Well, I don’t know for sure there’s a crossbow but where there’s crossbow arrows there’s probably a crossbow. 
Edit: I’m a bit confused, he called it a tranquilizer gun but it’s still a crossbow. >_>
Played Astrologaster on the weekend. I guess that one also resembles a visual novel, but verily, it is executed rather well 
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It’s based on the historical figure of Simon Forman, but with a made up plot. You’re playing as Simon and consult a cast of characters in medical and other affairs. Each session starts with a piece of medieval music delivered by a choir, with text that’s quite witty, if a bit unintelligible without subtitles. Then there’s some linear dialogue and finally a choice of which diagnosis or advice to give from a selection of 2 to 3. Sometimes it’s simple to make out the right choice based on the preceding dialogue or everyday knowledge, sometimes not so much.
So it’s the kind of game that would warrant at least a second playthrough to mend any grave mistakes, if it weren’t a bit long, that is. Unfortunately, it only has one auto-save-state, so there isn’t any going back after a bad choice, which, in truth, does make each choice a bit more meaningful. And the game is lenient enough to allow the occasional misjudgment, as characters will come back for half a dozen sessions on average, no matter what.
Overall a nice experience, with interesting (if a bit stereotypical) characters and especially fun where their story arcs overlap. Presentation was simple, yet elegant and the voice acting good for the most part. Some lines sounded like they had been recorded under different conditions (something I also noticed with Primordia), but nothing to fret overly much about. And the choir is really brilliant and does elevate the game by a notch or two. Verily!
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Okay, wtf just happened… I was attacked by what sounded like a mouse and acted like some weird hitscan hyperspeed bot. (Yet oddly enough this specific level plus these three bots were the closest HL has come to being an actually good shooter.)
Btw @Nor_Treblig this is the kind of thing I found before I found the bow. 
Then I got stuck here… and judging by this tutorial I looked up my game’s bugged or something? This doesn’t look like a compactor.
Edit: hm, common glitch. Time to look up level select console codes, apparently.
Okay, I found a workaround that actually works. NB Reloading an earlier save does not work, but this does:
FIXED THIS GLITCH!!! if you jump into the room the marines capture you in it wont take you to the dark room it will take you the RIGHT ROOM. the compactor room. Jump into the room to beat this glitch.
Edit: huh, the glitches just keep on coming, but at least this one doesn’t get me stuck.
Edit 2: unlike how a lot of the time you get stuck between level transitions. >_>
My first response at this new gun was to shoot it. (Because it looks like an enemy.)
That laser-triggered warehouse type stuff is when HL is at its best I’d say. Maybe they should make a game out of that… call it Laser Death Cake or something. (Not a lie. 
)
Edit:
Looked up a walkthrough, apparently the guard is indeed supposed to punch in the code but he won’t… darned game, lol.
Things commonly get stuck and then unstuck after a reload. Except when you yourself get stuck in the floor. (Mainly happens between invisible levels.)
Those are a ninja-type of enemy which are really deadly. You have to act quickly. Preferably a grenade to their face…
The only good thing: They aren’t very friendly to soldiers either.
Did you find this kind of ammunition before encountering the Ichthyosaur (the bow was in the falling cage):
Image
This is the weapon the alien grunts use.
In an expansion they have made a similar gun for another kind of alien which attacks you after killing the alien 
Hm, which HL version are you using?
There were five or six in the Lambda complex (or was that still on the way to). I basically just avoided the whole lot there in the end; taking them on seemed too deadly.
Yup, in crates in an ammo room shortly prior to that.
Grunts are those guys you first encounter in a some creepy testing facility, when you find out you’re Billie Eilish’s hit song while hypocritically muttering something about es nicht gewußt haben? (Or so you would if your tongue hadn’t been cut out, which is probably what turned you into an immoral gun/scientist for hire.)
The one from Steam for Linux.
] version
Protocol version 48
Exe version 1.1.2.2/Stdio (valve)
Exe build: 15:17:26 Jul 24 2019 (8308)
The whole game is about “being on the way to the Lambda complex”
I was wondering because you were complaining so much about bugs that maybe you were playing this abomination called HL:Source… (I didn’t recognise the models in your screenshots but they are probably just the HD ones).
Hm, I figured Xen is what everyone was so enthusiastic about. It was definitely a breath of fresh air and it had its moments. Hammering on one of those tons in the factory to see what was in it, lmfao that was an amazing jump scare, even if I was expecting it, and not in the typical cheap way.
