Topic: Old pc games/nostalgia

[SixthAngel]

I was looking through some old stuff I had when I stumbled upon a couple of old pc games.  A few were more recent like Homeworld and XIII but I noticed I still had a few games on floppy disks.  Now I have no way to actually play these games right now but I can't bring myself to toss them. I'd like to play them again if I could.

The games are Waxworks.


I loved this game.  It came with a little wheel you needed to spin to get the right password to start.  It was brutal though.  At its heart it is an adventure game where you need to find the right items to get past different problems although there is quite a bit of fighting.  The only level I could beat was the graveyard one and that unfortunately is the one you need to beat last because somebody would instakill you if you hadn't beaten the others.  There was one in Egypt, Jack the Ripper's London, a Graveyard, and some mine populated with people/plant mutants.
This is probably one of the goriest games I have ever played.  Getting killed would result in something like a plant monster tearing off your arm and head in gruesome detail.

The other was The Horde


Yes that is Kirk Cameron on the cover.  He did the voice but I can't remember if they had the popular-at-the-time live action stuff.
This game was great.  You had to build and fortify your town before a horde of red monsters would come and eat everything while you fought them by spinning wildly with your sword.  It had some great humor and cool special items that you could find that did things like shoot meteors from the sky.

Go look around your house.  Do you have any old games just hanging around that you remember?

Do you have some old pc game that you really liked and would like to find again?

Do you want to talk about an old game game you really liked but don't feel it deserves a new thread?
Post it here.

[S-U-P-E-R]

Some games I've been thinking about lately: SimAnt, Simtrain, uhh... Monster Bash. Anybody remember that one?

[UncleBob]

Funny thread.  I went through a stash of old Strategy Guides at a used book store I like to go into and picked up some pretty awesome DooM strategy guides.  Dunno why, but they were $2-$5 each.

They had one that I didn't get - it was a strategy guide for some "lost levels" - which were just custom levels that were included on the floppy disk that was supposed to come with the book (but, sadly, was not included in this book).

I don't know why, but I just love these old PC Game Guides.  I picked up an awesome Civilization guide here once... Rome on 640K a Day.

[Shredder565]

Lets see if the collective memory of the group is better than mine.

At camp, there was a game on the PC that I think was called 'Faces'....That's all I remember about it, but it stuck with me these last few decades...Curious if anyone remembers something like it?  I THINK it was a MAC game..

[SixthAngel]

You have to give me a little more than just the word Faces unless it is the Myst like game called F.A.C.E.S. I got from a google search

You have all kinds of old and new videogame stuff Uncle Bob.  I don't know where I would be able to put all that stuff.

Signed up for Good Old Games the other day. Amazing!  It was breeze and now I can some of the best old pc games ever for about 5 bucks.

[Morari]

Signed up for Good Old Games the other day. Amazing!  It was breeze and now I can some of the best old pc games ever for about 5 bucks.

Might I suggest "Arcanum" and "Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption"? Two of the better RPGs to ever be released. Both presented gloriously through GOG. I still have my old CDs for both, but ended up buying them again just for convenience. Unreal Tournament 2004 is another good steal on there.

[SixthAngel]

Might I suggest "Arcanum" and "Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption"? Two of the better RPGs to ever be released. Both presented gloriously through GOG. I still have my old CDs for both, but ended up buying them again just for convenience. Unreal Tournament 2004 is another good steal on there.

I already picked up Arcanum and Redemption.  I signed up to get some birthday gifts and picked those out along with Fallout, and Baldurs gate.  I also got the enitre Oddboxx of 4 games on steam for $7.50 because of the sale. (won't open for some retarded reason though. freaking steam)

GOG is great.  It absolutely blows Steam out of the water.  Signing up took literally 1 minute and buying the the games another.  You don't even have to download an external program.  The entirely optional downloader is like 2 MB. The place is great.  I've downloaded Arcanum but haven't gotten around to playing it yet.  I'll probably start it this weekend.
There are so many great oldschool games on GOG for about 6 bucks that it is always tempting to pick up something new.  It is the perfect website for this thread.  I'm thinking I'll go for the Space Quest pack next.

