Playing Old Games For the First Time - Give a Short Review of Some 10+ Year Old Game You Played For the First Time

[Mega Black]

Just played Morrowind. I couldn't hit anything for hours and I fucking hate Cliff Racers. But then I became a God. 10/10.

I've been going through it myself as a lizard wizard with the Tamriel Rebuilt content. Was uncooperative for a good long while, but eventually managed to get it up and running. Game's still good, but I do often find myself yearning for quest markers. Maybe I'd tolerate the lack of direction better if the map had more detail, or the directions given from NPCs weren't so shit.
"Go west and cross the bridge." Means "Head west, cross the bridge, then head along the road until you see a small tree. Pass under the tree and head exactly fifteen steps to your right, then look over the ridge and walk along the water until you find the small door that leads into the dungeon."

I played Jade Empire two years ago. And i'm gonna replay again someday.
Damn, if there's more interesting in that game, is the phase; the concept of having multiple interesting skills, incluiding a drunken one and trying to deny the approach of the Princess and your childhood friend until near the final phase unlocks you a threesome ending in those plots.
Fucking based if you ask me.

Jade Empire was rad, and this is from someone who can't stand Wuxia shit. Such a fun setting and game, it's a real shame it never took off.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Been on a GBA kick:

Extreme Ghostbusters: Code Ecto-1: It seemed good until I moved...at all. It has possibly the worst camera of any 2D game, at least on GBA. Totally unbearable.

Gekido Advance: Kintaro's Revenge: The art is just okay, but the animation is fantastic. Gameplay feels sloppy but I'm bad at beat 'em ups.

Godzilla: Domination: Kinda fun, but it doesn't hold my attention. Would've been a decent rental back in the day just to see the cool looking fights and destruction.

Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town: I didn't expect much but it's good. It feels a lot like the SNES game, but also has a decent story. I like it.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

I decided to take a look at games I own but never played, games I bought at one time or another for various reasons.

The game I chose today was the DOS/Win95 game Bedlam. Pretty good cover art for the time.


The cover isn't what interested me. This is the interesting part.


Few might recognize Mirage as a developer but a lot of people will know their game(s) through sheer infamy. They made Rise of the Robots (and the sequel), Bedlam was their next game after that and it is very different from RoR.

It's an isometric action mech game! Where everything explodes!

The gameplay is similar to Syndicate or Cannon Fodder in that it is entirely mouse driven. Left click to walk to a position, right click to shoot at things. The mech moves pretty fast so it is a good idea to click somewhere on the screen to move, then whip the mouse over and shoot as it zips across the screen. It's like a fast twinstick shooter, very arcade like. Holding the left mouse button makes the mech follow it at the expensive of not being able to shoot 360 degrees around you.

The only thing that is controlled by keyboard is the weapons, here it takes clear inspiration from Mechwarrior.

Buy and equip your loadout, use the number keys to activate/de-activate your weapons. Like Mechwarrior you can fire everything at once if you want to and just like Mechwarrior this builds up heat. In the missions you find money for further upgrades.

Mission select screen with the armory and briefing room. Missions have main objectives and optional sub-objectives, killing all the enemies isn't the point(they respawn), destroying structures/planes/weapons/shield generators etc is what you are there for.

In future missions you will have more than one mech on the map and they all need to get out safely at the end of the mission. They're all player controlled.

I've only played two missions(had to struggle with getting the Win98 emulator working correctly), it is pretty enjoyable in its simplicity but I can't imagine it is a bingeable game. It is so much better than Rise of the Robots though. There's also a Playstation version and I'm curious how that one plays, if it's SmashTV like it could be pretty decent, if it's like Syndicate on the SNES, eeeh...

The stripes of a tiger doesn't wash a way so they took a another stab at making a horrendous CG fighting game after Bedlam 2.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

Played a lot of the old Streets of Rage games for the Genesis, and for the life of me, I don’t know how they will be able to make a live action movie out of this.

A game like this that mixes street fighting and justice towards your enemies seems taboo in this day and age when people are actively suggesting that you should not be able to defend yourself or your property.

