As much as I love this blog and enjoy writing, sometimes I curse it, especially when I mention a glistening gaming memory I have which thus triggers a case of inner want and thus I have to play the game in question. Bloody Bullfrog. They made such an awesome game, and I had to remember the demo didn’t I?

As you might have guessed, I’m now playing Dungeon Keeper, after a frantic search around the house to find the disk. It’s hard to know whether I should attempt to review it at my current state in gameplay (I’m now in the 4th dungeon or so, but I can remember most of game. The fact I’m relying on memory makes me say no), and in all honesty reviewing a game that’s now in the realms of Abandonware thanks to the muscling out of Bullfrog by EA (If that isn’t a reason to hate EA then nothing is), but I can tell you what I remember, and some lost soul on Google can find this and find out how to get it running.

You’d be amazed at the first thing you need: A disk*.Depending on how you’ve been keeping up with your sacrificial offerings of virgins to Khorne, then you’ll be a lucky soul and it’ll work straight away, so feel free to skip to here to avoid the rubbish about getting it working. If that didn’t work, you can try to run it in compatibility mode, by going to the disk, right clicking the setup file and choosing Properties. Then go to the compatibility tab and change the compatibility to earlier versions of Windows until it works. If it does, I hate your guts and thus you can skip ahead. If it didn’t work, or you’re on a different OS, then you’ll need to join the DosBox brigade.

You’ll need to download DosBox, which is available here for the great price of £0.00. DosBox is a DOS emulator, allowing you essentially have another machine inside your current one which has Dos commands. Anything that DosBox runs will think it’s being run by a DOS machine. The other neat little advantage is that you can feel like a little hacker using all those DOS commands you learnt while you were avoided revision for those GCSEs. There are a few things you’ll need to do to start playing.

The first involves using the mount command. On your hard drive, make sure you have C:/DOS created (Or wherever you want to install it. I’m putting all DOS games there for the sake of neatness), and type the following into DosBox: “mount C C:/DOS”. What this does is tell DosBox to use C:/DOS as its C drive. That might sound odd, and I’ll try to explain without sounding crazy. As far as DosBox is concerned, there isn’t anything attached to it. Remember that idea of a machine inside a machine? This is where it becomes apparent. Imagine that you’ve got a 2 computers (A and B) linked up via Ethernet. If I had one file on Computer A and wanted to access it on Computer B, I need to tell Computer B to use Computer A’s drive as one of its own. It’s a similar idea here. Think of DosBox as Computer B, and your actual computer as Computer A. To use any file on your main computer, you need to map the drive on DosBox, which is what the mount command does. If that doesn’t make any sense, it’s alright. Just think of it as you have to mount the drive in DosBox otherwise it won’t work and little gremlins will poke you continually.

Next, you need to mount your CD. I suggest copying the contents of the CD drive and putting it in an obvious place (I dunno, C:/Keeper), just because the game is that old you can get away with doing that for a no CD crack. This works because when you mount the D drive, you can tell DosBox to use anywhere you like as the D drive, so you have a no CD crack right away. The game is that old you can get away with it (Though the expansion looks for a disk with a certain label), so you may as well. To mount the CD type “mount D C:/Keeper” or wherever you copied it to.

Now you can install the game. First switch the active drive to D by typing “D:”. This now means that all commands you type will now be performed on the D drive (Which is actually C:/Keeper. You can try this if you want. Type md test and look at the drive in windows explorer. It should now have an extra folder called Test). Now just type “setup” and thus the setup will begin. I’ll assume you know how to install, but it’s worth noting that it will install to C:/Keeper. Of course, remembering that C: is actually C:/DOS, it will actually install to C:/DOS/Keeper. After installing, go through the audio setup and have a play until it works. When it works, feel free to exit. Once you have, you can just type “keeper” and you’ll get to play. Aren’t you a lucky person?

Now, before I get to work on these thoughts, just to tell you how to play when you want to load it up again. You’ll need to remount the drives before you can play, and move to the Keeper directory, then type Keeper (the commands for doing this are below). If you get annoyed at doing this each time, then you can edit the configuration files to mount them automatically. If you go to wherever you installed it, there should be a folder containing a shortcut to the configuration file. Open it, scroll to the end of it and add the following lines and then the game will open automatically when you run DosBox:
mount c c:/Dos
mount d C:/Keeper
C:
Cd Keeper
Keeper

Now, onto how I’m finding it. After loading up the first level, I remembered why I thought it was such a good game. Even that first level, where you just have to make little treasure rooms and the enemy heroes come so late on in the game that you can refuse to let them in if you so wish, by shoring up your walls which they then can’t break through, I was enjoying myself. I may have just been enjoying the fact that I could see the heroes running around in circles but that’s by the by. It’s also the first game in that genre, with nothing else like it (Which is probably the core design philosophy for Bullfrog), and it just works. There’s nothing else to it.

People talk about Evil Genius being the inheritor of the Dungeon Keeper franchise since we’re unlikely to see a Dungeon Keeper 3, but I disagree. The style was there, but Dungeon Keeper didn’t/doesn’t start raping you until about the 10th level or so in. Evil Genius starts to attack you right after you finish your tutorial, and doesn’t really give you the chance to recover. The learning curve of Dungeon Keeper was much shallower, which I think is a good thing. I don’t like to be thrown up a brick wall of difficulty. I like to stroll leisurely across the hills of adversity and enjoy the game until it gets hard and I lose continually and I throw the machine out the window.

Dungeon Keeper also got voice acting right! Of the many games I’ve played, it’s in the select few in which I haven’t thought ‘I could make this game much better just by taking the headphones out and using the subtitles’. The evil voice is just right. It fits in with the whole ethos of Bullfrog games: Let’s just take the piss. It’s stupidly over the top, but not in a cheesy way. It works as a game, and it works as a chance for Bullfrog to extract the urine out of all these goodie goodie games that you always see.

