New Games Tagged 'alph, month, DOS, casual, Ron' on The Great Games Experiment New Games on The Great Games Experiment http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/css/logo.jpg New Games Tagged 'alph, month, DOS, casual, Ron' on The Great Games Experiment en-us The Trick Or Treat Brigade TD
]]> 26 Oct 2008 05:40:18 Xtreme Pong
]]> 28 Jul 2008 10:23:30 Battle Chess
]]> 05 Apr 2008 02:39:24 cet
]]> 20 Jan 2008 09:56:01 Toxic Bunny
]]> 03 Oct 2007 10:21:17 Rama
]]> 25 Sep 2007 04:10:00 Sherlock
]]> 30 Aug 2007 08:16:13 Gamoliyas
]]> 26 Aug 2007 02:20:10 Arch Rivals Before Arch Rivals, arcade "basketball" games were simple "aim the ball" novelty devices. By letting each Player control multiple teammates, both directly and indirectly, Arch Rivals allowed Players to employ real basketball strategies and plays.

However, the game might best be remembered for the fact that characters could punch each other in the face, "pants" each other and even tackle opposing players...

Designed by Rampage designers Brian Colin & Jeff Nauman for Bally Midway shortly before a corporate buyout by competitor Williams Electronics, it is said that the success of Arch Rivals single-handedly paid for the 8 million dollar purchase!
]]> 29 Jun 2007 02:23:10 Xenophobe Xenophobe was a comic multi-player arcade game produced in the mid - eighties by Bally Midway. Up to 3 Players moved independently around alien- infested space stations; each controlling a horizontal slice of the screen. Players could cooperate or compete as much as they they wished.

The game was fairly ambitious for it's time; virtually everything in the game could be picked up and used elsewhere on the ship. (i.e., You could pick up a floppy disc (!) in the engine room and use it to activate the teleporter in the control room.

The player characters were comic, big-headed bipeds who were greatly outnumbered by the ever-changing, (but always wickedly cartoony), aliens.
The game was designed by one of the co-creators of Rampage, Brian Colin.
]]> 28 Jun 2007 06:28:13 Ishido "Ishido, the first game Accolade ported to the Sega Genesis, is, despite its name, not an ancient Japanese pastime. Rather, it was developed in 1990 as a type of tile matching game. First released for MS-DOS and Macintosh, Accolade was able to produce a version for the Genesis through reverse-engineering. (If you'd like to know more about how reverse-engineering works, start here).

All versions of the game have now fallen out of print, and the Macintosh version has been made freely available by its programmer."

- Cool Copyright
http://www.coolcopyright.com/cases/chp7/segaaccolade.htm
]]> 22 Jun 2007 01:49:36 La villa del seis La villa del seis is a multiplatform point-and-click graphical psychological terror adventure in PHP and DHTML that uses mouse and keyboard optionally.
Also, you can play it like a text adventure (interactive fiction) on a text browser or without JavaScript.
The game uses Yasmina's Quest motor but altered and improved.
You can use the motor/engine/parser to create your own adventure if you know PHP and JavaScript.
This cross-platform and cross-browser game was tested under PC (Windows, BeOS, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Syllable, SkyOS, etc), MAC (Mac OS 7.1, Mac OS X), Amiga, console (Nintendo DS, PSP, Dreamcast, XBOX), etc.
]]> 13 Jun 2007 10:55:39 La Carta Mas Alta La Carta Mas Alta is an open source card game totally written in PHP and HTML.
This cross-platform and cross-browser game was tested under BeOS, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Windows and others.
]]> 13 Jun 2007 10:40:44 Yasmina's Quest Yasmina's Quest is an open source game (and motor) mix of graphical point-and-click adventure and text adventure written in PHP and DHTML (JavaScript, CSS and HTML) that uses mouse and keyboard optionally.
You can use the motor/engine/parser to create your own adventure if you know PHP and JavaScript.
This cross-platform and cross-browser game was tested under BeOS, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Windows and others.
]]> 13 Jun 2007 10:15:26 Raptor: Call of the Shadows Raptor: Call of the Shadows (often Raptor for short) is a 2D raster graphics vertical scrolling shoot 'em up single player game for the x86 PC written for MS-DOS, by Cygnus Studios (which has since changed its name to Mountain King Studios).

Raptor: Call of the Shadows was originally released on April 1, 1994. There is a shareware version available for this game which includes the first sector, the Bravo Sector. The full version can still be bought today

As in all shoot 'em up games of this genre, there is a vast number of enemies to kill, both on the ground and in the air. At the end of each wave, and often halfway through the more difficult waves, there is a "boss" which is a single enemy of great size and whom can take a lot of fire before succumbing.

For each target destroyed the player earns credits, with the amount of credits earned per enemy destroyed is proportional to how tough the enemy ship is. Most of the ground objects (buildings, vehicles, turrets) can be destroyed as well. Between new waves and sectors the player can use credits to select among 16 different equipment upgrades (various weapons, "shield-packs", bombs, etc) to be bought for his own aircraft.

