old fart nostalgia

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by rah
Of course almost every old Avalon Hill board war games are considered old timer material now.

Also SPI ones

[DaveV]

Originally posted by War4ever
i had an imitation computer console game which could play some lame version of asteroids.....i wish i remember what it was called though.

Vectrex, maybe? I still have mine. It was sold circa 1984, used vector graphics instead of raster scan, and had some pretty decent games (star castle, space wars). The company I was working for at the time bought several of the games to study how they were doing the graphics. The system was about $100 for a 9-inch CRT and joystick in a black TV-style case. You could buy a second joystick, and several of the games supported two players. The games came on cartridges; if you had no cartridge plugged in, you'd play Mine Storm, the asteroids clone (which was not lame!).

The company went bust, and the systems were sold off for about $50. Some of the games were seriously bugged, like Berzerk, where you moved a little stick figure through a maze shooting at robots who could shoot back at you. After you played for a while, the robots would suddenly start moving super fast, and shoot you about 20 times before you could react.

[duke o' york]

Call that a bug? That sounds suspiciously like some of the learning curves on many games today.

[rah]

The new handicap.

Why teach AI's to think when you can just give them speed and resource advantages.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Standup
I keep looking on ebay to see if early issues of White Dwarf (before they went all warhammer) are this year's hot item but i guess its not quite their time.

You mean there was a time they weren't Warhammer? I thought White Dwarf was owned by Games Workshop which only makes Warhammer.

[Sarxis]

I screwed up my System Shock post, so I'll just recap it here:

My wife got some old games from an unknown source, and she had a copy of the original SS in there. Copyright of '94.

I've never played it, however, so I don't know if it counts for nostalgia... on my part, anyway.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
The only computer I remember that could do that was from Ohio Scientific.

well i googled and i dont think it was that one, im thinking now that it must have been one of those that never got released beyond the concept stage, or just an 8bit fantasy of mine

[Standup]

You mean there was a time they weren't Warhammer? I thought White Dwarf was owned by Games Workshop which only makes Warhammer

Games Workshop for a while (late 70s/early80s) were the UK D+D distributors and didn't make their own games. Most of the Monsters in the Fiend Folio were collected from White Dwarf. I think they also published a UK Basic D+D book. In an interview with Gygax he talked about that TSR discussed a merger with GW but it was voted down by other shareholders who didn't want their holdings diluted.

I don't know when it changed but i read it from around issue 20 to issue 60 and it was a very broad based RPG magazine. Emphasis on D+D as that was the main game of the time but a fair bit of Runequest, Traveller with a sprinkling of Boot Hill, Top Secret, Tunnels + Trolls etc. Also stuff like how to paint figures although i think they bought or were buying Citadel at the time so a bit of self interest there.

It was a good read and was really suprised when i bought a copy for a train journey about 10 years later to see nothing but Warhammer and its variants.

[Jamski]

White Dwarf used to be wonderful.
I remember all the mini-modules they published, there was a great wizards tower I still remember.

-Jam

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by DaveV
Some of the games were seriously bugged, like Berzerk, where you moved a little stick figure through a maze shooting at robots who could shoot back at you. After you played for a while, the robots would suddenly start moving super fast, and shoot you about 20 times before you could react.

Berzerk was great! I still remember Evil Otto, which is a bouncing smilie. The mechanical voice saying "Intruder alert, intruder alert" was great, too.

Seriously, they came out with a sequel called Frenzy, too, so these games were relatively popular back then.