Tired of watching movies? Sick of binging series? Want to do something a little more active?

Try some old gold games, games that may be oldies but are still goodies to pas the time waiting for science to defeat the corona virus, or at least give you some armor against it.

All these are PC versions as that's all I ever play and should run on damn near any modern recent desktop now.

1. Hostile waters, Antaeus rising: An interesting game that blends 3rd person perspective shooters and RTS action, this features the voices of Tom Baker and the late Paul Darrow (RIP Avon). It's an odd game with some interesting twists. First off it's not a post apocalypse game, the setting is one where the human race finally achieved a virtual paradise on earth, now they have to fight from the people who want to ruin it.

The plot and story are good, great voice acting, interesting mix of commanding units thru an easy to use system and either fighting or working yourself. The graphics are heavily dated but well designed and very colorful, with day and night cycles. This game was the first one I ever heard the F word in and it surprised me. Cheap and available on steam.

2. Battlezone PC. Another in the limited genre blending FPS and RTS games, Battlezone features an interesting alternate history that sees a secret cold war waged thru the solar system between american and russian forces in the 70's. The plot alone is fun, the graphics are an interesting mic of old bu colorful ones and NASA images used for the moon and mars terrain maps. Got a joystick with a hat? Even better.


3. Return to castle wolfenstein. Forget the recent wolfenstein entries with all the doom and gloom nazis won ww2 alternate history, (And probably forget the last one period) let's go back to the secret battles of WW2 where all american boy B.J. Blazkowitz is killing evil nazis and stopping them from winning the way thru using paranormal forces of ancient history. A great FPS with some very well done puzzles (Look over doors leading into rooms to see if there are symbols above them) and kill nazis. Loads of nazis. With flamethrowers in some cases. Absolutely awesome graphics in it's day that have aged fairly well. Hitler doesn't show up in this one but his number one boy Himmler makes a cameo and the graphics are good enough to recognize him if you know your history.

4. Tron 2.0. A better story overall that the movie sequel, with much more of the original movie in it and less daft punk music video. Tron 2.0 breaks the mold by not trying to simulate reality and creating an environment that could only exist in a computer game. Mush like the original tron movie but brighter and more colorful. It's a change of pace from most real environment games and I kinda liked it. The colors, the colors....

Forget covid, don't worry if your pc needs an upgrade to handle them just download some great old games and go dakka dakka your way down memory lane for a while with these or other great old ones games.

I'll second Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising - and it's worth mentioning that the story-line was written by Warren Ellis.

I really like Masters of Orion and Masters of Magic. The very old ones.....

I still play on an emulator from time to time.

Moved to the proper forum.

War Inc. A little known DOS-era game about running a private military corporation, which was more complex than most RTS games today, including designing your own units, a stock market, a strategic map, and so on.

My old go to’s are:

7 Kingdoms: Ancient Adversaries - a late 90’s RTS with small elements of population morale, taxation and food management.

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms - another late 90’s RTS

Rollercoaster Tycoon - needs no introduction

Theme Hospital - needs no intro either

Z - another RTS set on a small map where rushing your troops to capture the factories is key.

 Easy E wrote:
I really like Masters of Orion and Masters of Magic. The very old ones.....

I still play on an emulator from time to time.

Slytherine released a DLC for Masters of Magic on their store. It's basically some mods and community patch which was worked on by someone and they've polished it up and brought them in so that it can be released as official dlc. for the game.

https://www.slitherine.com/game/master-of-magic-caster-of-magic
Of course far as I know you need to buy their version of the core game to use the expansion with.

Games that come to mind in this category to me are:

Descent (1994): This one's an oldie but a goodie for sure. To me, it's a FPS with a twist, in that it's 6 degrees of freedom instead of 3 since you're in a spaceship instead of on the ground. The graphics are seriously dated these days, but the game is cheap on Steam and runs from DOSbox pretty well.

Total Annihilation (1997): A contemporary RTS to the original StarCraft. Much greater variety of units, but the story is nowhere near as good and the units are not as balanced. Still worth playing IMO.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999): Civilization, but in SPACE! Probably my favorite of all the Civ games, although I'm not sure where to obtain a copy these days (maybe GoG has it?).

Another series of old games I wish I could find and play would be Marathon. The predecessors of the Halo games. I remember playing a couple of free demos of them back when I was really too young to know what I was doing.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Games that come to mind in this category to me are:

Descent (1994): This one's an oldie but a goodie for sure. To me, it's a FPS with a twist, in that it's 6 degrees of freedom instead of 3 since you're in a spaceship instead of on the ground. The graphics are seriously dated these days, but the game is cheap on Steam and runs from DOSbox pretty well.

Total Annihilation (1997): A contemporary RTS to the original StarCraft. Much greater variety of units, but the story is nowhere near as good and the units are not as balanced. Still worth playing IMO.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999): Civilization, but in SPACE! Probably my favorite of all the Civ games, although I'm not sure where to obtain a copy these days (maybe GoG has it?).

Another series of old games I wish I could find and play would be Marathon. The predecessors of the Halo games. I remember playing a couple of free demos of them back when I was really too young to know what I was doing.

If you like original starcraft I honestly can't see you not liking original "Dark Reign", a game an awful lot like starcraft, not as much unit personality and story but some great options like setting unit behavior and damage tolerance for each unit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Games that come to mind in this category to me are:

Descent (1994): This one's an oldie but a goodie for sure. To me, it's a FPS with a twist, in that it's 6 degrees of freedom instead of 3 since you're in a spaceship instead of on the ground. The graphics are seriously dated these days, but the game is cheap on Steam and runs from DOSbox pretty well.

Total Annihilation (1997): A contemporary RTS to the original StarCraft. Much greater variety of units, but the story is nowhere near as good and the units are not as balanced. Still worth playing IMO.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999): Civilization, but in SPACE! Probably my favorite of all the Civ games, although I'm not sure where to obtain a copy these days (maybe GoG has it?).



Another series of old games I wish I could find and play would be Marathon. The predecessors of the Halo games. I remember playing a couple of free demos of them back when I was really too young to know what I was doing.

I got descent 2 from steam, a great game even today.

SOOO many good old games!

1) Dark Reign 1 and 2 - though 2 is more modern in style. I recall when DR2 was a top release with phenomenal graphics in its day for an RTS game. Being able to zoom in and see tattoos on character faces; using the game engine for in-game cinematic events.
However where both games really shine is the user interface for unit control. In almost all other RTS games you have your standard stop, hold ground, attack move, move. Some also add "auto scout". And that's about it.
In Dark Reign games you could do whatever you wanted. With a really easy to use small behaviour menu you could make units that auto explored and ran away from combat (scouts); auto explore and hunt enemies; defend areas; attack areas etc... It was a very smooth and simple system to use that gave you total freedom. Plus it was universal so even your top level tank could act like a scout - whereas in many other RTS games "scout commands" are often restricted just to the scout unit.

2) Homeworld. Whilst its aged (the remaster does a decent job though of updating visuals even if it has some issues with formations because it was built on the 2nd game engine rather than the 1st game engine); it remains one of the best story telling experiences within a game. The cinematics and musical score reinforce it. It's a powerful story and it holds no punches. In its day it was also one of the first big 3D games so back in the day the intro was really amazing to see for the first time. Gameplay is also very solid, though I'd wager more modern gamers would prefer the sequel Homeworld 2 which is a little bit easier and smoother - though the sequel sadly sort of mucked up the story a bit.

3) Sacrifice. This is a quirky game that's vanished into obscurity (still up on GOG though). It's a really fancy game with a quirky take on fantasy settings. You play as a mage in 3rd person and you have a small army that you command near you. You basically have to fight across maps to secure souls and mana which you use to summon monsters and spells in a quest to destroy the enemy alter and banish their mage from the land. Modern gamers might even think its a bit like a single player moba in structure - though instead of mindless mobs, they follow your commands. You can keep your army with you or even send portions off to fight over the map (trickier with the controls, but very doable). You can also leave them bound to mana fountains to defend them.