The game is divided into three "sectors": Bravo Sector, Tango Sector, and Outer Regions, all of which have nine sub-missions called "waves", making for a total of 27 levels.

(Quoted from Wikipedia)
]]> 11 Jun 2007 11:15:52 Star Wars Return of the Jedi You select your character from the movie (Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, or Chewbacca) before each level, as each one has different abilities, and go try to beat levels based on the movie's scenes brandishing lightsabers, blasters or crossbows, etc. depending on your choice of character.

Gameplay consists of standard platform action spiced up with some slightly different (gameplay-wise) sequences. Race to Jabba the Hutt's palace in a speeder, fight your way through Jabba the Hutt's minions before killing Jabba himself, control speeder bikes and the Millennium Falcon, and much more.
]]> 11 Jun 2007 07:36:19 Chex Quest Chex Quest is a total conversion of the computer game Doom (specifically Ultimate Doom). This game, notable for being the first video game ever to be included in cereal boxes as a prize, was found in boxes of Chex cereal in 1996.

Set on a distant planet named Bazoik, the game follows the Chex Warrior, a humanoid in an anthropomorphic piece of Chex cereal armor, as he fights to eradicate the Flemoid invasion. These slimy, green creatures have infested the planet and captured many helpless citizens whom the Chex Warrior must save. The game starts at the landing pad of the research facility on Bazoik, after which you are teleported to the storage facility. The other levels include the laboratory, the arboreum, and finally, the underground caverns of Bazoik, where the flemoids seem to be making a home for themselves.

(Quoted from Wikipedia)
]]> 03 Jun 2007 12:55:18 Toonstruck Toonstruck is a point-and-click adventure game featuring hand-drawn animation mixed with live action video - similar to the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

The story begins in the real world with the player learning of the main protagonist whom will be under their control: Drew Blanc is his name and he is the artist and original creator of the wildly popular animated "Fluffy Fluffy Bun Bun Show". As the player will learn, Drew actually loathes the cutesy-pie antics of the show and prefers his other more adult creation of Flux Wildly, who has unfortunatley and unfairly been denied a chance at stardom. Forced by his employer, Drew must come up with a new character for the Bun Bun Show or his employment will be terminated. Exhausted and completely uninspired Drew falls asleep and is awoken in the early morning, just as he is being sucked into his TV, which to his horror is displaying the Fluffy Fluffy Bun Bun Show.....Welcome to the insanity of Toonstruck!



Toonstruck was an ambitious, fun and cleverly made adventure game that was neglected by its audience at the time of its 1996 release. Poor sales within the adventure game genre during that period prevented the planned sequel from ever being completed.
]]> 25 Apr 2007 12:09:25 Shadowgate Adventure in Castle Shadowgate and solve the many puzzles to defeat the evil Warlock Lord. Some puzzles if not done correctly lead to your death.
]]> 19 Apr 2007 11:14:43 Ack-Ack Attack! The object of the game is to destroy as many helicopters and paratroopers as possible. If a paratrooper lands on the ground he may still be hit by flying debris, another paratrooper free- falling on top of him or by your gravity-bound shells.

There are three levels of play: Easy, Hard, and Insane. You may select the level of play before the game starts.

The game also keeps track of your statistics, how many shots fired, how many hits, how many choppers and troops hit, etc.

Keep in mind that you have until the start of the next sortie to try and kill the troops on the ground, using the gravity-bound shells or dropping burning wreckage on them. When the next sortie starts, if there are more than four troops landed on either side of your base the game will end and your gun emplacement will be blown up!
]]> 20 Mar 2007 02:44:57 SkyRoads "You could play this game just for the amazing sound tracks, but the gameplay is also very catchy. Simply, you need to steer your space vehicle along the course, jumping and dodging blocks that will wipe you out when you're flying along at light-speed. Balancing acceleration and fuel usage becomes tricky when you've got a time limit to beat with hardly any fuel in the tank. Your reflexes and timing will be the difference between getting home safely and floating aimlessly through space."
-dosgamesarchive.com

This is truly an original. Very simple, very addictive.
]]> 19 Mar 2007 09:09:34 Troll's Tale Troll's Tale is an adventure game created by Al Lowe (Leisure Suit Larry, The Black Cauldron). An evil troll has hidden the treasures of the Dwarf King, and it is up to you to get them back!

Each screen featured a graphic and a menu of decisions. If you find the treasure, but the troll is on the screen at the same time, you would not be able to pick up the treasure.
]]> 19 Mar 2007 02:19:17 Stronghold (1993) Dungeons & Dragons real-time strategy game from 1993 published by SSI and developed by Stormfront Studios. Designed by Don Daglow, Mark Buchignani and David Bunnett, the game was the first RTS to use a 3D perspective, although the visual effect was created in two dimensions by a carefully layered display system. Stronghold was the first Dungeons & Dragons licensed RTS.

