My first gaming experience was on an Atari 2600 that my dad bought for my sister and I. My dad was always on top of the latest technology while I was growing up. I remember playing a game called Asylum on the TRS-80 and then, several years later graduating to Miner 2049er on the Atari 400 and 800. It seemed that Atari had treated him well so he moved into the Atari ST line instead of the Amiga line during the late 80s. The competition between the two systems proved to create a tiny pocket golden era for early computer users. The IBM machines were not quite there yet, requiring add on video cards with astronomical costs to play the same games that were available on the ST and Amiga. Several games were on the Atari ST that changed my life forever. The classic adventure games from Sierra like King’s Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and Goldrush filled a good chunk of my video game youth. These were the family games though. The ones that everyone loved. Three games have stood out on the Atari ST beyond the Sierra classics however. Black Lamp, Sundog, and Brattacas have stuck with me over the years. Sundog has driven my interest in open world space trading simulation games over the years. With only one true modern successor in my eyes, Freelancer, it has been an lonely search. EVE Online attempts to file these voids but fails on some level at the foundation. While I keep on renewing my subscription to that game I always lose interest at some level that I just can’t quite understand yet. Black Lamp was a very obscure game. While it hasn’t fueled any new interests, it has always remained with me. I am not sure why as it was a typical hodge podge game with a very abstract theme. I never did manage to beat that game but always intended on going back and doing so on an emulator. I should mention the Sierra games one more time. Their impact on what I feel a game should be goes hand in hand with Sundog in many ways. An open world with the freedom to explore and yet a strong solid goal. The Sierra games drove me into exploring the AGI and SCI communities centered around tools created by fans of those games so that they could create their own classic style adventure games. These communities eventually led me to the AGS Community. Adventure Game Studio was where the Keptosh game was born and how my novel began to take shape. Finally, there is Brattacas. later, -junc

I updated the theme. A little brighter and hopefully easier to read. I also changed the count down timer to the release date for Guild Wars: Nightfall. Once it is out I will switch it back to the Wii timer. I picked up the Nightfall Pre-release pack. Some nice stuff in it. About 15 minutes of music, some wallpapers, and bonus items. It was only $5.00 so I won't complain too much. However, I was hoping for a new trailer. It just included the trailer that was released about a month ago. This weekend is the big preview event for Nightfall. I'm pretty excited about that. School starts on Wednesday so I'm not sure how well I will be able to keep up on the blog. I will try though. There hasn't been a whole lot in gaming news lately. Today the Space Quest Compilation came out. Pretty much 6 Space Quest games and DOSbox. King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and Police Quest compilations also came out. The DOS box thing is kind of disappointing. You would think with all of the amateurs out there that have reverse engineered interpreters for the games that Vivendi would put more effort into it. I've seen a lot of posts around the interweb with people complaining about the Wii price. Kind of silly if you ask me. I was really happy to see that most of my assumptions about the rumors were true. I predicted that September 14th the date would be announced, it was. I predicted that the price would be $250.00, it is. Okay, I didn't predict anything, I read it on the internet, so of course it was true! I picked up Lego Star Wars II for the PC. It was only $25.00 at Target ($30.00 with a $5.00 gift card). It is about as exciting as most of the reviews I have read have said it is. Which isn't all that exciting. Pretty much it is the first one but with the Original Trilogy. This should have been done first, but then again if they were just now releasing the second trilogy, I don't think it would have done that well. It is cute and fun. A little sluggish on my computer at times for no reason. I guess they updated the engine which was kind of stupid. How good do you need to make plastic blocks look? Does it really take a newer better bigger engine to do so? I guess this is why I am becoming a Nintendo Fanboy. later, -junc