If I were to give it a score, I’d have to give it top marks (Around 95%), but since this isn’t a review, I won’t. Also I don’t like the idea of giving games a score. Seriously, go out and buy this game and get it running. You won’t regret it

* If you want to use an ISO/zip that you’ve downloaded then you can, but it is 12 years old, and you can probably pick it up for tuppence somewhere. Don’t go to Amazon though, they’re charging £30. It’s good, but it’s not THAT good. Return

When doing a trawl throughout a my various forums I noticed a link to one of my friend’s blog. This is one that I used to read, and I thought it would be fun to look over his few posts, and thus I found this one. For those few of you who decide not to click that link (Why not? He’s more affluent than me), he talks about the fact that demos are somehow non-existant. Even though he’s give his two cents, I felt that since I’ve started this blog, I think its fairer on him to just give him a pingback on a post instead of attempting to condense my feelings in a comment.  

Just an image with a big yellow box to prove my point.

When I first began gaming, my Dad had about 30 demo disks from god knows how many years ago. One that still sticks in my mind to this day is the demo of RoadRash. All it had was one level, and I can remember it pretty much perfectly. Consider the fact that I haven’t played it for about 4 years and you’ll understand how powerful a demo can be. Consider further that games are expensive and when you don’t have any money and £5 seems like the whole world’s wealth, you understand why you want a demo of a game. Nothing is more annoying than spending £30 then discovering that pile of silicon you just bought is a pile of crap. Even worse is the fact that because I couldn’t afford to get a better computer  I didn’t want to spend money on a game that my pile of silicon couldn’t play.  

I really can’t understand why developers don’t understand the fact that demos are powerful things that make gamers happy people. They evidently don’t. Its plain to see that demos are obviously not seen as good a tool as they used to be. 5/6 years ago, most big games had a demo that came with it as well. Now, well, I’m interested to see how good Assassin’s Creed is. Of course, I don’t want to buy it in case it sucks. I also don’t want to download it. So, currently, Assassin’s Creed (This is both of them) is missing out on a purchase. I would like to know how good these games are, and one of the best ways of seeing whether it fits my playing style is by getting to actually play it. Wow, shock horror there.  

Too many games also make the mistake of just giving you the first 2 levels as well. The easy levels, the ones that are easy to sleep walk through straight away. I don’t want to be shown the first level of the game. I want to see various bits of it. XIII was released and the demo that came with it had 2 levels, the first one, and I think the 6th one. It took out any spoilers, and gave me a bearing on both the heavy action sequences, and the little bits of stealth. Guess what I bought a week later? So a good demo gave me good enough reason to shell out the money to buy the game. I enjoyed it, it was my playing style and it was awesome. The fact that developers aren’t seeing this is more proof that developers are becoming more and more closed-minded.  

Burnout is another example of a game demo that convinced me to buy the game (The fact it was reduced from £30 to £12 had only a small amount to do with it). The Burnout demo I urge you to go and try, just to see how demos should be done. They gave you the full game for free. Just with a timer. PopCap do exactly the same thing. Every game demo that you play is restricted to one hour, and you get to see as much of the game as you like. It’s easily one of the best things to do for an arcade style game. I’m trying to think of the best way to demo the other type of game. For that we have to go to one of the greatest games that I’ve ever played: Dungeon Keeper.  

The Dungeon Keeper demo is available here if you haven’t played it. The reason I’m pointing it out would be more apparent if you have actually played the game. For those who haven’t (You really have missed out on a great game) the Dungeon Keeper demo is only one level long, and this level doesn’t exist in the full game. It was bespoke just for the game, and if Bullfrog still existed now, I’d find the programmers and shake their hands. That little bit of effort put in by Bullfrog of creating another quick level allowed me to see the full range of what you have to do in most levels. If they’d just given me the first level, then all I would’ve discovered is how to build a treasure room and look after flies. In the demo, I got a chance to look after most of the low-level creatures and see most of the rooms.  

Is it seriously that hard for people to create a level? What has happened to demos? Why can’t developers look at demos as a way of allowing gamers to see their products without getting misguided views? My only current reasoning behind why demos don’t exist is because developers are scared that we’ll see their game for what it really is. Could it be that the developers don’t want to show you how their game is played so you don’t know about that bad optimisation and voice acting? I know of several people who turn to piracy just to see how these games actually play. If they suck then they’ve just lost time. If they’re good then they buy the game and support the developer. I personally don’t think they’re bad people, but that’s just me. 

Demos are a great tool, and its time that publishers and developers realised that.

Dungeon Keeper 2 reaper and some green little imps (the lowest position on the corporate job chart)

This is the twenty-second post in our Game of the Day series.

There is a genre known as “God games” encompassing those which give you a divine perspective and/or powers in order to influence peoples to build civilizations, defeat rivals, or what have you. It’s fairly abstract and a wide variety of titles tend to get mixed up in it. Usually there’s some differentiator between good and bad deeds done to your folk. On the other hand there’s Dungeon Keeper II with a purely “evil” avatar and I submit to you this fits more into a “Devil game” category.

I played this game some time after it had come out, made some splash, attracted some fans, and then was never to be seen again. At least, when is the last time you heard about an entry in the Dungeon Keeper series? The goal is simply: build up your lair and protect it from pesky “heroes”. Yes, there’s a reason you imagine me doing air quotes.

Rather like Dr. Evil, your motivations appear to be slightly greedy and morally gray but not exactly evil. So you want to hoard a bunch of loot and employ nasty-looking minions (Seductress not included). The funny thing about it is that people just won’t leave you alone, a hero is coming to claim your stuff and kill you and that’s that. So you do what any of us might do of the Home Alone generation, you set traps and attempt to stop them in their tracks. It’s immensely gratifying to pull down a shiny knight, with their top-heavy jock-esq rendered model and arrogant swagger.

