RichVR
6402
STOP SWAYING! I’m getting seasick!
(Not talking about HoMM, of which I only liked 2 + 3)
M&M: World of Xeen (4+5) was my favorite, though 3 and 6 -7 weren’t too shabby. 6 & 7 with Grayface fan patch is awesome (adds mouselook among other improvements/fixes).
RichVR
6404
Installed and ran their downloader. It crashed. Tried again. Crash. Downloaded Fallout without it, 2.5 Mb/sec no problem.
OH SHIT THEME HOSPITAL!!
Fuck yes, LOVED that game.
Indeed, this is one of the very few sims games that I managed to get into.
Razgon
6407
With all the traffic Qt3 drives towards gog.com, we really should have some sort of affiliate link set up. I seem to remember they actually do that with sites, giving the site some minor fee based on sales.
I only just noticed that Darkstone went up. http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/darkstone
Anyone remember Darkstone? One of my favorite action RPGS. The 3D graphics look a bit old now, don’t they? But it’s an excellent game and has a lot of replayability (the game chooses a set of quests at random, so you have to play a few times before you’ve seen them all, like in the first Diablo).
screenshots
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]
Don’t confuse it with a game called Nightstone.
I remember playing Darkstone, it was a pretty good 3D diablo-like. I recall that you had to eat to stay alive as well, so you always had to bring a ton of food along, which was a pain in the ass.
They don’t seem to do affiliate links, sadly. I asked about them for my own blog and never got a reply, nor did I find any info about it on their site.
Lake
6411
GamingTrend has affiliate links. Example.
I played Darkstone back in the day. It was a good game.
Hhmmm, they seem to be using the OpenX affiliate platform for that link, which I’ve never even heard of, but I’m looking into now. Thanks!
Yep, Darkstone was good. Besides the food, your character aged as well, which was odd, because when he got old he lost some power.
The big thing about Darkstone was that (to me) it was the only decent Diablo clone on the PS1.
I recall it being one of the only decent Diablo clones period, at the time. As I recall, a lot of games tried it, but very few were any good.
BDGE
6418
Just spent most of last night revisiting Lands of Lore 1. Loved the game way back and it still holds up quite well.
Much more casual compared to Grimlock, but I adore the cinematic storytelling infused in the adventure. Lots of personality in the party members through ambient dialogue as well as subtle hints as to secrets and puzzle clues in the mazes. The animated pixel art still looks quite beautiful and only a few handful of puzzles/combat scenarios have been close to frustrating.
Anyone that wants a more pleasant(but ultimately similar) experience compared to Grimlock really should check it out.
Same here with playing LOL1 last night, but I probably won’t play it anymore. All of the positives you mentioned above are true, but I have to add that the combat in the game is a total save/load grindfest of respawning enemies, swarms of enemies, enemies that poison you, destroy your armor, etc etc. This oldschool difficulty is pat for the course in this genre, but I don’t remember EoB (for example) being so swarmy and grindy.
BDGE
6420
Part of me does wish it went for a more turn-based combat affair. Ultimately I feel like these games deliver best when you are strategizing each attack rather than negotiating resources and button-clicking in “panic-mode” real-time. Grimlock especially has already felt like circle-strafing takes a greater precedence in battle over actual thoughtful command attacking.
LoL does get a lot easier as skills and equipment improve, but it certainly has a few unfortunate moments of frustration(removing armor in certain dungeons to avoid acid spit as you mentioned), and hurriedly trying to find monster generators to burn down before you are quickly overwhelmed with the somewhat high respawn rate(in many cases there is no actual generator). However the Oblivion-esque progression system eventually makes the combat easier as you face the hordes.
The other nitpick with LoL is that there are a few major missables that if one is not careful can really screw you. The auto-map and compass for instance can be missed in the early game entirely. Some dungeon puzzle solutions can be traced back to Westwood’s graphic adventure roots as well, with occasional “WTF?” item combinations or obscure hinting. It’s never so obscure that you are pixel-hunting tediously, but I’ve gotten stuck in mid-game dungeons due to some very strange solution design.
Still, I am mostly surprised at how well so much of the game does come together. The story is light and breezy and paced very well that you feel a new major event or cinematic accomplishment is around every corner. The dungeons are surprisingly creative and unique, and as you bulk up your spells, each encounter becomes a fun experiment to gauge which spell works best. I also really love how powerful the cure spell can be, bringing anyone back from the brink of death with tremendous ease.(Also, the level 3 version of heal will also restore poison, so that becomes a non-issue later)
Edit: Bonus Protips:
-In the Draracle Caves early on in the game: When you get the option to place a green or blue pearl into the dragon statues for two different paths, take the blue pearl path. The artifact you find along this path DRAMATICALLY helps with the rest of the somewhat frustrating dungeon. It’s a silver chalice that will infinitely heal to full health and remove poison! You are forced to relinquish the chalice at the end of the dungeon, but this tool makes clearing the challenging lower floors of the Draracle Caves far easier than the ‘other’ path(which gives a jewelled dagger with immense attack power). The chalice saps a bit of magic with each use, but resting makes that a minor concern.
-After this dungeon, you’ll end up in the swamps where there are three shopkeepers to find. One of them will sell you a firebolt wand for 300 gold. Buy one(or two), using this wand on a group of enemies will raise your magic stat exponentially more than standard magic use ever could. Burning through one wand raised my main characters pithy magic level from 1-3, which pretty much finally gave him the ability to cast higher level spells(cure 3!) instantly! This wand is great against swarms of bugs you’ll face in a dungeon soon after the swamp.
Good god, but that takes me back, BDGE. It’s amazing how much you don’t realize you remember something. I remember everything you mention: the acid, the jeweled dagger, the bug swarms. Now that I think about it, I even remember the little grimaces your character portraits make when they get hit.
I vaguely remember that Conrad, the “all around” character had some issues in the late game as a result of not specializing.