Still, this naked Blaze mod for SOR still makes me laugh:

Spoiler: NSFW

 

[The Ugly One]

Played a lot of the old Streets of Rage games for the Genesis, and for the life of me, I don’t know how they will be able to make a live action movie out of this.

The fighters will be black. The bad guys will be white.

I finished Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, and loved nearly every minute of it (except the few very fake and gay stealth missions, yes, in an RTS, stealth missions). The last mission is a real grind, but in a good way. You start off with a small force, while the enemy's got all the resources he needs and controls the whole map. He hits you right away, and you've got to push him back from extremely well-defended choke points that are borderline inaccessible to artillery, and you're the faction with terrible air power, so his air and ranged units will tear you to shreds. Good game, worth the six bucks I paid.

 

[Jerri's Kid]

I don't know if this counts but I finished System Shock: Enhanced Edition not too long ago. It has better resolution, mouselook and the option to rebind keys, but otherwise it plays like the original.

At first I was "shocked" by the crazy HUD but once I got used to it I was surprised by how helpful it was, though you can turn off parts of it to reduce screen clutter.

People said that the MIDI music was amazing for this game, but it was ear rape until I reached later levels like the Executive floor. I read about the music and it's heavily affected by the emulator so the version I have doesn't sound as good. The music also changes based upon what happens in the game, which is a really neat idea but I admit that I didn't notice this most of the time.

There are a ton of different weapons. A few of them sucked like the stun gun but I loved the laser rapier and the assault rifle. Most were good enough that I could switch to a new weapon if I wanted to experiment.

System Shock 2 is one of my all-time favorite games, but I admit that SHODAN is a much stronger villain in this game because she fucks with you in more interesting ways.

The level variety is great for such an old game. Each deck looked and played differently. I especially enjoyed the Executive and Bridge decks, but all of them were decent.

Cyberspace, however, was clunky and confusing to navigate. I loved the idea of it and the vector graphics look was cool, but it took me awhile to get the hang of it.

The voice acting except for SHODAN is bad, but not RE1 terrible. You can tell they used random people from the office, but few games used professional voice actors at the time.

I didn't enjoy this game immediately and there were a few times at the beginning when I thought about dropping it, but by the time I got to the third deck (Reactor) I was hooked because I really got this feeling that I was playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with this opponent who was always ten steps ahead of me.

 

[Alex Hogendorp]

innocent Eyes seems to be an acquired taste for many people. For those who truly understand it, It's breathtaking. innocent Eyes is so nostalgic it's astonishing. I wonder if I am the only one to experience such strong feelings of nostalgia when playing this game. To me, it's absolutely phenomenal and I wasn't expecting much. From what I observed over the over 100 games I played, this one just so happens to be the best I've played. It's atmosphere is the most intense I felt, in a good way. The night skies really help with the nostalgia.

I wonder if anyone who worked on this game finds out about extreme nostalgia people feel when playing the game. I wonder if they feel extreme nostalgia when they look back at this game.

 

[TheRetardKing]

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

innocent Eyes seems to be an acquired taste for many people. For those who truly understand it, It's breathtaking. innocent Eyes is so nostalgic it's astonishing. I wonder if I am the only one to experience such strong feelings of nostalgia when playing this game. To me, it's absolutely phenomenal and I wasn't expecting much. From what I observed over the over 100 games I played, this one just so happens to be the best I've played. It's atmosphere is the most intense I felt, in a good way. The night skies really help with the nostalgia.
View attachment 3517151
I wonder if anyone who worked on this game finds out about extreme nostalgia people feel when playing the game. I wonder if they feel extreme nostalgia when they look back at this game.

I imaged search the picture to see what the game was and yeah, it's a loli hentai game as you would expect from an anime avatar haver.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I still haven't finished Banjo-Kazooie.

