More Retro Gaming - Tomb Raider Chronicles

With the half holidays coming up for many, if they haven't already started then it time to find something to keep the little and big ones assumed on those rainy and windy autumn days.

One thing you can  do that doesn't cost the world is either dig out some of those old games you haven't played in ages or take a trip to town and have a look around the local charity shops for old computer games, which normally cost about a pound depending on the shop you go to. A modern machine will be able to play a five year old game with ease at more than reasonable graphics settings and decent frame rates.

One game I dug up from my collection  was Tomb Raider Chronicles which was the fifth game in the Tomb Raider series, which started back on the original Play Station and the PC. The story starts with the funeral of Laura Croft, the lead character in the series, who was lost and presumed dead at the end of Tomb Raider The Last Revelation, commonly known as Tomb Raider 4, and takes you though a number adventures based on the memories of some of her friends that attended the funeral. 

It was a game I remember playing when it first playing shortly after the game first came out in 2000 and it sold 1.5 million copies on all platforms which made it the second most successful game in the series, and it one of the best of the early games. The game play and story line are wonderful, although the graphics are a long way off what we expect today. Still it is well worth playing and even comes with a level editor so you can make up your own levels.

It is one of many classic games out there that are just waiting to be rediscovered and played again. A great way to amuse yourself for little or no money and if you get the games from charity shops you are giving to others too.

Call of Cthulhu

There are sometimes you just want to escape from the world and enter another. Many people watch television, others get lost in music and some read. I hear that book called "Fifty Shades of Grey" is popular with women at the moment. I like to lose myself in a good computer game from time to time and that game I have picked is "Call of Cthulhu - Dark Corners of the Earth".

"Call of Cthulhu - Dark Corners of the Earth" is a first-person survival horror video game set in America in the early part of last century. The game combines intense action and adventure elements within an atmospheric crafted world that immerses you in the game play. It draws upon the your skills in exploration, investigation, and combat while battling evil incarnate with a plot to die for.

The story is based on the Cthulhu Mythos of HP Lovecraft, an American writer of fantasy and horror. It takes you into a realm of unthinkable evil, psychic possession, and mythical worlds. His work is profoundly influenced numerous fantasy and science fiction writers, including Stephen King and Anne Rice, and the games shows it heritage. 

I have been playing for about five hours on and off today, and I'm told by the statistics that I'm about sixteen percent in to the game. I haven't jumped yet, but I can see it happening before long. It almost happened when a thing with claws and teeth that nightmares are made of jumped me on its way to murder its own child.  

It is certainly a good way to forget your troubles and lose yourself for a few hours. As a game I can highly recommended it, despite it's age, on game play alone. It really does take you into the story and the challenges and keep you playing.

Under A Killing Moon

Not sure why but I was just cruising around the internet in a particularly bored moment and came across a bit of a blast from the past, a game called "Under the Killing Moon".  A game I first played when it came out to many years ago to mention. It was the first game I played that needed a CD and I upgraded the computer and the memory to play it.

The game is an interactive adventure game based around the character of Tex Murphy, and 1930's style private investigator in a post nuclear world. Playing the lead character your mission was simple to save the world from an evil force destroy the world. The game is lovely rendered in 3D and the user is allowed to explore it at will and question other characters solving puzzles to progress in the game. With hours of play and a friendly interface it was a simple joy to play. 

During it time it was simply a breath taking game that pushed the boundaries game play making every use of the computer hardware of the time. It took game playing to another level and heralded the sort of games that we find on consoles today. It gave us a glimpse of the future and let us experience it for the first time.

Somewhere I have the four CD's with the game on them. All that is need is a computer to run it on, so maybe next time I'm bored I will dig them out and build an old style DOS box to run them on. It would be interesting to see how well it measures up to the games of the moment. 

Draw Something

The latest craze is hitting smart phones and tablets has to be DrawSomething. It is bigger than the highly addictive Angry Birds which seemed to be loved by everyone. This new craze looks massive with tens of millions of people throughout the world playing it already.

