Following on from my playthrough, I could only find the one review of The Incredible Machine among the pile of magazines in the March 1993 PC Review. Their feelings are similar to my own except I wouldn’t suggest Meccano as an alternative.
The playthrough of GTA that was supposed to happen last month still hasn’t got going and I may put it on hold for a while. I did manage to get the DOS version of the game running in 3dfx mode on my Voodoo 3 which took some trial and error. Oddly the trick was to run it from Windows 98. I then realised I couldn’t get CD audio in Win 98 without another audio cable. By the time that was sorted I was in the middle of moving house. I only managed about an hour on the game before moving and have spent nearly every spare minute since unpacking. I’m still not quite done but have got far enough along to break off for a quick request from the other day.
That request was for one more years worth of the PC Gamer Top 100 which gets us up to the year 2000. In terms of PC gaming, I was quite definitely looking back as much as forward at this point. 3D videogames and slot games online had taken over more or less killing off my favoured genre of adventure games and I’d started to look around for the more obscure titles I’d missed along the way. Out of the new titles here, there are only a few I’ve actually played. The biggest shock for me is that one of those new titles is Ultima Ascension which got panned by nearly everyone but obviously not PC Gamer. Ultima Online makes a return as well so not all that bad a year for Origin after all. There is a lengthy preview for Ultima Online 2 in the same magazine which I’ll take a look at later this week. For now here is PC Gamers best of the best for 2000:-
There is no Origin link to speak of but I’m planning on taking a look at the original Grand Theft Auto over the next month. This is a series that completely passed me by until the third game took the world by storm some years later. Since we are just coming up on the 20th anniversary of it being released, I am as usual I’m a bit late to the party.
Normally, I’d play the game first and then look at the reviews but I’m about to start packing for my house move in hopeful anticipation of agreeing a moving date next week. The logical place to start packing is the stuff I can live without for a month or two which in my case means lots of old computers, games and magazines. So before they get stuck into boxes, here are all the GTA reviews I could dig out.
First off we have the Xmas 97 PC Gamer:-
This is from the Xmas 97 PC Zone:-
This is from the Xmas 97 PC Format:-
And to finish, a review from the ever tardy PC Guide in April 1998:-
It’s safe to say that the reviews are all glowing which begs the question as to why I never bought this game back at the time. The answer probably lies in this coming out about the time I started my first job of any note. As I recall they took nearly 6 months to get around to paying me. It was a sizable paycheque when it finally arrived, a large chunk of which went on a rather nice PRS guitar that I still have, but I probably wasn’t spending much on gaming in the first half of 1998. Better late than never anyway. I’m a little wary about the lack of saving mentioned in one of these reviews but am looking forward to getting stuck into this game whether I can finish it or not.
I’ve scanned in one last PC Gamer Top 100 article to see off the millennium. Some real classics enter the list with the big new entries from my point of view being Half-Life, Thief, Final Fantasy 7 and Baldur’s Gate. There is also the usual crop of relatively forgettable new titles (at least to me) to go along with them. Grand Prix Legends still has it’s followers to this day but ultra-realistic racing games are definitely not my thing. Descent Freespace also makes an entry as high as #20. It deserves a place but I would have it behind Wing Commander Prophecy which never made it on any of these lists. 1999 looks like it was a good year at any rate with a stack of titles I’ve got fond memories of as well as the usual crop that I still need to play one of these days.
It was another bad year for Origin with Ultima 8, Ultima Online and Longbow all dropping out of the list. The only games left were developed by Looking Glass in the shape of Ultima Underworld and System Shock. Underworld is notable for being the oldest game on the list at this point and quite the relic even back then. Alpha Centauri enters at 21 which was tested at Origin as I understand which must make it the last game they were involved with to hit the top 100.
Some months back I got a request for PC Gamer Top 100 lists. I pulled out a small stack of them ready to scan, only ever did 1997 and the rest have been sat around ever since. About time I carried on with 1998.
This list sees the beginning of the takeover of 3D accelerated games with the likes of Unreal and Jedi Knight entering the top 100. I remember Battlezone being a surprisingly good first person strategy game so it’s nice to see that up there. Fallout also makes the list as a new entry but way further down than I might have expected.
As these classic games continue to hold a special place in the hearts of many gamers, it can be difficult to find physical copies of them for purchase. However, with the rise of online video game retailers like http://coinlooting.com/, fans of retro gaming can easily find and purchase these titles to relive their favorite gaming memories. Whether it’s Unreal, Jedi Knight, or Fallout, the ability to access these games and enjoy them once again is a testament to their lasting impact on the gaming industry.
More Origin games drop off with Crusader and Shadowcaster losing their places. There is what I imagine must be the last new entry from an Origin game in the shape of Ultima Online (unless Ultima 9 makes a shock appearance next year). We’ll find out next time, hopefully a lot sooner than the last post.
As far as more regular posting goes, I’ve been spending 4 hours a day commuting since February which hasn’t left me much time or inclination in recent months. I’ve been trying to move nearer to the new job but the process of moving house in the UK is long and drawn out to say the least. I’m nearly there now and expect to be moving some time before Xmas so maybe things will get back to normal next year. At the very least, I’m planning a series on putting a games room together as the new house will have enough space to do the job properly. At some point before then I have to pack all this stuff up, not something I’m looking forward to.
I have still put some gaming in and played through the whole Quest For Glory series from the start over the last couple of months, something I’ve wanted to do for many years. Loved the first four, No 5 not so much but I should be glad the series got an ending at all given the state of Sierra at the time.
