravenloft

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benis-chillin · 9 months ago

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Backlog Reviews 2024: Bionicle the Game

Platform: GameCube

January 12th, 2024-February 28th, 2024(incomplete)

So…This is a fucking disappointment.

Now, Bionicle is literally a franchise that has defined my life. I love the lore, my iconography when it isn't an ass is a Kanohi Hau, and I have many of the toys. Heck, I even have a storyboard from the second movie!

However, I never had a console that could run this back when it was new, I never gave the PC version a go, and even after we got our Wii with backwards compatability, it was YEARS before I got it Gamecube ready.

But I always had a curiousity with it, since it was advertised in the Bionicle: Mask of Light VHS I grew up with. It looked, frankly, amazing to kid me, and I REALLY wanted to play that level with Tahu Nuva surfing on lava. Always loved that scene in the movie, and Tahu Nuva was my first Bionicle, so makes sense.

So this year, 21 years since it was released, I finally sat down and played it, and…

Most of it is just OKAY…With a cheat.

Basically, this game's only form of attack is a sort of weird energy blast that takes forever to charge. In fact, when testing the rom, I played Tahu's stage legit, and I just felt silly jumping all over the place and shooting off a blast when the thing finally filled enough to shoot. So, for my own sanity, I grabbed a cheat that gives me infinite energy, which made everything WAY more managable.

Though this does expose the game's weak shield gimmick as not all that helpful, since most enemies barely hit you, and your health points regenerate fairly quickly after you defeat them, so why not cut the shield and just give us infinite blasts? It's way more fun that way.

Moreover, the game also has a "Nuva blast" technique that is so finicky that you'll probably not find yourself able to do it consistently even once you figure it out. It's like, hold down the shield button to charge up energy, then press another button(Y, in my case)right as you let go for a small shockwave effect. Yeah, only really useful when they force it on you.

Though another big hinderance may be that this game was not at ALL optimized for the Gamecube controller. I'm of the opinion that the Gamecube controller isn't right for ALL games, but it's the best option for all the games it works in. And the fairly simple controls of this game SHOULD work out, but literally the only good button is A as the jump button. B is shield, X is the shoot button, and Y is for special attacks and actions. L and R are used as secondary camera rotation buttons(that barely even worked for me, and I don't think that was a controller problem), and Z seems to be unused.

And this layout is a nightmare!

X in particular should be reserved only for actions that you don't need to do as much, it should not be the MAIN firing button, especially if you need to use Shield and Shoot TOGETHER, as it seems it wants you to do.

My layout would keep jump as A, but make B the Shoot Button, put Shield on the shoulder buttons(you only need the stick for the limited camera in this game), and keep Y as special. Just my opinion.

Though Idk how much it would help the sluggish movement and turning speeds of this game. It was DREADFUL getting anywhere in this game! I actually started playing my next game, Batman Arkham Asylum, in the middle of this, and the difference in control fluidity was staggering. Felt like an N64 game.

This could've been a frame rate problem, though. I noticed that the PS2 footage I occasionally checked out was a lot smoother than mine, so I think they just didn't want to optimize anything for GC. Also had a recurring glitch where the music would just cut out at random points in the level. Not sure what was up with that.

As for the story…

What story?

Things just HAPPEN in this game with no rhyme or reason! First the Bohrok attack for two levels, then we're fighting the Kal, then we're fighting Rahkshi! Sonic Mania had more of a cohesive narrative than this, and Sonic Mania doesn't have a damn narrative!

youtube

And honestly, I could put up with all of this for most of the game! I was just happy to be experiencing a new-to-me piece of Bionicle media! I love Bionicle so much that I was willing to put up with a bit of bullshit!

But then came the Tahu Nuva level. The one I had been looking forward to for a good chunk of my life. Finally, I could experience lava surfing with Tahu like I always wanted to! I had this experience with the Toy Story 3 video game back in the day where I would just sit down in the Woody's Round-up mini-game and just ride Bullseye around town until I got tired, or the game crashed(it was on Wii). But still, the experience of getting to embody that part of one of my heroes was unforgettable.

And this level is completely broken.

Half of the things you're meant to shoot don't let you target them, shit keeps on getting in your way with no way to avoid them, and the Rahkshi will just randomly decide to be completely out of your firing range at certain points. The shot will fire, they will seem in range, but it never hits. And naturally, the defeat cutscene is unskippable.

Yeah.

So, I finally had to just give up. My heart was broken. I'm sad about this. So long, I'd wanted to do this…Guess I'll be waiting a while longer.

3/10

Next up is the one I've already started: Batman Arkham Asylum on PC. See ya then!

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#bionicle #bionicle the game #bionicle video game #gaming backlog #Youtube

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s-------i-------g · 2 years ago

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4/16/23-4/22/23

Resident Evil 3

If you’re a regular reader of this column (you are not), you’ll recall how I just finished the Resident Evil 2 remake with the $5 cheater mode. Unfortunately, there was no way to obtain a rocket launcher with infinite ammo without working for it, so I played through the entirety of this game entirely legitimately. So, how was this type of game now that I had to deal with inventory management?

I fucking loved it.

Look, I know. I’m going to get so much shit for saying that this is my favorite Resident Evil game, but so far it is. There is a chance that RE4 tops it at some point. But it’s not likely, considering I don’t have the remake and that I found the control scheme so weird and fucked up, that I gave up after dying in the village in the original game (the “original” being the HD version they ported to PC as played on a Steam Deck).

What I really like about RE3make is that it is blatantly dumb. They’ve thrown most of the horror in the trash and now it’s just an action movie about Millia Jovovich Jill Valentine kicking ass, escaping the zombie apocalypse, and getting revenge on those bastards at Umbrella. Sure, there are still some puzzles, and inventory management can still be a pain in the ass, but when Nemesis showed up every now and then, I was less panicked than I would be when Mr. X showed up; instead I was more annoyed than anything else. Although it is funny that hard shell supply cases just sort of fly out of him every now and then.

Capcom went all in on making this game more fun than anything else. I never felt like I didn’t have the tools to deal with whatever it was that was coming at me, but I had a damn blast handling the situation. If Resident Evil 2 is Alien, Resident Evil 3 feels like Aliens. And that works a lot better in a game than a movie, let me tell you.

The Full Monty

I don’t know on this one. It’s a little too goofy for its own good, and despite touching on depression (social and economic), it really doesn’t feel like it has much to say about… well, just about anything. Maybe body positivity? It’s not a bad movie, but with a plot hinging on a strip show where men strip down to the buff, the fact that they don’t show the movie-watching audience the dick is a travesty. They have that one hot guy who is supposed to have a giant dick, but they don’t show it? Cowards.

Contact

I can’t help but be a fan of anything sort of science fiction that focuses almost entirely on the minutiae of a niche discipline. I’ve been wanting to see this movie for a while (while also confusing for Cocoon, weirdly), and I find SETI and the Very Large Array to be an inherently interesting subject.

Robert Zemeckis is always an uncertain factor in basically any movie he’s attached to, but he remains grounded for most of the movie, with CGI used more sparingly than you might find his later animated abominations.

Jodie Foster does a great job as a capable woman who’s determined to reach her goal and is constantly underestimated by the men around her, just not in the same oppressive a way as they were in Silence of the Lambs. Matthew McCounaghy is around and serves to give the movie and extremely tiresome theme of where faith factors in when it comes toe world of science. The theme itself isn’t inherently bad, but it’s just done in such an overt way that I feel like it takes away from the ending the film which is all about faith.

The real star of the show is John Hurt who shows up a few times as the reclusive and enigmatic billionaire who funds Jodie Foster’s project. His presence often seems otherworldly and the fact that he always shows up to provide hope and keys to the secrets of the aliens paints him in a more extraterrestrial role. Unfortunately real space-faring billionaires are not nearly as interesting, humanistic, nor helpful.

What strikes me though, is that the ending feels hopeful in a way that seems genuine and sincere. Sincerity is hard to capture, and more often than not a message of hope feels jammed into a work to please an audience more than expressing a genuine thought. Good on ya, Bobby Z, you deserve to be forgiven for Forrest Gump.

Also, if there are any Jake Busey fans out there, watch out for this one, because your man has an outsized role in the film.

SOUNDTRAXXX

Mummification and Prayer by Prurient

History of Aids by Prurient

Fossil by Prurient

Pleasure Ground by Prurient

The Golden Chamber by Prurient

Colonialist Nature and Misanthropy by Prurient

The Black Post Society by Prurient

And Still, Wanting by Prurient

Cocaine Death by Prurient

Annihilationist by Prurient

Oxidation by Prurient

Worship Is the Cleansing of the Imagination by JK Flesh and Prurient

Of the Memories of Friends by Prurient

Through the Window by Prurient

Rainbow Mirror by Prurient

Garden of the Mutilated Paratroopers by Prurient

Black Crows Cyborg by Merzbow and Prurient

As is likely extremely obvious, I’ve been listening to almost the entirety of Prurient’s back catalog, spurred on by the excellent album Creationist. I really don’t know what to make of it, thought. Some of these albums are beautiful, challenging, and far too interesting for their own good and I like track after track, but others are grating, annoying, and full of whiny scream-o vocals. If there was a distinct trajectory that Prurient was following it would be easy to say whether I definitively like his music or not, but he’s definitely one of the more interesting artists I’ve come across in recent memory.

Profound Mysteries III by Röyksopp

I liked this a lot more than PMII, so I don’t know what to make of that.

WRAITH by Teeth of the Sea

I was testing out a new pair of headphones, and this was the first TOTS album I listened to, so I found myself going back to it. I still love it. It’s weird, dark, ethereal. Something like a cyberpunk noir soundtrack, with some wonderful trumpet solos peppering some great ambient work. Good stuff!

Dubnobasswithmyheadman (20th Anniversary Edition) by Underworld

Again, I was testing headphones, and I figured I’d throw this on. Still fucking great. Almost wall-to-wall bangers, and definitely one of the most important electronic albums ever.

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owlixx · 1 year ago

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CoD Classic Mid-Thoughts (British and half Russian done):

Well, I have really warmed up to the game after playing it some more. You kind of get used to the antiquated graphics and design. I can’t tell if the American campaign is the least impressive or if I’m just getting acclimated here. and all this in spite of the fact that I didn’t really enjoy the British campaign - it had far too much turret and on-rails content. plus the climactic mission was an awful labyrinth of a battleship. Almost all of my deaths have been from the British campaign. I died a couple times to stupid battleship labyrinth where you basically have to memorize soldier locations (even on easy!). I died maybe ten times to a particular on-rails segment that is horribly designed where you just instantly die if certain vehicles aren’t dead at certain pints but you also can run out of ammo? Very bad. What’s funny is that I think that’s the section with Jason Statham, who I believe is also the character that laments Captain Price’s death, which is very funny to me.

No, my opinion has changed because of the Russian campaign. Does the “cowards and traitors will be shot” intro come across as American propaganda? Yes. Is there probably some truth to that depiction? Also yes. Does it kick ass to assault Stalingrad with only five bullets in your hand and no gun? Very much yes. From the tense opening in the boat to running and ducking for cover in the approach to Stalingrad, it’s a very cool non-combat opening that really feels like the cinematic moments of the later games.

Not to mention that the actual combat levels themselves here are awesome. Maybe the Mosin Nagant is just a better gun than the Kar98K, but I swear I became a wizard quick scoped these last few levels. Maybe I’m just getting good enough to enjoy the game more, but the Russian levels feels so much better designed and layed out. Much more varied environments from bombed out towns to a tank factory to a snowy apartment. Much more cool big interactive set pieces rather than the on-rail sections of the US and Britain campaigns that range from stupid at best to maddening at worst.

Even the tank defense mission is better in the Russian campaign than the British campaign. The British version consisted of swinging around a big flak cannon between 3 or 4 different attack angles for 5 boring minutes , while the Russian one consists of darting. Back and forth between a multi-level building to man 2 different mounted guns all while gunning down foot troops approaching from the lower floors. It felt so much cooler and more intense.

Gun wise, I barely used the British guns in lieu of just MP40ing every enemy I came across. Oh, I did enjoy the dam mission. The visuals of the dam were the most striking in the game so far and I enjoy the Wolfenstein-like room-to-room clearing more than the big open fields, it was just a little too cramped and repetitive in the case of the battleship mission even if I like the concept. I wasn’t super fond of the dam mission requiring me to go out the way I came in but I did enjoy it being a solo mission for the most part.

Oh, weapons - the ppsh sadly eats ammo too fast to be any good, especially since enemy troops aren’t carrying it. And the sight on the Bren made it hard to use. I’ll tell you what - I never want to handle an anti tank rocket launcher in this game again.

I’ve got 3 Russian levels and 3 epilogue levels left, I believe. I’m actually kind of excited to beat this game and then see how the GameCube spin-off is, although I suspect I’ll be frustrated with the controls since CoD Classic is at least adapting a 2003 pc game to 2009 PS3 control standards, but it’s anyone’s game on the GameCube. Also I hugely appreciate that CoD classic using L2/R2 to ADS and shoot instead of L1/R1 which I thought was the weird standard for PS3 games.

