- Sim City 2000Doubt I'll ever play these; simpsons annoys me and simulations I haven't felt an attraction to, though I do own it already on gog.
- Simpsons: Hit & Run
- Day of the TentacleThis I haven't played and could certainly see doing (haven't played any
- Grand Theft Auto IIIThis is still expensive to buy, pass. I do own GTA5 for some reason, but have a general antipathy to rockstar games
- Legend of Zeldapass
- Day of the Tentacle
- Doom
- Grand Theft Auto III
- Half-Life
- Half-Life 2
- Legend of Zelda
- Sim City 2000
- Simpsons: Hit & Run
- Day of the Tentacle
- Doom
- Grand Theft Auto III
- Half-Life
- Half-Life 2
- Legend of Zelda
- Sim City 2000
- Simpsons: Hit & Run
How many have you played? Have you any suggestions for other classics
you think people should play?
Continuing my recent trend of "let's steal topics from websites as a
stepping off point for new discussions", I present this one:
"8 Classic Games You Haven't Played (but should)" https://www.xda-developers.com/classic-games-havent-played-but-should/
To save you the effort of clicking and reading, here are the games
they list:
- Day of the Tentacle
- Doom
- Grand Theft Auto III
- Half-Life
- Half-Life 2
- Legend of Zelda
- Sim City 2000
- Simpsons: Hit & Run
On 1/27/2025 7:33 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Continuing my recent trend of "let's steal topics from websites as aOf which I have played exactly... *counts* ...zero of them.
stepping off point for new discussions", I present this one:
"8 Classic Games You Haven't Played (but should)"
https://www.xda-developers.com/classic-games-havent-played-but-should/
To save you the effort of clicking and reading, here are the games
they list:
- Day of the Tentacle
- Doom
- Grand Theft Auto III
- Half-Life
- Half-Life 2
- Legend of Zelda
- Sim City 2000
- Simpsons: Hit & Run
How many have you played? Have you any suggestions for other classics
you think people should play?
Half-Life
GTA III VC
Master of Magic (arguably MoO instead, but I prefer MoM)
Fallout
Populous
Elite
Star-Control II
Ultima
Continuing my recent trend of "let's steal topics from websites as a
stepping off point for new discussions", I present this one:
"8 Classic Games You Haven't Played (but should)" https://www.xda-developers.com/classic-games-havent-played-but-should/
To save you the effort of clicking and reading, here are the games
they list:
- Day of the Tentacle
- Doom
- Grand Theft Auto III
- Half-Life
- Half-Life 2
- Legend of Zelda
- Sim City 2000
- Simpsons: Hit & Run
Which is a fair list, I suppose. These are all games still worth
playing, if not to the end then just for a little while to see what
they were all about. They certainly aren't /must-play/ games (although
some of them, I think, might fall onto that list); just games that
-despite their age- still have value as forms of entertainment.
Except maybe "Simpsons: Hit and Run". The gameplay of that one was a
bit iffy and most of its charm came from its virtual recreation of
"The Simpsons" universe. But I don't think that franchise has quite
the same cachet as it did twenty years ago, and if you aren't a
die-hard fan you probably won't get much from the game.
Of all the games, I think only "Day of the Tentacle" still stands out
as a game that can be enjoyed for its gameplay. The rest are still
fun, but advancements in game design all make them feel a bit old. You
can enjoy the others, but it takes effort. DOTT, though, feels just as
fresh and fun (if a bit pixely in its graphics) as the day it was
released.
How many have you played? Have you any suggestions for other classics
you think people should play?
Oh, Ultima Underworld for sure. It's the most playable and most
accessible of all the Ultimas, especially to modern gamers.
If we're going to include the main line of games, Ultima 7 is a
shoo-in, but I'm on the fence between Ultima 4 and 5. U4 had its
unique story-line, but U5 added a lot of necessary QOL features that
just made the game a lot more fun.
On Tue, 28 Jan 2025 07:02:48 -0800, Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
wrote:
"Populous" is a genre of god-game that I think needs to make a
come-back (although I was always more fond of the sequel). There have
been attempts to revitalize the god-game genre, but they always added
too many layers of complexity to the game, and I think that what made "Populous" so addictive was its simplicity. It was a very hands-off
sort of game, where most of the action took place outside of the
player's control, and you had to swoop in only at critical junctures
to make sure the outcome of a battle went in your favor. "Populous" is actually one of those games that /benefits/ from its technological limitations, with its small view-window keeping you focused on just a
tiny part of the world at once. Even just the ability to zoom out to a
more macro-level view of the world works against the game's balance, I
feel.
