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Yep. I know a lot people started playing and learning chess with Battle Chess.
They just wanted to see the peaces ripping each other appart.

Even without knowing how to play they learned by try.

Later it came Battle Chess 3000 and then Star Wars Battle Chess or something like this.

Today there is Chessmaster 10 which has a kid module that teachs a kid how to play with full 3D animations.

And there is Majestic Chess. That was created by the original author of Chessmaster and has a really interesting adventure game to teach how to play chess. Really interesting even for advanced players. here is a Review.

Yes, I've bitched myself about controls that work only because you already know them, and because you know a lot of other stuff already.

But just for fairness sake, I must say exceptions do exist.

"Give your wife/girlfriend the choice to use a GB/GBA/NES or a Dualshock 2/Xbox/GC controller and she will go with the one that is less intimidating every time unless she is a gamer too."

I actually one-upped that experiment by getting my grandma once to try Sierra's Emperor: Rise Of The Middle Kingdom. We're old woman which not only isn't a gamer, but is completely computer-illiterate. She doesn't own a computer, and never used one for anything.

You know what? She was actually doing a lot better than I expected. She did get confused between left and right mouse buttons, mostly because she didn't even hold the thing right. (Ok, Apple users can feel vindicated.) But we're talking someone who had never held a mouse before, so I'd say it's excusable. But still, she soon was placing farms and building roads like a pro. Well, better than I expected anyway.

Getting old mom to play Tropico was also a painless exercise. One go through the tutorial and... well, let's put it like this: according to dad, he hasn't seen warm food in the next two months ;)

On the other hand, trying to get her hooked on a MMO just proved your point about too complex controls. Between moving in 3D, having to wrestle the camera, and use a bunch of different attacks and buffs, it was painful even for me to look at.

The Sims, on the other hand, was also no problem, although she didn't like the game anyway.

Consoles, on the other hand, I find to be less of a problem, actually. A modern controller might be "intimidating", but there are enough games where you don't have to use all 12 buttons. At any rate, I haven't had any problems getting both my parents hooked on Mario 64, at a time where neither had any experience with gamepads.

(Tangent: I wish someone made game designers try their usability just that way. Forget demographic studies on 16 year old hard-core gamers. Get an 80 year old grandma who's never played before, and see if you can teach _her_ your clever controls.)

So basically I'm guessing that it's simply a case of which games you've tried, rather than all new games being crap, and all old games being gold. Some games have good controls, some games have bad controls, and yes, a lot of them have controls that work only if you've spent the last 20 years getting used to them. Admittedly, the first category is also the smallest, but they do exist.

As for having a heart, soul and vision, that's IMHO a completely different topic. A game can have a great interface and still be a clone, or a game can be original and have a vision and still have a pure nightmare interface. But I've already ranted too much, so I'll skip that discussion.

Don't know why it's in the developers section... Here's my list, don't know why TFA didn't list these, so I came up with 10 for you guys.

steampowered.com
Wikipedia.org/CounterStrike
CSS Fraggers Forum
Filefront?
GameFaqs (never link directly to a faq, kids)
CSBanana
Counter-Strike.net
Planet Half-Life
Sierra: Half-Life
CS Nation - The future of CSS

There are several titles I was looking forward to purchasing this year that I won't be buying now that I know they have Massive's ad technology in them. I was about to buy SWAT 4 when the first patch was released, and among the features in the patch changelist was this little gem:

• Added Massive Streaming Ad Support

My knee-jerk reaction was that once I've paid the $50 for a game, that's it. I've already made my contribution to the publisher's revenue stream. I am not a recurring revenue resource, and I resent being treated as one. I decided based solely on the inclusion of Massive streaming ad support not to purchase SWAT 4, even though SWAT 3 is one of my all-time favorite games.

On the other hand, Massive's front page has screenshots from the latest Splinter Cell, which I've played without really noticing the ads at all. In fact, things like the faces of soda machines make great places to put advertising in such a way that the game feels more immersive, not less. If Massive puts their ads in places that make sense contextually, like on television sets in-game, then I guess I won't have any real problem with it as long as I can destroy the TV.

