New Scaratings

"Riven" has become a problem. I have the original game in the box, with the 5 CD's it came with. It refused to run on Windows 7, but I thought it would like Windows XP, which I have on another PC, but it didn't. Again, I have the real game and all five CD's, but it will not load, or allow me to play the game, even though it put the icon for the game on my desk top. Does anybody have an idea as to why "Riven" will not load or play on either Windows XP or Windows 7...?

For any of you that don't know, "Riven" is the award winning sequel to "Myst". I played it many years ago, and beat the game by cheating with walkthroughs. I was hoping to take a shot at the game again, but it looks like it won't load to, or play on either Windows XP or Windows 7.

Can anybody help me here...?

p.s. Here's a box shot of the original "Myst" game that preceded "Riven". (There were more games in the series to follow, and all of them were supposed to be good.)

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"The game is afoot."

Windows Solitaire card games...

I am ashamed to admit that when I have nothing to do, I often play the solitaire game that Microsoft Windows provides you with, when you install the operating system. I didn't start playing it until fairly recently on Windows 7. I struggle though those games, and wind up winning only about 25%, or less most of the time, until I reset the statistics to zero and start over again. (One time I lost 24 straight games in a row. The best consecutive wins I have ever had was 4.)

Last week, when I was at my mother's house, I used her older computer running Windows XP, and played its solitaire game. I couldn't believe it, after playing many games, I won just about every time. The longest losing streak I had was one game. Even though the "undo" option was not as kind as it is on Windows 7 made no difference, I found it to be almost impossible to lose.

Perhaps this is because when you win on a Windows 7 solitaire game, it just gives you a loud "Jing-a-ling" blast on your speakers, and the cards tumble down in less than ten seconds. When you win on the Windows XP version or Solitaire, it makes you sit and watch, as each card cascades down from the top, lasting for about 3 minutes.

I would like to know, if anyone else has found this to be true, or if you think I just got a little bit lucky playing solitaire on my mom's old computer running Windows XP.

p.s. The Windows XP version of solitaire is kind of a pain in the ass, because it makes you have to click on a card to turn it over after you have removed the card that was previously above it. The Windows 7 version of solitaire automatically flips uncovered cards over for you.

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"The game is afoot."

Riven and Myst were two of my favorite computer games; I have the entire Myst series. But I also am unable to run Riven on any of the newer Windows OSs.

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

ZOG, I only played the original "Myst" and "Riven", but I also have the sequels that came later. I was hoping to play the later sequels, but I'm afraid that Windows 7 won't let me.

These games were so good that I think younger generations would like to play them too. Why doesn't Brøderbund re-release them in a format that would be compatible with Windows 7...? I think people would buy them.

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"The game is afoot."

Playing violent computer games can screw up your brain...

Check out this link to the Indiana University School of Medicine story:

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/web/page/normal/4685.html

Hell, the study was done with young people, who's brains have always been easy to screw up. I would say that if you are over 50, you can probably continue to play violent computer games, and not have to worry about the games having any effect, whatsoever, on your remaining brain cells that are still functional.

Here's a link to another government funded study of violent computer games, that only cost tax payers 1.5 million dollars:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/1 ... 92675.html

I would guess that this guy has never played any sort of computer game in his life beyond "Frogger", which sent him to his room to weep over all of those frogs that went to their deaths.



Here's a link to what a "Frogger" game looked like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9fO-YuWPSk

(If you're over 50, I think you can still play the "Frogger" game, where many cute hopping amphibians often die trying to across the road, and not have to be concerned about screwing up your brain cells.)

p.s. I know that DANTE, YODA, and I have played many computer games that might be considered "violent", and so far I don't think any of us have gone into a shopping mall with an automatic weapon and blown anyone away. Better yet, I don't think that any of us ever became bullies.

p.p.s. These multi-million dollar government funded studies are bullshit, and a total waste of your tax dollars.

p.p.p.s. Why hasn't our government spent a couple million dollars more to fund some idiot PhD professor, from some university, to do a study of violent comic books...? (I'm worried that that they may already have)

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"The game is afoot."

