What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[KAI]

Sure, Im only going to tell you a couple of things:

Play at least until you finish the prologue. The game is basically a tutorial and nothing makes sense until that point, I promise the story will hook you like no other product on the genre.

Try not reading anything about the game. The story is soooo focused on the main mystery that getting spoiled even a little can ruin your entire experience.

Play it with japanese dub, every single voice actor made a perfect job with their characters.

And last, trust these guys


I know all that sounded super vague, but hope you can give the game another chance, cause loved every second of it and I cant recommend it enough.

[Lander]

I've been playing lots and lots of modded S.T.A.L.K.E.R. this holiday season, which has been - in the manner of a biblical epic - great and terrible.
And will leave it at that, because I've already made sniffles read ~3 or so essays about it in the FPS thread

Its like your building an engine made of parts and it has to work perfectly. Without telling you you need to build an engine.. But that last puzzle I wouldn't have gotten that if you gave me years. I mean, I like Zelda type puzzles , imagine Zelda having puzzles like Cocoon in it

That sounds mental. And intriguing - might have to have a look myself sometime.

One trend I've noticed in recent years is the 'high-profile indie ARG' - ostensibly popularized by Fez, that habit of an otherwise normal game including some ball-breaking conundrum toward the end that's too complex for one player to realistically solve on their own. Audio spectrograms, heavily-encoded ciphers, geocaching hints, combinations of the above plus more, etcetera.

I'm conflicted over it, since on the one hand it's kind of neat for there to be deeper secrets, but on the other... It's not that fun to go in knowing you'll be hitting up google at the end to have the big pictured explained by the people who were obsessive enough to actually do the solve at launch. Undertale, Environmental Station Alpha, Animal Well, even the Shadow Man remaster to a certain extent. Great games all, but blimey it's everywhere now.

I have a sense that it started out as a wouldn't it be cool if... and has gradually been subsumed into a qualification prerequisite for "indie darling" status; keeps people talking about your game post-launch, makes the long tail a bit girthier, but doesn't necessarily make for an outright better work.

I know I Need to calm down a little, but I've miseed a lot of great games during this last decade.
Plan to play Ace Combat 7, Sekiro and Doom 2016 this month

Crikey, killer lineup. I daresay you've got the full spectrum of story -> raw gameplay there.
AC7 may be the less-lauded of the three, but is so effective at mixing simcade with good character drama. Salutes and single-tears all round.

[XoPachi]

Played a bit of Ridge Racer Vita...

oh

Now I see why it was panned. This really is BARE bones. Jesus. I dont give a shit about a career mode but damn... ONLY single race?
3 tracks??
6 cars???

[Sima Tuna]

Play Ridge Racer 2 for psp.

[To Far Away Times]

Mass Effect 2 is done. The suicide mission was stressful, anyone on your team can die (even Shepard) based on the choices you’ve made. I almost got everyone out alive, but Mordin ended up dying on my playthrough.

Great game, so much better than the first one.

[TransatlanticFoe]

I had Mordin die on me on a playthrough and initially couldn't work out why. Did you get the DLC characters? Cheekily, they count towards all the stuff that determines whether someone lives or dies - there's a flow chart online somewhere - and yeah, you can have everything go perfectly but without the DLC characters Mordin can still randomly die!

[m.sniffles.esq]

I'm going to offer up a half-remembered 'hot take' on 13 Sentinels: I thought it was okay.

It didn't lack ambition, I'll say that much. But I can't say it ever really gelled either.

-----

About a week ago, I was asked if I noticed any absolute steals on Steam's 'school's out, kids are bored' sale, and I said that at $2.50, Grim Dawn was a 96% better game than Diablo 4 for 96% less money. I then noticed my own copy hadn't been played in over three years and 20 updates, so I decided to roll a new character on a whim, and suddenly it was 12 hours later (as these games tend to do).

The long-short of it is that it does a lot of things right that the newer Diablo games do wrong. The biggest attraction being: while it organizes skills by class, it never adheres you to a class. Meaning, there's thousands and thousand of builds possible, and you can rip your character apart and re-build at will. Doing min-max things, crazy hybrids, whatever you desire. It helps a lot that the game itself is pretty well put together, and I generally like the whole 'old west meets fantasy realm' thing. So yeah, if you're into the whole 'old school Diablo' thing at all, it is indeed a steal at $2.50

[To Far Away Times]

I had Mordin die on me on a playthrough and initially couldn't work out why. Did you get the DLC characters? Cheekily, they count towards all the stuff that determines whether someone lives or dies - there's a flow chart online somewhere - and yeah, you can have everything go perfectly but without the DLC characters Mordin can still randomly die!

