Playing games to completion

[leilei]

fun thread.

I did Heretic and Hexen on some 486 configs some months ago. Went through all 3 episodes on a mid-486 config, then the last 2 (awful!!!) shadows epsiodes on a high 486 (approximating early 95 and early 96 situations when the games were released). There was a nasty softlock on ep 5 involving a switch that couldn't raise the stairs.

I then went through Hexen (which has its ups and downs and switches, but definitely more enjoyable than most of the later Heretic game once you know how to get the centaurs fast (use the potions especially as a cleric). It took me 8:38:37 on and off

All of this was keyboard only with the default keys!

[harrison98]

I recently played through Dark Forces on a 486-DX2 for the first time in 25 years. Still fun, but the lack of saving within levels was a bit of a surprise. From a design perspective I guess it forces the player to avoid save scumming, which is nice, but...

All of this was keyboard only with the default keys!

No mouse love? It was a near-life-changing experience when I realized how much easier Doom was with mouse+keyboard.

[leilei]

It's how I played them then. Mice had balls with little wheels that'd get gunked up and 90s "gaming mice" were ergonomic horrors that sometimes try to shove trackballs on them.

[unreal9010]

So far, I managed to play the following games to completion on my emulated Pentium II 350, 64 MB RAM, Diamond Stealth 2000 Pro (4MB), Voodoo II (12 MB), SoundBlaster 64V, 6.4 GB HDD, 36X BTC CD-ROM Drive, Windows 95 OSR2 PCem virtual machine:

Agony (HDF version under WinUAE 0.8.8. - any floppy version tried refused to boot with these late 1990s builds)
Bad Mojo
Blood
Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars
Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror
Escape from Monkey Island
Final Fantasy VII
Grim Fandango
Half-Life
Monkey Island 2: Le Chuck's Revenge
Normality
Quake II
Resident Evil 2
Sam and Max: Hit the Road
Shadow of the Beast (WinUAE 0.8.8. - had to use a trainer in order to make sure the game is completable, otherwise I'd probably get killed at one point during the game).
The Curse of Monkey Island
Zork Grand Inquisitor

[tk421]

I recently played through Dark Forces on a 486-DX2 for the first time in 25 years. Still fun, but the lack of saving within levels was a bit of a surprise. From a design perspective I guess it forces the player to avoid save scumming, which is nice, but...

All of this was keyboard only with the default keys!

No mouse love? It was a near-life-changing experience when I realized how much easier Doom was with mouse+keyboard.

I used the mouse to play Wolfenstein 3D over 30 years ago. It was funny but eventually I settled on the keyboard. I also played Wayne Gretzky Hockey with a mouse and keyboard. Which one was easier? Probably the mouse.

Like leilei, back in the 90s I played most games with the keyboard, but it was surprising how many games worked fine with the mouse.

Now Jedi Knight, that is a game I have always played with the keyboard exclusively. I was able to play JK right through to the end on PCem, and it was fun.

I had a lot of fun finishing DOOM on PCem.

Two games I have not played all the way through yet are TIE Fighter and X-Wing. Both games work well with the joystick on PCem.

[harrison98]

I used the mouse to play Wolfenstein 3D over 30 years ago. It was funny but eventually I settled on the keyboard. I also played Wayne Gretzky Hockey with a mouse and keyboard. Which one was easier? Probably the mouse.

Like leilei, back in the 90s I played most games with the keyboard, but it was surprising how many games worked fine with the mouse.

Now Jedi Knight, that is a game I have always played with the keyboard exclusively. I was able to play JK right through to the end on PCem, and it was fun.

I had a lot of fun finishing DOOM on PCem.

Two games I have not played all the way through yet are TIE Fighter and X-Wing. Both games work well with the joystick on PCem.

I agree with leilei that mechanical mice sucked -- seriously, the memories of frustration are flooding back -- but it was difficult to be competitive without using mouse+keyboard in online shooters, especially once the 3D shooters were coming out. I remember playing Jedi Knight on the Zone back in 1997 and there were so many people not used to using the mouse (it had not caught on yet), but it was the one factor that made a huge difference in how good you were. I used to religiously clean out that mouse ball. Once the first optical mice started coming out around 2000, everything became a lot easier.

Speaking of X-Wing, I'm currently playing X-Wing Alliance in PCem with an old school MS Sidewinder Precision Pro. The joystick came with a USB dongle back in the day, and Windows 11 recognizes it, so it's a breeze to use with PCem.

I did have the grand intention of starting with the floppy disk version of X-Wing in all its 320x200 glory, but something unexpected threw me off: the game has a horribly large joystick deadzone built into it that makes precision aiming very difficult. I have no memory of this back in the day, probably because I just didn't know any better, but some googling tells me this was common in a lot of DOS era sims, including the original Wing Commander. It makes the game a bit unpleasant to play in comparison to newer space sims.