Carmageddon TDR 2000 Load Screen
System Requirements
Operating System: Windows 98 or later.
Processor: 1.8 GHz or better.
Memory: 1 GB RAM recommended.
Video: 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 9
Sound: DirectX compatible sound card
Hard Disk: 1 GB
Windows 10
Carmageddon TDR 2000 runs almost flawlessly in Windows 10. Multiplayer requires DirectPlay which is unsupported, but there may be workarounds to make multiplayer work.
Carmageddon TDR 2000 Load Screen
Carmageddon TDR 2000 is the third game in the Carmageddon series released in 2000. It was developed by Torus Games and originally published by Xicat Interactive for the Microsoft Windows 98 and 2000 operating systems on PC. The TDR in the title stands for “Total Destruction Racing,” for those who were wondering.
When I was a kid, I’d be sitting in the back seat when my parents took me along to the grocery store in the family car. More often than not when driving through the parking lot, a pedestrian would walk right out in front of my dad’s car without ever looking up to see if any vehicles were coming. Whenever this happened, my dad liked to jokingly say, “There’s fifty points!” as they crossed in front of his car’s grill. This is the kind of sense of humor the Carmageddon series is geared to.
I can drive a Steam Machine while playing on my Steam Machine.
If you are unfamiliar with the Carmageddon series, the original game’s tag line is The Racing Game for the Chemically Imbalanced with a pedestrian carrying a briefcase being run over by a fast-moving red sports car. Like most racing games, the player races against other contestants around a track for a certain number of laps, reaching check points along the way. If the player is able to reach the next check point in time, they are awarded more time as they make their way to the finish line. Where the Carmageddon series differs is that the player is awarded bonus points for each pedestrian they are able to run over.
These guys are about to get steamrolled.
In Carmageddon TDR 2000, railroading pedestrians rewards the player with satisfying crunch and squish sounds encouraging the player to produce more carnage. Performing fancy tricks also awards points to the player. These bonus points can be spent purchasing new vehicles or upgrading an existing vehicle’s engine power, armor, or weapons. Unlike real-life, many of the pedestrians really seem to have a death wish. In many cases the race track is clearly marked with innocent bystanders carelessly walking right into harms way, even when they are walking around the remains of their already previously unlucky comrades.
I didn’t know this doubled as a airplane. Vroom!
I forgot how much I have missed playing with Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars as a kid and pretending I was in the cars doing the incredible tricks and causing massive crashes. I had fun doing all of this in Carmageddon TDR 2000. The tracks I have played so far have not been linear like in other racing titles to the point of being rather impressive. The game seems much more open-world than most games ever got in the year 2000. There is plenty of room to drive around and explore provided the player doesn’t run out of time. I just figured out where the checkpoints were and made sure I drove through them in sequence whenever I needed to add time to the clock. The rest of the time I was trying to drive up and over anything I could, enjoying the full extent of fun the sandbox I found myself in could provide. The first track provides a loop the loop to speed through and a ramp to jump over a series of RVs and trailers.
It’s sometimes too easy to get stuck doing crazy fun stuff.
There are a number of interesting cars available to choose from even at the beginning of the game before any of the later cars are unlocked. I noticed one called the Steam Machine. Given that I am an avid PC gamer, I had to drive it. It was massive fun steamrolling everything in my path. With great freedom of movement comes great responsibility though. I found it trivial in many cases to pin myself in a place where I could not maneuver free. When aborting a race, a player keeps the points they accumulated up to the point they aborted, so it’s not much of a loss to start the race over when stuck. If you run the race straight along the track, you shouldn’t have this problem, but if you’re like me and enjoy pushing the limits of the game, it will likely become a fairly frequent occurrence.
Is that a car that’s just a moving wooden wheel? I want to wreck it!
The multiplayer functionality in Carmageddon TDR 2000 requires DirectPlay to work. When I attempted to install DirectPlay in Windows 10, the process locked up and wouldn’t let me proceed. A quick check of the Steam forums indicates there are people who were able to get it to work, but their solutions may not work in all cases. Microsoft’s official current stance from what I can tell is that DirectPlay is deprecated and therefore completely unsupported for Windows 10.
Got ’em!
