Shareware was awesome but disappeared for a reason, even ID almost went under because people were just playing the shareware Doom and not buying the full package.
Where did you hear that? From the way I understand it, iD wouldn't have existed without shareware, and their "give away the first episode, sell the full game" model revolutionized and was largely responsible for the PC gaming boom in the early-mid 90's.
yea? I knew about Shareware helping but I read that on another site that it started to hurt more than help, was probably just people spouting smoke though, I'd just thought it was always what happened to shareware.
When I was the runner-up in a competition to finish Doomdark's Revenge first. Couldn't find Morkin because of some mist, so it took us (me and my friend) a few days longer than it would have.
When Gravitar machines stopped being easy to find. Or Asteroids. I love thrust-type games.
When I said goodbye to the Space Invaders machine in my house (my Dad worked for Taito and 'borrowed' one from the storehouse).
Speaking of arcades; any of you guys been to Barcade in Brooklyn? I have a friend that lives out there and that's always one of my "most go to" locations every time I visit (kick ass selection of old arcade games…plus good beer).
BrandXSavior on
XBOX Live: BrandXSavior
Wii: 4629 5078 1523 8513
0
ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
oh, and a Pizza place up the road from the flat I sued to live in back in Luton had an original Mortal Kombat machine
Were they discriminating against people with awesome puns for screen names, or was it just so awesome to live there you decided to go to court to establish your rights to do it?
Speaking of arcades; any of you guys been to Barcade in Brooklyn? I have a friend that lives out there and that's always one of my "most go to" locations every time I visit (kick ass selection of old arcade games…plus good beer).
Barcade is my favorite bar in the world. When I first moved to NYC, I lived about a five minute walk away and was there pretty much every weekend. Unfortunately, I now live in a different neighborhood and it's about a 30-minute train ride away, so I don't go very often.
Absolutely phenomenal place. They have Star Wars, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Contra, Rampage, Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Elevator Action, Smash TV, and a host of others that slip my mind. They also have a huge selection of beers, and great bartenders.
Cannot recommend it highly enough. Anyone who has the chance to go should do so.
Speaking of arcades; any of you guys been to Barcade in Brooklyn? I have a friend that lives out there and that's always one of my "most go to" locations every time I visit (kick ass selection of old arcade games…plus good beer).
Barcade is my favorite bar in the world. When I first moved to NYC, I lived about a five minute walk away and was there pretty much every weekend. Unfortunately, I now live in a different neighborhood and it's about a 30-minute train ride away, so I don't go very often.
Absolutely phenomenal place. They have Star Wars, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Contra, Rampage, Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Elevator Action, Smash TV, and a host of others that slip my mind. They also have a huge selection of beers, and great bartenders.
Cannot recommend it highly enough. Anyone who has the chance to go should do so.
Yeah, I was back there again last April and the Star Wars machine (one of my favorite arcade games of all time) was out of order.
I spent my time playing Berzerk, Tron (I think this replaced Gyruss which is another favorite of mine), and Gauntlet (with one of their Stouts for liquid nourishment).
Yeah, I was back there again last April and the Star Wars machine (one of my favorite arcade games of all time) was out of order.
I spent my time playing Berzerk, Tron (I think this replaced Gyruss which is another favorite of mine), and Gauntlet (with one of their Stouts for liquid nourishment).
Oh yeah, Barcade is actually the first place I've ever played the Tron game. It's pretty fun in a weird way.
The place is just great. On Friday and Saturday nights, it's packed, so it's difficult to get on the more popular games (and if there's a greater sight than a group of drunk girls playing a Super Mario Bros. arcade machine, I haven't seen it), which leaves you to explore the more obscure ones.
The best are the little wooden drink holders on either side of each arcade machine. I don't think I can ever again play Ghosts 'n Goblins without a glass of whiskey by my side.
Yeah, I was back there again last April and the Star Wars machine (one of my favorite arcade games of all time) was out of order.
I spent my time playing Berzerk, Tron (I think this replaced Gyruss which is another favorite of mine), and Gauntlet (with one of their Stouts for liquid nourishment).
