Games & Gaming

Today, I'm turning the reins of my blog over to Samwise for a post on gaming. I'm in the middle of working on the Moon Stalkers Newsletter and need to get it done. So, without further ado--my husband, the most gorgeous geek ever. :) --Yasmine

Samwise:

I hope you don’t mind, but Yasmine asked me to write a blog post. So I’m going to write a post on computer games that I’ve played and I like.

The first game I want to talk about is a little piddly computer game called ‘Mine Sweeper’. Yes, I like that game. Playing it is almost identical to a math puzzle game that I like to do a log called ‘Cross Sums’. (for an example of ‘Cross Sums’, go to http://www.freexsums.com/ for a game) I’ve spent a lot of time performing rapid addition and counting, trying to solve the game quickly. Yes, yes, I am a math nerd.

The second game I want to talk about is a computer game my wife got for me called ‘Aliens vs Predator 2’. (Information about the game can be found here: http://www.alienvspredator2.com/enc/games/avp2.html ) The game borrows from the ‘Aliens’ realm and from the ‘Predator’ realms very well. It combines the two worlds, and it tells three separate stories. The first story is from the point of view of a marine. The second story is from the Alien’s perspective. The third story is according to the predator. All three stories do somewhat intersect, but not much. The stories are the main attraction to the game that I highly recommend. The worlds, weapons, technologies and everything match what you see in the movies almost exactly. Now, why couldn’t this video game story be made into a movie? I mean, it is great! If you’re not that much into fighting, set the game onto the easiest setting, quickly blast your way through it and watch it simply for the story telling.

The third game I like is a game published by Microsoft called ‘Freelancer’. (Information about the game can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/games/freelancer/ ) Again, like ‘Aliens vs Predator’, the story makes the game the legend that it is. It tells the tale of a space opera that simply captures your attention and holds onto it, until the very end. And like all good space opera stories, it has lots of space ship fighting, macho swaggering, and a slowly revealing plot that keeps building until the very end. This game I highly recommend to play.

I know that I should give credence to the game ‘PC Halo’. It is a space opera game, but the story wasn’t that compelling for me. And, the game play was very repetitive. The game developers worked more on ‘Twitch Joy’ and less on ‘Original Plot’, which is always the first thing that I want in a long computer game. It isn’t that bad, just not that captivating.

A game I still have yet to play is ‘DarkStar One’. It has come to me highly recommended, by a few friends of mine who are ‘Freelancer’ fans. I will play it someday.

Back in the 1980’s, I also loved that game ‘Ultima 4’. Now, that game was fun. That, and ‘Ultima 3’ I’ve actually gone all the way through. Now a days, you can actually download those games for free, and run them on DosBox (http://www.dosbox.com/ ) if you need your Dos Gaming fix. One Dos game that is very fun to play is ‘Shannara’ (for you ‘Sword of Shannara’ fans). It is located here: http://www.classic-pc-games.com/pc/adventure/shannara.html . It runs under DosBox, although I have the hardest time trying to get the voice to work. The story itself takes place between ‘Sword of Shannara’ and ‘Elfstones of Shannara’ and it is pretty good.

So the question goes out to the readers of this blog: What games do you like, and would recommend? Which ones have a good story?