As I am currently unemployed, I've had a lot of time to spend playing computer games recently, and this, combined with an article I recently read on upcoming games, makes me want to chat about computer games for a while. I promise there'll be good recommendations and good links. ;)
Games Present
Currently installed on my computer are Neverwinter Nights, The Sims (with the expansions through Unleashed), the original Tomb Raider (Gold Edition), Dark Age of Camelot, and few other, smaller games, which I'll get to in a minute.
I sort of go back and forth between NWN and The Sims, as I find I need a break after either of them after a while. As for NWN, I'm somewhere in chapter 2, and still intend to finish it (even though I gave up on Dungeon Siege once I'd gotten all but to the end because I just was completely bored and didn't want to go through the last level). I just find that I can't play it for days on end; I need a break. I miss the larger parties of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. I miss getting to control the other members of the party. I miss the interaction. Here, I find that most battles are pretty much the same. I've even rolled up a few other baby characters to try out other classes: playing a thief keeps you more occupied, and lets you get all the loot, even early on; playing a mage gives you more choices, but really the spells aren't that varied early in the game.
The Sims rolls on. I still can't believe that after all this time they can't make that game less buggy. It's doing pretty well, this installation, so maybe Unleashed has helped, but I'm not holding my breath. I've got some downloaded stuff put in the game, and with that, it usually either works or it doesn't; the installation just finally gets old enough and splintered enough that you have to reinstall. I still enjoy playing it, though, getting all my houses in order and everyone where they're supposed to be, moving them up the career ladder. But it runs in phases, as well, so I trade, as I said, between it and NWN. And I haven't bought Superstar yet. My computer doesn't have the room, or the chops, I don't think, to run it, and I have plenty of other Sim projects.
My newest game is Tomb Raider. I've wanted to try this series out for ages, but never thought I'd be much good at it. I had tried another platformer/shooter, recently, and did all right with it until I got to a boss that I couldn't pass and gave up. And so when I saw TR 1&2 together for $9.99 on the sale rack at Best Buy a few months ago, I bought it, thinking I'd try it out when I had the time. Because of changes in video cards, it's very pixilated, but I can still see well enough to play easily. I tried a download that let me run it as it should look, but it branded the game with something I couldn't see around, and it was going to cost $10 to register--the cost of the two games together, after all. So I'm cruising along with some bad graphics, but it doesn't affect me too much, and I don't mind it.
I'm doing ok--though I didn't even start before I'd found a site with good walkthroughs. I don't always set out with a walkthrough in hand, but sometime I do. And I want to know when the bats are going to dive bomb me. I've only just finished level 2, so we'll see how it goes from here. I'm grateful I'm not playing it on the playstation, as you can apparently only save at certain places, there. I save all the time. Make a jump, save. ;) But the underwater stuff sort of freaks me out--even more than the creepy music. (I was really freaked out the first time I heard the Myst music--the first "real" computer game I played, back when it came out--so the music thing didn't surprise me. For that matter, the underwater thing didn't either.)
I enjoy classic games, and have played a lot of them. This one runs in DOS, I believe, as do some of the RPG/adventure titles I have. I'm hoping that they'll all run on Windows XP, which I'll eventually have. But they work great on Windows 98. It's just that Windows 98 doesn't run all that well, these days.
And I still really enjoy playing Dark Age of Camelot. I've got main characters up to levels 10 and 13, and I've been soloing a Huntress lately. I don't play this one for days on end, either, but I enjoy it when I do go on, either by myself or with a friend. I've started crafting, too, and can make arrows and bows and rag dolls, which amuses me. Now if only there were gnomes, to raise my woodworking skills...