The game was often referred to as "SimCity meets Dungeons & Dragons." Players balanced resources to build a town with unique elven, dwarven, halfling and human neighborhoods, each with its own unique architecture. Residents and craftspeople of each neighborhood could be summoned to defend any part of the city that came under attack.
]]> 17 Mar 2007 10:38:17 Alone in the Dark 3 Alone in the Dark 3 is the third installment of the Alone in the Dark survival horror video game series created by Infogrames (now Atari).

After Edward's success in his previous two investigations a journalist has nicknamed him the "Supernatural Private Eye." This time, he is called to investigate the disappearance of a film crew at a two-bit ghost town known by the name of Slaughter Gulch located in the Mojave Desert in California. Among the disappeared crew is the heroine of the story, Emily Hartwood. Edward soon discovers that a curse has gripped the town, and an evil cowboy from the Badlands named Jed Stone is the villain who is responsible for the crew's disappearance. Lurking around town are many trigger-happy sharpshooters, deranged prospectors, and bloodthirsty lost souls whom Edward must ward off with both his strength and his wit.

Although the primary enemies are still human-like characters with firearms, combat has been de-emphasized a bit and isn't quite as hard. Carnby is often presented with opportunities to flee from enemies or defeat them using non-combat means, and there is a greater emphasis on solving puzzles. Also, because enemies are armed with six-shooters rather than tommyguns, the player ends up being shot less frequently than in Alone in the Dark 2.

The main theme of this game is the Wild West, as Carnby is pitted against a town filled with "zombie cowboys" who attack him with six-shooters and lever-action rifles. More traditionally mindless, shambling zombies begin to appear about mid-way through the game. Towards the end of the game, the concept of radioactive mutation plays a significant role in the story, and the player ends up fighting a few monstrous creatures created from such radiation.

Alone in the Dark 3 features a greater variety of gameplay, including sequences in which you play as a mountain lion that Carnby has been transformed into.
]]> 11 Mar 2007 06:14:23 Alone in the Dark 2 Alone in the Dark 2 is the 1994 sequel to 1992's survival horror video game Alone in the Dark created by Infogrames. The game is the second installment in the series.

It is Christmas 1924. Edward Carnby, a "Supernatural Private Eye," and Ted Striker are investigating the kidnapping of young Grace Saunders. The trail of clues leads to an old mansion named "Hell's Kitchen"--the home of an infamous gangster boss and his gang. Edward decides to pick up the trail when he learns of Ted's disappearance in the mansion. Unfortunately, Edward soon finds out that Ted has been murdered. Carnby eventually finds out that the mobsters are but the corporal forms of the spirits of pirates that plundered the sea years ago. Fighting his way into the house and ultimately onboard a pirate ship hidden in cliff on which Jack's house is built, Edward must rescue little Grace, and find out why the pirates have taken an interest in her.

Alone in the Dark 2 introduced the concept of playing as more than one character within the same game. Although much of the game is spend playing as Carnby, the player will occasionally take control of Grace Saunders. Grace, a child, cannot fight and is instantly captured if the gangsters spot her, so instead she must sneak around and defeat the gangsters by turning common household objects into booby traps. Unlike the original game, the player cannot choose between two different characters at the start. It's Carnby or bust.
]]> 11 Mar 2007 06:00:37 Jack in the Dark Jack in the Dark was released by Infogrames in between the first and the second Alone in the Dark games. It is substantially smaller in scale and length, and served as teaser for the upcoming sequel.

The game stars Grace Saunders, the kidnapped girl in the main story, who gets locked in a toy store on Halloween. The goal of the short game is to solve the mystery of the toy store and escape. Utilising the same engine as the Alone in the Dark games, Jack in the Dark plays pretty much the same, though Grace has only Search and Close as her available actions. The puzzles are interesting and varied, and the creepy story unfolds via various means such as a book that explains the past of a certain ghostly character.
]]> 11 Mar 2007 05:44:19 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a 1989 platformer video game for the NES by Ultra Games/Konami based on the popular animated series and comic books. It is also the first video game ever to be based on the series. The same year, Konami released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, an arcade game by the same name but unrelated to this NES title. The game was converted for many home computers. In February 2007, the game would appear on the ESRB site as a Virtual Console title.

The game begins with all four Ninja Turtles: Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael, who can be rotated through at any time during gameplay. The turtles are practically identical except for their weapons, which differ in attack speed, range, and damage (i.e. Donatello's bo has the best damage and range, but the worst speed). The player travels through the first 5 levels using an overview map to enter various sewers, warehouses, and other areas which lead to the goal of each level. Along the way the player fights various enemies which range from Foot Soldiers and Rat Kings to bomb dropping-blimps and chainsaw-wielding baddies. Each turtle serves as a life, and there are only 2 continues. Later in the game, the player is given several opportunities to rescue those who been captured after failing in combat.

