Side-Quest: The Retro-Gaming Surge

[tmeacham]

Article by Travis Meacham.

The recent success of Bionic Commando: Rearmed and the anticipation surrounding Mega Man 9 remind us that sometimes the best new game is an old one. Here are a few options to help PC gamers scratch that nostalgia itch.

http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/08/26/sidequest_retro/

 

[gamerk316]

Funny thing is, Megaman 9 will be the best since X2, in all likelyhood...(thats what, almost 12 years?)

 

[ethanpd]

This might be the answer to our PC retro-gaming prayers: CD Projekt, makers of The Witcher, are coming out with a new digital distribution site called Good Old Games, or http://www.gog.com. It opens in September and they plan to have old PC games dating between 90's and early 2000's available to buy between $5-$10 each. It will be similar to Steam where you can download the game as long and as often as you like once you've bought it, but you won't have to be online to play it. Best of all, they are allowed to have access to the source code of the games and reprogram them so that they will be FULLY compatible with Windows XP and Vista. They're also going to remove any copy protections and DRM's, so you can backup them up or put them on your laptop.

So far, from looking at their website, they'll have games like the Fallout series, MDK, Freespace 2, Operation Flashpoint and some others I can't make out. They're aiming to have 70-100 games to be available when they launch. Now, I just wish I didn't go on a Ebay craze for old games recently.

 

[infornography42]

AWESOME!
I am soooo going to give them money ;-)

 

[robwright]

This might be the answer to our PC retro-gaming prayers: CD Projekt, makers of The Witcher, are coming out with a new digital distribution site called Good Old Games, or http://www.gog.com. It opens in September and they plan to have old PC games dating between 90's and early 2000's available to buy between $5-$10 each. It will be similar to Steam where you can download the game as long and as often as you like once you've bought it, but you won't have to be online to play it. Best of all, they are allowed to have access to the source code of the games and reprogram them so that they will be FULLY compatible with Windows XP and Vista. They're also going to remove any copy protections and DRM's, so you can backup them up or put them on your laptop.

So far, from looking at their website, they'll have games like the Fallout series, MDK, Freespace 2, Operation Flashpoint and some others I can't make out. They're aiming to have 70-100 games to be available when they launch. Now, I just wish I didn't go on a Ebay craze for old games recently.

Damn, how did I know already know about this? This is sweet!

 

[tmeacham]

Wow, they actually have Giants: Citizen Kabuto on their teaser page. We will be finding out more about this as soon as possible.

 

[Maxor127]

Yeah, playing old PC games is a pain in the ass. Funny because I Just spent the last couple days trying to load up Quest for Glory 1 VGA since I was motivated by the release of the new Quest for Glory II remake. I knew I could get the game running in DOSBox, but I'm used to the Mac version and little details began to annoy me, so I had to seek out answers to my problems. And somehow that led me to dealing with Macintosh emulators. I remember using Basilisk II in XP and while I had problems with it, I at least got it to run, but I couldn't get it to work properly on my new Vista machine. The most annoying thing is that sometimes it would load properly, but it seemed to do so at random.

The better emulators get and the more effort programmers put into them, the easier it will be to play those old games. You may have a lot of headaches along the way, but once it starts working right and you get that nostalgic feeling, it's great. I still enjoy playing a lot of my old favorites. It's just a matter of getting them to work right.

I think most retro games, especially on the PC side should be freeware. I always appreciate when a game company officially releases their old classics, especially if they include the source code so fans can modify them to work better on newer systems.

 

[Ananan]

I want daggerfall.

 

[gamerk316]

Nice to know.

Wish they would update the code themselves. I brought the 10th anniversary edition of C&C, and still had to hex edit 10 lines of code to prevent crashes in the first C&C...annying as heck, but at least people will get the games up to code...

the bright side: It should be several decades before we need more resources than 64-bit systems give, so once that catches on, we won't have to worry about compatability (until MaC OS's take over, and EXE/DLL are USLESS!)

 

[clay12340]

The DS has a few remakes of Final Fantasy games out there. I've been playing through FFIV and I've been pleasantly surprised. It's the same game with added cut scenes and upgraded 3d graphics. The most important thing to note here is that with the addition of some art Squaresoft is getting $40 a pop on a game that probably(just my gut feeling) took less than 20% of the resources of something like their new FFXII title. I'd really like to see their sales numbers and production costs on these remake titles.

If someone would just update the resolutions on Fallout 1 and 2 I'd be more than happy to pay $50 to play through them again in hi-res widescreen even if they added 0 new content. I'm sure there are plenty of others who would feel the same. I'd think that the cost/profit ratio would be pretty favorable.

 

[rfunes]

DOSBOX
http://www.dosbox.com/

DOSBox emulates an Intel x86 PC, complete with sound, graphics, mouse, joystick, modem, etc., necessary for running many old MS-DOS games that simply cannot be run on modern PCs and operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux and FreeBSD. However, it is not restricted to running only games. In theory, any MS-DOS or PC-DOS (referred to commonly as "DOS") application should run in DOSBox, but the emphasis has been on getting DOS games to run smoothly, which means that communication, networking and printer support are still in early development.

DOSBox also comes with its own DOS-like command prompt. It is still quite rudimentary and lacks many of the features found in MS-DOS, but it is sufficient for installing and running most DOS games.

DOSBox is totally free of charge and OpenSource.

 

[ethanpd]

If someone would just update the resolutions on Fallout 1 and 2 I'd be more than happy to pay $50 to play through them again in hi-res widescreen even if they added 0 new content. I'm sure there are plenty of others who would feel the same. I'd think that the cost/profit ratio would be pretty favorable.

There are a couple of fan-made patches for high-resolution for Fallout 1 and 2. I don't know if they do widescreen, but here's the links:

Fallout 1 High-res: http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/dload.php?action=file&file_id=1160

Fallout 2 High-res: http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/dload.php?action=file&file_id=1161

 

[infornography42]

Figures that NMA would have them ;-)

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

Just yesterday (Aug 31) Command and Conquer: Red Alert was released as a freeware download.
http://www.ea.com/redalert/news-detail.jsp?id=62
The original C&C has been available as freeware since a year prior.

 

[ethanpd]

http://www.gog.com has just updated their site with more details.

"On Monday, September 8, anyone who signed up for the GOG.com beta will start receiving access keys to the site. ...... The Early Access Beta will offer all the main features of the site, including buying DRM-free games, joining the community and writing reviews. Apart from just getting access, everyone who buys a game from GOG.com during the Early Access Beta will receive a bonus code to get one game from GOG.com’s Interplay catalogue for free! So what are you waiting for? If you haven’t signed up yet, be sure to enter your email address and get in on the action."

Buy a game and get another free? Oh yeah, I've signed up already.