Viridian Games

This poor game…ahead of its time, developed by a small, easily-overlooked company, with a couple of absolutely cripping design decisions…everything that makes for a great tragedy.

Name and developer, please! If you win, I’ll mention you in my next video!

Aaaaand we’re back! Not going to let the incredible information-gathering technology of the internet spoil my fun.

This is a cute little RTS with one sad, fatal design flaw that made it frustrating to play at first. It was also well-known for deserving an R rating for language.

(Remember that you can always click on the image above to get a full-size version. That’ll be helpful in this case, since this game looked like so many others of its day.)

Name and developer, please! If you win, I promise I won’t scream insults at you the next time you fail at something.

As I’ve mentioned before, while we’re not really crunching on Elemental, we are very busy…and the end result is that at the end of the day, I don’t feel like coding or writing blog posts. (My World of Warcraft characters have made great strides, however.)

But if I can’t do anything else, I’ve decided to at least bring back Name That Game! Yes, I know, TinEye.com. Well, here’s the thing – TinEye can only compare the image against others on the internet. So if I take my own unique screenshots (instead of relying on MobyGames) it’ll be a lot harder for TinEye to find a match.

So expect more updates in that regard, at least. I still don’t know where I’m going to find the energy to work on Zeta, though.

This one is dirt simple. I’m expecting a successful response in under five minutes. But I love this game and I love this screenshot, so I’m gonna do it anyway.

Name and developer, please!

You know what? I’m not going to let the internet spoil our fun. That would just be stupid. So once again, Name That Game!

This one had a lot in common with Crusader: No Remorse, except it had an even darker storyline.

Name and developer, please! If you win, I promise not to implant a bomb in your head and send you out on suicide missions.

Edit: The game was Meat Puppet, by Kronos Digital Entertainment.

I swear, I’ll get back to the normal content of this blog soon…probably after we get to Stardock.

But in the meantime – Name! That! Game!

This game was a Bard’s Tale-style first-person RPG. It was produced on the PC originally instead of being a port, and was a much better game for it.

But it had a unique combat component. Instead of combat being basically a rolling output of text like in Bard’s Tale-style games, once combat was initiated the game turned into Ultima IV!

Name and developer, please! If you win, I’ll tell you the Galactic Secret!

What? Could it be? A new Name That Game!? Yes!

This one shouldn’t be hard at all. This game was all the rage back when I was at Origin. It started off as a free game and…kind of died when it became a pay game, probably because it was darn fun, but didn’t have enough depth to justify X dollars a month.

Name and developer, please! If you win, I promise that next time I’ve got you in my sights, I won’t shoot you down no matter how much juicy cargo you’re carrying.

I keep saying this, but only because it’s true: this was a weird one.

I’ve seen many genre mashups in my day. The RTS/RPG. The RPG/FPS. The FPS/RTS.

But this was a mashup between a Descent clone…and an adventure game. Only one man could think this was a good idea…

Name and developer, please!

Here’s another one that should be dead easy, but I’m using it because it was such a great game and the progenitor of an even greater series.

Name and developer, please! If you get it right I’ll shoot that guy off your six for you. You know, the one you can’t seem to shake?

Strategy/Simulation games tend to take one of two paths when dealing with little people. They either abstract them out completely, like in the SimCity games, or the model them in incredible detail, like the game I’m featuring today!

Name and developer, please! Actually, this game had two different names…bonus points if you can provide both of them. If you win, I’ll trade you three sheep for a brick. Come on, you’re not going to find a better deal than that!