From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action


Yup, it's been another month. Hard to believe it's flashed by so fast.
What is it with summer months not taking their time, anyway? (I wonder
if Australians feel the same way about December). There's barely any
time to get any video-game playing in anymore! That's why my play-list
is so short this month (well, short for me, at least).



Superbrief
---------------------------------------
* Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remaster
* Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch



Maximum Verbosity
---------------------------------------
* Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remaster
Yeah, I bought it. It was on sale; what could I do, _not_ buy it?

I'm not entirely unhappy with the purchase; it's not like the Remaster
is a bad game. But -- revamped visuals aside-- it very much feels like
an OLD game. Bethesda's open-world RPGs have always been fairly
clunky, but over the years they've smoothed away some of those rougher
edges. Replaying the remaster only reminded me of how far the series
has come.

It definitely puts its best foot forward from the start though; the
game boots up to a knight in shining armor stepping out of a flaming
Oblivion gate, and I can honestly say that it looked impressively
good. The actual game's visuals were slightly less imposing; it's
certainly not a BAD looking game, but even with all the Unreal 5
improvements, it still lags behind games like "Kingdom Come
Deliverance". It's not so much the lighting or texturing as the
somewhat barren forests, or the tiny maps (I'd forgotten how small the individual cells in Oblivion were, and how frequently you had to cross
through load zones). Honestly, I think some of the more extreme player
mod-paks for the original version actually do a better job of
improving the visuals.

Still, it wasn't like I wasn't having fun crossing hill and vale,
finding new locations to explore. I'd forgotten how "Oblivion" liked
to tease the player by putting icons on the compass representing
nearby locations; I'd see one of these and immediately redirect my
course until I got that satisfying "<new location> discovered"
message. But I rarely followed that up by actually ENTERING any of
those locations, because the game's limited asset set meant that the
various forts and dungeons quickly blended together. The lack of any
really interesting treasures or monsters to fight didn't help either.

Bethesda did revamp the combat somewhat, but not to the game's
improvement. It's much more reliant on timing your blocks, and I found
the engine just too clunky and imprecise for that to be much fun.
Plus, it was just easier to sneak about and snipe the enemy from
afar... as usual. The Stealth Archer takes the win again!

Beyond that, though, the game was pretty much the same as it was in
2005, in all its glory and horror. For all its detail, there's a
hollowness to the world; a lack of distinctive character not helped by
its superficial quests and facile NPCs. There's a lot to do in
"Oblivion" but none of it really seems to matter, other than to
increase your stats or inventory.

None of which is to say that I think "Oblivion" --remastered or
original-- is an unimpressive game; quite the contrary. It's a classic
for good reason, and I suppose if you wanted to give the game a try,
the remastered version is as good as any other. But it's been
surpassed and improved many times over by other games --including many
of Bethesda's own open-world RPGs-- and as such its hard to see why I
should spend much time with it beyond briefly satisfying a nostalgic
itch. Certainly it isn't, I think, worth the price of admission...
especially if you already own the original. It's fine, sure, but there
are better ways to spend your time and money.



* Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch
If the title doesn't give it away, "Revenge of the Patriarch" is based
on Larry Niven's classic sci-fi "Ringworld" series of novels. And I'll
give this game this much; it does capture some of the feel of Niven's
universe. But that's probably the only really good thing I can say
about it.

Because, simply put, "Revenge" isn't a very good game. A classic
point-n-click adventure (think "Kings Quest" or "Monkey Island") it
follows the tropes of those genres, but it doesn't do it well. The
game is extremely linear, for one thing; you bounce from area to area
and in each one there are only two or three things you can actually
do. Once that's done, you're immediately swept on by the plot to the
next area to repeat the process. Almost all of the puzzles are fairly simplistic, mostly of the "use item in inventory on item on screen"
sort. There's a little bit of dialog but none of your choices matter. Occasionally there are a few 'action sequences' where not reacting
fast enough (usually by going into your inventory, selecting your gun,
and clicking on an approaching enemy) results in instant death. These
latter sequences are almost always trial and error too; you always
have to die first to learn that the approaching aliens a threat. None
of the puzzles are in any way satisfying.

Nor can much be said for the underlying narrative. You're tasked with
exploring the titular Ringworld for several stasis boxes (it makes
sense if you're familiar with the Ringworld books) but, as mentioned,
you're moved around to convenience the plot and not out of any efforts
of your own. There's very little actual exploration of the Ringworld
itself; quite honestly, all the locations you visit could have been on different planets (or even a single, regular planet) for how ordinary
it all felt.

There are numerous references to various creatures and situations from
Larry Niven's "Known Space" books and -like I said- this is the only
thing that carries the game. It's really neat to see a Class Two
General Purpose Hull, or a Puppeteer, or a Thrintun Slaver. The
artwork isn't great, but until they ever get around to actually making
a Ringworld movie, it's the closest we'll get to seeing Niven's words
in motion. There's even a neat little in-game encyclopedia detailing a
lot of the key concepts of the Known Space novels (quite useful too,
since it's been a while since I read the books). But this depth only
reminded me of how shallow the rest of the game was.



---------------------------------------

If I only played two games this month, what did I do for the rest of
the time? Mostly, organizing my archive of imaged DOS-era floppy
games. Over the year I've accumulated a huge number of old games, and
dutifully imaged the disks for preservation. But then I just zipped up
the images and dumped them in a folder on the network, and --as I
discovered a few months back-- that can make it extra-ordinarily hard
to find the SPECIFIC image you're looking for. So I've been spending a
lot of time sorting and organizing, writing up text files explaining
what the archives contain, what the games are like, and even adding in
some screenshots and scans of the box. It's been surprisingly time
consuming (and I'm nowhere near done yet!). Plus, it gets in the way
of game-playing... but it's gotta be done.

Hopefully next month will be less crowded for me. But what about you?
How did you spend your month? More specifically:

What Have You Been Playing... IN JULY 2025?

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On 8/1/2025 7:13 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

* Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remaster

revamped visuals aside

Pretty much the only reason I would buy it, I remember the faces being squarely in the uncanny valley. But as you mention mods will probably
fix the original. I'm not sure I actually own it, unless it was given
away at some point. It's not in steam. I did play it but was looking
up old Usenet posts of mine about a question of what times I upgraded a computer to play a game, and it turns out Oblivion was one of those. I
also mentioned had borrowed it from someone, and I don't have it now.

I also saw that I completed the game without audio working since when I
had audio on it crashed within minutes, which may have contributed to me
not liking it, which does somewhat make me want to try it again.

-- it very much feels like
an OLD game.

Yeah it didn't look like they really did much to make it more modern fro
the videos I watched other than visuals.

Replaying the remaster only reminded me of how far the series
has come.

I certainly liked Skyrim a lot more, and really the only one I really
liked since Daggerfall. Unless you count the Fallouts. Then you have to
count Starfield, which is a travesty.

