I know, it’s just a dodge for me to justify creating a topic to mention that Hardwar (anyone remember this?) runs great in XP and with Direct3D. I hadn’t played this in a while and wanted something fun and uncomplicated to play recently. Reading about Freelancer made me miss Privateer but messing with DOS didn’t inspire me, as alternatives Tachyon is pretty weak, and X: Beyond The Frontier (with the Xtension) just seemed too daunting. I may give Terminus another spin though soon.
Hardwar does run at pretty high resolutions and doesn’t look terrible at all - along the lines of a patched Red Baron 3D. I hadn’t played it since I got my new machine and with a great joystick/rudder combination along with all the graphic options cranked up it’s like playing a new game.
The weird part is multiplayer - it generates a whole dynamic world on the host machine (like Terminus) that enables competative and/or cooperative play but it doesn’t work on regular networks or the Internet only via modem or serial port.
Anyhow, this is a fun distraction. What from bygone years distracting you?
I ordered it from the manufacturer. You’ll also want to get the latest Xtension patch as it not only fixes a few bugs but adds many new features.
I also need to correct my post. With the latest (still old) Hardwar patch one can play on the Internet. I did some poking around after posting and found there’s still a fan community out there. Planet Hardwar is a good place to start if anyone’s interested.
Added: Terminus is still alive too! The Linux community, God bless 'em, needs all the games they can get and since all versions are compatible PC Terminus players (all one of me?) can get in their multiplayer worlds still. Terminuspoint.com is the hub of this fanbase. They’ve even put together their own custom patch that fixes all former issues and adds new features for Mac, Windows and Linux users.
Tech Romancer, and im picking up another copy of Planescape Torment today SINCE I thought it would be a nice gesture to send my last copy to a friend who hadn’t experienced the game before. Thankfully the game is still easy to acquire UNLIKE Freespace 2.
I’m playing Shadowrun (from which Planescape:Torment takes some inspiration) with a SNES emulator for the first time and one hour into the game I’m already stuck. I’d forgotten how fucking HARD old school games are.
I’m also playing Phantasie 3 which isn’t a classic but its decent and works as nostalgia.
I liked the localized-damage combat in Phantasie 3.
I haven’t done much classic gaming lately, although I reinstalled Rune last night (not a classic, but almost 3 years old) because I felt like wandering through moody settings and hacking goblins and skeletons to bits.
Played a little Enduro on an Atari 2600 emulator a few weeks ago. Pretty impressive what Activision was able to do with that console – there’s a whole day/night cycle, weather changes, etc. There’s a real sense of time passing as the sun begins to rise. And the sound effects trigger 20-year-old memories in me.
I tried once again to get into Nethack but I still haven’t been able to make head or tail of that game. I guess I need to sit down and read the rules one of these days.
Idea for game: A really slick, user-friendly Roguelike that is designed for 1-2 hour play sessions. Diablo/Darkstone/etc. don’t quite qualify, as their single player components are longer-term. I’d like to have a dinky little rpg, with all the bells and whistles, that I could load up for a brief dungeon crawl from time to time.
The only old game I’ve been playing is some Atari Adventure. It is one of the games included in that Atari Joystick Game thing I got for Christmas. High on my list of wasted brain cells, I was able to walk through the maze without stopping or getting lost on the first try. Why do I remember that 25 years later? I’m not alone though, as a friend was able to do exactly the same thing. I’m going to use that ability in people to test for something, I’m just not sure what to test for yet.
Hrm… I’m current playing through Total Annihilation again (on a new Mac no less).
Great game! Why oh why did nobody else pickup on the advances in TA (excellent order / queueing / guarding system, meaningfull 3d terrain, etc)?
Warcraft III and other games have other advances of their own (RPG stuff, better stories, etc), but the mechanics of TA remian largely unmatched IMHO. Less micromanagement and more strategy…
Try TKZangband or ZangbandTK (whichever it is) instead. It has graphics, but the same great Zangband gameplay (which to me is the best of the ROGUE style games). Actually, Aaron Hall’s Dungeon Odyssey game is a lame take on Zangband that even steals the graphics! TKZangband hooked me for a full year, every day. Brilliant game.
I wish I’d gotten FS2 when I had the chance.[/quote]
I don’t know where you live in LA, but there’s a store in the Burbank mall called “Game Land” that sells old games (some used, but mostly new-in-the-box stuff that just never sold in its original run). They had four copies of FS2. I bought two of them before Christmas (one for me, one for my brother). It might still be there.
Well, I’m not actually playing it but I recently tried to get Emporer of the Fading Suns up and running. No go on 2000. If anyone knows a way to get around it, I’d be very grateful.
That’s another classic I like though I haven’t loaded it up in a while. There are some fansites out there. The two most prominent ones, Nova and Hyperion, feature custom mods and campaigns. The guys at Nova are even talking about, and who knows if anything will come of this, developing an original theme game with similiar gameplay to EFS. With Matrix Games publishing Fading Suns: Noble Armada it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see a remake of EFS down the road at some point from Holistic, but I’d just be pleased to see a working FS:NA for now.
Here’s the Win2K problem discussed and fixed in the Nova forums. I’d cut and paste it but it’s a long thread with information in different posts. They’ve got another fix thread for XP.
There’s also a more recent patch from Holistic but you’d need to do some research to see whether it’s compatible or not with the Nova or Hyperion mods and campaigns.
I played through Marathon for the first time over my Christmas break via Aleph One. Now I’m going through Marathon 2 and Infinity after that; those two I’ve played before.
Sean: I don’t know anything but in some forums I saw posts from just this month discussing when the 3.0 patch would be out. Evidently it’s something of a holy grail that would allow for players to turn real estate into factories and the like (along the lines of X:BTF). OTOH, Software Refinery, the developer, seems to be MIA. The site’s gone. Based on what the fans think this is probably a temporary development as these developers are pretty popular with thier audience (seeing as how they maintained the site and released patches and additional content for years after release). Could be wishful thinking - I dunno.
I’m not counting on anything - I was pleasantly surprised to see how well the thing ran on my machine though. Plenty of games made for XP seem much more flaky than this old trooper.
