After shoving links in various forums for specific games, I figured it makes sense for this amazing site by Jimmy Maher, documenting the history of video games, to have its own topic.
The latest article is on Master of Orion and as usual, it’s terrific.
Some notable articles:
Hear hear! Jimmy is a remarkable writer and researcher.
IMO it’s the best blog I’ve ever read. Absolutely fantastic stuff, though I skip some of the adventure-genre-focused stuff (just not my bag).
Oh that was delightful. Thank you for sharing!
For an old school fan of Infocom and point and click adventure games, that’s about the best site around for more information in my opinion.
His other site, The Analog Antiquarian, about the history of the ancient wonders of the world (which began after his extensive writings on Sid Meier’s Civilization) is also a treasure trove of great writing. So much so, that I honestly can’t keep up with it.
(bis)
And thanks again to whoever (might have been you) posted the link to the
Imagine/Ocean/Psygnosis saga.
Where was that posted? Psygnosis you say?
The saga begins here:
https://www.filfre.net/2017/09/games-on-the-mersey-part-1-taking-scousers-off-the-dole/
Thanks!
Yes thanks! I hadn’t seen this site before and I enjoyed both this article and the one on memory managers which really brought me back to the old days
Thanks for this. The MoO article was a great read.
As someone who was around for all of this, it’s great to read all this stuff. I knew some of this, but this filled a great many plot holes that existed. Great writing by a deep dive nerd, which is my favorite type of person.
I recommend the one about Trinity because he goes into stuff about the Cold War and Mutually Assured Destruction, and it’s quite interesting. His take that Gorbachev is a hero to everyone but his own country is interesting.
I just made it through the one about HP Lovecraft and it dovetails nicely with the thread here.
Nothing else compares to what Jimmy is doing, either online or in print.
I’d recommend starting here. I didn’t realize how crazy the story is behind Tetris:
https://www.filfre.net/2017/06/tales-of-the-mirror-world-part-1-calculators-and-cybernetics/
(…and like a lot of great longform pieces, you have to commit because it’s a slow burn. He doesn’t even get to Tetris until part 2.)
Another great Digital Antiquarian article is up, this one about Jordan Mechner’s The Last Express. I don’t think I ever actually beat that game, I should maybe give it another go.
It’s a tricky one to finish, since it has so many finicky timing things. I’d recommend playing through it with a walkthrough and just enjoying the setting and story.
My recollection is that you needed to be in certain locations at specific times (the game transpires in real time I think?) in order to kick off plot events, and I don’t think I really had the patience for that at the time. Heck, I probably don’t now either, maybe a walkthrough is the way to go.