Wonder how this will do, MOBA has got to be the toughest genre to break into with both LoL and Dota 2 completely owning the market. I know HoN has some pedigree and brand recognition but even back then it was never that huge, and it’s biggest claim to fame at the time was that its engine was much better than running as a WC3 custom map (since that’s all Dota was at the time) - it was basically seen as Dota 1.5 and when Dota 2 came out most people jumped ship. At least that’s how I remember it, it’s been a while.
…that got me wondering what it might have looked like on a CRT. I know they have a sort of natural AA effect, so I’m wondering if it might look better for me if I break one out.
Do you have a good one just lying around? I’ve been on a retro game kick lately and sort of wish I had a good CRT but they’re so goddamn big and bulky so it’s not like I kept one around from back in the day. But you’re absolutely right about old games being made with them in mind and it’s especially noticeable for stuff like pixel art games.
I finished Pathfinder: Kingmaker after putting 250 or so hours into it and now I feel kind of empty. I still don’t think it’s a particularly great game, but after spending so much time on it you develop a sort of Stockholm syndrome. There are things about the game I enjoyed, but also endless frustrations. The ending chapters especially were an absolutely insane slog of numerous terrible Wild Hunt encounters that seem completely mindlessly thrown together to up the “challenge”. It’s a shame, really because there is a good game in there somewhere if you’d only scale back the bullshit. It could also do with some editing in general, I don’t think it justifies being so goddamn long.
Looking for the next thing to fill the void has been a bit of a challenge, I’ve been at it with Kingmaker for so long it’s been tough to switch focus suddenly. I started Weird West, which I bought on the last GOG sale and the beginning of it seemed alright, not sure if it will stick though. I also played through the first couple of levels of Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive which is an absolute classic that I never played back in the day. The AI is pretty dumb, but immersion breaking stupidity aside it’s still super fun to approach it as a puzzle and work around and abuse the dumb AI.
Still, my brain might still be in the CRPG frame of mind after two months of Kingmaker so I also installed Arcanum with the Multiverse Edition modpack. Perhaps this is the time I finally play through it.
The one thing it can’t be criticised for as I understand it is polish. I’ve heard many complaints about almost everything else, but as far as technical matters it seems to have shipped very well optimised and largely bug free - a welcome change from what we’ve grown accustomed to.
I’m amazed it’s still available for purchase on PS4, wasn’t it taken off the stores? But yeah, attempting to play Cyberpunk on a previous gen console is… certainly brave. I can’t imagine it’s worth even a dollar in that state.
It’s not real time but Civilization is a must for any strategy fan. I personally recommend getting V and all its expansions, it’s peak for me still. Some like VI but I could never get into it.
From a purely architectural point of view i think you’d be hard pressed to find a better video game city than Night City. Scale too, like you mentioned. I always hold Paris in AC: Unity in really high regard too, but Cyberpunk is on another level in terms of complexity and verticality.
It’s been a minute since I played but setting carry capacity to infinite should certainly be trivial (I didn’t use it but I’ve seen it around). Smarter Scrapper was enough for me I think. Also Muted Markers in the same vein, though it’s not strictly inventory. Limited HUD is also a must have. But if you let me keep going you’ll eventually end up with 250+ mods just like me.
I hope you’ll enjoy your time in Night City! I think it’s a great game at this point with some really interesting characters and a good story. It has its flaws, but I had no problem overlooking them though your mileage may vary. If you intend to pick it up on PC when it’s arrived there is also a vast assortment of great mods.
Also, you’ll be blown away when you’re trying it on your new rig, fully path traced Cyberpunk is probably still one of the prettiest games out there.
It’s not strictly a 90s schmup but I got the original XIII (2003) on sale on GOG last month and played through it. I never played it back then and always thought it looked cool. It’s a shame it wasn’t a big success, the art direction and concept of playing in the panels of a comic strip was really cool and still holds up. I love the typed out sound effects like TAP TAP TAP on footsteps and BOOOM on explosions. So I guess that’s my retro recommendation.
Next for me will be No One Lives Forever, which I also missed back in the day but heard was amazing. It’s been unavailable to purchase for decades but I just recently found out the game is made available to download for free by some fans.
I guess I’m on a bit of an old school spy game kick lately.