Although I will argue that my judgment was impaired, A. talked me into creating a Facebook profile two nights ago. I don’t really remember the circumstances or her rationale. But she made an impassioned plea that on some level resonated with me, for better or worse. So there I am. Time will tell if this was foolish or not. Leaning toward “not”. That said, some first impressions: Read the rest of this entry »
Wrapping up Q3 of ‘081… The results are in for my personal goals for 2008: Read the rest of this entry »
(Original at Flickr.)
The “classic” sci-fi time waster is not just restricted to colonizing distant suns and/or flying around blowing up shit. No. Sometimes it involves flying to distant suns that are already colonized, geting out of your spaceship and then blowing up shit. And after all, isn’t that — the epic space opera, anchored on some Byzantine galaxy-spanning empire — what makes science fiction so much fun?
And if that’s the case, then wouldn’t that make Paragon Software’s two games in the MegaTraveller franchise among the best, most “classic” sci-fi games ever made?
Kind of? Sort of? Maybe sometimes?
Well, MegaTraveller 2 sure was fun. And it rounds out our “top 4″ classic sci-fi time wasters…
In the previous two installments of this series, we discussed two “classic” science fiction games from the PC world: Sierra On-Line’s Outpost and Microprose’s Lightspeed. A theme common to both of those games is a sense of isolation — you’re cut off from the rest of humankind and you’ll have to live by your wits (and a little luck) if you’ve any hope for survival. Both of these games also share a sense of grim responsibility. That “hope for survival” we were just talking about? That’s the survival of the entire human species, pal.
How’s that for escapism?
Certainly not all science fiction games are like this. Realism? Adherence to the laws of physics? Doomsday scenarios where only you can stop our extinction? Who needs to be worried by all of that petty nonsense when you can strap yourself into a modified Centurion-class heavy sloop1 and rip through the sector with the haughty derring-do that only a pirate privateer possesses?
Well, the garden is winding down. Aside from one or two cherry tomato plants that are holding on for dear life, about the only thing left to harvest is the butternut squash. And they’re not quite done yet. Just about all the carrots and everything else have finished their respective runs.
It was a good year, overall. We’d like to do it again next year but we’ll see what happens (what with The Boy and all)…
From Fogus: I… uh… what are the rules?
Tagging… John.
In the first post of this series, I gave a quick introduction to the point of those reminiscent rambling. I’m waxing nostalgic about some older PC science fiction games that I used to play and giving a little thought to what they might be like if they were made more recently. In the last installment, we discussed Sierra On-Line’s colony-building Outpost. This time, we go back a bit further in time to Microprose’s Lightspeed.
A little while ago, during the drive home from Maine, I was struck by some odd reminiscence for a few classic (nee “old”) science fiction games I used to play on the computer. By classic, I don’t necessarily mean that they were best sellers1 or even particularly good games2. No, by “classic”, I mean only that these were games that I played ”back in the day”3 – sometimes ad nauseum — with a great deal of enjoyment.
As the drive continued and the reminiscing went on, I made up my mind to do a series here on F_D — a kind of “top 4″ of these classic sci-fi time-wasters. I’m going to take a look at four “old favorites”, make a few remarks on what made them great (or at least fun), and then discuss a little about their replayability and how they might be different if they’d been made in the past year or so.
I’ll start with Outpost.