Terrain was also modifiable in game. A volcano spell would rise up a huge portion before erupting; a boring spell would eat the terrain out from under you. Meanwhile get caught in a tornado and you get flung around in the air.


4) Total Annihilation. A really great musical score backs up a game of robot destruction. What I really love in this game is that when units died they don't vanish. Instead they either blow up entirely or they become wreckage. This creates some interesting tactical elements because now instead of using loads of weak units to push through defences en-mass; you have to be cautious. You can plug the enemy gaps in their defences with your own dead units if you're not careful. It adds a new layer to things and whilst some of the Supreme commander games have included corpses to harvest; TA is still the only one that really blocked your progression with your own dead.

TA Kingdoms got a mention up above which is a darker gothic style fantasy game and the only one where you can fill the whole screen with flying firebreathing dragons! AI could be a bit of a total derp (it mostly just builds stuff without any real tactics); but its a really fun game. The campaign was also very unique in that instead of playing one faction per campaign; you instead have a single campaign that shifts control faction to faction as you play out the story. There's even some missions where you'll build a base in one mission then in the next there's a short time jump and you're attacking it (pre-made bases though so you can't game the game by building bad to start with).

5) Stronghold and Stronghold Crusaders - the first two games which remain the best they've ever made. Crusaders lost some of the green setting of the English Countryside; but it added in skirmishing modes which were missing from the first game which is pure campaign. Build a castle, harvest resources, build an army - fight!
It's a huge shame that the parent company, whilst continuing to release games, has never matched these two games since. Heck Stronghold 2 had some really daft ideas as they expanded the building roster by nearly double; but at the same time made the buildable area for your castle in most skirmish maps TINY. You honestly can't actually build a castle on most of the maps and even where you can its often very cramped with little space to vary your build. The insane building roster also makes it very hard in terms of appeasing the people because its trying to be too much a castle building sim whilst also an RTS game. I still hold out hope that they might recover, but I just the feeling that whatever made their first two games so fantastic is just missing from their company now.

6) Starcraft and Diablo 2 - do I have to mention details on why these two games are genre defining titles that even to this day remain really fantastically fun and top choices. Whilst Diablo 2 has aged a bit worse and hasn't had an HD remaster (as yet); both games are still fantastic fun. Starcraft with its solid RTS formula; Diablo 2 with its random maps and dungeons and loads of great loot and fun characters to play. Be a Druid who transforms into a werebear and summons wolves to his side; be an assassin who cobra-strikes to victory (well at least till they finally nerfed it a bit ); a necromacer who calls the dead; a barbarian. A neat thing is that back then with D2 the characters were set designs and genders. This means that they each look totally unique and their equipment is totally unique as well. Whilst more modern games like Titan Quest and Grim Dawn (fantastic game) have opened up with more free form character building and choices; the gear and character style all tend to be rather samey in a sense. Because its all fitting on the same core design - your barbarian isn't twice the size of the others; your necromancer isn't pasty skinned etc... It's something I do miss even if more modern games in theory give you more character creation "choice" I find the visual side actually results in less visual diversity.

7)

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999): Civilization, but in SPACE! Probably my favorite of all the Civ games, although I'm not sure where to obtain a copy these days (maybe GoG has it?).

Thanks for reminding about this! It is on GoG, and there goes my weekend...

1) Has... has nobody mentioned Doom 2 yet? The base game itself is only scratching the surface. The real meat and potatoes comes from the fethton of WADs available online. I’ve already got a few hundred map packs installed on a flash drive. File size (for the base game and WADs) is often a few MBs tops, and you can practically run this thing on a calculator.

2) Eador Genesis - It’s 2009, but that is kind of 11 years ago. It’s like a mix of Civilization and Might and Magic, with a lot of things to do. Surprisingly quite difficult as well.

3) Unreal Tournament - I’d recommend 2004 personally, but I hear some people prefer the older UT. Arena shooter with a lot of control over your character and a sizeable modding community. Try looking for UT Chaos if you get bored of the base game.

beast_gts wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999): Civilization, but in SPACE! Probably my favorite of all the Civ games, although I'm not sure where to obtain a copy these days (maybe GoG has it?).

Thanks for reminding about this! It is on GoG, and there goes my weekend...

Yep! Comes with the expansion too (though I’ve heard it’s a bit unbalanced). I don’t think I’ve ever had such a passive-aggressive relationship with the AI quite like this before.

I'm going to put in a good word for Ultima 4,5 and 6. They were open world rpgs a decade or more before the term became a thing, and to me they're all still a lot of fun to play. The commands take a bit of getting used to, and they're the sort of game where it helps to have something on hand to take notes with, but I love them.

 SkavenLord wrote:
1) Has... has nobody mentioned Doom 2 yet? The base game itself is only scratching the surface. The real meat and potatoes comes from the fethton of WADs available online. I’ve already got a few hundred map packs installed on a flash drive. File size (for the base game and WADs) is often a few MBs tops, and you can practically run this thing on a calculator.

You can run Doom on a *printer*

https://www.gamesradar.com/uk/12-things-that-prove-that-doom-will-run-on-literally-anything/

If you want to laugh, try an old game called "Armed and dangerous" which is a british comedy themed game that is very suggestive of "monty python".

It's a full blooded shooter game, but has lots of comedy elements in it. You have a lot of missions and objectives to do to keep it from getting boring and all in all it's a pretty good game that will keep you laughing.

Armed and Dangerous was by the same team who made Giants Citizen Kabuto - which is another very british humour very funny and entertaining game well worth a look

Still own a N64, some titles still hold up decently okay.
Super mario for exemple.

Cryo Interactive made some games that were triumphs of their time and they still hold up today. Captain Blood, DUNE and Lost Eden feel very natural, although Captain Blood was a bit too cryptic if you didn't read the instruction booklet.

Back in the mid 90s I spent the summer playing DUNE and made that game very real. The bit where you get off with Chani is damn hilarious though as you've literally just met and Stilgar just jumps in there with "nowyou've met Chani we can do other amazing stuff in this game!".

Another great oldie was Cyberstorm 2: Corporate Wars, which is an amazing turn-based strategy game.

They're releasing an updated version of the original Crysis soon.

Syndicate? No love for Syndicate? I loved that game and I never even owned it, just played it on my best mates computers for most of my teenage years!

 Jihadnik wrote:
Syndicate? No love for Syndicate? I loved that game and I never even owned it, just played it on my best mates computers for most of my teenage years!

Syndicate was awesome. Absolutely loved it. No so keen on the sequel though, struggled with that.

Just got Shadow of the Horned Rat, loved that game as a younger person but for some reason I am finding it a lot harder now than then.
My favourite (and go to) old game though is Colonisations, every year I fire it up for a week or two and zone out, such fun.

 ingtaer wrote:
Just got Shadow of the Horned Rat, loved that game as a younger person but for some reason I am finding it a lot harder now than then.
My favourite (and go to) old game though is Colonisations, every year I fire it up for a week or two and zone out, such fun.

A lot of older games are harder than modern ones. They are made to be a challenge to overcome whilst a lot of modern game design (esp in campaigns and story campaigns) are made to be achieved and progressed through. Which is why when something like Dark Souls appeared it became a bit of a legacy of its own for being hard to win and not die all the time. It's basically harkening back to older game formulas where saving and reloading or restarting from auto respawn points was more expected.

Aye, but why is current me finding it so much harder than past me did? I am not into scum saving and tend to just play on when I make a booboo so that is not an issue, just seems tougher.

Probably because you're out of practice. Also a lot of the eariler RTS games had much larger AI armies and power to compensate for very weak AI in general.

Been having a great time with dungeon keeper lately. Good old classic though a lot of it has aged quite poorly. I absolutely love the feeling of it though.

 Nerak wrote:
Been having a great time with dungeon keeper lately. Good old classic though a lot of it has aged quite poorly. I absolutely love the feeling of it though.

Dungeon Keeper is great. I think I enjoyed the second one even more. Had more personality to it.

