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[Fishook]

What a brilliant thread, I remember upgrading my ram to 8mb so I could play C&C and me and my mates used to move our pc's for multiplayer gaming on IDE cables (?). My taste in games are still dominated by the games of that era.

Building my first PC's as well that first Voodoo chips. I remember getting a crappy Cryrix chip and it being rubbish for Half Life as it needed MMX to run it well. Great fond memories but I have not got the the patience or time to enjoy retro style games. Playing Underail this morning brought it home RPG's without maps or hand holding is too much for me these days (Great Game for what it is).

 

[bishopcruz]

I remember saving up lots of belgian francs for a Diamond Voodoo2 8mb.

Running QuakeGL for the first time....my eyes had sugar overdose

Yeah, I bought a Voodoo 1 in high school, after saving up. GL Quake BLEW MY MIND!!! It looked so much better than anything else out there.

Anyhow not nearly enough Ultima:

It's just a shame that Ultima 9 was shit. I remember the boot disk insanity that was needed to get Ultima 7 1 and 2 to run. The damn thing had its OWN extended memory manager. You had to have all your drivers in practically no RAM.

 

[zephervack]

Around the early 2000, I got a 3Dfx voodoo 3 2000. I finally got my own 3D accelerator and I didn't have go to my cousins house for that plus no more software mode for games like Unreal, NFS3/high stakes and another game I had a soft spot

The game was flawed and hasn't aged well, but really enjoyed playing it at the. It was also one of those games where a 3D card was mandatory to play it. I was glad to have one at the time. There was a sequel, but it was PS2 only (Psygnosis ip who were bought by Sony)

are you me??/

Both Need For Speed and Drakan where some of my first 3D accelerated games, and they were mind blowing.

Same thing with Shogo, Blood 2 and later Max Payne 1 (dem textures)

 

[blast processed]

maybe someone remembers Z

Is this that Capture the Flag type RTS?

 

[pswii60]

I remember that with DOS, unless you had a genuine SoundBlaster, then you were typically stuck with shitty sound quality as most games didn't support the other protocols. Or something. I just remember wishing I had a genuine SoundBlaster.

 

[TheLetdown]

Two of the biggest games of my childhood -

Oh, man, Magic Carpet! What a massive game for me. I would just fly and explore, frequently not knowing what to do.

Another game that, to my surprise was released in the 80s, I'd like to add is Bolo:

I remember playing this a ton in the mid-90s because it was one of the only games to have network multiplayer in our computer lab. It was so intense.

Games had to have tenuous "academic purposes" to be on the computers at school, for the most part. Unlike Doom II on my computer at home, we would have to play games like Lemmings because it has that physics element. And then we convinced the shop teacher to let us install Rise of the Triad:

... and it was on, then. Deathmatch with like a dozen people!? Unheard of! We'd churn out those stupid little wooden baseball bats to turn in as projects for shop just so we could get back to RoTT.

 

[Lucumo]

Loved the decade:

 

[Lux R7]

Is this that Capture the Flag type RTS?

From the wiki:
The objective of the game is to eliminate the opponent by taking out their command Fort: either by sending a unit to enter it, or by destroying it directly. Alternatively, destroying all of the opponent's units immediately wins the game.

This was a fun and addicting game back in the day

 

[CaptNink]

Yeah, I bought a Voodoo 1 in high school, after saving up. GL Quake BLEW MY MIND!!! It looked so much better than anything else out there.

Anyhow not nearly enough Ultima:

It's just a shame that Ultima 9 was shit. I remember the boot disk insanity that was needed to get Ultima 7 1 and 2 to run. The damn thing had its OWN extended memory manager. You had to have all your drivers in practically no RAM.

I played the hell out of those games and loved every minute! U7 is still my game of the forever.

I still have all the cloth maps, coins, moonstones, and other brick-a-brack that got packed into these boxes. And that was no "collector's edition" -- that stuff came in the regular edition (the only edition really).

Damn, those were the days.

 

[Du2andal]

I just bought Night Dive's release of Strife off of Steam. Please send help.

 

[bishopcruz]

I played the hell out of those games and loved every minute! U7 is still my game of the forever.

