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In the end, a lot of it comes down to computer games being wish fulfillment. You don't want to be limitted by your crappy physical skills, so you use devices that simplify things. Although I highly enjoy playing shooting games in the arcade (particularly the Police 911 series... got to love the full control over dodging), using a mouse is still far easier. And really, what's more important? Being 133t and playing with a light gun for aiming in Quake? Or keeping from getting pasted by an utter n00b who's using his mouse to aim? (and yes, leetspeak used for dramatic emphasis)

They didn't mention Manifesto Games, the new startup established by Greg Costikyan, author of the Scratchware Manifesto

Stronghold

Released in 1992 according to the site. I was thinking of it and I had to do some searching to remember the name.

I loved this game when it came out and played it for many hours. It is not a modern day rts game per say, but it definatly was ad&d in real time.

So, you are right, this definently isn't new :)

Try looking here. No CD music, but the game is there. They even have the LAN patch for multi-player. Only catch is that the patch to make it run in XP is a bit iffy to build.

This isn't a bad idea, but it's already come up a lot amongst indie developers. The main problem is it takes a lot of work to make the site, maintain the site, and promote it. An indie review site like GameTunnel for example has had thousands of dollars poured into it in order to make it a moderately successful destination for game players. The head guy there, Russell Carroll, will set up a table at shows to promote the site, put out press releases like crazy, and basically work his butt off. To make a review/portal site get traffic, (not just exist and look pretty) you need to put a huge amount of sweat into it. The people sweating want something for their work, so money has got to flow or certain games need to get promoted over others as payoff.

That said, I'm all for more indie game sites and fan reviews are cool too. The closest existing thing I see to that is Home of the Underdogs, which you might want to check out. I just don't think anyone should undertake such a site with the wrong expectations. Like if the person or group's main aim was to make a cool site about games, then they might get someplace. But if they had a business-minded goal to make a place where indie games get a lot of exposure, then that is a long, hard road people have been toiling at in obscurity for years.

And Civ I still runs on through classic! Try http://mac.the-underdogs.org/ for a copy.

The Scratchware Manifesto

For slightly younger people, there's Rocky's Boots made by the same people (The Learning Company). It teaches a lot of the same things, but in an easier (and cuter) style.

All you need is an Apple II emulator like AppleWin and you're all set!

For slightly younger people, there's Rocky's Boots made by the same people (The Learning Company). It teaches a lot of the same things, but in an easier (and cuter) style.

All you need is an Apple II emulator like AppleWin and you're all set!

Try the entire http://www.the-underdogs.org/ catalog. 90%+ of those games will still run on a modern PC. Flight simulators and anything without massmarket appeal (flight simulators, wargames, etc) Throw in everything MAME can do, as well, for an encore:
Eventually, all of the games you're now playing on will come to the PC, just as nintendo, sega genesis, super nintendo, N64, and sooner or later dreamcast have.

Also, modifiability. I build new levels, textures, etc for games. Mods are what make PC gaming go from on par to better than most consoles. The (current) Xbox is a special case, being of course a general-purpose P3 and Nvidia card

I think you didn't get it right.

North Korea might just be waiting for excuses to call America evil, but that's not the point. The thing here is that America is taking a more aggressive posture by saying that they will consider nuking "possible WMD supporting countries".
NK might be calling the USA evil, and the USA just gave them a good reason. NK might not be capable of striking the USA right now, but after this you'd better be sure they'll start developing that capability FAST. And the same goes for anyone else that might have been scared by that little stunt.
In fact, considering that the USA might nuke anyone just because (yeah, right, WMD, like the ones in Iraq....) reaching a point of MAD would probably be seen as a very good idea.

Ever player balance of power before? The USA just escalated things a little bit. Keep doing things like this one (even if you did not intend to start WW3) and see what happens......

Easily the oddest example of this phenomenon. It started with Raymond E. Feist writing an acclaimed series of fantasy books. Sierra felt that the universe that Feist created would be a good basis for an RPG, so it got the license and had him write the plot for Betrayal at Krondor. Later, Feist decided to write a novelization of the game which was based on his books. He also did it with the game's sequel by writing Krondor: The Assassins. Probably the most "meta" thing I can think of in video gaming history.

Rob

The 1993 PC game Syndicate by Bullfrog which was released for Super Nintendo would work awesome on the DS. That was a really fun game.