There's a modern remake of it called War For The Overworld that's well worth a look. Even has Richard Ridings as the narrator still. Fun fact by the way - he does the voice for Peppa Pig's Dad...

 Overread wrote:
Which is why when something like Dark Souls appeared it became a bit of a legacy of its own for being hard to win and not die all the time.

Unlike a lot of older games, Dark Souls has honest difficulty, where most older games had fake difficulty from bad game design. There's a HUGE amount of older games that are hard just because their controls are absolute garbage, for example.

Don't put on the nostalgia goggles.

Darksouls uses a lot of gotcha moments - eg crossing the bridge with the dragon the first time its very likely it will fly over and blaze you and kill you without warning. DS is full of traps like that as well as generally tough and higher HP/Damage bosses and suchlike.

It's just as artificial as old games where, such as in RTS, the AI would often attack with pre-set waves that were often bigger than you could produce easily on your own without perfectly playing the opening of the game.


Modern and old games use all the same tricks because game AI is still not true AI in any sense of the word.


As for fake from the controls that's iffy - some newer games might have fancier interfaces but they aren't always superior to the old style. Of course if you go way back some games do have odd controls - the early Tomb Raiders had very rough movement controls even though other games of it era could achieve smoother movement.

Dark Souls is hard, but fair. Until you lose several thousand souls for good and you quit in a fit of frustration.

I'm really looking forward to the revamped C&C and Red Alert myself, spent waaaaaay too many hours on those back in the day, I'm hoping that aside from a graphical and interface overhaul, it's as unbalanced, frustrating and unfair as then.

Fallout is a game I play every once in a while, never ceases to entertain me and it's pretty much the game that got me into RPG's in the first place.

 Overread wrote:
Darksouls uses a lot of gotcha moments - eg crossing the bridge with the dragon the first time its very likely it will fly over and blaze you and kill you without warning. DS is full of traps like that as well as generally tough and higher HP/Damage bosses and suchlike.

It's just as artificial as old games where, such as in RTS, the AI would often attack with pre-set waves that were often bigger than you could produce easily on your own without perfectly playing the opening of the game.


Modern and old games use all the same tricks because game AI is still not true AI in any sense of the word.


As for fake from the controls that's iffy - some newer games might have fancier interfaces but they aren't always superior to the old style. Of course if you go way back some games do have odd controls - the early Tomb Raiders had very rough movement controls even though other games of it era could achieve smoother movement.

A lot of newer games have distinctly worse interfaces because the devs took the lazy path and did controller interface first and didn't bother to put in the work to take advantage of a mouse and keyboard

When I think of good old games, I think of a few....

1) Richard Burns Rally. While you'll more or less need/want some mods, this is still one of the best rally driving/race sims out there. It's ancient by most measures, but some people still mod it and run the hell out of it.

2) Hidden & Dangerous (1 and 2): H&D first came out in the late 90's around the same time as the original Rainbow Six but was immeasurably better in every conceivable way. The second one is absolutely tremendous. A 3rd/1st first squad tactical game, in which you control four British SAS soldiers undertaking some incredible missions. Beautiful graphics (still actually holds up okay), really tough gameplay, and lots of unique challenges. The "small team tactical" games were always some of my favourite and H&D tops that list for me.

3) If you have access to an original Xbox, try the Conflict games for a similar reason listed above; only this time you can play co-operative on the same console or linked (I think). Graphics are crap, but the gameplay was exceptionally good. Conflictesert Storm, Conflict: Desert Storm II, Conflict: Vietnam, and Conflict: Global Terror. Ignore the "Denied Ops" one for 360...it wasn't actually a Conflict game they just pasted the name on there. Level and game design is excellent, the challenge is great, and there are loads of really nice elements to the game you don't see in other games. Accidentally shoot your firearm on a stealth mission? The alarm doesn't just go off...you'll see a guard hop out of a building and make for the alarm button - so you have a chance to kill him before it happens, etc. Some nice thoughts even back in 2002.

4) Total War: Up until they hopped on the awful DLC garbage bus....the Total War franchise was solid, going back to the late 90's when the first Shogun game came out. That one is a bit ancient now, but if you're looking for cheap excellent mass battle titles, any of the later Total Wars were good, up till around Shogun 2.

Thief 1: The Dark Project
Thief 2: The Metal Age

Both fantastic games. The first one basically invented first person stealth gameplay, and set a high bar for it that for a long time was only surpassed by the second game.
They're also one of those series that have an incredibly dedicated modding community, who over the past 20 years have released hundreds of fan missions and campaigns, some of which even surpass the quality of the originals.

Honorable mention to Thief 3. It's nowhere near as good as the first two, but it's still a fine game, and it does manage to close off the main plot of the trilogy in a reasonable manner.

There was definitely no fourth game in the Thief series. Nope. Never happened.



System Shock 2
Funnily enough, this was developed by the same people as the first two thief games, and runs on the same engine. Very different gameplay though. This game was the main inspiration for Bioshock. It's a bit heavier on the RPG mechanics than Bioshock was, featuring a diablo-like grid based inventory system, along with a stat point upgrade system. But it's still a shooter at heart.

Much as I enjoyed System Shock 1 in my youth, it's just a bit too janky to recommend. While it does some very cool stuff for its time, it came out less than a year after Doom, and things like first person game controls were still in a very experimental phase. Using a mouse cursor to aim around the screen while using the arrow keys to rotate your view never quite caught on for some reason



Freespace 2
A great space fighter sim. The intro cinematics for the both the first and second game are still awesome over 20 years later.
This is another of those games that has a very dedicated modding community. They have been upgrading the games graphics and engine over time, with the most recent stable release only a few months ago. With all the high res textures and fancy lighting effects and so on that they've made, the game actually looks pretty damn good even today.
There's also a plethora of fanmade missions/campaigns for it.

As for the main campaigns, the second game is much better than the first. But the fans have ported the entire first game to the second games engine, and applied the same graphical upgrades. So you can still play the first game in high res if you want.



Also I'll second Hostile Waters. That was a great game.

Arson Fire wrote:
System Shock 2
Funnily enough, this was developed by the same people as the first two thief games, and runs on the same engine. Very different gameplay though. This game was the main inspiration for Bioshock. It's a bit heavier on the RPG mechanics than Bioshock was, featuring a diablo-like grid based inventory system, along with a stat point upgrade system. But it's still a shooter at heart.

Also not a bad game to return to for co-op multiplayer with the mod to ramp the difficulty up - players can specialise into being the guy responsible for fighting, hacking, weapon upgrading, etc.

I've been playing Baldur's Gate 2 enhanced edition. Really, really excellent game.

Big fan of Fallout, and even more-so Fallout 2 for the improvements to quality of experience.

Also loved the (ancient, first played with 5.25” floppies) original Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds. I tried playing on a modern computer a few years ago, and the processor speed just made it so I couldn’t tell what was going on... but if someone had the tech know-how to slow the program down, they were great games.

Never beat PoR (stupid Tyranthraxis!),but did the CotAB.

The first Final Fantasy, on Nintendo, is still a great if grinding experience by Modern standards, and emulators are a thing.

I noticed that Warcraft 1 and 2 have come to GOG. Personally, I didn't like the way they went with Warcraft 3 but the first two definitely count as golden oldies!

Warcraft 1 is very old now and you can feel the clunky nature of its interface. Warcraft 2 is actually comparably quite advanced for its day. Much of its interface is fairly set in stone to what modern RTS games evolved into. I think the only thing that ever really feels fiddly with it to me is its multiple unit selection cap (I think its 9 units at once you can select).

I've actually been playing Warcraft 1 more than 2 so far, I love to way it looks and the road mechanic.

I still play Broodwar quite often so only being able to able to select 4 units at once isn't too bad. It's cool how it makes large armies unwieldy!
I didn't remember the human crossbow man or the catapult being so powerful though

I liked that the roads system and walls in 1 were quite practical to use - something that steadily fell away with 2 and 3 as they become more about lanes and very limited build areas on the maps.