Donatello: Has great reach, but his weapon is slow and doesn't hit small targets with a standing swing. His Bo does the most damage of all the turtles and is the best for boss fights.

Raphael: The Sais have the worst reach and flexibility of all the weapons in the game. They are noticeably slow, but he does most damage to some enemies - especially on later levels.

Michelangelo: Average character all around. Doesn't have a downward attack like Donatello or Leonardo, and while his nunchaku weapon is weak, once he has taken half damage his weapon becomes as strong as Donatello's.

Leonardo: With his ninja swords he has long reach and the greatest weapon range when swinging, but doesn't do much damage. Fortunately, he seems to take less damage from smaller creatures as well.
]]> 03 Mar 2007 01:33:16 Frontier: First Encounters First Encounters is the sequel to Frontier (1993), which itself was a sequel to the seminal 1984 game Elite. The game was created by David Braben’s company, Frontier Developments. Many fans of the game refer to it by the shortened title of FFE.

Like Frontier, First Encounters features realistic Newtonian physics and the ability to land on planets. It has graphics that are an improvement over Frontier (the main difference being Gouraud shading) and, as well as employing the same open-ended gameplay of its predecessors, it also features a storyline concerning an alien race called the Thargoids.

Like the other two Elite games, it has been re-released as shareware and can be freely downloaded from the Elite Club site.

Being a DOS game, First Encounters has difficulty running with Windows XP or Windows 2000 machines, although the official site does offer solutions to get the game running. A recreated game engine called JJFFE allows playing the game on Linux, Windows and DOS.

First Encounters plays much like its immediate predecessor Frontier: the game is a combination of trading, fighting and a variety of other activitiesâ€â€
]]> 03 Mar 2007 01:23:22 Frontier: Elite II Frontier: Elite 2 is a computer game written by David Braben and published by Gametek in 1993. It is the first sequel to Ian Bell and David Braben's earlier game Elite, and is available for Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and PC computers.

Frontier (or FE2 as it is commonly referred to) retains the same principle component of Elite—namely completely open-ended gameplay—and adds to this realistic physics and an accurately modelled galaxy. There is no plot within Frontier, nor are there pre-scripted missions (as there are in its sequel, First Encounters); instead players explore space while trading legally or illegally, carrying out missions for the military, ferrying passengers from system to system, engaging in piracy or any combination of the above. As a consequence, Frontier cannot be completed or "won"—instead, players themselves decide what to aspire to and set out to achieve it.

The game has since been released as shareware and is available as a free download, although being a DOS game, users of Windows 2000 and Windows XP may initially have difficulty getting it to run. Using emulation such as DosBox will get the official shareware version of the game to run on modern operating systems including Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux.

In Frontier, the player assumes the role of one of Commander Jameson's grandchildren, having inherited from Commander Jameson one hundred credits and an Eagle Long Range Fighter. By the game’s standards, this is incredibly modest, and is used as a spur to encourage players to earn money by whatever means they feel is appropriate.

As with Elite, much of Frontier is concerned with trading: players can buy and sell much—from food and computer parts to guns and slaves—with the intent of making the most profit from each trading run. Thus, learning to compare prices in various systems is essential for profitability, and calculating overheads for each trip (such as fuel, missiles, and hull repair) are essential skills. It often becomes apparent that a particular trading route is profitable, such as the Barnard’s Star-Sol route. It is worth noting that some items (particularly narcotics, nerve gas, weaponry and slaves) are illegal in most systems and attempting to trade these in a system in which they are illegal will result in being fined by the police, which can often escalate into violence. It is often worth the risk, however, as illegal goods generally have a very high price on the black market.

Frontier substitutes Elite’s arcade flying style for one based rigidly on Newtonian physics: momentum must first be neutralised to bring the player's craft to a stop, and turning 180° has no effect on the direction of travel until previous momentum has been counteracted. The craft’s control is largely left to the player, but often day-to-day tasks—such as navigating from a hyperspace exit-point to a desired planet or space-station and docking—can be handed over to a ship's autopilot.
]]> 03 Mar 2007 12:22:46 Elite Elite is a seminal space trading computer game, originally published by Acornsoft in 1984 for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers. The game's title derives from one of the player's goals of raising their combat rating to the exalted heights of 'Elite'. It was written and developed by David Braben and Ian Bell, who had met while they were both undergraduates at Jesus College, Cambridge. Non-Acorn versions of the game were published by Firebird.

Elite was one of the first home computer games to utilise wireframe 3D graphics. Another novelty was the inclusion of The Dark Wheel, a novella by Robert Holdstock which influenced new players with insight into the moral and legal codes which they might aspire to. It elevated the technically complicated software beyond the pigeon-hole of "game".