On Tue, 28 Jan 2025 07:02:48 -0800, Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
wrote:
Half-Life
GTA III VC
Master of Magic (arguably MoO instead, but I prefer MoM)
Fallout
Populous
Elite
Star-Control II
Ultima
I prefer MOO but I always felt that MOM was more popular so I think
your choice makes more sense.
As for Ultima, which one? The first one is too old and too weird for
classic status IMO. I would nominate either Ultima 4 or 7 myself.
What's so special about Ultima IV as I had it on the Atari ST, never got
into it but I do still have the original box although I've lost that
cloth map, and I also now have it on GoG as a freebie.
Is it actually worth playing now just to see what it's all about?
While I like Populous II it added too much. The simplicity and near endlessness* of the original was never duplicated. Populous II by
adding so much became something else. It think the original would make
a good mobile game even now if the controls were good.
I agree again. I like Ultima 5 more then 4 but I went with 4 because
of how damn unique it actually was and still is. I went with 7 as an >alternative due to its incredible 'living' world and I also think it
is just the best game in the mainline series.
Can we both agree, though, that "Syndicate" was the better of both
games? ;-)
On Thu, 30 Jan 2025 12:17:45 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
What's so special about Ultima IV as I had it on the Atari ST, never got
into it but I do still have the original box although I've lost that
cloth map, and I also now have it on GoG as a freebie.
Is it actually worth playing now just to see what it's all about?
There is no Ultimate Bad Guy(tm) to defeat in Ultima 4. You have to
become the Avatar by following the eight virtues. Some of them include
Honor, Sacrifice, Humility, Honesty and Justice. Fail at any of them
and you can't complete the game.
What I personally really enjoyed was exploring Britannia and its towns
and talking to all of the people. When you talk to them, you have to
pick up on 'keywords' and type them in to continue the conversation.
So If a character you talk to says 'This is Moonglow! The town of
honesty!. You then can type 'honesty' and the NPC will say more.
Ultima 5 takes this much further as conversations in that game are
more in-depth.
I like old games, especially RPGs, so it is was definitely worth
playing for me.
I think I well give it a go just to see why it's a game that gets
mentioned so often!
I'm going to be contrarian here and recommend Ultima III as the one Ultima >game people should play to introduce them to the series. Sure, Ultima
IV and V have a better story, but by modern standards the story elements
of the games are so thin, it's hard to see that except by comparision to
the earlier games. I think the third game in the series shows off the
the basic mechanics and style of the the first five Ultima games, what >actually attracted people to play these games, without the distraction of
a "revolutionary" story that still only makes up a tiny part of the game.
"Ultima IV" will always be the 'heart' of the franchise; "Ultima VII"
will always be the height of the series, and "Ultima Underworld" the
most playable... but the game that epitomizes what made the Ultima
franchise so awesome shall forever be "Ultima V" in my eyes.
The gameplay of "Syndicate" was awesome, but what I really remember
about it was its intro cinematic. A full-screen animation (back when >full-screen anything was still rare), it was incredibly stylish and
hinted at depths to the world that neither the manual nor the game
itself lived up to. It could be launched with its own executable
(intro.exe) which I would run again and again, just because it was
_that_ cool. To quote an earlier poster in this thread:
"The music was great to a younger me sitting in a dark
cold bedroom staring at a 14" CRT with small speakers
blasting out, the soundtrack, happy days"
(And speaking of music and games from Bullfrog... "Lemmings", amirite?
Such catchy remixes of old classics, all 'sung' through the squeal of
a Soundblaster's OPL3 chip. I'm pretty sure that the game itself
wouldn't have reached the heights of popularity it did with a
different soundtrack.
On Fri, 31 Jan 2025 10:30:16 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
The gameplay of "Syndicate" was awesome, but what I really remember
about it was its intro cinematic. A full-screen animation (back when >full-screen anything was still rare), it was incredibly stylish and
hinted at depths to the world that neither the manual nor the game
itself lived up to. It could be launched with its own executable >(intro.exe) which I would run again and again, just because it was
_that_ cool. To quote an earlier poster in this thread:
"The music was great to a younger me sitting in a dark
cold bedroom staring at a 14" CRT with small speakers
blasting out, the soundtrack, happy days"
I remember the music of the Syndicate intro very well. If I heard it
now, I would recognize it immediately.
