Author: greywolfe

Greywolfe is a curmudgeon who likes old games, long walks on the beach and also bear form in World of Warcraft. He sends his regards from the Lonely Island where he does nothing but play King's Quest and write opinion pieces all day.

Greywolfe's Year of Sierra Banner image. It contains a stylized image of Greywolfe's Avatar, the text "Greywolfe's Lair" and a Sierra On-Line logo.

Greywolfe’s Year Of Sierra

Welcome to the Year of Sierra.

Hi. I’m Lostwolfe.

And I have something of a problem.

I love adventure games. More specifically, I love the very old school adventure games made by Lucasarts and Sierra On-Line. The trouble with Lucasarts is that there aren’t very many games that are adventures that I can talk about in a year. Oh. There’s probably a way I could do that, but it would mean stretching twelve titles [or so] across the whole year with some kind of filler for the other weeks where I need to write something. And while I think I could make a case for writing about the movies Lucasarts made, too, I’m not sure I have the stomach for talking about the Star Wars Holiday Special.

So. That leaves us with quantity and Sierra made a TON of games in the late eighties and early nineties.

Let’s get to that, then.

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Greywolfe’s Four in February, 2020

Well.

It’s that time of year again.

Time to dash through four games on my giant backlog.

This year’s going to work a LITTLE differently, though.

I’m going to be STREAMING most of what I’m playing.

So let’s talk about that.

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an opening image that features a cartoon picture of greywolfe, the text "greywolfe's lair" and an image of a calendar

Greywolfe’s 15 Games To Look Forward to in 2020.

Warning! There are MANY LINKS ahead. They will open in separate pages.

Well, it’s certainly been a while, hasn’t it? The last post I made here was several years ago now, and that’s pretty bad. It means I haven’t been writing about games and gaming and movies and music and all that nonsense for two [and a bit] years!

We-ll, it’s time to rectify that.

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Yono and the Celestial Elephants: Review

As you play and as the world is revealed to you, you will discover that there’s a lot of depth to the plot – if not the characters – and that there’s a whole host of philosophical conundrums beating, like a steady counter-rhythm to the playful platforming.

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Whoo boy. Cool Patrol is a great, but uneven album.

Ninja Sex Party: Cool Patrol Review

On top of all this, there’s the problem of “Danny Don’t You Know.”

To put this into perspective, I want to be quite clear that I’m on board with that song. So on board, in fact, that I think it’s the VERY best song they’ve ever done before. There’s such a quiet sincerity that flows from the lyrics to the music to the tone of the song that it feels sort of oddly out of place with the rest of the album. It’s oddly difficult to marry this quiet, sincere side of the band to the prior side, which is mainly about sex and drugs and rock and roll and hilarious one-liners.

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Scandroid Review: It’s Not The Past, Exactly, But It Sounds Like The Future.

Ah, Klayton.

An image of Klayton, front man of the band Scandroid.
Klayton, a ridiculously prolific artist

A man of many styles that still manages to enthrall and inspire even to this day, twenty years after his Circle of Dust debut. In his various guises, he has penned industrial music, more melodic songs, slightly more metal sounds and then some.

For this album, he travels to his roots. To that time in the eighties when New Wave ruled supreme and no one could see anything but synthesizers for miles around. Read more

Flaunt It Review: Fake That Boogie, Dance On, Dance On!

The 1980’s.

No other decade since the 50’s had been so steeped in Futurism.

In the 50’s, that nod toward futurism was all about flying cars and robots.  Things that would make life easier.  In the fifties, too, this futurism was all about cleanliness.  The future portrayed in the fifties generally had a lot of clean, sleek lines.  From the Hanna-Barbera domes the Jetsons lived in to the vast robots that occupied more space than a mere human, the future seemed to be bright and generally on the side of the people.

Then, the American Dream was shattered and the nightmare we woke up in was a little bit different.  A little bit darker.

But not everything about 80’s futurism was entirely dark.  Sure, there were much harsher lines, now.  And a much darker tone in terms of corporations ruling everything and yes, there was a lot of fear that the arms race between America and Russia would turn game-ending for everyone, but where the 80’s were grittier, they still had a lot of colour and spark.

And this is about where I introduce Sigue Sigue Sputnik. Read more

Twinstiq Gameclub plays Reigns

Welcome, your majesty to your tragic kingdom.

Yes, that’s right, after an incredibly long hiatus, game club is back and we’re going to start up again with a fairly simple, quite laid back game about choices.  How can choices be laid back, you ask?  Well, all of these choices are pretty binary.  You pick one or the other, but be careful!  Things you choose might annoy the Church or help the people – and then they might annoy the Church or help the people so much that these two institutions stage a revolt, ending in your untimely death.

A Reigns logo featuring the four important symbols of the game that signify the Church, the army, the people and the economy.
Your rule is simplified to dealing with the Church, the army, the people and the economy. Just don't let either slip.

Reigns is simple in that you’re essentially playing Tinder:  The Game, but the way it simplifies creates ambiguity in players for what it’s not bringing up.  Do you get a doctor to prevent a plague?  Or are the people baying for blood and shouldn’t you knock the population of the kingdom down a peg or two by way of said plague?

This is the sort of question Reigns asks on a fairly frequent basis and your only means for answering those questions is to pick yes or no.

If any of this intrigues you, please do feel free to pick up the game on GoG or Steam.  We will be reconvening on the 4th of June, 2017 to discuss Reigns and to pick a new gameclub game.

Until then, may your kingdom flourish.