Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Now that my initial excitement has waned to a deep, purple coloured throb in the centre of my soul, the stark reality of GOG.com‘s Thief port has settled in. It runs, which is the big step up from my original version, but it’s not widescreen, the resolution is stamp sized, and it’s a bit grimy. Fret not, lovely Taffers, for I’m about to tell you how to make it work. And it’s ridiculously simple.
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I can’t believe that writing about a 14 year-old game is getting both me and Adam so excited (He: “This is the best thing ever!”), but Looking Glass’s genre-defining classic Thief is now available to download on Good Old Games. I’m downloading it right now, Taffer.
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Check the Earth for giant cracks, while demons ride high above the clouds, their red wings raining down fire, because the original Bullfrog Syndicate is to be available once again, via the magic of Good Old Games.

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Expect plenty more of these kinds of updates leading up to next week’s web-wide SOPA protests: it’s an enormously important issue for the future of the internet and everyone who uses it, so we’re giving it our all.

Also declaring themselves strongly against the online culture-trashing folly today are Minecraft-makers Mojang, who intend to make a right old song and dance about SOPA next week, NVIDIA, Trine chaps Frozenbyte, Torchlight devs Runic and retromancers Good Old Games. Positions, statements and assorted protests below.
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The thing that I posted about last week, with the free copy of Empire Earth Gold and the 50% off most everything in the Good Old Games back catalogue, is happening right now. So if you somehow have any money left after having been repeatedly mugged by indie bundles, here’s where to go. Off you go. Why yes, I am watching as you walk. That’s a nice wiggle you’ve got there, lad.

I remember Empire Earth quite fondly. I think I scored it 80-something percent in one of my earliest PC gamer reviews. Wonder how it holds up today? The game, not the review. The review is almost certainly terrible.

As I believe Jim wryly observed the other day, increasingly blogging about non-mainstream games entails blogging about non-mainstream games’ business strategies. It’s bundles, sales and more bundles as far as the eye can see at the moment, and latest to join the ranks of those appealing to the light-walleted is retromancery central Good Old Games.

Come Thursday, they’re knocking 40% off the price of The Witcher 2 (thus dropping it to £14.99/$23.99) and lobbing in a free copy of the Witcher 1:EE to boot. I believe this is about the best price there’s been for Witcher 2 so far right, at least for digital versions? Then come next Monday (12 Dec), they’re making olden strategy epic Empire Earth Gold Edition free for 48 hours, and slicing 50% off almost all the retro games in their catalogue. So you’ll want to go and lurk like a bargain-crazed pervert on GoG.com round about then. Full details here.

Good Old Games have been adding a bunch of EA games in the last few weeks. But today’s requires a post. They’ve got hold of the complete Ultima VII, widely considered to be the best in the Ultima series. (Argue!) So in there is all the extra bits and bobs, The Black Gate, Forge Of Virtue, Serpent Isle and The Silver Seed. For $6/£3.85. Which is nice.

Good Old Games have certainly built themselves a brand. Over the last few years the Polish project has leapt forward from offering a few provincial classics to a really impressive catalogue of games that made the 90s and early 00s interesting. Clearly they’ve been letting in many more recent games of late, with Fahrenheit appearing last week for example. And they used it to launch their own game, The Witcher 2, earlier this year. But it seems they want to expand even further, going directly into competition with the likes of Steam, Impulse, GamersGate or Origin. Which is always a bold step, but one made much more interesting when you consider their DRM-free requirement.

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In games-that-I-never-got news, everyone else in the whole world will be delighted to learn that both Little Big Adventures have been secured by Good Old Games. The French adventure platform things have always been adored, but I remember bouncing right off them on repeated attempts to join the cheerful crowds. Perhaps I’ll give them yet another go, now they’re all set up to play on modern machines. GOG have the first game up now, for a very steep $6 (I really think it’s time GOG considered bringing in a lower price point for games this old, bearing in mind they’ve been resold on budget labels at much lower prices for years). The sequel, they say, is coming soon.

When Good Old Games released their first batch of EA games, it seemed pretty odd that the Wing Commander included was Privateer. Fortunately they’ve now righted that wrong by previously sticking up Wing Commanders 1 and 2 for $6 for the pair, and today they’ve added the most famous of the series, Wing Commander III: Heart Of The Tiger. Or as it’s more commonly known, The One With Mark Hamill In It.

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Good Old Games are once again scooping up the games of the past, dusting off the cobwebs, teaching them about the future ways, and then setting them free into the internets, unfettered by leashes or DRM. And if you’ve been concerned that their definition of “Good” has been somewhat loose of late, this time they have some true classics. How classic? Pretty much as classic as classic gaming gets. They’ve finally got EA on board with some of the most famous names in PC gaming history. One of them is going to make Alec squeal like five girls. I’m teasing you. I’m making you want to click to carry on reading, and thus increasing our ad loads. No! Don’t look at the tags!

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