Carmageddon TDR 2000 is available for download on both Steam and GOG.com for a fair price on each. This game is raw arcade vehicular mayhem and racing, and devoid of any meaningful plot or story-line. The Grand Theft Auto series probably fills this niche for gamers better these days, but I had a great amount of fun launching my steam machine around for the small time I have played. I do plan to revisit this one and see where the rest of the game takes me.
Psychonauts Box Art
System Requirements
Linux
Processor: 2.0 GHz or higher
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Video: 128MB Video RAM with OpenGL 2.1 compatibility
Hard Disk: 6 GB
glibc 2.7+ required. Binary is 32-bit.
Mac OS X
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later
Processor: Intel Core I Series Processor
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Video: ATI HD 3870 or Nvidia 8800GT or better. 512 MB Video RAM required.
Hard Disk: 4 GB
Windows
Operating System: Windows 2000/XP or higher
Processor: 2.0 GHz Pentium IV or AMD Athlon or higher
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Video: 128 MB GeForce FX 5600 or ATI Radeon 9600 or higher, DirectX 9 compatible.
Sound: DirectX 9.0 compatible sound card
Hard Disk: 6 GB
Windows 10
The Steam version of this game appears to work flawlessly in Windows 10.
Psychonauts Box Art
Psychonauts is a 3D-platformer action adventure game developed and published by Double Fine Productions. The original boxed version for the PC was published by Majesco Entertainment. First released in 2005, its story was written and directed by game design legend Tim Shafer.
The player begins Psychonauts playing as Raz, an adolescent who runs away from his parents to attend the secret Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp in order to learn how to use his psychic powers to become a Psychonaut. Since he is there without parental permission, he is only allowed to train at the camp until his parents arrive to either pick him up to take him home or grant permission for him to continue his training there. While Raz is eager to complete his training more quickly than his parents are able to arrive, most of his fellow camp residents are apathetic to the goals of the camp coaches and just want to go home. When Raz begins to demonstrate his abilities, some attempt to impede his progress.
Getting ready to attend “Basic Braining”
Those familiar with Tim Shafer’s other games such as Full Throttle and Grim Fandango will note the same signature charm in the story, dialog, and artistic nature of Psychonauts. However, unlike those previous games, Psychonauts is a true action 3D-platformer, not a relaxing point-and-click adventure game. This makes sense given that a version of the game was also released for the XBox and Playstation 2 game consoles.
A piece of mental baggage.
The first forty minutes of the game consists of cut-scenes introducing Raz and the characters at the camp and a tutorial on how to successfully implement the mechanics of the game across an obstacle course known as “Basic Braining.” The controls are a little awkward to get used to for a PC gamer utilizing the mouse and keyboard. I have played many more PC titles in the same genre that felt like they had much better controls. That being said, the effort to learn the awkward controls felt worthwhile in order to progress further into a rich, compelling game.
Swinging on poles was challenging until I learned you’re supposed to press the direction arrow you want to move in at the same time you jump.
Once through the tutorial, it is apparent that Psychonauts is a vast game with a great deal of depth to it. The player may press the “Esc” key to access the game’s journal. The journal keeps track of the quests the player has been sent on, any key game information the player needs, player stats, and games may be saved and loaded from the journal as well.The game may be saved at any time the player accesses the journal; there are no pesky save points.
Then there are these tightropes. A little tricky.
Every few moments at the beginning of playing Psychonauts there is something new being introduced. I sometimes hate writing first impressions articles on games like Psychonauts because I feel like I haven’t spent enough time playing yet to adequately describe the essence of the game as a whole, but only a sliver of the tip of the iceberg. The character acting and animation are phenomenal. The game does a good job introducing the player to a large, bizarre story world a little bit at a time to keep it all fresh, interesting, and fun.
But the trapeze was the most challenging of all.
Psychonauts includes a little something for everyone it seems. Collecting various items throughout the game allows the player to level up their character’s abilities. There are pieces of mental baggage to find and sort through. I felt all sorts of good when I received my first merit badge and could score more as the game progresses. Psychonauts is a challenging 3D platformer, and provides an intense, deep story for adventure gamers as well. This seems to be a classic in every sense in my gameplay so far. I’m eager to continue playing through Psychonauts to really see how good it is.
Treasure Adventure Game Title Screen
System Requirements
Operating System: Windows XP or higher
Processor: 1.8 GHz
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Video: DirectX 9 compatible graphics cards
Hard Disk: 2 GB
Windows 10
The GOG.com version of this game worked flawlessly when I played it in Windows 10.
