I don’t know about the newer ones but 4 and 0 were really fun experiences. I wish they were a bit longer to have more time to play with all the planes but other than that I have no real complaints.

I didn’t have much time to play this week so no as big wall of text this time. I did however find a moment to spend a little bit of time with both Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 and Ace Combat Zero.

Edit: I almost forgot! Following on my last weeks question, I went ahead and created a Pixelfed account. There isn’t much there yet (just my Umurangi Generation pics from few weeks ago) but I’ll be dropping some more posts about of my adventures soon.

Well, guess I have something to do over the weekend.

I’ll be sure to write about it if either game decides to cooperate. I’m not giving up that easily!

Yeah, I thought about doing it the other way but forgot to actually change it. Next time! Probably. If I don’t forget.

I wondered about pixelfed but I’m not really familiar with Instagram or its derivatives and kind of assumed it was for a different kind of content (don’t ask me what, I have no idea what lead me to this view anyway). Guess I’ll look into it properly. Thanks!

I’ve got another wall of text this week, it just do be like that sometimes.

I was unable to get either NHL99 or 2001 to run so far. I’ll keep trying but it doesn’t look promising unfortunately. I also tried to run NBA Live 2001 but that ended up either black court or a straight up freeze during loading so… I feel like early 2000’s EA games don’t like me very much.

I’m still dabbing with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4. I’m making slow but steady progress, playing mostly when I’m in the mood rather than blizting through the whole thing in one go.
I still have a bit of a problem with trying to string tricks (especially grinds) a bit too eagerly but other than that I’m doing fine. It’s going slightly better than my THPS2 playthrough from 2 or so years ago, if I remember correctly.

Championship Manager: Season 03/04 is also still on the menu. It’s not really a game intended for long sessions in my case so I mostly treat it as an emergency activity, played for a match or two when nothing else strikes my fancy.

I mentioned Restaurant Empire last week and that I was having a decently fun time - that’s still true. It’s not the best management game ever but it’s not bad. I have two issues with the game so far: default mouse sensitivity feels terribly (it feels like the cursor is magnetized to certain elements and moving on a tile system) and there’s only one female player character to choose from (not that it means anything but there’s 32 of them!).

My next choice for the week was Ace Combat Zero: Belkan War. I only played 4 before but I liked it quite a bit.
Unlike 4 however, I’m playing this one on a Steam Deck instead of a desktop PC. It plays great, as expected, but I do have so minor issues using the Deck for longer periods of time, especially during more challenging missions (mission structure thankfully helps with that).

Lastly, I came back to RimWorld for a bit. Similarily to The Division, it’s a title I come back to every few months or so, play until I’m bored and go back to whatever else I was doing. It’s pretty great, even in its non-DLC form.

On a slightly different note, does anyone know a site (preferably a fediverse one) that could serve as a gallery dump? I have some screenshots from various games I’ve been thinking about uploading but I’m not really sure which service would be good for that.

It has both modern and classic controls which can be toggled in settings I believe.

Hey @[email protected], I believe you were asking about this recently.

Looks good. My short stint with CS2 didn’t exactly left me wanting more and since CSGO is dead this could finally be a way for me to play some CS again. Thanks for sharing!

Besides what cod already said there’s also a pretty big shift from slow and methodical gameplay of the first game towards fast and furious one in the third entry.

I like the first two games for example but the third one never really clicked with me, partially because of the fast and spammy enemies that became common in DS3. If you still want to try the series but don’t mesh well with DS3 I’d suggest checking out the first game if you get a chance - you might end up like me.

The second one is also good but it has its own problems that are pretty contentious among DS players so I’d stick with the release order to be safe.

This is the one written by Ryukishi07, isn’t it? I’m really curious what he’ll be able to cook up for us.

That’s neat, this is why I love niche game communities.

I w went with 03/04 mainly due to the newer looking UI and being unsure whether I’ll be able to get into it. I’ll keep this in mind if I ever check out this version.
That said, I do feel like some of the charm comes from being able to look at the specific period of time with all that entails (characters, or people in this case, references, important events at the time etc.), at least early on. When you play these games for years having such updates is definitely an amazing way to keep things fresh and interesting.

Once again, thanks for letting me know!

In that case I’m glad my ramblings don’t go to waste.

Your comment reminded me I was going to try NHL 99 and 2001 as well (didn’t have time to do so yet). Guess I know what I’m doing this week.