The idea that they can track impressions is certainly something else entirely. I wonder if anyone has started a Massive Blacklist yet for the hosts file? It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to do. Just fire up a network sniffer, start up your Massive-infected game in singleplayer, and walk by a couple of in-game billboards. Exit the game, and see what outbound connections you made during the play session.

Look at her fat-ass face! Does she want games that resemble her, where the heroine is a fluctuant mass of fat which just manages to displace her entity?

Alright, I'll stop. You have to admit they are a bit hypocritical, these women, I would bet they would pretty much shut up would all video game heros be masses of muscles in lycra pants. Then all the sexually insecure teenagers worldwide would shout "gaaay!" You just can't win, can you?

Out of thousands of games that have been reviewed, only 18 have received the AO rating--including such titles as Water Closet: The Forbidden Chamber and Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude Uncut and Uncensored.

Then I realized it was just another mindless henai game. Blech. I guess I should have expected as much.

If only 18 games have been rated AO, that must mean that the vast majority of the hentai games made are never submitted. Which makes sense.

Ultimately, I think the AO designation isn't so scary in that sex is going to corrupt my children more than games where you can kill cops, it's that the game is likely to just be just plain bad, with `have sex!' being the attaction, and actual gameplay being an afterthought. (Though LSL:MCL isn't a great game, it's somewhat entertaining. Which is unusual for it's rating.)

Oh, now I get it. The latest Leisure Suit Larry must have two versions -- the standard `M' rated version, and the `Uncut and Uncensored' version, which is rated `AO' and probably removes the [censored] marks from the `M' version. Not sure why seeing Larry's schlong makes it adults only, but that's the ratings for you. [I must have seen the `M' version, though I've heard there's a patch for that ...]

I recall pulling out Virtual Valerie 2 at parties for shock value, but back then it was novel. Now it's just boring.

As for `Hot coffee', it actually fits into the GTA game. Yes, it's really poorly simulated sex (I've seen the movie of it) but it does make sense that the hero of the game might have a girlfriend, and might get to have sex with her. (It would make more sense if he at least pulled his pants down, however.)

It's pretty sad that this `easter egg' (one that can't even be accessed without jumping through some serious hoops) has upset all these people so much, so much more than things like getting points for beating a hooker and taking your money back after paying her ...

The uncensored version was AO.

http://www.sierra.com/product.do?gamePlatformId=41 5

The Sims is a fantastic series for a number of reasons, most notably its unique gameplay and the resulting cross-gender appeal that has led to sales of over 50 million units. Given this success, I'm surprised to see that few studios have attempted to go up against it and create an even better "society simulator." When Doom came out, it brought forth literally hundreds of followers. Some were clones, but many advanced the genre; there's no question that today's most popular first-person shooters came about by standing on the shoulders of its predecessors.

Maxis created a new genre in The Sims, but at this time, only two "followers" come to mind -- Singles and Playboy Mansion. Given the vast amounts of money The Sims series has made, why aren't more companies trying to one-up them? Is there an inclination towards pushing (say) the first-person shooter genre because most game developers are first-person shooter fans?

I'm a fan of The Sims. And I want to know who will beat Will Wright at his own game by making an even better game in the genre he created.
____________________________________________
Inago Rage for people who like to create things

"The Source Engine once again takes the title and rightfully so as the most popular FPS multiplayer game Counter Strike was developed by Valve."

They released them both. Unfortunately, though, Tribes 2 (second link there) only had a limited number of keys available for downloading it. It appears that they may add more keys later on, but for now you can definitely get the first one no problem. That might be for the best, considering that the hardware being used might not be the latest and greatest, Tribes 1 is probably going to be able to run on a wider range of hardware than the sequel.

1. "Are you insulting my monkey?!" --a moroccan civilians line"
   
2. "Do not be apprehensive about this apprehension!" --the HARM guards in Morroco
   
3. Cate: "Spare yourself the suffering and you might walk out of here with clean underpants."
   Harm Guard: "Too late for that!"
   