[Morari]

I agree, GOG is leagues ahead of Steam. Actually owning a game, instead of having a glorified rental, is always nice.

[S-U-P-E-R]

I agree, GOG is leagues ahead of Steam. Actually owning a game, instead of having a glorified rental, is always nice.

Can you redownload the games whenever you want?

Also does anybody remember Red Baron? That game owns.

[SixthAngel]

Can you redownload the games whenever you want?

Yes you can.  They also come with a pdf of the original manual and quite often the soundtrack along with other bonuses.
 
 

Also does anybody remember Red Baron? That game owns.

I never played Red Baron but its availabe on GOG in a deal with the Incredible Machine.  I did play the crap out of the Incredible Machine when I was younger.

The flight games I played were Wing Commander, which I was terrible at, and the Star Wars X-wing game.  I can't remember the X wing game very well except that I always picked the Y wing beceause I thought it's weapons were much cooler.

            

[Sundoulos]

I was decent at Wing Commander, but never felt that I was too great at the Xwing or Tie Fighter franchises.  In a similar vein, has anyone ever played Freespace or Freespace 2; I friend of mine from work has been trying to convince me to give it a try.

The last few years have been great because some of my other favorite games were the old adventure games from Sierra.  I've loved playing the fan-remakes of King's Quest 1 & 2 and Quest For Glory 2 from AGDInteractive.

[Morari]

I agree, GOG is leagues ahead of Steam. Actually owning a game, instead of having a glorified rental, is always nice.

Can you redownload the games whenever you want?

Yes. Though the games are also 100% free from DRM, so you can keep the executable on your hard drive or burn it to a disc. No need to ever download it again, really. They're all patched and updated to run on modern systems, and often even come with extras such as soundtracks, wallpapers, screensavers, etc.

[SixthAngel]

I didn't know about those remakes Sundoulos.  They look awesome and are apparently free.

Anyone looking for updated older games keep an eye on the XLengine.  It is basically a whole new engine for the games Daggerfall, Dark Forces, Blood and a few others.  I tried to get into Daggerfall, when it was free but just couldn't do it.  I'm hoping this can give it a bit of spark.

Also, Dosbox for anybody in this thread who wants to play old Dos games despite having a new computer.
                        

[UncleBob]

I was in a Goodwill and someone recently dropped off some older PC titles.  I picked up the original Warcraft and Rise of the Triad: Dark War for $3 each.  Haven't booted RotT yet, but after some tweaking, Warcraft runs great via DOSBox.

[NWR_insanolord]

Good Old Games has Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Master of Orion 2, and that alone means it's awesome.

[Ymeegod]

Dues Ex with the enhanced textures and sound paks .

I also kept the orginal's like System Shock, Mechwarrior, Wing Commander, hell I even have a few text based games like Zork laying around.

Poor Zork, nobody recalls these games anymore--damn do I feel old.

[TJ Spyke]

I don't see the appeal of text only games. Maybe part of it is the original Zork came out 7 years before I was born.

[Morari]

I remember playing dozens of different MUDs when I was younger. I'm pretty sure Materia Magicka is still around, even.

[SixthAngel]

"Arcanum"

I've been playing this and it's amazing.
The interactions with other characters are great.  My character is a technologist with a mad scientist background which meant I had fewer points in Beauty among other things.  I scarred myself in a fight early on and didn't have enough money to fix it making it even worse.  Because of that everyone treated me like ****.  I was forced to bow and scrape just to have simple conversations.  I nearly chose the option to get pissed and fight them every time but couldn't because they would kill me.  Until I could get fixed up and get a better reaction I wanted to slaughter every new person I met in the game.  I could still technically do everything if I was willing to constantly let my character debase himself.  It is such a great idea and a excellent way make noncombat stats important.  It's hard to explain how infuriating yet awesome it was.

