Doomworld Forums - Computer game nostalgia

Doomworld Forums : Powered by vBulletin version 2.2.5

Doomworld Forums > Misc. > Everything Else > Computer game nostalgia

Pages (2): [1] 2 »

Author

All times are GMT. The time now is 20:05.

Hellbent
Forum Staple

Posts: 2233
Registered: 06-00

how far back does your computer game nostalgia go? Since I'm old (29) and my dad had a computer since I was like 5? the games go back to about 1985. There used to be old 5 1/2" disks with dos games on them that my dad would hide from me because I would play them too much. I remember finding them once and figuring out how to run them.. oh the memories... it took me awhile to figure out the .com, .exe and .bat files were the ones I would want to type into the prompt, and typing the other ones would only return bad command or filename (boy did I learn to hate that phrase)

There are probably some gems I've completely forgotten, but here aer some I remember in no particular order.

Pango: a game where you had to kick bricks to kill the bees or stun them on the perimeter wall. To finish the map you had to align all the diamond bricks! You got extra points for completing the level quickly, and the levels got quicker and quicker with each one and repeated after 16 levels, so you are back at level one but it's really fast now, and the music would speed up too! Great game! Everyone should play it on a 286 with amber monochrome monitor. I think the fastest I completed a level was 1 or 2 seconds! yeah, we all got good at that one. http://autistictendencies.files.wor...-screenshot.jpg

Aldo's Adventure (or simply called Ladder?): '80s, I have vague memories of this. My brother and dad played it more than me as they were better at it. Basically you were a dude and climbed up ladders and jumped barrels trying to get to the treasure chest.

Beast: 1984, an ASCII text graphics game where you had to push blocks around and squish the beasts (which were H's) -there were different kinds of beasts, and some of them could only be squished against special bricks. You could trap the beasts in bricks where they couldn't escape and they'd eventually blow up! They got faster and faster the longer you were on a level.

Hearts: not sure if that's the name? 80's, kind of a strange game where you had to go around the perimeter to get into the center or something....

Moraff's Blast(?): late '80s, early '90s, an elaborate Arkanoid (breakout) type game with really bad graphics, but a lot of fun

something cycles (light cycles?): '80s, there were motorcycles (sidescrolling) and there was also an biplane later on in the game... there were various stages and interediate stages.. memories are real vague on this one... oh, I remember now! You had to dock a blimp!

Paratrooper: '80's, you are a cannon in the center of the level and have to shoot down the helicopters and the paratroopers falling from the helicopters, as well as the jets that fire bombs at you in the intermediary rounds. You could hit the jet's bombs.

Bouncing Babies: '80s, you had to rescue babies falling from a burning building. More and more babies would fall making it really hard to rescue them all using the two firefighters and trampoline. We got good at this one too, I think we all made it to 110+ for a high score! (wave 5)

Pharaoh's Tomb collect treasure and try to find the lost tomb.

Captain Cosmo's Adventure (?) a little like commander keen, but you had suction cups and could climb up walls. Early '90s.

Ironman's Offroad

Prince of Persia i just started replaying this one, but I can't figure out how to get past level 1!

Challenge of the Ancient Empires: very cool game. Lots of puzzles and cool atmosphere. You had to shoot light from your head lamp into a series of floating triangles which you had to adjust for the right angle to hit the trigger to open the door.

Tank Wars 2.0 bomb.exe nuff said.

'3d perspective' games:
Ford Simulator drive various Ford cars from the Festiva to the Mustang GT. ('80s)

LHX Attack chopper had to complete missions by shooting tanks and other things. (early 90's)

I'll add more as I think of them. What are some old games you remember?

UPDATE

Ski or Die! tree skiing and half pipe snowboarding at its best!

Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? track down the thief/criminal...

Jill of the Jungle (early 90s)

Jetpack! you could make maps for this too...

Wow... how could I forget Adventures of Willy Beamish? Anyone else remember this game!?

I also forgot QBERT! I believe was late '80s... being resurrected!

Last edited by Hellbent on 07-01-09 at 02:23

06-26-09 14:44 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Homepage || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Maes
I like big butts!

