I love old games

[Masquerade]

Its the last day of the school holidays and i reluctantly begin year twelve tomorrow, I want a longer holiday dammit! I was in a melancholy mood and i read Jeff's blog article on how he doesn't play old games anymore because they're boring, so i did the logical thing and played a 20 year old game.

 

I played loom.

 

I'm about to gush now, i think I'm aloud to gush on this board. You still there? ok stand back I'm gonna gush.

 

Man that game is amazing, the music and the script and all the characters are crafted with such care and Ive never seen anything that's quite like loom before or since, and that might be part of its appeal. The game just has a magical, philosophical quality to it that touches you right inside without ever being zealous or enigmatic. The graphics are pretty dated but they're never alowed to detract from anything else in the game somehow, hell bobbin could be a big pixily blob and id still be entranced. The open ending sucked at first but the game just keeps on spinning around and around in my head long after i finished playing it, the level of thought and speculation it inspires in my head (which really should be focusing on getting ready for school, dammit) makes up for the lack of closure, hell the open ending pretty much moulds the game, it makes it real instead of a cliched battle against the evil forces of yada yada and blah blah blah. An yet i still want to play more, dammit, why did adventure games have to die out? why!

 

But i digress, the philosophical, magical qualities of loom seems to have been lost to the game industry today cause i cant find anything else that i can play without comparing it to loom, granted this will probibly ware off by tomorrow, knowing me, but i think ill always have a spot in my heart and my hard drive for it.

 

Imagine my shock when i find that that there are not one but two fan sequels currently in the works by two different groups of people no less!! I want to play them, really i do but I'm scared it might break the magic, but at the same time i want to know what happens next.

 

Is there anybody left? Sorry to go so wildly off topic, but there isn't another gamers forum i know of that doesn't degrade into statistics and programming after a few posts, or simply state that if it isn't current it isn't cool. You guys, however, are awesome but knowing you this topic will steer of into a conversation about linguistics or 19th century music theory after a couple of posts, if this gets any posts, ah well you have to throw out a few fish to catch a whale after all, at least I think that's how the saying goes, do correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Jose Padron]

(Sniff) So Beautiful!

[Enraged Slith]

I've been in an "old" game mood lately. I'm playing through Wario Land 3 right now, and I'm going to bust out the 2d Zeldas and my N64 soon. There might be a game or two on the Gamecube too, but I've got a ways to go yet.

 

Alternatively, I tried playing Jet Force Gemini, one of my favorite games as a kid, over the summer, and the controls were terrible. A lot of that game is fantastic, but the aiming and camera angles are so abysmal I couldn't get through much of it.

 

What am I saying is that some games age well while some don't.

[Alorael at Large]

The Loom fan sequels have been in the works for years and years. I think they're reliably vaporware. TellTale Games has said something about considering making a sequel, but I don't think anything has come of that, either. Do I sound like a fan? Loom was one of the very first games I played. It's not quite as traditional as cutting one's teeth on Zork, but in its small way I think it's responsible for getting me hooked on fantasy, and therefore RPGs, and therefore posting on these forums.

 

—Alorael, who is currently playing through Planescape: Torment. Another great game, although it's only one decade old instead of two. And it has received most of the recognition it deserves.

[Masquerade]

Originally Posted By: rage, rage against the light

The Loom fan sequels have been in the works for years and years. I think they're reliably vaporware.

I thought that they were vaporware too, but these ones have actually been updated, there is a technical demo, lots of preveiw screenshots and acording to the status bar almost all of the backrounds (which are beautiful 2D vga esque paintings) are done, it looks really promising! heres the link The Forge

[Android]

Planescape: Torment is a masterpiece, as almost all the other Infinity Engine games are.

What I like the most is that it's great story and content far outshine(overshine?) it's not so good combat.

(Combat looks good, but it's hardly up to the standard of the other IE games.)

[Earth]

many games like old Fallouts have been made somewhat moddern by fans.

[Alorael at Large]

There are the modders who update engines, churn out patches, and generally keep the game playable as long as possible. Then there are the ones who remake the game in an entirely different engine.

 

—Alorael, who was highly impressed by the Ultima V and Ultima 6 remakes using Dungeon Siege. If Baldur's Gate 2: Redux sees the light of day, he'll be even more impressed. Turning one of the longest RPGs into a copy of iteslf with another dimension added on would be a huge accomplishment.

[Rupert]

Ah, I used to love that game. Was one of the first games of that style I ever played, along with Monkey Island. I still remember from MI3, at the end where you can bring up how no-one ever remembers Bobbin Threadbare.

 

It really is a shame that you don't get the same kind of point 'n' clicks as you did back then. I really miss some of those games, like The Dig, the Gabriel Knight, Simon the Sorceror and Broken Sword series and their ilk. Unfortunately these days, it seems the closest you get from anything approaching the mainstream is the occasional Sam and Max game.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

I've been in an "old" game mood lately. I'm playing through Wario Land 3 right now, and I'm going to bust out the 2d Zeldas and my N64 soon. There might be a game or two on the Gamecube too, but I've got a ways to go yet.