When I got a CD drive for my Macintosh LC, it came with a couple of CDs, including Cosmic Osmo and The Worlds Beyond The Mackerel, a Hypercard interactive adventure that was somewhat of a precusor of Myst (Myst and Riven are both, in terms of gameplay UI and whatnot, rather Hypercard-ish), save the intended age group, complexity, etc. Kind of aimed at kids, but even though I was ~15-16, it was fun. Pretty nice bluesy-jazzy music soundtrack too, included as CD Audio tracks on the same CDROM (only fault of the soundtrack was that it was blatantly a bunch of MIDI machines doing the performing. Myst was much worse; cheesy MIDI instruments galore. They got much better at it with Riven, mostly by limiting themselves exclusively to "electronic" instruments, instead of trying to pretend they had real instruments.)

I missed Elite, started with Frontier on the Amiga. Didn't experience the crashing though (not that I recall anyway).

Hardwar was a reasonably interesting game that reminded me of the gameplay in Frontier.

The X series of games could also be worth a look, there's a new one - X3:Reunion - due for release later in the year.

Ok, and here are two examples of FPS released before Carmack's Wolfenstein 3D:

1. Bethesda Softworks's The Terminator, a game released in 1990. (The Underdogs says 1991, Terminatorfiles says 1990. I seem to remember 1990.) It featured a lot more complex geometry than Wolfenstein 3D or even Doom. (E.g., people animated as polygons rather than sprites, walls that weren't just vertical, outdoors scenery, etc.) And gameplay elements that were a decade ahead of their time, such as driving a car around town and being able to run over pedestrians.

2. Corporation. A FPS much like Wolfenstein, and actually a little more complex, released in 1991.

By comparison Carmack's first FPS (Wolfenstein 3D) was released in 1992.

Both weren't textured, but they were otherwise FPS all right. They weren't even the only ones or the first one. The genre existed all right. Carmack only made it pretty.

Ok, and here are two examples of FPS released before Carmack's Wolfenstein 3D:

1. Bethesda Softworks's The Terminator, a game released in 1990. (The Underdogs says 1991, Terminatorfiles says 1990. I seem to remember 1990.) It featured a lot more complex geometry than Wolfenstein 3D or even Doom. (E.g., people animated as polygons rather than sprites, walls that weren't just vertical, outdoors scenery, etc.) And gameplay elements that were a decade ahead of their time, such as driving a car around town and being able to run over pedestrians.

2. Corporation. A FPS much like Wolfenstein, and actually a little more complex, released in 1991.

By comparison Carmack's first FPS (Wolfenstein 3D) was released in 1992.

Both weren't textured, but they were otherwise FPS all right. They weren't even the only ones or the first one. The genre existed all right. Carmack only made it pretty.

Ok, and here are two examples of FPS released before Carmack's Wolfenstein 3D:

1. Bethesda Softworks's The Terminator, a game released in 1990. (The Underdogs says 1991, Terminatorfiles says 1990. I seem to remember 1990.) It featured a lot more complex geometry than Wolfenstein 3D or even Doom. (E.g., people animated as polygons rather than sprites, walls that weren't just vertical, outdoors scenery, etc.) And gameplay elements that were a decade ahead of their time, such as driving a car around town and being able to run over pedestrians.

2. Corporation. A FPS much like Wolfenstein, and actually a little more complex, released in 1991.

By comparison Carmack's first FPS (Wolfenstein 3D) was released in 1992.

Both weren't textured, but they were otherwise FPS all right. They weren't even the only ones or the first one. The genre existed all right. Carmack only made it pretty.

The Home of the Underdogs site has a *massive* list of games (810 at time of writing the article) for older systems and Classic. It's an abandonware site - you won't find Escape Velocity, since Ambrosia still parent that (fetch that from the Ambrosia website instead) but you'll find a heck of a lot of other cool stuff. And you'll get some startling revelations such as, for example, a game like Populous 2 - granted not hugely complicated, but there's a heck of a lot of stuff in there - takes a mere 2.6MB of space, which compresses to 1.6MB. Most items are bigger than that these days. The save file is a whopping 238 bytes. Wow.

Anyway, a good list of games that bring back memories. Enjoy!

"About Our Company: We're an association of electronic artists who share a common goal. We want to fufill the potential of personal computing. That's a tall order. But with enough imagination and enthusiasm we think there's a good chance for our success. Our products, like this one, are evidence of our intent."