(And speaking of music and games from Bullfrog... "Lemmings", amirite?
Such catchy remixes of old classics, all 'sung' through the squeal of
a Soundblaster's OPL3 chip. I'm pretty sure that the game itself
wouldn't have reached the heights of popularity it did with a
different soundtrack.
Lemmings had a lot catchy tunes. I have several in my soundtrack
collection. But I don't think Bullfrog had anything to do with
Lemmings. That was published by Psygnosis I think.
Personally, I preferred the older game. "Powermonger" just added on
layers of complexity I felt were unnecessary. Although, again, that
might be because I came across it later. Perhaps had I played
"Powermonger" first, I would have been bitching about how stupidly
simplified they'd made "Populous". ;-P
Can we both agree, though, that "Syndicate" was the better of both
games? ;-)
On Sat, 01 Feb 2025 01:36:25 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:
Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com> wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jan 2025 10:30:16 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
The gameplay of "Syndicate" was awesome, but what I really remember
about it was its intro cinematic. A full-screen animation (back when
full-screen anything was still rare), it was incredibly stylish and
hinted at depths to the world that neither the manual nor the game
itself lived up to. It could be launched with its own executable
(intro.exe) which I would run again and again, just because it was
_that_ cool. To quote an earlier poster in this thread:
"The music was great to a younger me sitting in a dark
cold bedroom staring at a 14" CRT with small speakers
blasting out, the soundtrack, happy days"
I remember the music of the Syndicate intro very well. If I heard it
now, I would recognize it immediately.
And the animation! I couldn't play the demo on my IBM PS/2 model 30 286
10 Mhz PC. :( My next door neighbor (I miss him) could on his custom
built 386 PC so we played there. Haha.
For those of you wondering, "What are all these old farts talking
about? How good could that intro really be?", let me present you with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrR2N7C7Ddk
Although watching that cutscene again reminds me of a question I've
always wondered: is the cyborgization machine SUPPOSED to look like it
has googly-eyes?
Can we both agree, though, that "Syndicate" was the better of both
games? ;-)
I might also agree, but Syndicate crashed a lot for me so I never got
far in the game.
It also started to get very tediously repetitive as it dragged on. By
about the tenth level, you'd seen everything the game had to offer,
and the other 40 levels were variations on the theme, just with
increasingly difficult designs. Then again, when most maps could be
finished in five or ten minutes, it's hard to imagine what else
Bullfrog could have done to stretch out the game so you weren't paying
$50USD (in 1993 dollars) for a game you could otherwise finish in a
few hours.
The sequel, "Syndicate Wars" was a bit better in this regard, but the early-3D graphics and rough controls made it hard to notice. Although
it was fun to make entire buildings explode.
Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
...
Can we both agree, though, that "Syndicate" was the better of both
games? ;-)
I might also agree, but Syndicate crashed a lot for me so I never got
far in the game.
It also started to get very tediously repetitive as it dragged on. By
about the tenth level, you'd seen everything the game had to offer,
and the other 40 levels were variations on the theme, just with
increasingly difficult designs. Then again, when most maps could be
finished in five or ten minutes, it's hard to imagine what else
Bullfrog could have done to stretch out the game so you weren't paying
$50USD (in 1993 dollars) for a game you could otherwise finish in a
few hours.
IIRC, there was also an official addon to add more even harder levels! I never got far in the original game since it got hard. :(
The sequel, "Syndicate Wars" was a bit better in this regard, but the
early-3D graphics and rough controls made it hard to notice. Although
it was fun to make entire buildings explode.
I played its demo on my Compaq Armada 1585DMT laptop/notebook in my
college dorm. It was OK.
Wasn't there another Syndicate clone that was good? I can't remember its name! I never played it, but my friends told me that it was fun like the original game.
I'm pretty sure I played 4 just because of that virtues mechanic, but I
don't remember anything else about it. I probably didn't complete it.
However, the one you are probably thinking of is "Satellite Reign",
which came out a full 22 years after the original "Syndicate" and does
its best to ape that classic. It's...okay. Like too many games, it
tried adding extra levels of compexity (hacking, traps, NPCs) to the
core idea and I think it made the whole thing top-heavy; it didn't
have the same accessibility that made the original so fun and
addictive.
