The Ronin Report
Times like this remind me of how old I am. To be specific I found a site that archives what is called abadonware. That is old games that are no longer sold or supported. Most of them the company that made them went out of business or got bought up and the purchaser doesn’t care about the back catalog. I was able to download and get running Freespace2, ***Wing Commander Saga*** and Day of the Tentacle. Also got a few others but they are being stubborn so far.
The Wing Commander was a real find - I still get a rush hearing the “Scramble!” music. I remember killing hours at the joystick with this game and being amazed at the level of graphics, how the hand in the cockpit would move with the maneuvers I was doing. It holds a very warm spot in my heart as a favorite computer memory.
Freespace was similar but it never had the “Space Opera” feel of Wing Commander. the graphics were prettier - of course it was much newer. It was always had a much more gritty realistic feel to it. In some ways it reminds me of the new Battlestar Galatica.
Day of the Tentacle is just a hoot. Inspired madness in an fairly simple graphic adventure game. LOL making time machines out of porta-potties = The Chronojohns!
In some ways it is sad to look at these games and remember how great they were and then how they got dropped along the way. Marketing I suppose - to much emphasis on looking pretty rather than actual game play. To think that some of these games are nearly 12-15 years old (eons in internet time) and yet still played and enjoyed by folks.
I wish I could convince developers to go back and look at these and see if they could be redone with current technology to be SO much better. I inspires me to see the Open source community working to do ti themselves - there is a fair number of folks behind a open source port of Free space and Wing commander Privateer.
I’d love to see a MMO that lived in the Wing Commander-ese Universe. Really throttle-jockey, warp jumping, heart-pounding FUN.
In health news - Yesterday I had my first slip on the winter ice. Nothing really damaged, just my left knee is hurty and letting me know how unhappy it was at that stunt. Grrrrrrr
In cooking - whipped up a killer batch of chicken noodle soup Monday, and last night, a nice cranberry-orange sauce to go over some pork steaks. Also on Tuesday (I took the day off - Why? Because it was cold and wet and nasty and I have plenty of comp time coming) I made a delicious charizo-onion-smoked sausage-cheese quiche. There is something about the smoky, spicy flavor of charizo that goes SO well with eggs and cheese. The sun did not set on it :D. I’ll need to get more charizo.
And more computer stuff - I finally had to breakdown, backup everything and re-build my system again as a Windows box. While the Windows virtual machine in Linux runs a LOT of stuff really well - it doesn’t handle games. Sigh. So back to a Windows box for gaming and later on when I get a second drive I’ll set up the dual boot with Linux then.
The Wing Commander was a real find - I still get a rush hearing the “Scramble!” music. I remember killing hours at the joystick with this game and being amazed at the level of graphics, how the hand in the cockpit would move with the maneuvers I was doing. It holds a very warm spot in my heart as a favorite computer memory.
Freespace was similar but it never had the “Space Opera” feel of Wing Commander. the graphics were prettier - of course it was much newer. It was always had a much more gritty realistic feel to it. In some ways it reminds me of the new Battlestar Galatica.
Day of the Tentacle is just a hoot. Inspired madness in an fairly simple graphic adventure game. LOL making time machines out of porta-potties = The Chronojohns!
In some ways it is sad to look at these games and remember how great they were and then how they got dropped along the way. Marketing I suppose - to much emphasis on looking pretty rather than actual game play. To think that some of these games are nearly 12-15 years old (eons in internet time) and yet still played and enjoyed by folks.
I wish I could convince developers to go back and look at these and see if they could be redone with current technology to be SO much better. I inspires me to see the Open source community working to do ti themselves - there is a fair number of folks behind a open source port of Free space and Wing commander Privateer.
I’d love to see a MMO that lived in the Wing Commander-ese Universe. Really throttle-jockey, warp jumping, heart-pounding FUN.
In health news - Yesterday I had my first slip on the winter ice. Nothing really damaged, just my left knee is hurty and letting me know how unhappy it was at that stunt. Grrrrrrr
In cooking - whipped up a killer batch of chicken noodle soup Monday, and last night, a nice cranberry-orange sauce to go over some pork steaks. Also on Tuesday (I took the day off - Why? Because it was cold and wet and nasty and I have plenty of comp time coming) I made a delicious charizo-onion-smoked sausage-cheese quiche. There is something about the smoky, spicy flavor of charizo that goes SO well with eggs and cheese. The sun did not set on it :D. I’ll need to get more charizo.
And more computer stuff - I finally had to breakdown, backup everything and re-build my system again as a Windows box. While the Windows virtual machine in Linux runs a LOT of stuff really well - it doesn’t handle games. Sigh. So back to a Windows box for gaming and later on when I get a second drive I’ll set up the dual boot with Linux then.