I quite liked the Enhanced Edition. It just feels a little more polished than running the original data in GemRB. However, I can't find my original media now, and they sadly still built the Enhanced Edition for x86 ... Of course, no OS is x86 now, and since I usually run Linux, I'm really struggling to find x86 libraries to get it to work. (particularly struggling with libssl.so.1.0.0:i386 ... again, ssl should only be necessary for the online / multiplayer features they added, and I've never used) Ironic, that the Enhanced Edition is harder to get to work on a contemporary OS than the original, just because GemRB is Open Source, and you can even compile it yourself to ARM binaries to work on a Raspberry Pi, if you want.
I've absolutely loved Pillars of Eternity, so I'm surprised how little there is to like about Deadfire, while there is so much more DLC content for it. The artwork and graphics have taken a huge step backward in quality. The soundscape has become less cinematic and more VR, meaning you miss important lines, while being forced to listen to dull exposition. The voice acting has become very patchy, and the worst candidate is sadly the new narrator, who reads the text painfully slowly, and with slightly less emotional inflection than most contemporary text-to-speech algorithms. The PC voicing gives a number of choices, most of which seem inappropriately named, and none of which are significantly different from one another in any way other than the sex of the actor. The UI has had a similar detail drop, while the UX has been made considerably more complex, and less intuitive. Impressive, when the original UI was largely tables of figures and stats! I found the combat mechanics in the original a little too complex for my taste, and mostly let the AI complete the fights for me, just making sure I don't start a fight till my party will win ... Now encounters level with you, and the AI needs micro-managing, so I always come close to a wipe, but the combat mechanics have gotten a lot more tedious, along with random encounters being forced on you out of nowhere. A whole resource management system is added. (not fun) The main quest is less engaging than Skyrims' Dragonborn quest. (which I rarely peruse) The already tedious loading times have lengthened, and become more frequent, being inserted between the many UI switches, most of which require a couple of clicks before switching to the next UI and incurring another long loading screen. So far, I haven't found companions I want for more than cannon-fodder, and don't care to side with any faction. If you just want to micro-manage combat, and run off NVME, this is probably an upgrade? Vanity pets have stats boosts now! Yay!?
This is a game I've always enjoyed watching other people play. 3D platform games tend to confuse my eye too much and I find them extremely frustrating to actually control. However, Tomb Raider Anniversary has been an absolute blast, and while I've had to apologise to Lara many times for getting her killed, the checkpoints have mostly been very forgiving. The graphics are dated, but still gorgeous, in a way that is stylish, like deliberately retro pixel-art games, or lower budget games like Trine, Invisible Inc., or Torchlight. All, very much to my taste. The bad part is... I can't get past the T-Rex. I've studied a whole bunch of guides, watched video tutorials, I know exactly what needs to be done, but there's no way I can pull it off. The "Adrenaline Rush" mechanic seems to trigger randomly, and often when I least expect it, if I attempt to make it happen I'm usually punished severely for trying to think about the controls rather than just play... Having a boss which requires you to perform a 1 in 30 attempt fluke shot in a specific place, at a specific time, and then do it three times in a row..? I've spent a day trying, reading, watching, re-trying, and there's just no way I can do it. As far as I can see, this means the rest of the game will be completely inaccessible to me, even though I was enjoying that platform exploration side of the game, which is its' real meat'n'potatoes. Very glad I didn't pay full-price, or the little gameplay I managed to access would have been even more disappointing. I was rather surprised at exactly where I found myself completely stuck. I thought it would be a super tricky jump puzzle. But, no; It's just a boss fight.
I'd looked forward to this game so much, having thoroughly enjoyed it's predecessors. Witcher 2 did become too difficult and time consuming for me to have completed yet, but was still a lot of fun to play. I have had Witcher 3 for almost a year now, and haven't managed to get through the "tutorial" section on the easiest difficulty setting! Which *isn't* fun, at all. I initially waited in purchasing, in the hope of a Linux version, which would negate me having to boot into my least preferred OS. That never came, and I honestly don't think the game is meant to be played without a controller, which I can't get any hand-to-eye co-ordination with, so don't poses. Obviously, I'm a Linux user, so I don't care about flashy graphics, so much as I care about good story and solid keyboard / pointer controls. (I like Dwarf Fortress) The tutorial stumped me for a week, the first time around, asking me to press "p". (specifically, lower-case "p", when all other suggestions were upper case) The "P" key did nothing. Giving up as to why nothing was happening and checking what "p" was mapped to in the controls showed that nothing was mapped to "p", upper or lower case, but a bomb should be thrown with an accented key which doesn't appear on my keyboard!!! So that didn't help at all. (layout is UK-Extended, so I have é, è, and £, but the layout is only one key more, and not much more functional than American English... You just need to know that "~" means "`", and "#" means "£") I can't make sense of the mini-map, and can't control Geralt while looking at it, and can't get my head around all the combat controls while in a combat situation. I can't control it, can't tell what I'm supposed to be doing, or why. It wasn't *that hard* in the second game, and was simplicity in the first.
I'm disappointed with how this amazing old game installs and plays from GOG. Firstly, I'm not sure why it isn't packaged with a native install for Linux, when I still enjoy playing the CD32 edition in UAE, and it runs fine. (Windows or Linux) I just wanted to have a download I could install and fire up without digging out the CD. (or ISO) Second, this seems to come from a DOS version, when I'm pretty sure the CD32 is generally considered the ultimate original version. (everything else is already a "port" from that) In Windows, it's just barely playable compared to my existing UAE solution, though admittedly easier to install. The intro animation works surprisingly well, considering it's emulating Windows emulating DOS converting an Amiga anim8 animation. Obviously it doesn't work nearly as well as the Amiga CD32 version under UAE. There is a PlayOnLinux script for the GOG installer in Linux, but it forces the desktop to 640x480, then overlays the window border and task bar over the game in my DE. (Pantheon / Gala) The game started much better from native DOSBox in Linux with a simple bash script, but didn't go further than the intro. (that may be my version of DOSBox 0.74, as I know GOG tinker to fix stuff like that, and in Windows native it froze at that point a couple of times) I don't know why GOG don't package a UAE based installation for the Amiga CD32 version for Windows, Mac, and Linux alike. (Kickstart licensing? Maybe it doesn't work on 3rd party, open licensed firmware like AROS Kickstart replacement?) This would make for a better play experience and be more inclusive of modern systems. If anyone wants to work on the Linux DOSBox method and see if they can get further, here's what I dropped in the install dir:- #!/bin/bash cd "$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$0")")" dosbox -conf dosboxABTA.conf -c 'mount C "."' -c "c:" -c "TA.exe"
The GOG version _dose_ support Mac OS X, but I can't find out what system version it needs, because they don't list the requirements (or availability) here, or on my shelf. :( I'm reduced to my old 1.5.8 Lion Mini, and wondered if I could play a little Trine while I'm away. : The Linux edition, isn't available on the shelf. I'd happily live boot Linux to play. :|
