Commercial games now released as freeware

Gaming is no longer the very expensive business it once was if you are willing to stick with slightly older graphics. Given the cost of high end graphics cards and computers this is often an advantage.

In fact there is even no need to go rooting through the bargain bins in games shops (though I strong recommend the No One Lives Forever series) as plenty of games are available for free.

Wikipedia has a useful list of commercial games released as freeware. Good selections of older games can also be found at Abandonia and Home of the Underdogs. Older DOS games may also benefit from the use of DOSBox, see their site for a list of supported games.

Posted by Tim Smith on May 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Game of the week: Roller Coaster

Some of the best recent Flash games have been those that have stuck rigidly to the laws of physics. Roller Coaster is a good example of that. In fact, it's been produced by Cambridge University as a cross between a simulation and a game.

You start with an incline, and the aim on each level is to move the supports up and down to create the curve of a roller coaster track. You need to strike a balance between providing maximum enjoyment and not making your riders ill.

It's all done with g-forces: they need to be high enough that the riders aren't bored, but make the curves too steep and you'll injure or even kill the rider.

Posted by Anthony Dhanendran on May 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Game of the week: Competition Jezzball

It looks like this one's been around for a while, but Jezzball is new to us.

The basic idea is to block off sections of the game area: whenever you click the mouse, a line is drawn across the 'pitch'. If it makes it to the other side, the enclosed area is painted out, but if a ball hits it before it's painted, you lose a life.

Paint three quarters or so of the screen to move to the next level. You can play anonymously, or create an account and play against others.

That's about it: simple, but addictive.

Posted by Anthony Dhanendran on May 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Game of the week: Stranded

Stranded is a fishing game, but don't let that put you off. In fact, it's the first fishing game we've played since the lamented Sega Bass Fishing for Dreamcast, and if anything, it's better.

You're stranded on a remote Pacific island, and you need to curry favour with the locals by catching fish for them. Unfortunately you've forgotten your rod, so the only way to catch fish is to hurl rocks into the water and hope you hit one.

It's not easy to get going - it took us a couple of minutes to hit a fish (before we realised we'd started on the hardest level) and a couple more to hit the one we needed - the natives will tell you which fish they want you to catch. Bringing back the right fish gives you points, which in turn are used to boost your abilities.

Hints and more at Jay is Games.

Posted by Anthony Dhanendran on May 2, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Game of the week: Filler

Filler is a lot like Jezzball - the aim of the game is to paint the screen by clicking on it. Instead of using lines, though, this time you're creating balls (so to speak).

Clicking and holding down the mouse makes a ball appear on the screen - the longer you hold, the larger it grows. To complete each level you need to fill two thirds of the screen with balls, but if any of the smaller bouncing balls hit yours while they're still being made, you lose a life.

So the trick is to hone your mouse-button-holding skills so that you can release the ball just a tick before a bouncing ball is about to hit it. It's harder than you think.

Posted by Anthony Dhanendran on April 25, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Playing old games in Vista

As I've mentioned before, there are lots of older games considered abandoned that can be downloaded from websites such as Abandonia.

The only snag is that Windows XP and Vista can sometimes be a little funny about playing old games, especially if they were written for DOS. There is some advice to be found at www.vistagamedoctor.com. Unfortunately, the site recently lost some data but there is still plenty of information to be found.

The DOSBox web site also has a comprehensive list of games with advice on any tweaks that are required to make them work. I have found this to be invaluable advice, and often very simple.

For example a favourite of mine is Might and Magic II, all that is required to make it work is to enter the command 'loadfix'. Simple but vital.

Posted by Tim Smith on March 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Game of the week (2): Contour

Contour is a clever reworking of the 1980s classic Marble Madness.

Instead of using a trackball to rotate the playing surface and move the ball towards the hole, you click squares on the playing grid to lift them up. That then makes the ball move (you're creating contours, hence the name) in a certain direction. The aim is to finish having made as few clicks as possible.

