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Blizzard is restoring their classic games to glory

Blizzard is hiring a new Senior Software Engineer for classic games. Starcraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo II will be optimized for new operating systems! Unfortunately, the even older titles aren't included in the list, but these three are amazing to see.

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/careers/posting.html?id=15000XZ

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 11/04/2015 at 09:28pm

Sweet!

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/05/2015 at 02:20am

Yeah, this is really nice to see. They've also mentioned this in an interview somewhere that they wanted to go back and make their classic titles more available. You can get many of the old SNES games now and hopefully they bring back Warcraft: Orcs and Humans as well as Warcraft 2.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 11/05/2015 at 03:53am

And Diablo I and Hellfire (though Hellfire might be difficult since it wasn't made by Blizzard). I'd love to be able to play that one. I played the hell out of D2, but skipped D1 and it's near impossible now.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/05/2015 at 04:56pm

Impossible to run or to play because it's so hard? If the latter, you are correct, Diablo is really hard.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 11/05/2015 at 10:56pm

The former, actually. You can kinda get it running but the graphics break often making things unplayable because you can't see what's going on.

JaBo wrote on 11/05/2015 at 11:36pm

"Combat hacking to improve multiplayer."

lol - this can be read with two inflections that mean different things.

We need to be able to hack people up in combat for better multiplayer OR we need to protect against hackers so multiplayer is better.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/06/2015 at 02:45am

Hahaha yeah. I think the latter

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 11/06/2015 at 03:46am

To put it into context, like transitioning zones. It messes it up. I've tried like three times and I've never even gotten to the actual gameplay because the graphics screw up.

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StarCraft Co-Op Missions Look Incredible

Co-Op is one of my favorite game modes to nearly any game as I have more fun playing alongside a friend that competing with one. Competition can be fun but it's great to tank up with a friend and take on a challenge together. Blizzard recently renamed it's former "Allied Commanders" feature to "Co-Op Missions" and it not only makes more sense to me I bet it's also easier to talk about. Not sure if you can play with friends that don't have Legacy of the Void but when launch time comes I wonder if some of you might be interested in checking this mode out?

StarCraft II Legacy of the Void is out November 10th on PC and Mac.

Hi-Rez Studios Celebrating 20 Years Of Tribes By Giving The Series Away For Free

http://www.mmohall.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/tribes-ascend-image-1.jpg

"Welcome! Join Hi-Rez Studios in celebrating over twenty years of the TRIBES Universe! Below you will find links to download the legacy games in the series. We love these games and hope to let you share the experience of the World's Fastest Shooter."

http://www.tribesuniverse.com/

Wanted to share this with everyone as I imagine some of you have played the Tribes series of games and would be interested in picking up the back catalog for free.

3 Died On Halloween - The Seven Stages Of Console Grief

I was at the PIGSquad Halloween Horror Game Marathon when my wife texted me the news. My PlayStation 3 finally passed and it is a sad time around our house. It's been doing strange things for the past month so we kind of saw this one coming. Rebooting spontaneously and constantly needing to check itself for errors,it wasn't too happy in it's last days. Every time we'd boot it the "jet engine cooling system" would rev up and loudly proclaim it was in pain. It's nice to see it finally be at peace.

Over the last few years we've used the PlayStation 3 to play DVDs and Bluray films. I imagine that hurt 3 and deep down, 3 couldn't find a way forward knowing I had moved on to... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 10/31/2015 at 06:58pm

You gonna replace it? I still found it to be the most affordable, capable Blu Ray player so even though I don't game on it as much as I used to, I replaced mine.

But gone are the saves. The games I played since cloud saving came around are fine, but 100% completion of LittleBigPlanet 1 and 2, I will miss you. My various Rock Band and Guitar Hero careers (which took a damn long time, mind) are at an end. GTA IV, Niko's life in New York has been erased from time. Red Dead Redemption, God of War 3, one set of Fallout 3 and Oblivion saves (but I have plenty of others on other platforms)... the list goes on.

Rest in peace, progress. You're still in my memory, but I can never revisit you again. Not the way you were.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/31/2015 at 07:00pm

3D-capable Blu Ray player, that is. You can get some cheap ones, but it seems the 3D ones are above $100, and I replaced my PS3 for $112

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 10/31/2015 at 07:04pm

It's in a better place.

