August 2025 General Game Discussion

[Pifanjr]

I highly recommend Humongous Entertainment games. They have so many good games to choose from, it's hard to pick a bad one. As a kid I was especially fond of Freddie Fish and Pajama Sam. They have since put a lot of them on Steam if you want to go that route as well.

I introduced my kid to Putt Putt quite a while ago via ScummVM. She played all of the main games multiple times, she really loved them. I also showed her Freddie Fish, but she didn't care about it.

 

[Johnway]

Yesterday I played two rounds of Noita. The first round was going very well, I got some good spells, a good amount of money and I made it to the second Holy Mountain with quite a lot of life left. At the second Holy Mountain I picked up a perk that gave me four spidery legs that allowed me to climb and stick to walls and ceilings, which was pretty useful.
At least, it seemed useful until I realized I had lost the ability to fly. Not being used to having my mobility restricted like that I died pretty quickly after into the third area.

In the second round I decided to just go deep as fast as possible. I got the telekinesis perk, which is awesome as flying debris does a ton of damage to enemies, one-shotting basically all of them. At least, if you hit them and they don't destroy the projectile while you're holding it. Except the one that was seemingly immune to kinetic damage and ended up killing me because I had no good wands to fall back on.

---

Today I told my kid she was allowed a bit more screen time if she played something educational. She decided to play Treasure MathStorm!, a game from my childhood that I had shown to her. She had played it in a browser emulator before but when she started it up all her progress was lost (even though I had tested it before to make sure it could save).
So I decided to get a local copy and get the Dutch version while I was at it. I thought it would just be a matter of getting a copy and running it in Dosbox, as that was what the website emulator did, but it turned out that the Dutch version was only ever released for Windows. Cue me spending several hours getting Windows 3.1 installed in Dosbox (with a switch to Dosbox Staging as apparently the regular Dosbox is obsolete), installing drivers, getting the game installed and then making a custom shortcut that loads directly into the game.

But it works! Now to get some more DOS and old Windows games to show my kid what I had to work with when I was her age.

have you tried looking into Exowin3.1 and exodos? plenty of classic dos and windows game of an educational nature. maths workshop was one of the few i played. there are of course the old BBC micro games which i don't remember much bout and the novel-but-actually-really-boring encarter maze game.

i do remember bodyworks 5.0 had a 2 player quiz game complete with FMV animated contestants. I would piss my brother off playing this because i didn't know anything about the medical questions. So i just hit the buzzer as quickly as possible and pressed a random answer. if you got it wrong you lost all your points, but boy on one or 2 occasions i beat my brother doing that and he was not impressed. it annoyed my dad too, who was watching us.

 

[Zloth]

OK, I'm tired of finding excuses to not play BG3. Next game. Something to punish me for not finishing BG3.

View: https://youtu.be/CzUFmzgkzw4


No clue what I'm doing! I've died a few times (twice in the tutorial) but the death penalties, at least at this point, are trivial. I'm trying to get good at killing those bat things, but it's rough. My one spell is a joke, doing less damage than my spear and with a shorter range, too!

I had online turned on, but the messages were pretty annoying and watching other people's ghosts jump around is distracting. Maybe I'll turn it on again once I get by the starting area. That should reduce the traffic a lot.

 

[Pifanjr]

have you tried looking into Exowin3.1 and exodos? plenty of classic dos and windows game of an educational nature. maths workshop was one of the few i played. there are of course the old BBC micro games which i don't remember much bout and the novel-but-actually-really-boring encarter maze game.

i do remember bodyworks 5.0 had a 2 player quiz game complete with FMV animated contestants. I would piss my brother off playing this because i didn't know anything about the medical questions. So i just hit the buzzer as quickly as possible and pressed a random answer. if you got it wrong you lost all your points, but boy on one or 2 occasions i beat my brother doing that and he was not impressed. it annoyed my dad too, who was watching us.

I'm aware of Exodos, but I don't really need several hundreds of gigabytes worth of DOS software. I might just get a couple of the games my wife and I used to play as a kid just to show our kid.

OK, I'm tired of finding excuses to not play BG3. Next game. Something to punish me for not finishing BG3.

View: https://youtu.be/CzUFmzgkzw4


No clue what I'm doing! I've died a few times (twice in the tutorial) but the death penalties, at least at this point, are trivial. I'm trying to get good at killing those bat things, but it's rough. My one spell is a joke, doing less damage than my spear and with a shorter range, too!

