Abandonware DOS retro gaming news

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 ...

Lemmings was one of the most iconic puzzle games ever made. It was also one of the most inventive. The idea behind those tiny furred punk suicidal rodents is truly a stroke of genius. Not surprisingly, after the huge success of the first game a lot of sequels followed. Holiday ...

Death Sword (also known as Barbarian in Europe), is a fighting game developed by Palace Software, set in a fantasy world full of huge sword-wielding barbarians. Compared to modern brawlers, Death Sword gameplay may seem slow, but at the time it was considered adequate. Instead of rushing into multiple chain ...

"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 ...

"Crusader: No Regret is a game that comes close to being perfect, if only the Origin folks could come up with some simpler controls or a way to grow an extra finger this game could have scored 100%." - PC PowerPlay (1996) - Final score: 95%

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. ...

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 ...

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. The Commodore 64 version boasts a ...

Amberstar is an old school RPG very similar to Ultima 6 that uses a top-down view for interiors and small locations and a first person pseudo 3D view for everything else. Unfortunately, the sequel (called Ambermoon) was available for Amiga only and no version existed for DOS or Windows.

"I think half the attraction of the game is the suspense element and the intellectual ego-massage you can give yourself when you do finally defeat the computer. Laser Squad has that elusive blend of excitement, challenge and addictiveness all mashed into one. Definitely on the short list for all ...

Quarantine is a first-person shooter / driving game hybrid set in a dark dystopian futuristic city where the player drives around in a taxi cab, picking up passengers and killing everyone else. If you loved Carmageddon, you will also like Quarantine. Stay away if you don't like gratuitious violence, gore and ...

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 ...

It's a pity that I never played The Magic Candle when it was published, in 1989. I'm an Ultima fan and the Magic Candle series is very similar to some of the Richard Garriott masterpieces. Lately, I dedicated a few hours to Magic Candle and I felt at home: I loved ...

"The graphics are enhanced, the gameplay is faster and more dynamic and the net play fully incorporated. MW2 fans will be very pleased with the upgrades and those new to the MW2 universe will enhoy a well paced game with superb graphics and cut-scenes. Just make sure you have ...

"B-17 Flying Fortress is a stunning creation from the creators of Falcon 4.0 and European Air War. Considering the depth to which B-17 will let you experience the terror of daylight strategic bombing in WWII from so many different and simultaneous angles, I'm amazed they were able to pull it ...

Back when I was the proud owner of an Amiga 500, if you wanted to play good fighting games (and you didn't own a console) you had to seek out the nearest arcades and spend coin after coin trying to learn every move of games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter 2. ...

I remember little of Magic Carpet, but one thing I remember clearly was the plain fun I had flying around casting spells. It was one of the smoothest first-person games around at the time and it gave me a wonderful feeling of flying freedom. Sadly I never got a chance ...

Dehumanizing offices? Check. Depressing environment? Check. No windows in the whole place? Check. Good, I'm ready to exploit my workers and become great enterpreneur. All of this thanks to Free Enterprise, a simulation for Windows by Tsunami Media, published in 1996.

"I can foresee Dungeon Master purists turning their 'oh-so-disdainful' noses up at this apparently inferior attempt. But it's not. The interaction elemant and two-player option add something news to what could become a stale genre. If you can forgive yhe jerky graphics, fairly poor animation, and slightly unwieldly controls, ...

Ultima is perhaps the most popular old-school RPG series of all time. The whole series was designed by Richard Garriott, head of Origin, who redefined the genre more than one time with moral choices, cutting edge graphics, state of the art interface. It's a shame that Ultima lasted only 9 chapters (...