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http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=4133 ZPC was a great game, perhaps the best Mac FPS after Marathon 1 + 2. The style is still cool today. And you got to be jesus and use your chi to free the oppressed (or put them out of their misery).

"Looks dangerous in there," says Floyd. "I don't think you should go inside." He peers in again. "We'll need card there to fix computer. Hmmm... I know! Floyd will get card. Robots are tough. Nothing can hurt robots. You open the door, then Floyd will rush in. Then you close door. When Floyd knocks, open door again. Okay? Go!" Floyd's voice trembles slightly as he waits for you to open the door.

] OPEN THE DOOR

"The door opens and Floyd, pausing only for the briefest moment, plunges into the Bio Lab. Immediately, he is set upon by hideous, mutated monsters! More are heading straight toward the open door! Floyd shrieks and yells to you to close the door."

]CLOSE THE DOOR

From within the lab you hear ferocious growlings, the sounds of a skirmish, and then a high-pitched metallic scream!

Time passes...

You hear, slightly muffled by the door, three fast knocks, followed by the distinctive sound of tearing metal.

] OPEN THE DOOR

Floyd stumbles out of the Bio Lab, clutching the mini-booth card. The mutations rush toward the open doorway!

] CLOSE THE DOOR

And not a moment too soon! You hear a pounding from the door as the monsters within vent their frustration at losing their prey.

Floyd staggers to the ground, dropping the mini card. He is badly torn apart, with loose wires and broken circuits everywhere. Oil flows from his lubrication system. He obviously has only moments to live.

You drop to your knees and cradle Floyd's head in your lap. Floyd looks up at his friend with half-open eyes. "Floyd did it ... got card. Floyd a good friend, huh?" Quietly, you sing Floyd's favorite song, the Ballad of the Starcrossed Miner:

O, they ruled the solar system
Near ten thousand years before
In their single starcrossed scout ships
Mining ast'roids, spinning lore.

Then one true courageous miner
Spied a spaceship from the stars
Boarded he that alien liner
Out beyond the orb of Mars.

Yes, that ship was filled with danger
Mighty monsters barred his way
Yet he solved the alien myst'ries
Mining quite a lode that day.

O, they ruled the solar system
Near ten thousand years before
'Til one brave advent'rous spirit
Brought that mighty ship to shore.

As you finish the last verse, Floyd smiles with contentment, and then his eyes close as his head rolls to one side. You sit in silence for a moment, in memory of a brave friend who gave his life so that you might live."

I had the same feelings with an underdog, Another world. It has a similar unexpected "Run for your life!" scene.

He wrote you back? That rules!

I loved (and still do) all those old Infocom games when I was a kid...

Planetfall taught me how to type.
Bureaucracy taught me how to swear.
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?name=Bureauc racy

3 Steve & Douglas

I miss Floyd, too

The second I saw it, it reminded me of Slipstream 5000, a futuristic 3D racing game. Sadly, I could not find better screenshots than these; as a matter of fact, I couldn't find any other for this 10 year old game. Does anyone know about better screenshots?

One good example of a game that did bring in Historical Accuracy was Europa Universalis. You can play as a large number of nations, each pretty realistically modelled. Admittedly, this means that gameplay is not "balanced." Conquering the world with Spain may be a bit easier than doing the same thing with Latvia. Then again, is balance really something needed in a historical game?

What next, an artificial psychiatrist? Oh wait... (Dr. Sbaitso)

The easiest, intuitive interface would be to have a 2d overhead map where you can click on each monster to explode it with an orbital laser... but that way is slightly less entertaining.

Judge for yourself

Hmm... seems you're right. I did some digging, and I think I'm confusing it with Star Crusader. The game I remember had a storyline that progressed through some text between missions, and had the "amazing" feature of allowing you to change sides during a battle. It was supposed to be the big Wing Commander killer, but I found it to be as boring as watching paint dry. Probably because I never really got a good feel for who was who, what was what, and what I was even fighting for.

