Is there just a general "chat about whatever" topic on here somewhere? If there is I can't find it so this thread will do.
I don't do this so much anymore but recently I decided, hey, I'm going to check out one of those "abandonware" titles on my personal wishlist that doesn't look to have a chance of being re-released anytime soon. The game? John Saul's Blackstone Chronicles, an adventure game with what I've read has a good story and a great atmosphere of psychological horror. I've been on a kind of horror kick as of late (horror games are weird in how I'm of two minds about them tugging at each other constantly - on one hand, they FASCINATE me like no other, I WANT to play and experience something unnerving, disturbing, what-have-you, on the other hand, the experience is often very stressful and at some point I become too afraid to play any longer, or, afraid to play a game to begin with - it's not that common, but I do hesitate to touch something that I read has nasty jump scares, chase sequences, and/or high levels of resource management) and everything I've read about this game sounded up my alley. So I went on my merry way to abandonia and... what, they won't allow any links to the game there? Because... something to do with Legend Entertainment who have been defunct for a long time now? I... don't get it. At all. NOBODY is selling the fucking thing, nothing on that site is technically "legal" to begin with, why is this game so damn special? But... fine, I'll just look elsewhere. Nope! Nada! I never thought finding a download of a somewhat well-known old PC game that has been out of print for years now would be so difficult. Torrent sites, only ones I found had at the most one seeder, no leechers, but it still wouldn't even make it to the "download" phase. Seems there is little interest in this game on that front. Other torrent sites just have the books for download (I don't know how good the books themselves are, but in this case I just want to play the damn game adaptation, the books can wait later). One site I found had the game for download, and all seemed well, it was downloading quickly and I was happy... but the file for the second disc was corrupt. And the site looks to be inactive so that ain't going to be fixed anytime soon. The "best," and I really mean it when I put that word in quotes, I found was a site that REALLY means it when it says "slow download speed." I guess I have to pay for a subscription or something if I want fast speeds? But I thought the slow would suffice, usually they do, under an hour or two at most, and that's usually for significantly large files. Not here! It's a little over a 1 GB download and it's downloading at around 4 kb a second, give or take ever-so-minuscule drops or rises in speed. Says "3 days left." I am certainly not keeping my computer on for that long!
Games this hard to find to download should be reserved for like obscure X68000 mecha action games with gratuitous hentai inserted (there is actually one such game that meets this description, I can't think of the name though), not for an acclaimed PC adventure gaming cult classic. I am tempted to pay for the subscription but... I really don't want to. I just hope GOG gets a hold of this game some day, but any old game licensed from another property, be it a book or movie, are so damn difficult to renew, and really costly too to bring back once the license is expired and no longer interested in working with anyone without a significant sum. Though if we could strike a deal with friggin' Harlan Ellison to re-release I Have No Mouth... then I have slightly more hope. NIGHT DIIIIIVE! (someone needs to build a Night Dive spotlight near their headquarters like they have for Batman)