Hey all,

My Dungeons of Dredmor experience in a nutshell: killed by a damned rutabaga.

My posting the last couple of weeks has been sporadic and most likely it will only get worse. I am in the process of moving out of my apartment and there is about a two-week gap between the leases. I decided that it wouldn’t be worth it getting my primary gaming PC set up at my temporary place. So that means that I am stuck… er, blessed with playing games on my laptop for the next 13 days (but who’s counting?).

Baldur’s Gate gives you full control over a party of adventurers in the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset.

While the laptop is handy for cranking out blog posts and surfing the web, one thing that it is not good at is playing games; it has minimal power that makes it unsufficient for almost any game made in the last decade. It has no battery life to speak of, a few gigabytes of hard disk space, a video card that chokes on World of Warcraft on the lowest graphical settings, and an eraser stub on the keyboard for a cursor, leaving the index finger on my right hand raw from the friction.

Lords of Magic… it has RPG, RTS, and Turn-based strategy elements and it doesn’t do any of those particularly well. But the game is damned fun nonetheless.

However, I decided to turn this singular lemon into a small amount of lemonade and chronicle my adventures of playing older and less technically demanding games.

Although some may not believe it, it is indeed possible to play games without a PC that drains more electricity than a flock of hairdryers. You just have to find the right games.

There are a lot of gaming classics out there that will run on older hardware, including some that I’ve never completed or even never played. Lots of new games too, especially independently developed games, can run on machines with limited graphics and processing capabilities.

The plot thickens in Ultima VII: The Black Gate.

Over the last few months I have picked up some quality titles from Good Old Games for just such an occasion. And if you haven’t checked out Good Old Games, I highly recommend it.

In addition, I also have a few games that I picked up recently on Steam that I believe will run sufficiently well, or, at the very least, run.

All in all, I’ve got a nice playlist going so far:

• Dungeons of Dredmor: Conquest of the Wizardlands – I have dumped dozens of hours into the core game and the new DLC makes me want to play even more. Also, Communism skills!
• Baldur’s Gate – An epic RPG with 2nd Ed. D&D rules. I began playing this in June but only got about halfway through the game. Playing as a 4 hit point Enchantress for hours on end was driving me nuts!
• Ultima VII – An ancient RPG. I played it a bit when it first came out, never completed. I played the game a bit, er, aggressively, to say the least.
• Lords of Magic – Real-time and turn-based strategy hybrid in a fantasy setting. Greatly flawed and buggy on release, but seriously fun.
• Master of Magic – Turn-based strategy in a fantasy setting. It’s like Civilization, but with fireballs. And about as dangerous to your health as Civilization or a fireball!
• The Secret of Monkey Island – Classic piratical adventure game with the a great sense of humor. ‘Nuff said.
• Star Control 2 – I can always fall back on my favorite game of all time.

This is my starting point. If anyone out there has some good recommendations for me, I’d be happy to hear them! After all, I am always on the lookout for new and

Cheers,
S