One of the most delightful options here is the ability to possess one of your employees and experience your home and the battles first-hand. Normally you’re looking down at everything and supervising at mile-high view, but dipping down into the minds of your servants really gives you a taste for how their daily routine turns out. Maybe it influences you to give them a pay raise, or at least stop using them as hero-bait for your more insidious traps.

Unfortunately the bugginess of the product prevented me from perusing its final bits. I honestly can’t remember how much achieved or how far I got, just that I gave up after a zillion crashes, hangs, or frustrating clipping/selection errors. Perhaps that’s why there wasn’t any more made, but the core mechanics sure were fun!

Also ich bin ja als Nerd sehr anfällig für alles was irgendwie mit Fantasy, RPG oder Comics zu tun hat. Daher erscheint es auch nicht sonderlich verwunderlich dass ich ein treuer Stammleser des YAFGC (Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic) bin und seitdem ich vor vlt. anderthalb Jahren auf dieses Webcomic gestoßen bin und es nahezu am Stück durchgelesen habe, ich keinerlei Folge mehr verpasst habe.

Weiterhin wenig verwunderlich ist es wohl dass noch nach all den Jahren eines der imho besten Spiele die jemals veröffentlicht wurden wohl Dungeon Keeper (inkl. Teil 2) war und ich noch diesem Spiel nachtrauere. In letzter Zeit war ich sogar verzweifelt genug meinen Jahrelangen Entzug mit der vergleichsweise miserablen Ersatzdroge “Overlord 2″ zu stillen versuchen.

Wie erfreut war ich nun, nach meinem Urlaub in Dänemark vorletzte Woche festzustellen dass bei YAFGC ein neuer Handlungsstrang mit altbekannten Figuren angefangen hat. Ein Imp bricht durch die Wand und ich wunder mich noch ob der extrem starken Ähnlichkeit. Nachdem dann kurz darauf vom Keeper die Rede ist, Gnome Fallen aufstellen und andere, alten Bekannten auftreten ist wohl jeder letzte Zweifel verflogen!

YAFGC BRINGT EINE GESCHICHTE AUF DUNGEON-KEEPER-BASIS!

es gibt Huhn... lecker!

Für all diejenigen, die an dieser Stelle Blut geleckt haben, würde ich übrigens auch die Lektüre des Goblins-Comic und natürlich des wohlbekannten Looking-For-Group empfehlen. Wem das alles noch lange nicht reicht, den mag ich an dieser Stelle meinen via Google-Reader zusammengestellten Webcomic-Newsfeed ans Herz legen. Ich versuche so ziemlich alles was ich als wirklich lesbare Comics empfinde hier handverlesen zusammenzutragen.
(Und im Gegensatz zu meinen Blogeinträgen in den letzten Monaten schwankt das Angebot dort schon seit Jahren eigentlich nicht großartig)

BTW: Ich bin vor vlt. 1-2 Jahren mal über Bemühungen von einigen Fans gestolpert, die eine OpenSource-Variante von Dungeon Keeper bauen wollten, dort war allerdings schon damals abzusehen dass es rechtliche Probleme geben würde.
Leider gab es noch keine auch nur annähernd spielbare Version und mir fällt auch weder der Name noch eine URL dazu ein.
Weiß zufällig jemand was neues dazu? Wurde dieses Projekt weitergeführt?

So I’m sitting in the lab on a warm Sunday afternoon and while I wanted to write something meaningful, here’s a top 10, er…9 cause I can’t think of 10. These aren’t the top 9 games of all time mainly because I haven’t played all the games of all time (shame on all of you who imply that you have). These are the top 9 games that found their way into my hands whether it be from good marketing or cheap bargain bin sales. There are a few criteria that you should note:

1) all these games must have had at least a decent singleplayer component

2) they are not recent, and many of you have forgotten about them

3) they all did something that was drastically different, even if nobody noticed

And here they are:

Best, callsign, ever.

9. Starlancer

People will argue that the follow-up to this game, Freelancer, is better in every way. I wholeheartedly disagree. Starlancer put you in a cockpit and put you through the ranks of the military. How well you did in missions also reflected on the ships you were allowed to pilot and your rank. However, it didn’t detract from the game if you didn’t do that well, although there were a few missions where you would lose the game if you did poorly.

I think this game and most of the games to follow are a testament to how games don’t have to be open world/free roaming to be good. This game had moments that took your breath away. There was a sense of awe when you saw the more prestigious squadrons take flight and help you in battle, there was immense joy when you did well enough on your missions to join these squadrons, and you really felt like your existence mattered!

8. Freespace 2

There’s not much to say about this game that hasn’t already been said. The singleplayer was amazing, with moments when your HUD would get completely scrambled and a few alternative outcomes for missions. Unlike Starlancer, doing well in missions didn’t award you anything except medals. Unlike Starlancer however, this game constantly made you feel helpless but not crushed. You took a role in a fighter squadron that ends up fighting off other fighters, but also capital ships that were incredibly difficult to destroy. Not only that, there were a few “near suicide” missions that you could opt to partake in that were exhilarating if you survived. I recall at least one mission where you were essentially told “you’re out of time, good luck if you make it, I can’t watch…signing off” and you’re left thinking “oh my god” as capital ships start warping in. Oh, and let’s not forget the mission where you start in front of a warp gate with a giant ship heading right for you.

7. Freedom Fighters

Like the popular Mario Bros. franchise, this game starts you off as a plumber who wakes up to realize he’s in a world full of baddies. Unlike Mario Bros., there aren’t any fireballs or giant dinosaurs. This game takes place in an alternate reality where we are still in the Cold War, and the Soviets have invaded America(hurray for Canada). You join up with a resistance faction to try to bring down the Soviets.