I'd forgotten how small the
individual cells in Oblivion were

Speaking of Starfield - I swear it's much worse in that regard with long
load times. Though I also complained that of Oblivion. Insane how they
went from Skyrim being fine at that back to this garbage.

The Stealth Archer takes the win again!

I apparently just played a melee warrior. Big mistake. Another reason
to replay it.

There's a lot to do in
"Oblivion" but none of it really seems to matter, other than to
increase your stats or inventory.

One of the videos I watched was saying the game is actually much easier
if you just rush the end because of the monster scaling, and if you
learn other things besides combat you'll be far behind their difficulty.

I do remember it getting significantly harder the further I went and I
did a lot of wandering, completionist me.

* Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch

I love Niven, I probably don't remember enough of it to get the
necessary references though. It doesn't sound actually fun either. So sad.

---------------------------------------

If I only played two games this month,

What Have You Been Playing... IN JULY 2025?

Well I played a lot between all the games I bought on summer sales.
Although really only a couple took up most of my time.

TL;DR >10h:

**** Cult of the Lamb
** The Surge
** Total Overdose

TL;DR <10h:

**? Bloodborne (emulator)
*? Nightreign
0 Paradox Souls (free)
*** Space Pilgrim Episode II (free)
** Vintage Year (free)
* Caribian Crashers (free)
** Ace of Seafood
** Figet Spinner RPG
**? Disaster Band
* Roundabout 3


***** Verbose Mode *****


**** Cult of the Lamb - roguelike top down 'cute' action-rpg /
'deckbuilder' / town builder.
I love this game. I'm not really into cute, but it's more like cute-lovecraftian horror. It is somewhat buggy, you unfortunately have
to remember to save. I have the GOG version, it does crash
occasionally. I found it crashes far more often if you use the
launcher. It also seems to crash a lot more using the xbox controller
vs. a PS4 one (I happened to find this out as I forgot to unplug it when
I was trying out a ps4 emulator.)

The deckbuilding is a minor aspect, and I actually take umbrage with
most of the 'deckbuiling' games calling it that. Unlike with say Magic
The Gathering where you actually build a deck to play with from the
cards you have, you just unlock random cards you can find on a run in
the dungeon. These are mostly small powerups, some are useless or very marginal, some are good, and eventually you get cursed ones which may be
worse than nothing. So you can't actually build a deck. Even the
titular Slay the Spire you can remove cards, but you have to give up
other opportunities to do so, so even it doesn't really count. At least
in Cult it's somewhat thematic being Tarot cards you mostly get played
from a Tarot reader you find in the dungeon.

The roguelike-action rpg while in the dungeon I really like, and is the
best aspect of the game. Even on hardest difficulty I didn't find it
terribly difficult once I knew what I was doing.

The town building aspect is a bit more than I'd like, but it's not so
onerous that it gets in the way. Being a cult you can do things like sacrifice spies, elderly, or just anyone you feel like, however you need followers to advance, so you have to be judicious about this.

Overall falls somewhere in my top 5 of roguelikes and well worth the I
think $12 I paid.


** The Surge - Sci-Fi soulslike. Big corp 'improves' humanity and
causes AI nanite and lifter zombie apocalypse.

I'd put it sort of like a knock off souls set in something like
half-life. I find it pretty hard, but eventually got it mostly down.
The areas can be a bit confusing with lots of 'shortcuts' back to the
med centers (bonfires.) What's lacking - while there's probably 20+
melee weapons they seem to mostly fall into a about 4 or 5 movesets with
minor variations and or elements which don't seem to actually make much
of a difference, and fairly obvious best in class ones. The only ranged weapon you get is a drone which unless you build and have energy though
melee does 1 pt of damage with a couple seconds cool down. Mobs by the
time you get it have at least 100 hp, so it's not really viable. Even
using it when you have enough energy typically does 20-30 points
compared to probably 4x that taking into account damage over time, and
doing that means you can't use other much more effective options for
energy like heals or finishing moves. As usual I miss magic from the
true souls games, and the actual weapon variety is too low to really
keep me interested. It sort of has blocking and parrying but I'm 99%
dodging as blocking eats up a good half to quarter of your stamina.
Story is fine. I'm somewhat enjoying it but have needed frequent
breaks, going between this and Cult of the Lamb, this takes much more
focus and energy so hadn't been playing it much, but as I finished the
'good' end of Cult and did everything I wanted to (not 100%) I started
playing this more the last few days because of that.

** Total Overdose - 12.5h. An older game, This is a weird mix of
something like Max Payne and Saint's Row set in Mexico. It's far more
3rd person shooter than car game though. It's fairly good, it's a bit
harder than I'd like for this type of game, having to play missions over
many times even with the checkpoints to get though them. It has a
trigger timing bar to make a perfect shot which I don't like.


***** Flipped/Low playtime *****

**? Bloodborne on ShadPS4 diegolix29 fork PS4 emulator.
I was trying this out as my son was talking about selling his PS5 and he wanted to make sure I could play it if he did. It took many hours to
get it in a passable state. It originally was crashing while fighting
the first mob every time. Now it crashes perhaps every half hour or so.
Note if anyone does try this, if you have an intel CPU of 12th gen or
later you absolutely need to find the old intel fix on nexus mods and
install it. I'll note it plays flawlessly on my son's AMD CPU. Next
upgrade I get is definitely not going to be intel/nvidia. I didn't
fight the first boss, as I was in the middle of playing Cult & Surge

* Nightreign - I did play one more round last week, but having been
around a month I had already lost at least half my skill, and quit again
after that. Even that single round took me about an hour. I might need
to go back to solo for awhile if the mood strikes me, I just hate the
time pressure so much and whatever 'it' was that I was feeling like it
had before, I don't now. My son hasn't been interested yet either.

0 Paradox Souls (free) - 6m. not even worth adding to your library for
free, unable to progress past the first couple enemies.

*** Space Pilgrim Episode II (free) - 2.3h Like an old adventure game, actually enjoyed it, and I can't remember an old adventure game I
enjoyed. It only look 2.3 hours, so I can't see buying the other
episodes for anything more than about 50¢ if that, they're more than that.

** Vintage Year (free) - 24m. Amateur Procedural Roguelike Top-Down
Shooter. It's fine, I kind of like the shadow monsters slowing you
down. Just not something I was enjoying enough to keep playing. It's
free, so if you're one of our broke members it might be worth checking out.

* Caribian Crashers (free) - 1m. I quit this when it became obvious this
was a poorly done Angry Birds.

** Ace of Seafood - 12m. It's kind of like a space sim only you're a
fish fighting other fish with space weapons. It's a bit too clunky, but otherwise kind of fun.

** Fidget Spinner RPG - 25m. Apparently made with some AI assets, which
I didn't realize before I bought it. The RPG aspects were mostly the
type of stuff I don't like, mining, crafting etc. I'm not sure how or
why a Fidget spinner can mine, and craft and wear human armor, or maybe
that's actually you, and you're just spinning the spinner?

**? Disaster Band - 4m. Kind of funny. I find it impossible to actually
keep up with the quick key changes, I think that's how it's supposed to
be though as part of the 'funny'. I have to see if I can get my son to
play it with me as he's into music, it's multiplayer, and supposedly
that's where it's most fun/funny.

* Roundabout 3 - 4m. It looks cool. I died probably 30 times in that 4 minutes. You have to press space to turn your ship, it's sort of like
snake in the idea is only not not crash into walls. A bit too
annoying/hard at least to begin. I can't see trying it every again.
--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
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Aug! Same games as usual: SW:TOR in Windows. Impulse, Propel, and Duo
Lingo in my iPhone. I think I played a quick Steam free weekend game,
but I can't remember what since I didn't like it. :P


Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Yup, it's been another month. Hard to believe it's flashed by so fast.
What is it with summer months not taking their time, anyway? (I wonder
if Australians feel the same way about December). There's barely any
time to get any video-game playing in anymore! That's why my play-list
is so short this month (well, short for me, at least).

...

Hopefully next month will be less crowded for me. But what about you?
How did you spend your month? More specifically:

What Have You Been Playing... IN JULY 2025?

--
"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death." --Romans 8:1-2. Pls get rid of sins & deaths! Aug!
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )
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What Have You Been Playing... IN JULY 2025?

The Invincible
I'm not quite done with this space adventure game, but nearing the end.
It is primarily a walking sim, with a few simple dialogue and path choices, but I'm liking the slow movement and methodical exploration. The graphics look very good to my eyes, with a 50's, 60's retro-futuristic aesthetic one would expect, given the source novel, and I'm impressed with the little
rover I've been given, which is nicely detailed. A quiet contemplative
game, but I like it.

rms

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On Fri, 1 Aug 2025 11:23:33 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
wrote:

On 8/1/2025 7:13 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

* Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remaster

revamped visuals aside

Pretty much the only reason I would buy it, I remember the faces being >squarely in the uncanny valley.

The faces were one of the least improved part of the game, in my
opinion. Oh, I suppose they were slightly better... but they were

One of the videos I watched was saying the game is actually much easier
if you just rush the end because of the monster scaling, and if you
learn other things besides combat you'll be far behind their difficulty.

I didn't really focus on any particular skills. I just played the way
I enjoyed and felt naturally to me. I did 'grind' a bit at Stealth
(basically, run around in crouch mode everywhere. It goes up faster if
you have an NPC attached to you for a quest). Other skills that got
attention were Archery (because that was my primary weapon) and
Mercantile (because I vacuumed up every bit of loot and sold it to to shopkeeps). By the time I finished the main quest, I had only middling
stats in Light Armor, Long Sword and Block, with all other combat
skills having atrophied from lack of use. Magic got almost no use, and
-I admit- I cheated with Lockpicking (I used a mod). But overall I
never found the combat -or, really, any aspect of the game- ever got
beyond me. I never really felt overwhelmed.

* Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch

I love Niven, I probably don't remember enough of it to get the
necessary references though. It doesn't sound actually fun either. So sad.

In truth, his "Known Space" universe for which he is most famous (and
which "Ringworld" is a part) aren't my favorites, but they're fun
novels. But the games were disappointing, all the moreso since the
developers --Tsunami Media-- were former Sierra developers. But even
in 1992, when the game originally released, it was panned for its
sub-par gameplay.

I went into the game knowing all this, but played it anyway. I just
wanted to see Ringworld in all its grandeur. The game _almost_
achieved this goal (it's really, really, REALLY hard to express
visually how immense the Ringworld is. The game didn't manage... but
it made a good effort ;-)

** The Surge - Sci-Fi soulslike. Big corp 'improves' humanity and
causes AI nanite and lifter zombie apocalypse.

I liked "The Surge" (and for whatever reason didn't find it quite as
difficult, which probably helped with my enjoyment) but a lot of what
I remember most about the game is its visual style and setting. I'm
not really a Souls-afficiando so I can't really say if it's GOOD
combat, but I found it workable enough and not so annoying as to keep
me from wanting to explore the world more.

** Total Overdose - 12.5h. An older game, This is a weird mix of
something like Max Payne and Saint's Row set in Mexico. It's far more
3rd person shooter than car game though. It's fairly good, it's a bit
harder than I'd like for this type of game, having to play missions over >many times even with the checkpoints to get though them. It has a
trigger timing bar to make a perfect shot which I don't like.

I remember playing this one way back in the day. My recollection is
that I got bored of it pretty quickly. It was very stylish but -I
vaguelly recall- it was lacking in story and setting. It felt very
much a Mexican "Saints Row", and I think that had something to do with
my lack of appreciation; GTA clones were the rage at the time that
game came out, and I was burned out on the genre. I don't think I ever
finished the game.



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On 8/2/2025 8:13 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Fri, 1 Aug 2025 11:23:33 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
wrote:

** The Surge - Sci-Fi soulslike. Big corp 'improves' humanity and
causes AI nanite and lifter zombie apocalypse.

I liked "The Surge" (and for whatever reason didn't find it quite as difficult, which probably helped with my enjoyment) but a lot of what
I remember most about the game is its visual style and setting. I'm
not really a Souls-afficiando so I can't really say if it's GOOD
combat, but I found it workable enough and not so annoying as to keep
me from wanting to explore the world more.

I'm surprised, you actually played a soulslike, you liked it, and one
I'm finding a bit difficult. It's more the fact you can get 2 or 3
shotted by most mobs and the long and confusing paths with lots of switchbacks. I got stuck a couple times, once having to resort to
watching a video for probably an hour to figure out how to get to the
2nd boss. The bosses haven't been particularly hard... for a soulslike.

I wouldn't think you'd have a lot of trouble with ER if you managed The
Surge and didn't think it was particularly hard. On the other hand it's
an interminably long open world game.
--
-Justisaur

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** The Surge - Sci-Fi soulslike. Big corp 'improves' humanity and causes
AI nanite and lifter zombie apocalypse.

I wouldn't mind trying out the sequel Surge 2 at some point! Reviews
note the less janky combat

rms

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On Sat, 2 Aug 2025 17:52:14 -0600, "rms" <rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net>
wrote:

** The Surge - Sci-Fi soulslike. Big corp 'improves' humanity and causes >>AI nanite and lifter zombie apocalypse.

I wouldn't mind trying out the sequel Surge 2 at some point! Reviews
note the less janky combat

On the other hand, the open world was filled with pointless grindy and
the overall narrative, setting and visuals were far less compelling.

Of the two, I think I preferred the combat of the first. It was, I'd
probably agree, less 'janky'; it was smoother and more polished, but
to me that just stripped the game of even more character.

TL;DR: I preferred the first game over the second.


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On Sat, 2 Aug 2025 15:22:47 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
wrote:

I'm surprised, you actually played a soulslike, you liked it, and one
I'm finding a bit difficult. It's more the fact you can get 2 or 3
shotted by most mobs and the long and confusing paths with lots of >switchbacks. I got stuck a couple times, once having to resort to
watching a video for probably an hour to figure out how to get to the
2nd boss. The bosses haven't been particularly hard... for a soulslike.

