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I was reading an article on Abandonware while listening to the soundtrack of the Neverhood, and was reminded of the various old games that came out in the past that I love, some of which would be impossible to acquire today, or that I never could acquire.

What are some of your favourite old games, and what are the ones you've never been able to find?

My love is adventure games, a genre all but extinct in these times. I was born in 1988, so the glory days of Lucasarts were at the point where I was still fiddling with paint and working out how a DOS command line worked, while having little cash (A five-seven year olds pocket money is nonexistant, and we barely had modem).
However, my introduction to games, adventure games particularily came in the form of the ADI series of education games by Sierra, which I loved, since for enough English or Math problems solved, you (the player) would get points, points for which one could play a variety of delightful Sierra games. Woodruff and the Schnibble of Azimuth (real name), Ecoquest, Gobli/ii/iiins (which I disliked), King's Quest Pinball - a better form of motivation has yet to be found. (I disliked first person FPS's, though I loved the various shareware 3d person action titles, space shooters in particular. It took me over 12 years to get a full, working copy of Raptor: Call of the Shadows, Stargunner and of course, Tyrian).

Alass, in the move to Israel by points in the game were lost, and so was the cd. I tried to learn how to hack the program, but the games (and point count) were buried deep, and I failed. So to were lost many of my other games from the Learning company, though I still kept enjoying the ones I had for many a year (the one with the snow mountain, underwater, submarine and of course the all time favourite "Gizmo's and Gadgets". I LOVED that one. And if you can't figure out the games I'm talking about, then it's your loss ).

However, I still tried to buy games when I could, or failing that, i'd borrow them (although the amount of people I knew with computers, games, and actual cd's at the time was very limited). I still have a cd of "Simon the Sorceror" in Hebrew from a friend from when I was...10? Excellent game.

I also made some exceedingly fine purchases during my childhood years, some even when I was still in the UK. My copy of "The Neverhood" dates back to a Virgin store somewhere in London, and is apparently a collector's item these days, as well as being one of the most awesome adventure games ever, especially in design. It also has 2 of perhaps the most nefarious, horrible puzzles ever. The room of records. And the room of records. (Though I hated the test tubes as well). Whoever thought of that needs to be hit over the head with 2,000 tons of clay). Another fine purchase was "The Last Express" by Broderbund (same people who did Myst, only, well, fun. And with a briefcase to hide that you're not going to figure out, ever, without a hint. Stupid concert). My copy of Myst is also from the UK, I still remember taking over a pc in his office (optical cd roms being rare back then) to boot it up and to marvel at the graphics (it took me years to actually finish the game though, I was stuck on the island hub and first island. Stupid elevator/statues puzzle).

A measure of my excellent taste , is that the average "Best games you never played" list by, say, gamespot or "greatest adventure games of all time" lists result in me knowing or having played or owned the vast majority, if not all of the games mentioned. (The Neverhood and Last Express pop on those all the time).

I actually didn't play any of the Lucasarts games, except for Monkey Island 3 ("Curse of") which I loved, it's one of the few games I ever got my sisters to play as well. I couldn't find a copy of 1/2 though until a good 5-6 years after finishing Monkey Island 4 though (which was inferior, though not as much of an UI pain as Monkey Island 1). Oh, and Grim Fandango of course. (beautiful game. simply beautiful). Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Loom came years later. (And no, i've never finished or enjoyed Maniac Mansion), Praise ScummVM and it's noodly appendage!

Another esoteric gem? "The Feeble Files". Also made by Adventuresoft (UK gaming company), and full of charm, Hitchhiker and 1984 jokes, and the Omnibrain. (I have that from Israel and a grandparent). A fun game, though it had some of the worst, most annoying, irritating, aggravating puzzles I have ever had the misfortune to endure (That includes the 60+ screens of the hall of records in the Neverhood). The prison planet (Signus Alpha?) and the loop where you couldn't pause or save for periods, the horrible coloured jump pad tile sequence to the ship, the potions on the jungle planet, and don't even get me started on that Fucking. Arcade. Sequence. Fucking minigames and toady! Fucking credits! Aaaaaaagh. It gives me a headache just to think about it, playing and praying that the "guess the food" sequence wouldn't pop up...
Even more esoteric? Has anyone ever played "Orion Burger"?