Posts: 3817
Registered: 07-06

Any decently sized abandonware site will answer that question regarding me :-p

06-26-09 14:48 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Hellbent
Forum Staple

Posts: 2233
Registered: 06-00

Maes said:
Any decently sized abandonware site will answer that question regarding me :-p

heh, any favorites? I just stumbled upon a pretty good site. Two big abandonware sites I've come across recently both had Doom as the number 1 downloaded game (the shareware I'm sure).

06-26-09 14:59 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Homepage || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Scet
Junior Member

Posts: 225
Registered: 05-06

Unfortunately my family and all my friends familys could not afford home computers when I was a kid. Everyone had an NES or Genesis though, and I was the only one with a SNES, so that's nostalgia for me.

I'm pretty sure Doom is the oldest game I own, followed by X-COM, Warcraft and MechWarrior 2. Probably not considered "old" around here, but I didn't get a home computer until 1997.

Edit: Actually I can go further back. I used to play a small platforming/puzzle game on my schools computer(yeah just one) called "Pharaohs Tomb" back in 1994.

06-26-09 15:10 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Bucket
ROCK & LOAD
COCK BEEN BLOWED
IN YOUR MOUTH,
MANJUICE EXPLOAD

Posts: 3147
Registered: 01-04

In the mid-80s I was playing Commodore 64 games like IK+, Crossroads, the Olympic Games series, Backyard Baseball, Pitstop II and Lunar Outpost. I didn't have many mainstream games; most of what we bought were from conventions and outdoor markets.

After the C64 croaked we got an 8088 computer with a Hercules adapter. I had mostly obscure ASCII graphics games. It took a while for me to get back into PC gaming because I already had an NES and a Gameboy at that point.

06-26-09 15:20 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Rankle
Warming Up

Posts: 12
Registered: 06-09

Mine goes all the way back to loading games of tape onto my ZX81 with 16K RAM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_ZX81

It had a FPR (first person runner) no shooting called 3d Monster Maze.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKvd0zPfBE4

06-26-09 15:24 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Homepage || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

InsanityBringer
Junior Member

Posts: 163
Registered: 08-07

The oldest thing I got that's in any way gaming releated is a TRS-80 model 1. However, I don't got any games for that, so the oldest I really got is EA's Starflight, but I'm starting to think disk 2 is bad. Thankfully I got it installed on my 386, complete with the master files if I am right.

06-26-09 15:59 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Rankle
Warming Up

Posts: 12
Registered: 06-09

I quickly graduated to "better" computers.

Acorn Electon (Best game Chuckie Egg)
Acorn BBC B (Best game Elite)
Acorn Archimedes
Apple Mac System 7
Pentium 200Mhz
Pentium 2-400Hmz
Pentium 4

06-26-09 16:16 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Homepage || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

gggmork
I just felt like complaining about something

Posts: 1130
Registered: 06-07

Oldest I remember playing were probably kings quests, rogue, battle chess.

06-26-09 16:35 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Butts
Senior Member

Posts: 1441
Registered: 07-07

The oldest games I played were on the Sega Genesis, and some weird platform that looked somewhat like a Genesis that I played Doom on. I played Sonic the Hedgehog and Street Fighter, mostly. First computer game I played was probably in '95, when I played these stupid games that came with an old Mac or Compaq or something that my family had... I think one was called Flashback, and another game you played as a guy with a huge chin.

06-26-09 17:13 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

WildWeasel
Resident Castlevania Super-Fanboy

Posts: 2152
Registered: 07-03

Alley Cat, Robot Odyssey, Oil's Well, and the original Ultima. Though interestingly, I didn't play those until around 1996. My first first games were Car Builder (CGA graphics car designing game that actually simulates how well the car will perform, given the aerodynamics and engine power, and describes it to you), Gertrude's Secrets (you play as a box and get to pick up and move things to solve simple puzzles), and...shudder...Hi-Tech Expressions' PC version of Mega Man.

06-26-09 17:21 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Homepage || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Partition36
Will DDR for food

Posts: 1656
Registered: 06-02

My first games were on my TI-99/4A, so ones like Tombstone City and various math-related games. Soon after that came my Atari 7800, along with a ton of 2600 games that were given to me by a friend. Combat is still a favorite, as is Robotron 2084 and Food Fight. I actually still have all my cartridges for both of these systems.

