Persona 5. Finally.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 26, 2022

Apparently, I don’t buy game consoles unless I have written games for ’em. I’m a PC gamer at heart, still. So I never picked up a PS3 or PS4. There was really only one game I wanted for those machines… Persona 5. I had trouble justifying that kind of expense for a single game. Well, […]

Filed Under: Retro - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Childhood in a Box

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 3, 2022

It’s one thing to emulate classic videogames on PC. I’m still mainly a PC gamer (have been since I got my Commodore 64 as a kid…), and so my gaming PC is a bit of a beast, fully VR capable. It’s unsurprising that it’ll run my old console games from the 8, 16, and 32-bit […]

Filed Under: Retro - Comments: Comments are off for this article

The original Diablo is available at GOG.com

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 26, 2019

Diablo 1 is now on GOG.com. It’s $10, so it’s not exactly super-cheap, but compared to the trouble I went through getting Diablo to install and run on my last computer (requiring some downloaded mods just to get it *mostly* working), it could be worth it to you. Diablo 1 at GOG.com Why bother? Blizzard […]

Filed Under: Computer RPGs, Retro - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Doom turns 25. I celebrate in virtual reality.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 12, 2018

Doom turned 25 this week. I feel kinda… old. Just saying. I tried desperately to download it via FTP (I think) over a modem the first day it was available (or was it the following day?), without much success. Fortunately, a friend of mine the next day had been more successful, so I copied his […]

Filed Under: Retro, Virtual Reality - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Bard’s Tale 1 – Completed!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 11, 2018

As much as the original Bard’s Tale fired up my imagination as a kid, I’ve always regretted never completing the game.  I’ve tried to remedy this on several occasions over the years, creating several new crews of characters, watching them die horrible deaths–often before they’d taken more than 20 steps from the relative safety of […]

Filed Under: Computer RPGs, Retro - Comments: Read the First Comment

The Golden Wall of Science Fiction

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 4, 2018

I grew up reading stories from the “pulp era.” I also grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons (well, once I turned 12… so reading predated the playing by a little bit). Until I read Appendix N by Jeffro Johnson, I didn’t realize there was a connection between the two. When I first started playing D&D, […]

Filed Under: Books, Dice & Paper, Retro - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Magic the Gathering: You Are What You Eat

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 10, 2018

My eldest daughter, Rowan, is competing in Magic: The Gathering tournaments with her husband. Just local, low-key tournaments, mind you, but still… I feel like the geek gene has been passed down. My wife and I were playing MTG when it was the brand-new geek obsession. We had black-border alpha cards. We have cards from […]

Filed Under: Geek Life, Retro - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

I finally play Doom in VR… twenty years later than I expected.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 7, 2017

Early attempts at consumer VR came out in the mid 1990s. We tried a couple of them at the game studio where I worked. I expected the Virtual Reality revolution to happen “any year now.” My dream was to be able to play Doom in VR. Of course, at the time, I had no idea how […]

Filed Under: Retro, Virtual Reality - Comments: Read the First Comment

Divinity: Original Sin 2 vs. Ultima 7…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 26, 2017

I’m pretty sure one of the reasons I’m such a fan of the Divinity series (particularly the latest Divinity: Original Sin games) is that Larian Studios – and in particular founder and designer Swen Vincke – uses Ultima 7 as their inspiration. Ultima 7 (both parts) has been at or near the top of my […]

Filed Under: Retro - Comments: Read the First Comment

Daggerfall Ported to Unity, Playable from Start to Finish

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 19, 2017

I didn’t think I’d see this one finished (or get this close to finished) when I heard about it YEARS ago. But… it’s happening. Slowly but surely. Some fools have ported Daggerfall into Unity.  I love that we have fools of this caliber in our world. It’s not completely done yet-most notably the magic system […]

Filed Under: Game Announcements, Retro - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Impressions: RetroEngine Sigma. Emulation made easy?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 18, 2017

One of the problems with being a retro-gamer is hardware obsolescence. Not only do parts wear out and require difficult-or-expensive-to-source replacements, but it becomes incompatible with more modern systems that it is dependent on. For example, any game console released prior to the late 90s might have problems connecting to modern televisions. I have an […]

Filed Under: Impressions, Retro - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Virtual Reality: Experiences and Nostalgia

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 16, 2017

Nostalgia is a powerful force. It’s been the inspiration for songs, stories, movies, video games, you name it. I was somewhat amused the other day by a couple of songs from my teenaged years that were nostalgia-driven, talking about eras as far in the past then as the songs themselves are to me. Or movies […]

Filed Under: Books, Retro, Virtual Reality - Comments: Comments are off for this article

The CRPG Book Project – 5th Edition (And Still Not Final…)

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 11, 2017

Felipe Pepe has been a man with a mission for several years. He’s been gathering together reviews from a modern-day perspective of Computer Role-Playing Games covering 40 years of history. It ain’t done yet, but the current edition clocks in at a needle-burying 450 pages, covering over 250 games across 4 decades.  Naturally, that’s not […]

Filed Under: Books, Retro - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Appendix N and the Real Story of Pulp Fantasy

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 16, 2017

Okay, I promised a little more about Appendix N: The Literary History of Dungeons and Dragons by Jeffro Johnson this week. Last time, I discussed the ramifications on “old-school” gaming style, how the bibliography in the Dungeon Master’s Guide suggested a much wider scope of story and fantasy that early versions of D&D tried to […]

Filed Under: Books, Retro - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Where are the dancing monkeys?!?!?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 27, 2016

Perhaps the only real disappointment of the Special Edition release of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge was that they nuked the opening credits. Which was, in my wife’s opinion, the best part of the game. While I thought the game was awesome regardless, and is definitely one of the greatest adventure games of all time, […]

Filed Under: Adventure Games, Retro - Comments: Read the First Comment

What Is Pulp Fiction, and Who Cares?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 30, 2016

A few weeks ago at local convention, I gave a short presentation on the “pulp fiction formula,” referencing the Lester Dent “Pulp Fiction Master Plot Formula.” When I talk about this, one of the first questions I receive is “What is pulp fiction?” Which comes with the implied question, “Why should I care?” Now, I […]

Filed Under: Retro, Short Fiction - Comments: Read the First Comment



« previous top