check compass, update map

I recently went to a retro arcade (YesterCades) and it reminded me of a whole bunch of arcade titles to add to the Game List. I verify the dates on Wikipedia and MobyGames, and I can't help but load some up on YouTube, which only prompts the finding of even more games.

I found some recommendations for The Witcher, an RPG, I think, from 2007. I check Steam to see if its available - nice, not only is it available, but they fixed a silly censorship problem. It almost always pays to only play old games. Speaking of old games, Fallout 1, 2, and Tactics are available for six dollars, so I might as well have them in Steam. I was thinking about playing them once more but decided not to, because there's so much new stuff to cover.

Another sale item is the Jedi Knight Collection for $12. I don't think I've played any Star Wars game other than the arcade ones, mostly because movie tie-in games usually rely on their name instead of their quality for sales. I remember seeing the Dark Forces box when it came out and thinking that it was nothing more than a Star Wars mod for Doom. I ignored it, which is probably a shame, because I may have missed out on some interesting characters (Kyle Katarn, Mara Jade). I'll add the series to the game list, and maybe even read about them and watch playthroughs, but I don't think I'll be playing this series. I still plan on playing the Knights of the Old Republic series, though, because I've heard good things.

Deus Ex 1 and 2 are available for $5. I'll take them both even though Deus Ex 2 was an abomination. Then I see Thief 3: Deadly Shadows for $10; I don't even know if I have it already in the attic. I think I have at least one or two Thief titles, and I know I'm going to play them soon. Time to draw down the ladder...

Diablo: finished

Got most spells, got decent equipment, killed Diablo on normal, The End. I can start a new game with the same character, but what difficulty level is it now? Going into the dungeon, monsters and loot seem weak, so I don't think I'm in Nightmare mode - I think you need to be running a multiplayer game for that, and I don't think there's any way of switching your single-player character over. Researching...

It looks like single-player was never meant to go on to Nightmare or Hell difficulty; you need to be using a multi-player character for that. This actually turned out well, because if I could go on, I probably would, and there's really no need. I've seen it, I remember it, I experienced it, and it was great when it came out, and its still good now, but its time to move forward. And there's still Diablo 2 to play.

how to say goodbye

Why am I playing all these old games, with their obsolete UI's and crappy graphics, when there are tons of good and recent games that I haven't even played yet? So I can say goodbye to them. I want to take a brief walk down memory lane with these old games, to remind myself of what has come before, and record it. I want to remember what I liked or didn't, what moved me, and what I want. Maybe that's the whole point of this blog - to figure out why I am gaming when I could be doing something else with all this time.

I also want to deepen my overall knowledge and appreciation of video games, by finding gaps in my experience and filling them in. Even if that means I have to watch a playthrough and read others notes about it, at least I can have some idea of what I missed. And having reviewed the game, myself or by proxy, I want to put it firmly behind me. There are so many games lingering in boxes or in the archives that I think I might just play again, and I would like to let them go, or find justification for keeping them in rotation. I'll never have the time to play all the good games; this is a step towards not missing the best.

Diablo: in-game

Getting back into the swing of it. My thumb is remembering to go to the ALT key, to highlight all the crap dropped on the floor. I think I remember now how single-player is a one shot deal; you carve your way to Diable, then its game over. I believe its multi-player where you can keep doing the same levels over and over to gather xp and loot; there's also some chart that shows the optimal dungeon level for your character level, otherwise you get no xp. I should read some FAQs to get the details, but for single-player it really doesn't matter what I do.

More game mechanics: I'm hoarding attribute points until I find something that needs them. I think I'll need max strength for the best armor, but I don't want to buy it too early. Finally meeting the Black Death type zombies in the Catacombs. I know there's a trick where you let them hit you to get your hit points permanently lowered, then you get some benefit down the road, like protection against stun-lock, I think. I don't care if that works, there's nothing in character about it at all, so I don't want anything to do with it.

Another pattern emerges quickly: buy all the mana potions you can carry, go down and explore as far as you can, turning those potions into whatever best loot you can carry. Come back to town, sell, repair, reload on mana, repeat. I've reached another milestone, of sorts - I'm accumulating enough stuff that I need to store it. The only place that makes sense is around the fountain; I remember some old multi games where the whole courtyard would be littered with money, potions, and rings.

One of the few flaws about this game is the firing system, in that shooting on the diagonal can easily be a total miss. But you get used to it.

And on an ergonomic note, my hand positions for this game are unlike any other. The mouse is in its usual place, but my left is resting only on the F5 through F8 keys - these are your spell quick keys. Because of the odd floating position, I have the keyboard almost a foot further away from me, right up against the monitor, so I can rest my arm on the desk. This could be a little better, for those times when you want to quickly drink some liquid courage by pressing the 1-8 keys, which is where the belt potions are.

