Geopolitically Bad Timing

Hi, guys and gals. Hope everyone’s doing well.

Here’s a free tip: If you’re thinking of upgrading the flooring in your home, try to do it before you cover it with furniture…

We’re got all the furniture out from the second room, and I’m going to start laying down the actual flooring tomorrow. Why not today, you ask? Well, because of this:

I know it’s quite a few generations out of date, seeing as how I first played the PC version about a decade and a half ago. But, this game ranks among my top ten.

Why haven’t I played it sooner? Well, there’s that saying: You can take an old game to Windows 10, but you can’t make it run. It’s an absolute nightmare to get it to run on a modern operating system, and my wife would kill me if I set up a dedicated retro computer just for this.

So, for a long time, I never bothered trying to get it to run.

Then, I found out that it’s backwards compatible if you have an Xbox One system. That is, if you have the disc for the original Xbox, you can play it on an Xbox One.

Now, I do have an original Xbox, and love playing games on it. But, I’m also not dumb. It it’ll run on the faster system and I get less load times (and I decrease wear on a system that will eventually die), then yeah, I’ll run it on the faster system. It’s also Xbox One-X enhanced, which means they sort-of semi-remastered it (a little).

Backing up a little bit in the story, I didn’t have the Xbox version of the game. I’m also a little bit of a collector of older games, and I’ve never seen it for sale at any thrift store or garage sale. Also, good ole’ Covid apparently created a giant run on retro games. At this point, you’d be lucky to find anything within an hour of it getting to a thrift store shelf.

So, I called around to a few retro game stores. Not my first choice, due to prices in my area being massively marked up. However, I found a nice copy, which you see in that picture up above. Here’s a view from inside:

Case and manual are in good condition, and both discs are present and unscratched. Worth the $20.00 this time around.

Now, you’re probably thinking to yourself: why did this fool go to all this trouble for an old game that hardly anyone’s ever heard of?

This is a really great game. The storyline is incredible, and the setting is beautiful and well thought out. It starts out “so-so”, but trust me, it gets a lot better once you get into it. I don’t want to go into any details, because I’d never forgive myself for spoiling it for you, in case you do decide to play it. Also, do yourself a favour and don’t look at any spoilers beforehand either. You’ll thank me later.

Of course, this may not be your cup of tea, and I can respect that. But, if you liked any of Bioware’s other older stuff, such as Knights of the Old Republic, this may be right up your alley.

Anyways, I’ve blabbered on enough. I’ve got an hour booked with an older, but still beautiful, lady.

Also, if you guys are interested in this kind of stuff, I’ll do some more posts showing off sections of my retro collection?

Take care, folks.