The best abandonware action games

Double Dragon II: The Revenge (1988) takes everything that made the first game fun and cranks it up a notch. The story begins with tragedy—Marian, the damsel from the first g...

Pango is a 1983 maze-action game that belongs to the golden age of simple concepts executed with remarkable confidence. Players navigate enclosed levels while avoiding enemies and ...

World Karate Championship offers a straightforward computer interpretation of competitive karate, complete with opponents who are considerably less interested in your personal well...

The Smurfs is a bright and cheerful platformer that brings the tiny blue heroes to life in a world full of mushrooms, forests, and cartoon danger. You run, jump, and bounce your wa...

In Commander Keen 2: The Earth Explodes, the stakes go from “oops, stranded on Mars” to “uh-oh, Earth is doomed.” The Vorticons have planted death lasers in...

Metal Mutant offers an imaginative action adventure built around a shape-shifting robot capable of transforming into different forms. Each form provides unique abilities, making ex...

Dark fantasy and frantic action come together effectively in Mageslayer, an isometric adventure that places players against relentless hordes of monsters using magic, steel, and im...

Adventure meets archaeology in Pyramids of Egypt (1989), a classic maze platformer where you loot tombs, dodge snakes, and pray the ceiling doesn’t collapse on you. You play ...

Just when you thought Keen could catch a break, Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle drops him into a mystical realm full of bouncing jelly beans and sentient toasters. This is w...

The Great Giana Sisters is a colorful platformer that became famous for wearing its Mario-like influences rather boldly, while still developing its own distinctive personality. The...

Ghosts 'n Goblins is an iconic arcade game developed by Capcom, first released in 1985. It’s widely remembered for its challenging gameplay and its distinct horror-fantasy ae...

Super Solvers: Challenge of the Ancient Empires turns education into an adventure, sending young players on a journey through ancient civilizations while quietly sneaking history l...

Risky Woods is a 1992 platform adventure that combines colorful fantasy environments with fast-paced action and challenging level design. Players guide a young hero through forests...

Arkanoid is a classic arcade video game that was first released in 1986 by Taito. It is a breakout-style game, which means that the primary objective is to break a wall of bricks o...

Ah, Budokan, the game where patience and discipline meet awkwardly slow combat and the occasional flying kick. You play as a martial arts student training in various dojos, culmina...

Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure is a 1995 platform adventure that brings back the classic Pitfall name with a modernized design, colorful graphics, and a new generation of jungle dang...

Gal Pani X is the sort of arcade puzzle game that looks innocent for about five seconds before revealing its true nature: a frantic test of nerves where drawing lines is somehow mo...

Qix is a 1989 arcade-style puzzle game built around the strangely satisfying task of claiming territory while avoiding a dangerous moving shape. Players guide a marker across the s...

Tristan Pinball is a digital pinball table from an era when computer hardware was expected to imitate a real arcade machine despite having considerably fewer pixels and absolutely ...

Xonix is one of those deceptively simple games that quickly becomes an obsession, tasking you with carving out sections of the screen while avoiding relentless enemies. The mechani...

Mutants! Explosions! Green slime! Bio Menace kicks off with Dr. Mangle’s Lab, a side-scrolling blast of carnage where you, Snake Logan (yes, really), shoot your way through a...

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is one of the many adaptations of the Terminator franchise. This one is based on the movie of the same name, but it's not as good as the movie, according...

Before co-op brawlers were everywhere, there was Double Dragon (1988 on DOS). Two brothers, one kidnapped girlfriend, and enough street thugs to populate a small city—that&rs...

This 1989 game is based on the animated movie where dogs die, go to heaven, then come back for revenge (sort of). The DOS adaptation? Well, it’s more like All Pixels Go Nowhe...

In Auf Wiedersehen Monty, our favorite marsupial is back, and this time he's taking a very pixelated Eurotrip. Released for Windows XP in 2001, it's a nostalgia-fueled platformer t...

A martial arts tournament starring fluffy animals with serious anger issues? Yes, please. Brutal: Paws of Fury is what happens when someone watches too much kung fu cinema and then...

Forget Peter Jackson’s version. CHAMP Kong brings the big ape back to his pixelated roots, where ladders were death traps and barrels were pure evil. This charming homage to ...

Better known as Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior in some regions, Death Sword (1988) is remembered less for its deep gameplay and more for its infamous decapitation move. Swing your...

Eight Ball Deluxe is digital pinball with a swagger, the kind that wears mirrored sunglasses indoors and dares you to beat its high score. Based on the famous Bally table, this 199...

First Samurai is a classic action-platformer game originally released in 1991. The game was initially available on the Amiga and Atari ST, with later ports to the Commodore 64, DOS...