Abandonware DOS retro gaming spotlight

Game Critics Awards (E3): 2000

The Game Critics Awards is a annual award event that happens just after the very popular E3 video game conference. The Game Critics Awards take place since 1998.In 2000, Black and White won a lot of prizes (good for you Peter Molyneaux). Neverwinter Nights was a personal favourite: it deserved both ...

More RPGs: Might and Magic, Wizardry, Elder Scrolls

While browsing the Abandonware DOS database, I noticed that a few very popular RPGs were missing. How could I forget to include them? I had to add them to the already long list of old school RPGs, even if they are not technically abandoned (and you can't download them for ...

Wargaming everywhere

As I add to Abandonware DOS every game I can think of, week after week, I get increasingly astonished by the sheer number of wargames available back in the day. I had no idea that wargaming was so popular in the 80s and the early 90s.With this update I ...

First-person shooters: future, present, past

First-person shooters is a pretty straightforward subgenre of action games. Gameplay mechanics are simple and straightforward: run away from enemies, shoot them, find items and power ups and go on.What I always liked in FPSs was the variety of theme/setting from game to game. Here's a few examples. ...

Lots of 2K games on sale

This week GOG is selling a lot of good old games published by 2K at really good prices. Here's a few of them: the Army Men series, Bioshock 1 and 2, Civilization 3 and Civilization 4, Freedom Force, Kerbal Space Program, Mafia, Sid Meier's Pirates! and Sid Meier's Railroads!, the rest of the Railroad ...

Obscure abandoned DOS RPGs

There are a lot of role-playing games already on Abandonware DOS: from the Ultima series to Might and Magic, from the Wizardry series to Rogue.I periodically convince myself that I covered every possible RPG published for DOS and periodically I find out that I missed a few ones. The ...

Game Critics Awards (E3): 1999

The Game Critics Awards is a annual award event that happens just after the very popular E3 video game conference. The Game Critics Awards take place since 1998.In 1999, Freelancer was the game to play and won four prizes. A few of these winners still have a cult following: Outcast, Homeworld, ...

GOG weekend sale

It's time for the usual Good Old Games weekend sale. This time the games on sale are mainly action oriented: Unreal, Jazz Jackrabbit, Descent, Cyberia, Prehistorik, Redneck Rampage. There are also a few point & click adventures: Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle. Go spend some money!

Flight simulations at dawn

For a game collector like me, flight simulators are something to look for. The original big boxes of flight sims published a few decades ago included all sort of items: keyboard layouts, maps, huge manuals. I own a few and I plan to buy some more.Anyway... I have to ...

My humble collection of old games

I own a small collection of old games from the era of those wonderful big boxes full of letters, maps, object, feelies. I own RPGs mostly, but also a few simulations, a couple of adventure games, strategy games, etc. From time to time I like to look at these old ...

It's winter time! Snow, Santas and trains

Christmas is coming and I decided to add a few games in theme with the holiday season. Winter, Christmas, snow... every ingredient that makes "winter time" is present in the following games. A few of them are special editions of games already published (Skyroads, Jetpack). Transarctica is a peculiar one; ...

Strategy in the far east: Japan, China, the Pacific

I'm a fan of turn-based strategy games, but I have to admit I've never played KOEI games. KOEI was a Japanese company founded in 1978 (!) known for the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga's Ambition series. Romance of the Three Kingdoms wasn't the only game that deserve some praise. With ...

GOG Winter Sale: freebies and games on sale

It's winter and every gamer on Earth is at home, cozy under soft blankets, waiting for the digital father Christmas to bring them toys to play with. GOG is about to slide down the chimney with a bag full of goodies: Full Throttle Remastered for FREE, Fantasy General free after ...

Classic Arcades: clones and remakes

When I talk about abandoned games I usually think about games published at the end of the eighies and through the nineties. There are some "ancient" games that deserve the definition of "classic". Everyone knows them: Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Defender, Donkey Kong.To be honest, I don't think they can ...

Cars: racing and building vehicles on wheels

I just added a bunch of car-racing games, including a couple of top-down fixed-screen ones that I always liked. It seems there were a lot of racing games being published back in the nineties that I couldn't remember, but I've never been interested in cars anyway. Actually, one of them ...

GOG Black Friday sale

Black Friday comes once a year, like Christmas sales, autumn sales, spring sales... ok, ok, there are far too many excuses to buy games. This time it's Black Friday on GOG, and I'm about to get one or two RPGs, or strategy games, or maybe a good old adventure, or... ...

Police Quest: 1, 2, 3 and "4"

Sierra On-Line published lots of games back in the 80s and the 90s and was famous for the various "Quest" series. Think about King's Quest, Quest for Glory, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry ("Love Quest"?). I'm sure you remember a few.Police Quest wasn't perhaps one of the most popular ...

Free Games Utopia has been updated

It's been a while since I created and nurtured my other project: Free Games Utopia. What is it? As the name suggests, Free Game Utopia is all about free games: free-to-play, fully free and liberated games.After a couple of years, Free Games Utopia changed, but the purpose of ...

Solving murders and simulating detectives

Pure and simple detective stories are hard to find in video gaming today. Everyone goes for fantasy, sci-fi, horror, but the good old murder to solve is not so popular. Back in the 90s (or the 80s) you could play some adventure games based on a detective story. There was ...

Dizzy, by the Oliver Twins

Every gaming platform has its video game mascotte: Mario, Sonic, etc. Codemasters came up with their own character: an egg shaped... thing... called Dizzy. This strange fellow was the protagonist of a series of action adventure games on Spectrum, C64 and many other systems, PC included. Here are some Dizzy ...