Pirates! is already pirated on the Xbox if you've modded your Xbox and installed an emulator for one of the classic systems it came out on. But don't try the NES version, as the NES version uses mid-scanline visual effects, and the emulators that can handle mid-scanline effects are typically too slow to run at full speed on the 700 MHz Celeron CPU in the Xbox.

The classic Incredible Machine lets you do just this :)

BTW, The Honda movie is a cheat. Seen the wheels speeding up uphill?

What a total waste of taxpayer dollars! But then again, I suppose that's what people thought when they started adding videos and popular fiction books to library shelves. Indeed, a game such as Final Fantasy VII has just as much plot and "literary value" as your average romance novel or Adam Sandler film. Video games are products of our culture, and as such would tell us and future generations a lot about ourselves and our times, so there's no reason why they shouldn't be archived as books are in libraries. And it would bring the teenagers in, and maybe while they're at the library they might actually pick up a good book or something...

Perhaps the wide-spread adoption among libraries of a specific video game format (such as the PS2) would also spur on a whole new set of edutainment titles, multimedia encyclopedias and technical manuals and such that would be available for libraries to check out to their patrons. If Sony maintains backwards compatibility with the PS2 format for at least the next few generations, these would still remain useful for some time, unlike the multimedia CD-ROMs of the early '90s that require Windows 3.1 or an old version of the Mac OS and Quicktime to run. With the graphics capabilities of the PS2, you could make, for instance, car and appliance repair manuals, that allow you to rotate the engine on the screen and take things apart and put them back together again before working on the actual equipment. Or you could put the entire Project Gutenberg library on a PS2 DVD, which could print to a USB printer or save to a USB keyfob. This would actually be a boon to poorer families, who might be able to afford a $149 PS2 but not a computer with a DVD drive that could handle the graphics required for similar full-screen video and 3D object manipulation.

That said, a PS2-updated version of A Brief History of Time CD-ROM would be super-cool...

I meant the brand new "Sid Meier's Pirates!" that just came out on the PC.

The original version of Pirates! (1987) and Pirates! Gold (1993) were designed by Sid Meier as well. I've played the original Pirates! on the Apple IIGS, but I'm unfamiliar with the new iteration. So that I can understand the strength of the demand for a Mac port, what was added to Pirates! (2004) other than the obligatory 3D facelift?

this looks really promising, but will I be able/when can I see this? Also, If you miss the adventure games for discworld, check out the underdogs! http://www.the-underdogs.org/search.php?search_gam e=discworld

Assuming your headmouse does what a mouse can do, I'd say Balance of Power would be perfect. It's not a real time game, can be easily controlled by mouse and requires LOTS of thinking (and bluffing).

Read:

http://www.the-underdogs.org/faq.php#a11

Links of intrest:

http://www.mobygames.com/featured_article/feature= 7/

http://www.bhlegend.com/icas/ etc.

Interactive fiction author Emily Short (under the guise of "Lord Lobur-Bytton") once published a clever little Z-Code multiple choice game that casts you as a writer juggling wild ideas. She doesn't seem overly proud of it, but I really enjoyed it. It was humbling, too - I find it quite easy to come up with cool sh*t, but terribly hard to turn it into stories. Available here (and here as part of the full LoTech comp package).

How about poetry?
The Policeman's Beard is Half Constructed is a book that was "written" by an artificial intelligence program back in 1984. Supposedly the selections were not tweaked by humans but were certainly were selected by humans - this book of prose poetry was created by a program called "Racter". You can read Racter's work online.
The software for Racter was available for various 8 bit computers. A DOS version can be downloaded from the Home of the Underdogs.
Is it art? Well, if a large canvas painted entirely blue can be considered art, maybe just maybe the incoherent ramblings of an AI program can be too. The real consideration is WHO is the artist? Is it the program, or the programmer?

Star Control 2 was just a very well-done ripoff of Binary Systems' Starflight with the Star Control combat engine slapped into it. It was a fun game, and much better than its predecessor, but it wasn't the least bit innovative.

Wow, I REALLY always thought Dune 2 was just the freakin' sequel to the movie...

