Hello bluethief!

Thank you for keeping this series of threads alive!
Unfortunately, I forgot to post about my gaming session regarding the year 1998.

Before the end of September I managed to finish once more the cinematic plattformer "Heart of Darkness". When already knowing what obstacles and traps lie ahead and how to deal with the swarm of shadow creatures, then the game is actually quite easy and finishable in a few hours of play time.

Only three times I had to repeat a screen or scene due to being a little bit off in my timing--a jump sequence, a diving scene and fighting two self-reproducing enemies simultaneously towards the end.
Other than these, it was a breeze and a fantastic nostalgia trip!

The graphics (both character and enemy sprites, as well as the backgrounds) and especially the animations were quite impressive for its time and still manage to convince today. The transitions between gameplay scenes and CGI videos are almost seemless. However, the screens are really pixelated due to very low resolution. (Applying a bi-linear filter on both backgrounds and sprites helps a lot.)
It was the first 2D game that made use of (prerendered) projected shadows casted into the background and even did utilized them in its gameplay. Another remarkable detail is the climbing animation. The main character does some free climbing every now and then, and the backgound details in the various environments always match the animated foot and hand placements (compare the attached screenshots from mobygames.com gallery).
Fun fact: having played through the "Tomb Raider" Legend, Anniversary and Underworld trilogy, recently, I perceived that Lara's free climbing in "Underworld" looks very familiar to the one used in "Heart of Darkness".

The Story on the other hand does not serve so well anymore a modern or more mature audience. I think it is a typical "product of its time" case. If you played it as a kid in the past, you might be able to overlook its shortcomings and goofyness. But a first time player, in particular a grownup one, will have a hard time to be pleased by the game's story and the way it is being told.
The protagonist is a young boy (that still goes to school) who is playing out is imaginary adventure, in which he sets out to rescue his pet dog. From the perspective of the boy reality and fantasy are getting mixed up in the process, and he visits a strange land/world similar to Pan's Netherland, where he finds both minions of the dark lord and new friends.
Most importantly, the boy is afraid of the dark and starts daydreaming during the pass of an eclipse. He then fights lots of shadowy creatures before confronting the dark lord himself, who calls the boy out on his phobia.
*Attention*, a tiny SPOILER ahead: the game starts and ends in his treehouse--the boy actually never left it!

Would I recommend "Heart of Darkness" nowadays?

It depends on whether the player has some nostalgia for the nineties, their infancy and the game itself, or not.
I even have some doubts regarding recommending it for todays children, since it's cartoony violence (death scenes), jokes and overall goofyness is far from the current generation's sensitivities.
(I have to agree with the assessment of the youtuber "MatthewMatosis" on this specific game.)

I am going to see, what pictures might still be interesting to add later on, since I forgot this time to take them during gameplay.

Kind regards,
foxgog

P.S.: I almost forgot to mention the other game I started, "Oddworld Abe's Exoddus". I tried to play this one twice in the past, but after the original ("Abe's Oddysee") something felt off. So, I never played it to the end... neither this time!
There are many seemingly minor details in the game that does not fit in the lore or with the characters of the first game. The secrets (as far as I did play it this time) seem to be copied and paced from the opening levels of the original, and the huge amount of Mudokons to save felt more like work than fun. (Often there were just much more Mudokons to save in the same area, causing repetition (busy work) without adding a new challenge, or even having them standing in the same spot.)
Oh, and they changed the voice actors both in the English and the German version! After reading about it, I found out, that "Exoddus" was not made by the same developer of the original, but rather an outsourced expansion which have been turned into a standalone product. Thus, it explains the difference and its focus more on quantity than quality!

[Edit: link to MatthewMatosis' youtube video and some screenshots from the game gallery of mobygames.com added]

Congrats on finishing Heart of Darkness! Update the OP accordingly.

I never played the game, but after reading your post I would very much like to try it out. I love side-scrollers and I do have some nostalgia for the nineties, so I guess I'd have a good time.

