Now that I'm attempting to write cyberpunk, I have become nostalgic for some of my first experiences with the genre. Perhaps the first time I was floored by cyberpunk was when I read the introductory story to the game Spectre when I was probably not much on either side of 10. I loved that game fiercely, man, so much so that I forced my parents to buy me a copy of it even after my dad got a pirated copy from a friend. The story was surprisingly intricate for something in a video game manual, perhaps because they had to justify having a manual for a game with seven buttons for controls and no story whatsoever in the actual game.
As I got nostalgic for good old Spectre, I also started thinking about the sequel, Spectre VR. Unlike the first game, this one actually had video (as much video as any game had back in the early-to-mid 90's), and I remembered it in a rather fond light. It set the mood of the noir, gritty world of hackers and whatnot, or at least that's what I thought. Eager to see the videos again, even for a bit, I started checking out the usual warez and abandonware sites, only to find that the game is apparently open to download if I sign up for something else. Twenty minutes and a lot of headache later, I finally managed to make one of their third-party programs work. One figured out that 01 My Ass Street wasn't a real address and assured me they would contact me to resolve the issue (good luck contacting yourmom@isaho.com), and another reminded me to enter a ZIP code when I tried to send the form, even though there was no ZIP code slot.
When I finally got the game, it didn't come as a .exe with the necessary files clustered around it, because that would have been too convenient. It came as .zip files that I had to extract, piece together, run with a special emulator program, and then spend five minutes messing with virtual drives to convince it that these files were, in fact, part of three separate disks in my floppy drive. When I browbeat the computer into submission and bent it to my indomidable will, the game finally started.
With no video. The game itself worked fine, but that's like saying the radio works in a car with no wheels.
I asked YouTube, and it gave me a couple of
videos, really just enough to brutally remind me that my judgment on cool when I was ten doesn't stand the test of time. I also thought the Smurfs were cool.
This reminds me of the time I spent an entire morning and afternoon trying to get Red Baron 2 to run on my computer....
That being said, if I could find the original CD game, I'd probably still be tempted to play it just for the videos. Cheesy though they are, I at least want to play the game through to see what happens in the cutscenes. Assuming the game does end.
