The biggest problem I come across when writing these reviews is finding old games that will still run.  It’s surprisingly harder these days to get old games to work.  Since I’ve yet to build my ‘Old Gamer Rig’, I’m forced to suffer the effects of incompatibility.  So this Special Bargain Bin is an overview of all the games I’ve thus far not been able to review.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six – Covert Ops

Asides from the Splinter Cell games, I’ve only played one other Tom Clancy game and I can’t remember the name of it, but it was one of the first game with his name.  I was really looking forward to Covert Ops, and am still annoyed at it.  I honestly don’t know too much about the game and that’s also one reason why I wanted to play it.  It would have been a completely unbiased review, it would also be the first review of a game that I hadn’t played previously.

Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds

Galactic Battlegrounds was my favourite Star Wars RTS, I played all the campaigns and hundreds of skirmishes.  I spent countless hours making custom maps, only to then spends even more hours playing on them.  Some of my matches lasted over three hours.  When the game got expanded and they added content from from Episode II, I played devoted even more hours.  I was really looking forward to play it again, and I was able to get it installed.  Only to have a horde of issues getting it to run.  Eventually I was forced to give up on it, as crashes were too frequent, and I wasn’t able to complete a single mission.

Star Wars Dark Forces

One of the first Star Wars FPS’s, and hailed by many to be the start of a great series of games.  Dark Forces is another game that I never got to complete, and have only a few foggy memories of playing it.  Another game I was really looking forward to playing, but forced to give up.    Hailed by many to be a milestone in game design.  It had many aspects of modern gaming that you didn’t find in it’s era.  While some called it a Doom-knock off, the game had a custom engine built for it that gave it more atmospheric  designs.  Not to mention the main character is Kyle Katarn, any anybody who reads the Star Wars Expanded Universe knows he’s just bad ass.

Anybody that knows me will attest to the fact that I am always trying to work out ways to express my creative needs.  Be it writing, drawing, movie editing, map making, GMod posing, and the occasional website adjusting.  I’ve always got to be doing something.  I constantly feel like I’m not expelling this creativity fast enough, and it keeps on building.

So I have a new project for myself.  I’m calling it ‘Map Quest’, and it will a day by day telling of my current venture in creating a map.  I had the idea for a TF2 map a few days ago when they released the ‘Classless Update’, adding King of the Hill game mode.  The idea is a large hill centered on the map, with the KOTH point, real creative right?  But I want to blend the Control Point game mode with that of King of the Hill.  Here are some visual aids.

Atop the center hill is the KotH point, the four black dots are the Control Points.  There are underground tunnels that lead to the hill, as well as raised platforms above each teams final control point.

The game plays like this, as the round starts all the points are locked.  After 1 or 2 minutes the KotH Point unlocks and the battle for it begins.  Once a team takes the hill the control points unlock.  The hill point will have a 10 minutes timer attached to it.  If RED takes the hill, BLU will have 10 minutes to either take it from them OR take the control points.  All Control Points will start unowned, and will act as a separate chance for victory.  The match will end when a team either holds the koth point for the ten minute timer or captures all the control points.

This is Day 1, and I have my idea.  Time to get to work.  I’ll keep this posted as I make progress.

Get ready for the most controversial Bargain Ben yet; WarCraft II Battle.Net Edition.

I’ll start by saying that WarCraft has never really been my cup of tea.  I once got the WarCraft Battle Chest, containing WarCraft I, II, and an expansion.  Never played the first, played about half the singleplayer of the second, never touched the expansion.  A few years later a friend wanted me to play it with them, so I did.  Well, I had to go and buy a whole new copy of it, the Battle.Net Edition.  Played a bunch of multiplayer games and then it got lost in the collection.  When I saw early screens of WarCraft 3 I was impressed, but never bothered to play it.  I was involved in the beta for World of WarCraft, played that for a month or so, never saw the charm.

(continue reading…)

I’ve changed the scale that the Bargain Bins will be graded on.  The old system, which was Binary influenced was just plain stupid.  I’ve scrapped it and created a new one.  The new grading system is a reverse scoring system, wherein the lower the score the better the game is.  Here are some examples:

 As you can see, the goal is to not spell ‘complete’.  Doing such delcares just how much of a complete waste of time, complete drain on your senses, complete BS.  The lower the score, the fewer letters recieved, the better the game holds out.

Changes have been made to all the past Bargain Bin Breakdowns; Quake 2, Oregon Trail, Sim City Classic, American McGee’s Alice, and Evil Genius.

Any questions?