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dimalink · 2 months

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Restore legendary Pentium 2 and Voodoo 2 computer

New Year is already begun. Now we have 2024. New space cycle. And few space cycles ago, I started to restore some of my old computers. Part of them were mine since school days. Part of them, I buy for a low price. It is interesting for me, to restore some computers, and I was growing up with them, it is interesting. Or some systems from the past, which are very interesting to try out and look. It is not necessary to be a strong powerful systems. It can me middle or not powerful, let’s call it slow or weak systems. Everything is interesting.

So, from time to time, I am restoring old systems. I do it as episodes, not regular. So right now, I want to talk about my legendary Pentium 2. With system of three dimensional acceleration 3DFX VOODOO II. It is most coolest system ever. And it is also has a Sound Blaster Awe 64. It is very cool sound card. And as idea, as I remember, it has two hard drives. One is about 5 gigabytes, and second is about 50 gigabytes. As a rule, you can set to system a CD Rom, or DVD rom, even which can write discs, writeable.

At this moment system is already done. Everything is inside a strong metal case. So, computer has a big weight in result. I think it is because of metal case has a big weight, it is a big metal case. And it has a something like this system inside – Pentium 2 350 mhz with technology MMX, 3d graphic accelerator Voodoo 2, 64 mb Ram.

So, I find all the bolts, and tighten the bolts. Everything is done. My brother helps me to do that. Brother is very good in such things. And he reacts fast about some technological solutions. And it is opposite to me, in such questions. Some specific wires format. And more, if it is not enough some details. Every time my brother helps me with that. So, for example, I give myself a try to launch computer without cooler. This is like I do. My brother told me that it will not start up.

Pentium 2 processor has a form factor of cartridge. But no 8 bit. And it is like a cartridge. And cooler is going with him, on a cartridge. But it is good to set up with a wire between cooler and processor. Some connectors are very tight. So, I even don’t get what place to connect them. Again, my little brother helps me. So, for example, as for me, I never find out that at the border of motherboard, at the side, it is so little wires like power supply, reset, hdd ready, like indicators and buttons are there. At the mother board.

So, process of making this setup was interesting. It is very interesting to find out new things. And it was going in a different step. First, I collect all the parts. It was so long time ago, when it was working last time. So, I need to find the parts and to put them at the box. And later, to set it all at the motherboard. And the idea that plus minus everything is ok about details.

Second step it was before New Year. It is about to setup all the parts into the case. Everything is all right. I give myself a try to start it up. Power is ok. But nothing happens. So, it is about a situation you need connect with wire a cartridge with second Pentium and cooler. But it can start. Computer makes a noise. And that’s all.

Next step is at celebrating times, already in new year 2024. It is about to setup bracing for processor Pentium 2. So, it is happening, that you need to setup a special bracing at the processor. Like a direction parts. So, we find these parts. And open the case with computer, replace all the details. To remove everything from motherboard. To screw everything off. Because of bracing is set from the downside of motherboard. And then they rise up. And at the top you put into this bracing a processor. As a cartridge slot it works. For example. Unusual system.

Today, it is clear, that there is no way to find little wires. As brother said 3 pin – molex. To setup cooler and processor. Plus, to this there is no wires to setup motherboard and cd rom. Atapi format or something like that. It is good to gather wires. Right now, there is no wires. But it can be without cd rom, for some time. There is a network card 100 mbits, instead.

System is almost restored. And it can be one more try to start it. It is interesting what it is about hard drives. Is it still installed Windows Millennium or not. Last time it was Windows Millennium. It is interesting what games it has installed. As idea it should everything at their place. So many years passed. So, I am restoring slowly my school system. For me it is a legendary system. I spent with it so much time.

So, lots of games I launch with it. I tried visual basic there, for example. And played a lot in Arcanum, Fallout 2. Doom 2 I played a lot too. In Half Life when it was released. In a different Need For Speed 3,4,2,2 special edition. In GTA 1,2. In GTA London – I and my bro played a lot. Carmageddon 2 it was a cool cd. My brother is a big fan of Blade of Darkness videogame. And it was a first time to play it in Pentium 2. I remember how much I played in Grandia 2. It is such a cool Japanese role playing game with good graphics, port from Dreamcast. And I played in emulators too, of first Sony Playstation.