I started doing Commandos missions. It's a slow progress... It can be rather difficult. And frustrating at times. Requires a lot of reloading of saved games. It should be named Commandos: Behind Save Scumming Lines.
I've completed 5 missions so far, with rather poor results.

Reminds me of Doom Eternal and other games.

You mean saving, right? ;)

Don't be worried about the "poor results", the time limits are pretty harsh imo, unless you know exactly what you need to do and are doing a perfect run, it's very hard to get many stars for mission time.
Anyway, I hope you still have some fun with it, despite the difficulty, it's a great game imo.

Good advice for many things, gaming related or no.

Also, as for gaming: at my age and with my remaining patience, I am just happy to finish some games at all...no matter the result or the difficulty level(I play a number of games on normal or easy, especially things like Doom Eternal).

I like it in general, despite the difficulty. Although there's a lot of a bit wonky mechanisms. You kill off guards one by one and nobody notices they're gone. There's a big pool of blood? No worries, it's normal. Somebody finds a body, shouts "alarm", and a moment later they go back to their routine. There's a patrol doing rounds, so you put a bear trap to kill one of them each time they pass the same place and they don't care. At times it feels like I'm cheesing my way through.
Both I suppose. A lot of saving just in case and a lot of loading because you fail time after time in the same spot.

So then, just like many other games(like the classic Thief games, for example)? :)

I know.....I was more so subtly showing my slight dislike of the term "save scumming" with that bit.

Well, if the alarm is raised, in most situations you'll get extra patrols from the barracks, which usually makes the mission almost impossible to complete, so there are consequences.
I agree though that it's not "realistic" in a strict sense. But more realism might not necessarily be fun. I tried the first Desperados game (Commandos clone from the early 2000s) last year and that game tried to be "realistic", so guards sometimes raise an alarm when they notice a comrade is missing. Makes the game unpredictable (you don't know how guards will react, so it's even more trial and error), and really frustrating, especially so since there are missions where an alarm means instant failure...
If you enjoy Commandos, might be worth looking into Shadow tactics: Blades of the shogun, which has pretty much the same gameplay, but modernized. Goes frequently on sale for a very low price (-75% or so iirc).

It works on my laptop bought in 2011 (on reduced settings at least, switched off shadows and most other effects), so that's a bit surprising, sorry. But if you ever can run it, it's worth at least trying it out. I recently played around half of it and it has some pretty nice ideas (e.g. night missions with special lighting effects). I wouldn't buy it at full price, but since it's so often on sale on Gog, that's not really an issue anyway.

My trial and error saga of incessantly saving and reloading a cheesy playthrough to kaboom things slowly progresses.

I finished four more missions. The game continues to be frustrating at times, but I'm a masochist or something and I rather like it despite all that.

I have to add a bug or two to the regular annoyances of repeatedly stumbling and failing. In one mission, when my character and enemy were at different heights, the triangle marking their view range was inaccurate, in one situation it was bad, in another advantageous. And in another mission, NPCs destroyed the escape truck which was outside of map boundaries, just waiting there to be triggered later on.

Yeah, iirc that happens pretty often, when you're at the edge of higher ground, you pretty much have to assume that guards below will see you when you're standing (of course also applies when you kill somebody...but corpses lying on higher ground and crouched characters usually aren't seen by those below).
Anyway, you seem to be doing pretty good progress. Mission 10 should be good fun iirc, you get to blow a lot of things up in that one :-)

Reminds me of some games I play.....despite the tough as nails(and with some games, sometimes a bit boring) game play/controls/whatnot I still go back to em every now and then. :)


Lol...dangnabbit Leroy!

Speaking of bugs: In HL Opposing Force I came across a bug where one wpn became unusable for a bit because I had it equipped in an underwater area(where it cannot be used), and then when I got into the next(non underwater) area it wouldn't work for awhile....fun times.


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Seems logical, actually......one would assume those on lower elevations with line of sight to nearby higher areas like cliffs and etc would see someone standing at the edge of those higher areas, but not see those that are crouched or laying on the ground of said higher areas as easily(if at all).

I agree, it is logical, it's just annoying that it isn't properly displayed in the view cones of guards, so there's some trial and error involved.