abandonware games sorted by popularity

More smoke-filled backrooms than a noir film and enough slot machines to trigger déjà vu—Caesars Palace is your low-res Vegas getaway. You're given a pile of ch...

Released in 1994, Alien Olympics answers the age-old question: “What if the Olympics were hosted by Martians on acid?” This wacky collection of mini-games has you compe...

Before Titanic was a movie with a lot of weeping, there was Beyond the Titanic, a text adventure where surviving the iceberg is just the beginning. The game takes the historic disa...

Wing Commander 3 takes the series into a more cinematic era, combining space combat with live-action sequences and a considerably more ambitious presentation. You once again face t...

In Dark Designs 1: Grelminar’s Staff, you’re thrust into a classic fantasy dungeon crawler with an emphasis on text-driven menus and turn-based combat. It’s like ...

Dark Side (1988) is a first-person sci-fi adventure set on a moon orbiting a planet that’s about to be destroyed. No pressure. The gameplay combines exploration with puzzle-s...

Hoverforce takes flight combat and wraps it in a futuristic package that feels both ambitious and slightly experimental. Released in 1990, it lets you pilot a hovercraft through mi...

Vengeance of Excalibur is a fantasy role-playing adventure built around the legendary sword Excalibur and a suitably grand quest involving magic, monsters, and medieval intrigue. P...

The Way of the Exploding Fist PC is a later PC take on the classic martial-arts fighting formula, built around timing, positioning and knowing when to strike. The name already give...

Sherlock Holmes: The Vatican Cameos is a 1986 DOS adventure built around a Sherlock Holmes mystery and the detective's trademark combination of observation, deduction, and careful ...

Ka-50 Hokum drops players into the cockpit of one of the Soviet Union's most intimidating attack helicopters and expects them to earn their wings the hard way. This is not an arcad...

Amarillo Slim's 7 Card Stud turns the classic poker variant into a computer card game with the legendary Amarillo Slim providing the name and atmosphere. Seven-card stud is all abo...

Step into the cockpit of the Apache Longbow, a 1995 combat flight simulator where you’ll experience the thrilling sensation of trying to figure out keyboard controls before g...

Phantasie 1 is a 1987 role-playing game that helped establish many of the traditions later associated with computer fantasy adventures. Players create a party of heroes, explore da...

Despite the ominous title, Caverns of Chaos (1992) plays like the lovechild of rogue-like masochism and old-school dungeon crawling. There’s loot, traps, monsters, and more w...

Tennis Elbow is where tennis simulation starts to get serious, almost suspiciously so. The physics are detailed, the controls precise, and the learning curve steep enough to scare ...

Moon Calculator is a compact DOS utility devoted to lunar calculations, offering users a way to explore information about the Moon through the humble personal computer. Programs li...

Music Time Deluxe is a Windows-era music education and composition package designed to help users explore musical notation, theory, and basic composition. Instead of treating the c...

ASCII art has never been so morbid. Classic Hangman is exactly what it says on the tin: guess the word or watch your little stick figure meet a tragic end. Letters become lifelines...

The Hunt for Red October is a Cold War submarine game based on Tom Clancy's famous novel, combining naval strategy, stealth, navigation, and tense encounters beneath the ocean. The...

Mad Show turns the circus into an unexpectedly demanding platform adventure where performers face considerably more danger than enthusiastic applause. Jumping, climbing, and avoidi...

The 1998 adaptation of Settlers of Catan brought Klaus Teuber’s famous board game to computers, allowing players to trade resources and sabotage friendships without needing a phy...

Rush'n Attack is a 1989 DOS adaptation of Konami's fast-paced side-scrolling action game, sending players into enemy territory armed with a knife and an impressive willingness to r...

Cutthroats: Terror on the High Seas puts you aboard ships where peaceful retirement is apparently not part of the career plan. The game mixes naval action, exploration, and the dan...

Bill Elliott's NASCAR Challenge brings stock-car racing to the computer with a focus on speed, car setup and the unforgiving business of keeping a powerful machine on the track. Pl...

Italicized title: Jack Nicklaus Golf & Course Design: Signature Edition. This expanded golf simulation delivers exactly what fans of the sport might hope for: realistic gamepla...

Pyramid Power (1986) is what happens when archaeology meets abstract strategy. You’re not dodging mummies or solving hieroglyph puzzles—instead, you’re stacking t...

Never mind is a 1989 DOS game whose title sounds like the developers briefly remembered they had a deadline and decided to release the game anyway. Beneath the wonderfully casual n...

Step right up to At the Carnival (1990), a puzzle game that mixes traditional brain-teasers with the kind of carnival theming that makes you question whether the developers had eve...

This sequel takes the same D&D-in-space formula and tries to go bigger, bolder, and... okay, maybe just more complicated. Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed continues the galactic strug...