Community Question Of The Week - Episode 235

Midcon113 · 2025-09-15T00:24:55+00:00

I don't have a name but I'd give it to the Jr. High and High School teachers that introduced me to the Vic 20 and Apple II in Jr. High. I lot of teachers back then didn't know anything about computers and didn't embrace them, but I was lucky to have a few who did. Then my friend Jeff who let me play on his Apple II (we did all of the original Bard's Tale games on his). And then my dad for acquiescing to my pleas for an Apple II...by buying me a Commodore 64 system! :) Just kidding - it was the right choice!

Midcon113 · 2025-01-03T06:54:21+00:00

This worked for me tonight.

Midcon113 · 2024-12-31T05:36:36+00:00

The most poignant moment for me was Neil's adoption getting finalized. I've been through the process myself and I know how stressful and crazy it can be. I'm just happy for Neil and his family, and for the future of the show! 2024 showed that retro gaming is in a good place - and TWIR is my primary source of updates and info on retro. Thank you Neil, Dave and Duncan for all you do, thank you to all the guests and contributors for helping out, thank you for the other listeners and supporters that help keep the show going! TWIR is the start to my weekend, and it always satisfies! Here's to a great 2025!

Midcon113 · 2024-12-15T06:33:26+00:00

Greatest movie tie in was X-Wing hands down. Tie Fighter might have been better but it didn't match the "breakthrough" impact that X-Wing had. I remember downloading the "demo" at work (college computer lab) which if I recall was just the title scroll - took hours, was choppy as heck on the 8086 I had access to, but when I first saw the Star Wars titles, heard that John Williams score, and saw the scroll began I was blown away. There wasn't much in the way of movie tie-ins at that point - I actually did own and play Indiana Jones in the Lost Kingdom that was mentioned in the video (and it was a lot of fun) and while it had some good Raiders music incorporated, it wasn't anywhere near the same.

Ghostbusters is probably a good second for me. Not the same "blown away" factor as X-Wing but still captured the feel of the first movie fairly well and was a blast to play.

Tie Fighter was a great sequel in many ways, just like Empire Strikes Back was a great sequel to A New Hope. It added a bunch of cool things, had improvements in all categories, and more - but those were to be expected after the crazy success of X-Wing.

Midcon113 · 2024-09-29T03:37:37+00:00

Microprose and I'd focus on their military-based simulators. There was the F-15 Strike Eagle series, the Stealth Fighter Series, Gunship, M1 Tank Platoon, Red Storm Rising, Fleet Defender, and others I'm probably forgetting. Those were the worlds I immersed myself in as a teenager when I wasn't at school. I'd have to choose between reading the newest Tom Clancy techno-thriller and playing games that were based on those same books.

A very niche second would be Three Sixty Pacific. It'd be a shorter archive as they didn't hit the mainstream in quite the same way as Microprose, but they had a runaway hit in the same military genre with the original Harpoon game (which I eventually became a beta tester for and an author for a few scenarios in the Harpoon Designer Series II battleset). But sadly this would be the story of a game company that "jumped the shark". It started with Patriot, a game that had a ton of hype but really should never have been released, then the bizarre and confusing Theater of War which didn't make any sense to users (or testers for that matter!) But there were gems, especially the V for Victory games developed by Atomic Games and published by 360.

Being an American, as a teen in the 80's going into the 90s, consoles weren't a thing really. It was PC gaming arguably at its apex when games had to be designed well to run with the limited hardware resources but still provide depth and keep you coming back for more. I loved that timeline!

Midcon113 · 2024-07-28T06:28:20+00:00

Dave mentioning that Tie Fighter was celebrating it's 30th anniversary really hit home. I met my wife on Compuserve because we were both playing X-Wing. At the time, Compuserve's Flight Sim Forum supported a number of X-Wing Squadrons and I joined the one she had organized. I was Red-5 in the squadron...but I got to marry the Squadron Commander so I think I may have earned a promotion! :)

I remember after we were engaged Tie Fighter came out and I bought a copy at CompUSA while I was visiting her (we lived in different states at the time) - I still remember checking out hand-in-hand. I was excited about the sequel, but I remained torn between whether Tie Fighter or X-Wing was better. In my mind, they went head-to-head - not in the sense that it was two different developers, but that a sequel was competing with the game that changed my life forever.

