John Conway's Game of Life: PC / Mac

Can a universe of meaningful complexity emerge from a set of simple rules? In 1970 a cellular automaton caused quite a stir and appeared to lend support to this argument.

Beginning with a simple configuration of your choosing and by letting the rules run their course in an iterative sequence. A bewildering array of forms emerge: explosions, contusions, movements, self-replication, predators, prey, oscillations, stasis; to quote Darwin, 'endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful'.

What's more, the implications of any given configuration over a certain number can not be plotted with complete mathematical certainty. The Game of Life is insoluble. And it is only one of hundreds of similar cellular automaton programs that can create their own universes with boundaries infinite. What can be learned from these phenomena? In one sense the proliferation of rule-sets for these games is itself a Game of Life. Some spawn fascinating universes such as John Conway's while others amount to little or nothing.

It was proved at great length that the Life Universe could function as a universal computer or Turing Machine. This along with its production of emergent, unpredictable phenomena gave it a certain mystique. I am unsure of the significance of this, but it certainly raises interesting questions. Q. What is a game? A. Doesn't matter. Q. Is life, just a sequence of logical operations? A. No. Q. Isn't the Game of Life just a logical system, and doesn't it only tell us about the nature of other logical systems. A. I would say, yes. Q. Is the universe a logical system? A. No. Q. Is the Game of Life truly infinite? A. No. Q. What constitutes emergence? Q. To what extent can entropy be reversed? Q. What is the limit of complexity? Q. Where can I download Game of Thrones Season 4? Q. What answer remains satisfactory while alien to the word 'cause'?

Overview at The Wonders of Math
Excellent Game of Life program for PC and Mac
The Recursive Universe. A seminal book dealing with The Game of Life, entropy and modern physics.
The Life Lexicon. A taxonomic database of life objects.
Numberphile: John Conway explains why life is overhyped.
Breaking News in 'The Life Universe'

Whether you think life, the universe and everything is merely a sequence of logical operations or whether Game of Life and its philosophy is just naive computer science tosh: mucking about with the program is certainly diverting. And when someone next enters your foul smelling boudoir and asks irascibly "WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO STOP PLAYING THOSE COMPUTER GAMES AND GET A LIFE?!" you can respond "WHEN I CREATE A LIFE BY PLAYING THIS COMPUTER GAME - NOW LEAVE MY BOUDOIR!!!"

Wet Attack: The Empire Cums Back - PC

This game is so superior to Sim-City and its uptight, educational and starch collared cronies I hardly know where to start. Your goal: to create and manage an intergalactic brothel even Barbarella would blush at. Your resources: a stolen space jalopy known simply as The Tit. Your team: a foxy ensemble of female mechanics - who, frustrated by the sterility of space - must be kept amused! For Lula and her franchise, things were simply not salacious enough here on Earth, so naturally there was nothing for it but to up-shop and ejaculate into the cosmos: in search of new alien members and an array of farcical sexual experiences.

    A female Colossus of Rhodes . . . and why not?

   The masterpiece Norman Foster wished he built. Tits are evident at every
   structural level, from the outline of the building to individual door handles:
   constantly emerging like some randy fractal.

    I trust there's a nearby Sim Hospital with functioning STD clinic.

This was an earnestly ambitious game - with numerous modes yet one overarching objective - much like life. One moment you're engaged in Elite style battles against hardened space pirates, then thrust into a Monkey Island style point n' click adventure, then supposited into Sim Hospitalesque brothel management and finally an oral sex simulator. If combined with Battlecrusier 3000AD this could have been the space faring epic all previous attempts have been mere allusions towards. Like Battlecruiser, Wet Attack is blighted by minor errors, though these are trivial when compared to the towering vision that inspired them: nothing less than mankind's future in the cosmos; economical, political and sexual.

