Wherein Harry plays old Sierra games
Sep. 21st, 2006 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sniffnoyAll this time using Windows XP and I didn't know about compatibility mode. Amazing.
Now that I do, time to pull out the old computer games, whether they require compaitibility mode or not! Hm, what have we here...
YDKJ, volumes 1 through 4! Already installed and working fine. Myst! No thank you. Battleship, computerized! You must be kidding me. (Actually, IIRC, the Battleship computer game (well, I'm sure there have been many, but this particular one) also comes with a totally unrelated strategy game... but I don't really want to learn that right now). Robert E. Lee, Civil War General! Didn't this one stop working? I don't really want to play it anyway. Lode Runner! Oh, that's already installed and working perfectly. Very good game, I'll have to get back to it someday. Starcraft and Brood War! I really don't want to play these. Magic Carpet! Oh man, I could never get past the first level of that... and now there's no way I'll be able to get it to run at the proper speed. Well, actually, there are programs for doing precisely that, but I'm only remembering that now as I'm writing this entry. Atomic Bomberman! Also already installed and working fine. Not really meant for single-player. Worms Armageddon! Yes! Unfortunately, my bootleg copy of this *still* doesn't work properly. Maybe I should go out, and, you know, actually *buy* it.
The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain! Well, I remember liking that, let's put it in.
Man. This game has *not* aged well. Well, I mean, it's the same as it always was, but now that I'm older, it's, well, too easy. (I played on the intermediate difficulty.) Not much of it is actually fun. Pentode is often downright boring. File Sorting is surpisingly fun, though. Meanwhile I now find Rathbone incredibly annoying. There might be some better stuff at the hardest difficulty level (especially, I'm thinking, in Motor Programming), but... Nick tells me Time Warp is better. I actually have a bootleg copy of that sitting on my HD, don't know *how* it got there, but maybe I'll try it sometime.
Ah! The Incredible Machine (version 3.0)! (Which, looking it up, is a misnomer - it's not the 3rd version of TIM, it's the 2nd version of the sequel, TIM2. But whatever. I will refer to it as "TIM" even so.)
This is still a good game. Yes, a lot of the puzzles are easier now, but there's still some really hard ones. And it's nice how open-ended it is - I'm sure nearly all the puzzles must have solutions the creators didn't intend. I've gone back and looked at some of the official solutions, and some have been very different than mine (I've occasionally had simpler ones :D ). (I especially found it fun to take some part with a very special purpose and completely ignore that function and simply use it as a barrier - though, looking at the official solutions, oftentimes the puzzlemakers did that too.) And just being able to play around with it is great. I wonder if I could find any of the old puzzles I created for it? I don't know where they'd be - probably on the old computer at Bubby's house. I'm remembering now, our first computer came with Widget Workshop, I thought *that* was cool at the time... then, IIRC, my parents got me TIM for my birthday. So much better.
So I went and beat all of TIM. I wasn't sure I'd finish it before leaving for Chicago (not that it matters), but I did. :D Yay. Now to go play around with it some more.
Addendum: The music is still obnoxious, though. I turned it off more than once. Worst is when they tried to give it *lyrics*...
-Harry
Now that I do, time to pull out the old computer games, whether they require compaitibility mode or not! Hm, what have we here...
YDKJ, volumes 1 through 4! Already installed and working fine. Myst! No thank you. Battleship, computerized! You must be kidding me. (Actually, IIRC, the Battleship computer game (well, I'm sure there have been many, but this particular one) also comes with a totally unrelated strategy game... but I don't really want to learn that right now). Robert E. Lee, Civil War General! Didn't this one stop working? I don't really want to play it anyway. Lode Runner! Oh, that's already installed and working perfectly. Very good game, I'll have to get back to it someday. Starcraft and Brood War! I really don't want to play these. Magic Carpet! Oh man, I could never get past the first level of that... and now there's no way I'll be able to get it to run at the proper speed. Well, actually, there are programs for doing precisely that, but I'm only remembering that now as I'm writing this entry. Atomic Bomberman! Also already installed and working fine. Not really meant for single-player. Worms Armageddon! Yes! Unfortunately, my bootleg copy of this *still* doesn't work properly. Maybe I should go out, and, you know, actually *buy* it.
The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain! Well, I remember liking that, let's put it in.
Man. This game has *not* aged well. Well, I mean, it's the same as it always was, but now that I'm older, it's, well, too easy. (I played on the intermediate difficulty.) Not much of it is actually fun. Pentode is often downright boring. File Sorting is surpisingly fun, though. Meanwhile I now find Rathbone incredibly annoying. There might be some better stuff at the hardest difficulty level (especially, I'm thinking, in Motor Programming), but... Nick tells me Time Warp is better. I actually have a bootleg copy of that sitting on my HD, don't know *how* it got there, but maybe I'll try it sometime.
Ah! The Incredible Machine (version 3.0)! (Which, looking it up, is a misnomer - it's not the 3rd version of TIM, it's the 2nd version of the sequel, TIM2. But whatever. I will refer to it as "TIM" even so.)
This is still a good game. Yes, a lot of the puzzles are easier now, but there's still some really hard ones. And it's nice how open-ended it is - I'm sure nearly all the puzzles must have solutions the creators didn't intend. I've gone back and looked at some of the official solutions, and some have been very different than mine (I've occasionally had simpler ones :D ). (I especially found it fun to take some part with a very special purpose and completely ignore that function and simply use it as a barrier - though, looking at the official solutions, oftentimes the puzzlemakers did that too.) And just being able to play around with it is great. I wonder if I could find any of the old puzzles I created for it? I don't know where they'd be - probably on the old computer at Bubby's house. I'm remembering now, our first computer came with Widget Workshop, I thought *that* was cool at the time... then, IIRC, my parents got me TIM for my birthday. So much better.
So I went and beat all of TIM. I wasn't sure I'd finish it before leaving for Chicago (not that it matters), but I did. :D Yay. Now to go play around with it some more.
Addendum: The music is still obnoxious, though. I turned it off more than once. Worst is when they tried to give it *lyrics*...
-Harry