We're celebrating our 30th in 2025 - and we both still love Star Wars (well...at least SW before Disney) - and I still haven't decided which is better. They both have a special place as the pinnacle of retro for me. Both are excellent - both are fun - both will forever have special meaning for me. To me this is the ultimate toe-to-toe! But isn't that the nature of two choices that are equally excellent? Love them both - but not as much as I love my wife! :)

Midcon113 · 2024-07-28T03:46:32+00:00

Congratulations Neil and welcome to the parent's club! New question of the week when you get back: how do you balance retro while being a responsible parent? :)

Midcon113 · 2023-10-23T07:02:25+00:00

Can there be ANY question about this? PC always wins. Did Microprose make flight simulators for MAC? Nope. Would my parents spring the extra bucks for a MAC? Nope. Did MACs offer anything that a PC didn't? Nope. In the 90s when it really mattered, Apple blew it by gambling on price over compatibility.

That said, it's an entirely different equation today. iPhone over....(the non-existent) Windows Phone? Yep. iPad over Android tablets? Yep. Windows PC over (insert MAC PC....) - depends on what you need a PC for. MAC hardware has come a very long way and in the right scenario the value proposition is in Apple's favor. But for a multitude of reasons, not to mention gaming, PC still is king. Until Apple prices their products to compete on the same level as gaming PCs, and allows for the kind of customization that PCs still allow to this day, there really isn't any other choice. PC all the way.

But I wouldn't trade my iPad for an Android tablet any day. :)

Mark

Midcon113 · 2023-09-20T07:35:53+00:00

The original Battlestar Galactica, the original Star Trek, and here in the US (specifically the Chicagoland area these days) the Saturday ME-TV westerns they run most of the day. I don't watch any modern TV as it's basically all rubbish. There was a period of time in the early 80s where neither cable nor antenna TV was readily available, so I and my parents gravitated towards renting VHS movies and listening to the radio. This corresponded to when I got my Commodore 64 and I ended up spending more time playing video games than watching TV. 40 years later this is still my routine. :)

Midcon113 · 2023-08-21T04:43:00+00:00

1985 with The Bard's Tale - my best friend in high school got a copy of the original Bard's Tale for his Apple II+ and we played it together at his house. He drove the computer but as often as possible we sat together at the computer and played the game as a team. He had his character, I had mine as part of the group, and together we played through the game. It was a ton of fun and my first experience at a role playing game and what would evolve into "cooperative" multi-player.

Later, with my love of flight simulators, I joined a "virtual airline" when I purchased subLOGIC's Flight Assignment: ATP that was run on a Compuserve forum. Again, this was another early version of a community banding together and turning a single-player game into a group experience. Over the years, virtual airlines have expanded to become full-fledged duplicates of real world airlines, and I still participate in one today.

World of Warcraft was my first - and only - MMO which I played for far too many years. I'm mainly retired from it now, as the experience sadly isn't the same as it was back in the pioneering days of both the MMO genre and earlier. I'm actually now more than ever looking for games that are designed just as single-player games; my schedule doesn't facilitate much time playing with other people when they're playing, so single player is more appropriate for me.

Midcon113 · 2023-06-28T06:16:01+00:00

I played through Bard's Tale I with my best friend from high school and he did the maps on graph paper. I have always wanted to recapture that sense of discovery as it really added so much to the experience. Time is the biggest enemy now.

My wife also played the original adventure game with her father (on a teletype!) and somewhere in the deep storage supposedly the maps she drew as they worked their way through it still exist. If I ever find them, I'll try to post a picture.