Talking of British Games, Ah "Broken Sword 2", how I loved thee. How I enjoyed thee. How I liked "Broken Sword 1" when I finally found a copy published by "Sold out" in the UK. How I didn't enjoy as much but still liked "Beneath a steel sky". How I cried when I tried the "platformer" sequels.
Speaking of Sold out, I thank them eternally for publishing "Fallout 2". Which I loved, and resulted in me buying the "Fallout pack" (to finally get a copy of Fallout 1 after years of looking for it). And let me irritate Bethesda fans for months after Fallout 3 came out by pointing the ways in which it was inferior to its predeccesors . (Though it's still a fun game).
And no, I've never played "The Longest Journey".

This is getting a bit long, so to wrap up:
What are the games you always wanted, but could never find? For me it's a working copy of "Discworld" and a copy, period of "Discworld 2" (I have Noir, though the 3d part doesn't work. Fucking Israeli shops), and for years I wanted to find a copy of Normality that I remembered borrowing from my cousin who gave it back to a friend with my never finding it afterwards.
Most of the other ones I've tracked down over time (Tyrian and Raptor and Stargunner. I looked for those for YEARS. Monkey Island 2, Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, The Dig, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and a few others whose name escapes me (Ecoquest 2 for example) etc', which I did track down or borrow, etc'.
Now, discussions of Abandonware would be legally murky, so I won't talk about it, or HOTU . Shame on you. I will recommend http://www.gog.com, for some legall, fun Good Old Games, yes it costs money but support the industry dammit!

Wow, this must be an age thing. I've played pretty much every decent game ever, having grown up in the early-90s creativity boom. The idea that this is important or noteworthy blows me away.

Oh sorry I forgot this thread was DEATH telling us what amazing taste he has in old, shit games. Remember, name-dropping games from ages ago = taste. Wizkid! I'm so cultured!

Fond memories makes things seem wonderful that we wouldn't touch if we were encountering it for the first time today. I remember how good my mom's lousy cooking seemed back when I was a little boy. The excitement and bliss of youthful nostalgia has an absolute disconnect with what an experienced person would view as quality.

I remember a Commodore 64 Broderbund game called The Castles of Doctor Creep. Never was a more frustrating game made, but it was one of the first coop adventure games I ever played, and I can't help but put it on a pedestal when I think about entertainment from my early teenage years.

Of course, I still play Flash reproductions of Boulderdash and M.U.L.E., eschewing New! Improved! Neater! updates and inspired sequels in favour of the originals.

Stark wrote: Remember, name-dropping games from ages ago = taste. Wizkid! I'm so cultured!

Aha. I know people like this.

I'm of the opinion that I did have fun a while back, but I find it difficult to go back and play now thanks to various interface improvements and what-have-you.

DEATH is another crazy 88!

For most part, my upbringing was without computer games. Mostly played when I could (my parents banned them, along with the majority of the internet), so really the first games I got around to playing was stuff like Commander Keen or Red Alert.

Of these, I'd probably have to say I played Liero the most in recent years, mostly due to being drunk and living at a residential college for a bit.

How old is old? A lot of games I like are aging. Like C&C Generals? We talking pre-2K or what?

defanatic wrote: How old is old? A lot of games I like are aging. Like C&C Generals? We talking pre-2K or what?

I'd be willing to classify anything before the 16-bit era as "old", and maybe before Nintendo's rise. Anything else is still stupidly simple to find for the most part, otherwise.

I had alot of those games I loved when I was a kid and a teenager. I was a big fan of the Ultima Series (my favorite remains Ultima VII), Quest for Glory, Monkey Island (Well alot of anythign Lucasarts put out, like Sam and Max and stuff) and Wizardry. On and off over the recent years I've been replaying alot of the "older" games I have and I find I still enjoy them despite the fact they are obviously dated. More to the poin tthere are games I never got a chance to play but I've gotten ahold of that proved just as fun for one reason or another (Simon the Sorcerer for example) that I've also enjoyed.

And really, I doubt you need to put any sort of "classifications" in place for old, its going to be a bloody relative thing (varying ages, different eras in gameplay, different desires and tastes etc.) Some of us just aren't the ultra-hardcore nitpicky elitist types I guess.

Connor MacLeod wrote: And really, I doubt you need to put any sort of "classifications" in place for old, its going to be a bloody relative thing (varying ages, different eras in gameplay, different desires and tastes etc.) Some of us just aren't the ultra-hardcore nitpicky elitist types I guess.