So, this way I first to play in Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy 7,8,9. My brother likes a lot game Final Fantasy 8 for PC. I am talking about a PC version of the game. He played a lot. So, for some time it was his favorite game. Here we played a lot in Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Heroes of Might and Magic 4. So here we launched first time Might and Magic 6,7,8. My brother likes a lot shooter Sin. It is also a good game.

At first this system has installed Windows 98, and later Windows Millennium. It was a short time, it was installed Windows 2000. So, at this moment I run into Quake 3 CD. Brother buy this game. And bring home. It was exciting graphics! It is bad one thing, it has no casual levels, no story, episodes. But graphics is cool, and action is good!

With this system I get the idea what emulators are. With modem. When a game for NEs to download about half an hour, for example. If you are lucky then 20 minutes. Or maybe it was a time for Sega game it is. It happens about 40 minutes. So, this details a I don’t remember already. Nes games should to download faster, as a rule. And Sega and Super Nintendo more long time. I opened for myself emulation of MS DOS. Using DOS BOX. I try some isometrical Ultima. It is about island, forest. First time I played in Sega, Snes. First Sonic, for example. I played it with all the time making save files. I like a lot to setup scanlines.

First time I try out what is it Ultima Online. World of online is very exciting thing. So many deals to do for a schoolboy there! Such a nice memories. To grind, upgrade skills, explore world. To build a little house, to collect resources. So, I remember that, I learn skill animal taming. And I can tame ostrich.

Nice soft it was, as I remember. Windows Media Player with such beautiful interface. Windows Media Player classic with standard interface for style Windows 95/98. WinAmp is a cool player. And I remember, from time to time I have installed Kaspersky antivirus. Good thing. But system was loaded, that’s for sure, for some time. And it makes a system to freeze, slow working, and you need to wait. It happened like that. Without it - it everything works fast. Of course, I used program Word, a little Excel. Notepad.

And at this system, I see for the first time Video CD. Interesting format. And I remember I was impressed when I play in Command And Conquer 2 about a video sequences. Such a cool graphics, and also a cinema movie. Strategy and action movie. And later I and my brother played a lot in Red Alert 2 Yuri’s revenge. It was a game for a long long time. And playing in Counter Strike with bots. And I played with my brother at this system. In counter strike, Rage of Mages 2. And I remember how we dig maps (explore maps slowly). So, we take a big map and clear it from monsters. Try to find new items. Brother played with a new pc. And I with this machine.

It is amazing, and at this Pentium 2 machine. A pne as I called it, stump, as a joke. I played in a second Dune. It was very good game. It was launched easily, without any problems. But it is for MS DOS. Here I played a lot in F 22 Lighting 2. It is something like simulation, but arcade too, it can be played nice. Lots of time for Duke Nukem 3D. I remember how my brother brings CD Atomic Winter. What a game! It is winter and a new levels! It was interesting! Video quest X files, I like a lot. It goes as a video! It is very amazing investigation! Rainbow 6 by Tom Clancy. So, it is very serious game. So, it is like shooter and something more.

So, yes, it is connected lots of good memories with this system!

By system. So, I am without wire to connect cooler. And there is no wires to connect CD ROM. And everything else is restored. Case is complete. Strong metal. Every part is setup.

From time to time i like to play videogames. And write about it. Dima Link is making retro videogames, apps, a little of music, write stories, and some retro more.

WEBSITE: http://www.dimalink.tv-games.ru/home_eng.html ITCHIO: https://dimalink.itch.io/ GAMEJOLT: https://gamejolt.com/@DimaLink/games

BLOGGER: https://dimalinkeng.blogspot.com/

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8bitsupervillain · 3 months

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End of the Year 2023: Pre-2023 Good Games

Now we're talking, it's time for good games. As with previous years I decided on separate lists to talk about games that came out before 2023 and those that came out during the year itself. I agonized over this list. Hope you enjoy it

10: Diablo III

In the meh games list I mentioned that I'm not a fan of Diablo III. In fact for the longest time I was fairly cold on this game and really disliked it. There's something to Diablo III however, every few months since finishing the Reaper of Souls expansion way back in 2014 that kept the game popping up in my mind. You should play it again, it would say. Roll a new character, it's probably better than you remember. Then I would inevitably try it again, play a few hours and then just sort of peter off it. Perhaps it's simply because of the sheer ineptitude of Immortal, and my complete and utter lack of caring for Diablo 4 that made my most recent playing Diablo III feel so much more fun. I think enough time has passed that I can freely admit to enjoying this game for the most part. I just never go out of my way to play it, but it'll probably happen again that I'll be doing whatever and the urge to play it will occur

