I used to absolutely love Formula One. I'd sit there for hours watching the races, and bought loads of season reviews on DVD. The first three Microprose games were played to death on both my old Amiga and my old PCs.

However, the sport fell out of favour for me in the early 2010s, and I've never really bothered with it since.

When it comes to the games, this year is quite a big anniversary in two different ways. Grand Prix 3, which was the last one I played, is actually 25 years old now. In addition, and unbelievably, it was 20 years ago that I last actually played it, as 2005 contained my final single player and multiplayer seasons. There is evidence that my bro and I created some custom cars for another season in 2007, but we never got around to playing it.

With my current fascination with anniversaries, there was no way I was going to skip the chance to give this a good run out. However, as I had read that the game struggles to run on newer systems, I figured I needed to dust off one of my old clankers.

I initially installed this on Ashe16-XP back before playing Winter Assault, but whenever I booted the game and ran the graphics calibration it would crash. I figured it was a problem with the newer hardware in that machine, and assumed the main game would also keep crashing, so I removed it.

Then after playing Winter Assault I checked the PC Gaming Wiki and saw that crashing on calibration is a thing that happens on this game and nobody knows why. But there was no mention of this being a problem when playing the main game.

I shrugged and installed it again, this time bypassing the calibration and setting it up manually. As expected, the game ran fine, with no crashes. However, there was still a problem that annoyed me, and that was that the graphics were a bit messed up, with textures that would keep disappearing, and weird pink lines down the tyres.

Again I checked the net, and people say this is a problem when trying to get the game to run under newer operating systems. But I was using XP. So once again, I'm guessing it's not really newer software causing these issues, but newer hardware.

I clearly needed to use a much older machine. My first thought was to use Ferai, but as it's a widescreen laptop, and GP3's only resolutions are 4x3, the image would need to be stretched to fit the laptop screen.

Instead I plumped for Dark Star, to see if that computer could finally be useful again. When I thought back to it, I realised it would be good if I could get it working on this machine, as it was probably the last computer I played it on.

Because of all the hardware changes I made when I installed Win 98 a while back, this machine's Windows XP installation first had to be re-done, as it wouldn't even go into control panel or device manager without crashing.

It took a few efforts for the Windows setup to even recognise the hard drive. When it finally did, it copied the files over fine, but when configuring the install it blue screened, which I think was because it lost connection to the drive.

I unplugged it, plugged it back in, wiggled it, plugged it in to a different sata port, and generally cursed its existence, until eventually it found the drive again and setup could continue. I guess either the cable, port or drive is on the blink, but I didn't have the time or desire to troubleshoot.

Setting up XP went fine, except I found a possible reason why I had issues with the onboard sound in XP back in the day. When I went to install the sound driver from the bundled motherboard drivers they would not install. And when I tried to manually install from device manager, and pointed it to the correct folder, it said there were no drivers there. This was odd, as these exact drivers had installed fine under Win 98 last year, and all the other drivers had installed fine under both 98 and XP.

But thankfully, there were still XP specific drivers on the net that I downloaded and they worked fine.

As I was finishing up the XP install and preparing to make a new image, I realised that when GP3 came out in 2000, it would have been Win 98 that I would have played it on, not XP. And I wondered: why am I trying to get this game running under XP when I spent all that time setting up Win 98 on this very machine, and the Win 98 installation has been crying out for something to do?

So instead of using my clean new Win XP install, I rebooted into 98, installed the game, and loaded it up. And the graphics calibration crashed. Again.

After a bit of troubleshooting I found that the game would instantly shut down whenever it tried to use the GPU. It would run absolutely fine using the software renderer, at the game's massive top speed of 25fps, but try to use D3D and immediate crash.

This was a problem, as though I could play the game, I couldn't get automated screenshots from the software renderer, and when I tried to print screen and paste into Paint, I would get this:

I did not have high hopes for the new Win XP install to fare any better. After all, it was the same graphics card.

But when I installed the game under XP, everything worked fine, not even a crash under calibration, and perfectly happy to use hardware acceleration.

What. The. Hell?

Nevermind. It seemed to be working, so off I went into a few quick races on the easiest difficulty, just trying to get a feel for the game again.

For some reason, I went to Hungary first, and immediately went off and down to last. However, I came back to 6th by the end of the 4 lap race.

At Hockenheim, unsurprisingly, I managed a very easy win, miles in front of everyone else.