Why was this game amazing? Well, first it put you in the shoes of an everyday Joe-sixpack who doesn’t quite know what he’s supposed to do as the city is getting torn apart. In some ways, it was appealing as an origin story. Throw in a fun combat system, interesting squadmates, and a decent story, and you’ve got an amazing game that somehow fell under the radar. The people who played it, loved it. Unfortunately that wasn’t many.

Poor assault frigate. It just wanted to be loved.

6. Homeworld: Cataclysm

Everyone who knows me should know that I recommend Homeworld as a good starting point for amazing strategy games. What I don’t discuss is Homeworld:Cataclysm which was my favourite in the series. Why? Your fighting force is a mining vessel that gets fitted with weaponry throughout the game to become a massive carrier to be reckoned with. This seems to be a theme so far, but this should be the final one. In all fairness, the Homeworld franchise is what was revolutionary. It was the first time strategy games explored the Z-axis. Cataclysm added to this with modular units. Not only did your mothership have subsystems that could individually be targeted and destroyed, you had units that could combine, upgrade, and had their own special abilities.

which one of you is pvt. ryan?

5. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault

This game was arguably the first WWII shooter to be done right. Sure, a lot of it was borrowed from Saving Private Ryan, but it was well paced and very entertaining. By far, the most memorable level was Omaha beach where the computer was pretty ruthless in gunning you down with a machine gun. It took at least 2 or 3 tries to get to the beach, and then there was the minefield! Where this game really shined was in its multiplayer. It maintained the realistic atmosphere(even with the dated graphics), and the game was just balanced enough to keep you coming back for more. If you don’t believe me, go online with this game now. People are still playing!

according to Nintendo, when you get touched inappropriately, you revert back to a child-like state. Sounds about right.

4. Super Mario World

Ah, our favourite plumber. Why Super Mario World? Mainly because everyone has talked about Super Mario 3 and it is no longer interesting to hear another person praise it. While the third installment(though not actually the third…i think it was the fourth game) was revolutionary, I think this one takes the cup. First and foremost, we have to give props to Yoshi. It wasn’t his first game, but it was the first one that everybody saw him in. And while Super Mario World didn’t do anything as memorable as the giant world in SMB3, it had a little more charm and an even better soundtrack. Oh, and let’s not forget the special Yoshis!!

The mechwarrior/battletech series is riddled with acronyms. ER PPC LRM SRM AC GG QQ FTW.

3. MechCommander(1 & 2)

I’m going to be brutally honest…I hate the mechwarrior series. I loved the idea of customizing your robot till nausea sets in, but playing with clunky controls just wasn’t very fun. That’s why the mechcommander series was so accessible to me. You had the customizability of mechwarrior without the limiting gameplay. Your pilots had skills, you could salvage mechs and weapons that the other faction had. It was really fun! I guess it went under the radar because Mechwarrior fans disliked strategy, and strategy fans were put off by Mechwarrior. Still, the recent announcement of the Mechwarrior franchise reboot got me a little giddy. Now they need to announce another MechCommander and I can get a nerdgasm. That being said, if you want to try it out, it’s available for free at www.mechcommander.org

The main character is a dude. His suit makes him look like he's wearing nothing at all...nothing at all...NOTHING AT ALL.

2. MDK(1 & 2)

There’s a lot of speculation as to what MDK is. If it is an acronym, the most common translation is “Murder, Death, Kill.” I’m not sure why that came about, because frankly the game isn’t that violent. It was quite amusing actually. Sure, you played as this badass guy with a gun for an arm or something, and yes, the world was this dreary low-polygon technofuture, but the enemies were quirky dudes. When I played Halo many years later, I spotted these little purple dudes that provided comedy relief and realized that it was a complete ripoff of MDK. Autoaiming was also one of the amazing things that MDK brought to the table, something that we wouldn’t see for quite a few years until the first console shooters appeared.

FYI, there is no central heating in the game.

1. Dungeon Keeper

The dungeon keeper series is indisputable as being the first to put you in the hands of the bad guys and never give you the option of being good. But that wasn’t the only thing about DK(not donkey kong). You didn’t build units. You built things to entice evildoers to join your command, and you paid them for living, training, and fighting in your name. Each type of unit had its own personality, occasionally getting annoyed and even getting into fights with some others. And then there was Horny. It was the nickname for the Horned Reaper. In dungeon keeper 1, he would destroy all other minions while in the later installment, he would be a temporary summon.

What sets dungeon keeper apart from all other strategy games? Well, it was really more of the Sims than a real strategy. You didn’t really command creatures, you just picked them up and put them where you wanted. If they don’t feel like doing something, they won’t do it(this includes fighting). Of course, there were ways to get them to do certain deeds like locking them in rooms. Still, the general thing to do was to make your monsters happy so they would train harder, research faster, and fight better. Oh, and let’s not forget the jokes!

I’ve recently felt the urge to play the classic game Dungeon Keeper on my six-month-old laptop, which just so happens to run Vista (the same way some people just so happen to be born without arms or legs).  So I dug out the ol’ compact disk (needs MS-DOS or Windows 95 or higher) popped it in the cd tray and bam!  The install took all of five seconds (no, I’m pretty sure my computer can handle DirectX 3).  I go into the directory, double-click the icon, and receive a splash screen featuring the demon Horney, getting myself prepped for some serious anti-dungeoneering and…

The game crashes to desktop.  No matter what I do.  Three installs, one as administrator, changing all sorts of settings, nothing works.  Booting it under WINE over on my Linux partition doesn’t work either (in fact, it doesn’t even return to my 1440 x 900 resolution, just stays at 640 x 480, a resolution in which the window to change the resolution does not display the “OK” button) .  Even when I put it into my ancient XP desktop computer, I get as far as the world map before getting some sort of monitor sync error (and I’ve played this game on XP machines before).  You’d think somebody would have a patch or something for this, but there’s not even a user-made one from someone who’s cracked the game.  I am eternally frustrated.