Elite's open ended game model, advanced game engine and revolutionary 3D graphics ensured that it was ported to virtually every contemporary home computer system, and earned it a place as a classic and a genre maker in gaming history. Even now, over 20 years after it was published, Elite is frequently used as a yardstick by which any new space trading game is measured. It has often been said that "Elite has been imitated but never bettered". While this is perhaps somewhat hyperbolic, it is certainly true to say that Elite was a hugely influential game, serving as a model for more recent games such as EVE Online, Wing Commander: Privateer and the X series of space trading games.

The Elite universe contains eight galaxies, each galaxy containing 256 planets to explore. Due to the limited capabilities of 8-bit computers, these worlds are procedurally generated: A single seed number run through a fixed algorithm the appropriate number of times and creates a sequence of numbers determining each planet's complete composition (position in the galaxy, prices of commodities, and even name and local details — text strings are chosen numerically from a lookup table and assembled to produce unique descriptions for each planet). This means that no extra memory is needed to store the characteristics of each planet, yet each is unique and has fixed properties. Each galaxy is also procedurally generated from the first.

The player, initially Commander Jameson, starts at Lave Station with 100 Credits and a lightly armed trading ship, a Cobra Mark III. Most of the ships that the player encounters are similarly named after snakes, or other reptiles. Credits can be accumulated through a number of means. These include piracy, trade, military missions, bounty hunting and the mining of asteroids. The money generated by these enterprises allows the player to upgrade their ship with such enhancements as better weapons, shields, increased cargo capacity, an automated docking system, and more.

Travel between planets is constrained to those within range of the ship's limited fuel capacity (7 light years); fuel can be replenished after docking with a space-station in orbit around a planet - a challenging task without a docking computer, as it requires matching the ship's rotation to that of the station. Players can upgrade their equipment with a fuel scoop, which allows raw fuel to be skimmed from the surface of stars - a dangerous and difficult activity - as well as collecting free-floating cargo canisters and escape capsules liberated after the destruction of other ships.
]]> 03 Mar 2007 12:00:49 I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream "I Have No Mouth, And I must Scream" is an adult adventure game based on Harlan Ellison's short story of the same name. The original story was written in one night during 1966 and went on to become one of the 10 most re-printed stories in history. It also won a Hugo award in 1968.









"More than a century before the story opens, a supercomputer called AM had already destroyed the entire human race save for the five protagonists. Before AM's present incarnation, there had been three separate American, Soviet and Chinese supercomputers, each programmed for fighting an increasingly complex global war against its two opponents. However, the computers evolved and connected to each other, gained sentience and subsequently annihilated all humanity. AM feels its own creation was an act of unimaginable cruelty because he possesses so much power and can do so little with it, and therefore possesses an extreme hatred for humanity. The machine's hatred combined with its godlike power resulted in the destruction of the human race, save for the five individuals whom AM trapped and then artificially sustained at their current ages indefinitely, solely for the purpose of tormenting them forever."
Source: Wikipedia





The game is played as a point'n'click adventure and has a unique story delving into the tormented souls of the remaining five people on Earth - Gorrister, Ellen, Benny, Nimdok and Ted. After the successful completion of each adventure a showdown with AM himself will occur. The game is incredibly well conceived and has had much input from the original author. The script, visuals and audio all add to the incredible atmosphere and help maintain the eerie and frightening premise that is laced with the horrors of insanity, selfishness, rape, racism, paranoia and genocide.


The script for the computer game differs slightly from the original to allow for the transition from literature to the interactive medium and was again penned by Harlan Ellison. Ellison even lends his vocal talent to the game, voicing the super-computer/super-villain "AM".
]]> 03 Mar 2007 12:34:57 Jetpack Jetpack is a DOS game that was an immediate hit when it was released in 1993, and a cult following grew internationally. The author received a ton of mail and submissions by people creating their own Jetpack levels. The built in level editor is one of the most popular features - over 1000 levels have been created. Some teachers bought Jetpack because they considered the editor to be educational, encouraging their students' creativity.

Jetpack was the top selling game for both publishers that carried it (Software Creations and Impulse Games). Jetpack runs fine on an 8086, and surprisingly well on today's computers!

Jetpack has been made freeware by its author so it is now free to download.
]]> 02 Mar 2007 05:07:48 Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat was the first entry in the famous Mortal Kombat fighting game series by Midway, released in arcades in 1992. It was later picked up by Acclaim Games for the home version, then later returned to Midway. It centers on the first Mortal Kombat tournament and the ultimate defeat of the evil Shang Tsung by the monk Liu Kang.

Versions of the original Mortal Kombat game appeared on several different formats, most notably the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and Nintendo's SNES. When the first game in the series was released for the SNES in North America, Nintendo of America had a strict "Family Friendly" policy towards the content of the games released on their systems which required the removal of graphic violence, religious imagery and themes, mentions of death, sexual themes, and other sensitive subjects. Hence, the first Mortal Kombat game on the SNES had the blood recolored gray in an attempt to pass it off as sweat, and the various Fatality moves were graphically changed to be less gruesome. The SNES version was graphically superior to the Mega Drive/Genesis port, but all violence was censored.

