The Gaming Den

A buddy let me borrow Jak and Daxter collection in exchange for me loaning him Shadow of the Colossus/Ico pack.

I'm enjoying it. Games could be silly back then. I never thought I'd view PS2 as retro, but it feels like it, these days.

You call that old?

I've been on an Nintendo 64 kick recently: the Zelda titles, Starfox 64, the original Super Smash Bros., it's all good.

Prior to that. I had been playing my copy of Dragon Warrior (a.k.a. Dragon Quest I) on the NES when my system literally stopped working; I had just gotten Erdrick's Armor and am kind of pissed.

Our SNES died recently, and Giovanni was distraught that he could no longer play Uniracers. We had to install an emulator on his computer and show him the game lived on. Have to admit, I really liked that game.

You call that old?

Lords of Midnight is a Lord of the Rings-inspired epic fantasy game from 1984. The image file of the map that came with the game is bigger than the actual game. It is nevertheless fantastic, or it would be if the interface wasn't a nightmare. Nevertheless, I found it so compelling that I put up with that interface for quite some time while I played the hell out of it.

It had a tablet rerelease at some point, which seems to have addressed that issue. If it comes out for desktop, I will probably play the hell out of it some more.

It's getting old.

I've still got a working SNES.

And downloaded FF7 and FF9 on the PS3.

Maj wrote:Our SNES died recently, and Giovanni was distraught that he could no longer play Uniracers. We had to install an emulator on his computer and show him the game lived on. Have to admit, I really liked that game.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/b76e/ <-- Perhaps this?

I love you. Thank you.

Ooh, nice, and it has a portable one of those...

FF9 didn't get enough credit, I think. It is the only American final fantasy ever made (specifically, it was made in Hawai'i). Quina is speaking grammatically correct Hawai'ian Creole.

Jagged Alliance 2 is still just as playable as it ever was, more so with all the mods that are available these days. Nothing that come out since has improved on it.

Does anyone remember the game Exile? Man, I had the funnest times playing those games, and I had no idea what I was doing.

Ah, the golden age of PC gaming...

Shrapnel wrote:Does anyone remember the game Exile? Man, I had the funnest times playing those games, and I had no idea what I was doing.

Ah, the golden age of PC gaming...

I think there where a few different series of games called 'Exile'. If you are talking about the RPG series the continued on into the Avernum series, which is worth a look.

Shrapnel wrote:Does anyone remember the game Exile? Man, I had the funnest times playing those games, and I had no idea what I was doing.

Ah, the golden age of PC gaming...

I am likely not hardcore enough to play Exile effectively, but the Avernum trilogy that Exile eventually became was goddamn amazing. Avernum 3 may be my favorite game of all time. For me it's just the distilled, ideal experience of that kind of RPG. The series after the initial trilogy switched over to the lame Geneforge engine, and got more "gritty" in a way that effectively reduced your personal agency and capacity to implement good solutions, but Avernum 3 was perfect.

Juton wrote:

Shrapnel wrote:Does anyone remember the game Exile? Man, I had the funnest times playing those games, and I had no idea what I was doing.

Ah, the golden age of PC gaming...

I think there where a few different series of games called 'Exile'. If you are talking about the RPG series the continued on into the Avernum series, which is worth a look.

I was indeed. I didn't know it continued on to another series, but I'll definitely have to take a look into it.

My four-year-old loves watching me play various titles on NES, SNES, and Genesis. For a while, she was on a Castlevania kick, and wanted to see every version I had.

Shrapnel wrote:

Juton wrote:

Shrapnel wrote:Does anyone remember the game Exile? Man, I had the funnest times playing those games, and I had no idea what I was doing.

Ah, the golden age of PC gaming...

I think there where a few different series of games called 'Exile'. If you are talking about the RPG series the continued on into the Avernum series, which is worth a look.

I was indeed. I didn't know it continued on to another series, but I'll definitely have to take a look into it.

Avernum itself is being remade. It was Spiderweb Softwares game after Avadon. http://www.avernum.com/avernum/index.html

If you liked Exile, this is that after 2 remakes, I think.

Yeah. After Exile, it went to a new engine that contained the first three games plus Blades, then they did 4-6 in the same engine as their Geneforge games, and now they're intending to redo 1-3 in the geneforge engine.

I don't like the geneforge engine. The designer seems to make the world smaller and more linear and the graphics are only incrementally better. But hell, I'm sure the diehards who played through Exile 1-3 said the same thing about the Avernum engine.

When I was a little kid, there was a game on my elementary school's computer called "Dungeon," but I can't find any mention of it.

And no, it wasn't this Dungeon.

It was a kiddie puzzle game involving going through a maze that started with a torch in a sconce and ended with a goblin toll both.

Really want to fucking play it again for some reason.

EDIT: fixed the parentheses in the link.

Exile was great. I need to dig it/Avernum out of the pile and give it a play. My favorite part was the intro to Exile 2, where they show how the exiles were training their surface explorers.

Adventurer: "What is that?"
Wizard: "A tree."
Adventurer: "What's it for?"

Or when they're 'training' the adventurer by having him run a gauntlet of swords, bows, and fireballs.

Adventurer: "Ow. Ow. Ow."

EDIT: Maybe that was Exile 3. I can't remember.

For me it's been:

Rock n' Roll Racing for the SNES

Masters of Orion 2 for PC

And Baldur's Gate 1 in the BG2 engine

I took a few minutes yesterday to play Temple of Apshai, which I remember fondly from the C64 days. As pseudo-roguelikes go it wasn't particularly memorable, but nostalgia took up the slack.

I've also been playing the odd level of Dungeon Hack when I have some time free, as a cleric/mage. When you have the difficulty all the way up it's a bit tedious, and I can't imagine doing it without cleric spells for healing, food, and level drain protection.

I booted up a couple emulators to mess around with Toejam & Earl 2: Panic on Funkatron (Sega Genesis), Chronotrigger (SNES), Shadowrun (SNES), and Legend of the Red Dragon last week.

Hell yeah, SNES Shadowrun! That game introduced me to the setting, you know. Running around, sniping dudes out of far-off windows with your shotgun at amazing, wired-reflexes-boosted speed, and then invoking the power of DOG to magically heal yourself after.

When I read an actual RPG book and realized it wasn't just about one dude in a black bathrobe against the world, it was kinda saddening.

I've got to boot up MOO II again sometime soon. I tried the Very Difficult Choice Mod recently, but the virtually invulnerable ground defences were too much for me. I'll probably go back to the vanilla game when I next play.

More recently, I've been playing Mega Man Battle Network 3. I had to restart because I went to the final dungeon without any real counter for Bass's aura, but I just finished putting out fires on the Internet so I'm most of the way through the game.

I'm also most of the way through my first playthrough of the DS version of Chrono Trigger. I left off in the cave with the Rainbow Shell and don't remember how much damage my attacks deal, so it's been slow going.

Now that I'm home for the summer I have access to my Retron 3, a third-party console that plays NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis games. I've got an SNES side-scrolling shoot-em-up called Xardion that is short but still pretty good. I was also lucky enough to pick up a copy of Super Mario All Stars, and I'm working my way through Super Mario Brothers 3 right now. I also have Mortal Kombat, which was one of the first video games I ever played. I'm no good at it yet, but it's still pretty fun. Finally, Battle Chess. The NES version is slow as molasses, but watching your king gun down anyone stupid enough to stand beside him is satisfying enough to make up for it.

Super Mario RPG and Kirby Super Star are at the top of my must-get list for old SNES games.