This is a quick preview of Wing Commander 4 from the December 1995 PC Zone. There is nothing too noteworthy but there are a couple of photo’s from the filming:-
Also from the same magazine, a pair of adverts for Crusader No Remorse and WC4:-
This is a short article on Wing Commander 4 taken from the November 1995 PC Gamer. The main point of interest is that it mentions that Origin were planning to make docking “more fun” but no details were given. There were no obvious changes to landing in WC4 that I can recall so I’m really curious to know what they had in mind:-
This is a preview of Privateer 2 (dressed up as an article about the future of interactive movies) taken from the October 1995 PC Format. There are a handful of behind-the-scenes photos from the shoot as well as interviews with Steve Hilliker, Erin Roberts, John Hurt and Brian Blessed. It’s full of predictions about the future of IM, including a particularly out-there suggestion from Brian Blessed about recording a dialog of words into a machine and having your performance created from them. Now I come to think of it, the way Brian Blessed acts that might actually work.
This is my 700th post on here and I’ll have been blogging for exactly 4 years after today so I thought I would do something a little different. Once in a blue moon, I make a quick set of photos of my collection for insurance purposes. I’ve little idea what it would all be worth and hope never to need to find out but I need to have some proof of what there is should the worst ever happen. Putting the photos up here is as safe as anywhere so I thought I’d do a virtual tour of sorts.
There are much bigger collections around but this is definitely up there and has grown way beyond what I expected when I started. It’s far from just Origin games with the main focus being late 80’s/90’s PC games with a definite bias to adventure games.
These first two bookcases hold all of my magazines + the cover CD’s that will fit. I’m not sure if I want to hold onto all of these long-term or not but for the moment, I can safely say there is no shortage of articles to scan in. Don’t ask how long it took to get all these in the right order so that I could find anything.
As collectibles, these old magazines are more fun than the games themselves in many ways and they are certainly cheaper but they do take up a lot of room, and weigh enough that some of those shelves are decidedly curved. These have all migrated into my spare room, with my far too small and crowded game room not being up to the job any more. There is plenty of Origin memorablia in the spare room keeping them company but I’ll skip over that and get to the games.
In the games room, the only game on the near wall is my copy of Akalabeth which I had to frame having paid so much for it. That sits next to my completion certificate.
Every other wall is lined with bookcases. Bookcase #1 contains all of Lucasarts’ adventure games, a plethora of Star Trek and Star Wars, near enough every Bullfrog game, a full set of Might and Magic and some random RPG’s and adventure games. DOS 4.01 serves as a suitably geeky bookend for the row of boxes balanced on the top.
Most of bookcase #2 should be familiar from this blog. I’ve had many of these games for years which is one of the things that prompted my attempt to play through them all. There is also a little Sierra/Dynamix on here and a load of Westwood on the bottom shelf.
Bookcase #3 concentrates on all of Sierra’s adventure games + some of their other titles. As far as I know, every SCI and AGI game is represented except for the AGI version of King’s Quest 4 and the King’s Quest 1 remake which I only have in a compilation. I’m not keen enough to chase down EGA versions of SCI1 games although I wouldn’t say no to the pre-AGI adventures. Also on here are all of the Access adventure games + the UO figures stuck to the side for want of anywhere else to put them.
From here on it all gets a bit random. The highlights of bookcase #4 are my growing but still far too small Infocom collection, a full set of Trilobyte and Descent games and the copy of Caverns Of Callisto it took me 10 years to track down.
I have a sloping roof getting in the way for the last wall so the rest of the bookcases are all undersized. This is the largest containing a complete run of Legend games, a set of Lemmings games + all the boxes that are just too big to fit everywhere else (except for Ultima Online Charter Edition which is too big to fit anywhere).
That gets me onto the baby bookcases, this first being dominated by a large pile of GOG games on the top. The highlight on here are the Interplay RPG’s.
Bookcase’s #7 and #8 contain most of the game guides that won’t fit in their respective boxes as well as gaming novels and all the Wing Commander figures stacked at the top. This corner of the room tends to house some of the games I’m less keen on which probably won’t survive the cut if I run out of room.
The final case has Japanese books/games, some of Origin’s console games and a smattering of cover CD’s that I couldn’t find anywhere else to put.
It should come as no surprise that I haven’t played all of these games but it isn’t about to stop me looking for more to fill the gaps. Once you have the collecting bug, there is no such thing as a complete collection although I will run out of room sooner or later. The main things I’m currently after are a full set of Infocom games, Maniac Mansion and Loom hint books, Space Rogue + Ultima 4 & 5 on FM Towns and a Japanese copy of Underworld with the letter opener. If you happen to feel the urge to part with any of the above, drop me a line.
Spoony’s review of Ultima 9 from a day or two back appears to have divided viewers while rekindling some old arguments about the merits of the game. Speaking for myself, the review did a better job of being irritating than funny and went on for way, way too long as a result. That isn’t to say I can’t understand where he is coming from.
I thought I’d dig out some reviews to see what the UK press thought at the time. I only found a couple but the reaction wasn’t actually all that bad and appears to depend largely on how many bugs the reviewers ran into rather than the gameplay/storyline. The game was held back until after the final patch before release in the UK but this review from the February 2000 PC Gamer is of the original US release:-
Despite the low score the review is actually extremely positive and they suggested a score of 94% if it had run perfectly. They are a little less keen by the time the promised update arrived in the May 2000 issue:-
I can’t say I’ve ever found the game to be anywhere near as buggy or slow as the above review suggests and I’m clearly not alone in that. This far more generous review comes from the February 2000 PC Format which at 91% puts it ahead of Thief and System Shock 2 for this reviewer:-