09: Doom 3

It's something of the black sheep of the Doom franchise, but I recall quite enjoying the games when I played them spur of the moment this year. A lot of people bemoan the fact that they just made Doom 3 a horror game, but I'm not so sure I agree with that assessment. Sure it has spooky lighting, and impenetrable darkness, but you're never really put into a less empowered state compared to the original Dooms. You're never starved for ammo, and except for the odd jumpscare there's never anything really scary that happens in the game. More so in the Resurrection of Evil expansion, where they give you the super shotgun. It's slower, and more methodical than the other Doom games, but I really don't feel it's any lesser as a result. It's truly unfortunate there's no way to really get the original versions of Doom 3 an Resurrection of Evil outside of looking in nefarious places, because I played the BFG Edition as well as the original Doom 3 and it made me feel physically ill. The originals are surprisingly forward thinking made games because it's wild to me a game from 2004 has support for a 1080p resolution.

08: Higanbana no Saku Yoru Ni (The Unforgiving Flowers Blossom in the Dead of Night)

A delightful horror themed visual novel that I freely admit I never would have ever heard of if not for Umineko. It's more of a straightforward horror tale than a Umineko because this is about the local ghosts and monsters that haunt a school. I haven't finished the second of the two games, but I did quite like the stories in The First Night. Well worth checking out if you want to see some of Ryukishi07's lesser known works.

07: The Witcher II

A lot more competently put together than the original Witcher. It's also much more action focused compared to the original. I kind of miss the different fighting stances that were in the first Witcher game, but I can understand that the series needs to undergo some streamlining as they become a more cross-platform series. It's a fine story as well, where it seems to be pulling from more contemporary fantasy stories of the time like your Game of Thrones with all of its fantasy political intrigue. But it also includes troll fart jokes, so it still remembers some of its origins as well. One of the only things I didn't really like in this game was the inclusion of the odd Quick Time Event. There's not a particular lot of them, but they just felt weirdly out of place.

06: Dragon Age II

I think it handled the transition from traditional CRPG to a more action focused one rather well honestly. It's not the deepest combat in the world, but I never really had any particular complaint with how it was implemented. I liked the time skips in the story as well, jumping to more important parts of Hawkes' life rather than meander and get bogged down in the weeds of showing their entire time in Kirkwall. A fine enough story, even though its attempts to make the final endgame events bigger than previous plot points just fall flat on its face. It was fun seeing the fantasy RPG equivalent to a Like a Dragon game.

05: Might and Magic X: Legacy

I don't know a thing about the Might and Magic series. I know one of the strategy spinoffs is regarded as the absolute pinnacle of the genre, but as far as the mainline ones go I know nothing. That being said however I did quite like the first person dungeon crawling and combat here in MMX. It's nothing groundbreaking, and I doubt it was anything particuarly special when it came out nearly a decade ago in 2014. I appreciate that the game is more than willing to let you screw up making your party and going in with a "suboptimal" team. Rather than hold your hand and tell you which classes to bring or how to level them. I wish Ubisoft would let some developers make another one of these because I enjoy these lower budget RPGs that aren't these massive open world fiascos. Also you could make bank by upsetting the crowd who cries about ruining beloved franchises by making new entries in older series. But really I just greatly enjoy this type of RPG, and I would love to see more of them. I don't know if it will save Ubisoft from their impending implosion, but I would love to see them take chances on this type of game again rather than see them put out another big open world game that takes a hundred hours to finish.

04: Bravely Default II

With series like the Bravely Default series I usually try to play the games in release order. I know developers go to great pains to make it so you can follow a narrative for a game without having played every single entry prior to it. Regardless I try to play the first entries first. Sometimes this is a double edged sword because who's got time to play the eight or so entries before you play Ys VIII? Other times you got two entries, Bravely Default and Bravely Second. But here's the thing, while I played Bravely D 1 way back on the 3DS I know I never actually finished it, and I never touched Bravely Second. But towards the end of December 2022 I decided what the hey, I'll play Bravely Default 2 and just try to figure it out from there. This game was an utter delight to play, something about the turn based combat, good story, and charming visuals just combined to make this game a real treat for me. Even when I was going out of my way to suck the fun out of the game by grinding up the job levels I was having a heck of a good time. While I enjoy the story that's not what kept bringing me back to the game. I kept coming back to it just for the sheer enjoyment of playing the actual game. A novel concept! Bravely Default II was just an immensely enjoyable game and I highly recommend it to those who enjoy turn-based RPGs.

