By Andrew Liszewski
[Welcome to ‘The Games We Played’, a new weekly feature (I hope) that will feature my memories and experiences with a classic video game from the past 25+ years that I’ve had the opportunity, or misfortune, of playing.]
I’m starting ‘The Games We Played’ with a great title from the Commodore 64 called Law Of The West. It wasn’t necessarily my favorite C64 game, nor was it the greatest, but it does have an interesting back story for me. You see, like a lot of C64 owners, building my game collection involved buying a box of 50 diskettes and giving it to a friend of a friend who returned it a month later filled with countless games, but not a single instruction manual. In Law Of The West you played the local sheriff who was just trying to get through the day by keeping his tongue in check while he interacted with various townspeople. Of course some of the locals weren’t exactly the friendly type, and you had to choose your words wisely, lest you be gunned down in the street. And as far as I knew (without having a manual) the game was nothing more than a text-based adventure.
But one day while playing Law Of The West I accidentally knocked my joystick to the floor, which to my amazement, caused the sheriff to draw his pistol. Needless to say from that day forward the local sheriff went from being a kind hearted keeper of the peace, to a ruthless killing machine. Sometimes I’d let the locals speak a line or two before they’d feel the searing kiss of hot lead, and other times I’d lay them out as soon as they walked on screen. Of course my reckless ways meant I never successfully finished the game according to their rules, but I think my gun lust made the town a safer place in the end.
I remember playing that
Law of the West, 5 minutes of loading, draw, fire, 5 more minutes of loading. Just make sure you dont shoot the doctor who arrives off the train.
I’m so excited about this new weekly feature. I used to have this game, and I think I had a similar experience. What about the bad news baseball!
Chad
And just to mention, while I already have a list that’s a mile long, I’ll gladly take any requests into consideration. As long as I’ve actually played the game that is.
I don’t know if I’m glad or sad that i missed out on all of these C64 games. =P
Nice article. Shame about the messy (and weird!) rescaling of the images though.
Cool feature!! seeing forward to it 🙂
Are you going to do c64 only? what other systems can we expect?
i hope you do one about maze of galious (that game rocked, and in my mind the father off all adventure games)
No, I plan to cover everything probably up until the N64. That includes C64, Tandy, old PC games and even portable offerings from Tiger and Nintendo.