So, after spending my vacation week playing classic video games, there was one more game that I wanted to go back to the well with, and that was "Far Cry". I had just read the latest issue of "PC Gamer" which had a preview article on "Far Cry 2". That was the push over the ledge I needed to take this title for another spin. Can just four years a classic make? I think that given a few more years, we'll look back on the adventures of Jack Carver and see that along with a nice story with a good plot twist, Ubisoft upped the ante with a beautiful tropical setting. I'm pretty sure that my first time through the game, I didn't take time to stop and smell the roses. This time, I'm using more stealth and exploring the islands and what lurks under the water as well. One thing that I have this time as opposed to the last time I played it (aside from a faster machine) is a nice sound system. From gunshots to explosions, the sounds are so much beefier this time. So if you'll excuse me, I have more Trigens to fight.
GiE's classic gaming week wraps up with a game that I'll be playing throughout the weekend and beyond, "Battlefield 1942". This 2002 release still packs the replayability with multiple maps and great Allies/Axis action. This one was a breakthrough in online/LAN playing with different maps and different jobs for your soldiers. Play assault, scout, medic, anti-tank or engineer as you battle back and forth to take the flags. The best thing that this game brings to the table, vehicles! Jump in a tank, half-track or P-51 Mustang on the single player maps or get your sea legs under you on an aircraft carrier or submarine on the larger multi-player maps. Installation of the game and the two add-ons (Secret Weapons & Road to Rome) was flawless. In no time, I grabbed by Thompson and was fighting Jerry in the Battle of the Buldge. Happy gaming!
It was my eighth grade year when I was introduced to the Apple IIe. There was one machine for the whole class and we would all take turns entering our basic code for our class projects. After class, we would throw in the "Escape from Castle Wolfenstein" floppy disk in the drive and revel in its green screen glory. Every footlocker we opened brought us that much closer to freedom. Just don't let the guards see you or they would chase you from room to room yelling "halt" in their German machine language. Many remember "Wolfenstein 3D" and it's sequel "Spear of Destiny" on the PC. This was a precursor to the classic "Doom" by ID Software. In 2001, ID gave the Wolfenstein franchise a makeover with "Return to Castle Wolfenstein". This first person shooter puts you in the combat boots of BJ Blazkowicz as he escapes the dungeon of the castle and makes his way through the Nazi infested countryside to eventually confront the main bad guy Heinrich. This game was the perfect combination of a single player story and multiplayer action. Once I made it through the single player storyline, it was off to the online action. I cannot event count how many hours I logged in the multipayer mode. Most of the maps were well balanced that you had to have soldiers and engineers on your team and had to work together to win the day. The install on my Vista machine was flawless and was able to jump right in and start playing. Launching the multiplayer found a few people still playing, but I'm sure if I install the patches, I'll find more. Friday's classic game: "Battlefield 1942".
Having worked in the broadcast industry for over 20 years, I have gravitated to strategy games that based themselves in the biz. One game that places you smack-dab in the over sized Hollywood studio executive chair is "Hollywood Mogul". This is a text based business simulator. You start out with a generous bank account and set out green-lighting feature films. You choose everything from picking the scripts, the scriptwriters, actors, producers down to how much and where you spend your advertising dollars. The gameplay can be a little tedious at times, but the payoff is when your project takes off and generates lots of green, which lets you churn out more films. This reminds me of one of my favorite games for the Amiga. It was a business sim set in the world of television. I have yet to find its PC equivalent. The website for "Hollywood Mogul" is still up and they are currently selling "Hollywood Mogul 3". I'll have to check it out one of these days. Thursday's game: "Return to Castle Wolfenstein".
Day two of my classic gaming week was spent installing and playing an old favorite of mine, "Diablo 2". Now I remember why I was so thankful when I finished playing this 2000 game from Blizzard... it killed my right mouse-clicking finger! Just going back through the first few levels had me switching between my pointer and middle finger. This was a very basic hack and slash dungeon game with a little customization thrown in. But because it was Blizzard who created the game, it had solid gameplay. Getting D2 up on my Vista machine took a little bit of disk swaping (3 cd's) and just a tad of tweeking, but the thing that surprised me was that from the time I double clicked the icon to the time the game started the opening cinematics was four and a half minutes. I had almost forgotten that I had clicked the icon in the first place and so the opening Blizzard logo took me by surprise. So, I spent Tuesday dungeon crawling and leveling up. Wednesday's game: Hollywood Mogul.