#retro gaming #gaming #call of duty #CoD #call of duty classic

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gertlushgaming · 2 years ago

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Paradise Killer Review (Nintendo Switch OLED)

For this Paradise Killer Review, where we play a game set in Paradise Island, a world outside reality. There’s been a murder that only "investigation freak" Lady Love Dies can solve. Gather evidence and interrogate suspects in this open-world adventure. You can accuse anyone, but you’ll have to prove your case in trial. It’s up to you to decide who’s guilty.

Paradise Killer Review Pros:

- Beautiful pixel art graphics style. - 3.7GB download size. - 3 save slots. - First-person detective gameplay. - Controller settings - Invert axis and sensitivity sliders, deadzone sliders, sticky aim, and camera smoothing slider. - Display settings - HUD overlay, a field of view slider, and motion blur. - Game settings - language, rumble, mature content, highlight names and set how evidence assignments work. - Motion sickness help. - Accessibility settings - sprint mode, AR mode, mediation mode, falling whilst crouched, screenshake, rotating backgrounds, flickering lights, auto walk, auto walk speed, dialogue font, typing sounds, color correction, color correction scale slider, day/night cycle, and night brightness. - Brilliant soundtrack. - Excellent voice work. - The presentation is inviting, and engaging. - Multiple choice questions and encounters. - Many collectible relics are to be found. - The world is just so much fun to explore, big bright, and gorgeous to look at. - Bright punchy menu system from the Interactive pop-ups to the text and rolling list of dialogue. - Tutorial pop-ups as you play. - Starlight is your laptop/Ai helper that runs all your cases, inventory management, timeliness, and maps. - You can customize your Starlight interface with collectible skins and music tracks. - Nightmare is the older more dangerous version of Starlight, you hack the terminals by deciphering the code as long as you have the software plugin to see the symbols to decipher. - Blood crystals are the currency in the game. - Such high presentation values. - Play how you want. - Open world. - You get told what part of the island you are in when you enter it. - Telephone boxes act as fast travel points. - Investigation notes are broken down and color-coded so you can easily and quickly access information. - AR brings up an augmented reality overlay showing suspects/markers/objectives etc direction and distance. - Change the song playing with the d-pad. - Handy respawn button if you get stuck. - Interact with people by interrogating them for answers/clues, and hang out with them to build relationship levels. - Use Blood crystals to buy items and unlock fast travel points. - The world is 3D but all the characters are 2D sprites. - Shinji is a weird ass dude that annoys and helps you in equal measures and is usually found in places you least expect. - Crime scene photos and locations can be interacted with, and information learned. - Anything you learn or find will automatically get put into Starlight which sorts it. - Save points are everywhere. - No fall damage. - Foot baths are expensive to use but they grant you new abilities. - Everyone will have a different experience. - Such a well-designed world, with so many secrets to find and areas to explore. - Aside from the main murder mystery story, you can pick up optional side investigations. - A lot of platforming and parkour. - It can and will rain. - Upgrade Starlight using blood crystals and seeing the right person. Paradise Killer Review Cons: - Cannot rebind controls. - No touchscreen support. - Slow starter. - The tutorial prompts are very basic. - A lot to take in. - Slight performance hits at times. - Doesn't look as crisp as the PC version. - Pop up and pop in happen a lot. - Can be hard to see items in the distance. - Learning what and who are viable targets to navigate to on the AR is a mission in itself. - The pop-up you have to click every time you pick up a blood crystal is annoying. - You are not told/warned or given any notice that water no matter how shallow usually kills you quickly. - The respawning is fine but it's hard to know where it will respawn you half the time. - The tone used when saying about Blood crystals makes it sound like they are rare or hard to come by but that's not the case. - Characters can have a canned voice response and it gets very repetitive. - You cannot interact with the map or place your own markers which is really annoying when doing side investigations. - Early game platforming is less than ideal. - A lot of reading and pressing the same button over and over. Related Post: Cyber Neon Bundle Review (Nintendo Switch OLED) Paradise Killer: Official website. Developer: KAIZEN GAME WORKS Publisher: KAIZEN GAME WORKS Store Links - Nintendo Read the full article

#Indie #Nindies #NintendoSwitch

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quohotos · 17 days ago

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Because of this thing. The Microsoft Hololens

See we don't realize it now that we're in windows 11, but this thing was the fucking end game for microsoft. This was what windows 10 was supposed to be. You ever seen a Joshua tree

These things evolved for giant pre-historic sloths that all died out and now they just carry on all alone and sad. That's windows 10 without the hololense. See if you look at any strange decision microsoft made it was all with that device in mind. Why UWP? Well the Universal Windows Platform would let you build applications that ran on a C# virtual machine that would be supported across all windows devices, your PC, your Xbox, and your AR goggles that you'd strap to your face. In a world where everything was holograms it meant that Paint needed to also be in 3d, because in the space future we'll treat 3d models just like pngs! That's why there needs to be a 3d models folder, because we're all gonna be sending eachother 3d soyjacks that we make in 3d paint that we can then display around our virtual desktops and view in 3d.

There's just one problem.

It's 3000 dollars. Yeah, it's 1k per eye, plus 1k for any device that can run holograms in real time and have any overhead left over to do like... you know PC things.

Anyways Microsoft believed that was a deal-breaker

Picture completely unrelated^

They pivoted their entire OS' direction around this peripheral, changed their design language

They replaced the cute xbox 360 avatars with this beast that looks like paint 3d and is equally as cursed and maybe one day I'll talk about it too (why does it have a memory leak? Why does it slow down my fucking xbox series x? Why does it just never load on the xbox one x the hardware it was actually fucking built for??)

But there was a problem, a consumer Hololense was always coming "soon TM". This current version was too expensive, and if it's too expensive no one will develop software for it... so they needed a stop gap, a cheap way to get into the ecosystem so that when godot finally showed up and told us how to make the hololens cheaper we'd have plenty of software to run on it.

Enter these fucking things

The windows mixed reality platform. The idea was, these are VR headsets but they're also mixed reality because you can flip up the visor and I guess see the real world idk.

No these are just VR headsets, what makes them mixed reality is that they'd use the same standard as the hololense, just they'd do it all in a virtual space for a fraction of the cost. Smart idea, unfortunately no one used them for that

They were dirt cheap compared to the competition, and at the time they were better than an occulus or a vive on both resolution and also in the fact that they were inside out tracked so you didn't need base stations. Now see, microsoft didn't make these first party, they just made the spec and licensed them out to all the other brands which is why there's so much variation. They all basically do the same shit they just have a fresh coat of paint.

Oh did I mention they suck?

They use these big ass controllers that have visible light tracking which kills the battery life, but also because of manufacturing defect there's extra resistance on the battery contacts which leads them to always read low battery and go into power saving mode on fresh batteries unless you put in like state of the art over volted lithium ion batteries.

Oh yeah and the controllers have a weird king Solomon split the baby control scheme where they have no face buttons, but they do have both a stick and a trackpad trying to split the difference between a vive and an occulus. Later revisions reverted to an A and B button, but when these things came out that's where we thought Vr gaming would go. Also, the controllers were only made to match the headsets. You could rebind and repair them to a different device, but you only ever got the two that came with your headset. If one broke you were fucked, sorry kid, they were not sold separately

The idea was you'd develop software for the Hololesns one of these things and maybe play some vr games on the windows store...

...no one did that. Six months after launch they added a way to use it with steamVR and that's all these things were ever used for. Very very few games ever natively supported the VR features. The ones for minecraft kicked ass, and they're going away soon :(

It was kind of a rough step, but hey, first generation. Surely there will be an updated standard and good features will keep rolling in. Right? Right?

Well everyone but Samsung and HP gave up. Their models were on the high end expensive, all the cheap ones never got a refresh. The standard got a few tiny features, and broke a bunch of old ones.

Well hold on, these things only need a USB port and an HDMI to plug in, and since Sony has just released the PSV and UWP already supports VR now surely these will come to xbox, right?

No. Fuck you. Why would they do that it would literally just be free.

Idk maybe the xbox didn't have usb 3.0, but again, that'd be the perfect time to add it to the xxboxx one xx or like the xbox seires or something, you know, you could even use the kinect for body tracking.

No.

Fuck you.

Release it once and abandon it. We put an earnest but small amount of effort into something and it didn't instantly set the world on fire and sell a million copies. We didn't really try and it didn't succeed, so I guess we gotta give up. That's the Microsoft way.

This october they killed all support for these things in windows 11, just pushed a fuck you patch that shuts it off. There's no workaround. No one cares enough to hack it, they assume you've moved on since then, and since it needs windows to function it's not like the linux people will come to our rescue.

So yeah, that's what windows was supposed to be, the cool hologram future where windows can enter the third dimension and every app needs to support touch and gesture and mouse and controller input and we'll all be waving our hands around and jerking each-other off virtually and it'll be a grand old time.

That was the future you were promised. The paint 3d future... and Microsoft fumbled it. They never solved the hololens, they never committed, they never got windows 11 to have a consistent design language, they never got us to switch to UWP. They gave up. Fun is over.

They gave up. Take all the fun stuff out, round the corners, center the taskbar. Admit defeat. Windows is now MacOS but with more ads

Oh and sell the 3d objects, trade it in for magic AI beans

This fucker. This fucker is the cool new 20 something that my father that is Leonardo Dicaprio (that is also Microsoft) has taken home and replaced mom with. New microsoft isn't about jacking into the matrix or rotating objects with your mind, it's about being sheek and having the AI lie to you while the world burns around you.

There's a new paint now. it's got layers, it's like... like a better program.

That's not the point.

The point of paint is to be shit. And man, paint 3d was shit. In special, cool ways. Every time you use it there's a new horrible way it just fails to work, is ass backwards, or they expect you to use it for the strangest things. I'll miss it. I'll miss it so much.

For 10 years windows didn't have a solid identity, they fucked around and tried things but never locked in. Now they're all in on an identy, and that identity is less features and more bloat and more spying and more AI and a million e-wasted headsets and broken dreams and my beloved paint 3d left alone and cold but never forgotten.

Paint 3d will live on my harddrive until the fucking bombs drop. You can claw my terrible, mediocre software from my cold dead hands. Yes, paint 3d was a spit in the face but jokes on you I'm into that shit (in a software sense only, please do not do that to me in real life I will go home and cry)

i demand the 3D objects thoughts

Well I put it off to the absolute last possible moment. If you're reading this it's already too late. Paint 3d is dead

You will not be able to download it from the Microsoft store, and let's be honest, it's too shit for anyone to actually archive it (not that I'd even know how given it's a uwp distributed through the store and never offered as a standalone exe)

But let's not dance on paint 3d's untimely grave. As the world's first ever Kafkaesque photo editor it gave something very special to us all. I've come to love it, even if every time I use it I feel a deep and unending desire to become the joker. So let us Eulogize this beautiful mix failed start of a future we were promised but was failed to be born. Let's pour one out for Paint 3d, and explain once and for all what it really means to paint 3d.

What is paint 3d?

Before you can understand Paint 3d, you must first understand ms paint. Microsoft paint, often just referred to as "Paint" is one of the oldest standard programs to come with any windows installation. It's a bitmap editor that was begun long before most tiktok users were even born. It holds a special place in a lot of 90s and 00s kid's hearts for two reasons.

without fail, it will be installed on every windows machine. You will always have paint. It's dependable, fast, easy to get into, and will open corrupted or mislabeled images. It's the notepad of images, quick, dirty and gets the job done. You can copy and paste screenshots into there to quickly crop them

It's a little bit shit. It doesn't support transparency (well it does now but lets not get ahead of ourselves) so if you tried to make a minecraft skin with it you'd get all these solid color blobs. It doesn't support layers, so anything made on it is going to have a level of earnest shittyness to it. Text can't be rotated, bounding boxes have to be predefined shapes, and once something is on the page it's on the fucking page. MS. Paint will put pixels on the page for you, but after that point it won't hold your hand.

Point 2 is really a larger part of how ms. Paint is remembered. Ms. Paint is synonymous with youth, it's synonymous with limited computer time, with ignorance, with having nothing better. The spectacle of doing anything in Ms. Paint lead to the selling point of ms paint adventures which became homestuck. If you want to strawman someone's political opinions, you draw them in MS paint. The early, edgy, ugly look of the 00s web was defined by MS paint just as much as it was defined by adobe flash. The limitations of this piece of shit software defined a generation's artistic identity. We love it because it is shit. We would not have it any other way

Okay but you didn't explain Paint 3d!

Well, gosh, don't interrupt me. Yeah, so what is paint 3d? In 2017 Paint was added to the deprecated feature list. A special update was pushed so if you opened up paint it would ask you if you'd rather switch to paint 3d

Paint 3d put a fresh new stab at the utility, redoing it in the new UWP format and dressing it up in the company's then standard design language. The refresh also added a whole host of nice, modern features such as:

An updated set of tools, some but not all of which are pressure sensitive when used with tablets/touch

The ability to use transparency!