I had online turned on, but the messages were pretty annoying and watching other people's ghosts jump around is distracting. Maybe I'll turn it on again once I get by the starting area. That should reduce the traffic a lot.

Very nice parry! I never managed to get the hang of the parry system in any of the Dark Souls games I've played.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

OK, I'm tired of finding excuses to not play BG3. Next game. Something to punish me for not finishing BG3.

View: https://youtu.be/CzUFmzgkzw4


No clue what I'm doing! I've died a few times (twice in the tutorial) but the death penalties, at least at this point, are trivial. I'm trying to get good at killing those bat things, but it's rough. My one spell is a joke, doing less damage than my spear and with a shorter range, too!

I had online turned on, but the messages were pretty annoying and watching other people's ghosts jump around is distracting. Maybe I'll turn it on again once I get by the starting area. That should reduce the traffic a lot.

The messages are pretty important if you want to find secrets and a lot of useful stuff. Death stays pretty trivial as long as you make sure you level up whenever you have enough runes. You can use any Rune items you find around from inventory to top up to the next level if youre close.

Godspeed on your journey!

 

[neogunhero]

I had online turned on, but the messages were pretty annoying and watching other people's ghosts jump around is distracting. Maybe I'll turn it on again once I get by the starting area. That should reduce the traffic a lot.

They can be distracting, but also helpful. There is a certain item you can get where you can summon other players into co-op to help fight a boss which is super handy. However, I think there is a slight issue with lots of current players being so far past the beginning area that they don't offer their help to new players, only the hardest bosses in the game. It may be a bit hard to find these messages, and often times the connection drops or the sign stayed well after the player has moved onto a different area causing them not to join you, but when it does work it's incredibly helpful.

 

[Rolfil]

I've finished Doom the Dark Ages and COD Blackops 6 campaign. I've also gone back to Ship Graveyard Simulator 2 which I bought the Submarine and Fishing Boats DLC.

The submarines are absolutely huge in game!

 

[Johnway]

I'm aware of Exodos, but I don't really need several hundreds of gigabytes worth of DOS software. I might just get a couple of the games my wife and I used to play as a kid just to show our kid.

Exodos lite allows you to download the app and then you can select the games you want within the app. So no need to download tbs of data.

Exowin3.1 i worked out that when you first download it, you can deselect all the games and tick the ones you want. Run the torrent file again deselect everything apart from the new games.

 

[Frindis]

Might be of interest for some of you:

Best of Humble Bundle: WB Play the Legends

Play Injustice 2, the Batman Arkham series, and more with the hottest games bundle of the summer from Warner Bros. Games!

www.humblebundle.com

 

[neogunhero]

Been eyeballing this month's Humble Choice mainly for one game, Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip. That game looks like pretty dumb fun yet well made with lots of love. My Time at Sandrock and Wildmender look like good survival games as well, this may be the first month in over a year where I buy Humble Choice.

 

[Johnway]

i've had a look at the humble choice and besides persona 5 (which i already got), none of the other games interest me. I think i've got a couple of them already via family collection so i'm skipping it. Again, kicking myself that i got persona 5 for £22 a year or 2 ago. Should have waited as i haven't played it. sucks.

Speaking of kicking myself, i got like a dragon:ishin and previously mentioned judement series earlier in the year and if i had waited another six months i would have got them on a better deal. more painful reminders to hold or don't gamble as much.


On other news i'm almost done with blasphemous, just need to find complete some of the side content. i'm still miffed for some of the bits where i can't reach so i need to figure out how to get to them. We're at 93% completed.

 

[Zloth]

There's a lot of talk on the Elden Ring forums about hackers mangling peoples' saves. They pop in and teleport the person underground, or into an DLC area (which means infinite loading if you don't own the DLC). Some will somehow cause every major boss to get killed off, so you won't get any rewards when you defeat them. If you haven't backed up your save, you're done. Start a new save.

Things weren't going well for me until I popped into a dungeon: the Stormfoot Catacombs. Got killed, then got killed just before getting my loot back. Arg. About 4000 runes gone - whatever they are for. A little underground area under a building in a swamp double-killed me, too. The first proper boss (found behind a one-way mist door) killed me pretty easily. I haven't died since, but I hardly had anything so I'm not going back for that loot.

I finally discovered the merchant that the game and been pointing me toward. I thought I would have to fight that big boss guy - but no, he just rides back and forth, waiting for me to get strong enough to kill him. That's going to be a pretty long time! I also found out that runes are money around here.