 

[My Name is Ed]

Original War. It's an RTS/RPG from 2001, although it's still being worked on to some extent. It's pretty cool in that your manpower is limited and every unit you have is basically irreplaceable, so you have to maximise each unit's survivability, though it's pausable so you don't have to be some Starcraft micro god. Your units also have interchangeable roles (combat, research/healing/tard wrangling, construction/gathering, vehicle maintenance/repair) that they may be better or worse at (and they can develop these skills as the campaign progresses).

The story's the star in this game, although it's tragically incomplete. Basically the United States finds a hoard of an impossibly rare element called Siberite in Russia. They also have a time machine which is powered by this substance. It can only send things no larger than a human back in time two million (+-15) years, and it's a one-way trip. So the US decides to send back a number of soldiers (including your main character) and other specialists with regular supplies to mine the Siberite and transport it over the Bering land bridge into Alaska.

In the meantime, in the Soviet Union, the Russians are fuming at the discovery of a hoard of an impossibly rare element called Alaskite in American territory. They also discovered evidence of mining operations performed in the past that indicates it might not always have been in Alaska. So they use their time machine (which they have) to send an army back two million years to kill everything that shouldn't be there.

Also apparently Europe becomes an Islamic state at some point and OPEC sends back a number of Arabic and German mercenaries to secure the stuff for themselves, but that's neither here nor there.

The story revolves around the war between these two timelines and in both the American and Soviet campaign you make choices that will have lasting consequences in later missions, even if they're not immediately evident.

 

[Halal Courtesan]

Ran across a video on YouTube a few weeks ago about this supposedly underrated hidden gem on the original Xbox, Phantom Dust. A remaster of it has been available for free since 2017 on Xbox app thingy so I decided to give it a little... dusting...

The game is basically a post-apocalyptic multiplayer action TCG where you assemble a deck consisting of attack/defense/utility skills of different schools and duke it out against other people while controlling a character of your own, instead of just sitting there slapping cards on the table. There is a singleplayer mode, but it's pretty barebones. It basically serves as a tutorial and the credits/skills you earn during it get transferred to the online mode, so it's worth playing at least to Chapter 3 where you get introduced to building an Arsenal (aka deck) of your own. The story was pretty neat with a few nice twists, but the missions were a bit boring to play through.

The online multiplayer is where the real action happens, I've only done a handful of matches though because... I just suck. I've been able to sneak a win here and there in free-for-all or 1v1 matches, but I've not touched 2v2 matches yet due to probably being dead meat. The Discord (oh no) community seems nice and helpful though. As are the better players I've come across during online play. Sadly I've yet to check how to set up voice chat ingame so all they get is a mute dude who just disappears without a word after a few matches.

All in all quite nice and niche/5

 

[Mr. Manchester]

Game's still good, but I do often find myself yearning for quest markers. Maybe I'd tolerate the lack of direction better if the map had more detail, or the directions given from NPCs weren't so shit.
"Go west and cross the bridge." Means "Head west, cross the bridge, then head along the road until you see a small tree. Pass under the tree and head exactly fifteen steps to your right, then look over the ridge and walk along the water until you find the small door that leads into the dungeon."

One thing I've noticed about Morrowind is that all the locations are almost always exactly the direction the NPC tells you it's in. If you're in a town and they say something is west from said town, it's due west and not off to the side somewhere. In most cases if you pop on a pair of self-made levitate pants you can just go in that direction and hover over the objective.

Also my favorite exploit that I think is still in the game is perma summons. If you make a custom spell with soul trap for 1 second on target and a summon for 1 second on target and point it at the ground the summoned thing will stick around forever. So if you've ever wanted a skeleton army you can have one now.

 

[Screw Danlon]

I tried Fable 2 a year or so back, and I don’t know whether it aged poorly or it’s just my tastes shifting, but it really didn’t work for me.

I remember everyone talking about how awesome the story and decision stuff was, but I found it really hard to care about anything going on. The world felt gross (and not in a bleak Fallout way, but in a Las Vegas strip way), the characters were mostly annoying, the story seemed wholly contrived, and the whole thing looked Vaseline washed. Even the property stuff wound up being pretty tedious.

