*Still* No Longer Computes...Or Does It?

Last April I mentioned how I was going to write more frequently by sacrificing a bit of quality. I didn't really do that.

In that same post, I also mentioned how I had turned to video games to alleviate the boredom of only being paid to work three days a week. I was back up to five for the latter half of the year but the money well has once again gone dry. Last year boredom took over three months to arrive. This year I'm ready to rant in late January. A bad sign.

And what are we ranting about? That's right, old video games. A man has to play to his audience, and 14 comments back in April says my viewing public loves stories about computers. Of course, almost every post that isn't about Magic gets about a dozen comments, so mostly people aren't picky so much as desperate for me to write something they can distract themselves with for a few seconds. I revel in your attention.

Back in April (check link above), I was having difficulty playing older games on my 1999 computer because it was too new. But I was also having trouble playing movies of Paris Hilton because my computer was too old. Rock. Hard Place. Only Panzer General II kept me from going mad and purchasing a new computer before this one had properly aged.

In June, noted Canadian Magic personality Gary Krakower was cleaning out his apartment and passed me two boxes of mid to late nineties video games that he had accumulated and no longer wished to play. Included in this treasure trove was Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, a game that I, a long time Civilization master, very much wished to play. Over the past six months, the Armoire has come to despite Alpha Centauri for sucking me away from what she feels are more things such as eating and sex. Can't the women see that millions of lives depend on my ability to micromanage their society into perfection? What is mere sensual pleasure when faced with that kind of responsibility?

[Pause to lick freshly baked cornbread crumbs out of the wrapper - the Armoire is baking!]

Having finally tired of Alpha Centauri (for now), I decided to investigate some of the other games that had been passed along to me. Here now are the trials and tribulations of attempting to play older video games, part II:

1) Star Command (1988)

Okay, this one is from WAY back - it came with both 3 1/2" and 5 1/4" diskettes! It was a holiday gift from my mother and ran on her original XT. I had fond memories of the game except I could never finish it due to a frustrating lock that I couldn't find the combination for. I was determined to play it again and defeat it with my much more experienced adult brain. The Armoire suggested just looking it up on the 'net, but I was certain that no one would have written about a game that was almost 20 years old.

I install the game with no problem and spend two hours creating characters and reviewing the manual. Five minutes later I turn it off and put it in the "Garage Sale" bin. I can handle text-only games - I played Rogue for years - but what I apparently cannot handle is really crappy EGA graphics. It was a bunch of dots and triangles and bad images - painful to the eyes. Apparently you can't ever go back again.

Next!

(Demonstrating the common-sense brilliance of the Armoire, further research revealed a complete walkthrough of the game that still didn't include how to discover the combination - perhaps one was supposed to guess?]

2) MYST (1995)

Myst was at one point the most popular video game of all time, especially among the ladies (quite an accomplishment). As an avid fan of sudokus, perhaps the Armoire and I could even puzzle it out together?

Not a chance. Myst requires Quicktime 2.0. Apple is currently infecting the world with Quicktime 7.1.3 which isn't supported for Windows 98. Quicktime Alternative, a substitute I found on the 'net, doesn't really work that well in general, and can't handle it.

Luckily, Myst actually comes with Quicktime 2.0 on the CD! Unluckily, it crashes when it attempts to install on my computer. I can wander the Myst world, but not view any of the video sequences which are apparently key to solving the problems. Off to the garage sale!

3) Master of Magic (1994)

After colonizing space for six months, as well as building characters for my ill-fated Star Command voyage, I was keen to try out a good old fantasy-based game. The manuals were thick and there was even a separate spell book! Master of Magic appeared to be the perfect combination of Civilization and Dungeons and Dragons.

It also required a whopping 2700KB of memory. Sure, my system has 384000KB of memory, but thanks to Bill Gates and the early DOS programmers, Master of Magic can't find any of it. A search of the 'net shows that many have suffered from this problem and the solutions range from creating and using a boot disk (I roll my eyes in disgust) to using a software program called DOSBox that will emulate a really old computer with messed up memory.

And it did exactly that, in a very small window at a speed it promised would be slightly faster than "glacial". I have a 19" monitor for a reason, and that reason is not to play video games slowly in a very small window. To the bin!

(and don't get me started on how I had to insert seven floppy disks to load the game - boy did *that* bring back memories...)

4) Master of Orion II - Battle At Antares (1996)

While researching Master of Magic solutions, I noted many references to Master of Orion being a later space-based version of the same game with an extremely large following. While a bit tired of space, at this point I just wanted to play something so I loaded it up. Having learned from my earlier mishaps, I decided to make sure it worked before wasting time reading about the game.

It installed. It worked. It looked incredibly rich with detail and subtle nuance - the sort of game that I could waste months of my life playing.

It also didn't have a manual.