My fondest memories of 3 definitely include watching RedLetterMedia movies.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/31/2015 at 10:05pm

My PS3 started acting up years ago.. It would shut itself off, even after only being on for a minute or so. Then it would have to check for errors. That was years ago, I can't say how many though. I thought it would die soon. However, it's still alive and seems to be doing fine now. I haven't really been using it, especially since I got my new PC. I was using it with the PS3 media player. Vinny's used it for various games including, but not limited to, Minecraft and Terraria.

Some of my best memories of it are especially of playing Fallout New Vegas, Red Dead Redemption, Skyrim, Oblivion, GTA IV, GTA V, and Batman Arkham City.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 11/01/2015 at 05:27pm

Rest in peace PS3.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 11/01/2015 at 06:49pm

Alas, poor Jon's PS3. I knew him well.

I'll always remember that one time we played Borderlands. And that other time we played RAGE and Unreal Tournament. Those were the days.

Farewell old friend, may you find peace in that big games room in the sky.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/01/2015 at 10:23pm

> You gonna replace it? I still found it to be the most affordable, capable Blu Ray player so even though I don't game on it as much as I used to, I replaced mine.

That's a really great question. I am not sure right this minute. I am going to try and see if I can open it up and see anything obvious. If I can't fix it and I really don't think I'll be able to, I am edging to just buying a nice Sony wifi Bluray player. As much as I'd like to get another PS3 or PS4 I really don't play console games anymore.

I set aside all my PS3 games the majority are on the PC. In fact, the games I enjoyed most like Borderlands, Fallout 3, The Orange Box, Borderlands 2, Rage and UT3 would be the only ones I'd want to play again and I own many of those on PC already.

Looking at a brand new PS3 they seem to start around $250 and might dip less depending. That's more than i'd want to spend for a device I only use to watch DVD and Bluray. If I go used that would be fine but it would just break again. I only know one person (well now with Greg 2) that still have their original PS3, they usually all break. So a used one isn't a great option, it's just a ticking clock till death.

So right now a fancy Bluray player but I could go another direction.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 11/01/2015 at 11:26pm

$250? Damn! Anyway, when I researched the issue with my PS3, I came to the conclusion that the issue has to do with the thermal paste on the processor. I also had mine standing vertically, which isn't recommended, so I set it down horizontally. I did find some solutions to that issue, but none of them seemed simple. Those solutions also said that they could only extend the life of the PS3 for a little bit more until it happened again.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/02/2015 at 03:54am

Start around $250? The most expensive I can find is $219 at Best Buy.

Since you already have a hard drive you can just get a 12gb for cheap and pop in the old drive. The key is finding one now, I think I lucked out. If you're ok with refurbs you can still get them way cheap.

But yeah, if 3D isn't a factor, you can get a Blu-Ray player for like $60

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/02/2015 at 06:07pm

I just checked the 12gb has no HD mounting tray, so that option is out. I didn't check Best Buy I checked Amazon and for the new quieter PS3, they start at $250 if I want to put in my old HD. Refurb and used are not an option i'd do.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/03/2015 at 04:23am

"I just checked the 12gb has no HD mounting tray, so that option is out."

You can buy a mounting tray for $6, but you don't even need the tray.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/03/2015 at 04:25am

More detail: The mounting tray just means the piece of metal the drive sits into so that you can easily slide it in and out of the PS3. The 12gb PS3 has the ports for the hard drive, just no mounting tray. But the tray itself is super cheap.

However, all you need is a piece of something non-conductive to make a wedge, or even a piece of electrical tape to hold the drive in securely. But if you don't want to live dangerously you can just buy the cheap one.

Proof: I have a 12gb PS3 and my hard drive is living there quite happily.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/03/2015 at 04:27am

This dude goes super high-tech :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWrI6U7fMvI

Travis Admin wrote on 11/03/2015 at 04:59am

And yeah, oddly, Amazon is about the most expensive option in this case. That's very odd.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/03/2015 at 05:15pm

That's all really good to know, thanks Travis. That does make the whole prospect cheaper. Still wondering what the chances i'll ever play a game on it again are?

Good thing Portal 2 came with a free Steam copy

Travis Admin wrote on 11/03/2015 at 07:41pm

Eh, if Portal 2 hadn't come with a free Steam copy, you definitely would have gotten it one of the few times they gave it away for free. Gotta love Valve :D

JaBo wrote on 11/05/2015 at 11:46pm

I have a backwards compatible (PS1 and PS2) 60GB HD original PS3 still working fine. My cousin took great care of it and I bought it off him a year and half or two years ago. There's hope!