I felt like I spent about 20 hours sort of wandering around, not finding anything I wanted to do, getting sent to jail, coming back and finding I’d fucked up and locked myself out of content, and quitting.

 

[The Ugly One]

Warcraft: Orc & Humans

Correct, I have never really played this before. I had the demo on a disc back in the day, but I was a Doom & Descent guy, never cared for RTS. Since this is $6 on GOG, I figured I'd give it a try and see how it holds up. Like nearly all Blizzard games, Warcraft is very well-executed, even if so simple as to feel positively ancient. It looks good, sounds good, and is absolutely glitch-free. Each side has I think only 6 total distinct combat units (melee, ranged, mounted, catapult, priest, wizard). You can't group units and assign hotkeys, you can't select more than four units, you can't queue up commands, and your healers won't do anything unless you tell them which specific unit to heal. It really was not made for moving large armies around at all.

That said, they didn't design the missions well beyond the limited capabilities of the interface, which is part of that "well-executed" bit I was talking about. You don't need to win by building far more units than you can control. Sending out small sorties, baiting the AI into your defenses, and not committing your forces until you've worn the computer down enough to not need to micromanage seems to be the best tactic.

At the end of the day, this still isn't worth playing if you're looking for a top-shelf single-player RTS campaign. It's just too outdated to fully recommend. But from the standpoint of experiencing some gaming history, it's definitely worth it, as it's overall pretty fun. just don't go in expecting a lot.

 

[Jason Wynn]

I tried Fable 2 a year or so back, and I don’t know whether it aged poorly or it’s just my tastes shifting, but it really didn’t work for me.

I remember everyone talking about how awesome the story and decision stuff was, but I found it really hard to care about anything going on. The world felt gross (and not in a bleak Fallout way, but in a Las Vegas strip way), the characters were mostly annoying, the story seemed wholly contrived, and the whole thing looked Vaseline washed. Even the property stuff wound up being pretty tedious.

I felt like I spent about 20 hours sort of wandering around, not finding anything I wanted to do, getting sent to jail, coming back and finding I’d fucked up and locked myself out of content, and quitting.

The Fable series in general I never understood the hype for. The games are pathetically easy, Baby’s First RPG. The world building is drawn with such broad strokes like they were just using a checklist of cliches to mark off. The humor is very childlike, character creation and the way you can build them is very paint by numbers. There are so many better rpgs out there, even during Fable’s heyday that would be a great start for newcomers to dip their toe into than this corporate AI created mess

 

[SaltyFanta]

Been playing the original Jak & Daxter now that my computer can run PCSX2. I like how attacks can be used in platforming, for extra jump height or more hang time. It's pretty good, looking forward to playing the rest.

 

[I am vomit]

Been playing the original Jak & Daxter now that my computer can run PCSX2. I like how attacks can be used in platforming, for extra jump height or more hang time. It's pretty good, looking forward to playing the rest.

I own that game on PS2, I never actually beat it back in the day, but I really liked it. Solid choice.

 

[eternal dog mongler]

Original War. It's an RTS/RPG from 2001, although it's still being worked on to some extent. It's pretty cool in that your manpower is limited and every unit you have is basically irreplaceable, so you have to maximise each unit's survivability, though it's pausable so you don't have to be some Starcraft micro god. Your units also have interchangeable roles (combat, research/healing/tard wrangling, construction/gathering, vehicle maintenance/repair) that they may be better or worse at (and they can develop these skills as the campaign progresses).

Honestly this game was wild. Only real problem is that the latter levels are dominated by vehicles so hope you were training up some mechanics.

Would most likely be canceled in current year because the Arabs like strapping suicide bomb vests to the apemen.

 

[Mega Black]

The Fable series in general I never understood the hype for. The games are pathetically easy, Baby’s First RPG. The world building is drawn with such broad strokes like they were just using a checklist of cliches to mark off.

As faggy as it is to say, the games are just very comfy. They've got a very good atmosphere and unique mechanics that weren't replicated much elsewhere. An awkward mishmash between life-sim and action RPG that doesn't do either particularly well, but still gets credit for trying.