Abandonware DOS retro gaming spotlight

Legend Entertainment: interactive fiction

Legend was a developer who created quite a few adventure games. The first ones were interactive fiction adventures with a unique interface (Spellcasting 101, Gateway, etc.). You could type commands and read room descriptions, but you could also click on a list of verbs, a compass to move from room to ...

SimEarth: a life simulation game by Maxis

SimEarth is a simulation in which you can shape and mold a planet in almost every way you can imagine. In SimEarth our planet is simulated as a whole: life, climate, atmosphere are all aspects of a single Gaia-like Earth. SimEarth can be played in two modes: game and experimental. ...

Wayne's World: from movie to game

Wayne's World is an abandoned point and click adventure game based on the movie of the same name. In Wayne's World you control both the characters of Wayne and Garth (created by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) in a quest to save their TV show. Wayne's World was ...

CODiE Awards 1997: Tomb Raider, Monty Python, Links

In 1997 quite a few interesting things happened around the world. Scientists cloned Dolly the sheep, Hong Kong was handed over to China by the UK, the Mars Pathfinder probe landed on... Mars. In fiction, the first book of Harry Potter was published in the UK, Titanic literally hit cinemas all ...

Gobliiins: half adventure, half puzzle game

Gobliiins is a peculiar adventure game designed by Pierre Gilhodes, developed by French company Coktel Vision and released by Sierra On-Line in 1991 for DOS, Mac, Amiga and Atari ST. In Gobliiins, you control multiple goblins and you must find a way to progress to the next area by solving typical ...

Starquake: sci-fi platformer

Starquake is a weird DOS science fiction platform game developed by Bubble Bus Software in 1988 and designed by Stephen Crow and Dave Collins. I remember it fondly... it's not punishing and it's still very much enjoyable even today, after more than two decades. Genres: action, platformSystem:&...

Canceled game: Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans

There was one time, in the mid nineties, when Blizzard was developing a point & click adventure game set in the Warcraft universe. Unfortunately the game was canceled after a few years of troubled development. The few players that were able to grab an almost working copy weren't impressed: it ...

From the arcades: Marble Madness

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 many platform in 1986 and for IBM PCs in 1987 by Atari.

The Operative: No One Lives Forever

The Operative: No One Lives Forever is a first-person shooter with stealth gameplay elements, developed by Monolith Productions and released by Fox Interactive in 2000 for Windows, Mac and PS2. As Cate Archer, a spy working for a secret organization in the 60s, you have to find out who killed your ...

Baldur's Gate: the game who revitilized CRPGs

Baldur's Gate a fantasy RPG set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe which is regarded as the RPG that brought new life in a dying genre in the late 90s. Baldur's Gate was developed by BioWare and released by Black Isle Studios in 1998 for Windows, Lunux and Mac. Some of ...

BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception

According to Infocom, the game is designed for the 13 to 19 year old market and we agree. It could also be used to introduce younger kids into role-playing on the computer. BattleTech is made to be solved in about 35 hours, but it can easily be finished in around 20. It depends on ...

Zork Zero: The Revenge of Megaboz

Zork Zero is a very well documented and user friendly game. Overall, it is a worthy addition to the Zork series and is, by far, the best one to date. Players who like text games will definitely love this game. Even those who don't usually like text games or are "...

The Magnetic Scrolls Collection: interactive fiction

Magnetic Scrolls was one of the finest developer companies dedicated to Interactive Fiction. The Magnetic Scrolls Collection is a trilogy of Magnenic Scrolls adventures remade using the Wonderland engine: Fish!, Corruption, The Guild of Thieves. The new window-based interface made text-adventuring easy even for gamers not used to a text-only ...

Game Critics Awards in 1998: Homeworld, Half-Life, Grim Fandango

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.As you can see, 1998 saw the birth of great classics for every kind of gamer: Half-Life for shooter lovers, Homeworld for RTS gamers, ...

Hired Guns: a sci-fi RPG

Hired Guns is an abandoned game developed by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis in 1993 for DOS and Amiga platforms. Hired Guns is a sci-fi RPG in which you control four mercenaries in four individual simultaneous first person sub-screens tasked with destroying all the bad guys from a single planet.