PC PC GAMES

3 of my all time favorites.

MDK

MDK2

Giants: Citizen Kabuto

http://www.gog.com/en/promo/action_comedy/

If you haven’t played these and like a good laugh, check them out.

The Wizzle

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/4060

The neat thing is the 75% off applies to the whole package OR each title.   GRID alone is worth the price of the entire package.  Shame I already own all but one of these.

That’s right folks, you can pick up the entire trilogy for $20 bux!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/29570/

Well worth it IMO.

Lots of titles for sale here too.

http://www.gogamer.com/48-Hour-Madness-_stcVVcatId551271VVviewcat.htm

They change the listings like twice a week, so be sure to check back.

God, I love PC gaming.  Who needs used game sales when you can get new titles for so cheap!

The Wizzle

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:08:25 — 15.7MB)

We are all over the map today. DLC is great, especially when it is free or ultra cheap (MW2… not so much). We touch even on Iphone gaming, mention the original XBOX and Josh is sharing some WII stories. But the blunt is of course talk of PC gaming, after all this is what this podcast is all about. Here are the talking points:

• WRGTRadio.com great site for gamers
• Raising your Children right… make ‘em use WASD
• Just Cause 2 DLC
• Left4Dead2 “The Passing” DLC
• UBI News
• DRM discussion
• Splinter Cell Conviction on the 360… not so much HD
• Infinity Ward update
• Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package
• Playswitch / GOG how are they?
• Cyre is our Contest Winner
• Cliff Harris needs a new Website Banner (cool prize)
• Starcraft 2 Single Player
• Get your Beta key for StarCraft2
• Answering hardware questions

• Civilization IV: The Complete Edition – $9.95 (75% Off)
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – $14.95 (50% Off)
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI – $9.95 (50% Off)
• Battlefield 2 Complete Collection – $14.95 (50% Off)
• Star Trek Online – $29.95 (40% Off)
• The Saboteur – $14.95 (50% Off)
• Caesar IV – $4.95 (67% Off)
• Sid Meier’s Railroads! – $4.95 (75% Off)
• Torchlight – $9.95 (50% Off)
• X-COM Complete Bundle – $4.95 (67% Off)
• NBA 2K10 – $9.95 (50% Off)
• East India Company Bundle Pack – $19.95 (65% Off)
• BioShock – $9.95 (50% Off)
• IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 – $4.95 (50% Off)
• Borthers in Arms Bundle Pack – $19.95 (60% Off)
• Dawn of Discovery Gold – 44.95 (30% Off)
• Avatar: The Game SE – $14.95 (57% Off)
• Tom Clany’s HAWX – $9.95 (67% Off)
• EverQuest II Sentinel’s Fate – $19.95 (50% Off)
• Cities XL LE – $14.95 (70% Off)
• Altitude – $4.95 (50% Off)

http://www.direct2drive.com/promos/spring-sale/

Notable buys are Dawn of War 2, The Saboteur, HAWX, Torchlight and Bioshock.

Audi 5,

The Wizzle

Here are some links to topics and sites we brought up during the most recent podcast. Look at them, see what we see and post comments about them! Enjoy!

Ubisoft Rants links!

Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed 2 DRM cracked

UBI going green: No more paper manuals

Splinter Cell: Conviction is exclusive to Xbox 360 & PC

Registered Domains for Next Assassin’s Creed, Driver

Ruse pushed back till Sept

http://www.wrgtradio.com/

http://www.playswitch.com/

http://gametraderworld.com/home.php

Gratuitous Space Battles Banner Contest

Oh yeah. This is what the Daddy Panda needs!

And for the latest videos on “The Espionage RPG“, check out Sega’s Blog site.

While I/We have been so so on the multiplayer of Starcraft, the single player is shaping up to be interesting and a treat judging from some of the footage that was released last week. In case you missed it, here it is:

If there is one game in the next two years that nearly all will be playing, it will be this. So save your money now and we are going to have some fun as a community!

FORUM LINK UNDER “GENERAL” ON THE RIGHT.

After a lot of comments where I asked for your help a winner is chosen.

ProDark

Thanks for all of the comments.  Thanks for helping to get this started.