I'm really, really late to this thread, but not games. My first computer gaming was in 1971, with a TI-700 terminal using thermal paper and a 300 baud headset modem (you placed your phones headset into rubber cups) and playing Star Trek and a few other games off the CDC 7000 Mainframe at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory; where my father did summer work.

Anyway, I just wanted to plug a fantastic book that came out in August that's highly relevant to this thread. "Ready Player One" by Earnest Cline. If you like this thread, you're going to go nuts over that book. I won't spoil it, you can ready reviews online. It's a lovefest of 70s and 80s geek trivia, more than one person has referred to it as a "nerdgasm". I'm not affiliated with this book, and in fact, a friend on the ABQ trivia team (Duff) recommended it to me last month. I tore through it in a few days.

Oh, an no mention of Wizardry here yet? Hmmm..... And yes, I played nearly every Infocom game that was released. Zork is still the best.

DIABLO, where have you been...? Welcome to this thread. My gosh, you got into computer gaming in 1971...! I would guess that puts you way before the rest of us. I think the earliest pc computer game I've played was "Castle Adventure" (Kevin Bales 1984). Yeah, I did play some video games in bars and video arcades before then, and if you want to waste a lot of time, you can scroll back, to find my comments on them, but even those came way after 1971. (In 1971 I was still flying helicopters in the Marines, and hoping not to see "You are dead", as Liljol has humorously posted about computer games earlier in this thread.) DIABLO, you may now be our computer game guru. Have you kept up with computer gaming as it has evolved?

I really liked the Infocom game, "Wishbringer", but I have not played all of the Infocom games. Some time ago I bought a collection of all of the Infocom games, but sadly they will not play on the version of Windows that I now have.

I'm going to Amazon.com right now to see if I can find "Ready Player One".

Anyway, welcome aboard, and I hope that you will post more of your knowledge, comments, recommendations, and thoughts about "Computer Games New and Old".

p.s. I just bought "Ready Player One" by Earnest Cline, can't wait 'til it arrives. Thanks for the recommendation.

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"The game is afoot."

I need help on the Dark Tales, Edgar Allen Poe's, "The Black Cat", Big Fish game.



It was a great game until I got the broken cue stick off of the pool table, and took it to the coffee table in another room, along with the bottle of glue, where I was supposed to be able to glue the broken cue stick back together, and progress. The God damn pool cue refuses to be glued back together, and I can go no farther in the game. Perhaps there is something I skipped over earlier in the game, but I have consulted several walkthroughs, and backtracked all the way to the beginning of the game several times, and I have absolutely no idea what I didn't do, didn't get, or have to do to fix that freaking pool cue.

(BrandyB, this is a "Big Fish" game, and I know you can help me out on this one.)

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"The game is afoot."

I finally fixed the pool cue stick problem on the Dark Tales, Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat" Big Fish game. Damn, I had done nothing wrong. I hadn't skipped or missed anything. I had it all on the table to be fixed and glued together to move on in the game. The problem at this point is that the screen is extremely fussy as to your exact positioning of the the two parts of the broken pool cue stick. I MEAN EXTREMELY FUSSY...!!! I must have tried it 20 times with no success. I was about to say, "Screw this game!", but gave it one more shot earlier today. By some miracle, I connected those two parts just right, and they sat there on the table waiting for me to apply the glue. The glue was on in a heartbeat, and CLOUDY moved on. I'm still working on the game, and I think I'm getting pretty close to the end now.

Anyway, even though I am not quite finished with the game, I will highly recommend it. This is NOT one of those idiotic hidden object games. The hidden object scenes are few and far between, where you simply need to find something that you will need to solve a puzzle or a problem somewhere else.

This is definitely a puzzle and problem solving game, where you have to think, and figure things out.

p.s. This game has many, many rooms, buildings, and places. I may be wrong, but to finally beat the game, you are likely going to have to backtrack a long way to the room that requires the last key to get the cobra statue.

(Belated edit: I finished the game yesterday. It is a wonderful game (That is, other than that damn broken pool cue.) Once again, I highly recommend this game for all of you, who like to take on multiple challenges of figuring things out.)

