We didn't have consoles, in our household. Purely because as a family with three girls and a young boy (at this point, quite literally a baby) there wasn’t a gamer’s push to bring one into the fold. No one had yet identified as a gamer, and the only reason a CD ROM drive was installed in dad’s computer was because he had a fondness for new technologies and tinkering with his hardware components. He himself had no interest in gaming, but a quasi-professional interest in how the CD-ROM drive worked with games.
Our first unit was one of the ones with a cartridge you pulled out of the slot, inserted the disc into, then loaded back into the machine. It whirred and clicked like there was an engine and not a harddrive in there, and the slightest fleck of dust brought the whole thing to a halt. Dad furnished us with some (probably randomly) purchased PC games and we set forth on a voyage of pixels and discovery.
From what I remember, the games unlisted here but played were Recess in Greece (I remember most of the dialogue to this), Jungle Jill, Captain Comic, Commander Keen, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, Total Annihilation, Duke Nukem (the one where he wears pink and talks about Oprah. That’s all I know), and Encarta’s Mindmaze.
That aside, there were three that I spent more time on than any others. Come investigate after the jump!
.gif)
From what I remember, the games unlisted here but played were Recess in Greece (I remember most of the dialogue to this), Jungle Jill, Captain Comic, Commander Keen, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, Total Annihilation, Duke Nukem (the one where he wears pink and talks about Oprah. That’s all I know), and Encarta’s Mindmaze.
That aside, there were three that I spent more time on than any others. Come investigate after the jump!
Sierra - Jones In the Fast Lane
Jones In The Fast Lane was a Game of Life type deal where you get a job, earn money, buy things, educate yourself and do your best not to end up wearing a barrel. It was also extremely witty and well written, to the point where it was known among the children of my family that while Dad would lose patience with us playing games on his computer, he was more tractable if you were playing Jones. He’d linger in the vicinity and guffaw with laughter over things that we didn't fully “get”, but enjoyed nonetheless.
You also had the option of playing against Jones, a stumpy little ginger bastard who always won. Thankfully you didn’t have to look at him all that much because he was mostly visible on screen via his “Marble”, the vehicle he zooms around in from place to place.
It’s a very simple game, more appealing for it’s moments of early 90s hilarity than any challenge. You barrel about fetching groceries, paying rent, working, buying VCRs and baseball tickets to keep yourself entertained. You have four gauges you need to keep balanced - Career, Happiness, Wealth and Education. The harder you set these goals, the longer the game. Oh, and it has some incredibly bitching theme music. And a thieving bandit called Wild Willy. No, really. He had a musical sting that used to honest-to-god scare me as a little spud.
Found a really good article about Jones in the Fast Lane on PCGamer, which is worth a look if you’re idly curious and/or amused. Or else - you could just play the Flash version.
Sierra - Outpost
Oh man, Outpost. It took me a very long time to realise that this game was intended for a far more sophisticated/older me. I had no particular ambition to win it, which was good, because I likely would have gouged my eyes out.
This build+gather+thrive space colony game is set in a futuristic hard sci-fi Earth facing destruction by an oncoming comet called Vulcan’s Hammer. You have to take your colonists to the far reaches of the galaxy to resettle and repopulate the human race. You choose a planet based on its mineral content, temperature and breathability, and go forth. You build residential properties and linked them up with nifty little hallway-tubes. You established robotic police militia and choose if they were hostile or benevolent. You trundled around building and mining and digging, until suddenly your robotic female assistant-voice says “They’re dead, Commander. Everyone is dead”, and thusly anything you click on will only replay her statement. And that was how every attempt ended. There was no real way of monitoring the life/death of your colonists, you just built and prayed.
Design-wise it was rather nice, brisk and no nonsense with lots of numbers and stats and bleepy-bloopy bits. It played Horst’s Waltz of the Planets (Mars, Bringer of War) on loop. The whole way through the game. I don’t think you would have lasted if you weren’t very fond of the piece.
I did some nostalgic research a little while back, and discovered to my indignation that Outpost had been considered a hastily and shoddily built game. Functions, codes and options were missing, and it’s theorised that it’s actually impossible to succeed in the game as a result. Certainly I never did, but I was more interested in how long I could go before everyone unavoidably died.
One thing that should have given away the fundamental broken-ness of this game though was how it behaved once everyone had died - the music would go silent, your robot assistant would continue to chant at you about how everyone was dead, and there was no option to exit the game. Every time I hit that stage I had to restart the computer in order to get out of that glassy aquarium of death. There was always something very creepy at that point. Everyone being dead, everything being lost and silent and there being no way out. My tiny six-year-old brain wondered if the Commander (me) was also a human colonist, and thus would sit and wait for death on an empty planet, the last human in the galaxy with a robot assistant for company.
Serious stuff. Pity it was such a badly made game.
Jones In The Fast Lane was a Game of Life type deal where you get a job, earn money, buy things, educate yourself and do your best not to end up wearing a barrel. It was also extremely witty and well written, to the point where it was known among the children of my family that while Dad would lose patience with us playing games on his computer, he was more tractable if you were playing Jones. He’d linger in the vicinity and guffaw with laughter over things that we didn't fully “get”, but enjoyed nonetheless.
You also had the option of playing against Jones, a stumpy little ginger bastard who always won. Thankfully you didn’t have to look at him all that much because he was mostly visible on screen via his “Marble”, the vehicle he zooms around in from place to place.
