Review: Bow Street Runner

The U.K.'s Channel 4 website is hosting a history game called "Bow Street Runner" This historically accurate game is a companion to Channel 4's tv show.

It's a point-and-click game similar to Myst, where a scene is set on the screen and you move your cursor around and click on items, in this case, to gather evidence to solve a crime. In some instances you can move things around to look for evidence, you can choose subjects to talk about to people, and you can even pick locks and perform surgery (stitch up wounds!).

I played through the first chapter in about a half hour and ultimately failed to present enough evidence (or the correct evidence) to convict the killer, who ended up floating backside up in the Thames river.

I'm really looking forward to playing the next four chapters. The game is really well done and uses a pretty decent cast of actors (from the show?). The music is great and the graphics are a mix of computer art and real pictures. The actors are caught in full-motion and talk in real time.

If anyone likes murder mysteries or historical subject matter should really check out this little game.

Surving on the Past

Having quite an extensive array of systems and games in my game room, I knew losing my Xbox 360 (for a third time) to hardware failures wouldn't be hard to get by. I've got a nice backlog of games to button up on my other systems and there's always the nice nostalgic stroll down memory lane with the real old stuff (the games the don't have endings). My friend came down to work on my lighting and electrical work in the basement and after a hard day in the dark and a nice dinner at the Wood Fired Oven, we came back to the house to take such a stroll.

So many memories of our pre-driver's license days were tied to video games. Playing games like RC Pro-Am and Ivan Stewart's Off Road immediately had us sitting in front of our family room tvs ignoring parents and homework. Moving to James Bond: GoldenEye and Perfect Dark on the N64 transported us together with friends in dirty high school bedroom eating pizza and drinking soda and sucker punching each other in the arms for cheap shots and dirty tricks.

I think as well as most people can attribute songs to be the soundtracks of their lives, video games are the like that too. But video games offer nostalgia on so many levels: the music, the palette of sounds, the evolving gameplay, the cheap stories, the friends we played them with. The walk down memory lane easily becomes the dive into the deep pool of our pasts. Video games will always be the preferred form of entertainment for me and my friends. Luckily technology has been able to keep us all connected even though we live much farther away from each other than before.

So, Microsoft, there's no real hurry to get my Xbox fixed and back to me. I have a huge library of memories that I really don't mind flipping through and relaxing with. Old games can be really fun because they come with so much more than just jagged graphics and 8-bit music, they come with years of memories and loads of good times.

Antique Game: Excersise Bike

What. A. Crappy. Game.

The author of the site says this 30's/40's exercise bike was supposed to be a way to relax your tire legs. Actually that's what the sign on this coin-op piece of junk says.

"You insert coin which raises break bar on front week. You can then easily pedal the bike and turn a knob to make the pedaling harder or easier. After a short time period, the break bar drops down, making it hard to pedal again. thereby ending your ride."

This probably sold really well, along with the washing dishes simulator and the fold your laundry coin-op.