About two or three weeks ago someone clued me onto gog.com where some brilliant jerk decided to take the amazing games that I loved fumbling through on the PC as a child and rework them so they would function on a modern Mac or PC. Instantly I picked up Wing Commander: Privateer for $6 (since I have been craving the upcoming Star Citizen) and it turned out that it came with the expansion I never knew it had! The graphics were glorious, sounds were great, and the NPC voices were phenomenal. I know no one had touched the actual game, but now instead of playing it on a mid line (read as bare bones) system I was lightyears beyond what the game expected me to have so it looked, felt, and responded like a brand new game (with retro graphics).
I dove right in, and for those of you who have not played Privateer before, I really mean dive right in. No back story. No tutorial. No explanations beyond a video at the beginning where it shows space pirates trying to steal cargo from a badass cargo ship (that is you). It's almost as if that encounter where you blast the pirates away ended with you bumping your head and landing on a remote mining station. I vaguely remembered what to do so I grabbed a mission, went out, and proceeded to get destroyed as I fumbled around with using a mouse to fly my ship. Yeah, I needed a joystick.
Unfortunately for me Mac's don't have joystick ports, so getting the true nostalgia by playing with my old stick just wouldn't work. That being said, my old stick was literally that...a stick with two buttons on the base. Think Atari but with a second button and analog instead of digital. That was all that was reasonable at the time, but technology has advanced, so what could I get with my vast adult spending ability?
According to my searches on Amazon, joysticks today fall into three categories. Game pads (which are not joysticks but for some reason show up when you search), $20 joysticks, and $100+ joysticks. Seriously, there is not much in between (ok maybe a few things, but they look ridiculous and uncomfortable). One in particular stuck out as not looking obnoxious and was reasonably priced, but the reviews where what really struck me as odd. There were complaints like "I can't program mouse functions to the buttons" and "Has issues with Battlefield 4." Ok, who uses a joystick for FPS games? Seriously, I want to know how that works (re: my previous post).
Anyway, I got it, and aside from an inability for fine control (which I think is related to the game and not the joystick), it was awesome! Yesterday I probably spent the most time I have spent on a solo video game straight since before kids (which, to be honest, isn't saying much).
And the best thing is that I am breathing new life into this game. I actually understand what is going on. The religious zealots, the political struggle in the background, the game mechanics to upgrade my ship all make so much more sense to me. This game was originally released in 1993. I was 12 years old and afraid to fly out of my home quadrant. To be honest I still am, but before I shut off the game last night I picked up a jump drive at the local dealer. Now I just need to remember to grab a nav map so I don't get lost.
P.S. Speaking of gog.com, I think my next purchase has to be the source of my high school idol: Gabriel Knight. That game is the entire reason I spent my pre-college years in a black leather trenchcoat (pre-trenchcoat related tragedy that is). Imagine my excitement when I found out that there are two sequels!!!!
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