Remeber when games used to be more fun?

[Professor Bear]

I dunno about games, but they should definately bring out artbooks or prints of ZX Spectrum/C64 box art.

[IndigoPrime]

You might want to take a quick look at Bitmap Books. They're also currently Kickstarting the second half of their C64 tome.

[ThryllSeekyr]

I wrote that article for Retro Gamer. The animations had nothing to do with Arnie, though; they were based on videos of the developers attacking each other with wooden swords.

Aside from its sluggish speed and some AI issues, I always quite rated Barbarian. It tried to do something a bit different from all the karate games that were doing the rounds at the time. I never really got on with the sequel, though, which was a bit limited in terms of the fighting and not all that interesting when it came to adventuring. Barbarian III never got beyond some doodles by Steve Brown, unfortunately.

Yep, I think found that article/blog (You said you wrote!) amongst two others, but I neglected to put them up here before.....

The Making of Barbarian

Retro-Barbarian

I thought I had read that stuff about using footage from the Conan films might have ben written in ne of the original game blogs in older magazine. I might still have that one, but not on me. I already packed those. It seemed like it made more sense to me after seeing how the game character moved. My reasoning is....What would a bunch of programmers know that Arnold's sword-fight trainer and choreographer wouldn't.

I agree Maria Whittaker was something to gaze at back then when found that type of woman hard to ignore, but I think the standard page three model has been superseded by those with less ampleness and more muscle or something of atheletic physique to reflect what is needed to survive the type of world enviroment where games like that are set.

Just compare her to Skyrim's Lydia....

Sure, Lydia might have had a different background to the princes or the wizard's daughter who never looked like she had to set foot outside of the place of dungeon she grew up in. Maria Whittaker, not that I find any picture of her more recent is only two years older than I and I thought she might be in her 50's or 60's now.

I also find the barbarian model hard to realise beyond being pro-wrestler. That amount of brawn seems excessive for a wanderer. Even with that actor's background in kick-boxing or what ever else he practiced. I Know that fellow went on to became the one known as Wolf in that Gladiator show in the U.K. or U.S.A..

Now Conan who spent much of his adolescence on that Wheel of Life. I don't think every nomadic swords-man gets that.  Still there was something more economic, efficient about his physique even at his size.  The other guy just looks like pumps a lot of iron. Which might rare for one in his position in that place at that time. Real out landers run a lot. Just think of Mike MacMahon's Slaine who found to be most realistic out of the lot....

More emphasis on leaner frame, rather than bulky encumbering muscle. Just look at his limb to torso ratio. Ever so slightly disproportionately long arms and legs and he because he's warps, he goes from that to some more like other guy when unimaginable brute strength is required.

[shaolin_monkey]

Did anyone ever complete Jet Set Willy?

[ThryllSeekyr]

Found a flash version of Barbarian that looks better than the original and emulated version I have played ever briefly and boy you need to be quick. I lost my head three times before I found out how to retreat or duck. I's not that hard, cause I have already one afew so far.

When I said this looks and plays better, that isn't to say something was lost in the transition.

[IndigoPrime]

Did anyone ever complete Jet Set Willy?

That wasn't even possible, was it? I thought it was bugged. Or was that the sequel? I do recall Chuckie Egg 2 on the C64 was impossible, because you couldn't get the toy into the egg. Probably another case of programmers playing through specific bits rather than the entire thing.

[Greg M.]

Did anyone ever complete Jet Set Willy?

That wasn't even possible, was it? I thought it was bugged.

There were lots of bugs - the attic bug being the most famous. They issued fixes eventually (or possibly later releases of the game had the bugs removed.)

[richerthanyou]

I still stand by my idea that the internet has killed social gaming. My earliest memory is when the girl next door was looking after me for the evening. I was at her house and she had a Mega Drive with one of the sonic games (possibly sonic and knuckles) and about 6-7 friends doing a pass the controller marathon.

That was a stand out thing with a lot of early games to me, you could die so often that you wouldn't be waiting long for a turn. With a lot of modern games seeming more epic, the chance to die is so low that you might be waiting days for a turn now. I remember the days of the Original Xbox and taking not only an Xbox but also a t.v around to a mates house so we could play multiplayer halo lan games. We would have whole weekends of halo and pizza and so many great laughs.

[ThryllSeekyr]

I still stand by my idea that the internet has killed social gaming. My earliest memory is when the girl next door was looking after me for the evening. I was at her house and she had a Mega Drive with one of the sonic games (possibly sonic and knuckles) and about 6-7 friends doing a pass the controller marathon.

That was a stand out thing with a lot of early games to me, you could die so often that you wouldn't be waiting long for a turn. With a lot of modern games seeming more epic, the chance to die is so low that you might be waiting days for a turn now. I remember the days of the Original Xbox and taking not only an Xbox but also a t.v around to a mates house so we could play multiplayer halo lan games. We would have whole weekends of halo and pizza and so many great laughs.