The original Deus Ex is still, to this day, probably one of the best RPGs ever made and I highly recommend it. It's still probably the best in the whole series.

 Elbows wrote:
When I think of good old games, I think of a few....

1) Richard Burns Rally. While you'll more or less need/want some mods, this is still one of the best rally driving/race sims out there. It's ancient by most measures, but some people still mod it and run the hell out of it.

2) Hidden & Dangerous (1 and 2): H&D first came out in the late 90's around the same time as the original Rainbow Six but was immeasurably better in every conceivable way. The second one is absolutely tremendous. A 3rd/1st first squad tactical game, in which you control four British SAS soldiers undertaking some incredible missions. Beautiful graphics (still actually holds up okay), really tough gameplay, and lots of unique challenges. The "small team tactical" games were always some of my favourite and H&D tops that list for me.

3) If you have access to an original Xbox, try the Conflict games for a similar reason listed above; only this time you can play co-operative on the same console or linked (I think). Graphics are crap, but the gameplay was exceptionally good. Conflictesert Storm, Conflict: Desert Storm II, Conflict: Vietnam, and Conflict: Global Terror. Ignore the "Denied Ops" one for 360...it wasn't actually a Conflict game they just pasted the name on there. Level and game design is excellent, the challenge is great, and there are loads of really nice elements to the game you don't see in other games. Accidentally shoot your firearm on a stealth mission? The alarm doesn't just go off...you'll see a guard hop out of a building and make for the alarm button - so you have a chance to kill him before it happens, etc. Some nice thoughts even back in 2002.

4) Total War: Up until they hopped on the awful DLC garbage bus....the Total War franchise was solid, going back to the late 90's when the first Shogun game came out. That one is a bit ancient now, but if you're looking for cheap excellent mass battle titles, any of the later Total Wars were good, up till around Shogun 2.

Conflict: Desert Storm (maybe II) brings back some great memories. Playing 4 player split screen with my brother & 2 friends. My brother used to run the demo expert under the guns of armored vehicles and plant C4. Blow up the vehicle and himself until one of us could run up and heal him. Good times. Thanks for that!

the_scotsman wrote:
I've been playing Baldur's Gate 2 enhanced edition. Really, really excellent game.

Agreed, by far one of the games I have sunk too much time in over the years. The whole story and feel of the game world, and respect for the system it is based upon makes me long for such a game to be made again

Ork-en Man wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
When I think of good old games, I think of a few....

1) Richard Burns Rally. While you'll more or less need/want some mods, this is still one of the best rally driving/race sims out there. It's ancient by most measures, but some people still mod it and run the hell out of it.

2) Hidden & Dangerous (1 and 2): H&D first came out in the late 90's around the same time as the original Rainbow Six but was immeasurably better in every conceivable way. The second one is absolutely tremendous. A 3rd/1st first squad tactical game, in which you control four British SAS soldiers undertaking some incredible missions. Beautiful graphics (still actually holds up okay), really tough gameplay, and lots of unique challenges. The "small team tactical" games were always some of my favourite and H&D tops that list for me.

3) If you have access to an original Xbox, try the Conflict games for a similar reason listed above; only this time you can play co-operative on the same console or linked (I think). Graphics are crap, but the gameplay was exceptionally good. Conflictesert Storm, Conflict: Desert Storm II, Conflict: Vietnam, and Conflict: Global Terror. Ignore the "Denied Ops" one for 360...it wasn't actually a Conflict game they just pasted the name on there. Level and game design is excellent, the challenge is great, and there are loads of really nice elements to the game you don't see in other games. Accidentally shoot your firearm on a stealth mission? The alarm doesn't just go off...you'll see a guard hop out of a building and make for the alarm button - so you have a chance to kill him before it happens, etc. Some nice thoughts even back in 2002.

4) Total War: Up until they hopped on the awful DLC garbage bus....the Total War franchise was solid, going back to the late 90's when the first Shogun game came out. That one is a bit ancient now, but if you're looking for cheap excellent mass battle titles, any of the later Total Wars were good, up till around Shogun 2.

Conflict: Desert Storm (maybe II) brings back some great memories. Playing 4 player split screen with my brother & 2 friends. My brother used to run the demo expert under the guns of armored vehicles and plant C4. Blow up the vehicle and himself until one of us could run up and heal him. Good times. Thanks for that!

Yeah, they were really good games, though the graphics were very poor. My buddy and I one time spent maybe an hour and a half on a single level, because we managed to do an entire one without being detected - something we weren't even sure was possible. We managed to sneak, crawl, hide, and knife our way through what could have been a 15 minute mission. It was extremely fun.

 Trondheim wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I've been playing Baldur's Gate 2 enhanced edition. Really, really excellent game.

Agreed, by far one of the games I have sunk too much time in over the years. The whole story and feel of the game world, and respect for the system it is based upon makes me long for such a game to be made again

Well...I guess soon, we'll see! I'm playing through all of 2 thoroughly so I can be ready for 3. there's enough old-game jank in there to frustrate me (pathing is a nightmare, and a lot of the game is juggling sneak and check for traps on your rogue as you figure out where the enemies are, disarm the stupid, stupid traps, and I HATE that there is no preview showing you what the exact AOE of the spells you're about to cast is) but I love the writing, love the tactical combat, love just how MUCH of it there is, it's great.

If I could just convince my guys to walk down a narrow hallway without the Very Good Pathing AI deciding "The way is blocked! I know, I shall walk all the way around the entire dungeon to achieve this new position!"

No mention of Star Control 2, remastered as the Ur-Quan Masters, as yet, I see. That is such a great *PARTY* game. Star Control Origins almost has it, but not quite.

Descent: Freespace and Freespace 2 were awesome games, I kept buying copies as I wore out the discs. There have even been mods of them for Star Wars and Wing Commander. I'd bother getting a digital copy if I had a flight stick to use with it.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Baldur's Gate meets Star Wars an even longer time ago. Great storyline that inspired the Clone Wars/Rebels creators.

Command & Conquer is getting a Remaster soon, so I guess we'll see how that goes with EA still remotely near the franchise.

 BrookM wrote:
Dark Souls is hard, but fair. Until you lose several thousand souls for good and you quit in a fit of frustration.

I'm really looking forward to the revamped C&C and Red Alert myself, spent waaaaaay too many hours on those back in the day, I'm hoping that aside from a graphical and interface overhaul, it's as unbalanced, frustrating and unfair as then.

Fallout is a game I play every once in a while, never ceases to entertain me and it's pretty much the game that got me into RPG's in the first place.

On this topic I remember deamon souls screwing me over more then any other souls game. There’s a boss that can actually de-level you. I lost a level so I couldn’t wear my equipment anymore. Didn’t realise it at first, just couldn’t move. Then I got de-leveled 5 more times. Try playing dark souls and falling down 6 levels. My god that felt unfair. I’m very happy that they left that mechanic in deamon souls.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Trondheim wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I've been playing Baldur's Gate 2 enhanced edition. Really, really excellent game.

Agreed, by far one of the games I have sunk too much time in over the years. The whole story and feel of the game world, and respect for the system it is based upon makes me long for such a game to be made again

Well...I guess soon, we'll see! I'm playing through all of 2 thoroughly so I can be ready for 3. there's enough old-game jank in there to frustrate me (pathing is a nightmare, and a lot of the game is juggling sneak and check for traps on your rogue as you figure out where the enemies are, disarm the stupid, stupid traps, and I HATE that there is no preview showing you what the exact AOE of the spells you're about to cast is) but I love the writing, love the tactical combat, love just how MUCH of it there is, it's great.

If I could just convince my guys to walk down a narrow hallway without the Very Good Pathing AI deciding "The way is blocked! I know, I shall walk all the way around the entire dungeon to achieve this new position!"

Enable console commands and use EnableCheatKeys(). Ctrl-J will save so much frustration when you've cleared an area and are just trying to get back to the exit, or just want to get to the other side of the screen in one of the Athkatla maps. Also saves you from the dreaded "You must gather your party before venturing forth"

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Trondheim wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I've been playing Baldur's Gate 2 enhanced edition. Really, really excellent game.

