Author Topic: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy  (Read 2597 times)

Devonai

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Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« on: December 26, 2020, 11:11:01 AM »
I am curious if y'all have any classic PC games that still get some time in your rotation.

My perennial favorites are X-Com: UFO Defense (1994) and Star Control II (a.k.a. The Ur-Quan Masters, 1992).  Both require DOSBox to run and they both require some tweaking to deal with today's faster processors, but work just fine.

For X-Com, I still have a copy of the original on one of my computers, despite the fact that I haven't had a 3.5" floppy drive in over ten years.  Unlike the version you can buy from Steam, the original still requires passcodes found in the manual.  Every time I boot up the game, I have to grab the manual and turn to whatever page to enter the code.  Fun stuff.

Whatcha got?
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WLJ

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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #1 on: December 26, 2020, 11:23:52 AM »
Off the top of my head

Star Flight
Master of Orion (I & II)
Steel Panthers
Empire
Lemmings
Warlords I,II,III

Later Classics

Command and Conquer Generals/Zero Hour with The Rise of the Reds expansion pack.
Age of Empires I,II,III
Age of Mythology
Gary Grigsby's War in the East
Gary Grigsby's War in the West
Gary Grigsby's Pacific War

Edit: 50-80% of my game playing is with the Civilization series I --> VI

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Ben

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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2020, 11:27:41 AM »
I also have DOSBox. I enjoy Wing Commander. Also Lost Dutchman Mine.

Funny, I was just the other day seeing all the retro game consoles preloaded with hundreds of old games that were on sale at Amazon for Christmas. Apparently they are all Chinese crap, and the games are things like "pakman" and "froggy", but they got me to thinking I want to load some way older games, as in PacMan era.

I don't keep up with the fads, but I guess maybe retro games are making a comeback? I even saw at Costco they were selling home versions of original game consoles like PacMan, and by "console" I mean the whole wood enclosure too, just like at the old arcades, where I took girls to play games, then hoped to "play games" afterwards.  :laugh:

One game that I have had zero luck with that I really want to play is Project Halley, which I actually played on my old Atari ST. Really cool astronomy educational game for the time period. I found the emulated game, but have had zero luck getting it to work with the Atari emulators I have found (or maybe it's the emulators I'm having trouble with. I've gotten to the point where it loads up and starts, but then I can't get past the first "player name" input screen.
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Angel Eyes

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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2020, 11:31:43 AM »
Battlezone I and II.  Futuristic tank warfare.  Combination of FPS and real-time strategy game.
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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #4 on: December 26, 2020, 12:34:57 PM »
Going to go play some Rome Total War now.
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Andiron

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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #5 on: December 26, 2020, 02:04:03 PM »
Age of Empires 2 and 3
Counterstrike 1.6
Day of Defeat
Red Alert
Starcraft

Age of Empires 2 definitive edition is on steam for $10 bucks.  A few friends from the old lan party days have picked it up and it's a fun nostalgia trip when we've got a couple hours for a game.

Hey Ben,  if you're looking for old game roms I can send you my collection.  I've been running them on a retro pie, great fun.  Or try the Pi-Cart project:

https://howchoo.com/g/mti0oge5nzk/pi-cart-a-raspberry-pi-retro-gaming-rig-in-an-nes-cartridge
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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #6 on: December 26, 2020, 04:39:35 PM »
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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #7 on: December 26, 2020, 05:02:39 PM »
Escape Velocity. Old Mac game of space exploration/conquest.
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Ben

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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #8 on: December 26, 2020, 05:57:21 PM »
Hey Ben,  if you're looking for old game roms I can send you my collection.  I've been running them on a retro pie, great fun.  Or try the Pi-Cart project:

https://howchoo.com/g/mti0oge5nzk/pi-cart-a-raspberry-pi-retro-gaming-rig-in-an-nes-cartridge


Oh, thanks for that pi tip. I did not know about either of the above, but have for a while been thinking about playing with pi stuff. Doing some kind of gaming setup might be a fun way for a beginner to learn.
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Andiron

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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #9 on: December 26, 2020, 08:54:18 PM »
Oh, thanks for that pi tip. I did not know about either of the above, but have for a while been thinking about playing with pi stuff. Doing some kind of gaming setup might be a fun way for a beginner to learn.

Messing around with a Pi is fun, and the learning curve is pretty tame.  My next one is going to be a pi-hole,  just been too busy to mess with it.  For the gaming rig, the hardest part was rounding up all the roms and weeding out the *expletive deleted*it ones.
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There is no such thing as a "transgender" person.  Only mental illness that should be discouraged.