To Be Continued…

The Wizzle

OK…I have loaded 8 styles (+2 pre-loads) into the Forum which give a total of 10 different ways the forum could look.  Help me out by replying to this and let me know which one you like the best.  I have numbered them and each one is a thumbnail that you can click on to get the full size view.  I want to pick a style by Saturday evening and this is what the forum will ‘begin’ with.  We can always change the styles and add more in the future.

We should have a comunity game night and enjoy the DLC together! Oh… and yeah, it’s free on the PC… not so free on the XBOB360.

The PC PC Games forum will be up and running sometime this weekend.  Not sure if it will be Saturday or Sunday, but it will be available to the public this weekend. 

Get your typing fingers ready!!!

Hey everyone, its your down-in-the-dumps bamboo-eating Panda Bear, TheRed|Kommie. Starting Today, and hopefully every Wednesday, I am going to post a new game of the week. This week’s is: Beat Hazard.

Beat Hazard is a game powered and only limited by your Music selection (that you just happen to have on your pc!). At 34 meg download and currently $7.49 on steam, this game combines music and gameplay in a fun way. Think acid-trip mixed with Asteroids and whatever mood music you are into at the moment! The colors, enemies and flow of the game change with the beat and speed of the music you are listening too!

A lot of steam support for this game that you need to check out from the store page. And yes there is a demo! I watched BigJoe, ChangWizzle, The Fascinator and Black Thunder playing this game earlier, and they all seemed to be enjoying it. ChangWizzle’s taste in old school Gorillaz didn’t seem to be working as the game kept throwing big bosses at him! The Thunder O’Black had some new age going on while BigJoe had Mother from Danzig going. I cannot for the life of me remember what Fas was listening too… I seem to think it was boring.

Anyways check it out, and let us know. I’ll just be sitting here alone, chewing on some bamboo, munching away…. man I gotta go poo. [TMI]

BT: Don’t forget, if you didn’t hear it in the podcast. We are giving one copy of BeatHazard away for free this week. How… and why… listen to the podcast.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:01:59 — 14.2MB)

The big question this week is where is Blizzard going with the purchasable content. Are they cashing in… are they going to? Is this the beginning of the end?

I had quite a bit of issues with this weeks podcast. Sorry for the delay. One of my audio files was corrupt and it took quite a bit engineering to make it play the way it should.

We also missed some of our regulars. Corran is till traveling quite a bit, Kommie and Big Joe couldn’t be here either. But that didn’t deter Tim, Curlen, Josh and Karsten from talking about what was important in our gaming world this week. Here is the list:

• CoH
• Great specials and PCPCgames give-away
• The Force Unleashed
• Infinity Ward departures
• What to do with your old Software or Hardware
• Ubi News
• DRM Rant
• Blizzard makes money on the Steeds
• StarCraft2 the “Russian Edition“
• The Heavy Rain surprise
• Gateway Gaming Laptops for Sale… Cheap
• Asus Gaming Laptop
• Listener Voicemail and Reminiscing about old games
• More Just Cause 2 Stories
• Warhammer follow-up
• Our Favorite Podcast’s
  • TechReport
  • PCPer
  • Joseph Price Audio Podcast
  • The History of Rome
• StarCraft 2 Adults Only in Korea
• Be a part of the Community

Hey folks,

It’s me again.  Just thought I’d fill you guys in on this big sale going on this week on PC titles.  Lots of nice stuff and great prices.

http://www.direct2drive.com/promos/spring-sale/

• Grand Theft Auto IV – $7.50 (75% Off)
• Supreme Commander Gold – $7.50 (75% Off)
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – $4.95 (50% Off)
• ArmA II – $24.95 (50% Off)
• Fallen Earth – $14.95 (63% Off)
• Manhunter 2 (AO Edition) – $4.95 (75% Off)
• Guild Wars Trilogy – $19.95 (50% Off)
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed – $14.95 (50% Off)
• Total War Collection – $44.95 (50% Off)
• East India Company – $4.95 (83% Off)
• Medieval II: Total War – $7.50 (50% Off)
• Men of War – $2.50 (83% Off)
• Men of War: Red Tide – $4.95 (80% Off)
• A Farewell to Dragons – $4.95 (83% Off)
• Infernal Uncensored – $7.95 (80% Off)
• Imperium Romanum Gold – $4.95 (75% Off)
• Tropico Reloaded – $4.95 (50% Off)
• The Path – $4.95 (50% Off)
• Capitalism II – $4.95 (50% Off)
• AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity – $1.95 (80% Off)
• Eufloria – $4.95 (75% Off)

The few that stand out to me are the Guild Wars Trilogy, KoTOR, The Force Unleashed and GTA4.

