My new boss, Peter, mentioned a few months ago that he has enjoyed Half-Life in the past, so I gave it a whirl, the original version from a few years back. What a great and addictive first-person shooter (FPS)! I want version 2, but it's still around $50 and I don't care to pay that much for a game (yet).
I don't know whether playing FPS games like Quake and Doom will have a nasty effect on my soul or behavior, but by all accounts I seem to remain a pretty non-violent and reasonable individual. That said, an FPS is an awfully cheap and easy way to get the sort of adrenaline rush that might otherwise require talent, coordination, time and money. I could acquire most of that, but few parents have a lot of time and money to burn on personal sports or games like paintball - so I get my adrenaline fix in the basement staring at a tube.
OK, that said, other games I enjoy include Unreal (great for multiplayer), Return to Wolfenstein, and Battlefield 1942. I am about to try Tribes 2 mainly because I want to see what can be done with the Torque game development engine, which is something I intend to learn more about.
I first got hooked on playing FPS games with Quake 1 on DOS, back before I was married and all. I'd replace the game CD with Laurie Anderson's Bright Red, which makes a great background soundtrack to running around in caves shooting at monsters. Similar mood and thrills as in a good horror movie.
I also very much enjoy a good strategy game. I try to play chess with a friend once a week. Computer strategy games I like include Ages of Kings (AOK) and, though this is also more of a bash-em game, Warcraft 3. Warcraft has fairly good gameplay but is particularly impressive in its smooth programming and continuing support for Mac as well as PC users. Love Blizzard entertainment. They also make StarCraft, which is like Warcraft in space, and Diablo, which is similar but I find less engaging (less resource management).
Another computer game I once really liked, but haven't played for years, was Apache Maximum Overkill. Unlike most flying games, this one involved a slow-moving helicopter from which you could sneak up on enemies from a river bed. Great graphics for its day, playing on a 25MHz 486.
Before all this, back when I had an LC3 and 386, I played a lot of Commander Keen (by John Carmack before he wrote Quake), the original Sim City, and the best Mac game of all time IMHO - Lemmings. I loved Lemmings, back in about 1992 or so when I was in another state. I still have a copy of it somewhere. Cute, harmless fun, very kid-friendly.
What else? Kid-friendly games on our iMac include AlphaBaby for our toddler (bang on keys, see family pictures), Double 2 - a la Mah Jong, HangMan, and Solitaire. Kind of a moot point these days with so many kid games online, e.g. Elmo. Our boy doesn't get much screen time; when he does it's AlphaBaby.
Gotta go work now. What games do you like, and why?
Posted by tapli005 at April 22, 2005 06:13 AM