Earlier this week Knyght performed a great service to the world of abandonware by adding the CD version of Dreamweb to Anarchy. It’s something I’ve been after for a while, having thoroughly enjoyed the disk version but also thinking (based on vague memories of a playable demo from around the time of the game’s initial release) that the CD version had some ‘quite good’ voice acting which made it worth seeking out.

Knyght actually describes the acting as “terrible” in his review, and having loaded up the game again and played through some of the early scenes, he could well have a point. Still, there’s something important about having the ‘talkie’ version, I think, if it exists. Even though I enjoyed the disk version, it always nagged me that perhaps I was missing out on something by not having the ‘deluxe’ edition with the voiceover.

Perhaps that’s why I wrote a fairly unenthusiastic review of a game that actually ranks among my favourite adventures. I did think that if I got my hands on the CD version I might be able to bump up the mark to 8/10 (or four full “blobs”, if you prefer) but I’ll reserve judgement on that one for now. I guess it’s a hard one to recommend too heartily because it has some fairly obvious flaws: it’s short, it’s linear, and the story lurches all-too-quickly to a pretty unsatisfying conclusion.

But it’s also a cracking game – tense, atmospheric and involving. Countless new releases attempt to position themselves as ‘dark’ and ‘grown-up’ but fall comically short of the mark. Dreamweb certainly delivers on this front, and I’m not just talking about the occasional swear word or the brief (but often-mentioned) shagging scene, either.

More than anything else, there’s just something about this game that draws you in and won’t let go until you finish it. It doesn’t last long, but while it does, it’s totally absorbing.

If you haven’t played it already, get on over to Anarchy and grab it now. If you have, feel free to share your thoughts below…

Hi all.

The nights are drawing in again, meaning we’re reaching the half of the year when you don’t have to feel so guilty about sitting in a dark room playing videogames again. Also with the credit crunch biting, what better time to enjoy the kind of game you can grab for $10 on Steam and play even on an outdated PC?

With that in mind, here’s a little review of the late 90s shooter, Unreal.

So I got my Good Old Games beta access code. Here’s a look at what’s currently (or soon to be) available.

1NSANE $9.99
COLIN MCRAE RALLY 2005 SOON
CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD $5.99
DESCENT + DESCENT 2 $5.99
DESCENT 3 + EXPANSION $5.99
DIE BY THE SWORD + EXPANSION $5.99
EARTHWORM JIM 3D $5.99
EVOLVA $5.99
F/A-18E SUPER HORNET $5.99
FALLOUT $5.99
FALLOUT 2 $5.99
FALLOUT TACTICS $5.99
FREESPACE + EXPANSION $5.99
FREESPACE 2 $5.99
GIANTS: CITIZEN KABUTO $5.99
HOSTILE WATERS: ANTAEUS RISING $5.99
INVICTUS: IN THE SHADOW OF OLYMPUS $5.99
JAGGED ALLIANCE 2: UNFINISHED BUSINESS $5.99
KINGPIN: LIFE OF CRIME $5.99
LIONHEART: LEGACY OF THE CRUSADER $5.99
M.A.X. + M.A.X. 2 $5.99
MDK $5.99
MDK 2 $5.99
MESSIAH $5.99
OPERATION FLASHPOINT GOTY SOON
ORIGINAL WAR $5.99
PERIMETER $9.99
REDNECK RAMPAGE COLLECTION SOON
SACRIFICE $5.99
SHATTERED STEEL $5.99
SHOGO: MOBILE ARMOR DIVISION $5.99
SOLDIERS: HEROES OF WORLD WAR II SOON
STONEKEEP SOON

Not a bad start I guess – and all at reasonable prices, similar to the oldies on Steam. However it’s all from two publishers: Codemasters and Interplay. Here’s hoping they get a few more to sign up – in a Q&A they stated “we had some very productive meetings with publishers” but no names have come up so far. Lucasarts would be the holy grail for many of us.

Of that list, I actually already own several of the one’s I’d wan to play. Am keen on Giants and Shogo, tho. Will almost certainly get Operation Flashpoint, even though I once owned the game and sold it cos it drove me up the wall. Yeah, I’m a sucker for punishment. Fallout tempts me, but I’m absolutely not touching another RPG (other than warcrack) until I’m done with Baldur’s Gate.

As a sidenote, I’d heard the Freespace games had gotten quite hard to find in recent years (I’m lucky enough to own original copies a friend gave me), so I’m especially glad to see it there.

My recent spell playing The Games: Summer Challenge confirmed something I already knew – in games, when people fall over, are thrown from something that’s moving, or just generally are involved in an accident, I find it very, very funny indeed.

Although I’ve always enjoyed the scripted humour of certain LucasArts adventures, for me, they haven’t provided me with too many laugh-out-loud moments. But get me on the Equestrian on Summer Challenge and I’ll be giggling childishly every time the horse refuses to jump and my rider ends up on the ground.

Epyx’s similarly-titled The Games: Summer Edition is also a bit of a laugh, especially the diving event, where you can send your blockily-rendered athlete flopping into the pool feet-first. I played it again recently and it sent me into a fit of giggles audible enough to prompt my girlfriend to come into the room to ask what was so funny. Imagine her dismay when she witnessed the jerky 16-colour spectacle lurching around on our new (relatively) expensively-acquired computer accompanied by an assortment of bleeps and squelches from the PC speaker.