It's much harder than it sounds.

via Jay is Games

Posted by Anthony Dhanendran on March 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Do you benefit from multiple monitors?

I've been using two monitors at my desk for many years now, and it is frustrating to return to a single monitor at home. It can be very helpful to have a document open in one monitor for reference while working on another.

I don't think it's always a good solution. I've known people who spend more time looking for the correct browser window and then rearranging everything around it on the screen. I've done it myself but now tend to have an 'active document' monitor and a 'reference' screen.

I've never used more than two monitors for any length of time, apart from testing the Matrox Parhelia, a graphics card with three outputs. Without access to three identical monitors, the gaming side of things didn't really work out, not to mention some odd display problems in Dark Forces: Jedi Outcast. The only other games I've seen that support multiple monitors are Microsoft Flight Simulator and X3 Reunion

The picture on the right is from Coding Horror, who have plenty of links to studies on how helpful multiple monitors can be.

Don't rush out to buy three 20" LCD panels though, apparently productivity drops off after a certain point. This is probably as people start to lose programs.

Am I alone or do other people find this helpful?

Posted by Tim Smith on March 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Gaming nostalgia

Even with the amazing graphics and surround sound available to modern games, there are some classics that defy time.

Of course, nostalgia tends to look with rose tinted glasses. I have found that I think of the game graphics as I would expect to see them today, normally leading to disappointment when giving them another go.

There are several web sites with plenty of old games that are considered 'abandonware', that is to say the companies are not bothered that they can be downloaded for free. A website called the underdogs has a very large collection but it hasn't been updated for some time. Abandonia has regular updates.

Few old games will work without a helping hand in Windows XP or Vista. Help is at hand from the marvellous DOSBox. This creates a window running DOS that can be set up to mimic older computers. There are various utilities to give it a more friendly look including although my favourite D-Fend was sadly closed. DOSBox is open source and available for Linux and Mac.

Gamespy published a list of games they would like to see updated with modern graphics. Looking through the list, some games have already had worthy successors or updates.

One I've been playing recently is Titan Quest. There's nothing explicitly mentioned but it is very similar to Diablo. But in a good sense, as it is great fun and hasn't broken anything good about Diablo.

Sometimes the updates are enthusiast projects. I have been very impressed with the work by the Dark Forces mod for Jedi Academy. Dark Forces is one of my favourite games of all times, and was a brilliant first person shooter. It was more technically capable than Doom 2 and really felt like being in part of a Star Wars Movie. You will need to have a copy of Jedi Academy, but apart from that it is free.

Other games I think are worth a look are Carrier Command, Gods, Might and Magic II, Flashback and who could forget Elite?

Posted by Tim Smith on February 26, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Review: Sensible World of Soccer Xbox 360 game

Those of us who did most of our real gaming back in the 1990s on a Commodore Amiga were blessed with being able to learn to play in a simpler age. The technical limitations of the hardware (the fact that there was only one joystick button, for instance) meant that game developers were limited in what they could do, and what they could make the player do.

The trouble is that if you didn’t carry on gaming into the 2000s with its proliferation of buttons on joypads, you now find yourself hopelessly lost if you try to pick up, say, Fifa 08, to have a quick game. There’s no single-button-mashing to be had nowadays – or at least, there is if you’re satisfied to lose every single game by a large number of goals.

So it’s a relief, then, to find that there is a new football game we oldie gamers can play without embarrassing ourselves. It’s called Sensible World of Soccer and, yes, it’s the same as the original. The new edition is available on the Xbox 360 through the increasingly good Live Arcade download service. You can play it in full retro mode, with the original graphics and sounds, although if you have a new big television it’s probably better to go for the new version, with graphics (slightly) spruced up for the 360.

Otherwise, it’s pretty much business as usual: push the left analogue stick in the direction you want your player to go, and press the button (only the green button is in use) to tackle or shoot. The top-down zoomed-out view remains, as does aftertouch: the ability to bend the ball after you’ve kicked it, which can make for some spectacularly unlikely shots.

