Category: video games

Giving Back to Video Games

When I had the game boxes too they were taking up a lot more room than just a drawer in a file cabinet...
When I had the game boxes too they were taking up a lot more room than just a drawer in a file cabinet…

I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember. My dad bought an Odyssey 2 when I was only two. Some of my first spoken words came from games like, P.T. Barnum’s Acrobats!  Our family got a Tandy IBM/PC compatible computer in 1987 or 88 when I was eight. Along with some financing software and print shop my dad also picked up Sierra On-line’s Space Quest. A year later my brother and I got a Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas… I could go on, but the point is that I’m hard pressed to think of a time when PC or console gaming didn’t play a role in my life. Outside of Family,after Church, and Scouting, video gaming might be the most influential force in my life. I learned how to use DOS, script, program in BASIC, and edit autoexec.bat and config.sys files in order to play games. I spent my summer work money in order to play Final Fantasy VII…

What I’m trying to say is that they’ve been a pretty big deal. My father had horses and the Arizona wilds, my grandfather had trains. I had video games.

But, this stuff takes space: mental and physical. For awhile I could keep my computer and consoles game boxes at my parents’ but at some point they not only want you to move out but to take all your stuff with you to. I didn’t have room for all of it a few years back and no one was interested in taking it off my hands, and I didn’t have the time to try to sell it all on Ebay… So, it went to the municipal dump or the recycling center. I kept discs and manuals but the boxes, the “feelies,” and the installation guides all went. This last year I’ve moved three times and each time less stuff came with me. It gets harder and harder to justify carrying file cabinets and tupperware bins of old games around with you. Especially when sites like Desura, Gamersgate, GOG, and Steam can provide games and manuals that take up no physical space.

But, I didn’t just want to throw this all away. The PC or console game manual is extinct today. You’r lucky to get a folded insert with a button layout. Gone are the days of 100 pages manuals with charts and indexes. This is history and it should be preserved. Luckily, museums are springing up to do just that, one of them is just down the road from where I live. The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment‘s (the Made), in Oakland, CA , mission is to preserve PC and console gaming history, I contacted them and let them know that I had a stack of PC game manuals from the mid and late nineties and that they could have them if they wanted. They did. And, so last weekend I mailed off a 30+ pound box of manuals to them.

I feel better knowing that the flowchart to Civilization II or Alpha Centauri will be put to good use by some adult or child in the future to understand early video gaming culture and not rotting in a dump… The tax write off won’t hurt either.

Anyway, if you’re thinking of downsizing your collection, instead of Ebay or the dump, give a thought to preserving and sharing the hobby that has given you so much enjoyment.

Oh, and if you’re ever in Oakland on a weekend stop by the Made and play some classic PC or console games. Who knows, if you find yourself flipping through and old manual to a Sierra On-line game it might have been mine.

Not a Review: Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider 2013

Unlike others coming to the new Tomb Raider, I don’t have any previous experience with the franchise. I never played Lara Croft’s original adventures or saw her as played by Angelina Jolie on the big screen. I went into the game with mixed feelings. The marketing campaign was juvenile and disgusting, with the marketeers poorly positioning the game as “mature,” in the most shallow and offensive way: the threat of rape and violence to the game’s protagonist. I almost wrote the game off then. But, friends went out and purchased it and they loved it; reviewers also found the game laudable. People I trusted said the game was not about these things, that they were not important to the story, and that if one focused on that they’d be missing a great experience. They were right.

The game play in Tomb Raider is wonderful: responsive controls, engaging puzzles, satisfying combat, all set in a beautiful, haunting location and peppered with some fantastic set-pieces. This isn’t archaeology as practiced by real archaeologists but it is faithful to the action-romantic view we have of it thanks to the Indian Jones series of movies. It might be the first 3d metroidvania game I’ve ever really enjoyed. I wish the game had been more open ended, that instead of being shepherded from area to area I was given free roam of the island and its mysteries. This games almost captures the sense of raw discovery but the feeling is stunted every time you transition from one area to the next.