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I Recently Completed Link To The Past Four Swords

At Portland Retro Gaming Expo I picked up a new Gameboy Advance alongside Zelda: Four Swords & Link to the Past Advance. Originally I wanted to play a few original Gameboy titles but couldn't because of battery save issues so I decided to play Link to the Past instead. If you grew up in the SNES era, you've played Link to the Past. I didn't know the game could be improved but the simple act of playing it on a handheld made the experience that much better. It's still the same game I remember but being able to play it anywhere I want is so much better. The game isn't as long as I remember nor are the dungeons as annoying as I remember some being. Because I only had... Read All

Update: 2.13! -- Boss tweaks, larger dialogue, technical fixes.

After showing at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, it became apparent that some of the bosses (I'm looking at you, Dodongo) still had a couple bugs. I took the opportunity to wrap those tweaks up with the bugfixes that I've done since Steamlaunch into a new patch.

I haven't done a boatload of testing with this version, but how bad could it be? You can opt into the "stable" branch if you would like to roll back to 2.12 for whatever reason.

I would like to hear what people think! Probably the most visible change is the doubling of the dialogue + portrait boxes. It was a little jarring for me, but there were enough people that couldn't read the text that I decided it... Read All

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes Multiplayer Fun!

Jack and Rich (from Previously Recorded and RedLetterMedia) play the game Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. This is also their first stream with a "facecam."

The game requires two players, and you need to print out the Bomb Defusal Manual. One player looks at the screen and describes the bomb to the second player who looks through the manual to figure out what is needed to defuse the bomb. It has a time limit and will explode if you make too many mistakes.

This game looks like a ton of fun. Watch Rich and Jack play it a bit (you can just skip ahead to around 7:30 in the video to see the gameplay.

http://www.keeptalkinggame.com/
http://www.bombmanual.com/
... Read All

Get All Fallout History In 5 Minutes

IGN posted a great video outlining the history of the Fallout series in a video you need to watch. The Fallout universe diverged from ours in a few significant ways and this video does a good job of outlining them, the most significant being the Fallout universes failure to invent the transistor. The transistor thing makes sense, unless you consider that the Fallout universe also has very complicated robots and then it breaks down. That said, the video is still fun and well worth checking out if you are going to be picking up Fallout 4 come launch day.

Happy 30th Birthday NES - One Of The Best Gaming Systems Of All Time

On October 17th the Nintendo Entertainment System turned 30 and to ring in the occasion CygnusDestroyer made a video showcasing the original 17 games in original NES launch lineup. Funny to consider it's been that long that I obsessed over getting one. I remember the Christmas morning opening it up and being able to finally play Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt whenever I wanted.

Mod Mass Recall Recreates Entire Original Game And Brood War In Starcraft II

If you cut your teeth on PC gaming you might have played the original Starcraft and Broodwar. These games were LAN staples at parties of days past and that love has translated to the new series in Starcraft 2. As with most things in the mod community, they have awesomely remade the original Starcraft and Brood War single player experience in Starcraft II. Using the original levels, cues and voice acting they cut it in with the Starcraft II engine to build a really polished final product. If this interests you head over to the mod project and install it.

The installation directions seem complex but it's a really easy process and worked for me the first time. As old... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 10/24/2015 at 04:39am

Great idea. It's still playable on modern systems, but as things improve I find 800x600 to be quite lackluster.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/24/2015 at 04:42am

My smartphone does better than that so yeah, I do too.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/30/2015 at 02:19am

I've played quite a few missions already and DAMN are they hard. The Starcraft 2 missions are really easy in comparison. Like if you don't build just right for the situation you get wrecked. It's not too bad to get wrecked, learn the mission and tank up accordingly but it makes for way longer missions and a much rougher time.

Conversely I don't think I ever played a Starcraft 2 mission twice by it being hard but replayed them because I enjoyed them so much. The original Starcraft story isn't great nor are the characters or storytelling as good, but it's still fun and I like the direction they are going.

One thing I noticed is that Kerrigan and Raynor are NOT boyfriend/girlfriend. In Starcraft 2 they sort of retcon this and since it was so long I just sort of didn't think about it. Kerrigan calls Raynor a pig at one point and they don't have much interaction to warrant a relationship before she becomes the Queen of Blades. Not that a relationship couldn't happen between missions, but it's not called out in Starcraft directly and it's a huge story point in Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm.

Not a huge deal, but something I noticed.

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