I finished Return to Arhok, the bonus pack of Dungeon Siege. It continues and concludes the story after Legends of Aranna.

Well you CAN use your other weapons and spells for most of the final dungeon...just not one of the two final bosses.

I like some things in World of Xeen a bit better....like the intro/initial plot setup, some enemy types, and the 'cartoony' NPCs and shop keeps. Just gotta finish that particular title one day :)
(dunno about the other games and their quality as I never played them)


Nice. Also thanks for letting me know about this, I will look for/into it once I get back to that game :)

I got it through this (post 1):

https://www.gog.com/forum/dungeon_siege_series/enabling_ds_1_2s_expansions_on_gogs_version/page1

It works (Win 10). Yesterday I started DS 2 (with its expansion form the same source).

Doom 3 Enhanced Edition

I bought this game a while ago but did not feel the need to play it until I got a new computer up and running. I used the Enhanced Edition mod from ModDB mostly to have the base game play in 16:10 without having me go into any program files (I've done this before I just did not feel like doing it this time). I played this game hand in hand with the BFG edition of the game right up to where you are escorting the guy who's carrying the lantern. At that point I just stuck with the older version of the game through to the end. I actually liked the BFG edition just fine and if I were to recommend a casual version of the game to play then BFG is perfectly fine and a bit easier for multiple reasons: no real official word but I think you might move a smidge faster, you get a good bit more ammo than in base game, and the shoulder mounted lamp means that you can shoot bad guy the second you see them instead of switching to you guns from the flashlight. I stuck with the standard version for a few reasons: It looks a little better with weapon flashes that light up the room and starker color contrasts as well as thinking you should play the game as the developers intended first time through. The Enhanced Edition mod does not make too many alterations to the gameplay, one of the bigger ones is that it was tweaked to make the game a touch harder according to the guy that made it with slightly less plentiful ammo. I did not think this game was hard on standard difficulty so most people probably should not either.

The Enhanced Edition made a couple of visual tweaks but nothing that I think changes that as a 2004 game this is a really good looking title. Playing this alongside Far Cry every here and again this game holds up extremely well. The only complaint I have about the visuals is that people, human beings that is, look a little odd in the face with the middle seam and polygonal nature of the head model being a little too obvious. Even accepting that, the game looked terrific even in the base version with no mod that I played on my 1280x1024 monitor. The lighting effects were fantastic, the harsh shadows and ambient lighting all being extremely convincing. There were no soft shadows to my recollection but soft shadows in games tend not to look very good even now. Comparing this game to its contemporaries especially really helps to drive home just how advanced it was. Having played Halo 2, Far Cry, and a tiny bit of Half Life 2 quite some time ago I can say this game was easily one of the best looking titles at all in 2004.

Gameplay is more of where I can see the love it or hate it this game tends to get. I was looking forward to this game the least of the id Tech 4 games but I was somewhat mistaken in that. I think that Quake 4 is better in a few ways but even with some of this game's frustrations it holds up extremely well in gameplay as well. There were a few problems I had with your weapons. First, I rarely used the BFG until the caverns even though it felt like I had it available for about a third or so of the game. It was not really that necessary until then and I usually just made due with either the chain gun or the plasma rifle. The grenades were possibly the worst part of this game, I never found them useful and the fact they took up a slot between two really good weapons was aggravating to put up with when you just wanted to switch to another good gun. If I could have I would have excised them from the game entirely as at most I used them to blow up some annoying fuel barrels and at worst I just blew myself up by accident. The rocket launcher was also rarely useful and I was often at max ammo for it as well. The pistol too felt unfortunately tacked on as the only enemies it was useful against were humans who had not turned yet (pretty rare occurrence, by the way). The machine gun was okay, I used it sometimes, and the shotgun was either a true boomstick or a nearly comical joke of a scatter gun. I probably used it the most regardless but understand that its spread pattern wonkiness is real so you need to use it like Hudson from Aliens when they were trying to shut the door just about. That said, when it works it is very satisfying. The remaining weapons, being just the plasma gun and chain gun, were both excellent weapons that were the true problem solvers in the arsenal.

The game's story and atmosphere I thought were pretty decent through and through. It's not that the events of the plot itself were strictly so interesting, they only occasionally were, but a lot of the subtext is very thought provoking (the subtle ques of what it means to just do your job, follow orders, or seeing what you can do rather than what you should are never dealt with bluntly but pervade a lot of the story beats and the emails and audio logs). I was reminded of course of games like System shock and Deus Ex but personally also of Metroid Prime 2 especially near the end with the background events which occurred on Mars.