• Pinball Construction Set (1982)
• Archon (1983)
• M.U.L.E. (1983) - Dani Bunten, we miss you.
• One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird (1983)
• Music Construction Set (1984)
• The Seven Cities of Gold (1984)
• Skyfox (1984)
• The Bard's Tale (1985), by Interplay Productions
• Adventure Construction Set (1985)
• Populous (1989)
• Chuck Yeager's Air Combat (1993)

Then Gordon [Bing Gordon, Marketing] proposed [the company name] "Electronic Artists," in tribute to the film company United Artists. However, Steve Hayes opposed, saying, "We're not the artists, they are..." meaning that the developers whose games EA would publish were the artists. ... A novel approach to giving credit to its developers was one of EA's trademarks in its early days. EA was the first video game publisher to treat its developers like rock stars in an industry where developers were more prone to be treated like nameless factory workers. ... EA routinely referred to their developers as "artists" and gave them photo credits in their games and numerous full-page magazine ads. EA also shared lavish profits with their developers, which added to their industry appeal. Because of this novel treatment, EA was able to easily attract the best developers.

- also stolen from Wikipedia

http://www.kidscanprogram.com/

http://el.media.mit.edu/logo-foundation/products/s oftware.html

http://www.qbasic.com/tutorial.shtml

http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=3261

i saw your /. post, and well, kalisto software made a game titled "The Tinies" http://mac.the-underdogs.org/index.php?show=game&i d=419 It's abandoneware. To play it, try basilisk II

Home of the Underdogs
C:DOS
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22abandonware

On that note, be sure to check out Underdogs, which has a ton of great old games for semi-legal download.

On that note, be sure to check out Underdogs, which has a ton of great old games for semi-legal download.

On that note, be sure to check out Underdogs, which has a ton of great old games for semi-legal download.

On that note, be sure to check out Underdogs, which has a ton of great old games for semi-legal download.

I'm a big fan of Babel Engrossing as hell.

The box art for curse of the azure bonds had a permanent home in my bathroom.

I miss puberty.

The RPG on the Genesis was so good (honestly, I'm surprised there wasn't a sequel sooner), why change a winning formula?

So true! I just finished playing it yesterday for the first time, and I'm so glad I found it! Great writing, gameplay, pacing, everything...masterful. Oh and from what I've read on the fan-sites the SNES version is not worth checking out, you want the Genesis version.

Sounds like fun....but an FPS? Where's my SR MMOG?

Don't worry about the MMOG =), try this baby out! You won't regret it.

He's mostly working on the combat engine and has very little plot, but the skeleton of the game is downloadable and very playable. It's kind of like Diablo right now, not plot but lots of enemies to slaughter.

This is the first combat engine I've seen that makes effective use of mounted troops - playing a mounted character is a lot of fun.

A review here.

Don't bother to download if you can't live without Half Life 2 quality graphics.

PS - not affiliated with those guys, but this is a cool game

My first encounter with Plan 9 and Ed Wood was the early-90s adventure game (which is *not* based on the movie's plot).

SimLife is a better analogy.

I actually own the original DOS version and still have the manual and everything. One thing SimLife teaches you is that it's really hard to build up a complex ecology in a confined space. If you use the smaller maps, it's almost impossible to get carnivores to survive. There's simply not enough room for them. If you use the largest maps, I've been able to get some stable carnivore populations, but not a ton.

Fruit trees are also darn difficult to get to spread (because they require animals), whereas grasses are very easy (as they spread on the wind).

Did...did you just say that Christian rock and the Left Behind series are higher quality?

Than Christian video games? I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who's tried all of those who wouldn't agree with me. As corny and weak as that music and those books are, they're still far better than crap like what Wisdom Tree puts out.

Where's my video game that simulates the Buddhist wheel of life and my character's struggle to wake up from it and break the chains that bind?

I think this might be something like what you're looking for.

Rob

Anyone else remember the PC/PS game Sentient? It seems very similar to what this game is trying to achieve, and it did it in 1997 (and it will run on a PlayStation!) It's dialog engine was a little wierd, but I found it very enjoyable.

Great abandonware site. If it's true abandonware, you can download it. If it's not, they tell you where you can still buy it.

These links may help you survive until the day the faithful await arrives. (According the the voodoo lady in MI4, she's got a 5 game contract, but without Gilbert the series quality suffered, and the market isn't that big, so it's pretty iffy if MI5 will happen. Don't play MI4, it'll make you cry if you liked 1 and 2)

Day of the Tentacle

Monkey Island 2: Le Chuck's Revenge Mac Version

The Secret in The Secret of Monkey Island

The Secret of Monkey Island Spanish Version

The Secret of Monkey Island

Lechuck's Revenge

Precisely. Linear RPGs are incredibly boring to me. All the good nonlinear games (Darklands, Privateer, etc) are old. I have high hopes for TES: Oblivion, even though Morrowind wasn't that great.