On Sex and Nudity in Video Games: Wikipedia
Entry at Moby Games

Download via Torrent
Video Clip at Youtube
On Pixelated Nudity: The Girl Gamer

Looking back over the last twenty years of computer gaming, we are confronted with a frightfully barren, unromantic, unerotic Mordor of a landscape: so much for software as an artform. In fact the lack of sexual content is remarkable. Tetris you can perhaps forgive but in the case of many RPG's (games expected to push the boundaries of character development and immersion) the lack of sex seems almost pathological. Even in this day of inane X-box Halo pap catered to the FHM crowd there's hardly a sexual encounter on display, and where it rarely surfaces (GTA perhaps) it's as if it has been coded by a barely pubescent g-rap fan. System Shock II, again, I can forgive since there was not another human being in the game (but ctrl-F12 . . . couldn't this have been an onanistic short-cut?) It seems the onus is on games like Wet Attack: The Empire Cums Back to push things a little too far in order to redress this unusual imbalance, one not evident in any other medium.

Wizardry 8 - PC *Masterpiece*

"Grimpack the Mook hired you as an escort for a long voyage. He didn't say where you were going  .  .  . "

.  .  . and with these ludicrous yet immortal words begins the greatest expression of hardcore cRPG gaming the denizens of planet Earth have yet produced. Seamlessly splicing the good things old-school RPG's brought to the tabletop with the glittery trappings of the new school. Wizardry 8 was the culmination of 20 long years of cRPG evolution: making it a great ape amongst hordes of pitiable, gibbering; makak's, marmoset's and lemur's. This was software house SirTech's swan song and it hits a high note very few others can match.

The world and its many proclivities are well established: combining both the high-tech and sorcerous with aplomb. What a disappointment when every supposed fantasy world is populated by the same tedious gobloids and stunted misfits as Tolkien's was some 70 years ago: then embellished with a hodge-podge of creatures chosen at random from world mythology. Not quite so with Wizardry: your party may consist of Faeries, Mooks and Androids and while wondering the realm you may encounter Battering Hogar's, a Drunken Rapax or heaven forbid a Kaos Kube: at worst you may sight a Golem. There is a hint of cyberpunk, not a rehash of that genres tropes but quite an unusual combination of anti-heroes, artificial intelligence, doom-laden techno-magic and at the stories core: a pervasive sense of irony.

Looking at the party members: humans suddenly seem rather exotic.

Wizardry's character development is amongst the best in any RPG, marrying experience from level gains with good ol'fashioned practice: allowing for a bizarre range of career options. The combat system is equally well developed: seamlessly transferring from real-time exploration to turn based battle. There is a plot arc of bewildering proportions stretching back to Wizardry 6: yet you are free to meander the entire world on a whim. The addition of randomly spoken dialogue from your party members in most games is painful . . . not so here: actually adding personalities that aren't toe-curlingly offensive. Dungeon design, script, sound track, story arc; excellent, excellent, excellent etc: this game has quality in spades.

The days before eBay

Played on Iron-Man mode the challenge is unforgiving especially for an inexperienced gamer: but this is how it was meant to be played: the fear of death made palpable indeed almost real as 40 hours of you actual life go to waste as you are set upon by Ratkin Goon's. People with things to do and appointments to keep need not apply.

Flamstryke's Pre-eminent Fansite
Ironworks Wizardry 8 Forum
Wizardry Walkthrough's
Editors and Mods
Download

The Wizardry series is hugely popular in Japan yet it is the antithesis of the typical console RPG; with their anodyne game-worlds populated by buffon haired monosyllabic sociopaths possessed with about as much personality as a bowl of rice. OK, that was a bit harsh: the Japanese have made some truly phenomenal games, just not many like this: that may explain its popularity and vica-versa. It is possible to export characters from Wizardry 6 through 7 and into 8: this game arc is perhaps the most challenging feat of human endeavour available to mankind: making Shackleton's expedition seem like a light stroll after xmas dinner. There will almost certainly never be a Wizardry 9. Imagination, humour, and depth, when software is rated on these criteria we, as a civilisation, will be getting somewhere.