Thanks, you're putting me in the mood to dig out Atari 2600' Adventure.

[Cairo Jim]

I've been getting into the old Marathon series lately. A tad different from what I remember, and its one of very few games I had on my old mac that will work on my crappy pc.

[Tirien]

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

Thanks, you're putting me in the mood to dig out Atari 2600' Adventure.

And im digging out my old super nintendo. Seems like the quality of games (plot-wise) has gone down the proverbial toilet these days.

[Alorael at Large]

And Jeff says the old games suck.

 

—Alorael, who will admit that he can't really weigh in. He's never been a prolific gamer, and many of the great games he's played have been experienced well after they've been acknowledged as great (and fallen into the bargain bins). He hasn't had exposure to all the fun games that, a few years down the line, aren't fun anymore. From his perspective, though, while there are old games that become awfully clunky, there are also games that now seem clunky but can still hold their own. (Ultima is really clunky. SCUMM games are surprisingly still accessible.)

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Tirien

And im digging out my old super nintendo. Seems like the quality of games (plot-wise) has gone down the proverbial toilet these days.

Tell me about it. When it comes to many of today's game plots, I've seen better when Pac-Man was in its heyday.

Originally Posted By: Raise your hand

And Jeff says the old games suck.

—Alorael

And, for the most part, he's right, at least from a graphics standpoint. Remember Pong?

Originally Posted By: Jeff

Oh, and I will finally know that we have shaken off the dust of the past when it is no longer possible to play Joust. God, but I hate Joust.

I used to like Joust back in the day. That's probably because for the longest time, it was one of the few games I was any good at (so good, in fact, that I was on the list of high scores at a local skating rink for a year or two).

[Masquerade]

Originally Posted By: Raise your hand

—Alorael, who will admit that he can't really weigh in. He's never been a prolific gamer, and many of the great games he's played have been experienced well after they've been acknowledged as great (and fallen into the bargain bins). He hasn't had exposure to all the fun games that, a few years down the line, aren't fun anymore. From his perspective, though, while there are old games that become awfully clunky, there are also games that now seem clunky but can still hold their own. (Ultima is really clunky. SCUMM games are surprisingly still accessible.)

I can agree with you on that one, I dug up most of my now favorite games from Abandonia, the only two of my favorite 90's games i actually played in the 90's are the day of the tentacle and Mortimer: the riddles of the medallion which is so obscure that it doesn't even have a wikipedia page! Ive downloaded a stupidly huge amount of games from abandonia but the only the sierra and scumm games seem to stick, with the exeption of wolf.

[Earth]

mobilephones are today's platforms for old games, doom etc have been remade.and of course today's consoles get those old games too.

[RCCCL]

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

I used to like Joust back in the day. That's probably because for the longest time, it was one of the few games I was any good at (so good, in fact, that I was on the list of high scores at a local skating rink for a year or two).

Joust, I used to love that game too, always liked to play with my dad on the Atari growing up, that and Robotron!

I still play Fallout and Fallout2 on occasion, tried playing Pool of Radiance a bit ago, but the graphics weren't working right. Anyone here ever play Hardwar?

[Zummi]

Time to blow the dust off of my Pong copy.

[nikki.]

Originally Posted By: Tirien

Seems like the quality of games (plot-wise) has gone down the proverbial toilet these days.

Agreed. Give me a hoop and stick anyday.

[Mringasa]

Thank you for the link to Abandonia, Masquerade. I've been looking around on the odd occasion for sites that might host public domain games for download. My old CD with a bunch of the games I love broke in my last move so I lost a number of old favorites.

 

Any other places I might hunt around on for various games? Specifically, if they are public domain now, the old Pool of Radiance trilogy. I used to play that one for weeks at a time on my Apple II GS as a kid. Such good times!

[Earth]

many games at abandon-sites aren't public domain, just abandoned but still rights owned by whoever owns company which made those nowadays. doubt any1 gets sued if downloads 20 years old game which is clearly abandoned.

[msazad]

Loom is one of the first modern computer games I played as a kid. I love that game but I had no idea kids could get into something like that these days. It brings a tear to me eye...

 

Loom heralded a bunch of really cool games made in the early ninetees. Maybe Future Wars was released before Loom though. I have fonder memories of Loom anyway.

 

Now you say Loom is old but to me old is like Ultima IV and I wouldn't play games which are that old (except perhaps for IF and even then my favorite titles are more recent) as much as I had fun with Pirates! as a kid.

 

I looked up the release date and I remember playing Loom before it was released. It's strange that I remember being a bit younger than I was when I discovered that game in particular. I got the other release dates I checked about right, which means that Future Wars was the groundbreaking one.

 

Here's the place to discuss old games I guess:

http://forum.homeoftheunderdogs.net/viewforum.php?f=3

It's probably not what it was (not by a long shot!) but at least it's alive now.