I really only remember two bosses in the game; the big manufacturing
robot at the end of the the rocket-assembly map, and the end-boss. The
latter wasn't too bad, from what I recall... but that assembly-bot was
almost enough to make me quit the game. Mostly because, as I recall,
you had to fight in a fairly small arena over a bottomless pit, and I
never do well in those sort of areas.

Oh, and there was also a particularly nasty one you had to fight in an
small acid-pit or something? Same problem, but it was optional as I
recall.

I wouldn't think you'd have a lot of trouble with ER if you managed The >Surge and didn't think it was particularly hard. On the other hand it's
an interminably long open world game.

I haven't played "Elden Ring", so I can't say if I'd have trouble with
it. Souls-like combat mechanics aren't something that really intrigue
me; I liked "The Surge" _despite_ the fact that is was Souls-like, not
because of it. As I said, I remember that game for its visuals and
setting. The darker setting of the original Souls games (and Elden
Ring) aren't as intriguing to me, so I'm in no rush to play "Elden
Ring". (I figure I'll get there eventually, but since it's still
selling for $60 on Steam, that won't be anytime soon ;-)



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Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

What Have You Been Playing... IN JULY 2025?

* Quake Mission Pack 1
* Quake Mission Pack 2
* The Binding of Isaac Rebirth: Repentance+ (AB+ content)
* Pokémon Emerald
* Final Doom
* Grezzo Due



- Quake Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armaggon (Nightdive 2021 remaster):
So freakin' good. Having a shambler as a companion is one of the coolest things ever. For some reason it feels like the spiritual predecessor to
Quake II

- Quake Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity (Nightdive 2021 remaster):
The not so good second expansion. While Scourge had great maps with open areas, Dissolution feels cramped, like you are fighting in tunnels most
of the time. The new enemies are simply reskins of existing ones and
rather than new weapons, it simply adds alternative ammo that doubles
the amount of nails and rockets. Gets better on the second half, through.

- The Bindinding of Isaac Rebirth: Afterbirth+
After post-Hush break, I had to go back. This time I got to defeat
Delirium, the true boss of AfterBirth+. if I had not recorded the run, I
would have trouble believing I was able to pull it.

After that i attempted to go after the true Mother, but it's not going
to be easy. This is where the Repentance environments kick in, and
suddenly there are a lot of new mechanics (and minecarts) that change
how it is played.

- Pokémon Emerald:
Commute game for the days the trains are delayed

- Final Doom:
Chocolatey Doom + Community Midi OST + Sound Blaster Audigy with 90s
E-MU soundfonts makes for pure bliss for your ears. The levels
difficulty is absurd, and yet it feels more fair than Thy Flesh Consumed

- Grezzo Due:
Played at the lanparty when i got a bit tired of Final Doom. It's the
kind of game that causes people to stop and after 5 minutes looking, ask
for the game, to then grab it from the DC++ and start playing it too.

It's one of those supermods based on Brutal Doom that plays closer to
Blood. Italian trash culture, a great OST and enough blood to feed a
clan of vampires. Basically, "Blood meets Carmaggedon". You will get
banned if you stream it on twitch because religious folks are thin
skinned snowflakes.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On 8/2/2025 4:52 PM, rms wrote:

** The Surge - Sci-Fi soulslike.  Big corp 'improves' humanity and
causes AI nanite and lifter zombie apocalypse.

  I wouldn't mind trying out the sequel Surge 2 at some point!  Reviews note the less janky combat

rms

The combat doesn't feel particularly janky to me. Combat's fine, it's
just not really many weapon options beyond slight variations upon a
handful of options. Blocking when I try it is useless as it eats your
stamina up too fast, then I can't do anything. I end up mostly doing the charged attack followed by a couple other attacks, retreat and repeat if
the finisher isn't available. There isn't much variation in enemies
either. It's pretty much heavy and lights.

I have to keep doing runbacks over and over to just to open shortcuts
back to medbay and make very slow progress with everything able to 2 or
3 shot me even in heavier armor, having to split everything up, frequent
death by gravity areas. The runbacks get very long if I miss a hidden shortcut or two. Then I've gotten stuck a few time unable to find a way
to progress with some path I've missed and have to look up videos.

Somehow I'm still enjoying it off and on. I have to take breaks when I
get frustrated with it and play something else or read something instead.
--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

* Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch

Wow, now there's a blast from the past. I used to love Niven's Known
Space books, in the 80s. Haven't read any of the newer Ringworld books
after Engineers but maybe it's time.

And Revenge of the Patriarch is the 1992 game? I guess I should take a look.

What Have You Been Playing... IN JULY 2025?

Just the System Shock 2 25th anniversary thingy. Or maybe a little bit
walking around in Outer Worlds but not much progress. Did a couple of
levels in old Outlaws too, still two to go. Feels like it's a good thing
there are only nine levels and even then it's starting to feel like a
chore.

My previous playthrough of System Shock 2 was some back in 2022. i used
some texture patches and some fan patch with the usual unknown random
changes. I don't remember exactly but I think I went with early hack
skill that time and some PSI to support hacking with the tier 1 CYB+2
stat boost. Easy difficulty but I still was super low on ammo in
Engineering. Nanites too, I remember I ran out of nanites trying to buy
more ammo or maybe using the PSI skill to duplicate clips. Seems like I
may have put a little too much cyber modules to PSI too early that time.

Easy difficulty felt a little too easy so I went with normal this
time. I also wanted to have a laser pistol from the get go so chose
Marine career path, +2 STR, +1 energy and +1 maintenance skill. This
path comes with a free laser pistol and a maintenance tool. Too bad the
laser pistol comes in poor condition (2) even though your character
worked a year doing just that, maintenance! Guy seems like a slacker :)
I didn't feel like using my only maintenance tool to bump the condition
up just one point either. Further evidence of the PC slacking off, why
is his maintenance skill only 1 after a year? Or maybe it's the implants
that make all the difference in learning in-game.

Still, I lasered a bunch of mutants and monkeys and security cams for
zero ammo cost. Didn't save scum the laser pistol when it broke
already in MedSci. Feels like it was a decent investment, I had enough
pistol ammo to easily get through the rest of MedSci and Engineering
and near the end of engineering bumped STD weapons to 3 so I could
start using the shotgun.

OTOH, my hacking sucked, I save scummed a lot of security and turret
hacks since difficulty was typically 40 or 50%. Could've used a little
help in early hacking from boosting the CYB stat directly or via PSI but
didn't have the cyber modules. Oh well.

Side note, there seem to have been some small changes to gameplay. If
you hack a turret, it doesn't instantly start firing at a non-hacked
turret in its range any more. Also it seems you can't crush
maintenance droids with the lifts in the cargo bays any more. I'm not
sure if they just avoid going under the lift or if I really missed the
bot a bunch of times. Luring the bot to a hacked turret still worked
fine.

