…except the name of the game does not have the word “poop” in it.

Yeah, it’s juvenile. Yeah, it reminds me of some of the crude text adventures I’d played on my Commodore 64 when I was 14. And it bills itself as “survival horror”. But it’s old school in that it’s not easy. A timed text adventure? Getting all the different achievements is the tough part. Bizarre, yet entertaining. Good game for Friday the 13th.

Play “Don’t Shit Your Pants”

If you’re an old school gamer like me, you’ve got fond memories of old RPGs like Tales of the Unknown: Volume I: The Bard’s Tale.

Before it was a series, there was the original Bard’s Tale. Nothing like breaking out the graph paper and drawing your own dungeon maps.

Once again, Lungfishopolis has created three resolutions of wallpaper at three different aspect ratios. These attempt to be minimalist and clutter your screen as little as possible.

Enjoy the wallpaper.

Download Bard’s Tale Wallpaper (1024×768)
Download Bard’s Tale Wallpaper (1280×1024)
Download Bard’s Tale Wallpaper (1680×1050)

One of my first impressions when I started playing Crysis was that it was a heck of a lot like Far Cry, albeit better looking. Aside from standard FPS mechanics, both titles let you toggle lying prone, and both contain a meter next to the mini-map to indicate enemy awareness of you, not unlike the Thief games. They really have a lot in common. Of course, they’re both made by CryTek.

One of my end impressions of Crysis is that it’s much much shorter than Far Cry was. That’s fine, as I’m not in need of another Oblivion or Fallout 3. My gaming hours are limited. But a lot of people will complain about that. Of course, Crysis apparently has some robust online play, but then again I tend not to play shooters online.

It’s taken me quite a long time to get to the end of Crysis. Granted, I haven’t yet completed the game. I would have completed it, except that the final hour or so of the game freezes and crashes so often that for a while I could only play in 10-minute chunks. Recently, it’s been even worse. I’m fighting what I believe to be the final boss, and I’m quicksaving every 60 seconds or so. It’s gotten to the point where I felt like I was spending more time loading the game than playing it, so I tested that theory. From desktop to actual gameplay: 75 seconds. Then, I played for 65 seconds before it froze and crashed. I may never complete Crysis.

But aside from my technical difficulties with the game, I’ve got other complaints about Crysis. Although I’ll admit that there were a couple parts in Far Cry that drove me nuts, the entire second half of Crysis was terrible. The entire zero-gravity portion of the game was simply not fun, and fighting the aliens was not nearly as fun as fighting humans. How do you try for a head shot on a creature with no discernable head? I nearly quit the game during the portion where you’re flying a VTOL, as I’d continuously crash for no apparent reason.

I should mention here that although there were Far Cry titles for consoles, namely the XBox’s “Far Cry: Instincts” and “Far Cry: Instincts: Evolution”, and later the 360’s “Far Cry: Instincts: Predator”, these were absolutely not the same game as the original Far Cry that was released only for the PC. In the original Far Cry, you played Jack Carver, who had no superpowers. I’ve never played any of these console versions, but as I understand it, you’re kidnapped and injected with a superserum of some kind. Interestingly, in Crysis, you wear a nanosuit which gives you similar powers.

The two parts in Far Cry that I’d hated were firstly the sequence where you were dropped in the middle of the jungle with something like 10 bullets, and surrounded by those mutants that can jump twenty yards and rip your head off instantly. That part took about fifty tries to get past. Secondly, the final battle of the game, which I was never able to beat. I had to type in a cheat code just to see the end of the game, and I only used invulnerability for about 45 seconds to do it. It was just harrd. Similarly, I was not able to see the end of Crysis, because it froze so much that I uninstalled it before completing the game.

So I suppose I’d say that Crytek’s games seem to be mostly good, but sprinkled with hideously annoying segments. This does not bode well for when I play Far Cry 2, but I still intend to play it eventually.

Treelings isn’t a very difficult game. I beat it in 2 or 3 minutes, and I’m not even sure there’s a way to die. But it’s very zen – kind of like Fl0w – and the hypnotic drum beat will stick in your head for the rest of the evening after you play.

Play Treelings

So it looks like there’s a new teaser site up for Bioshock 2.  I’m sure they’ll do something clever soon like add hidden links in the flash after everyone’s exhausted themselves on a fruitless pixel hunt. I wasn’t as big a fan of Bioshock as everyone else seemed to be, but it was entertaining.

Anyway, check out the site, and let us know if you find anything interesting.

Video game reviews are big business now. And while I really didn’t want to get into the games review business when I started Lungfishopolis, I feel a need to bring peoples’ attention to a few games which got a lot of terrible reviews, but which I found to be very good games. I’ve played all but one of them more than once, and I’ll likely go back and play most of them again. I’m silly like that.

Firstly, Enter the Matrix. It got an abysmal Metascore of 58, but I remember liking it. I haven’t replayed it for perspective, and I remember hating many of the driving sequences, but the combat was fun. Running up walls and diving through the air in bullet-time while shooting at enemies, then beating the snot out of them in over-the-top hand to hand is a lot of fun. The hovercraft-piloting segment was just plain stupid and broken, but that was at the very end of the game such that you could completely skip it and miss nothing.

You got to play the role of either Niobe or Ghost, and in a design choice similar to Resident Evil 2, this gave you two separate angles on the same story, adding to replay value. In the car segments, Niobe always drives and Ghost always shoots, so you’re either only shooting or only driving.

By far the best part of the game is the movie footage. They filmed footage for Enter The Matrix at the same time they were filming the second and third Matrix movies, so there’s a ton of movie footage that never appeared in the films. Some of it is pretty damn good. My favorite: the scene where Ballard fights Seraph. It’s great mostly because of the fantastic quote at the end. There was a funny scene where Ghost talks about onanism too.

Another game I really enjoy is Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. PC Gamer panned it for being buggy and repetitive, and 1UP made fun of the kick mechanic and character development. But although I’ll agree that the plotline isn’t exactly inspired and the slutty demon chick is annoying, I liked Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. It has the best FPS swordplay mechanics I’ve seen – definitely better than Oblivion – and some fairly fun stealth gameplay. I actually really enjoyed the oft-maligned kick mechanic, and thought that the exhaustion meter and the fact that more powerful enemies can block a kick limited the kick enough that it was not overly powerful. The kick simply introduces a way to use the environment to your advantage. If there’s not a ledge to kick an enemy off, there may be a spiked wall or a support beam to kick him into.

I enjoyed Dark Messiah’s environments and level design, and really had a lot of fun sniping enemies from a distance with my bow. And somehow, sneaking up behind an orc and stabbing him in the neck or kicking him off a thousand-foot cliff just never gets old. There were some fairly intense chase sequences early in the game which at first annoyed the crap out of me. Somehow, going back through the game a second time, I’m not finding them nearly as bad.

I started replaying the game not long ago, and although I stopped when I started playing Crysis and Mass Effect, I’ll likely go back to it soon. Warning: I’ve heard that the console version of this game is far worse.

Next up, Fallout Tactics. First off, I’ve got to let it be known that I was huge a fan of the original two Fallout titles. The storyline and the open world were fantastic. The turn-based combat was excellent, and the only thing that (to me) could have made it better is to allow the player to control a party of characters, a la Baldur’s Gate. One of the reasons I loved Baldur’s Gate so much was because of the strategic combat. Fallout Tactics allows me that strategic combat that I crave so much.

Yeah – I’ll totally agree that the storyline isn’t nearly up to the standards of the first two games. But this game was largely about gameplay rather than story. I absolutely loved sneaking four of my men into position, having my shotgun guy lie prone and crawl around a corner into the raiders’ hut and blast him point blank, or positioning the guy with the rocket launcher up on a fire escape. Surrounding the enemy before they know you’re there is a lot of fun. And then kneeling behind a barrel or having a firefight through a window or standing in a trench for cover, trying to take out that Deathclaw before it gets close enough to rip your head off – it’s what makes the whole game fun.

I like being able to control an entire squad, and specialize the different members in different skills. Having one member who can drive the vehicles well and make tight turns, and another who can sneak up right under an enemy’s nose, a lockpicker/safecracker, and maybe a sniper. And having someone who’s good with landmines is always useful.

Temple of Elemental Evil, despite its many flaws, was a really fun game. My biggest complaints about it was that the a huge optional ending segment of the game was so buggy that I could never complete it, and that like Throne of Bhaal, the final boss is nearly unbeatable.The critics’ biggest complaints were the bugs and the complexity. There have since been many patches to fix the bugs and to correct the incorrect implementations of rules detected by a horde of D&D fanatics, but I still don’t think 100% of the bugs are gone.

Like Fallout Tactics, the biggest single thing that I liked about this game was the excellent strategic combat. It used 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons rules, implementing rules that many D&D players may not even have been aware of, thus the complaints about complexity. but I loved it. You could wait to delay your initiative, ready your bow so that as soon as any enemy spellcaster started casting a spell you could shoot them to interrupt it, double move, run, charge, cast a counterspell, and perform many other strategic actions. You can even craft magic items using the 3rd Edition D&D ruleset.

I’ll admit that the coolest-looking fight in the game was one of the first, against the giant frogs. Watching them jump out of the swamp and hop up to your party, then snag your wizard with its tongue and swallow him simultaneously sucked and was awesome. You lose a wizard, but hey – at this point you’re first level and you can go roll up another one. Besides, didn’t that look freaking cool when he got… digested?