Some of us are just plain under 30 .

defanatic wrote: I'm of the opinion that I did have fun a while back, but I find it difficult to go back and play now thanks to various interface improvements and what-have-you.

Name the gripe Bruthah! I hate the crappy UI's of some/most old games, and hold the (undisputable!) opinion that adventure gaming interfaces reached perfection with "The Curse of Monkey Island" and went downhill with Grim Fandango before dying for the most part. Scumm was the best for it's time, but still annoying..
That, and early 3d games are just plain fugly. (Hurrah for 2d games! Duke Nukem 2>3d! And all that. I was a 2d elitist in my early years, before I got my first GPU and played "Magic Carpet 2")

defanatic wrote: For most part, my upbringing was without computer games. Mostly played when I could (my parents banned them, along with the majority of the internet), so really the first games I got around to playing was stuff like Commander Keen or Red Alert.

Ah, Commander Keen. Keen 3,4,5,6, "Babies ate my babysitter", Keen Dreams... I got the games from a summer camp in the UK, sold to me burned on a floppy. I ended up buying them each time I was there (twice I think).

Stark wrote:Oh sorry I forgot this thread was DEATH telling us what amazing taste he has in old, shit games. Remember, name-dropping games from ages ago = taste. Wizkid! I'm so cultured!

Hey Stark, go play in traffic. I grew up on adventure games from Sierra and Lucasarts too. I still have the original Monkey Island 1 16-color EGA box here somewhere, with the close up of the dog. Woof.

I've just got Broken Sword 2 from GOG and it's still a decent game, but the idiots you get there putting stuff on their wishlists are amazing. I went to put in both EA Sherlock Holmes games and it listed that there were similiar. Some people were putting games into GOG that are less than a year old.

I've tried playing newer adventures and some of them are good, some are shite. The newer Frogwares Sherlock Holmes ones are a prime example. Nemesis has puzzles just for the sake of it, and I don't know which London Frogwares Sherlock Holmes inhabits, but its not Victorian London when the sky looks like its been put through an atmospheric scrubber.

That's not to say there were no bad old games, things like Microproses Return of the Phanton, a short Phantom of the Opera based adventure game with a crappy maze, or the Orion Conspiracy where 90% of the dialogue was made up of gratuitious swearing.

Connor MacLeod wrote:I had alot of those games I loved when I was a kid and a teenager. I was a big fan of the Ultima Series (my favorite remains Ultima VII), Quest for Glory, Monkey Island (Well alot of anythign Lucasarts put out, like Sam and Max and stuff) and Wizardry. On and off over the recent years I've been replaying alot of the "older" games I have and I find I still enjoy them despite the fact they are obviously dated. More to the poin tthere are games I never got a chance to play but I've gotten ahold of that proved just as fun for one reason or another (Simon the Sorcerer for example) that I've also enjoyed.

And really, I doubt you need to put any sort of "classifications" in place for old, its going to be a bloody relative thing (varying ages, different eras in gameplay, different desires and tastes etc.) Some of us just aren't the ultra-hardcore nitpicky elitist types I guess.

I've always wanted to know this... did EVERYONE'S Ultima 6 have that guy outside Castle British who'd run up to start a convo that crashed the game, necessitating you blasting him with a lightning wand before he got too close? When I was 12 or whatever I figured it was normal, but it doesn't seem to be an experience most people had.

People using something like GOG to establish the rate of bad old games is hilariously broken. The rate of bad games has probably only slightly increased; simply nobody remembers the bad ones anymore. People only being able to name one or two bad adventure games from the 90s pretty much proves this.

Stark wrote:People using something like GOG to establish the rate of bad old games is hilariously broken. The rate of bad games has probably only slightly increased; simply nobody remembers the bad ones anymore. People only being able to name one or two bad adventure games from the 90s pretty much proves this.

I wasn't using GOG to establish that only a small number of adventure games were bad, I use an Adventure Gamers forum as well that has a list of a lot of the stuff going back to the early 90's and I know there were some truly horrendous ones. I'm also aware that nostalgia can colour opinions of a game. I remember for instance thinking that Strike Commander was a great game at the time but somehow I can't imagine playing it now. The two Sherlock Holmes games that I cited were no doubt dated but seemed to have more of an atmosphere of the Holmes stories. I've played all the newer ones and they're graphically rough, though I can forgive that, but there seems to be puzzles that are placed just for the hell of it.

