classic games that age well

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 12:33 pm

I've been meaning to ask this and maybe I already did sometime in the past, but I was wondering if people had various classic games in mind that they think can be enjoyed just as much today. Part of what brings this up is every time I hear an Ultima reference, I think, hmm, I know I could find and start the first Ultima but chances are I just won't enjoy it.

Of course, for some games, it's a matter of finding the right port. I would recommend the pc version of Neuromancer to nobody, but it seems to work pretty well on an Amiga emulator (although the music isn't as good as it was for the C64, IMO).

Have any RPG aged well? I totally can't imagine playing Bard's Tale II ever again, especially after the hours and hours I put into it and still never could beat the first dungeon.

Protagonist X · Post by **Protagonist X** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 12:46 pm

Speaking of Neuromancer and Bard's Tale II: Dragon Wars, authored by pretty much the same crews as the previously-mentioned two (IIRC), isn't half bad.

I'm a terrible source for RPG stuff, tho' -- at some point in every RPG I've played, starting with the Bard's Tale I, I've had the impression that I was in a Skinner Rat experiment, and that after I hit the spacebar X number of times a food pellet would shoot out of some slot on my computer.

I've been told that Ultima VI is a breed apart -- the pacing of story and combat is perfect. Never played it myself.

I always wanted to play Wasteland all the way through, up until I got Fallout. Fallout qurenched that particular thirst, but if I woke up tomorrow with unlimited free time, I might try getting all the way through Fenster's Mind Maze. Oh yeah.

Archon: Haven't played it since 1988, I think, but why has nobody coded an up-to-date version of that beauty? It's like BattleChess ingeniously hopped-up on steroids. I may need to find an emulator for Archon; I have a feeling head-to-head play on that will have aged nicely.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 12:54 pm

Protagonist X wrote:Speaking of Neuromancer and Bard's Tale II: Dragon Wars, authored by pretty much the same crews as the previously-mentioned two (IIRC), isn't half bad.

I found Dragon Wars at a garage sale when I first moved out here. It's still in the box, I've never installed it.

The three Bard's Tale (non Dragon Wars) games have aged well. Ok, the first one demands that you go back to the "Adventurer's Guild" in order to save, but other than that. The second I could pick up at any time and begin playing again.

I've been told that Ultima VI is a breed apart -- the pacing of story and combat is perfect. Never played it myself.

Yeah. Ultima VI is perfect, and still holds up. There's even a utility out there that allows you recruit any person in the game that you wish, which makes it more perfect than it otherwise is, which is as noted perfect.

Ultima VII is an incredible pain in the ass to get going. There is a program called "Exault" or something that allows you to play the game on a modern system, but in addition to me not knowing how to spell the name of the app properly, I do not know how they managed to release the thing without working keypad support. My friends, I am a poor and lonely programmer, competent in a very narrow, select few environments. But Christ, don't you have to practically go out of your way to not allow the arrow keys to move your d00d around?! That's really what's so disappointing about these reworked emulated classics of old game (Star Control II is another one that fits this category) -- they are more impressed with their ability to interpret and emulate than actually allow the game to be playable.

Shit. Don't let me derail this thread with the above. Please.

I always wanted to play Wasteland all the way through, up until I got Fallout. Fallout qurenched that particular thirst, but if I woke up tomorrow with unlimited free time, I might try getting all the way through Fenster's Mind Maze. Oh yeah.

Somebody needs to make a version of Wasteland that incorporates all the game's text. Whenever I go back to that one and release that I need to go read a book during play, well, that's pretty much it for my attempts to finally after all these years finish Wasteland. It's good that more games didn't do that, however. I mean, I am happy that in the middle of a Karateka board I wasn't told to go do 100 stomach crunchers to get myself in shape for the next level.

But yes, more games that are old but still hold up would greatly enhance this thread.

Protagonist X · Post by **Protagonist X** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 1:24 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Ultima VII is an incredible pain in the ass to get going. There is a program called "Exault" or something that allows you to play the game on a modern system [...]

Wasn't that the one that had some custom version of DOS you had to install? "Voodoo Memory Manager" or something? I vaguely recall a friend who managed to wipe his system with it, and went from being an Ultima advocate to demanding the blood and souls of the Origin QA people who let that slip.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 1:33 pm

Yeah. There was ... well, I don't think it was a custom memory manager, but it wasn't far from it. You needed a configuration which I think made it almost impossible to play when:

1) You had a mouse driver installed
2) You had your sound card driver installed
3) You had the requisite amount of free conventional memory available
4) You had the necessary software loaded for the memory manager.

