Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Myst and Riven (and to a lesser extent the sequels) are the best, obviously.

  I found Riven to be a bit too difficult to be completely enjoyable.
The hints are often really obscure, and most of the time you just wander
around trying random things, to no avail. It can get expasperating. In fact,
I got stuck at some point so badly that I couldn't finish the game.

  I still own the CDs, though. Maybe I should try it again sometime.
I wonder if it will work on Windows XP.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   With the recent gaming-related threads, I thought about creating one
> myself: Do you have any game gems which you would recommend people to try?
> Maybe an older game which most people have forgotten, which is still today
> as great as back then? Or a game which didn't get too much media attention
> but is actually incredibly cool?

I don't play games very often any more, but here's a few that I've enjoyed:


Cave Story:
Freeware download.  A pixel-art side scrolling platformer in the style 
of some SNES games.  Very well made and a lot of fun.


I Wanna Be the Guy:
Freeware download from http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/
Known for being almost impossibly difficult, and it's a bit glitchy too. 
  I can't quite describe why I enjoy playing it so much, but it does 
have lots of nice references to old-school console games.


Chrono Trigger:
An RPG for the SNES, you can find a rom for an emulator pretty easily, 
or buy it used if you still own the console.


Monkey Island (series):
Old PC game.  Gameplay is ehhh, but the writing is top-notch and very funny.


Katamari Damacy:
Available on most modern consoles.  Too weird not to like.


My brother swears by Dwarf Fortress (http://bay12games.com/dwarves/) 
which is a free ASCII-graphics game in which you attempt to build, well, 
a dwarven fortress.  Apparently the depth of the interactions you can 
see in this game is almost unparalleled, to the point where it's a 
common practice to post stories about what happened in the game.  See 
http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Stories for a list of short 
stories, or http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/intro.html for a 
hilarious story of a game played by a group of people (you probably 
don't need to have played the game to enjoy it).

I've also enjoyed playing World of Goo a bit recently, and it makes a 
relatively easy but still quite enjoyable puzzle game.  You can download 
it for $20 if you're interested.

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Myst and Riven (and to a lesser extent the sequels) are the best, obviously.
> 
>   I found Riven to be a bit too difficult to be completely enjoyable.
> The hints are often really obscure, and most of the time you just wander
> around trying random things, to no avail. It can get expasperating. In fact,
> I got stuck at some point so badly that I couldn't finish the game.

I got stuck a couple of times, often because I couldn't figure out what in 
the scene was a button. (Like, the button to call the cable car outside the 
temple was completely non-obvious to me, or I was pushing it in the wrong 
place, or something.)

One of the things I like about those games is that you can say "Hmmm... I 
need to get over *there*... And there's steps up *here*... and a path *that* 
way... so I must need to get behind *that* rock to find the entrance." You 
can count on the 3D-ness making enough sense that you can find what you're 
looking for.

But yes, Riven definitely had more subtle clues, and more non-obvious 
places-you-had-to-click than the other games.  I think I got stuck three or 
four times and had to take a break for a few days or a couple weeks before I 
realized what I was doing wrong.

The other games were more obviously "puzzle" games - you knew which key you 
were looking for, or what parts you had to put together to make something 
go, or which map you had to find. Riven was more "real world" IIRC.

>   I still own the CDs, though. Maybe I should try it again sometime.
> I wonder if it will work on Windows XP.

It does. I don't remember if you need to install it strangely, but I played 
it more recently than I gave up on Win98.  Thief requires a command-line 
switch to install on NT-class machines, telling it to ignore that NT doesn't 
have DX.

If you pick it up again and get stuck, feel free to ask for a hint. I'll try 
to offer one that's minimally revealing. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Kevin Wampler wrote:
> Katamari Damacy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT9SvWGOt24

I loved the commercial, but try to figure out what it's advertising before 
you get to the end. Hint: it's not advertising a video game. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Darren New wrote:
> Kevin Wampler wrote:
>> Katamari Damacy:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT9SvWGOt24
> 
> I loved the commercial, but try to figure out what it's advertising 
> before you get to the end. Hint: it's not advertising a video game. :-)

I have actually seen this before (so no fair on my guessing) at one of 
the siggraph animation festivals.  I loved it then and I still love the 
commercial.

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:498ca833$1@news.povray.org...
> Warp wrote:

> > - The Longest Journey. Old point-and-click adventure, which is rather
good,
> > and refreshingly different from the Lucasarts' games.

> I played this through. For a point-and-click adventure, it's really quite
> lame.

Speaking of point and click adventure games, really the only one worth
playing was DoTT, IMO.

> Myst and Riven (and to a lesser extent the sequels) are the best,
obviously.

Myst series seemed utterly boring to me. With a storyline that is sterile,
alien and convoluted, and puzzles that are artificial , I never understood
what the appeal was. Then again, I've never been a "gamer", in that most I
can play is 1/2 hr or so at a sitting, and to mentally and physically relax,
not as a second job. For similar demographics, I guess games that are more
like sitcoms than films are more appealing.

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somebody wrote:
> Myst series seemed utterly boring to me. With a storyline that is sterile,
> alien and convoluted, and puzzles that are artificial , I never understood
> what the appeal was. Then again, I've never been a "gamer", in that most I
> can play is 1/2 hr or so at a sitting, and to mentally and physically relax,
> not as a second job. For similar demographics, I guess games that are more
> like sitcoms than films are more appealing.

Did you play Myst shortly after it came out or later on?  I recall the 
the technology rather stunning when it came out, but has since been long 
surpassed by other games, so that might play into your assessment.

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Warp wrote:
>   With the recent gaming-related threads, I thought about creating one
> myself: Do you have any game gems which you would recommend people to try?
> Maybe an older game which most people have forgotten, which is still today
> as great as back then? Or a game which didn't get too much media attention
> but is actually incredibly cool?

I'm sure you meant relatively recent games, i.e. within the last 10 
years at least. However, I can't resist wheeling this out, probably 
utterly unheard of to anyone outside the UK (including the computer it 
ran on).

The single computer game I have most ever enjoyed playing is: "Exile" 
for the BBC Micro.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exile_(arcade_adventure)

If you never played games on a platform this old then it will probably 
hold no interest for you, compared with modern systems. However, I know 
that many people who frequent this server have a few years behind them, 
so... maybe... someone will have heard of it, or even played it!

:)

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Bill Pragnell wrote:
> The single computer game I have most ever enjoyed playing is: "Exile" 
> for the BBC Micro.

There was also a great game I played on TRS-80 Model I machines. I don't 
remember what it was called, but it involved a number of star systems 
various distances apart, and you trying to take over most or all of them. 
You could build (say) warships on planet Alpha, raise an army on planet 
Beta, then ship them both off to planet Gamma to take over. The fun part was 
you'd have to figure out how far apart the planets were and account for 
travel time as well as construction time. If you could enlist three ship's 
worth of troops a year and build one ship a year, and it took 20 years to 
get from alpha to gamma and 10 years to get from alpha to beta and 15 to get 
from beta to gamma, you had to figure out when to start building ships and 
when to start sending them, and account for your own travel time too.

Plus you could buy and sell stuff, raising money so you could take over 
governments and stuff too.  I think there were actually multiple games, one 
where you're a trader, one where you're a general, and one where you're a 
government or some such.

Low-res graphics, basically dots for stars with labels next to them. But 
lots of fun for that sort of thing.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Darren New wrote:
> There was also a great game I played on TRS-80 Model I machines. I don't 
> remember what it was called, 

Ah. Apparently it was called "Galaxy".
http://www.mobygames.com/game/galaxy


-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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