Buy Some Good Old Games

Have you ever wished you could buy any video game for less than AU$5.00? If you're like me, you love a good fucken deal. The cost of living keeps rising faster than you can distract yourself from it, so if you're feeling the sting in the wallet, it's hard to justify the cost of buying brand-new games. As a doctor of gaming (PhD) my prescription for such cases is to do some bargain hunting on Good Old Games.

You can generally find great deals on Good Old Games (henceforth referred to as GOG) and when there's a sale–such as the current Spring Sale–the deals are all the better. Today, I want to delve into this unrivalled well of sweet video game ambrosia, to document just some of the incredible classics you can snag for under AU$5.00.

Before 2013's Tomb Raider, developer Crystal Dynamics had attempted to reboot the venerable series already. This effort produced:

• Tomb Raider: Legend (2006),
• Tomb Raider: Anniversary (2007), and
• Tomb Raider: Underworld (2008)

I don't think it's presumptuous to say that Lara Croft's original outings succeeded in no small part with the aid of her titillating polygons for the time–but when Tomb Raider: Legend released there was no shortage of powerful female heroines who adventured boobily through the mid-to-late 2000s era of gaming. That's not to say there are no merits to these games, far from it. They are all seriously fun reinventions and refinements of what made the original games great. These are games which aren't afraid to give you two guns and throw a bunch of tigers at you.

Then next up we have F.E.A.R. Platinum. It's hard to recommend F.E.A.R. after the publisher (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment) just recently shut down the developer, Monolith Productions. This was the same developer responsible for not only F.E.A.R., but also No One Lives Forever 1 & 2 and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor / Shadow of War. I reccomend it despite this controversy because it's still one of the best shooters ever made. Gorgeous graphics, tight gunplay and the "AI" combatants can still humble you to this day.

A little bonus aside, as I briefly mentioned No One Lives Forever 1 & 2 while discussing Monolith Productions. Due to some licensing issues, those games are not available for purchase anymore; however, both games have been bundled by a dedicated fan into modern-system friendly installers which are available for free. Play as Cate Archer in this first-person espionage-em-up and thankless love letter to 60s spy classics. There's a host of fun and cool gadgets to utilise, exotic locations to explore and even a sinister plot to uncover. This is also one of the only games that encourages violence against mimes, a cause most humankind can rally behind.

But let's say that rather than mimes, you're instead in the mood to blow some Nazis away–and I don't think there's ever been a better time to shoot Nazis–why not get back into practice in Return to Castle Wolfenstein. With a delightfully pulpy story that plays with elements of the occult and mad science, this is a great shooter that nails the basics, focuses on raw action and lets you cut through swathes of enemies in stunning levels full of inventive ideas.

I don't know about you but I'm getting sick of being constrained to just planet Earth in these games. Some of us yearn for adventure among the stars, and for that there is always Wing Commander 4: The Price of Freedom. Ancient by modern standards, it still has some of the best FMV cutscenes with excellently written characters brought to life by talented actors like Mark Hamill. The actual space dogfighting gameplay is tense and mechanically deep, taking time to master before you can call yourself an ace pilot. Industry veteran Chris Roberts–love him or hate him–managed to meld film and gaming together with Wing Commander 4, pushing the boundaries of storytelling in gaming.

Wing Commander 4 is by far the oldest game I've mentioned, so lets fast-forward a bit. It is deeply upsetting to admit, but Sleeping Dogs is old–it came out in 2012 after all. Not unlike the cruel passage of time, it still packs one hell of a punch. A unique take on open-world design, with a story and gameplay that are deeply inspired by Hong Kong action cinema. A meditative balance of John Woo meets Grand Theft Auto might not have had the mainstream appeal for a commercial success but it's an absolute winner in my mind.

It's going to be almost impossible to get through every game I desperately want to talk about in one single article, so I'll close out on Hitman: Blood Money. This is an all-time favourite of mine. It happily sits in my top-ten games of all time, and I've played a lot of this game too. Every level presents itself as a sandbox, with a multitude of options available to take out your targets, the level design has never been better in this series. I love this game dearly, and you can have it for less than AU$2.00 right now.

That about wraps it up. I've barely covered a fraction of the amazing older games you can pick up for pennies on GOG, especially with the current sale in place. If you love video games but you find yourself struggling to find games you can afford to play, I urge you to look to the past. These games are cheap, they can run on lower-specced machines like laptops handily and they may just end up being some of your all-time favourites. If you're like me and you've already played a fuck tonne of older games, maybe try revisiting a few. That new $100 game can wait a bit longer.