Homage to dead games

My memory is filled with hundreds of hours from my childhood playing games on my Super Nintendo. Super Mario World, Final Fantasy 4, Megaman X* they're all classics. Every once in awhile I like to go back and play these games. When I play them I feel the same as I did when I originally played them. Its a very positive feeling. Later I ended up getting a Playstation and there are plenty of memorable games for it that I still sometimes go back and play. The point being I like to go back and play some the older games because it reminds me of my earlier years.

I can go back and play almost any game I have ever played but there are a few exceptions; online only games. There are two games that I regularly played that I can never go back to again Wormhole and Earth and Beyond. For whatever reason the company that created each of these games decided to shutdown their servers and because of the nature of online gaming there is no way for me to play these games without a dedicated server

Each of these games have not only been erased from my life but culture as a whole. Sure there a couple sites out there that still have old articles about these games but eventually that content will rot or the domains will get snatched up by squatters. Those people that still remember the game will eventually forget or die. 100 years from now historians will still be able to insert a semi working cartridge of Super Mario World in a SNES and get a feel for the game, or even load up a rom in a emulator. What can historians do for these dead online games? Nothing. Even if they knew they existed the best they could do is find a old cd and install them and that only applys to Earth and Beyond. As for Wormhole, there never was a CD or a installer it was just a java applet. All these games and any other online game is destined for a end life of rot.

Thus here is my attempt to delay the inevitable, to stop everyone from forgetting. Here is my Homage to dead games.

Wormhole (Centerfleet)
Fast paced multiplayer space game. Think hardcore Astroids. When the match begins each player is in their own part of space and in the center of the arena are the wormholes that lead to the other players worlds. You can't enter them but the weapons you pick up can. Fly around for a couple seconds picking up random bombs and lasers then come back and lob them into Green's (another player) wormhole. On his side he is likely doing the same thing looking around for weapons to shoot at someone but out of nowhere things are shooting at him and exploding all around him. Lucky for you green wasn't fast enough and slides into a rather large explosion.

The person with the most kills wins, or was it a single death experience? I honestly can not remember. The memory rot has already begun. But what I do remember is that my friends and I had a blast playing this game. We would sometimes stay after school and each grab a computer in the lab and do 4 person free for alls. It was great because the person who just killed you was sitting right next to you. I wish I could go back and play this game again, but alas Centerfleet the company that created wormhole got into the Cellphone game business, they renamed themselves Centerscore. On their website they say that they want to make versions of their old java games for the cellphone. If they ever do remake wormhole, I doubt it will be the same game. Just some expensive brew game calling it self wormhole just to piggy back off the success of their old game, but sharing no relation to the original game.

Earth and Beyond (EA Games)
One of the largest server pulls in the mmorpg business. Overnight EA converted the hours that people had invested into this game into nothing. Players need to remember that the corporations that run these games are motivated by profits. Over time as graphics become outdated and the players start to become bored the population numbers drop. Eventually the costs out way the money coming in through subscriptions. If a game requires more money to run and maintain then it is bringing in then expect the plug to be pulled.

This was such a large high profile discontinuation of an online only game that I would like to hear from the ex fans. If you used to play this game and enjoyed it leave a comment or send me an email telling me your thoughts on EnB. Do you miss the game? Good Riddance? Does it bother you that you can never go back to play it again? I will post your responses in a follow up. If you have a blog I will post a link.