I still have all the cloth maps, coins, moonstones, and other brick-a-brack that got packed into these boxes. And that was no "collector's edition" -- that stuff came in the regular edition (the only edition really).

Damn, those were the days.

I used to think that western RPGs were all horrible and was a huge JRPG snob back in the day. Ultima 7 changed the hell out of that for me. A full day night cycle, unique NPCs with full schedules, a HUGE open world to explore. A great mature mystery to start off with, it really is the best in the series. I love the hell out of VII part 2 as well though. I also think that Ultima 8 was underrated.

 

[MrCunningham]

I remember being so blown away by the lighting and textures in UT99 when I first fired it up on my Windows '98 gaming rig. Also, the original facing worlds maps had invisible platforms on one side of the map, and I would always take the flag and hide on the side of the map. It was quite funny when you can disrupt the game and make every one look for the person with the flag. Though it was quite easy for teammates to find you with the team viewer thing.



Right now I am replaying through Alien VS Predator Gold from 1999:

The version I am playing here is from GOG, and I am using a widescreen hack from here. I am also playing the game on Linux Mint 17.3 using WINE. The three different campaigns are still amusing to play, even though the Alien AI is a little basic. That lighting impressed me back in the day.

But I did notice one thing about the GOG version:

The live action actors are different from the version that I used to own. In the GOG version the actors are British, but the version that remember from back in the day had alternate American actors like this:

Here's a video comparing the two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfOi8airQFA

The version with the US actors is no longer available to buy anywhere, but they can be modded in with this patch: http://www.moddb.com/mods/aliens-versus-predator-classic-redux

Both the US and UK actors are pretty cheesy in their own ways, but I will always prefer the US actors because that's what I remember the most. I do have an old Windows 98se PC sitting around collecting dust, everything is there except for a working power supply. All this talk about classic PC gaming makes me want to restore that system and bring it back to life.

 

[Norse360]

Hardware was so much more exciting in the 90's.
I started out with a 486sx33, with a poor Cirrus Logic ISA gfx card and 210 IDE harddrive. No sound card or cd-rom. I upgraded with a ESS Audiodrive soundcard and a cd-rom so that I could play 7th guest. Upgraded to 8mb ram, which cost a fortune.

My next hardware was a AMD K5 PR133. I had a ATI Rage Pro. I also had a S3 Virge, but don't remember which was first. I don't remember if I got a K6 or K6-2 next. I remember getting a Creative Labs Voodoo 2 and loved playing Unreal on it. I exited the 90's with a AMD Athlon and nVidia GeForce. I miss those times.

 

[Shadow Hog]

I just bought Night Dive's release of Strife off of Steam. Please send help.

Do not touch the blood-filled chalice in the prison. Kill the man who tasks you with its acquisition.

Also, make sure you get the accuracy and stamina upgrades after every mission. The former makes your aim suck less, the former gives you more max health and makes your punching dagger significantly stronger. By the end of the game, you can one-shot Acolytes with it.

 

[bishopcruz]

Some video guys who look at old PC games:

Lazy Game Reviews he does a whole bunch of different stuff, but a lot of it is classic PC gaming, from the 80s and 90s. He covers all sorts of retro computer stuff, including Amiga, Apple, PC, Atari, and othershe really knows his stuff. Direct Link to his Youtube look under reviews for most of the old school stuff.

Ancient DOS Games is pretty much that. Video reviews of old PC stuff, all DOS. He has a lot of lost gems that he looks at, and there is a bunch of episodes. Check it out.

 

[lazygecko]

Is this that Capture the Flag type RTS?

If by "Capture the Flag" you mean capturing and holding territories symbolized by flags, then yes.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Some video guys who look at old PC games:

Lazy Game Reviews he does a whole bunch of different stuff, but a lot of it is classic PC gaming, from the 80s and 90s. He covers all sorts of retro computer stuff, including Amiga, Apple, PC, Atari, and othershe really knows his stuff. Direct Link to his Youtube look under reviews for most of the old school stuff.

Ancient DOS Games is pretty much that. Video reviews of old PC stuff, all DOS. He has a lot of lost gems that he looks at, and there is a bunch of episodes. Check it out.

