Links to the Past for September 14th, 2008
Here’s our weekly cherry-picking delve into the retro gaming blogosphere:
- Ever wondered what Silent Hill 2 would have looked like had it been released on the NES? No, neither had we, but evidently someone did. The Indie Games blog drew my attention to Soundless Mountain II, a homebrew NES version of Konami’s classic survival horror game. It’s a bit rough around the edges and far from finished, but well worth a look.
- Over at Critical-Gaming, KirbyKid examines the phenomenon of remaking and updating retro classics for modern systems, going as far to suggest such games are now a genre unto themselves.
- Anyone who still has a passing interest in the interactive fiction genre (the posh way of referring to text adventures) should head on over to the IFWiki, where the winners for this year’s IntroComp have been announced. For the benefit of those in the dark: the IntroComp is an annual competition designed to fill a gap between the bigger IFComp competitions. Rather than develop full-length games, entrants are encouraged to submit games in an unfinished state. The winners usually go on to finish making their games. Others, embittered by the experience, usually fall into a downward spiral of drugs, prostitution and suicide.
- Still have a TI-89 calculator gathering dust somewhere in your home? Do you continue to pine for the days when there were decent Ultima games to be had? If you answered “yes’ to both questions then run over to Fidgit and celebrate a new Ultima V port for the TI-89. Yes, Ultima V on a frigging calculator!
- CaptainD’s PC Gaming Blog has an interesting little article on the Atari STe’s unsuccessful attempt to bridge the gap between the basic Atari ST and Commodore’s Amiga. I’d completely forgotten about this machine. I did have an Atari ST myself. While it remained a decent games machine (perhaps let down only by its weedy sound chip), as the 80s gave way to the 90s I only really used it for its built-in MIDI ports and whopping 20MB hard drive (“That’ll take me years to fill up!”).
More Links to the Past next week.
