Good old games

S

Shipgate

Rear Admiral
As of late, I've been feeling an increasing nostalgia about my old games I played on my 386. Many I have been trying to play again on my today computer. A few in particular include Lands of Lore, Kyrandia, Dark Forces, Diablo, Under a Killing Moon, Myst, Wing Commander, Sim City 2000, Pandora Directive, even some Nintendo and Super Nintendo classics.

I feel the Golden Age of computer gaming is truly over for me. It will never be the same for several reasons. Though there will still be new fun moments in gaming I know I'll have, it will never compare when those CD-ROMS first came out. The first CD-ROM I ever played was Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. I was astounded at actually hearing people talk in the game. Not that this was what started my love for computer gaming. That goes back to the first time I played Wing Commander in 1990. It was on our Iomega Bernoulli drive and I played it for a long time without the manual so I had to learn all the controls on my own. It actually took me a long time to learn how to land on the Tiger's Claw. And when I finally did...it was soooo sweet.

Anyone else care to share some memories about their older games?
 
I replayed Police Quest 1 from start to finish last week. Wanna find some time for the Space Quests soon. I disagree about there being any golden age. There will be plenty more classic titles in the future.
 
Speaking of Tex Murphy (Under a Killing moon, Pandora Directive) One of my first PC game experiences was with Mean Streets, the very first in the series... (later sort of remade as Overseer) Way before sound blaster they had something called real sound which actually made speach and digital music using the PC speaker! Crappy sounding now but absolutely amazing then... It was used again in the sequel (which also supported sound cards though) martian memorandum...

Now I agree that this era (I love the space quest series) has a great deal of nostalgia for me and provided many great gaming moments, but I would like to think that games have grown up a little since then... I dont know if you've ever played meanstreets (theres a arcade game in overseer that is the shoot out sections from it) but boy was it ever juvenile. The story was neat, the graphics and sound were amazing at the time... But most of the dialogue and charachter names sound like they were written by a horny 15 year old.

Wing Commander, as then, is still in a class of its own! Amazing! I still have as much fun playing it today.
 
Wing Commander still kicks the pants off most anything I see played these days... But Freelancer was pretty good... not quite privateer, but it satiated my need for piracy/trading...

Under a Killing Moon... god that was cool game. An interactive movie done right. I didn't really like Pandora Directive... and I have yet to play Overseer. After playing Under a Killing Moon I got my hands on a copy of Mean Streets and a copy of Martian Memorandum, but I still think UAKM was the best of the series.

I've been playing through a lot of the old Sierra adventure games recently, too (Space Quest, anyone?), feeling a bit notalgiac in my old age too, I guess.
 
That's true, I suppose there is no real golden age. But to me it's just my personal golden age. UAKM was my favorite of the series too. I've never played Mean Streets or Martian Memorandum but I've seen the screen shots for them.

Sierra I always thought made exceptional games though I only played one King's Quest and two Space Quests. And I think it was Police Quest 4 that I played of that series.

Lands of Lore has a very special place in my heart. To me it was fantasy's answer to Privateer. I played those two games back and forth like crazy. Both have excellent stories and music and ambiance.

Microcosm was pretty fun too. Though I never did make it to the brain. Myst was also pretty special to me. I used to have lots of dreams about it. It was just so unlike any other game at the time. I think it's still unlike any other game today. I miss playing a really good puzzle game.

Grim Fandango was sublime. I loved the music so much that I actually bought the soundtrack. I had lots of Lucasarts games. One was an Indiana Jones game and I still think Dark Forces was the best Star Wars game there was. Ooh, and Full Throttle. How could you not like that game?

Syndicate was a really fun game. I need to get that one on Ebay or something.
 
Sure do. There was a time where real time strategy was still fun and not cluttered with thousands of functions and micro management. Also the 'storyline' are just superb.
Z2 wasn't even close to it unfortunately.
 
Always a fan of the old LucasArts and Westwood Adventures.
Got them all as original talkie versions - even Loom. Good times for Adventures (plus Lands of Lore - all time favorite RPG).

Hail to SCUMMVM for that I cann still play my favorite games with even better graphics.

I never had a big interest in the Sierra games except SQ4, but with the rerelease of KQ 1+2 I might still change my opinion.

The Intro that blew me away most was Privateer.
 
I haven't played any old PC games recently (not counting the WC games as I've played 1 and 2 within the last couple of weeks) - but looking through what I've got, that might change.

