The most popular hotseat games

Set in the far-off future of 1992, Battle Chess 4000 brings space-age flair to intergalactic checkmate. Now your queen is a laser-wielding dominatrix and your pawns might be robots with trust issues. It’s chess... with ray guns. Honestly, it feels like someone spiked Kasparov’s orange juice with pure sci-fi nonsense. Strategy still matt...

Ah, Advantage Tennis—where the graphics are flat, the physics are questionable, and the grunts are blessedly absent. This DOS-era sports sim serves up matches that somehow feel like both a relaxing afternoon and a fierce Wimbledon final. Timing your shots is half the game; the other half is praying your opponent glitches into the net. A charm...

Face Off! is an abandoned hockey sports game developed by MindSpan (known for their Hardball series) and released by Gamestar in 1989 for DOS and also for Commodore 64. Face Off supports multiplayer in competitive or cooperative modes.

Bad Street Brawler is a beat 'em up video game developed by Beam Software and published by Mindscape. Originally released for the Commodore 64 in 1987 and later for other platforms. The game features Duke Davis, a former punk rocker turned vigilante, as the protagonist. In "Bad Street Brawler," players guide Duke through various urban environm...

Time Bandit is a classic top-down arcade-style video game that was released in 1982 for various home computer systems, such as the Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, and others. It was developed by MichTron. In Time Bandit, players control a character who must navigate through a series of maze-like levels, battling various enemies and collecting treasure a...

Trivial Pursuit is a popular trivia board game that was adapted into a computer game for various platforms, including DOS. In the game, players answer trivia questions from various categories in order to collect pie pieces that correspond to those categories. The goal is to collect all the pie pieces and complete a full pie before your opponents.

Star General is a turn-based strategy game developed by Catware and published by SSI (Strategic Simulations, Inc.). It was released in 1996 for MS-DOS and later for Windows. The game is set in a science fiction universe where players take command of one of five different factions, each vying for control of the galaxy.In Star General, players comman...

For those who think snooker is too posh and billiards too French, there's Archer Maclean's Pool, the most ‘90s way to simulate the timeless art of arguing over whether that shot was really legal. It’s pool in DOS — plain and pixelated, yet oddly hypnotic. Trick shots are as satisfying as they are completely accidental, and the AI ...

Arcade Pool (1994) is like playing a game of billiards in your best friend’s basement—if your best friend happened to be a DOS machine with a serious competitive streak. It’s shockingly addictive, with physics that almost make sense and enough charm to make you forget you’re alone, playing pool against a smug AI who always s...

Time to hit the lanes in 10th Frame, a bowling simulator so committed to realism it even simulates the wait between turns. You line up your shot, set your spin, and pray the ancient gods of DOS let your pixel ball behave. The graphics depict a bowling alley with all the ambiance of a dentist’s office, and the sound effects could easily double...

President Elect: 1988 Edition is a political simulation game developed by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) and released in the mid-1980s. The game simulates U.S. presidential elections and allows players to take on the role of campaign managers in an effort to help their candidate win the election. Players can simulate U.S. presidential elect...

The Games: Summer Edition is a sports simulation video game developed and published by Epyx, originally released in 1988. The Games: Summer Edition simulates various summer Olympic events. Players can compete in these events either against the computer or with other players. The game is part of the "Games" series by Epyx, which also includes titles...

You are Sherlock Holmes, and someone has committed a crime, possibly because they couldn’t handle the game’s UI. 221B Baker Street is a detective board game where your mind is your only weapon. And also a notepad, because keeping track of clues is half the game. You wander through foggy London, asking yourself how such elegant mystery-s...

Acquire (1989, DOS) brings boardroom drama to your DOS screen, turning you into a hotel tycoon in a game where the real enemy is... math. It's a faithful adaptation of the classic board game, complete with mergers, hostile takeovers, and the slow crushing realization that your cousin bought all the good stocks before you. There’s no real anim...