Agreed, by far one of the games I have sunk too much time in over the years. The whole story and feel of the game world, and respect for the system it is based upon makes me long for such a game to be made again

Well...I guess soon, we'll see! I'm playing through all of 2 thoroughly so I can be ready for 3. there's enough old-game jank in there to frustrate me (pathing is a nightmare, and a lot of the game is juggling sneak and check for traps on your rogue as you figure out where the enemies are, disarm the stupid, stupid traps, and I HATE that there is no preview showing you what the exact AOE of the spells you're about to cast is) but I love the writing, love the tactical combat, love just how MUCH of it there is, it's great.

If I could just convince my guys to walk down a narrow hallway without the Very Good Pathing AI deciding "The way is blocked! I know, I shall walk all the way around the entire dungeon to achieve this new position!"

Enable console commands and use EnableCheatKeys(). Ctrl-J will save so much frustration when you've cleared an area and are just trying to get back to the exit, or just want to get to the other side of the screen in one of the Athkatla maps. Also saves you from the dreaded "You must gather your party before venturing forth"

I'll do that, but mostly it's a problem with areas I haven't cleared yet that have narrow hallways, or areas that have hazards that aren't traps. I just did the "shade lord" section and my characters took unnecessary damage from the stupid lava room and indiana jones letter puzzle soooo many times.

The trick to areas like that is send one character forward, then pull back to the rest of the party and let the monsters follow. It doesn't work as well if there are archers, but the undead packs... well. Its particularly good with the 'lava' room, as the undead will stand in the fire a lot.
When you have to traverse it, its better to send one character at a time, just send each character around the corner.
Firkaag's mini dungeon is similar- there are enough tight corridors, traps and nonsense that its better to stand the party in a safe spot and have someone drag the monsters to you- with appropriate protections against the more annoying enemies.

As far as pathfinding goes, I think its worse in the Enhanced Edition than the original. I don't know if they added more check nodes or what, but the game seems instantly aware that a path is blocked, and immediately looks for a new path. Even if the 'block' is two party members temporarily blocking a doorway as they pass through. Once its on the new path, that's less likely to be blocked, so the AI doesn't deviate as much. Which is pretty much the opposite of what you want to happen.

For thief characters, I've always just tended to relegate them to trap and archer duty. They're too squishy to bother with melee, even on the off chance backstab can be effective. One less thing to micro in the scrum.

 Trondheim wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I've been playing Baldur's Gate 2 enhanced edition. Really, really excellent game.

Agreed, by far one of the games I have sunk too much time in over the years. The whole story and feel of the game world, and respect for the system it is based upon makes me long for such a game to be made again

In my experience, BG and BG2 were fine at the time, but they're really starting to show their age and are nearly unplayable in modern days.

Granted, they also use the horrible mess that is older DnD, which is already a mark against them, but the user interface, to me, leaves much to be desired.

I don't find the user interface for them hard to use at all. It's a very simple system - you've got tabs that you can easily click on for inventories, quests, maps, character details. It's pretty much your basic interface of menus that most more detail orientated RPG games use.

Pathfinding is always a bit of a tricky thing, but at the same time its likely something I've never really noticed many issues with because a lot of the times its just you moving a small party around in the same locality.


The rules system is a bit odd on PC - seeing your team swinging swords for 5 mins of combat and appearing to hit nothing the whole time is a bit odd to see. Granted its the mechanics of rolling to hits and such and bonuses coming into play; but its not as fluid as some more modern systems where there's block and dodge visuals and where hits tend to connect more often.
There's also clearly some other issues in moving a tabletop to PC game system - things like familiar for wizards. In game offering very little with a very high risk that your little ferret or whatever gets killed and takes away a full point of constitution forever (which on a character that's typically low in that score to start with is a big loss). Meanwhile in tabletop ferrets can do all kinds of nifty story crafted things that gets around the fact that, in combat, its really not going to do much.


That said the interface is pretty easy to get on with and I think stands the test of time well. It's simple, easy to get to grips with, has information in sensible easy to work out spots. It might be "old" in that its got that window style approach as opposed to more modern minimalist interfaces, but that's more just a a feature of presentation of the underlaying interface of menus.

 Overread wrote:
I don't find the user interface for them hard to use at all.

It's not hard to use. It's ancient, dated, and clunky compared to a lot of newer games.

As for DnD 2nd edition, it's just kind of a bad system compared to any DnD edition afterwards (imo, obviously, before anyone hyperventilates about that statement). Since I have long since moved on to playing these better systems in my actual dnd roleplaying games, it's just frustrating to come back and deal with the mechanics that I never liked in the first place and moved on from when I moved to better editions.

How is it clunky? It's the same basic interface system that Pathfinder and Divinity Original Sin series games use.

 Overread wrote:
How is it clunky? It's the same basic interface system that Pathfinder and Divinity Original Sin series games use.

Yeah, I'm not really seeing the clunk. The tabs for different things are all nice and show you the stuff you need to see for that screen.

For example the inventory screen shows you your HP, AC, damage ranges, to hit modifiers. Basically most of the stuff that will get affected by your equipment

Your character record tab shows you more in depth stuff including your attributes, stuff derived from those attributes (such as ability to force open doors, sneak skill values etc.), number of attacks per round, current effects affecting you (Free movement, Silence, Rage etc.)...

Then you have your spell tabs, one for wizard/sorcerer/bard and one for cleric/druid/ranger/paladin

and so on

I mean, the original BG 1 & 2, yeah it was a bit clunky. But anyone playing BG nowadays are playing the enhanced edition which basically eliminates all the clunkyness.

Which reminds me, I should go back and continue my solo game I started....

 Overread wrote:
How is it clunky? It's the same basic interface system that Pathfinder and Divinity Original Sin series games use.

That explains why I couldn't get very far in to D:OS. Found it annoying to play.

What about games like Diablo 2? They use a very similar system of different tab pages for different properties; the main difference simply being that things like the character screen are much more simplified and you only have one set of attributes and inventory and the like because you've only one active character.

 Overread wrote:
What about games like Diablo 2?

Diablo 2's UI isn't the same except superficially. You aren't managing any but a single character, and actions take place in a fully real time scenario rather than a pseudo-turn-based one, with easier access to powers that are more convenient to use.

At this point, though, we're really getting off topic.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
I mean, the original BG 1 & 2, yeah it was a bit clunky. But anyone playing BG nowadays are playing the enhanced edition which basically eliminates all the clunkyness.

The EE doesn't change the interface much (it didn't need to, as its completely functional). Except protruding the dialog box too far into the center of the screen, which is worse than the original..

The enhanced edition fixes most of the annoying things that popped up in the original. Larger stacks of arrows/sling bullets. Access to potion bags to help manage inventory. Got rid of the issue in BG 1 where the game would unpause if you went into the inventory etc.

There are a lot of little things that were slowly updated in fixed in BG 2 and Throne of Bhaal. But the Enhanced Edition went further and enhanced the experience significantly. It is still very much the same game, but many of the little annoyances are now gone.

Voss wrote:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
I mean, the original BG 1 & 2, yeah it was a bit clunky. But anyone playing BG nowadays are playing the enhanced edition which basically eliminates all the clunkyness.

The EE doesn't change the interface much (it didn't need to, as its completely functional). Except protruding the dialog box too far into the center of the screen, which is worse than the original..

You can just drag that to resize it, can't you?

The king of Old Gold games for me is Darklands by Microprose.

Nothing since has scratched that particular itch, and we're going on... 28 years now?! Jesus I'm getting old.

The mix of choose your own adventure, setting, style and open world-ness was and is mind blowing. I wish I still had the spiral notebooks I would keep next to my computer while playing, because you'd get quests like 'The Burgomeister of Essen would like you to track down Harald Kleinswaltz, he was last seen near Stadt.' and that was it - no real guide or journal or help. Add into that the fact that your 'magic' came from finding the proper Saints to call upon in specific scenarios and you having to travel to the right monastery or church across much of the medieval Germanies, or Alchemy which required specific recipes and it really rewarded an organized reference.