Another great interaction was with Magnus. small spoiler You find the necromancers raiding the dwarven tomb and raising the dead.  They give a very plausible explanation why what they are doing isn't bad and I could see their perspective.  I was going to forgive them but Magnus would have none of that.  He wanted vengeance for desecrating the burial ground.  He gives this big heartfelt speech about fighting side by side and bleeding together like brothers ultimately giving you the choice to help him fight these mages or turn your back on him and watch him fight alone and most likely die.  Its a tough decision and there is no "good/evil" choice like usually gets shoved down your throat nowadays.  I fought with him cause Magnus was a bro and I couldn't leave him hanging like that.

I'm still beginning and I've already hit all kinds of great choices.

The magical steam works style is great too.  As a gunfighter the beginning of the game was tough because bullets cost money and I couldn't hit the broadside of a barn but it was never frustrating. It just doesn't hold your hand and lets you take quests you clearly aren't ready for if you want.  I haven't reached any quests that were obviously way beyond my level, just ones that I would have to delay until a little later. When I headed towards what i was told was an abyssal portal while I was still a low level I knew what I was getting into, of course strange monsters killed me.  Getting a Second follower was what finally allowed me to start exploring more without bandits killing me.

A great thing about these old games is that all the bugs have been worked out and more by the company and fans.  There is a fan patch that fixes almost all of them and adds in extra things that were on the disk but weren't implemented when the game was rushed out.  There is also a high resolution patch that changes it to the resolution of your choice and a patch that replaces the music with the higher quality soundtrack samples.  Best of all these fixes don't change the original game at all.  I really need to search for this stuff everytime I try to play older games from now on.

[Morari]

A great thing about these old games is that all the bugs have been worked out and more by the company and fans.

And that's why we play PC games. Thanks to the community, most games age like fine wine.

I just finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution and am thinking about going back through the original with the hi-res patches. Human Revolution was certainly better than Invisible War, but still had enough console-itis to keep it from being great. Regenerating health and jumps to third-person view? No thanks.

[rozer.ben0]

when my father buy computer for me and my brother in 1999
i install first game it's v-cope it is a java based game it has three stage
in every stage we have to kill robber and last we have to kill their boss to complete stage
i finish this game in 5 day   

[Ceric]

I'm going to throw into this discussion.

Hero Quest: So You Want to Be a Hero?
Long live the Antwerp and don't drink the dragon brew.

The Castle of Dr. Brain
Great educational game.  I loved the whole series.

First Byte Presents: Spell-o-saur
Had text to speech in it back in the floppy days.  Better then just reading lists for spelling words.

I can't think of its name but you read different clues and fixed grammar etc. the main character was a cap, jacket, gloves, and shoes (Notice no person in there).  You fought robots.  It was fun.

Its a shame my son may never play these to learn.  Oh and also

Privateer.
Best Space Flight game EVER.

[NWR_insanolord]

I'm getting the urge to play either Sim City 2000 or Sim Tower. The one bad thing about Apple totally rewriting the operating system with OS X is that all my old games no longer run natively, but I've got a Classic Mac emulator running 9.1 that lets me play them. I'd gladly buy them on Steam or GoG if they'd release them there, though, as it would be less complicated to play them that way.

[Morari]

I shudder to think of just how much time I've spent playing SimCity 2000 and SimTower throughout my life. Those two games are easily among Maxis' greatest. Of course, to really appreciate SimCity 2000, you need to install SimCopter and Streets of SimCity for cross compatibility!

[UltimatePartyBear]

I'm getting the urge to play either Sim City 2000 or Sim Tower. The one bad thing about Apple totally rewriting the operating system with OS X is that all my old games no longer run natively, but I've got a Classic Mac emulator running 9.1 that lets me play them. I'd gladly buy them on Steam or GoG if they'd release them there, though, as it would be less complicated to play them that way.

It's not like the Steam or GoG versions of old games are updated for new operating systems.  They'd still require the emulator.  Unless you just want someone else to futz with the emulator for you, which Steam at least does in some cases.  I think that's up to the publisher, though.