There are also soldiers wandering around. They're great! Better rewards than the giant bat things and WAY easier to kill. They're lucky to turn around before I finish them off! Those bat things are smart and sneak over the top of my shield to hurt me.

Still, I hadn't figured out how to level up yet. There's a "required" under my runes set at 750 or so which might be it, but I passed that up and there was no option to level up. What gives!? It's been two nights and I'm still at the same level I was. The guidance pointed me at another grace point, but the guidance from there points to a nasty looking place. I'm still the same level I was when I started and, though I have a nice shield, I'm barefoot! This can't be right.

So, I took a look in a guide. Oooooh, it seems I have to hang around that merchant overnight. Then I'll get a visitor who will clue me in on how to fraggin' level up. And give me a horse, too. And how was I supposed to know that!? Maybe those weird things the white mask guy said?

I probably would have gotten all sorts of hints about that if I had multiplayer turned on.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

There's a lot of talk on the Elden Ring forums about hackers mangling peoples' saves. They pop in and teleport the person underground, or into an DLC area (which means infinite loading if you don't own the DLC). Some will somehow cause every major boss to get killed off, so you won't get any rewards when you defeat them. If you haven't backed up your save, you're done. Start a new save.

Things weren't going well for me until I popped into a dungeon: the Stormfoot Catacombs. Got killed, then got killed just before getting my loot back. Arg. About 4000 runes gone - whatever they are for. A little underground area under a building in a swamp double-killed me, too. The first proper boss (found behind a one-way mist door) killed me pretty easily. I haven't died since, but I hardly had anything so I'm not going back for that loot.

I finally discovered the merchant that the game and been pointing me toward. I thought I would have to fight that big boss guy - but no, he just rides back and forth, waiting for me to get strong enough to kill him. That's going to be a pretty long time! I also found out that runes are money around here.

There are also soldiers wandering around. They're great! Better rewards than the giant bat things and WAY easier to kill. They're lucky to turn around before I finish them off! Those bat things are smart and sneak over the top of my shield to hurt me.

Still, I hadn't figured out how to level up yet. There's a "required" under my runes set at 750 or so which might be it, but I passed that up and there was no option to level up. What gives!? It's been two nights and I'm still at the same level I was. The guidance pointed me at another grace point, but the guidance from there points to a nasty looking place. I'm still the same level I was when I started and, though I have a nice shield, I'm barefoot! This can't be right.

So, I took a look in a guide. Oooooh, it seems I have to hang around that merchant overnight. Then I'll get a visitor who will clue me in on how to fraggin' level up. And give me a horse, too. And how was I supposed to know that!? Maybe those weird things the white mask guy said?

I probably would have gotten all sorts of hints about that if I had multiplayer turned on.

These tips are general and pretty consistent across all the Dark Souls games and ER.

Runes are both money and experience. You can only level up at Sites of Grace, so if you lose Runes before you get to one you might be in trouble.

If you didnt know, your dodge roll has invincibility frames, so you can roll through any attack as if it wasnt there if you time it right. Lighter armor gives a faster roll with more I frames and there are three speeds depending on your equip load that is affected by your Endurance stat. Every weapon scales off of a stat and its generally best to level the one that suits the weapon you prefer, but dont forget to level your Vigor as well! Respec is available a bit later with a useable item.

I think you guessed already but the idea is that you partly rely on other peoples messages to point stuff out, with the caveat that sometimes they will try and trick you into jumping off a cliff to your death instead for the laffs.

I suggest you try out every weapon or spell you find around and see what suits you because upgrade resources are a little limited. The combat didnt click fully for me until the first time I found a Great Sword, but a lot of people prefer faster weapon types or spells.

 

[Pifanjr]

Might be of interest for some of you:

Best of Humble Bundle: WB Play the Legends

Play Injustice 2, the Batman Arkham series, and more with the hottest games bundle of the summer from Warner Bros. Games!

www.humblebundle.com

Nothing here or in the Choice bundle that interests me, but the Sniper Elite bundle is really tempting. I loved Sniper Elite 2 and I have Sniper Elite 4 wishlisted. I do have a big backlog of games still, but I don't think I have any good shooters on there...

how was I supposed to know that!?

This was my experience with the Dark Souls games as well. You either need to really love experimenting, bumble through the game missing half of the mechanics or just have a guide/wiki open.

Considering that players can leave messages for other players and join each other's games, it seems like the developers did expect players to help each other and playing solo without messages or a guide wasn't the intended experience.