I liked how you gradually fell down the rabbit hole through emergent storytelling - you started off being jumped by thugs in alleys, progressed to fighting robber knights on the roads and in their castles. Then eventually you started running into witches, demons, The Wild Hunt, and journeyed into hell to fight the devil!

If someone would just remake the exact game with updated graphics and UI it would be amazing.

Nothing since has scratched that particular itch

Yea it is weird how there's so many indie developers jostling for the same small patch of genre when some absolute gems have no imitators at all.

It took forever to get another King of Dragon Pass game, although it's cool we got one eventually, and you always hear from eastern Europeans how brilliant and inventive Vangers was but I'm not seeing many car RPGs on the market :-p

Crispy78 wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
I mean, the original BG 1 & 2, yeah it was a bit clunky. But anyone playing BG nowadays are playing the enhanced edition which basically eliminates all the clunkyness.

The EE doesn't change the interface much (it didn't need to, as its completely functional). Except protruding the dialog box too far into the center of the screen, which is worse than the original..

You can just drag that to resize it, can't you?

It can be resized to be bigger, and take up more of the central screen space (up to 2/3s, which is out and out crazy), yes.
But what it really needs is to be moved so it is flush with the bottom of the screen, alongside the hotbar, instead of positioned above the hotbar.

The best that can be done without modding is turning off 'Scale User Interface' which opens the game area up quite a bit, but makes plain how much wasted space exists in their UI setup (and shrinks all icons and text significantly). It does limit the dialog box to half the height of the screen, though.
The same is true for Icewind Dale.

The annoying thing is, when they did the Planescape Torment EE, everything is along the bottom of the screen with no issue. You can optionally open a combat log in the upper right, but they don't toss things into the center of 'game area,' because that's obviously terrible. Though they made the dialog box a separate window as part of this, but there's a significant chunk of dead space in both lower corners that could have been used.

If you grew up in the 90s, there is realy nothing like breaking out that N64 and fire up goldeneye, mario64, ocarina of time, waverace, starfox or perfect dark.

real nostalgia trip

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
If you grew up in the 90s, there is realy nothing like breaking out that N64 and fire up goldeneye, mario64, ocarina of time, waverace, starfox or perfect dark.

real nostalgia trip

I often try to get out my old ps2 games and the graphics (particularly movement in first person games) give me a hardcore headache now. It's a shame, because I'd love to play timesplitters more.

the_scotsman wrote:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
If you grew up in the 90s, there is realy nothing like breaking out that N64 and fire up goldeneye, mario64, ocarina of time, waverace, starfox or perfect dark.

real nostalgia trip

I often try to get out my old ps2 games and the graphics (particularly movement in first person games) give me a hardcore headache now. It's a shame, because I'd love to play timesplitters more.

yea i know what you mean. prolly cuz the ps2 and xbox are in a time between low graphix (early to mid 90s) and todays high graphix.
N64 is so "old" that moust of it looks like a bit better stuff then minecraft.

 FrozenDwarf wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
If you grew up in the 90s, there is realy nothing like breaking out that N64 and fire up goldeneye, mario64, ocarina of time, waverace, starfox or perfect dark.

real nostalgia trip

I often try to get out my old ps2 games and the graphics (particularly movement in first person games) give me a hardcore headache now. It's a shame, because I'd love to play timesplitters more.

yea i know what you mean. prolly cuz the ps2 and xbox are in a time between low graphix (early to mid 90s) and todays high graphix.
N64 is so "old" that moust of it looks like a bit better stuff then minecraft.

I can usually look at really low polygon count stuff just fine, it just seems like there was a time when they made everything really fuzzy and blurry to make it look "realistic" that makes my head pound.

Baldurs gate is teetering right on the edge for me, old fallout I can't play, pretty much anything first-person that is pre Half Life 2 I can't handle. And it's funny, because as a kid I never had that problem, I played the heck out of those games. but now I'll go

"Hell yeah classic star wars battlefront 2 on sale for a Dollar? Time for some nostalgia!" and then I'll load it up and feel like puking 20 minutes in.

For me the big thing is the polygon games. BG is completely fine, but Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind just don't work for me. They look so much worse than the games that came before them that I can't stand it.

Though I'm not fan of athe modern 'retro-style' games, either. Anything deliberately over-pixelated just baffles me. Its like deliberately trying to create a child's drawing. Or the deliberately blurry 'leaked' pics we get in news and rumors from time to time. You actually have to make a conscious effort to look that bad at this point.

Neverwinter looked worse even back then - at least to me. Sure it was all 3D now, but the engine always felt like it was so hollow. You had black dark nothing surrounding the adventuring area. Rather than beautiful drawn cityscapes and the like that you got with the former games.

The game felt like it had no "soul" to it. It didn't help that the first quest was "Four things have escaped - there are 5 regions to the city and one is a starting zone with shops and healers".


This felt so disappointing after BG2 where after the first basic quest you are basically thrust into a huge (feeling) city with. "Go find out what you can". That's it, no lead, no hints just go find and adventure and explore. You felt like you were finding quests rather than following a pre-designed pathway. The fact that there's several quests you can take hwich have no link to the main quest and yet each which feel like a proper adventure are great. It was also back in a time when quests weren't as "questy". I feel as if with MMO and with time we've watered down RPG questing and adventuring to its most base components.

It's ilke how people are now realising that, with the release of WOW classic, that as they've evolved the game to make it more efficient, they've sucked some of the life out of it.

You know, don't know how old it is but I was just reminded about star wars galaxies. That game stole a few summers of my childhood, and I absolutely sucked at it and made the worst smuggler in the galaxy, but it was still my character, and I think it was the best star wars RPG experience available outside of KOTOR, even a better than The old republic in terms of community.

 Overread wrote:

It's ilke how people are now realising that, with the release of WOW classic, that as they've evolved the game to make it more efficient, they've sucked some of the life out of it.

WoW Classic mostly made me realize that the old version just wasn't fun, and was pretty empty and lifeless.
Modern WoW has a lot of problems (particularly in the writing area, and the dull as dirt 'world quests'), but they've at least realized that cities should have people in them, and the gameplay shouldn't repeatedly stop after every couple fights so colored bars can refill.

Man the opposite for me, WoW Classic is how MMO's should be played. I get that its not for everyone, which is fine. I understand how people may not like a particular way of playing. Hell I don't understand how people can even stand playing online shooters...let alone competitive online shooters.

But to each his own I guess. Most people, me included, are just happy to have the option of playing it instead of being told "No! You're wrong and no one wants to play that!!! It feels more like an adventure with my character then modern WoW does.

Now to get back on topic....I just re-installed Heroes of Might and Magic 3 because I hate myself and I want to suffer...it's the only explanation that makes sense!

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
Man the opposite for me, WoW Classic is how MMO's should be played. I get that its not for everyone, which is fine. I understand how people may not like a particular way of playing. Hell I don't understand how people can even stand playing online shooters...let alone competitive online shooters.

But to each his own I guess. Most people, me included, are just happy to have the option of playing it instead of being told "No! You're wrong and no one wants to play that!!! It feels more like an adventure with my character then modern WoW does.

Now to get back on topic....I just re-installed Heroes of Might and Magic 3 because I hate myself and I want to suffer...it's the only explanation that makes sense!

See, I actually grew up in the lap of my father, a gigantic nerd who would play HOMM3 and BG, and I basically was exposed to the gameplay mechanics and sound effects of those games before I was able to form coherent thoughts and sentences.

So it's sometimes a very strange experience to play one of those games and realize oh...wait...I know this guy. I know what he's going to say. I know that a dwarf, when injured, goes "YOP!" and I don't know why I know that because it's in the misty pre-3 years old recesses of my memory.

