I played the first System Shock for the first time last year and was really surprised by how well it held up, so I got UU in hopes of getting a “medieval system shock”, since it was also made by Looking Glass.
I love the fact that you can use your cursor to examine stuff around the environment even though it’s a first person game, both in UU and System Shock.
LoL doesn’t really hold up. In a way it’s like Oblivion. It was terribly cool once upon a time, but even if you like your gaming that old-school, it just isn’t all that impressive any more. Mind, I never actually beat it, but I have a tough time imagining you haven’t seen pretty much everything that’s there after a couple of hours with it.
As for the abandonware stuff, anything on GOG is by definition not abandonware, and as mentioned, abandonware sites do not offer copies of anything GOG sells.
Unfortunately far too much abandonware can’t legally be un-abandoned, even when there’s a desire to do so. So no, GOG can’t invalidate the concept. What they can do, is to get as much of it un-abandoned as possible. And I think you’ll find that abandonware sites very much want them to do just that.
That hasn’t been worth much since they rereleased it a couple of years back anyway.
Tony_M
4725
I desperately want GOG to get Tie Fighter, and if they got the license I would buy it on day one. Would that be true if I had an abandonware copy sitting on my hardrive?
Tony
I’m pretty sure you’re not asking me this because you assume I’m psychic or know you well enough to guess based on your typical behaviour, as neither happens to be true.
Based on that, I assume you’re trying to imply something along the lines of: abandonware shouldn’t exist, because somewhere, somehow there are rights holders, and it is preferable that these rights holders are allowed to effectively anti-publish their works, over risking that rights holders who have abandoned all attempts at profiting from their published work, don’t profit from those abandoned works.
It’s an opinion, certainly. Also not one I’ll ever agree with, even if things were that straightforward in practise. Let’s leave it at that & go back to discussing Good Old Games, shall we?
Good Old Games is proof that there’s absolutely still money to be made from those games that have been abandoned. It has not, alas, rescued all such games and it’s extremely unlikely that it will ever become that comprehensive.
Tony_M
4728
Sorry Disconnect. It was a careless post. I didn’t intend to be hostile and I overstated my case. The example of Tie Fighter is, on reflection, a bit unfair because its a clear case where there is still money to be made from that game, but thats not the case for every old game.
Tony
Libra
4729
I see that the Age of Wonders titles are on sale, and I never tried any of them back in the day. Are they anything like Master of Magic?
peterb
4730
It’s cute how you pretend that the word ‘abandonware’ actually has any legal significance at all.
They are very heavily inspired by Master of Magic, yet between being locked into a rigid campaign as opposed to MoM’s free exploration 4Xness, and being really hard, I find them nowhere near as enjoyable. (Well, haven’t played Shadow Magic yet.)
I think you’re misreading what he said. Of course abandonware is not a legal definition. However, some games that have been abandoned are currently not available for purchase in part because of rights issues or other legal snafus.
Squee
4733
Shadow Magic is the most MoM-esque of the bunch. And has a random map generator. If you’re looking for a modern MoM that’s the closest I’ve found.
peterb
4734
Ah, ok. If that’s what he meant, then yes, I misread.
Libra
4735
So with the news of acquiring some of the old EA catalog, and seeing Privateer up, do you think we’ll see the original Wing Commander 1/2 and the add on packs? Man those bring back memories. I loved how you could actually fail missions or objectives yet the game would continue and the story would change. I thought that was amazing when I was young.
EA has Sooo many great old games in their IP vault…<drool>
So true. The closest thing we’ve had, gameplay-wise, is The Outfit and Brutal Legend. Both games were almost there, but The Outfit had a poor single player campaign, and Brutal Legend… I just didn’t gel with that one like I did with Sacrifice. Not sure why. If only The Outfit had taken a page from Sacrifice and made the single player campaign similar to the multiplayer.
Sacrifice still has one of the best single player campaigns I’ve played, I think. Not only did it teach you how to play the game, it actually let you create a unique character with a unique mixture of spells that you could then use in multiplayer. Brilliant. More games should do something like that, damn it.
I’m not surprised that went away. It’s just economics. As it became more expensive to make content, it became more impractical to make large amounts of content that most players would never see in their playthrough of the game. I don’t like it either, but I have to agree that it makes sense.
Tony_M
4738
Same. Tim Schafer + Sacrifice should have been one of the best games of all time. Still worth playing for the humor.
Lorini
4739
Think we’ll see Theme Hospital? Loved that game.
I’ve never heard of that one. Sounds intriguing. I’m curious: was the end goal to earn more money and expand the hospital services in order to earn even more money, or was the end goal to take care of more patients, or something altruistic like that?
Lorini
4741
C’mon man! :) it was hilarious. You get a bunch of patients with some very bizarre illnesses and you try to cure them by sending them to the correct doctor in the hospital. Wkipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_Hospital
