abandonware games sorted by popularity

Snake Logan is back, and this time the lab is... hidden! The Hidden Lab cranks up the challenge with more grotesque mutants, more lethal traps, and slightly improved sarcasm. It&rs...

Pictionary: The Game of Quick Draw is a 1989 adaptation of the popular drawing and guessing board game, bringing the creativity and chaos of group play to the computer. Players att...

Strategy fans with a taste for sci-fi and logistics will find something special in Full Metal Planete. Released in 1990 for DOS and Mac, the game is essentially a futuristic board ...

Mission: Mainframe is a science fiction adventure built around the increasingly fascinating idea of entering a computer system and exploring its digital landscape. Players navigate...

Few games make you appreciate the aerodynamic potential of a paper airplane quite like Glider 4.0. Set inside a house that feels more like a playground of hazards, you’ll nav...

Solidarnosc is a 1991 DOS game built around the Polish political and social movement that became one of the defining forces in the country's modern history. Rather than offering co...

Rally Championships is a 1994 DOS racing game focused on rally-style competition, where speed alone is not enough to guarantee success. Players must deal with winding tracks, chang...

Thexder 2: Firehawk expands the original transforming-robot formula with larger environments, new enemies and a greater emphasis on combat. The basic trick remains wonderfully simp...

Over the Reich is a 1996 strategy game set during the Second World War, focusing on aerial operations and the difficult decisions involved in planning military campaigns. Players c...

In Taipan for Windows, you’re not a hero, you’re a 19th-century capitalist trying to get rich trading tea, silk, and the occasional bit of opium in the South China Sea....

It’s Pac-Man, except it’s… not. Cap Man is a low-budget clone with just enough charm to avoid immediate deletion. You’ve got the dots, the ghosts, the powe...

In Montezuma’s Revenge (1984), you play Panama Joe, an explorer who spends more time falling into pits than actually raiding temples. This early platformer is all about timin...

Dark, moody, and surprisingly creepy, Zork Nemesis is what happens when the whimsical world of Zork goes goth. The text adventures are gone—now it’s full-motion video, ...

If Saturday-morning cartoons and B-movies fused into a pixelated arcade blast, you’d get Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters. This action shooter throws you onto a d...

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...

Zeitgeist — also known as Jupiter Strike in some markets — is a PlayStation-era space shooter that boldly says: "Let’s do Star Fox, but with less personality and ...

Thunderblade puts you in control of a heavily armed helicopter and wastes very little time explaining why the neighborhood suddenly needs several hundred explosions. The action is ...

Rescue at Rigel is a 1983 DOS science-fiction adventure from the early days of computer role-playing and interactive storytelling. Players are sent to a space station controlled by...

Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom has perhaps the greatest title-to-content ratio in gaming history. Released in 1995, it embraces absurdity with every pixel, delivering ar...

Released in 1990, Dawn Raider is one of those obscure DOS shooters that probably spent more time in floppy disk boxes than in actual computers. It’s a vertical shoot-’e...

Flight of the Intruder aims for authenticity, placing you in the tense skies of Vietnam-era missions. This isn’t a carefree joyride; every sortie carries weight, from meticul...

Risk is a 1991 Windows 3.x adaptation of the classic board game of global conquest, bringing armies, diplomacy, and questionable strategic decisions to the computer screen. Players...

Metal Marines takes the familiar concept of strategic warfare and launches it into space, where players build bases, deploy powerful weapons, and attempt to destroy enemy installat...

Final Frontier is a late-80s slice of space ambition, the kind that assumes you’re perfectly happy staring at menus while imagining epic interstellar conquest. It’s str...

Classic Concentration brings the Alex Trebek game show to DOS, complete with low-res puzzles and that addictive memory card-flipping mechanic. Match two elephants, and boom—y...

Trantor: The Last Stormtrooper is a tough little action game that drops you into a ruined city with one very straightforward job: survive. You play as a lone soldier wandering thro...

Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone (1992) is what happens when a simple beat-’em-up decides to go globetrotting. Instead of just brawling through alleys, Billy and Jimmy trav...

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...

Mindwheel is a distinctive science fiction adventure that combines interactive storytelling with a strange, dreamlike atmosphere and a focus on exploration. Players encounter unusu...

Film Studio Tycoon Alpha is a management simulation about the glamorous world of filmmaking, except that glamour quickly gives way to budgets, scheduling, production decisions, and...