The simplicity of the game is what made it special on first release over 10 years ago, and it’s the same now. It’s faster in play than modern football games, which means more exciting matches.

The career structure of the original remains: pick a team and keep playing them until they reach the heady heights of the top flight, changing your tactics and watching players’ values change along the way. What also remains are the strange names given to the teams (Chelsea are London Blues, for instance, and Arsenal are London Reds) – this being a holdover from the days before licensed football games. The updated version is rounded off with the online mode, allowing you to compete over Xbox live, which can be tricky to set up but proves to be just as entertaining as the single player version.

It costs 800 Microsoft Points (around £8) and is available on Xbox Live Arcade through your console.

Posted by Anthony Dhanendran on February 7, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Review: Rez Xbox 360 game

Synaesthesia is a condition whose sufferers experience one sense as another. Wassily Kandinsky, the painter, was one – for him, the act of painting created music in his head. Rez is probably as close as any game has ever got to replicating the condition for the rest of us. Released back in 2002 for the Dreamcast and Playstation 2, it was explicitly influenced by both Kandinsky (its working title was K-Project) and the band Underworld, one of whose songs gave the game its name. And it now makes its debut on the Xbox 360 courtesy of Live Arcade.

As a number of reviewers have written, Rez makes more sense now than it ever did before, and that’s chiefly because it’s only now that the computing power is able to match the breadth of the designers’ imaginations. On the PS2, Rez was a remarkable experience, but on the Xbox 360, with retooled high-definition graphics (hence Rez HD), it’s utterly stunning from beginning to end. The sound has also been reworked for a 5.1 surround experience, and this is one game where that’s vital.

The point of Rez is to shoot things – so far, so much like anything else. It’s technically known as a Rail Shooter, because the player travels along on a virtual rail and has no control over his movement. The story involves a futuristic artificial intelligence, into which you’re sent to hack your way to the brain.

Think Tron with a trance soundtrack. That’s by the by, though: things appear, and you shoot them, and you keep doing so until the level ends or you die. There are four ten-part levels, with a fifth that takes a slightly different tack. The genius of the game is that when you shoot objects – or do anything else – it creates both visuals and sound effects, both of which track the pulse of the background music.

Played in the dark (and maybe after a drink or two) it’s a strange experience, one quite unlike any other computer game.

Posted by Anthony Dhanendran on February 7, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Review: Skate. Xbox 360 game

The Tony Hawk skating games have had such success in the genre since they first appeared on the original Playstation that it’s hard to imagine a newcomer being able to take away Tony’s crown. But that series has become dated and repetitive, so it’s with that in mind that EA’s Skate comes along to steal Hawk’s kingdom from under him.

It’s promising from the outset, with an intro that takes the form of a skate video, that maligned but occasionally witty class of films that’s at least half about watching people crash in funny ways. In this one, the main skater (that’s you) is involved in an accident and gets taken to hospital. The gag is that all the characters taking you there, from the ambulance-men to the doctors, is a famous skater. Most of them also appear in the game, as characters you can go and see to learn new tricks.

Tricks are what the game is all about – using one stick to navigate and another to control the board, it’s possible to quickly pick up the nuances of fairly complicated tricks, building them up from a simple beginning into a complicated routine.

Play is quite open – you’re given the run of the city and are able to go wherever you like, although there are challenges and new things to learn waiting at certain designated spots. Advancing in the game involves beating the challenges, but if you like you can simply skate around as you wish. The graphics are superb, with realistic skaters and passers-by who can be easily knocked over (although the numerous security guards give as good as they get).

Sound is also good, although the commentary of the cameraman, who follows you around, gets annoying quite quickly. That’s the only real flaw, though, in a game that really reinvents the skating genre in a spectacular way.

Posted by Anthony Dhanendran on October 1, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack