This week’s gaming podcast covers a wide variety of news, we also argue a bit about the Wow restrictions on taking donations and cash (again) and touch on some gaming history involving The Sims and the history of Infocom. For news, we’ve tackled
EA Leaves SecuRom out of Sims 3- Sony Enticing Independent Developers to be Exclusive to PlayStation Network
- Steam Makes DRM Obsolete
- Blizzard Rolling Out New Game Franchise?
- OnLive to Kill off Consoles as we know them?
- PS3 Rumors and Price Drops
This weeks question, is the Nintendo Wii killing off gaming as we know it?
Now here is another interesting video game for the Atari 2600, the game Dragon Fire consisted of two game screens, one which you ran across a bridge while fireballs were shot at you, you had to duck or jump over the fireball. This screen was a side-scroller style screen (although it doesn’t actually scroll), at the other end of the bridge was a castle door which you’d enter to get to the next screen.
When you finished collecting all the treasure an exit would pop up in the corner and you had to run to it without being burned by the fireballs, that dragon would turn from left to right nearly instantly too! Then, you’d jump into the exit and be back on the bridge again, but this time it was harder. You could die up to 7 times before the game was over (just to show you how hard it is, they gave you a bunch of lives).
Actually, Jack Thompson DID attack The Sims – at least, The Sims 2.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/After-GTA-Attorney-Jack-Thompson-Targets-The-Sims-2-5308.shtml
Actually, Jack Thompson DID attack The Sims – at least, The Sims 2.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/After-GTA-Attorney-Jack-Thompson-Targets-The-Sims-2-5308.shtml
Regarding Infocom, they were and are awesome. Planetfall will still make you cry when Floyd died and you sung a sweet song to him. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was worked on by Douglas Adams himself alongside Steve Meretzky, and Nord and Bert Couldn’t Make Head or Tail of It is one of the most devious, puzzling wordplay games ever made.
Interactive fiction still has a community, and there’s software for anyone to make a text adventure – and you can make a good one if you put some elbow grease into it.
With the power and size of hard drives, I wonder how complex someone could make a text adventure now – after all, a game’s immersiveness isn’t judged by graphics.
Regarding Infocom, they were and are awesome. Planetfall will still make you cry when Floyd died and you sung a sweet song to him. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was worked on by Douglas Adams himself alongside Steve Meretzky, and Nord and Bert Couldn’t Make Head or Tail of It is one of the most devious, puzzling wordplay games ever made.
Interactive fiction still has a community, and there’s software for anyone to make a text adventure – and you can make a good one if you put some elbow grease into it.
With the power and size of hard drives, I wonder how complex someone could make a text adventure now – after all, a game’s immersiveness isn’t judged by graphics.
“Lost Vikings” is the game you were thinking of Don:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Vikings
I think it was a popular game back in the day. I know I loved it and must have rented it for the SNES like 5 times. Don’t think I’ve played the second game though.
These guys made an appearance in World of Warcraft too, in the Uldamann instance (of course they were dwarves in the game I think). The above wikipedia articles mentions it too.
+++++
OnLive. I think it’s a really interesting idea, basically the game is run on their servers/cloud and is only sending you the video feed of your session, and all you send them is your controller movements.
“Lost Vikings” is the game you were thinking of Don:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Vikings
I think it was a popular game back in the day. I know I loved it and must have rented it for the SNES like 5 times. Don’t think I’ve played the second game though.
These guys made an appearance in World of Warcraft too, in the Uldamann instance (of course they were dwarves in the game I think). The above wikipedia articles mentions it too.
+++++
OnLive. I think it’s a really interesting idea, basically the game is run on their servers/cloud and is only sending you the video feed of your session, and all you send them is your controller movements.
Regarding jonahfalcon’s comment about text adventures: I’m still waiting for someone* to make a truly intuitive (perhaps even a learning) text parser. Maybe combine the best of Infocom’s complex command setup with some of the “lifelike” AI chatbot routines they’ve got now.
(* – I tried making one myself, but I’m just one guy, with minimal programming expertise.)
Regarding jonahfalcon’s comment about text adventures: I’m still waiting for someone* to make a truly intuitive (perhaps even a learning) text parser. Maybe combine the best of Infocom’s complex command setup with some of the “lifelike” AI chatbot routines they’ve got now.
(* – I tried making one myself, but I’m just one guy, with minimal programming expertise.)