Lucky you... the original Dune (game) was a shnore fest. Although Home of the Underdogs gives it a rating of 8.75... I did play it after I played Dune2... maybe I should try it again.

Space Hulk was a terrific game. Much like the X-Com series, it was a turn-based (the "freeze time" button) tactical shooter that didn't feel like one, and was a load of fun to play.

I never got to play the board game it was based on, but that could be fun...

No, it was called BC's Quest for Tires, and it was based on the comic strip.

The licensing behind Call to Power was messy.

Way back when, Heartland Trefoil made a board game called Civilization, which was distributed in the US by Avalon Hill.

Avalon Hill even released an expansion, called Advanced Civilazion, and a computer game based on this.

Sid Meier had acknowleged that the original board game was as a source of ideas for his computer game.

Some years down the road, Sid's game has been popular and has spun off sequals, and Activision goes and licenses Civilization from Avalon Hill (who has a license from Heartland Trefoil) to compete directly with Sid Meier/Fraxis/MicroProse.

While the lawsuits were underway, Microprose bought Heartland Trefoil.

Funny thing is that Hasbro eventually ended up buying MicroProse and Avalon Hill, and aside from what rights Sid/Fraxis curretnly hold, have complete control of everything...

Or The Underdogs might have something for you

There are three more recent clones:

Traders

TZ-Colony

and

Subtrade:Return to Irata

They dont add much though.

The original is still the best.

There are three more recent clones:

Traders

TZ-Colony

and

Subtrade:Return to Irata

They dont add much though.

The original is still the best.

There are three more recent clones:

Traders

TZ-Colony

and

Subtrade:Return to Irata

They dont add much though.

The original is still the best.

Slashdot - posting yesterdays news three weeks from now! This friggin' article was published a WEEK ago! And, if you ever visit Home of the Underdogs, you would have known about this a LONG time ago!

Check out the Macintosh Garden for all the classic Mac games you always wanted.

1981. It's not as good as you remember, honestly. There's a Java version on-line. Best thing is that SO many people have misbegotten fond memories of this, and are willing to pay $100+ on eBay. I've turned more than a few garage sale/flea market finds into instant cash this way.

Unfortunately it's a wimpy server...

It's called "The First Colonists". Try downloading it from the underdogs.

Why EA is Evil, Item #1837

Excerpt:
Definitely the worst game to bear the "Bullfrog" name on the box, Aquarium is an awful PC conversion of an awful Playstation "aquarium management game" that was released only in Japan. In a shady attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Theme Park and the Bullfrog name, EA released foisted this Real Dog onto the unsuspecting public in 2001.

It was truly sad to see EA devolve into the marketing, sports game monster which it is today. Some of my first video gaming memories, and very happy ones, come from EA, or ECA as they used to be. Starflight was one of the best games around for a long time, and occupied many a weekend. Also, Sentinel worlds is responsible for at least one summer flying by, and probably for much missed homework. I even kept my save game from that one for a year or two waiting for number 2 to release, but it was not to be. EA was, at one time, a wonderful company that put out quality games, and it was painful to see them become nothing more than NFL/NHL/(Whatever sports acronym) <insert year here>.

