Ok I just finished the disaster that is AD 2044. First off the plot makes no sense. You seem to be the last human not just the last man because the only other characters are fembots as far as I could tell. So you're not really saving men because there's nothing left of humanity. The last puzzle and the ending show a machine that can create babies. We never see it create female babies but you win the game by setting it to create a male baby which causes a fembot to scream. Apparently this male baby will be the savior of humanity despite a bunch of fembots that will probably kill him on sight. Why did the fembot just scream? Plenty of fembots saw you throughout the game and tried to stop or kill you. Why is this baby the going to save humanity and not you? Don't you need some females for this plan to work? How much did you really save humanity when all you really did was flip a switch on a machine. Anyone could have done this. Anyone could still flip the switch back or even worse destroy the machine. None of the plots have been resolved through this action. All of this may have been better explained in the movie but here it's just weird.

Weird, inconsistent plots can be forgiven here because the worst part of the game is navigating the environment. Every screen is a huge struggle to figure out what you can click on. And say you found something interesting like a desk. Good luck finding the exact sequence of hotspots to click to actually open a drawer or look under the desk. Even using a heavily using a walkthru I still had a difficult time moving around and finding items because I didn't know the exact location I needed to click to get to the correct screen to actually pick something up or use something. I think if it was easier to move around and interact with objects, maybe if this was 2D instead this could have been a bad game instead of a terrible one.

A couple other things to mention that were high points of the game. There didn't seem to be any dead ends so that let me bumble around until I got frustrated enough to have the walkthru open on the side. Your character occasionally offers slight hints about finding or using objects which helps. And lastly the music was good. Several fun, retro tracks throughout the game.

And with that I will travel back to the future.

Ended Episode 4 of Down in the Dumps and there is an extra level.

I completed another mission in HoMM2. I'm not very good at this game. I was running back and forth on a map trying to deal with stronger enemies and capture castles, only to discover I only have to capture the one mentioned in the mission briefing. shrug

Impressive. You deserve ★★★ for finishing this game :D

What's interesting – this game is somehow based on one of the best Polish comedies, Seksmisja, which has a cult status in Poland and (with some cultural changes, new feminism etc.) took on new meanings recently. But as I love Seksmisja, I remember I was completely confused with that game, understood nothing from the plot. Your experience confirms my memories ;)

Well, ended Down in the Dumps. The last chapter is super buggy as you can see in the pictures attached. In this chapter you can control the seven members of the family simultaneosly in a little space, only four screens and few objects to pick but you must follow an order and if you made something different characters disappeared, or showed duplicated, and game crashes. I had to see a walkthrough to finish it and is a thing i don´t like at all.

The game is funny at his way. Furthermore, in chapter 4 there is a dead end in you don´t achieve that two characters climb at the same time to an up level, and i had to restart the chapter when i noticed it, but i am not 100% sure of this.

Another game passed and looking the next challenge. I will look one of these three, the intros and decide which one will be the next: Phantasmagoria 2, Ripper or Clandestiny. All three released in 1996.

Regards time travelers!

[HoMM2] So. I, uh, kind of switched sides. No, no, I'm not a traitor, I was with the other side all along. Now I'm wondering if the campaign is going to continue as if I started it on the good guy's side or is it a new path?

Just a bit bump, this year is a bit lonely.

Well, my next travel is for Phantasmagoria 2. I didn´t play the first part but is not neessary so doesn´t matter. I hear things about it but about gameplay or story nothig, only that is an adult game, with gore and erotic scenes and indeed nothing more.

I tried Ripper too but the first look the graphics are lower than Phantasmagoria 2. And Clandestiny doesn´t run well, so the election is done. Lorelei, treat me right;)

Today I'm planning on finally start my trip to 1996 with Quake.
This will be my first time playing it.

Due to the game being old, is there any source port that's highly recommended?

Well I beat Quake the other day and started on Blood Omen 1, another 1996 game. It's not on GOG so I'm playing the PS1 ver.

This is a pretty cool Zelda-like action adventure, if a bit rough around the edges, where you can transform into different forms, cast spells, use various sub weapons, fast travel and there's a day/night cycle as well as a moon cycle and some weather effects, all of which affect gameplay to some degree. There are tons of secrets, though a bunch of them pretty much require a guide to find, but also various optional mini-dungeons you can go through.