The game was a response by Midway to Capcom's successful Street Fighter II, which spawned a number of fighting games. However, it used a distinctly different fighting system from the Street Fighter formula, which was used in all subsequent sequels until Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. The controls consisted of five buttons arranged in an "X" pattern: a high punch, a high kick, a low punch, a low kick, and a block button, as well as an eight-way joystick. If the two fighters were standing next to each other, hitting any of the attack buttons would result in a modified strike: a low punch turned into a throw, a high punch turned into a heavy elbow, headbutt, or backhand, and either kick turned into a knee strike. Crouching and hitting either punch resulted in an uppercut, which was the most damaging attack of the game. Jump kicking and crouch-kicking were executed in a similar fashion to Street Fighter, although leg sweeps and roundhouse kicks were performed by holding away while pressing the appropriate kick button.

The blocking in Mortal Kombat I by itself greatly changed the flow of fighting in comparison to contemporary games which used Street Fighter conventions. Characters do not block while retreating or crouching, but only block when the block button is pushed. Even then, characters take (reduced) damage from any hit while blocking. However, successfully blocking moves is simple – a crouching block can successfully defend against all moves, even aerial attacks such as jumpkicks – and blocking characters give very little ground when struck rather than sliding backwards. This style of blocking rewarded dodging to avoid damage but also made counterattacks much easier after a successful block, and the ultimate result was an environment which rewards a more furtive playing style than contemporary games.

Another of the game's innovations was the Fatality, a special finishing move executed against a beaten opponent to kill them in a gruesome fashion. For example, one character (Sub-Zero) would grasp a defeated opponent by the head, then rip out the head and spine while the body crumpled to the ground in a pool of blood.

Finally, Mortal Kombat also changed the way special moves were performed. Street Fighter (and many other fighting games) performed most special moves in fractions of circles (usually full, half or one-quarter) on the joystick followed by a button press (such as a quarter-circle forward, plus punch). Mortal Kombat was the first to introduce moves that did not require a button press (such as tap back, tap back, then forward), and only a few of the special moves required circular joystick movement.
]]> 02 Mar 2007 07:14:32 Flight Unlimited Flight Unlimited is the first of the Flight Unlimited series of General aviation Flight Simulator games created by Looking Glass Studios. It focuses mainly on Aerobatics. It was released in 1995 for DOS and in 1996 for Windows 95. Notable features are the pioneering physics system, landscapes and FBO interface. It was one of the first games to use 3D elevation mesh and photo-realistic images to create realistic terrain representing small areas of country in the USA and France. It supplies challenges in the form of aerobatic lessons and hoops courses, where it is required to fly through virtual "hoops" in the sky against the clock.

The physics system was innovative, as it was possibly the first flight sim game (at least in the home) to use the idea of fluid dynamics. Instead of the control inputs directly affecting the plane, the controls affect the control surfaces on the plane, with the flow of air doing the rest. For example, in an older game, pushing forwards on the keyboard or joystick would directly make the plane pitch down (relative to its orientation), as though a 'magic hand' was rotating the plane. In Flight Unlimited, pushing forwards on the keyboard or joystick tilts the elevators, and the flow of air over the tail and elevators causes the planes orientation to change accordingly.

Rather unusual (for the time) is the FBO interface. It allows the player to walk around a room in 3d and select objects to access functions in the game. For example, a whiteboard allows access to the lessons, while a world globe allows the player to go to other world locations.

The game has a demo recording facility very similar to that in the X-wing space combat simulator. Recordings can be saved and played forwards or backwards, at various degrees of speed. Camera views can be changed, as in normal flight, and at any time, the player can 'eject the tape', and play the game from the current point of the recording. The game comes with several recordings, some of which show a range of manouveres, while others show how 'not' to fly a plane.
]]> 01 Mar 2007 09:36:06 Space Quest V: The Next Mutation Roger Wilco is a cadet and janitor at the Starfleet Academy. However, he cheats his way through the aptitude test and becomes the captain of his own ship. He is the newest captain of the SCS Eureka, a garbage scow. Roger explores space looking for trash, and eventually comes across a toxic disease that is spreading through the galaxy. You need to help roger save the galaxy and get the girl in the end.

Space Quest V was not designed by the full "Two Guys from Andromeda" team who did the original four games. Instead, only one of the two, Mark Crowe, was involved. The humor in this episode was different than that of the past games.
]]> 22 Feb 2007 06:47:34 Wing Commander II Released in 1991, Wing Commander 2 is a sci-fi space simulation that is a continuation of the storyline that was told in the original Wing Commander.






"Ten years ago, you were the Hero of Vega Sector, idol of millions - the starfighter pilot who single-handedly turned the tide of a major Kilrathi invasion. Then something went wrong.


