What game are you wasting time on?

[sser]

And Might'n' Magic 6's cobras are nothing to point and laugh at, that's true. At last not during the early game. Nice thing about MM6+7 for me is that I cannot break the game like I do with World of Xeen (Asp exp & gold grinding => mucho gold + steel wepaons => makes the game easy peasy) or MM3 (Obsidian weapnons from crystal shard mountains + fighter who gets all the speed boni).

I bested them in time. Still learning some game mechanics, like guerrilla warfare... cleared most of the starting area, getting the girl and candelabra as well as cleansing Goblinwatch; made my way back to Ironfist and trained up my bros in plate and leather armor, all got bows, with one expert marksman. Knight of the group has expert shield/plate and eventually spear, hoping he'll tank out the heavy stuff/be team evac. I haven't run into anything too nasty, yet. Goblins get punched over at this point, so that's progress. I still run from cobras because of their poison. I just recently learned how to rest, which could have saved me a lot of time going back and forth to the healing temple.

 

[Ulminati]

Kerbal Space Program is bordering on obsession for me.

Yesterday, I did a mission to land on the Mün and return using only the IVA view (navball and tiny viewport pointing sideways in relation to the engine burn vector) and no time compression. No map after launch, no external view. All burn maneuvers calculated manually on a piece of paper. No time compression (distances are scaled down in KSP, so it only took a couple of hours to get from Kerbin to Mün). I had a stopwatch running as a mission timer and set my phone to alert me a few minutes before I had to perform burn maneuvers. Then I went to do chores until it was time to perform my injection burn, correction burn, munar orbit burn, landing etc.

KSP was running all day, but I made it home safely. Felt damn good.

 

[asper]

Hardwar - my first space trading game ever... and what a great game. It's almost 15yrs old but looks very good (thx to UIM patches I guess) and plays even better - dogfights, trading, intriguing plot. Plus the music from Warp Rec. - counld't ask for more (apart from sequel of course).

Wow, sounds interesting, I totally missed this game. Thanks for the heads up! A game with Warp music.. any Autechre tracks in?

 

[Ulminati]

Hardwar - my first space trading game ever... and what a great game. It's almost 15yrs old but looks very good (thx to UIM patches I guess) and plays even better - dogfights, trading, intriguing plot. Plus the music from Warp Rec. - counld't ask for more (apart from sequel of course).

Wow, sounds interesting, I totally missed this game. Thanks for the heads up! A game with Warp music.. any Autechre tracks in?

It's an amazing game. It had a weird bug with videos not showing if you started it with CD1 in the drive instead of CD2. And you want the videos. Theyr'e wonderfully campy B-movie live action stuff. There's a pretty long main storyline you can do, all acted out in FMV. I googl'd around for some non-spoilery ones. Found the ones you get when paying off your fines to the police:



Another quite novel thing in Hardwar is that all the ships are solar powered (at least until near the endgame). During the day, this isn't a problem, but if you get into a firefight at night, you'll quickly drain your batteries. There are "light wells" scattered around the map. Basically giant lamp posts you can hover in to recharge. It's also usually a good place to find ships you may want to blow up for their bounty or cargo.

One paticularily hilarious thing you can do is buy a hangar near a crowded light well. Outfit it with repair droids and set it to public access. Now, AI ships can land there and get repaired for a fee (which you collect). Then just wait for it to become night and casually drop something valuable near the light well (narcotics works well). Scavengers will flock and start shooting each other, incurring bounties which other ships will then try to collect. soon there'll be a gigantic free-for-all dogfight right outside your repair shop. Then just sit back and watch credits roll in as the combatants limp into your repair bays.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

One paticularily hilarious thing you can do is buy a hangar near a crowded light well. Outfit it with repair droids and set it to public access. Now, AI ships can land there and get repaired for a fee (which you collect). Then just wait for it to become night and casually drop something valuable near the light well (narcotics works well). Scavengers will flock and start shooting each other, incurring bounties which other ships will then try to collect. soon there'll be a gigantic free-for-all dogfight right outside your repair shop. Then just sit back and watch credits roll in as the combatants limp into your repair bays.

Wow, I didn't know this game is so awesome. I'll have to try it one day.

 

[vitamin]

Wow, sounds interesting, I totally missed this game. Thanks for the heads up! A game with Warp music.. any Autechre tracks in?

