Zone Reclamation Project - a bugfix mod that doesn’t alter mechanics
No other mods
Play on the highest difficulty setting (the game is actually most balanced at max difficulty. Enemies are very bullet spongey otherwise)
4 Likes
no better feeling than hearing the POP sound when you get a replay. a proper multiball makes it feel like the table is orgasming. pinball is sex.
6 Likes
yes literally dont play it with fucking mods besides ZRP I WILL KILL YOU (METAPHORICALLY) IF YOU PLAY THE FIRST TIME WITH MODS i already lived through people playing stalker complete 2009 by ARTISTE PAVEL which made the game uglier and easier and was considered necessary by the western community for like THREE YEARS. it was awful! the game is pretty and weird on its own!!
These shaders are good for more FPS because the dx9 dynamic lighting renderer is kind of shitty (stalker was designed for DX8 static lighting) if you put them in extra performance mode so you dont see the ugly as fuck graphical effects he added
its also like 1000x more stable than it used to be the game wont CRASH ON YOU EVERY 5 MINUTES anymore you dont have to worry about STACK TRACE SOON FELLOW STALKER
The best mods are all russian and inscrutable and will put you on the path to an insane asylum anyway you dont really need to start with that as much as I love shit like reborn another way 2.53’s hand english translation done by a russian guy who learned english a month ago or OP 2.2
7 Likes
I take back what I said about the escape sequences being generous in Pizza Tower. Once the face starts following you and making you constantly restart rooms, it’s no longer generous. And then if you run out of time nothing you did that run counts at all.
Not even if, say, you reached the exit just in time but overshot it and had no way of dodging the other thing that follows you on the way back to the door, after finding all of the secrets on the first try. Hypothetically speaking, of course. This didn’t necessarily happen to me just now.
Edit: Okay, I beat that level on my next attempt without much trouble, and got all the secrets again.
There’s one level in the first area (the castle one) that I’ve run through several times and haven’t found even one secret. Even when I’m looking out for them. I don’t know what the issue is there.
1 Like
I think the only time I ever gave STALKER a shot it was with this mod and I still failed to make literally any progress in it. I recall the very first mission I came across was I believe from that initial camp(?) area about helping some people take out a few baddies in a nearby house and I literally cannot tell you anything else about the game as I never managed to see a single one of them die before I was rapidly killed myself. The fact that this is apparently a markedly easier version is terrifying, I think I just have to accept that there are certain games I do not have the first person shooting abilities needed to deal with them at all.
1 Like
do any of the mods stop enemies from shooting through walls like in the original release lol (i still played through the whole game)
i never played clear skies, but the third one was really polished and the most playable, though also less weird and interesting than the first game as a result
1 Like
Double Dragon II (GB)
Getting re-acquainted with this Technos Japan beat-em-up I had back in the day has been delightful so far: challenging but not impossible stages, unlimited continues, simple controls that lead to varied outcomes, beefy punching, really lovely and evocative pixel art, and shockingly pumping music. This might be THE guideline for how to do a great low-tech beat-em-up. As a re-skin of a Kunio-Kun Game Boy game, it benefits from not being burdened by trying to imitate the more complicated trappings of arcade Double Dragon games, and gets to focus on the essentials.
Back in the day I had the Kunio GB game of which this was an art edit, Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-Kun: Bangai Rantou Hen, and yep that map screen character IS Kunio, they didn’t edit that one for DDII:
(seen in the blur-o-vision that was the GameCube’s Game Boy Player video-out, even via D-terminal).
