Favourite computer games of all time. [2]

{{ Few more pics using the games inbuilt filter to try to capture that ole timey Western feeling to the max. }}

{{ For anyone interested in giving Elite Dangerous a go it will be absolutely free on the epic game store for 7 days and includes the Horizons expansion pack. Youve literally nothing to lose! }}

{{ So Ive been playing Kingdom Come Deliverence, its an open world rpg, but unlike most such games with a fantasy setting like Skyrim, this one is set in historical reality. Its set in Bohemia in 1403 and based on maps, architectal styles of the time, surviving buildings from the time and a lot of research. The upshot is that it makes it a sort of medieval life simulator, and for me thats its strongest point. The attention to detail, the realistic landscapes and buildings really draw you in.
To give an idea I nabbed these screenshots while playing.

As someone who has spent a fair amount of time in the ruins of castles and old churches, there being quite a few round here, its often hard when all you have left are the bare stone bones of these places open to the elements, to imagine them with plastered painted walls and full of light and life, and thats where this game really excels. I love just wandering about inside these places getting a feel for why folk would not only have lived in them, but found them warm and comfortable places to live. }}

{{ Despite Skyrim now being a decade old Im still playing it. And that is solely down to the skills of the modding community.
These days I play the VR edition of the game. But when that version first came out it was a very typical Bethseida sort of conversion- in that they did the absolute minimum amount of work to get it to be in VR and charge you for it.
It was in essence the flat screen game but in VR, which is good, but it also lacked a ton of stuff that would be expected in a VR game, for example if you wanted to pick an object up you would press and hold the A button to select it and it would just float in the centre of the screen in front of you and move about in front of you as you moved, and you didnt even have visible hands in the game, instead images of your controllers were used which broke the immersion completely. You had no physical body in the game either.
As in flat screen if you needed to change a weapon or a spell you had to go into the inventory, which pauses the gameplay, select what you want come back out the inventory and if you needed to change again go back into the inventory screen and do it all again.

Take this scenario- youre in a dungeon, there is table nearby with a couple of daggers on it and a few gems, a zombie coming at you, so you go into the menu pausing the game, select your bow, come back out fire some arrows off at it, but run out of arrows, so you go to get the daggers- which involves highlighting them, pressing A on the controller to take them one by one which places them in your inventory, then go into the inventory to select them pausing the gameplay as you do, once armed they can be used only to stab at short range. So you decide to have a dagger in one hand and cast a fire spell with the other, so back into the menu, pausing the game again to select the spell you want and then back into game to use it. Finally killing the zombie you decide you want its weapon, lying on the ground, so again highlight it, press A to take it and it goes into the inventory, bring up inventory again pausing gameplay and select it to equip it. You then have to highlight and press A to take each of the gems from the table, which places them in your inventory.

Heres what I do now in that same scenario with modders help. I grab the daggers off the table by reaching out with my hands and taking them, quickly placing them into the sheaths on my characters chest (visible to me if I look down at my own body) for later use. I reach over my back to grab my bow, fire off the arrrows until I run out, reach back over my shoulder to stash the bow and grab the daggers with my hands from their chest sheaths, and THROW them at my opponent. With hands now empty I make the relevant hand gestures in the air to cast the fire spell at the zombie. Having killed the zombie I bend down and grab the weapon he was carrying off the floor, placing it into a leg sheath ready for use. I pick the gems up from the table and drop them straight over my shoulder into my backpack. No need to enter the inventory, no pressing A to select or take stuff, no gameplay breaks to navigate menus.

The difference in immersion and interactivity is huge. Not once does the gameplay grind to a halt, no longer are objects floating in the air when picked up.

So if you are going to play Skyrim I can honestly say, after 10 years of playing it, original release, and special edition modded Skyrim VR is incomparable to any other way to play the game, and I take my hat off to the skillful modders who have turned Bethseidas half-arsed VR conversion into a full on VR game.
When Skyrim VR came out Id have described it as normal Skyrim mechanics but in VR as opposed to being a game that takes advantage of what VR offers. Now with mods, Id describe it as one of the best full VR experiences you can buy.
If you ever are going to play Skyrim Vr then Id say for the full VR experience the following are essential mods-