Made it to Hydroponics and felt like I was well equipped to handle
anything there. Lots of guns there to be had too but no skills to use
them, except for another laser pistol. I did bump modify skill to 1 and
modded my pistol and shotgun to do more damage. That seemed work fine on
the mutants and cyborgs there. Again used a laser pistol until it
broke. Ran back to a charge station a bunch of times, never an extension
cord when you need one... Same goes for the stupid power armor, always
running out of power. I think I'll just dump that thing once I find the
best non-powered armor.

Operations was easy too. I reached Recreation and did maybe a quarter of
it so far.

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On 8/4/2025 12:26 AM, H1M3M wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

What Have You Been Playing... IN JULY 2025?

- Grezzo Due:
Played at the lanparty

Wait, are lanparties still a thing?!?!
--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On Tue, 05 Aug 2025 12:52:09 +0300, Anssi Saari <anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

* Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch

Wow, now there's a blast from the past. I used to love Niven's Known
Space books, in the 80s. Haven't read any of the newer Ringworld books
after Engineers but maybe it's time.

And Revenge of the Patriarch is the 1992 game? I guess I should take a look.

What Have You Been Playing... IN JULY 2025?

Just the System Shock 2 25th anniversary thingy. Or maybe a little bit >walking around in Outer Worlds but not much progress. Did a couple of
levels in old Outlaws too, still two to go. Feels like it's a good thing >there are only nine levels and even then it's starting to feel like a
chore.

My previous playthrough of System Shock 2 was some back in 2022. i used
some texture patches and some fan patch with the usual unknown random >changes. I don't remember exactly but I think I went with early hack
skill that time and some PSI to support hacking with the tier 1 CYB+2
stat boost. Easy difficulty but I still was super low on ammo in
Engineering. Nanites too, I remember I ran out of nanites trying to buy
more ammo or maybe using the PSI skill to duplicate clips. Seems like I
may have put a little too much cyber modules to PSI too early that time.

Easy difficulty felt a little too easy so I went with normal this
time. I also wanted to have a laser pistol from the get go so chose
Marine career path, +2 STR, +1 energy and +1 maintenance skill. This
path comes with a free laser pistol and a maintenance tool. Too bad the
laser pistol comes in poor condition (2) even though your character
worked a year doing just that, maintenance! Guy seems like a slacker :)
I didn't feel like using my only maintenance tool to bump the condition
up just one point either. Further evidence of the PC slacking off, why
is his maintenance skill only 1 after a year? Or maybe it's the implants
that make all the difference in learning in-game.

Still, I lasered a bunch of mutants and monkeys and security cams for
zero ammo cost. Didn't save scum the laser pistol when it broke
already in MedSci. Feels like it was a decent investment, I had enough
pistol ammo to easily get through the rest of MedSci and Engineering
and near the end of engineering bumped STD weapons to 3 so I could
start using the shotgun.

OTOH, my hacking sucked, I save scummed a lot of security and turret
hacks since difficulty was typically 40 or 50%. Could've used a little
help in early hacking from boosting the CYB stat directly or via PSI but >didn't have the cyber modules. Oh well.

Side note, there seem to have been some small changes to gameplay. If
you hack a turret, it doesn't instantly start firing at a non-hacked
turret in its range any more. Also it seems you can't crush
maintenance droids with the lifts in the cargo bays any more. I'm not
sure if they just avoid going under the lift or if I really missed the
bot a bunch of times. Luring the bot to a hacked turret still worked
fine.

Made it to Hydroponics and felt like I was well equipped to handle
anything there. Lots of guns there to be had too but no skills to use
them, except for another laser pistol. I did bump modify skill to 1 and >modded my pistol and shotgun to do more damage. That seemed work fine on
the mutants and cyborgs there. Again used a laser pistol until it
broke. Ran back to a charge station a bunch of times, never an extension
cord when you need one... Same goes for the stupid power armor, always >running out of power. I think I'll just dump that thing once I find the
best non-powered armor.

Operations was easy too. I reached Recreation and did maybe a quarter of
it so far.

I liked the "System Shock 2 Remaster", but mostly because it was
"System Shock 2". As a remaster, it was sort of disappointing. My
final conclusion was that if you never played the game, you might as
well get the remaster, but if you already have it, there's no real
need to buy the newer version.

There are, as you noted, a few minor tweaks to the gameplay (the one I
noticed specifically was that the robot respawn rate in the Cargo Bays
was significantly reduced, but I'm sure there are others). None of
them really change the feel of the game in any major way... which is a
good thing, since SS2 was already a lot of fun.

In fairness, I didn't play the remaster too far; I got to Hydroponics
and stopped before I cleared the level, so its quite possible there
were major changes past that point. I doubt it though. I sort of
regret not getting all the way up to the crew quarters level; that was
always the spookiest (and best) bit of the game, at least as far as
I'm concerned. But I get around to re-playing System Shock every five
years or so, and I'll probably choose the remaster next time. I just
wasn't in the mood to re-play the game so soon after my last
experience.


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

Justisaur wrote:

On 8/4/2025 12:26 AM, H1M3M wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

What Have You Been Playing... IN JULY 2025?

- Grezzo Due:
Played at the lanparty

Wait, are lanparties still a thing?!?!

Yep this one may be suffering from the issues of getting too big (5000
seats) and not being able to handle problematic assistants. I'm going to
a second smaller one in september (400 participants) hoping it will ge
be more manageable.

Right now I am preparing a Counter-Strike 1.6 lan server with "fun maps"
for casual play there. The problem will be how to carry two computers
(on top of the screen, travel bag, sleeping tent, inflatable mattress,
etc) on a bus with the luggage restrictions slowly getting closer to air travel.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On Tue, 5 Aug 2025 06:55:12 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
wrote:

Played at the lanparty

Wait, are lanparties still a thing?!?!

Heh, LANparties. I remember those. I did a couple, a long time ago.
The things I remember most about them were:


1) Just how AWFUL it was to lug around all my computer gear
(made worse by the fact that this was back in the Age of
CRTs). It wasn't just the weight of it all, although that
definitely was the worst bit. But it was all so
inconvenient; so many cables and extra bits and bobs, and
the terrible fear that you forgot some vital and
irreplaceable thing. Plus, this was before I had multiple
computers, so there was always the fear I'd break or lose
my One and Only computer during transit.

2) The smell. Oh god, the smell. It made tabletop gaming
conventions smell sweet in comparison (and if you've
ever played D&D at a con, you know how awful that smell
is. But the LANparty was 10 times worse). It wasn't just
the grime and sweat, but the smoke (this all before
anti-smoking bans in public areas were commonplace).
You could FEEL it on your skin. You scrubbed yourself
clean when you got home. Hell, I scrubbed my COMPUTER
clean afterwards too.


