Posts Tagged ‘1988’

Gold Rush! Classic Review

Gold Rush! Boxart

Developer: Doug MacNeill, Ken MacNeill
Publisher: Sierra, KISS ltd
Platform: PC – Direct, DOS, GamersGate, Green Man GamingSteam

After having recently whet my appetite with 1849, the California Gold Rush has become a topic I’ve found myself more interested in. Surprisingly, there aren’t a ton of games covering the time period. Gold Rush!, originally developed in 1988, is set right before the gold rush in 1848. Instead of being all about panning for gold, the game is more of a travelogue about what it took to actually make your way to California.

This is certainly an interesting approach, and one that many might not expect. You begin the game with a steady job at the bank, a house, and no family to speak of. 11 years ago your brother left town and you haven’t heard from him since – until today. As such, you decide to head out to find him. Of course, rumors have also been spreading about gold in California which means many other people have decided to head West too.

Gold Rush! focuses primarily on the journey from New York to California. Players choose from one of three routes to take: Cape Horn, Panama, or by land. Each route offers a completely different experience and puzzles to solve. Each route also provides copious information about the journey. Sometimes text glosses over harsh realities of the time while at other moments it faces them head on. It was certainly interesting to experience each journey, to say the least.

Gold Rush! Featured

Some modern gamers like to make fun of adventure games with text parsers. In this game, all you ever really have to do is combine an action and object such as “give money” or “take rope” so it’s not bad at all. The graphics are about what you would expect from late 80s tech and the audio is nearly nonexistent (and grating when it chimes in). Still, the journey is quite cool! It’s only once you finally reach California that the puzzles become more challenging, and at times annoying. This weird shift in difficulty was definitely unexpected.

When you consider the time in which it was made, Gold Rush! is a very effective adventure game. It teaches players a bit about the California Gold Rush and offers multiple ways to experience that trip. The Steam release even includes design documents for the game, which are an unexpected treat. Pick up Gold Rush! and see if you could survive the trek to California.


Score: 3

3 out of 5 alpacas


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Wasteland 1 – The Original Classic Review

Wasteland Boxart

Developer: Interplay Productions/inXile Entertainment
Publisher: Electronic Arts/inXile Entertainment
Platform: PC – GOG*, Steam

Wasteland is one of those games that everyone knows about, but as time drags on, less of us have played. As is the case with me, I had never before ventured into the title before despite knowing how important it was to the development of modern series like Fallout. Playing it now proves an incredibly difficult experience.

I don’t mean simply in the level of challenge enemies provide, but simply in controlling the game. Of course, Wasteland is also damn hard in the former respect as well. That’s the way a lot of people like it! My playthrough was a very strenuous one even when guided by extraneous FAQs. So much is going on as you play and one must always be aware of the consequences of their actions.

Wasteland Screenshot 1

Wasteland itself takes places in a post-apocalyptic world. You play as a group of rangers who must venture through the land and hopefully survive the adventure. Starting out with a group is necessary since you’ll suffer casualties for sure. Even if every ranger dies though, the effects of their actions will remain in place. World persistence was one of the biggest surprises of the game for me. So too, was the vicious nature of the language.

This is the wasteland, after all, so bad things happen. You can kill children, contract STDs, or explode like a blood sausage. The writing is key here, and still stands up to the test of time. Of course, all the writing isn’t within the game. There are journals and other pieces to read that came with the game itself upon release. Now you can get these necessary manuals and booklets as scanned PDFs when purchasing from GOG. Unfortunately, I’m unaware if Steam includes them as well. They had better because some of this information is very important.

The biggest hangups I had with playing focused on not knowing what to do nor how to really control battles. Things eventually worked themselves out, but the game still requires a lot of menus and such to navigate. Included is a macro system which allows players to set their own keys, but it seemed like too much work for one game.

Wasteland Screenshot 2

Wasteland 1 – The Original Classic is the name given to this recent re-release of the game. They have updated the portraits and also instituted some sort of pixel smoothing filter. Thankfully, you can turn these features off if you wish. In particular, the smoothed text was quite frankly disgusting. There’s no reason inXile Entertainment should fear the pixelated nature of their product. Anyone seriously taking the time to play is likely a fan of the graphics anyway.

Although I recognize Wasteland as a touchstone title in the history of video games, I find it an incredibly tough game to enjoy. Perhaps it’s not even about enjoyment but pushing skill to the limit. In any case, it would be hard to get many modern gamers to sit down and play through it. Tastes have changed, after all.


Score: 3

3 out of 5 alpacas


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