gabriel-knight posts

For the past week, the folks at GoG.com, owned by CD Projekt, have had a countdown clock on their site. Usually such a clock means that a major annoncement is coming up. Now the clock has expired and the truth can be revealed. GoG.com has now confirmed it has secured a deal with publisher Activision to offer a number of their older PC games for download in GoG.com's DRM-free format.

The deal also includes offering older games from the now defunct Vivendi Games. Activision acquired the rights to a number of these games when the company merged with Vivendi Games to formed Activision Blizzard a couple of years ago. The first two games that GoG.com is schedled add to their library of titles from this new publishing deal today are the classic Gabriel Knight adventure game and Arcanum, the steampunk RPG from the now defunct Trokia Software. Both are priced at $5.99 each.

For more info on this deal Big Download got a chance to chat with Marcin Iwinski, the co-founder of CD Projekt. Look for that interview to be posted up later this morning.

On Monday we began a fond look back at the 1990s, when Star Trek was well into The Next Generation and The X-Files was our favorite way to get scared. PC games also came into their own in that decade and to prove it we picked 15 titles that were released between 1992 and 1993.

It was the time period where adventure games were all over the place and an odd PC hardware add-on called the CD-ROM would make us forget floppies. Shareware was also making a huge impact on gamers, including a little game called Doom. Let's head back about 16 or 17 years and take a look at the 1990's games that we still like to play today.

Click on the image to read more of We Love the 90s (for PC Games): 1992-1993

Mega Man 9 may be a console exclusive, but gamers' eagerness to re-embrace the glory days that favored substance over style is being felt across all platforms. After spending time with the blue bomber, we got to thinking: what PC series would we like to see resurrected in their previous forms? Not a sequel with a new engine, but a new entry in a series, new or old, that might benefit from the application of the technology that made it so successful in its day?

Collected here are 10 PC games we'd love to be born again in the same attire they wore when they were new to the party. After perusing our picks, consider what yours might be, and leave a Comment telling us about them. Next week, we'll tally up the 10 games with the most votes and feature them in a gallery of their own.

The Resurgence of Yesteryear

As the typical five-year lifespan of a console winds toward its conclusion, gamers inevitably pose questions of backwards-compatibility. They wonder, as is only logical, whether the dozens, hundreds, or thousands of dollars they invested in their gaming library will be relevant when the new generation of hardware emerges. Sometimes, as with the Xbox 360's update-oriented system, most last-gen titles will still function properly. Other times, as with the PlayStation 3's confusing array of SKUs, the answer alternates between "maybe," "hopefully," and "who knows"?

Despite occasional hardware hiccups and OS woes, the PC platform has managed to retain its awe-inspiring catalogue of titles, thanks in large part to an active community of uber-geeks intent on doing whatever must be done to ensure that disk-based classics don't fade into obscurity.

Welcome to Boot Disk, a weekly column dedicated to covering PC gaming's impressive and expansive history. Every Tuesday, we'll examine one of the platform's many titles that still lend themselves to eminence five, 10, 15, or decades' worth of years later. This week's Boot Disk examines Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, the first adventure game by author and game designer Jane Jensen.

Boot Disk: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers