Sure, two words, but who’s counting?
I’ve been a little obsessed with ‘old school’ things of late. Be it video games or music, the past has caught up to me and is forcing me to have fun with it.
That sounds kinda dirty, but I’ll go with it.
In fact, the simple text app that I’m using to write this post sounds like a typewriter, and looks like a console(green and black and everything).
So how did this happen and why now?
The how I think started some time ago, probably a couple of years ago. Steam had a sale on all things X-Com, I think it was all the games for like $5 or something silly, and I fell for it.
To remind you, X-Com could be played comfortably on a 386. And that’s what Doug and I did. Sure, we also ‘hacked’ it to give us a lot of funds, but that’s what happens when nerds discover hex editing and video games at roughly the same time.
So I played X-Com a lot when I bought it recently, and tried my best not to hack it. I kinda failed. It’s just too much resource management that I mostly suck at.
For whatever reason, that led to Sydicate. The best part of playing these games is realising that you can just leave them running and nothing bad happens. Since I’m running this on a virtual console(DOSBox), I can just jack up the speed, and come back and years have past, therefore giving me a lot of funds the ‘legal’ way.
It was something that the original programmers probably didn’t take into account, but at the time, multi-tasking really wasn’t there.
Just recently, when Tara was away, I started playing Crusader: No Remorse. Game of the year in 1995 😉
And you know what, all these game still kick ass. And I don’t think it’s just nostalga talking.
It had decent graphics, most of the environment was explodable, and the music was awesome ‘tracker’ techno that was just kinda cool in those days.
However, to my dismay, it didn’t have an auto-save feature, something I’ve come to expect in games. And it seems to be most evident at the worst times 🙁
I think these games held up because, unlike today, the original developers couldn’t rely on just the pretty graphics to suck you in. They had to have this game play element that I think is lacking in a lot of recent games. Not all, just most. And adding to that, I think it’s the rise of the FPS that’s made this most clear. Sure, still fun to play, but nothing that really blows me away.
The exceptions of course are the ones that realise that a good back story is still nice to have.
Anyway, I’m drifting here.
So what have I been playing you ask?
Curse of the Azure Bonds(I have to slow this one down a little)
FlashBack
X-Com
Crusader: No Remorse
BloodBowl
Prince of Persia(mind you it appears I suck at this)
Wanted to play Pool of Radiance, but it seems I’m missing a disk or something silly.
and Out of This World.
All in all, good times really.
Not that I have a ton of time to play these days, but most of them I can save frequently(just not automatically)

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Filed under: Uncategorized - @ May 4, 2011 5:07 pm