4 Likes
in one of my occasional episodes of self-doubt i began to wonder if maybe the humour in portal always was just annoying quirky ironic nerd shit so i tried playing it again and the second joke (“the effects of prolonged exposure to the button are not part of this test”) is already an all-timer so nevermind, still a masterpiece
6 Likes
the enemies never shot through walls they can shoot and see through foliage (which is everywhere)
stalker has always been a quintessential quicksave quickload game and pretty much every mod makes the game harder which is one of the reasons you should play it vanilla+
both sequels are pretty half baked clear sky shows you where EVERY SINGLE SQUAD IS ON THE MAP because tension is stupid and theres chest high walls placed literally everywhere so the buggy, half finished faction war system can force guys to do call of duty combat animations at each other. you retread all the same ground as the first game except the ending is worse. clear sky doesnt have a lot of good mods for this reason and the ones that do exist are impenetrable to non russian speakers
call of pripyat is definitely the most playable to alot of people but its also the most boring one and its legacy is mainly that people shoved all its maps into the other games where they work even worse because the older games dont have the AI stuff cop does with stalkers hunting for artifacts and shit so the maps are even emptier…theres some good mods for this one still but shadow of chernobyl is where its at
both clear sky and call of pripyat exist because they cut a bunch of stuff out of shadow of chernobyl and had ideas/assets laying around. clear skys big addition is two new maps, one of which is from old builds of the first game, and the other is reworked from another cut map called dead city. The pripyat underground in call of pripyat is there because it got cut from clear sky. they’re pretty patchwork games
5 Likes
holy shit pizza tower rules
i’m sure you all knew this but dang
7 Likes
Yes, and it just keeps introducing fun new things as you go along.
3 Likes
I am so lost.
1 Like
complete 2009 is the only big mod i can think of where the game is easier. Every other stalker mod I’ve played (and ive played a lot of them) is deliberately much more difficult. ZRP is a good choice because it doesnt touch the game balance at all. most mods for stalker rework things to a significant degree
4 Likes
all the mods worth playing make the game harder. complete 2009 is really really not worth playing. It makes a great game terrible.
stalker is a bit savescummy for the first couple hours, because the game starts with a difficulty wall. Once surmounted, the game becomes an increasingly easy experience (as you become better armed and more used to the mechanics), and the good mods are made for the hardcore players (much in the way that the good super metroid romhacks are not for novices)
5 Likes
2 posts were merged into an existing topic: daphnys radioactive ukranian inclusion zone
Pizza Tower is really good. I read that a new patch lets you prevent the power jump on the thumbstick so it only triggers off of the D-pad. I need to try it with that.
I’ve been a in a rogue-like mood though and mouse only control is always a plus for me. I found a couple good ones that fit in this space a few days ago.
A really weird free-to-play rogue-like dungeon crawler that came up on my Steam while I was doing some backups and maintenance on the computer at my studio. Turns out I like the loop while doing other stuff and I enjoyed the silly art. Considering it is a live service, I thought the progress I made would follow me home, but nope. I got it in my head that I’ll just play it while rolling takes, I haven’t run a recording session since the pandemic began so it might help me deal with rusty nerves.
I think the game is being actively translated from Japanese and it is a mobile port. You go from encounter to encounter while updating gear and skills. Interface is paired down and quirky but everything you need is there and I enjoyed figuring things out. You get persistent quests across runs and I think you sometimes have to fight the corpses of other player’s characters along the way.
The meta is another story. There seems to be dozens of currencies and then a very arcane crafting system. The translation is either not done here or it is intentionally confusing. I may need to dip into a guide at some point.
After I got home and realized my Buriedbornes account wasn’t linked to Steam I didn’t feel like starting from 0. This one seemed like it could scratch a similar itch and was was on a small discount. I promptly turned off the good VO and music because that’s just how I’ve been rolling lately.
You get two decks, one MTG-like with class abilities and one standard poker. You attack and defend with poker combinations. The more cards in the combination the more attacks. There is some clever math involved with the ways enemies respond and attack themselves. The abilities deck uses your poker hand cards as mana.
The narrative is cute and sometimes there are story events resolved by top card draws but I wish I could get straight to the procedural stuff. Controls are really tactile and meta UI is uncluttered. The deckbuilding UI could be better. It took me way too long to figure out how to name a new deck. I revisited it tonight — still good, had fun.
9 Likes
I have been playing Ghosts and Goblins Reborn.
I think it looks gorgeous, it’s a wonderful graphical reimagining of the old game. It’s also brutally difficult. It is also very inventive and dares a lot.
I played it on the easiest difficulty (infinite lives and reappearing on the same place where you die, instead of checkpoint) and I am still having a difficult time, especially because the platforming sections with falls pits take you back to the beginning of such section.
I played a bit of this game when I was a child, on Amiga, but I am finding it hard to believe how difficult and complex this game could have been.
7 Likes
I will have to check this. I constantly interrupt a dash with a super jump.
2 Likes
