Warcraft is over if you want it

Well Blizzard have announced that they aren't interested in doing a remaster for both Warcraft 1 and 2 purely because they feel that the games are dated and "not fun" (Source).

I find this reaction somewhat puzzling from Blizzard. On one hand, they acknowledge their past works and have previously made them readily available (ie Lost Vikings and Blackthorne) but on the other hand, any game that's on the Battle.net launcher and isn't Diablo 3, World of Warcraft, Overwatch or Hearthstone, doesn't have a hope in hell.
The latter is a particular sore point for me: What, I can't use the Battle.net launcher to play other Blizzard games? Well then you're not much competition for Steam or GoG Galaxy then are you? Sorry but I like my Game launchers to, you know, launch games.

But I digress.
I maintain that there is value for games to be preserved and make them accessible, both for historical and educational purposes. After all, without preservation, history is but a fading memory. This is why I value GoG so much.
You'd think Blizzard might be better off handing off Warcraft and Diablo to CD Projekt but nooooooooo.....

Granted I will admit that Warcraft 1 may have aged the worst of the lot but I have played Warcraft 2 all the way through and still think highly of it - even when this was back in 2002 and everyone was going nuts for Warcraft 3. It has a lot of charm and a humorous tone that unfortunately Blizzard seems to have forgotten about (seriously, where were the bi-intelligent Ogres in WoW?).

But hey as long as Blizzard still keeps pumping out updates for WoW they can do whatever they want, amirite?

If I had a heart I could love you

So I visited my battle.net account on a whim and what should I find but one of Blizzard's earlier games, The Lost Vikings, being given away as a free download.

I remember the Lost Vikings from 1993-94. It was something of a big deal as everyone played and talked it up a lot. I (eventually) got around to playing it and was won over the game's charm, sense of humor and baffling puzzles. I never did quite complete the game but hey - at least having the game now within easy reach will remedy such a problem.

Looking back at this game twenty years later, I'm surprised just how well it still holds up: The graphics still look great and the humor still inspires more than a few chuckles. Indeed, with hindsight it is funny to see this game from a humble company that would eventually provide the monstrous behemoth that is World of Warcraft.

Funny how things turn out, eh?