The virtue mechanic appeared in multiple Ultimas (off the top of my
head, the "virtues=character generation" was used in Ultimas 4, 5 and
6 (as well as 9, but we don't talk about that one), and there was a
karma mechanic (of lessening importance to the outcome of the game
with each iteration) in 4, 5, 6 and 7. So you could have played any of
those ;-)
Well, Arena was more of a personality test that corresponded to
various attributes (e.g., sort of a 'You see a guy being bullied, what
do you do? a) Punch the bully (+STR attribute), b) trick the bully
(+INT), c) Join the bully (+CON)' thing). Which ultimately is what
Ultima did too, except there weren't any direct correlations to
virtue/value judgments about your actions in "Elder Scrolls: Arena").
If you ever move on to "Ultima 6", I heartily recommend using the
Nuvie patch for it https://ultima6.ultimacodex.com/nuvie/ . Not only
does it give you a much wider playfield, it also improves the
drag-n-drop capabilities of the game, all of which makes it a much
more playable game than the original (you can even add full speech if
you have access to the FM Towns version of the game... but don't. It's
awful ;-)
The problem with that plan... I have so many other games....
One more come Thursday ;-)
Continuing my recent trend of "let's steal topics from websites as aplayed it, liked it
stepping off point for new discussions", I present this one:
"8 Classic Games You Haven't Played (but should)" >https://www.xda-developers.com/classic-games-havent-played-but-should/
To save you the effort of clicking and reading, here are the games
they list:
- Day of the Tentacle
- Doomplayed it, liked it
- Grand Theft Auto IIIplayed it, did not care for it cause I played it after vice city and
- Half-Lifeplayed it, liked it
- Half-Life 2played it, disappointed compared to 1
- Legend of Zeldanever played
- Sim City 2000never played, only original
- Simpsons: Hit & Runnever played
Continuing my recent trend of "let's steal topics from websites as aNever played it.
stepping off point for new discussions", I present this one:
"8 Classic Games You Haven't Played (but should)" https://www.xda-developers.com/classic-games-havent-played-but-should/
To save you the effort of clicking and reading, here are the games
they list:
- Day of the Tentacle
- DoomPlayed it a lot.
- Grand Theft Auto IIIPlayed it.
- Half-LifePlayed it.
- Half-Life 2Never played it.
- Legend of ZeldaPlayed it, but not till the end.
- Sim City 2000Played it, for a little time.
- Simpsons: Hit & RunNever played it.
On Thu, 30 Jan 2025 06:51:03 -0800, Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
wrote:
There's other games like SSI's Pool of Radiance that feel almost
unplayable and not terribly fun that I would put on as best games of all >>time that have aged poorly and I wouldn't recommend to anyone who wasn't >>already getting into AD&D and only as more historical look at how it
could be interpreted, more of an academic pursuit.
Now, THERE is an interesting concept for a listicle: Best Games Ever
that you shouldn't play because they haven't aged well.
I'll leave it up to somebody else to start that thread and offer up
some examples, though.
On Thu, 30 Jan 2025 12:17:45 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
What's so special about Ultima IV as I had it on the Atari ST, never got >>into it but I do still have the original box although I've lost that
cloth map, and I also now have it on GoG as a freebie.
Is it actually worth playing now just to see what it's all about?
There is no Ultimate Bad Guy(tm) to defeat in Ultima 4. You have to
become the Avatar by following the eight virtues. Some of them include
Honor, Sacrifice, Humility, Honesty and Justice. Fail at any of them
and you can't complete the game.
What I personally really enjoyed was exploring Britannia and its towns
and talking to all of the people. When you talk to them, you have to
pick up on 'keywords' and type them in to continue the conversation.
So If a character you talk to says 'This is Moonglow! The town of
honesty!. You then can type 'honesty' and the NPC will say more.
Ultima 5 takes this much further as conversations in that game are
more in-depth.
I like old games, especially RPGs, so it is was definitely worth
playing for me.
On Sat, 01 Feb 2025 01:36:25 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:
Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com> wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jan 2025 10:30:16 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
The gameplay of "Syndicate" was awesome, but what I really remember
about it was its intro cinematic. A full-screen animation (back when
full-screen anything was still rare), it was incredibly stylish and
hinted at depths to the world that neither the manual nor the game
itself lived up to. It could be launched with its own executable
(intro.exe) which I would run again and again, just because it was
_that_ cool. To quote an earlier poster in this thread:
"The music was great to a younger me sitting in a dark
cold bedroom staring at a 14" CRT with small speakers
blasting out, the soundtrack, happy days"
I remember the music of the Syndicate intro very well. If I heard it
now, I would recognize it immediately.
