If you have an old collection of PC MS-DOS games that has been sleeping at the bottom of a drawer, you may have two approaches: A/ you prefer to forget the old pixels and buy new games, B/ you were so found of those that you want to play even on your newest PC. However, it is difficult because most of these run only in a DOS box, but are so unusable because of the speed of the processor and the limited compatibility of the sound and graphics.
Now DOSBox.com offers a real solution with a free emulator.
Usable for MS-Windows, most Linux boxes, some Apple OS and OS/2.
Project Offset, the running name of a company who promises to build one of the most expected action epic video games, has announced in February that they were bought by Intel. However, I have to admit that nothing has been shown since. Not even the slightest hint at what Intel intends to do with it.
Is the development still going on?
Just to let you salivate a little in advance, here was the trailer “leaked” to the Internet earlier in September 2007.
After more than 10 years, Turok comes back and you are ready to kill dinosaurs in a video game. The solo mission of this FPS may feel a bit short, but it’s fun enough to be thrilled while killing lizards on your PC screen.
Like all Internet reviewers, I hate this title because of the strain it puts on the writer just to put the name down on the keyboard. However, it has received a number of reviews. Let’s see some of them:
After appearing on gaming consoles, Assassin’s Creed arrived on PC and it seems that the effort was made to ensure that contrary to the previous habit of bad ports from console to PC, it supported well the transfer from one platform to the next (test 1, test 2).
Notice 2: Recently, a 3D test has shown that the DirectX 10 rendering was over-simplified by Assassin’s Creed (with undue performance gains at the cost of image quality). There is a patch planned in the short term to correct this.
2008 will be the year of the triple core CPU. AMD started to ship the Phenom chips in various configurations.
As said before, this is a great way for AMD to differentiate itself, but the prices are not expected to go down immediately. Either because AMD does not want to shoot itself in the foot or because the quantities will not be huge for a few more weeks.
Let’s wait for the next price war between Intel and AMD, remembering that most games do not take advantage of more than 2 cores.
If you have a nVidia graphics card on your PC, you can get a free download of recent games from Steam / Valve.
For a limited time, if you qualify (you only need your PC to hold a nVidia graphics card), you can donwload a free copy of the following games from Steam just by creating an account or having an account on Steam.
Portal: First Slice (11 levels of this new innovative game from Valve)
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch (networked FPS)
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast (FPS technology demonstrator)
Peggle Extreme (a relatively simple game inspired by old brick games)
Look! It’s a free offer for only half of the PC owners in the world.
Some of the graphics cards are available in different memory sizes (like the successful nVidia 8800 GT or 8800 GTS): 256MB, 512MB, 1GB. But how much RAM do you really need?
All lovers of role playing knew -at least- the name of Gary Gygax, co-author of Dungeons & Dragons, the game that opened the path for all RPG (Role Playnig Games). This man who influenced the imaginations of countless players and inspired many other creators, just died at 69.
This is really a pity when some of the best old games disappear just because nobody even think of leaving a way to use them. They usually call this “abandonware” (software that has been abandonned by its creators).
Their legal status is flimsy, but some companies try to give us access to them. Somehow, they grab the software and put it on sale (really don’t ask me how; I feel that it involves getting an old copy and transfering it to an Internet web archive). I found it freshening (for my old age) to see at Abandonware Games (also known as C:Dos) that they had a large choice of old games still (partly) usable on your modern PC. Like Day of the Tentacle or Worms or even Panzer General 2.
Post sponsored by the web site.
Also, they include a lot more than just the download links (reviews, screenshots and media), but the choice of games is still quite limited in the Classics category. However, if you are ready to dig in the box, you can find wondrous amounts of less well-known games in the Rare category (by Rare, you should understand that this is nearly impossible to find somebody who remembers about these games, most probably because they did not encounter the success, leaving open the options of “this was a sucker” or “this was a little gem that nobody had a chance to discover”). And there even is a forum for fans.
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If you have an old collection of PC MS-DOS games that has been sleeping at the bottom of a drawer, you may have two approaches: A/ you prefer to forget the old pixels and buy new games, B/ you were so found of those that you want to play even on your newest PC. However, it is difficult because most of these run only in a DOS box, but are so unusable because of the speed of the processor and the limited compatibility of the sound and graphics.