I didn't get a computer until middle school, around '97 or so, but I used to play older games like Another World quite a bit. That game is still a remarkable piece of work, imo.

__________________
My music | YouTube Channel | Facebook Page

06-26-09 17:31 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Homepage || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Hellbent
Forum Staple

Posts: 2233
Registered: 06-00

Scet said:
Edit: Actually I can go further back. I used to play a small platforming/puzzle game on my schools computer(yeah just one) called "Pharaohs Tomb" back in 1994.

I just recently replayed all 4 episodes of this! kinda fun.

06-26-09 17:48 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Homepage || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

CODOR
Member

Posts: 524
Registered: 02-06

My next-door neighbour worked at Radio Shack in the mid-1980s, and they let him take home copies of programs to use them. The idea was that if customers had problems installing or running the software, the clerk at the store would have first-hand experience with it. So that's when I first played King's Quest (on a Tandy 1000 of some sort, so at least I got to see it with half-decent graphics).

(I had an Atari 2600 and my cousin had I think a Colecovision, but this was the first time I remember playing games on a desktop computer. And the school had computers ranging from Commodore PETs and maybe a Commodore 64 to the 80186-based Unisys ICON, but I don't remember using those until the late 1980s.)

06-26-09 19:20 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Danarchy
YOU CAN'T CUT BACK ON FUNDING! YOU WILL REGRET THIS!

Posts: 14186
Registered: 01-01

I was born with a computer in my house, so I've been playing computer games as far as I can remember. Our first computer was a C64. We had a bunch of games including Choplifter, Frogger, Pac-Man, Centipede, Dig-Dug, Congo Bongo, Save New York!, Impossible Mission, and some Sesame Street game which was our only cartridge game for the system that also came with a pad to put over the keyboard to make the controls easier to understand.

Later we had some monochrome blue-white computer which I pretty much just played Playroom and Treasure Mountain on. We had Prodigy back then, too where we could play games like their weekly Carmen Sandiego mission.

Then we got a regular PC and my dad started downloading shareware. We got the first Hoyle Book of Games early on as well as Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3-D. There was also Jill of the Jungle, Duke Nukem, Kiloblaster, and some others. Then Doom came out, along with Duke Nukem II, Bio Menace, Halloween Harry, Jazz Jackrabbit, Hocus Pocus, Xargon, and a few others. I also played a bunch of Sierra adventure games like the Space Quest, Police Quest, and King's Quest games, along with some other great ones like Freddy Pharcus, Eco Quest, and the Adventures of Willy Beamish. Sierra also made some great educational games like The Incredible Machine and that one game...Quarky and Quasoo's something or the other. I can't remember, but it was fun.

Oh yeah, and Civilization. I played the Hell out of that...and Dune II. And all the Epic pinball games. Also Descent, Terminal Velocity, Myst, and all kinds of stuff... Then Duke Nukem 3-D and Quake came out and that was about the end of the shareware era.

Around this time I started buying my own games. A few of the first ones I got were Civilization 2, Warcraft 2, and Sim City 2000. I also started playing Quake II with a warezed copy. Dungeon Keeper and Theme Hospital were pretty awesome. I got into Starcraft, Diablo and Total Annihilation for a while. Then Half-Life came out which was pretty good, but after that the nostalgia kind of ends...

I never played much console game,s only the few games my friends had. Back in the NES games there was the original Super Mario Bros., Karnov, Double Dragon 2, Mission Impossible, Gyromite, some game where you had to paint girters with your car or something, and that wrestling game with the fish man and said "You Are Win!" when you won a match. Then when SNES came out, there was Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario World, Mario Kart, Killer Instinct, Uniracers, and Clayfighters. The N64 era brought Goldeneye and a few others.

TBQH I think the best games came out in the mid-90s when there were thousands of independent developers and no one had really found a winning formula for games, so everyone made whatever the Hell they could think of making. The technology wasn't too terrible by that time either.

