It’s no secret I’m a fan of retro gaming. Retro Remakes just announced the results of their 2004 competition results. There’s a ton (well, 75 anyway) of games to check out, including remakes of Robotron 2084 (one of the finest arcade games ever made), the original atari 2600 Adventure game, and a long forgotten classic, Pengo, that I spent many a quarter on in my youth. Plenty of retro-gaming fun to be had simply by clicking a link or two. This is all PC stuff but in almost all cases the system requirements are so modest that macs should have no trouble running them in emulation.

An early lunch today and so, a fun link. Do you like the classic boardgame Risk? OK, so it’s a dicefest that favors luck over skill and tactics, but chances are you played it growing up and might even have loved it. If you’d like to tinker with something along those lines but with slightly more meat on its bones, check out the the computer version of the old Avalon Hill boardgame Wizard’s Quest. Free, fun little boardgame that you can play in under 15 minutes. Win32 only I’m afraid, but the system requirements are so modest I’m sure it would run smoothly under emulation on a Mac.

I blogged this several years ago, figured it was worth mentioning again since it’s fun and free.

Today’s a virtual friday (I have thursday and friday off – it’s a 4 day weekend for me) so here’s something to celebrate the occasion with – a free, java-based massively multiplayer online role playing game. Been wondering what the fuss is about with these games? Go check one out. It’s evocative of the original Ultima Online in that there is a lot of focus on crafting and resource harvesting from the environment, but it’s got a fully 3d gameworld with some unexpectedly decent animation. It should run on any platform with Java installed and is well worth a look, especially if you’ve never played around with an MMORPG before and are interested in getting a taste of them.

Right. So I’m completely in love with the latest rachet and clank game. I got it a few days after its release a couple of weeks ago and have been playing almost every night. It’s basically perfect – balanced gameplay, a graphics engine tuned to PS2 perfection, and the right mix of platforming and satisfying shootemup action. If you have a PS2 and enjoy action platformers, you owe it to yourself to get this game.

It also got me musing about this console generation – this christmas is basically it on this generation, it’s at the height of its market power, and christmas is the height of the gaming season. They’ll still be selling games for the current console generation next christmas, but they’ll also be developing and marketing games for the next generation systems – xbox2 will supposedly be released by then, as will (possibly) the nintendo successor to the Gamecube, and Sony is making noise about making sure Microsoft doesn’t beat them to market (though most of the gaming journalists don’t believe them).

Anyway, even if NONE of the consoles make it out by next Christmas, what won’t be here next christmas is sequels to all the big games – those are all targeted at next generation consoles. This by no means indicates that no more good games are coming for the current generation – history tells us that some of the more interesting and innovative games come out at the end of console’s lifespans as the developers have basically perfected their tools – but it does mean no more (or very few) blockbuster titles are coming. This is it, they’ve spent their development load, so to speak, and are moving on to other platforms. There’s a side benefit to this – if you think this January/February is great for a huge library of discount priced games (sub-$20), just wait till next year. Meanwhile, enjoy it this year. Me? As soon as I finish Rachet and Clank I’m grabbing the latest Jak and Daxter game, which judging by the reviews is almost as good as Rachet and Clank.

Now this is interesting – These folks are offering an open platform to develop console games on. The bare hardware is around $200, which gets you just the board for the machine – you need to supply controllers, a power supply, an enclosure and so on. There’s an active community developing content for the system, which is a bit of a surprise given that based on the screenshots the thing seems to be about as capable as the old 8-bit systems – you’d think if someone was interested in writing software of that style they’d work on something for one of the 8-bit emulators. Still, if you’re a developer this could be fun to dink around with.

SimCity was the rarest of games – it transcended the traditional gaming audience and broke out into the mass market, garnering coverage and accolades in the mainstream media and ending up on the computers of many folks who wouldn’t normally play games. Other titles have broken through in this manner – The Sims and Myst serve as prime examples. What’s unfortunate is that few folks outside of hardcore gamers have heard of Transport Tycoon. It was published a few years after Simcity and was clearly inspired by the sort of open ended ‘electronic tinker toy’ gameplay of SimCity. In Transport Tycoon, your focus is on constructing the transportation networks that connect cities. As you build up your transportation network the cities you’re connected to evolve and grow, and competitors emerge.

Despite not breaking out into the mainstream, Transport Tycoon developed a hardcore fanbase that exists to this day, and some of these folks have banded together to produce an enhanced open source port of the original game that runs on all the major operating systems.

It’s a little convoluted to get up and running since the installation requires a copy of the original Transport Tycoon Deluxe. Fortunately that title is long out of print, and so you can download a copy of it from the Home of the Underdogs. If this troubles you, you can also acquire a copy for under $5 on ebay. Either way, you need it simply for the graphic files – openttd uses the original game graphics.

I’d recommend this game to anyone – the port is really impressive, adding features, enhancing some of the original systems, and basically bringing the game into the modern age. Plus they have an extensive set of enhancements they’ve been adding as time passes. Check it out, it’s well worth it. And if anyone feels like taking me on in multiplayer, I’m game.

If you’re a fan of collectible card games, or card games in general, or Magic the Gathering specifically, check out mtgplay.com. How these folks are able to offer this when there’s a commercial online service that enables Magic the Gathering play I don’t know, it seems to be clearly in violation of copyright for the card art scans at least, but draw your own conclusions (and cards). Win32 only I’m sorry to say, though it would probably run ok under emulation on a mac.

…I thought I might point out a few games worth attention over the next several days. First on the list: Gate 88 by Queasy games. This is elegance in gameplay mechanics personified. It harkens back to the old school arcade games of the 80’s in terms of controls and graphics, but the gameplay is a great riff on games like Herzog Zwei. We’ll call it an action RTS, though it’s really mostly an action game with a few elements (resources, bases and research) of RTS. Best of all, it’s free and has a great multiplayer action. This is really well worth checking out if you’re on the PC, and you might even find it runs acceptably in emulation on a mac since it has modest system requirements.

Next year’s Independent Games Festival isn’t until March, but IGF has just posted a list of entries for the upcoming festival.

I poked around a bunch of the entries last night. Nothing has really grabbed me yet, though I am encouraged to see several final fantasy tactics-like games, a genre which is almost dead on the PC (last year’s excellent Silent Storm notwithstanding.

I’ll post a followup if I find anything really noteworthy, like last year’s Bontago

Even if I don’t post a followup, it’s well worth spending a little time digging around in the entries if you’re at all interested in game design. You’re much more likely to find something innovative and interesting in these IGF entries than you are in the big commercial releases from the large software publishers, and if you’re on a budget it’s also a great way to find a few cool free games.

These folks have been running a retro gaming internet radio show for the past 3 years and somehow I never ran across it until now. Interviews with developers from the dawn of electronic gaming, the homebrew scene, classic game reviews, tips on equipment, these folks cover it all. Cool stuff if you’re into the old school gaming scene or just want to reminisce about the games you played in your youth.

The shows are downloadable as mp3 files, or you can order up a DVD. Enjoy!