For a while, I assign the F5-F8 keys to whatever spell I can get my hands on, but now I remember the pattern I used to use: F5 is your best fire spell (bolt at first, ball later), F6 is your best lightning spell (bolt, then straight or chain), F7 is your tactical weapon (fire wall, then guardian), and F8 is your defensive spell (heal, then later teleport). Everything else, like Mana Shield, is only activated occasionally, and can easily be reached with the S shortcut key.

As I go further down, I remember now resistance is a factor. Some critters can only be hurt by fire or electricity. I still don't have teleport, and it would be really useful getting across all these rivers of fire. I finally have Fireball and Lightning, at least.

Diablo: where's my save file?

I load up my save, and I'm back at level one! I had a bunch of level-ups last night, got some loot, and now I'm back to the start. I thought it had something to do with the patch, but I started a new character after patch. I look in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Diablo", and there's my "single_0.sv" file, from late last night. But it starts me from the beginning now.

I can handle having to start over. But if my save file keeps getting messed up, its a showstopper. OK, this is interesting - I saved again in-game, but it didn't change the save file. Maybe the patch changes the default file save location? Search... wtf, my save location is now "C:\Users\*\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Diablo". It's not a bug, its a feature. I don't care, as long as it stays consistent. I'll copy my higher level save file over the lower level save, see what happens. It's good, hopefully it stays that way.

Makes me a bit paranoid though; I'll RAR up a save file every so often, in case I need it. A great thing about playing really old games on a fairly current system is loading, saving, reloading, etc. are really fast.

One more dance with Diablo

Diablo 3 is coming out this year so I'll play the original Diablo (and Diablo 2) one more time, maybe for the last time. It was a walking cliche when it came out, drawing from decades of hack and slash games both computer and tabletop, but it was really well done. I've gotten really spoiled by the Steam store and library, and it feels really retro to dig through the software archives for the install media. After all, I just bought and installed XCOM, an even older game, via Steam for a few dollars, and it worked flawlessly. And now I find I don't even have a disc image of my install CD. Time to go up to the attic.

A few days later, and I've been reading various Diablo sites, getting reacquainted with the lore, and the game mechanics. It looks like it will work in Windows 7, with a little effort. In the attic, I find an old backup CD; hopefully it will work. Wow, that start screen, at 640x480 looks like a message window on my screen. I haven't seen the intro movie in a while; I can see echos of Blizzard trailers for years to come in this. Seems to install OK, another curious surprise: there are no in-game setup options. I exit, eject the CD, and restart - unfortunately it wants the CD, so I'll have to make an image before I go much further. Huh, no tweaks at all yet, and it plays fine. I find Farnham, and hear the old refrain, "can't a feller drink in peace". But you know what I really want to hear. "Stay a while and listen"; ah, now its like I never left. And now that other familiar refrain: "I sense a soul in search of answers".

I'm getting used to the tiny UI, and the painfully pixellated graphics, but that constant CD spinning sound has got to go. A few minutes later I have the ISO in my archives mounted, restart Diablo, and it even finds the disc with no prompting from me. Oh, I notice I'm still at version 1.00, I better find the patch. OK, nice of Blizzard to still host it. Looks like my save is gone now, but that's OK. Now I see what they were talking about in the forums, the graphics are messy with oddly colored pixels. Strangely, the fix is to open the control panel to change the resolution - and that's it. You don't have to do anything more, and now you can play it normally. Weird.

It's nice to just walk into the first level and start swinging. I'm rediscovering the old UI as I go: you don't have to continuously click, you can hold in the direction you want to go. You can't jog - that's in the Hellfire expansion, and in Diablo 2, I think, but not here. I can't see much on screen until I turn the gamma up to nearly half. Even with that, its still hard to find all the crap on the ground - my hand keeps reaching for a button to make everything on the ground outlined - but which button? Is that also only in Hellfire / Diablo 2? Yep, oh well, going to have to listen carefully for item drops, and wave the cursor all over the place.

I forgot how wacky and awesome the soundtrack is (and Diablo 2 is even better). Little things bubble up from old memory, like the need to save some bonus skill points for strength, even though I only play mage, so I can wear decent minimal armor. I remember not to unleash too many charged bolts, so as not to awaken too many mobs, and not to miss out on any good loot drops. I find my first shrine, and look up the shrine list. I start acquiring town portal scrolls, to cut down on all this walking. I can't wait to get mana shield and teleport. I'm not looking forward to getting swarmed and stun locked (and then killed), but at least I have a save game to fall back on. And mostly, I learn again how damn addictive this game is. The past two hours went by like half an hour.