Yeah, this game is fantastic. Actually I couldn't believe that it's so good... and yes, there are some tracks from Autechre - check the link for full listing:
http://www.capsu.org/hardwar/faq/music.html

EDIT:
@Ulminati - there's a fix for videos - you just need to copy all *.gdv files to your hdd and then edit Windows registry (GDV Path) to point to your install folder. After that you won't need cds (apart from music of course).

 

[oscar]

Where can I get the full version of this with the videos included? No luck getting setup.exe to work with an iso I downloaded.

 

[Tzaero]

TPB
I havent been able to get this working on Win7, any tips how?

 

[Ulminati]

http://www.zedo.hardwar.info/gethardwar.htm claims to have ISOs of the original discs. If they don't work, the game is abandonware to the best of my knowledge. I can dig up my CDs when I get home and upload the ISOs somewhere I suppose.

Tzaero -- It's supposed to work in Win7. Did you get the UIM patch? UIM6 is supposed to fix a lot of the XP/Vista problems. http://www.zedo.hardwar.info/dexdown.htm should have a mirror of it.

 

[vitamin]

TPB
I havent been able to get this working on Win7, any tips how?

I got it up and running flawlessly on XP but you might check Captain Zedo forums for some help:
http://hardwar.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=11

BTW, full iso images can be found here:
http://isoart.bravehost.com/isolist_h.html


EDIT:
Please vote for Hardwar on GOG:
http://af.gog.com/wishlist/games/hardwar?as=1649904300

 

[Maiandros]

re-installing kotor 2..downloading the new M4-78 mod
Damn you Infinitron, i was supposed to start correcting some Dantean scale of abysmal shit student essays

 

[oscar]

TPB
I havent been able to get this working on Win7, any tips how?

I got it up and running flawlessly on XP but you might check Captain Zedo forums for some help:
http://hardwar.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=11

Hm got it seemingly ready to go by using the files from the demo, patching them, and combining them with the .iso files for good measure but now I get some "can't find hards.fnt" message upon launch. I've never been able to get setup to work, no matter what compatibility mode is used.

 

[vitamin]

Try this link:
http://hardwar.us/dm_eds/showcat.php?id=1&sid=83c28bafea69e02690f365fb542f202f

These should work fine even on W8 (read some posts on CZ board). Just be sure to run installer (setup.exe) as admin and set compatibility mode for Win98.

 

[Tzaero]

Using the TPB iso I had ive managed to get it working, using admin and installing out of program files.

 

[oscar]

That was the link I used, but setup just refuses to run no matter what I do (get a black box for a second and then nothing).

 

[Trash]

Stalker SoC with the Complete 2009 mod has really drawn me in. Crank up the difficulty and it becomes quite a frightening thing to explore the zone. Like how the lethality is also affecting the npc's. Most people I've met or even helped out are dead through bandits, monsters and all the other assorted shit the zone throws around. It really does wonders for the atmosphere seeing just how deadly life is in the gameworld.

Going to play Metro 2033 again next as it also got that particular feel. Love how much atmosphere Eastern European games have.

 

[Brimruk]

Just finished Might and Magic 3, not sure if I want to keep going with World of Xeen or find a blobber that's a bit more challenging because 3 was not difficult at all. Or maybe I'll finally start the Gold Box series. Or Skyrim. (kidding about Skyrim)

 

[Kahlis]

Finishing up a Star Trail playthrough (doing the entire series, I have never tried Shadows Over Riva before), currently at Tiefhusen.

Also Morrowind - but I'm a Province Cyrodiil modder so I'm constantly running around in that game anyway. I also confess that I've been playing a bit of Lands of Lore on the side, but as nice as the artwork is the nonexistant depth of gameplay really gets to you after a while. Basically any time I get killed in that game breaking up the momentum I'm sick of it for the remainder of the day.

Thinking of picking up a Might & Magic or Wizardry game after finishing Star Trail.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Brimruk :

All those are good choices. Skyrim might be good in a couple of years once the modders do their work. I plan to pick it up in 2015 or so, since the modding community made me enjoy Oblivion after hating it for so long, and I expect them to do the same for the newest iteration. I'm playing World of Xeen right now and it's HUGE, so you have to understand what you are getting into before you tackle it. Play Pool of Radiance before any of the other Gold Box games. I found it to be the best so far, and it is a low level affair that eases you into the ruleset before going crazy by the higher-level sorts like Curse of the Azure Bonds. Also, try the FRUA games with mods, which Jaesun covers on a thread here at the Codex.

