A Couple of games I wanted to talk about

I made a couple of delightful discoveries while browsing the net recently and - being the troublesome guy that I am - I thought I'd share.

First of all, in 1998 they released a fantastic game called HardWar.

Information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardwar
http://www.capsu.org/hardwar/faq/2.html

"Hardwar places the player in the role of a freelance "Moth" pilot in the city of Misplaced Optimism, a space colony located on Saturn's moon, Titan. The colony was once a profitable mining outpost, but the major corporations backed out, leaving the inhabitants without the capability of space travel. During two hundred years of isolation, neo-feudal systems took precedent on Titan, with a corrupt and inefficient police force maintaining little law and order.

It is at the discretion of the players as to how they will earn their living on Titan. They can trade honestly, having to be wary of pirates. They can choose to hunt Titan's outlaws, collecting bounties from the various police stations. Players may also be lowly scavengers like many AI moths, picking at the dropped cargo of panicked traders, or players can become pirates themselves.

Many AI moths flit about with valuable cargo, should the players decide to take this path; however, stolen cargo in the players' hands can be confiscated by the police, or they could become the target of other outlaws now that they are carrying valuable cargo."

There are a couple of free (and legal mind you) ways to get this game.
Look here:
http://www.hardwar.info/
http://zedo.hardwar.org.uk/gethardwar.htm

Some screenies I found here:
http://appdb.winehq.org/screenshots….VersionId=3839

And now for the best part: There is a free patch made by the original programmer of the game that makes the game work with a modern windows system in DirectX9 without problems. The patch also features some graphics enhancements. The game can be played at any resolution (very high, wide screen, whatever) without any emulators or haks or fuss. AND, there is multiplayer It doesn't even look or sound that bad, easily playable with a little patience. The controls and interface are extremely easy to learn and fun.
Great fun for playing single or a group of friends. A wonderful game.
Read about this patch here: http://www.capsu.org/hardwar/faq/10.html

And now for the other one.

Check this out:
http://www.openttd.org/en/

It's the timeless classic Transport Tycoon deluxe remade opensource for the modern operating systems! This one is also great fun especially in multiplayer with a friend or two.

Here's some information and resources about the original courtesy of abandonia:
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/240

Damn I love the internet.

Gotta love the net my friend and thanks for the info. The game doesn't look that bad for being completely free. I wonder how the gameplay is. I got too much on my plate unless you want to try this out online, then I'll give it a shot.

Nice, I'll have to check out Hardwar. Thanks Zak!

So, the quickest, easiest and free way to get the full hardwar game going
would be as follows:

1.
http://www.downloads.hardwar.info/demo/harddemo.zip
Download and install the hardwar demo. You may need to run the setup.exe
in win98 compatibility mode to make this old setup program work.

2.
http://www.downloads.hardwar.info/demo/missingres.exe
Download and install the missingres patch.

3.
http://www.downloads.hardwar.info/pa…rtin/uim06.zip
Download and install the latest UIM patch.

Game on! With this method however, you'll be lacking the videos. If you want to download
the full game cd-images you can do that here
http://ogg001.titandsl.co.uk/Hardlink/Hardlink.htm
If one plays multiplayer or completely ignores the main plot (which in a game like this, is very very easy) the videos are unnecessary. This - I say again - is all technically legal because all the companies involved in developing or publishing this game have been long gone, and there's no way to get this game other than from an online auction site. Also, this game is one of the top underdogs ever. A commercial flop which still has loyal players, and that latest patch was from somewhere around 2005 I believe.


For some hints on how to play the game, how to get started and some other useful info, I found this excellent site:
http://david.hedbor.org/hardwar/hints.html

EDIT: I'll also add a screenshot I took myself here. (jpeg with very lossy compression mind you)

Zakhary, do you play Hardwar with a flightstick, or mouse and keyboard? Also, does the entire game take place on one planet?

I play it with keyboard only. z and x control the throttle. arrow keys change the direction of the ship. while pressing ctrl you can slide/strafe/move up and down directly without changing the direction of a ship. it has support for mouse and joystic too.

It's a much simpler game than the X-games for example, it's not a space sim. It's only on the one planet with different "craters" that are connected via tunnels. Basically every crater is a small city with different buildings etc that you dock into and do your thing.

