The best hotseat games

Ever wanted to be on a game show without leaving your CRT-lit basement? The $100,000 Pyramid brings you that chance. You guess words. Your partner gives clues. Sometimes you wonder...

Sensible Golf is a golf video game developed by Sensible Software and published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment. It was released in 1994 for Amiga and MS-DOS.Unlike traditional...

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...

Armada 2525 is what happens when a spreadsheet decides it wants to conquer the galaxy. This is classic 4X strategy with all the bells, whistles, and menus your early '90s heart cou...

Fleet Sweep takes the high drama of naval warfare and filters it through early-80s minimalism. Think less cinematic spectacle and more abstract tension as you maneuver through trea...

Reach for the Stars is a 4X strategy game from before the term “4X” even existed. It’s pure, stripped-down galactic conquest: research tech, colonize worlds, and ...

Arnhem is the kind of wargame where you spend more time reading hex maps than shooting anything. It’s all about recreating Operation Market Garden — you know, that WWII...

Chaos Overlords is a cyberpunk-themed strategy game developed by Stick Man Games and published by New World Computing in 1996. Set in a dystopian future, the game focuses on contro...

Firezone is one of those late-80s action titles that seems determined to test both your reflexes and your optimism. It drops you into hostile territory and expects you to cope. The...

Boot Camp (1989, DOS) is the game that turns military training into a button-mashing festival of pain. Ever dreamed of surviving basic training without breaking a sweat? This is it...

Saddle up for an awkward mix of minigames that vaguely resemble rodeo events. Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show tries to recreate the excitement of a 19th-century traveling circus but ...

Shanghai II: Dragon’s Eye (1990, Windows 3.x/Mac) takes the serene logic of mahjong solitaire and wraps it in a calm, almost meditative presentation. Tiles stack in intricate...

If you’ve ever wanted to command armies older than your great-great-great-grandparents, Encyclopedia of War: Ancient Battles is your time machine with a keyboard. Released in...