4. Cate: Who is your favorite historical character?
   Baron Dumas: Hmm...I would have to say....er....Beowulf.
   Cate: Ah... I was thinking of historical rather than fictional individuals.
   Baron Dumas: Beowulf is a historal character.
   Cate: You mean the Beowulf who slew Grendel and is mother?
   Baron Dumas: Ah, yes: thats the one.
   Cate: He's a FICTIONAL character.
   Baron Dumas: YES, I know that, but there was also an HISTORICAL one.
   Cate: The Beowulf who fought the dragon?
   Baron Dumas: Indeed.
   Cate: But there AREN'T any dragons. Unless you count the dinosaurs of course, but there weren't any of those wondering around during the time that Beowulf WOULD have lived, had he been a REAL person instead of a fictional one.
   Baron Dumas: Are you quite sure?
   Cate: Yes.
   Baron Dumas: I see...
   
5. Funny scenes with the HARM's director keeps getting nagged by his mother thru the entire NOLF2 game.
   
6. "Bend over and kiss yer potatahs goodbye!" --combat taunts
   
7. Two words: Human cubes
   
8. Many more funny scenes in this thread.
   
   Thanks to NOLF Girl for a lot of these. ;)

1. "Are you insulting my monkey?!" --a moroccan civilians line"
   
2. "Do not be apprehensive about this apprehension!" --the HARM guards in Morroco
   
3. Cate: "Spare yourself the suffering and you might walk out of here with clean underpants."
   Harm Guard: "Too late for that!"
   
4. Cate: Who is your favorite historical character?
   Baron Dumas: Hmm...I would have to say....er....Beowulf.
   Cate: Ah... I was thinking of historical rather than fictional individuals.
   Baron Dumas: Beowulf is a historal character.
   Cate: You mean the Beowulf who slew Grendel and is mother?
   Baron Dumas: Ah, yes: thats the one.
   Cate: He's a FICTIONAL character.
   Baron Dumas: YES, I know that, but there was also an HISTORICAL one.
   Cate: The Beowulf who fought the dragon?
   Baron Dumas: Indeed.
   Cate: But there AREN'T any dragons. Unless you count the dinosaurs of course, but there weren't any of those wondering around during the time that Beowulf WOULD have lived, had he been a REAL person instead of a fictional one.
   Baron Dumas: Are you quite sure?
   Cate: Yes.
   Baron Dumas: I see...
   

Dug out one for myself and decided to get the other and post them here for everyone else:

WMV
MOV

Dug out one for myself and decided to get the other and post them here for everyone else:

WMV
MOV

why do people always use Duke Nukem Forever as the example and always forget abotu Team Fortress II? I had a PC Gamer from at least 5 years ago with in game screen shots of TF II saying an entirely new engine was complete and that it would be game of the year easily. Which year, they didnt say. It even won a few awards in E3 a while ago. Then, all of a sudden, it dissappeared.

http://teamfortress2.sierra.com/

Anyone know where it went?

Will this work with the new leisure suit larrygame?

All the discussion about gummy bears and digging out eye-balls makes me laugh. Most secure installations I've been around have a guard standing next to the biometric device to prevent any manipulation of the device in an unusual way. I think the only time I've seen unattended biometrics has been at Black Mesa, and we all know where that went!

>I remember speaking to some friends about this at the time; the consensus was that Valve had just compltely undermined ID, that ID were going to be a laughing stock and that Doom 3 wouldn't be looking so special by the time of its release.

You need to get some wiser friends

Those of us not wet behind the ears know that you judge a project *when it ships*, not at the E3 demo. We're still waiting to play Valve's TF2 - Voted "Best Action Game" & "Best Mutliplayer Game" 1999 !

> the mystic lands of "when it's done"

A week on Monday. Where's HL2 ?

All this has *nothing* to do with the Expansion Pack MMORPG issues.

I was a long time EQ subscriber and DAOC subscriber. I've seen expansion pack after expansion pack come along. It's $40 for hours and hours of content (if it's any good :)

I've had more expensive drinks!

IIRC TFC was a remake of a mod done for an earlier version of quake, but TF2 is a game on its own. It'll be done on the Valve Source engine, whenever that's released (a whole different discussion altogether). That makes sense, because they're Valve games...

Finally, we have a sequal to Contract Jack!

When I first began writing shareware games for Palm OS, I created a number of small puzzle games, among other things, and found that it was pretty difficult to come up with an interesting concept every week or so. So, I can't begrudge BestGameEver if some of their new games build on their previous efforts. Besides, sometimes the most enjoyable games come about as refinements of previous (and possibly less-commercially-successful) ones.

