Old games, new games

I have my new PC fully operational now :-)

It still doesn't (quite) have Office on there but that's not something I call completely necessary on my home PCs. All I look for are internet browser and security, games, games, more games and an email client so I don't have to fire up the laptop in the morning. Thinking about it, I could do with a picture manipulation package ... but I have one of those on this laptop.

One thing about Windows 7 is that it is more restrictive about what it will allow to run on it. That's meant the card games my dad likes and the ancient strategy games I like don't want to run. How to get around that ?

Firstly, there's a gem of a piece of software from a company called VMWare. It lets you run a PC within a PC as a virtual machine, up to a point that is. I wrote a while ago about being able to have a Windows XP installation using an old licence inside to be one of those virtual machines. It works pretty well, with a limitation or two. It's great for the card games but while Moo2 works, it's fixed to a 1:1 pixel ratio with no scaling. Translation - postage stamp picture lost on big screen.

So. What to do ... Can't be without Moo2 for long !

Enter Dosbox. This is a PC in a PC again, although a lot less sophisticated than VMWare's applications. I don't think you can Windows (even 3.1) on this although it's spectacularly good for ancient Dos only applications. It'll even run the hardest to run of games like Master Of Magic, which was beyond the means of even some contemporary machines due to certain arcane memory thingys.

Trouble is, it needs familiarity with Dos to get what you want out of it and Dos is dinosaur territory in terms of PC programs. At least its programs weren't written on punchcards.

That's Moo2 back operational :-) Plus I'll have another look at Master Of Magic at some point. You'd have thought that with all the Civilisation clones and retreads, they'd have done a Master Of Magic 2 by now. MoM1 was effectively the Civ city and strategy engine with a fantasy tactical battle engine attached. With spells & stuff.

It's a sad reflection on the new games that I go back to Moo2 so much. This is after trying games like GalCiv (tainted by its developers' attitude on forums) and Sword of the Stars and a collection of other space strategy games. Moo2 has X factor. I'll fire up XCom again too at some point, that's definitely got something special about it. Other games are short term fun but these have a long term addictiveness to them.

I've also been on a new game, Star Wars Old Republic (SWTOR). I've been a Star Wars addict for years, although the depression of the New Jedi Order series of books broke me of the Star Wars reading habit. (SW Empire At War is another game that didn't grab me). SWTOR is a massive multiplayer online, instantly familiar to anyone who's played World of Warcraft. It's basically WoW in space with blasters and lightsabers.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

I've been enjoying SWTOR as a Sith Inquisitor called Morrd, hopefully some more of the WoW people will follow me in and make themselves known. I've solo played so far and done fine. Its world is less seamless as WoW, with loads of loading screens breaking up the maps. I'll take that minus as a cost of the story and character progression being so much better than WoW as a plus that more than makes up for the non-seamless world. You're playing a living character, instead of just ploughing through levels.

What else ? I've written a few posts about League Of Legends and while I acknowledge it's a good game, it's critically let down by its players. 9 out of 10 games can be fun but the 10th will be tarnished by offensive idiots. The idiots are what you remember. I've not been back in LoL for a good few weeks now and I haven't missed it. There's no future in that game unless you always play with the same 4 friends so I won't waste any more time on it.

Not been back in WoW either, although I still have the subscription active. Dunno why as the only thing keeping me in WoW lately has been the wonderful guild people. Need to cycle the mailboxes ...

Settlers IV is another one I keep going back to. Surprisingly, it was happier in Win7 than it was in WinXP working straight off the cd instead of needing tweaking. I've had beta invites for Settlers Online. Trouble is that the publisher, Ubisoft, believes in using vicious forms of Digital Rights Management to protect their games. It treats the paying customer as a criminal, acting under the assumption that the honest customer will steal their stuff. My answer to that is to boycott the company. There's plenty of other games out there of similar or better quality and they won't affect the stability of my PCs the way stuff like Starforce did.

Any more ? I've been doing a Mass Effect run again :-) I've got about 80% through Mass Effect 2 after finishing Mass Effect 1. It's the first play throughs on the new machine so I've been collecting the achievements again. These are seriously cracking games. Looking forward to Mass Effect 3, due in 2012.

There's something about Bioware that has them consistently coming out with games I'll play forever. SWTOR is the latest from the stable that brought Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR and Mass Effect. And games like Baldur's Gate which is amazing but which I've never finished. Their competitors are missing something ... perhaps its the ability to resist calls of "Release now!!!" instead of waiting until the game is actually finished. Bethesda games are a horrid example there, Skyrim is still having trouble after a couple of patches and I'll not say anything about their bugridden Fallout 3 games.

There again - I'm avoiding anything spawned by a certain bad software company as I know it will lead to disappointment. DICE (makers of Battlefield 3) are on that list as well now, as are Sports Interactive for releasing numerous unplayable (bugs) versions of Championship Manager (now Football Manager).

Uhoh - ranting detected.

I think I need to get back to Moo2, the Krogan horde are about to be unleashed on the Silicoids who foolishly declared war on me at just the time I was ready to build my first warships ...