[Col. Fishguts]

Finished the main campaign of TIE Fighter, leaving the expansion for another time (the TIE Defender is just silly).

Now I'm about to close another gaming gap from the 90s: Schleichfahrt (aka Archimedean Dynasty)
I remember playing the demo back in the day (must have been in 1996) and in my memory I have filed this as a sprite-based shooter à la Wing Commander and forgot about it completely. Having stumbled upon it recently, I found that my memory was wrong, it has a complete 3d engine with fully textured polygons (even a Glide patch was released later).




The setting reminds me of a darker version of seaQuest 2032. Mankind was forced to flee the radioactive wastelands of the surface down into the sea. The newly formed factions continue their wars with fighter submarines, while rumours speak of mysterious attacks of death black ships.
You play as a mercenary, taking on missions for cash, which you use to upgrade/repair your ship. It's sort of like WC Privateer without the trading aspect.
What I also was not aware of, is how much of the game revolves around visiting different places and talking to people to get side missions or to advance the story. All the locations are represented as separate main screens (with animated bits like a FS main hall) where you can visit sub-locations which open as small windows. Everything has its little animations and ambient sounds, you can see that a lot of effort/polish must have gone into that part. Talking to people happens in simple text boxes where you can select from different dialogue choices, with he pre-rendered cut-scenes sprinkled in to advance the main story. Nothing revolutionary here, but I still find it amazing how effective at world building the combination of it all is, when it's done so well like in this game.



Overall, in case you never played it, I highly recommend it. It's on GOG for ~6$.

[Det. Bullock]

Finished the main campaign of TIE Fighter, leaving the expansion for another time (the TIE Defender is just silly).

Sir, I dare you to repeat just that.
It's not the Tie Defender that's silly, it's actually the Missile Boat with a tractor beam.

PS: though seriously I feel the game does a good job counterbalancing the T/D and MiS power by pitting you against odds just as ridiculous as the ship you are flying.

[Col. Fishguts]

Finished the main campaign of TIE Fighter, leaving the expansion for another time (the TIE Defender is just silly).

Sir, I dare you to repeat just that.
It's not the Tie Defender that's silly, it's actually the Missile Boat with a tractor beam.

PS: though seriously I feel the game does a good job counterbalancing the T/D and MiS power by pitting you against odds just as ridiculous as the ship you are flying.

Well, I just played a bit with the T/D, I haven't really tried the missile boat yet. It's probably even more silly.

[Det. Bullock]

Finished the main campaign of TIE Fighter, leaving the expansion for another time (the TIE Defender is just silly).

Sir, I dare you to repeat just that.
It's not the Tie Defender that's silly, it's actually the Missile Boat with a tractor beam.

PS: though seriously I feel the game does a good job counterbalancing the T/D and MiS power by pitting you against odds just as ridiculous as the ship you are flying.

Well, I just played a bit with the T/D, I haven't really tried the missile boat yet. It's probably even more silly.

It's slower (more or less as fast as an A-wing, the SLAM system doesn't really do that much once you are in a fight) but 40 advanced concussion missiles with a tractor beam whatever other secondary load you have make it a stupidly effective dogfighter, at least with the Tie Defender you need to aim after you run out of missiles (I've never found it that different from the T/A), with the MiS I don't remember ever running out.
But then again the missions with a T/D or MiS usually are the kind that would normally require you to be in two places at once with any other fighter (especially if you want to at least complete the secondary objectives), even the Combat Chamber missions tend to be on the ludicrous side when it comes to the odds you are facing in those things.
Of course there are also still plenty of missions with the other fighters in the expansions, the MiS even gets mothballed at a certain point precisely because it's too powerful and renegade imperials kept stealing it.

[Col. Fishguts]

...Tie Defender you need to aim after you run out of missiles (I've never found it that different from the T/A)

The T/D is quite a bit beefier than the T/A. It's faster, has double the shield rating, seems to always have a beam system equipped plus it has a pair of ion cannons (which become really silly in XWA, where you can link laser and ion cannons). I usually don't use the beam system, so I drop its recharge rate to zero, set laser recharge to 100% and shields at 50%. That way it still cruises around at 156 MGTL, which makes it basically untouchable in dogfights while I manually transfer energy from cannons to shields if necessary.

