After burning out a bit on modern games I ended up having some fun with some old games over the holiday break. turns out there is some cool retro stuff out there and it a) works on modern hardware and b) ain't very expensive.
First up, Great Old Games - take a look at gog.com. Just by joining the site (it's free) you get Ultima IV for free, among others. The prices are pretty low -as they should be, these are old old games after all - and they run sales fairly often on specific games or bundles of games, making it even more reasonable. Also, there's no DRM, no disc to keep up with, and no online login to run your game - you pay for it, download it, and it's yours. I've pulled down around 10 games from them so far and all of them work just fine on my hardware. Might and Magics, Ultimas, Baldur's Gates, Icewind Dales - all kinds of RPG's are available. There's other stuff too, like the Freepsace games, Combat Mission, master of Orion and Master of Magic - lots and lots of goodies.
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| 9.99 is on the high end of their pricing |
Apprentice Blaster and I have been playing Heroes of Might and Magic III again and it's been a lot of fun. It's a little funny - alongside Xbox Live and his various shooter games he thinks a game that came out the year he was born is awesome. It's a great game. I've been rediscovering Master of Orion II again as well.
The other fun I discovered is that there are some cool retro options on the iPad as well. The Bard's Tale was published a few years ago for consoles and I didn't think much of it at the time, but the iOS version comes with the original trilogy packed inside:
Now that is very cool! That title screen at the top of the page is from this too.
Well if we ever get the Ultimas and Wizardrys on iTunes I might try to make this work ...
Return of the *ATEAM - I remember using those guys in some of my original games.
I've been fooling around with BT 1 and it's a pleasant return to the old days of having to map your own dang dungeons and figure things out. Of course with the internet at our disposal now total hints are only a click away. If you're liking this then check out The Adventurer's Guild - notes, maps, and downloads for the Bard games.
If that's a little too retro for you try this one:
This is Silversword, a sort of retroclone/inspired by the Bard's Tale games. It's very similar in races, classes, magic, and interface.
It's a little more modern in approach, while being pretty darn faithful to the originals. There is a free version and a pay version that is not terribly expensive either. If you're interested, take a look! On the phone this one was a little tricky to manage, but on the tablet it works just fine.
Anyway, there's a reminder of some other Old School options that some of us are enjoying. If I find more I will pass them along.
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