Bamboozle - Channel 4 / Teletext

Restricted to analogue receivers of television in the British Isles, Bamboozle is a quiz game transmitted over the nations Channel 4 Teletext service. Sandwiched in-between the vertical blanking signal of image frames the technology makes ingenious use of precious bandwidth. A precursor in many ways to the World Wide Web and originally developed by the BBC, similar systems were soon adopted by France (Antiope), Canada (Telidon) and the United States and their popularity spread steadily onwards to countries and channels across the globe. This revolutionary system mostly offered weather reports, newsflashes, stocks and other rather juiceless services but now and again some aspiring teletext artist attempted to make comic books, interactive stories or quizzes to provide light hearted trivial pursuits and unique gaming experiences.

All the excitement of an IMAX!

 The legendary Fun and Games page: perfect for absorbing the tedium of ad-brakes.

You just know you've had it when a Cricket or James Bond question rears its ugly head.

and I promised I wouldn't cry...

The game in question is hosted by one appropriately named Bamber Boozler (perhaps an allusion to the British game show host Bamber Gascoigne, one-time presenter of University Challenge) who presents the player with a selection of twelve (or 15 in days gone by) questions (often following a particular theme) which must be answered correctly in sequence lest you be boozled. If you answer incorrectly you have a chance to redeem yourself with a question from his wife Bambette Boozler and can resume quizzing. Bambette is not the only member of his extended family that has an interest in quizzing: his son Buster Boozler often hosts a special children's edition on Sundays, with backup from loving daughter Bonnie Boozler. Other cameos have been made by sports mad Brian Boozler, a ghost, Santa and I seem to remember one Brendel Boozler fronting a special classically themed event. I have never seen either of his parents present a quiz or indeed be alluded to and fear they may be dead.

Excellent Teletext History, Fansite and Archive
Wikipedia Article on Teletext Technology
Wikipedia Article on Bamboozle 
Article at UK Gameshows 

Even sadder is the fact that with analogue signals being replaced the length and breadth of the country the last ever bamboozle duly aired on the 14th of December 2009. This and similar divertissements helped to enrich the televisual experience: offering much needed respite from commercial brakes, news bulletins or god forbid the EastEnders omnibus: I can only hope that there is room for software of similar charm in the new gleaming digital television services of the future. As an aside...I wonder what ascii gaming treasures hailing from foreign climes, transmitted via this arcane method have and will be lost to the ongoing revolution as it brutally plunders the Earth of teletext...

Bamber Gascoigne...the enigma...

Cosmic Smash - Dreamcast

Somewhere in the future a man composed entirely of vector graphics is listening to some mild techno music and playing a game somewhere between breakout and squash: nonsensical yet strangely interesting Engrish sentences periodically interrupt the flow of play as he is whisked away by bus (cosmic bus) to strange new courts. After playing some twenty or so levels and encountering increasingly bewildering cyber-brick edifices another player much like yourself appears and challenges you to hit the ball past him: once defeated he is neither seen nor heard from again?! This brave new future is the one on which I am setting my sights: may the vectorization process commence!

He appears to have some form of primitive organs: notice the size of the brain - and I thought squash was the game of choice for academics.

 Trick shots abound - yet there is nobody (save an alluring omniscient Japanese woman) in this dimension to show off to! Wait a minute...

Racketboy Article
Download from Snesorama
Walkthrough at GameFAQ's 
Great Fansite
 Cosmic Bus 777

Next time you find yourself noisily squeaking and extolling gallons of sweat on the squash courts of Earth: cast your mind to that odorless yet funky far off galaxy in which the game reached its logical conclusion. Pirouetting and bounding you effortlessly slap your squash ball into a pile of neon blocks only to see them evaporate: producing a myriad chirping sounds. All the while, mild techno resonates from the walls of your court: as you glide on a steady vector through the vacuum of space.

