Awesome! :)

No No No. When the bones of Microprose were being picked over, Firaxis (Sid Meier's company) bought the rights to Xcom. In fact, they have an Xcom Prequel (FPS, of course) in the works.

However, there is talk of a strategic turn based alien-themed game. We'll have to see if it is Xcom.

Thx for these infos!

It pains me to say this, as I am a GOG fan and customer, but the new web site has a few bugs still, and arrgghhh... I have to full-screen my browser window (IE8) to see all the comment text, which was never a problem on the old site. And I tried replying to this once before, and got the "blue globe of death" when the site dropped me for some unknown reason.

Anyhow... You have to remember the TSR-to-SSI license was signed more than 20 years ago, when PC gaming was still in its infancy, and the contract language they used for expiration and transfer rights was probably a lot different than what you would expect them to use today. Even in the USA no one seems to know for sure what the deal is. Ubisoft is claiming the rights, and that's what matters.

It affects a lot of SSI titles for which there is interest in reprints. The Gold Box engine spawned 12 titles (10 AD&D + 2 Buck Rogers). Hillsfar was another AD&D title in a "Gold Box" package but used its own engine. The Dark Sun engine spawned seven titles (2 Dark Sun, 2 Ravenloft, Menzoberranzan, Al-Qadim and Jorune: Alien Logic). There were three more dungeon crawlers using the 3D Eye of the Beholder engine. I've lost count of how many used the Panzer General/Steel Panthers engine, but it was quite a few.

The newsletter I just received speaks of 6 more Hasbro titles :>. I'm pretty sure ID, P:T and BG2 are among them... perhaps coupled with ID2, NWN and EotB ?

I can comment on some of the Gold Box Games. I big in gaming circles around that time.
v1 Gold Box Engine (classic). The copy protection was a code, picked from matching an Elvish and Dwarvish rune on a wheel. It was easier to unpack the PKpacked EXE and look for strings than it was to match those stinking runes (granted I was 15 at the time, paying attention wasn't a strong point)

Pool of Radience
Curse of the Azure Bonds
Secret of the Silver Blades
Pools of Darkness

There was a Ravenloft game or two and another - ah - Buck Rogers - thanks! I don't fully remember

Hillsfar Engine...
Hillsfar (more of a action/platformer than a Gold Box Game) It was meant to be played in the interim between Pools of Radience and Curse of the Azure Bonds. The most annoying thing was that you had to complete an action sequence (jumping hay bales, fences and puddles) before you could enter the game or leave and save the game. I cannot remember what the copy protection was, but it was probably a doc check (what is word 7 of line 2 on page 1) before entering upon saving the game. Dasterdly programmers.

v2 Gold Box Engine (much improved graphics - I think VGA, previous was EGA, Beholder size fixed (2x2) - you could backstab beholders in the v1 engine as they were rendered with only one tile due to a reading error, I guess)
Dark Queen of Krynn
Something Treasure of Krynn

There was also Unlimited Adventures, which, from what I remember, was pretty hard to come by back in the day. Basically it was the toolset that the Gold Box games were made from.

Besides the Eye of the Beholder and it's sequel, Eye of the Beholder II, there was also a little known title called Dungeon Hack. Based on the EoB engines, it was basically Nethack with a AD&D finish and a randomizable dungeon. It was darn hard. It even had a high score/deepest delver score, similar to Nethack's Graveyard. I only finished it once and yes, it was with a cleric and a ton of hammers and long hallways.

Hope some of this is useful. I miss those games. Wish I could buy them again, even with their weak 16 color EGA graphics.

8 games in the 5 Star General series :

-Panzer General, Allied General, Pacific General, Fantasy General, Star General, Panzer General 2, People's General, Panzer General 3 : Scorched Earth and Panzer General 3D.

Also, last year there was a game for Xbox Live Arcade (also a boardgame) called Panzer General : Allied Assault. Both were by Petroglyph.

