A lot of people seem to think consoles and arcade machines are the only way to go retro when it comes to games, but those people couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m one of the lucky people, someone who grew up in the first generation to have home computers, and because of that I have a lot of fond memories of spending hours sat in front of an old portable TV ruining my eyes honing my skills. However, it’s being recognised properly now that home PCs (as opposed to the all-in-one computers like the Spectrum, Amstrad CPC464, Commodore 64 etc) have been around long enough to have games considered retro, and there’s an absolutely thriving community. While it’s possible to pick up old games from the likes of ebay and try to get them running on modern machines – often failing in the process – I feel I’ve got to give a big shout-out to the newest and bestest way of doing it: GOG.
GOG stands for Good Old Games, and it’s a very smart digital distribution (I’m all about the digital distribution lately) system set up by an avid bunch who really seem to care about doing it and doing it right. The first and most important thing to do with old PC games is often the hardest – getting them to run on modern hardware. PC architecture has changed significantly in the last fifteen years, both in terms of hardware and software, and it’s meant that games from way-back-when often won’t run, not without a lot of problems at least. GOG have enlisted the help of a lot of prominent ‘get old things to run on new machines’ developers including some notable projects like DOSBox and ScummVM, and done all the back-end work to get them running on new machines before re-packaging and selling them on. It’s a system which works well, and I really like their ethos.
None of the software is DRM protected (e.g. no “you may install this only three times, on one PC and never when there’s an R in the month”) and once you’ve bought and downloaded it, it’s yours to do with as you please. They’ve included a lot of artwork, HD wallpapers, expansion packs, manuals and all sorts of extras for the money, and speaking of money, it’s cheap! My first purchase was for a game with a big cult following, and one which I’ve wanted to play for years – Psychonauts (Pyschonauts was the brainchild of Tim Schafer, who along with Ron Gilbert was responsible for some of the greatest games ever; Lucasarts’ games such as Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Day Of The Tentacle etc.), and I paid $2.49 for it. That’s two dollars, forty-nine cents. £1.53. That’s amazing value, however you look at it. I won’t go into the game now, that’s not what this update is for, but suffice to say it’s brilliant and very funny.
It’s not all roses of course, and I’ve come up against one downside so far, and that was a problem with the download. Psychonauts was over 2.5 GB, and you’re given two choices when it comes to downloading it; download over http like any other file on the internet, or use their own download manager. I should probably have prefaced this bit by saying that I have been having problems with my wireless connection and PC in general (that I seem to have fixed for the time being), so how much of it was my problem and how much was GOG’s I can’t say for certain, but I downloaded it three times in total, and then used a very cool little tool called Corruption Corrector to rebuild a working copy from the three broken downloads. From the forums on their site it seems a lot of people aren’t too keen on the download tool which is built on Adobe’s AIR framework, and the sooner they come up with a Steam-like manager the better, but it’s a small price to pay.
On the subject of the forums there, it seems like it’s a great, knowledgeable and friendly community made up of people like me (that’s a good thing!), and a real asset to them. The website is slick, clean and really easy to find what you’re looking for. I’ve not seen a game over $9.99 yet (£6.16), and getting to re-play some of those classics is just irresistible. I’ve got the Baldur’s Gate games lined up next, and thanks to the forums I already know I can get a widescreen mod and another to update the UI so it doesn’t look too stretched. Awesome.
I know this sounds like a big advert, and that I love GOG and want to have their babies, and maybe they even paid me to write this, but that’s not the case. It’s so rare that something this good comes along and I felt I needed to write about it and help get word out. If you’ve got fond memories of playing anything on the PC in years gone by, head over and have a look, you might just find what you’re looking for.
I just HAD to get cannon-fodder : D
I didn’t even see that was on there! I’d have thought the IL2 game would’ve been more tempting to you. Dunno if you have all the expansions but it’s the game and all 4 in one.
Already got IL2 and the expansion packs ; )
It is a great sim but there is so much more they could do with the slight engine. It’s very dated and the campaign missions are very ‘samey’.
Yea CF is great fun, forgot how bloody hard some of the levels are. Play it in a small window though, full-screen it looks awful !