What video game(s) are you playing at the moment?

[kaywhyn]

Close around to this time of year last year, within the last 1-2 weeks, I had an itching to revisit an educational game that I played so much in my childhood: Bodyworks Voyager: Missions in Anatomy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodyworks_Voyager:_Missions_in_Anatomy

You can easily find and download the game online. The game is for Dos, so Dosbox is the way to go to play it. To this day, I still have the physical CD of the game even about 30 years later! However, I either ended up simply copying the files off the CD to a directory on my hard drive to run the game, or I downloaded the game and ran it from that. Can't remember now. That reminds me, I should really make a CD image dump of the game, similar to how I made one of my physical Lemmings/ONML CD earlier this year

Picture of my CD of the game that I've owned since my childhood attached

   

If you haven't heard of this game, you're forgiven, as it's a super obscure one. Basically, it combines answering questions about the human body along with an arcade-like style of shooting and destroying various microbes in order to save the patient. There are two types, ones that attack the ship, and ones that attack the body/patient. In any given tour, there are 60 missions total, so it can feel super redundant and repetitive, but honestly the arcade style gameplay, the part of the game when you're not answering the medical quiz questions, is the main part of the game that keeps me addicted It's still a lot of fun, and I must say the soundblaster soundtrack is excellent! Unfortunately, only Midi versions of the soundtrack is available for download. The soundblaster version isn't anywhere to be found, as apparently no one has ripped the soundblaster soundtrack. Such a shame, because the music is so good!

Playlist link of my LP of the game:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbp2m4KlFpJsHcaATpDEt_ajOoaRd_5R_

I also posted a more in-depth analysis of the game in my LP topic:

https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5180.msg102249#msg102249

Besides Lemmings, I play several games, mostly role-playing or strategy. I'm glad to hear that people still like Age of Empires, and I do so as well. I play the Definitive Edition of AoE II for some years now. I don't play free mode, only the campaigns and on hard difficulty - only gold medals count.

Age of Empires is a classic! While I do have the definitive edition, I ended up scouring around the web to find the original, as I just missed the original sounds/music of the game too much. I honestly think the AoE DE doesn't do them justice sadly.

As for AoE 2, I need to rectify and play through that and its Conquerors expansion. I only played through the original AoE last year and I just stopped there without continuing through with AoE 2 as well. I have only played custom maps and the tutorial campaign. I still haven't played any of the other AoE 2 campaigns, though I believe I played a bit of the first AoE 2 campaign before I stopped out of frustration with the UI of the DE of the game.

Besides AoE and AoE 2, the only other game I owed in my childhood was Age of Mythology, which is kind of a spin-off of AoE but the gameplay is very similar.

I haven't bought AoE 3 or 4, so I don't know how they compare to the first two AoE games.

[Guigui]

I'm currently playing Hades II on the Nintendo Switch.

I have already cleared Hades I some years ago when it came out, and Hades II is a "more of everything" sequel, which is perfectly fine to me.
If you do not know those games Hades I and II are "roguelite" action games : you start a run and try to clear the game with your character. This run consist of a series of rooms in which you encounter various ennemies that you have to clear to access the next room. Sometimes you encounter boss, friends, story events and more. Sounds simplistic and it is, but more than enough to keep you on your toes.
At first you do not succeed in clearing the game and get a gameover, but you have gained more knowledge of the game mechanics, gather materials that allows to unlock character and weapon improvment, and meet more characters who will help you on your journey. Then you start another run and repeat.

The whole setting of the game is in the Greek Mythology which is both really well respected and sometimes made fun of. All characters from the mythology have interesting background, picturation and voice acting.

The game is still very engaging, gameplay and its loop are perfect and rewarding, story unfolding is great, the numerous combat and bosses phases are expertly crafted and clearing foes is addictive.

Very high recommend if you love action games.

[Strato Incendus]

I just completed Neon White (well, not 100% yet, just the main story once - still have to get the collectibles for the alternative ending).
A while ago, I asked whether somepeople here played Mirror's Edge, as it does have an occasional puzzle aspect to it, even though the focus is on movement speed.

Neon White is that same idea on steroids. The game pretty much only slows down when you have to hold on to your skill cards to reach the collectibles - aside from that, you're just blasting through the levels as quickly as possible. Much like Mirror's Edge, the levels actively want you to backroute them to find the most efficient solution - usually, there will be a much faster route than the "intended" solution.

Of course, if you don't like execution difficulty, neither Mirror's Edge nor Neon White are the right games for you. For me, they're more of a nice change of pace after spending countless hours in a certain turn-based RPG, which by design has a much slower pace, and only allows for much slower progress. Neon White, in contrast, even has a mode where you have to beat all the levels in the entire main story in one piece - because most of them only take a couple of seconds, and 1-2 minutes at max.

Ah yeah, the premise is "a sinner becomes a demon hunter in heaven to earn his right to stay there". The dialogue is just as whacky as that idea, but as it slows down the speed of the gameplay, I mostly just fast-forward it. I still got the gist of the story despite of that.

[Guigui]

I have Neon White on my radar for a long time now, and since I love speed based game I'll certainly give it a go when time comes.
Thanks for your post Strato !