Aaron Blain

For those that haven't come across this yet, Archive.org has a bunch of these rigged up in an in-browser emulator: https://archive.org/details/win3_SKIFREE

Also I'm currently giving Stratagus a try for the first time in over 5 years and I could actually see myself switching over. A full GZDoom-style modernization and unlocking of the War2 engine could be huge if it matures a little more. Last time I tried it, it had these TA-style green lines connecting every unit to its orders destination, and I absolutely refused to look at it. They finally added an option to disable them at some point. Lots of other good features too, like unit queuing, rally points, larger selection groups, not sure what else. Looks very cool. I've had War Wind in my GOG library for ages and finally decided to give it a go yesterday. I bounced off the first mission several times but I'm very fascinated by the overall package.

Despite some serious flaws, I still consider Warcraft 2 to be one of the best games of all time. Although to be fair my friends and I were obsessed with Warcraft 1 and 2 when they came out while we were in gradeschool, so I am deeply emotionally attached to it. Other RTS games are about things other than moving units and placing buildings on a map. I know people adore AoE 2, but to me that's a game about upgrade choice/timing that happens to have a secondary spatial component. I very much prefer Cossacks: European Wars over Age of Kings, but I admit Cossacks is full of poorly thought out feature cruft. For my taste, Warcraft 2 is the best ever expression of the classic core elements of RTS. Unfortunately, I also totally agree with EttinGrinder's criticisms above (except that they don't put me off). For me it fundamentally comes down to a lack of balance. Maybe I made this up in my imagination, but I always had this concept that the purpose of an RTS (or any strategy game) was to force a player to effectively utilize all facets of a combined-arms force in order to succeed. But because of poor balance, Warcraft 2 (especially in multiplayer) is essentially a test of who can produce lusted ogres the fastest, with a bit of death & decay and peon-hopping thrown in. And unlike in Brood War, where despite a clear faction hierarchy all three are viable, Humans are flatly not competitive. For these reasons I have never played a single mp game of war2. I wish there were interest in something similar to AoE RoR's UPatch HD, that would make both factions viable and rebalance the units slightly to make the game more dynamic, but there is a firm consensus that no one wants to split the small community with competing paradigms. There's a thriving online community, including a discord that I read regularly and several YT channels and streamers. I won't mention them directly because software piracy figures prominently in their community, but it exists. Speaking of knockoffs, I think I played this on a PCGamer disc back in the day and had it bouncing around in my memory for decades until I finally rediscovered it recently: https://youtu.be/yGQB7HZ_JSw?feature=shared It's Warcraft 1, except in historical Korea. Not bad. The interface is inferior but it has some cool mechanical twists.

Oh fuck I was 100% there. There were a number of them. There were a couple that let you invent new cards and I practically developed a couple of expansions that existed only in my head. There was also a thriving Warcraft 2 fan/mod community, in which I shared some prime 6th-grade cringe.

Since Mr. Freeze already posted exactly what I planned to post, I'll add that I've recently come down on putting all the Build engine games in a tier firmly below the core Doom engine games. They're fun but I ultimately find them a bit superficial in a way that almost prefigures the Half-Life/Halo collapse of the FPS.

I've been playing Doom since the shareware dropped on my local BBS so who knows. First game on every device my whole life. #2 has to be Rome:Total War (the original). Nowadays I prefer games like Field of Glory and Gary Grigsby's War in the East, but I don't have that kind of time anymore. #3 is probably a fairly even split between Warcraft 2 and Fallout 1/2. I've owned both Elden Ring and Tears of the Kingdom for about a year and a half, and they're both great, but I'm sitting around 40 hours on both still because that's just my life now.