A’ight, time for another wall of text, I’m adding a TL;DR since no one has time to read all this stuff anyway.

Ever since our last thread I’ve been on a journey. A journey through various, mostly sport themed, titles from early 2000’s. It’s not that I’m a huge fan of sports game but for one reason or another I became curious how some of these games hold up in this day and age.

My first choice was Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, partially due to the recent announcement of the 3+4 remaster (rip campaign mode from 4) but also because I was listening to some old soundtracks and got in the mood to check it out.
What can I say… game is fun. While I’m not some crazy pro, able to string combos into millions I was able to complete all the goals so far without frustration or huge issues. Game oozes a specific atmosphere that’s hard to be mad at (even if a lot of the humour does feel outdated). I can safely say I’ll play it to completion and then some.

Next was FIFA 2002. Kinda.
See, I started with 2002, played it for a bit and now can’t launch it again. What I did manage to experience felt pretty enjoyable if a little stiff in the controls department at times.
One thing I was surprised by however was the options menu, or rather how sparse it was. I didn’t expect to see a full suite of graphical settings available in today’s titles but man was it a disappointment (resolution can be changed outside the game at least).
I really wanted to try this one out for a bit longer but alas it was not meant to be.

Since that didn’t work out as well as I hoped I decided to continue with the series - this time choosing FIFA 2002 World Cup. This one feels like a mix of the base 2002 and 2003 version.
It’s fun even if the “power shots” are a bit of a goofy addition for an official World Cup game. I can’t say I’m as interested in this title as in the others since this game is focused sorely on national teams (well, obviously) which your choice by a lot. Still, it was enjoyable enough for what it is.

As you can probably guess, I didn’t stop there. I decided to play FIFA 2003 as well to kind of complete the transition between the old and updated gameplay styles (which started from 2003 onwards I believe).
After playing it for a bit I have to say I’m a bit mixed on this release. On one hand the gameplay (mainly movement) is smoother and more polished compared to the other two. On the other, the whole game feels a bit… soulless? Corporate? I know this is a funny thing to say about a flagship EA title but the UI style, the lack of music in menus and various other small things all build up to an experience that seems rather “empty”.
The whole thing actually made me curious about going a bit further with the games to see if this keeps up with the future entries or if this was just a one time dud (within the “classic” titles at least). I’m not sure if I’ll follow through (and even if I do it won’t be much further) but I’ll post about it next week if it happens.

After playing all of the above my mind went to wondering about trying things out on the other side, i.e. as a manager. The choice for this theme landed on Championship Manager: Season 03/04.
I’d be lying if I said I had no issues getting my head wrapped around all the tactical and managerial stuff since my passion for the sport waned a good few years ago but this state of confusion didn’t stick for long. I’ve been launching the game for a match or two whenever I have some free time and nothing better to do so I guess it did click with me to an extent.
We’ll see how long I’ll stick with it.

Last but not least, there’s Restaurant Empire, a restaurant management game from 2003.
I don’t have much to write about this one yet as I just started but the amount of customisation and the general vibe seem promising. I hope it’s fun.

Yep, the map and enemy factions are my main complaints with the second one as well. For me they just feel less like a natural continuation of the first game and more like a generic post-apocalyptic setting with TD flavour.

It sucks because the detail and design work on Washington is really great, it just doesn’t feel as good as a complete package.

I actually switch between the two depending on my mood. I really like the technical and (some of the) gameplay changes as they make the gameplay a bit more fun for me (especially everything that has to do with enemy armour) but story and atmosphere wise, as well as in terms of the map I definitely prefer the first game.

Heck, I’m even willing to run around the Dark Zone there unlike in the sequel where I popped in a few times and called it quits. It’s just not the same.

I’m back to my semi-regular return to The Division, this time the first game. I don’t know why this series clicked with me the way it did as I don’t really play these kind of looter shooters but for some reason I tend to come back to them every year or two.

I’m lucky enough I don’t care about min-maxing and number crunching so no matter the patch and balance I end up having a blast and that’s all that matters. Now if only we could get the first game on TD2’s engine…

As much as I love Croc, it’s not like this is a highly anticipated high budget release of a new title.

My guess is that they’ll keep the new date secret for as long as they can, until they’re completely sure they can make it (especially after they didn’t make it for the original one). It wouldn’t be the first time game like this gets released without much of a marketing drive or even with a stealth drop.