That said, HOMM3 does and will always slap, I just wish playing it didn't feel like a drug induced past life regression.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
Man the opposite for me, WoW Classic is how MMO's should be played. I get that its not for everyone, which is fine. I understand how people may not like a particular way of playing. Hell I don't understand how people can even stand playing online shooters...let alone competitive online shooters.

But to each his own I guess. Most people, me included, are just happy to have the option of playing it instead of being told "No! You're wrong and no one wants to play that!!! It feels more like an adventure with my character then modern WoW does.

Now to get back on topic....I just re-installed Heroes of Might and Magic 3 because I hate myself and I want to suffer...it's the only explanation that makes sense!

wow classic was actualy a win/win move.
Thouse who played 10+ years ago but dont like how wow evolved now has classic to play while the rest of us are happy in the current version of wow.

personly i began during lich king, and i find classic to be a horrible experience, and a big step backwards in terms of playability.

I mean everyone prefers the expansion they started in. I was in Beta testing and played all the way up until a month before Burning Crusade dropped. So I only ever really played Classic and got to experience first hand all the stuff that made WoW, WoW.

Hell I remember logging in and running through the barrens and just seeing people yell "LEeeeeroy JENKINS!!!" and wondering what they were talking about. Then I looked it up and almost died laughing.

I tired playing modern WoW and it was...well somewhat boring. I didn't fear for my life! What's the point of playing if you can't get one-shot crit by a Defias Pillager?

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
I mean everyone prefers the expansion they started in.

That's a wildly baseless assumption. I know I certainly don't care for vanilla a month before Burning Crusade, but that's where I started.

I tend to prefer Pandaria (where they managed good, linked short stories in compact arcs throughout the zones) and Draenor compared to the beginning or the current expansions. with Wrath coming third and Cataclysm itself on the bottom (the pre-release revamp of the old world prior to Cataclysm itself I'd call significantly better than the 'real' expansion, or most expansions, actually).

Voss wrote:

That's a wildly baseless assumption.

?

People generally prefer the original piece of entertainment that got them to be a fan to begin with. There is nothing wildly baseless about such a statement. Its the same principle that applies to someones preference for, lets say, their favourite actor who played James Bond or Doctor Who.

As an example, my favourite version of Civilization is Civ 5. Why? because its the first Civ game I played. Many civilization fans swear by Civ 3, or even Civ 2. Are they wrong? No, not at all. I totally believe them when they say its the better game/their favourite. I also make no illusions that their preference for those games are based on whether or not they were the players introduction to the genre.

So baseless? Not at all. However, like many things involving humans nothing is 100% universal. I mean some people actually enjoy Black Licorice...

I started playing in 2nd edition of 40k and liked 6th edition best, though there were things I’d have tweaked, of course.

I also enjoy black licorice, so I’m gonna say your assertion probably doesn’t hold up.

Doom 2016 kicks the snot out of Doom 1, though Doom 1 is still a good old gold game.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:

Voss wrote:

That's a wildly baseless assumption.

?

People generally prefer the original piece of entertainment that got them to be a fan to begin with. There is nothing wildly baseless about such a statement. Its the same principle that applies to someones preference for, lets say, their favourite actor who played James Bond or Doctor Who.

As an example, my favourite version of Civilization is Civ 5. Why? because its the first Civ game I played. Many civilization fans swear by Civ 3, or even Civ 2. Are they wrong? No, not at all. I totally believe them when they say its the better game/their favourite. I also make no illusions that their preference for those games are based on whether or not they were the players introduction to the genre.

So baseless? Not at all. However, like many things involving humans nothing is 100% universal. I mean some people actually enjoy Black Licorice...

I mean, my first civ was 2 and other than nostalgically going back and playing the fantasy game mode, which was a hilarious clusterfeth, civ V is still by far my favorite version of the game.

mostly because looking at civ VI makes my eyes pop out of my skull and strangle themselves with their optical nerves. The gameplay is...fine, but graphic design wise it looks like a garbage mobile game and I'd much much rather spend time looking at the much more dated graphics of civ iv than vi.

civ iv does have the good version of rhys and fall though.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:

Voss wrote:

That's a wildly baseless assumption.

?

People generally prefer the original piece of entertainment that got them to be a fan to begin with. There is nothing wildly baseless about such a statement. Its the same principle that applies to someones preference for, lets say, their favourite actor who played James Bond or Doctor Who.

As an example, my favourite version of Civilization is Civ 5. Why? because its the first Civ game I played. Many civilization fans swear by Civ 3, or even Civ 2. Are they wrong? No, not at all. I totally believe them when they say its the better game/their favourite. I also make no illusions that their preference for those games are based on whether or not they were the players introduction to the genre.

So baseless? Not at all. However, like many things involving humans nothing is 100% universal. I mean some people actually enjoy Black Licorice...

You're either confusing nostalgia for preference, or you genuinely think people can't form new opinions when exposed to new things. Both _are_ wildly baseless.

If you don't have any real reason for liking Civ 5 beyond 'played it first' you aren't engaging in any sort of game analysis OR self-reflection.
Compare it to the_scotsman's answer where he realizes his 'first' is mostly nostalgia, but he doesn't like the most recent version because of the graphics. He's actually put some consideration as to which Civ game he likes. Its still an opinion, but its backed by his own rationale.

I can't think of many things where I prefer the first one.
Dr Who? I definitely prefer Tennant or Smith to what'shisname.
Star Wars? Nope, Empire.
Baldurs Gate 1? Nope. 2.
Civilization- certainly not 1, 2 or 3. They're not even in the running, and I started with one
1st edition AD&D or BECMI (those was sort of simultaneous for me)? Feth no. I'd rather play 5th or even 4th rather than that mess.

Its not just me, either. I can't think of anyone I've ever met that prefers something just because its their entry point. Humans are a little more complex than that, and in my experience, the ones with a simple preference prefer the 'latest and greatest' rather than their first. That at least has some basis, since generally sequels show improvement from the experience of the creators and/or additional content. (Though in some cases, like Civ, you have to wait for expansions to bring subsystems back)

Voss wrote:

You're either confusing nostalgia for preference, or you genuinely think people can't form new opinions when exposed to new things. Both _are_ wildly baseless.

While people can form new opinions when exposed to new things, it usually takes a significant amount of time and exposure before it sinks in as we humans tends to be very stubborn monkeys. So no, I disagree entirely. Perhaps in a earlier era people would take the time to do so. In the modern era however there is just so much damn content most won't because...well...why waste my time programming myself to do that when I can just bypass it to the stuff I know I do like. Especially in this modern age where nostalgia itself is a form of preference. I'd go into it more but this is a Video game thread and its pointless and I'd rather not derail it.

Now, back on topic

I had a chance to go through a pile of old CD's I have and found a bunch of my old Lucasarts games. Unfortunately like many old CD's from the early 90's they don't work anymore. Which sucks since I wanted to give the Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis a spin again. I also wish I could find my disks for Zack McKracken and the Legend of Kyrandia.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I also enjoy black licorice, so I’m gonna say your assertion probably doesn’t hold up.

Well you're just histories greatest monster then aren't you!?!?!

Not until I correct the spelling of *history’s* greatest monster... which I’ll concede I’m now in the running for.

I know I'm gonna catch hell for this so I'm breaking out my asbestos gloves, but I'm replaying mass effect 2 now, and i'm amazed at how much better the gameplay in mass effect Andromeda was.

(Jumps into ceramite layered bunker, dogs hatch and awaits the flamestorm of outrage from andromeda haters.)

Eh. The gamplay in Andromeda wasn't ever really a problem.

Well, other than the sense that there should have been more exploration and colony building and less constant 'shoot the evil space orks for being all inherently evil and stuff.'

The Mass Effect series did improve significantly in gameplay over time. Graphics too, ignoring some too-early launch bugs.

Its the writing that was so uneven, both between games and internally within them (while I personally think ME2 and Andromeda are the best games overall, their endings were laughably bad). The first one was the only one with a pretty good ending, but it also had a lot of busy work and fetch quests that loaded it down.