It’s a very simple game, more appealing for it’s moments of early 90s hilarity than any challenge. You barrel about fetching groceries, paying rent, working, buying VCRs and baseball tickets to keep yourself entertained. You have four gauges you need to keep balanced - Career, Happiness, Wealth and Education. The harder you set these goals, the longer the game. Oh, and it has some incredibly bitching theme music. And a thieving bandit called Wild Willy. No, really. He had a musical sting that used to honest-to-god scare me as a little spud.
Found a really good article about Jones in the Fast Lane on PCGamer, which is worth a look if you’re idly curious and/or amused. Or else - you could just play the Flash version.
Sierra - Outpost
Oh man, Outpost. It took me a very long time to realise that this game was intended for a far more sophisticated/older me. I had no particular ambition to win it, which was good, because I likely would have gouged my eyes out.
This build+gather+thrive space colony game is set in a futuristic hard sci-fi Earth facing destruction by an oncoming comet called Vulcan’s Hammer. You have to take your colonists to the far reaches of the galaxy to resettle and repopulate the human race. You choose a planet based on its mineral content, temperature and breathability, and go forth. You build residential properties and linked them up with nifty little hallway-tubes. You established robotic police militia and choose if they were hostile or benevolent. You trundled around building and mining and digging, until suddenly your robotic female assistant-voice says “They’re dead, Commander. Everyone is dead”, and thusly anything you click on will only replay her statement. And that was how every attempt ended. There was no real way of monitoring the life/death of your colonists, you just built and prayed.
Design-wise it was rather nice, brisk and no nonsense with lots of numbers and stats and bleepy-bloopy bits. It played Horst’s Waltz of the Planets (Mars, Bringer of War) on loop. The whole way through the game. I don’t think you would have lasted if you weren’t very fond of the piece.
I did some nostalgic research a little while back, and discovered to my indignation that Outpost had been considered a hastily and shoddily built game. Functions, codes and options were missing, and it’s theorised that it’s actually impossible to succeed in the game as a result. Certainly I never did, but I was more interested in how long I could go before everyone unavoidably died.
One thing that should have given away the fundamental broken-ness of this game though was how it behaved once everyone had died - the music would go silent, your robot assistant would continue to chant at you about how everyone was dead, and there was no option to exit the game. Every time I hit that stage I had to restart the computer in order to get out of that glassy aquarium of death. There was always something very creepy at that point. Everyone being dead, everything being lost and silent and there being no way out. My tiny six-year-old brain wondered if the Commander (me) was also a human colonist, and thus would sit and wait for death on an empty planet, the last human in the galaxy with a robot assistant for company.
Serious stuff. Pity it was such a badly made game.
LucasArts - Loom
Oh man. What can I possibly say about this game that I haven't before.
Loom has probably had more of an effect on me than any other stimuli. It's the one I suddenly found myself losing hours over, having nightmares about, having physical fights with siblings over the right to play. I wouldn't meet a game I'd obsess over this much until Diablo when I hit high school.
Bobbin Threadbare is a young'un of the Guild of Weavers, traditionally cloaked and hooded and skilled with the manipulation of the threads on the Great Loom, which controls The Fabric (their dimension). Bobbin is seen as an anomaly to be feared, since his mother drew him unforeseen from the Great Loom (no sex for weavers, apparently). She was exiled, they told him she was dead, the stage was set.
There are a handful of things that set this game apart, firstly its mode of gameplay. You carry a staff, set on your toolbar over an octave of notes. The spells that you learn initially involve very few notes, but increase in breadth and complexity as the game unfolds. You unlock notes, ending with the full eight by the final scene. You don't fight, you don't lockpick or loot or climb or jump or anything. You wander forth with your staff, occasionally falling down things and through things and being dropped from great heights and all that fun stuff.
Secondly the game has moments of startling brutality, somehow more disturbing for the rough pixels they're rendered in. Bishop Mandible, who you inadvertently follow for a good portion of the game, is rather suddenly decapitated and the head in question flung toward the viewer with a gurgling scream that I heard in my dreams for many, many months.
And speaking of decapitation, lets meet Chaos. Though she's spelt "Choas" throughout, which is somehow more menacing.
AAARGH good jesus.
And just to compound the horror, Bobbin falls into a rift in the Pattern and develops a whole other set of issues by discovering his mother. Who is a swan. Those crazy Weavers.
Along the way you find a large and colorful collection of characters and environments, most of which will be dead and destroyed before the games over. My personal favorite is the chattering old biddy of a dragon who inadvertently picks up Bobbin thinking he's a sheep.
And all this weirdness is set against the constantly undulating midi adaption of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, which is unexpectedly beautiful and I still love. And then there's the final sequence, and it's not-really-a-happy-ending, which left the way open for a sequel that we'll never see. Every time I completed this game I cried bitter, bitter tears. Because I was devastated, and it was all so beautiful, and my time with Bobbin and his mother was over. I was an emotional child.
I'm still really surprised at how unconventional Loom was - in gameplay, choices, storyline, it's almost Dark-Materialsesque concept of space, time and cross dimensional travelling.
If you're vaguely curious, it's $4 or something similar on Steam. It's a fairly short game - but you have to write everything down. It makes you work. The first time through, anyhow.
No comments:
Post a Comment