And the animation! I couldn't play the demo on my IBM PS/2 model 30 286
10 Mhz PC. :( My next door neighbor (I miss him) could on his custom
built 386 PC so we played there. Haha.
For those of you wondering, "What are all these old farts talking
about? How good could that intro really be?", let me present you with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrR2N7C7Ddk
Although watching that cutscene again reminds me of a question I've
always wondered: is the cyborgization machine SUPPOSED to look like it
has googly-eyes?
(And speaking of music and games from Bullfrog... "Lemmings", amirite?
Such catchy remixes of old classics, all 'sung' through the squeal of
a Soundblaster's OPL3 chip. I'm pretty sure that the game itself
wouldn't have reached the heights of popularity it did with a
different soundtrack.
Lemmings had a lot catchy tunes. I have several in my soundtrack
collection. But I don't think Bullfrog had anything to do with
Lemmings. That was published by Psygnosis I think.
Yeah, not from Bullfrog (RIP). Lemmings was fun. I never liked the 3D >>version though!
Honestly, I never cared much for any of the sequels. This probably
won't surprise any of you who've been paying attention to my rants,
but the added complexities in the sequels (new tribes, new abilities)
had little appeal for me. It all felt more for the sake of being more.
Rather than adding more abilities to the lemmings, I'd have rather the developers just worked on differentiating the maps with new tricks and
traps.
Lemmings was sublime. Lemmings 2 was okay. The rest (Chronicles,
Lemmings 3D, etc.) just descended into ever deepening levels of
mediocrity.
It didn't help that Bullfrog kept trying to play up the characters of
the Lemmings. The critters were cute, but they were one-note jokes,
and despite all of Bullfrog's attempts to add history and lore, just
didn't have the depth of character to support it. And the game really
didn't need it; "just keep these weird green-haired idiots from
plummeting off the edge of the map" was enough to keep up interest, I
think.
On Sun, 16 Feb 2025 00:30:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 15:28 this Thursday (GMT):
On Thu, 30 Jan 2025 06:51:03 -0800, Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
wrote:
There's other games like SSI's Pool of Radiance that feel almost >>>>unplayable and not terribly fun that I would put on as best games of all >>>>time that have aged poorly and I wouldn't recommend to anyone who wasn't >>>>already getting into AD&D and only as more historical look at how it >>>>could be interpreted, more of an academic pursuit.
Now, THERE is an interesting concept for a listicle: Best Games Ever
that you shouldn't play because they haven't aged well.
I'll leave it up to somebody else to start that thread and offer up
some examples, though.
The only one I can think of is "Pathologic", but for different reasons..
Okay, I'll bite; what reasons?
I can't remember if I played Pathologic or not. It's from 2005 and
even back then I was acquiring games at an unhealthy rate (nothing
compared to now, when free games shower us weekly, but still quite a
lot). I made an attempt to play all of them, but sometimes I'd buy a
game, install it, play it a few minutes then move on to something else
[usually this happened when I bought multiple games at once
and I'd install the less-exciting game first, only to abandon
it quickly for the game I /really/ wanted to play]
I think Pathologic was one of these. But I can't remember a thing
about it. It's quite possible I never even gave it a chance (it was
unusual, but that occasionally happened. I'm looking at you, "Odium"). Looking on Steam, it doesn't look /too/ bad. Sure, it's very 2005ish;
a sort of Slavjank "Silent Hill" but not --on the face of it-- not
looking absolutely terrible.
So why not play it?
No really. Save me from making an awful mistake, 'cause at the moment
I'm sort of tempted... and you know what happens when a game not in my library attracts my attention. ;-)
Side note: TIL about "Ultima VII: Revisited" >(https://www.u7revisited.com/downloads/) which is a fan mod that is >attempting to recreate the entire game as a 3-D rendered version. It's
still in alpha (just the basic engine is complete, but no
gameplay/scripting) but it looks... neat. I'm not sure adding a fully
3D camera really adds anything necessary to the game, but... look,
it's more Ultima. I'm not going to complain about that.
Video of the engine in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmy4ClXXI84
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