Also on my computer, I have several smaller games. First, NetHack, which I'd heard mentioned before and finally tried a couple of months ago. I suck at NetHack, and don't have the patience to play it, apparently. Either that or I can't find a set of instructions good enough for my dense head, I don't know. Second, Bejeweled & Alchemy, puzzle games by PopCap Games that I'd tried on the web at the realplayer site and then found on the sale rack at Hastings for $5 on one disc. I haven't played them in a while, and could probably uninstall them, especially as a friend of mine has gotten me addicted to another game of theirs, Atomica (which you can find on their site, above). I cannot get past level 23. Finally, I have Pretty Good Solitaire, which is a collection of (to date) 500+ solitaire card games. I stumbled across this game at some point, and when I paid, I got a note back from the wife of the guy who designed it, saying she knew me from a previous fandom's usenet newsgroup. Small world. So I keep my copy updated, figuring it's good for my karma. plus it's a great game.
And of course there's always Hunt the Wumpus. ;)
Games Past
When I decided to install Tomb Raider, it wasn't my only choice. I have more games than I could ever play, probably, and I had to decide between something new and something I'd played before and enjoyed. I was really tempted by Planescape: Torment, an RPG by the Baldur's Gate people that I highly recommend (and which is on sale racks for cheap, lately). But there were two others I came really close to installing. The first was Gruntz, which is a puzzle game that defies description. I love it to pieces, and it amuses the hell out of me. You guide little gruntz around the game board, through obstacles and such. The official site is gone, and you probably won't be able to find a copy anymore, but if you ever come across one, and like puzzle games, check it out. The second was Croc, a platformer with this cute little Crocodile that you have to guide through different levels. I love it, and it has been on sale racks still, in recent memory. It has a sequel, as well, which isn't quite as good as the first, but is still really fun. Maybe I'll get around to them after I uninstall something else...
Games Future
The August issue of PC Gamer has an article on their 20 top games from E3, the recent gaming show. I don't play battleground games, or war games, or real-time strategy games, really, though I might try a good one of the latter (and the good thing about the magazine is that they send you CDs of demos, and I have a few I want to try). I also don't do very well--and am not interested in, really--first person shooters. Or driving games. Or fishing or hunting games...
So sometimes I have a hard time finding new games to get excited about. But there were several in the article, some sequels, some new. There's a new Myst coming out--URU: Ages of Myst--that will have an online component as well as a single-player adventure. I haven't finished the third one, yet, so I suppose I should do that. (And replaying the first two were also on my list of possibilities, above.) Also, The Sims 2 is coming out, in which your sims age and die--EEK! I think I'll have to try it out, though, because it looks to be incredible. And maybe they'll have fixed the bugs. (Still not holding my breath.)
The one I hadn't heard of, but that I think might be really fun, is Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. It's an RPG set in the Star Wars universe--made by BioWare, the people who did Baldur's Gate and the others. Color me excited!
There's also a sequel to Thief coming out--another series I've wanted to try--and a D&D-based game called Greyhawk: Temple of Elemental Evil. I might pick those up when they hit the sale bin.
I'll probably take a pass on The Movies, a sim where you direct movies and build up a studio, and I've never played the first Deus Ex, so I won't be buying the sequel. But while I was amused by the prospect of planning world domination in a game called Evil Genius, and while I think Vampire: The Masquerade--Bloodlines would scare me too much to play it, my favorite "game I won't buy" was Call of Cthulhu, which is a survival horror game, first-person shooter, based on H. P. Lovecraft. Seeing the gore in the game drives you insane, and the goal is to keep it together long enough to solve the case, because you will commit suicide in the end. Crack me up. In an odd sort of way.
Note: This entry has been reposted from my LiveJournal, with a few minor edits.
Everyone sucks at Nethack. Really. It's not terribly hard to learn, but viciously hard to win... I've been playing for about a year and a half and have gotten as far as the -beginning- of Gehennom exactly once, and I'm pretty proud of that.
Check out http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~eva/nethack/spoilerlist.html if you're ever interested in going back into the dungeons. :)
Posted by: Cheyan | September 02, 2003 at 12:18 PM
Ah, thanks for the tip! I'll definitely check it out. :)
Posted by: McAmy | September 04, 2003 at 08:21 PM