PC Games That Won’t Die

Extreme Tech’s article 5 Games that Won’t Die!, identifies five PC games (Diablo II, MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries, People’s General, StarCraft, & Fallout) that I never played. At the time of their release, I did think about buying some of them, but instead used my limited funds to buy other games.

People’s General is free, so I downloaded it with plans of playing sometime. Back when it was originally released, I was playing Panzer General II, which I purchased through an SSI 4 game combo pack. Panzer General II is another one of the games that will not die. A very active online community is developing enhancements and new campaigns.

This got me wanting to find other PC games. Using Stumbleupon, I started searching. After a couple of hits, I found a very interesting web page that lists free games for windows XP. This long list of free games is very well thought out. Many of them could be categorized as a PC Game That Won’t Die.

Looks like I will be busy downloading some more.

Oblivion – POOP v2 Mod Collection

The Popehat Oblivion Omods Project

(POOP) is a collection over 80 mods and tools used to enhance the Oblivion PC game. The POOP team did not create them; instead, they got permission from their creators to include them in this collection. Many of the mods were repackaged as OMOD files to make installation much easier. The installation instructions are very thorough with only a few unclear points.

It is mentioned that this collection was created for high-end machines. Do not worry, if you do not have a high-end PC, the instructions include advice on picking settings and mods that are best for your PC specifications. Besides, if a mod is causing more performance issues than it is worth, just remove it. Many of these mods work very well on medium to low-end PC’s

I rate my PC medium when it comes for performance. After installing most of the MODS, my game FPS was between 15 to 25, which is ok, but I will be doing some tweaking to improve it. Some mods I did not include were the optional mods , changing leveling, AEVWD, and DarNified UI. I just did not like the blocky gold font I got with “DarNified UI”, so I used “MajorJims_UI” instead.

Advice: After you finish initial install of Oblivion with its patches, start it using its desktop Icon or its start menu line. This will create the OBLIVION.INI with much more usable values. I used OBMM start it the first time and it caused me some obvious performance issues. So I deleted the OBLIVION.INI file and recreated executing the Oblivion icon.

In case you are curious here are my PC specifications

Processor: Intel 2.8 GHZ with HyperThreading
Memory: 2.5 GB of RAM =  (2 * 1GB) + (2 * 256MB)
Video: BFG NVIDIA GeForce 6200 OC 256MB AGP
Audio Card: Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS (WDM)
Monitor: CRT 19 inch Viewsonic Professional Series

Since the announcement of POOP v2, I have been kind of a stalker. Here is a list of posts that discuss this fabulous collection.

• The Popehat Oblivion Omods Project – Blog dedicated to the POOP project
• Quarter To Three Forum
  • Getting ready to POOP again…[Oblivion Mods] (2008-08-16)
  • [Oblivion] I’d Like You To Play With My POOP (2008-06-10)- Torrent referenced does not exist anymore
• Bethesda Game Studios Forums
  • Popehat’s Oblivion Omod Project, Attention all modders. (2008-06-20)
• Popehat -
  • Building A Better Oblivion (2008-06-09)
  • Popehat Oblivion Omods Project (POOP): POOP dies on Monday (2008-05-09), Page#7 Bash Instructions
• Octopus Overlords
  • OBLIVION – Who’s playing? POOP v.2 is a good time to start! (2008-08-02) – includes some screen shots
• Gaming Trend
  • [Oblivion] I’d Like To Invite You To Play With POOP (2008-06-09)

Update 03/15/09

Bit Turrent File can be downloaded here

The Elder Scrolls (TES) IV: Oblivion

Oblivion whose official name is The Elder Scrolls (TES) IV: Oblivion, is a fantastic single player fantasy role playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios. It was released on March 21, 2006 with its expansion package Shivering Isles released on March27, 2007. In addition, Bethesda released nine additional mods ranging in price form 0.99 to 15.99. All are worthing additions to the game.

This game provides offers a large world with many races and professions to choice for your character. The primary quest it just one quest of many you can optionally pursue. In fact you don’t have to perform any quests. Just travel the countryside looking for cities, villages, homes, caves, forts, and ruins to explore. Just traveling to these locations provide the you the opportunity to bandits, animals and monsters. There is much to explore and see in Oblivion.

To keep Oblivion fresh and fan support active, a free mod kit is included with the PC game providing fans an opportunity to add features, quests, places, houses, creatures, spells, armor, and much more. The are hundreds of free mods available to be added to Oblivion. Some of the these are considered an overhaul mod because  they change so much of games environment.

Midtown Madness 2

This past weekend I decided to put up my of copy of Midtown Madness 2 and give its online multi-player option a try. I stopped playing this game back in 2006 when Microsoft shutdown its Zone.  To fill this need www.igzones.com opened up providing free online multi-player for many of the games previously hosted by Microsoft.

To use IGZones service you need to register and download its client. The  client  provides access  to various areas and launches your game locally when a hosted game is started.

Before I could use this feature I needed to setup my router to forward ports like I did with Microsoft. IGZone provides instructions access to setting up your router and computer. One requirement is making you computer have a static address which is fully explained in step-by-step instructions. There are also instructions for setting port forwarding on your router.

I got MM2 running on my Windows XP PC after downloading the XP patch from Microsoft. Now I relive the joy of playing a capture the gold and roof wars.

Bookmarks

• IGZone setup instructions
• Portforward Static IP Windows Xp instructions
• Portforward router port forward instructions

Starport: Galactic Empires

Starport: Galactic Empires – is a free online multiple space trade and starship combat game. In this game you trade, colonize planets, form guilds, and kick other players starship butts.