Occasionally I thought the game might have left the realms of good taste with its handling of its subject matter but large in part its restrained and tasteful enough not to feel egregious or like its just throwing dark and sadistic material at the screen to see what offends you more. Slight spoiler ahead but the game I think becomes a smidge less dark when you learn more about the enemies you fight being more comparable to extra dimensional aliens than anything, but that's just me. You might find that thought more frightening in an Event Horizon sort of way.

In sum, I actually really liked this game. I was not expecting to as I thought it looked the least fun of the various id Tech 4 titles but it is genuinely a fun title. I have owned and played into a fair amount of Doom 2016 yet have not felt the need to beat that game just yet whereas this one was a bit easier for me to stick with and see through to the end.

I have finished my first Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin playthrough on my PS4. This time, including all DLCs. In contrast to vanilla version of the game, you need also to clear the DLCs, to fulfill all criteria for Platinum Trophy. Unfortunately I have messed up the ending, as I have forgotten, that I need to defeat Vendrick before defeating Nashandra, and I have forgotten to backup my save :( . It took me almost 100 hours and 294 deaths. Almost the same as Dark Souls Remastered :D . The DLCs have been as much challenging, as I have anticipated, with few terrible areas like Iron Passage, which won my personal Worst Area Design Contest in all of the games, I have ever finished :D .

All my finished games are HERE :)

You made me curious about this game, but it doesn't look like the original download is available anymore. However, I just came across a copy that someone uploaded to archive.org, so for anyone who might be interested, here's the link:
https://archive.org/details/indiana-jones-and-the-temple-of-spheres

Call of Cthulhu (XSX)

I wasn't expecting much from this one, but it ended up being a fun adventure game with a dark tone. It shares the low budget feel of many games published by Focus, the graphics look like they're from the 360/PS3 era and animations are clunky. But I couldn't stop playing it until the end- which ended up feeling a bit underwhelming compared to events that led up to it.

One aspect that I really liked was how the game has some RPG elements that really affect how you progress with some puzzles and dialogue choices. They are RPG characteristics that logically fit a detective- medical knowledge for example, or investigative ability or ability to notice hidden objects. These abilities can block dialogue options to the point of closing off paths through the story and endings. Some are upgraded through leveling, but medical and paranormal knowledge are gained through reading books or exploring.

I enjoyed it. It took 10 hours. It was a free monthly GwG game on Xbox a few years ago, I just chose it at random as a short game to play whilst deciding what to play next.

Edit: anyone know why the word o-c-c-u-l-t is blocked (without the dashes) by the GOG filter? I had to change it to "paranormal" to get it to pass!

Did you try the nuke spell? I wonder if there's a way to use it without gettign vaporized as well.

Thanks, will check it out(along with a few mods like the inventory expansions) when I get back into DS some day.

I didn't want to ruin my rep or accidentally kill off some important NPC, so I didn't use that spell. I also missed using a few other spells here and there as I didn't have a need for them. I'll eventually go back and try them out, tho.

The Making of Karateka. It basically traces Jordan Mechner's career from his start through the release of Karateka, dipping slightly into an aborted development for Karateka II, which seems to have somewhat mutated into Prince of Persia, which I wouldn't be surprised to see get its own entry in this series of playable documentaries.

Included are Mechner's early Asteroids clone for the Apple II, then a few prototypes of Deathbounce, an Asteroids derivative game in which you shoot balls that bounce off the sides of the screen, several prototypes and ports of Karateka itself, and then a couple of modern retakes on Deathbounce and Karateka.

There's a lot of very interesting information presented in each phase of the documentary. It's pretty clear that Deathbounce was going to be a dud if it ever got released - no matter how many tweaks Mechner made, it never really comes together as a gripping game. The new version Digital Eclipse made for this release is a nice gesture, but even with their changes to round it off, giving it twin-stick controls and such, it still tops out around the "yeah, it's alright" level.

Then Mechner hits on the idea for a narrative game and Karateka comes together much better. The Apple II version (which I played through AppleWin a while back), the C64 port, and the Atari 800 port are included. I think I still prefer the Apple version most. The C64, despite having the best music, is just too slow and lacks a sense of impact all around. The Atari version is quite good for its speed and the music is not bad, but I miss the general vibe of the Apple original, including the hero's battle cry and the bird's noises.

Of the prototypes, I think crazily enough that the very first version might have been the best. Despite its rough spots (only one level), it's actually challenging in a way the final version isn't and I found myself really getting ground down by the time it ended. Interesting to see that some test notes on the final release note the game might be too easy. I've always felt it was a pretty easy game that just has some odd difficulty spikes with stuff like the bird.

The DOS version, which I actually played first in the 80s, isn't included, nor are any other ports, although they are covered to a small degree. It might have been cool to see some of those - I think the PC98 version has some hilariously jaunty music along with the retouched graphics.

The updated version they made for this release is pretty neat. The VGA-like graphics and the game's smooth and fast animation are lovely, and the inclusion of the panther, which was an idea for the original they couldn't implement, is a great touch.

I was wondering what the next release in this series was going to be, but I see they announced a few days ago that it's going to be Tetris, which is a really good choice. Hopefully it comes to GOG, too.

Wolfenstein The Old Blood:

Back in 2020 I played through The New Order and was severely disappointed. The game is also a bit of a space hog so I have not replayed it because I excised it from my computer after finishing it to make room. Now I have a different fresh computer that I felt the need to play the Old Blood on since I ran through Doom 3 and felt like playing a similar-ish id property and to kind of revisit the new Wolf games to see if I was maybe a bit harsh. TLDR on this is that the Old Blood is a sizzle reel of a game for something that would have made for a decent Wolf game perhaps at one time but with modern Wolf gameplay I just don't really feel it that much. It's not bad and I would just be willing to call it good, but nothing more. This is a true 3 stars or 7/10 sort of experience when you bear in mind it was just an ex pack or DLC. I would not really recommend getting it by itself or paying more than a few bucks for it (or whatever your equivalent is). Even for all of its faults, if you like TNO I feel like it offers decent value but at the same time TOB's value is partially derived from shutting up before it talked too much. That said I am going to prattle on in a different paragraph now.

And I am back. So, to start, I only thought that about half of this game was good and the rest was either everything I hated about TNO or was just a bit meh. The opening level where you sneak out of Wolfenstein at least until you get some guns was tedious, gimmicky, and formulaic. It is not even close to an Old School Cool feeling to turn the power off the big lumbering dudes who are literally on rails (well, connected to a rail on the ceiling) and then run up and do a button prompt and then watch BJ do a mini cutscene take down of them. Anyone who likes this should probably not talk badly about QTEs, I am asking nicely. Skulking around the castle was okay and there was a small sense of satisfaction I derived from successfully stealth killing the dogs. That said, this game is of appreciably diminished conceptual visualization. The dogs don't seem in anyway to be able to smell a man who is the size of a Cadillac, running around without his shirt, sweating up a storm and covered in at least an amount of blood and probably human bodily waste for some reason. That was one of the earlier moments where I just wondered how unthinking the game would be. My first was wondering why BJ was working with the OSS (I think it was) on a mission like this when he had a very limited command of the German language. The hot dog joke was funny but it just makes no sense. On a mission that was based around subterfuge and stealth for some reason they sent the all brawn no brains guy. It's just not very bright.

Anyway, things get better when you acquire some guns, in particular the only gun I truly liked in this entire game was the DMR/Scoped rifle. It was a truly useful and satisfying gun to use and was much better than the similar guns in TNO by a lot. The Lugers were Lugers for me, I don't care for them in almost any game, and the not-a-Sturmgewehr 44 is just the average medium range, medium damage assault rifle just like the M4 in any Call of Duty game from the time period. Some dude on YouTube was showing what was awesome about TNO by showing footage of using the assault rifle in that game and I have to wonder what was supposed to be impressive about it. I mean this sincerely, there is very little that's all that old school about these games. There is nothing wrong with that but when people talk about the things they like about these games they mention the old school stuff enough that aside from the lack of regenerative health and the presence of armor I have to wonder what they mean. There is a clearly present cover system in this game and many firefights would be much harder if you did not take advantage of that cover like a sane person would. On that note, the stealth in this game is also very much of its time like in Ghost Recon Wildlands or Metro 2033 where it's no big deal if you get caught, just shoot your way out. That said, in this game and TNO I felt often times like you were more being punished with the firefights rather than just given a different way to do things.

I guess that segues into the commander gimmick as well as anything. The commanders kinda bite for a few reasons. One, it's a little silly that we have to sneak around and try and get these two dudes or you just get bum rushed by reinforcements. The stealth is also a little finicky with me wondering if the enemies were maybe a little too inobservant (firing like three shots of silenced ammo not remotely alerting a commander in spite of the squibs going off around his face) and then at other times being too observant (I shoot one guy on one side of the map and don't quite get a head shot, staggering him, so that naturally means a commander from the other side of the arena gets to call reinforcements down on my bottom with precision). This gimmick was pretty much always tiresome.

That said, there were fun times in this game. After getting the sniper rifle and getting into town the game feels appreciably better since you have pretty much all of your guns. I cannot recall too specifically any particular firefights but there were enough that I recalled having fun.

