Love the use of music in that trailer.

With the recent release of Bionic Commando: Rearmed, I’ve been thinking about other classic favorites. As a child of divorced parents who had joint custody, I alternated between mom’s and dad’s houses, every two weeks. The time spent with my dad was away from my schoolmates, so video games and Autodesk Animator were there to keep me occupied.

Looking around, it seems like Bionic Commando isn’t the only childhood favorite coming back. For the last few months I’ve been hearing rumors of the return of X-Com & just today, Syndicate.

Despite, the great job that was done on the update of Bionic Commando (multiplayer 7 co-op), there’s always a concern that the updates will fail.  The games were much simpler, which means that tinkering with the formula risks destroying the feeling of the game.  Wouldn’t it be nice to just be able to play some of the classics, unaltered?  Well, DOSBox is one of many emulators that allows you to do just that.  A simple “download” google search will help you find Syndicate, X-Com, Wing Commander, Dune 2 or whatever you’re feining.  There’s also plenty of sites that will help you get stuff configured and working properly. Did I mention that people even have DOSBox working on their PSP?

Another neat thing about DOSBox…    video capture!!

Here’s some of my favs.

Wing Commander 2

Dune 2

+ Dune 2 in-game footage

Syndicate

+ Syndicate in-game

X-Com

+ X-Com in-game

Comanche: Maximum Overkill

Ultima Underworld II
I remember making it to the end of this game and being completely stuck. I went to the local Babbage’s and picked up a cheat guide, only to read that the guide didn’t have any information past the point which I had already reached. 15 years later and I can finally see the ending!

Today was quite a trip down memory lane.  The game industry felt more innovative back then.  Nowadays, all the RTS games seem like a prettier version of Dune 2.  The FPS games are a dynamic version of DOOM.  The turn based strategy games are…  are…  uuh….   OH!  That reminds me, it looks like they’re coming out with a Jagged Alliance 3!  W00t!!  Anyhow, if you want innovation, I highly recommend checking out the indy gaming scene.  Start with Game Tunnel and then checkout The Great Games Experiment.  Best part of indy games is that they’re small games.  Simple enough where you can figure out the mechanics in minutes.  A revival of the casual gamer.