But along those lines, Ludum Dare hosts 24- and 48-hour competitions to investigate innovative gameplay; folks who are interested in BGE's offerings for that reason might like to check them out.

Well, I use my PC as a game box with some browsing only (with SSH if I need to access one of the unixish machines) so here's my stuff:

10 : Spybot Search & Destroy (Excellent spyware killer)
9 : Spyware Blaster (Recommended by Spybot author to run concurrently)
8 : Some form of browser.
7 : PuTTY (SSH client w/ tunnelling)
6 : Thief (awesome game)
5 : Thief 2 (more Thief!)
4 : Darkloader (allows one to run custom fan missions in the Thief games)
3 : System Shock 2 (creepy sci-fi rp/fps)
2 : For those days I feel like a slug-fest? Doomsday and the ol' Doom games. (adds real 3D and all the video card eye candy to Doom/Heretic/etc. A MUST HAVE!)
1 : Half Life You know it! (still has one of the best stories of any game around)

1. If you're willing to pay for those oldies, then just let the owners of the rights know. A number of them have already made their old games available again because of such reactions, either at a small charge or even completely free. This is for instance the case with the various versions of the excellent space sim Elite or the various Cinemaware games such as Defender of the Crown.

2. Leisure Suit Larry was was created and published by Sierra, which obviously still exists. They are even quite fond of releasing old games at low prices or entirely free (the excellent Betrayal at Krondor, for instance).

Leisure Suit Larry, actually.

The link is to the newest one, Magna Cum laude.
The series has been around quite a while...Since 1991, actually. Okay, so maybe that's not a really long time...

Wait, the one I linked to is a VGA (? I'd call it 'graphical' myself...) remake of the original, text based game...so it's been around even longer.

Pangea Software have a lot of fun games for kids. Take a look at Enigmo , it's a great puzzle game.

There is also The Incredible Machine but it may only works on OS 9.

If you want something a little more "arcade", you can find on GarageGames Marble Blast .

And FroGames will soon release a fun racing game : MiniOne Racing . (ad)

FWIW, Sierra does have a Leisure Suit Larry sequel coming out this year.

Link HERE. Screenshots and everything.

Perhaps offtopic, but people are complaining about humor-oriented games being MIA. And damn, I miss the Space Quest series.

I can tell you where you can get half life ...

Coming soon (heh heh) Leisure Suit Larry(TM) Magna Cum Laude

If you go to the downloads section, there's a trailer.

Malice was one of the titles used to show of the power of the XBox before it was released . If you paid attention to the XBox hype, chances are you saw some Malic screenshots.
It was widely expected to be a release title in fact. But here 3+ years latter, no release date ia availibe, the Official webpage no longer exists, and we've heard nothing from Argonaut Games in the last year or so.

but were the hell is Team Fortress 2?!

Leisure Suit Larry for the 21st century

No, actually, it wouldn't be LSL for the 21st century, because they're already making one.

I still say Team Fortress 2.

Remember how cool it looked when the first videos surfaced.. it even won "TF (TM) 2 Wins E3.Net Awards " in 1999.

Screw that, I am waiting for Team Fortress 2.

The delay of the highly anticipated Half-Life 2 due to a code-leak. Anyone have a release date?

bani? The same bani thats trying to turn Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory back into Return to Castle Wolfenstein?

Wow, for such an influential guy you're kinda an idiot.

Gabe Newell = Valve = Half-Life
Nerve = Nerve = Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Man, the just plain wrongness is staggering. Wait until I tell your boys at PlanetWolfenstein. Next thing you know you'll be claiming Splash Damage made Unreal Tournament. You think whoever let you in on the ET source would like to hear about you spreading this kind of slanderous false information about Nerve and Activision?

+1 Inaccurate is more like it.

One of the few 3d interfaces I love to use is the Homeworld / Homeworld2 interface for rotating and zooming in space.

The build & research manager in Homeworld is 2d though.

For most types of data representations the 2d tree interface is ideal. Maybe we are far too used to it; we don't now really see what we can do with a 3d interface that we can't do just as efficiently as in 2d. Even in a lot of movies 3d is just an enhanced use of 2d displays.