LGR is great. Real pleasant voice, lol.

I dunno if relevant to this thread because most of the content predates the 90s, but I also watch 8-bit guy and obselete geek on youtube for classic computing vids

 

[A Black Falcon]

... So working on this platformers summaries list I'm doing now, my biggest issue hardware-wise is that this reminds me again that I've never managed to figure out why all of my Win9x platformers refuse to recognize that I have gamepads connected to the computer on my Vista machine. Sure, on the old WInME computer it's fine, but with Vista, forget it. Other Win9x games recognize joysticks just fine, including Moto Racer 2, NFS High Stakes, Pod, etc... but the platformers? Nope, not any I've tried so far at least. Earthworm Jim for Windows 95, Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Arcade America (Win3.1, but same issue), Sonic & Knuckles Collection, Claw... nope, no gamepads in any of them, unless you use not-as-good key-to-joy software of course. Why...

It did look a bit like P.O.D., which made me question my sanity for years as I thought maybe the game never existed and I just dreamed about it. The vehicles looked completely different though. I threw away all my old magazines years ago sadly.

Well, if we ever want to see screenshots of this game then (and I'd love to see them, the game sounds interesting), those two have to be the magazines to find...

 

[Shaneus]

... So working on this platformers summaries list I'm doing now, my biggest issue hardware-wise is that this reminds me again that I've never managed to figure out why all of my Win9x platformers refuse to recognize that I have gamepads connected to the computer on my Vista machine. Sure, on the old WInME computer it's fine, but with Vista, forget it. Other Win9x games recognize joysticks just fine, including Moto Racer 2, NFS High Stakes, Pod, etc... but the platformers? Nope, not any I've tried so far at least. Earthworm Jim for Windows 95, Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Arcade America (Win3.1, but same issue), Sonic & Knuckles Collection, Claw... nope, no gamepads in any of them, unless you use not-as-good key-to-joy software of course. Why...

Is there a way to emulate USB as an old (15-pin?) joystick port? My theory with what's happening would be that old Windows somehow interacts with them differently, perhaps. Or maybe those games are expecting digital inputs (given they're platformers) and the games you've tried that do work are receiving a full-analog signal (given they're all driving games)

Not sure, really

 

[derExperte]

From the wiki:
The objective of the game is to eliminate the opponent by taking out their command Fort: either by sending a unit to enter it, or by destroying it directly. Alternatively, destroying all of the opponent's units immediately wins the game.

This was a fun and addicting game back in the day

Very hectic and luck based, only made it a few missions in. But I appreciated them trying a different approach to RTS' than C&C and Warcraft, loved how you could shoot drivers out of vehicles and steal them. Also it's the last Bitmap Brothers game I ever played, they made another Z later but like many other British devs botched the jump from Amiga to PC/consoles.

 

[Jams775]

Does anyone remember a Speed Racer game for either DOS or like 3.1/95? I remember my dad having it on his work PC for whatever reason. I don't remember if it was shareware or what.

It was a behind the back style kind of like outrun but I remember you could press keys for shooting missles I think and jump and oil slick?

Edit: I think it was this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioWfGAfPt1s

 

[CaptNink]

Anyone remember Seven Kingdoms?

I played a lot of this but really sucked at it for some reason. Some of the game mechanics were neat for an RTS (turning raw materials to finished goods, etc).

 

[blast processed]

Not sure if anyone has seen this before, or parts of it, but I added these to the OP.

This guy did a History of First Person Shooters. Shows Video clips of FPS games released by year.
Vol 1 1974-1988
Vol 2 1988-1992
Vol 3 1992-1994
Vol 4 1994
Vol 5 1995
Vol 6 1995-1996
Vol 7 1996
Vol 8 1996-1997
Vol 9 1997
Vol 10 1997-1998
Vol 11 1998
Vol 12 1998-1999
Vol 13 1999
Vol 14 1999
Vol 15 1999-2000

 

[Shadow Hog]

You're off by one that entire list, since you omitted the actual Vol. 1, spanning 1974-1988.

I honestly wouldn't mind the scope of the thread expanding to include the 1980s and earlier, since DOS was around for a fair chunk of that.