Unlike Angry Birds, DrawSomething is a game you play with friends giving it that extra social appeal that has been a driver of many of the popular FaceBook games that have been the craze of late. One other thing makes the game stand out it that it is cross platform working both Android and Apple mobile devices and tablets. 

The game is very much like the old game Pictionary which was designed by Robert Angel which more recently has been marketed by the games company Hasbro. The Game revolves around guessing words based on pictures your friends draw and send to you. Like all game idea it is simple and straight forward and has mass appeal, especially when you combine a social element into the game.

With over 50 million downloads in 50 days and over 3000 drawings being completed per second at peak times and over six billion drawing competed to date, it is clear the game has taken the world by storm. It is now well head of Angry Birds in the App Market Charts and looks like it will be in that position for months to come. I play it the question is when will you be playing it, if your not already?

Time Out

It doesn't seem often enough that I take time out from the problems of life and immerse myself into another world. Being not the greatest television watcher and being able to not affording go to the theatre this means finding a game I can play that takes me to another world.

The game of choice really did take me to another world full of hostile aliens after my blood and that of the human race. The game in question was original Halo game, Combat Evolved, that was first released in 2001 with the launch of the Xbox gaming system which took the world by storm. The version I played tonight was the Apple Mac version launched a couple of years later back in 2003. Although owning the original Xbox version and an old Xbox to play it on the graphics on the even my old MacMini are better as is the sound. It still looks good and the game play is wonderful.

I'm just glad I have a machine I can play it on. The MacMini is one of the original machines produced in 2005. It is 7 years old this year and still going strong. In fact it is still being used for things like Facebook, general office work, web browsing and blog writing. I have plans to use it later in its life to play music and video via a flat screen TV when I can afford one.

It was a great way to spend an evening, given there wasn't much else to do and at least it is more interactive than watching some rubbish on television of flicking thought the channels and not finding anything to watch. Playing it tonight I can see why Emily and her friends have fallen in love with the series of games. It is one hell of a game.

CastleVille

The latest crazy Facebook game to grip the household is CastleVille, another fine game from Zynga. Like all their games it is colourful and carefully thoughtout. Still in beta it has a few bugs, but nothing that distracts from the actual game play, and they are more to do with Facebook request system than the game itself.

The game is set in a fantasy land of castles and monsters and it allows the player to build the castle of their dreams in a gloom filled land which the player can transform into a paradise. It starts by allowing the player to create their own player character which as the game unfolds can be further customised by buy additional outfits. Along the way you encounter a number characters that give you quests to enhance your kingdom. It up to you if you follow the quests or go your own way. The characters you encounter include the Duke, Yvette (the beautiful songstress), Giselle (the lovely maiden) George (the friendly village Viking), Sonja (a sexy pirate), Rafael (a playboy woodsman) and Tom (the rough dragon slayer). Unlike most games it uses the characters to tell a story.

Like many games on Facebook by the same company it is very tasked based if you want it to be and requires the co-operation of friends, but it gives you a good start to get you going before you need their help. All in all it works very well and if you like games like this then it is worth giving trying it out and spend thirty minutes going through the walk through at the start and with fifteen million new players a week it shouldn't be long before you find some of your friends playing it.

Grand Thief Auto V

This has to be the latest must have game. The game the world has been waiting for. From one of the best games production companies in the comes the next instalment of Grand Thief Auto. Here is the trailer and it looks like it going to wonderful.

I can wait for it to come out and drop in price, or appear on the second hand market. I really been enjoying playing Grand Thief Auto IV recently and know there is another in the series coming is excellent. I just hope it plays as good as it looks, which I'm sure it will.

Grand Thief Auto IV

With the weekend over and the girls away it time to relax and unwind in the streets of Liberty City. This time as Niko Bellic a war veteran from Eastern Europe in search of the American Dream and ends in the reality of American gangs, crime, and corruption. Just what is needed to past a few hour away.