There were other things too, that made the experience less than
stellar. This was the early days of LANparties, so not only were the
technical issues more complicated, but there was less organization on
how to get everything working (example: no carts were made available
to help carry your PC/CRT to the tables). The rampant casual misogyny
was pretty awful too, and in general the attitudes of a lot of the
people there was pretty disturbing, with a lot of petty conflicts
breaking out. And honestly, the gaming wasn't that great (when it
finally worked); it was more exciting BECAUSE you could play
multiplayer, rather than because of the multiplayer experience itself.

That's not to say it was completely disappointing. Like I said, just
the idea of playing games with other people felt novel and exciting,
and it was fun to see so many other computer gamers and all their
computers in a single room. There was an energy and excitement to it
all, and we all felt like we were on the threshold of a brand new era
of entertainment.

I'm sure these days the experience has greatly improved, and its
likely that the tiny, local LANparties I visited were some of the
worst of the lot. They were amateur things; no sponsors, no
professional assistance... just a bunch of computer gaming fans trying
to get together and have fun. These days I'm sure everything is much
more streamlined and prepared (and, hopefully, ventilated).

Me, I did it a couple of times and then dropped out. The Internet was
rapidly catching up to the point where you could easily play online
without having to transport 150lbs of valuable computer hardware, and
instead play from the comfort of your own home. Plus, LANparties
seemed to be becoming more and more competitive, which really wasn't
something I was into.

I'm glad I went, but it's never really been an experience I wanted to
revisit.


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

H1M3M <wipnoah@gmail.com> wrote at 07:26 this Monday (GMT):

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

What Have You Been Playing... IN JULY 2025?

* Quake Mission Pack 1
* Quake Mission Pack 2
* The Binding of Isaac Rebirth: Repentance+ (AB+ content)
* Pokémon Emerald
* Final Doom
* Grezzo Due

- Quake Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armaggon (Nightdive 2021 remaster):
So freakin' good. Having a shambler as a companion is one of the coolest things ever. For some reason it feels like the spiritual predecessor to Quake II

- Quake Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity (Nightdive 2021 remaster): The not so good second expansion. While Scourge had great maps with open areas, Dissolution feels cramped, like you are fighting in tunnels most
of the time. The new enemies are simply reskins of existing ones and
rather than new weapons, it simply adds alternative ammo that doubles
the amount of nails and rockets. Gets better on the second half, through.

Well, at least it didn't end badly?

- The Bindinding of Isaac Rebirth: Afterbirth+
After post-Hush break, I had to go back. This time I got to defeat
Delirium, the true boss of AfterBirth+. if I had not recorded the run, I would have trouble believing I was able to pull it.

After that i attempted to go after the true Mother, but it's not going
to be easy. This is where the Repentance environments kick in, and
suddenly there are a lot of new mechanics (and minecarts) that change
how it is played.

I've heard BoI is one of the more difficult rougelikes, good job!

- Pokémon Emerald:
Commute game for the days the trains are delayed

Emerald is one of the few mainline games I've beaten. It's pretty good,
even if both evil teams plans are moronic

- Final Doom:
Chocolatey Doom + Community Midi OST + Sound Blaster Audigy with 90s
E-MU soundfonts makes for pure bliss for your ears. The levels
difficulty is absurd, and yet it feels more fair than Thy Flesh Consumed

So is it a WAD for DOS Doom?

- Grezzo Due:
Played at the lanparty when i got a bit tired of Final Doom. It's the
kind of game that causes people to stop and after 5 minutes looking, ask
for the game, to then grab it from the DC++ and start playing it too.

It's one of those supermods based on Brutal Doom that plays closer to
Blood. Italian trash culture, a great OST and enough blood to feed a
clan of vampires. Basically, "Blood meets Carmaggedon". You will get
banned if you stream it on twitch because religious folks are thin
skinned snowflakes.

Interesting, I've never heard of it..
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com> wrote at 13:55 this Tuesday (GMT):

On 8/4/2025 12:26 AM, H1M3M wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

What Have You Been Playing... IN JULY 2025?

- Grezzo Due:
Played at the lanparty

Wait, are lanparties still a thing?!?!

Yea, I got to go to one a few months ago.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On Wed, 6 Aug 2025 19:30:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

- Final Doom:
Chocolatey Doom + Community Midi OST + Sound Blaster Audigy with 90s
E-MU soundfonts makes for pure bliss for your ears. The levels
difficulty is absurd, and yet it feels more fair than Thy Flesh Consumed

So is it a WAD for DOS Doom?

Yes, and no.

"Final Doom" was a commercially released product (as in, it had a box
and disks and everything!) released in 1996 as an expansion for Doom
II.

But essentially it's just two .WAD files ("TNT: Evilution" and "The
Plutionia Experiment") which added another 64 levels to the base game.
The core gameplay was exactly the same, and while there may have been
a few new textures, there were (IIRC, it's been 30 years) no new
weapons, monsters or power-ups. There was, though, a new soundtrack.

"Final Doom" was noticably harder than the original games. You'd often
face off against multiple cyber-demons, for instance. I also remember
a lot more platforming/navigating over narrow beams. It didn't have
the same jump-in-and-play accessibility of the first game (at least as
far as I was concerned), and was seemingly aimed at people who lived
and breathed "Doom" and thought "Ultraviolence" difficulty was too
easy.

As H1M3M specified, they are playing it using Chocolate Doom, an
open-source port of the engine whose goal is to maximize compatibility
with the original game while still getting it to run on modern
hardware. It's been a while since I tried Chocolate, but as I recall
it avoided all modern amenities such as (modern) mouse-look, and
limited itself to all the original limitations of the 1994 game. H1M3M
did upgrade the music using an improved soundtrack/sound-fonts.

ChocolateDoom is available here:
https://www.chocolate-doom.org/wiki/index.php/Chocolate_Doom

This seems to be the soundtrack update H1M3M used:
https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/119301

with the addition of the Audigy soundfonts, which you can pull from
the SoundBlaster Audigy driver CD, available here:
https://archive.org/details/cd-sb-audigy

The WAD files themselves are still proprietary, but if you get pretty
much any version of classic Doom as a digital download*, you'll get
the Plutonia/Evilution files included. Just pull them from Steam or
GOG and you can use them with Chocolate Doom.**

Me, I'll just stick with ZDoom, the Brutal mod, and the original 1993
game ;-)





--- --- --- ---
* including the "Doom + Doom II" remake on Steam; even though it uses
a completely different engine (KEX) it still uses the original .wad
files! https://www.gog.com/en/game/doom_doom_ii
** yaaarrrr, it's possible you may find the WAD files elsewhere on the
Internet too, but I'm not providing any links for that option. But if
you _do_ go that route, remember you'll also need the Doom2.wad file
as well. ;-)


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

I think just Oblivion Remastered, and a LOT! I wouldn't be playing it
if Justisaur didn't give me a link to the lockpicking cheat!!!!!

How annoying are they! They are everywhere in this game. Never ends!

And just a little of System Shock 2 remastered.

Gave up on The Precinct because of the lousy driving controls.

-pw
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

Been playing PW's "Put your tongue on the mule's anus"
Its a documentary type game of what fishing guides really
do in the backwater cuntry.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On Wed, 06 Aug 2025 20:43:28 -0600, PW
<iamnotusingonewithAgent@notinuse.com> wrote:

I think just Oblivion Remastered, and a LOT! I wouldn't be playing it
if Justisaur didn't give me a link to the lockpicking cheat!!!!!

How annoying are they! They are everywhere in this game. Never ends!

I admit, I did the same with my play through. I found a mod (I don't
know if it was the same one that Justisaur linked to) that let me open
locks automatically. It wasn't that I found the lockpicking mini-game
that hard (or, at least, not any more difficult than in the original),
but it got /really/ annoying having to do it over and over again. I
think the original conceit was, of course, that some chests would just
be beyond your ability to lock-pick until you leveled up, and that
you'd come back to them later on after you improved your skill, but I
knew that was never going to happen. So I used a mod instead.

It's not like the rewards were ever worth the effort and I got better
gear. You'd struggle with an extra-hard lock for ten minutes and get
three bones, six gold and a potion of minor healing.

While I can't remember exactly HOW, I do remember that this was one
area Skyrim improved on Oblivion; they made the lockpicking less
annoying (though whether this was by changing the mechanics, making
the lockpicking more rewarding, or just changing the frequency, I
don't really remember. Just that it was better in Skyrim).


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On Thu, 07 Aug 2025 10:48:11 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, 06 Aug 2025 20:43:28 -0600, PW
<iamnotusingonewithAgent@notinuse.com> wrote:

I think just Oblivion Remastered, and a LOT! I wouldn't be playing it
if Justisaur didn't give me a link to the lockpicking cheat!!!!!

How annoying are they! They are everywhere in this game. Never ends!

I admit, I did the same with my play through. I found a mod (I don't
know if it was the same one that Justisaur linked to) that let me open
locks automatically. It wasn't that I found the lockpicking mini-game
that hard (or, at least, not any more difficult than in the original),
but it got /really/ annoying having to do it over and over again. I
think the original conceit was, of course, that some chests would just
be beyond your ability to lock-pick until you leveled up, and that
you'd come back to them later on after you improved your skill, but I
knew that was never going to happen. So I used a mod instead.

It's not like the rewards were ever worth the effort and I got better
gear. You'd struggle with an extra-hard lock for ten minutes and get
three bones, six gold and a potion of minor healing.

***--

**EXACTLY*** I have found nothing of worth ever except for small
amounts of gold coins in the chests and boxes. And, I don't find the lockpicking puzzles easy whatsoever. I have watched multiple videos on
how to do it and they haven't helped. Simply annoying. Maybe if I was
playing a theif character that would be relevent but as a
fighter-class I should just be able to whack them and open them once I
get to a certain level of strenght attribute! Like in the Wells Fargo stagecoach days in the west - just shoot the lock off for cripes
sake!! :-)

While I can't remember exactly HOW, I do remember that this was one
area Skyrim improved on Oblivion; they made the lockpicking less
annoying (though whether this was by changing the mechanics, making
the lockpicking more rewarding, or just changing the frequency, I
don't really remember. Just that it was better in Skyrim).

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action


I played Hunt Showdown a lot in July, and still, so far in August.

As I mentioned in a prior post, it is difficult even for seasoned
competitive MP gamers to get started in. It's worth it, I think to
stick it out.... it's one of the crown jewels of the extraction
shooter genre, and even for those who don't know or care what
extraction shooters are, it's probably one of the best examples of
in-game sound design I've seen, ever.... and once you understand HOW
to play properly, it can be an incredibly immersive experience.

There's another reason to know what this game is though:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/1ino2cd/cryteks_sad_announcement_on_twitter/#lightbox
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

candycanearter07 wrote:

- Final Doom:
Chocolatey Doom + Community Midi OST + Sound Blaster Audigy with 90s
E-MU soundfonts makes for pure bliss for your ears. The levels
difficulty is absurd, and yet it feels more fair than Thy Flesh Consumed

So is it a WAD for DOS Doom?

It began as a community WAD, then ID Software licensed the work before
it was finished and it became an official retail episode, along with The Plutonia Experiment. The Community OST is an addon WAD that needs to be
added on the command line when launching the game.

It's a WAD for any client, but I try to stick to as close to the DOS
original as I can possibly tolerate. Other than the 2X rendering
resolution (still pretty pixelated, but not as hard on the eyes as the original 320x200) and not having to load a custom mouse driver to
disable the Y axis movement, it's nearly identical to the original, even keeping the 35fps limit (playing at 144fps gives me motion sickness).
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

As H1M3M specified, they are playing it using Chocolate Doom, an
open-source port of the engine whose goal is to maximize compatibility
with the original game while still getting it to run on modern
hardware. It's been a while since I tried Chocolate, but as I recall
it avoided all modern amenities such as (modern) mouse-look, and
limited itself to all the original limitations of the 1994 game.

Actually, I'm using Crispy. As much as i try to embrace chocolate,
320x200 blown up to 24" was a bit too much, and it gets worse the bigger
the maps and the detail are, specially with Hexen. But other than the 2x rendering and the limit removal / increase (for stuff like Legacy of
Rust and Sigil), I'm staying as close to the source as possible. And at
least the mouse feels right. With the KEX engine releases the mouse
always feels messed with some weird acceleration and inertia, even if
you disable them.

Zdoom feels like something enterirely different that reuses maps and
sprites, it was simply too weird for me.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 21:34 this Wednesday (GMT):

On Wed, 6 Aug 2025 19:30:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

- Final Doom:
Chocolatey Doom + Community Midi OST + Sound Blaster Audigy with 90s
E-MU soundfonts makes for pure bliss for your ears. The levels
difficulty is absurd, and yet it feels more fair than Thy Flesh Consumed

So is it a WAD for DOS Doom?

Yes, and no.

"Final Doom" was a commercially released product (as in, it had a box
and disks and everything!) released in 1996 as an expansion for Doom
II.

But essentially it's just two .WAD files ("TNT: Evilution" and "The
Plutionia Experiment") which added another 64 levels to the base game.
The core gameplay was exactly the same, and while there may have been
a few new textures, there were (IIRC, it's been 30 years) no new
weapons, monsters or power-ups. There was, though, a new soundtrack.

"Final Doom" was noticably harder than the original games. You'd often
face off against multiple cyber-demons, for instance. I also remember
a lot more platforming/navigating over narrow beams. It didn't have
the same jump-in-and-play accessibility of the first game (at least as
far as I was concerned), and was seemingly aimed at people who lived
and breathed "Doom" and thought "Ultraviolence" difficulty was too
easy.

As H1M3M specified, they are playing it using Chocolate Doom, an
open-source port of the engine whose goal is to maximize compatibility
with the original game while still getting it to run on modern
hardware. It's been a while since I tried Chocolate, but as I recall
it avoided all modern amenities such as (modern) mouse-look, and
limited itself to all the original limitations of the 1994 game. H1M3M
did upgrade the music using an improved soundtrack/sound-fonts.