Spaceward Ho! - Mac / PC / Amiga

We all love Master of Orion right...and we all love Westerns?! Mix them together and what have you got: bibbledy bobbledy boo! No...in fact what you have is Delta Taos whimsical and inventive 4X space strategy game Spaceward Hooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Invoking research trees, colony ships and the familiar tropes of 4X space strategy, Spaceward Ho! manages to assert a distinct voice amongst the multitude. The game was fast paced, involving semi-autonomous battles and little of the micro-management that increased turn times to a cosmic scale in similar programs. Humerous touches included sound effects, ridiculous iconography and technologies  Dr. Szeuss or Hieronymus Bosch would have been proud of: indeed by combining certain equipment; spaceships could be made to resemble sharks, wolfs and ominous skeletal battle cruisers!

Purchase Version 5.0 from the Delta Tao Website

Download 5.0 Demo Version

Download Version 4.0

Article at Tea Leaves 

Wikipedia Entry

Spaceward Ho! FAQ

The latest version applies a suitably polished veneer to the classic engine with a nice mix of new features: while maintaing the pace of the original. The Western theme is present and amusing but doesn't distract from the serious bussiness of managing a galactic empire. Download a copy, install and saddle-up pilgrim!

Policenauts - Sega Saturn / PS1/ 3DO / PC-98

 Homage to Blade Runner = Good Idea / Homage to Lethal Weapon = Bad Idea

If there's one thing the Japanese love above all other things in the universe its a special police unit: not a normal police unit remember, but a special division seperate to the conventional force; one perhaps involved in the piloting of an experimental flotilla of combat Wanzers or the covert investigation of an insipid attempt by alien deamons to controll neo-tokyo by winning a highschool fashion show. Within said unit there will be a fat character, a naive female hotshot, a butch (or attractive ice-cow), a straight character (who is actually insane) and a charcter with shades: garnished with a smattering of mysterious pasts and witheringly inane childhood memories.

From the same team that brought you the cult Mega-CD classic Snatcher (concerning a special Junker division of the Neo-Kobe policeforce used to combat the snatcher menace) comes Policenauts: concerning a special division of the terrestrial police force sent to inforce traffic regulations onboard "Beyond Coast" mankinds first fully functioning(?) space colony. Despite the usual anime bunkum this game exudes quality with a sensational space jazz soundtrack and some classy direction from everyones favorite bioroid: Hideo Kojima.

Hideo Kojima's Blog in English

U.K Fansite

Policenauts Shrine and Walkthrough

Download Fully Patched PS1 ISO from Underground Gamer

Download OST (fantastic space cyber sax soundtrack madness)

Recently a full English PS1 translation patch was released by Policenauts.net to coincide with Hideo Kojimas 46th birthday (24th of August). This ranks as perhaps the most anticipated English game translation since Secret of Mana 2 and having taken some three years to accomplish the script is of a high quality and the patch bug free. There has never been a better time to forsake your conventional police unit!

Darklands - PC *Masterpiece*

Heroic Role-Playing Adventures in Medieval Germany

The computer RPG has become a rather different sort of animal to the pen and paper progenitors of the genre. The computer was originally expected to take the role of dungeon master: encouraging the player to engage imaginatively with the source material: however this attitude gave way very quickly to the computer acting as automated taskmaster, reducing the player (by way of exp, new weapons, magic etc) to an beleaguered dogsbody; grinding characters, amassing trinkets and killing the proverbial foozle. I am not saying this style of play isn't fun and it can be integrated with the more imaginative style of cRPG: but it should be considered of secondary importance if you want a game with substance.

Darklands is made of such wondrous substance and is amongst the handful of computer RPG's that grasped the potential of the medium. The only RPG ever released by legendary software house Microprose (developed by MPSLabs), it offers the player an experience unique in the computer gaming canon. The game world exists as a fantastical palimpsest of the real medieval Germany, where the myths, legends and superstitions of the time are layered over the deep historical reality of the period: encounters play out more like vignettes while beautifully illustrated story boards explain your current predicament. Characters age, grow old and die, skills are learnt and then forgotten, equipment rusts, your fame waxes and wanes and the game world is persistent, evolving and never ends...

Should modern games come bundled with a GPS?
No...probably not.