There's also an impressive amount of VA, most of which is prettty good, though it would've been better if there were subtitles and you could skip individual lines, and if the game let you exit rooms to stop voiced lines.

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Phantasmagoria 2 - A Puzzle of Flesh - DAY 1
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(theme of The Shining:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_nsZ8yt1KA)

There is no points? Strange for Sierra.
Curtis is a normal guy, has a beauty girlfriend, a gay friend, a job that he likes, a boss that help him. Although he has a rat as a pet, and speaks with him. A superior woman in his job sexually harasses him, and other colleague is an asshole. And indeed he doesn´t look very sane. The only bad for him is that he is becoming crazy, atm he sees visions, perhaps self-injures, and listen voices...

Intriguing, it´s a road to madness? A bed scene as cliffhanger...

In gameplay, the first puzzle involves your pet rat. Is to run and not look back. The first day can resume in a stupid puzzle and write/guess two passwords in a computer. The rest is talking with your colleagues and looking videos. I always thought that the game was in first person and it is not. Best story than game.

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Phantasmagoria 2 - A Puzzle of Flesh - DAY 2
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(Why Can´t We Be Friends:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5OXON8vIaA)

Atention: Spoiler alert!!
The day starts with a murder of, what cassuality, the coworker guy that was an asshole with you. Like in a Saw film. The murderer takes a stapler and... sew his mouth, what gore!

Curtis has all the points to be a psycho, i suppose the game was focussed. In the psychology room, we see his thoughts and values.

It´s like see a film, in The Beast Within had more interaction.

I guess Euro 2020 and Copa America 2021 are stealing our attention ;)
So – let's look at Euro 1996 final – Czech Republic vs Germany.

Indeed. Fully the Euro for me. Normally I'd at least be aware of Copa America taking place and checking results, but this time around I didn't even know until I happened to catch something in the news on TV after a match from the Euro.
Still, managed to finish the second continent on Fantasy General too, though I called that last battle good enough on the second attempt, though there were still a couple of enemy units around, not insisting on fully clearing anymore... And now I again see a difficulty spike on the third continent, mainly because of the size of the map. Granted, a smaller one would make for quite a clash with all those enemies, but as it is, can't even reach all places in the 20 turn limit, not with ground units at least, much less conquer... Hmph.

Well, that was weird. Yesterday FG worked just fine, today try to start it again, black screen, though sound was there and it seemed to react to keypresses. Alt+Enter, works in windowed mode. Alt+Enter again, get image in full screen too, but mouse movement not registering. Fuss around with the DOSBox options, changing display from surface to ddraw fixed it. No idea what that was about, nothing changed between yesterday and today as far as I'm aware...

And anyway, if yesterday buying one more sky hunter and one more cavalry unit still hardly made a difference, adding another bomber today and a better split of the units in the two starting locations got me just a move shy of winning. Not a win I'd have taken, lost two good units and enemy still had a few around, but had conquered all locations bar one last victory-condition town, and on the last turn had chased the unit defending it with my last unit from that area. If I'd have had one more in range I could have taken that town and been offered the win (even if, as I said, not one I'd have continued from), but as it was, still loss. Ah well.

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Phantasmagoria 2 - A Puzzle of Flesh - DAY 3
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(a spanish song that repeat constantly "i´m going crazy little by little"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1ORiV8dGEU)

And more videos, only makes click, click. The story, well, they repeat and repeat visions, voices and dreams so at finally is quite repetitive. There few puzles indeed. The only annoying is looking a walkthrough because i didn´t nothing to do, the obvious was made trying to open a box and combinig two items in the inventory, typical, you know what to do but not how but worst because it was related to control, and the wrong thing is the way to combine them, on a little screen. Things that happen to not read the manual.

At the moment 3/5 stars, it´s in the line that go to 3,5 stars or going to hell if final is bad.

I've got a confession to make: except for that one failed tutorial run attempt, I haven't touched Conquest of the New World at all. embarrassed

I didn't continue Heroes 2 campaign since my last post. more embarrassment

But I started Fantasy General as a sorceress. And I think I made a major mistake of spending almost all of my money on units research and now, several battles in, I suddenly don't have enough money for units to deal with enemy.

As you can see, I'm doing great. :P