And then back to the tedium. The two characters who are tacked on to you for like a collective ten lines of dialogue collectively feel very, very artificially... well, tacked on. There really was nothing interesting or dynamic about them, or really any character in this game. The closest we get is Rudi but even as a villain I thought he was kind of lame. Oh, that reminds me of the pipe BJ gets... that was only partially an accident. Anyway, BJ gets stabbed with a pipe in his leg at one point and you assume that would devastate him but not really, he basically shrugs it off. This created a similar dissonance in me as the body horror scenes from Resident Evil 7 and 8 do where you're like "yeah, people don't just get over that," especially when the game is selective on which grievous injuries are actually harmful.

Anyway, the pipe is a lame weapon in practice too, not really being effective and making no real sense as a stabbing weapon, blunt weapon, or as a climbing tool. I mean, it is effective in the game as a climbing tool but it really should not be.

Anyway, the game becomes simultaneously its best and worst when you move on to the last town and interact with Helga. Back to taking your guns away and putting you through tedious story sections in a balls to the wall ostensibly old school style shooting game. I guess it is kind of funny seeing BJ put all of his guns in that chest but then it makes me wonder why he carries so little ammo for the auto shotguns, the later double barrel shotgun, and the assault rifles. I mean, either give us ridiculous Hellsing style guns with seemingly unlimited ammo or admit it's only a half step behind Call of Duty. On a note about the humor: it's okay. There are a few moments that are kind of funny but nothing gets a real laugh out of you. It's preferable to the pretentious melodrama of BJ's monologues but not much more.

Last note on the game being not very intelligent: why is it when BJ is hanging like a stuffed goose by his heels he does not just, I dunno, break Helga's neck? I mean, there was no indication that I saw that his arms or hands were bound, just that he was suspended by his ankles. I mean, she's a Nazi nutso monologuing in his face. Aside from being her turn from the other Greek dramatist on the set (BJ), why does he just keep letting her talk and abuse him? Like, his arms are the size of tree trunks and we have seen him do plenty worse things to the Nazis than strangle someone. I dunno, this game made less sense the more time you spent with it.

Anyway, the best and worst of this game is the supernatural section which, spoiler alert, it's just a zombie apocalypse. That's it, it's a centralized zombie epidemic. It's okay, I guess. Give me resurrected Saxon skeleton warriors over brainless meat muppets any day but whatever, Call of Duty had them so I guess Wolf had to as well. This section was not especially fun to play, actually, as I felt there were too many zombies and too many German soldiers flooding you here as well (back to punishing you with playing more of the game) but the visuals finally became something other than just a little mundane.

The graphics are okay. The same weird off loading/ asset streaming issue permeated this game like TNO, except this time I was not using an especially fast HDD or SSD but just a standard Dell OEM HDD so I guess there really is no fixing this issue. It takes a little tweaking, but getting this game to Ultra on a GTX 1650 only really requires turning a few settings off and setting AA to 4x ( I forget what the settings that I turn off are called but there was only a couple of them and otherwise textures and and shadows were maxed out). The artistry is only okay for the most part for most of the game. Big castle, kind of gothic, and a little Central European snow capped village are fine and dandy but lack pizzazz. The game looks genuinely good when they bring out the fire and the flames engulfing the horizon while the cracked earth radiates with soft green ether in a graveyard. That was just really nice and felt like it took some actual talent to pull off.

Back to the rest of the game. The final boss fight is either lame or aggravating. No in between, nothing else. It's not fun and it feels morally wrong since the boss will literally not attack you if you do not shoot it. Let me repeat that. I stood around for about five minutes or so waiting for it to attack me first, but BJ is such a psychopath (he debatably always was, let's recall his idea of R&R at the end of RTCW) that he has to attack another living thing for seemingly no reason more than either: A) it's there; B) he thinks it's ugly; or C) it killed Helga and the wimp. I mean, take your pick. From what I could tell it was not hurting anything and the game made no attempt to establish it as dangerous aside from the previous cutscene to my recollection.

In the end, this game is better than TNO but if you were me that was not saying much. I neither think it really works as a kind of old school game and it more or less is resemblant of games that released around the same time. It's not a bad use of a few hours but recall it takes several to beat the game and not all of those hours are well spent.

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is little different from previous games. Generally game is shorter, fourth mission is based on level from Dishonored 2. Stealth approach makes game longer, whereas violent approach makes game extremely short. End is opened, but old things are nicely closed. Generally it is more of the same, but after you look around once game seems to me very simple. Levels are so complex as in Dishonored 2, so this is more for relaxing evenings without challenges.

I wasn't able to ruind my rep with it... since it always meant game over!
If there's a way to use it without getting caught in the balst, I haven't found it.

I'm guessing like with other AoE spells, you need to aim from far away and make sure your
pointer isn't aimed at something nearby like a rock or tree..............or nearby enemy o.0
(p.s. make sure to check your PM box for wayward contest links;))