Treasure Adventure Game Title Screen
Treasure Adventure Game is an action adventure platformer released in 2011 for Windows PCs. It was developed by Stephen Orlando and published by Robit Studios. The music was composed by Robert Ellis.
An evil demon attempts to wipe out all magic from the world. A young apprentice called Huayin, who was training to become a wizard, gathered 12 enchanted items with which he used to face the demon. Though Huayin was ultimately successful in defeating evil, the battle between himself and the demon caused all the land of the world to break up into small islands scattered about the world.
Centuries later, an archaeologist by the name of Baggus, along with his friend Gagwin and his son, go on a quest to find all 12 lost enchanted items from the epic battle fought between Huayin and the demon with the intention of opening a museum to house the lost artifacts. Upon finding all of them, Baggus opts for them to retire with their treasures while Gagwin convinces Baggus to press on in order to find the temple that can only be accessed by the one who has possession of the 12 artifacts. Gameplay begins on the island supposed to have the location of the missing temple. The player takes control of Gagwin’s son. They enter a cave and then the player’s character wakes up to his grandmother in her home.
Grandma gave me a boat.
The player’s grandmother presents him with a boat and encourages him to seek his fortune as an adventurer. Traveling to the east, the player very quickly meets up with Baggus in his shiny new museum that is soon to be opened. Baggus vaguely recognizes the character but doesn’t give it much thought. He tasks the player with finding the three essential items all treasure hunters must have, a hat, a compass, and a sail. Once the player finds these items, he may return to Baggus for additional training.
Treasure Adventure Game plays a lot like Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. The game is quite clever and to its strength doesn’t take itself too seriously. That being said, I have seen this action adventure platformer formula in many sorts of games released for the PC spanning decades. There is nothing revolutionary here and not much new. If you enjoy this tried and true game formula however, you will have fun with Treasure Adventure Game.
Treasure Adventure Game Setup
Treasure Adventure Game serves up an extra bit of nostalgia in one way I never expected nor wished for. In order to change the game controls there is a companion Setup.exe file installed along with the game, like many of the DOS games from the late 80s and early 90s, instead of being an option in the game’s main menu for some unknown reason. This is also the tool that must be used to change the size the game graphics take up on the screen. When in game and you are told to press any key to continue, the game actually means it will only respond to any key currently configured on the virtual gamepad. Pressing any other key does nothing but increase the frustration of the player. Though I have been stubbornly playing Treasure Adventure Game using the keyboard, I would imagine it’s far more fun to play with a gamepad given its action platforming style.
Always save your progress. Save early, save often.
Treasure Adventure Game plays like a PC game that really wants to be a console game. There are extremely verbose scrolling text dialogs to convey the story everywhere throughout even where it doesn’t make sense to have them, much like what you would expect from a 16-bit title. The player may have at most three save files, which is pretty standard for many console titles. Perhaps most frustratingly, Treasure Adventure Game also implements save points. These save points are shiny blue orbs you will encounter in various places throughout the game. When they are used, the player’s progress is saved and health is restored. You will want to keep your eyes peeled for these and make use of them each and every time you see one. While playing, I would ignore one eager to move on to the next area only to be faced with creatures in the new area I could not quite handle. When you die you go back to the last save point and lose all of the progress made since the last save. To my knowledge there is no autosaving mechanic anywhere in Treasure Adventure Game.
Running with my parrot friend.
In the beginning of the game, it is important to look out for the jumping fish in the waters between islands. They will tax you one point of health any time they jump out of the water and touch you. This isn’t so bad when you are at full health, but when you’re trying to get back to another island to save and heal, it’s bad news. My strategy has been to move directly toward the fish until they jump, then pull back just enough where the arc of their jump falls short of my boat, then push forward quickly before they have a chance to jump again.
Outside the local 6-Fifteen. I’m assuming this is a play on 7-Eleven.
Treasure Adventure Game doesn’t seem all that original, but my brief encounter with it thus far as been enjoyable. While it’s not at the top of my gameplay list, I do want to continue further in it and keep playing. At the time of this article’s publication, Treasure Adventure Game was being offered for free on GOG.com in celebration of the release of its sequel, Treasure Adventure World. I would recommend picking up a copy; this is a cute game worth playing.