03: Potato Flowers in Full Bloom

This is as late an entry as one could possibly get. I went into this completely blind and I came away absolutely stunned. This is a great turn-based dungeon crawler RPG that I cannot recommend highly enough. It's clearly done by people who have a great love for the DRPGs but it isn't so bogged down with the ideas of what a "hardcore" DRPG should be that it loses itself in the fine details. Rather than get super in depth with the challenge one would find in a Wizardry Potato Flowers just focuses on a superlative gameplay loop that is just extremely enjoyable to play.

02: Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

It seemed like a lock way back at the start of the year. Sure Bravely Default 2 was a sheer delight, but it couldn't match Deadfire. The combat, the look, the storyline, everthing was just such a marked improvement over the basic perfection I felt playing Pillars of Eternity 1.

01: Umineko: When the Seagulls Cry

But something came along in May that just swept the legs out from under it. There has not been an experience that has just taken up permanent residence in my head since finishing it. I went into Umineko knowing basically nothing, and by the time I finished it my mind just kept going over it again and again thinking about the characters, and the story, just replaying and rethinking events over and over again. Just a masterfully crafted narrative, and a killer soundtrack to boot.

01: Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

But the thing about games is that there's more to them than just the story, the gameplay also matters. The short of it is that Pillars of Eternity II quite handily beats Umineko on the gameplay front. Plus, I really don't want to downplay the story of PIllars II because it stands strongly in my memory as one of the most superbly written stories I have ever experienced in any RPG, much less games in general.

01: Umineko: When They Cry

But the story contained within the one hundred and twenty hours worth of Umineko is without hyperbole some of the best written I have had the pleasure to experience. Just some of the most astonishingly well-written character I have ever seen in any medium. Such dedication to the crafting of some of the most vile duplicitous bastards you have ever seen, it's staggering.

01: Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

The storyline in Deadfire takes the already major stakes from Pillars of Eternity I and manages to raise them even higher without making it seem like it's going to ridiculous lengths. The many characters you meet in this game are some of the strongest and best written I have seen in an extraordinarily long time. It's such a wonderful balancing act that you have such a range of characters who have their own plots and schemes that can affect the world but they all gel really well together. Even the overtly optimistic characters are played in a very realistic way where it doesn't come across as the game trying to pander with naive cheerful characters.

Umineko no Naku Koro Ni

I find it incredible that a series of such gargantuan length was able to maintain and hold my interest for the majority of its length. There were a couple of times early on where I felt my interest waning a bit, but everytime it was able to draw me back in and just revitalize my enjoyment. I am also immensely surprised at just how strongly it has remained lodged in my memory since finishing it. I feel reasonably confident if pressed I could give a summation of the entire VN just going off of memory and lose very little in the retelling.

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

As with the original Pillars the sequel does an amazing job integrating the DLC expansions quite seamlessly into the main narrative. There were times that I would embark on what I thought was a simple sidequest but was actualy a large add-on that was just as well crafted as the stuff in the main game. It was a very nice and greatly appreciated attention to detail.

02: Umineko no Naku Koro Ni

I adore this game, I will sing its praises even while carrying the small issues I have with the production. It is such a genuinely great piece of work that I worry that I might be overselling how good it is. But I genuinely feel that it is certainly worth all the praise the visual novel has accrued since its release.

01: Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

However, games are more than just their story. It comes down to gameplay as well as the story that determines what I think the best of the year (pre-2023) truly is. And that's Pillars of Eternity II. I went in to this game with very high expectations, and I was truly surprised at how masterfully the game had met every single one of them. Despite some minor character and story wobbles I adore everything Pillars II set out to do. I highly, highly recommend this game to anyone who has even a passing interest in CRPGs.

What do you think everyone?

But in my heart I know the award goes to Umineko.

#end of the year #game of the year #doom 3 #pillars of eternity #potato flowers in full bloom #might and magic #umineko #umineko no naku koro ni #umineko when they cry #higanbana no saku yoru ni #diablo 3 #bravely default 2 #bravely default ii #dragon age 2 #the witcher 2

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