You need hundreds of thousands in sales to recoup your costs? Yes, under the dysfunctional business model that rules today. But if you develop games the right way, the fearless way, the independent way, your costs are drastically smaller. A few thousand unit sales will pay the bills. Death to Software, Etc.! Almost every PC in America is connected to a pipe that can carry bits. Why are we copying bits to a plastic-and-metal platter, sticking it in box full of air, and shipping it cross-country, when it is far easier, cheaper, and environmentally sensible to ship those bits down that pipe? Death to EA and Vivendi! Your groveling to the retailers, your lack of understanding of what constitutes a game, your complete failure of aesthetic sense, your timidity in funding, your attempts to grow by choking off competitors, your inability to make developers and marketers understand each other, has led us to this pass. You are dinosaurs, your brobdignabian sloth nothing but a drag on what ought to be a field of staggering originality. Death to Sony, Sega, and Nintendo! Your insistence on controlling every step of development, of ensuring that no product strays too far from your own blinkered twitch-game aesthetic, your absurdly high platform royalties, your gouging prices for development stations and SDKs, your boxes with the controllers wholly unsuited to a game of any depth make you irrelevant to anyone who wants to develop games of enduring merit. Death to the gaming industry! Long live games. We find our heroes not among rock stars, or game developers whose real desire is to direct movies, or designers who bare their breasts in the pages of Playboy. We find them among the men and women who created this industry, whose imaginative vision once sparked its rise, who developed games the way we mean to: Chris Crawford, once vaunted as the world's greatest game designer, nowcast aside by a marketing machine that can't figure out how to sell anything that doesn't fit into its tedious categories. Dani Bunten, who understood the importance of socialization in gaming far better than the Verants and Origins of the world, with their customer-hostile policies, spurned by a bigoted industry because she was a transsexual. Richard Garriott, the virtual inventor of the computer RPG, cast aside like a used condom by a machine that thinks it's sucked what useful value it can find in him. Julian Gollop, languishing in obscurity, the fruits of his own labor denied him by an industry that values trademarks more highly than talent. Will Wright, who somehow still manages to force his vision through despite all the obstacles the machine puts in his path. As they did, so shall we do. We will develop for open platforms, not proprietary consoles.

Hey, I use Bittorrent a lot. I use it all over http://www.the-underdogs.org/, to save them needed bandwidth, and sometimes, to download fan movies or some other junk. It is a real pain in the neck. That's the only way to download large files on the internet, and it's awfully slow. With my internet connection getting 200-300 kbps on respectable sites, Bittorrent is excruciating. It gave me 100 kbps once, and that was after 5 hours of waiting. At an average of 40 kbps, it takes way too long for this to be a viable solution. I despise it, but it's the only thing I can use in some situations. Recently, one of my friends ordered Unreal Tournament 2004 online. He never recieved it. It was lost in the mail. Since he owned the liscence, he asked me to download it for him, since he had dialup. It is upwards of two gigabytes. Imagine that at 40 kbps. Not a chance. If there's a better, faster solution, I'd go with that, but for now, I'm avoiding 35% of internet downloads.

Sounds a lot like "Begin: A Tactical Starship Simulation" I always prefered Begin v1 better than the one at that link, though. Begin 1 is still floating around somewhere, but I couldn't find a link to it.

This one was even weirder. C'mon, football and vikings? How can you not love it?! I remember i enjoyed it when i was a kid...

Three recent trends lend credibility to the image of those modest studios (indies) developing games: 1) the fact that many such developers are are coming from industry proper; 2) the actual nomenclature "Indie" being a positive term; and 3) small studios' newfound ability to create games that are visually appealing.

First: An interesting but not-well-known fact is that many members of the indie gaming community come from a background of well-known companies. Take, for example, the Moonpod team, which had experience at Gremlin and Infogrames before starting out on their own. Monkeystone is headed by none other than id's John Romero. I would argue that games industry experience is not a prerequisite for the development of a good game; but the recent movement of folks from big gaming companies to their own studios makes independents more credible. Put simply: if folks who have worked on shipped, big-budget games are now part of the indie community, there must be something to the indie community.

Second: The actual term used for smaller studios (Independents or Indies) is an important one. You could call many of the products in this category "Shareware Games," but there's a horribly negative connotation to that term. "Indie Games" evokes the notion of a small, dedicated team of professionals crafting out something new and interesting. By contrast, the term "Shareware Games" evokes the notion of some dude in his basement churning out a buggy arcade clone that looks like it was written for the Intellivision. To parahrase someone, (I want to say Chris Barrie): A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but may be less appealing if it were called "sewage-weed." The adoption of the "Indie" label has helped legitimize games made by smaller studios.

