The best abandonware action games

Aldo’s Adventure is what you get when someone squints at Donkey Kong and decides to remake it after four cups of coffee and a long nap. You play Aldo, a brave little guy whos...

Don’t let the clown fool you—Krusty’s Super Funhouse (1993, DOS) is more puzzle torture chamber than funhouse. You guide Krusty as he exterminates waves of rats u...

The name screams “budget shareware,” and Bubble Pop delivers. It’s the digital equivalent of popping bubble wrap, except someone decided it needed high scores and...

In Bunny Bricks, you play as a rabbit in sunglasses who decides that breaking bricks with a paddle and ball is the most logical response to a kidnapped pet. It's Arkanoid meets Sat...

Horror Zombies from the Crypt is a platform game released in 1990 by Millennium Interactive for the Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS platforms. The game is heavily inspired by 1950s hor...

Luigi and Spaghetti (1992, DOS) sounds like a dinner order but is actually an educational puzzle adventure. You guide a tiny robot named Luigi (no, not that one) through logic puzz...

Before Street Fighter became a cultural juggernaut, it was this humble 1988 DOS brawler where Ryu’s fists felt more like sluggish bricks than blazing fireballs. The controls ...

In Bert and the Snake, you are Bert. And yes, there's a snake. That’s the plot. It’s a maze game from a time when naming conventions were refreshingly honest and graphi...

Marble Madness is an abandoned isometric action game designed by Mark Cerny and originally published by Atari as a successful and iconic arcade game. It was later converted for man...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) is an arcade game released in 1989 by Konami. It is based on the popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. The game was initially released...

3-Demon from 1983 is basically Pac-Man with a taste for LSD. You’re in a first-person maze, munching dots while glowing ghosts try to ruin your day. It’s surprisingly c...

Released in 1984, Frogger Jr. takes the familiar Frogger concept and gives it a slightly friendlier, more educational twist. Levels are themed around letters, numbers, and simple l...

The proto-fighting game that walked so Street Fighter could punch. Yie Ar Kung Fu is pure arcade joy: a brave martial artist named Oolong fights a rogue’s gallery of opponent...

Ninja Gaiden, released in 1988 for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and later to other platforms, is a side-scrolling action-platformer developed by Tecmo. It follows the st...

Released in 1994 (long after it originally debuted on other platforms), Ant Attack! is what you get when you mix isometric graphics, giant ants, and questionable urban planning. Yo...

Dark, brooding, and a little too serious for its own good, Targhan throws you into a side-scrolling world of swords, sorcery, and moody backgrounds. You play as a loincloth-clad wa...

Jet Set Willy is a classic platform video game released for various home computers in the 1980s. It was developed by Matthew Smith and published by Software Projects for the ZX Spe...