Then I installed a few of the extras, like GP3edit, and other customising bits of software, and added Scoob and I's last custom car set from back in 2005.

Then I went to another quick race in Monaco, but I got bunted up into the air trying to pass one of the Rush Hour cast, and my car got wrecked.

A day or two later, I booted up the machine ready to tinker some more, and left the computer just sat there for a few minutes while I sorted something else out.

When I came back to it, the computer had completely froze, and I had to hard reset. From this point, I couldn't get back into Windows unless I went into safe mode. It just kept blue screening and pissing its pants about the drivers getting caught in an infinite loop.
And not the car drivers on the track.

As I just could not be bothered to troubleshoot or re-install, I think this is all I'm going to be bothered with in regards to this game. I had a little urge to make a new car set and do another season, but I'm not thinking it's worth the hassle. Honestly, someone really needs to clone this like what has been done for some other older games.

Concerning poor old Dark Star, maybe it's time I admitted that it's well past being useful. I mean, I've thrown it back into the loft with a brand new install that won't even boot.

And I hate throwing out old computers when there's even the slightest chance I could use them again. But at this point, how much more mucking around am I going to do with this machine only to get nothing out of it?

As for the future of this sport, I did pick up a second hand Grand Prix 4 about a decade ago, though I've never actually played it.

If I remember right, when I looked into how to customise it, it seemed far more complex than GP3, so I never really had the motivation. But trying to get that game working might be the way to go if I ever want a taste of F1 again.

It's been a long time since I last played Dawn Of War. In fact, I believe it was all the way back in 2017, as the screenshot on the right has been sitting on my computer waiting all this time for its chance to be added to this site.

In that game, Scoob and I played a 2v3v3 using our Space Marine chapters against a bunch of enemy AI opponents which seemingly included Necrons and Dark Eldar. We often used to try crazy games like that.

There was however something I had never done in this game, and that was to complete Winter Assault.

This little expansion is 20 years old now, so is way overdue for a completion. It just didn't seem right that it was the only part of the original Dawn Of War saga that I hadn't fully worked through.

I only played the campaign a little bit back in the day before losing interest. I quickly learned that my reason for not returning to it had been very poorly remembered.

See, I'm really not a fan of using the Guard in this series, and all this time I thought that the entire campaign saw you in control of them. On first boot, not only did I see that there were two campaigns, but each campaign also saw you control two different armies. In one campaign, you flip back and forth between the Guard and the Eldar, while in the other you control Chaos and the Orks.
Just how crap is my memory?

The Windows XP side of Ashe16 was called into action once again, and luckily, there were still patches available on the web that updated the game and removed the cd check.

I did however play on a farty little keyboard, which wasn't comfortable, and I kept pressing the wrong keys. It also didn't have an enter key, so I couldn't press alt+enter to go full screen. I really should have dragged my ass into the loft and recovered a different one, but whatever.

So, onto the game, and all went pretty well for the most part. At just five missions for each campaign, it wasn't exactly the longest game to play.

It was funny at one point, when an Eldar comes up to the Farseer and tells her she looks unwell. But all the Eldar are wearing full helmets, so how would they know what the Farseer looked like?
Taldeer also said that the Necrons are responsible for the destruction of many craftworlds. But the Eldar took to craftworlds long after the Necrons originally went dormant.

Something pretty annoying happened at times, when the game forces you to switch teams while playing through certain missions. Forced switching like this would always wipe my unit groupings, and proper did my head in.

Mission 4 was when things got interesting, as the game gives you freedom to switch between your two armies at will. But each army has its own objectives, and whichever force you complete your objectives with will win that mission. You then control the winner during a final mission.

I intended to play through mission 4 with the Guard, but I couldn't keep up with the Ultramarines convoy which kept pressing forward even though I kept telling them to come back. I just needed a bit more time to get my base up and running and an army built.

Even though I tried to help them with what I'd got, and kept repairing the Land Raider with my builders, they got wiped out by the defending Chaos forces. Stupid Smurfs.

I thought this would lead to a game over, but instead it switched me to the Eldar side, with the Imperials essentially losing the campaign. I shrugged, and continued, much happier to be using them than the Guard. This opened up the Eldar's final mission, where I used the Titan weapons to defeat the Necrons to get my first campaign victory.

Though I originally planned to complete just the Guard/Eldar campaign before moving on, as it was so short I thought there was no harm in experiencing the other campaign as well.

