fifty frenchmen can't be wrong (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
some_stars) wrote2011-08-08 03:09 am
some_stars) wrote2011-08-08 03:09 am
(no subject)
FUCK IT, NO MORE LIFE, ONLY GAMING
played more Witcher, opened up the copy of Portal I bought a million months ago (and then never even looked at) when Steam had it for five bucks, bought and/or downloaded several more cheap old adventure games including this jewel of my childhood, am now considering hunting down some more jewels of my childhood except we only had Macs back then, so the only stuff I got to play (except when at friends' houses where I obsessively gravitated to their SNESes and their Windows machines with King's Quest, oh sweet King's Quest) was either edutainment stuff that sometimes got pity-released for Mac, or extremely tiny niche things that I don't remember the names of and definitely no longer exist and probably never existed in Windows form at all, and in one case was actually designed by one of my dad's graduate students. (There was this one game, not the grad student one, that was sort of Bejeweled-like, where the things you had as tiles were increasingly complex organisms and you also had a tile with the head of Darwin on it that you used to push the other tiles into each other and make them evolve. I think. This was over fifteen years ago so I really don't know.)
The only other game of my childhood I really want is Castle of Dr. Brain, which I can probably get ahold of somehow or other. And I have more than enough to keep me busy and prevent me ever getting anything important done ever again. Especially if I go insane and attempt to play the copy of Myst that came in the bundle with Manhole and Cosmic Osmo.
(Things acquired for money: The rereleases of the first two Monkey Island games, Still Life 1 and 2, Nikopol--I know better than to hope that any of these three will even approach Syberia just because they're made by a studio associated with Benoit Sokal, but, well, they are associated with Benoit Sokal, and they got decent reviews--and Manhole and Cosmic Osmo, plus Myst and some Myst-related stuff that came in the Cyan bundle. Things acquired not for money, though not for lack of trying: Sam & Max Hit the Road, The Grim Fandango, The Neverhood. I would have happily paid fifteen dollars each for these--not even a remake like the Monkey Island games, just a physical copy ensured to run without trouble (on DOSBox, at least, I'm not asking the moon here) so I didn't have to mess with disk images and "mounting" shit. OH WELL.)
At some point, if only (and almost certainly only) for my own amusement/edification, I should write up my history with gaming, which is extremely patchy and nonstandard. The ultra-short version being that I love computer games, love them more than anything and always have, but I have very little patience for much of the gameplay, especially puzzles (dear Myst, fuck you), or reading/hearing/putting together various chunks of information (dear Myst, fuck you), or resource management (I know intellectually, more or less, why someone would play SimEarth on any mode other than "infinite points to work with, no failure condition," but I will never understand), or anything with real-time time pressure, or...well, most gameplay beyond "what happens if I poke this? What about this? What about this? Okay that's everything in the room poked once, let's move on." Also I grew up on a Mac, without a Nintendo; peculiarities resulted.
(Wait, if you hate puzzles, why did you love Syberia and Sanitarium and Anchorhead and The Longest Journey? Although I actually didn't love The Longest Journey, but not because of the puzzles. I semi-cheated my way through all five of those games, by looking up progressive hints and reading a couple steps, going back to the game to see what I could figure out, reading a couple more steps and trying again, etc. But I loved the ones I loved SO MUCH because of the story, and the atmosphere. They were incredibly immersive even though I wasn't roleplaying or making choices. I felt like I was living through an amazing movie (or novel, in the case of Anchorhead), and it was much more fun than just watching an amazing movie. This is no longer ultra-short and I'm going to talk about it A LOT when/if I write my post on The Witcher, so I will stop there. Basically, I want to marry adventure games, but I will have to bring the Universal Hint System to bed with us.)
(I also want to marry Dragon Age, but I'm starting to suspect there might not be another game as marriageable as Dragon Age in my life for a while. We shall see.)
played more Witcher, opened up the copy of Portal I bought a million months ago (and then never even looked at) when Steam had it for five bucks, bought and/or downloaded several more cheap old adventure games including this jewel of my childhood, am now considering hunting down some more jewels of my childhood except we only had Macs back then, so the only stuff I got to play (except when at friends' houses where I obsessively gravitated to their SNESes and their Windows machines with King's Quest, oh sweet King's Quest) was either edutainment stuff that sometimes got pity-released for Mac, or extremely tiny niche things that I don't remember the names of and definitely no longer exist and probably never existed in Windows form at all, and in one case was actually designed by one of my dad's graduate students. (There was this one game, not the grad student one, that was sort of Bejeweled-like, where the things you had as tiles were increasingly complex organisms and you also had a tile with the head of Darwin on it that you used to push the other tiles into each other and make them evolve. I think. This was over fifteen years ago so I really don't know.)
The only other game of my childhood I really want is Castle of Dr. Brain, which I can probably get ahold of somehow or other. And I have more than enough to keep me busy and prevent me ever getting anything important done ever again. Especially if I go insane and attempt to play the copy of Myst that came in the bundle with Manhole and Cosmic Osmo.
(Things acquired for money: The rereleases of the first two Monkey Island games, Still Life 1 and 2, Nikopol--I know better than to hope that any of these three will even approach Syberia just because they're made by a studio associated with Benoit Sokal, but, well, they are associated with Benoit Sokal, and they got decent reviews--and Manhole and Cosmic Osmo, plus Myst and some Myst-related stuff that came in the Cyan bundle. Things acquired not for money, though not for lack of trying: Sam & Max Hit the Road, The Grim Fandango, The Neverhood. I would have happily paid fifteen dollars each for these--not even a remake like the Monkey Island games, just a physical copy ensured to run without trouble (on DOSBox, at least, I'm not asking the moon here) so I didn't have to mess with disk images and "mounting" shit. OH WELL.)
At some point, if only (and almost certainly only) for my own amusement/edification, I should write up my history with gaming, which is extremely patchy and nonstandard. The ultra-short version being that I love computer games, love them more than anything and always have, but I have very little patience for much of the gameplay, especially puzzles (dear Myst, fuck you), or reading/hearing/putting together various chunks of information (dear Myst, fuck you), or resource management (I know intellectually, more or less, why someone would play SimEarth on any mode other than "infinite points to work with, no failure condition," but I will never understand), or anything with real-time time pressure, or...well, most gameplay beyond "what happens if I poke this? What about this? What about this? Okay that's everything in the room poked once, let's move on." Also I grew up on a Mac, without a Nintendo; peculiarities resulted.
(Wait, if you hate puzzles, why did you love Syberia and Sanitarium and Anchorhead and The Longest Journey? Although I actually didn't love The Longest Journey, but not because of the puzzles. I semi-cheated my way through all five of those games, by looking up progressive hints and reading a couple steps, going back to the game to see what I could figure out, reading a couple more steps and trying again, etc. But I loved the ones I loved SO MUCH because of the story, and the atmosphere. They were incredibly immersive even though I wasn't roleplaying or making choices. I felt like I was living through an amazing movie (or novel, in the case of Anchorhead), and it was much more fun than just watching an amazing movie. This is no longer ultra-short and I'm going to talk about it A LOT when/if I write my post on The Witcher, so I will stop there. Basically, I want to marry adventure games, but I will have to bring the Universal Hint System to bed with us.)
(I also want to marry Dragon Age, but I'm starting to suspect there might not be another game as marriageable as Dragon Age in my life for a while. We shall see.)