Wish there was internet nearly twenty five year ago when I was living with people I wen to school with in house.  Not sure if there might have been a computer or two in that equation, but if what ever is available on the web today was available back then our table top role playing games would be more computer assisted. I guess! I'd be downloading more and more game manuals, like I am now. Talking to girls in internet chat rooms, like I am now. But I would doing that in a more social enviroment of close friends.

As it was, we did play a lot of role playing games, around table as well as board games and there was something like that Sega-Mega-Drive playing Asterix, Sonic, Wonderboy and my father's C64 playing Classic Elite and the earlier S.S.I. AD&D games I owned. (Actually, I really was the only one who used that machine even though I set it up down stairs in lounger room. Like there was a few occasion I catch one or two of them in my room after getting home from work and that was why it got moved.  We also fought amongst ourselves lot, spent of time not talking to one another and just keeping to our selves, or at least to myself and now we're not so close friends.

Sure, it's good to play online games with buddies, but I think I would prefer the L.A.N. set up where communication isn't restricted to chat or even just head phones. I still find that nightmarishly awkward after I had tried playing that Werewolf the Apocalypse game that way back in the late 90's and again a few year ago, when the set up was improved. Still awkward, it was. I prefer playing any type of game like that just around a table or one of those online MMO's on local area network. Otherwsie, communication is really choked up.

As for female neighbours, we noticed there were a small group of them living on the corner and I was never introduced or did so myself. We should have got to know them or at least I should tried, but I was really shy back then and they even called the police on me when I threw a brick through the window to get into the house one afternoon after I had misplaced my keys. (No one else was home, you see!) I did this with enough force to leave a brick shaped impression on the fridge as the window was facing it directly. The owner of the fridge thought it was funny and decided to keep it as momento. Yep, those girls either never got it that I really lived there, or didn't like from the start. We or I never got to them either.

And we never the wild co-ed parties I imagined we would have....as far as I was concerned those years away from my real home this was waste of time regarding my social life.   

About your female neighbours game of pass the controller, was there removal of a item of clothing every time somebody lost a life?

I was thinking that the first time I read it, the type of guy I am.

[richerthanyou]

About your female neighbours game of pass the controller, was there removal of a item of clothing every time somebody lost a life?

I was thinking that the first time I read it, the type of guy I am.

As I was 7 years old at the time, no, not that I recall.

Fun Fact Of The Day - Female gamers are just that. Females who play video games, just like male gamers! Also, all girl sleepovers do not actually involve naked pillow fights. Your whole life is a lie.

[Hawkmumbler]

About your female neighbours game of pass the controller, was there removal of a item of clothing every time somebody lost a life?

I was thinking that the first time I read it, the type of guy I am.

As I was 7 years old at the time, no, not that I recall.

Fun Fact Of The Day - Female gamers are just that. Females who play video games, just like male gamers! Also, all girl sleepovers do not actually involve naked pillow fights. Your whole life is a lie.

One of these day's Mayor will realise women are not intended as objects of desire for his own lust and are humans as well. But then, pigs will fly.

[JamesC]

If it's titilation you want, forget Barbarian, you need Sam Fox Strip Poker!

[IndigoPrime]

That was a stand out thing with a lot of early games to me, you could die so often that you wouldn't be waiting long for a turn. With a lot of modern games seeming more epic, the chance to die is so low that you might be waiting days for a turn now.

It depends on the games, though. I could play Boulder Dash, Impossible Mission and the Turrican games for hours at a stretch. Today, games like Badland, Super Meat Boy and Super Hexagon give you mere seconds at the screen.

There is a sense of certain console efforts attempting to be more like movies, but there are plenty of shorter arcade efforts about the place.

[ThryllSeekyr]

About your female neighbours game of pass the controller, was there removal of a item of clothing every time somebody lost a life?

I was thinking that the first time I read it, the type of guy I am.

As I was 7 years old at the time, no, not that I recall.

Fun Fact Of The Day - Female gamers are just that. Females who play video games, just like male gamers! Also, all girl sleepovers do not actually involve naked pillow fights. Your whole life is a lie.

One of these day's Mayor will realise women are not intended as objects of desire for his own lust and are humans as well. But then, pigs will fly.

Yeah, I don't think it's wrong unless the girl has something to say about that herself. It's not like anybody has put a gun to their head...

Besides, women do the same bloody thing to men a lot without any of the negative reactions your giving me here.

Lighten up a bit, will yah!

You words aren't going to change my attitude anytime and the female babysitter passing the controller around, I assume there might have been a mixed group there. Both guys and girls just having fun.

[Hawkmumbler]

Misogyny isn't outwardly obvious to those festering such views.

Take your medication and take another look at reality!