GOG.com is open!

[Bootaaay]

Really liking GOG.com so-far, all the games are reasonably priced and there are some great titles available. Great service so far, i've got my hands on some old games I never thought i'd play again thanks to modern windows incompatibility (Castles, Conquest of the New World, Redneck Rampage etc) as well as some gems I missed out on in the first place (Freespace 2 & Kingpin) - plus, the whole thing seems to be updated fairly regularly, i'll be picking up Disciples & Gothic when they launch in a couple of days.

[Funk, E]

I just don't get how someone can dislike both Fallout AND Freespace.

In any case, an often-overlooked gem that's available on the site is Hostile Waters: Anteus Rising. It may possibly be one of my favorite games--it's a cross between RTS and action and...other stuff. Hard to describe, unless you've played Carrier Command.

[Mozgus]

I just don't get how someone can dislike both Fallout AND Freespace.

In any case, an often-overlooked gem that's available on the site is Hostile Waters: Anteus Rising. It may possibly be one of my favorite games--it's a cross between RTS and action and...other stuff. Hard to describe, unless you've played Carrier Command.

Fallout is too slow and the controls annoy me. FreeSpace is just...well lets say that the only space game I've ever loved is Colony Wars.

My solution for the id pack was to purchase it, then use source ports to actually play the games. Yeah, it clutters up the Steam list, but there's really only one game I actively play on Steam, and that's X3: Terran Conflict. The rest are either things like the id source ports using the Steam content files, or it's stuff like Half-Life 2 that I already beat and am in no rush to play again, what with my massive backlog of other titles.

Yeah I did the same. You're basically paying for the WAD files at that point. Fair enough.

I admire the service, but there isn't much there that particularly grabs me in their catalogue and some of the games that do I already own. Not sure if I want to jump on the Fallout bandwagon either, seems like a lot of people are conforming to this lately, which is obviously great for the service. I hope they can succeed, they'll need more developer support first.

They have more games than Steam did when it launched, but I guess Steam had the mighty Half-Life 2 exclusive, so that changes things.

Speaking of Steam, they have crazy weekend deals on The Ship, Multiwinia, and Darwinia. I just bought all 3. Maybe they're trying to steal some action from GOG? Usually they only have 1 deal per weekend.

[Funk, E]

Colony Wars and Freespace aren't too distantly related.

Still, makes me sad that somebody's missing out on the Fallout goodness. Ah well.

[Mozgus]

Colony Wars and Freespace aren't too distantly related.

Still, makes me sad that somebody's missing out on the Fallout goodness. Ah well.

Who is? I bought all 3 fallout games on here. I put 10 hours into the first game so far. I still say its completely average. Amazing potential bogged down by stiff awkward controls and insane balance issues.

"aren't too distantly related"? You're saying they're related then. I think they have nothing in common besides space.

[Funk, E]

How can a point-and-click game have stiff and awkward controls?

Also, what're the balance issues? I'm just curious, not trying to convert you or anything.

As for Colony Wars: Admittedly, it's been a loooong time since I've played it, so maybe my memory is tainted. I DO love the Colony Wars series, though. What don't you like about Freespace?


Oh, BTW, anyone check out Hostile Waters yet?

[Mozgus]

How can a point-and-click game have stiff and awkward controls?

Have you even played it? For one thing, not just the animations, but the entire screen operates at no more than 5 frames per second. It literally pains me to explore because of the jagged movement of the entire screen. What a fucking horrible design. And all the menus are stiff as well. It really looks like it should be on a console, because of how massive every graphic is. I want to see a neat, tidy display of my entire inventory all at once. I shouldn't have to click a down arrow 40 fucking times just to activate a med pack. TERRIBLE DESIGN! I have dozens of huge gripes with the controls alone.

Also, what're the balance issues? I'm just curious, not trying to convert you or anything.

Again, have you even played it? I've been instakilled on a dozen random battles so far, when I get surrounded by 8-11 raiders, and even my beefcake tank character doesn't stand a chance to fight or run away. The game is brutally unbalanced. It's also entirely too easy to piss off an entire town to the point that they want to kill you on sight, all because you said one mildly offensive but true remark to a fucking ANTOGONIST NPC!

ugh, rage over. At least the story, acting, and sprite work are nice.

As for Colony Wars: Admittedly, it's been a loooong time since I've played it, so maybe my memory is tainted. I DO love the Colony Wars series, though. What don't you like about Freespace?

Freespace is a space combat sim. Colony Wars is more focused on action and story. Its more like Rogue Squadron. I guess that's just the way I like it. I'd really love a new Colony Wars. I feel like I am the only fan in the world of Red Sun. Loved it the entire way.

[Ack]

GOG seems nice, but I saw no System Shock or System Shock 2. Any idea when they might be getting those so I can finally get to play them?

[Funk, E]

The copyright owners are being dickholes and refusing budget releases.

EDIT: I never had a problem with the graphics in F1/2, other than them being pretty low-rez, though there's a high-rez/widescreen patch you can get for Fallout. Admittedly the animations are pretty jerky sometimes, but I've never had a problem with the scrolling--that could just be something in your system being wonky. The balance is another issue, I think, that stems from not making bad choices and knowing when to run, or just accepting bad luck. The Fallout games don't coddle you--they can be pretty brutal places. You can, and will, just blindly stumble into things that're out of your league, and I'm OK with that; I think it gives the world a better sense of being 'real'.

[Mozgus]

The copyright owners are being dickholes and refusing budget releases.

EDIT: I never had a problem with the graphics in F1/2, other than them being pretty low-rez, though there's a high-rez/widescreen patch you can get for Fallout. Admittedly the animations are pretty jerky sometimes, but I've never had a problem with the scrolling--that could just be something in your system being wonky. The balance is another issue, I think, that stems from not making bad choices and knowing when to run, or just accepting bad luck. The Fallout games don't coddle you--they can be pretty brutal places. You can, and will, just blindly stumble into things that're out of your league, and I'm OK with that; I think it gives the world a better sense of being 'real'.

I actually found the high res patch last night for fallout 1 and 2. Great stuff. It didn't work smoothly until I deleted the game's ddraw.dll, falling back onto the surely newer one in Windows XP. That did the trick. Playing at 1680x1050 lets me see an entire map all at once. Very cool.

About your balance comment, it's not about making bad choices. It's about making choices that the game idiotically considers bad. The dialog and events just don't flow naturally in this game. Characters go from friendly to murderous in one tame comment. I really hate that. And the game is simply built in a way that no matter what your build type, 3/4ths of the content will be inaccessible. The real problem is, the game doesn't give you any hints at what events apply to your character type. If I find myself dying unfairly, I just assume that that quest is for another character build. I can't do anything about it. I must forget about it.

It's as if the game is punishing you for playing it, at every fucking available opportunity. Seriously. KOTOR will always be the best example of a DnD-based role playing video game. I can't help but compare all others to it. It just did everything right. The fancy graphics were only a bonus.