Sunday, July 23, 2006

GOING OLD SCHOOL

For quite a while I have abstained myself from video games and considered myself free from what I call VeGAS or VidEo Games Addiction Syndrome. Video games used to take up hours of my life everyday and I spent the time in between asleep in school. As soem major tests & higher education came, I beat all the games for one last time and sold most of my collections on Amazon. I have been free ever since and probably won't go back, or so I thought...

A few days ago I picked up VeGAS again, there just haven't been much to do late nights this week, after all its summer & FIFA's over. Well, it might have been much worse, with some self control left, I found some old school DOS games and decided to start with Ultima. For those who are unfamiliar with old school games, let me explain. Old school video games is considered between 1980s-1990s, they have depressingly pixelated graphics with a range of 2-56 colors and requires around 4hours or less of gameplay so hopefully by that time I'm gonna be sobered up and fast asleep orquit gaming because of the horrible graphics. Anyways, I went through Ultima right up until Ultima VI - The False Prophet...


Alright, just went to DOS, Origin Presents a Lord British Production...TV lightning, red flash, needs Avatar, gargoyles, got it


Created a character "By what name shalt thou be called?" what !#$^#!}, did I mention the horrible language? Other than been called milord, it completely drives me nuts. And art thou male or female? ...femaile for the heck of it then I chose the most male looking portrait, trust me its just too pixelated


Ok, up to the voodoo witch, "Thou hast..." excuse me lady, you think I can read? I will just flip a coin


Yes! Journey onward. Lord British's room, aw great, the keyboard stopped working I freaking can't do anyting. Ok, let me try Escape for help. What the, nothing. You know even most DOS games Escape displays a menu or help. Twenty minutes later, finally found the buttons (that's what they are) at the bottom, time to kill some gargoyles, piece of cake, but the dead body on the floor is disgusting even pixelated.


Time to talk to Lord B. "Sir Thomas blah blah blah much has happend blah blah blah only the true Avatar would know what was contained in the Compendium" wtf? What Compendium noone told me about the compendium...great he's talking again "How wert the headlesses produced?" Sex? Nay. By killing them? Nay 'tis not the correct answer Consult thy Compendium. What compendium!!?? Alright, so I fired off dozens of answers for I don't know how long. Couple hourse later I decided to hack the game instead, loooked for the notes I made in the yellowed manual and I saw "Ultima 6 Copy Protection Quiestion and Answers. @#$(*#^&# ....so...the menu is the compendium and the questions were for freaking copy protection!? Jeez, these old school junk is een worse thean Sony BMG rootkits. Ok three questions later, got a key, great ABOUT TIME to leave.


Ok, now someone tell me what's going on with the door? Its not funny, I used the key Lord B. gave me, no use, attacked it, moved it, talked to it, looked at it, all to no avail...somebody tell me what's going on please...nice, letting a door trip me up...

Of course I beat Ultima VI before. As for right now, the freaking blasted door will stomp me and I probably won't touch another video game till Final Fantasy XII comes out.

posted by Stavanger at 4:58 PM

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