This other set of missions brought up some other weird lore shenanigans, like the forces of Khorne using Sorcerers and traitor Psykers, which I don't think would ever happen.

In mission 4, I had to make a decision about whether I wanted the Orks to win, or Chaos. I plumped for Chaos, so that I could catch up to the Ultramarines and wipe the idiots out. Felt good, and also lore accurate after what had happened to me in the other campaign.

There was also a really weird recurring plot point about sacrificing humans to blood thrones. I get that followers of Khorne would do this, but their purpose for doing this was to somehow power the fallen Titan? What was even wackier is that it worked?!?!
And then at the end of the game the Chaos Lord wants to use the Titan to conquer other worlds, but the Titan is still lying prone and half buried in the ground. How does he plan to raise it back to its feet?

It also sucked having to use the Sorcerer/Psyker to repeatedly raid Guard bases to mind control Guardsmen and lead them to their doom. By far the biggest drag of the things I had to do during this gameplay.

But it's all done now, and has left me with a bit of a hankering for some good ol' skirmish madness. If only I could remember what I was doing in the Soulstorm mod I started years ago...

The 2019 game, Erica, jumped the queue and became the next game for me to tackle, after I bought it on sale a couple of weeks back. Not sure why I have played it so soon, but I guess I was just curious, as I don't really play FMV games or "choose your own adventure" games all that often.

In this game, we follow a person named Erica, who becomes involved in a murder investigation after someone sends her a dead man's hand in the mail.

As the story unfolds, we learn that her father, who was murdered when Erica was younger, seemingly had ties to a weird cult who were experimenting on young girls in an attempt to see the future.

How everything concludes is all down to us and the choices we make during the story.

I find it difficult to call this a game. This is true for other "games" like walking simulators, as you don't really "play", you just walk forward. Though, at least in those, you do technically control the main character, and tell them where to walk, what to look at and such.

In games like this, and other similar ones such as the Telltale games, you just have to sit back and experience the story. There's literally no gameplay here at all. Well, other than spinning the mouse on the screen to unlock a door, or swiping up or down to look at a piece of paper, for example.

Being essentially a multipath adventure game, there are multiple endings, with multiple different outcomes for the different characters.

I read that to get all of the achievements here, you have to play it at least 6 times, and that's if you're being the most efficient. Thankfully, I'm not one of those weirdos who actually care about achievements. Truthfully, I think that achievements have been detrimental to games as an entertainment media, as they create an almost work-like atmosphere in many cases. Gotta grind this game until all your work is done, kids!

I am someone who plays games purely for fun. Unfortunately, there wasn't really enough fun here to warrant even a second playthrough, let alone a sixth. This is simply because this is not a game. It is purely an interactive movie where we can occasionally choose what the main character does from a small number of possibilities.

Also, even though I only went through it once, I was very happy with the ending I got, so why would I want it to be different anyway?

I've been on a bit of a walk down memory lane with old Final Fantasies these last few years, and that journey has continued with another playthrough of Final Fantasy 9.

My one and only run of this game was using Scoob's original PS1 version all the way back in 2002, and it took me so long to start enjoying the game that I needed over a year to get through it.

It took me until 2013 to actually buy my own copy, which was the PSOne Classic version that I downloaded onto my PS3. However, though I bought and played FF6 at the same time, this game continued to be ignored. I guess my subconscious was reminding me that I didn't really like it that much when I first played it.

Then in 2019 I made the decision that I should play it again, and I started looking at my options. Simply put, I really didn't want to use my PS3 again, and strongly favoured the idea of emulating it so that I could get screenshots. Scoob kindly gave me a loan of his original game again so I could make this happen. However, thinking I should play it didn't necessarily mean I really wanted to play it. And so once again the game went ignored.

It's highly likely I would never have played it again, but several things have aligned to finally make it happen.

First, as stated earlier, I've been on a bit of a Final Fantasy road trip the last few years. This has been driven by the FF7 Remake games, but also because I've been watching streamers and Youtubers play through some of the classics for their first times.

In addition, all of these 25 year anniversaries have been ticking over. And if there's something that gets me motivated these days, it's anniversaries.

The first challenge in getting this back to my monitors was the decision of which emulator to use. The initial PS1 emulation I tried was with RetroArch, which was pretty crappy when compared with something like PCSX2. Late in 2019, I successfully got Dead Or Alive working in ePSXe, after RetroArch totally failed. It seemed logical to try that again, but when I looked into it, that emulator doesn't seem to be developed any more.