These slowly appearing previews seem to indicate we might be getting close but who knows. I’m honestly not good enough with dates to join you on the speculation train.

There were some preview articles released last month (one, two, three for example) but no specific date beyond what you already know. All we can do for now is wait.

After not touching it almost since launch, I’ve decided to check out The Last Starship again. It’s kind of a mix of FTL, Factorio and its own ideas, made by Introversion Software ( folks behind Prison Architect, Darwinia and other titles).
It’s developed in early access, with regular and pretty enjoyable updates (just like PA) and is shaping up pretty nicely so far.

I still need to spend some more time diving deeper into all the new stuff added since my last playthrough but it feels just as fun as on launch so far.

I know, I’m just failing to be cheeky.

Don’t diss i7-4790k, you’d be surprised how well it can run some modern titles!

It really depends on how fun do you find exploration and deduction to be. If you prefer games with more… curated direction, shall we say, then it might end up being more frustrating or boring rather than entertaining.
If you like to figure things out for yourself and take pleasure in exploring the world and themes of what you play then there’s a good chance OW will click with you.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff in this game but it’s certainly not for everyone. You’ll need patience, curiosity and some out of the box thinking to get the most out of it.

Starfield never really grabbed my attention so I thankfully dodged a bullet with that one.

So glad I didn’t pay for it (Gamepass, with apologies to my Linux friends).

No need to apologise, people should have the option to play games however they want.

Even if they do, I feel like both projects will have different enough approach to things to avoid making the other obsolete. Maybe… possibly.

I’ll certainly take the unofficial remake over the Bethesda one due to lower requirements and lack of Creation Club. That, and I’m just more interested in the fan interpretation of Cyrodiil to be honest.

That’s me with every Bethesda game I played. I don’t even treat them as games to beat, just worlds to run around in.

I think I managed to overcome my dislike towards teen drama in media and started approaching it from a place of empathy, at least to some extent, which makes it way more tolerable. Same with characters making stupid decisions in emotional moments. That doesn’t mean I give a pass to every single piece of “stupid” or “illogical” writing but it helps treat what happens like a real event rather than “well they should do X like a perfect logical machine”.

My relationship with LiS games is a bit weird. I loved both the first game and Before the Storm but for whatever reason couldn’t muster any interest in any of the following titles. I don’t know why that is but none of them managed to grab my attention again. Maybe the first two came out at the right time, maybe they struck a familiar cord - either way they became a pretty important part of my life as well. Probably not as my favorite games ever (this honestly changes depending on a day and my mood/headspace) but important nonetheless.

Hope you have fun! It’s a pretty great game, as long as you can deal with teens being teens (I know some folks can’t stand it).

Please do post your thoughts afterwards, I’m curious how or if your opinion changes after completion.

Yeah, I totally get it. Old (and only mid) games can be a real coin toss between fun and tedium. Quality of the game doesn’t affect my enjoyment too much but I understand that it can be an important factor for others (and even that can vary between games).

I can see your point about the story and I would really love to approach it from this perspective, for some reason I’m just unable to do so unfortunately. No idea why, I just can’t. I have a much easier time seeing a reason for a third game (rip) considering the ending of Madness Returns but we all know how that went.

Eh, yes and no. There’s definitely a spectrum of how well a game stands the test of time. Some titles hold up better than others - whether graphically (mostly due to art style), gameplay wise (some stuff was janky or bad even on release) or in any other way.

Besides the more objective, technical aspects there’s also the fact that each person has different gaming experience and expectations to what they play. You can’t drop a blanket statement “old game on new platform will be bad, duh!” and be done with it.

Thanks for the write up. I never really thought how these games played on consoles so it’s interesting to see this perspective.

While far from perfect, I really can’t help but like the first game. I agree it didn’t age well in some respects yet I still had quite a bit of fun replaying it not too long ago. Granted, I’m a weirdo who also likes Bungie’s “Oni” so I tend to have a decent amount of resilience towards games like these.

I’m a bit torn on the sequel honestly. I do like it as a game (even if it’s a bit too long in my opinion) but I feel that as a sequel to the original plot it’s a bit… mean spirited (?) towards Alice. Maybe it’s just me, but her starting the second game in pretty much the same situation as she was in the original kinda takes out of the ending of the latter.

