Author Archives: Harvey

Loving the life sims…

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Since Activision’s Little Computer People, El-fish and forward I have loved life sims. Imagine how cool it would have been for all the little fish in Deus Ex, swimming along the ‘aquatic archetype paths’ through the maps, to be imports from El-fish… Anyway, at last, Spore is coming. I played with it at E3 one year and instantly had fun as soon as I put my hands on the creature creator. I can’t wait. Civ Revolutions soon, then Spore. This is going to be a good year, with these games plus Far Cry 2, Mercs 2 and Fallout 3 coming.


Nostalgic for Populous

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I saw these gorgeous pie wedge images this morning, allegedly made by someone in the Ukraine for a travel agency. Immediately, I felt a powerful tug for the old game Populous. If I remember correctly, I played Populous on my Atari 1040ST originally, while living in Germany.

A great game, but specifically it carried a particular identity…a feeling I experienced while playing that is hard to put into words. We’re still an up-and-coming medium and there are feelings I have as I’m interacting with a game system beyond the traditional elements related to art, fiction and sound. I wish we had a word for this. (Hell, maybe we do; I never claimed to have the world’s greatest vocabulary.)

The ‘play’ component of Populous gave me a unique feeling tied to that game alone. And like a new color or unnamed flavor it’s hard to talk about and impossible to share with someone who hasn’t played the game. Even worse, it’s hard for me to experience any more, since I don’t have a way to play the game, currently.

Once in a while, I go through the effort to re-install some older game. Not always the greatest games, but something I’m craving. Recent examples: Chaos Overlord, Chron-X, X-com. I’ve heard gamers talk about the ‘vibe’ in Deus Ex and I hope this is what they’re talking about…a feeling created maybe in part by the holistic effect of the traditional elements but also certainly by the interactive/play component.

Pyshco Student's pie wedge

(Artist unknown. Potentially from Ukrainian design firm ‘Psycho’.)