Hurray those are great new features wait what do those other buttons do?

Yes paint 3d lives up to it's name, you can add stock 3d models to any of your drawings and they're all kinda awful

3d text, 3d models, go ahead and place them in your scene. They put the whole project spark asset library in there last year, if you can think of it it's probably not in there but hey there'll be something and it may or may not have a texture because the model may have been intended for 3d printing

You can manipulate these objects with a slick interface that's completely non industry standard but hey it at least looks nice.

Models can also be painted on and you can pick from these options to decide the albedo/metalic values. No I don't know how to set the custom values, sometimes it's there and if you click off it's gone forever. Good luck

Oh and also when you're painting you're given a very convenient gizmo to rotate the object that isn't available in normal mode. You can multi select objects and group them together but beware it doesn't always work and using the undo key sometimes spawns a new copy at the wrong position and scale but don't worry this is a small bug in a new program and certainly won't be present in the final version on November 4th I promise.

You can put stickers on models and there's a nice little UI to stamp it if you want to put multiple here are all the stock standard stickers

You can also use these pretty tiling textures

Or you can add any png from your hardrive

Those are the only options you'll ever get or need. You can also spawn arbitrary shapes, like cubes and spheres

And in a post launch update they even added the fucking TUBE BRUSH

Look how many tube there is. So many tube You can also edit the points individually after they're created but each tube has a maximum number of points that it can contain and you have no way of knowing until it's too late.

You can also use the 3d doodle to make a shitty potato looking thing, but if you browse the #paint3d tag you'll see a lot of people more talented than me using that tool to it's fullest

As you saw you also have the option to round or point the corners.

At any point you can click the 3d view button and suddenly you're no longer head on, you can orbit the camera and view the scene from any angle. Is it actually good to work with 3d scenes in this program? God fucking no

This scene nearly killed my computer to make, and that thing had okay specs for the time. Placing objects with the non standard (but touch friendly) controls is a pain and the camera cannot be oriented in any meaningful way. There is no frecam, there is no camera scale, you can orbit, you can pan. If you want more go learn blender.

You can also change the time of day

Go ahead, rotate the sun or change the filter, some of them are even minecraft specific. Most of them are objectively worse than the default, but hey you get a lot of options

Okay yes these are all cool features, but I've been dancing around paint 3d's one actually cool feature, the one that drives me mad... because it's a good idea

great even...

...too bad it's shackled to this program.

Oh this? This? yeah we can fuck with this. Now we're fucking talking

Now I can move my objects around in 3d, scale them, reorent them and make all kind of cool 3d compositions out of cut out pieces of my 2d artwork. If you look at any cool marketing material this is by far the feature they're most proud of

The possibilities are endless... unfortunately they're also frustrating.

See that flower I made has a white background, and there's no magic eraser so I'd need to manually cut it out with the eraser... or use magic select

If you're in a video call while this UI is active and you're sharing your screen it will only show the gif and not the program itsself

With the add and subtract tools you can provide hints about what should and should not be included. That's fine for something as simple as this drawn with a pen tool, but... well if you like to draw with the pencil? Get ready for pain buckeraroo. You can't manually slice out what you want, you just have to get the AI to guess and it will never guess perfectly. Part of your bat will be left behind on the canvas or it'll start picking up a few extra white pixels

but hey, it's 3d now, sometimes it works. You can choose to content aware fill whatever was behind on the canvas, or leave a weird white empty space behind

But now I have a field of flowers I can move however I like, okay but I think I want to add an extra leaf to one of them

Get fucked. Idiot. Once you cut it out, it's like paper. These 3d canvasses can never be grown, only shrunk and only by the eraser tool which carves in a perfect circle like a bull in a china shop. Now, it's actually very cool how you can recursively create new 3d canvasses out of existing ones, and I'm sure you could do cool stuff but any time the canvas shrinks that's as big as it'll ever be it can never grow

Also, yeah you can't just make a canvas in place, you either have to reserve space on your main canvas or clip it off of a second canvas you make earlier and just... I don't know stash it off to the side out of frame? this is how you use layers and if you want to re-order them put them in literal 3d space? Want to hide a layer? Put it behind your canvas.

This is what experts are calling: "technically a workflow, I guess"

This would be a really cool feature, unfortunately it's just not finished. It's missing that extra 20% that would make it at home in real software versus just a toy. Just like paint you have to sort of plan ahead and make all of your layers. In order... but in reverse bob ross order. See you need to make all of your foregrounds first, then and only then can you start working on your background canvas, and should you ever change your mind and want another foreground you must destroy a space of your background to create it. Oh, also, once it's 3d it can never be re-projected back into 2d... well you can turn it into a sticker, which kicks ass, but that will be flattened, if you wanted to retain the 3d rotation of it too bad. Also, making something into a sticker physically consumes it, so you'll need to copy and paste it first just in case otherwise it's gone forever

oh yeah and sometimes copy and pasting doesn't work, creates extra clones, or places them at the wrong space.

Okay let's save our work

You can actually save it as a project folder. You heard me right, folder. Paint 3d stores projects as individual folders

And they're all just called checkpoint, there's no association with like, which project each one is

And they're all full of undocumented binary files, with the exception of a png thumbnail at the very bottom.

So uhhh, why? You can't send project files to other people, at least not easilly. Is this some library that I don't know about? This all boggles my mind. I mean a .docx file is just a renamed zip file was it too much to ask to make these all renamed zips? Why would you leave it half finished like that and just not make a "new" file type?

Okay sorry I got lost in the weeds. Also I hit the image limit for this post so you're just gonna have to bear with me and use your imagination. You can do this I believe in you.

You can export as a .glb file that goes to your 3d objects folder (put a pin in that), or you can export it as a video/gif. There are few pre-canned animations like bobbing back and forth or rotating on a turntable. They can be sped up or slowed down, but that's about it.

Okay but why 3d?

God damnit I'm going to need more images for this so I'm gonna post this as is and hope I can add more photos on the reblog...

#Ask Quohotos #paint 3d #paint3d #ms paint #mspaint #Quohotos' unhinged rants no one asked for #journal #rip paint3d #seriously go scroll the the paint 3d associated tags there's some really talented people on this platform who push it to its limits.

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juiceboxman · 5 years ago

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So I took Siobhan’s advice and listened to the BBC’s radio adaptation of the Lord of the Rings from the 80′s

It’s pretty good, you can listen to it here https://soundcloud.com/inkmore/sets/lord-of-the-rings-radio

I had some issues with it but I liked it for the most part. I’m not a massive LoTR fan, only watched the films so I don’t know much, but here are the thoughts I had.

I once heard someone describe Hobbits and the Shire as “drama free people” after listening to this series, that’s obviously not the case. Hobbits seem to live for the drama, always talking shit behind one anothers back. I think Tolkien was trying to satirise rural or village life in England and I think he did a good job depicting how petty people can be.

Sam is a working class hero and Frodo doesn’t deserve him.

I understand how people can like Sam/Frodo because there is massive gay vibes coming off them. Personally I interpreted it to be unrequited and an example of some class division, with Sam being working class and Frodo being middle class. The amount of dedication and support Sam shows Frodo I don’t think Frodo would show back if the roles were reversed. I feel like its a very one sided relationship with Sam putting in way more effort than Frodo.

Bilbo’s whole thing seems to be that he went on a gap year once that turned out quite bad and now he kinda lives like a hermit.

I don’t know how reliable to the books the Radio series is, but I feel like the movies do more justice to stuff. Like in the Radio drama Gandalf makes his first appearance by just coming through the door and Bilbo is like “ah, Gandalf” and...that’s it. Movie version was better in my opinion.

I think the radio drama does a lot better to explain what the ring of power does than the movies. I always got confused by what the ring does, like in the movies all it seems to do is turn people invisible and make them into heroin addicts. With the radio I kinda understand more about it. Like the ring’s power kinda depends on the wearer, like a Hobbit could simply use it for invisibility and expanding their life force but a King could use it to control the minds of an entire enemy army and a Wizard could do even more. But it’s still vague and I presume Tolkien intended it to be, like it’s just a representation of the concept of power and this world’s equivalent of a deal with the devil. Power or wishes may be commanded but they will ultimately corrupt you.

Time in the books seem wild. Like at one point Gandalf says that Bilbo has gone off and he himself will start researching the ring and then twelve years go by and Frodo has just been fucking about, forgot that the ring even existed and Gandalf comes back and is like “oh yeah, ring is bad”

Also, Frodo is 50 when he leaves the shire???? Jesus

Also, were the Nazgul just running about for 12 years looking for the ring? Like at one point the Nazgul knocked on some Hobbit’s door asking about Frodo and the Hobbit told him to go fuck himself and slammed a door- to a NAZGUL

Aragon’s voice in this radio drama is...way off. Like it sounds like Greg Davies. You don’t really have the soft voice of Viggo Mortinstein but the gruff righteous voice of the Principal from the Inbetweeners

Elrond denying Aragon to marry his daughter until he becomes king of Gondor is like a stern dad refusing you to date his daughter until you get a real job.

Also Aragon gets the reforged sword, like, immediately when they leave Riverdale. Which is a bit weird to me.

It makes sense why Frodo is trusted with the ring. A king couldn’t be trusted because he’d use it for conquest. A Wizard could overthrow Sauron but in doing so would become just as bad so you’re back to square one. With a Hobbit, there is no desire for conquest or any wish for power outside of simply having the ring. Even when Golum had it all he used it for was to hunt fish and extend his life cycle. I’m curious of whether if Sam had carried the ring all the way to Mordor if he could will himself to destroy it or would he have failed like Frodo.

Gimly and Legolas’ friendship is so cute. Like they start off disliking eachother but bond over their prowess in combat and plan out a gap year after the whole fellowship where they see the sights of middle earth. So wholesome

I don’t understand why they didn’t just kill Golum. Like I know he was important to find the way to Mordor and was ultimately necessary to destroy the ring after Frodo failed, but like the idea of “don’t kill him because of pity and he also probably has a part to play” is bullshit to me. Like he’s so gross and troublesome. It’s the same excuse Jedi have with “oh you can’t kill a Sith Lord because striking them down means you need to embrace the dark side” bitch Luke Skywalker round house kicked a guy into a Sarlack Pick- whaddya mean he can’t kill this wrinkly ass Emperor??? Ethical mental gymnastics are mind blowing.

For me the moment that made me really dig the series was when the Fellowship disbanded. Like shit hit the fan and everyone’s forced to do their own shit, really engaging storytelling.

The series is quite short when you consider all the battles are short cutted. Like in the radio drama you’ll hear a series of grunts for 30 seconds and then a song about how bad that battle was. I guess it would take a lot to depict a battle purely by means of audio.

Seriously the series is quite short, like it’s 13 hour long episodes and by episode five I’m like “oh shit we’re starting the second book already? Damn” It felt half the time there was so much stuff cut out I don’t know why

I think the radio drama is best suited for people who have either watched the movies or read the books. Like I don’t think it’s well suited for people who haven’t seen LoTR content before. Like the scene with the Balrog there is no description of what it looks like.

Also, Gandalf fought the Balrog from the deepest dungeons to the tip of the mountain? Damn, Gandalf’s leg day must be intense

I love the introduction of Treebeard and the Ents. Like you get this horrific imagery with warring Orcs and other evil creatures and then turn a hard 180 to these hilarious tree people. I guess that’s why the LoTR is so great. Because you do get those hard, gruesome battles but you also get these lovely peaceful wholesome scenes.

Quick question, how do you meet a guy called Saruman and then be surprised that he’s the bad guy? It’s the same deal with Victor VonDoom.

Also, did Tolkien have to have all the big villains names sound so similar?

Man, Tolkien loves having people end up together. With the Horse Princess who got friendzoned by Aragorn meeting up with that guy from Gondor. You love to see it

So like, was the King of Nazgul just talking shit or can he not be killed by a man? Like could anyone kill him by stabbing him the face or did the Horse Princess just find a loophole?