It is a game that has been laying around the house since we got the XBox 360 but it not one I have really sat down and played before some reason. I have normally stuck to playing the PSP versions of the game or those on the older XBox. It going to amazing to experience the amazing graphics and the improved game play that the XBox 360 should be able to offer. Knowing what Rockstar, the company behind the game, are capable of I should be in for a fun and challenging time if this lives up to the games of the past.

Tomb Raider - Legend

It is a long time since I last sat on the floor for a couple of hours and turned on a game console. It seems ages since I have just sat down in front of the television and played a game. I just normally don't seem to have the free time, but this evening it was different.

For some reason last night I was talking to Emily about the game Tomb Raider and I was showing her screen shots of the games I use to play on the computer years and years ago. It was amazing, after teaching a course in game engines to  see how much the game has advanced from its humble beginnings as a MS-DOS game though to the fifth game in the series which ran on Windows 98 machines. It was probably for this reason that the game I picked to play was one of games in Tomb Raider series tonight.

Not wanting to have to move televisions about and unplug the XBOX 360 I settled on dusting off one of the old XBOX's and hooking it up to the television in the living room.  It restricted that game I could play to one of the versions for that system but that didn't really matter on a old analogue television. The game I picked in the end was Tomb Raider Legend which was the seventh in the series which was released back in 2006. I won't go into the story it would take a blog post of it own, but like all the games there is a central story that runs through the action.

Soon I had Lara Croft jumping about, swimming, shooting the baddies and the odd tiger like I had been doing it for years. It really didn't get long to get back in to the swing of things and solve the countless puzzles and avoid the traps without dying. It was great fun and lovely way to let go of the tensions of the day which had been busy from the moment I got up and took the girls to school. It was also nice just to be able to be absorbed in something completely. That doesn't happen as much as it should and now I'm looking forward to playing even more of the game.

When I finish that maybe I will move onto playing some of the Rockstar games I have, especially the Grand Thieft Auto games I haven't played on a full size console for years, especially the one I have for the XBOX 360 that I can't remember playing at all. However before that there is a promise to keep. 

I was reminded by the girls that years ago I promised them we would play football with them when I got back from work. In the end for various reasons this never happened and so now it time to keep that promise and play that game of football with them on Wednesday next when they come home early from school.

More Games Design

Regular readers will know I started teaching games design back in November and now the course is getting at the exciting stage. The students are currently working games two dimensional level design using a number of different game engines.

Some of the work and ideas they gave produced have been really good and now they are getting with realizing there ideas. These range from simple from simple jumping and collecting games and scrolling shooters to more complex games and idea's. All look very exciting. 

It just a shame I won't be there to see the end of the course. My contract with the College I was working for finishes at Easter. I must say it has been a smashing place to work and I going to miss the student and staff. I wish the students well and I hope their dreams of becoming games designers come true. 

Game Design

This might seem silly but I feel like a kid in a toy shop. I just starting to teach a course in game design and I feel so excited about teaching some thing new. Why am I so excited when it will mean lots of work, well it is the reason why I started programming computers in the first place. My first computer program was a space game based around the original Star Trek game that was written and played on mainframe computers. Although I never had time to finish it but what it did do was teach me how computers work and how to program them.

I spent many an hour in the school computer room which was no bigger than a cupboard typing away and missing the extra English lessons I was meant to be taking at the time, not that the Maths teacher cared, he was just glad to see the computer being used. For me it was a real eye opener and I was amazed at what the simple computers of the time can do.

Now I can take the enthusiasm I had then and give it back and I hope instill and motivate the students. Looking at the unit I'm teaching on Mondays I can see how interesting it is going to be to teach and learn at the same time. After meeting the students I'm so looking forward to the new challenge. I knew I was in the right place as soon as the head of department says that the best qualification is a love of game playing. I knew then I was teaching the right subject,