I've been playing more D2016, and there are aspects of it I like -- the audiovisual feedback, the platforming, the art design. Ultimately though it feels like something a step above a one-dimensional mobile phone "Click On The Thing" game. You shoot a guy until he flashes, then do a glory kill, then repeat. The enemies run around randomly like decapitated chickens instead of chasing you like they should if they wanted to win, which makes the game not only easier but much less interesting because there's nothing to meaningfully predict or interact with. The enemies can also move fluidly from platform to platform as well as you can, which is cool and very visually interesting, but it makes the terrain totally irrelevant except for blocking line of sight. There are "mini-game" mid-tier baddies that require you to do a different mechanic, such as the air dash monster. Any time I see a shield baddie that is invulnerable from the front and requires you to do some kind of specific dodge maneuver, I consider the game design to have failed on a fundamental level. It feels a bit like WarioWare, which is a great game by all means, but it's not on par with Doom. I appreciate the thought that went into the "push forward combat", and it's pretty cool, but what it inadvertently gives rise to is a system where you're constantly watching for the flash (the game is much harder with it turned off -- then you're always guessing for what counts as "staggered"), then making sure you run in to get health and save ammo. The gameplay it rewards in practice is being GENTLE with the enemies, because if you shoot them too hard you don't get a glory kill, so I find myself sort of gently tap tap tapping, like, ok how you doin there buddy, you feelin like you're ready to stagger yet champ? Doom 2 achieved a vastly better, simpler and more dynamic version of this by simply making the SSG OP. I would have preferred a more open-ended "Coup-de-Grace" system, where instead of having a Pokemon-style HP capture threshold, you just have a more general knockdown mechanic, perhaps like a pain chance multiplied by the strength of the hit or something. I don't mean to crap on the game. Like I said, there are things about it I like, and I'm happy it has been so well received. It's just the things that it does are not the things I'm looking for in a game. Someone earlier in the thread stated my personal view, that DOOM is not a world or a novel, it's a specific game with specific mechanics. If you slap some demons in a game and tell me they're coming through portals created by the UAC, well that's fine but that has nothing to do with why I play Doom.

Here's a book which offers a contrasting perspective on the First Cold War, which I highly recommend to everyone: https://williamblum.org/books/killing-hope

Mostly in Win 3.1 in DosBox, but I also play it in Linux sometimes via WINE, where it works perfectly. I think it's more difficult in modern Windows, I see people on YouTube setting up VM's to play it. Usually I prefer DosBox Staging, but when I'm using Windows 3.1 I switch to mainline DosBox 0.74 where I get better performance. @Chopkinsca I got pretty far in Avernum 1 before switching, but I decided I like the bigger party, the food mechanic, and there's some other stuff like poison that is different. Exile has a bit more of that oldschool rpg brutality. It was a tough choice though because I absolutely love Avernum's interface improvements. I also just have a windows 3.x fixation.

I'm very gradually working my way through the original Exile. I love how the setting, the landscapes etc are all conveyed through prose, and how much personality all the random NPC's have. I think of Jeff Vogel as my extremely hardworking digital DM. Unconventional answer here, but in a similar vein something I always loved about Fallout 1 & 2 is the enormous amount of personality and life that comes through the text window in the corner of the screen. I got decently far in Colossal Cave Adventure but I played it before I understood the concept of hand-mapping, so I got hopelessly stuck and gave up. I've been meaning to come back and get into other text adventures however. Growing up I read every Lone Wolf and Fighting Fantasy I could get my hands on. I'm still heartbroken that the unique charm of the original Lone Wolf books has been replaced with standard grimdark in the reprints and videogame spinoffs.

Is there something in particular that's jamming you up? Do you have the combat speed maxxed in preferences and Always Run on? I remember struggling a bit with the tutorial initially but there's probably quite a cohort here on DW of people who have beaten the classic Fallout games 5+ times, if you want any tips. Do you like turnbased games generally? Me, I still haven't gotten into Baldur's Gate or Arcanum because the realtime spoils it for me, but I get that it's not to everyone's taste.

Not the OP's question, but after beating Shinobi 3 many dozens of times growing up, I just tried it for the first time a few years ago on hard mode (smaller healthbar) and starting with 0 shurikens, and it makes it a much different and more complex game. I also rarely went for a full set of chaos emeralds in the Sonic games, which, again, makes them much more complex and rewarding. I've never gotten good enough at beatemups to play them on the hard setting (which is often just an option for fewer credits). Clearing any of the Golden Ax or Streets of Rage games on Normal has always been a feat for me. I can't decide whether it's a matter of gitting gud at knowing every attack animation down to the frame and pixel, or just being more remorseless about spamming low-risk attacks (like the jump kick in Captain America and The Avengers). But all the classic FPS games from Wolf3d to Quake, all the RTS/RTT games like Myth and AoE -- I maxxed all of those out. Oh which does remind me of one thing I absolutely never could fuck with -- the scenarios in Cossacks and American Conquest. I've always been able to pummel a Very Hard AI on a random map, but I almost always tend to absolutely bounce off the scenarios, even on Normal. I actually find them so difficult that I've played them very little over the years, despite having replayed the campaigns in War2, Broodwar, AoE etc many times over. I also have never gotten around to finishing Curse of Monkey Island on Mega Monkey, which is an undertaking I've been thinking about launching recently.

