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Misadventures in DOSland: "It was on sale!" edition.

by arbitrarywater

Ah yes. Old games. What is to be said about them? They're hella old. They're games. I play them and then write blogs about them on the internet for no real determinable reason. To be fair, they help keep me motivated, knowing that at the very least I have an output for my thoughts and opinions on these titles. But anyways: DOS. In some ways, DOS is my favorite game platform. True, the SNES may...

Ah yes. Old games. What is to be said about them? They're hella old. They're games. I play them and then write blogs about them on the internet for no real determinable reason. To be fair, they help keep me motivated, knowing that at the very least I have an output for my thoughts and opinions on these titles. But anyways: DOS. In some ways, DOS is my favorite game platform. True, the SNES may be the juggernaut of raw seminal appeal, and the PS2 may have had a good 75% of the games you wanted to play in the previous console generation, but there's something about PC games from around 1990 to 1996 that really appeals to my nostalgia senses. To be fair, only X-COM can claim to have more than 30 hours invested in it (though, I've probably played a lot of World of Xeen as well. One of these days I'm going to have to go back and finish Darkside). Ah, but I digress. You're here to watch videos of old DOS games that I find worthy of mocking, aren't you? Well, you're in luck. There's plenty of mockery to be found here. All at a discount price!

Return to Zork

  
  Yeah. That video is a pretty good indication of how I play these games, and since I also have Zork Grand Inquisitor, Zork Nemesis, and regular ol Zork to keep my attention, you can probably expect plenty more game breaking dude-stabbing from me. What the video doesn't show you after the lag is that a dude comes up, admonishes you for being a dick, and then steals your items, thus making the game unwinnable. In other news, this game is totally a point and click adventure from the early 90s, which is to say that at some point I will run into a scenario where I don't know what to do and will probably consult a walkthrough or something, thus ruining my experience with the game. But before that horrible negative feedback loop actually happens, I'd like to say that I do find this game genuinely amusing (although, Grand Inquisitor seems funnier. BUT GRAND INQUISITOR ISN'T DOS SO IT DOESN'T COUNT), so I might do a playthrough for that novelty. We'll see. Will probably play again.  

Stonekeep


Really? I never bothered to post this video? I guess it was part of an ill-fated DOSland blog that never got off the ground. I got this during the GOG summer sale in like... June.  Unlike Zork, this is probably pretty indicative of actual gameplay, and I can't call it especially great. It's not bad, mind you, but aside from the amazing CD ROM TECHNOLOGY BITCHES that the entire presentation seems to exude, it seems like a fairly middling "RPG" with a heavy focus on "Puzzle solving" and "Exploration". Not quite sure where the quotation marks came from. In any case, I uninstalled this from my computer a while ago, so this will probably be another one of those annoying pimples in my GOG library, and if I want anymore hilarious 1995-ness, I can just watch a LP, assuming there is one. But there probably is. This seems like the obscure game that individuals with strong european accents play for LPs. Will not really play again, not that I can anyways. 
 

Wing Commander Privateer   
  

 
 
Really? I haven't done anything on this one either? Wow. Well, anyways, Privateer was one of the three initial EA published titles to appear on GOG, and the one I was more hesitant about purchasing. In retrospect, i've probably gotten more enjoyment out of it than the occasionally frustrating and surprisingly shallow Dungeon Keeper. Alpha Centauri is... Alpha Centauri. Regardless, it's a space combat sim that I imagine is like Tie Fighter (one of these days I'll actually have to play that sucker, being a game that I actually own a physical copy of for reasons I can't quite remember.) but open-galaxy. There's apparently a main plot, but apparently you shouldn't bother until you have a fairly upgraded ship with a lot of weapons. Therefore, most of the game is flying to point A, then probably killing dudes. There is also commodity exchange, which is how I have been making the real dollars in this early segment. However, the second I exit the sector I'm in, I tend to get destroyed fairly easily, suggesting that Privateer is also a game with a slow pace. Whatever, it's fun. Will probably play again, right after I finish all those games that I've been meaning to finish for a while now. But hey, my copy of Master Quest came in the mail today! I only have around a week and a half to beat that sucker, not even counting me having to pack n' such! Sorry Wing Commander Privateer!