This comic comes to mind.

Incidentally, Velthur, I still have your copy of Dungeon Keeper.

Dawno, dawno temu opublikowałem na peacegrenade recenzję Fable. Dodam, że z lenistwa przekopiowałem ją bezczelnie z tawerny.rpg.pl dla której napisałem ją jeszcze dawniej, dawniej temu. Teraz, po latach nie pozostaje mi nic innego jak sprostować tamten FAILED tekst.

Krótko, szczerze i treściwie – nadal uważam Fable za fajną gierkę. Taką na 6-7. Swoje chwilowe zaślepienie ją mogę wytłumaczyć jedynie obrzydzeniem do Nomury, tragicznym dzieciństwem, brakiem King of Fightersa pod ręką, czy też cholerną, wręcz nie zmożoną chęcią przehypowywania gier nie będących Baldurem/Gothicikiem na ProPCtowejfialedgraczowej tawernie rpg.

Wiecie, żeby zagrali w coś ponad ekstraklasykę. Ale jakoś tak, nie zmienia to faktu, że muszę napisać to co piszę. Moja recenzja Fable jest G warta.  Fable to gra prosta, nudna, na raz, ograniczona i śmieszna. Daje fun, ale to fun na poziomie gier Shit-enixu. Nie ma co się rozpisywać o grze, do której nie mam zamiaru już podchodzić więcej.  Jednak na osłodę podam kilka fajnych komentarzy z tawerny do recenzji gry.

„Fable dostaje wyższą ocenę niż Neverwinter 2, no po prosu git…. buahaha. Ludzie bądźcie poważni, Fable jest ok ale ktoś tu chyba lekko przesadził…” – przecież jak wiemy Neverwinter 2 to gra z tego samego okresu, do tego doskonała.

„Według mnie nie mozna porownywac Fable do gothicow to sa 2 inne gry w gothicu poprostu byla zajebista fabuła a w fable dobre jest to ze w ramach swojego postepowanie ludzie zmieniaja do ciebie nastawienie obie gry zasluguja na 6 ” – tak, na pewno

„”Fable dostaje wyższą ocenę niż Neverwinter 2, no po prosu git…. buahaha. Ludzie bądźcie poważni, Fable jest ok ale ktoś tu chyba lekko przesadził…”

“Zgadzam się się z kolegą, jeśli Gothic I dostaje 4 a Fable +5 to troszkę coś jest nie tak..:)” Znając Pite to (na)pewno dlatego, że Fable to gra z konsol, które nie zostały obdarzone Gothic’iem i NN.” – tu mnie masz man, brak Gothica i Neverwinter Nights na konsolach boli mnie niesamowicie. Normalnie po nocach, aż musze grywać w inferior dating simy Atlusa. Dziękuje za uwagę i smacznego.

Every year PC Gamer publish their Top 100 games list.  They also ask for readers to submit their own Top 10, which they then compile into a Readers Top 100 list.  I decided that this time I’d give it a go, unfortunately I couldn’t.  While I have played a lot of great games over the years, there weren’t that many I would class as my top ten.  Even if I could come up with ten, putting them into some sort of order would be practically impossible for me.

In an attempt to create my list, I wrote down individual games that I did want on the list.  If you consolidate series together (which PCG do), I managed five…  Among those five were:  Team Fortress 2, after more than a year I’m still playing it, that’s got to tell you something.  Homeworld 1 & 2, I couldn’t decide between them, the first was so innovative and has some of the greatest music ever used in a game, while the second is beautiful, even now, and has some great ship designs.  And Evil Genius.

I have briefly mentioned it before, but it deserves a proper tribute.

Evil Genius gives you a chance to play opposite James Bond (John Steele ), rather than saving the world, you’re conquering it.  Rather than sticking to the rules, you’re breaking them.  A somewhat spiritual successor to Dungeon Keeper, many consider it a pretty good copy, I however think it deserves a pedastal of it’s own.  Developed by the sadly now defunct Elixir Studios, this was the second of their two games, the other being Republic:  The Revolution.  Republic is also often overlooked, ask someone who’s played it and they will probably have some fond memories of their struggle to power, and yet they will never mention it without a reminder.  It was sadly a forgettable game, it didn’t have much of an overall structure and people often disliked the interface.  I never got past the second city, and only remember it myself when I think of Evil Genius.  What it did have though was an interesting idea at it’s foundation.  This is something a lot of modern games, even the best ones, are missing.  They might be well polished, have great level design and look fantastic, but they rarely introduce a new take on what has come before.  You could probably say that Evil Genius has been done before, in Dungeon Keeper (as already mentioned) and other management games, but I think it takes what has been done before and gives it a new twist, introducing new ideas.

Unlike CotN Week I won’t set myself a goal.  I hadn’t played very far through Children of the Nile and so didn’t know quite what to expect.  Although it has been a while since I last played Evil Genius, I still remember a lot about how the game flows and there isn’t really a goal I can set myself.  I could attempt to reach the end (something I’ve still yet to do) but that would probably take longer than the week I have, unless I play a lot.  All I can do is give it my best shot.