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"The game is afoot."

"Edgar Allan Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue" is another Big Fish, Dark Tales game. Even though it has elements of a hidden object game, once again they are few and far between. This is primarilly a puzzle and problem solving game, and I highly recommend it to those, who like to try to think outside of the box, figure things out, beat puzzles, and solve problems. It's a damn good game, and you can buy it and "Edgar Allan Poe's Black Cat" on the same CD for $9.99 at any WalMart, and a lot of other places.

Go get 'em and have a lot of fun. If you do, and get stuck anywhere, let me know, and I'll do my best to help you out.

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"The game is afoot."

I've had "RedJack, Revenge of the Brethren" sitting on a shelf collecting cobwebs and dust for a very long time. The game was so old that I never thought it could possibly play on Windows 7. I stumbled across it tonight, and thought, "What the Hell.", and tried to install it on Windows 7. Of course it wouldn't work. Surprise, surprise, surprise...! It installed with absolutely no problem, and I have started playing the game. I haven't gotten very far into it, but so far the game is working. I've got a feeling that it can be played on whatever version of Windows you have. The short distance I have gone into the game has mostly been talking to characters that I have encountered. However, I have picked up a sword and a pistol. It's another pirate story game. There are two more CD's in the box that installation never called for.

It looks like it might be a good game. Has anyone ever played it?



p.s. Be careful. There is some guy that I have run into in the woods, who has killed me on the spot twice.

p.p.s. I've got a feeling that you can pick this game up for a song these days.

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"The game is afoot."

Things were going so well playing "RedJack, Revenge of the Brethren", until an error message took over the entire screen, and killed the game. I should have known that Windows 7 would eventually do this to me. The game came with three CD's, but never asked for discs 2 and 3 during installation. It started right up, after I had only installed the first disc. Another clue was when I discovered that my saved games would not load, and I had to start from the beginning every time I restarted the game.

Why would "RedJack" play so well for an hour or so, and suddenly decide to crap out on me?

If any of you decide to play this game, I have a few tips for you from the short distance I got into it.

This is a game where you can DIE...!

After you have gotten to the town, do not go wandering back on the path into the woods again, until you have made friends with Lyle. You will die every time if you do.

When you have the rat poisoned fish chum to kill the shark, throw it from the row boat very quickly. If you try rowing around looking for the shark, it will gobble you up, before you can toss the the bucket overboard.

Locating some places where you have to go to find things and people is a little tricky at times. Move your cursor around looking for paths to take before you pass them by. Some are pretty easy to miss.

p.s. The place where the game died was when I went back to the dock, and Lyle was teaching me how to fight. Lyle and I were ready to get it on, when the error message filled the entire screen, and it crapped out.

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"The game is afoot."

Here is a link to the "Games Over" site, where you will find walkthroughs for many, many, many games:

http://www.gamesover.com/

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"The game is afoot."

"Sentinel, Decendants in Time"

This looks like it might be a good game. I am only a half inch into it. The only thing I have figured out so far is that you need to right click to move forward. It might be somewhat premature, but because it is an "Adventure Company Game", I have to think it might be fun to play. I will keep you posted, when I play this game beyond the half inch that I have wandered into it so far.

Here's a game shot, I think this could be a very good game.



Has anyone else ever played this game?

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"The game is afoot."

"Nikopol, Secrets of the Immortals" (2008) is another game that I rescued from the musty catacombs of my basement. It is a several years old, and I doubted that it would install to my computer running Windows 7, let alone actually play on it. However, after wiping all of the cobwebs and dust from it, I was pleasantly surprised when it did.

Once again I am flabbergasted that it looks like I can play an older game on Windows 7. I tried the game tonight just long enough to see how it would do. So far, it runs just fine, and looks like a good game. After hunting around at the beginning, I have already found incense, a hammer, a chisel, a lighter, a painting kit, chains, and a film reel, and I haven't even gotten out of my apartment yet...

I would guess that you can pick this game up for a song these days, and if you are looking for a new pc computer game, that challenges you, I say get this game, and give it a try.

