My next post was going to be how I got my old copy of Grim Fandango running on Windows 7. I may, however, just wait for Steam to solve this problem for me.
Some old Lucasarts adventure games are coming to Steam; I’m hoping Grim is amongst them.
Thanks, Kotaku.
Lately, I’ve been thinking of playing Grim Fandango. I’ve also thought about turning this into a more social experience: a game club (like a book club).
The game would be Grim Fandango, and the subject would be “Why did adventure gaming die?”
Some may say adventure gaming isn’t dead. Syberia, Indigo Prophecy, Telltale’s Sam and Max revival are all critically well received. They are, however, never compared directly to The Longest Journey or Grim Fandango; the last great classic adventure games.
Whether adventure games died due to archaic mechanics, that other genres incorporated adventure mechanics into themselves, or the average gamer’s attention span has simply shrunk, Grim Fandango should help in this examination (and be fun to play).
I’m thinking play could be 1-2 hrs a week with a weekly posting here on the blog for discussion. Throw in meeting in person roughly once a month, and you have a book club.
Here it is:
Facebook 3.0 for iPhone 3.0 almost complete
Check it out. Looks good, but will lack push until 3.1
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/07/01/facebook-for-iphone-30-coming-soon-preview-and-details/
Next week, XBLA and PSN will have BF1943; and Xbox Live enforces a trial be available.
I would suggest grabbing that trial and giving it a shot. It will probably be an excellent multiplayer shooter with 4 maps. Expect future map packs to cost as much as the full game.
Thanks, Evilavatar
Seriously. Go try this out. Currently out for PC, but will be available on XBLA later (and I think PSN?).
Thanks, Evil Avatar and ActionTrip
VS. 
This weekend sees some pretty good games get decent discounts: Heroes of Might and Magic V + Expansions, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, and Zeno Clash. You can pick them up individually, or in packs. It looks like it may be cheaper to pick up Dark Messiah and the HM&M5 pack separately, rather than together in a single pack.
Well, well, well. I did not expect Empire to hit the Weekend deal. While still a little buggy, this is an excellent game and a steal at half off. One of the first 3rd party retail steam games, Empire used steam as it’s copy protection. There is no non-steam version, and this is the same thing you’d get if you bought the box in the store.
And the thing you get is Empire: Total War for $25 bucks. Epic in scale in both battles and world map, Empire is an overall amazing game (if your machine can run it). The Special Edition is also on sale, but I won’t bother to link to it. I don’t think it’s worth $10 to get 5 digital units. And normally I like special editions.
Famed actor Bruce Campbell has also voice acted for a few games here and there.
Tachyon: The Fringe has just landed on Steam, where Bruce voices the main character.
Here’s a pretty well put together article that analyzes FF8, the time in and peer media in which it was released (Whedon, Rowling), and story in games. It’s written for someone who has never played it (or, in fact, many games at all).
For the cynical gamers, note: this is not a “games as art” piece as the author discusses near the end. Just a slightly deeper look at an often overlooked game.
Note: It does spoil the ending. Read at your discretion.
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/70336-remembering-the-orphan-final-fantasy-viii/
I thoroughly enjoyed FF8; enough so that I replayed the entire thing twice back-to-back when my save data was erased 2 hrs from the end (otherwise known as 58 hrs in). FF8 was actually the reason I bought a Playstation (or, more accurately, I played FF7 on the PC and my PC was incapable of running FF8).