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• My Hand, My Neck, My Gun: The Mouse Turns 40

  Festivities are already underway for the computer mouse, which turns 40 on December 9th. It’s a happy time for the little pointing device, so we all need to forget, just for a little while, all those spreadsheet cells we’ve had to click on with it. And please, whatever you do, do not bring up all the occasions you were forced to penetrate its ball-hole with a Q-tip. We’re in polite company here. No, let’s talk about the best times: the times the mouse was a game controller. A humble game controller, and possibly the best one ever made. Let’s walk down memory lane, and think about some of the greatest moments in the history of mouse-based gaming. 1987: Maniac Mansion, one of the earliest graphical adventure games designed to be more about clicking than text parsing, began the era of LucasArt’s genre dominance. Starting here the mouse spent about a decade in the SCUMM engine, clicking on all manner of slimy, horrible things. 1990: The SNES Mouse brings it pointy, clicky goodness to Mario Paint. This version of the mouse spent it formative years as a fly swatter, and today it enjoys a retirement as one of YouTube’s most popular composers. 1992: Dune II ensures that real-time strategy will forever be mouse-based. Or at least until somebody actually manages to crack the control scheme on console—there’s certainly enough people trying. 1994: Marathon becomes the first-person shooter that popularizes mouselook as the de-facto standard for gun pointing and neck moving. This innovation remains the most accurate and enjoyable form of control in the genre; it took nearly a decade (and the work of Bungie, again) before console’s little thumbsticks even came close. Read More... Posted Dec 03 2008, 03:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: diablo, pc games, joe keiser, the good old days, dune ii, mouse

• Black Mesa: Source: Oh Right, That Still Exists

  In honor of the first Half-Life's 10th anniversary, I've been thinking of replaying the original over my long-awaited Christmas break.  But now, I may hold off a bit longer after seeing the trailer for the Black Mesa: Source mod and nearly pooping myself.  I just gave you fair warning. If you've been anticipating this mod as much as I have, then you'll know that seeing this much content is pretty big news. I'm no programming genius, but I imagine it takes quite a bit of work to remake an entire game--and a pretty big one, at that--in an entirely new and more powerful engine.  The Source engine may be beginning to show its age a bit, but there's no denying this is a major step up from Valve's previous attempt to give Half-Life a minor graphical upgrade with their own Half-Life: Source.  For now, this entire production is fan-made and free, but it wouldn't be too strange for Valve to pull another Willy Wonka (as they did with the Portal team) and invite the Black Mesa: Source folks onto their team.  As of now, this thing legitimately looks like it's worth money. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go chug a bottle of NyQuil. When I wake up months from now, I should be greeted by both Black Mesa: Source and the Policenauts fan translation. Cheers!  (Tell my friends and family it was an accident.) Related Links: Now At Your Local Dollar Store: Half-Life Entitled PC Gamers Whine about Rights GOG is Great Read More... Posted Dec 01 2008, 08:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: valve, half-life, fps, bob mackey, pc games, mods, black mesa: source

• Now At Your Local Dollar Store: Half-Life

  It may be hard to believe, but Half-Life, the FPS that redefined its "shoot your way out of hell while grabbing card keys" genre, is already ten years old.  Actually, since 1998 was such a monumental year of our little hobby, a hell of a lot of games turned 10 this year: Metal Gear Solid, Starcraft, Ocarina of Time, Gran Turismo, and quite a few I'm probably forgetting.  But out of all of these titles, only Half-Life can be had in these frightening modern times for the low, low price of 98 cents.  That's right; if you have a dollar in the bank and a Steam account, you can experience one of the best games ever made for less than the cost of most McDonald's menu items. There's one catch, though; this deal is only good until this Friday at noon PST--after that, Half-Life reverts to its original Steam price of $9.99 (still a good price). I'm not the biggest PC gamer of all time, but I have a gigantic man-crush on Steam.  I didn't think much of the service until it allowed me to get the entire Orange Box plus a Half-Life version of Peggle for only 40 bucks last Fall.  It also warmed my heart when I typed in the registration code on my 10 year-old Half-Life CD and found that Steam let me download it, and also every single product tangentially related to the first Half-Life for free.  Now, if only there was a way to pry those old Bullfrog titles from the sticky hands of EA... Read More... Posted Nov 20 2008, 11:00 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: half-life, fps, bob mackey, pc games, steam, 1990s, 1998, deals

• Life of D. Duck: Freeware on Acid

  This post is going to require a little background info, so let me get that out of the way first. Bjørnar B. is an Internet-meme type thing that started in the early 00s; he's a fictional Norwegian teen who creates childish-yet-nightmarish drawings of Donald Duck and his family with bizarre, barely-English captions. Don't feel too out of the loop if you don't know about him; Bjørnar B. is pretty obscure unless you've been reading Something Awful (who originally hosted his site) for a long time. That being said, if you enjoy Bjørnar's very specific and strange sense of humor, you may also enjoy his series of point-and-click adventures games that are best described as a fever dream version of Duckburg.  The sequel to the original Life of D. Duck just came out, and Bjørnar was nice enough to provide the world with a trailer: And if you're still confused and bewildered, perhaps Bjørnar's own breakdown of the story might help? Help D. Duck in his quest to get Dasy to marry him. D Duck must get rid of Uncle Jubalon who is eating him out of his house, also ooie lui and devie escapes and D. Duck must save them. The game is HERE. You will download it. Read More... Posted Nov 03 2008, 11:00 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: indie dev moment, freeware, bob mackey, indie games, pc games, meme, point and click adventure games, life of d. duck, independent games

