Jello

I would have to go with Call of Duty. The first one. That one was great, as was the United Offensive expansion pack, followed by Call of Duty 2. Those were just aboslutely amazing games when they came out in the early 2000's. There weren't many realistic shooters around that time, and they really presented you with an experience that brought you into the games. It helped that there was somewhat of a dearth of WWII FPS games on PC for almost a decade after Wolfenstein, so it was great to see some new WWII games, and it really helped that Infinity Ward was founded by people who had previously worked on Medal of Honor on the PS1. For anyone who dismisses COD, I would recommend playing the first two games, because they really are great.

After that, I guess Modern Warfare was okay, but overrated. I haven't played a new Call of Duty since Ghosts, because they completely forgot to make memorable and exciting single player campaigns. The single player campaign in Call of Duty 1 felt short, but it was still a good twelve to fourteen hours, and it was really worth going back and playing through multiple times. Ghosts took around 6 hours to get through the campaign, and it was so ridiculously cliched that I decided I wouldn't pay money for another COD game until they fixed their campaigns. And according to everything I've heard about Modern Warfare 3, they haven't done so.

So for me: Call of Duty > Call of Duty 2 > Call of Duty: World at War > Call of Duty: Modern Warfare > Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 > Call of Duty: Black Ops > Call of Duty: Ghosts > Every other game in the series.

The biggest issue with COD is that Activision, and that loveable scamp Bobby Kotick decided to fire the two heads of Infinity Ward, and lost almost all of IW's employees with them. Which led to them making Treyarch's employees the new Infinity Ward, and Treyarch, while they got better, were never as good as Infinity Ward. COD 3 was the first COD game they spearheaded, and it was terrible. And now the series is basically just a giant lootbox dressed up like a yearly sports game.

Anyway, I apologize, this has been kind of long. I just really loved Call of Duty 1 and 2, and it irritates me that it's become the complete mess that it has.

18 minutes ago, RDETalus said:

I've heard criticisms that it's too zany and goofy, and that it's lost the grim edge that was present in earlier Fallout games. Is there any truth to that?

Aside from the Power Armor zipping around with a bad thruster in episode 2, I don't recall anything zany or goofy. There are some light hearted moments, but it still fits well within dark comedy that is at the core of Fallout. 

I mean, maybe it did lose some of the absolute nihilism that was present in Fallout 1 and 2, but I think it fits pretty closely in with Fallout: New Vegas. It can be fun, but it's still depressing. I hope you weren't getting your criticisms from "No Mutants Allowed".

I made a mix CD of Motörheads albums "Sacrifice" and "Kiss of Death" on Sunday before I took Daisy to the park for a walk. I had "All Gone to Hell" playing in a dream on Saturday night, so I felt like listening to Mötorhead again. They're both great albums, but "God Was Never on Your Side" was playing when I came home today:

I did have to cut out "Don't Waste Your Time" to get it all to fit on a CD, but I've listened to Sacrifice so many times, and that song in particular, that I thought it was okay to cut so I could fit all of "Kiss of Death" on the CD. And yes, I still listen to CD's in my vehicle. I've never gotten a blu-tooth player to match reliably with my stereo or phone.

I finished watching it today, had episode 7 and 8 left, been watching two episodes a day since it came out on Wednesday.

Anyway, I really enjoyed it. I'm always a little wary of any video game adaptation, but I thought with Fallout, there's enough lore and background to create a really interesting story, without having to make a verbatim remake of any of the games. And I'm really glad they went that route; all of the characters are brand new, it's a new (well, newish) story, and it doesn't seem like it's pandering to fans of the games. Yes there are references all over the place, but it all fits in universe, and I agree with Murdoch, that they did a good job of making it accessible to "outsiders" for the most part. It helps if you have a working knowledge of the game, and you'll enjoy it more, but it doesn't seem to be necessary.

My only real problem with it is the overall pacing. It's trying to introduce so many different things, explain the vaults, explain ghouls, explain the Brotherhood of Steel, introduce elements of the NCR and the Enclave, that it doesn't seem like 8 episodes is enough. All told, this season is about eight hours long, some episodes are shorter than others, but it seemed rather rushed. So I'm assuming that they're hoping that it does well enough that it justifies another season, probably two more at least. The 8 episodes they have feel more like a prologue than anything; which in a way is a good thing, because it means that I want to see more. It's rare that I watch a season of a new show and I really feel like it was too short. I think Yellowjackets was the last new show that kind of grabbed me like that. Which oddly enough, Ella Purnell played Jackie on that show, and plays Lucy in Fallout.