I have been playing old spectrum games though. Dan Dare, Dynamite Dan, Saboteur, Bruce Lee, Starquake, Spyhunter, and F16. Hard to believe I played most of those almost 20 years ago
 
I get nostalgic for the old stuff too sometimes. I‘ve talked about some of my Doom experiences in another thread here not too long ago. Playing cooperatively over a network was almost unheard of in 1992 or 1993 and it seemed then that it just couldn’t get any better than that. Before doing that I can remember running a network cable from my buddy’s 3rd floor apartment down to my 2nd floor apartment so we could play Knights of the Sky cooperatively. We did the same thing with another lesser-known but equally fun flight/combat simulator named Air Duel, and a futuristic tank game named Spectre. Now online gaming, cooperative play, high speed Internet, etc. could certainly be considered commonplace.

I'm sort of an old man around here, and because of that I do think there was a "Golden Age" of PC gaming, kind of similar to the one arcades had in the mid 1980s. For PCs it seemed to come in the late 80s thru the early 90s. I'd bet that some of you here remember that first 2MB or 4MB RAM upgrade you made, the first sound card you installed, the first set of speakers you bought, the first joystick you owned, and so on. Remember when most games rarely worked at all out-of-the-box and required you to tweak your system before they'd operate? Remember the days before Plug-n-Play and Auto Detect? Remember having one system selection set incorrectly during the setup phase of a game and it simply wouldn't work (woops, I've got a Soundblaster, not a Roland!) Remember having to use boot disks to play games like Aces of the Pacific? Remember the days of no copy protection, DOS 6.0, and 14" monitors? I know some of you will disagree with me, but I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. Then again each generation probably has its own idea of what represents their version of the Golden Age.
 
I love going back to my old games every now and then. That's purley the only reason why I duel boot my PC with both win2k and winME as most don't work with win2k. I especially liked the original command and conquer but I also have to agree with the previous post that Deus Ex was trully excellent.
 
At home, I still have a Pt 200 MHz with Windows 98se which I've kept solely for this reason. I have to disagree with Chris somewhat and say that I really do believe there was a golden age for computer gaming. Prior to 3D accleration and the all-consuming drive to make games featuring every whizbang effect a video card could produce (not that I can scream too harshly as I love a graphically sophisticated game as much as anyone), it seemed people used to care more about making fun games. Plus, back then two of my favorite genres (adventure and war) were still alive. Here's my golden oldies playlist:

Wing Commander series (of course)
X-Wing and TIE Fighter
Railroad Tycoon
Civilization 2
Lucasarts Adventure games (Monkey Island series being my favorite)
Pirates!
Robert E. Lee Civil War General
SSI's Five Star Series
Chuck Yeager's Air Combat
Command and Conquer
Warcraft II
Police Quest (pre-SWAT)
Spycraft (cheesy, but loveable)
Master of Orion 1 & 2
Star Control (all three)

I could go on, but I don't want to write a huge post. Needless to say, they made some great games back in the day.
 
BigsWickDagger said:
Remember when most games rarely worked at all out-of-the-box and required you to tweak your system before they'd operate? Remember the days before Plug-n-Play and Auto Detect? Remember having one system selection set incorrectly during the setup phase of a game and it simply wouldn't work (woops, I've got a Soundblaster, not a Roland!) Remember having to use boot disks to play games like Aces of the Pacific? Remember the days of no copy protection, DOS 6.0, and 14" monitors? I know some of you will disagree with me, but I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. Then again each generation probably has its own idea of what represents their version of the Golden Age.
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::Tears in eyes:: Amen brother, amen. One day the old machines shall rise from the grave... as soon as I can find a Soundblaster Pro.
 
I loved playing Warcraft 2 with my friends online. Back then it was great cause you actually had to call someone's house with your computer. I'd play for hours on a single game till someone else in the house picked up my phone and disconnect me. It was such a hassle, yet nevertheless, that was all part of the fun.
 
I recently bought the Total War package from SSG which includes Carriers at War I & II, two of my favorite games besides WC. Also recently Bungie was nice enough to release Marathon 1, 2 and Infinity for Mac and PC for free at Marathon Trilogy Release for anyone who has never experienced this incredible first person shooter I highly recommend checking it out, even today, more than 10 years later its story is still discussed and debated actively at the Marathon Story Page
 
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