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From: ant@zimage.comANT (Ant)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN JUNE 2025?
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2025 21:36:05 -0000 (UTC)
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Crap. I forgot to beat Spalls to post about this. :P I played my typical 
iPhone thinking games even came back to Duo Lingo due to more free time. 
I also resumed SW:TOR game for hours. I played a few quick new iPhone 
iOS games, but meh so uninstalled. I don't recall playing any new PC 
game weekends too.


Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

> It's the first day of a new month, and according to the schedule we're
> supposed to have a new "What Have You Been Playing" thread. Well, far
> be it from me that I might disobey a schedule! Let's begin the thread!



> Superbrief
> ---------------------------------------
> * Warhammer 40K: Space Marine II
> * Dungeon Hack
> * Warhammer 40K: Boltgun
> * System Shock 2 25th Anniversary Remaster



> Maximum Verbosity
> ---------------------------------------
> * WH40K: Space Marine II
> This is another of those games that I end up disliking even while
> admitting there's nothing actually wrong with the game; it's just a
> title that doesn't suit any of my tastes.

> My three primary issues with "Space Marine II" can be described as
> problems with it conceptually, in its implementation, and its
> technical aspects. Only one can, perhaps, be laid at the feet of the
> developers. The others are problems of my own making.

> Conceptually, I'm just bored with the setting. Not so much the
> grimdark fantasy-future of Warhammer 40K, but the tiresome 'noble
> stoic' stereotype hero who endures the hardships of combat and doubt
> of his comrades while remaining steadfast to his goals. It's a
> character that has been done a thousand times before in video games
> and while "Space Marine II" doesn't do anything wrong with him, it's
> also doesn't do anything new. The protagonist is an incredibly dull
> character and his story arc lacks any surprise. He clunkily stomps
> into battle, mowing down enemies whilst endlessly proclaiming loyalty
> to the Emperor, and never, ever doing anything wrong. He was such a
> tediously unoriginal character I marveled that the voice-actor could
> stay awake saying all those cliched lines. 

> The implementation of the game was, I think, extremely well done...
> but it is a game designed around co-op gameplay first and foremost.
> Yes, you can play the game solo but it lacks that spark that makes the
> game fun on its own; it depends almost entirely on the interactions
> with other players to provide that. The levels are beautifully
> detailed but are incredibly linear and don't have any really
> interesting moments on their own; it's just an endless series of gated
> arenas with dozens of enemies that need to be chopped and shot to
> pieces. The weapons --balanced for multiplayer-- lack the impressive
> destruction that makes you personally feel powerful. And does every
> shooter these days have to involve blocks and parries and melee? Can't
> I just sit back and shoot things? If you like this sort of gameplay,
> it's very well done. Me, though; I just wanted a shooter.

> The technical aspect was the sound. Visually the game is fine; the
> netcode seemed fine; the framerate was good. But the sound seemed
> simultaneously muted and with too much bass; I kept fiddling with the
> sound levels trying to find some balance that didn't make me feel like
> I was watching the game from the back row of a very large auditorium.
> Maybe this was a fault with my hardware but it felt like the mixing
> for this game was all wrong. It really weakened the overall
> experience.

> Ultimately, I didn't have much fun with this game. It didn't offer me
> the sort of gameplay I enjoyed, and the depictions of the lore and
> story were tiresome. Throw in the weird sound issues and the whole
> game felt a lot poorer an experience than it probably was. I can't
> fault the developers; I think they captured the feel of the franchise
> well, the game is well-balanced for co-op gaming and (sound problems
> aside) the game was technically well made. I just didn't like it.


> * Dungeon Hack
> I'm not really sure /how/ I started playing "Dungeon Hack"; one moment
> I was scrolling through my collection of DOSBox games, the next moment
> I was realizing that I had just spent several hours touring through
> one of the game's procedurally-generated labyrinths. 

> "Dungeon Hack" was SSI's attempt to wring out whatever lingering value
> there still was in the ancient "Eye of the Beholder Engine" and
> --given the sort of game it is, and the age of the technology-- it's
> actually sort of impressive what they managed. It's just a shame the
> game isn't any fun to actually play.

