Marconiex on 6/1/2025 at 00:25
Been playing 7 Days to Die recently, and it's surprisingly addictive. It's a survival game with solid mechanics—tons of crafting, exploration, and the usual zombie chaos.
My friends and I grabbed a private server for $6/month from (
https://7d2d.net/services/1/buy?plan_id=6) 7d2d.net for the commodity of having faster speed, and it's been smooth sailing with no lag. It's not a game I expected to play this much, but here we are.
froghawk on 7/1/2025 at 19:21
I FINALLY played through Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss. I dunno why it took me this long - I suppose it was the controls, but it ended up being quite straightforward and easy to learn the interface. It's really cool to see where Neurath, Spector, and Church properly started their whole thing. Still an insanely fun game that was truly, staggeringly ahead of its time, both technologically and with a simulation deeper than most imsims today. It feels quite unsung to me, really, at least in terms of mainstream appreciation - every fantasy RPG that followed was heavily indebted, at the very least.
I jumped from there right into Arx Fatalis, which I'd try to play a few times in the past and always bounced off (it's the only Arkane title besides Karmastar, Cyberpilot, and Redfall that I'd yet to tackle). Now I'm glad I waited - it's much better having just played UU. It was clearly designed as UU3 in every way, licensing and title aside, and really set the precedent for Arkane's love letters to LGS. In fact, it is SO similar, with its 8 levels, rats, spiders, goblins, trolls, etc. (the snake ladies even speak the lizard people language) that it's the differences that stand out more. I often found myself wanting to sleep in the game - your character even yawns, and there's apparently an unused bedroll model - but the feature was ultimately not included. There are no dialogue trees - and to be fair, these mostly made little difference in The Stygian Abyss, serving mostly as a puzzle to find the right dialogue choices.
Indeed, it's clear there was much they didn't have time to finish - an evil alignment option that the game hints at, perhaps sewers until the first level, properly fleshing out projectiles, etc. And, of course, it released with tons of bugs, which Libertatis has fixed. The game world feels a bit smaller than UU, despite mirroring it in multiple ways, but it really makes the best of that space. I will always prefer a small and tight, throughly fleshed out game world to a really big one, so it's nice to have an RPG in this style that isn't massive. People always compare it to Morrowind, and I see why - they came out the same year, after all - but while Morrowind's art design is a bit more creative, I very much prefer everything else about the design of AF. I'm not quite finished - I just made it to the Dwarven mines on the game's final level - but I am finding it addictively atmospheric. The ambient sound is great. It's quite an impressive first title from a then-new developer!
I also started playing UU2, which is interesting. The design seems to be a bit more metroidvania than the prior title. It's also not standalone on the story front - The Stygian Abyss wasn't initially developed as an Ultima title, apparently taking on the name late in development (and thus making almost no sense with the other Ultimas of the time from a story perspective - not that it does of its own accord, either). UU2, on the other hand, was indeed developed as an Ultima game from the start, and so it serves as an interquel between the two parts of Ultima 7, which I do not have. As such, I initially considered waiting to play it until I acquired U7, as the game begins with conversations with a whole host of conversations with characters from U7 (hence my jump straight to AF), but upon scrounging around it seems that the story stand alone well enough for me to proceed. While AF seems more indebted to The Stygian Abyss, it's fun to see what it drew from Labyrinth of Worlds, as well, like the key ring (big QOL improvement!!) and a central castle with a king who gives you a room. I've made my way through the sewers and the first couple worlds, and now I'm in the Ice Caves. The design feels more inconsistent to me than UU1 - level 4 of the sewers in particular seems overly sprawling and difficult to navigate for no reason at all, particularly given that it's most just a big pool of water. I know, like Thief 2, they had a bit more pressure and time crunch, and I guess it shows. Still, it's fun to see the improved graphics with actual 3D models for some things!
Better late than never! Soon the question will be - is it worth giving Ascendant another go?
froghawk on 9/1/2025 at 09:48
In the past couple months, I've been doing a major backlog clearing / revisiting things i bounced off / etc. I have finished all of the following:
Layers of Fear 2
Blair Witch
Observer Redux
P.T. Emulation
Shadow Warrior 2
Scorn
Stanley Parable
Dead Space & Remake
Dead Space Mobile
Dead Space 2
Wolfenstein 2009
F.E.A.R (+ expansions)
F.E.A.R. 2 (+ Reborn)
Chronicles of Riddick: Butcher Bay & Dark Athena
Amnesia Rebirth
Amnesia: The Bunker
Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss
Arx Fatalis
~10 Dark Mod levels
Currently in progress:
UT2004
Thief: The Black Parade
Ultima Underworld 2: Labyrinth of Worlds
Underworld Ascendant
Quite the marathon. Probably forgetting something.
Malf on 9/1/2025 at 10:10
@ froghawk:
Regarding Riddick, were you playing the Steam version or installing from disk?
I've tried the Steam version recently, and it's borked by defunct DRM for me >:E
froghawk on 9/1/2025 at 16:30
I was using the GOG version (DRM free!), but it's been taken off both Steam and GOG for quite a while now. Here's what I wrote about it elsewhere:
'Continuing my trend of returning to and properly finishing things I started and bounced off of... Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is perhaps the most celebrated game by Starbreeze. Once the studio got too big, the people who made that game (and The Darkness) went off to found MachineGames, where they made the Wolfenstein reboots and the new Indiana Jones games.
Despite being a licensed title, it's easy to see why it's so highly regarded. It's a brief and simple but very fun story about a comedically stoic and badass antihero trying to break free from a sci fi alcatraz equivalent, and it tells that story in the most interactively varied way it can. The gameplay ranges from RPG-esque talking to the other inmates and gathering sidequests to well executed thief-esque light-based stealth to hitman-esque social stealth to first person shooter action segments (including mech suit battles) to horror sequences. It covers a p unbelievable amount in its brief duration and does all of it surprisingly well. A great title that deserves its rep and has stood the test of time. I was dumb to initially bounce off of it in 30min because it seemed like too much of a shooter. It really isn't.
As is the concensus, Dark Athena is not on the level of Butcher Bay. Most say it's cuz there's too much action, but I don't think that's it exactly? Still opens with a lot of stealth and talking and there's even a tomb raider esque climbing segment. It's more that the back half of the game feels really weird - almost unfinished, somehow? And it's all designed around a mechanic that's really annoying to use. Plus the story just isn't as fun, though there are some surprisingly good one liners.'
And here's my writeup on the F.E.A.R. games: (
https://medium.com/@froghawk/f-e-a-r-2005-f-e-a-r-2-project-origin-2009-803104ae9df0)
Voidstateee on 18/1/2025 at 02:42
Well as in for now i am playing this game called Gore ultimate soldier, it's an FPS boomer shooter game with a mix of quake and soldier of fortune it's abandonware but it is still active in multiplayer
[video=youtube_share;m-Gr1enlUFg]https://youtu.be/m-Gr1enlUFg?si=2J3rw28vF367vBHq[/video]