VRIK- gives you the body mod, and sheaths on it to place weapons.
HIGGS- Hand Interaction, does what it says on the tin.
Weapon Throw VR- lets you throw a variety of weapons at enemies.
VR Arsenal- gives you a wide variety of weapons to throw at enemies.
Dragonborn Unlimited- lets you use magic and shouts by using your actual voice!
Realistic Mining- makes it so you have to mine by actually using and swinging your pick axe.
Be Seated- brings up a brief pause screen so that when your character sits down you can grab a chair and have a seat too, returning in to game it will be set so you are the right height and you actually feel like your sitting on a chair- great when in pubs and inns and chilling to the bards or chatting to characters and barmaids will even come over to yourr table to take orders, when you get back up you simply stand up, move your chair out your play area, the height is reset to be correct for standing and continue on your way.

Hahaha, the Dragonborn Unlimited mod. As though there wasn't enough random yelling coming from the VR gamer's room.

Anyway, good example of the mod community creating something greater than the game company is willing or able to do.

{{ Admittedly panicking in the middle of a fight and yelling "Fuz Do Roh" at 3am is probably not endearing me to the neighbours. }}

{{ Going to get the Alpha of this, Honour and Glory, not exactly a game, least not at this point, more a 3d museum. Its a recreation of the Titanic, entirely fan made by Titanic enthusiasts with the aim of making the most accurate, detailed representation of the ship ever. And I mean the whole ship- not just every floor and room but every fitting and bolt, every toilet and broom cupboard, every boiler and every teacup (and yes those teacups will have the authentic patterning on them they had at the time). This demo video of the main dining room onboard Titanic gives an idea of the sort of detail they are going for (not sure about the Alpha but the demo of this was in VR too which was amazing). }}

Too much time spent on the central wooden fixtures, though the detail is amazing. It looks like they had enough to do a sweep through the room.

{{ Well the dinging room was famed for its carved wood, so makes sense they highlighted it here to show just how detailed they are going with it.
This one is rather long, but worth skipping through- its the grandstaircase and apan round the immediate area of each floor it goes to. }}

That's more what I wanted to see, gives more of an impression of what it would feel like to wander through the boat. I didn't realize there was so much focus on natural wood; I rather expected more paint and wallpaper.

{{ Yeah seems to be alot of wood fittings, at least in the 1st class areas that is.
One of the thngs I like about this project is because they are all Titanic buffs making it and accuracy is hugely important to them they also make short documentaries about the subject, using a mix of exisitng photographs and their own recreation, so you get to see a lot of other areas of the ship in them in the background, as well as get an infromative bit of history. }}

Nice details. Interesting that the man at the wheel had no need to see out as the lookouts could do that much more effectively.

{{ This is the free demo they put out about a year ago (can also go through it in VR which is really amazing) it's quite long, but time stamped so if you want to see 2nd class dinning, or staterooms, or the boilers you can just skip to the relevant bit. }}

So it has to be asked, after all this effort what type of "game" would there be?  Shooting down Zombies in the grand ballroom doesn't seem to deserve this amount of effort. But I suppose plenty of people would be willing to shell out just for the experience of wandering through the Titanic in VR. If they populated it with characters doing their thing I think it would be a big attraction.

{{ Thats a good question. Their original idea was to have you as a passenger on board and there to be a mystery to uncover before the sinking happens. Similar to a popular old Titanic based game from 1996, only in a fully authentic recreation.



But the level of detail in the ship means putting 2000 npc's in there would kill anyones computer.
Whilst they are adding lots more, the alpha comes up later this year when we will get a better idea, safest bet right now is to view it as a museum style experience, where you can explore the ship, find out information about everything, and experience the sinking.
A year ago they put out the work they had done so far on the sinking bit, but its still pretty ealry on in production. }}

With a fiber optic connection they could run it over the cloud with no lag time, I'd expect. So long as it's only walking speed interactive, that is.