Guild exclusivity is actually what I had in mind. Sure, there’s nothing that significantly changes the main quest in TES games (and I think I misremembered how much blocking is there in previous titles) but that still counts for me personally. Self-imposed role play is fine in general (I do it all the time in games in fact) but I still think that lack of reasonable requirements for some (optional?) content makes the world feel more generic and player-focused than I’d like.

Thanks for the reminder though.

I still can’t focus and I’m still jumping between games but I do have some updates so might as well post about it.

The Sims 2 and Euro Truck Simulator 2 kept their place as my primary games, with the latter edging a little bit in terms of playtime. Not much changed here.

Speaking of TS2, I tried playing it on a Steam Deck. Game runs fine, sans some short freezes when browsing through large content lists (clothes, furniture etc.) which is about what I expected from the game.
The big problem for me is controls. I tried playing around with mapping and whatnot but I just couldn’t make it comfortable enough to play for longer periods of time. Because of this I’ll just treat it as a failed experiment and stick to playing on my desktop.

As for new additions, I played through Umurangi Generation. It’s a small indie title about photography in a “shitty future”. It’s a really janky yet entertaining title, with some pretty emotional moments (at least for me). I’ve written a longer post with my thoughts about the game if anyone wants to know more.

The last one technically counts as it released on mobile last year even though I tried out the PC demo.
Wagotabi: A Japanese Journey - is an educational RPG about learning Japanese. It’s cute, fun to play and seems to have an interesting (and enjoyable) approach to learning. Only demo is available on PC at the moment but it I definitely liked what I played so far. It can be found on both Itch.io and Steam.

Change from Oblivion to Skyrim would definitely affect my question. I do think the former had more “my kind” of role playing so the initial thought would be more understandable for me.

Thanks for the answer. I get what you mean about playing as more defined main characters, it definitely has it’s benefits over more open-ended approach.

This is a genuine question and not me trying to be snarky or anything: how’s that possible? Was there any meaningful role playing in Skyrim at all?

To me the system simplification of Skyrim went so far that the only real role you could play was the dragonborn - not your specific one but a generic dragonborn who could be anyone and everything at the same time. Maybe my definition of role playing is outdated as I feel it should include choices and consequences (like blocking or limiting access to some content) so I’d be grateful if you could expand on that.

Again, I’m not trying to suggest you’re wrong or anything, I’m just curious about your perspective (or something more about what you’ve read).

I did, though not in regards to music. You can imagine my surprise seeing that name during the credits.

It’s an interesting experience, that’s for sure.

I couldn’t really settle on what to play this week so I ended up with a bit of a mess.

First things first, Counter-Strike 2 is no more. As engaging as the game is something just doesn’t feel right for me with this one. My main issue seems to have something to do with controls since I never had this many issues getting stuck on corners and doorways with any of the previous games. I don’t know what it is, I just can’t get the feeling for them.
There’s also a pretty severe performance issue which feels like a memory leak that happens quite often in the middle of a match - again, don’t know why since it doesn’t happen every time or only on certain maps.
All in all, I can safely say I had way more fun with CS:GO but since the legacy branch won’t work for me (game only flickers for a second and closes) I can safely put this experiment to rest.

Second, my The Sims playthrough might be finished because of the sequel. I installed TS2 to refresh my memory and compare it with the original - I ended up playing through the night with barely any breaks. As much as I love the first game TS2 is just on another level and I ended up launching it whenever I had some free time, in contrast to the original which requires me to be in a specific mood to enjoy it.
I didn’t have this much fun with the series in a long time now so it was funny to go through this return arc only to see EA release the legacy packs. I hope lots of new folks get to enjoy those games as both hold up really well despite their age.

I also spent some time playing Euro Truck Simulator 2. It was my main choice whenever I couldn’t focus on anything.

Daggerfall is on hold until I had my fill of The Sims. It might take a while but I’ll be back, eventually.
Medabots also took a back seat to some extent but I’m still actively playing here and there.

It managed to fly under the radar for 2 year so far (it was uploaded in 2023) so that depends on how much this info spreads, I guess.

I don’t think they’ll remove the Ultimate Collection from people’s libraries. The main incentive to buy is… well, the ability to buy the games and the improved compatibility with modern systems - UC doesn’t really affect the main demographic, i.e. people who aren’t interested or knowledgeable enough to fix those issues on their own.