Featured Game: Motocross Madness

This was hot stuff back in the day

Year: 1998

Genre: Vehicle Simulation + Racing

Recommend: YES

Maybe you're nostalgic. Maybe you want to see what game graphics were like a decade and a half ago. Maybe you tried Motocross Madness 2 on your Cedar Trail netbook and were disappointed by how poorly it ran, but still wanted to experience the action of motocross (hint hint). Whatever your reason for trying the original Motocross Madness, you will find that it's a fine game that's plenty of fun. Sure, it pales in comparison to its sequel, but come on, this was 1998. This game was da bomb, and it's still enjoyable today. 

What you'll need

For being such an old game, Motocross Madness works well right off the bat. You don't need to mess with compatibility settings, no-CD patches, or anything else that tends to plague games of this age. The only problem I can see so far is the invisibility of player names above the AI's heads and on the scoreboard. Whether this is a driver or a Windows issue, I don't know. (I'll look into it.) The game runs very smoothly, as a game with such simple graphics should.

Reviews and Awards

Motocross Madness has garnered positive feedback from reviewers. IGN gave the game 8/10 (a 'great' score), praising the realism of the game by saying it "portrays the sport in all its agonizing glory -- a fast, maniacal sport that's more fun (and much safer) to watch than it is to participate." Gamespot awarded an even higher score of 8.4/10, still great, proclaiming "this is pretty much everything you could hope for in a motocross simulation, and then some."

Tips

From here on out, I will make my best effort to more tightly integrate this blog and my YouTube channel. That's why I've embedded my gameplay video of Motocross Madness below. Screenshots, like I've used in previous posts, are a dime a dozen, but a video really shows what you can expect from a game. Feel free to check out my other videos here, and their descriptions. I put important info in the descriptions (because I don't like too much fluff in my videos, and text uses next to no bandwidth), so read them!

Featured Game: StarCraft

Need I say more?

Year: 1998

Genre: Real-Time Strategy

Recommend: YES














Ah, StarCraft. I have many fond memories of getting my butt kicked by my older friends and having a blast anyway. This is a must-have for any netbook, and the 2-D graphics won't overload the integrated graphics in most netbooks.

What you'll need

You need a netbook. And Windows. That's really it.

Reviews and Awards

Wikipedia lists no less than 7 awards for StarCraft, some of which are Game of the Year by 5 different sites. The game also made two Greatest Games of All Time lists, one from GameInformer and one from GameSpot. StarCraft also received largely positive reviews from numerous sources.

Tips

Want to play StarCraft in widescreen? Read the description of my video to find out how!