Another night on bald mountain.












"Well lets see...I can use flails, poleaxes and have a virtue of 99"
"You've got the job...but can you toss burgers?!"

Premier Darklands Fansite
Darklands Yahoo Discussion Group
Download from Abandonia
Intro at Youtube
History of cRPG at Gamasutra

...if you are looking for a game to play that will actually provide an enriching experience rather than a banal glorification of positive feedback then Darklands is the answer: it has had the answer since 1992 and almost nobody wants to know...

3 in Three - Mac *Masterpiece*

'There is no number 3 in Three'

3 in Three by Cliff Johnson is the best puzzle game ever made (with one possible exception...his earlier masterstroke: The Fools Errand). Welcome to a peculiar alien landscape ruled my letters, curious symbols and the omnipresent letter legislator. You are a typical number 3 (female) exiled from your spreadsheet during an unusual power surge and sent spiralling into the bowels of the computer. Your quest is to make the tortuous journey back to the desktop; through fields of binary digits, warped tesseracts and garbled symbolic crossroads: while all the time pandering the ludicrous machinations and cryptic jabberings of dollar signs, question marks, self important full stops and of course the letters.

Your so-called friends.


Ctrl-s.


Logic Grid


Linguistic Blackjack


Alphanumeralogical Codes

Between each puzzle is often a short cut scene where the true jumbled nature of communication is revealed and journeying ever deeper into the darkest recesses of the machine you come to realise that mathematics and language are not as different as they seem. Essentially 3 tries to tame the ambiguity of language with the rigours of mathematical logic while questing for a personal identity outside the rigid framework of number theory. All in a days work.

Cliff Johnsons Homepage
Home of the Underdogs Entry

A truly sublime game that will take give you many enjoyable evenings: puzzling contentedly into the night. It only ever recieved a release on the Mac but by using the excellent (and free) Mac Classic emulator for PC: Executor (donwload links and serial codes available on Cliff Johnson's site) the game can reach those who like their bread butter side up.

King of Dragon Pass - PC / Mac

King of Dragon Pass is a mixture of text adventure, resource management, strategy, god-sim and RPG: all set in the popular fantasy setting of Glorantha. Released in 1999 and nothing short of an anachronism, KoDP is purely represented with lavish 2D backgrounds and text.

Have you ever wanted to be in charge of a warrior tribe? Have you ever wistfully looked over the hills...dreaming of adventure? Have you ever eaten feta cheese on the back of a blubbery whale?
Are these ridiculous questions going to lead to some sort of resounding recommendation to play this game? Yes!

The days before Gillette.


"To the winner go the spoils...to the loser only the knowledge of defeat"
(and maybe an injury).


Shake dem bones (what a pitifull comment).


Greater Crab Deamon vs Minotaur Champion!
Note: it has eyes on stalks and eyes on its face.

This game was made for the thoughtful fantasist. A person who doesn't need their imagination pre-packaged. A person who with irony in mind can gleefully inhabit a world populated by duck headed peons (if you find yourself without this irony I would consider seeking help). Good software, like good literature, art, music etc is a prompt for the imagination. It is the quality of this prompt that often makes a classic. This world of mind that good art conjures, is besides tangible themes and ideas, the most important thing it can offer. Until this aspect of software is considered paramount in development and reviews; there can be no such thing as software as an art form: only as entertainment (whatever that is) or at best as a technical exercise.

Official Website
Fansite
Another Fansite
Wikipedia Article
Download Torrent

Ok...ok...hold the waffle! There are both PC and Mac versions of this game and they are identical. If you are looking for a game that hearkens back to the real old days of PC gaming but with some of the pizazz modern computers can offer and don't mind using that musty old imagination you've got up their somewhere; you needn't surf further than this page.