There were 3 games in the Steel Panthers series. As well, Matrix Games developed Steel Panthers : World at War based off the SP3 engine by license. And Camo Group (with Shrapnel Games publishing) made Steel Panthers : World War 2 and Steel Panthers : MAin Battle Tank based off the SP2 engine by license.

If I can get Rollercoaster Tycoon I will be the happiest man on the planet. I spent many many hours playing the original Rollercoaster Tycoon. AGGGGH it was such a great game. I have no idea what happened to my disc. I lost it when I moved around 9 years ago

Oh how I hated that stupid horse in Hillsfar and having to jump those bales... Actually I hated Hillsfar, period, it's the only "Gold Box" game I wouldn't recommend to anyone. Here is the complete TSR-SSI list (I own all these, so I have a reference).

Gold Box engine (all EGA graphics, except as noted):

4 in the Myth Drannor series, Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness (VGA)

3 in the Dragonlance series: Champions of Krynn, Death Knights of Krynn, Dark Queen of Krynn (VGA)

2 in the Forgotten Realms series: Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Treasures of the Savage Frontier (VGA)

Unlimited Adventures (VGA, included adventure editing tools). It has been extensively hacked and modded since. Many fan-created adventures exist, some quite large and of pro quality.

Neverwinter Nights Online (VGA, heavily modded). I count this because there was an offline Neverwinter Nights game in an actual Gold Box which was only available to AOL subscribers, and not sold to the general public. It contained much but not all of the online game. It's roughly equivalent in size and play length to the other Gold Box titles. The complete online game survives in emulated form somewhere. PvP is a major element.

2 in the Buck Rogers series: Countdown to Doomsday, Matrix Cubed (VGA), planned 3rd title was cancelled. These used the TSR Buck Rogers paper ruleset, and they were the first PC RPG's to implement a skill enhancement system.

There was also Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace; I totally "spaced" out on that one before. :) It has its own engine (it was actually programmed from scratch by some fan in his basement, and then bought by SSI), although some people believe it uses the Gold Box engine because the combat systems are very similar.

The three Eye of the Beholder titles were all VGA and used a 3D engine which was ehhanced somewhat at each release. Dungeon Hack came after EoB 3 and uses that engine as well. One thing that made it so hard is that your characters could actually die permanently and it would auto-wipe the save file (!). As noted in a previous post, it's basically a clone of Nethack in the AD&D world, which was a lot of fun at the time! Dungeon Hack is loosely considered to be a Forgotten Realms title, mainly because it says that on the box. :)

Dark Sun engine (VGA): Shattered Lands, Wake of the Ravager. Al-Qadim: the Genie's curse and Jorune: Alien Logic also use this engine.

Ravenloft engine (VGA, a minor variation of Dark Sun): Strahd's Posession, Stone Prophet. Menzoberranzan also uses this engine.

Dark Sun: Crimson Sands Online. I never played this personally, but I did see a demo, and it used the Dark Sun engine in much the same way as Neverwinter Nights Online used the Gold Box engine. It was playable on the TEN network, for those of you who remember that old chestnut, and it bit the dust hard when TEN folded. No offline version was ever released, and no known game code survives. PvP was a major element, and basically ruined the game due to massive cheating.

Whew. I know I'm probably forgetting something.

I'd also love to see some of the D&D-licensed SSI-games here. Not just the Gold Box RPGs, but Eye of the Beholder, Ravenloft, Dungeon Hack and even DragonStrike.

Tons of gaming gold here, and for me personally there's quite a few games here that I'd really like to play properly, but never really got around to before.

I would say that we get Temple of Elemental Evil instead of EotB.

My guess is that the six include RCT and the original Axis & Allies (not the RTS). Other possibilities are Risk (one of the older versions) or Sorry!. You'd be surprised how popular that last one would be for family gaming.

Great to see Hasbro here. There is a lot of clasic games even the likes of battleships,risk etc and AD & D stuff woot looking forward to future releases.

Anyone know who has the rights to Dragon Strike - one of my Favorites of the time and developed by Westwood for SSI