The best abandonware action games

Time Bandit is a classic top-down arcade-style video game that was released in 1982 for various home computer systems, such as the Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, and others. It was dev...

Street Fighter II is a classic arcade fighting game developed and published by Capcom. It was first released in 1991 as a sequel to the original Street Fighter. Street Fighter II i...

Volfied is an arcade game developed and released by Taito Corporation in 1989. It's a puzzle game that gained popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The game is named after ...

You are a cat. Not a cool panther or a mystical tiger. Just a good old alley cat trying to make it through a day full of brooms, angry dogs, and questionable fish. Alley Cat is a f...

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...

Mortal Kombat is one of the most popular one-on-one fighting games, and it's no surprise that it has spawned numerous sequels. Players choose from seven digitized characters and ba...

Super Street Fighter II is an enhanced version of the iconic arcade fighting game Street Fighter II, developed and published by Capcom. It was released in 1993 as an upgrade to Str...

Gods is a video game developed by The Bitmap Brothers and initially released in 1991. It is a platformer that combines action and puzzle-solving elements. The game was originally r...

Released in 1983, Moon Patrol is the game that proved moon driving is a terrible career choice. You control a buggy with a suspension system that would make NASA jealous, jumping o...

Lode Runner is a classic video game that was first created by Douglas E. Smith in 1983. Originally, Lode Runner was developed for the Apple II, and later versions were released for...

Rick Dangerous is an action-packed platformer game set in the 1940s. As the fearless explorer Rick, you'll navigate treacherous environments, avoid deadly traps, and defeat enemies...

Prince of Persia is an abandoned DOS platform game set in Middle East, developed and released by Broderbund in 1990. Designer Jordan Mechner created a game that made a lasting...

You don’t need to hate spiders to fear Arachnophobia (1991), but it helps. Based on the movie of the same name, it tasks you with exterminating wave after wave of creepy craw...

Comix Zone (1995, Windows XP) is what happens when a comic book artist gets pulled into his own creation and reacts by roundhouse-kicking everything in sight. Stylized to the max, ...

If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to be a skyscraper-sized menace with a grudge against architecture, Rampage gives you the keys to that very peculiar dream. You pic...

Blackthorne (1994) is what happens when a '90s action hero gets lost in a side-scrolling alien world and decides to shoot everything until it makes sense. You’re Kyle, a shot...

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...

Golden Axe is a classic arcade game developed by Sega and released in 1989. It's a side-scrolling beat 'em up game set in a fantasy world where players choose one of three characte...

Commander Keen 1: Marooned on Mars is a platform video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software in 1990 as shareware for MS-DOS. The game follows the adv...

Bubble Bobble is widely regarded as one of the most beloved and charming platform arcade games of all time. The gameplay objective in Bubble Bobble is straightforward: players must...

Long before “quiet quitting” became a buzzword, Dilbert’s Desktop Games captured the soul-crushing absurdity of office life. Released for Windows XP in 1997, this...

Body Blows is a 2D fighting game developed and published by Team17, released in 1993. It was initially launched for the Amiga and later ported to MS-DOS. Body Blows was one of the ...