I agree that emulators are a godsend. Now I can play all of those SNES games that I couldn't afford in hight school, thanks to industrious and generous random sons-of-bitches. Chrono Trigger for the SNES is possibly the perfect adventure game (called an RPG, but we all know there is no role-playing). Neverwinter Nights held my attention for quite a while, but I can only play games occasionally these days--no all-nighters like in my youth! For the Mac, one can visit Macintosh Garden and download a bunch of old abandonware for earlier mac platforms. Many of these games are much more satisfying than modern shooters/sports/stealth games because they rely on creative writing and interaction instead of immersion. immersion is good during one's initial contact with a game, but usually it gets old.

The common sentiment seems to be that the video game industry churns out nothing original, and has not for years. The article certainly reflects that. I suppose it isn't difficult to feel that way when you see so many licensed games and sequels on the market. Regardless, I have to voice my dissent.

If you look deeper at the underground independent games you will see a totally different situation. Just check out the one source for independents that sometimes gets kinda-sorta media attention, the Independent Games Festival. Look at last years winners such as Gish and Wik and the Fable of Souls. Intensly original and very fun. How about Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, a charming little game designed to be replayable, with each game finishing in about 5 minutes.

Go to The-Underdogs and just browse around their top-rated titles. There are tons of freebies that are top-notch, very fun, and quite original.

I feel that this situation can be compared to looking out your in your backyard vs traveling to the rainforest. If you sit at home and look in your yard you see tons of squirrels, moles, etc. You get jaded and start to say that there are no unique animals. Occasionally perhaps a deer, and you get worked up over something that isn't really that spectacular. But if you go out and really explore the more wild area you will find tons of great stuff. It is not brought to your doorstep, and it is quickly being eroded away, but it is out there. Just go look for it.

Actually while I do feel that the independent underground is the best source for creative original titles, there are tons of published games that 'fit the bill'. People loooooove to spoute Katamari left and right, and it is an original game, but how about.. Mizuguchi's line of original games (Lumines, Meteos, Rez). How about Wario Ware? How about Dance Dance Revolution? Even the Battlefield series added major innovations into the FPS genre (the huge scale of combat and variety of vehicles) and Guild Wars is an MMORPG that pretty much seems to go contrary to every other MMORPG on the market.

Finally, the 80's were not the golden age of game innovation that people give them credit for. Currently I am intently reading through a great book The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon. Long story short (I realize my post has already crossed from '?interesting? comment' into 'psychotic rant') the 80's original and innovative games were simply original and innovative because there were so few games created yet! Once any succsessful game formula was established, there were an incredible amount of clones. The fact that is true now, is true then. Popular games are copied, repeated, and sell like hotcakes. Pac-Man, for instance, was beat in coin-op sales only by Ms. Pac-Man! There is constantly an influx of new game ideas, the 80's arn't so special.

/prepares to be modded into oblivion by the legion of /.ers weaned in the arcades.

Thanks for the suggestion. I googled the game, and apparently it's abandonware seeing as the HotR has a CD-rip of it available here for download.

* Continuum, previously known as 'Subspace' (you may have to run a server locally).

* WinBolo

* A list of multiplayer action games at the-underdogs.org sorted by rating.

I could have used this when I was playing Starflight.

You may want to talk to the guys at http://www.the-underdogs.org/, forgotten gems of gaming are their specialty and you might get some advertisement. That is, after the slashdotting wears off... -_-;

I think the fact that this game came out in 2003 means that Nintendo's not going to be siccing any lawyers on the developers just yet.

Hadn't tried that one!

Hurrah for games on the PC!

Also, hurrah for The Underdogs - since my computer has no floppy drive, it allows me to play my realllly old games.

[/dorkness]

Why is it that I always run out of mod points just before finding a comment that says exactly what I was going to?

The PSP has an advantage when it comes to adding custom content, but other than that, the DS seems a more natural fit for a game like Lemmings.

But, given that the title is (according to the linked story) being developed and published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, I suppose it was destined to be PSP-exclusive from the start.

A quick Google search on Psygnosis, the original developers of Lemmings, shows that they've been owned by Sony for a dozen years in some capacity and more or less carved up and absorbed a half-dozen years ago; presumably, Sony owns exclusive rights to Lemmings and has no intent of ever letting it appear on the DS, though such a game would likely be very interesting.

Enough people bought a 3do at $799 ($699? I don't remember) to keep them alive for a number of years. Free was the right price for me, though, especially to play Killing Time.

What a highly addictive game! Some infos about the original Agent USA game here: http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?MENU=8&V ERSION_ID=138 and there's a fan made remake for the Windows PC too: http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=3699

http://mac.the-underdogs.org/...?