At one point this woman kinda makes fun of this flower called Kings Seed or some shit and Aragon basically calls her a THOT

Kinda sad the series didn’t have more dragons. Like I would have liked to see a huge black dragon at the final battle at Mordor. But that’s just me, I love me some dragons

Also, the final battle at the gates of Mordor is so endearing. Like they don’t even know if Frodo and Sam are still alive but they go to war anyway because they believe they are and in doing so keep the eye of Sauron off of them. It’s really heart warming

The radio’s version of the destruction of the ring is kinda anticlimactic. Like I said it’s better with the dialogue than it is at the representation of physical actions like combat. Like if you didn’t know what happened at the end of the lord of the rings and you were listening to this you would have no idea that Golum fell into the lava with the ring

I love the owner of the Prancing Pony’s reaction to Aragon becoming King of Gondor. It’s like “hey, remember that guy you saw shit in the woods that one time? Yeah he’s the President”

Also Sam’s Pony lives at the end of it. Love to see it. I feel like Tolkien read his first draft to his kids and they were like “what happened to Sam’s pony?” and he was like “uh, yeah, the pony....the pony lived! yes! the pony found its way back to town” you can tell this story is vibing on a different level than GoT or ACOC

Hobbits returning to the Shire fucking shit up like level 16 PCs returning to the town they started the campaign in

Also, all the Hobbits in the shire have no idea what the fuck went down? Like I understand they live in the middle or nowhere but that’s astounding

It’s so funny what ends up happening to Saruman. Like he goes from being the second in command of the Dark Lord to being a shitty local businessman in a Village in Yorkshire

I can see how people can really get into the LotR. Like a world like GoT is just fucked beyond compare and any happy ending will be bittersweet at most. But here you have an ending where the characters leave the world better than when they found it

Frodo asking Sam to live with him was him totally trying to get with Sam, right? And Sam was like “oh that’s nice Frodo, but I have gf” and Frodo’s like “oh that’s alright, she can move in too!” it’s like watching a man back step his request for love by inviting a family into his home. You missed your shot Frodo! You had a whole year with Sam and you blew it!

Sam ultimately moving on from Frodo with his thicc Hobbit gf is the character development we deserved

That said, in the movies Sam getting a gf was a thing at the end of the third movie- like he’d been so shy before hand but after almost dying he’s like “fuck it, might as well give my shot” but here in radio drama he...had a gf all along? Like we only hear about her in the final episode and he’s like “oh yeah, my gf ain’t too happy. I left her for a year to fuck about with you so now I need to marry her. Woops” very startling

Also love how Tolkien represented PTSD with Frodo. I don’t think works of Fantasy like this before Tolkien really did this stuff justice. That said the ending is a bit weird. Like I understand that the “Undying Lands” are supposed to reflect Tolkien’s belief in Catholicism, Eternal Life and Heaven. But it’s really hard to not interpret the ending as Frodo as struggling to deal with his PTSD so he commits suicide. Because the Undying Lands is a place that Sam cannot follow. It’s heart breaking but that’s the vibe I got off the ending.

So yeah, there’s my thoughts. It’s pretty good but I’d only recommend the series to anyone who’s either seen the movies or read the books. If this was your first introduction to LOTR I don’t know if that would be any good.

Also, while we’re here I recommend Escape from the Bloodkeep from Dimension 20. It’s DnD actual play series that is a slight parody of LOTR. It’s really good.

youtube

#dimension 20 #acoc #escape from the bloodkeep #lord of the rings #lotr

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geekgemsspooksandtoons · 4 years ago

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My thoughts on Bioshock 1

I just wanna put this out there. It’s 12:01 am and I find it nice that I finished it before Sunday popped up. This post is gonna have major spoilers. I’ll post the screenshots in a different post. I don’t know if I should call this a review. But yeah I didn’t wanna make this quickly. Took time making some popcorn(two bags for a bowl) and getting a Diet Dr. Pepper.

But my thoughts on the game itself. A game that gamers have considered one of the greatest video games ever made.

I want you all to know. The reason I went back to playing it because I was looking up the terrible voice acting of the original RE game. That it got me to wanting to play a older game...which is the first Bioshock on my main computer.

But in a nutshell I thought it was a pretty nice game. The gameplay is pretty stellar. Especially the combat. But I will admit, the game didn’t really scare me. Because it was considered horror by some folks. But the way I was playing I think a way how you would describe....something out of the Doom series.

Yet this is because I was playing on easy mode. Because I wanted to experience the story. Especially when I upgraded my weapons. I was basically a walking powerhouse. Along with the fact I didn’t use my plasmids a whole lot. But I did use them when they seem needed or when I wanted to try them out. I was mainly a weapons guy.

But yeah upgraded weapons made the journey easier. Even during the final boss with Frank.

The story is pretty alright. Even though some of the audio diaries I decided not to listen to except for some. Especially when the big reveal was coming.

I will admit and I think people may know of this. But I knew of the big twist and read stuff about how Jack was basically controlled through most of the game. Where the phrase, “Would You Kindly” Atlas was saying to control him. Where this becomes more clear when you enter a room that has, “Would You Kindly’ on the wall and...those diaries crap....a dog getting it’s neck snapped....to be honest I feel like the moment Jack see’s that. I feel like he was probably confused or just wondering, “What the fuck?”.

But basically where Andrew Ryan exposes this by saying the phrase a couple of times, and asking Jack to kill him with the golf club. Gonna admit to watch that twist in motion, for some reason I wasn’t expecting it to be that dramatic. Because I was expecting it to be simply casual with Andrew explaining what Jack is actually. Where Jack realizes when Andrew asks Jack to kill him, he was telling the truth. Yet I strangely like it how Andrew was trying to showcase more that using the phrase a few time to really showcase Jack was never in control.

Yet it was nice to finally see the scene in full motion in the original game. Since I’m not playing the remastered version.

To be honest I think the most shocking thing was the fact when I went on the Bioshock wiki. That Jack is literally 4 years old. 0_0 Just....I actually found that to be the most surprising.

Including just the whole set up of why Jack is there isn’t by chance. Honestly despite the dimension hopping that surprised me a lot. Just Jack growing up and all that...surprised me the most.

But I find it nice how Andrew during the game as you get closer to him. He’s alluding to the fact that it seems like such a coincidence that Jack crashed near that lighthouse above Rapture. As if it was some sort of miracle.

I’ll stop talking about the twist sorry. So I was right, Atlas who is Frank didn’t really have a family. I will admit Frank’s a pretty damn good actor. Because I feel like people who first played this and if I didn’t look into certain stuff. It would of been more of a surprise. Because I find it amazing he can change his voice.

Including the fact when you get closer to him. He’s just talking about you and him tricking you. Including why are you even still trying to get him. When Jack doesn’t have a family. I guess I can say he didn’t disappoint me as a villain.

Again the gameplay is wonderful, Rapture was a interesting place. Both to look at and I guess to explore. I will admit I sometimes couldn’t find some stuff right away. Such as a Big Daddy helmet after a while.

The Splicer are cool and have some variety, the Big Daddies are pretty nice too. Yet what I’m amazed by and I’m glad I couldn’t find that Big Daddy helmet right away because the last two Little Sisters that were with Big Daddies were near by.

I actually got all the Little Sisters that I recall. Basically rescuing all of them. Meaning I got the best and what I know canon ending. Gonna admit that last scene and just watching that cutscene. Despite it’s actually very quick. I can’t believe I had tears or so....despite I don’t seem to build a connection with these girls.

There is just something beautiful about that ending. Including to see they offered Jack the key to Rapture but he denies it.

Also there is something of just seeing all these Little Sisters just literally murder Frank and I got a shot of that actually. I saw that in a video once and it’s just intriguing. It seems kind of ridiculous but once you play the game, you understand how they are overpowering him.

The soundtrack....I’ll be honest I didn’t think about it much. Mainly because I was so focused on gameplay and getting through the game. Also weird thing this didn’t happen a lot. But I remember one time one of Franks line was up and he wasn’t talking.

Listen to any fans of Bioshock, sorry that I’m rambling. But I’m sorry I’m not praising it to the heavens. But I felt like I did myself a favor because this is a very loved game. It was nice to finally play it and finish it. I think it’s because I’m still processing some stuff. Including during a time in my life I thought gameplay is more important than story. Which was a thought I started having when I became a fan of Doom. But then loving Resident Evil again got me to realize liking video game stories. Considering before the gameplay thing, I would always prefer a single player over multiplayer.

But now I like both. It’s just I was I guess annoyed by how much praised Bioshock gets and it makes it seem like 2 and Infinite are hated on a lot. Including it just...bothered me and that I’d felt rebellious to not play the original. Because people made it seem like what I like to call it, “The Citizen Kane Of Gaming”. It was a game changer and I should understand that.

Yet you can thank my good bro and buddy @pikablob for being the reason why I got into this series more. All because I was wondering why does Elizabeth in Burial At Sea look so young but in the timeline she would be 66. Until he explained to me things about dimension hopping and after my surprise and shock of what he told me. That got me basically be like, “Okay I need to play these games because holy shit”. Even though I’ve played 2 before and finished Infinite and Burial At Sea episode 1 before.

It was just so insane to learn that I needed to experience these games myself as I’m older now.

I feel like overtime I’ll like Bioshock more. Because I had predicted this could become one of my all time favorites. But I don’t think so right now. Maybe when I ever replay it again and maybe even the remastered version. I may love it more. But I felt like compared to games like the original Doom, Doom 2016, Halo Combat Evolved(Because I recall from my experience that game is a classic), and even the Call Of Duty Modern Warfare trilogy. Especially 1 and 2, with 3 being a fitting conclusion to it. I got more out of those games.

Which I sound stupid for mentioning. Bioshock is a whole different beast. I’m talking about a game where someone like Andrew Ryan literally made a city underwater that wouldn’t be affected by what he considered, “Petty morality” and look where Rapture ended up as....a fucking shit hole.

That I recall I don’t feel terrible seeing Andrew Ryan die. Yet it’s probably because he wants to die and he accepts it. Including his final words and the way the scene went. Yet I was surprised that golf club got stuck in his head when Jack did the final blow.

But I think that’s just my mind set. Including on a silly note and I’m finally gonna say something I’ve had in my head. I just miss Elizabeth. Again I may enjoy it more as time goes all. Because it is a excellent game.

Because even though I haven’t played the remastered versions of Bioshock 1 and 2. I feel like if you want to. I’d recommend checking out the original Bioshock if you want to. It’s a well made game and I hope I think it’s genius about the fact The Bioshock Collection exists and it’s on 8th gen consoles now(Especially it got released on Nintendo Switch last month) and for PC’s if you want remastered versions of the first 2.

Basically was looking at trailers for the collection. I think it’s genius because that package seems perfect for any new fan who wants to experience the complete saga as of now.

I think I’ve said enough on my piece on the original Bioshock.

Anyway during the making of this post. I was listening to this kick ass rap. I find it awesome I finished the game and got to experience it for my own. Here’s JT Music’s Bioshock 1 rap, “Rapture Rising”. Been listening to this when making this. Warning in case even though I talked about spoilers in here, you have spoilers in this rap. Again well done rap.

youtube

#bioshock

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blazehedgehog · 5 years ago

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You played SRB2 version 2.2 yet?

I just did, and it was a disaster. There’s no nicer way to put it. For all of its visual or systemic improvements, this version has ruined Sonic Robo-Blast 2 for me. Completely. Top to bottom. I hate it.

I’ve known for a while that people in the SRB2 development team were on this weird bend in thinking that the “best way” to play the game was WASD to move + Mouse to look around. I figured they were a crazy minority, you know? You do you over there in your weird little corner, while I play it like every other video game plays.

SRB2 version 2.2 basically demands you play it with WASD+Mouse. Though the game has controller support, it feels basically worthless, given the entire design ethos of the game is based around mouse aiming. The tutorial drills it in to your head over and over and over that, hey, idiot, use the keyboard and the mouse.

You get specific tutorial bits where they force you to look and move in different directions at the same time, something that’s only really practical when you’re using a keyboard and mouse. Sonic’s abilities are also tuned around the idea that you’re going to be looking at stuff with a mouse like it’s a shooter.

For example, Sonic’s signature move in SRB2 is an air dash called the “thok.” In all versions of SRB2 previously, you did this move in the direction Sonic was facing, and that makes sense. That’s how every 3D game with an airdash functions. You dash in the direction that you’re pushing the analog stick in.

In SRB2 version 2.2, you shoot off in the direction the camera is facing. If you hold to the left on the analog stick and use Sonic’s thok, you shoot forward relative to the camera’s position. The same thing goes for the spindash, as well. It doesn’t matter what direction you’re pushing, the game is going to make you do it a different way.

What this means is that you have to micromanage the camera WAY more than usual. Not only are you trying to get an angle on what’s around you, but you’re CONSTANTLY aiming an invisible crosshair so that your air dash is pointing in the right direction. It’s beyond annoying, it’s infuriating.

And again, this isn’t a bug. There isn’t an option to turn it off. Even if you’ve got a controller plugged in and are using controller buttons, the tutorial still gives you all the instructions for the keyboard bindings and stresses over and over and over again that you should be playing SRB2 on a keyboard with a mouse.

I stumbled my way through the tutorial and exactly one act of Green Flower Zone before closing the game because I actually, genuinely could not stand playing it beyond that. I’m that disgusted.

Just because SRB2 is a 20 year old project does not mean it needs to ignore 20 years of platformer standards just because the development team spent too many nights playing the game’s weird deathmatch mode. I refuse to play a Sonic game like a third person shooter.

And believe me, that’s not to say I didn’t try. I did put down my controller and give it the good ol’ college try and it lasted only a few seconds. This is a 3D platformer. I bought a controller for my PC back in 2001 because I got tired of contorting my fingers trying to play Donkey Kong Country in ZSNES with a keyboard. Now you’re trying to tell me that I was wrong, and a keyboard is secretly the best way to play a platformer? No, absolutely not.