Oh yeah, Barcade is actually the first place I've ever played the Tron game. It's pretty fun in a weird way.
The place is just great. On Friday and Saturday nights, it's packed, so it's difficult to get on the more popular games (and if there's a greater sight than a group of drunk girls playing a Super Mario Bros. arcade machine, I haven't seen it), which leaves you to explore the more obscure ones.
The best are the little wooden drink holders on either side of each arcade machine. I don't think I can ever again play Ghosts 'n Goblins without a glass of whiskey by my side.
King's Quest 7. Sierra abandoned the tried-and-true "touch/talk/walk/inventory" cursor system for a single cursor. Moreover, it sparkled whenever you placed it over what you are supposed to interact with.
It required no thinking, no puzzle solving, just playing metal detector with your mouse.
Any game where it's not completely obvious what you can interact with is a bad game, or at least a game that's worse than a theoretical game that's almost exactly the same except that it's completely obvious what you can interact with.
And honestly, beyond using items there really isn't more than one interaction that you would want to have with any particular object. If the game isn't of the sort where every possible interaction is clever or adds flavor, allowing you to WALK/LOOK/TOUCH/SPEAK (and if your system is particularly deranged, PUSH/PULL/OPEN/CLOSE/LIFT/TAKE/CLIMB) doesn't really add much beyond occasionally annoying the player.
LucasArts shifting away from original, fun games to Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game.
LucasArts shifting away from original, fun games to Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game.
Though, they were honest about the Full Throttle sequel sucking. It tells me they're aware that they're not the same as they used to be. Or maybe they just couldn't live up to the first one.
It was still a sad day when they announced it was cancelled.
LucasArts shifting away from original, fun games to Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game.
Maybe I'm weird, but I never actually cared for LucasArts' other games. They just never appealed to me in any way.
But I love Star Wars. So they're now basically catering to me. I was more sad when the quality of their games overall started drastically dipping, but LucasArts seems to be trying to turn over a new leaf now and their games have been improving exponentially and maybe we'll even see them do more original stuff some day.
LucasArts shifting away from original, fun games to Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game.
Maybe I'm weird, but I never actually cared for LucasArts' other games. They just never appealed to me in any way.
LucasArts shifting away from original, fun games to Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game.
Maybe I'm weird, but I never actually cared for LucasArts' other games. They just never appealed to me in any way.
But I love Star Wars. So they're now basically catering to me. I was more sad when the quality of their games overall started drastically dipping, but LucasArts seems to be trying to turn over a new leaf now and their games have been improving exponentially and maybe we'll even see them do more original stuff some day.
Which of the non-SW titles have you played? I just want to get a ballpark area of how crazy you are. <.<
King's Quest 7. Sierra abandoned the tried-and-true "touch/talk/walk/inventory" cursor system for a single cursor. Moreover, it sparkled whenever you placed it over what you are supposed to interact with.
It required no thinking, no puzzle solving, just playing metal detector with your mouse.
Any game where it's not completely obvious what you can interact with is a bad game, or at least a game that's worse than a theoretical game that's almost exactly the same except that it's completely obvious what you can interact with.
And honestly, beyond using items there really isn't more than one interaction that you would want to have with any particular object. If the game isn't of the sort where every possible interaction is clever or adds flavor, allowing you to WALK/LOOK/TOUCH/SPEAK (and if your system is particularly deranged, PUSH/PULL/OPEN/CLOSE/LIFT/TAKE/CLIMB) doesn't really add much beyond occasionally annoying the player.
I don't get what you're saying. Am I a brilliant genius with a keen sense of what works in a game, or am I a masochistic stuck-up game snob fuckwad?
LucasArts shifting away from original, fun games to Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game.
Maybe I'm weird, but I never actually cared for LucasArts' other games. They just never appealed to me in any way.
But I love Star Wars. So they're now basically catering to me. I was more sad when the quality of their games overall started drastically dipping, but LucasArts seems to be trying to turn over a new leaf now and their games have been improving exponentially and maybe we'll even see them do more original stuff some day.
