for the uninitiated, its the mid nineties, bill clinton was president, and if you had a 1024×768 monitor you were ahead of the game. the leading gory bad vibes video games were quake and doom… both developed by id software. i mean, this was medieval i don’t remember playing with an actual reticle in a p.c. game until i played castle wolfenstein shortly after that, and i absolutely hated it. so what is the point of this rambling entry? if your about middle aged right now, and you want to step away from the fast twitch world of call of duty for a moment and the archaic graphics put you in that warm vicinity to your childhood that seems forever lost when you start paying bills and wondering where and who you are going to be in the next five years then this scratches that niche. i’m pretty sure it’s just ai enhancing the textures in the classic games so don’t expect anything revolutionary… the meshes have the same look, everything else is pretty much untouched but good old games (gog.com) has decided to give these titles and a good amount more a little extra attention for your 10 dollars. the “enhanced,” as they have labeled these marquis versions of quake and doom, play on computer monitors with native resolutions up to 4k. i tried it with nvidia dlss but i didn’t like the look of it, it makes your monitor look like its been smeared with vaseline. the native setting for your monitor is a noticeable improvement for what it costs you and again, their target audience. if you didn’t know anything about good old games, they say their mission is to make sure that the games that laid the footing for what we play today never die. they operate on the honor system, even though i’m sure if you look hard enough you’ll be able to find yourself a five finger discount on one of their titles that being because they sell their merchandise entirely drm free, with a client whose only purpose is to make sure you actually do own the games for subsequent personal downloads but i’m pretty sure if you were toxic enough you could send one to your friend in the fastidious gft packaging that they come in … but otherwise if you didn’t know yes, you heard me right drm free. so if you have dosbox on your “poverty special” handheld p.c., like my beloved TrimUI Smart Pro and the game was popular and simple enough you can probably play it with a few niggles as par for the course, but nothing game breaking. i spent a little bit of money and managed to snag Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, Quake, and of course Doom, all for under 15 dollars on sale and they all play on my TrimUI Smart Pro’s version of dosbox. however, it is no digital panacea and most definitely no steam deck so keep your expectations rational. the p.c. is where this collection really shines though because that native resolution takes you back, wherever you were when you were just enjoying your life as opposed to fleeing from the reality of it… and that might not be the greatest thing when the walls are closing in and your back is against the wall.