Here is one screen shot of a place in the game that awaits you down the road, if you play the game.



Here's a link to the video trailer for the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCPOmRHv7KI

Anyone ever played it already...?

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"The game is afoot."

More on "Nikopol"...



The game plays just fine on Windows 7, but the game is extremely difficult and frustrating. I would challenge any of you to try to play this game, without having to resort to a walkthrough, unless you have a year or more to try to figure things out. Don't get me wrong, it is a good game, but a walkthrough is definitely needed to get through it. You will get killed multiple times at the very beginning, and throughout the entire game.

Everything starts out so nice and slow, until a monster comes crashing into your apartment, and kills you. Normally, after being killed, you can load a saved game, try it again, and think about a better way to stay alive. However, this game affords you LITTLE TIME to do this. After reloading, you are right back where you were before, with only 10 or 15 seconds to figure out what to do again. To stay alive is very complicated at points, and the game often does not give you enough time to think things out, before monsters or enemy guards kill you again, and again, and again, over and over again. You have to do a lot of things fast to stay alive, and the time the game gives you is very short, especially when you have no clue as to what you have to do.

All of the game is not short timed problem solving situations to stay alive, and it gives you a lot of puzzles to solve, where time is of no importance. However, I need to say that the puzzles you need to solve are extremely hard, and the help from a walkthrough on them is the way to go, unless you have a year or more to try to figure them out.

"Nikopol" is an extremely challenging game, and I will only recommend it to experinced gamers, who have played a lot of games like this before.

With my walkthrough, I got pretty far into the game, but screwed up fairly close to the end. The game's auto-save sent me way back, and now I am trying to figure my way out of the crate that I hid in again, waiting to get closer to the end of the game.

(I will give you a tip on how to get out of the crate. Use the tire iron on the lock assembly first. Then use your chisel, which breaks, but does it's job. The trick now, that the walkthrough doesn't tell you, is to just use your hand to remove the remaining casing, before trying your knife on the right spring.)

If anyone dares to play this game, please let me know. Perhaps we can share notes and beat the damn thing. (I got close.)

Here's a link to some gameplay of the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuTPJ1DYE9M

(Belated edit. I have finally completed the game. Even with the walkthrough, it was tough. The walkthrough was somewhat vague at times, and often left me trying to figure out what it was telling me to do. If you are good at these types of games, give it a try. I think you will have fun, and will soon understand my words of advice.)

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"The game is afoot."

"Zombies Ate My Neighbors" is an incredibly wonderful game, that can only be played on the old Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo platforms, and on something called Virtual Console. (Why no one ever made a PC version of it is beyond me.) However, if you want to have a lot of fun with a great game, I think you can pick up an old Sega Genesis platform very cheaply these days, and the "Zombies Ate My Neighbors" cartridge shouldn't cost you more than ten bucks. I promise you that you will love this game. THIS IS A VERY STRONG RECOMMENDATION...!!!

p.s. If you buy a Sega Genesis system, there are very many other games you can play on it too.

.......... ......... .......... ..........

GET THIS GAME... PLAY IT... IT WILL GIVE YOU MORE FUN THAN YOU DESERVE...!!![/b]

p.s. At the beginning of the game you can chose to play it as either a female or male character.



.................. I'm not sure, but perhaps both could play the game at the same time.

p.s. I have beaten this game 3 times, but that would be after 100 or so tries. The finale, after beating the game is great, and it allows you to play an extra bonus level, where you can wipe out the bastards once more, in a short, fairly easy, flashback of what you have gone through. The final bonus level is entirely in the office room (s) of the people, who created the game.

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"The game is afoot."

"The Secrets of Atlantis: The Sacred Legacy" (2006) is an old game that appears to load its 3 CD's onto Windows 7 with no problem. (It does require disc 1 in the drive to play the game, after installing it.) I tried playing it for a few minutes, but got nowhere. It might be a good game, but I haven't gotten into it far enough yet to give it any kind of recommendation. Has anyone ever played this game?

Here are a few screen shots that we have to look forward to:

..... .....

Here's some video from the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Ok_5_NjTY

p.s. This game may be part of a series. It is an "Adventure Company" game, so it should be pretty good, once you get into it.

