The End of a Decade

This year was a curious one, and I don’t mean to refer to the VG industry alone: 2009 was, after all, the first full year of The Slowdown for us three, and boy, it sure went past real fast. For various reasons, this year has also been a very trying one for each of us, yet we were still able to find the time and enthusiasm to write and post together. Taking up writing, I’m certain, has only worked to enhance our enthusiasm and interest in the medium. As if to commemorate the very end of the decade, though, my relatively recent motherboard had to be shipped over to Germany for replacement recently.

You’ve probably also noted how we’ve yet not engaged ourselves in the “best of” discourse, at all; we enjoy making lists just as much as the other guy, sure, but perhaps unsurprisingly also tend to get over-analytical and –intellectual with the concept.

Slowdown Boys

Therefore, as our final post of the year, the three of us have jotted down our personal lists of the decade. The simple rule was not to make it too difficult for ourselves. Therefore, I have sought to paint an impression of the zeitgeist, warts and all. Very subjective. Nabeel wanted to paint a portrait of himself as gamer, and Richard hoped to be accurate and inclusive. The games listed below have not been included based on their perceived merits or qualities; instead, we selected them with the aforementioned focuses in mind.

All three free-form lists after the jump. Here’s to a new gaming decade, everyone!

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Maximize Your Torment

Planescape Torment 01As you might have heard, after reissuing a portion of their back catalogue digitally, Interplay also seem to be re-retailing some of their classic games. Make of that ethically what you will – especially in relation to the recent, omnipresent lawsuits – but as things stand, it seems that the earlier Planescape: Torment release date got pushed back a month, and the current release date stands at the 20th – that is, in a few days. That means we have just enough time to outline how to best install mods for the game!

First off, we would start with installing the official v1.1 patch. This is not required for 2CD versions of the game, though I’ve never come across those. After that, the smartest choice is bigg’s unambiguous Widescreen Mod, currently sitting at v2.2 – as an added plus, it works for other games built on the Infinity engine, too. To get more bang for you buck with the bigger resolution you just got, you should also install GhostDog’s PS:T UI mod for the aforementioned. According to the site, it makes “1280×800, 1280×720, 1280×768 and 1280×1024 resolutions viable for Planescape: Torment by changing a number of things in the UI.”

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