Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Have we written about the august ScummVM before? I rather believe we haven’t. What cads we are- it’s the lash for us tonight, lads. As the tireless folk behind it have just released version 0.13.0, now seems as good a time as any to mention this wonderful application. It’s more than likely you’re already familiar with this indispensable (and free) tool of retro PC gaming, but just in case not I’ll bang out a quick summary before talking about the new version.

ScummVM, y’see, is a freeware project designed predominantly to make the classic LucasArts adventure games run all slick’n'nice on modern PCs’ new-fangled hardware and operating systems. That’s Monkey Island, Sam & Max, Full Throttle et al. Woo!
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During a bout of iPhone willy-waving down the pub recently, someone observed that there are two things that always get released for any piece of hardware that’s hacked to run homebrew code, and everyone duly installs them. Then doesn’t do anything with them except show them off to people in the pub. The first is Quake. It used to be Doom, but in the 3D age the big Q seems to have become the de facto way of demonstrating that a given piece of hardware has something decent under the hood. Touchscreen controls mean iPhone Quake isn’t hugely playable, but it does look amazing.

The second, and the source of my point, is SCUMMvm, the esteemed emulator for the old LucasArts adventure games. I suspect everyone who installs SCUMMvm, whether it’s for their PC, their PDA, their PSP or whatever, has a favourite game they install alongside it. For many it’s Day of the Tentacle, and God knows there’s a legion of Monkey Island die-hards, but for me it’s always Sam & Max Hit The Road. Except I never play it. I only watch the intro.
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