You were disgraced, court-martialed and transferred to a backwater outpost. For years, your lightning-quick reflexes and instinctive dogfighting tactics went to waste while the Kilrathi killed your closest friends on the front lines.


But Mankind still needs a hero, now more than ever before. And you're still the best pilot in the Galaxy. You've got just one chance to prove yourself, just one chance to keep the Terran homeworlds from falling to the massed armada of the Empire of Kilrah."



Think you can handle it, flyboy?"





Again most of the game is spent flying missions in space for the Confederation in the continuing war effort against the fearsome Kilrathi Empire. When not flying missions, the player is also able to explore the "TCS Concordia" and talk to fellow crew-mates. A greater emphasis has been placed on storytelling, which gives the player a greater scope on the people fighting this war. The mood is darker than the original, mainly due to the fact that the Humans are in fact losing the war.


Wing Commander 2 bettered the original in every regard, from the updated graphics engine to the detailed script. It is considered an all-time classic within the gaming world.








Want to learn more about Wing Commander? Visit WCnews.com or Wing Commander Universe.
]]> 18 Feb 2007 11:05:29 Worms Worms is is a classic strategy game where each player controls a team of four worms, trying to destroy each other. The worms have a wide array of weapons at their disposal, many of them which are subject to influences from wind and gravity.

Each game takes place on a randomly generated level in one of the ten available styles, ranging from forests and deserts to Candy land and the moon (complete with affected gravity).

The way the level looks at the start is never what it looks like at the end, since almost all weapons leave considerable marks in the terrains.
]]> 17 Feb 2007 06:23:42 Dune Dune, by Cryo Interactive, was the first attempt of making a commercial game based on Frank Herbert's Dune universe.

Dune blended adventure with economic and military strategy, and is considered by many the most immersive Dune computer game. Loosely following the story of the novel, the game casts the player as Paul Atreides, with the ultimate goal of driving the Harkonnen from Dune, while managing spice extraction, military, and later, ecology through the native Fremen tribes. As the player progresses, his troops are equipped with weapons from "krys knives" to atomics, tap into Paul's latent psychic powers, and get acquainted with such characters from the book as Chani and Liet Kynes.

The game, seen always through the eyes of Paul, is a mix between RTS and adventure gaming. While the basis of the game is the strategy component, dialog between characters and a linear plotline give the game more depth than most strategy games. The player is also required to do some miniquests involving talking to characters and traveling to locations, which adds a small adventure game element.



(loosely edited text from wikipedia)
]]> 13 Feb 2007 06:52:47 Streets of Sim City Streets of SimCity is a 1997 racing and vehicular combat computer game published by Maxis. The novelty of this game stemmed mostly from the fact that the player could race cars around cities that had been created in SimCity 2000. The game is in full 3D, which was a departure from Maxis's normal fare. It is one of the few games in the Maxis series that Will Wright did not work on, and the last Maxis game to be developed and released without supervision by Electronic Arts (which acquired Maxis in 1997 and assisted development of Maxis games thereafter). Despite features such as being able to load cities from SimCity 2000, the game was known more for its bugs, including unexpected crashes, issues with vehicles stuck in buildings, people walking backwards and being able to drive through trees.

The game is known to be the black sheep of the "sim" line, since it in no way actually simulates driving with precision. It instead focuses more on the goals of blowing up other enemy cars, winning races, evading cops, and hitting the occasional cow. The game can be controlled with a keyboard, a joystick, or a gamepad. As a result, the game was mostly only popular with SimCity 2000 users, which like SimCopter, allowed players to explore SimCity 2000 cities, created by themselves or otherwise. There is also a network mode in which players can play deathmatches with up to seven other individuals.
]]> 13 Feb 2007 02:12:45 Wing Commander I Set in the year 2654, Wing Commander tells a tale of mankind's struggle for survival in a ferocious war between the Human Confederation and the warmongering Kilrathi Empire, a fierce bi-pedal feline race.





"You're a starfighter pilot, the best of the best, but nothing in your training prepared you for action this hot. Deep space dogfights against Kilrathi aces are deadly, and the future of humanity is on the line each time you fly!


Wing Commander puts you in the middle of the most intense starship action you've ever experienced outside of a movie theatre. But in Wing Commander, you're the star!"





The majority of the game takes place within the cockpit of various space fighters. Depending on how well one performs while in action, the player may find themselves on the winning or losing path thus altering the plot accordingly. Medals and the respect of your wingmen are gained if performance is exemplary, in turn leading to a more effective attack wing. In between space-flight missions the player is free to roam the legendary carrier "TCS Tiger's Claw" and have conversations with their fellow crew mates, learning more about the horrors and triumphs of the bloody war that is now being fought.


When Wing Commander was released in 1990, the in-game graphics and space-combat engine were a step above all other products during that period. The game was even one of the first to use the new Sound Blaster for PC's, adding to the already cinematic feel of the game.