They have ruined the entire game. By focusing on their weird little insular way of playing SRB2, they have alienated people outside of their community like me who refuse to tolerate this this backwards, Bubsy-3D-ass way of controlling a platformer.

I will not budge on this. I was over the moon excited to play 2.2 all week, something that only intensified once I saw the trailer. But this is unconscionable. SRB2 is dead to me until it changes.

#questions #sonic robo-blast 2 #srb2 #sonic the hedgehog #sega #sonic team #Anonymous

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skriak · 5 years ago

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TOP 10 NINTENDO SWITCH GAMES 2019 - my arbitrary list!

Sometimes it's good to be proven wrong. I was pretty sceptical when the Switch was first announced, as it didn't seem too different from the Wii U's gamepad. Then I spent two years watching Nintendo enjoy a complete reversal of fortune, to the point of potentially amassing a more compelling library than Sony's or Microsoft's consoles. So that's how I quite suddenly found myself buying a Switch in October 2019, after having resisted the PS4 and Xbone for five whole years, and my free time has since been dominated by this little machine that defied the odds.

Some of Nintendo's business decisions can still seem inexplicable, but releasing a powerful handheld console that can also be docked with a TV at a moment's notice has proved to be an inspired idea, rather than the gimmick the Wii U's gamepad mostly turned out to be. And along with Nintendo's dependable series of top-notch exclusives, the Switch has enjoyed much better third-party support, which is how I ended up buying Dark Souls for the fourth bloody time just because the option to play it portably was too tempting to resist.

The Switch is the first console I've bought since the PS3 and for all Nintendo's quirks, there's a reason the Switch has dominated Christmas wishlists for three years running. Games like Super Mario Odyssey feel like full-size adventures that just happen to have a portable option, as opposed to handheld games you can also play on the big screen. This is the first year in a long while that I've actually played enough topical titles to justify a "games of the year" list, even if my recent Nintendo bias is pretty blatant.

So with that caveat in mind, and in no particular order, here's my entirely subjective list of the best Nintendo Switch games of 2019.

Luigi's Mansion 3

This is a franchise I'd always been curious about and can finally have an opinion on. The process of going from floor to floor of the hotel hoovering up ghosts and solving puzzles is pretty straightforward, but Luigi's Mansion 3 has so much polish and personality crammed into the cartridge. Luigi is immediately lovable as a determined coward, and each level has a wildly different theme that's realised with extravagant audio and visual flair, so progress always feels rewarding. Though this isn't true horror by any means, there can be an unsettling atmosphere and some of the bosses are pretty freaky. I officially love this oddball franchise and am desperate for a chance to play the story again in co-op. Unquestionably a first-class exclusive.

Doom (Switch port)

Not to be confused with the impressive Switch version of Doom 2016, this is the iconic Doom made cheap and accessible. While purists may take issue with some minor technical deviations, this is the first time I've got most of the way through Doom because the portability and *glorious* true dual-stick control makes this easily my favourite version. There's even a cheat menu for when I just want to mindlessly punch hell beasts. The main thing that ages Doom is its maze-like structure, but playing it casually experience alleviates that frustration somewhat. At a grand total of four pounds, this is a BFB (big fucking bargain).

Untitled Goose Game

You know a game is good when the only asterisk I put on my recommendation is that it *may* be overpriced. Untitled Goose Game took the internet by storm this year because it's the quintessential indie game: cute, simple and with anti-authoritarian undertones. As a horrible goose, it's your mission to cause havoc in an unsuspecting English village, interacting with people and objects to cause chain reactions of chaos. Some of the puzzle solutions are maybe a bit obscure, but 90% of the time just messing around with everything in the area will lead to a solution. Untitled Goose Game makes up for its brevity with sheer comedic charm, feeling much better-designed than a "lul so random" affair like Goat Simulator. A honking good time.

Terraria (Switch port)

I have spent literally hundreds of hours on the PC version of Terraria, so when I was broke after buying my Switch the new Terraria port was an obvious cost-effective choice. While the controls aren't as precise, the amount of time spent mining and sorting through loot makes this a great handheld experience. I can't comment on the multiplayer options but few games represent such a sheer value for money, as there's always a new cave to explore or a new boss to overcome. Time has been kind to this 2011 classic, grind notwithstanding.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair

While I personally enjoyed the original Yooka-Laylee, it was definitely flawed and I never seriously expected to see a sequel. But Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair launched quite abruptly and did a pretty spectacular job of upstaging its predecessor. All the previous game's half-baked feel has been replaced with clever design touches, like the equippable tonics which grant helpful abilities at the cost of a currency penalty. The titular Lair is actually the final level and available to throw yourself at right from the beginning, but beating it without first obtaining more hitpoints by completing other stages is incredibly hard, which is a great way to incentivize progress without denying more confident players the option of beating the game earlier if they can meet the challenge. Impossible Lair might be this year's biggest surprise, and despite a modest budget I think it's worthy of comparison to excellent 2D platformers like Rayman Legends. Just don't expect to defeat Capital B on your first attempt.

A Hat In Time (Switch port)

I recently reviewed A Hat In Time but at the risk of repeating myself, it's one of the most charming games of the last few years and an incredibly impressive crowdfunded achievement. Mario's offerings may be a grander technical feat, but A Hat In Time is a fast and fabulous journey through a series of weird and wonderful worlds that all feel distinct in content and tone. It's very openly inspired by GameCube-era platformers like Mario Sunshine and Psychonauts and it easily scratches that itch. Simply one of the best original platformers of this generation, and I defy you not to love Hat Kid's cheeky antics.

Spyro Reignited Trilogy (Switch port)

As someone who thinks the original Spyro trilogy holds up better than most early 3D games, I'd have actually preferred a simple port rather than a full remake, but The Reignited Trilogy is honestly impeccable. The updated visuals are gorgeous while maintaining the general style of those old, jaggy models, and very little of the gameplay or content has changed except for sensible updates like the ability to immediately warp between every level you've visited. Having full dual-analogue control is also an absolute godsend even for a PS1 veteran like me. Though Spyro may seem a bit basic these days when faced with modern platformer marvels, the Reignited Trilogy makes these old favourites accessible again at a generous price point.

Ring Fit Adventure

Yes, I have a Wii kicking around in a box somewhere. No, Wii Fit never held my attention as anything more than a curiosity. Ring Fit Adventure, meanwhile, is limited only by my cholesterol-encrusted heart and dislike of excessive showering. This is an honest-to-goodness attempt at making an RPG out of a workout toy, and the amount of polish put into the game's presentation and hardware implementation is pretty remarkable. Levels involve jogging on the spot and squeezing the ring accessory to collect goodies and overcome obstacles, and periodically you'll engage in turn-based combat where you use a custom selection of exercise moves to deal damage. It's a fantastic idea pulled off much more elegantly than it sounds. The ring accessory unfortunately makes this quite an expensive game, so it'll take a lot of regular use to get your money's worth, but I can honestly (and surprisingly) say that exercise suddenly becomes more compelling when it's presented as a light RPG adventure with anthropomorphic gym equipment encouraging you to take breaks and drink plenty of water.

Pokémon Sword/Shield

Disclaimer: I can only give my impressions from 25 hours of playing Pokémon Shield, so this is DEFINITELY not a full review. That being said, this is still an easy recommendation to existing Pokemaniacs and a good starting point for any new acolytes. While the core formula hasn't evolved (har har) much since the very first Pokemon, Sword and Shield still has a number of modern quality of life improvements that make previous generations show their age. I've had so much fun building a core crew of cute and/or badass 'mons in a weird Nintendo version of Britain, and the online features combine with a VASTLY improved random encounter system to make grinding far less of a concern. The wild area takes some getting used to, but it's satisfying to come back and capture the huge Onyx you had to run away from a few hours before. Even if Pokémon Sword/Shield has some technical blemishes and could have pushed the series further in some regards, it's still easy to see why this franchise has maintained such a beloved status for so long.

Red Faction: Guerrilla Re-mars-tered (Switch port)

Along with Dark Souls, Red Faction was a game I never even knew I needed on the go, but now I've got it I can't imagine ever going back. A cult classic due to its amazing destruction physics, Red Faction sees you leading a proletariat revolution on Mars, literally tearing down corporate monuments to free the working class from systematic oppression. The open world is a bit claustrophobic and the shooting isn't exactly mind-blowing, but there's a reason I've beaten Red Faction every couple of years ever since its original 2009 release. The Switch port does the game justice and if you set the difficulty to easy then this is one of the best rage-venting experiences money can buy. So yes, I recommend getting your ass to Mars.

#gaming #nintendo #goty #2019 #switch #nintendo Switch #game review #review

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thathomestar · 6 years ago

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A Somewhat Comprehensive List of Good Old-School FPS Games, Where To Get Them, & How To Get Them Working

I love old FPS games. The action is fast, the levels are explorable, the guns are powerful. Whether you’re tired of modern FPS games or just waiting for some new hotness to come out, there’s a lot of these old games you can play! This list will cover a lot of the old classics and how to get them running on modern hardware (assuming you’re on Windows. Some of these work on Mac/Linux though).

Of course, what defines an “old-school” game from something more recent? Well the way I see it, there are FPS games before Halo, and FPS games after Halo. Halo was such a landmark game that it shifted the entire genre, hell even the entire video game industry. So I’m going to keep this list to pre-2001 games for the most part.

STUFF TO KNOW

Before going into this wholesale, I need to say a couple of things. These game are old. They are most likely not going to work out of the box and will need some tweaking on your part. Most of the non-3D games on Steam and GOG come with DOSBox wrappers. This can be fine for some games, but often times fans have created patches and their own engines/source ports for these games that work better than DOSBox emulation.

PC Gaming Wiki is an invaluable resource when it comes to finding patches and fixes to common problems. I will also point out any fan patches or source ports for the games as I go. On Steam, the curator page Sector Effectors has brief overviews on the functionality of games so you know what you might need before you buy.

A lot of games on Steam and GOG come in bundles that have the entire series in one at a markdown price, so it’s usually cheaper to just buy an entire series than each individual game. I can link to bundles on Steam but not on GOG; those bundles will be on the sidebar underneath the button to buy the game. In the case of games (like Doom on Steam), you have to buy the bundle to get the mission packs, whereas stuff like this is typically included with the game already on GOG.

Make sure you check through the options menu of each game and make sure everything’s set up to your liking, whether it’s video options or your actual controls. The default settings for this kind of stuff in these games are tend to be really weird and outdated, so it’s something you need to check every single time.

Most if not all of these games include various difficulty modes, so whether you’re a badass coolguy like me or someone fairly new to PC shooter games, you’ll be able to play these games.

id SOFTWARE

While they didn’t invent first-person shooter games, it’s undeniable that id Software made the genre as popular as it is today with the games they made.

WOLFENSTEIN (1992/1993/2001)

Wolfenstein was originally an adventure game for the Apple II, but the boys at id wanted to put their own spin on it. What we got was intensely fast Nazi slaughtering action, chock full of gore to spill and gold to swipe. You play as B.J. Blazkowicz, a POW hellbent on escaping Castle Wolfenstein and blasting any Nazi who gets in your way.

Wolfenstein 3D - GOG / Steam Wolfenstein 3D: Spear of Destiny - GOG / Steam Return to Castle Wolfenstein - GOG / Steam Steam Bundle

Wolf3D has a source port called ECWolf, which natively supports most popular OS’s, has widescreen support, and adds an auto-map feature which is immensely helpful for getting through the maze-like levels. At full speed, Wolf3D might make you motion sick, just a word of warning.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein has a 1.42d fanpatch (second from bottom) that adds proper widescreen support. This game has some weird difficulty spikes. Grey Matter Studios, the team that made RtCW, were later absorbed into Treyarch, who later went on to make Call of Duty: World at War and most of the other good CoD games.

Call Apogee, Say “Aardwolf”!

DOOM (1993/1994/1996)

This just might be the best game ever made, though I may be a little biased. Doom was a landmark title in the video game industry, to the point that FPS games were all called “Doom clones” for a while. The last alive in your squad of space marines, it’s you versus the legions of Hell as they take over Mars and invade Earth. Try to make it out alive!

Ultimate Doom - GOG / Steam Doom II: Hell on Earth - GOG / Steam Final Doom - GOG / Steam Steam Bundle (includes Master Levels for Doom II)

Doom has a huge number of source ports, but the most notable ones as of right now (in my opinion) are GZDoom (modern features + mod support), prboom+ (vanilla-style with modern features), and Chocolate Doom (vanilla-accurate). There’s many more though, which I’ve written about extensively here. Disregard Doom 3: BFG Edition, it edits the base data files and makes them incompatible with a lot of custom content.

If you play with a gameplay mod before you’ve beaten the games, I’ll slap you.

Eat leaden death, demon.

