Classic Shell is an open-source program that fixes two of the biggest problems users perceive with the newly-released Windows 8: it brings back the Start Menu, and it allows users to log-in directly to the Desktop instead of the Start Screen.
(8.4 MB WINDOWS DOWNLOAD)
posted by JHarris
on Oct 29, 2012 -
154 comments
For about three years, the A.V. Club ran
Sawbuck Gamer, a regular column reviewing the week's most notable free and cheap games across all platforms, from web games to handhelds to console downloadables. It's a treasure trove of content, especially since more literary sister site The Gameological Society
took the helm, and it's publicized great desktop projects like the luscious platformer
Frogatto (
previously), feature-rich
Super Mario Bros. X (
previously), the evocative faux-web
Digital: A Love Story (
previously), interactive fiction gem
Rover's Day Off, and the hyperkinetic
RunMan: Race Around the World (
previously). But if you're in the mood for something more immediate, why not start with a list of all the original column's free A-rated online titles?
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Oct 24, 2012 -
20 comments
Got a few hours to kill and want to spend a little time in gaming history? Don't have anything else to do until 2013? Check out
Anacreon: Reconstruction 4021 (
wiki) (
previously), one of the earliest
4X games ever made, dating to 1987-88. The original version was DOS-based, but the creator, George Moromisato, released a Windows version in 2004 which has significant updates.
[more inside]
posted by valkyryn
on Sep 12, 2012 -
11 comments
Wasteland 2 has become a certainty due to the massive outpouring of fan support. At this moment on Reddit, two of the big names in the project -
Brian Fargo and
Chris Avellone - are having a
live QA session about the upcoming project, as well as the state of the game publishing industry in the Kickstarter era and similar subjects.
posted by FatherDagon
on Apr 13, 2012 -
22 comments
16-bit color schemes, in a classic retro VGA interface! New soundtracks and voiceovers! No typing required!
Infamous Adventures resurrects and lovingly remakes Sierra Games from the 1980's:
Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge and
Kings Quest III. SQ2 was released yesterday after more than five years in production, and comes complete with a
cheesy trailer. Available for download for PC and Mac, but be forewarned, the game is a total memory hog, and uses up a whole meg of RAM.
posted by zarq
on Dec 31, 2011 -
12 comments
The PC industry is built around an idea of almost infinite variation: different Wi-Fi adaptors, different Ethernet chipsets, different GPUs, different USB3 controllers. This variety is then reflected in the systems available from manufacturers—and more importantly, it's reflected in the way the systems are actually built. … The big reason that HP wants to get out of the PC business is that it's simply not very profitable for HP—and that's true for all the major PC OEMs, Cupertino excepted. Cheap PCs are certainly important for making computing accessible, but they also mean that PC vendors have made themselves vulnerable: endless price cuts and a failure to emphasize the value of a quality product have cut revenues and slashed profitability. Desperate to compete on pricing and pricing alone, the mass-market PC OEMs have ended up cutting their own throats.
Ars technica explains
why the PC industry is having such a difficult time trying to build a competitor to the MacBook Air.
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear
on Sep 5, 2011 -
316 comments
The
Super Friendship Club is an effort by
Stephen
“Increpare” Lavelle
(
previously),
Terry
Cavvvvvvanagh (
previously,
with
Stephen Lavelle),
Jonas Kyratzes (
previously, with
Terry Cavanagh),
Jasper Byrne (
previously),
Ian Snyder (
previously), and
several others, to provide another place
for game developers to
make
games. It aims to be a
focussed alternative to
TIGSource
Forums,
Indiegamer, and others by
avoiding more general discussion boards and topics.
Every other month, thematic
pageants
are held where entrants are encouraged to make a game and share
their progress. The first pageant,
“
Justice,”
was held in July and yielded
these (including
[previously]).
posted by stance
on Aug 14, 2011 -
11 comments
"
IBM is proud to announce a product
you may have a personal interest in. It's a tool that could soon be on your desk, in your home or in your child's schoolroom. It can make a surprising difference in the way you work, learn or otherwise approach the complexities (and some of the the simple pleasures) of living."