Old adventures though often had a tendency to kill you for the slightest thing. Some of the Sierra ones could be guilty of this especially. Remembering playing Police Quest (the then ultra modern VGA remake )where when you stopped a car if you didn't follow the exact procedure 100% you got killed. The Kyrandia series as well were just downright frustrating as well.

You, Stark, might remember more adventures than I do as sometimes certain games didn't reach the UK. We got the Lucasarts ones certainly, and most of the Sierra ones as well as the Revolution games. More obscure stuff depended on the particular shops and what they stocked. The Legend made games didn't get a wide market here, Death Gate was perhaps the better known because of the books, but something like Callahans Crosstime Saloon as far as i'm aware wasn't generally distributed over here because Spider Robinson wasn't exactly overly well known.

I'll admit to never liking the puzzle type games like Myst though, they seemed to be more of a graphical showcase than a game.

Sierra games were pretty much the standard for awful design, but just like point-and-click games eventually cleaned up and became logical with more feedback, they STILL make adventure games wherein combinations must be in the right order, you're never told what you're doing wrong and there's only one solution to anything. It's pretty sad.

Man, Dragonsphere. Same guys/engine as Phantom, only ... more fantasy.

Stark wrote:Sierra games were pretty much the standard for awful design, but just like point-and-click games eventually cleaned up and became logical with more feedback, they STILL make adventure games wherein combinations must be in the right order, you're never told what you're doing wrong and there's only one solution to anything. It's pretty sad.

Man, Dragonsphere. Same guys/engine as Phantom, only ... more fantasy.

Of the Sierra I liked Gabriel Knight, I couldn't ever really get into the smaltzy Kings Quest or Space Quest.

Dragonsphere though...that wasn't that great, they did another adventure with the rather catchy title of Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender. The best of the three that they did and that was because there was some rather silly humour and a not bad game but it had a game breaking bug where you had to assemble the components for a bomb. However, if you part assembled it and placed the part assembled bomb you couldn't put the rest on later.

Personally, my 'Golden Age' of games was PC gaming from 1992 to 2001-3ish. Between the era of Wing Commander 2, Star Control 2, X-COM, Raptor, Doom, Jagged Alliance to the early CD Era of Mechwarrior 2, Task for Centauri, System Shock, Full Throttle, The Dig, Wing Commander 3 to the golden CD era of when 3d became pretty decent but not the sole focus of games, such as Freespace 2, Crimson Skies, JA2, Homeworld, Fallout, etc.

Before and after, I can't really get much of a taste for, except in really specific cases.

define old?

me: ASCII Trek game, Rogue/Nethack, Scorched Earth, oh and Oregan Trail and Civ 2

My favorite old games are Exile and the original Age of Empires. Come to think of it though, I don't know if I've played any other really old games.

Original Age of Empires I loved though. I remember playing it almost non-stop for 14 hours once.

I remember as a kid, this game called EDEN: Destiny Divided something or other. It was a sci-fi RTS about two opposing factions on a new human colony world. What I remember about it thats makes it stand out at an age where Starcraft was the only other major Sci-Fi RTS I knew of, was that I could build walls and dirt mounds around my base perimeter, all the buildings had to have power linked to them from a generator by building power tubes- but there was no limit on distance, and the base defense units were actually worth a shit.

Never have found another copy after I lost it.

The Yosemite Bear wrote:define old?

me: ASCII Trek game, Rogue/Nethack, Scorched Earth, oh and Oregan Trail and Civ 2

Don't forget Pitfall and Black Hawk. Damn I wish my old C64 still worked.

Ironically Trek73 is a better space combat game than Star Trek Legacy?

For those people interested in old adventure games, on that goodoldgames website you can download 'Beneath a steel sky' for free. I got it a couple of days ago and its quite good. However, make sure you save fairly regularly as it does allow you to die. My favourite time was when i tried to use a stolen security card on a door. It beeped, and the security guard nearby asked to see it. I showed it to him. He said the card was fine, give it another go. I tried it and was reduced to a charred skeleton, then the guard remarks to his mate 'that'll teach him to use stolen security cards'.