QUAKE (1996/1997/1999)

Wolf3D and Doom were pioneers for their own reasons, and Quake’s claim to fame was its fast 3D graphics, full use of the mouse to look up, down, and all around, and intense deathmatch multiplayer. Whether you’re battling it out with Lovecraftian monsters in Gothic castles, waging war against the alien Strogg, or simply blasting opponents in the Arena Eternal, there’s intense action to be had.

Quake - GOG / Steam Quake II - GOG / Steam Quake III Arena - GOG / Steam Steam Bundle

Quake 1 has a few notable source ports. For singleplayer, Quakespasm (John Romero approved!) and Darkplaces (not updated anymore but still works great) are the go-to. I don’t really play Q1 multiplayer so I can’t recommend anything on that end. This Steam guide has some good info on Quake source ports regardless.

Another thing of note with Q1 is that the Steam version does not come with the CD audio. Short of putting a Quake disc in your computer to get that CD audio, you can download this ZIP file I put together. This page has more info about the Quake 1 soundtrack. The GOG version comes with the CD audio, but in the format of a disk image, which can be a pain to get working.

Quake II has an unofficial 3.24 patch (third from bottom) as well as source ports like Yamagi and kmquake2 (top one). Q2 also has the same problem Q1 has, in that the Steam version doesn’t have the rockin’ CD soundtrack. I put together a download for the Quake 2 soundtrack here.

Quake III Arena should just work out of install, though on Steam you might need to disable Steam Overlay as it can screw up the visuals. Outside of that though, there’s a 1.32e fanpatch and the ioquake3 source port. Unlike the previous two games, Q3A is primarily a multiplayer game, though it does have a botmatch campaign that’s fairly fun. The music should work in this one.

Shub-Niggurath awaits you...

RAVEN SOFTWARE

For a while, Raven were kind of a sister studio to id. A lot of Raven’s early games are on id Software game engines. Luckily, this means some of these games can work on source ports for the games listed above!

HERETIC & HEXEN (1994/1995/1997)

Heretic and Hexen run on the Doom engine, and actually added features that Doom originally didn’t have, like being able to look up and down, having an inventory system, having a class system, and being able to jump. Hexen itself plays fairly different from Doom, with much more focus on exploration, puzzle solving, and melee combat, with the ability to backtrack between levels.

Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders - Steam HeXen: Beyond Heretic - Steam HeXen II - Steam Steam Bundle

Being Doom engine games, Heretic/Hexen can be played using source ports like GZDoom and Chocolate Doom with little to no extra hassle. Hexen actually has a CD soundtrack much like Quake, but without a CD you get the MIDI versions of the music instead, which is fine by me since the MIDI tracks are great. If you want the CD music, you can run this WAD when you run Hexen. Check my Doom guide for info on how to do that.

The version of Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel on Steam is actually the original buggy version with no music. Download this version of it instead for working music.

Hexen II uses the Quake 1 engine, but has it’s own source port called Hammer of Thyrion. Unfortunately, like Quake 1, the Steam version does not include the CD audio. You can download the soundtrack here. Hexen II on Steam also does not include the Portal of Praevus mission pack; you can download that here.

There is actually a Heretic II but it’s third-person and not sold on digital stores due to licensing issues. It’s okay, and more of an early look at a much bigger game Raven Software would make four years later.

Evil grows darkest in the shadow.

APOGEE SOFTWARE/3D REALMS

Apogee was both a developer and publisher for PC games, popularizing the “shareware” model of distribution where a sizable portion of the game would be put out for free, and people could pay for the rest of the game. Wolf3D was actually published under Apogee, but id went solo when they made Doom. Regardless, they made some very notable FPS games.

RISE OF THE TRIAD (1994)

Made on a heavily modified Wolf3D engine, Rise of the Triad was made after Tom Hall left id since Doom’s development went in a direction he wasn’t interested in. It’s much less technically impressive than Doom, though you can choose one of five characters to play as, as well as look up and down and even bounce off of bounce pads.

Rise of the Triad: Dark War - GOG / Steam

There is one RotT source port called WinRott (and a more modern version called WinRottAPI). However, it has numerous problems and frequently crashes, making the standard DOSBox version you get with GOG and Steam the more appealing option.

Ludicrous gibs!

DUKE NUKEM 3D (1996)

The first of the Big Build Engine Three, Duke Nukem 3D is the third game in the series, the previous two being sidescrolling shooters. Alien bastards have invaded Earth once again, and Duke Nukem takes it upon himself to blast their asses out of the galaxy, cracking one-liners along the way.

Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour - Steam

Atomic Edition is the original “all-in-one” package that includes bonus campaigns which was sold on GOG, and Megaton Edition was a modern rerelease of Atomic Edition on Steam. However, these versions of the game were ripped off of digital storefronts due to Gearbox Software acquiring the Duke IP. The only version of Duke3D to buy right now on digital stores is World Tour. It does not include the original bonus campaigns, but it has an all-new 5th episode where Duke Nukem says “Bazinga”.

Honestly, just have Atomic Edition. This is the version I had before it was taken off GOG. I don’t care. Don’t give Randy Pitchford your money.

The most notable Duke3D source port is eduke32, which adds a lot of modern bells and whistles as well as some fancy new visuals. I’m not sure it’s compatible with World Tour though.

Those alien bastards are gonna pay for shooting up my ride!

SHADOW WARRIOR (1997)

The second big Build Engine game, Shadow Warrior is fairly similar to Duke3D, albeit with a (slightly racially insensitive) Asian theme. You play as Lo Wang, chopping and blasting your way through demons and monsters to stop a corporate overlord from taking over Japan, cracking bad puns along the way.

Shadow Warrior Classic (1997) - GOG / Steam (free!) Shadow Warrior Redux - GOG / Steam

The Classic version of Shadow Warrior is just the original game running in DOSBox. It works pretty well, and for the low price of free it’s worth a play! The Redux version is essentially an official source port, like what Megaton Edition was with Duke3D. It does cost money, but it runs great.

There were a couple of source ports, but the Redux version basically invalidates them.

Who want some Wang??

BLOOD (1997)

The third big Build Engine game. Blood was made by Monolith, more well known these days for F.E.A.R. and Shadow of Mordor. Blood’s a bit of a weird one compared to Duke and Shadow Warrior; its setting is ambiguous and your main melee weapon of choice is a pitchfork. Caleb is an undead gunslinger who’s on a revenge quest, slaughtering cultists and monsters along the way while cracking snide comments.

Blood: One Whole Unit Blood - GOG / Steam

Blood is in a weird situation, where it likely would have had a rerelease similar to Duke3D Megaton or Shadow Warrior Redux, but Atari has a stranglehold on the rights and refuses to do anything with it, even release the source code.

Despite that, Blood does have a couple of source ports of sorts, the standout being BloodGDX. It’s a bizarre reverse-engineered piece of work that runs in Java, but it’s probably the most accurate version of Blood you can play besides the DOSBox version. On the downside, it doesn’t display the pre-rendered cutscenes. The alternative is BloodCM, which is based on eduke32.

There is a Blood II but it’s poopy.

I live... again!

BUNGIE

A lot of people forget Bungie made games before Halo existed. This is because most of the games they made before Halo were for the Macintosh. While Doom dominated the IBM PC market, Bungie decided to carve out a niche on a competing platform, and it worked.

MARATHON (1994/1995/1996)

The guys at Bungie thought Wolf3D and Doom were pretty cool, and they wanted to put their own spin on it. The pace is a bit slower than it’s contemporaries, but Marathon’s focus is instead on exploration and story, which is told through computer terminals. Aliens attack your colony ship, and the onboard AI start to go a little haywire. It’s up to you, a lone security officer, to beat back the Pfhor and prevent Durandal from... oh never mind, there he goes.

Marathon - Free Download Marathon 2: Durandal - Free Download Marathon Infinity - Free Download

The Marathon Trilogy in it’s entirety was put up for free by Bungie, source code and all. The main source port for it is Aleph One. It should just work after install, though you might need to fiddle with the in-game options to get it to how you want it.

All three games come with hi-res texture packs that are based on the Xbox Live Arcade version of Marathon 2, and they kinda don’t look so good sometimes. You can turn them off in the Plugins menu under Environment options to get the authentic aesthetics. The Field of View of the Marathon games is a little low by default, but you can copypaste a script from the PC Gaming Wiki page to remedy that. I played with 100 FOV personally.

Make liberal use of your automap, but conservative use of your ammo. You can only save at designated save stations. Marathon 1 has background music but the other two games don’t. Marathon Infinity’s plot includes timeline hopping. Have fun!

Frog blast the vent core!

EPIC MEGAGAMES & DIGITAL EXTREMES

Before Fortnite, before Warframe, before Gears of War, there was Unreal. Epic Games is most known for the Unreal Engine these days, but there’s a game series behind that name, and it used to be Quake’s biggest competitor.

UNREAL (1998/1999)

Like most games here, Unreal was made to be a technical showcase for the engine it’s running on. This is important because visual fidelity was pretty much the game’s main selling point, and it worked. People were really impressed with how it looked at the time. You play as a escaped convict from a prison ship that crash-landed on a mysterious alien planet, simply trying to find a way to escape.

Unreal Gold - GOG / Steam Unreal Tournament GOTY - GOG / Steam Steam Bundle (includes later Unreal games)

These games should just work out of the box, but you can install the Oldunreal fanpatch to make them more compatible with modern systems and resolutions. Make sure you download the one for Unreal Gold, otherwise it won’t let you play the expansion. Unreal Tournament has a couple of patches that are needed if you want to play it online these days, as well as this fix for sound and some of the graphics.

There is an Unreal II but it wasn’t made by Epic or Digital Extremes, and it’s kind of poopy.

From where many have died, you have escaped.

VALVE SOFTWARE

Before the rise of Steam, Valve used to make games. While they don’t really do that anymore, their back catalog of developed games is impressive and impacted the industry in more ways than one.

HALF-LIFE (1998/1999/2001)

Valve’s aim with Half-Life was to make an immersive world that told a story, while also having Quake-style action as it’s main gameplay. Half-Life got a lot of praise for not only telling a decent little story, but for letting players keep control the entire time and never forcing people to watch a single cutscene. A research facility accidentally opens a portal to a border dimension, from which an alien invasion pours out. It’s up to Dr. Freeman to fight for his survival, as an all-out war commences.

Half-Life - Steam Half-Life: Opposing Force - Steam Half-Life: Blue Shift - Steam Steam Bundle (also includes Team Fortress Classic)

Half-Life is still somewhat regularly updated by Valve to keep it compatible with modern systems, so the game should just work after install. That being said, Xash3D is a reverse engineered version of GoldSrc that aims to remove some limitations and restored cut features from the original engine, though it’s not necessary to play Half-Life or it’s expansions.

There exists Half-Life: Source, which is HL1 straight ported to the HL2 engine, but it sucks. It was so bad, fans created Black Mesa, a full HL1 remaster for the HL2 engine. Black Mesa is great, but don’t play it until you’ve played the original.

They’re waiting for you, Gordon. In the test chamber...

COUNTER-STRIKE & TEAM FORTRESS

While these are strictly multiplayer-only games, I would be remiss to not include them. Counter-Strike and Team Fortress’s impacts on the world of competitive multiplayer gaming is extremely important and is worth checking out at least once.

Counter-Strike - Steam Team Fortress Classic - Steam

The original Counter-Strike should work out of the box and is still actively played by quite a number of people today. Team Fortress Classic still has a playerbase, but not as much as CS. The newest versions of these games, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Team Fortress 2, are still incredibly popular to this day.

Enemy spotted.

LOOKING GLASS STUDIOS

I personally don’t have much experience with Looking Glass and their legacy of games, but it just wouldn’t be right to not mention them considering how important they were to the growth of the first-person genre of games. Not strictly shooters like Doom or Quake, these games pioneered the “immersive sim” subgenre with heavy focus on exploration and story over blast-up-your-ass gunplay. If you prefer a slower pace and some actual story to sink your teeth into, look no further. Though, be prepared to wrestle with some of the controls.

ULTIMA UNDERWORLD (1992/1993)

Ultima was primarily a top-down RPG series, but Underworld takes that formula and puts it in the first-person perspective. The game pioneered many advanced features not seen before in video games, and heavily inspired games like The Elder Scrolls, Bioshock, and even Wolfenstein 3D. You play once again as The Avatar, thrown into the Great Stygian Abyss to look for an ungrateful baron’s kidnapped daughter.

Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss - GOG Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds - GOG

There does not exist any source ports or fan patches for this game, so DOSBox is all you get. It seems that the GOG versions has a few issues, but they have fixes.

You see a rat. You see a rat. You see a rat. You see a rat. You...

SYSTEM SHOCK (1994/1999)

Video game stories about AIs going rouge and wanting to become gods seems to be a common theme in 1994. System Shock 1 and 2 are considered masterpieces by classic PC game enthusiasts. You play a cyber-hacker in the future and some corporate executive guy asks you to hack his space station’s AI to give him full control over it, in exchange for cyber implants. You agree, you do it, and as you wake from the implanting operation, the AI has pretty much killed everyone aboard and is planning on blasting major cities on on Earth with the station’s mining laser.

