A nice little post with some nice little mags in it

Not that you would have noticed otherwise (I'm quite aware my posting isn't as frequent as it should be; sorry about that), but, well, guess I'd let you know I wont be around for the next 6-7 days. Taking a short vacation, you see. In Crete of all places!

Now, to keep you occupied while you're anxiously waiting, I thought I'd point you towards the latest Retromags offerings: Next Generation #20 and PSM #2. Both issues are freely available for download, scanned and preserved to perfection and sport an amazing variety of quality retro reading. Personal favourites include reviews of X-Wing (Mac), Duke Nukem 3D (PC) and Oddworld (PS), mind. And yes, I did notice the extensive coverage of Mario 64 and N64.

Oh, and if you want to find out what I've already loved to bits and will soon be reviewing for this very lair do follow mystery link 1 and mystery link 2.

Decker's Delight Links (13.Apr.09)

Deckers and shadowrunners rejoice! Here -finally- are the links you've been asking for. The links to some of the smartest and most original (though not particularly fresh) things the gaming side of the Internet has to offer. Click away.

Let's start by me reminding everyone that Gabriel Knight 3 remains one of the best and most memorable games I've ever played. Ever! So, uhm, here's an excellent Making Of... The GK Trilogy, an incredibly enlightening Gabriel Knight 3 postmortem and a shocking visit to Rennes-le-Chateau.

Oh, and while you are rummaging through the hardy developer's workshop (which you should), you do have to pay extra attention at the 7 best martial art scenes in adventure games.

Keeping on with classic adventure gaming links let me point you to a comprehensive piece on early Sierra games and Mojo's detailed -nay, exhaustive- look at The Dig. Then, be wise and study an article about adventure game puzzles to put things into perspective.

Play this thing gives sound advice and speaks words of wisdom in Mothers, don't let your children grow up to be game developers. By the way, remember the Scratchware Manifesto?

And to keep the indie flag flying and -of course- our spirits high here is WiiHD's quite amazing Wii Homebrew Guide, that allows everyone to have some cost effective fun. What a concept. Oh, dear.

Speaking of concepts, well, here are some rather interesting examples of video game box art courtesy of PC World. As is customary in these things, you should epect more than a few Maria Whittaker, Psygnosis and Amiga references.

Meanwhile in the dark halls of GameSetWatch: Intergalactic spies bring us the secrets behind the development of N64 hit Star Wars: Shadows Of the Empire.

Matty on Games, on the other hand, has done some stellar work exploring some not particularly well known Henhouse Harry games. Like Chuckie Apple for example. Or even Chuckie Egg 2.

On the unreleased games front, let me tell you that (as discovered by the Joy of Sticks) the Jaguar XJ220 Atari ST version is no longer one. I mean it just got finished and released as freeware by its original programmer. Read on...

Finally, Ironic Sans, presents a truly novel idea, that apparently looked -and to be frank still looks- great on paper. It's the Blogosphere Adventure Game concept, it is.

Super fast Quick Links:

• 10 great and very characteristic PC Games
• The Last Express movie (Offworld)
• Hey, look! A DSi from the gutter!
• Cletus Clay interview
• A truly amazing book on vintage games
• Hardware novel: Winchester's Nightmare
• The complete story of Defender in video
• Dante: from text to TV
• Another complete history of Nintendo
• 100+ free games sites
• Zork: The quite excellent Grand Inquisitor
• Doomablo!

Retromags unleashing three wild GameFan issues

GameFan was a US magazine that I, well, had never heard of really. Apparently the thing was first released in 1992 and managed to survive all the way to 2000, despite (?) having an obvious thing for all things console and an admittedly interesting ultra-colourful layout. Now, as the super retro mag scanning team that runs the excellent Retromags has scanned the three first issues of GameFan and as I have already happily browsed through dozens of virtual GameFan pages, I can't help but suggest you too have a look. It might not be the console equivalent of the 90s PC Zone, but GameFan makes for an interesting, nostalgic and fun read.

