RETRO-BLAST 90s

[Mister Six]

The isomeric thing reminded me of The Immortal on the Mega Drive, which was quite gruesome for the time, IIRC.



Hm, maybe I don't RC.

[George White]

Looking over old Star Wars games from the 90s.
Love how Tarkin sounds less Cushing and more like Loyd Grossman.

The Phantom Menace has some odd voice performances. Kevin Michael Richardson (currently the voice of Dr Hibbert, and one of the most prominent African-American voice actors) is Boss Nass, but instead of doing BLESSED, he is doing shouty Jamaican, more Geoffrey Holder than Brian. The pidgin subtitles make the English language Gungan dialogue even worse, instead of using subtitled Gungan.

[Lemming]

Looking over old Star Wars games from the 90s.

Aha, I'd forgotten that the laser fire sound effect in X-Wing sounds like a chain-smoking frog trying to ribbit. Something about Star Wars seems to lend itself really well to early sprite-based graphics, Dark Forces looked pretty phenomenal visually too.

The isomeric thing reminded me of The Immortal on the Mega Drive, which was quite gruesome for the time, IIRC.

Played the DOS version of this once, absolutely brutal difficulty. Lovely graphics though, old isometric games seem to always end up looking beautiful.

I discovered 1990's "Cadaver" while looking for games to put on the list for this thread and it's striking how great it looks visually:

[Mister Six]

Ooh yeah. And Heimdall! I remember being dazzled by its cartoon graphics (and I do RC in that instance - for an Amiga game, it was stunning).

[Lemming]

Still playing The Summoning and there's a room with a rather cryptic message that just says "KNOW THE LINEAGE". In front of me are three portals, each labelled with a name of a person I've never heard of.

Stared at it in confusion for a second before I remembered there's a 28-page short story in the game's manual that explains the whole backstory and everything (which, being a twat, I didn't read). Sure enough, the in-game puzzle refers to the events of the story, and only someone who's fully familiarised themselves with it can get through this room.

This is absolutely ace, I miss stuff like this in modern games. Reminds me of my favourite example ever, which is 1988's Wasteland - the game box contained a book with various paragraphs which the game would refer you to (eg "read paragraph 48"). To stop you from spoiling the plot by just reading the book, there were a ton of red herring paragraphs that are never called on by the game, including a lengthy and entirely irrelevant plot about aliens and space travel.

[George White]

Was watching Gabriel Knight 2 on youtube. Lovely atmosphere.


Anyone else a fan of the Last Express...

[Lemming]

Anyone else a fan of the Last Express...

Yes! Great game, I always wish more games had the "plot goes ahead no matter what the player does" mechanic.

[Red82]

Big Gogger here.  I love Carmageddon and Sim City.  Theme Park and Theme Hospital.  Cannon Fodder and Commando.  90's pc games are brilliant.

[BJBMK2]

The Phantom Menace has some odd voice performances. Kevin Michael Richardson (currently the voice of Dr Hibbert, and one of the most prominent African-American voice actors) is Boss Nass, but instead of doing BLESSED, he is doing shouty Jamaican, more Geoffrey Holder than Brian. The pidgin subtitles make the English language Gungan dialogue even worse, instead of using subtitled Gungan.

Little me was all over this at the time, loved it. Despite in hindsight, the absolute dogshit controls and combat.

That Big Ape logo at the start used to give me a bit of a jumpscare, every single time. Especially since the disc was quite scratched, so sometimes it could be one second, sometimes it might not pop up for about a minute.

[DoesNotFollow]

Will never miss a chance to express some love for Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars. I haven't played enough of the other classic point 'n' clicks to know how it stacks up against them gameplay and puzzle-wise but, god I find it a beautiful game in so many ways.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Will never miss a chance to express some love for Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars. I haven't played enough of the other classic point 'n' clicks to know how it stacks up against them gameplay and puzzle-wise but, god I find it a beautiful game in so many ways.

Contractually obliged to mention the bit with the goat, or "the fucking bit with the goat" as it was known at the time. Apart from that it was great. Enjoyed the second one too even though the plot didn't make a lot of sense really

[Lemming]

Got stuck in The Summoning, time to check the cluebook!



Cheers cluebook, that's cleared that up. I think you have to be Katherine Johnson or some other super-nerd like that to understand this shit. Think I'm gonna take a break and finally do ShadowCaster for a bit, so hopefully there'll be a new review for the thread sometime soon. The Summoning is ace but it's so fucking unreally long, especially if you're me and spend 50% of the playtime walking back and forth in confusion.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Will never miss a chance to express some love for Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars. I haven't played enough of the other classic point 'n' clicks to know how it stacks up against them gameplay and puzzle-wise but, god I find it a beautiful game in so many ways.

Loved this one, had it for Game Boy Advance. Environments are probably the most important aspect of a game for me and the ones in this are gorgeous.

[Lemming]

A giant alien scrotum is approaching me with threatening intent.