No mention of "Corridor Shooters"? Good video though.

If you're reading Doomworld, you might be someone who could get into the retro dev scene. It's the same kind of creative stimulus provided by limitation and well-known boundaries that we enjoy so much in Doom. I'm especially interested in the NES, but there are several other platforms that have growing communities that are pushing their platforms to new heights. Full Quiet for NES: Former Dawn for NES (in development): Attack of the Petscii Robots (multiplatform): I'm following the NESdev Discord, so I'm seeing all kinds of cool stuff that people are working on. The Genesis scene is blossoming too. I also have a PlayDate, which I'm really excited about.

I enjoyed Medal of Honor: Underground.

I don't understand the desire for something to be "accurate". I've only played the turn-based games, so I'm sure I'm missing a ton of fan service being sent my way, but I'm still seeing a lot of it. But they've managed to make a very engaging and entertaining show despite prioritizing referentiality almost as much as storytelling. I've never touched a videogame streaming series with a 10-foot pole but I'm quite enjoying it. I have to say, "Bad things happen in slow motion while incongruous happy music plays" was annoyingly cliche 10 years ago and I don't know why this device keeps getting used with such gusto.

Whenever I want to space out for about 90 seconds while using the computer, I alternate between SkiFree and JezzBall. They both run perfectly in Wine, but I also use Windows 3.1 a lot. I'm fond of Minesweeper but the unavoidable deaths by guessing put me off.

I get bored.

I have a low opinion of the N64, but between the fairly large core roster of Nintendo/Rare hits and a few standout niche titles like Mischief Makers and Ogre Battle, I have to admit it's actually a pretty decent system. The library doesn't hold a candle to the PSX, which is one of the all time greats, but it's definitely viable.

I played Spyro 1 to death when it first came out, and the first time I got to try Spyro 2 was in a department store. When I realized that the sequel added underwater swimming, I dove in and was blown away. I knew immediately that Spyro 2 was going to be an incredible sequel (it is). And I think this is because Spyro's underwater movement is very fun. It's fast, you're still steering around to headbutt and break vases and grab gems, but now you're moving in three dimensions. I can't think of any other game off the top of my head in which the fundamental act of gameplay, movement, isn't ruined when you go underwater. I mean, Sonic Minus Speed Equals Fun? Mario except without all the jumping? If you have a fire flower and you can rain destruction on all the baddies that can be fun, otherwise it's a chore. The underwater sequences in The Sinking City are miserable from a gameplay perspective, but it's not really a great action game anyway. They're quite compelling atmospherically though.

Stop looking for the best possible choice and just do something. I was wandering around my EmulationStation setup the other day and I decided to say, what the hell, I'm going to play Dragon Strike on NES. I had it as a kid but didn't really find it satisfying. It has never been part of my standard rotation or Day 1 Install List. Suddenly it's one of my favorite games. Goes double for RPG's. I'm heavily into Daggerfall lately. I have one character going that's a crappy pre-defined class. I decided, you know what, I'm just going to double down on this and create opportunities to use the skills Axe, Climbing and like Spriggan or whatever. So what if it's suboptimal and not a playstyle I would normally do?

I think it was all 1992 -- Chakan the Forever Man has some violent imagery, but that was also the year Mortal Kombat came out, and the same year I would have downloaded Wolf3d shareware from a BBS.

All the more reason to ignore corporate "Game-Style Entertainment Product" and play community games instead.

Is there a tool for bringing outdoor topographical meshes into GZDoom? My first thought is that the literal dunes would pose some difficulty.

I mean, I'm older so I miss shows getting reset to the same baseline and being viewable in any order. Kirk and Spock save the galaxy, Samurai Jack almost gets home but then he doesn't. I do enjoy a nice epic serial sometimes, but the same old "What's in the mystery box?" makes me roll my eyes.