 

[BeardyHat]

There's a lot of talk on the Elden Ring forums about hackers mangling peoples' saves. They pop in and teleport the person underground, or into an DLC area (which means infinite loading if you don't own the DLC). Some will somehow cause every major boss to get killed off, so you won't get any rewards when you defeat them. If you haven't backed up your save, you're done. Start a new save.

Things weren't going well for me until I popped into a dungeon: the Stormfoot Catacombs. Got killed, then got killed just before getting my loot back. Arg. About 4000 runes gone - whatever they are for. A little underground area under a building in a swamp double-killed me, too. The first proper boss (found behind a one-way mist door) killed me pretty easily. I haven't died since, but I hardly had anything so I'm not going back for that loot.

I finally discovered the merchant that the game and been pointing me toward. I thought I would have to fight that big boss guy - but no, he just rides back and forth, waiting for me to get strong enough to kill him. That's going to be a pretty long time! I also found out that runes are money around here.

There are also soldiers wandering around. They're great! Better rewards than the giant bat things and WAY easier to kill. They're lucky to turn around before I finish them off! Those bat things are smart and sneak over the top of my shield to hurt me.

Still, I hadn't figured out how to level up yet. There's a "required" under my runes set at 750 or so which might be it, but I passed that up and there was no option to level up. What gives!? It's been two nights and I'm still at the same level I was. The guidance pointed me at another grace point, but the guidance from there points to a nasty looking place. I'm still the same level I was when I started and, though I have a nice shield, I'm barefoot! This can't be right.

So, I took a look in a guide. Oooooh, it seems I have to hang around that merchant overnight. Then I'll get a visitor who will clue me in on how to fraggin' level up. And give me a horse, too. And how was I supposed to know that!? Maybe those weird things the white mask guy said?

I probably would have gotten all sorts of hints about that if I had multiplayer turned on.

Once you get to the Gate Grace or whatever it's called, if you rest, a girl should visit you so you can level.

I also just started Elden Ring...well, picked up my 45 hour save. Managed to lose like 70k souls the other night, which stung a bit, but it's ok. I did finish Caelid and finally moved beyond the great lift into the next area. I've been kind of meandering through there, because I'm not too sure what should be doing or what I want to do.

Still playing more Civ 6 though and having a great time. Started a new game as Nubia, which put me on a relatively small continent (so far as I can tell) with Greece and two City-States. Now normally I like to play real friendly, trade, research, etcetera, but apparently, Greece gets real pissy if you start to gather more influence with City-States than they, so Perecles starts talking **** to me and generally just being a dick.

Then started our thousand year war, which I kicked off because I was tired of Perecles ****. I saw him running a Settler south towards my lands and I thought, "hell no", so I attacked and took his Settler to found my own city. The war lasted maybe 30 turns as I attacked Athens and tried to annihilate the Grecian people, Perecles making constant appeals for me to stop. Eventually, I ceased the war because Brussels, being on Greece's side was also attacking me and I couldn't fight a two front war. So I took a hefty 10 gold per for 50 turns sum from Greece to end the war...for now...

Of course, as soon as the payments ran out, I attacked Greece again. This time, was different. I was much more prepared. I had a larger army, I had massed on his border and I had become Suzerain with Brussels, so they were on my side now. Long story (war) short, I took over one of Greece's newest cities before finally agreeing to their appeal for peace, as long as they paid me and ceded that city to my full control.

It's been 70 turns or so since then and I've got Greece backed into a corner on the continent, with three little cities and I think I'm happy with that. Once they're done being pissed at me, I'm going to see if I can make friends of them and otherwise keep them cowtowed while I pursue other goals.

So yeah, Civ 6 is fun.

 

[Frindis]

LOL! I'm watching someone playing it right now and except for the story, it is HORRIBLE! Do game reviewers even play the games these days? IGN gave it 8/10????

Mafia: The Old Country Review - IGN

Mafia: The Old Country is a conventional but effective return to the linear and tightly story-driven format of the original Mafia and Mafia II, and it boasts a wonderful eye and ear for detail.

www.ign.com

 

[Johnway]

Still playing blasphemous and i haven't really made much progress recently. First of all, i cocked up trying to get the golden ending. oh well, guess i'll get the good ending and then think long and hard whether i want to play newgame+ . there is additional content, but whether i want to sink another 20+ hours playing the same content again gives me pause for thought. perhaps i might just watch it on youtube and call it quits.