 

[JonathanPower]

Damn, why are you doing this op? You are bringing back so many memories.

Here's my contribution.

Zool, I loved this game. One of the first games I used to play on Pc.

 

[blast processed]

You're off by one that entire list, since you omitted the actual Vol. 1, spanning 1974-1988.

I honestly wouldn't mind the scope of the thread expanding to include the 1980s and earlier, since DOS was around for a fair chunk of that.

Fixed.

If the thread wants to go in that direction, thats fine.

 

[bishopcruz]

Damn, why are you doing this op? You are bringing back so many memories.

Here's my contribution.

Zool, I loved this game. One of the first games I used to play on Pc.

ZOOL MOTHERFUCKER! ZOOOL!

Oh wait.

 

[MrCunningham]

I do have an old Windows 98se PC sitting around collecting dust, everything is there except for a working power supply. All this talk about classic PC gaming makes me want to restore that system and bring it back to life.

Yooo.... I found a working power supply and managed to get this dinosaur working...

(this was my desktop from over a decade ago)

The CDROM drive is DOA and I can't install any of my old games on this machine, also using a USB thumb drive is a bit out of the question as this is Windows 98SE... I can't even connect to websites with this machine because the browsers installed are old as dirt. But I can use Outlook Express email client to send screenshots to my inbox.

I'm not sure what's up with the font in that ancient copy of CPU-Z, but if you squint hard enough you might be able to read what it says.

The only games that I still have installed on this machine are Quake 1 and Duke Nukem 3D.

Here's some screenshots of Quake 1 running off of this PC with the Tenebrae mod:

The game was running natively at 640x480, but I upscaled the images to 800x600 .




On a side note: I also noticed that it is quite tricky to get GOG purchased games to work on older machines. The GOG installer obviously doesn't work and I need to do a few workarounds to extract the original game installation files. I would love to get Carmageddon 1 and 2, Dark Forces, Blood, Fallout 2 and a few others from my GOG account working on my old Win 98 machine.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

That mod looks absolutely fucking awful.

 

[MrCunningham]

That mod looks absolutely fucking awful.

well it was from like... 2002(maybe?) and running on a Geforce 2ti with 64mb of RAM... so what do you expect?

I think it's hilarious that I still have it.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

well it was from like... 2002(maybe?) and running on a Geforce 2ti with 64mb of RAM... so what do you expect?

I think it's hilarious that I still have it.

Actually... yeah, now that you say that, it makes sense.

I've always preferred the vanilla version of a game, but I think that's especially true with something with as "dirty" of an aesthetic as Quake.

 

[blast processed]

That mod looks absolutely fucking awful.

Now it does, but back when it was originally released it was great.

I've always preferred the vanilla version of a game, but I think that's especially true with something with as "dirty" of an aesthetic as Quake.

I prefer software mode myself

 

[MrCunningham]

Now it does, but back when it was originally released it was great.



I prefer software mode myself

I prefer GLQuake with the filtering disabled. But yeah, the low resolution textures of Quake 1 weren't meant to be smeared by filtering. The gritty pixelated software rendering mode does lend itself the best to Quake.

Tenebrea was released in early 2000's (whoops, going a bit out of the '90s) and at the time, it was pretty cool to see stencil styled dynamic lighting and bump mapping. It was an attempt to bring some Doom 3 like features to Quake 1. This mod pushes my Geforce 2ti really hard, the card can barely reach 30FPS at 640x480 with all of those OpenGL shader effects. The Geforce 2ti is only Direct X7 compliant.

Here is a screenshot of Duke Nukem 3D running on the same PC in full native DOS mode:

This PC also has a Creative Sound Blaster card with MIDI support. So all of the music tracks sound great as well.

 

[dcx4610]

One of my fondest memories was the Quake shareware disc.

It actually had the full version of Quake on the disc along with several others games such as DOOM, Wolf 3D, Hexen and others.

You would basically call a phone number, order the game and they would give you an unlock code and it would copy the game from the disc.

Sure enough, someone came out with a crack and you could unlock every game from the disc. So for the small price of 1.99-5.99 for the shareware disc, you had all of these games.