I was curious what happened since I did his loyalty mission and pretty much all side quests too. I looked into it and has to do with the “hold the line” section at the very end. There are three characters that are critical for this, and you need two of them in that section to hold the line. I sent one of them away to escort the hostages and I had another in my squad.

[neorichieb1971]

Doremi Fantasy, level 7. - Super Famicom.

I found the cheat code actually allows you to start each level powered up, this makes it so much more progressable. I don't know why but I haven't patience to learn patterns and enemy placements in 2D platformers.

[TransatlanticFoe]

I had Mordin die on me on a playthrough and initially couldn't work out why. Did you get the DLC characters? Cheekily, they count towards all the stuff that determines whether someone lives or dies - there's a flow chart online somewhere - and yeah, you can have everything go perfectly but without the DLC characters Mordin can still randomly die!

I was curious what happened since I did his loyalty mission and pretty much all side quests too. I looked into it and has to do with the “hold the line” section at the very end. There are three characters that are critical for this, and you need two of them in that section to hold the line. I sent one of them away to escort the hostages and I had another in my squad.

Yeah you'd think the escort would need to be a soldier but nope, they're guaranteed to survive if loyal. Bring loyal dipshits to the final fight, everyone lives - crazy

When I had my "Mordin died" run I ran the numbers and the only way it would have happened is if the DLC characters were counted in the averages. Not an issue with the trilogy re-release thankfully!

[guigui]

Sure, Im only going to tell you a couple of things:

Spoiler

Play at least until you finish the prologue. The game is basically a tutorial and nothing makes sense until that point, I promise the story will hook you like no other product on the genre.

Try not reading anything about the game. The story is soooo focused on the main mystery that getting spoiled even a little can ruin your entire experience.

Play it with japanese dub, every single voice actor made a perfect job with their characters.

And last, trust these guys

I know all that sounded super vague, but hope you can give the game another chance, cause loved every second of it and I cant recommend it enough.

Thanks for the write up KAI. I guess I definitely need to boot 13 Sentinels next time I want a change of pace from action games.

[Sumez]

While I understand what you're saying, in all fairness, it was actually with Limbo's release that I realized what I considered to be a 'puzzle game' was going to become extinct sooner than later. As those 15-20 years younger than I had an entirely different concept and approach to such a thing.

I'm honestly surprised anyone had to look up solutions for Limbo. Or maybe my memories is fuzzy. I remember most of the puzzles being the typical "vague puzzles just to keep you busy" video game brand of puzzles, with only a few feeling really satisfying. My experience with the game, not using any guides, was exactly that it felt a little short and unsatisfying - but, given the style of game it is, I don't think it would benefit from dragging it on any longer, either. It's a brisk experience, and I did enjoy it a lot. I didn't enjoy Inside nearly as much.

Anyway, I do see the issue with that odd balance of increasing the obscurity of puzzles to the point where there's something for everybody, but in the process you're essentially creating stuff so out there that eventually a guide is kinda necessary. Which begs the question, where do you draw the line? Fez was mentioned, and it's a good example, because it has puzzles that literally could never be solved by a single person, and mysteries that some people only stumbled over by accident.
Tunic, La-Mulana, and more recently, Animal Well, are similar games in that regard, where they start with very simple puzzles, but as you reach the end you realise how much obscure shit is out there. In the case of Animal Well I decided to just leave the game be, when I couldn't figure out anything else on my own. I did consult the internet on a hunch only to realise that there was waaaaaaay more obscure stuff in the game than I imagined! And you know what - if you don't get the satisfaction from finding that solution yourself, never solving it is perfectly fine. There's a lot of cool stuff to discover in the game regardless, and the unseen still there taunting me only adds to the game's air of mystery.

Anyway, getting back to the point of why I was actually quoting that bit above - Baba Is You. Thank me later.
That game is possible the best cerebral puzzle game I have ever played, a pure 10/10 in my book. The puzzles get extremely convoluted, mind bending and circumstantial by the end of it. But never to the point where you actually need a guide. Pretty much everything can be solved with enough experimentation, pondering off-screen, or just resting a few nights before coming back. It's fucking fantastic.

[Sumez]

Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2 is quite the glow up, isn’t it?

I finished Mass Effect 1 and while it generally saved the best for last, I couldn’t help but think this series was seriously overrated based on the first game. But now I get it.