I'm playing Empire Earth right now with the Greek campaign. I'm not sure how far I'll get with it. So far I find it a bit dull, but I got it free on GOG and thought I'd give it a whirl.

 

[Brimruk]

Brimruk :

All those are good choices. Skyrim might be good in a couple of years once the modders do their work. I plan to pick it up in 2015 or so, since the modding community made me enjoy Oblivion after hating it for so long, and I expect them to do the same for the newest iteration. I'm playing World of Xeen right now and it's HUGE, so you have to understand what you are getting into before you tackle it. Play Pool of Radiance before any of the other Gold Box games. I found it to be the best so far, and it is a low level affair that eases you into the ruleset before going crazy by the higher-level sorts like Curse of the Azure Bonds. Also, try the FRUA games with mods, which Jaesun covers on a thread here at the Codex.

I'm playing Empire Earth right now with the Greek campaign. I'm not sure how far I'll get with it. So far I find it a bit dull, but I got it free on GOG and thought I'd give it a whirl.

How is the difficulty and size in WoX compared to 3? Because that game became really easy pretty quickly, but it also seemed to go by pretty quickly so there was just the right mix of early game struggling to mid and end-game overpoweredness (seriously, once I got Obsidian weapons for my fighters everything in my path just melted :D ). Definitely playing PoR before the others because I try to start series chronologically, and I'm thinking I'll put off the FRUA games until I play a good amount of the other Gold Box games because from what I've read they're pretty tough.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

So far it's a mixed bag in regards to difficulty. I think clearing the city is easier than it was in MM3, the dwarf mine outside the WoX city was about the same difficulty of the initial dungeons in MM3, but there is a second area nearby called Castleview that I am having problems clearing.

 

[sser]

M&MVI still. I finally decided to go hunt down this fucking Prince Nicolai dickshit who ran off to the circus because without him his daddy has locked up the homestead. I looked up the circus schedule to find out where he was. Hm, a bay of pirates, alright, a nice little village okay, but what place will he be at the soonest? Darkmoor? What's that? Let's go there ... What the hell is this, a town bordering a mad necromancer's fortress? A land infested by undead legions? Who the fuck would put a circus here? So I went off, sprinting across marshes and pale moorland and ghost hordes so thick they looked like fog. I ran into the circus tent, screaming, Where the fuck is that runt? He comes out. I grab him by his scalp and tear ass out of Darkmoor, every party member crippled with constipation, or as the game puts it, "Cursed", and everybody a year or two older thanks to rather vicious undead spells.


TL;DR, a kid aged my party. Grimdark realism from M&M.

 

[Metro]

Finished Derp Rising 2 (thanks AP). Pretty much what I expected but it would be better without the time limits so you can explore a bit and mash zombies (although I guess OTR provides that). About a dozen or so games to choose from next...

 

[spekkio]

Catching up with the newshit currently.

1) Completed Starcraft 2 - Sons of Fail (SP) - took me ~ half a year in small doses. Great example of current game design: banal, boring, pretentious, shallow gameplay (I was using like 5 units tops), no challenge, FMVs every 2 minutes, immature presentation and story, etc. etc.
And what's with leaving the core mechanics unchanged? After such games like DOW, COH, etc. SC2 looks like a graphical update to SC1. Fail.

2) Started Desu Ex - Human Derpolution and liking it a lot so far. Art design is a matter of taste, but gameplay is solid and it looks like devs actually knew what there were doing. Item descriptions and various stuff that can be read (newspapers, emails) are great - I thought such things were gone in current-gen games...
Some next-gen things can be irritating, but most of them can be excused:
- quest-compass and item highlighting can be turned off,
- takedowns are stupid when compared to original (what's wrong with using a baton / prod?), but at least require energy,
- radar makes the game too easy sometimes, but reduces quickload-spam.

Looking forward to my 1st boss-fight (I've heard those are the shittiest parts of the game).

 

[Ulminati]

Looking forward to my 1st boss-fight (I've heard those are the shittiest parts of the game).

Second-shittiest. Shittiest part is the last couple of missions when the game suddenly turns into a derpy zombie flick. Although the boss fight in the last couple of missions and 4-button ending takes the retardo-cake.