...I have taken my own advice and have sunk further and further back into the world of retro-gaming.
I found Gog.com, and was browsing a number of titles I had never even heard of before. From free to an exorbitant $5.99 ea, they offer many times the content and quality of modern games, providing you have a sufficiently powerful system to play them (most require a clock speed of 75MHz or greater, but they seem to run fine on my 4MHz machine).
FOREWORD BY THE CHAIRMAN OF THE UNION SECURITY COUNCIL The council is proud of the achievement of the security forces in promoting the interests of the Union Group. It is your fight against subversion that has allowed continued recovery.
Over the last year market share has again increased despite production restrictions due to mineral shortages. The acquisition of Asio-City makes the Union Group the second largest of the six remaining city states and represents the capitulation of the last non corporate city.
The quality of the air being re-cycled within the protection dome that encases the city continues to improve. The predictions made last century about deteriorating public health due to ecological poisoning has been proved to be untrue. Even the toxic air outside the dome in ‘the Gap’ has not deteriorated beyond the point of supporting human life.
Security in the Gap has been a top priority. After pre-emptive strikes against random Gap villages, there has been a marked increase in community taxation receipts and a reduction in economically damaging ‘scavenging’ raids.
The Hobart corporation continues the abhorrent market policies eradicated decades ago in the Union Group. Their discredited policies of labour representation and social benefits for the ‘needy’ contradicts the basic neo democratic principles agreed on cessation of hostilities of the Great Euro-American war. Since the LINC computer system was assigned control of all city functions twenty years ago, a determined economic war has been waged, and is being won, against Hobart which has consistently sought to undermine the foundations of our success.
We can congratulate ourselves on another successful year. And, as always, be vigilant, be alert.
Quote:
that has allowed continued recovery ...be vigilant, be alert.
Quote:
release date: April 11, 1994
How unsettlingly prescient.
Anyway, it's all very interesting. I don't see myself buying new releases anytime soon.
Lately I'm playing this bad Civilization spinoff/clone - Call to Power 2.
Apparently, some people took interest in the game, and Activision was uncharacteristically cool enough to make the code open-source, so they released an enhanced AI and a few other tweaks - the highest difficulty level is decently challenging now, although it does still suffer from much more choppy game pacing, less intelligent/compelling AI, and poorer immersion/sense of distance than the Civ series.
What it has on the plus side is more interesting terrain and government options. Civ-series games have three tiers, but CTP2 adds two more tiers:
The in-game library is not as well written as that in Sid Meier games (ofc), but it nonetheless describes the historical process in a surprisingly plausible way (and remarkably close to the 10 years of history that have transpired since it was published).
I also like how the environmental model works - it's significantly more aggressively tuned than in the Civ series. Towards endgame, it becomes necessary to attenuate production and shift to agriculture/service to prevent industry from causing more pollution than the production is worth. Ideally, you plant a ton of farms and forests and a much smaller number of very large mines, then shorten the workday, increase rations and cut wages so you can run a service economy. Or you can just run heavy industry and plow the gains back into cleanup. It's a clever if somewhat crude system, not as detailed as SMAC's work-of-genius environmental engine.
Anyway, it's fun. I did make one change to the scripting, removing Emancipation Proclamation - I find the game is more fun without it.
It's interesting to note that the Jews are in every scene of the intro.
Edit: It was also open sourced a while back, and made free. The original version is on Gog for a nominal fee. The free/open source version is re-titled "The Ur-Quan Masters" but is the exact same game, same graphics, same audio, etc.
The androsynth were certainly interesting in the story line (they did kinda get swept under the rug by the Orz, who were awesome on their own way) but the Utwig were literally unstoppable in super melee if played properly.
I do think the Chmmr coming into being is one of the most awesome things ever.
Obama Zombie Joined: Fri May 14, 2010 1:48 pm Posts: 3149 Location: NoVA
So, since when did the Ilwrath show up immediately after leaving the space colony outside Earth? They said they passed the UQ probe and it gave off my location... and then while trying to figure out the melee controls, I got killed. :[
A bit OP of a match-up that early in the game. The fuck...
That particular Ilwrath ship lacks a cloaking device and bunch of crew... use the earthling ship, not the main ship. I think the right side control and shift are default fire controls, arrow keys navigate. Keep your distance from the Ilwrath ship, and fire the primary weapon (control). Should fire seeker missiles, two shots should bring it down.
I just reinstalled UQM. I'm using an Xbox360 controller. UQM recognizes it automatically, but it is necessary to configure the binds manually.
If you haven't played in a while, there is a very humbling relearning period. I'm having the same experience. GG playing trivial games too long.
And yeah, Chmrr are a study in the power of really good voice acting. TBC was awesome for the same reason, imo. (Even if the Naaru were never quite as awesome as the Chenjesu).
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