[Det. Bullock]

...Tie Defender you need to aim after you run out of missiles (I've never found it that different from the T/A)

The T/D is quite a bit beefier than the T/A. It's faster, has double the shield rating, seems to always have a beam system equipped plus it has a pair of ion cannons (which become really silly in XWA, where you can link laser and ion cannons). I usually don't use the beam system, so I drop its recharge rate to zero, set laser recharge to 100% and shields at 50%. That way it still cruises around at 156 MGTL, which makes it basically untouchable in dogfights while I manually transfer energy from cannons to shields if necessary.

The T/A is only more frail and doesn't have ion cannos as real disadvantages because it's already ludicrously fast with a good warhead load and it often comes with a beam weapon too. I stopped using beam systems like that once I understood clearly what they were for, it's much easier to clear ludicrous numbers of fighters while actually using the tractor beam rather than using it as extra charges (especially when playing on medium and up).
In XWA the Defender is a non-issue since it can't be flown in the campaign, I get it might be a bit too much for multiplayer skirmishes but I maintain Tie Fighter's single player campaign does a good job of counterbalancing it with a fiendish mission design whenever you get assigned the T/D and by also giving you plenty of missions with the earlier crafts.
Especially on Medium the AI tends to get really slippery so a tractor beam is almost a necessity to clear the mobs of enemy fighters without losing too much time.

[Det. Bullock]

Finished Monster Boy and The Cursed Kingdom (PC)
The only real problem is that it is on the whole more difficult than all the classic Wonder Boy/Monster World games I have played except the ones that debuted in the arcades (Monster Lair, Monster Land and the first Wonder Boy) which is really odd since this is very much in the vein of The Dragon's Trap for SMS and Monster World III and IV for Mega Drive which were relatively relaxed games (the difficulty still spiked a bit towards the end but only then usually). In particular the ending is an example of what I call "last dungeon fatigue" not unlike most Zelda games: you get more difficult puzzles but also enemies and obstacles that can take a huge chunk of health from you which usually means that if you don't have good reflexes any train of thought you might have is bound to get interrupted often and had to look up a guide for a few situations because goddamit you can't have a puzzle boss that kills you in a couple of hits in certain phases and make all the cutscenes during the boss fight unskippable (they weren't in the rest of the game, I didn't mind retrying a boss precisely because I could just press start twice to skip any cutscenes before or during the fight). The last secret also requires knowledge of the Morse code for some reason.
Still I did have a lot of fun for 90% of the game and the animated ending cutscene is suitably spectacular, also the stinger (which apparently you can get only if you do 100% completion before the final boss like I did) might hint at something interesting if they ever do a sequel.

[manwiththemachinegun]

Metal Wolf Chaos just released for all platforms, are you a bad enough dude to be the President?

[Col. Fishguts]

Finished Schleichfahrt. The last couple of missions were seriously hard, mostly only because of the biont bombers. Those suckers can go and die in a fire. Think of a slighty smaller SC Cain where all turrets are Kaysers and have the "same turret cooldown" flag. Oh and they move at the same speed as your fighter... **** them.

[Det. Bullock]

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw (PC)
My HOTAS works very well in this, while some functions remain contextual like the Autopilot/tractor beam key the game gives the option to skip the radial menu for a lot of stuff if you have enough buttons on your control device(s), I'll probably tweak a few thing here and there down the line.
I'm playing it at old school difficulty (well, technically it's only the mode with the worst starting equipment and every kind of gameplay help disabled, the game itself reamins the same) and so far I haven't died yet, there was plenty of time I've bitten more than I could chew but the first thing I bought was the afterburner and this game allows to allocate all power to the engines and to dump laser energy to shields (Privateer didn't allow that as it played a lot like the original Wing Commander) which means I could always get away with only a few scratches when I got overwhelmed.
I'm avoiding combat missions for now until I get better reactor and shields, and possibly better weapons. My two combat lasers have been useful with pirates met during very low risk missions but almost useless to deal with the random ambushes.

[deathspeed]

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw (PC)
My HOTAS works very well in this, while some functions remain contextual like the Autopilot/tractor beam key the game gives the option to skip the radial menu for a lot of stuff if you have enough buttons on your control device(s), I'll probably tweak a few thing here and there down the line.
I'm playing it at old school difficulty (well, technically it's only the mode with the worst starting equipment and every kind of gameplay help disabled, the game itself reamins the same) and so far I haven't died yet, there was plenty of time I've bitten more than I could chew but the first thing I bought was the afterburner and this game allows to allocate all power to the engines and to dump laser energy to shields (Privateer didn't allow that as it played a lot like the original Wing Commander) which means I could always get away with only a few scratches when I got overwhelmed.
I'm avoiding combat missions for now until I get better reactor and shields, and possibly better weapons. My two combat lasers have been useful with pirates met during very low risk missions but almost useless to deal with the random ambushes.

