Abandonware DOS retro gaming spotlight

Simulation games: Team Yankee, Hill Street Blues, Epic and more

Simulation and vehicle simulation games are often the least remembered video game genres by retro gamers. While many simulations did achieve a certain degree of success back in the day, quite a few fell in the dark pit of forgotten retro games. Let's see how many of these you can ...

A niche genre: Metroidvania

Metroidvania is a made up word born from the merge of two game series titles: Metroid and Castlevania. Both games share gameplay and design elements that defines the genre. Metroidvania games are platform games featuring a game world that is freely explorable. Certain areas can be accessed only with player ...

Hard Drivin' in vector graphics

"Hard Drivin', a fast moving, solid-filled vector graphic racing game, gave you the chance to compete against the clock on two separate tracks: a speed track and a stunt track. And for those skilled enough to get a good enough time on either of these, there was a championship ...

Windows 3.1 classic games

Long before the first successful Windows operating systems, Microsoft developed Windows 3.1 (an "operating environtment"). Games that ran under Windows 3.1 weren't so many. In fact, most of them are little more than puzzle games, card games and simple strategy games. That doesn't mean Windows 3.1 lacked good games; in fact, a few ...

Minesweeping at the office

The Microsoft Windows 3.x family of operating environment wasn't known for games, but it popularized the Windows software pretty much everywhere. One of the best known Windows 3.x games was Minesweeper.Minesweeper was a simple puzzle game that required the player to clear a field full of mines and numbers ...

From the arcades: coin-operated conversions

There was a time when coin-operated games were constantly being converted for home systems. Now coin-ops are really difficult to find and everyone prefer playing from home, online or offline, without the hassle of driving/walking to an arcade and lose coin after coin into those hellish money-eating machines. I ...

Sports: American Football games

American Football is a sport that received much attention from developers in the past decades, expecially from american ones. There are american football games of every kind: realistic sports simulations, management strategic games and of course action games.

Strategy games: Battle Bugs, Beyond Columns, Roadwar Europa and more

Lately I'm taking some time to update the info of some of the less popular games on Abandonware DOS. Here's a few:Beyond ColumnsFalling block puzzle - Released in 1989 for DOS. This blatant Columns clone is not much in terms of graphics, but it fills an empty spot in the ...

Chris Crawford: game designer

Chris Crawford is a computer game designer known for simulations and strategy games, including the popular Balance of Power. Among developers he became known for his passionate advocacy of game design as an art form, founding both The Journal of Computer Game Design and the Computer Game Developers Conference (now ...

Action games: Platoon, Moonwalker, TekWar, Strider and more

From time to time I browse the Abandonware DOS database looking for not very popular games that need an update. Here are some action games (platformers, shooters, sports games) I just updated with new content.Tag Team WrestlingSports / Action - Developed by Technos Japan - Published by Data East in 1996 ...

Video games can educate people

Educational games are a peculiar kind of video games of various genres. Gameplay, graphics and sound are still important aspects of educationals, but the mail goal of the developer is to teach the player something: math, history, ecology, anything! Some educationals are created with a young audience in mind, other ...

More shoot'em ups from the past

Shoot'em ups were one of the most popular video games genre in the 80s and, perhaps, in the 90s. Then, for a number of reasons, shoot'em ups gradually lost their appeal as a genre. Yes, there were exceptions like Geometry Wars and similar games, but the golden age was long ...

Game Informer Greatest Games

The winners of the Game Informer Game of the Year are chosen by Game Informer editors. During their earlier years of publication they would give awards for the best game on each console available at the time, occasionally giving an award to the overall best game of the year.Here's ...

Play classic arcades in your browser

Installing and running old DOS games is never easy. You need a basic knowledge of your system and you need a DOSBOX front-end or a Virtual Machine insalled (which could be a daunting task). That's why I try to make some of the DOS games on Abandonware DOS available to ...

Cards, tabletop and board games

Card games and board games are not the most popular games available on Abandonware DOS. After all, there are countless versions of Poker, Clue, Scarbble, Monopoly and many other board/card games you can play for free online or buy on Steam or GOG. That's not an excuse for not ...