[more inside]
posted by Ahab
on Aug 12, 2011 -
83 comments
Twenty years ago today, the gaming world saw the launch of a truly landmark title:
Sonic the Hedgehog. Developed as a vehicle for a new Sega mascot, the fluid, vibrant, cheery-tuned wonderland swiftly became the company's flagship product, inspiring over the ensuing decades
an increasingly convoluted universe of TV shows,
comic books, and dozens of games on a variety of systems (all documented in
this frighteningly comprehensive TVTropes portal). And while in recent years the series has turned out
more and more mediocre 3D and RPG efforts, the original games remain crown jewels of the 16-bit era. So why not kick off this anniversary by replaying the titles that started it all for free in your browser:
Sonic the Hedgehog (1991),
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992),
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994),
Sonic & Knuckles (1994). Or click inside for music, remakes, and other fun stuff!
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jun 23, 2011 -
71 comments
Portal 2 has finally hit the streets, and despite a somewhat
rocky start with their controversial promotional ARG (
previously), it looks to be a huge success. Interestingly for such a critically-acclaimed blockbuster, the title's core ideas steam from a pair of concept projects from student design school
DigiPen: the original portal system from
Narbacular Drop (
video -
download -
previously) and the sequel's physics-altering gels from
Tag: The Power of Paint (
video -
download -
previously -
previouslier). Combine these innovative ideas with some
Lost-meets-
Life After People level design, excellent
voice acting, and top-notch writing, and it's easy to see why so many people
called in sick this past week. But playing the game is just the beginning -- look inside for a collection of easter eggs, story theories, videos, and other goodies from the post-mortem.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Apr 21, 2011 -
425 comments
Minecraft mastermind Markus "Notch" Persson has
officially announced his company's next project:
a hybrid online board game/trading card system called
Scrolls. Spearheaded by Mojang co-founder Jakob Porser (
interview) and with backstory penned by Penny Arcade wordsmith Jerry "Tycho" Holkins, the game will consist of turn-based battles between collectible "scrolls,"
illustrated character cards strategically deployed on an abstract gaming grid. In an interesting inversion of the
Minecraft model, the game itself will be free, while updates in the form of additional scroll packs will cost a nominal fee -- a business model gaming analyst Sean Maelstrom decries as
"snake oil." Mojang, for their part, is unafraid and even eager to target an untested slice of the gaming market, and is angling to get their playable prototype of
Scrolls ready for a possible Alpha release this summer.
posted by Rhaomi
on Mar 2, 2011 -
128 comments
Halfway through the third book of the
Hitchhiker's Guide series, there is
a throwaway reference to a doomed starship, one whose incredible splendor was matched only by the cosmic absurdity of its maiden-day annihilation.
But the story didn't end there. Unbeknownst to many fans, this small piece of Adamsian lore was the inspiration for an ambitious and richly-detailed side-story: a 1998 computer adventure game called
Starship Titanic.
Designed by Douglas Adams himself, the game set players loose in the infamous vessel, challenging them with a maddening mystery laced with the devilish wit of the novels.
The game was laden with extra content, including
an in-depth strategy guide,
a (mediocre) tie-in novel by Terry Jones,
a whimsical First Class In-Flight Magazine, and even a pair of 3D glasses for one of the more inventive puzzles.
Key to solving these puzzles was the game's groundbreaking communications system -- players interacted with
the ship's robotic crew through a natural language parsing engine called SpookiTalk, whose 10,000+ lines of conversational dialogue spawned
16 hours of audio recorded by professional voice actors, including
John Cleese,
Terry Jones, and even Douglas Adams himself in
several cameos (spoiler cameo). Want to experience the voyage for yourself? Then watch this narrated video playthrough (
intro (ads) -
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9? 10 11 12 13) ...or click inside for a information on how to run the game for free on Windows, Mac, and Linux (along with a bunch of other goodies!).
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 22, 2010 -
109 comments
Microsoft announced today, it will open a small number of stores to compete directly against Apple. Some think it's a
dubious idea. "In a statement, Microsoft said the first priority of Mr. Porter, who is also a 25-year veteran of Wal-Mart, will be to define where to place the Microsoft stores and when to open them."
posted by Xurando
on Feb 13, 2009 -
115 comments
Mac Vs. PC. Inspired by
Transformers, this short visual effects piece shows us what would happen if our home computers could turn into robots and started beating each other up.
posted by Effigy2000
on Dec 22, 2008 -
48 comments