Which of the non-SW titles have you played? I just want to get a ballpark area of how crazy you are. <.<
Mostly the adventure games. I did like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, but for the most part, I don't enjoy the overall atmosphere of the others.
LucasArts shifting away from original, fun games to Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game.
Maybe I'm weird, but I never actually cared for LucasArts' other games. They just never appealed to me in any way.
But I love Star Wars. So they're now basically catering to me. I was more sad when the quality of their games overall started drastically dipping, but LucasArts seems to be trying to turn over a new leaf now and their games have been improving exponentially and maybe we'll even see them do more original stuff some day.
Which of the non-SW titles have you played? I just want to get a ballpark area of how crazy you are. <.<
Mostly the adventure games. I did like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, but for the most part, I don't enjoy the overall atmosphere of the others.
King's Quest 7. Sierra abandoned the tried-and-true "touch/talk/walk/inventory" cursor system for a single cursor. Moreover, it sparkled whenever you placed it over what you are supposed to interact with.
It required no thinking, no puzzle solving, just playing metal detector with your mouse.
Any game where it's not completely obvious what you can interact with is a bad game, or at least a game that's worse than a theoretical game that's almost exactly the same except that it's completely obvious what you can interact with.
And honestly, beyond using items there really isn't more than one interaction that you would want to have with any particular object. If the game isn't of the sort where every possible interaction is clever or adds flavor, allowing you to WALK/LOOK/TOUCH/SPEAK (and if your system is particularly deranged, PUSH/PULL/OPEN/CLOSE/LIFT/TAKE/CLIMB) doesn't really add much beyond occasionally annoying the player.
I don't get what you're saying. Am I a brilliant genius with a keen sense of what works in a game, or am I a masochistic stuck-up game snob fuckwad?
I wouldn't necessarily call you a masochistic stuck-up game snob fuckwad, since the general style of system that Sierra used before that did indeed work very well, and it's entirely possible it's better than the King's Quest 7/Torin's Passage style. There was certainly nothing broken or even annoying about it, but the other style worked perfectly fine as well.
Part of the reason that the standard system based on four types of interaction was and still is so successful is that in a graphical game, actions are easily abstracted. Even though the hand icon can represent multiple types of actions, it's almost always obvious which of those actions needs to be performed on an object. Drawers will always need to be opened, boulders will always need to be pushed, and small objects will always need to be taken.
However, the abstraction can easily be taken further, without much loss to the gameplay. In general, the player will almost never want to HAND a character or MOUTH an item, so there's no real need to even give them that option. There are very few cases where both HAND and MOUTH are viable actions, and those few cases can often be handled by changing the result of the standard interaction based on other contexts.
The only real loss is the inability to look at instead of interacting with particular objects, but that isn't truely necessary in a graphical game anyway, assuming that the graphics themselves are sufficient to provide enough information about the objects the character can see. It's certainly possible for the character's or narrator's observations to add to the game, but if the writers aren't going to put a ton of effort into writing interesting descriptions, there's nothing lost by completely omitting them. There are certainly a ton of non-adventure games that manage to create interesting worlds without giving you a blub of information for every minor detail.
And like I said, if it isn't immediately obvious what's a viable target for interaction, the designers screwed up, regardless of which system they're using. If a particular screen is supposed to be cluttered and confusing, then you be able to interact with everything, not just the things that are actually essential. If the areas of interaction are overly sparse, then that's just laziness on the part of the designer, and really no different than assigning a general response to all of the non-interactive parts if they're EYE/HAND/MOUTHed. If a glowing cursor ends up suprising you, then that instance was a failure on the part of the artist to show something worth interacting with, and if the standard interface was used, you would have missed that location completely.
Just knowing that it was coming out kept my hopes up for future LucasArts releases.... when Full Throttle 2 got cancelled, the coffin was quickly lowered into the ground. /sigh
LucasArts shifting away from original, fun games to Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game after Star Wars game.
Maybe I'm weird, but I never actually cared for LucasArts' other games. They just never appealed to me in any way.
