Jazz Jackrabbit, and all of its versions and the sequel. Banging soundtrack too
Also monster bash
Jazz is the DOS Game Club game of the month in August, which is exciting! Been waiting for them to cover it ever since it launched.
I was a big LucasArts graphic adventure game fan. Maniac mansion, Zak McKracken, Indiana Jones, Loom, Monkey Island Then all the Sierra games: leisure Suits Larry, Police Quest, King’s Quest, Camelot…. Good times.
ahem you forgot to mention full throttle ;)
Whenever I smell asphalt, I think of Maureen.
I really loved Tie Fighter from 1994. The music was pretty cool because it changed based on the state of the mission you were on and star wars music was a cheat code to my feelings.
I also thought it was so cool when you'd complete secret objectives and they'd bring you in to the emperor's secret order and tattoo your arm. I thought that was just fucking great. Those cut scenes were so cool.
Also thanks to all of you who posted cool older games im going to try some of these. I'm thinking about trying fallout I've never played any in that series.
Lucas arts was so strong at that time. I loved dark forces(?) the FPS
Wait, you forgot to mention that he tattoes your arm with FORCE LIGHTNING.
Honestly Lucasarts of the early-90’s to mid 2000’s had such a high batting average.
Tie Fighter really captured the feel of the original trilogy that only a few games have actually done, Dark Forces and Jedi Knight both did the same.
Star Control 2 is the one I still come back to every now and then.
ID games of course (Keen/Wolf3d/Doom), Sim City series. Raptor, Warcraft I&II, LucasArts games.
Raptor and tyrian, 2 great tastes that taste better together.
Doom, total classic. In that same vein, did you ever play Hexen? I recall it being a pretty cool medieval/ magic Doom.
And of course, unreal tournament. Although that was later. It had a Linux port which is why I played it.
Theme Hospital I still go back to on occasion. I’ve seen Two Point but it’s not the same.
Have you tried corsix th? It lets you play the original theme hospital on modern systems.
Oh this looks amazing. Thank you!
The Commander Keen series.
Fallout. Astonishing bit of work. I wish there were more isometric RPGs of that style.
Unreal Tournament '99!
The Moraff adventure games. Moraffs World and Moraffs Dungeons of the Unforgiven.
Also Castle of the Winds.
It's either tough or impossible to get purchased copies of any of them now, but that means there are sites willing to host the full unlocked versions of them now. As far as I know, the creators of both are still alive though. So I suppose if you tried really hard you might still be able to get money to them.
In both cases they were games I played when I was a kid and they stood out as games I wanted to come back to when I was less bad at stuff. And in both cases I did, and little me was right.
I keep playing Total Annihilation. I play it at least once a day.
Sometimes that's me an Supreme commander: forged alliance.
You'd think I'd be better by now.
I've tried both Supreme Commander and Planetary Annihilation.
I think what mostly bothers me about updated versions of the concept is that there are too many "this type of unit counters that type of unit" pairs. You'll start a campaign level, build yourself a nice mixed bag of versatile units, and then an enemy will show up with a horde of some specific unit X that completely overwhelms you, because you didn't have enough Z artillery which is like the only effective thing against X.
I rarely had that problem in the original TA. Generally, all units are vulnerable to all other units, so you have to use geography and consistent resource-denial strategy to your advantage.
I recall getting stomped online by guys that would amass 3-400 little flyers and just rain hell on you before air defense could knock them out in TA.
Oh heck yeah, nothing beats the original Total Annihilation. My dad would play LAN against each other and online. We would absolutely destroyed cause we sucked, but it was fun! The best feeling was picking off the enemy commander with a Big Bertha behind fog of war!
I played the shit out of Rocket Jockey. We only played it once together at a Lan party because I kept tying my friends together. Fun for me, not for them!
Scorched Earth Worms UT2K Quake 3 Arena Tribes Descent Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries You Don’t Know Jack Where in the World is Carmen San Diego
MechWarrior 3 was where I got into the franchise. Those were awesome games.
When you load into a mission and the mech boots up… titanfall really scratched that itch
I always go back to Castle Adventure as my warm-fuzzy nostalga hit. Was the first game I played on PC, and yes, I know I'm old.
Does Bubble Bobble through an emulator count?
Star Control 2 Starflight Civilization Railroad Tycoon SimCity Pirates! King’s Quest Space Quest Telengard Lemmings
My childhood! :-)
The original "Master of Orion" was great, and I also spent countless hours playing "Archipelago"
Rebel Assault 1 and 2 -- they're total crap, but if you were a Star Wars fan at the time, they were epic. FMV in RA2 was so good, and introduced story unique to the game.
Descent is really hard to beat for me. I put it above Doom/Quake in terms of actual gameplay. It felt so nice to rush to the exit when you're really good. Only Majora's Mask 3-days mechanic has rivaled the anxiety factor of Descent.
Heavy Gear > Mechwarrior.
Starcraft/Warcraft.
Heroes of Might and Magic 1-3.
A shit ton of flash games I can't remember now.
Me and my sister were crazy about Zoo Tycoon, but we weren't super good at it. We would run the zoo into the ground and then release the T. Rex.
Releasing the T. rex and plopping guests into the shark tank and removing the ladder were important parts of a successful zoo. I wish the Zoo Tycoon series kept the same level of freedom the original has, the new one was depressing to play.
I didnt know there was a new one. We played the 1st and 2nd ones.
I feel like anything new would lack the magic from back then.
I remember having a blast with Rocket Jockey - I think we had it on a demo disc? Otherwise I always loved Sim Copter.
Does Simcity 4 count as retro? It’s ridiculously good.
Also Doom, of course.
Rollercoaster Tycoon
I was totally sucked into the world when I first played it as a kid. The balance and trade offs between tech and magic are awesome and the incredible dialogue and (OK from what I remember) story makes this one I come back to every once in a while.
I don't think I ever actually have beaten the game though -- but I do that with nearly every game.
So Im a Star Wars nut, but here goes:
Episode 1 Racer
Dark Forces 2 Jedi Knight
A couple other Lucasarts games:
The Curse of Monkey Island
Grim Fandango
There are so many more, but those are my choices for least talked about entries
SimAnt holds deep reverence with me since I remember playing it at my friends house all the time as a kid.
Lands of Lore, Ultima Underworld, Wing Commander, and Master of Orion, because I played them with my brother all of the time.
And Police Quest and Number/Word Munchers because they were some of the first I played in school.
Vintage gaming community.
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