As someone in their earlier teens and without a job, this was pretty mindblowing. I don't support piracy nowadays but that was a great memory and it felt like magic.

 

[Shadow Hog]

I prefer Quakespasm these days.

It's like GLQuake, but supports software mode's overbrights (where level geometry close to a light source gets a bit washed-out) and fullbright palette indices (so you can make out light sources or the lights on health boxes at all times, even in a pitch-black room), both of which GLQuake inexplicably did away with (more info). Set texture filtering to GL_NEAREST_MIPMAP_LINEAR, and you've got a game that mimics the gritty look of the software renderer but with all the perks of a hardware renderer.

Darkplaces also supports those, but Quakespasm handles custom maps with complex geometry a sight better than it; in Darkplaces, sometimes level geometry on those maps will just outright vanish, while Quakespasm renders 'em like a champ. (Bear in mind, that's custom maps - the stock levels are generally fine in both.)

 

[Easy_D]

While I wasn't around for boot disks, I do remember the day when I found out the new computer could enable Hardware Mode in Unreal 1 vividly, fucking reflections and shit everywhere.

 

[MrCunningham]

While I wasn't around for boot disks, I do remember the day when I found out the new computer could enable Hardware Mode in Unreal 1 vividly, fucking reflections and shit everywhere.

Yeah, I loved this:

This is something that I pulled off google image search. But yeah, the first tiem I went from the Software renderer to OpenGL or Direct 3D was incredible with Unreal Tournament '99.

 

[blast processed]

I want to play Unreal Tournament again but I'm on a Mac now. I might pick up an old PC after I move because I hate wine.

 

[FadedRevolution]

I've been playing through Unreal Gold and man that shit is fun. Most fun I've had with a single player game in a long ass time. Stills holds up well imo. Same goes with UT99

Edit: The music is amazing.

 

[blast processed]

I never knew the protagonist was a female.

Spoiler

Or I just forgot.

Coming to the N64?

Early screens of Starcraft

 

[AaronMT86]

I can't believe this is still online: http://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/3dfx/wickedgl/index.php and http://www.falconfly.de/tools.htm

I used to have a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI and was required to run WickedGL drivers after 3DFX went out of business.

 

[Saganator]

Uh, where are the Maxis games in the OP? Simcity, Sim Ant, Sim Earth, c'mon!

I'll never forget trying to upgrade the family computer from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, with out really asking or informing anyone in the house. I spent some birthday money on a neat looking PC game called Free Enterprise, with out knowing it required Windows 95. I also really wanted to install AOL 3.0 which also required 95. I mentioned this to my aunt, to which she said "well just take these disks and install it!" Happy as a clam, as soon as we got home, I popped in disk 1 and got started.

Being a know it all 12 year old, I didn't bother with any backups, didn't check the integrity of the disks, just booted to DOS and popped in the first disk.

There was like 15 floppy disks, maybe more, but somewhere in the middle I ran into a corrupt disk. Totally botched the computer because we didn't have a Windows 3.1 copy laying around, the computer was given to us by my grandpa, and I couldn't muster the courage to tell him what I did.

I ended up getting very proficient in DOS and was super thankful my grandpa installed PC Tools. The upside was this allowed me to delete Windows 3.1 completely and I could install more games. We had a tiny hard drive so I ended up not really missing Windows.

Another "fond" memory of 90's PC gaming is desperately trying for weeks to get Warcraft II working. It required certain amount of RAM, I knew the PC had the amount of RAM required, but it wouldn't work. It took week or two of me digging through "How to use MS-DOS" type VHS videos and reading manuals, to finally learn that I could allocate RAM by editing autoexec.bat.

The glee that I had when that Blizzard intro popped up.

Not long after that my dad bought us (me) a Gateway 2000. It had a Pentium II 233MHz, 32 MB RAM, and a Riva 128 4MB. The jump from the 33Mhz 486DX was huge. It also got me back on the internet which I really missed.

I can't believe this is still online: http://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/3dfx/wickedgl/index.php

Wow, nice throw back to that era's web design. I had a Voodoo 5 (got it for free after 3dfx went under) and remember having to obtain various drivers for that thing very well.