• Duke Nukem 3D Was Actually a Great Game

  It may be hard to believe, but there was once a time when the phrase "Duke Nukem" didn't conjure up hoary old jokes by would-be Internet comedians who were known to say, "More like Duke Nukem ForNEVER, am I right!?"  Well over a decade ago, Duke Nukem was actually relevant, and Duke Nukem 3D was a creative, tongue-in-cheek alternative to id's Doom series, the aesthetic of which could only come from people who read Spawn unironically. I might have been a 14 year-old boy back when 3D came out in 1996, but I was savvy enough to recognize that Duke's over-the-top masculinity was an insincere, tongue-in-cheek take on action heroes, a la The Simpsons' McBain. The question here is, will today's 14 year-olds--who weren't even multi-celled organisms during the original release of Duke Nukem 3D--get the joke? And will anyone else care? All of this Nukem news is relevant because tomorrow the game will be available on the XBox Live Marketplace for the pauperly sum of 800 Microsoft Points. That's a tiny price for what amounts to a lot of game, but I'm not here to tell you about the 360's faaabulous deals. In fact, I'm not even going to buy the game; my old CD still works fine, and programs like EDuke ensure that the original files I once played on my Pentium 133 will work long into the future.  The important thing to think about here is how Duke Nukem 3D was once innovative and unique; this is very hard to imagine after the franchise was left to fester with increasingly awful console ports and reimaginings, but it's true. Read More... Posted Sep 23 2008, 11:30 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: xbox 360, doom, duke nukem, bob mackey, xbox live arcade, pc games

• Duckman's Lost Adventure Game

  In case you didn't know, this week marks the release of the first few seasons of Duckman on DVD; and if you wish to plead further ignorance, Duckman was a brilliantly cynical cartoon that had a surprisingly long run (70 episodes) on the USA network in the mid-90s. So what does this have to do with video games? Aside from giving me a chance to promote one of my favorite TV shows, this week's monumental media event is also the perfect time to talk about the series' PC adventure game, Duckman: The Legend of the Fall. Along with Beavis and Butt-Head in Virtual Stupidity, Legend of the Fall was one of the few non-LucasArts adventure games to nearly capture that same LucasArts magic.  Unfortunately, Duckman was not nearly as popular of a franchise; also, Legend of the Fall's 1997 release date missed the genre's height of popularity by nearly 3-4 years, and came at the tail-end of the show's run.  Hence the game's "lost" status; for being as uniquely American in its own "hell in a handbasket" take on the modern world, Duckman: Legend of the Fall was released everywhere but America. Read More... Posted Sep 16 2008, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: adventure games, lucasarts, bob mackey, pc games, duckman, beavis and butt-head

• Will Games Ever Be Funny?

  Two short years ago, when I learned that there were going to be not one, but six new Sam and Max games, I was ecstatic. In the brief period of time I could have actually been considered a PC gamer, I subsisted primarily on the Lucasarts brand of PC adventure games, and Sam and Max Hit the Road was one of my favorites. But today, the final episode of Sam and Max Season 2 sits on my desktop, where it has been unclicked for months and will probably remain so until I force myself to play through it on some day where I'm not burdened with responsibility. That's right: "force." What the hell happened to me? I've been in love with Sam and Max even before I played their original game; Steve Purcell's art style, along with a great mix of film noir send-up and absurdist humor made the duo immediately appealing to me.  So, in the 90s, I bought their game, somehow managed to get my hands on the original printing of the trade paperback (no one was murdered, I swear), and watched the mostly-okay cartoon on Fox Kids for the whole year the network decided to air it.  Thus, my Sam and Max fanhood should not be called into question.  But these days, I can't find myself caring too much about these beloved figures from my adolescence. Have I merely grown up, or is something foul afoot? Read More... Posted Sep 15 2008, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: lucasarts, humor, telltale games, pc games, sam and max

• GOG is Great

  There's no lack of love for retro in the modern gaming world; but certain old games run the risk of being forgotten thanks to their incompatibility with current hardware. PC games especially suffer from this problem; I have an entire binder full of PC CD-ROM games from around 1996-2002 sitting next to my computer desk, and my Vista OS will run about 10% of them.  Services like GameTap have done a great job with prolonging the life of older PC games, but the newest kid on the block, GOG (Good Old Games), is focusing entirely on this platform.  And I am very happy that they're doing this. GOG works a lot like Steam, except they play a little looser with the rules and have a much smaller catalog at the moment.  All their games--chosen mostly from Interplay's catalog from the past 15 years--are under 9.99, compatible with XP and Vista, and are shockingly DRM free.  And if that wasn't enough, each download comes with various bonuses like PDF manuals, soundtracks, wallpapers, and avatars.  If the wave of the future is buying things you've already bought, then sign me up. Read More... Posted Sep 11 2008, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: lucasarts, retro, interplay, bob mackey, pc games, bullfrog

• Entitled PC Gamers Whine about Rights

  Stardock's PC Gamer's Bill of Rights is a laughable and self-defeating piece of diggbait, sure to be received by mouth-breathing PC gamers with a hearty "hear hear". It's bull -- the moment you shell out cash is the moment you need to stop whining about rights. The list, with my take, after the jump: Read More... Posted Sep 02 2008, 02:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: kotaku, cole stryker, gamers, diggbait, pc games, stardock