Saturday Game

I started to play games when I was 6, in 1984. Of course, the games were played on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum of one of my best friends. It was his father’s computer, brought with difficulty from UK into communist Romania. We’ve broken it from playing Match Day and Fist, so I don’t think his father ever really liked me :D

Anyway, during those times I got addicted to story driven games and this addiction continued through the 90s and PCs and it is still in place today.

Recently (as in 2-3 years ago) I’ve discovered GOG.com or Good Old Games on its full name: the site where classic games go to have a second life.

Among the games I have bought and wait to play are: Planescape: Torment, Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Vampire: Masquerade Redemption, Alpha Centauri, Syndicate Plus, some great games that still have a lot of potential to replay over and over.

Since I have a Mac I thought that I couldn’t play the games, but there are some compatible Mac games. It doesn’t matter, though, since I play all the games in Parallels, on a Windows 7 install :D Because most of them are not graphics heavy, playing them in a virtual environment is actually possible without losing performance.

So, when you have a time and you feel melancholic towards the times you played games with your friends in the school’s lab, go to GOG.com. There are games for 2-3$ and most of them are up to $10.

P.S.: yes, it’s the second Sunday in a row when I don’t recommend a game. That’s because I am playing HOMM3 and I thought that it doesn’t need any presentation.

This weekend I didn’t play anything. Didn’t really want and wasn’t in the mood. But the main reason was that I got lost in a book that anybody involved in gaming should read: Masters of Doom.

It’s not, obviously, a horror book, it’s about about the two Johnes: John Romero and John Carmack, the creators of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake. They invented the First Person Shooter style of gaming, they brought deathmatch to millions of players and made the world of gaming much more visceral.

The book goes over a period of about 20 years, since the two guys met, until the launch of Daikatana and Quake 3 Arena, the titles that weren’t as successful as any previous work they’ve done.

One quote I found interesting is about gamers’ behavior when it comes to paying:

Gamers, he realized, might be a different breed from those consumers who actually paid for utility shareware. They were more apt simply to take what they could get for free.

Go, have a read. It’s a good way to understand the things happening inside a small team once it grows.

Recently the Romanian Simona Halep broke onto the tennis scene with a vengeance. She never won a WTA tournament until this year, but 2013 meant 5 finals and 5 tournaments won. This meant more interest in tennis in Romania.

Of course, this had nothing to do with the fact that, in the last 2 months or so, Grand Slam Tennis 2 is the game we at the office. The reason? 4 of us can play at the same time, a doubles game. And it’s so much fun! :))

Another fun thing is that you can play with 80s and 90s players (you have to see Bjorn Borg :D ). They look so out of place on the court, you have no idea. With their short (really short) pants or whatever they are called.

Most of the games, though, are something like Djokovici and Nadal playing against Roddick and Federer. I usually play Nadal since I play better with the player from the back of the court, but I would love to be able to play a more serve-volley kind of game.

We play the game on XBox, but it is also available on PS3 (and, I think, PC). So, if you want a game that you can play with your friends, Grand Slam Tennis 2 is great. Of course, you can do this in real life, but my back still hurts from such a try not long ago :))

About two weeks ago I moderated a panel on indie games. Among the panelists, Dragos Inoan was telling us about his experience building a space combat simulator.

And the day has come when you can actually play the game (if you are in Romania, Canada and New Zealand, for the moment). It will be launched worldwide soon.

What can I tell you about the game? The graphics look really, really crisp. The game is easy to play (I was using the accelerometer), but you can also with it with touch and, hold on, using a new controller Apple is getting out on the market.

I played several sessions (lack of time). I am not the biggest fan of space combat games (I think I stopped playing them once I played Elite and Wing Commander, about 15 years ago), but it was really easy for me to pick up the games and shoot down the first 2-3 ships.

Oh, and the ships. I think they are some of the most beautiful designs I’ve seen in a game (admittedly, I didn’t play as many of this type). You can actually see some of the designs on the game’s site, here.

The game is a paid one ($0.99), and is available, as I said above, in the Romanian and Canadian store. I am really curious on seeing the big, US launch and how it works. Dragos is working with a distributor, trying to get as high as possible in the store (the game looks crisp and interesting, maybe he can get a Featured spot, also).

Good luck, Dragos!

Last week, searching for adventure (quest) games on the iPad, I’ve found Gemini Rue. I enjoy SF games more than fantasy, so it sounded great (especially since I am a big fan of Beneath a Steel Sky:

“A sci-fi noir adventure in the tradition of “Blade Runner” and “Beneath a Steel Sky.”

Azriel Odin, ex-assassin, arrives on the rain-drenched planet of Barracus. When things go horribly wrong, he can only seek help from the very criminals he used to work for.

Meanwhile, across the galaxy, a man called Delta-Six wakes up in a hospital with no memory. Without knowing where to turn or who to trust, he vows to escape before he loses his identity completely.

As fate brings these two closer together, we discover a world where life is cheap, identities are bought and sold, and a quest for redemption can change the fate of a whole galaxy.”

I have downloaded the game last week, played for about an hour, it’s pretty simple for the moment (the puzzles aren’t the most difficult), but I had no time to continue (still, it’s there, on the iPad, waiting for a better moment). The game is an 8bit graphic game, but the graphics is not even at the same level of Broken Sword, so don’t expect too much out of it. The story, though, seems intriguing and interesting, so it should compensate :)

So, if you are a fan of point and click adventures with cyberpunk subject, Gemini Rue might be exactly what you need. The game is $4.99, though, not free, so think about it before dropping the price of a coffee on it :P

The game is also available on steam, for PC, a little bit more expensive (€7,99).

You can see a video review below (not mine):