Gaming

I have a strong nostalgia for older PC games.  Some of it comes from wanting to relive my gaming glory days from high school through college.  The rest stems from the fact that I don’t own an uber PC (like Exsulis) that allows me to play all the latest whiz-bang games out on the current market.  Alas, because of moving so much, and older games not playing well with more modern computers, I thought I was destined to be content with memories.  Thus, enter the company known as “Good Old Games” or GOG.com.

GOG.com is a team of people that weren’t just content to be nostalgic.  No! They did some wheeling and dealing with developers and game publishers and brought back to life some very classic and enjoyable PC games for today’s systems.  They’ve taken great effort to make their games compatible for today’s Windows XP and Vista systems. The best part, however, is that all of their games are DRM free!  Their philosophy “…at GOG.com you don’t just buy the game, you actually own it. Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection.”

My first purchase from GOG was the RTS “Stronghold” which I installed on my MSI Wind U120 netbook.  This way, I could enjoy some gaming on my low power machine during lunch breaks.  Being a game that was published back in 2001, I felt pretty confident my little netbook could handle the game.  After downloading and installing, it ran smoothly and allowed me to begin my campaign to lay waste to rogue barons and arch-dukes.  All while listening to appropriate music being piped in from my travel speakers.

In terms of pricing, I can’t really argue too much.  Most titles are $5.99 with some of the more robust or popular games hitting $9.99.  But again, being DRM free, with unlimited downloads, it is quite a steal.  GOG has also been able to secure exclusive content with most of the games ranging from free wallpapers, copies of the soundtracks, hint guides/walkthroughs or behind the scenes videos.  Things that would not normally come with the games or you would have to wait until some form of “Collectors Edition” hit the market.

At this point I have been very satisfied with how easy it is to navigate their site and purchase a product.  Their forum community is very well-behaved and does it’s best to help members with technical issues relating to their games.  They’ve also implemented a “wishlist” system when you create an account, so that as you’re browsing, all you need is a quick click to help you remember why you’re saving that spare change in the center console of the car.  I currently have both Freespace/Freespace 2 on my wishlist as well as  Fallout/Fallout 2.  I give GOG a NR unicorn rating of:

4/5 - Nearly classic!

The Right Stuff-Bill Conti