Retro games, abandonware, freeware and classic games for PC and Mac
Author: Gustavo - Published: 25 September 2021, 4:36 pm
Jill of the Jungle: Jill Goes Underground is the second chapter of the Jill of the Jungle trilogy, a series of side-scroller platformers. The games were designed to compete with Duke Nukem and Commander Keen. It was released in 1992 for MS-DOS only.
Today, it's time to review another of the first significant female figures in video games who are not just there to be rescued by the male protagonist. Will the second chapter of the franchise be as good as the first? Will it be an improvement on the original, considering how close they were released? Let's find out together.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 25 September 2021, 2:34 pm
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a text adventure by Infocom, based on the famous novel by Douglas Adams. The book, a comedy science fiction genre masterpiece, was written in 1979.
Infocom released the game at the end of 1984 for Apple II, Macintosh, PC, Atari 8-bit, and Commodore 64. The Amiga, Atari ST, and other versions were published in the following years.
Infocom acquired the rights to work on the famous novel and was lucky enough to have the collaboration of Douglas Adams himself.
So the game designer Steve Meretzky worked together with the famous writer to create this interactive fiction that takes the book's best elements without following the plot closely. Initially, the game is very linear, but once Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect leave the Earth destroyed by the Vogons, this interactive fiction gives its best, with several non-linear subplots that will make adventure games lovers happy. Ok, some of the puzzles are not strictly following the "rules" of the classic adventures, but this is one of the reasons why this game is original and fun.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 18 September 2021, 12:47 am
James Clavell's Shogun is the computer game adaptation of the famous novel Shogun by James Clavell. The game was created by Infocom and released in 1989 for Amiga. Apple II, MS-DOS, and Macintosh.
The title is known as the first Infocom text adventure that includes graphics. Infocom was, in fact, well known for the classic adventures purely based on text, also known as interactive fictions, like Deadline, Starcross, and, of course, Zork: The Great Underground Empire.
Technically speaking, the game is flawless: the images are stunning, perfectly in line with the Japanese art of the 16th century, and contribute to creating a great atmosphere; the parser, being an Infocom adventure, is highly flexible and very advanced.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 13 September 2021, 7:31 pm
Spacewrecked: 14 Billion Light Years From Earth is a computer RPG published by Gremlin Graphics in 1990 for Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS. In Europe, it is known as Federation Quest 1: B.S.S. Jane Seymour.
Created by Graeme Ing and Robert Crack, the designers of Utopia: The Creation of a Nation, B.S.S. Jane Seymour is a classic sci-fi dungeon crawler set in space. You are on board a science starship directed to Orion's arm to collect alien life samples. Unfortunately, a radiation wave hits the vessel, killing part of the crew, destroying half of the ship, and setting the aliens free. Of course, as you can expect, the aliens are evil (or maybe just hungry), so they will try to kill all the remaining crew.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 10 September 2021, 11:40 am
Ashes of Empire (also known as Fallen Empire) is an action-adventure published by Mirage originally for the Amiga in 1992.
The game was designed by Mike Singleton, the author of Midwinter and Midwinter II: Flames Of Freedom. Despite not being an official sequel, Ashes of Empire is often considered the third chapter.
There are many elements in common with the series: you can move freely in a world entirely in 3D, exploring places, visiting cities, meeting people, solving puzzles, and occasionally engaging in combat, always in real-time. But in this case, the game has much bigger ambitions. So big that it was defined as a "political simulation." In fact, the game gives the player a very ambitious task: to pacify five countries, whose names are clearly similar to post-Soviet states: Ossia, Ruzakhstan, Belokraine, Moldenia, and Servonia. To do that, you will have to visit the countries, get enough resources, talk to people and convert them to your cause. To really pacify a state, you have to meet 4 requirements: assure that each state has enough peace-supporting buildings, demolish all the buildings that menace peace, eliminate the enemy forces, and get the support of all the ethnic groups. Depending on the allies you have found during the game, you might need different strategies; for example, if your friends love gold, you will have to gather enough of the precious metal. Other allies will need different tactics.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 1 September 2021, 1:33 pm
Hard Drivin' is a famous 3D racing coin-op created by Atari and released in 1989. The conversions for home computers, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, MS-DOS, ZX Spectrum, and Mega Drive, were managed by Domark.
The arcade was revolutionary, not just because it was one of the first racing games to use full 3D polygonal graphics but because Atari built the cabinet like a real car. The experience for the players was fantastic. Of course, this could not be preserved in the home versions, as racing wheel controllers were unavailable then. But technically speaking, Domark did a great job porting the 3D engine to all computers and consoles, including the less powerful ones (like the ZX Spectrum). On Amiga, DOS, and Mega Drive/Genesis, the 3D engine works well, even if it's not faster than the arcade. Unfortunately, more playtesting would have been necessary because the controls are not perfectly tuned, and it isn't easy to drive the cars properly. Some users hated it because of this, while others were impressed by the fantastic 3D graphics.
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