ScummVM

Yesterday, the blogosphere was awash with stories about vNES, a website that lets you play NES games online. Retro Gaming is ridiculously popular, as an example I recently found a copy of Dare Devil Dennis and a BBC Micro emulator for my best mate's girlfriend- she was delighted, however by Darren quickly tired of the irritating music.

However, playing old games are very popular, the Zork games are still being downloaded is a testament to how much old computer mean to the players that grew up with them. For those of you like me, for whom text-based games, were a bit before our time, the graphical point-and-click adventure games are fondly remembered.

ScummVM is a cross-platform emulator based on the Scumm scripting language created by LucasArts. You can download the program for free at the ScummVM site and suddenly I am able to play some of the greatest games of all time, (in my opinion), from the comfort of my Mac- there is a Windows version too. You can play among others, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Simon the Sorcerer, and the Monkey Island series.

If you are into playing the old point and click adventure games, ScummVM is a must. As a personal note, they are working on making Discworld 1 playable on ScummVM. If they succeed I may have to put the blog on hold whilst I waste the best part of six months reliving my joy of playing the game again.

It is a bit odd that these games are so popular, if you go into any video game store, the shelves have loads of old games for sale for about £5, (that’s about $9 for you Americans). In an interview on quandaryland.com with Andrew Brazier, Assistant designer on Simon 3D, he stated that:

Unfortunately, 2D is pretty much dead now. The only way we could make a 2D adventure nowadays is to fund it ourselves, which is unlikely, especially as adventures are probably the most demanding (resources-wise) games you can make.

I don't know if this is true, do people really prefer processor hungry, hack-and-slash, type of games over the beautifully well crafted work of the early graphical adventure games? Or do we buy Halo 2, because that's all we on offer? Answers on a postcard please.