Instead, most people recommend DuckStation, so I went with that. I know this is only after one game, but so far, this emulator is sweet.

Not a single problem has troubled me. I was able to crank up the resolution and speed up the gameplay with no issues. There's even a nice little enhancement called PGXP, which looks to correct errors with the way the PS1 displayed 3D models to the screen. It works at trying to correct the jitteriness, and how the textures are applied, and works really quite well, especially on faces. When I played FF8 last year it could have done with something similar.

So with the game all set up I entered into my first PS1 gameplay for over 6 years, which has led to my first PS1 game completion since Final Fantasy 6 back in 2014.

Unfortunately, much like how I felt about the game back in 2002, I really haven't enjoyed this slog of an experience. The problem here is primarily the combat. It's just so sluggish and unresponsive. Because the ATB bar continues to fill while characters are acting, and it takes so long for animations to trigger, and then so long for many animations to play out, that my team spent most of their time waiting to use their queued actions.

Even other unrelated things, like saving, required the need to watch slow animations of Moogles opening books, or running up to you from off screen, before you could actually do what you wanted to do.

And heaven forbid if you want to change your party members. There's no freely swapping them out on the world map like in other Final Fantasy games of the era.

The entire game was like this. Seemingly just designed to waste your time.

Sluggishness was not the only thing wrong with the combat. Buffs were also pretty much useless. In other Final Fantasy games I've played, if you cast something like shell, or regen, or haste, then these things last a good while and are a good investment. In this game, they run out very quickly, and because of the slow combat, can run out after just one or two turns. This makes any buffs like this completely useless, especially as they are all quite high in MP cost.

And there were yet more problems, like potions only working fully during combat and not in the field. And tents not fully recovering all of your health and MP when you use one, so you have to use multiple and watch yet more slow animations. Everything was time consuming it seems.

A lot of "chaff" enemies in this game are also a bit harder than they are in the other games I've played. Luckily, I read about a bit of a shortcut to get a few levels fairly early in the game, which really helped out. This involved using one of Quina's abilities, and a whole load of emulator save-scumming, to take out some dragons that were way too high level for me. After a bunch of attempts to get just two kills, most of my team went up from around level 13 into the early 20s.

Steiner and Dagger were missing during the dragon level up scam, but then when we got Dagger back, Steiner remained missing for a huge chunk of disk 2. When we finally got him back again he was still level 13. Even Dagger at this point was lvl 27, and had pretty much caught up to the other characters who were all 28-30. It was a very strange choice for the writers to keep him out of the story for so long.

Speaking of the story, this is another area of the game that's not exactly what I'd call stellar.

While I have no problem with most of the characters in this game, and indeed consider the cast far superior to the boring FF8 group, or the irritating as hell FF13 group, they are unfortunately made to suffer this monotonous plot just as much as I was.

It makes so much sense that I couldn't remember huge chunks of the game, even though I saw Preach play a lot of it about three years ago. Not only is it a story that's easy to forget, but a lot of the better stuff doesn't actually start happening until disc 3, with the first two discs being very dull indeed. It's like they crammed all of their ideas into this part of the game.

According to DuckStation, this is how long I spent playing each disc:

1. 13 hours
2. 12 hours
3. 21 hours
4. 5 hours

Yes, there was an hour or two of grinding abilities on disc 3, but even accounting for that, you can see how much more stuff happens on that disc compared to the others.

There were a few other minor things that bothered me about the game.

One was how late we get the airship, which was ridiculous and really hampered movement and exploration throughout the majority of the play time.

Also, I always remembered Beatrix quite fondly. But playing through this, I see that she spends 90% of her time acting like a bitch. Even at the end, when she's "on our side" she's still treating the Knights Of Pluto with great disrespect.

I also really don't like that Vivi never found out that Zidane survived, and that Zidane never gets the chance to wonder or talk about what happened to Vivi. This all adds to the very bittersweet ending.

And finally, one of the most disappointing things for me about this game was the music. I can still easily remember loads of music from other Final Fantasy games I've played, even songs from FF6. But this game's music does not come into my head at all, and I've only just played it. If I try thinking about the battle theme for instance, I just keep getting Don't Be Afraid from FF8.

The soundtrack also seems quite lazy, with the same two themes being present in slightly different forms all the way through the game, with even the main menu music being present in two different towns. Sheesh.

Well, at least it didn't take me a year to play through it this time. There is that.