[SpacemanSpiff]

Castle of the Winds has been one of my favourites for years. Pity it apparently doesn't work on the newest computers. I like how it can be left on in the background, and your guy (or girl) won't get killed.

[The Mystic]

I liked CotW's lack of a real "combat mode," allowing me to save my game at any time. I also liked how random everything was; except for certain encounters, it was never the same game twice!

 

So yeah, it sucks that CotW won't run in Win7 (it runs in just about every Windows version from 3.1 all the way through Vista). Oh well, I can always run it in DosBox, VirtualBox, etc.

[Erebus the Black]

Originally Posted By: SpacemanSpiff

Castle of the Winds has been one of my favourites for years. Pity it apparently doesn't work on the newest computers. I like how it can be left on in the background, and your guy (or girl) won't get killed.

It works for me with a XP sp3 OS

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Ham is also A Piece of Pork

Originally Posted By: SpacemanSpiff

Castle of the Winds has been one of my favourites for years. Pity it apparently doesn't work on the newest computers. I like how it can be left on in the background, and your guy (or girl) won't get killed.

It works for me with a XP sp3 OS

I say again:

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

So yeah, it sucks that CotW won't run in Win7 (it runs in just about every Windows version from 3.1 all the way through Vista).

I've personally run CotW in Windows 98, NT, XP, 2000, and Vista; and the game was originally written for Windows 3.0/3.1.

[Lilith]

You know, you could download DOSBox, install Windows 3.1 in the emulated DOS environment and play it that way...

[The Mystic]

Yes, I could do that, but please consider:

• DosBox hates me.
• I haven't seen a legally obtainable copy of Windows 3.1 since about a year before Windows 95 came out.
• I already have CotW (among other games) installed in a WinXP environment via VirtualBox.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

I already have CotW (among other games) installed in a WinXP environment via VirtualBox.

ok that works too

come to think of it, have you tried running it under XP Mode in Windows 7 Professional?

[The Mystic]

No, I haven't; I was too cheap to buy the Professional version of Windows 7, so I got Home Premium instead (Win7 Pro would've cost me about 50% more than Home Premium).

[Android]

The fact that using DosBox is probably piracy has not crossed my mind before reading The Mystics post.

I generally don't approve of piracy, but I'm not sure I can find a way to oppose this case.

[Alorael at Large]

DOSBox doesn't actually run DOS, it runs what is, as best I understand it, a kind of reverse-engineered DOS-like shell. It's illegal to pirate games to run with DOSBox, but the program itself is legal. In fact, several entirely upstanding and modern companies have included DOSBox in re-releases of old games.

 

—Alorael, who also thinks the distinction between piracy and use of abandonware is a useful one. Abandonware may not be legal, but it can be impossible to acquire legal copies of old games, and there may not even still be a company holding the rights.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: A Hard Day's Rest

and there may not even still be a company holding the rights.

In a case where there isn't any copyright holder, isn't the copyright in the public domain anyway?

[Alorael at Large]

Copyrights can't disappear. Unless someone deliberately and explicitly releases software into the public domain, it's copyrighted, and someone holds those rights. But there are games when, as companies are bought and sold, go out of business, and split up, it becomes unclear who actually holds which rights.

 

—Alorael, who will be interested in seeing whether anyone is interested in running software once the copyright period expires. Since that's 95 years in the US, it'll be a while.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: A Hard Day's Rest

—Alorael, who will be interested in seeing whether anyone is interested in running software once the copyright period expires. Since that's 95 years in the US, it'll be a while.

Highly unlikely, but it's definitely within the realm of possibility.

I can just imagine some old geezer getting hold of a copy of some game he used to play as a boy, now copyright-free, and trying to get it to run on his brand-new computer—if such a thing could even be done, considering he'd be trying to run a program that's potentially a century out of date. Odds are he'd need to run some kind of emulator within an emulator within an emulator within an emulator within an emulator within an emulator within an emulator just to get the computer to recognize the software.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: A Hard Day's Rest

DOSBox doesn't actually run DOS, it runs what is, as best I understand it, a kind of reverse-engineered DOS-like shell.

Other companies used to make DOS, but Microsoft forced them out of business with scare tactics that their products would cause fatal computer problems if used. Microsoft would check for their copyright notice in the program and send an error warning if it wasn't detected.

[Alorael at Large]

Microsoft made the rather appropriately titled MS-DOS, along with the many other DOSes. I don't know what, technically, is required for something to be DOS, but I'm not sure that the thing that does not actually operate a system run in DOSBox meets that standard.

 

—Alorael, who hopes, however, that the program is BOX-DOS. That would be ideal.

[Earth]

There is DOS 7.0 available for free but no idea if games which require DOS work with it.

 

As for copyright holders of old games many companies have been bought or their leftovers bought so copyrights are on some1's hold.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Originally Posted By: Earth Empires

There is DOS 7.0 available for free

...wait, what?

[Earth]

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel

...wait, what?

can't find it atm but few years ago it was available.