The Yosemite Bear wrote:define old?

me: ASCII Trek game, Rogue/Nethack, Scorched Earth, oh and Oregan Trail and Civ 2

Nethack is not that old. Most of the classic C64 games were made before Nethack. That said, I never had a C64. My first extensive gaming experiences were with Atari ST. The game I spent endless hours with was Imperium by Electronic Arts, which is little known since it was released only on the Atari ST in 1990, when the ST platform was already in steep decline particularly in North America. It was basically a "spreadsheet in space" approach to 4X gaming, but still I found it very addictive. In some ways it had more depth than the original Master of Orion and the music, composed by "Ludwig van" no less, fit the mood perfectly. From there on my progress was quite predictable: Civilization, MoO, Master of Magic, Colonization, MoO II, Civ 2 etc. I pretty much stopped gaming in 2002, partly because I had other things to do but also because I simply lost interest.

My other love was flight simulations. Original Red Baron was amazingly advanced for its time and it felt very realistic, although in reality those planes were far more difficult to fly. Still the game managed to capture the quirkiness of the Sopwith Camel and the pure dogfighter nature of the Fokker Dreidecker, among other things. You could even use dive and zoom tactics with the Spad S.XIII and avoid dogfighting altogether. Great game. I also played the later Red Baron II/3D, which is still playable with current PCs with some patching, but it isn't hugely better than the original despite numerous improvements, unless multiplayer is considered.

Of course I played many other flight sims as well. I lost interest in gaming partly because the masses with short attention span made PC gaming such a big business that real flight sims (as opposed to flying games or "lite" sims) were no longer profitable enough. There have been some exceptions of course, but in general the flight simulation genre is still on life support and due to ever increasing development costs is likely to remain so.

Stark wrote: I've always wanted to know this... did EVERYONE'S Ultima 6 have that guy outside Castle British who'd run up to start a convo that crashed the game, necessitating you blasting him with a lightning wand before he got too close? When I was 12 or whatever I figured it was normal, but it doesn't seem to be an experience most people had.

I dont remember ever having the game crash on me, and I even played the game a ton (including using alot of the well known cheats to it as well) I presume you mean that guy who claimed to be Lord British in disguise.

Stark wrote:Sierra games were pretty much the standard for awful design, but just like point-and-click games eventually cleaned up and became logical with more feedback, they STILL make adventure games wherein combinations must be in the right order, you're never told what you're doing wrong and there's only one solution to anything. It's pretty sad.

Depends on which game series you were talking about. Kings quest 4 (one of the first games I ever played) did stump me as a preteen, but over time (and colleecting some of the game/story books that were so prominent during that age) because so much of it was fairy tale or story based and if you didn't know the right stories you probably were f'ed.

What tended to bug me more about King's quest was how utterly linear alot of the latter games were. At least some of the earllier games gave you multiple approaches to a solution, but the latter ones pretty much stuck you with only one. And oftne they required a very nonviolent (and rather foolish) approach. you could almost NEVEr legitimately defend yourself against an enemy, which struck me as increidbly retarded.

Anyhow, other games, like Police Quest, actually weren't that hard as long as you thought about it and you had actually read the manual and I rather liked them. I rather liked Space Quest too, though that sometimes suffered from the same problem as KQ.

The "best" IMHO was Quest for Glory, and that was largely because you could always devise one or more approaches to it, even for a particular "class" if you gave yourself the right skills. Made for alot less frustration if you were careful. QFG was also a whole lot less linear than most of the other series (Save Quest for glory 2, but even then it was far less linear than other games in the series).

Mind you, the Lucasarts Monkey Island games could be very linear and hard to figure out as well at times. Monkey Island 2 in particular. And even now I'm playing Sam and Max and I still have trouble remembering all the answers.

Vertigo1 wrote:

The Yosemite Bear wrote:define old?

me: ASCII Trek game, Rogue/Nethack, Scorched Earth, oh and Oregan Trail and Civ 2

Don't forget Pitfall and Black Hawk. Damn I wish my old C64 still worked.

did anyone ever play "Dalek Hunt" for the C64, the Berzek clone where you had a sonic screwdriver that could stun a dalek and open the doors, occasionally K-9 would help you out, but mostly you got Daleks to shoot each other.

I had Rogue waaaaaay back when, nethack was just an updated rogue, which I guess was stolen from Warmus which I recall playing back when my mom couldn't find daycare while taking her college classes, and left me to play with Unix machines and punchcards, and dumb terminals....

ok, all this was before Star Wars, and I still have the print outs on how to program Trek73 onto any C++, virtual C enviornment. (thus winning the earliest media still intact contest the first year G&C was created in this forum.)