Really? What were you people thinking?

Still, it might not have been their fault per se, after all M.U.L.E. was released in 1983 for the Atari 400/800 and C64 (as well as a few other platforms) and reputedly only sold less than 50,000 copies. And today, if you tried to find a copy of M.U.L.E. you might be hard pressed to do so. Still, I find such excuses lacking for those who fancy themselves true gamers of moderate sophistication.

But, you ask, what about people who don’t want to scour the internet looking for it? What about people who can’t afford such an awesome program, even if they could find it on ebay, or craigslist or Bijan? What about people who get I.D. 10-t errors when they try to run all but the most basic programs? What about people who don’t want to use an emulator and try to mount virtual drives because that’s something they’d rather not ask for help doing as it sounds a little bit weird when you shout it in mixed company? And finally what about those people who just don’t think it’s going to be any good because… well, because it’s just soooo old and the graphics are just not pretty enough?

Well, I’ll tell you what you can say to those people… ready for it?

planetmule.com
The folks over at planetmule.com understand those concerns and better yet, they’ve addressed them. Check out this… checklist of M.U.L.E. awesomeness!

• Play M.U.L.E.!
• Runs on Windows! (any version)
• Runs on Mac
• Runs on Linux (don’t worry if you don’t know what this means, no one really does)
• Simple to run. (No mounting anything)
• Multi-player over the internet
• Updated graphics!
• Officially blessed by the Bunten family (Dani and Bill Bunten were part of the Ozark Softscape team that developed the original M.U.L.E.)
• It’s FREE!

So tell them all, M.U.L.E. is back, baby.

Now go get it!

*Editor’s note: Some people, if they looked really, really hard out there on the internet, might discover that this same post almost word for word appears on another website “straygamers.com”. Yes, I know. I wrote it there too.

Hopefully, I’ll be back here again soon.

But how could I not? I can’t help but notice is that life is pretty good for Sim-Noob. He looks good, he’s got lots of cool stuff, women dig him and he’s a luminary in his career field of choice (And he’s a doctor… not an aspiring gamer).

Sim-Noob seems to have it much better than RL (real life) Noob. In the real, I’ve got a few extra pounds, am constantly low on cash and have a career stuck in a continual state of restarting.

So as I was watching the rise and blossom of Sim-Noob, I could not help but think, “what if I were to simply do what Sim-Noob does, how would life turn out then?”

So, I’ve been giving it a try. Sort of… I have been making more of an effort to keep in touch with friends, exercise to stay more fit, take the occasional shower… that kind of stuff. It’s actually pretty amazing how well a good sim-life translates to a good real life. And while it keeps me away from my blog somewhat, I’ve got to admit my life has really taken off. I find my mood is firmly in the gold and most of my need meters register nearly full bars of green.

There are some really important life lessons that I have learned in my pilgrimage to make my actual life more like my idyllic videogame existence and because I can’t figure out any way to profit from it by keeping it to myself, I’ll list a few of them here, in case one of you loyal readers is thinking about taking the plunge yourself.

1. Learning to cook is better than being forced to eat instant meals, TV dinners and toaster pastries. Sim-Noob learned mostly by trial and error (and a fire every now and again), which is pretty much how I have learned, but now I too can make pancakes!
2. Knowing a little something about how things work saves a lot on repairman bills. Sim-Noob can fix anything with a hammer and wrench. After a small electrical fire and some flooding, I’m still working on proper real-life technique.
3. Hiring a maid is the best thing you can ever do. Because not only will she clean the house, but there’s always the chance that you could chat her up and get lucky. But make sure you have the cash to pay for the cleaning, or she might steal your stuff. Ahem.
4. There is little payoff in gardening. Yeah plants and such make the outside of the house look nice, but unless you hire a gardener, it’s going to take too much time away from your social life and the work you need to do to improve your career. And besides, does anyone really like gardening? I thought not.
5. Getting fat sucks, so get some exercise every day. Seriously, would you let your Sim get fat? Of course not. But then again Sim-Noob doesn’t seem to have tubs of cake frosting which call to him from the refrigerator.
6. Work on creativity, logic and charisma to get ahead. Reaching the top of many careers is going to require some dedication to all of these skills. I have found that to save time, you should hit all 3 at once… try painting a picture of a chess game on a mirror while practicing your public speaking for the trifecta.
7. Just like in the Sims, getting rid of people you don’t like is easy if you lure them into a room and trap them, or drown them in your pool by taking away the ladder for them to get out… or so I’ve been told.
8. Invest in a burglar alarm if you are going to buy a big plasma TV. No, seriously.
9. Work clothes for work, dress clothes for formal events, pajamas for sleeping and swim wear for swimming.It’s scary to think of how many embarrassing situations I might have avoided had I known this earlier.
10. Buy a hot tub. Do it now. You’ll never regret the purchase (especially if you get a pink heart-shaped one).
11. Carpool to work with someone who will arrive to pick you up an hour early, will wait patiently outside for you to come out when you’re damn well ready and doesn’t charge a cent for gas. They’re everywhere, trust me.
12. Magic, life-extending elixir is pretty much the way to go. Sim-Noob drinks this stuff by the gallon. I would suggest trying to score as much of this stuff as possible because getting old is kind of a bummer (Note: All life extending elixirs are not the same. At no point in time should one use unicorn blood to keep their youthful glow. It’s just not cricket.
    “It is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn. Only one who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, would commit such a crime. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself, and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips.“)

Hmm… after reading back over this list, it all makes so much sense now, I only wish that I had figured it out earlier. Now that you know all the secrets, there’s no telling how far you might go. Pretty soon, you too may be hopping in a private helicopter to go to work from your moated mansion in Pleasantview.

That doesn’t make it any less true though

I so belong in the games industry.