I at one time had a SCSI drive hooked up, and having that driver loaded along with everything else made it impossible for me to play the game. There are instructions somewhere on the web on how to do it in this day and age, and I think I followed them, because the first time I ever flew on a plane I had my laptop out with Ultima VII on it. The flight from whichever city I had a transfer within to Rochester was practically empty, so it was basically just me, the pilot, a stewardess, Lolo, and Lolo's ever-present and quite vocal hunger pains.

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 1:38 pm

Speaking of Karateka, as the best man for my younger brother's wedding, I've been in charge of the bachelor party. So far, the plan is to do paintball in the morning, then later, I've rented (actually, I'm getting it free through a brother-in-law) a sound system and video projector that I'm going to use to first show a montage of video footage of my brother to a bit of music, then there's going to be a huge montage of video game clips (MAME, atari, C64, Atari ST, Amiga, Genesis, Nintendo, SNES, Apple) that will go along with our party music. So that's definitely ultra-geeky, but it'll be safe to say that none of the guests will ever go to a bachelor party like this one.

And, of course, Karateka was one of those games. When I started it up and dude did his little karate yell, what can I say, memories...

Protagonist X · Post by **Protagonist X** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 1:47 pm

So that's definitely ultra-geeky, but it'll be safe to say that none of the guests will ever go to a bachelor party like this one.

All I can think of right now is twenty guys in a room... they wheel in a Discs of Tron environmental cabinet, or mayber Afterburner... and the sides pops off and the stripper starts eeling out....

Worm · Post by **Worm** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 5:29 pm

Protagonist X wrote:Archon: Haven't played it since 1988, I think, but why has nobody coded an up-to-date version of that beauty? It's like BattleChess ingeniously hopped-up on steroids. I may need to find an emulator for Archon; I have a feeling head-to-head play on that will have aged nicely.

http://www.the-underdogs.org/search.php ... ame=Archon

The normal one and an upgraded one.

I think the only RPGs I still boogey woogey with are Daggerfall, Fallout1/2, and BG. All of those are relatively old. Arena is pretty cool ... if you didn't have to kill yourself to run it on a slow system that is. I'd like to get Battlespire but Beth Soft has taken a "Buy it off of some unreliable guy on E-bay" approach to providing us with ANYTHING pre-Morrowind ...

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 5:54 pm

Let me see if I can find some info on Battlespire.

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 6:36 pm

Pirates! is def'netly up there with RPG/action agames that age well. I have the original IBM version on my desktop but the graphics are so blocky it's a wonder I ever finished a career at all. I was all over that game on my C=64. Used to think up different strategy in school and then hurry home to try it out. What a geek. Anyway, it would still stand up pretty good. If i could get the Gold version to work, I'd still play once in a while.

THE
LIVING IN THE PAST
AARDVARK

looper · Post by **looper** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 9:20 pm

Mention of Archon sparked my memory...does anyone remember a game put out by Lucas...not Lucas Films but Lucas Arts?...It was a split-screen game, 2 player, first-person, and you controlled a hovercraft of sorts and played futuristic soccer against the other player? The ball hovered in the air and your hovercraft was really fast. To take possession of the ball, you ran into it, and then you pressed the fire button to shoot it out in front of you. The other player could steal the ball from you by running into you, basically. And everytime you scored, the other player's goal posts got further apart, making it easier to score the next time. I played it on the Atari 800 XL. Anybody?

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 10:21 pm

Btw, good call on the Pirates!. That definitely was a great game.

Protagonist X · Post by **Protagonist X** » Wed Apr 30, 2003 9:31 am

No idea on Looper's game, but the mention of Lucas Arts/Film/Games/Whatever jogs my memory: Lucas, prior to becoming a StarWars-only franchise-licensing house, actually developed their own games. Full Throttle, Zak McKracken, Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island 1-4, Sam & Max Hit The Road... all classics. Bit depths and resolution rates may change, but good writing is eternal.

Incidentally, you can skip the Indiana Jones adventures -- not the same calibre. Props to Lex for pointing out the ScummVM page several months back:http://www.scummvm.org/. It's a great resource, and it even scales up 320x240 games to 640x480 using some of the algorithms developed for the same purpose in MAME. And it runs on all sorts of things -- I finally finished DOTT in BeOS 5.