You're almost selling me on it. I know the series is really popular, and even though I know it's not something for me, I'm always tempted to occasionally try crossing over and expanding my horizon.

I didn't dislike Mass Effect 1 when I played it. Hell, I think I almost enjoyed it? I was right on the cusp of finally getting fed up with Bioware's terrible writing, cliche stories and consistently awful dialogue. It's not really what turned me off on ME2 though - I think I was decided on actually playing it, but I just remember not having the patience to even finish the demo, so I just never got around to it. I can't tell if it's really worth the effort to give it another chance.

[m.sniffles.esq]

I'm honestly surprised anyone had to look up solutions for Limbo.

I mean, I didn't have to look at any guides. But it also took me about three times longer than forty minutes to complete. Which was the length those who looked at walkthroughs before even starting were saying it took them, and subsequently complaining about the fact. It wasn't that they needed to look at a walkthrough, it's that they never considered playing any other way.

[To Far Away Times]

Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2 is quite the glow up, isn’t it?

I finished Mass Effect 1 and while it generally saved the best for last, I couldn’t help but think this series was seriously overrated based on the first game. But now I get it.

You're almost selling me on it. I know the series is really popular, and even though I know it's not something for me, I'm always tempted to occasionally try crossing over and expanding my horizon.

I didn't dislike Mass Effect 1 when I played it. Hell, I think I almost enjoyed it? I was right on the cusp of finally getting fed up with Bioware's terrible writing, cliche stories and consistently awful dialogue. It's not really what turned me off on ME2 though - I think I was decided on actually playing it, but I just remember not having the patience to even finish the demo, so I just never got around to it. I can't tell if it's really worth the effort to give it another chance.

Over the last couple years I’ve really become enamored with Western RPGs that put a lot of emphasis on player choice and every player having their own unique play through. I love that shit. Of these types of games that I’ve played, Baldur’s Gate 3, The Witcher 3, and Dragon Age: Origins probably did it best. I’d put Mass Effect 2 a little behind those but still in the same ballpark.

Mass Effect 2’s got pretty decent writing for a video game, imo. (Certainly a shit ton better than Dragon Age Veilguard.) ME2 is all about the characters and their side stories and that part is very well done. ME2 gives you a lot more choices to make. The writing has some spice to it. There’s some good payoffs from choices in ME1. Your teammates don’t all like each other and there’s lots of conflict. Many of the choices feel like they have weight and are morally grey. Characters call you out when Shepard is a hypocrite, and so on.

[Sumez]

Over the last couple years I’ve really become enamored with Western RPGs that put a lot of emphasis on player choice and every player having their own unique play through. I love that shit. Of these types of games that I’ve played, Baldur’s Gate 3, The Witcher 3, and Dragon Age: Origins probably did it best. I’d put Mass Effect 2 a little behind those but still in the same ballpark.

Man, you really should play Romancing SaGa 2 then, it really puts all of those to shame. DA:O is basically just "do you want to play this or this area for the intro, and then pick your order for the rest". RS2 just changes the entire world based on your actions compared to the time and order you do them in, and the whole world is open from the start.

I don't know if the new remake manages to be just as open ended though, or if they streamlined it for "modern gamers", so I'm not sure it's worth recommending that one even though it got a positive reception.

[Sima Tuna]

Minstrel Song Remastered is my favorite Saga game and the whole thing is a big adventure book of quests and player choices. All those Saga games are great.

[Lander]

About a week ago, I was asked if I noticed any absolute steals on Steam's 'school's out, kids are bored' sale, and I said that at $2.50, Grim Dawn was a 96% better game than Diablo 4 for 96% less money. I then noticed my own copy hadn't been played in over three years and 20 updates, so I decided to roll a new character on a whim, and suddenly it was 12 hours later (as these games tend to do).

Superb game. I think they put out another expansion fairly recently too, which is crazy considering how old the game is, and that Blizz have had time to completely sink the Diablo franchise in the interim. I suspect Crate is exploiting that particular fuck-up as hard as possible, given that Titan Quest (GD's Ancient Greek progenitor) is getting a sequel as well.

What class/es are you running? I've been meaning to go back and do something Oathkeepeer-based for a while, actually make use of those legendary it's a shield but also a mace novelties, like the fixed drop beyond the bridge southwest of the starter town.

[Lethe]

Grim Dawn is an astonishingly boring game. No matter what character you build or what settings you play it on, it always quickly returns to a wide, ankle-deep pool of gestalt tepidity. Thermostat gaming. Gyroscope gaming. Audio compressor gaming. Somehow it's still one of the better games in its subgenre, really makes you think.

Coincidentally, I've been messing about with ToME4 recently. I've been sporadically doing this for years, not because I think it's a good game but because I find it fascinating what a mess it is. It's hard to quantitatively explain what's wrong with it; the culmination of one man's quest to mutate ZAngband into an epic-scale kitchen-sink Eurojank Diablo accidentally resembles a late-stage-Jenga-puzzle, where stumbling on any one piece causes a cascade of other failures. No consumables, everything runs off cooldowns with trivial resource management, no clock mechanic, no stealth-like mechanic, permanent dungeons but they're more statically generated and there's almost no monster interactivity, reliance on random-generated bosses and level scaling to pose any sort of challenge, you have to raise the difficulty level to get enough of those but all the higher difficulties are untested, once you've got a grip on the metagame the highest non-joke difficulty is still rather easy, until randboss #2361 crits you for 5000 damage while invisible or is impossible to kill because it got the perfect combination of monster type and random classes, on a game that's 10+ hours long and has linear stretches. etc.

Of course it has some positive qualities as well, mostly related to build planning, but the dreck-to-interest-to-bullshit ratio is probably too bad to ever recommend it as worth anyone's time. Thematically it can also be pretty bizarre, in an archetypal geeky fantasy writer sort of way, simultaneously treating stupid things too earnestly and earnest things with too much comedy. If the creator is Italian as his name suggests, that might explain a bit of it... all the Italians I've ever met online seem to have uniquely colorful interpretations of English. At least I can occasionally laugh at it. This is the failure Grim Dawn would wish it had, if it didn't fail to understand its own failures.

[guigui]

Over the last couple years I’ve really become enamored with Western RPGs that put a lot of emphasis on player choice and every player having their own unique play through. I love that shit. Of these types of games that I’ve played, Baldur’s Gate 3, The Witcher 3, and Dragon Age: Origins probably did it best. I’d put Mass Effect 2 a little behind those but still in the same ballpark.

May sound stupid but have you tried the Fallout 1 and 2 games ? Definitely choice RPGs to their best for me.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Somehow it's still one of the better games in its subgenre, really makes you think

I guess that's why I said "if you're into the whole 'old school Diablo' thing at all". Evidently, you're not. Some people hate Dynasty Warriors games "you spam a button and mow through 20,000 popcorns, fight a boss, rinse, repeat, yawn" yet there's 114 sequels, spin-offs, and clones. JPRG? "hack, hack, heal, romance, betrayal, twist, death" I think we're into at least the tens of thousands with those. So someone is obviously deriving enjoyment out of these. Personally, if I want depth, there's a library containing a few hundred great works of literature I've still yet to read a couple blocks from my apartment. Not to mention, the box set of 40 films by Ingmar Bergman I'm only halfway through sitting on my shelf. When playing video games I am quite literally 'playing games'. Gin rummy never taught anyone about the human condition, made sense of the universe, or taught anyone how to drive a 18 gear manual transmission. So...

What class/es are you running?

Currently, I'm a saboteur (nightblade/destructionist but I like that they named this saboteur, as it sounds much cooler). Before I was a Solider/Occultist or something, I don't remember. Honestly, I'm just trying to find the class that lets me dual wield guns (I'm sure I can just look it up along with 5000 different builds, but I've found fumbling around part of the enjoyment. I do the same thing with Disgaea)

One thing I do find a lil' weird is that they seem to have regular updates, but controller support is still real spotty (i.e. the game still seems to think the left trigger doesn't exist). I only think that's 'weird' because when Steam Deck Mania™ hit everyone who were still updating their games seemed to suddenly be real concerned with controller support so they could be 'Deck Approved' or whatever. I guess Crate didn't care. Still, as one of the unwashed controller masses, the various... uh... idiosyncrasies are a little annoying

[Lander]

Currently, I'm a saboteur (nightblade/destructionist but I like that they named this saboteur, as it sounds much cooler). Before I was a Solider/Occultist or something, I don't remember. Honestly, I'm just trying to find the class that lets me dual wield guns (I'm sure I can just look it up along with 5000 different builds, but I've found fumbling around part of the enjoyment. I do the same thing with Disgaea)

The unique names are a nice touch - I ran Sorcerer (Destructionist / Arcanist) for my ranged character, and ignored the magic half entirely after concluding that I'd bungled it out of the gate. Still ended up doing alright until the higher difficulties; fire-rate-on-hit pistols, and a blunderbuss that randomly cast Meteor was the gimmick, I think - good silly fun.

Honestly, I'm just trying to find the class that lets me dual wield guns (I'm sure I can just look it up along with 5000 different builds, but I've found fumbling around part of the enjoyment. I do the same thing with Disgaea)

It's better that way. Giving a shit about a build being 'competitive' inevitably leads to the downward spiral of maximum difficulty, and that's just too much grind. Elite's a nice challenge, but the fun turns into job when banging on specific enemies for even more specific affixed drops becomes progression-mandatory.

One thing I do find a lil' weird is that they seem to have regular updates, but controller support is still real spotty (i.e. the game still seems to think the left trigger doesn't exist). I only think that's 'weird' because when Steam Deck Mania™ hit everyone who were still updating their games seemed to suddenly be real concerned with controller support so they could be 'Deck Approved' or whatever. I guess Crate didn't care. Still, as one of the unwashed controller masses, the various... uh... idiosyncrasies are a little annoying

Might be worth fiddling with Steam Input; either turning it off to see if the built-in support functions better, or using the remapper to wrangle it into a useful state. I ran pad on my Solider / Shaman toon for a flavour change, and remember being able to make it work properly with a bit of wiggling.

Though I was also using the now-obsolete Grim Internals .exe replacement, so mileage may still vary.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Might be worth fiddling with Steam Input; either turning it off to see if the built-in support functions better

Ack! I forgot about that completely.

I noticed the 'steam controller' box was checked in prefs, which is probably what I used when I initially played (like most people, I bought one when they were getting rid of them for $5. It's around here somewhere...) and while I switched it to 'non-steam controller', I forgot that Steam itself has all kinds of overriding configs. Which is probably what's going on.

Edit: Okay, LT was mapped to a 'hold position' function that I never use (or even thought of using). Someone was nice and uploaded a config that made it into a 'shift' key so that you can use all 10 ability slots with a controller. MUCH better

the fun turns into job when banging on specific enemies for even more specific affixed drops becomes progression-mandatory

Oh... I'll just be blissful in my ignorance. Some want to be top-tier-elite players, and some just want to kill monsters. I'm firmly in the latter camp.

[Lethe]

I guess that's why I said "if you're into the whole 'old school Diablo' thing at all". Evidently, you're not. Some people hate Dynasty Warriors games "you spam a button and mow through 20,000 popcorns, fight a boss, rinse, repeat, yawn" yet there's 114 sequels, spin-offs, and clones. JPRG? "hack, hack, heal, romance, betrayal, twist, death" I think we're into at least the tens of thousands with those. So someone is obviously deriving enjoyment out of these. Personally, if I want depth, there's a library containing a few hundred great works of literature I've still yet to read a couple blocks from my apartment. Not to mention, the box set of 40 films by Ingmar Bergman I'm only halfway through sitting on my shelf. When playing video games I am quite literally 'playing games'. Gin rummy never taught anyone about the human condition, made sense of the universe, or taught anyone how to drive a 18 gear manual transmission. So...

Dude, I'm talking about ToME and Angband in the same post and your takeaway is I'm too elitist for hack-and-slash games?
I find GD boring because every character ends up feeling the same after a few hours and the game just utterly fails to establish a personality (despite making some effort to try). It would actually benefit it if it were played in a text terminal, at least then its better ideas would be at a memorable forefront and not lost in glowing particle effect soup. Maybe I should rescind praising it at all to avoid misunderstanding.

[To Far Away Times]

Over the last couple years I’ve really become enamored with Western RPGs that put a lot of emphasis on player choice and every player having their own unique play through. I love that shit. Of these types of games that I’ve played, Baldur’s Gate 3, The Witcher 3, and Dragon Age: Origins probably did it best. I’d put Mass Effect 2 a little behind those but still in the same ballpark.

May sound stupid but have you tried the Fallout 1 and 2 games ? Definitely choice RPGs to their best for me.

I have heard nothing but good things about those games but unfortunately I have yet to gel with any Western RPGs that don't have a cinematic camera. Sadly, I dropped out of Baldur's Gate 2 and Divinity II after just an hour or so.

[Sima Tuna]

Don't be playing Baldur's Gate II without playing Baldur's Gate 1 first. Regardless which game somebody considers better, BG1 is the tutorial for all the systems and mechanics in BG2. The slow leveling curve gives you time to learn. If you leap into BG2 you'll be fighting Tor'Gal as your first boss and not understand what the fuck is happening. Or walking into the Twisted Rune by accident and thinking you're supposed to be there.

