MIT Libraries Department of Distinctive Collections:
This repository contains the source code for a 1977 version of Zork, an interactive fiction game created at MIT by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling.
Samuel Axon, for Ars Technica:
In my case, the formative glory days were the 1980s and early ’90s, and the platform was MS-DOS. And while I did play popular commercial releases from publishers like Apogee and Epic, I mostly played shareware releases. Today, we’re going to look at some gems of that lost era.
I love reading about the games I grew up with but there are a lot on this particular list I never encountered, though I vividly remember EGA Trek.
And the nostalgia sets in…
Cabel Sasser:
It’s yellow. It fits in your pocket. It’s got a beautiful black and white screen. It’s not super cheap, but not super expensive. It includes brand new games from some amazing creators. Plus it has a crank.
This looks amazing!
Samantha Bresnahan, for CNN:
The video game “Counter-Strike” plays out on their monitors as they communicate over headsets, engaged in a fierce competition at Moscow’s IgroMir Expo, Russia’s largest computer and video game convention.
But this is not your average group of gamers. The slogan on their black jackets reads “We’ve got time to kill.”
With an average age of 67, the Silver Snipers from Stockholm, Sweden, are the oldest esports team in the world.
Amazing team and I’d wager they’re much better than I am!
This was one of my favourite games on iOS, on my first iPad, and it’s probably been 6 or more years since I played it last. I’m tired of waiting and will just get the PC version. Hope that one still works.
This is one of the most beautiful games that I have every played and it’s even better than Alto’s Adventure. You can now pre-order it on Google Play and I strongly encourage you to do so — it really is that good.
Anna Werner:
President Trump met with video game industry representatives Thursday, after saying last month violent video games may play a role in mass shootings. The president met with parents like Melissa Henson.
“The kind of messages and images that they are putting in their minds, I think they’re nightly dress rehearsals for huge acts of violence,” she said.
But psychologist Patrick Markey’s research shows 80 percent of mass shooters did not show an interest in violent video games.
Personally, I have never been inclined to go kill someone because of a game, despite playing Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, CS:GO, PUBG, and various other FPS shoot-em-ups since I was a kid, but I’m sure this potentially could be dangerous for a handful of people. Then again, people who have trouble understanding right from wrong probably don’t need a computer game to get triggered into doing something bad.
I’ve been meaning to write about Alto’s Adventure for the past few years, but never got around to it. This beautiful iOS game was my sole way of attaining peace in a time of huge personal turmoil.
Andy Chalk, writing for PCGamer:
The Wolfenstein series actually debuted way back in 1981 with the top-down stealth game Castle Wolfenstein, and its 1984 follow-up Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. But it became more widely known as an FPS series in 1992 with id Software’s Wolfenstein 3D, a game about killing Nazis, and the prequel Spear of Destiny, which was also about killing Nazis. The series was rebooted in 2001 by Activision with Return to Castle Wolfenstein, a game about killing Nazis, but went dormant again until the release of Wolfenstein, a game about killing Nazis, in 2009. Bethesda acquired the series along with id Software and gave it a powerful character-driven twist in 2014 with Wolfenstein: The New Order, a game about killing Nazis, and then followed up a year later with Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, a “standalone expansion” prequel about killing Nazis.
Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus comes out on October 27. Here’s Machinegames explaining some of the different ways it will enable you to kill Nazis.
Brilliant.
Dean Takahashi:
Last week, Atari began teasing a new product called the Ataribox. The video released on a non-Atari web site showed a picture of some kind of hardware product, but many people wondered if the teaser was fake. Others had no idea what the video was showing about a “brand new Atari product years in the making.”
After all, nobody makes a game console with wood-grain siding. But at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Chesnais told me that the rumors are true.
“We’re back in the hardware business,” he said.
Chesnais declined to describe a lot of details about the console. But he said it is based on PC technology. He said Atari is still working on the design and will reveal it at a later date.
My first console was an Atari Amigo. I still remember my Pac-Man and River Raid sessions with my friends. I’ll probably get one, purely for nostalgic reasons.
Andrew Webster:
When the third season of House of Cards debuted on February 27th last year, it included a curious cameo: in one episode, newly-inaugurated president Frank Underwood was relaxing with an iPad, playing the gorgeous game Monument Valley. Two days later, the game had its second biggest money-making day to date, raking in close to $70,000 over the span of 24 hours, thanks to being featured in the show.
This is one of my favourite mobile games and one of the best I’ve ever played. The whole team truly deserves their success.
Joey Davidson:
The PC version of Firewatch has a special feature that the console version lacks. You find a disposable camera in the forest. You can use that camera to take pictures in the game as you play. Once you finish the game, you’ll get a link in the menu to a web store where you can buy your prints.
Really, you can get the pictures you took in the game developed. Here are mine.
This is great! Unfortunately only in the PC version of the game.