Fifth (20 years from now, we'll be those old farts still making Python references to people born in twenty-oh-one): Independents can make games that look good. It may be because indies now have access to tools that would have made Pixar cry during its formative years. (Maya, for example, can be had for about $2k, and is even free for personal use.) It may also be because there's great talent now available. Either way, I think indie titles, taken as a whole, have become visually appealing. During the '90s, shareware titles had a bad reputation for being ugly, because they lagged so far behind the cutting-edge. These days, titles like Starscape, Dark Horizons: Lore, and Wik & The Fable of Souls are (IMO) looking pretty good. And, while indie titles may not be as spectacular as those developed by a major studio, (our own Inago Rage focuses on bright colors, but doesn't quite outdo Tron 2.0, for example), decent sales suggest that gamers like what Independents are doing.

However, given the dearth of posts in this thread, I still believe we have a long way to go. :) So, if you haven't already, check out the DIY and Game Tunnel coverage of the 81 IGF entrants. You may find that precious diamond in the rough.
_____________________

But please, for the love of God, someone explain this

If it doesn't include Mech Brigade http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=693 then it's not worth bothering with.

I'd hate to see the UI micromanagement needed to roll this functionality into SimCity. A separate game, SimTower (and it's unofficial sequel, Yoot Tower), was made that experimented with the concept, however.

Ah, you can get the new version of it at The Underdogs.

why is nobody assuming that by the time valve goes under there are going to be a -lot- of ways to get around the authentication, considering there are already preliminary ways around both the authentication and the securom 5 stuff.

In my opinion, by the time valve goes under your gonna be doing the same for HL2 that you do with every ancient game you want to play again. grab it off the underdogs. along with the tools to get around the authentication and need for a CD in the drive.

When I was a second year university student, one of the better places to shop for whitebox parts was in Sydneys Chinatown. A bunch of sellers in that area got together, and bought up shop space above a theater and rebranded it as "Technocity". It's still there today, and it's a good source for imported software, hardware, cheap RAM, etc etc.

Back then however there was also a shopfront that outright advertised in the front window that they sold pirate software ( although I can't remember the shop name ). This is quite unusual for Sydney, where we don't even have street sellers. But the best part was that they offered you 10% off any purchases if you had a student card.

Yes, I did buy something there - Blood 2: The Chosen, for A$10. Considering what it played like, I consider that Monolith got their revenge on me ( Sorry Mister Hall! ).

Definitely Stunt Island. Besides flying around an island pulling off all sorts of stunts, you could direct your own movies in a quite detailed way.

There already was a Star Wars Battle Chess. Not *exactly* what they were playing but almost.

Well, except perhaps Bob Bates's Eric the Unready. Hey, it even features a cameo appearance of a relative of Monkey Island's used ship salesman!

Home of the Underdogs to the rescue.

This probably isn't the best place for newbie feedback, but hey, anything goes :-)

I tried playing for a few minutes, and after SWG I must admit the low-end graphics did bug me a bit. I realize graphics aren't the main course but an upgrade sure would help catch a new user's eye.

I was disappointed by the character creation... in the sense that I had no idea whether I was going to create a useless character, a limited character, an uber character... It just didn't feel personal. It was almost a little too open-ended, too customizable, so I was afraid of making too much of a mixed character. Then I was also afraid of creating too specific a character. Maybe I should have just tried a few different ones to get started; but I do think some pre-configured templates would be very useful to a new player.

The initial gameplay feel was a cross between Spear Of Destiny and Aethra's Chronicles. Aethra, btw, had character classes you could choose from, but you could also mix and match a bit, and choose which skills to develop :-) I gave up after a few minutes of roaming around, not knowing how to find something to fight so I could use my acid hands on it.

The one thing that did catch me was that nearly as soon as I logged on, an admin offered his assistance (he could tell I was new... maybe the way I kept strafing left and right or bumping into doors game me away?). I didn't meet many people, but the people I did meet were very friendly and helpful.

So I won't make a final jugement; I really didn't give it enough play time tonite.

I'll probably try again before the month is up :-)

The claims are very broad.

They include representing 3d data by defining an orientation, a distance from the viewer, a projection type and so on, as well as manipulating the orientation using three angles, by transforming the data from a space to another...
This is very basic and covers roughly anything displaying interactive 3d on a 2d screen...

I'm pretty sure that there's some prior art.