I'll be following your updates here!  I am considering getting this game, even though I have not paid more than $20 for a game since I realized that I had dumped $110 into Battlefield 3 & all its DLC.

[Det. Bullock]

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
Now I have a Sonora, I upgraded my weapons from long range Gauss cannons (which were overpowered for Texas but a bit underpowered outside it) to shorter range but more deadly and less energy-consuming autocannons. The autocannons are projectile weapons so they consume basically zero energy but the reload times are annoying.
I also bought an IMREC missile launcher and while ordnance is costly it saved my life a couple of times (missiles do a LOT of damage).
I'm not sure how useful the single turret is as it's limited to lower tier weapons for now and those seem to barely scratch most enemies outside of Texas.
I heard on the group you can buy a station in the Eureka system that grants a few goodies once upgraded, I should probably check it out before going on with the story as the latest story mission while not impossible had odds that I didn't like one bit and only scraped by with missiles and by asking Richter Brust to help.
There have been a couple of optional quest, I did one by the aforementioned Richter Brust (the idiot that you have to help in the first story missions) and I have one still active by the guy in Nevada that gave me the starting ship.
I don't appreciate not being able to use the warp portals until all hostiles have been dealt with, though I'm not usre if they have to be in a certain range to be able to inhibit hyperspace capabilities, but of course you can still run away and try later at least.

[deathspeed]

I watched the "Getting Started" video, and after that and your updates I think I am going to break down and buy it today instead of waiting months for a price drop or sale.

[Mammothtank]

I've gotten almost halfway through Chroma Squad. A quirky sentai parody. Has just enough tactical depth, and mechanics to put some thought to your actions. Shame it doesn't have more decisions to make in the story, and I did find some of the gameplay aspects lacking. Pretty funny though. And the Soundtrack. is. Amazing!

Also, I've decided that I'm going to play through all the other Story Ending's in Fallout; New Vegas. But before that I'm going to finally beat Dracula in Super Castlevania.

[0rph3u5]

Also, I've decided that I'm going to play through all the other Story Ending's in Fallout; New Vegas.

What would you "define" Stroy Ending there? - Every possible combination of the end game slide show or just every faction victory?

Spoiler:

e.g. do you consider a Legion victory under Caesar as the same as a Legion victory under Lanius?

EDIT: misused quotation marks preserved for eternity 

[Mammothtank]

Also, I've decided that I'm going to play through all the other Story Ending's in Fallout; New Vegas.

What would you "define" Stroy Ending there? - Every possible combination of the end game slide show or just every faction victory?

Spoiler:

e.g. do you consider a Legion victory under Caesar as the same as a Legion victory under Lanius?

Faction Victory.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

Fashion victory.

[Mammothtank]

Already achieved.

[attachment eaten by a Shivan]

[Det. Bullock]

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw (PC)
Since I wanted to do some big cargo runs I decided to buy the Big Ass Truck (I never seem to remember the proper name of the thing). Gun placement is weirder than expected (it has 4 gun hardpoints but one is distant enough from the others you might as well have 3) but the second turret is more useful than expected. While a mass driver turret doesn't do much damage it is certainly useful to keep the target from recharging their shields too fast while I try to bring the weapons to bear, though I'll probably try mining laser turrets as they seem to be basically hitscan even if they theoretically aren't as good they should be more difficult to evade.
Also now with two missile hardpoints I have a wopping 28 IMREC missiles with the special launchers unlocked through the Eureka station sidequest.
I have already unlocked the best armor available and class 3 powerplant and shields and aim at class 4 everything.
In general it's much more viable in combat than it looks at least when it comes to ambushes and occasional distress signals.

[Scourge of Ages]

You know how, in some games you finally get that one ability or weapon that is just completely overpowering, like the Super Gravity Gun from Half Life 2, or the Hyper Beam in Super Metroid, and you know that one of two things is going to happen? Either you get to cut through baddies and obstacles like butter to really make you feel cool, or the game is going to throw something new and horrible at you to even tax your new abilities...

Anyway, I just finished "Celeste". It's a really great platformer with nice sprite graphics, and super pretty cutscenes. The gameplay is excellent, always giving you new and interesting challenges and lots of options. And the music is excellent!

Play it if you get the chance.