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Classic Dungeons & Dragons 'Gold Box' games are coming to Steam
The classic Dungeons & Dragons 'Gold Box' PC games are coming to Steam later in March, including the 'Eye of the Beholder' series.
Comcast expands its low-cost internet to another three million households
Since 2011, Comcast's Internet Essentials program has connected more than eight million low-income individuals from two million households to the internet. Today, the company announced that it's bringing low-cost internet to an additional three million low-income households. In addition to high-speed internet at $9.95 per month, plus tax, users will be eligible for free digital literacy training and the option to purchase a computer for less than $150.
Be a DOS boss: Play 2,386 PC games in your browser for free
Forget that chubby guy from the North Pole, the real Santa Claus this holiday season is the Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library that now hosts 2,386 DOS games that can be played by anyone at no cost. A digital cache of that size brings with it both good and bad news. On the downside, there's bound to be lots of bad games, even notoriously bad ones like the baffling 1989 fighting game Tongue of the Fatman. But on the upside, the collection also includes some legitimate classics like LucasArts' adventure game adaptation of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the PC version of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Pool of Radiance campaign. With 2,386 games available there's far too many to briefly describe here, but you can browse the collection by visiting the Archive. The best news, though, is that in lieu of simply archiving .exe files for each game, the Internet Archive listings feature an in-browser version of the ubiquitous DOSBox emulator. It won't be exactly the same experience you had playing these games in the late 1980s, but it's far easier than convincing games from the Reagan era to play nicely with modern computers. [Image: LucasArts/Disney]
The Game Archaeologist: Dark Sun Online
Computer RPG players in the late '80s and early '90s were surely familiar with Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) and its now-infamous Gold Box series. The series, so named because of their distinctive gold packaging, ran on a solid engine that helped the company churn out over a dozen titles within a five-year span. From Dungeons & Dragons' Pool of Radiance to Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday, these titles quickly became revered among the gaming community. I personally have very fond memories of playing both Buck Rogers titles, despite not having ever watched the show. While the Gold Box series has not become as timeless or replayable as late '90s classics like Baldur's Gate and Fallout, they definitely had a huge impact on the PC scene and helped elevate the CRPG genre. Following the Gold Box engine, SSI went on to produce another engine that it used for a completely new series set in the D&D campaign setting of Dark Sun. Dark Sun: Shattered Lands (1993) and Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager (1994) were both modest hits, and when it came time for a third game in the series, SSI decided to make the leap to the then-untested realm of online gaming. What followed was a wild two-year experiment in MMOs that happened prior to the Ultima Online and EverQuest generation. While ultimately unsuccessful in achieving its potential or gaining a large audience, Dark Sun Online: Crimson Sands made a valiant attempt at achieving the inevitable future of gaming.
SSI's rugged Spark S9T brings triple-screen computing to power-hungry road warriors (hands-on)
A portable desktop tower with three LCDs mounted on its side, you say? Why yes, there is such a thing. At Computex, we spotted SSI's camouflaged booth demoing this eccentric Spark S9T rig: a rugged ATX case sporting a handle, a keyboard with a touchpad, plus three 17.3-inch 1920 x 1080 LCD panels. As you've probably already guessed, the keyboard and the screens can be folded up for storage convenience. Let's be clear, though: you'll still need to find a wall socket to power this beastly machine, but such all-in-one solution should still appeal to video editors, military personnel, or even gamers that are regularly on the road. Alas, we couldn't get a price for single purchases, but feel free to check out the full detail over at SSI's website -- maybe a nice postcard will get you a deal. %Gallery-125379%
The Game Archaeologist and the Nights of Old Winter
Here's a question for you: How much do you really, really have to love a game to pay $8.00 an hour to play it? Considering how much we tend to whine about a flat $15/month fee, I'm guessing the answer is, "Only if it loved me long time." And yet, in 1991 this wasn't considered crazy extortionist practices -- it was dubbed "Being a pioneer." While online RPGs were nothing new by then, nobody had tackled the jump from text-based RPGs (MUDs and BBS doors) to graphical games due to the technology (limited modem speeds and access) and funding involved. It took the efforts of a Superfriends-style team to make this happen with Neverwinter Nights: Stormfront Studios developed the game, TSR provided the Dungeons & Dragons license, SSI published it under its Gold Box series, and Aol handled the online operations. Thus, 19 years ago -- six years before Ultima Online and 13 before World of Warcraft -- the first multiplayer graphical RPG went online and helped forge a path that would lead to where we are today. With only 50 to 500 players per server, Neverwinter Nights may not have been "massively," but it deserves a spot of honor as one of the key ancestors to the modern MMO.
