Computer Games – Page 6 – Brian.Carnell.Com

Mike Mayfield’s Star Trek Game Revived

Michael Birken dug up and reworked Mike Mayfield’s 39 year old text-based Star Trek game.

When I was in high school back in the early 1980s, the library had some sort of DEC terminal hooked up to a modem that had a number of simple programs, with this Star Trek game being one of them. Now, we’re talking like 1982 or 1983 so there was no monitor — the terminal was literally a dot matrix printer and every time you would enter a command, the printer would print out the next “screen” (which was why it was in the terminal was in its own special room).

Star Trek, Adventure, Eliza…we spent many a lunch hour wasting paper that way.

Out of the Park Baseball 9

Out of the Park Baseball 9 was released a couple months ago and has received nothing but great reviews since. Gamespot called it “the best game in the history of the franchise” which is another way of saying it may be the best baseball sim ever (and since OOTP doesn’t have a huge advertising budget with Gamestop, this is a legit review rather than one bought and paid for with advertising dollars).

Gamespot’s one criticism is that it may be a little stat heavy which is a bit like calling a supermodel too sexy. A sports sim that is too stats heavy is like a square circle — it is a logical impossibility.

Pro Cycling Manager 2008

Pro Cycling Manager 2008 is a cycling sim for the PC and PSP. I’m curious whether there’s an EPO plugin.

OMG, Champions Online

Okay, maybe I will actually stop playing WoW at some point after all. Like maybe Spring 2009 when Cryptic is currently projecting it will launch Champions Online. Hell. Yes.

Somewhere in my basement I’ve got a 1st edition copy of the original Champions from 1981. I forced my grandparents to drive 60 miles to the only decent comic book/game store just so I could nab a copy the day it finally arrived in stock. What an amazing game that was/is.

Passively Multiplayer Online Game

Passively Multiplayer Online Game — PMOG — is a multiplayer game that you “play” within a status bar in Firefox as you browse. Its a bit like a souped-up tour of the web combined with an RPG reward system and a half dozen other twists thrown in for good measure. There’s even a PVP component. It’s still kind of rough in its beta form at the moment, but definitely something to keep an eye on.

ForumWarz

ForumWarz is a totally irreverent — and frequently gross — RPG where rather than take on the persona of an elf or a soldier with a BFG, you instead choose from either Camwhore, Troll or Emo Kid and then take on the Internet with your respective skillz and attackz. There’s even PVP!