{{ They are just a small group of Titanic fans making it, putting on the cloud would be hugely expensive in keeping enough servers and stuff going. Even massive triple A games like GTAV and Red Dead dont try to put anything like that number of npc characters on screen, let alone in such confined areas- the dinning rooms to be authentic would be serving couple hundred a time, then youve all the animations and everything else to go with it, the AI packages for every character, all the walk paths, a mas of cpu strianing work on top of the already GPU straning high resolution and detailed ship. Its just not possible yet on modern home pc's }}

{{ Been playing red dead redemption 2..in VR. Thanks to the same genius who put GTAV in VR they have done same for RDR2.
It doesnt support the motion controls, understandibly enough as that would pretty much mean rewiritng a lot of the base code and functions of a game it took several hundred people to make. But it does give you the full game using a gamepad, and in full proper VR.
And wow what a world to find yourself standing in. I mean Red Dead looks good flatscreen, but when your inside it looking out over those vast landscapes, or watching a sunset, watching the dust come up in a old western town, yeah ts something else.
Rockstar are well known for the obbsessive and ridiculous amounts of tiny details to be found in their games, and boy have I noticed a hell of a lot more of this stuff now Im walking about in it and can easily check stuff out just by leaning in for a closer look.
I cant recommend it to those new to VR however as you will almost certainly be horribly motion sick if youre not already aclimitised to being in VR- especially with the all the horse riding and quick action. But if you are used to vr this is something else. }}

{{ Best game trailer from this years E3, and the only honest one }}

{{ Really good vid for just how impressive Microsoft Flight simulator is, giving you the entire planet to fly about. Footage over Niagara Falls taken by an actual pilot in his real plane, side by side with flying the same route in the game. I really need to get this especially as it supports VR.}}

{{{ I've been playing a 21 year old game. In truth there aren't many retro games of that period which don't require a good kick of nostalgia and some rose-tinted glasses to still enjoy.
So many of them were pioneers of a genre, but a genre that since those pioneering days has refined gameplay, controls and convenience. Making returning to the original pioneers themselves often seem somewhat clunky and not intuitive.
This game however, Freespace 2 is not like that. The genre it is a part of pretty much long ceased to exist, and Freespace 2 is not a pioneer of it. But its probably the pinnacle of it before it passed.

The genre in question is one that just sort of fell out of fashion. Its the space-combat flight simulator.
Not an arcadey space shooter, nor some vast open world galaxy in which you make your own way as fighter, pirate, trader, explorer or whatever you wish.
These games were at heart flight simulators with a strict linear mission -based narrative structure. You can expect by the end a keyboard full of buttons to press in flying your space combat vessel. And you can expect to have multiple objectives to accomplish throughout missions. They owe as much in their origin to the traditional hard core flight sims of the day as to any space shooter games.

There is no freedom of choice here, you are a soldier, a combat pilot embarking on your carer in the military, and so the game treats you as such and you do as you are told, as you learn new techniques in the compulsory training missions you will expand your skills, gain promotion, go out on missions and be sent to new ships and new battalions, learning to pilot various types of craft going from support fighter through bombers and interceptors each with their own specialisation and capabilities on the battlefield. And as you advance so too does the War and its complications and plot. Starting off as basically a human civil war between your side- the Alliance, and the Rebels before old alien enemies the deadly Shivans make their return. With both plots ever developing and intertwining.

Where the freedom of choice does come from is in the gameplay, on those battlefields. In any encounter you may have different priorities; the huge beam laser of a large enemy frigate bombarding your main ships shields, or the approaching wing of bombers carrying nuclear warheads? Prioritising your mission objectives can be as decisive in turning the tide of battle as your accuracy with guns. Choosing whether to order your squad to protect an allied priority ship or to advance and head off the enemy before they reach it can be a choice that decides a battle or wins or loses you a priority ship.  
You can also call in a support ship at any time. Timing when the lulls of battle allow for this is a skill in itself, and so is keeping an eye on your diminishing supplies of missile banks that you may need rearmed. And armaments are not the only thing about your ship you will be keeping an eye on. You will manage shileds, which are split into four quadrants with the ability to boost any one quadrant at the expense of the others, you can divert energy between guns, engines and shields, giving you that edge in speed and manoverability in a dog fight, or allowing you to absorb a lot of damage for those times when you have to stay on  target and take a pounding from enemy fighters and guns. Even just targeting enemy vessels has half a dozen different key presses, from targeting ships and their subsystems or individual turrets to individual bombs, closest hostiles, or enemies who are currently firing on you, each type of quick targeting has its own key press.
All this prevents the usual problem with space shooter games; the repetition of just chasing down one ship after another, by adding an entirely tactical dimension to your play that requires quick shifts of plan and strategy in the middle of the fray as well as constent monitoring of the enemy strengths and weaknesses and your own ship and its vulnerabilities and those of your squad. The ordering of your squad to priority targets or defence of said, the choice of targets and when to switch between defence and attack all combine into this need to think on your toes, only deepened by the fact other wings and vessels can jump into the battle at any time for either side, often changing the balance drastically in a moment. These also are great moments of tension as the jump portal opens up and you don't know if its your side or the enemy who is about to get reinforcements emerging from it.
All this combined with scripted events make for a comprehensive experience that all gels well together into a satisfying whole.