Once you’re in the temple, the game lets you pit temple factions against each other and play up the intrigue and politics, but I generally just run through killing everything. And yes, I’ve replayed this game, and added all the Circle of Eight patches. There’s actually a lot of really good user-generated content too. Now that I’ve got a 3.0ghz dual core machine, I’ll probably go back at some point and see if the game plays any better.

The final game on my list is Thief: Deadly Shadows. Although it generally seems to be considered the least of the three Thief titles, it’s the only one I’ve truly loved. I’m playing it now, and loving it.

Amongst stealth games, it’s in my top five, alongside titles like Beyond Good and Evil and Tenchu: Stealth Assassins. Worth a play if you’ve never tried it.

I don’t know how it’s possible, but I hadn’t heard of EasyTutu until just this weekend. This project is completely made of win. It’s developed by the Pocket Plane Group, and the bottom line is that it takes the Baldur’s Gate 2 engine, and lets you play Baldur’s Gate 1 with all the enhancements of the sequel. This means BG2’s improved interface, kit classes like Sorcerers, Monks, and Bounty Hunters, and 1280×1024 resolution.

But unfortunately, I’m running Windows Vista, and Windows Vista hates old games. I’ve recently managed to get Thief 3: Deadly Shadows running on my Vista Machine, but it’s a wonky prospect, and functions only barely, with a lot of bugs. Luckily, I’ve recently gotten Microsoft Virtual PC running on my machine, and installed an old copy of XP Home. I’m still working on getting a Windows 98 virtual PC running to check out a copy of Clive Barker’s Undying that I bought on EBay, but in the meantime, the XP Virtual machine works great, and I spent the time today to install what I needed to get the EasyTutu version of Baldur’s Gate up and running. I’m loving it.

I started a multiplayer game, and created a barbarian and an archer. I picked up Imoen, Khalid, and Jahiera, and am ready to hit Nashkel. In the past, every time I’ve tried playing the game, I hit a crash bug when entering the Nashkel mine, but I’ve got a feeling that now that I’m playing with Tutu, I’ll be able to circumvent the bug, and that this will be my first full replay of Baldur’s Gate since I first played about a decade ago.

Installing EasyTutu is pretty easy if you follow their instructions. Install Baldur’s Gate, Sword Coast, and the patch, then install Baldur’s Gate 2, the expansion, and the patch. Then install EasyTutu. The whole process is somewhat time-consuming, but worth it when you can play a game that was originally intended for 640×480 resolution in hi-res fullscreen on your 32″ flat panel monitor.

Assteroidz is a strange but playable Asteroids clone that tries to turn the weirdness up to 11 by reskinning the original game with a Van Halen theme.  It seems a little more challenging after a few levels than the original Asteroids.  Being a not-so-serious game, it’s perfect to fill a few moments of free time (Like when you’re on hold or taking a short break).

Play Assteroidz

I really need to stop titling posts “Thoughts on..” All I apparently do is think meanderingly about games.

I just tried out the Playstation 3 demo for Resident Evil 5, and in many ways, it’s a little disappointing. Granted, it’s a lot like Resident Evil 4, which I loved, but it seems to be lacking some of the charm. I’ll fully admit that this may be because it’s only a demo, and I know I’ll eventually be buying the full version regardless. It’s also much more difficult, although that may have to do more with the lack of save points. In the demo, when I die, the game is over. No return to last save.

I am loving Resident Evil’s quick-turn when you press down and X. It’s been a mechanic that the series has used for a long time, and I really wish I had that in Dead Space. When you’re playing a shooter without a mouse, turning quickly is always a problem. Even more so when it’s a shooter where you can’t move and shoot at the same time. Despite my misgivings, I’ll be buying Resident Evil 5 when it’s released. I’m a huge fan of the Resident Evil series, and I’d be surprised if this game was suddenly bad after so many good titles.

This seems a good time to look back on the series and analyze why I’ve loved the Resident Evil games so much. I’ll be skipping discussion of Resident Evil 0 and Resident Evil: Outbreak, because I’ve not played either, but as a fan of the series, I’ve played the other games – most more than once.

Read the rest of “Thoughts on Resident Evil” »

Although I never played any of the Monkey Island games myself, I was a big fan of a few other classic LucasArts adventures: Maniac Mansion and Labyrinth mostly.

Still, I know many folks who’ve loved the Monkey Island games, and I hope this poor attempt at a wallpaper serves them.

Download Monkey Island Wallpaper (1024×768)
Download Monkey Island Wallpaper (1280×1024)
Download Monkey Island Wallpaper (1680×1050)