So anyway, I would give it a 4 out of 5, mainly for being too short, and there were a few instances that annoyed me. The Power Armor malfunction in Episode 2 just irritated me, it looked like something that you would see in a Looney Tunes cartoon. But for the most part, it was good. I would recommend it. And I have to admit, in episode 3 when The Ghoul tells Lucy that the Wasteland has it's own golden rule:

I really did laugh out loud. It was a beautiful example of fan service.

On 4/9/2024 at 1:04 AM, Kinsie said:

EDuke32 still requires a stopgap mod to run the World Tour content properly.

I did not know about that, so thank you. I tried it first in Eduke and had issues, so I'm not sure if that stopgap was available at that point, but I went with RAZE and it worked fine.

I don't think there's a real cannon here, but I would go with milky white eyes, no irises or pupils, maybe with a slight yellow tinge. I guess I've always assumed that underneath that furrowed brow they would look something like the Icon of Sin's eyes.

1 hour ago, Captain red pants said:

I'm assuming you mean Duke Nukem 3D?

 

Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour on steam is a good place to start as any if you're looking for a user friendly way to play Duke 3D. Has an extra episode made just for it's custom port, but the port it's self has a few quirks.

Otherwise there's Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition on ZOOM Platform which is bundled with Duking it out in DC, Duke Caribbean Vacation and Nuclear winter as well as a few map compilations.
 

As for source ports, there's Eduke32, BuildGDX and RAZE. They all use DUKE3D.GRP as an 'IWAD' as you put it. I don't think any of then can play the World Tour episode from Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour yet, but I haven't tried in a while.

I know RAZE supports the World Tour version, I played through the new episode with version 1.7.1, and I just tried it with 1.9.1, and it still works. It shows up as Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition: (WT) when you launch Raze.exe. The only issues I can recall when I played it with 1.7.1 was there were some really messed up sound effects on a couple of doors. Like, screeching, make your ears bleed noise. But I only encountered that once or twice... the Russian level I really remember had one. Other than that it worked fine. 

You know what, I just tried Red Ruckus in the crappy port that comes with World Tour, and those two vertical doors sound exactly as horrible. They just aren't as bad because all of the sounds in that festering pile of swill they called a source port were also muted beyond belief, so it's not as ear splitting.

The last time I tried it with Eduke32, it "worked", but there were little "sound" icons all over the place, either because they were scripted sounds, or developer commentary, I can't really say. 

But yeah, I would recommend Atomic Edition I meant Megaton, except you can't get it on Steam anymore, thanks Randy. The new episode was okay, not great, and the last boss sucked, but it had some good levels. If you really want it, wait for a sale... if you really want to put money in Randy's greasy pockets.

I guess Lee Jackson did music for it though, so if he's still seeing residuals from it in some meaningful way, then yeah, buy it. 

Today I woke up with a very bittersweet reconcilliation dream in my head, and nearing the end of it I could hear Fugazi's "Promises" playing off of a beat box in the distance. The area was both an apartment complex courtyard and a campground, and I was older, and the person that I talked to was older, but still wonderful. And it was fun talking to them again, even though we had hurt each other, we were still friends, and we were happy to see each other. Because that's how we always were, we just clicked together.

Then my dog started barking and I woke up, and for a second I hoped that I would get to talk to her again, then I remembered that she's been dead for a year and a half. 

So yeah, I've been listening to Fugazi: 13 Songs.

*edit: changed apartment complex courthouse to courtyard. I knew I typed something wrong.

I guess I might as well just post a link to the specific song:

But I would recommend listening to the entire album, it's pretty good.

Christ, I can almost taste that page 20 years later. I completely forgot about it, so thank you for posting this.

And I posted on the second page, so I know I was there.

It was actually kind of an amusing April Fool's joke.

Caleb because he's an evil asshole who joined a cult and sold his soul to a demon so he could live forever, and then got betrayed, and his girlfriend was killed and he came back from the dead and killed a bunch of people because he's a psychotic piece of shit. 

I'm sure this thread is a weird counter to the "favorite female video game character" thread, but I would think that my opinion will attest to my shallowness when it comes to male characters in video games. 

I've always really liked Kinzie Kensington from the Saints Row games.

She was always an enjoyable character; smart, funny, hacked the shit out of everyone, kicked out of the FBI, liked killing people, just a really enjoyable character. And you bet I chose her as my player character in "Gat Out of Hell". I'd much rather listen to Kinzie killing demons than Gat.

13 minutes ago, Plerb said:

Doomworld's software went for a Christmas vacation and forgot to come back. New posts haven't appeared in searches, feeds, or profile pages since December 24th last year.