Most compelling though is the protagonist, Lara Croft. The designers and writers at Crystal Dynamics have done an excellent job realizing her as a character. I do feel like this young woman is not ready for the job she is given at the beginning of the game. She’s just out of school, she’s surrounded by her friends, mentors, and caretakers. She’s a nobody and everyone, even her sees it that way. And that’s okay these people are here to make sure everything works out, to help her.  Then it all gets taken away. As you play, as the story progresses, the naivete, the idealism, the innocence, the irresponsibility  is peeled away, sometimes violently. Lara might always have been strong willed and intelligent but she is untested and it shows. But she grows, you help her grow. It’s tragic, it’s sad, it’s scary and yet she comes through it. She enters adulthood midst tragedy and horror and like me, like most of us, finds it all somehow life affirming. It’s powerful stuff.

Drop it Dirtbag! False(B)logic enters the World of Law Enforcement, Let’s Play Police Quest Part Seven

The Big Game

Det. Angland lets Sonny know he won’t be alone for this mission:

 

Yup, I’m sure you’ve all figured out who Frank is in this little drama… Back down at the bar we give Woody the password:

Once again Woody leads us to the back, room and frisks us, this time though he escorts us through the gaming room:


“This must be the big game!”


(the game also plays a dun-dun-duuuhnnn, right here in case you are as thick as a phone book…)

You got to admit that’s a pretty sweet street name…

Moar poker. Same as last time though you don’t have to win as much this time. Once we show these rubes how a real card shark save scums:

“yes, yes I am. I would love to join your criminal syndicate.”

“What?! Seriously, who recruits thugs in their gang based on their ability to play poker? That’s no way to build a criminal organization! No wonder you’re going to get… I mean yes, I am looking for work!”

“Like? I’d love to! Big handsome, strong man like you… I mean, Gosh, females are attractive!”

Moving on up, physically and metaphorically!

“Couldn’t we take the elevator? This isn’t ominous at all…”

This is it Sonny don’t choke!


That can’t be good news…


“I thought I might see your gun tonight but I never thought it’d be an actual gun!”

“But, how could he see through my disguise?! I DYED my hair!”

(FYI – The game is over as soon as I walked through the door… This is all the ending…)

Berserker Barrage!

Hey at least this part is true to life! Cops are terrible shots!

Barrage? Was “hail” already taken? Come on everything else about this game has been a cliche…

“We did it boys! Now it’s time to DANCE!”


(We already have higher than the perfect score! No way this case isn’t going our way!)



The End







There you have it folks! Police Quest! By the way anyone ever heard of that Helicopter Simulator game? I thought I knew all of Sierra’s titles but that one is new to me. Also, check out that high score! Funny enough that isn’t the highest it can be! Turns out I missed a point somewhere along the way. Probably reading something or other… Anyway, how do I know that Sonny Bonds is gay?

What’s a tittie?

Oh, Sonny…

Thanks for reading! See you next mission!

Drop it Dirtbag! False(B)logic enters the World of Law Enforcement, Let’s Play Police Quest Part Six

BUSTED!

These drug dealers sure do take their time… Sonny takes the opportunity to load his gun and strike poses:

Okay, enough looking hot with a gun, back into the bushes, and to waiting:



It appears that both these characters and their dialog came straight out of central casting…


As a game for children I like that they can kill your character off in one of many ways but using anything more profane than butt is not allowed…

“Nothing gets by you Sonny!”

Sonny radios Laura and then yells,

JIGGERS!

You’re never going to be a drug lord that way! The other guy beats a hasty retreat into the park:

With the suspect apprehended you tell him to hoof it out of the park:

With his suspect back at the car Sonny searches him:

“Oh no!”

Sonny looks over the ID card and sees that our suspect’s name is Victor Simms, a student at Jefferson High School

(That gun would have killed Sonny if he had come out without saying “Halt” or having his gun unholstered…)

Sonny pumps Simms for information:

The other suspect, Colby, isn’t as helfpul:

With both suspects apprehended and questioned Sonny and Laura take them back to the jailhouse. Where you can guess Sonny has to once again put his gun in a locker before entering the jail. Inside he books the two for drugs:

After booking them and delivering them to their cells Sonny and Laura return to the Station:

This game brought to you by DARE

Welp, here we are at the Blue Room again. What depressing personal story will Jack have for us now?