> Of course, I may just be saying this because step-based dungeon-crawl
> games aren't my thing, but I don't think that's the only reason. The
> dungeons are incredibly dull; they're just a series of long mazes with
> little variety to the rooms. Your quest is to get to the bottom of the
> dungeon (anywhere from 10 to 25 levels deep, based on how you
> customize your run) but there's little consistency or story to the
> experience. It's mostly a matter of endurance... both in terms of the
> resources of your character, and your own patience. 

> It doesn't help that the loot is so unexciting. Or maybe it's not;
> it's sort of hard to tell since the game does nothing to tell you if
> that new sword you picked up is more or less effective than your
> current weapon. I suppose if you were really into the game you could
> make a list of stats, trying to figure out what that ioun stone does
> or how the turquoise potion effects you (based on guesswork and what
> little hints the game provides) but I just wasn't invested enough in
> the game to even try. So I chugged potions willy-nilly and if those
> rings I wore did anything beyond make me look pretty, I've no idea.

> But the real insult was when I finally killed the end-boss (who was,
> as far as I could tell, completely undifferentiated from any of the
> other monsters) and my only reward was a spot on the top-ten score
> board and a brief, unsatisfying cut-scene. No opportunity to identify
> my loot, or reuse my character for another run; just
> wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am and dumped to the DOS prompt.

> As early '90s technology, "Dungeon Hack" was moderately impressive.
> But as a game it was incredibly tedious and disappointing. I don't
> know how I ended up playing it, but I hope I don't ever do so again.



> * Warhammer 40K: Boltgun
> I wasn't really expecting to play this game so soon after working my
> way through "Space Marine II", especially since the biggest problem I
> had with /that/ game was how tiresome I found the entire Warhammer 40K
> aesthetic. But seeing as I had "Boltgun" on my hard-drive already,
> what was I supposed to do: not play it?

> "Boltgun" is... well, it's fine. It's a retro-themed 'boomer-shooter'
> style FPS set in the Warhammer 40K universe, and it plays pretty
> fairly to all those themes. If any one of those three genres interests
> you, you'll probably get a kick out if "Boltgun". It's a well-made
> game, and it suffers in my eyes only because I'm /tired/ of those
> tropes. 

> But I think I would have enjoyed "Boltgun" more if its level design
> was just a bit better. The game struggles here in two areas. First,
> it's that visually the game just isn't very appealing. If Quake was
> too brown, "Boltgun" suffers from being too red; the rusty steel
> panels are reddish, the lava is reddish, the sand is reddish. Nor is
> it helped that there isn't much variety; it's all the usual
> industrial-future motifs that have dominated sci-fi shooters for
> decades. Even so, "Boltgun" pushes the envelope with how little
> variation there is in the levels; it's almost got "Halo" beat for
> re-using assets and rooms.

> More, though, is the old-school design where you're constantly moved
> back and forth across a level looking for keycards to unlock the next
> gate. Again, this is just the game being true to its boomer-shooter
> genre, but the keycard-door trope was abandoned for good reason; it's
> extremely tedious. Too often I was bouncing through a level hoping it
> would finally, inevitably end rather than caring about the mission
> itself. 

> Still, the game does some interesting things within its
> retro-limitations; even with its pseudo-VGA visuals it actually looks
> quite good in parts. Nor will I fault the game for its gun-play; the
> weapons are fun, have some good variety, and there's a good number of
> enemies. There are numerous secrets to discover, and they're all of
> the "useful pick-ups" variety rather than collectibles that exist
> simply to be collected.

> No, like I said, there's no fault with the game itself, especially if
> you enjoy its chosen style. If I had less fun with it than I should
> have, that's on me for playing a game I knew wasn't suited to my taste
> at the moment.


> * System Shock 2 25th Anniversary Remaster
> Don't look at me like that. I know I said that there was no way in
> heck I was gonna buy this game day one, but c'mon. It's me! It's
> System Shock 2! There was a sale! There was no reasonable chance I was
> actually going to wait.

> That said, was it worth it? Well... no, not really. Don't mistake me;
> "System Shock 2" is an excellent game, and this remaster doesn't do
> anything to change that. It's 95% the same game as came out in 1999,
> with some of the rougher edges smoothed away. If you loved the
> original game, this one is just as fun. If you've never played the
> game before, you might as well get this one. 

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