Computer gaming

[adrian]

Who actually play computer games? (buy them from the store, install it and run it from a CD)

I just heard a RoadRunner radio commercial that has a female person saying that "she's addicted to 'computer games'". She then describes all of the flash and internet based games that is available just about anywhere, and how you can download them.

Either internet/downloadable games has become good as Doom 3/Halo 2, or they're just desperate for customers. (sorry, I just had to get that out)

[scrivener]

Re: Computer gaming

Don't forget that Doom began as a downloadable game.

"Good" is an ambiguous term that doesn't mean much without clarification. The First Internet Backgammon Server (FIBS) has been online and free for more than ten years (telnet: fibs.com 4321). When it began, users played with an ASCII-only UNIX-terminal display. Many people still prefer to play it this way, but there are also graphical interfaces for PDAs, PCs, Macs, cell phones, and web-browsers. As far as being a good game, backgammon's one of the greatest, else it would not have survived these thousands of years--many claim that backgammon is the world's oldest extant game.

I'm a huge fan of interactive Java-based games such as those on Yahoo! Games, not necessarily because of the sophistication of the gameplay, graphics, or sound. Much like FIBS, Yahoo! games thrives because of the live interaction with thousands of people at any one time. That's not the only similarity either, as the Yahoo! rating system is based on the famous FIBS rating system. I'm a Literati fan myself (with a 1950+ rating, thank you very much).

I'm not so much a fan of Flash-based games. Where they are graphically more interesting, the games tend to lack a certain amount of soul.

Are there any HawaiiThreads readers who remember the illicit SpaceNet and Talknet sessions on the old UHUNIX system? I was not a huge fan of SpaceNet, but Talknet can probably be blamed for the lousy grades in my senior year of high school.

[Glen Miyashiro]

Re: Computer gaming

Back when I actually played, my computer game preferences were for the comedy-adventure titles that LucasArts put out in the 1990s -- the Monkey Island series, Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones, Grim Fandango, Sam & Max, etc. Shooters like Doom and Halo never appealed to me. The recent Java games are only mildly interesting; I sometimes play the puzzle-based ones like Text Twist.

[pzarquon]

Re: Computer gaming

I know a lot of people who are wholly sold on the Yahoo! Games system. And there's always a large subset of web-addicts who'll race from site to site to try the latest, funniest, and coolest flash-based game, whether it's tossing penguins or smashing politicians' heads. And for my daughter, there's enough free stuff out there (mostly Flash based) that I rarely actually buy kids' software/games at the store. Some of it is pretty impressive, considering the price -- 3-D environments and everything.

Suffice it to say, one could easily be pretty entertained solely by what's offered on the web without buying Halo 2 or whatever. While the technology you see in today's cutting-edge games is amazing, I'd venture to say the number of people who play, say, simple board games online is just as high.