06-26-09 19:25 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Enjay
ASK ME ABOUT FOOTBALL / STEAM / DEAD CELEBRITIES / THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT

Posts: 4813
Registered: 12-00

My computer gaming memories go back to the ZX81 and even before that. I remember very simple consoles that only played one game that was programmed into the hardware (usually simple Pong-like games) and also computers older than the ZX81 that could play the simplest of Basic programmed games. I remember most of the very early arcade classics (Space Invaders and earlier) and I even remember playing a coin op in the early 70s at my local swimming pool. Again, I'm pretty sure it was a Pong-like game, if not Pong itself.

06-26-09 19:27 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Homepage || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Planky
Forum Regular

Posts: 805
Registered: 12-02

Crossroads was an excellent 2 player game. I still play it every now and then in an emulator.

06-27-09 03:28 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Super Jamie
Forum Staple

Posts: 2243
Registered: 03-08

I had a TRS-80 when I was about 4 years old in 1987. I recall loading Space Invaders from 12 minute cassette tape. I then progressed through XT, 286, 486, etc etc.

I've actually got a published Google Doc of games I have finished, and whilst I've played a few addictive PS2 games, my gaming nostalgia is well and truly stuck in the 90s. Apart from multimedia, all I really use my PC for these days is Doom ports, DOSBox and emulators.

Some of my most favorite games are Elite, Ultima Underworld, One Must Fall 2097, Traffic Dept 2192, Bloodnet, DOTT and the Space Quests. Killer Instinct on SNES and Goldeneye on N64 are rad too, I actually still own an N64 for the sole purpose of playing that game.

Personally, I think it all started to go downhill fast when Quake was released. Like Danarchy said, game-makers were still experimenting and nobody really had "the formula" yet. By the time Half-Life, Diablo and Starcraft happened, and whilst they were great games themselves, anything that came after them was a pale imitation of a concept which had been done before, and usually done better.

Games these days are just "X engine + Y graphics and sounds". The biggest selling point of a game is its' 3D capabilities and multiplayer support. Like it's almost impossible to develop a unique single-player experience. Portal probably does achieve this, the first game to do so in far too long.

I live for old games.

06-27-09 04:37 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Homepage || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

leileilol
dork stalker

Posts: 2726
Registered: 06-04

'85, IBM PC XT.

06-27-09 06:47 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Homepage || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Christoph
Junior Member

Posts: 183
Registered: 12-07

We got our comp in 92. Some games I remember include:

King's Quest
Commander Keen
Wolfenstein3d (does that count?)
Lands of Lore
Warlords(2)
Lemmings
Sim City 2000
Civilization
Master of Orion
(The Fates of) Twinion
Eye of the Beholder
Stunts

06-27-09 08:02 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Super Jamie
Forum Staple

Posts: 2243
Registered: 03-08

Christoph said:
Stunts

Fuck yeah! How many hours did everyone waste making tracks in this :D and there was that bug where if you hit a jump a certain way you'd shoot vertically up in the air for ages, before crashing to the ground and exploding!

06-27-09 08:22 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Homepage || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

GreyGhost
a ghost... only grey

Posts: 2947
Registered: 01-08

I started in the early 80's with a VIC-20 and a handfull of mostly forgettable games, traded up to a C64 soon after and developed an addiction for wire-frame 3D and simulator games like Elite, Silent Service, Gunship and Mercenary.

06-27-09 11:16 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Enjay
ASK ME ABOUT FOOTBALL / STEAM / DEAD CELEBRITIES / THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT

Posts: 4813
Registered: 12-00

Christoph said:
Eye of the Beholder

I think that, up to that point, I had been a fairly casual gamer. OK, I'd spent a small fortune in arcades and played lots of console games and games on the speccy and BBCB over the years but it was EoB that finally sucked me in.

06-27-09 11:21 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Homepage || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

deathbringer
Post invalidated by first word being "uhhh"

Posts: 3188
Registered: 04-02

uhhhhhhhhhhh

My dad got me and my brother a BBC Micro in either 89 or 90, i forget which. It had about 10 disks with around 10-15 games on each. Some were surprisingly sophisticated for a 32k computer! There was a platformer with a squirrel that i remember being very colourful. There was also another one with a caveman in a blue and purple world, and when you "died" his eyes would spin around comically to a funny little tune.

