What do you think of PC versions of classic games ?

[Lord-Chaos]

There are PC versions of many old , classic games - for example the ATARISOFT games like Dig Dug,Moon Patrol,Pacman and Ms.Pacman , Donkey Kong and more.

 

Or a PC version of the classic Montezuma´s Revenge , or Burgertime etc.

 

And many more.

 

These games still work an today´s PCs (some need slow motion programs or are too fast) , the original disks are non-DOS boot-disks , but usually 5.25" , file versions work with DOS.

 

The games are in CGA mode and use Speaker sound.

 

What do you think of the PC versions of such old games ?

 

Thimo

[CPUWIZ]

They are crap in my opinion.

[Brad2600]

Can't say cuz I've never played any PC versions of classic games.

[Ze_ro]

Most of them are a pain in the ass to run... usually you need to use a program like Moslo to slow down your computer (and usually you have to keep guessing to find a proper speed), and even then, not all games can be slowed down properly. For the life of me, I cannot get Montezuma's Revenge to play with Moslo... all the enemies still move super-fast despite my 200MHz Pentium running at 1% speed. Also, many of the games do weird things, such as providing no way to exit the game (I guess they assumed you would just shut your computer off), or using bizarre key schemes. The graphics are often bad (4-color CGA), but that's not usually a big issue when playing such old games. PC speaker sound is not really a big deal, since it's not that big a downgrade.

 

For a while, I was actually putting older games on disks set up so that they could auto-run and I wouldn't have to keep track of what Moslo speed to use... but I never got around to my "classics" compilation. Since most of these games are about 15K each, it's easy enough to put them all on a single disk.

 

Overall, they're not bad... but they lack the charm and nostalgia of the console versions.

 

--Zero

[Lord-Chaos]

Most of them are a pain in the ass to run... usually you need to use a program like Moslo to slow down your computer (and usually you have to keep guessing to find a proper speed), and even then, not all games can be slowed down properly. For the life of me, I cannot get Montezuma's Revenge to play with Moslo... all the enemies still move super-fast despite my 200MHz Pentium running at 1% speed. Also, many of the games do weird things, such as providing no way to exit the game (I guess they assumed you would just shut your computer off), or using bizarre key schemes. The graphics are often bad (4-color CGA), but that's not usually a big issue when playing such old games. PC speaker sound is not really a big deal, since it's not that big a downgrade.

 

--Zero

 

Because of this problem I still have my old 80286 AT , most games are quite playable on this system.

 

Or I can play them on the AMIGA (1200) emulating a PC , this is really slow , but good for games which are too fast on the 80286.

 

The biggest problem is that most of the games don´t have the "feeling" of the arcade/console versions and that CGA colors look extremely ugly.

 

And many games don´t support joysticks and playing with the keyboard is bad , too.

 

Thimo

[desiv]

The only one I remember playing was an old (VGA?EGA?) version of Mario Brothers. (Not Super Mario Brothers, just Mario Brothers..)

 

Haven't seen it in ages, but I seem to remember I liked it. Played good on my 386 (486??? It's been awhile).. Don't remember anything about sound or joystick....

 

But I remember I liked it.. :-)

 

desiv

[IceCold]

Hehe, I used to play montezuma's revenge on a 286 . I've also played burgertime(downloaded it off the internet about a month ago), and it seemed okay. Most of the games just aren't very good, and the graphics are terrible(much worse than the arcade ones). Although the graphics wouldn't seem TOO bad if I was playing it on a 286, or back when the games were made.

[MegaManFan]

If you mean PC as "IBM compatible" (the way a lot of people use it) I'm afraid most of the old versions are bollocks. If you mean PC as "personal computer" though there are some very good Atarisoft versions out there for Commodore 64 and other classic computers. The C-64 is in fact still to date my favorite "arcade emulator." I've bought lots of other conversions of classic arcade games for both consoles and computers, but the C-64 disks for Pac-Man, Dig-Dug, Super Pac-Man et cetera are still all special to me. They rock.

[Ze_ro]

Yeah, the IBM clones were never very good at non-business applications. The C-64 and Amiga were always far superior in the graphics and sound department, and had a joystick port. No need for VGA cards or Sound Blasters... Most of the C64 versions of the classics are quite good. I used to play tons of Moon Patrol on my C64. Battlezone was disappointing though.

 

I doubt the original poster is including the C64 in the "PC" group... despite the fact that PC stands for "Personal Computer", and encompasses pretty much everything This used to be a big pet peeve of mine actually...

 

--Zero