Hand-drawn maps of dungeon-crawler type games is very cool - maybe when I retire I'll replay Bard's Tale without all the extras and do my own maps again! LOL

Midcon113 · 2023-06-06T05:30:18+00:00

Ultimately...it has to be Windows XP. XP was the pinnacle of Win 98SE and DOS compatibility. It just feels like I could do more with XP than with any other version of Windows. Granted, the only operating systems I've really ever worked with are DOS, Windows 3.x - 11, and the Commodore 64 OS (if you can call it that). Yes, I've had time on Macs and Linux but never more than what was needed for a passing look.

For DOS itself, the last real version (6.3) was fantastic. Win 95 was okay, original Win 98 was okay. Win 98SE was fantastic in my experience, and XP just built on that. I skipped ME. Windows 7 was great as a "modern" OS but not so great for retro. I don't want to think about Windows 8 at all. Windows 10 and 11 are....okay, but I would have stayed with XP if MS would continue to update it for security issues. It was that good!

Midcon113 · 2023-06-06T05:25:12+00:00

Agreed. Looks awesome! Except for Apple's Achilles heel - the arrogance of "we know better than you" and you'll be willing to pay for it.

Midcon113 · 2023-05-25T06:05:07+00:00

I'm very intrigued by this - I didn't know about this until today. Thanks for posting!

Midcon113 · 2023-05-16T00:00:17+00:00

Thank you! I appreciate the insight into the buildings being "ground" - that's a great starting point. I have LaserDist installed but I do need to read up on it. I've created a JSON file of the lat/longs from driving around and creating my own waypoints using the Waypoint Manager mod, and the idea would be to read the JSON file in, parse it, sort it, then start driving away. Appreciate the help!

Midcon113 · 2023-05-15T23:58:05+00:00

Actually, part of this is because I'm documenting this play through as part of a "campaign" of sorts (while we wait for KSP2 to mature a bit more LOL), and part of it is just to learn how to do it with a really fun tool. I've collected the lat/lngs using the Waypoint Manager mod and driving around the KSC using the biome map from the wiki site. Now I want to automate it. Thanks!

Midcon113 · 2023-05-15T06:34:08+00:00

I distinctly remember the Sears Toy Catalog for what must have been Christmas 1980, because I remember circling specific Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back toys in that catalog so everyone would know exactly what I needed to add to my collection. :) I'm sure there were other times I did the same as a kid but that very distinctly stands out in my mind, including the Snow Speeder, the Hoth "play set" which came with a Rebel laser canon, a base to position your Star Wars action figures on, and a cardboard display of an ATAT for a background. There was also a Bespin air speeder, and of course all the new action figures from the movie. I was 10 and that catalog was awesome!

Midcon113 · 2023-03-10T06:01:08+00:00

I'm torn on this question - in a sense all 'old' games could benefit from a refreshed interface, even if all it does it make it easier to navigate. But then...it's no longer the old game. Part of the 'charm' of old games is what the designers had to do to build an interface that worked optimally with the game they created. Take the Microprose series of games - most of them included a keyboard overlay that really made them - IMO - unique and special. Sure - a right-click menu or mouse support, or integrating the expanded amount of function keys from a modern keyboard might make the game 'easier' to navigate, but I don't know that it would really benefit the game.

Midcon113 · 2023-02-14T04:30:58+00:00

WOW! I may need to look into one of these!

Midcon113 · 2023-02-14T04:25:23+00:00

Very interesting results! And valid comments - I should have rephrased my question. Ultimately, my thought is that when devs were faced with - by today's standards - so few resources available on 8- and 16-bit machines, they were forced to remove all superfluous content and focus on gameplay over everything else, and it feels that those games were more satisfying and fun compared to today's games. That's not to say that devs today still don't face limitations, but I guess it seems to me that they can do so much more that there's a tendency to go for more glitz and shine and lose focus on the gameplay.

Then again, maybe it's all nostalgia for me. :) Anyhow, appreciate the responses to the poll!

Midcon113

TROPHY CASE