Lost Games
Sujet : Lost Games
De : spallshurgenson (at) *nospam* gmail.com (Spalls Hurgenson)
Groupes : comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.actionDate : 26. Jan 2025, 05:59:25
Autres entêtes
Message-ID : <t0fbpjh1q66cp4grq8pg3lkpt7gpk3rbae@4ax.com>
User-Agent : Forte Agent 2.0/32.652
[Yes, it's one of my trademarked rambles]
So, today I noticed "IGI 2: Covert Strike" was on sale on GOG. It's a
fairly mediocre and often overlooked FPS from the early 200s, so of
course I bought it. Or re-bought it, as I owned it already on CD-ROM
(I wanted a digital-download version because I enjoy how much easier
it is to play games without worrying about optical disks). But while
adding this latest purchase to my spreadsheet*, it made me wonder how
many games for which I still have to find digital versions.
Unsurprisingly, there's a lot of 'em. But while it's possible that
some -even many!- of them may one day make it to Steam or GOG, there's
also an incredible number that I think will never make that
transition.
Some of these, of course, are because the ownership is just so muddied
("No One Lives Forever" being the prime example) that figuring out the
rights is almost impossible. And others seem to have been
intentionally buried by their owners ("Freelancer", for instance, or
"Prince of Persia 3D", or "Unreal Tournament 2003"). But even these
may, with enough effort, one day get a revival.
But there's so many other games that just don't have a chance, almost
entirely because they are licensed properties based on other IPs.
Developers are only granted a limited time period to make use of that
license, and once the allotted time is spent, the game has to be
pulled from the store shelves. And that's a shame, because we're
losing a lot of really great games because of this.
Games like "X-Men Origins: Wolverine". Despite its unfortunate
connection to a rather awful movie, the game itself was an awesome
over-the-shoulder brawler that really took advantage of the eponymous
hero's regeneration abilities.
"Blair Witch Vol. 1: Rustin Parr" is gone too. Again, the movie its
based on is awful, but the game --which was really more of a stealth
sequel to the awesome horror/survival game "Nocturne"-- was quite
good. Not that anyone would know today; the game hasn't been available
for sale for twenty years.
"Star Trek DS9: The Fallen" was a bit rough around the edges with its
controls and gunplay, but had some great level design, was incredibly
atmospheric, and captured the characters and mood of the television
show quite well. So too "Star Trek Legacy", which let you fly all the
best ships from the franchise like you were Captain Kirk (or Picard,
if you preferred).
Remember "Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth"? It's one of
those great RTS games we were talking about in that other thread. But
unless you own the game on CD, don't expect to ever be able to play
it. Same too with the cinematic brawlers, "The Two Towers" or "Return
of the King". The rights holders are extremely stingy with their
license.
Tabletop games got numerous conversions, but good luck playing a lot
of them these days. "MechCommander"? No chance. "Crimson Skies"? You
wish. "Heavy Gear"? Ain't gonna happen.
Even lesser games, like "Terminator: Salvation", "Beavis & Butthead:
Virtual Stupidity" and "Heavy Metal: FAKK 2" are never going to see
the light of day again. They weren't critical successes (even if none
of them were bad games) and there just isn't enough demand for any
publisher to try and expensively navigate the licensing issues.
And it's a real shame, because a lot of these games were -and are!-
still worth revisiting. I think a lot of these games would sell too,
even if only because of nostalgia, and were the unencumbered with
these excessive licenses, many of them might already have made their
way back to digital storefronts. But because copyright law makes
things so difficult, huge swathes of gaming history have all but been
deleted.
Unless you still own the CD-ROMs, of course. Which, for all the games
I've mentioned, I fortunately do. But I pity those who missed out on
these games. They were pretty good, most of 'em.
* have I ever mentioned I have a spreadsheet where I log all my games?
I'm sure it must have come up before ;-)
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