[Lemming]

Playing some of these older games, it's striking how atmospheric and moody a lot of them were. ShadowCaster feels like a prototype of the same mood Raven achieved again later in Heretic and Hexen, a feeling of utter isolation and malaise as you navigate through long-abandoned ruins filled with twisted architecture. Arena and Daggerfall had a similar feeling too, a sense of real misery and grim despair which was almost totally absent in the series from Morrowind onwards. Anvil of Dawn is another great one for evoking a feeling of total hopelessness, like the world itself is rotting from the inside out (which is more or less the plot).

I wonder what it is about older graphics that make them so evocative compared to modern games with higher fidelity and more detail on the screen. Tomb Raider's another example; the first game has a really profound feeling of desolation and loneliness which is entirely lost in a lot of the subsequent games as they become more graphically advanced. Maybe the more like real life something looks, the less interesting it is.

Also helps that they weren't afraid to use bold and vibrant colours back in the day, never understood why more recent games trend towards naff washed-out colours for everything. You can improve a lot of games in a matter of seconds by just using ReShade to increase the vibrancy.

[Ferris]

posting in this thread so I can find it again later and join in the action!

[Mister Six]

I wonder what it is about older graphics that make them so evocative compared to modern games with higher fidelity and more detail on the screen. Tomb Raider's another example; the first game has a really profound feeling of desolation and loneliness which is entirely lost in a lot of the subsequent games as they become more graphically advanced. Maybe the more like real life something looks, the less interesting it is.

Probably having bugger all draw distance so everything fades to pitch black gloom once it's more than 30 feet away.

[The Crumb]

I reckon there's probably some uncanny valley effect in moving from more abstracted or cartoony environments of earlier games to places that evoke real environments, but are also very noticeably off in terms of scale, layout and detail.

In the case of Tomb Raider 1,wasn't the isolation pretty much part of the game, apart from the odd beasty?

And the bizarre, massive, convoluted and occasionally impossible to navigate dungeons from early ES were definitely like something from a bad dream.

[Lemming]

Probably having bugger all draw distance so everything fades to pitch black gloom once it's more than 30 feet away.

True - used to great effect in Tomb Raider with the bastard t-rex suddenly phasing in out of the blackness. TES Arena had a couple dungeons that were said to be "shrouded in fog" too (ie the draw distance fade colour was changed to grey) and they'd fill it with big bastards who pop into existence only when they're three feet away from you, fucking terrifying.

In the case of Tomb Raider 1,wasn't the isolation pretty much part of the game, apart from the odd beasty?

Indeed, it's interesting that the Anniversary remake/reimagining never seems to evoke the same feeling despite being nominally the same plot with the same locations. Anniversary has a really cool sense of majesty in parts but it somehow never feels as eerie, unnerving or lonely as TR1 often does.

And the bizarre, massive, convoluted and occasionally impossible to navigate dungeons from early ES were definitely like something from a bad dream.

I love how surreal the Daggerfall ones get, especially with the weird side areas filled with frightening shit. There's a corridor block that gets reused a lot which has a hanging corpse above a pit that typically forces the player to either climb up towards the corpse or leap past it, fucks me up every time.

[Lemming]

Hmm, a sentient sword named "Warmonger" which is found in a cavern surrounded by impaled skulls who beg you not to pick it up because it's evil and will corrupt the user, then the first thing it does is implore you to feed it blood.

Thinking about making it my main weapon from now on, seems good.

Also, BEHOLD: a characteristically thrilling battle from ShadowCaster: click here to watch the definitive 3D combat experience. (I'm glad Raven subsequently learned that a game is more fun if enemies have some kind of reaction to being hit)

[ASFTSN]

Also, BEHOLD: a characteristically thrilling battle from ShadowCaster: click here to watch the definitive 3D combat experience. (I'm glad Raven subsequently learned that a game is more fun if enemies have some kind of reaction to being hit)

How are you enjoying hearing a little parping victorious fanfare MIDI tune after every single time you kill an enemy?

[ASFTSN]

Playing some of these older games, it's striking how atmospheric and moody a lot of them were. ShadowCaster feels like a prototype of the same mood Raven achieved again later in Heretic and Hexen, a feeling of utter isolation and malaise as you navigate through long-abandoned ruins filled with twisted architecture. Arena and Daggerfall had a similar feeling too, a sense of real misery and grim despair which was almost totally absent in the series from Morrowind onwards. Anvil of Dawn is another great one for evoking a feeling of total hopelessness, like the world itself is rotting from the inside out (which is more or less the plot).

I wonder what it is about older graphics that make them so evocative compared to modern games with higher fidelity and more detail on the screen. Tomb Raider's another example; the first game has a really profound feeling of desolation and loneliness which is entirely lost in a lot of the subsequent games as they become more graphically advanced. Maybe the more like real life something looks, the less interesting it is.