X-COM UFO Defense

The intro was fun; made me nostalgia for C64 days. There was no manual to be seen, either in Steam or in game. Surprisingly, the game just seems to work. I didn't even try Windows XP emulation (in Windows 7); it ran in DOS box, and everything seemed to work fine.

The game feels like System Shock in a lot of ways, but mostly in that whole let's throw in everything but the kitchen sink kind of way. It's got a big strategic map like Civilization, its got base management micro (like the Sim games of the time), and its got tactical squad action like... itself; I think they or Jagged Alliance (same year) invented it.

I should really like this kind of game. It's got depth, planning, and no need for fast twitch muscle or fast visual processing on my part. And unlike System Shock, I can actually use the user-interface without an instant headache. But X-COM just doesn't grab me. I tried Fallout Tactics and Baldur's Gate when those came out, and it all seems like play-by-mail gaming without story or personality.

I want to like this, but I just don't feel it. I'll do a little more reading on the topic; maybe I can find something to interest me.

Reading xcomufo.com, found YouTube videos from ziocody, starting with "XCOM UFO:1 Setup". Interesting to watch an experienced player's perspective. Watching playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL17959DA725DA9756

"XCOM UFO: UFO-1 Medium Scout"

This reminds me of how I used to play Civilization and especially Civilization 2, with tons of tactics tweaking and save game management. I wonder if I would even find those sort of games fun anymore.

"XCOM UFO: UFO-6 Large Scout 1/2"

This is somewhat interesting. I think its worth learning more about this game, but I don't think I want to climb the learning curve.

"XCOM UFO: UFO-6 Large Scout 2/2"

Another thing this playthrough reminds me of, that I haven't thought of or done in a long time, is constantly re-rolling to get good starting stats. I also understand now his save game management - he's got two different tracks of save game, one for the overall, and one for just the current battle. Really good idea, have to remember that next time I'm juggling save games. I usually just save in a linear fashion, cache my saves and delete, and keep going. This might be more efficient. What to call this technique? Maybe tactical saves versus strategic saves.

"XCOM UFO: UFO-13 Terror Ship 1/2"

Nice, its in 1080 so I can watch it full screen.

"XCOM UFO: UFO-13 Terror Ship 2/2"

720 now, but its OK. The action is getting more frenetic, but also repetitive.

OK, that was a good look into advanced gameplay. Doesn't seem to be much depth of character or story. Not that I'm expecting a whole lot, but for supposedly one of the best games ever, I expect some.

Now what - looks like there's several more playthroughs. I've gotten a good look at the mechanics of the game, maybe I can find something of its personality.

"Yogscast: X-Com: UFO Defence Part 1 - They all look like Guile"

These guys are enthusiastic, but unlistenable. Next.

"Let's Play X-com: UFO Defense (Part 1)"

I guess I'll pass on this one too.

"Let's Play X-Com UFO Defense Part 1 - The start!"

OK, enough videos. I'll just read about it from here.

http://www.xcomufo.com/

This is where I found the technical videos, so far the only videos I could sit through.

Lots of interesting text, especially what seems to be the complete UFOPedia lifted from the game.

Checking mobygames.com... they got the story idea from a tv show from 1970! Reading all of the reviews, all glowing, some crazily so. I guess that's what I sound like when raving about Wasteland, or Deus Ex.

I see the appeal of X-COM, and I understand why this is a game for the ages. But so was the first Civilization, and I really don't want to play that again, especially when I have Civs 3, 4, and 5 to try. I've gotten spoiled by modern UIs - graphics and sound too, somewhat - but mostly the UIs. Soon I may not be able to play games from the 1990s at all. Back to the to-do list to see what's next.

next to-do: X-COM

Purchasing Plants vs. Zombies in Steam was good, now I can access it from wherever and whenever. But I didn't think I'd actually end up playing it through again. It really is that good of a game, and it was almost interesting to go from a dark and violent zombie game to a cute and fluffy zombie game. And the achievements, can't escape 'em.

So now I have X-COM. I'll install it, but I can't really expect it to work - like System Shock its from 1994. But it seems to be more story based and less of an action game, so who knows.

Speaking of System Shock, I made a chronological game list to see what else I missed, so now it feels like I have some sort of chronological to-do list. Next up should be Thief (1998), but maybe I'll stop to play Diablo (1997) first. I've been wanting to, especially since Diablo 3 is finally on the horizon.

Also, just thought of starting a Game Review page, with a paragraph on every game of significance. We'll see how that goes.