Sounds like fun. You should try to find a copy of X:Beyond the Frontier, the very first game in the X series. I think you would like it a lot.

Uhmmm…. Anyone know anything about a game called "Parkan II" ?

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Parka…ame-8308.shtml
http://www.1cpublishing.eu/game/parkan-2/overview
http://www.gamersgate.com/index.php?…sku=DD-PARKAN2

Seems kinda…. interesting

Found it on Amazon Germany: http://www.amazon.de/FIP-Publishing-…/dp/B000EMG7JW

The critics there say that the German-language release was bug-infested, and one could get it running by turning the hardware sound of direktx into minimum or even completely off (software mode). Plus EAX off, and several other things adjusted, too.

Without its bugs, it seems to be a decent game.

There seems to be ONE official patch alone. At least for the German-language version of it.

The game seems to use Starforce.

The game still seems to have an official web site: http://www.parkan.ru/p2en/


Mobygames has a few review remarks, and it seems to be a mediocre game - both technically and athmospherically. The AI seems to be quite bad, according to the test in the German PC Games.

Parkan 2 gets repetative fast as far as Ive read. It looks deep but really isnt. I remember checking out hardware once when upgrading my spacesim collection but decided to skip it for som reason.

Some lovely random things I found from the intertubes. Figured I'll just post 'em here.

Command & Conquer for modern windows.
http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/cnc95upd/cc95p106/

Legacy of Kain for modern windows.
http://home.comcast.net/~heavyweight…kain/index.htm

Red Alert free download.
http://compactiongames.about.com/od/…alert_free.htm

Bought a bunch cool (and CHEAP!) indie games from the steam holiday sale. Two of them were actually very good and more than worthy of the very modest investment.
I'll introduce them here - if someone, for some unfathomable reason, might consider taking recommendations from me.

Alpha Prime ( 0.99eur @ steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/2590/ )

"Alpha Prime is a first person shooter set in deep space in an apparently abandoned deep-space asteroid mining base. You have a surplus of advanced weapons and devices, including a variety of robots and manipulators, surveillance cameras and security systems that can be hacked, controlled and used to complete your task."




An above-average story-driven and very linear single player scifi shooter with a decent plot, good level design and excellent graphics by any standard. I found it very entertaining and with a price tag like that.. an absolute steal. Recommended.
http://www.alpha-prime.com/index.php


Larva Mortus (1.99eur @steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/11340/)

"Larva Mortus is a fast-paced action horror game that has you hunting monsters of the supernatural in a dark and ominous atmosphere full of undead, terrifying and demonic nightmares. A horrific atmosphere goes hand in hand with furious action packed splatter fest. Everything accompanied by creepy, first class soundtrack!

Vampires, werewolves, the undead, and more!
A dark and horrifying atmosphere with mysterious storyline quests!
A solid arsenal — varying from classic six shooters and shotguns to the fancy “Dynamo Gun”
Randomly generated missions for high replay value
Main character development through a set of RPG-like features
"




Some old-school arcade-like action with some rpg elements thrown in that make it incredibly addictive. Great for those times when you've got only 15mins of time to play and want some quick fast-paced entertainment. You do randomly generated quests in addition to the "main quest." You gain weapons and items and level ups and build up your character by spending points to the various attributes. Great atmosphere. Very addictive.
http://larvamortus.rakeingrass.com/index.php

Ugh….. I remember trying the demo for Alpha Prime. I'm glad you're enjoying it, but I thought it was *terrible*.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Ugh….. I remember trying the demo for Alpha Prime. I'm glad you're enjoying it, but I thought it was *terrible*.

I can't remember what site I reviewed it for … but I pretty much agreed. Perhaps not quite terrible, but really not worth much more than the $1 you paid …

Yeah, I read a lot of negative pro reviews for it (a couple of very positive user comments too, though) but decided to try it anyway. Other than the lousy voice acting, I can see nothin really wrong with the game. Certainly not the best FPS I've played but still to me far from terrible, above average at the very least. I have only experienced the latest 1.3 version - I don't know if these patches make any difference though.

Oh, and I would've happily paid more, say 5-15€ for it.