abandonware games sorted by popularity

Before Worms made artillery games cute, Bang! Bang! let you and a friend lob cartoonish shells at each other using nothing but angles, wind speed, and pure spite. It's a math lesso...

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier takes the least-loved movie in the franchise and turns it into a game — which is bold, maybe even illogical. Released in 1989 for DOS, it trie...

Released in 1996 for DOS, The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo brings you back to foggy Victorian London, where murders, morphine, and moustaches abound. ...

Mixed-up Fairy Tales takes the familiar world of classic fairy tales and gives it a playful shake, scattering characters, objects, and stories into a wonderfully confused adventure...

Few adventure games establish their unsettling atmosphere as quickly as Manhunter: New York. Set in a future where alien overseers dominate Earth, the story places you in the uncom...

Mad Paradox embraces surrealism with remarkable enthusiasm, presenting an action-platform adventure where strange creatures and bizarre environments are perfectly normal. Players m...

Knights of Legend is a tactical role-playing game (RPG) released by Origin Systems in 1989 for MS-DOS, the Apple II, and the Commodore 64. Known for its complex gameplay and strate...

Escape from Hell asks the important question: what if escaping the underworld were less Dante and more sarcastic road trip? You descend into a demon-infested landscape armed with d...

Xenon 2000: Project PCF is a vertical-scrolling shoot 'em up video game and originally released in 2000. It is a sequel to the earlier game "Xenon 2: Megablast," which was develope...

Hexxagon takes a simple concept and turns it into something surprisingly engaging. The rules are easy to grasp, but mastering them requires a bit more finesse, especially when faci...

It’s Pac-Man, but with sunglasses. CD-Man v2.0 (1992) is a slick, souped-up clone that trades in yellow cheese for 90s attitude. Maze-chomping, ghost-dodging, and the occasio...

Wing Commander 2: Vengeance of the Kilrathi builds on its predecessor with a larger story, more elaborate missions, and an even stronger sense that your career as a fighter pilot i...

With Zork Zero, Infocom decided to throw everything into the cauldron: graphics, mouse support, and a jester who won’t shut up. A prequel to the original trilogy, it’s ...

Finally, a game where you don’t blast aliens—you launch real people into space, with all the white-knuckled tension of 1960s NASA. Buzz Aldrin’s Race into Space i...

Constructor is a simulation and strategy video game developed by System 3 and first released in 1997. In the game, players take on the role of a property developer with the goal of...

Transport Tycoon is one of the great classic transportation management games, turning the seemingly simple task of moving things from A to B into an obsession with timetables, rout...

Whiplash is an arcade-style action game that wastes very little time before throwing the player into trouble. Its fast pace, shooting, movement, and constant stream of enemies give...

The Ultimate Doom expands the classic demon-blasting formula with an additional episode and plenty more reasons to wonder why opening that suspicious door seemed like a good idea. ...

Spirit of Excalibur is a 1990 adventure game inspired by Arthurian legend, placing the player in the middle of a kingdom where knights, politics, magic, and treachery are all compe...

Terminal Velocity is all about speed, freedom, and blowing things up while flying at ridiculous velocities. The open environments give a sense of scale rarely seen at the time, and...

The classic bomb-defusing, platform-hopping, enemy-dodging chaos of Bomb Jack gets a fresh coat of pixels in this 2002 DOS remake. You’re still the tiny superhero hopping aro...

Patrician 2: Quest for Power expands the successful formula of the original with greater depth, richer trading opportunities, and an even more detailed simulation of medieval comme...

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...

Pinball Dreams is a 1993 digital pinball simulation that brought the excitement of arcade machines into the home computer era with impressive physics and colorful tables. Players l...

Thomas the Tank Engine brings the cheerful little blue locomotive to the computer in a game aimed primarily at younger players. The experience revolves around controlling Thomas an...

Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition is a geopolitical strategy game developed by Chris Crawford and released in 1985. It is considered a classic in the genre of political and strate...

Imagine Doom got abducted by aliens, experimented on, and sent back to Earth with a case of amnesia. That’s Alien Cabal (1997). It’s a weird mix of FPS action and X-Fil...

The Flintstones: Dino: Lost in Bedrock is a light-hearted adventure starring everyone's favorite prehistoric family, although this time the spotlight falls on Dino and the problems...

Fast Food Dizzy, released in 1989 for DOS, is exactly as chaotic as the title suggests. Starring the famously round egg hero, the game drops Dizzy into a world where food falls fro...