Category Archives: Games

Game nostalgia strategy quiz

GyrussGame nostalgia strategy quiz:

In Donkey Kong, did you bother getting the hammer to smash the barrels, or just head for the top?

In Galaga, did you try to get the double fighter?

Gyruss: double bullets? Or not bother?

Did you keep feeding in coins in Moon Patrol, to try and get to the end?

Pacman: save the power pills for when you can get multiple ghosts, or just clean up the board ASAP?

Who was your favourite character to play in Gauntlet?

In Popeye did you favour the top, or bottom of the screen waiting for the hearts?

Space Invaders: start shooting the sides, the middle, or in rows starting from the bottom?

Scramble: Try and shoot the fuel tanks ahead, or bomb them from above? Make it to the end?

Looking for the perfect Jumpman

Jumpman Lives!Why has nobody made the perfect Jumpman remake?

Caveat: it has to run on my secondary 1.7 GHz Windows 2000 PC, which though it has a 3D graphics card, the 3D doesn’t work because of some weird-arse issue with DirectX (Short version: It’s a Diamond Viper V550. I’m sure DX 7 and 8 worked okay with it, but DX 9 doesn’t… and it’s pretty much impossible to downgrade without re-installing Windows.)

Given this computer is over a thousand times as fast as a Commodore 64, that shouldn’t be too hard.

Of the Jumpmans (Jumpmen?) listed at remakes.org there are:

  • Classic Jumpman — runs in DOS, using the PC’s on-board speaker for sound. Bleuch, no volume control, etc
  • Jumpman Deluxe — for the Amiga, it looks like. I don’t have an Amiga. I used to, but I only used it for playing Aladdin.
  • Jumpman Lives! — also in DOS. Looks terrific, and graphically is about as close to the original as it gets. Some sound works, but a lot (eg the music) is missing, and I can’t get the arrow keys to work.
  • Jumpman Project — this is the original IBM version, tweaked to run okay on fast machines. So it’ll be DOS again, so no volume control, and horrible CGA colours, until it’s enhanced at some stage in the future.
  • Jumpman Under Construction — has a terrific screen editor, but has been written in such a way that on a PC without 3D graphics, it is as slow as molasses. WTF? This game dates from 1983 and ran on a 1Mhz Commodore 64!
  • Jumpman Zero — only runs on 3D, because it’s been super-jazzed up in a way the author probably thought looked really cool. I disagree — I care nought for making the blocky graphics have a 3D perspective, and I really hate the way it’s been turned into a scrolling playing field. How can you possibly plan your ideal path through the level?

Okay, so maybe it’s time to look at a C64 emulator instead.

Retro games on display

Speaking of old video games, for those in Melbourne, check out the installation in the Degraves Street subway at Flinders Street station at the moment. It features images of, and actual, Nintendo NES and Game & Watch systems. Plenty of 80s games nostalgia.

New console wars start

Microsoft announces a bunch of XBox 360 game collaborations and confirms XBox 360 will be compatible with (old) XBox games, though there’s some doubt over how it will be achieved, and evidently it won’t be clean: Microsoft representatives did say they would start with more popular titles such as “Halo,” then move down the line.. Yeuch, sounds messy.

Meanwhile Sony has pulled the covers off the Playstation 3, with what sound like some very impressive performance stats.

Oh, and some mob called Nintendo with a console called Revolution appears to be destined yet again for third place.

(Thanks Tony)

Xbox 360

XBox 360As everyone on the planet would know by now, Microsoft has revealed the design of the new version of the XBox — which they’ve called the XBox 360, which shows the marketing bods have won over the dev geeks, who I’m sure would have been happy to call it the XBox 2.0.

There’s a bunch of info on the hardware specs which make it sound suitably groovy, with the most notable thing being a move away from Intel CPUs over to the Power PC. Presumably this will give it more power for the money, which after all is MS’s money, since it’s not like Wintel machines where they just tell the manufacturers the spec — oh no, this thing they have to build themselves, so they’ll want it to be as cheap as possible.

There seems to be no official word on XBox 1 compatibility with this thing, though evidently a user survey hinted that the 360 would play the old games. They must have some pretty good brains working on getting that going, but then I suppose these days you can run PC software on Macs using Virtual PC, so software Intel emulation on a PowerPC isn’t anything new.

And the price and availability? Well they’re saying end of the year for US and Japan (and Europe???). The rest of us will have to wait for sometime next year. With the price of the console likely to be about double what an XBox costs now, it remains to be seen if the games for it will really blow people away enough to shell out for it though.

Hey I wonder if, unlike the PS2, it’ll stand up like in all the pictures without you having to buy an optional stand?

Old game remakes

Gyruss (the original)All the joys of nostalgic old video games without the guilt of not really owning those MAME ROMs you’ve downloaded: www.remakes.org. New versions of all the classics from your childhood: Elite, Lode Runner, Gyruss, Lemmings, egads even Lazy Jones.

You know, it always puzzled me why they didn’t just let us play MULE in high school to learn about economics.

Damn. No Frak!

Why Googlebomb?

Why are webloggers googlebombing online poker?

I assume it’s to reduce the attractiveness of spaming the blogs with the term. Wouldn’t you want positions 1-10, rather than just #1, and really shut the action down? I don’t see that it will. But wikipedia will be regarded as a more relevant site, and that’s gotta be good, right? Speaking of which, I must go check for vandalisim on my pages…

Default passwords, iPod mini and mobile games

Common default passwords, most-used passwords, lists of trojans, all good stuff for the network admin or hacker. (via Office Weblog)

Hot rumour department: iPod mini to get a colour screen and a bigger drive, probably 5 or 6Gb, with a probable announcement next week.

This mob is selling well-known games adapted for mobile phone use. They vary from clone games like Packman to the apparently fully licensed stuff like Shrek 2. My kids are addicted to Midtown Madness 3 on the XBox… would they go for it in 2-D on my phone? Dunno, but at AUD$8, it’s not too exhorbitant. Might give it a try, when they get bored of Bounce Back.