System Shock: Enhanced Edition - GOG / Steam System Shock 2 - GOG / Steam Steam Bundle

Enhanced Edition, much like some of the rereleases for the Build Engine games, is geared to make the game playable on modern systems, in more ways than one. For instance, in the original game, you cannot use the mouse to look around. Enhanced Edition lets you do so. It also comes with the original version of System Shock running in DOSBox, if you’re so inclined to play it.

System Shock 2 has a whole slew of mods and patches, too many for me to discern and sort through. Maybe I’ll update this once I actually play the game so I can put up only the worthwhile fixes and mods.

Look at you, hacker. A pathetic creature of meat and bone. Panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect immortal machine?

THIEF (1998/2000)

A bit of a departure from most of the games on this list, even other Looking Glass games, Thief is primarily a stealth game, focusing on moving quietly and discreetly while swiping rare artifacts and precious heirlooms. Though Garrett, the player character, often finds himself in much darker conspiracies throughout his adventures.

Thief: Gold - GOG / Steam Thief II: The Metal Age - GOG / Steam Steam Bundle (includes Thief 3 and the crappy Thief reboot)

Thief Gold has a patch called TFix that helps the game run on modern systems. Thief II has a similar patch called Tafferpatcher. Both games use the same engine, which was also used for System Shock 2.

Some people in The City are too rich for their own good. Lucky they have me to give them a hand.

ION STORM

Ion Storm is kind of weird to look back on in hindsight. John Romero was essentially forced out of id Software after Quake came out because he spent too much time goofing around and not actually working, so he got back with his buddy Tom Hall, and they formed Ion Storm. They managed to bring in Warren Spector and some other talent from Looking Glass as well.

DAIKATANA (2000)

Okay, I’ll be honest, this is not that good of a game, but it has historical significance so I’m including it. Mr. Romero was feeling a bit big in his britches and wanted to make the best game ever. This game would be Daikatana, featuring quite possibly the most infamous and aggressive marketing campaign in gaming history. You play as Hiro, and along with your allies Superfly and Mikiko, you must fix the timeline and prevent the evil Mishima from rewriting history and becoming ruler of the world.

Daikatana - GOG / Steam

Daikatana runs on the Quake 2 engine, which is fairly flexible and should run out of the box. Romero put out the source code for the game a year after release, and from that we got the 1.3 patch, which is still being maintained by the few fans this game has.

John Romero’s about to make you his bitch.

DEUS EX (2000)

While the Dallas studio was plagued with problems of ego, Ion Storm Austin diligently worked with Warren Spector to create the cyberpunk Deus Ex. The themes and topics in this game are honestly more relevant today than they were when the game released. You play as JC Denton, a cybernetically enhanced anti-terrorist agent who gets caught up in a web of conspiracies involving organizations like the Illuminati.

Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition - GOG / Steam

Deus Ex runs on the Unreal engine, so it should just work. The Steam version has a bug where music is accidentally omitted from a level, but this is fixed in the GOG version. There are some fanpatches as well, though I dunno which ones are good or necessary.

There’s a Deus Ex 2 but it’s poopy.

My vision is augmented.

OTHER NOTABLE GAMES

There’s still a lot more old-school goodness to play, even though they may not be as big as the ones listed above. They may also deviate a little from definition of “old-school FPS”.

STRIFE (1996)

Even the Doom engine got an immersive sim game. Strife is a fantasy-based adventure FPS where you work with rebels to overthrow The Order. Not to be confused with Strife, the MOBA.

The Original Strife: Veteran Edition - GOG / Steam

This game was in abandonware status for the longest time before Night Dive Studios managed to find the licenses and release this modern version. It uses a fork of GZDoom and comes with a whole host of snazzy features like bloom and anti-aliasing. It even comes with the original files if you just want to play using Chocolate Doom or whatever.

DARK FORCES (1995/1997/1998)

LucasArts were famous for their adventure games, but they wanted a piece of that FPS pie too. Star Wars was and still is the hottest series in sci-fi, so it’s no surprise it had its share of games. The Dark Forces games haven’t aged quite as well as most other games on the list, but if you’re looking for that Star Wars flavor, this is it. You play as Kyle Katarn, an Imperial-turned-mercenary working for whoever forks over the most cash. The cowards at Disney retconned these games with Rogue One.

STAR WARS Dark Forces - GOG / Steam STAR WARS Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II - GOG / Steam Steam Bundle (includes the Jedi Knight games below)

The Steam versions of these games are outdated and many aspects of them just don’t work, like the music. The GOG versions are leagues more functional. Jedi Knight comes with Mysteries of the Sith, which runs on the same engine.

There are no fixes or patches for Dark Forces. XL Engine is the only source port that exists but development on it has been seemingly abandoned, and it remains buggy and unfinished. I can’t even find a proper link to a download, everything keeps 404ing.

Dark Forces II has an unofficial patch and a laundry list of various fixes on its PC Gaming Wiki page. Mysteries of the Sith is much of the same.

JEDI KNIGHT (2002/2003)

Made by Raven Software, who previously made Heretic/Hexen, Jedi Knight continues the adventures of Kyle Katarn, as he obtains the powers of the Force and wields a lightsaber. Shooting sections are in first person, but lightsaber combat is in third person.

STAR WARS Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast - GOG / Steam STAR WARS Jedi Knight III: Jedi Academy - GOG / Steam Steam Bundle (includes the Dark Forces games above)

Both games run on the Quake 3 engine, so they should just work fresh from install, though you might need to mess with config files to get proper widescreen resolutions. Jedi Academy still has an active playerbase for its multiplayer!

DESCENT (1995/1996/1999)

Are you sick of being limited to running around on the ground? Then Descent might be for you! Piloting a space ship, you’re given “six degrees of freedom” to bob and weave your way around enemies! You play as a merc hired by a mining corporation to investigate and destroy a computer virus that’s hijacking their mining robots.

Descent - GOG / Steam Descent II - GOG / Steam Descent 3 - GOG / Steam

There are a couple of source ports for Descent. DXX-Rebirth seems focused on maintaining the vanilla feel of the original, and D2X-XL is more focused on adding modern features, like OpenGL rendering. Both of these should work for Descent and Descent II.

Descent 3 does not have any source ports and might require some work to get running.

REDNECK RAMPAGE (1997/1998)

While Duke, Wang, and Caleb stole the show with the Build Engine, Redneck Rampage is still a favorite among some fans. Includes a booze-o-meter!

Redneck Rampage Collection - GOG / Steam

The collection includes all three games in one package. Redneck Rampage is also on Steam but the quality of that version is so poor that you’d be better off just buying the GOG version. One source port exists but is extremely buggy, so you’re better off just playing it with DOSBox.

TUROK (1997/1999)

Most commonly thought of as Nintendo 64 games, Turok did make its way to PC. Turok is a little more arcade-y than most other games of its time, using a checkpoint save system and lives instead of just restarting the level over again like other games. Commit dinozoid genocide as Turok, Son of Stone!

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter - GOG / Steam Turok 2: Seeds of Evil - GOG / Steam

These versions of Turok are remasters done by Night Dive Studios, so they should just work with no issues. N64 soundtrack best soundtrack. They’re drum-tastic!

SERIOUS SAM (2001/2002)

Out of Croatia comes Serious Sam. Including Serious Sam as an “old-school” FPS is pushing it, considering the series was actually made as a throwback to old-school FPS. At this point, it’s done its best to keep old-school traditions alive, so it deserves inclusion. You play as “Serious” Sam Stone, traveling through time to thwart the evil alien Mental.

Serious Sam: The First Encounter - GOG / Steam Serious Sam: The Second Encounter - GOG / Steam

Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter - Steam Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter - Steam

Croteam remade TFE and TSE in a newer version of their Serious Engine, and while the HD versions are the ones I’d personally recommend, the original versions still work great and some people still swear by them over the HD versions. It’s up to you and your preferences.

LET’S WRAP THIS UP

Obviously this list is not the end-all-be-all of EVERY first-person shooter that’s considered “old-school”. There’s pre-Wolf3D stuff like Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3D. There’s stuff during the mid-late 90s like Blake Stone, Soldier of Fortune, SiN, and Tribes. Hell, there’s even stuff like Rainbow Six and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, which paved the way for Call of Duty and the rise of modern military FPS. I never promised a full comprehensive list, just stuff I think is notable and fun. Though if you think there’s something vital that’s missing, let me know and I might add it!

If you need help getting some of this stuff to run, I will help if you shoot me a message, but please actually Google your problems before coming to me. Other people have this stuff figured out pretty well, and I will pretty much Google your problem if it’s something I don’t know.

Regardless, please check out these games and have fun! Each one has its own quirks. And remember:

#doom #quake #wolfenstein #unreal #fps #ths writeups #long post

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nyalisa-landale · 6 years ago

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in which i accidentally 2000 words about goddamn phantasy star

i ended up pulling up the phantasy star page on wikipedia to win a discussion with my brother wrt video game prices, and ended up finding out that

1) you can unlock it on the ps3 sega’s ultimate genesis collection (super easily, too) and

2) apparently it’s actually considered an Important Game and shit, ranking at 26 on a “top 200 videogames of all time” list as recently as 2006 - and i’m talking specifically phantasy star 1 the master system game, not the series as a whole. like, being one of the first, if not the first, rpgs to not be a dungeons and dragons clone and/or take place in a generic fantasy setting; “event scenes” which are basically the precursor to cutscenes; actual characters with, like, names and backstories and motivation and shit; and, also, one of the first games with a female protagonist. metroid did it first, technically, having come out two years earlier, but while everyone knows samus is a girl now, back in 1986 you only found out if you beat the game fast enough and got to see her out of her suit (in a bikini, because 8-bit graphics); in phantasy star you knew right up front and center that you were playing as alis, younger sister of nero, whose tragic death the game literally opens with. also pseudo-3d dungeons, animated monster battles, and three fucking planets you could travel between.

(there’s a read-more after this; apparently i have a lot of feelings about phantasy star. rip anyone on mobile... including myself.)

don’t even get me started on phantasy star 2. you know what came out (in america) two months before final fantasy? this fucking shit. you know what pulled an aeris nine years before final fantasy 7 ever existed? this fucking shit. final fantasy was busy pulling a fifty shades on dungeons and dragons while phantasy star 2 was throwing characterisation and introspection and self-discovery and fantastic fucking worldbuilding and reversing the usual “humans vs aliens” plot (spoiler: we’re the invaders here) and just generally being amazing, well before final fantasy would start even thinking about it. did the sega genesis have a killer app? yes, and it wasn’t fucking sonic the hedgehog.

it’s not even fair to compare phantasy star 2 to final fantasy, what with them being from two different console generations and phantasy star 2 also being the largest game ever released at the time on any console (six megabits!), although for american audiences that’s the comparison they’d be making, since final fantasy came out so goddamn late here. ps1 vs ff1 is a fairer comparison, except that it isn’t, because everything i just said about ps2 vs ff1 still applies. (also - in japan, at least - ps1 came out literally two days after ff1.)

the worst goddamn thing i can say about this series is that it is, afaik, super obscure now. if you look up phantasy star stuff now, most of what you’ll find is probably going to be phantasy star online-related (let me get to that in a bit). much like everything else about sega, phantasy star was too goddamn ahead of its time and ambitious. EXAMPLE: fucking phantasy star 3, widely regarded as the worst game in the series - so much so that when sega was attempting an updated ps2 rerelease it was a phantasy star trilogy consisting of 1, 2, and 4 - had multiple generations, branching storylines, and four different endings. IN 1990. it was a gaiden (side story) game before the actual phantasy star: gaiden came out, let alone fire emblem: gaiden (although not, i don’t think, before the phantasy star 2 gaiden games, of which there were several; i could be wrong on that but it’s within the same series so it doesn’t really matter). i was going to call zelda 2 a gaiden game as well - fe2 apparently got compared to it a lot, both of them being the second game in a series and both of them taking a decidedly different approach to gameplay than the first had - but zelda 2 is actually literally a direct sequel, so it’s not gaiden in the slightest.