See, I'm a guy that likes reading the manual. Not for me the rushing into the tutorial and the "I'll figure it out" mindset. I'm a cold calculating kind of guy who wants to know all of his options before he whips out his keyboard and begins the mesmerizing dance of the bits. Master of Orion II is not Doom (if I may date myself) where you pretty much shoot at everything and you've figured out the game, MOO II (as it's affectionately known by fans) is a complex multi-tiered game with a dozen different aspects listed just on the back of the box!

I search the 'net for documentation and as before, find nothing. Except for that one fortuitous time that I found the manuals for PG II, I've never been able to find good honest game documentation online. Quite frankly, even the so-called "strategy" guides look to be mostly written by teenage amateurs. I turn up my nose in disgust at what passes for Civilization and Alpha Centauri "strategy"! (I just had to get that out - I would so own those punks!)

5) Black and White (2001)

In frustration, I cheat and time travel to the next millenium where everyone has lots of memory and manuals actually exist. With a game that's actually younger younger than my computer, I now run the slightly different risk of insufficient resources, but I'm willing to take that chance if only I can actually start to play something!

I quickly flip through the manual while it is installing from the CD and see that you play the role of god. Good stuff, I'll be in my element. There's building of societies of worshippers, I like that. You fight other gods and their peoples, excellent. But there's a disturbing amount of excitement relating to training your "creature"...

Yup - Black and White, from what I could tell, is basically a pet-training game. Slap your monkey when it misbehaves. Stroke your monkey when it does good. Roll on your side with laughter at the funny monkey jokes. Do I really want to spend dozens of hours training a pet?

The answer is an emphatic "no". Especially when the interface was incredibly counter-intuitive. Move the mouse backwards to go forwards, move it up to go down, rotate it to the right to turn left, but if you move it straight right you'll sidle...right. While attempting to simply maneouver around to accomplish the simplest of tutorial missions, I got so frustrated I began yelling and throwing things.

Fun, I did not have. Play game, I did not.

6) Total Annihilation (1997)

Total Annihilation appears to have been on the cutting edge of multi-player play with much of the manual dedicated to connecting with a friend over a modem line. I chuckle at their primitive technology. But it did at least have a manual and it even installed properly!

Quick perusal of the manual indicated that the game was relatively simple and unfortunately centered on real-time play. If you'll recall from MOO II above, I'm a cold, calculatin' guy. When playing Railroad Tycoon I and II I would spend hours planning out routes and managing my trains only to actually turn on the game for 15-30 seconds before pausing and re-analyzing the entire situation. Watching me play games is rarely a captivating spectator sport.

But I was desperate. With only one more new game available, it was looking like I'd have to go back to Magic Online, and we all know that that won't turn out well. So I started up a campaign (by inserting CD#2 - why can't I ever just load everything onto my 80GB harddrive?).

Thirty seconds later, I had won the first scenario.

Granted, I didn't actually do anything except tell my dozen units to go North, but apparently that's all it took. They blew some stuff up, apparently some of them blew up, and half a minute later I was guarding the portal and being awarded points.

Hoping for a bit more interactivity, I reviewed the manual and found the pause button. I also found the button for "game speed". Starting again, I immediately froze the game and looked over my units. I examined the terrain, assigned the units different approaches to the target with the fast units scouting ahead and the heavier and long-range weaponry providing cover. Releasing the pause, I would allow small amounts of movement forward until an enemy was sighted, at which point all my commands would change and the target destroyed. Five minutes later, I won the scenario again, this time with one fewer loss and two fewer kills.

And I felt totally irrelevant. The only reason I won is that halfway through, I gave up on the specific orders and just had everyone rush the target again.

A game that wins without me is a game that doesn't need playing.

(At this point, I'm beginning to realize that beyond having them "actually work", I'm apparently quite particular when it comes to video games)

7) X-Com Apocalypse (1997)

"Help me X-Com Apocalypse, you're my only hope..."

I'm not sure what to make of X-Com Apocalypse. It's a space game, which isn't great, and while it offers turn-based combat, it seems to favour experiencing "blazing action with the incredible new real-time combat system" which we know I won't like. The manual is a flimsy little booklet called the "Rookies' Guide" which has me wondering just how engrossing it can be, but first we have to check if it works.

It does! It detects and tests my sound card successfully and we're ready to go. Did I want to read the "readme.txt" first? Why of course I did - you always want to be up on the latest changes. Luckily I did or I never would have noticed the correction to page 146 of the manual.

Pardon me? Page 146?

That's right - it appears that what I'm holding is "flavour" writing, the actual manual is a 150+ page behemoth of rules that must be read before one can play.

[insert anguished scream here]

I flee the computer in disappoinment and report my failure to the Armoire. She immediately begins baking cornbread to ease my pain. Best. Girlfriend. Ever.

Epilogue

Still with me? Good - for once things start looking up!

Thinking that X-Com Apocalypse may be recent enough to have a manual online, I do another search. One of the FAQs for the game LINKS ME TO THE MOTHERLODE:

A Website That Contains Nothing But Old Computer Game Manuals!

I am now a happy person.