The search function was really iffy well before that. I don't really recall it ever working that well, even before the forum software was updated in... 2016? 2017? Something like that.

I really don't know what you're talking about, I just tried it and it works as well as it always has:

Yeah, it is kind of crap. I've had very, very few instances where I've searched for something and actually found what I was looking for. And in those cases it seemed like I had to go through pages of results to find it, and when I finally did, the content seems like it should've shown up within the first few results. Which is why I would hesitate to tell someone to "use the search function" when they ask a question; because it rarely works.

As long as it's done tastefully, it's a great idea. Hiding a secret inside a secret always feels like a second little Christmas when you find it. If it's not completely obtuse I've always fun when I find a secret within one. There are a few times in the original levels that had that, and there are times in Duke and Blood, and plenty of other games that I can't think of right now, so yes, go for it. It's like finding a hidden egg on Easter morning, and you think you're really clever for finding it, then you look up and there's another egg hidden above you, and you feel like God. They're fun.

On 2/8/2024 at 9:17 PM, scrapple said:

LXII

Oh my sweet baby jesus in heaven sitting on god's lap and giggling; it still blows my mind when that shitty DK avatar I made in MS Paint over 20 years ago shows up. It's just weird seeing it again, it looked great on a 1280x1024 monitor, but the bottom of it got skewed when it was uploaded, and for whatever reason I couldn't reupload a fixed version.

Anyway, I'm 38. Which means that DK avatar has been around for over half of my life at this point.

2 hours ago, DankMetal said:

I FUCKING LOVE THE MESSFEETS !!!!!

Take me back 25 years why don't you. Take other people back 45 years.

Yeah, I also love the Misfits.

I was listening to a randomized playlist of my music, and Motörhead's "Hellraiser" started playing. I forgot it was on the soundtrack for Hellraiser III, because it was a terrible sequel to Hellraiser I and II, but I should probably watch it again. 

I was really surpised that Ozzy put out an animated music video for the song in 2021, combining his and Lemmy's vocals for the 30th anniversary, I did not know that.

So yeah, I listened to March or Die today:

It's sad news. I'm surpisingly too young to have seen him play football, but I always enjoyed his acting. Personally I'll always remember him most for his roles on "Arrested Development" as David Cross' acting coach. He played that absolutely brilliantly.

11 hours ago, Pechudin said:

 

Is that unrealistic? Don't know what a SVT-40 is but Germans were infamous for hoarding captured weapons, to the chagrin of their logistic officers. Also D-Day troops were often low-quality soldiers and "volunteers" from the eastern territories of the Reich.

The SVT-40 was a Russian semi-automatic rifle chambered in 7.62x54R, with a 10 round detacheable magazine, and it was supposed to replace the Mosin Nagant bolt action rifle, which held five rounds. I don't think I've ever read any accounts of the German's using them on the Eastern Front in favor of their Mauser 98K's or the G43, the G43, being a semi-automatic rifle chambered in 7.92x57 (8MM Mauser), with a 10 round detacheable magazine, being a much better direct comparison to the SVT-40. 

The Russian PPSH 41 on the other, I have read of quite a few occassions where the Germans would use those instead. They were an automatic submachinegun chambered in 7.62x25, and they were well known for their reliability, and they could accept 72 round drum magazines, in addition to the 35 round stick magazines. Often the Germans would just rechamber them to use the 9x19 cartridge that they used in their MP40's, because the MP40, while a good firearm, was overly complicated, and it was finicky. It wasn't as reliable in the environments that the Germans were fighting in, so it was uncommon for them to switch from an MP40 to a PPSH. 

That being said, I haven't heard of any accounts of them being used by Germans on D-Day. All the PPSH's that the Germans were using were busy in Russia at that point. Maybe some ended up in Normandy, but if they did, it was at best a handful. And if Germans ever actually used the SVT-40, it was in such limited numbers that I've never seen a picture of them. They were a prized rifle for the Russians, and I would imagine the difference in cartridge size would've made it hard to rechamber them for 8MM Mauser.

31 minutes ago, Panzermann11 said:

I used to, but I eventually get used to it. I once was upset when they potray a revolver being flicked. I remember watching videos from a YouTube user named FrostThreat48 that point out mistakes in guns in games and one of his famous pointers is "Flicking the revolver isn't recommended, as it couild damage the crane". I believe he popularized this phonomenon, so much so that Hyper made a video about it.