Download issue 1 here, issue 2 here and issue 3 here. They are obviously free to get and you should probably also get a copy of the equally freeware CDisplay to help you read through them and enjoy game reviews covering everything from the Neo Geo, to the Sega CD, the Genesis, the SNES, the Turbografx-16 and even the Atari Lynx. Oh, and vintage Nintendo fans should definitely follow this link too.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• The Retroaction Premiere
• The first issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly
• Classic gaming magazines online
• Retro Abomination: Super Gran

Molstrums Vintage Apple Mansion

I still have fond and occasionally terrifying memories of the first non-parser driven adventure I ever played: Uninvited. It was brilliant, innovative and horrific and was followed by Déjà Vu -which I somehow ignored-and then the excellent Shadowgate that once again attempted to scare me to death. But, sadly, I was 12 by the time I tried that last one and could already bare over 3 horror movies a day, thus failing to feel that dear uneasiness. Then I think I missed most of ICOM's other adventures and only came close to experiencing something similar when Microprose released the great but flawed The Legacy: Realms of Terror.

And then, well, glorious TIG Source came along and showed me the way to another haunted mansion. Molstrums Mansion. It's an ACE Team creation that feels, smells and plays like a proper early point-and-click adventure (it must be one then, right?), runs in your browser, sports a decidedly ICOM-esque interface, comes with glorious black and white graphics and successfully atmospheric sounds, takes place in a spooky mansion, has a solid plot with a few humorous bits in it and is a true joy to play through. Yes, despite being on the rather easy side of things and lacking a save feature.

Oh, and Molstrums Mansion plays on what can only be described as a web-based simulation of a vintage b&w Mac, utilizing what can only be described as a faux copy protection scheme that subtly plugs the team's visually stunning (and forthcoming) commercial ZenoClash project.

PS. Yes, I know I should have also mentioned Elvira I & II, Waxworks and those excellent Radical Poesis Games like Fedora Spade and Missing, which is something I apparently just did. All fine then. Go play Molstrums Mansion.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• Dead Like Ants
• The HHGttG point and click remake
• Them Good Old Games
• A Spectrum of Beauty

Legends of Zork LIVE!

This blog will remain April Fool's Day joke free forever. Or, well, for as long as it stays around, meaning you simply won't have to doubt the good news I bring you, consequently meaning that you should be clicking your collective way to the virtual world of Legends of Zork. It just opened its gates, you see, and after trying it for over 20 minutes I must say I'm happily surprised with the quality of the thing. One might even call it brilliant.

Pacian presents Dead Like Ants

Having already enjoyed a significant part of Dead Like Ants I can assure you dear readers that it is indeed an excellent game -or should I say read- that absolutely everyone has to experience. But, I'm apparently jumping ahead of myself. Let me first explain that Dead Like Ants, a little downloadable something just released for the EnvComp competition, is a freeware piece of interactive fiction (a.k.a. a text adventure) created by Pacian of Gun Mute and Poizoned Mind fame for your PC, Mac or Linux machine. Now you know and, well, you should really download it and find out more about it here. Immediately.

As I don't want to spoil anything major here, let me just tell you that -as is usually the case with Pacian's offerings- Dead Like Ants sports a truly unique and beautiful fairy tale-esque setting, a pretty innovative way of handling puzzles (and in-game death), a selection of well written characters, an amazing world to explore and an excellent story. As for the difficulty of the puzzles, well, guess I'll let you figure it out yourselves. Not that you'll encounter anything particularly frustrating, mind. Oh, and here's the author's description of things:

Dead Like Ants is a low-fi, fairy tale-ish game for an Interactive Fiction (i.e. text game) environment competition. Explore your surroundings, meet strange new people, try to stand-out from your thousands of identical sisters... And perhaps at the end of it all, you'll grow some wings.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• An interview with Pacian
• Gun Mute: the text only shmup
• Classic text adventures maps
• A review (of sorts) of Dungeon Man 3