Oxenfree Title Screen
System Requirements
Linux
Operating System: Ubuntu 16.04
Processor: Intel i5 2.5 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Video: Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 / Radeon HD 6750
Sound: DirectX 9.0 compatible
Hard Disk: 3 GB
Mac OS X
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.8
Processor: Intel i5 2.5 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Video: Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 / Radeon HD 6750
Hard Disk: 3 GB
Windows
Operating System: Windows 8.1 64-bit
Processor: Intel i5 2.5 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Video: Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 / Radeon HD 6750, DirectX 11 required.
Sound: DirectX 9.0 compatible
Hard Disk: 3 GB
Oxenfree Title Screen
I saw Oxenfree pop up in ads on Steam and GOG for some time and wound up getting it on both platforms during two separate specials. It seems like this game has developed quite a following and from the little time I have played through it, it is easy to see why. Oxenfree is a graphical, point-and-click adventure game released in January of 2016 on Windows 10, Linux, and Mac OS X 10.11. It was developed and published by Night School Studio.
The player character plays the role of Alex as she goes along with her friends to camp and party for the weekend on the beach of Edwards Island. Alex’s friend Ren takes her and her new stepbrother Jonas on the last ferry of the day to the island. When they arrive, they meet up with Clarissa, who once dated Alex’s brother, and Nona who is Clarissa’s best friend.
Think fast when presented with dialog options.
Oxenfree relies heavily on auditory methods to tell its story. Even more so than most adventure games, I would advise using a pair of earphones since dialog is everything in this title. The primary game mechanic in my gameplay thus far has been how I chose my dialog when interacting with non-player characters. If you don’t choose your dialog quick enough, your option to say anything in the context of the moment disappears. If you choose your dialog too quickly, it seems like the game actually allows you to talk over people, a clever mechanic. Already around thirty minutes into the game, I want to go back and replay it. There appears to be so much rich story here that I want to continue through many, many hours of gameplay.
The party at the beach.
In Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge there was a percentage notification that would tell you how far you progressed in the game each time you saved it. This progress indicator would continually depress me the further I progressed in the game because I was sorry that the game would eventually be over. I haven’t seen such a progress indicator bar in Oxenfree, but thus far it has provided me that same feeling of sadness that the game as I have been enjoying it will at some point be finished.
The game designers intentionally developed the story in such a way where the characters have such depth to be interesting in their own right, while holding a great deal back within a veil of mystery that keeps the player intrigued as to what plot twists will come next. Oxenfree’s synopsis on Steam is ominous.
Oxenfree is a supernatural thriller about a group of friends who unwittingly open a ghostly rift. You are Alex, and you’ve just brought your new stepbrother Jonas to an overnight island party gone horribly wrong.
I haven’t gotten to the ghostly rift part yet, so I hope Oxenfree retains all the charm and intrigue it has managed to muster thus far as I continue to play it.
The radio is causing strange things to happen here in this cave.
One frustration I have had while playing Oxenfree is with understanding the controls. To my knowledge I never saw any tutorial on what button to press to interact with objects within the environment. Once I understood that I needed to stand in the right place and press the Spacebar, things became a lot easier. To the game developer’s credit, they labeled every object that can be interacted with throughout the game using a white circle. If you see a white circle, then there is an object behind it that can be interacted with. This is a remarkable thing for those who have experienced point-and-click adventure games where you just blindly click every pixel on the screen to progress at some point during the game.
Press W, A, S, or D to move.
Alex is moved by the player across the screen using the W, A, S, and D keys on the keyboard. The Ctrl key brings up a map of the island, and right-clicking the mouse button brings up the radio. These controls are presented and integrated into the storyline fairly well at the beginning of the game while Alex, Ren, and Jonas are riding the ferry to the island. As I said previously, the player must always be ready to press a dialog option when they pop up using the left mouse button, since they can disappear rather quickly.
White circles indicate interactive objects.
I have really enjoyed playing Oxenfree thus far and I’m really excited about playing more of it in the coming weeks. I have been burned in the past by prematurely recommending adventure games that I haven’t played all the way through (I’m thinking of you, Myst.), but thus far Oxenfree has been a very intriguing adventure that has set itself apart already as one of the best, fresh adventure stories I have played in the past few years.
