Odds and Ends: GOG

These last few weeks of class always drag on and on, don’t they? Final projects, final papers, final this and that and blah blah blah. But fret not, dear friends, for there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s all warm and pleasant and awesome. How are you going to spend your few months of freedom? Any exciting summer plans to speak of?

For those of us with time to kill, why not go a little retro? I can’t be the only nerd on campus who was raised on classic PC titles like Fallout (1 and 2!), Duke Nukem 3D, etc. Until recently I relied on a mix of nostalgia and fond memories, as a lot of those great games are difficult to get running on modern PCs. That’s where Good Old Games (GOG) comes in! Having fiddled with it for a few weeks now, I have to say I’m pretty impressed.

Put simply, GOG is a place to purchase and download classic PC games. The development team behind the site has reworked many of these forgotten gems to work with both Windows XP and Vista, saving lazy gamers like myself most of the dirty work. Sure, sure, you could probably dig up your old floppy disks and figure out how to emulate these things yourself, but that’s probably a bit more work than most college students would care to do.

GOG makes the whole process incredibly simple. You’ll have to create an account, of course, but after that you’re free to purchase a game and get gaming once it has downloaded. As an incentive for purchase, GOG often packs in a bunch of cool add-ons like soundtracks, wallpapers, and even walkthroughs. They’re nice little bonuses, particularly if you get all nostalgic with the music like I do.

But what about the prices? Most games run for $5.99, though a few more modern titles (think Unreal Tournament) hit $9.99. I’m of the opinion that they’re pretty reasonable costs, especially when you consider all the neat stuff packaged with the downloads, but you might want to take a look at GOG’s catalog and decide for yourself. Not see anything you like? GOG has been pretty good so far about expanding the lineup every week, so keep an eye out over the next couple of months and you might see one of your old favorites pop up.

I picked up Fallout 1 and 2 a couple of weeks back and have been eyeing Beyond Good & Evil (fantastic game!) ever since I realized it was available. The downloads were fairly speedy and the games worked just as advertised, so I can vouch for the quality of the service. What do you guys think? Anything in the catalog catch your eye? So long as it keeps growing, GOG has a bright future ahead of it, and I’m personally pretty excited to see where it’ll go.

Trackback URL

, ,

No Comments on "Odds and Ends: GOG"

  1. pantone175c
    30/04/2009 at 7:36 am Permalink

    If you’re in the mood for a good platformer, Oddword: Abe’s Exoddus and Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee are money.

    GOG is a really cool site, thanks Matt!

Hi Stranger, leave a comment:

ALLOWED XHTML TAGS:

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

Subscribe to Comments
Skip to toolbar