[Lander]

I must get back to BG2 - binged the hell out of the Infinity Engine games a while back, got BG1 and Torment under my belt, but Icewind Dale's dick-nailing dungeon crawl experience kinda burned me out before I could get into 2.

That, and the intro makes some eh, aggressive nips-and-tucks to the established state of things. Not necessarily for the worse, but the doubly-serious tone takes some adjusting to.
Not to mention poor Jaheira's ugly-stick makeover; trying to make her look more elfy was a noble enough idea, but it's an oof in practice.

[guigui]

Over the last couple years I’ve really become enamored with Western RPGs that put a lot of emphasis on player choice and every player having their own unique play through. I love that shit. Of these types of games that I’ve played, Baldur’s Gate 3, The Witcher 3, and Dragon Age: Origins probably did it best. I’d put Mass Effect 2 a little behind those but still in the same ballpark.

May sound stupid but have you tried the Fallout 1 and 2 games ? Definitely choice RPGs to their best for me.

I have heard nothing but good things about those games but unfortunately I have yet to gel with any Western RPGs that don't have a cinematic camera. Sadly, I dropped out of Baldur's Gate 2 and Divinity II after just an hour or so.

For sure the Fallout 1 and 2 games have to be seen as post DOS era games ; no fancy camera effect, but boy is this world weird, desperate and coherent !

[vol.2]

I must get back to BG2 - binged the hell out of the Infinity Engine games a while back, got BG1 and Torment under my belt, but Icewind Dale's dick-nailing dungeon crawl experience kinda burned me out before I could get into 2.

I still haven't played BG2 or PT yet. I got about 3/4 of the way through BG1 about 20 years ago and then life got super busy and I forgot it existed. It's not the easiest kind of game to randomly drop back into and I forgot all the plot lines and everything. I might watch a YT video about it and stop when it gets to around where I'm at or something.

The first Fallout game is amazing (haven't played 2 yet). I actually like a lot of the Brian Fargo stuff, having played Wasteland on the Apple II as a kid, and lots of other Interplay games. I also enjoyed his satirical remake of the Bard's Tale from 2004; picked that one up in a bargain bin at an Electronics Boutique.

I just finished Doom II for the first time. When those games were coming out, I sort of stopped at Wolfenstein 3D. My family didn't have a PC fast enough to really play the first Doom when it came out, and I had a Sega Genesis and (later) a SNES. By the time I had a better PC it was about 1997 and I was in college and had an MMX CPU and stuff so I wasn't really impressed with Doom anymore; one of my first games for that PC was Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight. It was hard to go back and play Doom at that time (looking forward to the latest and greatest), especially when you missed the boat on Doom when it was more relevant.

Recently I started going back to older games and realized I never gave Doom a fair shake and decided to run through them.

Impressions of Doom II are fairly obvious in that it doesn't really introduce any new engine mechanics over Doom 1, but the maps are a world apart. The level design, the new enemies, the new featured textures and the length of the game, and the difficultly are all so much better in Doom II that it's not difficult to understand why it's so loved.

My favorite levels were Refueling Base, The Innermost Dens, and Monster Condo. I played Doom II in emulation via DOSBox Staging utilizing FastDoom, which is a project that maintains all of Vanilla Doom's originality but heavily optimizes the code to allow it to run faster on slower machines, and to have a couple more features on faster systems like vsync and unlocked framerates. It also adds a bunch of sound and video device modes that OG Doom didn't have and it all runs on original hardware if you so wish.

I played it with a Roland SC-55 for midi sound, and regular Soundblaster sound effects. My favorite song was "The Healer Stalks."

[Lander]

I still haven't played BG2 or PT yet. I got about 3/4 of the way through BG1 about 20 years ago and then life got super busy and I forgot it existed. It's not the easiest kind of game to randomly drop back into and I forgot all the plot lines and everything. I might watch a YT video about it and stop when it gets to around where I'm at or something.

BG1's plot isn't all that important, really. The underlying lore implications and future groundwork are of note, but dealing with the big bad was less memorable than off-the-beaten-path encounters like the talking chicken or friendly ghoul.

The wandering is its best material, I think; story's alright, combat's a bit wonky and abusable, companions are memorable yet lack depth, but despite being unfocused on paper it lands a balance that's just right for adventure-simming.

And well, PT is an enviable rainy-day game to have perhaps even worth getting amnesia to reexperience!