What we do most is deal with text. Text is very typically a 2d thing because its on paper or a representation of paper (slashdot textarea box). Text in 3d space... doesnt make sense. We'd have to learn a language of 3d space to understand references. Once we learn such a language it might be extremely efficient though, I guess time will tell.

Let's hope they don't wind up the way Sierra did (Once a company with quality releases, now a crappy-publisher-house).

What happened to them AFAIK was pretty much the same. - Key developers (Al Lowe, Roberta Williams, etc.) from Sierra left the company (or put on crappy games).

The death of Sierra as a game-developer pretty much meant the end of adventure games as a mainstream-genre... It's hard to think of the same happening to the RTS (Real Time Strategy) genre, but then again if someone told me X years ago, that the adventuregames genre would be dead now, I would have laughed.

That the source is kinda dodgy?

It sure smells funny :) Anyway, the release date is said to be September 30th, but, frankly, information is really sparse if that date is realistic. I mean, there aren't even system requirements mentioned at Sierras website, nor a picture of the box...

If there was a poll about whether this article is fake or not, I'd vote "fake".

DecafJedi

has a record of creating late (and morover vaporware) products, everything from PressPlay, to Steam to Team Fortress 2 (whos last news update was January of 2001). I pray they don't delay this game too, seeing as how im getting a new computer mostly for HL2 :-\

i love the nolf games, and with the source code for nolf2 available, i would love to see someone port it to linux...

What were their reasons? I also wonder why twenty of the lead developers working on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault left an Electronic Arts funded studio to found Infinity Ward. Is it really the money, or is it something else? I have no knowledge in this field, so if anyone has any inside information or pertinent experience, please post, I'd love to hear it.

As far as the reallocation of talent goes, I had high hopes for Troika's Arcanum, seeing as how Troika consisted of several key members of the fantastic team which produced Fallout, but wound up disappointed at its lack of polish, whereas Inifinity Ward's soon-to-be-released Call of Duty looks by all means to be incredible even in its juvenile state. Maybe high-level-folk like doing things their way, for better or worse, without the interjections of a publisher seeking marketability. Once again, I'm only hypothesizing. Are there any game-developers out there willing to testify?

Cate Archer from No One Lifes Forever (especially 2) was the hottest digital character I have ever seen. NOLF2 site at Sierra This chick is awesome!

I love the shots of her in her cute little snow suit, the one with the fuzzy stuff around her wrists. And what about those sweet gloves?

Cate is a hottie, and I wish there was more of her. Too bad the game is an FPS- even though I hate third-person perspectives, this is one game where it would work. Or, maybe they could have had a lot of mirrors in the game.

What about a Cate Archer dance party? That would be good...

This is sick- but I really do dig her. I was obsessed with her, the same way this guy ( Scary Dude ) is obsessed with Peter Pan. (No, I didn't dress up) Okay, on second thought, I don't want to be associated with that guy- he scares me.

They *should* make a Cate Archer movie though...mmm...mmmmmm

(just so you know, I have a fiance (a real woman) and we have sex regularly)

It's interesting to see the changing styles of game companies as they begin to view their community as a resource for continuing the viability of their games. Can you imagine a company creating a computer language and then making themselves the only source of applications written in this language? Possible, but pretty foolish in this day and age.

Valve Software started it early on with Half-Life, creating and releasing editing tools, an SDK, and more importantly a real community for the development of mods and conversions to their game Half-Life. Valve's been by far the most successfull company at leveraging this to their advantage. I dare say they would not be the same company at all if it were not for the popularity of Half-Life mods such as Counter Strike, Team Fortress Classic and Day of Defeat.

It's great to see other companies getting on the ball to continue this trend.

It's interesting to see the changing styles of game companies as they begin to view their community as a resource for continuing the viability of their games. Can you imagine a company creating a computer language and then making themselves the only source of applications written in this language? Possible, but pretty foolish in this day and age.

Valve Software started it early on with Half-Life, creating and releasing editing tools, an SDK, and more importantly a real community for the development of mods and conversions to their game Half-Life. Valve's been by far the most successfull company at leveraging this to their advantage. I dare say they would not be the same company at all if it were not for the popularity of Half-Life mods such as Counter Strike, Team Fortress Classic and Day of Defeat.