I might finally pick up GTA4.  :-)

Audi 5,

The Wizzle

The famed Gold Box Edition

Back in the days when text adventure and Basic ASCII designed games ruled the PC domain, it was a real treat when you could play a game utilizing 4-bit CGA graphics. Oh the joys of screens made up of 4 colors from a palette of 16 colors – usually being black, cyan, magenta and white. And if blinking graphics appeared, well all the better.

Then the dark ages gave way to the renaissance of EGA graphics. Long gone were the days of 4 bland colors at once. Now 16 colors out of a palette of 64 colors could be displayed at one time. Personal computers were finally cooking with gas. With the EGA GPU, better graphics could be displayed with more colorful sprites and simple animation.

Along with the new EGA technology, a whole breed of platform, strategy and rpg games were developed. One of these developers would become well known for their unique games. The name was Strategic Simulations, Inc. – or SSI for short.

You might remember SSI for their games such as the Panzer General series. The company developed games for most systems including the Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari ST and Tandy TRS-80. In 1987, SSI acquired the license from TSR for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and created 30 games over time. The very first of these rpgs was AD&D Forgotten Realms Pool of Radiance.

Pool of Radiance would go on to set a standard for future role-playing games in it’s time. Other games like the Ultima series and the Wizardry series owe credit in some ways to the format that SSI used.

Pool of Radiance was created for the Commodore 64/128, Atari ST and the IBM PC. There was even a lackluster version for the NES. The version I am going to cover is the MS-DOS version as that is the only version that I ever owned.

Even characters from Star Wars can play AD&D!

The game play is basic. You create a party of adventurers. You can choose your characters race and class. When the computer calculates the points for your abilities, you can either accept or modify the numbers. You can even create “super” characters if you want all the characters abilities as high as they can be. But this just creates a party that can obliterate monsters with one or two hits. It may be fun after a first couple of go-a-rounds, but you will soon tire of the lack of real strategy during combat. You can also customize the character icon sprites. Characters can be carried over from one game to another game title in the same series.

The game is your standard simulated 3D views along with a map view. You go around the city of Phlan and acquire proclamations from city hall to gain experience points and treasures. The missions send you into the slum sections of Phlan that are inhabited by monsters and need clearing in order for the city of Phlan to expand. You will also reference journal entries and tavern tales as the game gives you hints.

Check out Darth Vader with his lightsabre

Combat consists of a combination of commands, casting spells and moving your characters strategically while attacking. Nothing special in the way it operates.

Since this an early DOS game, there is no use of a mouse. Everything is based on choosing the first letter of the command you wish to use. It makes it rather tedious, but later versions of SSI AD&D games incorporate the use of a mouse or joystick.

Is that a Gamorrean guard?

My personal suggestions when playing these old rpg games are to keep character sheets written out on paper in order to have a quick glance of your characters just like in real pen and paper role playing games. I also recommend using graph paper to map where you have been. That way you can mark doors, traps, places of interest, etc. without guessing or trying to remember where you’ve been.

So here is how I rate this game:

Graphics: 3  Nothing fancy, but then it is an old-school game.

Audio: 1 Probably not a fair assessment as it uses simple PC speaker beeps and boops. Again old-school.

Control: 3 Being all DOS based, old keyboard controls run the mechanics here.

Fun Factor: 5 This game may be dated, but it’s still a hoot to play.

As archaic as these games are, they are still fun after 20 some-odd years. If you have access to these old SSI games and are still holding on to an old 386/486 computer, you should take a trip back and give it a go. Otherwise, you can use the DOSBOX emulator in order to play MS-DOS games within Windows. You can also search abandonware sights, but you do so at your own risk. I will not provide links to any such sites here. Anyways, I highly recommend you give any of the SSI AD&D games a try. Or any SSI game for that matter.

GAME OVER