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"The game is afoot."

Hi Cloudy, sorry I couldn't help you when you were stuck on that game but glad you figured it out. I got a Wii for Christmas and have been playing it often.

BRANDY, what game are you playing now...? I know you like the Big Fish games, the one's I have played have been very good. However, have I succeeded in tempting you to try some of the other games that I have recommended, that are not Big Fish games?

Yep, trying to fix that damn pool cue slowed me up for quite a while on "Edgar Allan Poe's, The Black Cat" game, but I kept going back to it, and finally figured out what I was doing wrong.

p.s. Does Big Fish games really have a new game every day...?

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"The game is afoot."

I need some help here... I have been trying to remember the name of the game that came with Sega Genesis, when you bought the system. Somehow, I vaguely remember that is was called "Tiger Shark" or something like that. However, I could be way off. It's been many years ago.

I will try to describe it to the best of my ability. As I recall, it started you out in some kind of single seat rocket jet vehicle that went screaming down a tunnel. You had to steer it left or right as you came to juctions in the tunnel network, possibly even up and down. Along the way you had to find fuel stations to keep going. The best I could ever do on this game was to finally crash into a barrier, and DIE.

Can anybody figure out what I am talking about...? Does anyone know the name of this game...? Has anybody ever played it, and figured out how to to beat it? (I never beat it.)

I am determined to find it, go back, and finally beat this game, but I will need your help. At my age, time is running out on me, and I would really like to be able to check this game off on my bucket list of tasks accomplished, before I have to kick it.

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"The game is afoot."

I couldn't believe it, but the night before last, I asked TEVERETT (Who had driven all the way from Cincinatti to Dayton to meet my buddy Dave, DHB, and me.) what computer games she played. She said "Mafia Wars". This is an online game that I have never played, but one that Dave is addicted to. When I told Dave that TEVERETT played "Mafia Wars" too, they went into a conversation about the game, which I could not understand. The best I could figure out was that they both may seek each other out for this game on the Internet, and swap things between each other to advance toward whatever "Mafia Wars" wants them to advance to.

Again, I have never played "Mafia Wars", but I am curious to know if any of you are also addicted to the game, or at least might have played it once or twice.

p.s. This was the first time I met TEVERETT in person. She is damn smart, and a real sweetheart. If I can ever get a trivia team together again, I want TEVERETT on it...! She knows shit from NASCAR to movies from the 1930's, and just about everything in between.

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"The game is afoot."

Don't waste a dime or a minute on this game. It sucks from getting the CD out of the box, fighting through the bullshit it gives you trying to install it, to trying to play it. IT SUCKS, IT SUCKS, IT SUCKS...!

The best thing I can say about the game, is that after fighting with it to get it installed and started for about half an hour, it finally worked. To say it "worked" is being kind. You can't move your guy around with the mouse or the directional arrows, you have to go over to the left side of your keyboard, and screw around with the letters "W", "S", "D", and something else to get the guy to move, after the intro. Even after you've figured that out, IT SUCKS...! There was a sword there, that I knew the guy had to get, but nothing I could think of worked, so I said, "Screw it...!", and tried to log out of the freaking game. It wouldn't let me, so I had to re-boot my computer.

Tell you what, send this game to your most hated worst enemies for their Christmas present next year...

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"The game is afoot."

So far, I can only find that, bundled with the Sega Genesis was either Altered Beast or Sonic the Hedge Hog. There was a game for Sega called Fire Shark, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Shark

The game you described sounds somewhat familiar to an arcade game.

Thank you, YODA, I went to the link you gave me, but the game I'm looking for is not "Fire Tiger", and I know for sure it wasn't "Altered Beast" or "Sonic Hedge Hog" either. I don't think this was ever an arcade game. I have a strong feeling it was created just for the Sega Genesis platform, or more likely for the add-on to it, that allowed you to play games that came on CD's. It was in no way cartoonish, and as I recall, it tried to look like a real life video.

Don't give up my friend. Keep on seaching, and perhaps you will find it.

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"The game is afoot."