The Gamer's Quarter

[sawtooth]

I've had no end of trouble getting psx emulators to work on my mac. I long for the days of Connectix again.

I might tackle that whole can of worms over break.

edit: oh duh this is dos.

I'll see how virtual pc rolls with it. I might have to switch back to 98SE, I don't think 2000 is a very workable solution on my computer.

[Shapermc]

[dhex]

how creepy is that little dude's head in the corner of the dialogue box?
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[purplechair]

That's your "tone" indicator. There's five settings, from "Angry" to "Ass kissing". It affects the way you phrase your dialogue... from "GET ME A RADIATION SCANNER!" to "Would you happen to have a radiation scanner I could have?".

The one in the picture looks neutral.

Although, again, I've never noticed any real point to it. Some of the high-ranking crew will get all uppity with you if you don't use the ass-kissing mode, I guess.

Also, the already ugly-looking character models have a weird habit of morphing and bending (on the PlayStation version, anyway). Add in the occasional texture errors on their skins, and the way that you sometimes have multiple NPCs occupying the same space, and they can become true cthulian horrors!

[wourme]

I ordered Sentient the other night from Half.com after hearing about it for the first time in this thread. $3 for a copy that's supposedly in good shape.

I've almost ordered that Sentinel game several times after hearing it discussed here. I probably will, eventually.

I wonder whether the market value of Growlanser: Generations is going to shoot up now that Working Designs is officially closed. Hearing that sad news today made me want to play Parasol Stars again. (All of my HuCards are treasures.).

[Lackey]

I somehow managed to actually get the PC version running. I'm not sure if the colours are broken or if it's just the graphics mode.

Regardless, I will report on my progress!
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[sawtooth]

make a new thread!

I'll join you um.... during finals week. hah!

[Szczepaniak]

I bought sentient for like £5 years ago, having loved the PS1 demo.

It's ambitious, but I never got anywhere. There is simply too much to do, and I get lost easily.

I mean, sure some people ask you to do stuff. But they don't explain how you're really supposed to do it.

I have never gotten very far. And then I die. For example, the chief engineer says snoop around to see what you can find. WTF does that mean? I wonder around, trying to ask people questions, and eventually he returns and says he can't trust me. I mean, WTF?! At least tell me what snooping involves.

It's problem, is that is doesn't really explain the gameplay rules, so you know what to do.

It's still interesting. I actually read an ending FAQ, and it's quite possibly the most deranged thing ever.

[sawtooth]

hell. the download link got replaced.

this is probably not worth 10 dollars.

[ApM]

I played it for a few minutes yesterday, while waiting for my PC to go through scandisk so I could judge Ludum Dare entries.

Can... can you DO anything in that hedge maze? Or do you just wander for much too long before you wake up?

I'm not hitting FAQs until I've crashed us all into the sun a few times.

[purplechair]

You have to find your way to the centre. The end is marked by a large set of golden gates. Then it's cutscene time.

[Lockeownzj00]

Two notes:

one, psx emulation is often completely functional, or mostly (for all practiacl purposes) functional. with just epsxe, the right plugins, and the right settings guide, you can play your games at an even higher quality than on your PSX--that is, if you so wish to turn on options like sprite smoothing, etc.

two, sentient looks very, very intriguing. Reminds me of Facade, in a way. Except this was made first.

[player 2]

bumping games into higher resolutions or using a sprite filter does not necessarily make them better looking games.
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Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[Shapermc]

[friedchicken]

That's odd. I got ePSXe (?) running on this most questionable of questionable computers I use here at work, with no effort at all, and after getting several grave looking errors that ended up having no bearing at all all on whether or not it ran.

Anybody know if reasonable PS2 emulation exists? SHOCKING!

[Shapermc]

Well, I can add my 20th Anniversry Ed. GBM to this thread. I don't know if it quite meets the standards though.

[Dracko]

I am severely pissed off that I have lost my copy of Deus Ex, but thankfully, and fortuitously, I stumbled upon my copies of Starship Titanic and Starsiege.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[SuperWes]

[Shapermc]

[sawtooth]

[Mister Toups]

Rez, bitches!
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[B coma]

[Lackey]

To go back to an earlier subject; I just got my copy of Sentient in the mail yesterday. I will need to invest some time in playing it.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[Dracko]

Recently, I was quite happy to find old classics of my childhood, which is to say Monkey Island 1 and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Better still, I found them both in EGA and updated VGA versions, me being far more familiar with the EGA ones. Also found Loom, also in EGA and CD version (though considering desgeega's consensus, I'll have a go at it in EGA, as I've never played it before).

I thought I'd bring up this for a good reason: Which do you suppose are better between the two? EGA or VGA? I hadn't played the VGA version of Last Crusade until now, and I must say, it feels, well obviously, different, but not necessarily in a good way. Too colourful, perhaps. Maybe it's just my sense of nostalgia toying with me, but I feel that the game sort of loses in potence because of it. Funnily enough, I never had this problem with the CD version of Monkey Island, but here the difference is so striking it almost becomes alienating. Don't get me wrong, I think it looks gorgeous, and I'll probably play it through a number of times to get a feel for it, but I suppose the stark darkness of the Venitian catacombs and the castle, not to mention the Grail Temple left such an impression on me when it comes to the older version, and I don't think I can find it again here. Maybe it also depends on the title, of course.