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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #10 on: December 26, 2020, 09:50:44 PM »
Star Wars X-Wing and TIE Fighter.  Loads of fun.  Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight was a blast, too.  I've got an old PC in my office I can run them all on.
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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #11 on: December 26, 2020, 09:57:00 PM »
TIE fighter Collector's CD ROM
Star Control 2 (there's a free fork called The Ur Quan Masters, windows compatible.)
Stunts
Chuck Yeager's Air Combat
Deus Ex
Unreal Tournament 99

There's others, but that's off the top of my head.
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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #12 on: December 26, 2020, 09:57:24 PM »
I can't remeber what the name was but it was a flight sim. Early to mid '80's that you could modify the planes.

I liked to mod a fighter with big wings and a massive thrust engine to go up over 80k feet.

I still have a few Microsoft flight simulators around here but newer on cd. Oldest game i know I have is Tetris in big floppy.
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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #14 on: December 27, 2020, 09:42:37 AM »
I havent played a PC game in years, but I really miss Operation Flashpoint
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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #16 on: December 27, 2020, 12:31:27 PM »
Age of Empires 2 and 3
Counterstrike 1.6
Day of Defeat
Red Alert
Starcraft

Age of Empires 2 definitive edition is on steam for $10 bucks.  A few friends from the old lan party days have picked it up and it's a fun nostalgia trip when we've got a couple hours for a game.

Hey Ben,  if you're looking for old game roms I can send you my collection.  I've been running them on a retro pie, great fun.  Or try the Pi-Cart project:

https://howchoo.com/g/mti0oge5nzk/pi-cart-a-raspberry-pi-retro-gaming-rig-in-an-nes-cartridge

I really miss Day of Defeat, version 1.3b.  It was the best version released in my opinion.
If there really was intelligent life on other planets, we'd be sending them foreign aid.

Conservatives see George Orwell's "1984" as a cautionary tale.  Progressives view it as a "how to" manual.

My wife often says to me, "You are evil and must be destroyed." She may be right.

Liberals believe one should never let reason, logic and facts get in the way of a good emotional argument.

Devonai

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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #17 on: December 27, 2020, 01:24:13 PM »
I played the crap out of Day of Defeat, but I'll be buggered if I can remember which version I liked best.  I did enjoy going after the Steam achievements when they were introduced.  I was proud to get the "Cooking with Gas" achievement for X-number of kills with the M1.
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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #18 on: December 27, 2020, 01:32:24 PM »
Syndicate.

RocketMan

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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #19 on: December 27, 2020, 01:42:47 PM »
The DoD "Cooking with Gas" achievement was pretty cool.
If there really was intelligent life on other planets, we'd be sending them foreign aid.

Conservatives see George Orwell's "1984" as a cautionary tale.  Progressives view it as a "how to" manual.

My wife often says to me, "You are evil and must be destroyed." She may be right.

Liberals believe one should never let reason, logic and facts get in the way of a good emotional argument.

Perd Hapley

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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #20 on: December 27, 2020, 05:04:58 PM »
I found the old Wolfenstein 3D on some website, and played that several years ago. Played Myst on Steam a bit more recently.
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WLJ

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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #21 on: December 27, 2020, 05:06:11 PM »
Keep meaning to fire up Doom
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Andiron

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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #22 on: December 27, 2020, 05:19:58 PM »
I really miss Day of Defeat, version 1.3b.  It was the best version released in my opinion.

Absolutely agreed. 

I imagine there are still servers out there,  but last time I tried to get a random game it was so chock full of strange mods and cheaters it wasn't worth playing.
"Leftism destroys everything good." -  Ron

There is no fixing stupid. But, you can line it up in front of a wall and offer it a last smoke.

There is no such thing as a "transgender" person.  Only mental illness that should be discouraged.

RocketMan

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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #23 on: December 27, 2020, 08:23:35 PM »
Absolutely agreed. 

I imagine there are still servers out there,  but last time I tried to get a random game it was so chock full of strange mods and cheaters it wasn't worth playing.

I've got some DoD 1.3b installation files around on a few CDs and maybe an old hard drive or two.  I should see if I can get something up and running on an old XP machine.  The CDs are at least 20 years old.
If there really was intelligent life on other planets, we'd be sending them foreign aid.

Conservatives see George Orwell's "1984" as a cautionary tale.  Progressives view it as a "how to" manual.

My wife often says to me, "You are evil and must be destroyed." She may be right.

Liberals believe one should never let reason, logic and facts get in the way of a good emotional argument.

RocketMan

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Re: Old PC Games You Still Enjoy
« Reply #24 on: December 27, 2020, 08:29:31 PM »
I'll just leave this here, Good Old Games:  https://www.gog.com/
If there really was intelligent life on other planets, we'd be sending them foreign aid.

Conservatives see George Orwell's "1984" as a cautionary tale.  Progressives view it as a "how to" manual.

My wife often says to me, "You are evil and must be destroyed." She may be right.

Liberals believe one should never let reason, logic and facts get in the way of a good emotional argument.