Segador Astado
Dama Oscura + Demonio de Hiel + Troll
(Nota: No siempre funciona, pero en la mayoría de veces si me ha servido)

Dama Oscura
Bettle + Araña

Warlock
Mosca + Araña

Terminar de estudiar
2 Moscas

Terminar de fabricar
2 Beetles

También esta disponible la lista de sacrificios del Dungeon Keeper 2

El dia 1 de febrero, al iniciar el Dungeon Kepeer aparece unos mensajes, algo poéticos, pero muy cachondos…. bueno, entre ellos la felicitación de cumpleaños a alguien, pero aquí voy a poner, todos los mensajes que he podido anotar… si tu posees este juego, cambia el reloj de tu ordenador y pon en la fecha 1 de febrero del 99… te aparecerán en pantalla todos estos mensajes. Aquí pongo estos curiosos mensajes:

• Si eres inocente y puro de alma. Ven a que te despedaze con calma.
• Cuando tus tropas de hambre perecen, en tu criadero ricos pollos crecen.
• Tú eres el guardian, el escogido, y ser malvado, es mas que divertido.
• Caballeros valientes, el valor les agita. Se asan mejor en una espita.
• Por mi mazmorra tu podrás avanzar, pero es seguro que muerto has de quedar.
• Los intrusos a por tu tesoro han ido, cázalos, mátalos. Es divertido.
• Con mejores criaturas a tu servicio, mas grande y mas sangriento el sacrificio.
• De tus dominios los ciudadanos. Quieren volver a matar con sus manos
• Ladrón y hada, Enano y Gigante. Ninguno de vosotros asusta bastante.
• Muerte, maldad, podredumbre, horror. En realidad no hay nada mejor.
• Aunque el intruso tenga buen corazon, morira en tu mazmorra, en un rincón.
• El tonto que en tus dominios se aventura. Vivirá por siempre en una noche oscura.
• ¿un hechizero en tu mazmorra ha entrado? una buena trampa lo hechara a un lado.
• Si tus criaturas te temen, siempre harán lo que tu ordenes.
• ¡hey! el Avatar la frontera ha cruzado, y puedo olfatear un señor asustado.
• Tus herramientas son la angustia y el dolor, contra tus enemigos funciona mejor.
• Muerte, maladad, malicia, podredumbre. Aqui han venido para hacerse costumbre,
• Hunde al Avatar en pavor. Si se orina en la cama, es mejor.
• Muerte, malicia, podredumbre, maldad. Es solo un dia de trabajo mas.
• tus tuneles seran frios y oscuros. Mal sitio para el viejo caballero. Aunque siga clamando que es duro.
• La tortura es la suprema gloria. Con la que tu guardian hace la historia.
• Cuando la noche al dia mustia, y a los niños jugar les causa horror, cambia la esperanza por la angustia, tu destino es la guarida de mi dragón.
• Protege el corazon de la mazmorra. Y azota a tus sirvientes con la porra.
• Si descubres que todo lo has perdido. ¿porque no lanzas tu postrer suspiro?
• Cuando tus criaturas no cumplen con destreza. Metelos en la zelda de cabeza.

Si encontrais mas, añadidlos aqui

Tengo muchas cosas ke decir de este fenomenal juego. Bullfrog, ha conseguido hacer un juego de rol entretenido y completo. Del ke, muchos ansian ya (entre ellos yo) su segunda parte. En fin, vamos a ver ke os puedo contar de este fenomenal juego. Va de ke tu eres un guardian infernal, y en un principio, tienes ke conquistar todo a tu paso, sembrando horror, destruccion. Los Señores de cada tierra (estamos hablando de la edad media) trataran de impedirte la conquista de sus tierras, y cuando menos te lo esperes, cuando te hayas cargado a su ejercito, anunciara su aparicion en tu humilde mazmorra.

Tu, dispones de unos duendecillos, ke son trabajadores, y fieles a ti. Ellos haran todo lo ke tu les ordenes. En tu mazmorra, lo primero, tienes ke apoderarte de un portal, ke es el acceso, por el cual, vendran diversas criaturas a tu mazmorra. Pero, tienes ke mantenerlas. Lo segundo ke tienes ke hacer, es una guarida, donde las criaturas se haran sus hogares, despues, necesitas un criadero, para alimentar a tus criaturas. Luego, tus criaturas cobraran dinero, de tu sala del tesoro… En fin, aparte de su dificultad creciente, tambien iran apariciendo, (segun avanzemos de nivel) otras salas, la de entrenamiento (para hacer mas fuertes a tus criaturas) biblioteca (para descubrir nuevos hechizos) …. hay muchas salas, y cada una tiene su funcion. Tambien, vendran mas criaturas, por mas camaras y otras cosas. Hay mas formas de traer nuevas criaturas, como por ejemplo, invocandolas, predandolas….o, resucitandolas por ejemplo, si haces cementerios, y una de tus criaturas se muere, tus duendes lo depositaran sobre las tumbas, para ke se pudra, y resucite un vampiro. Es un ejemplo.Luego puedes mejorar tu mazmorra, con puertas de madera, blindadas, o magicas, o hacerla mas segura, con trampas….todo esto gnerado en el taller. Hay muchas camaras (criadero, guarida, del tesoro, de entrenamiento, biblioteca, sala de torturas, templo, sala del predador, taller, cementerio, carcel…) y alguna mas. Y muchas criaturas (moscas, escarabajos, arañas, retoños, warlocks, dragones, demonios de hiel, tentaculos, perros, esqueletos, damas, vampiros, trolls,f antasmas, orcos, gigantes, hadas, enanos, hechizeros…) y muchos mas. El mas fuerte, cruel…etc. es el Segador Astado… a ese si ke nadie le toca los cojones, pues, cuando se irrite lo mas minimo…(ke se irritara, es inevitable) empezara a segar el pescuezo a tus criaturas con su afilada hoz. En fin, lo fundamental, es ke no lleguen a el corazon de tu mazmorra, ke si lo destrullen, seras un alma ke vaga sin rumbo. Mas adelante, tendras ke vertelas con otros guardianes, ke tienen tu mismo proposito (quemar el mundo). El jefe final es el señor del castillo y de todas las tierras, el Avatar, con el ke tendrás ke vertelas y creeme, no es nada facil de matar, ademas, los cabrones de sus colegas lo resucitan una vez muerto…

#5 – Homeworld (Sierra)

Para alguém que sempre foi um apaixonado por grandes épicos de ficção científica, com gigantescos combates entre naves capitais e odisseias desesperadas pelas estrelas, Homeworld era um título obrigatório. A escala de epicidade do original não foi, na minha opinião, igualada pelo seu mais bem ambicioso sucessor, em grande parte, na minha opinião, devido ao facto de o povo em volta do qual gira a história já ter um conhecimento maior da Galáxia. Aquela sensação de isolamento e de não saber para onde se estar a ir foi uma das coisas que me agarrou à campanha. A ideia de uma nave gigante comandar uma série de naves mais pequenas numa demanda desesperada tornou-se, para mim, um tema entusiasmante.