Incidentally, I'd just like to say, after playing it again, that Fate of Atlantis is over-rated and probably not as good as Last Crusade. It is quite excellent in design, but it falters when it comes to scripting or even character. Even the castle guards in Last Crusade have more personality than most characters in Fate of Atlantis, who really seem to be boring cut-out stereotypes (Oh hey, a mad doctor with a crap accent. Some Aryan with a gun. Annoying, loud love interest. Is it just me, or is Dr. Jones just plagued with one of the worst tastes in women?). I don't know, it just feels all so clichéd and, well, American, in a deragotary I hope you'll excuse me for. It borders on self-parody and the slight tongue-in-cheek feel and guile wit that I could find in the Indy movies and the Last Crusade adventure game come of as forced here. I even feel that despite the choices of paths and multiple fashions to complete certain puzzles, Indy 3 is far more open and interesting in that regard. I even appreciate how unforgiving that game can be if you make poor decisions or decided to generally try and fist-fight your way through.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[dessgeega]

i like last crusade for pretty much the reasons most self-identified "adventure gamers" hate it. that is, exploring mazes, sneaking past guards, and occasionally bare-knuckling them. i appreciate an adventure game that feels like an adventure and not just a string of puzzles.

(also the ending of fate of atlantis didn't really make any logical sense.)
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[Dracko]

I loved it because it felt open. The maze that was the catacombs is possibly one of my strongest childhood gaming memories, and I was amazed at the time by how many options were left at my disposal, the best example of which was probably the castle, where you had disguises, wit and bribes in all kinds of forms to get your way through. I always enjoyed revisiting it to see how else I could get past certain points, and if I got into a fight, so be it. I appreciated though that the fights weren't made easy and you had to keep your health in check. It was my first ever real experience in gaming, let alone adventure gaming, and replaying it now, I'm still very impressed by the amount of options and finer details planned within. I know what you mean, though, those phases helped make it feel like a true adventure. At the time, I was often called upon by other members of my family to help them out wth the maze because of my seemingly inate sense of orientation. I regretted there wasn't an action-oriented, death-at-every-turn scene involving the tank chase in the desert and still do, to be honest.

My query though, seems to be one of ambience and style. I remember honestly feeling like the catacombs and Grail temple where eerie and the castle oppressive, as a child, and it seems that this updated version possibly makes it too colourful. Maybe it's a question of less is more, that it feels like I'm playing the same game with two radically opposed artistic designs which make the whole experience entirely different to me.

And Fate of Atlantis suffers from a number of things which make no sense, the first one being the intro where for no apparent reason, Indy tosses himself through the top window of one the main buildings of the campus he works on, and some often ridiculous puzzles (Like having to scare Trottier). I could just be bitching about the Team mode here, though. I'll have to play through again opting for the Wits or Fists paths.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Lackey]

I generally find the EGA versions to be better, not for the amount of colours, but because the art is much cleaner. The VGA editions look pretty much how you'd expect backgrounds painted over already-perfect-for-their-format backgrounds to look.

Plus it loses the vibrancy of the full saturation colours mixed with black in the original versions of Loom and Monkey Island.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[Dracko]

On a related subject, because I picked it up on my old SNES while skulking around the attic, I'm going to say that for all intents and purposes, Another World is an adventure game.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[dessgeega]

half-life 2 is an adventure game. discuss.

(i havn't played half-life 2.)
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[Dracko]

Play Half-Life 2.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[dhex]

i dunno if i'd call it an adventure game. there's not a lot of interaction in one sense - you're just pulled about from piece to piece. and there's really no exploration, yer just getting fucked over by the tides of your time and place. which is the larger point, i'd like to believe.

half life 2 is a fable.
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[Mister Toups]

It's an adventure game with all the needless interaction/fumbling removed?

I mean -- the pacing of it, the story pieces, etc, all feel more like an adventure game than, say, Quake.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[simplicio]

Seriously.

But are you thinking of the physics puzzles and the linearity and set pieces? I guess I can see where you're coming from, but for me HL2 was all about flow. Maybe adventures would be too, if they didn't focus on backtracking so much and instead constantly pushed you into new environments.

Somebody needs to make an adventure game that I can compare to Far Cry.

[dhex]

far cry is jerry bruckheimer meets every 15 year old kid who ever played counterstrike. a cartoon. a picaresque tomfoolery of gunbarrels and ex machina.

i played that whole game in the "in a world..." voice. i love that voice.
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[simplicio]

Alright, let me rephrase: Someone needs to make an adventure game that I can compare to the environmental interaction of Far Cry.

[dhex]

far cry is another example of a game that would be mighty interesting if there were no enemies, ya know? it'd be a good engine to build an exploratory adventure game out of.

then again, maybe i'm missing the point of the genre "adventure" ? my last was probably the indian jones/holy grail game.
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[DonMarco]

[Lestrade]

I know where one can get Sentient for $5 CAD, if anyone's interested.

[Persona-sama]

[Lackey]

[SuperWes]

Got my new treasure today!








-Wes
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[dessgeega]

oh wow.

that reminds me...
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[dessgeega]

registered shareware!






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[SuperWes]

How did SVC Card Fighters Expand Edition 2 remind you of a bunch of shareware games and Herzog Zwei?

-Wes
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[dessgeega]

it reminded me that i'd been meaning to post to this thread.
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[Lackey]

Whoa, what? return of the mutant space bats?
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[dessgeega]

yes. they came back.
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[DonMarco]

[Lackey]

I had never heard anything of a sequel is all. Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats was excellent, what's the Return like?
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[sawtooth]