Speaking as someone who has "flicked" a Smith & Wesson 586 .357, and a Taurus 856 .38, yeah, you can't fire them until the cylinder is aligned. The cylinder has to lock into place before you can even pull the trigger, so even after "flicking" it, you may have to turn the cylinder slightly to lock it in place, otherwise it's not going to do anything. And honestly, with a firing pin on the hammer or with a transfer bar, there's a small hole that needs to be passed through to hit the primer on the cartridge, and if that's not lined up, the round wouldn't fire even if you were able to pull the trigger. Which, on any revolver I've ever used, you can't pull the trigger or operate the hammer unless the cylinder is locked in place.

Sometimes it bothers me, other times it doesn't. When the weapons are meant to be realistic representations of firearms, it does bother me when they behave unrealistically. But for the most part, they're a videogame, they're not meant to be taken seriously, so it's fine. 

I did really like the way firearms were portrayed in Soldier of Fortune 2, especially with the Weapons Mod v5, which made the weapons behave more like their real life counterparts. The MP5SD for example used to be able to go through body armor, but with the mod anything under a rifle cartridge will generally be stopped, staggering the enemy, but not killing them. So you would have to go for head shots when using pistol caliber weapons or shotguns. Rifle caliber would do fine against body armor.

I have to be honest, I love the original OST's, and I love good music. But when I'm playing an FPS, I turn it off. The last FPS that I really remember being impressed by the soundtrack was Medal of Honor for the PS1, because it was a dynamic orchestral soundtrack that would swell at certain moments. It would get louder when you were approaching a hedgerow and a German rifleman popped out from behind it. It felt very much like an organic experience, and that was made by Dreamworks, soon after Spielberg made Saving Private Ryan. It felt like it fit there.

But for the most part, I would rather just turn the music off and play the game, because I'm listening for enemies, and the music gets in the way of that. And if I feel like listening to music will enhance my experience, I just play my own in the background. Some of the songs from Doom are stuck in my memory, as are songs from Duke Nukem 3D, but I would just rather play without music, because my focus is on shooting things.

On 1/19/2024 at 8:06 PM, Grazza said:

So I flew the drone a bit today.

*Angel Peak Badlands*

Good job it has a "return to home" feature, since it was pretty high and far away when filming this.

Absolutely beautiful. I started playing it before I looked at the title of the video and thought "Are those the Badlands?". And I was right, they are the Badlands, but I was thinking of the Badlands of South Dakota, not New Mexico, but they look very similar. Which makes sense, they were both part of the same North American inland sea.

Anyway, beautiful video, as your pictures and videos always are. Thanks for sharing it.

3 hours ago, DoomGuy999 said:

Finally I have supporters... Thanks.

Yeah, I never even looked down at the "theme" button. And yeah, it looks exactly like Facebook, it's absolutely terrible, and bright. I'm usually okay with using "light mode" if there's enough content to mask the fact that the background is white, but this just looks like a smattering of text and pictures using the sun as a background.

So thank you for pointing out that this feature exists, and thank you to the folks running this site for not making this the default setting.

And maybe that's why I think Doomworld feels so "homey" to me. I love the blue and black color scheme, it's simple, it's easy on the eyes, and it fits perfectly.

Took some digging, but I knew I had a picture of my Mosin M44:

Not the best picture in the world, but it's a damn good rifle. Best twenty bucks I ever spent. And yes, it has a side-folding bayonet on it, and yes, I've tried to take it off. The lug screw is completely stuck, and it's not coming out.

11 minutes ago, DNSKILL5 said:

Plus they’re not so cheap anymore lol. 

I haven't checked prices recently, but nothing is cheap anymore. I remember going into a gun store in 2004 and they had a bin full of Mosin Nagants, labeled "AS IS", cheapest price was $65. 

I guess I was lucky, as I said, I got my M44 from my Dad for $20, it had a split butt stock that had been nailed together, the finish on it looked like someone had diarrhea and then vomitted on it, and he didn't like the recoil from the steel butt plate. But the first time I fired it, I saw promise in it.

I spent some time giving it TLC, I glued the butt stock back together, sanded it down and gave it a new dark red finish, got a rubber butt plate so the recoil doesn't destroy your shoulder, got a turned down bolt, put a scope on it. And now it's a great rifle. The last time my Dad saw it he said "Is that the rifle I sold you for twenty bucks?" "Yup" "Well, if I would've known it would clean up that well I would've kept it."

The 91/30 is a vintage WWII rifle, made in 1942, with a hammer and sickle stamp on it. It's nice, and I can get a bulls eye at 100 yards with iron sights, but I'd rather not use it that often. It's a vintage piece.