Another year has gone by. Today marks the eighth anniversary of Game Central. To mark the occasion, I created a page for Night of the Vampire, a Dungeons & Dragons adventure we played in 1997.

I don’t play a lot of adventure games nowadays. Years ago, I was a big fan of Infocom’s text adventure games. For the most part, point and click graphical adventures never hooked me to the same degree. There were a few notable exceptions, such as Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, Star Trek: Judgment Rites, and some of LucasArts’ games. Another such game I had heard very good things about was Beneath a Steel Sky from Revolution Software. Released in 1994, I knew it was a sci-fi game in a dystopian setting. Other than that, I didn’t know much about it. Thanks to ScummVM, I was able to play this well-regarded classic.

You play Robert Foster, the game’s protagonist. The backstory is presented graphically in a comic book style. Foster is abducted from “The Gap” wasteland and taken to Union City. While there, he has to piece together a mystery involving his father and a powerful computer known as LINC. I expected the game to be a serious and mature sci-fi offering. The overall story and themes did not disappoint. However, I did not expect the game to be so humorous. The light-hearted dialog and comical situations rivaled classic LucasArts titles. It wasn’t the longest game, which was fine with me. Frankly, I no longer have the patience to flail away at overly complex adventure puzzles. Thank God for online hints.

I recommend the game to anyone with even a passing interest in graphical adventures. You can download the computer game as freeware or buy Beneath a Steel Sky: Remastered for iOS.

Before tackling another long game, I decided to play a hidden object game. It was Hidden Expedition: Everest, another title from Big Fish Games. I had played two Mystery Case Files games before, Huntsville and Ravenhearst. Although this game wasn’t from the MCF series, the game mechanics were very similar. You travel from location to location searching for hidden items from a fixed list. I completed my Everest expedition in less than three hours. It wasn’t anything complicated but fun nevertheless.

Although I’ve won 2048 a number of times, I still enjoy playing it. I find its appeal is similar to Tetris—a game so simple yet so elegant and addicting. I never tire of either game. My latest goal was to create a tile of 4096. Yesterday, I achieved that goal. In fact, I did it twice in three games. My new high score is 51,116.