It's great to see other companies getting on the ball to continue this trend.

I remmeber years ago having a conversation with an IT manager at IBM. We were talking about the inability of computer programmers to make their code foolproof. His point was that we don't see problems like this with proprietary hardware. When was the last time someone crashed their Super Nintendo? Of course, with a PC platform (or even Mac, or whatever else) there are problems of unreliability. His idea is that this is because of sloppy programming. The reason we were having this conversation is that I had a piece of software (brand new, I might add) that would not install on my computer. You would think that a reputable software company (and this was a reputable company) would test their product on at least a few systems to make sure that it would at least install! The end result was that I ended up never playing the game (not even to this day), nor have I purchased another title from that company since that time. Perhaps that is the solution to the root problem?

actually HL was built on a combination of tech from the Q1 and Q2 engines.

more details

the official site states that it is technology licensed from id. however the directory structures in the game are indicative of a Q2 based game. also look at native support for opengl, hardware accellerator support, colored lighting, etc. Q1 did not have these features.

A programmers value is determined by experience and ability to learn. Since someone new to the IT field has little experience, being hired is determined mostly by their ability to learn. Since young minds are better suited for learning, they are going to be hired more often. This is the trend I have seen at my company.

Oh please. Anyone who is capable of earning a University degree, old or young, is quite clearly capable of learning... after all, at least when I went through Uni, we had to learn to get the damn degree in the first place! What you describe is just a prejudice... the "old dogs can't learn new tricks" mentality which is, unfortunately, prevalent in our society.

I*M*HO, there is no specific reason to assume older people make poorer techies. In fact, the manager I work for is in his late forties, and he's probably one of the smartest men I've come across. He's constantly learning new things... hell, he seems to have an easier time keeping up with trends than I do!

I don't think that the ability to learn is determined at all by age. I believe that nearly anyone can learn how to code at nearly any age. But I would liken this ability to that of playing a piano.

Sure, an older person can pick up the ability and wield a certain prowess and even artistry. But no one, to my knowledge, would argue the fact that a person who learns to play the piano in childhood has a certain "feel" for it that people who pick up this ability later in life can never attain. It's not that the older person can't play sonoriously with rhythm and emotion. But the younger player has a certain reach that will never be known to the older guy.

Andy Hertzfeld (of the original Macintosh development team) claimed that he used to be able to track and house far more complex contructs of thought, and more of them, in his mind when he was in his early 20's than he ever could at the time he was giving the interview (I would guess he was somewhere in his mid forties at that time). He called this ability "the gift of the young".

But in the book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution Steven Levy described how Ken Williams, the founder of Sierra Online felt a missionary zeal in converting people to the belief that learning how to program a computer could change your life. Ken met Bob and Carolyn Box, who were an older married couple in their fifties. Bob was "...a former New Yorker, a former engineer, a former race car driver, a former jockey, and a former Guinness Book of WOrld Records champion in gold panning." When they both tried to get a job working for Sierra, Ken told them to "put up something on the screen using assembly language in thirty days". According to how the story is told, they both became very able assembly language programmers. Roberta Williams (Ken's wife) considered the Boxes "inspiring" and felt that learning how to program "rehabilitated their lives".

Of course that was a long time ago, and thus far I have spoken only of the abiltity to learn and to become an able programmer. To get slightly more "on topic"; as to whether there is job market opportunities for older folk, there is no reason an employer should discriminate on the basis of age, though I'm sure that many do. But as for the pure concept of programming I myself only picked up some ability in C++ (on my own, not through any school) when I turned 30 as I realized I was getting older and it was basically "now or never". I still enjoy learning as much as I can about it, and consider it a wonderful intellectual exercise, though I have no concrete plans of doing it for a living. I've already got a stable professional life and see it as a very enjoyable and rewarding hobby.

Anyone remember Zeus, by Impressionsgames?
They were very good games, more advanced variants of sim city. After releasing Rise of the Middle Kingdom, they were bought up by Sierra and their webpages transferred to *.sierra.com, but they aren't updated. By the time they were bought up, it seemed likely that they were going to release sequels to the zeus series, but now...?
Does anybody have any information about them??