Syberia Title Screen
System Requirements
Operating System: Windows XP or later
Processor: Pentium compatible 1 GHz or greater
Memory: 512 MB
Video: DirectX compatible graphics card. 128 MB.
Sound: Direct X 9.0c compatibility required.
Hard Disk: 1.2 GB
Windows 10
The GOG.com version of Syberia is fully compatible with Windows 10.
Syberia Title Screen
Syberia is a visually stunning, point-and-click adventure game released in 2002, published and developed by Microids. In some cases it was also licensed to be published by DreamCatcher Interactive under The Adventure Company brand. Today (November 10, 2017), it is available on GOG.com for free. Because of the mysterious nature of the game, I am placing a spoiler alert disclaimer here. Although I will only be offering a synopsis of the beginning of the game in this first impressions article, the game developers of Syberia did a superb job at introducing background story throughout gameplay. They divulge plot points little bits at a time to reel the player in, and reward the player with more the deeper the player explores. It is for this reason that I will say this is a fantastic game and if you like adventures you owe it to yourself to download Syberia off of GOG.com and play it without reading any further.
There is so much wood in Syberia.
For those still here I’ll go over the game mechanics and plot. The beginning objective of Syberia is straight-forward enough. You play as Kate Walker, an American lawyer sent by her firm to secure a deal to purchase the famed Voralberg toy factory in Valadilene, France, known for their automatons. Syberia plays in the third person with a stationary or slow-moving camera, zoomed out on each screen. The default mouse pointer in the game is a circle. When the circle pointer glows, there is a door that may be investigated. Frustratingly, doors that don’t go anywhere will also glow. When you click on these, Kate will inform you, “No need to go down there!” Doubly frustrating is the fact that there are more fake doors than real ones.
No need to look behind this door the game draws attention to…
When the pointer changes into a magnifying glass, it is indicating there is a character that may be interacted with. The pointer will change into a hand when hovering over something that may be taken into inventory, and a magnifying glass with a chunk taken out of it indicates the player can use the item underneath the mouse pointer. Inventory may be accessed by right-clicking the mouse. Kate also has a cell phone accessible from inventory that she uses to keep in contact with those in America. This added component really adds depth to Kate’s character.
Some of the screens in Syberia are very large and take a great deal of time for the player to move from one side to the other. This becomes annoying when backtracking across multiple large screens. In order to compensate for this, in most cases the player may double-click in the direction they wish to go and Kate will jog to that location. Sometimes this doesn’t work. I haven’t been able to determine if this is because of a programmatic bug in the game or whether the game developers did not create animations for running in every case required.
The Voralberg Automaton Factory
Visually, Syberia feels a lot like Myst, but with regard to story and character, it is so much deeper than the average adventure game. Syberia also scratches the itch of the mechanical gear turning clock punk niche. There is something satisfying about seeing all of the intricate mechanical art. Even though it boggles the mind to even think about how the automatons depicted in Syberia could even work in real life, their animations are inspiring in many ways. Playing this game makes me want to take up the study of mechanical engineering.
The objective of the game seems simple. Meet with Anna Voralberg and negotiate a buy out of her factory. However, Anna Voralberg died shortly before Kate arrives to Valadilene. Easy enough, Kate will simply negotiate the buy out with Anna’s executor. But unfortunately for Kate, Anna’s brother Hans who everyone believed to be long dead is the living heir of Anna’s properties.
Hi, Oscar!
As play continues Kate discovers that Anna had been in contact with Hans, and that most of the automatons coming out of Anna’s factory were based on Hans’ designs. Hans’ latest designs sent to Anna were for a train and a conductor to drive the train so that Anna might come visit after Anna had closed on the sale of the factory. The first section of the game involves exploring the tiny village of Valadilene, meeting Oscar the automaton conductor, and getting the train and Oscar ready for the journey to Siberia to find Hans to purchase the factory from him. Once this is accomplished, Kate boards the train and her journey begins.
Syberia Game Disc
Syberia is a game I often come back to when I’m feeling under the weather and need a good relaxing game with rich story to take my mind off of how sick I’m feeling. Sometimes the background music will hit a note that would indicate an impending jump scare in any other game. So far, I have found nothing of the sort in Syberia. It’s entirely mellow and intriguing. If you are a fan of adventure games, I would strongly advise adding this one to your collection.