Abandonware DOS retro gaming spotlight
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Police Quest: 1, 2, 3 and "4"
3rd November 2018adventureSierra 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
30th October 2018deals and free gamesIt'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
27th October 2018simulation, strategyPure 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
20th October 2018action, adventureEvery 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 ... -
It's GOG.com birthday!
5th October 2018deals and free gamesGOG is 10 years old and is giving away Shadow Warrior 2. If you're interested in such things, there's also an history of GOG page. If you're looking for games on discount, there are a few "10 anniversary collections": Shadow Tactics, Theme Hospital, Homeworld Remastered, System Shock 2, Dungeon Keeper 2, Kingdom Come Deliverance, etc. -
Pinball: the art of bouncing balls
1st October 2018actionPinball is a very specific subgenre of action games that can't be assimilated to other kind of games. It's not a platformer or a shooter, and there were a lot of pinball games in the 80s and the 90s, so I think it's only fair that there's a whole category ... -
Text only gaming: it's not always about interactive fiction
8th September 2018adventure, simulation, strategyText only games are a curious phenomenon. Unlike other kind of old games, they survived to this day in one form or the other. Maybe that's because it doesn't take a huge team to develop a game completely (or partially) devoid of graphics. When I say text-only games, some of ... -
Action and arcades: Comix Zone and other games
1st September 2018actionI was browsing platform games on Abandonware DOS when I noticed something was missing. I talking about a game I loved and I bet most of you played it at least once: Comix Zone. So... here it is, available with this content update along other action and arcade games. Comix ... -
Memories from Populous: play god in your browser
11th August 2018play online, strategyI clearly remember the first time I heard about Populous. I was young and still living with my parents. It was a late sunday morning, the sun was high in the sky and the smell of roasted chicken was all around the house: lunch was almost ready, but I was ... -
CODiE Awards 1990: SimCity, Carmen Sandiego, Space Quest 3
4th August 2018top games and awards1990 was a seminal year in videogames. The last decade of the millennium saw the birth of two genres: city building simulations and god games.The first was represented by the first chapter in a long series of sims: SimCity. There are not many well known city building games around ... -
Sequels to action games: Gauntlet, Rick Dangerous, Xenon and more
30th July 2018action, remakes and sequelsBack in the day, sequels were not always appreciated. That number "2" after the title for many meant lack of ideas. This wasn't just about video games, everything was subject to that kind of treatment "if it's good, why change it?".I don't see this kind of hate anymore. In fact, ... -
Manuals, walkthroughs and readme files
21st July 2018Abandonware DOS updatesPart of the updates to Abandonware DOS consists in adding every kind of document I can get without copyright notices. I already added lots of manuals, walkthroughs (expecially interactive fiction solutions) and a few maps.Recently, I started digging into the zip files of every games in search for useful ... -
Comics and superheroes in videogames
14th July 2018action, adventureWhen I think about superheroes and supervillains what comes to my mind are comics, big budget movies, cosplayers. And then, and only then, videogames. If you think about it, the superhero theme wasn't that popular in old videogames. Nonetheless, there are a few DOS games about super-men in tights.With ... -
CODiE Awards 1989: Tetris, Battle Chess, King's Quest 4
7th July 2018top games and awardsIn 1989 Tetris was the single most awarded game. The fact that it was a puzzle game based on a very simple concept and made by a nice russian man has contributed to the Tetris myth. Thank you Alexey Pajitnov.1989 was a very important year in world history. Just think at ... -
Sports: hockey, golf, football and more
30th June 2018sportsSports games are not the most sought after on abandonware sites. Nonetheless, a few of them are fondly remembered by fans. I wonder if any of you ever heard, or played, the games I uploaded in this update.Golf, hockey, football (or soccer... whatever) and wrestling; here they are: Tony ... -
Flight simulators: not for everyone
2nd June 2018simulationPersonally, I never got in flight simulators. I tried everything: combat oriented flight sims, copters, planes, everything, but it's simply not my genre. I knew people who spent a lot of money to buy special joysticks, three monitors and other peripherals just to enjoy piloting a Cessna from one airport ... -
Be a (simulated) manager: trade, trade, trade
19th May 2018simulationThe simulations genre (I'm not talking about vehicle simulations) wasn't that popular until SimCity and Populous came along. Both games started two genres: city building and god games.With this update I'm adding a different type of simulation: trading sims. I'm not sure of the appeal of trading in a ... -
Puzzles: word games, sokoban, action puzzles
12th May 2018puzzleThe puzzle genre for PCs did not leave lots of memories of the past. I mean, if you exclude Tetris and Lemmings, it's not that easy to remember REALLY good puzzle games for DOS or even Windows. Sure, there's The Incredible Machine, Atomix, Logical, but none of them comes immediatly ... -
To the arcades! Abandoned coin-op conversions
21st April 2018actionNo, I'm not talking about the actual place where you can play coin-ops, and I don't even know if such places still exist. I'm talking about very old games that can be defined as "arcades".Jumpman Lives! is a classic and need no presentation. Pango is a rip-off (homage?) to ... -
Retro spotlight: Lands of Lore, The Throne of Chaos
14th April 2018RPGLands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos is a fantasy RPG published in 1993, very similar to other dungeon crawlers like EotB or Dungeon Master. Lands of Lore was developed by Westwood Studios who wanted to start a new franchise after the success of the Eye of the Beholder series.