“That can’t be good…”

DON’T DO DRUGS!

“Jack, maybe you and your daughter should take some personal responsibility for this situation?”


See what I mean about the Blue Room just being a depressing place? Only bad things happen here!

This is literally the longest day in history… Back at the station, in Morgan’s office:


Sonny heads over to evidence to get another look at Taselli’s aka Hoffman’s little black book:

This is how Detective work works!

J.M. must be that Jose Martinez Simms was talking about and H.D. is probably the Hotel Delphoria… Let’s see what else we can dig up:

Using the latest in technology from 1989! A single computer!

Sonny types in the serial number from the gun he lifted from Hoffman:

With the number the computer spit out he goes to his office and gives the number a call (do realize how hard work was before cell phones?)



“Lucky you. Unlucky for Lytton…”

Next, Sonny calls the crime lab and asks about the gun we found:

Sonny then went to Morgan’s office to tell him what he learned but his boss is out of the office, back at his desk:

Operation Trick Trap was a success!

Back in Morgan’s office:

“Why does everyone thing I care about this whore? We just went to school together! Wait.. a sec, I mean yes, her curvacious, disease riddled body fills my red-blood american body with urges!”


Sonny speeds to the jail to secure his beard, I mean cover!



Sonny tells her about his plan to make everyone think he is straigh.. I mean Morgan’s plan to use Maria to help Sonny create a cover for infiltrating the Hotel Delphoria

Everything is coming up Sonny!

“Yes, everyone is buying this!”

Those Damn Nipples

If Sonny was straight he’d know that his face wouldn’t be where his blood would be rushing…


On the way back to the Department:



Whatever you think next, Sonny swears he is not a necrophiliac and that he was just doing his job:


With Hoffman dead the only lead Sonny has now is the illegal gambling going on at the Delphoria… Back at the Department:

The Sting





Before Sonny can leave, Sgt. Dooley steps in:


DON’T DO DRUGS! OR YOU WILL DIE IN A COMA!

Undercover, but the boring kind…

Sonny, being a sensitive soul has a call to make before he dyes his hair and gets into character:


With that sad duty Sonny heads back to the locker:

Take one last look at strapping, raven haird beauty Sonny Bonds:

and say hello to sexy bombshell Sonny Bonds:


With his hair dyed Sonny gets into his outfit (and reveal the police officer who wrote this game’s Petite bourgeoisies attitudes and feelings towards the lower classes)

Back in Morgan’s office:


Gambling it all on Gambling!


With the briefings done Sonny heads towards the endgame at the Hotel Delphoria:

and the hardest part of the game, the Delphoria’s driveway:

Do you know how many times I’ve died trying to get to the Delphoria? Hundreds, I’m sure. Why? Because its at a diagonal and those are really hard to do when all you have are the arrow keys. I died four of five times on this playthrough even!

After many deaths and reloads I finally get it and Sonny enters the hotel:


Sonny rings the bell, rents himself a room for $100, and then enters the bar:


beer


Social Engineering 1


Those two guys don’t look suspicious at all!




Next, Sonny gives the bartender a big tip for the beer ($20)


With an invitation the game in pocket Sonny and Marie head up to his room, to notify his boss

Into the game!



Once into his room, Sonny uses the phone to call Morgan and report on their progress:


“Well, that was unhelpful!”

With her job done Sonny calls Marie a cab and then returns to the Bar:



Read ’em and weep boys! I’ve got a pair of eights!



Sonny waits there for a bit with the two strangers and the awkward silence until a fourth player comes in from the back:

And this my friends is where I as a child of ten and my brother at fourteen learned to play the game of poker.

It’s an incredibly simple version of the game. Each person gets five cards, you can change out up to three cards once, and you go through only two rounds of betting until call. You starts with around $700 dollars and have to play until you lose it all (and the game) or win around $300. The best way to do this is to save scum. And that is what I do! It’s a tedious process of saving and loading until you get the hand you want, winning some coin, saving the game and then repeating the process!

Before too long though:


With the first game over Sonny returns to his room and waits for his back up to show up:


We talk to one of the backup guys to get out transmitter:

And then head back down for the BIG Game with the BIG Fish!

Next time, the thrilling conclusion to Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel!

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