#4 – Half-Life (Valve)

Coloco o Half-Life sozinho nesta tabela porque, se não o fizesse, teria de colocar praticamente todos os títulos da série aqui, e alguns dos grandes Mods para eles desenvolvidos. A criação da Valve tornou-se num dos shooters mais importantes dos últimos dez anos, tornando-se num jogo de culto que deu origem a duas expansões e a uma sequela, também ela com duas expansões já editadas. Para além da série em si, cuja história influenciou a minha maneira de pensar outras obras de ficção, algumas adaptações deixaram a sua marca na minha mente. Falo dos Mods da série Minerva, de Adam Foster, e do divertidíssimo Portal. Para além disso, o incrivelmente famoso Counter-Strike foi um dos maiores vícios que já tive na vida!

#3 – Starcraft (Blizzard)

Enquanto jogo, Starcraft foi um dos maiores títulos de estratégia. Três espécies, os humanos e dois povos alienígenas, combatiam pelo poder numa demanda à escala galáctica. Havia aqui material suficiente para criar mais um recanto no universo de duas jovens crianças (eu e o meu irmão), e muito mais… Mas mais importante ainda, estava incluído um dos mais fantásticos editores de mapas em que já meti as mãos. Ao criar toda uma série de campanhas e mapas especializados, aprendi as bases dos videojogos, equilíbrio de facções, criar diversão, etc. Foi com Starcraft que descobri como funcionam os videojogos.

#2 – Dungeon Keeper (Bullfrog)

Dungeon Keeper é um dos jogos mais divertidos e viciantes de sempre. No papel de um Senhor das Trevas, o jogador tem de criar uma série de catacumbas, para atrair seres das Trevas e criar um exército para derrubar os bondosos cavaleiros ou outros Senhores das Trevas. Nascido da mente genial de Peter Molyneux, criava desafio ao jogador, obrigando-o a saber como expandir os seus limites territoriais, procurar recursos, e até a zelar pela felicidade das diversas criaturas das Trevas. Mais importante ainda… Foi o primeiro videojogo que alguma vez joguei…

#1 – Marathon 2: Durandal (Bungie)

De todos os videojogos que alguma vez joguei, de todas as influências que criaram em mim, de todos os momento de diversão… Um tornou-se mais importante do que todos os outros, ainda antes sequer de eu o jogar. Esse jogo foi Marathon, exemplificado aqui pela segunda instalação, a mais divertida do todo, na minha opinião. Fã ávido de Halo: Combat Evolved, resolvi procurar quais as bases de toda aquela intrincada simbologia que existia no aclamado título da Bungie. Depressa encontrei o seu predecessor espiritual. A complexa e fascinante história de Marathon ainda hoje me mantém agarrado a foruns e sites por toda a net, influenciando decisivamente a história da novela que tento criar. E existe este personagem, o mais fascinante que alguma vez encontrei em qualquer obra de ficção: Durandal, a inteligência artificial que quer ser Deus!

Um jogo incrível, e que aconselho a todos os gamers e interessados por esse mundo fora!

Menções honrosas:

Pharaoh (Sierra) – Horas e horas de diversão, sem nunca cansar! Um jogo de estratégia altamente aconselhado.

Ace Combat 5 (Namco) – O mais divertido simulador de combate aéreo da actualidade, exemplificado pela quinta instalação. Com os mais sofisticados aviões de combate e muita acção. Gosto de aviões, que posso dizer?

Mechwarrior 4: Black Knight (Microsoft Games) – Mechs de combate gigantes e reviravoltas suficientes para divertir e agradar! E sempre fui grande fã de BattleTech, por isso…

E aqui ficam os dez Videojogos mais importantes da minha via. Como disse, é uma lista pessoal, mas achei que a poderia muito bem partilhar com todos vós. Obrigado pela atenção!

Umbras Dextras, Prima Orbis
Templa Prospice, Diem Ex Dei

Vosso, S7alker.

For any reason the german newsportal krawall.de talks about Peter Molyneux putting his hands on the Syndicate cake again. Afterwards he had talked a lot about being interested in reviving this cool old Bullfrog franchise over the last years, explaining Syndicate being one of his favourite franchises whose concept would be very popular with gamers today, maybe he is still interested now that EA realized its capabilitys finally.

But to be serious, even though many gamers would like Peter Molyneux to be involved, Microsoft would have to buy the franchise. And who believes EA would sell it NOW? Right. Nobody knows but it’s very unlikely. Another option for Molyneux would be to create another game wich accidently picks up the very popular concept of Syndicate, looks a little like Syndicate, has feeling and gameplay like Syndicate but giving it another name instead. Voila!

But who believes that will happen? Right. Nobody knows. And it also could mean he is interested in reviving Dungeon Keeper anyway. So it’s nice and speculative talking on krawall.de (wich domain is really cool, because krawall means outrage in a more funny way) but nothing more. Unfortunately. Keep the community informed!

Distributor Electronic Arts hat den Auftrag an den Entwickler Netdragon gegeben, das alte Bullfrog-RPG Dungeon Keeper als MMO für den asiatischen Markt (“Greater China region” also mit Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong) zu verwursten. Unklar ist bisher, ob das Game dann auch im “Westen” verfügbar sein wird und ob ausser Exp-Grinden noch was anderes geplant ist. (via offworld)

So, in a return to blogging (which was cut short by lots of things), I find several terribly exciting bits of news to throw at you.