 

[Barkley's Justice]

It's a little hard to find authentic screenshots, but Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat 2 had AMAZING Dos ports.

Everything was so on point: The graphics, the sound, the music. Even the weird/glitchy combos I could pull off in the arcade were represented on the Dos ports.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAb8CeamVGI

MK2 especially was off the chain:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFRBmWi5anE

 

[StrategyFan]

i remember the glorious arrival of the compact disc

i no longer had to come home from the store with just 1 game on a couple floppy disks. you could by 1 CD that had 1000 games on it

ah... the shareware days

i bet i could find some of those collections on here:
https://archive.org/details/cdbbsarchive?and[]=games&sort=titleSorter

 

[MrCunningham]

It's a little hard to find authentic screenshots, but Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat 2 had AMAZING Dos ports.

Everything was so on point: The graphics, the sound, the music. Even the weird/glitchy combos I could pull off in the arcade were represented on the Dos ports.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAb8CeamVGI

MK2 especially was off the chain:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFRBmWi5anE

Mortal Kombat 3 has a great DOS port as well and all three of them are available on GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/mortal_kombat_123

The Mortal Kombat 1 port isn't perfect, but it is was still one of the best home ports of the game for its day. I believe it did suffer from a bit of a colour downgrade, and may have only ran at 30FPS, which doesn't make it as smooth as the arcade game. Also the music is in MIDI format. Mortal Kombat II does run at a full 60FPS on PC making it really smooth, and looks much closer to the arcade game than MK1 did. Also there was a version with CD audio as well as a version with MIDI music. Mortal Kombat 3 was released on both Windows 9x and DOS. But oddly the DOS version is the better of the two. MK3 DOS is every bit as good as the MKII port. It may also be the best home port from that period, even better than the PS1 game because of the lack of loading and non broken Shang Tsung morphs.

Also speaking of Fighting game ports... Primal Rage has a fantastic port on DOS: https://youtu.be/eU1LVzaRk7c?t=83

I am not a fan of Primal Rage at all, but It does almost look identical to the arcade game. The only downside is the MIDI music.

 

[CharminUltra]

90s is still my favorite decade for video games. PC, console, handheld. Just superb all around.

1998 ghhhhhghhghnnnnnn

 

[deadduck]

I worked on a console game in the late 90s, I remember the PC port being done by one guy and the poly count had to be reduced to 25% to fit the PC spec.

DOS games were awesome, none of this GUI OS getting in the way.

 

[wazoo]

On a side note: I also noticed that it is quite tricky to get GOG purchased games to work on older machines. The GOG installer obviously doesn't work and I need to do a few workarounds to extract the original game installation files. I would love to get Carmageddon 1 and 2, Dark Forces, Blood, Fallout 2 and a few others from my GOG account working on my old Win 98 machine.

Of course, they are modified to work on recent hardware. You are more lucky to start with original ISO.

I think, original hardware is a bit extreme and painful. Vmware with 98/XP makes a good experience without the problems. And Dosbox for dos games.

 

[MrCunningham]

Of course, they are modified to work on recent hardware. You are more lucky to start with original ISO.

I think, original hardware is a bit extreme and painful. Vmware with 98/XP makes a good experience without the problems. And Dosbox for dos games.

I think its fun to toy with the original hardware, but it is a little bit of a pain to start from scratch as you have to scour the web to find all the correct drivers. While VM and DosBOX is a little more convenient, there is still something special about running these games on the real hardware that they were meant for, especially now with late 90's and early 2000's PC parts being really cheap and you can build an ultimate old school gaming rig for little to no money. It's a fun project to do. Right now I am in the process of restoring the PC that I have posted earlier. I just ordered a cheap CDROM for it online, and I am looking to replace the case with something low cost.

But yeah, the GOG re-releases are a bit of a hassle to get working. Though I did get Carmageddon working with these instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFBKwdtJ6uA

But it is a bit laborious.

 

[Sophia]

Anyone remember Seven Kingdoms?

I played a lot of this but really sucked at it for some reason. Some of the game mechanics were neat for an RTS (turning raw materials to finished goods, etc).

I still have this game at my parent's house. I love it. Me and my cousin used to play it all the time. <3