mbd30 Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 (edited) I've been on a DOS game kick lately, playing through some early 90s games on DOSBOX. My main preference is 2D platformers like the kind put out by Apogee and Epic Megagames. I did play these back when they came out, but I usually didn't even complete the shareware episodes, and I appreciate them more now. One thing I've noticed is that they tend to be short. It took me about a day to beat all episodes of "Jill of the Jungle". It's a really fun game, just very short... especially since you can save anywhere. At least "Hocus Pocus" requires that you play each level from the beginning, so there was some challenge in completing it. "Realms of Chaos" is tough even with being able to save anywhere (the level before the final boss in the third episode is brutal) and the difficulty settings and large number of secrets gives it some replay value. I tried playing "Duke Nukem 3D" again and the graphics haven't aged well for me. They're so blocky as well as dark. I prefer the artwork in the 2D side scrolling games. I appreciate being able to play these with the Logitech gamepad in DOSBOX. Much more fun than playing with the keyboard. What are your favorites from this era? Any recommendations? Edited June 28, 2015 by mbd30 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassGuitari Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 I remember enjoying Secret Agent (I think that's what it was called), Bio Menace, and Micro Man. And of course the Commander Keen games. I know there were others as well but it's been so long.As for Duke 3D, there may be source ports and mods that clean up the graphics a bit and make them more palatable to modern eyes, as things like Smooth Doom and Doom Enhanced did for Doom.Did anyone else play Operation: Body Count back in the day? It was one of those shareware games that was on every other "2001 Games" and "Game Empire" CD you could get for, like, 10 bucks. Definitely had kind of a budget title vibe (with scathing reviews to match) but I still had a lot of fun with it. The flamethrower was absolutely great; you could even set decorative sprites (chairs, plants, lamps, etc) on fire and burn down a whole room. I even had--still have, actually--the full version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Algus Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 (edited) This was the FPS era for me. Rise of the Triad, Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, Wolfenstein 3D. There were some damn good shooters but really the Apogee label was all I needed. I think I liked all their games. I really like Raptor: Call of Shadows (top down shooter, you spend money in between levels to upgrade your plane with better weapons) and Zone 66 (4-directional top down shooter) If you like point-and-clicks check out Day of the Tentacle, the Tex Murphy games (Martian Memorandum was my favorite) and Goblin Quest III. edit: Also I played the hell out of D&D games in this era. The Eye of the Beholder series especially. Maybe nothing special now but for a kid who didn't get to play actual tabletop enough those games were better than drugs Edited June 28, 2015 by Algus 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassGuitari Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 I really like Raptor: Call of Shadows (top down shooter, you spend money in between levels to upgrade your plane with better weapons) YES. I forgot about Raptor. So good. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbd30 Posted June 28, 2015 Author Share Posted June 28, 2015 Now I'm playing through "Pharaoh's Tomb". Old school platforming nirvana is what this one is. It's actually pretty exciting when you finally make it past a difficult section. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmetal88 Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 Jazz Jackrabbit was my favorite from Epic. The CD version has plenty of episodes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boxpressed Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 Not sure about Dosbox, but if you have a VESA 2.0 or 3.0 card such as a Geforce or a Voodoo 3, you can run Duke 3D (and other Build Engine games such as Blood or Redneck Rampage) at up to 1600x1200 resolution. You just modify the .ini file variable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kane Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Now I'm playing through "Pharaoh's Tomb". Old school platforming nirvana is what this one is. It's actually pretty exciting when you finally make it past a difficult section. I played through Pharaoh's Tomb recently too after remembering it from my early school days. It took a while to find a version that would work with MSDOS, most of the ones I found must have been modified to work with DOSBOX instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbd30 Posted July 20, 2015 Author Share Posted July 20, 2015 (edited) I played through Pharaoh's Tomb recently too after remembering it from my early school days. It took a while to find a version that would work with MSDOS, most of the ones I found must have been modified to work with DOSBOX instead. I had a lot of fun going through "Pharaoh's Tomb" and "Arctic Adventure" on DOSBOX. They're both fairly short games that can be completed in a day or two of persistent playing, but they're fine old school platformers that use the crappy CGA modes to good effect. It's hard to believe that they came out in the early 90's though. They were retro even at the time, compared to what else was available on computers and consoles. But I like the simplistic style. Edited July 20, 2015 by mbd30 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clint Thompson Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 With that said, does anyone remember Fat Cat Software at all? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyHW Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 I lost about 2 years of my life to Civ about this time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhomaios Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 Steam is telling my I spent 2,450 hours on Civ 5. I don't even want to try to calculate how much that would be with 1-4 included. And jeez, including that knock off FreeCiv for Linux when I went without Windows for a couple years, I'm ashamed of how much time I spent. Had I spent a fraction of the time with Atari, I could have gained a couple more Activision patches. And this isn't even thinking about other building games, like Total War or Sim City. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BydoEmpire Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 Early-Mid 90s: the greatest era in PC gaming, imho. Early 3d (Wolfenstein, Doom, Ultima Underworld) Amazing adventure games (Hero's Quest, King's Quest, Police Quest, etc) A ridiculous number of RPGs from SSI and others. RTS's (Dune 2, Stronghold, etc) Flight Sims (Falcon 3.0, etc) Amazing strategy games like Civilization (one of the greatest games of all time), SimCity, X-Com, etc. ... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariLeaf Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 (edited) This was the FPS era for me. Rise of the Triad, Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, Wolfenstein 3D. There were some damn good shooters but really the Apogee label was all I needed. I think I liked all their games. I really like Raptor: Call of Shadows (top down shooter, you spend money in between levels to upgrade your plane with better weapons) and Zone 66 (4-directional top down shooter) If you like point-and-clicks check out Day of the Tentacle, the Tex Murphy games (Martian Memorandum was my favorite) and Goblin Quest III. edit: Also I played the hell out of D&D games in this era. The Eye of the Beholder series especially. Maybe nothing special now but for a kid who didn't get to play actual tabletop enough those games were better than drugs This is when I enjoyed FPS's too. Blake Stone was a favorite of mine. I played a lot of racing games like Stunt Driver and Vette by Spectrum Holobyte. I also got a lot of sharware disks from Big V (those of you from Canada, remember Big V?) like Wolfenstein 3D Jazz Jackrabbit, Duke Nukem, Commander Keen and Jill of the Jungle. I'm trying to reacquire some of my favorite old DOS games like Tie Fighter and Full Throttle. I loved the old point and click adventure games. Got find a good copy of Freddy Pharkas one of these days. Edited July 21, 2015 by AtariLeaf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Centurion Posted July 29, 2015 Share Posted July 29, 2015 I used to love all those old Apogee platformers back in the day! Commander Keen and Duke were my faves, but I also remember having fun playing Dark Ages as well. Worth checking out. I need to fire up DosBox soon. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted July 29, 2015 Share Posted July 29, 2015 ...I remember the nights on The day of the Tentacle (Bernie & Laverne?) Sam and Max Monkey Island Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karokoenig Posted July 29, 2015 Share Posted July 29, 2015 (edited) I'm currently playing all through "Historyline 1914-18". I think it's from 1992. Turn-based Strategy at its best, in a World War I setting. I started playing it again after all those years to settle an old score I had with the last level of the German campaign. Finally made it through, and now almost finished with the French campaign as well. After that, I consider that game beaten - 22 years after I played it the first time. Talk about a long project... Edited July 29, 2015 by karokoenig 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 27, 2015 Share Posted August 27, 2015 (edited) early games included spear of destiny wolfenstein followed by duked nukem 3d doom & doom II hexen heretic quake (various) serious sam played em all - but the theme became a bit tiresome the first "new generation" FPSs - Medal of Honor (Spearhead) and Return to Castle Wolfenstein both upped the genre significantly still think dukey was the most playable tho Edited August 27, 2015 by Guest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boxpressed Posted August 27, 2015 Share Posted August 27, 2015 Put all of my console playing / collecting on the backburner about a year ago to fiddle with machines from the 486 - Pentium 3 era. Still haven't really returned to consoles. I discovered that I just like playing around with the different technologies, now with all of the accumulated knowledge of the past 20+ years to make sure everything runs as well as it should. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Algus Posted August 27, 2015 Share Posted August 27, 2015 Oh man, Hexen! I actually didn't play that one to much on PC. My friends and I were completely addicted to the N64 port though. Four player split screen on that game was a blast! We tried playing it again a few years ago and it is one that has not aged well. I imagine the PC version is better with decent keyboard controls and better options on the visuals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CGrey Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 I played a few of the breakout clones on online at classicdosgames.com, and learning about a lot of these games at the Pixelmusement youtube channel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metal Jesus Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 (edited) Oh man, where do I begin?! Wolfenstein 3D Wing Commander II Dune II X-Com DescentDark Forces Full Throttle Earthsiege Red Baron II Mech Warrior II Aces over Europe Warcraft II .... and on and on. Let's create a BOOTDISK! Edited August 28, 2015 by Metal Jesus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desiv Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 .... and on and on. Let's create a BOOTDISK! I don't know what was more fun, playing the games, or running "memmaker" and then doing everything I could to build my own bootdisk to beat it. "lh" (LoadHigh) anyone? That was a great era.. Jazz Jackrabbit was my favorite side scroller, but I did love the Keen games... desiv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bohoki Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 (edited) when i first got my 386 from some small computer maker it included crime wave its an ok looking game i remember it blowing the criminals to bits another ones i remember star control (mostly played in melee mode) test drive 3 jill of the jungle space quest 5 willy beamish Edited August 28, 2015 by bohoki Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 Not sure about Dosbox, but if you have a VESA 2.0 or 3.0 card such as a Geforce or a Voodoo 3, you can run Duke 3D (and other Build Engine games such as Blood or Redneck Rampage) at up to 1600x1200 resolution. You just modify the .ini file variable. Ohh hellyah! Is it the duke config file or the dosbox config file you need to change? Is it as simple as substituting the 1600x1200 in place of the 800x600 I got now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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