First (and try not to cry for this one). EA is giving what is essentially the entire Dungeon Keeper world to another company to make a China-only MMOG. Wtf right? Here’s all of the official blather, but I guess we’ll have to hope that somebody decides to port it over here. Because this might be good, it might be amazing.

The second, amazing thing is this: they may be making a console version of The Witcher, which will feature

extensive use of motion-capture for the character animations, have better lighting and environmental effects, improved enemy AI and full achievement and trophy support

I could care less about the trophies, but the rest sounds sweet. I don’t think they realize this over at CD Projekt, but I will buy every version of this game that they produce, except the kart racing strategy version. Exciting!

Finally, a fancy-schmancy video for Black Mesa, the Source engine total conversion/recreation of HL1. Very cool.

In actual gaming that I’m doing news, Sacred 2 is kind of sweet. It’s like Titan Quest but less flabby, it knows what you want and delivers. And by that I mean it delivers a talking deadly robot dog avatar. Sweet.

RetroBeats Session 11 Out!

This week I’m taking a look at some of the best original Disney games from the 16bits era, including Castle and World of Illusion, Quackshot, Mickey Mania and Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow

EA Is Expanding to Movies and TV

Considering the average quality of game adaptations to the screen this news can be scary but either way Electronic Arts has signed an agreement with the United Talent Agency to adapt some of its licenses to both the big and small screen. The First on the list appear to be The Sims, Mirror’s Edge and Army of Two.
Now’s a good time for a prayer.

Fallout 3 Will Be Released in Australia But Censored

After they said they would simply ban the game for it’s violence and language in the land down under, Bethesda went back to modify the game so that it could be released. Hence in its Australian version Fallout 3 will have some edited an deleted scenes and dialogues as well as the removal of all mentions of drugs.
Welcome to the 21st Century where democracies still act like the 3rd Reich in its hey-days. Long live the First Amendment.

Rock Band 2 Delayed?

It seems that while the game itself is still planned for the September 14 launch on the Xbox 360, the instruments will not be coming out until mid-October which coincides pretty well with the release of the game on PS3, PS2 and Wii. Doesn’t seem like a great exclusivity deal anymore.

Lian-Li Case for Xbox 360

Those of you who are into building their own computers are most likely familiar with Lian-Li, a very high quality case maker for PC. Well it seems they are releasing a special case for the Microsoft console. We all know the 360 is pretty noisy and gets fairly hot, so while this is a good idea I can’t help but feel that this is one of their weaker design and it simply looks too much like a PC tower.

Layoffs, Layoffs and More Layoffs

Since the Activision ’streamlining’ a few weeks ago it seems that companies are firing people and canceling projects left and right. There was Midway a few days ago, NCSoft yesterday and now it’s Radical and High Noon, which are both owned by Activision Blizzard.
I know the economy isn’t at its best but this really doesn’t bode well for independent studios and original games.

Overlord Is Taking Over

Last year Overlord, a game I haven’t played but seems like a cross between Dungeon Keeper and Pikmin, was a surprise hit and Codemasters posted their best revenues ever. So it’s not too much of a leap to expect a sequel…BUT WAIT! They are actually planning to release 3 different games!
The PC, 360 and PS3 will be graced with a sequel: Overlord II while the Wii will have a prequel: Overlord: Dark Legend and the DS, a spin-off: Overlord Minions.
Pretty impressive and most certainly good news for fans of the original.

Overlord II:

Overlord: Dark Legend:

Overlord Minions:

Ich habe festgestellt, daß die Url www.joseffritzl.de nicht mehr, wie unten beschrieben, auf die Seite einer Sicherheitsfirma führt, sondern jetzt eine Seite über Josef Fritzl und seine Auftritte in den Medien beherbergt.
Auch nicht schlecht.
Einen Super-Schurken-Namen hat er auch erhalten: “DAS INZEST-MONSTER”

Whois-Abfrage zur Seite

Thanks to now owning a rapidshare account I’ve been playing some of the latest games out. I’ve pissed all over crysis had a great time killing everything on Medal of Honor and I’ve had a dabble in Call of Duty 4, but I’ve not be played many RTS games in a long time, and I think that’s because they are far too hard. When I play a FPS I love it to be hard and push me as far as I can go, but in the RTS world I loved to beat the hell out of the computer so bad that it packs up its CPU and books a holiday to the Silicon Valley. Don’t ask me why but I like RTS to be easy and that got me thinking about the greatest RTS ever made and no it’s not a C&C but Dungeon Keeper 1, I got this free with my windows 98 PC back in the 90’s and loved playing it. I then Sold it to a friend and brought Dungeon Keeper 2 but still have a love for the old pixelated original.

I must have played this game about 10 times over as many years but this is the first time I’ve tried to play it on my new Vista machine and can’t get it to install (I think my new pc knows of the ass kicking it be getting if it would let me install it).
So I’ve had to download the latest version of Microsoft Virtual PC and load a copy of Windows XP, as I write this blog it is being installed but it looks like its hanging at Installing Devices, but if that fails I will go with a retro Windows 98 install.

So Fingers Crossed I will be running around the dark Dungeons of this great classic by tonight.

Also if you have not played this game then DO SO, you can pick it up for a few pounds or download it within 10 mins from your local download forum.

Zombies afknallen en keer op keer een rolberoerte krijgen van onverwachts aanvallende zombies en beesten zijn in mijn beleving de kenmerken van Resident Evil. De muziek uit de game is vaak opzwepend, zenuwachtig en hard. De tune van afgelopen week komt uit dit spel.

Michiel en Stefan herkenden het geluid, alhoewel er getwijfeld werd over Dungeon Keeper, Alone in the Dark en Resident Evil.

Bron screenshot: http://www.blieb.nl/