My saddest moment about a year ago when I realized that for the next five years, every time I come to a forum or a blog and want to read the comments, I have to scroll past pages of slavering xbox fanboys trying to make their penises larger by bitching about the wii. By the time the next gen rolls around, I bet entire hours, even days of my life will have been wasted experiencing this morass of dumb. Just let people enjoy their damn games of choice, you insecure pencil-necked mouth-breathers. FUCK.
Part of me wants them to revisit and remake the series with modern technology and Freespsace 2 scales.
Part of me wants to let it die because I know in my heart of hearts they'll fuck it up beyond all recognition.
Part of me wants to see one of the space sims set outside the continuity between Episode I and Episode VI. At least the Jedi Knight series got some post-Endor action.
"Now you can play all these new games!"
"Yay!" *plays for a few hours. Gets bored. Goes to install Ultima Underworld*
'Oh, no son. Those old games won't work on this."
"But... but..."
Yeah. No more Ultima Underworld, no more Alone in the Dark. Goodbye, Edward Carnby. Goodbye, Stygian Abyss.
"Now you can play all these new games!"
"Yay!" *plays for a few hours. Gets bored. Goes to install Ultima Underworld*
'Oh, no son. Those old games won't work on this."
"But... but..."
Yeah. No more Ultima Underworld, no more Alone in the Dark. Goodbye, Edward Carnby. Goodbye, Stygian Abyss.
Your father lied to you. You could dual boot, and it doesn't even take a second partition.
I’ll tell you what happens in Demon’s Souls when you die. You come back as a ghost with your health capped at half. And when you keep on dying, the alignment of the world turns black and the enemies get harder. That’s right, when you fail in this game, it gets harder. Why? Because fuck you is why.
"Now you can play all these new games!"
"Yay!" *plays for a few hours. Gets bored. Goes to install Ultima Underworld*
'Oh, no son. Those old games won't work on this."
"But... but..."
Yeah. No more Ultima Underworld, no more Alone in the Dark. Goodbye, Edward Carnby. Goodbye, Stygian Abyss.
I remember one day I came back to the computer after my Dad was done with it for the time being, and found all of my games gone. I didn't have a huge collection, but they were just flat-out gone. I had Deadlock, Total Annihilation, some other aliens vs humans RTS in a similar style, and a few others I can't remember cause it was over ten years ago.
Looking back, it had to have been my Dad who got rid of them (he probably thought they were inappropriate or whatever the fuck), but he denied it forever. Well, maybe not forever. My Dad isn't the kind of guy you really press a subject with if you don't want to get into some serious shit.
I remember one time I came to the computer to find he'd deleted a ton of stuff, including emptying out the entire my documents folder which included a ton of stuff that I had written (Which I had backed up on a floppy, thank fucking God) but he actually got mad at me when I was pissed at him for deleting all of my shit without even letting me know he was doing it. Like "What, you're MAD at me for fucking up your shit? Are you fucking joking?" or something to that extent. That wasn't the end of his deleting spree, either. In the throngs of his genius, he apparently found his way into the C: drive and deleted something he shouldn't have, and everything except AOL refused to work and he had to reinstall Windows.
In fact, it was my Dad who got me into the habit of pushing a CD-Tray all the way in with your finger, instead of letting it retract on it's own. We had to replace the CD-Rom drive about 5 times with that computer, and he was 100% positive it was entirely my fault each time because I used the PC more than he did.
That's my Dad; The computer whiz and gigantic asshole all rolled into one.
Posts
yea? I knew about Shareware helping but I read that on another site that it started to hurt more than help, was probably just people spouting smoke though, I'd just thought it was always what happened to shareware.
Handmade Jewelry by me on EtsyGames for sale
Me on Twitch!
When Gravitar machines stopped being easy to find. Or Asteroids. I love thrust-type games.
When I said goodbye to the Space Invaders machine in my house (my Dad worked for Taito and 'borrowed' one from the storehouse).
I'm older than some of you, it seems.
oh, and a Pizza place up the road from the flat I sued to live in back in Luton had an original Mortal Kombat machine. Good times.