It's vacation time at Gamer in Exile and instead of traveling across the state, this year, the GiE family will be taking a "stay"-cation. So, I thought that for the week I'll be at home, I would go back into the game stash and pick out one classic game to install and play each of the weekdays during the vacation. On Monday, I revisited 1999's "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri". I remember playing "Civ 3" for what seemed like days at a time and so "Alpha Centauri" seemed like a logical progression of that franchise. To me, this game was what happed after you sent your civilization into space. The game originally was issued for Windows 95/98. It was a smooth instillation, but there was a yes/no screen right when I launched the game that had invisible text. The only thing on the screen were two rectangles. Clicking the right box exited me out of the game, the left box allowed the game to continue. I played most of Monday with "Alpha Centauri" and spent most of the day relearning how the tech trees progressed. After three games, I finally got back into the swing of things. By the fourth game, I had been elected as head of the council and brought peace to the new planet. Tuesday's game, "Diablo 2".
Over the weekend, I broke down and bought Guitar Hero 3. Three things pushed me over the edge. The first was that GameStop had the controller/game package discounted $20.00. The second was the Def Deppard music pack that came out a couple of weeks ago. The third is that you can use the GH3 controller on the Rock Band game. The kids and I had fun playing Tug of War on Rock Band. I'm about halfway through the easy level and have found that it is a little more 'cartoony' than Rock Band. There is a little crossover between GH3 and Rock Band, as they share a few songs. My initial feeling is that there isn't the 'ommmph' in the song selection of GH3 like there was in GH2. Hopefully that will change with the GH3: Aerosmith expansion coming out in June.
If you have played Fallout 1 or 2 then you're most likely drooling over all of the Fallout 3 screenshots that have been coming out (of the Vault) from the official site. Having played the first two games in the series, I too am just blown away by the shots that have been released. But before there was a Fallout 1 or Fallout 2, there was Wasteland. This was one of my favorite games of my Commodore era. It was a post-apocalyptic RPG staring you and your merry band of misfits. A few years ago, I happened across an Interplay collection called, "The Ultimate RPG Archives". I bought the collection just so I could have Wasteland for my PC. Now, I'm thinking about unboxing Fallout 1 & 2 for a trip down memory lane before number three comes out this fall.
StarCraft has to be one of the top five games ever created. Even though it came out in 1995, I still find myself going back to it. What other game that is almost ten years old are you still playing? Blizzard is working on a sequel to the game for release later in 2008 (cross your fingers). Check out the latest Zerg-centric trailer for the game at GameSpot. Fear the Zergling rush!
If you have puzzled your way to the end of the brilliant Valve Game "Portal", then you got to hear the catchy little ditty "Still Alive" by composer Johnathan Coulton. If you have not made it to the end, then you can catch the song on YouTube. During this year's Game Developer's Conference, Johnathan Coulton took the stage with his band of misfits to demonstrate "Still Alive" on Rock Band. Notice how TWiT leader Leo LaPorte rescues the rest of the band. UPDATE: My mistake, after watching the video a second time, it was Veronica who was on lead guitar and rescued Leo who was playing bass. Darn mirror image.
If you remember in our last post, I was singing the praises of Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat. The day after I posted that, "it" hit the fan. As near as I can tell, the issues began with PunkBuster. If you are not familiar with that program, PB is an anti-cheating program that runs with many online multi-player computer games. The problems began when I would fire up CofD4 multi-player, I would get into a game and within 30 to 45 seconds, PB would kick me out. Frustrating. I went to the PB website and installed the latest update to PB. Now, when I go to the multi-player server screen... nothing! Not one single game would show up. Firmly believing that not everyone in the world gave up on CofD4 at the same moment, I went to my router's manufacturer's website to download a firmware update. That killed my entire home network. It took a week and lots of trial and error to get the home network back up and running. The network is up, but still no multi-player games for CofD4. That means I get to take back all of the cool things I said about CofD4. With no multi-player, the game is a very quick First Person Shooter. As for playing games online, very few multi-player games are showing up for Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike. My head is telling me that I'm having a firewall issue, but I disabled the firewall for a few minutes and had the same minuscule results. It looks like it's back to Peggle for me.
Hey all! I came across a new social gamers' website today. The name of the site is GameStrata. It is in beta right now, so it's invitation only. But, all it takes is an email address to get an invite. This could turn into a nice online gathering place for gamers. Right now, they have four games that will keep up with your stats. They need to get on the horse and add more games to the list if they want to succeed as a social gamers' site. As an aside, I have been really enjoying Call of Duty 4. The single player missions were a little short, but the multi-player part of the game makes up for it. I've finally become an officer (2nd Lt.) and so the promotions will start to slow down as it gets more challenging. See you on the frag field.
Here is what I found while surfing the net today, the game KDice. If you are a fan of the game Risk and have ever played the dice game 10,000, KDice is right up your alley. Surf over and take a minute to read the rules. It's an online multiplayer game. Who knows, maybe you'll see Fenn101 sitting across the table from you.
