Just... one... more... turn

Here it is, the game that was responsible for so much lost sleep. Sid Meier's original Civilization from 1991, in all its 3 and a half-inch floppy, MD-DOS glory ('mouse recommended').

"Build an empire to stand the test of time" went the blurb, and I did... over and over again. Civ took computer strategy gaming to a whole new level, and has influenced much that has come since, including clones, such as the Call to Power series.

It wasn't perfect (having your expensive tanks beaten by ancient spearmen was a well-known frustration), but rarely has a game so drawn you in that you actually cared for your little people and their country, in which you invested so many hours of precious gaming (and sleeping) time. You always just had to do a few more turns to gain that new technology or to conquer that next city, or whatever was your next goal.

Another frustration I recall was the lengthy endgame, where there was no longer any doubt that you would win the game, but you still had to mop up the rest of the map. In the end, however, these gripes did not matter - Civ had given us something new and wonderful, and computer gaming would never be the same again.

Now, if only the upcoming Civ V is half as good as Civ I...

Tomb Raider Underworld: Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

Last weekend I decided to take advantage of the offer on Steam and take a trip down memory lane, picking up a copy of Tomb Raider Underworld ('TRU') for £4.99. I'm glad I didn't pay more.



I've not played Tomb Raider for many years, since the original games on the PS1. I recall thoroughly enjoying the experience: solving fairly straightforward puzzles, jumping chasms (after multiple attempts) and blasting enemies with my two Uzis. Yes, TRU is more of the same, but the big difference is that our expectations of a game have changed radically since those first titles were released. We're just no longer prepared to put up with clunky controls that may or may not do what you want, a camera that never seems to show the view you need to see and enemies totally lacking in any sort of (artificial) intelligence.

I'm sorry, but either this franchise should be brought into the modern world of gaming, or it should be quietly put to sleep.

Halls of the Things

At last I've gotten around to extracting my old Spectrum and its games from storage. I'll post about the Spectrum itself later, but for now I thought I'd post about one of the games, with more posts about other games to follow.

The game I've chosen is Halls of the Things, from 1983. My memory of this game was that it was bloody hard (for me, at least), but also bloody compulsive, constantly dragging you back for another attempt to beat the level. I recall spending hours taking turns with a friend to get that little bit further. The gameplay involved blasting your way through seven levels, each containing a different style of randomly-generated maze, collecting (surprise, surprise) seven rings, and eventually finding your way out. The graphics were pretty basic (see below), but the hyperbole on the inlay card wasn't: "Combining a fantasy world scenario with the finest quality arcade style action yet seen on the ZX Spectrum, Halls of the Things brings you a new dimension in computer games - the animated adventure." Hmm.

Some intrepid soul has actually posted a video of the game on YouTube:

As you will see, he ends up getting killed, which I remember happening to me all too often. In fact, I don't think I ever completed the game, although I'm not sure whether this was due to the game's difficulty, or just my incompetence.

SimEarth: Somehow Cool

Now those were the days, when the game came in a nice big box, complete with a nice big manual, some nice big disks and a nice big woman (OK, I lied about the woman). Still, if the game was only one meg in size, I suppose they had to put something else in to justify the hefty price tag...

According to the receipt which is still in the box (I always put the receipt in the box in those days - how sad is that?), I purchased SimEarth from Software Circus, Oxford Street, London (always had to go to London to get PC games back then) for £40.95, on the 6th May 1991. By my reckoning that equates to about £70 in today's spondulics. And what did I get for my money? Well, as the picture above shows, two 3 and a half inch disks, four 5 and a quarter inch disks, a 220-page manual (ring-bound) and a 20-page 'System Information, Manual Addendum and Quick-Start Guide'. Money well spent, I'd say...

SimEarth was, of course, one of Gaming God Will Wright's early efforts. Not content with simulating a mere city, Wright went the whole hog and simulated an entire planet. Inspired by James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, the game let you "take charge of an entire planet from its birth until its death" and "guide life from its inception as single-celled microbes to a civilization that can reach for the stars". Basically, it was an extremely simplified simulation, in which you could 'control' the planet's geosphere, atmosphere, biosphere and civilization.

Now, it's a long time since I played it, and since my current PC doesn't have a 3 and a half inch drive (not to mention a 5 and a quarter inch drive), I haven't been able to check out how the game plays (OK, I know it is available as abandonware, but to be honest, I can't be arsed), so here are my vague memories: crap graphics (see above), a bit anal, not much of a game but still somehow cool.

The Hobbit: Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

The year was 1982. We were all singing Eye of the Tiger (well, I wasn't), Knight Rider was on TV and the first CD player was sold in Japan. Meanwhile, hidden away in a million bedrooms were computer geeks playing The Hobbit. I was one of them.


I've just taken a trip down memory lane to play The Hobbit again. No, I didn't dig out my old Spectrum (which I still have), load the tape into the cassette deck and listen to fax-noises for five minutes while it loaded. I went to ZZ Spectrum, an online java Spectrum emulator, where you can sample the delights of a number of old Spectrum goodies.


Was it as great as I remembered? Well, no. The Hobbit was a text adventure spiced up with some very basic graphics (which, despite being basic, took an age to load, at least on the cassette version). The big selling point of the game was its use of 'Inglish', a slightly more natural version of the language than the very simple inputs that were all that was allowed in previous text adventures. It was still pretty limited, and you still had to endure minutes of frustration before you came up with a command that the game actually understood. Still, it seemed pretty cool at the time.


The other frustrations were finding the right way to solve problems, and roaming around blindly as if in a maze, before arriving somewhere interesting (read: a location with a graphic and a couple of items in it). As you can imagine, my re-acquaintance with The Hobbit was somewhat brief. Now, I'm off to play something a little bit more modern...