 Matt Swain wrote:
I know I'm gonna catch hell for this so I'm breaking out my asbestos gloves, but I'm replaying mass effect 2 now, and i'm amazed at how much better the gameplay in mass effect Andromeda was.

(Jumps into ceramite layered bunker, dogs hatch and awaits the flamestorm of outrage from andromeda haters.)

For me it was not that Andromeda was a worse game, some of the missions was very good, but for me it was the feel that game felt somewhar devoid of any real hearthbeat if it makes any sanse. I liked the atmosphere much more in ME 1&2 due to the feeling that it was far more alive in every sense.

I've only played ME2 and I felt like it was a game stuck between two genres. It wasn't quite action filled enough for a proper FPS, but at the same time it lacked some of that heavy party team play and questing aspects that a pure RPG game has.

Very neat for its day, but I still felt like they should have gone one way or the other. I think my other gripe (which fits for either mode) is that the maps feel very linear. I think you really feel it because of the FPS aspects of the game, so you feel like you should be able to sneak around or take another path, but most of the encounters are rail-roaded to you.



The other thing - surveying - seriously its one of those in-game mini-games that basically has no challenge and feels like its just there to burn your time. You don't get that feeling of "finding" things just of using the survey probes and stuff

 Matt Swain wrote:
I know I'm gonna catch hell for this so I'm breaking out my asbestos gloves, but I'm replaying mass effect 2 now, and i'm amazed at how much better the gameplay in mass effect Andromeda was.

(Jumps into ceramite layered bunker, dogs hatch and awaits the flamestorm of outrage from andromeda haters.)

I hardly think you can call any of the Mass Effect games 'old' gold... they only just came out! If Mass Effect was a human it would barely be in secondary school

 Matt Swain wrote:
I know I'm gonna catch hell for this so I'm breaking out my asbestos gloves, but I'm replaying mass effect 2 now, and i'm amazed at how much better the gameplay in mass effect Andromeda was.

(Jumps into ceramite layered bunker, dogs hatch and awaits the flamestorm of outrage from andromeda haters.)

In terms of the gameplay the Mass Effect Games have only got better with each installment, I think.

ME1 was very clunky with the cover system (it was easy to accidentally leave cover when you were trying to move along a wall, for example) and you felt very sluggish when moving, especially when trying to turn while sprinting. All of your action choices during dialogue and cutscenes were carried out using the dialogue wheel system.

ME2 fixed the cover system with you able to lock yourself to cover (the Gears of War system), the gunplay was greatly improved (though ammo was too limited, I think, which made some weapons annoying to use) though it also lost the weapon modification, armor sets could be chosen piece by piece with each piece having its own bonuses, the power combo system made its first appearance though limited to biotics (detonating Warp), they introduced the paragon/renegade interrupts in dialogue and cutscenes.

ME3 kept the ME2 cover system but fine tuned it to feel more smooth and flowing with the rest of the movement ( I think it brought in more ways of traversing and transitioning out of cover?) and also brought in the dodge rolls, making you feel much more agile in combat. The weapon modification system was brought back, which was great, and the weapon upgrade system was introduced so guns had levels like in the first game. The number of guns was also drastically increased over ME2 and each gun had its own quirks and pros and cons, which meant you effectively had way more guns than in ME1 where every gun functioned the same as others in its class, just with different damage, heat, accuracy values. The Power Combos were greatly expanded, no longer limited to detonating a single biotic power but now able to prime and detonate powers from all of the classes with their own effects for doing so. The paragon/renegade system was also tweaked with the introduction of the reputation mechanic, which fixed the issue from ME2 of having to mostly play straight Paragon/Renegade or else you would not have enough points for dialogue choices later, so now you could play however you wanted without needing to worry that it would mean you were locked out of choices later.

Yeah, the basic running and gunning in andromeda (and in all mass effect games, really) was just kind of an improvement. And I did like that the random junk you did on the side in andromeda was much less of a BLATANT time-waster than the activities you had to do on the side in 2 and 3.

But man alive that did not make up at all for how little I cared about the story or characters in andromeda.

Back to old gold territory, how about some good old garbage? I just recently uncovered Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds (it was like a dollar on gog) and spent the better part of 3 hours cackling at it.

It is a star wars age of empires..I think 2? reskin, made in the very very early days of licensed games, where lucasfilm just gave EVERYTHING, EVERY sound effect EVERY voice line from star wars to this game studio to haphazardly staple on to age of empires.

"Hey gang, every faction has to have knights - what kind of animal do you figure a super battle droid would ride around on?"

"We need more factions....I dunno...naboo? Yeah, that sounds about right, the factions everyone remembers from Star Wars, the clones, separatists, rebels, imperials, wookies, gungans, trade federation, and...naboo."

"What's a rebel alliance worker? Probably an army of R2 units right?"

"The four resources of star wars: Carbon, Food....um....Crystals....and...different crystals."

Not gonna read through every page but is anybody nostalgic for red alert 2. Man I wish I could play it again but I'm not sure where to find it at this point.

the_scotsman wrote:
Back to old gold territory, how about some good old garbage? I just recently uncovered Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds (it was like a dollar on gog) and spent the better part of 3 hours cackling at it.

It is a star wars age of empires..I think 2? reskin, made in the very very early days of licensed games, where lucasfilm just gave EVERYTHING, EVERY sound effect EVERY voice line from star wars to this game studio to haphazardly staple on to age of empires.

OMG I totally forgot about that game. But yeah it played like a re-skin of Age of Empires 2, but it was just so much damn fun. There were a bunch of different Star Wars strategy games released during the early 00's and not many were good honestly. I remember being super excited for Force Commander, but when I actually got a chance to play the demo I was super disappointed. While I can deal with less than stellar graphics the camera angles made the game almost unplayable as I couldn't see anything!

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Not gonna read through every page but is anybody nostalgic for red alert 2. Man I wish I could play it again but I'm not sure where to find it at this point.

It's on Origin as part of the collected set of games
https://www.origin.com/gbr/en-us/store/command-and-conquer/command-and-conquer-the-ultimate-collection

Which basically gives you everything from Command and Conquer to Tiberium 4 and everything inbetween, even the FPS Renegade.

Note its not the new remastered games, just the regular and any updates they've had. The remastered CnC 1 and Red Alert 1 are a totally separate thing.

RE2 was okay, but I still think CnC3 is the best of the Command and Conquer series and spinoffs.

That said, I'm pondering busting out the Ultima and Wizardry games...

I've been playing DROD recently, It's had expansions and sequels since 1996, but it's still the same fundamental puzzle game.

King Dugan's Dungeon is the first puzzle set, but Gunthro and the Epic Blunder is also a decent entry point.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Not gonna read through every page but is anybody nostalgic for red alert 2. Man I wish I could play it again but I'm not sure where to find it at this point.

Yea RA2 was my favourite of the series. I still have the CDs to play it but has to be nearly 10 years since I broke them out!

I really loved all the campaigns but that Soviet space mission on Yuri's Revenge is really hard

Red alert 2 was so delightfully insane. Didn't it have attack dolphins, lightning tanks, and a bunch of bald psychic lenin cosplayers running around?

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Red alert 2 was so delightfully insane. Didn't it have attack dolphins, lightning tanks, and a bunch of bald psychic lenin cosplayers running around?

Haha yea exactly, attack octopusses, death blimps, teleporting harvesters, huge tanks which can run over other tanks, brain tanks... the list goes on!

Great thread with a lot of games I like never played, but should check out. And games I want to play again. Problem is, my to-do list keeps expanding.......

I'm currently playing Zelda on the SNES. Definately a classic.
Other classics for the PC:

- Day of the Tentacle
- Carmageddon
- Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines

I’ve recently had a blast with a mod I absolutely love. The fall from heaven mod for civilization 4. It’s such a cozy and good time, I highly recommend it to anyone that’s into 4X. It’s a fantasy overhaul for civilization making it into a cool and fairly original fantazy setting.

Not sure how old is gold, but recently replayed some Republic Commando. Such a fun FPS, shame there was never a sequel which was heavily leaned towards in the end.