ChocolateDoom is available here:
https://www.chocolate-doom.org/wiki/index.php/Chocolate_Doom

This seems to be the soundtrack update H1M3M used:
https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/119301

with the addition of the Audigy soundfonts, which you can pull from
the SoundBlaster Audigy driver CD, available here:
https://archive.org/details/cd-sb-audigy

The WAD files themselves are still proprietary, but if you get pretty
much any version of classic Doom as a digital download*, you'll get
the Plutonia/Evilution files included. Just pull them from Steam or
GOG and you can use them with Chocolate Doom.**

Me, I'll just stick with ZDoom, the Brutal mod, and the original 1993
game ;-)

--- --- --- ---
* including the "Doom + Doom II" remake on Steam; even though it uses
a completely different engine (KEX) it still uses the original .wad
files! https://www.gog.com/en/game/doom_doom_ii
** yaaarrrr, it's possible you may find the WAD files elsewhere on the Internet too, but I'm not providing any links for that option. But if
you _do_ go that route, remember you'll also need the Doom2.wad file
as well. ;-)

I have ChocoDoom installed, I just barely use it

did you say 64 levels??
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On Mon, 11 Aug 2025 19:50:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 21:34 this Wednesday (GMT):

On Wed, 6 Aug 2025 19:30:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 >><candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

- Final Doom:
Chocolatey Doom + Community Midi OST + Sound Blaster Audigy with 90s
E-MU soundfonts makes for pure bliss for your ears. The levels
difficulty is absurd, and yet it feels more fair than Thy Flesh Consumed >>

So is it a WAD for DOS Doom?

Yes, and no.

"Final Doom" was a commercially released product (as in, it had a box
and disks and everything!) released in 1996 as an expansion for Doom
II.

But essentially it's just two .WAD files ("TNT: Evilution" and "The
Plutionia Experiment") which added another 64 levels to the base game.
The core gameplay was exactly the same, and while there may have been
a few new textures, there were (IIRC, it's been 30 years) no new
weapons, monsters or power-ups. There was, though, a new soundtrack.

did you say 64 levels??

Yup. Each WAD is 32 levels long. This matches the length of the
original Doom2.wad file. And since you get two WAD files, that's 64
levels total.

Each WAD has its own story too (well, as much as any of the classic
Doom games had a story). IIRC, TNT Evilution has you sent to another
UAC base where they are -once again- experimenting with teleportation technology and, once again, Bad Things come out. Meanwhile, Plutonia
Experiment has the UAC doing experiments in order to try and stop
future hell-invasions, and -whaddaya know- Bad Things come out of the
portals again.

(or maybe I have the plots and WADs reversed. It doesn't really
matter; it all basically boils down to "portal open, demons come out, shooty-shooty time!")

The levels, as noted, were noticeably more difficult, but not really
BETTER... and in some cases, not very good at all. The whole thing was
released in the early days of Doom modding, and while the levels
weren't the worst, they weren't too much better than the stand-alone
stuff you'd download from ftp sites. Often, the cleverest thing about
them was shoving you into a room and launching 50 imps at you. I'm
pretty sure that -had Id not made it an official product- these WAD
files wouldn't have made any sort of mark on the industry. They're
only remembered today because they were an official Id product.

The TL;DR is that I don't think they're really worth seeking out and
playing unless you're a die-hard Doomer... and even then there's
probably better WAD files to spend your time on. Especially now; no
longer limited to the DOS-engine's limitations, Doom modders are doing
some really clever maps.

IMHO, YMMV, and all the usual caveats, of course.


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H1M3M <wipnoah@gmail.com> wrote at 08:27 this Monday (GMT):

candycanearter07 wrote:

- Final Doom:
Chocolatey Doom + Community Midi OST + Sound Blaster Audigy with 90s
E-MU soundfonts makes for pure bliss for your ears. The levels
difficulty is absurd, and yet it feels more fair than Thy Flesh Consumed

So is it a WAD for DOS Doom?

It began as a community WAD, then ID Software licensed the work before
it was finished and it became an official retail episode, along with The Plutonia Experiment. The Community OST is an addon WAD that needs to be added on the command line when launching the game.

It's a WAD for any client, but I try to stick to as close to the DOS original as I can possibly tolerate. Other than the 2X rendering
resolution (still pretty pixelated, but not as hard on the eyes as the original 320x200) and not having to load a custom mouse driver to
disable the Y axis movement, it's nearly identical to the original, even keeping the 35fps limit (playing at 144fps gives me motion sickness).

Nice of idsoftware to license it.
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On Tue, 12 Aug 2025 18:40:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

H1M3M <wipnoah@gmail.com> wrote at 08:27 this Monday (GMT):

candycanearter07 wrote:

- Final Doom:
Chocolatey Doom + Community Midi OST + Sound Blaster Audigy with 90s
E-MU soundfonts makes for pure bliss for your ears. The levels
difficulty is absurd, and yet it feels more fair than Thy Flesh Consumed >>>

So is it a WAD for DOS Doom?

It began as a community WAD, then ID Software licensed the work before
it was finished and it became an official retail episode, along with The
Plutonia Experiment. The Community OST is an addon WAD that needs to be
added on the command line when launching the game.

It's a WAD for any client, but I try to stick to as close to the DOS
original as I can possibly tolerate. Other than the 2X rendering
resolution (still pretty pixelated, but not as hard on the eyes as the
original 320x200) and not having to load a custom mouse driver to
disable the Y axis movement, it's nearly identical to the original, even
keeping the 35fps limit (playing at 144fps gives me motion sickness).

Nice of idsoftware to license it.

It was an interesting era. I'm not sure Id was doing it out of
"niceness" though.

Doom came out and modders immediately realized that -with some fairly
simple tools- they could start creating new levels, weapons, etc. They
uploaded their creations to various bulletin board and FTP sites to
share with the world. Anyone could go to these boards and download
dozens or hundreds of WAD-files. They were incredibly unpopular.

The unscrupulous saw an opportunity for profit.

They scooped up these WAD files en masse, burned them onto a CD-ROM,
and sold them for $10-15 a pop. The actual creators of the mods didn't
receive a penny (they'd be lucky if the text file they included with
their mods were included on the disc!) and the quality of the mods was
very iffy. These shovelware purveyors insisted that if they had to PAY
everyone who made a mod they'd go out of business.

Id software saw all this. They saw third-parties using their
trademarks. They saw the value of the Doom IP dropping because people
started associating it with shovelware mods. They saw their most
dedicated fans getting annoyed / stop playing/ stop making new WADs,
resulting in a potential lack of popularity with their most profitable
brand.

Id's "Final Doom" was, at least in part, an attempt to stomp on the
shovelware WAD market. They were doing it as much to protect their IP
as to reward the modders. (It also kept "Doom" on the market just a
little bit longer; "Final Doom" came out almost three years after
"Doom 2". It let Id eke out just a little bit more money from the
original games, and at minimal cost to them.


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