Also helps that they weren't afraid to use bold and vibrant colours back in the day, never understood why more recent games trend towards naff washed-out colours for everything. You can improve a lot of games in a matter of seconds by just using ReShade to increase the vibrancy.

Preach it. I agree with everything you said here and so often end up in dead-end conversations with modern gamers that end with this. That atmosphere in Anvil of Dawn/Hexen/Shadowcaster is something I'm always on the look out for and never see. It can't just be nostalgia. I hear you big time on the colours, too.

[Lemming]

How are you enjoying hearing a little parping victorious fanfare MIDI tune after every single time you kill an enemy?

It's amazing. It's like it's perfectly formulated to irritate the player. When combined with the wrist pain of constant right-clicking, the bloated enemy health values, and the bizarre hitboxes that cause you to die from things that aren't touching you, it's a beautiful perfect storm.

Preach it. I agree with everything you said here and so often end up in dead-end conversations with modern gamers that end with this. That atmosphere in Anvil of Dawn/Hexen/Shadowcaster is something I'm always on the look out for and never see. It can't just be nostalgia. I hear you big time on the colours, too.

I wonder where they drew their inspiration from. DreamForge's games, Raven's games, and the early Elder Scrolls games all share such similar themes and tones that there must be some shared source of inspiration. There's obviously a not-insignificant dash of Forgotten Realms in those games (Bag of Holding even showing up in Heretic!) but the sense of decay and grimness they mix into it is extraordinary.

[Critcho]

A dedicated point and click thread wouldn't be the worst idea, at the risk of turning this into a nostalgia forum...

Apart from that it was great. Enjoyed the second one too even though the plot didn't make a lot of sense really

When I revisit the first two Broken Swords I'm often surprised how many memorable parts I thought were in the first game were actually in the second. But as you say, it has more of a feel of being a bunch of fancy locations strung together than a coherent story like the first one had.

The first point and click I ever played was Revolution's first game Lure Of The Temptress on the Atari ST, which is free on GOG I think and worth a shot. Nice looking to this day, and tried a few ambitious things like being able to give your sidekick a lengthy series of 'go to this place and pick up this and then do that' commands, and having NPCs wander around different locations independently (something that's still oddly rare even in modern point and clicks)

I've dutifully picked up copied of just about every Revolution game since, but never actually played any of their later ones other than about half of the third Broken Sword, which was an odd mix of writing and voices in the exact same style as the originals, attached to regrettable early Xbox 3D jank graphics.

Fun fact I only learned recently: Rolf Saxon, the voice of George, played the office worker who gets his coffee spiked by Emmanuelle Beart and repeatedly vomits into a bucket in the first Mission Impossible film.

[gabrielconroy]

Yeah I loved the Broken Sword series, a beautiful game even if it lacked the range of comedy you got with the Lucasarts games. Loved pretty much all the point-and-click adventure games, actually, probably in this order:

Monkey Island
Monkey Island II
Day of the Tentacle
Broken Sword
Sam & Max Hit the Road
Monkey Island III
Broken Sword II

There are others obviously but they didn't leave such an imprint on me.

[JaDanketies]

Discworld definitely stuck with me more than Monkey Island

[JaDanketies]

do0uble p0st

[gabrielconroy]

Discworld definitely stuck with me more than Monkey Island

Ahh, I never actually played that. I will see if it can be gotten somehow.

[Mister Six]

The first two Discworld games were unbelievably badly designed - proper "without a guide you're fucked" territory. But especially with the first one, I was just so delighted to be walking around Ankh-Morpork (even if it was on my mate's PS1, with a very awkward control system).

I wonder where they drew their inspiration from. DreamForge's games, Raven's games, and the early Elder Scrolls games all share such similar themes and tones that there must be some shared source of inspiration. There's obviously a not-insignificant dash of Forgotten Realms in those games (Bag of Holding even showing up in Heretic!) but the sense of decay and grimness they mix into it is extraordinary.

Pre-millennial angst mixed with heavy metal/industrial metal fandom? Pretty sure there was a lot of overlap between 90s gaming coders and people who wore baggy black T-shirts with airbrushed pictures of demons or zombies on them.

I think what someone said about games of that era having an uncanny valley effect - wherein the locations are recognisable as dungeons/cities/castles/forests except they aren't quite right due to the lack of detail and rudimentary 3D graphics - is probably spot on too. Rather than a simulation of our world, the games felt like a window onto another one, where everything was just a little bit... wrong.

[Ferris]

It's a very late '90s/early '00s aesthetic, that sort of hauntological historic decay.

Prince of Persia, tomb raider... the feeling that we are living in a much-diminished present, scrabbling through the still-impressive wreckage of a far more extravagant past. Huge empty spaces, all dark and decaying. Lord of the Rings does it a lot too, maybe that's part of the initial source material.

I started a thread on here a few years ago trying to find if there was a name for that style/theme but no dice. I'm probably describing it incredibly badly, to be fair.