Motorcycle games also provide some decent slapstick. The largely joyless experience of playing Road Rash was given a much-needed boost each and every time you decided to overtake on a hill and lost an argument with an oncoming taxi.

Recent trawling through bargain-bins saw me pay £1 for MotoGP 2 (which was apparently big-ish on XBox a few years ago) and that hasn’t disappointed in this regard – especially with me being quite crap at it.

Anyone else experience something similar? Any unscripted moments that have had you laughing out loud into a cold and empty room, or provoking housemates or family members to deride you as “a sad bastard”?

This was meant to be a topical, Olympic-themed update, but somehow it didn’t happen that way.

Anyway, if you’re a fan of the controller-bashing track and field games of old (or even if you aren’t) you might like tonight’s update – a review of The Games: Summer Challenge.

More soon…

My to-do list got interrupted this weekend by Portal. I’d heard a lot of good things, but also that it’s really short, so waited until it hit $10 on steam (altho that might have been a special offer).

The short form is, it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Really novel gameplay concept. What’s especially fun is when you drop a long distance into a floor portal, to send yourself flying sideways out of another on a wall. Or setting up an endless fall between two horizontal portals.

Also bizarrely, it puts me in a position of using the words “gun turret” and “impossibly cute” in the same sentence. No, really, they call out in singsong voices then reassure you that they forgive you when you knock one over. Of course the game has spawned a whole load of in-jokes and memes across geek circles so I’m not even going to mention the most famous ones. But it definitely has a character of its own.

It IS short though, and over half of it feels like tutorial. I took about 4 hours, and I consider myself fairly slow and plodding. Actually the whole thing comes across as some sort of side-project which Valve hit on, that they didn’t have the resources or confidence to make into a full-sized game. But at this price I’m not complaining.

on a tech note, been having some problems with Technorati not indexing our posts properly, am taking steps to hopefully fix it.

So says this guy:

If there was an award for silliest, least scary villain in a game, I reckon ‘Razor’ from NFS: Most Wanted would win it. Frankly, he looks like he spends more time plucking his eyebrows and applying anti-ageing cream than hanging out “on the street”.

His “gang”, meanwhile, are vaguely reminiscent of those friends of Derek Zoolander who died in a freak gasoline fight accident.

Good game though.

I’m happy to report that we now have nearly all of the Lucasarts adventures covered. Given that the favourites were so well loved, and even 2nd-tier stuff like The Dig is very enjoyable, I do think comprehensive coverage is a worthy goal for a site like ours. All that’s left now are Zak McCracken and Grim Fandango – games from the start and the end of their adventure days respectively.

After that we could turn our attention more to the Sierra adventures. Even though they invented the genre they always seemed somehwat outmached to us – lacking the wit, style or imagination of Lucasarts games. Certainly we’d like to expand our range somewhat, but right now I’d say it’s very unlikely that more than about half their pantheon will be covered. Feel free to let us know if there are any particular that deserve a look.

I do think we should have a King’s quest at least – this is where the Graphical Adventure began after all. Unfortunately my last attempt was to try the remake of the original, and for the record: it’s really dull. There’s no story to speak of, and the world consists of just a castle in a forest surrounded by wolves and fairies and other fairytale cliches. I might give number six a go instead.

Looking at other series, we already have reviews of the VGA remakes of the originals from Police Quest, Space Quest and Quest for Glory. The first of those three series is the most likely candidate for further investigation. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Leisure Suit Larry.

Hi all. We have a double helping of Lucasarts adventure goodness tonite!

First up, Jo has reviewed Escape from Monkey Island for us. Meanwhile scooting back a few years earlier, I’ve looked at the classic Indy adventure Fate of Atlantis.

Well, the Olympics got underway this weekend, and I have to say I personally couldn’t really care less about any of it. Inevitably though, with the BBC shoving aside the majority of their programming to show it, I found myself watching Sue Barker introducing the women’s weightlifting final on Saturday morning.

Though the spectacle of extremely slightly-built Asian women lifting massive weights above their heads with consummate ease was mildly diverting, my own (extremely nerdy) thoughts were centred on exactly what button combinations and techniques were required to succeed in the weightlifting event on International Track and Field 2 on the Playstation.

Despite the dubious appeal of athletics as a spectator sport, when it comes to games I have to admit to a love of the joystick waggling/button bashing genre. What started it all was Daley Thompson’s Decathlon on the Amstrad CPC, a game loosely based on Konami’s arcade classic International Track and Field which saw you guide the Great Britain’s favourite moustachioed decathlete through a variety of running, jumping and throwing events.

Of course, success in virtually every event was mostly contingent on your ability to waggle a joystick from left to right at a frenetic pace (punctuated by the occasional press of the fire button). With an old Atari joystick in my hand, I was unstoppable, even managing to negate tricky timing issues in the hurdles event by simply ploughing through each and every one of the bastard things – although an almost superhuman amount of physical effort was required to achieve the necessary waggling speed (who needs Wii Fit?).

Obviously DTD isn’t eligible for inclusion on FFG, but a quick perusal of Abandonia revealed one or two familiar titles on which I’ve also wasted a few too many hours. Expect a review of something more recent and PC based sometime soon.