Yesterday I described myself as a bit of a dinosaur, but so long as there isn't a six mile wide meteor hurtling my way it isn't necessarily such a bad thing to be into old school things and today I am going to give you a few examples

During the 1990s and early 2000s I really enjoyed gaming and I guess I still do when I have the time. I could even trace my gaming experiences all the way back to my ZX81 (after painstakingly typing it in on a touch keyboard in BASIC first), Spectrum +3 - with the superb at that time StarGlider - and playing JetPack on my friend's Vic20. One or two of my school friends played Elite on the BBC, but frankly these games were very limited whatever the platform.

It all changed when I got my first PC of course. Graphics were better, sound was better and frankly it represented a massive upshift. I loved Age of Empires (I and II), Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds (even the crazy Ewok cheat was fun!) which was built on the same infrastructure as Age of Empires II, (Caesar II and III) and many of the Sid Meier Civilisation games.

And then everybody got broadband and the gaming industry got greedy.

Monthly subscriptions are now the norm and yes I know you get all the updates etc and now if you want to play certain games you have to join a player world and interact with real people; what maddens me about this is that it is not an option. The other day I mentioned that I used to play Travian, that was my choice and I wanted to play with / against other human opponents.

Sometimes I just want to play on my own as an escape from human interaction!

Then of course, and I have commented on this before, all too frequently you need to create another online account and remember your credentials even to access the games. I am of course talking about platforms like Steam. 

I just want to play the f**king game!

Also while I am on about Steam, Civilisation VI was a pile of s**t (the graphics didn't even hold up to its predecessor) and while I have not looked at VII yet the truth is that Civ V (released in 2010) probably represents the pinnacle of achievement for the game. While Civ 5 isn't actually that old it does demonstrate that new doesn't always mean better.

And that thought brings me neatly to my conclusion. Call me a nerd if you like, but when I have time I just want to use gaming as an escape. I want to lock into my earphones - once I have untangled them - and spend some time alone.

That's the point. 

It is difficult to get legacy games to run on newer computers, but there are a few tricks - virtual box with the appropriate OS, platforms like GOG etc

So now I am going to shut myself in a room and build an Empire. So while I am busy, and as always stay safe and well my friends.