ANYWAY, ps3 appears at first entirely unrelated to anything in the previous two phantasy stars - dark force, the series Big Bad, gets referenced near the beginning but i don’t know if they actually call him by name until much later - and appears to be a fairly basic fantasy romp, except then you get a fucking robot party member (followed shortly thereafter by a second) and the “passages” to different “worlds” are inexplicably mechanical-looking, and then in the second generation you GO TO THE FUCKING MOON (which moon depends on which 2nd gen character you’re playing) and find out that actually, your home with its tiny “worlds” and weird fucking “passages”? IS A GODDAMN SPACESHIP.

you know what other game starts out super fantasy but, in the end, you go to the goddamn moon? final fantasy 4. a year later. my knowledge of super famicom games doesn’t extend that much farther than final fantasy and fire emblem with a side order of zelda, so i might be entirely off the mark on this one, but as far as i know the next game of that era to do a multiple generation thing was fe4, genealogy of the holy war, in 1996. six fucking years later.

unfortunately phantasy star 3 spent a bit too much effort being super innovative, because it literally is objectively the worst of the quadrilogy, but it is by no means a bad game? phantasy star 2 set a high fucking bar and phantasy star 4 picked up where ps2 left off (only not really, because it’s 1000 years later); 3, with its barely-there tie to phantasy star 2 (in an entirely optional town, at that) and weird-ass mechanics that only it has, gets forgotten pretty easily in the middle of that. you know. like a fucking gaiden game.

and speaking of phantasy star 4, it expands even more on the “event scenes” of previous games, as well as the script, and guess what? it did combination attacks two years before chrono trigger did. (or a few months, for us americans. still.) this is the phantasy star i have the least experience with, so i can’t comment as much on it, but i do know that it is a long fucking game, and not because it’s grindy as hell. because plot. STORY! (also apparently, in the us at least, it retailed for ~$100. yikes.)

also, i lied, because ps4 is not the phantasy star i have the least experience with; that would be everything that came after.* i, personally, love the quadrilogy to pieces and pretend that nothing else came after it, ever (which is really easy to do, because none of it is fucking related to the quadrilogy except for set dressing), but I CAN’T NOT MENTION PHANTASY STAR ONLINE, not if i’m talking about sega being tragically too ahead of its fucking time. it was literally the second online console game - i think the first mmo - and the first online console game - chu-chu rocket! - was made literally so that sega could figure out how the fuck to make pso work. chu-chu rocket! came out for the dreamcast in 1999; phantasy star online followed in 2000. ps2 online multiplayer wasn’t a thing until the year after that; followed another year later by the xbox. (final fantasy xi also came out in 2002.) attempts at online console capabilities were made as early as - i want to say as early as the snes and the genesis, with stuff like downloadable games, and a whole host of companies attempted to produce consoles with online capabilities, to compete with the pc market, but nothing actually took off until the dreamcast.

( * actually it’s gaiden and adventure, the two game gear titles. i have literally never touched anything related to them at all, ever, and i actually forgot they existed until i started looking shit up for this post. i do at least own a copy of phantasy star universe; i missed the bandwagon on pso, though as i understand it, if i were to emulate it, i could still play online with other people.)

hey, guess what phantasy star online was a direct inspiration for? the .hack series. SURPRISE, MOTHERFUCKERS.

unfortunately sega seems pretty content to forget that this franchise even exists; the most recent release was the japan-only phantasy star portable 2 infinity in 2011 (phantasy star portable 2, regular version, hit english-speaking audiences in 2010), but is part of the phantasy star universe line, a... spin-off, i guess? of phantasy star online, but for ps2 and 360, well after sega dropped out of the console race for good. the original quadrilogy? well, 2-4 get included on basically every genesis collection sega shits out for any console whatsoever, but ps1, having been for master system, usually gets left out - sonic’s ultimate genesis collection, mentioned way back at the top, is the outlier here, but even then you have to unlock it. (by... beating the first boss of sonic 2 with two active controllers - that is, with a second player joined but not actually in two-player mode. so two controllers. it’s not hard to unlock; you can do it in like five minutes. you still have to do it, though.) there were attempts to remaster them - i mentioned the updated ps2 rereleases, and ps1 and ps2 were actually released in japan; ps4′s never happened, though¸ and so neither of the first two were ever localised, though there are translation patches. (as i understand it, ps2′s is still kind of a work in progress.) apparently these new versions ended up scrapped in favor of a ps2 port of phantasy star collection for the saturn, both of which were released in japan only. the saturn version (1998) had all four games (and a few unrelated ones); the ps2 version (2008), phantasy star complete collection was... uh, exactly what the name implies: all four main games, all of the ps2 gaiden games (text adventures, apparently, previously exclusive to the sega meganet network service and also japan-only), and both game gear entries (gaiden and adventure); it also added the ability to make the games even harder, if you wanted to, as well as several different graphical filters you could use or not use as you preferred. this compilation was apparently also released over psn for ps3 in 2012. have i said “japan-only” enough times yet? it was japan-only.

there was also a phantasy star collection for the gba, in 2001/2; this consisted of the first three games - but not the fourth, as it wouldn’t fit on the cartridge - and no extras or improvements other than what was required to make them run on the gba. this version is notable for being the only goddamn one released outside japan. i have two cartridge copies and it is consistently the first game i play on any given gba emulator.

...and that’s how i ended up spending two goddamn hours writing way the fuck more about the phantasy star series, and specifically the original quadrilogy that is older the fuck than i am, than i ever actually intended to. idk, maybe there’s a huge active cult following for these somewhere on the internet that i haven’t found yet - yes, i’m aware of most of the fansites, they’re old as fuck and afaik mostly inactive, so they don’t count - but it sure as hell feels to me like everybody’s sleeping on these. what do people remember from the genesis? sonic and fucking ecco the dolphin. sega could totally pull a square enix and ff7-remake the shit out of these (except for real), but they could barely do it for the playstation 2; they’re sure as hell not going to do it for the playstation 4. so instead, all i can do is dream of what we could have had. (and, uh. play phantasy star generations 1 with the translation patch, the closest there is to “what we could have had”.)

i guess when sega saddled ps4 with the subtitle “the end of the millennium” they fucking meant it.

#azu plays phantasy star #or at the very least TALKS A GODDAMN LOT about phantasy star #look i grew up on this shit okay #ps2 was literally my first video game #...assuming art alive doesn't count which it doesn't

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Review

https://ift.tt/3plyw92

Despite releasing 12 Assassin’s Creed installments since 2007, Ubisoft is still finding ways to keep the series fresh, and the latest sequel, Valhalla is one of the best titles yet. Is it a revelation for the series? No—there are very few new ideas presented here. But it’s a polished title with solid gameplay and a story that is exceedingly coherent for an open-world AAA title.

In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, you play as Eivor, a fearsome Viking in 873 AD who lost her parents in battle, a moment that left her literally scarred and hellbent on getting revenge against the warlord who slaughtered them. It’s important to note that the game gives you the choice to play as a male or female version of Eivor at the start of the game, but you’re also given a third option that allows the Animus to “choose” the gender for you based on the memory being recollected. Theoretically, the game is then supposed to switch between male and female throughout the adventure, but despite letting the Animus choose, I remained female for most of my play time.

After an hours-long intro that sees you exploring and kicking ass across the mountainous terrain of Norway, Eivor and her brother Sigurd set out on a longship to start a new settlement of their own in England, where a majority of the game takes place. The game’s story is as violent and unflinching as you’d expect considering the milieu. Eivor and her crew of Vikings go to war with other clans, and she of course carries out missions on her own in traditional Assassin’s Creed fashion. The game centers on you expanding your clan’s influence across England’s four kingdoms, forging alliances and collecting resources to build up your riverside settlement.

“Collecting” is a kind word for what you’re actually doing—Eivor and her clan are brutal warriors who raid any settlement they come across, pillaging and annihilating their way to land dominance. As you travel the English channels in your longship, with a simple button press you can initiate a raid on any settlement you see, which is great fun. As you invade, you work with your crew to find treasures and resources to send home, and the game does a good job of highlighting the camaraderie aspect of the raids via a fluid stream of dialogue between Eivor and her fellow warriors. Conquest Battles return from Odyssey in the form of Assaults and are larger scale raids on gigantic fortresses that feel pretty epic and are tied to the main narrative.

Raids and Assaults are naturally where you’ll engage in the most combat, which is the backbone of this title more than any other in the series. Eivor can wield any combination of swords, shields, flails, maces, axes, and more in her two hands, and you can unlock a host of abilities to unleash hell upon your foes. There are melee abilities, which allow you to rush enemies and slam them into walls or throw them off cliffs, throw a barrage of axes at their skulls, grapple and fling them into other enemies, and much more. And then there are ranged abilities, like one that lets you slow down time to land perfect shots, take direct control of a fired arrow’s trajectory, mark multiple targets for a quick projectile assault, etc. Abilities are unlocked by finding hidden scrolls across the game world or via the game’s sprawling skill tree, whose myriad nodes afford you stat increases and various buffs as well.

Release Date: Nov. 10, 2020 Platforms: PC (reviewed), XSX, PS5, XBO, PS4, Stadia Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Publisher: Ubisoft Genre: Action-adventure

There are a ton of different ways to enact violence in the game, with each weapon and ability bolstered by sweet-looking character animations. The combat is fun and fluid, but it also lacks a sense of tactility, that crunchy, disgusting feeling of impact you get in games like God of War or even Doom Eternal. There’s floatiness to the melee combat that is hard to pinpoint but definitely made combat a little less satisfying than I would have liked.

There’s also stealth gameplay, of course, which is typical Assassin’s Creed fare. I still enjoy sneaking up behind enemies in the tall grass and offing them quickly before their buddies can glimpse me, but the melee and ranged combat in this game is so effective and paramount to the experience that I found myself using stealth far less often than in other games in the series, which I suppose is appropriate since, well, Eivor is a fearless Viking who smashes skulls for a living.

Exploration is a crucial component of any open world game and in this regard Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is fantastic. I loved galloping across the countryside on horseback and drinking in the painterly locales and then splattering the blood of my enemies all over them like a mass-murdering Jackson Pollock. A sign of a great open-world game for me is how much I find myself just wandering around and engaging in whatever quest or activity happens to come my way as opposed to fast-traveling around like crazy just to plow through the main story and get it over with. In Valhalla, I was an avid wanderer, which is a testament to just how compelling a game world Ubisoft has created.

Maybe the best thing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has going for it is the game world’s sense of continuity. Because you’re constantly analyzing England’s territories on so many levels, it starts to feel like a place that’s not just enormous, but full of people, events, kingdoms, and machinations that all affect and push and pull each other. On an intimate level, you’re exploring the English countryside and its rivers and tributaries on foot. On a more macro level, you’re examining the kingdoms on the alliance map, slowly expanding your influence. And then there’s your hunt for different members of the Order and the many artifacts scattered around the world. Each of these activities connects you to the game world in a different way and deepens your understanding of it, and it can become deeply immersive.

My favorite activities in the game are the various “mysteries” you encounter, little self-contained stories featuring bizarre characters and situations. I loved searching these out because they are so weird and funny and entertaining that they almost overshadow the main story. One involves a confused warrior who has no idea that he’s got an axe buried in his skull (his name is Axehead, adorably); another sees you aiding a ship captain who thinks he’s raiding villages with his crew when, in reality, he’s delusional and alone in a field with an empty longboat, wolves circling him, threatening to eat him alive.

But as for the main narrative, it’s well executed on several levels. It’s a tale of fate, loyalty, glory, and murky morality, with Eivor having to make tough decisions as to how she grows her settlement and how she navigates her relationship with Sigurd and his followers. The characters are really well written and each have a distinctive personality, like the psychopathic but oddly relatable Ivarr and the desperately loyal Dag, Sigurd’s oafish right hand. The joint performances by the voice actors and animators are terrific as well, and the dialogue sounds natural.

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The story takes a strange turn at one point, with Eivor and Sigurd encountering some truly trippy shit involving their Norse mythological roots. It’s really wild stuff that may come off as corny to some, but I dug the hell out of it. The obligatory Assassin’s Creed present-day interludes tie into Eivor’s story in an interesting way as well, with Layla Hassan, Rebecca Crane, and Shaun Hastings unearthing Eivor’s remains and making a real connection with the past in a surprising way independent of the Animus.

Presentation-wise, the game is a AAA title through and through. From the animations, to the assets, to the character, environment, and sound design, the game is a pristine package, which is even more impressive considering its size. I really dig the game’s autumnal/wintery aesthetic, and the character models are absurdly detailed and expressive for an open-world title. Ubisoft is a huge studio with deep resources, and it’s nice to see that Valhalla’s high-quality production value reflects that.

The settlement-building system, which has been absent from the series since Black Flag, is engaging enough, though I didn’t find myself very motivated to focus on it. Adding different buildings opens up new ways to play, like the Assassin Bureau, which tasks you with hunting down members of the Order by collecting clues, and the Valka Hut, which allows you to travel to Asgard and fight alongside the mighty Thor, Freyja, and Tyr. All of these quests are great, but the actual building of the settlement wasn’t fun for me at all and felt more like a chore. The layout of the settlement feels too spread-out and looks a bit ugly.

But expanding the influence of the settlement is awesome—“pledging” to different territories and fulfilling quests for their leaders to gain their loyalty is a fun, immersive experience, and I like how this idea of large-scale conquest ties the narrative together. This game is a cohesive package, and I think this is due to the excellent alliance system.

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Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is an enormous game with a lengthy campaign and tons of things to do. It’s not going to blow anyone away who’s familiar with the series, but amongst its peers, I think Valhalla is in the upper tier of the Assassin’s Creed hierarchy.

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