PortsCenter • Jump Leads • The Life Toyetic with Ben and Molly
XBOX Live: BrandXSavior
Wii: 4629 5078 1523 8513
Were they discriminating against people with awesome puns for screen names, or was it just so awesome to live there you decided to go to court to establish your rights to do it?
Barcade is my favorite bar in the world. When I first moved to NYC, I lived about a five minute walk away and was there pretty much every weekend. Unfortunately, I now live in a different neighborhood and it's about a 30-minute train ride away, so I don't go very often.
Absolutely phenomenal place. They have Star Wars, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Contra, Rampage, Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Elevator Action, Smash TV, and a host of others that slip my mind. They also have a huge selection of beers, and great bartenders.
Cannot recommend it highly enough. Anyone who has the chance to go should do so.
Yeah, I was back there again last April and the Star Wars machine (one of my favorite arcade games of all time) was out of order.
I spent my time playing Berzerk, Tron (I think this replaced Gyruss which is another favorite of mine), and Gauntlet (with one of their Stouts for liquid nourishment).
XBOX Live: BrandXSavior
Wii: 4629 5078 1523 8513
Oh yeah, Barcade is actually the first place I've ever played the Tron game. It's pretty fun in a weird way.
The place is just great. On Friday and Saturday nights, it's packed, so it's difficult to get on the more popular games (and if there's a greater sight than a group of drunk girls playing a Super Mario Bros. arcade machine, I haven't seen it), which leaves you to explore the more obscure ones.
The best are the little wooden drink holders on either side of each arcade machine. I don't think I can ever again play Ghosts 'n Goblins without a glass of whiskey by my side.
PortsCenter • Jump Leads • The Life Toyetic with Ben and Molly
Gotst'a love those drink holders.
XBOX Live: BrandXSavior
Wii: 4629 5078 1523 8513
Any game where it's not completely obvious what you can interact with is a bad game, or at least a game that's worse than a theoretical game that's almost exactly the same except that it's completely obvious what you can interact with.
And honestly, beyond using items there really isn't more than one interaction that you would want to have with any particular object. If the game isn't of the sort where every possible interaction is clever or adds flavor, allowing you to WALK/LOOK/TOUCH/SPEAK (and if your system is particularly deranged, PUSH/PULL/OPEN/CLOSE/LIFT/TAKE/CLIMB) doesn't really add much beyond occasionally annoying the player.
PortsCenter • Jump Leads • The Life Toyetic with Ben and Molly
Though, they were honest about the Full Throttle sequel sucking. It tells me they're aware that they're not the same as they used to be. Or maybe they just couldn't live up to the first one.
It was still a sad day when they announced it was cancelled.
Maybe I'm weird, but I never actually cared for LucasArts' other games. They just never appealed to me in any way.
But I love Star Wars. So they're now basically catering to me. I was more sad when the quality of their games overall started drastically dipping, but LucasArts seems to be trying to turn over a new leaf now and their games have been improving exponentially and maybe we'll even see them do more original stuff some day.
I question your status as a human being.
PortsCenter • Jump Leads • The Life Toyetic with Ben and Molly
Which of the non-SW titles have you played? I just want to get a ballpark area of how crazy you are. <.<
I don't get what you're saying. Am I a brilliant genius with a keen sense of what works in a game, or am I a masochistic stuck-up game snob fuckwad?
Bloody expensive demo.
PortsCenter • Jump Leads • The Life Toyetic with Ben and Molly
Mostly the adventure games. I did like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, but for the most part, I don't enjoy the overall atmosphere of the others.
Hollow tin chest.
PortsCenter • Jump Leads • The Life Toyetic with Ben and Molly
I wouldn't necessarily call you a masochistic stuck-up game snob fuckwad, since the general style of system that Sierra used before that did indeed work very well, and it's entirely possible it's better than the King's Quest 7/Torin's Passage style. There was certainly nothing broken or even annoying about it, but the other style worked perfectly fine as well.
