Engines of Destruction: Blood (1997)

"I live... again."

A fitting line from the protagonist of 1997's "Blood" by Monolith and 3D Realms. While it could be argued that "Shadow Warrior" is the most advanced of the Build engine brood, "Blood" is definitely special in its own way.

Revvin’ the Engines

Our Engines of Destruction feature will soon have its first post. Wrecklaimer and I have been messing around with DOSBox in attempt to get our titles working on Windows 7. In some cases, it's a breeze. For others, there's a lot of tweaking (and a little bit of computer programming) required. If there's an old DOS game or anything from 1997 or earlier, DOSBox is a must-have.

With DOSBox, you type in a command prompt just like in the old days. The installer and game applications are run through DOSBox, which even handles custom control setups. Trust me, you'll want to set your movement to WASD and use the mouse whenever you can. There may be a few sound issues, especially with "Shadow Warrior," which runs its music off an audio CD.

Technical K.O.?

Valve's Steam service now runs on Mac OS X. So now you can almost do everything on Mac that you can on a PC.

A couple of things come to mind...

1. In general, Macbook or iMac owners are not into PC gaming. At best, they'll download Peggle or something.
2. Anything you can run on OS X can be done just as well on Windows PC. Or better. And cheaper.

I'm genuinely happy to see the video game market expand. Really, I am. But the fact remains that modern games on Mac OS doesn't suddenly shift all the power in Apple's favor. In terms of affordability and utility, PCs win by a long shot and always have.

At least Valve has a good sense of humor about it. Show 'em what's what, Saxton Hale!

Yousa tinkin' yousa clothes gonna dry?

Mark Hamill does voiceover work, Carrie Fisher writes novels, Admiral Ackbar promotes trap awareness... not every "Star Wars" alum goes on to superstardom like Harrison Ford. Take Jar Jar Binks, for instance:

Image courtesy of Twitpic member serafinowicz

Referred by Fritz Klug, the News King of Kalamazoo

New(ish) Perfect Dark Music

A disgruntled former employee of Rare, Grant Kirkhope, has leaked released a remix of the credits theme of the original "Perfect Dark." It's gnarly as hell, but don't take my word for it...

"I re-recorded it (the Credits theme) as Microsoft were thinking about using it in Perfect Dark Zero but then never did. I really enjoyed re-doing it and I got to do a guitar solo... hehe!"

Click here to download the MP3 track. Nearly 100 other tracks from the game are hosted at Perfect Dark Recon, THE best source for "Perfect Dark" media and info, should you require it.

Engines of Destruction

Cheeseburger Apocalypse is starting a new feature called "Engines of Destruction: An overview of Build and Doom engine games." We'll be looking at examples of the best (or worst) examples of games built on these first-person shooter engines. Think "Doom" and "Duke Nukem," and you'll get a pretty good idea of the old schooly goodness of a bygone era.

Suck it, Unreal Engine III!

We'll be doing reviews of the games themselves and looking into the particulars of the engine in that game. A few are available on Steam or consoles, and a few will need a few workarounds to get them to play. But it's all in the name of... science? Yeah, we'll go with that.

It Begins...

Welcome to Cheeseburger Apocalypse!
Friends of F0RCEFL0W (Brian Diefenbach) and Wrecklaimer (Kevin Diefenbach), make yourselves at home. Housewarming gifts are welcome. Just as soon as we get a PayPal account set up...

In the meantime, enjoy the fine new digs we've carved out for ourselves on the Interwebs. We'll be keeping the video game spirit of Game Brain alive while venturing into unknown territory... mostly the geeky interests of your hosts.

We hope to do things bigger and better, and we need your help. If the Internet has taught us anything, it's that any idiot with a computer and Internet access can write for a blog things are better shared. Any thoughts, expertise, or incoherent ramblings you have to share about video games, gadgets, books or other nerdly obsessions are always welcome. Why don't you settle in as a contributor? Rent is 25 cheeseburgers a month.

F0RCEFL0W is working on graphics and coming up with cool ideas for future content. Keep an eye out for the revolutionary Cheeseburger Rating System (like the star system, only with cheeseburgers) and "Francis Hates...", a soapbox for bitching and moaning from the community. Wrecklaimer will be busting out some sick Web design up in this, so the more feedback we get, the better the site will be inside and out.

So, thanks for stopping by! If you're not an acquaintance of the Webmasters, what are you doing here no worries! You're just a friend we haven't met yet.

With an apocalypse like this one, there's no telling what will happen. Let's find out together!

—Brian "F0RCEFL0W" Diefenbach

P.S. @Valve: we make no money off of this site. Please don't sue us!