The strong script and characters which has been a staple through out the series are the primary reason why the Wing Commander has gained such a strong following over the years. That combined with movie-like presentation and strong gameplay has made the venerable Wing Commander a classic among gamers and critics.





Want to learn more about Wing Commander? Visit WCnews.com or Wing Commander Universe.
]]> 11 Feb 2007 07:47:45 Death Gate Two thousand years ago the Sartan split the world into five realms, with one race in each realm. Your character, Haplo, happens to be of Patryn who were banished to the deadly Labyrinth.

In Death Gate you are tasked by Lord Xar to retrieve the pieces of the World Seal. Xar wants to use the pieces to undo the split of the five realsm and have revenge on the Sartan.
]]> 10 Feb 2007 06:38:23 The Dig When a giant asteroid headed directly for Earth is discovered, a group of five scientists are sent to take a space shuttle to the asteroid and plant explosives on it knock it out of its course, and prevent it frome ver reaching Earth.

The team is made up by Boston Low, a retired astronaut, Dr. Ludger Drunk, an archaeologist and geologist, Maggie Robbins, a reporter and linguistics expert, Ken Border, the shuttle pilot, and Cora Miles, NASA technician and political candidate.

But the mission turns out to be far from what they expected.
]]> 09 Feb 2007 09:21:31 Lode Runner The Bungeling Empire has stolen a huge cache of gold from its rightful owners, and your mission is to infiltrate its treasury and recapture it. This entails progressing through 150 screens of platforms, ladders and ropes.

The Empire has sent robotic guards down to protect the gold, and contact with any of these will cost you a life. Your method of escaping them is to press fire to dig a hole in their line of movement, thus causing them to fall in briefly, allowing you to move across the gap safely. Once all the gold has been collected, a ladder allowing you to move onto the next screen is added. Completing these screens often requires forward planning and precision.
]]> 09 Feb 2007 06:28:37 Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise It's Kayla's birthday tomorrow, and her stuffed animal Fatty Bear wants to throw a surprise party for her. Guide Fatty Bear around the house to help him get everything ready. He has to find ingredients for a cake to make it, get presents, and set up party decorations. In addition to the adventure and puzzles, there are games to be played as well. These games include bowling, piano playing, and dress up with Fatty Bear.
]]> 08 Feb 2007 05:13:00 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure roughly follows the same plot as the movie it is based upon. Certain scenes are omitted, but it sticks close to the original plot for the most part. The game uses the SCUMM system that was used in Maniac Mansion before it. This system involves choosing certain verbs to interact with objects and people in the game. However, this game features something that no other adventure games of the time had. The "Indy Quotient" system gives the players points based on how they solve certain puzzles. This gives puzzles multiple solutions and adds replay value to the game. Also included in the game are action sequences where Indy must fight to get by guards.
]]> 06 Feb 2007 06:09:19 Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders Can one hack writer, two Yale coeds, and a stale loaf of French bread save the world from a galactic conspiracy? Not without your help.
]]> 06 Feb 2007 05:46:54 Putt-Putt Joins the Parade Putt-Putt Joins the Parade is one of the first games made by Humongous Entertainment. The game puts kids in control of Putt-Putt, a car living in Cartown who just wants to join the parade. It isn't as simple as just driving right into it, however. He must first get a balloon, a pet, and a carwash. He will have to earn money by being responsible and helping other cars around the town out. The game is intended for children 3-8, and it teaches them lessons as well as entertains.
]]> 06 Feb 2007 05:16:43 Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
I thought I'd killed the Ghost Pirate LeChuck for good. Wrong. How many times can that bloated old fool die? Other pirates tell me there's no escape. "When LeChuck wants you dead, you're dead", they say. Legend has it that the treasure of Big Whoop holds the key to great power... I must find it before LeChuck finds me.

-The Memoirs of Guybrush Threepwood: The Monkey Island Years
]]> 06 Feb 2007 04:45:44 The Secret of Monkey Island
I cursed my luck again as I slid down the monkey's throat. Have my dreams of guzzling grog and plundering galleons been reduced to this. "Three small trials and you're a pirate like us." Fair enough. If only I could stomach the foul brew these scurvy seadogs swilled, the rest would be easy. How could I have known I'd meet a powerful and beautiful woman with a jealous suitor too stupid to realize he'd been dead for years? And how can I crawl through this great stone monkey to find a man who walks three inches above the ground and sets fire to his beard every morning?

-The Memoirs of Guybrush Threepwood: The Monkey Island Years
]]> 06 Feb 2007 04:24:31 Chip's Challenge Chip is willing to do anything for Melinda the Mental Marvel, more than anything, because he wants to join melinda's exlusive computer club, the Bit Busters. Finally Melinda has offered him membership, but on one condition! Chip must find his way from one end of Melinda's magical clubhouse to the other, picking up cosmic computer chips along the way.
]]> 06 Feb 2007 07:49:36