Part of the reason that the standard system based on four types of interaction was and still is so successful is that in a graphical game, actions are easily abstracted. Even though the hand icon can represent multiple types of actions, it's almost always obvious which of those actions needs to be performed on an object. Drawers will always need to be opened, boulders will always need to be pushed, and small objects will always need to be taken.
However, the abstraction can easily be taken further, without much loss to the gameplay. In general, the player will almost never want to HAND a character or MOUTH an item, so there's no real need to even give them that option. There are very few cases where both HAND and MOUTH are viable actions, and those few cases can often be handled by changing the result of the standard interaction based on other contexts.
The only real loss is the inability to look at instead of interacting with particular objects, but that isn't truely necessary in a graphical game anyway, assuming that the graphics themselves are sufficient to provide enough information about the objects the character can see. It's certainly possible for the character's or narrator's observations to add to the game, but if the writers aren't going to put a ton of effort into writing interesting descriptions, there's nothing lost by completely omitting them. There are certainly a ton of non-adventure games that manage to create interesting worlds without giving you a blub of information for every minor detail.
And like I said, if it isn't immediately obvious what's a viable target for interaction, the designers screwed up, regardless of which system they're using. If a particular screen is supposed to be cluttered and confusing, then you be able to interact with everything, not just the things that are actually essential. If the areas of interaction are overly sparse, then that's just laziness on the part of the designer, and really no different than assigning a general response to all of the non-interactive parts if they're EYE/HAND/MOUTHed. If a glowing cursor ends up suprising you, then that instance was a failure on the part of the artist to show something worth interacting with, and if the standard interface was used, you would have missed that location completely.
Pathetic? Yes, but also sad.
This. A hundred times this.
In some parts of the world, these two words are not mutually exclusive.
PortsCenter • Jump Leads • The Life Toyetic with Ben and Molly
Sigh.
Part of me wants to let it die because I know in my heart of hearts they'll fuck it up beyond all recognition.
Part of me just really wants a Krispy Kreme.
I'd be much more receptive to LucasArts offerings if they, y'know, started making good, original games again.
PortsCenter • Jump Leads • The Life Toyetic with Ben and Molly
Part of me wants to see one of the space sims set outside the continuity between Episode I and Episode VI. At least the Jedi Knight series got some post-Endor action.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
"Now you can play all these new games!"
"Yay!" *plays for a few hours. Gets bored. Goes to install Ultima Underworld*
'Oh, no son. Those old games won't work on this."
"But... but..."
Yeah. No more Ultima Underworld, no more Alone in the Dark. Goodbye, Edward Carnby. Goodbye, Stygian Abyss.
nuff' said.
Your father lied to you. You could dual boot, and it doesn't even take a second partition.
Let me tell you about Demon's Souls....
I remember one day I came back to the computer after my Dad was done with it for the time being, and found all of my games gone. I didn't have a huge collection, but they were just flat-out gone. I had Deadlock, Total Annihilation, some other aliens vs humans RTS in a similar style, and a few others I can't remember cause it was over ten years ago.
Looking back, it had to have been my Dad who got rid of them (he probably thought they were inappropriate or whatever the fuck), but he denied it forever. Well, maybe not forever. My Dad isn't the kind of guy you really press a subject with if you don't want to get into some serious shit.
I remember one time I came to the computer to find he'd deleted a ton of stuff, including emptying out the entire my documents folder which included a ton of stuff that I had written (Which I had backed up on a floppy, thank fucking God) but he actually got mad at me when I was pissed at him for deleting all of my shit without even letting me know he was doing it. Like "What, you're MAD at me for fucking up your shit? Are you fucking joking?" or something to that extent. That wasn't the end of his deleting spree, either. In the throngs of his genius, he apparently found his way into the C: drive and deleted something he shouldn't have, and everything except AOL refused to work and he had to reinstall Windows.
In fact, it was my Dad who got me into the habit of pushing a CD-Tray all the way in with your finger, instead of letting it retract on it's own. We had to replace the CD-Rom drive about 5 times with that computer, and he was 100% positive it was entirely my fault each time because I used the PC more than he did.
That's my Dad; The computer whiz and gigantic asshole all rolled into one.