But besides that the challenge maps are obnoxiously difficult. The biggest problem Lantern jumping it is hit and miss whether it works, but a quick google and i hear that it works if you hold dash instead. We'll see, i spent nearly 45 minutes repeatedly dying trying to complete the challenge and it is perhaps one of the worst mechanics in otherwise what has been a fun game.

 

[neogunhero]

Heretic + Hexen on Steam

Step into the definitive re-release of two dark spell-casting shooters that shaped the genre. This enhanced restoration makes Heretic™ + Hexen™ available to new audiences and long-time fans with expanded accessibility across more platforms and languages than ever before.

store.steampowered.com

Damn it, now I have no idea what to play tonight. Skate/BF6 betas or this new enhanced edition of Heretic and Hexen...

If Nightdive ever does a Hexen 2 remaster, I can die peacefully.

 

[BeardyHat]

LOL! I'm watching someone playing it right now and except for the story, it is HORRIBLE! Do game reviewers even play the games these days? IGN gave it 8/10????

Mafia: The Old Country Review - IGN

Mafia: The Old Country is a conventional but effective return to the linear and tightly story-driven format of the original Mafia and Mafia II, and it boasts a wonderful eye and ear for detail.

www.ign.com

What looks so bad about it? I haven't watched anything yet. I was a huge fan of the first two games, never played the third or the remaster.

Heretic + Hexen on Steam

Step into the definitive re-release of two dark spell-casting shooters that shaped the genre. This enhanced restoration makes Heretic™ + Hexen™ available to new audiences and long-time fans with expanded accessibility across more platforms and languages than ever before.

store.steampowered.com

Damn it, now I have no idea what to play tonight. Skate/BF6 betas or this new enhanced edition of Heretic and Hexen...

If Nightdive ever does a Hexen 2 remaster, I can die peacefully.

Ohhh yeah boy. Hexen has been on my to play list for 30 years now, seems like this might be a good time.

Would love to play 2 as well, also only ever had the demo of that. Ditto Heretic 2.

 

[Frindis]

What looks so bad about it? I haven't watched anything yet. I was a huge fan of the first two games, never played the third or the remaster.

Everything except the story and I guess it looks OK. Combat is trash, movement is trash, exploration is trash, AI is trash, aiming is trash, loading is trash, markers are trash and so on. Mafia 1 is waaaaay better, Uncharted 1 is waaaay better, my toenails work better. I enjoyed what I played of Mafia 1; this one pales in comparison.

This is my impression from watching a stream, so if anyone wants to roast me hard and play it because you think I might be wrong and out of this world, oooooh, please do, I double dare you

 

[Zloth]

Once you get to the Gate Grace or whatever it's called, if you rest, a girl should visit you so you can level.

Not quite. You have to rest at the one by the first merchant AND you have to do it at night! I'm definitely keeping guides handy on this one.

I also just started Elden Ring...well, picked up my 45 hour save. Managed to lose like 70k souls the other night, which stung a bit, but it's ok. I did finish Caelid and finally moved beyond the great lift into the next area. I've been kind of meandering through there, because I'm not too sure what should be doing or what I want to do.

No quest log can hurt.

Other things I'm learning:

• Target lock is a must, at least against normal-sized enemies. It can be a bother against groups, though, so know where that Q key is.
• Don't save runes. Spend them at the merchant or on levelling up.
• Items, as near as I can tell, are safe.
• Some items, like those golden runes you find in skulls, can be 'used' (cracked open? swallowed?) to give you runes. Those items are "safe money" that won't vanish on dying. When you need the cash, crack them open and immediately spend the money.
• I just saw something in a guide about back stab, which I saw in the tutorial as well. I think I might not be getting close enough for those to fire off properly.

I either need to experiment with mapping my thumb buttons or switch to using a controller. Swapping in/out of two-handed mode is a bit tricky on the mouse. Switching spells/items/weapons with the arrow keys is definitely too hard.

 

[Colif]

@Pifanjr might know this one:

Some people upset they remaking 2 and not 1... they should do both as a pack.
First one was funny, the Orc party in the desert

https://sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred:Mal-Orc-A

Friday the 13th references.

I forgot about kill counts in regions. Its almost 20 years since I played it though

https://www.sacredwiki.org/Map/UWmap/

 

[BeardyHat]

I either need to experiment with mapping my thumb buttons or switch to using a controller. Swapping in/out of two-handed mode is a bit tricky on the mouse. Switching spells/items/weapons with the arrow keys is definitely too hard.

You're playing Extra Hard mode if you're trying to play with KB/M. I've played all the Souls series and I can't ever imagine not using a controller for them! You're a mad man, Zloth!