Recently I made a trek to my parents home. While there I came across a stack of old PC games. Most of these games I'd loved at some point or another, but had since forgotten about them. In the interest of science, a portion of the stack came home with me and now sits in front of my computer while I write this.
I'm going to reinstall each of these games one by one to see if they still hold the same appeal now as when I was young. I'll write an independent post for each as I play them but for now, I'll introduce our competitors.
Black & White: The well known god simulator/ giant creature training game. You are tasked with converting all major villages and cultures to believe in you. The more your followers believe in you, the greater your influence and powers. You can choose to behave however you wish, be it fire and brimstone for breakfast or sunshine and gumdrops. Personally, I like to go back and forth, keep the villagers on their tiny, simulated toes.
Total Annihilation Kingdoms: From giant robots to dragons, I remember this game as the closest thing to playing Warcraft and Total Annihilation (the original) at the same time. Any game that gives me Golems as tanks and Rocs as troop transports, I'm there.
Myth III: Not quite the same as the first two in the series, but a passable entry. Squad based strategy with pyromaniac dwarves, exploding zombies and ancient evils. Not bad, but I'll probably spend most of my play time pining for the first two, vastly superior Myth games from good old Bungie. Sigh...
Rome Total War: Third in the Total War series after Shogun and Medieval Total War. I swear I'm actually going to beat this game some day. It's still on my parent's computer (has been since it's release) and I've put in a little time on it every time I drop by these days, but I'm still playing the first game I ever started. Good news though, after two years of war, I've finally beaten the Gauls.
Sudden Strike: What do you know, another strategy game. Space based? No. Ancient societies? No. Giant mechs? No. It's all WWII and all I can really remember about it is that it was impossibly hard. If you've got realistic unit damage, ie a bullet will kill a man, real time battles on giant maps might not be the way to go. If this is what WWII was really ike, I'm surprised anyone got out alive.
Empire Earth: A standard real-time strategy game (notice a pattern yet?) with one twist. You're able to refine your civilization from a tiny, stone age community into an enormous, laser wielding, nuke deploying nightmare legion. The best part is getting to that point while your opponents are still in the bronze age. Heh heh, silly archers, you can't hurt an attack heicopter.
Tachyon The Fringe: The gameplay of Privateer with the voice talent of Bruce Campbell. Nuff Said.
Commandos 3: Honestly, I don't remember too much about this game other than having a hell of a time getting it to run smoothly. Who knows if it'll even work. If it does, it's another squad based WWII game. Should be fun.
So, that's the pile I brought home. Who knows if these games can still hold my attention as well as they once did. If nothing else, they should provide me with something amusing to write about. Here goes nothing.