So the gameplay is solid and holds up really well, with your ship controlling smoothly with the mouse and combination of keyboard controls for everything from weapon selection to shield and power management.
It can be hard and unforgiving at turns, war is brutal and this one certainly can be at times, but the satisfaction on cracking the perfect tactics to win a battle and complete the mission is equally large and makes retrying a mission a worthwhile challenge.

The atmosphere is superbly conveyed too. A benefit of the entire game being linear and with scripted missions is that there is a lot of scripted chatter among your fellow pilots, and from your command ship. And you often get a good sense of how they feel about each other, their orders or the greater war you are all involved in. It also allows for a proper narrative to unfold whose beats, pauses and escalations can be properly plotted to unfold. Intriguing mysteries are built up around a mystery nebula and what may be lurking within it. Subterfuge  is common from both sides, and sometimes even your side will deliberately keep you in the dark or mislead your squadron as to its true aims as the policies of the higher ups demand. Adding to the sense that as a pilot you're just a piece on the chess board. Likewise the briefings pre and post missions, presented in strict military style all add to the feel of being in a war and at war.

The different squadrons you will be assigned to as you advance in your career also have great personality and individuality, often just from their names, such as the Suicide Kings, a front line interceptor squadron. With each new squadron comes a new commanding officer, and the voice actors do a great job of conveying a lot of what type of person they are and there approach just from their delivery.
Actual gameplay time and amidst fights is filled with a variety of comms chatter from your fellow pilots, calling out for aid if they cant shake someone and you can assist if you choose, or warning the player they have someone on their tail. Orders and updates get barked from command as things explode around you and the sound scape overall is also superb. It strikes a nice note between its high tempo battle music and it slower based atmosphere building ambient pieces with just the hum of engines, whilst the sounds of screeching beam weapons and the more traditional sounds of laser fire and explosions fill out the surrounds in battle.

So it plays great, it sounds great, it builds its narrative and setting well if simply. What about graphics? It is after-all a twenty one year old game and from the early days of polygon graphics.

Well Ive being played it modded and with the high resolution texture mapping and playing in a 4k resolution. However even for someone who has modded a fair few games in their time this one was a faff. Such a faff that I actually played about 5 missions in the game purely vanilla whilst I tried to work out how to mod the thing.
And whilst the resolution is low, the graphics more pixelated up close its till the exact same game. The sound, atmosphere and above all gameplay remain completely intact and just as much fun and involving as they always were. You could play this entirely vanilla graphics, yes you will note its dated (explosions are still great mind you) but the gameplay is identical to it modded to high resolution. And its just as good to play.

Another advantage of the simpler models is the game throws around a hell of a lot of them. Battles can be epic, with laser fire from small ships, huge beam lasers from warships arcing through space all around you and explosions going of right left and centre. It can really give you the feel of being in an epic space battle. And 21 years on the graphics that were top end graphics card of their day are easily run by today's behemoth pc's, so its all silky smooth.

Having said that the mod I am using Blue Planet is well worth the trouble in the end. It stays completely true to the original game, nothing is altered, its just all looks much nicer and can be played in higher resolutions. I also added a cockpit mod.

Below is a short vid I edited together showing the stuff Ive talked about, its all from my current game using the Blue Planet mod and I'm flying the interceptor throughout. }}

{{ This is the most realistic racing game Ive ever seen. If I didnt know it was a game Im not sure how far into it I would have twigged it was. }}

I have always been a fan of grand strategy war games like total war.

{{ Great games I started out on the first of that series, so long ago now I cant actually remember if it was Rome or the Japan one. Latest one I own is Troy but I havent played much of it yet, so many games so little time. }}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{ Great games I started out on the first of that series, so long ago now I cant actually remember if it was Rome or the Japan one. Latest one I own is Troy but I havent played much of it yet, so many games so little time. }}

Same here, my all time favorite was med 2. Lately I have played some board games and smaller companies games who have stuck more to strategy where as TW has gone more arcade style.