My final verdict remains that it’s alright, but I don’t think I’ve been missing out. The highlights of the game were the opening sequence and the teleporter puzzle in the reactor, and possibly some of the Xen parts. The crowbar is touted as revolutionary as if Duke didn’t have a mighty foot and couldn’t push chairs and boxes around.
I’ll give it that the suit guy following you throughout the game was cute.
Disclaimer: I don’t really like shooters for the most part; my favorite ones are probably Quake 3, Urban Terror & Joint Operations. For single player I prefer pre-Half-Life/Call of Duty style shooters that are more about puzzling with the world. The Half-Life trend of shooters on rails is what’s wrong with shooters today. I just didn’t know it’s Half-Life that was to blame.
Half-Life without the bad parts is called Portal.
Many player got so far because they liked the gameplay. Xen was very different, which is refreshing, but there were people not liking this completely different style (gameplay wise and art).
How did you like the end boss? It took me some time back then realising that he was restoring himself which those crystals. Being teleported all the time didn’t help either. Eventually I figured it out.
Anyway the great thing about HL was its moddability. So many mods surfaced in quite a short period of time. And it was the first game which taught me what a game engine is and how it all works together.
Huh, that was pretty much immediately obvious to me. Well, not what they were doing specifically but they had “destroy these first” written all over them. At first I actually thought they were charging his portal shooter but either way.
Also holy @#$#@ shooting into his head was challenging af. I’m sure there must be a strategy to it that I either failed to determine or execute, the most obvious suspect being something involving that crouch/long jump.
What tripped me up was that giant crab thing, I think it said something like Gomorrah. For a while I thought I was just supposed to avoid it or trick it into opening up the passage, but I couldn’t make it work without the rocket launcher and the obvious target. Somehow it gave me Thief/Deus Ex/Hitman 2 vibes but it was just a traditional Doom boss.
Gonarch, the big testicle on legs, also known as Big Momma (internal name).
Speedrunners discovered that in the last part of the fight you don’t have to kill Big Momma but you just do enough damage to the floor to break through.
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Played Simon the Sorcerer 2 (The original, not the 25th Anniversary edition, in German). GOG has the talkie version, which is nice, although the voices sound a bit tinny. Guess audio compression back then wasn’t what it’s nowadays. Graphics OTOH were as good as expected.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the “plot” and the writing. The story is basically a one-liner (Simon is abducted in a magic wardrobe and needs to fetch the fuel required to return home from the castle’s treasure chamber). Two thirds of the game and plenty of convoluted puzzles are spent achieving that goal, then there’s a final complication and for good measure it all ends with a massive cliff-hanger. All of that could be excused (the puzzles are pretty fair after all), but then there’s the writing, or rather, the attitude expressed in the writing (and in some of the artwork as well). Let’s just say It’s one of those games that were clearly targeted at teenage boys, written by developers with the mindset of teenage boys. Because of that, the game does not only feel old, but also a bit backwards, actually.
Anyone else played the game (lately) and had the same impression? Or am I just being overly sensitive?
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Indeed. Simon 2 was one of the first games with full voiceover and the whole data had to fit on one CD. The DOTT voices sounded crappy too.
I played it back then and I hadn’t that impression. AFAIR the game was very funny. But I was young so maybe I wouldn’t say the same after replaying it.
Hint: Don’t play Simon the Sorcerer 3D
Ask me again in 2029. I have both games in my GOG library, next to many others.
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No, but I might be able to move them up the queue. You didn’t really make me want to though.
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I haven’t played StS2 in a long time. I did play the first one recently though and this one was still great.
It’s not that bad, but what it really needs is a speedhack. All that running around and backtracking gets old quickly.
Hm, the game uses the Unreal engine as far as I remember, so it wouldn’t be impossible to mod it…
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I really can’t remember anything about the story. 
And better graphics. Even back then they looked awful.
But you have to be careful: There was at least one “event” where you had to run to several checkpoints within a given timeframe. And the “bridge” could also be a problem.
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I read how awful Simon’s character was in a review back in the day and thought naaa… I’m sure they are overreacting. Few years later I played the gama and yep… So, I haven’t played it lately but I’m sure my opinion would be even more harsh now. I remember liking Simon 1 but I bet it didn’t age gracefully as well.
I don’t agree, I still like it. He might be right about StS2 though.
And I’m sure 25 years ago I would have laughed and thought no more of it. O the innocence of youth! 
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I replayed a bit of it a year or two ago and I didn’t get the same bad vibes. I don’t recall anything from the first time I played it, though.
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