We also had some games i actually remember the name of, including the usual Space Invaders, Galaga, Galaxian etc. The version of Galaga let you specify how many lives you wanted, we always put in 999 (the maximum you could have, though anywhere above about 10 and it would ask "how much?" and you'd have to input the number again) and just played until we got bored.

There was also one called Space Highway, which i remember because it had a map of the enemy ships zooming around a circuit before passing over the small area of the circuit the player could see. Occasionally they would drop off and attack you. Also you died when your fuel ran out, so had to shoot fuel tankers carefully, to seperate the tanks for collection, but if you hit the tank itself it would explode.

Oh and Repton! Awesome game, that. Played it for hours - it had a zillion and one levels too so i'd always be finding new things, it was like a proper adventure. I don't think i experienced anything similar until Vice City, and even then it wasn't as "big" but i was discovering new in-jokes or hearing funny things on the radio a year after i got it.

Oh and Commando, a sort of isometric shooter that was probably supposed to be vaguely based on the Schwarzenegger film of the same name (which i have still never seen).

Oh and there was another one where you seemingly played as an old granny running around platforms, it had a level editor too, fun times ensued. But there was no way of saving created levels.

Hmm, and now more memories are coming back of ones i didn't play much. There was one in a very brigtly coloured maze with one-way doors and bizarre monsters that were just like black lines. Another one set in a jungle, and one that was yellow, red and white and had masses of tiny people in it (O.o)

06-27-09 12:15 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Homepage || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Hellbent
Forum Staple

Posts: 2233
Registered: 06-00

Super Jamie said:

Fuck yeah! How many hours did everyone waste making tracks in this :D and there was that bug where if you hit a jump a certain way you'd shoot vertically up in the air for ages, before crashing to the ground and exploding!

aww... sounds like I missed out on a great game. Is this the game: http://www.frihost.com/forums/vt-33866.html

Has anyone played Myst? I'm kinda thinking of getting a copy and playing it. I never did because Doom overshadowed it, even though it seemed interesting at the time.

06-27-09 16:48 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Homepage || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Danarchy
YOU CAN'T CUT BACK ON FUNDING! YOU WILL REGRET THIS!

Posts: 14186
Registered: 01-01

IMHO Myst is overrated. It was kind of cool for it's time with freeform gameplay and (rendered) 3D graphics, but it's rather short, a bit confusing, and kind of dull.

06-27-09 18:46 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

Bashe
Senior Member

Posts: 1956
Registered: 11-03

Mother fucking EDUCATIONAL GAMES

Word/Number/Super Munchers
Troggle Trouble Math
The Secret Island of Dr. Quandry
Some other stuff too that I played at school

Good times. And of course, Doom.

06-27-09 18:55 #

Profile || Blog || PM || Email || Search || Add Buddy

Report to mod || IP || Edit/Delete || Quote

bimlanders
Mini-Member

Posts: 60
Registered: 06-09

I'm 29, and I remember having one of those old Macs that had games like Loderunner, Shadowgate, Uninvited, Castles (I think that was it). I really only cared about making endless levels on Loderunner and playing Atari 2600 when I wasn't doing that.

For me, PC Gaming really took hold of me in the early 90's when we would download every shareware and freeware game we could find on any local BBS. Some of my most fond memories were of trying games like Wolf3D, Commander Keen 4, Raptor, Blakestone and eventually DOOM for the first time after waiting sometimes several hours to download the shareware versions. Doom 1 was the first game that I ever personally had registered, and it was a lot of yard work to put it, as my parents couldn't be bothered to buy us anything mail order for birthdays or for Christmas. If it wasn't at the mall or another store, then we wouldn't bother to ask. (I just now finally bought the full version of Heretic.)

The day that Doom arrived in the mail in all its glory was the day that turned me into a PC game fanatic. Those few years that followed was like a golden age of gaming for me. We would add Doom 2, Warcraft, X-Com, Simcity 2000, and later Dungeon Keeper, Theme Park, Starcraft... and still later Unreal, Half-Life, and Baldur's freakin' Gate. That's pretty much the classic cut off point for me. New games can be great. I had a blast playing Half-Life 2, but everything is so "real" looking now, that some of the magic is missing.

06-27-09 22:37 #