Moonstone: A Hard Day's Knight - Amiga / PC

Arguably the finest game released for the the Amiga. Moonstone: A Hard Day's Knight see's you take charge of a colourful knight errant. On the worldmap you move from swamp to desert, forest to mountain, soloing dungeons; garnering treasure, trinkets, weapons and spells. The game progresses in real time and the cycles of the sun and moon can change the complexion of magic and encounters (e.g some enemies are far stronger at night). The battles are played out in a Golden Axe'esque sequence of sword wielding, giblet squelching carnage. As you travel around the map you must be wary of the machinations of the other three knights who have embarked on the very same quest as you (for maximum enjoyment these may be controlled by human players), if your paths cross a vicious mano-a-mano battle ensues and the victor will have choice pick of the vanquished items. There are towns replete with usual taverns, temples and merchants. These sanctuaries provide a much needed break from the intensities of the monster wracked world outside.

The World of Moonstone


The infamous stone circle!


"Screw it. Lets go to the Tavern"


A Hard Day's Knight

The gameplay elements are simple but Moonstone is so packed with variety that every minute is a joy. When more than one human is involved the battles become intensely heated and each day must be used to its absolute fullest. Moonstone marries the strategy and playability of a classic fantasy board game (e.g Talisman, Dungeon, Heroquest etc) with the mechanics of a great computer action game.

Download from Abandonia
Moonstone Tavern: Fansite
Wikipedia Article

There are two version of Moonstone; one for MS-DOS and one for Amiga. I would say the Amiga version is superior but don't feel disheartened if you settle for DOS (its still a bona fide classic).

Glider Pro - Mac

The most eclectic and magical shoot'em'up ever released. Glider Pro sees you guide a lone paper aircraft on an unknown quest through the vastness of an empty mansion. Buoyed by the occasional gust from an air vent, perturbed by the vagaries of a fan and downright terrified by the prospect of a paper shredder: making your way through this prison is a constantly challenging experiance; with each room offering new obstacles, enemies and puzzles. Included was a powerful level editor which helped spawn a thriving community of interior designers giving Glider Pro a deep reservoir of fan based content; there was even an electronic periodical "Glider Tech" which reviewed new houses, provided construction tip, articles and editorials. The heyday of Glider Pro was in the mid nineties but there is still an active online community and the legacy of a game this endearing will surely last a lifetime.

Download from John Calhoun's Homepage
Wikipedia Article
Slumberland: Glider Fansite
Glider Yahoo Group

The older Glider 4.0 (also a classic) is available for PC as well as Mac. All later editions of Glider Pro were designed for Mac OS 9 and X; with the level editor only available on OS 9. Since the publishers of Glider Casady & Greene went bankrupt the author John Calhoun has made all versions of the game freely available from his website.

Snatcher - Mega CD

A glorious paean to the film Blade Runner and the cyberpunk animes of the 80's; Snatcher still manages to articulate what is a very familiar story in a manner both fresh and extremely enjoyable. Play switches from standard point and click adventure to Virtual Cop style shoot outs, helping maintain a sense of real danger and urgency throughout (unsurprisingly rare in point and click adventures). The graphics and characters are in the anime style of the late 1980's, reminiscent of cyberpunk shows such as Bubblegum Crisis and Cybercity OEDO 808. Developed by Hideo Kojima who would later continue his cyberpunk trend with the incredibly successful Metal Gear Solid. The game is also noticeable for one of the best computer game soundtracks ever scored; swirling bistro sax solos followed by ominous downtempo electronica: the track Old L.A. 2040 is simply a masterpiece. The level of detail is superb, the pace and humour are spot-on (the best lines go to your robot sidekick: Metal Gear), the voice acting is excellent (how many times do you hear that sentence!) and the whole game just feels like a labour of love.

Download fromROMNation
The Kremlin: Snatcher Fansite
Hideo Kojima's Blog

First released for the NEC PC-8801 there are numerous versions of this game. There was even a ludicrous SD (super deformed) version of Snatcher released for the MSX2 which I personally havent played but fear the worst. For a western audience the Mega-CD edition is by far the best with enhanced features and expertly translated script. This is one of the quintessential cyberpunk experiances and one of the greatest point'n'click('n'blast) adventures of all time!