Abandonware DOS retro gaming spotlight

1998 in PC gaming: Dune 2000, Axis and Allies, Railroad Tycoon 2

20 years ago PC gaming was thriving. Half-Life re-defined the game design of FPSs. Baldur's Gate and Fallout 2 gave hope to gamers who were waiting for the next generation of RPGs. Adventure gamers enjoyed Grim Fandango immensely. Real-time strategy fans spent countless hours playing StarCraft. And let's not forget&...

RPG spotlight - Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar

Ultima IV is remembered as one of the best Ultima games ever released, designed as usual by Richard Garriott. Garriott took the Ultima series to a whole new level by introducing the eight virtues: honesty, compassion, valor, justice, sacrifice, honor, spirituality, humility. Ultima IV started the trilogy known as "Age ...

Relaxing with Alpha Waves

Alpha Waves was the ultimate relaxing experience for PC. As a platform game, Alpha Waves it's an ok game; not bad, not very good, but if you consider the whole relaxing experience, it's worth a try. Alpha Waves stands the test of time, after all these years it's still fairly ...

Delivering papers as a digital paperboy

Paperboy was an unusual 1985 arcade hit developed by Atari, later published by Mindscape for DOS in 1988 and for other platforms as well. Paperboy gameplay is peculiar: you control a paperboy on a bicycle and you have to deliver newspapers to a number of houses while avoiding dogs, cars and other ...

Supremacy: Your Will Be Done

Supremacy: You Will Be Done (also known simply as Overlord) is a rare example of mix between real-time strategy and science fiction themed 4X game (eXplore, eXpand, eXploid, eXterminate). Supremacy was developed by Probe Entertainment and published by Mastertronic in 1990.PC Review wrote about Supremacy in 1992: "Two huge civilisations battle ...

Zool: the ninja from the Nth dimension

Zool was to Amiga what Sonic was for Sega consoles: a cool protagonist (a ninja of the Nth dimension!) for a high adrenaline action platformer. Zool was designed by George Allen and published by Gremlin in 1992 and it was an instant success. It was ported for many platforms, DOS included, ...

Collector's info: Bureaucracy

Infocom interactive fiction games are fondly remembered by fans not only for their quality, but also for the sheer number of "feelies" (physical items) you could find in each original big box.Bureaucracy is an abandoned text-adventure game designed by Douglas Adams (yes, the writer of The Hitchhiker Guide of ...

Electronic Games Arcade Awards: Games of the Year 1979

Electronic Games was a magazine published in the 1980s and the 1990s entirely focused on video games (one of the first ones, if you think about it). Every year, Electronic Games magazine held a Game of the Year "Arcade Awards".These are the best games published in 1979 according to Electronic ...

Hardball: digital baseball

Hardball is a popular series of baseball video games published by Accolade from 1985 (Hardball! was the first game) to 1998 (Hardball 6). If you are a baseball fan and a video games enthusiast, you can't miss them!

Circuit's Edge: a cyberpunk adventure-RPG

Circuit's Edge is a single-player science fiction blend of adventure game and RPG, developed by Westwood Studios and released by Infocom in 1990. Circuit's Edge is based on George Alec Effinger's cyberpunk novel "When Gravity Fails".Genres: rpg, interactive fiction System: DOS Released in: 1990 Publisher: Infocom Developer: Westwood Studios Keywords: turn ...

Princess Maker 2: a fantasy life simulation

Princess Maker 2 is a life simulation anime-style game developed by Gainax in 1993. In Princess Maker 2, the player is the father of a young princess and must tutor and raise her to the age of 18 by scheduling jobs, school classes and programming other activities. The princess is defined by attributes (strength, ...

Asteroids: the abandoned remakes

The original game Asteroids was one of the most popular arcade games of the 80s; a fixed-screen shooter first published for arcade machines in 1979.Original title: Asteroids  First released in: 1979 Developer: Atari Publisher: Atari, Taito Designer: Lyle Rains, Ed Logg, Dominic ...

Electronic Games Arcade Awards - 1981

asElectronic Games was a magazine published in the United States between the 1980s and the 1990s. It was one of the first computer magazines entirely dedicated to video games, and it wasn't that common in the early 80s.The Arcade Awards was perhaps the first "game of the year" type ...

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. II: The Two Towers

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. II: The Two Towers is an abandoned fantasy top-down DOS RPG game set in the The Lord of the Rings universe. The Lord of the Rings II was developed and released by Interplay Productions in 1992. The Lord of the ...

The Infocom InfoComics

InfoComics was an engine developed by Infocom, used for a series of adventure games that today would be described as visual novels (something like non-interactive comics). InfoComics weren't much popular and, apparently, were one of the causes that lead to Infocom demise. Infocom published four games based on the Infocomics ...

Abandonware DOS in 2020: what's changed and what's new

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who donated a few bucks to help me keep working on Abandonware DOS. THANK YOU, THANK YOU and again THANK YOU! 2020 will go down in history as the COVID year. I live in northern Italy, in one of the first regions ...

Mario Bros VGA: a remake

Mario Bros VGA is a fan made remake of the original Mario Bros by Nintendo, the game that popularized the character of Mario, the italian plumber first saw in Donkey Kong. Mario Bros VGA is a fixed-screen platform arcade game that truly shines when played in co-op with a friend.

Operation Wolf: first-person shooting gallery

Operation Wolf was a hit at the arcades, in part thanks to that wonderful cabinet. I have to admit that I've never played it outside my home. I used to play Operation Wolf first on a Commodore 64 (and yes, I enjoyed it) and later on a 386 PC. What I really ...

The best PC games according to Rock Paper Shotgun

In 2017 Rock Paper Shotgun compiled a list of the 75 greatest PC games of all time. While a majority of them were published in recent years, there are quite a few good old classics we know and love that deserve to be in any PC "top games" chart.1990Red Baron1992Dune ...

Icewind Dale: better than Baldur's Gate?

When I played Baldur's Gate, I knew that RPGs weren't dead. There was this feeling that a new wave of RPGs was coming. I loved Baldur's Gate, but I found some parts of the story and the NPC's a bit too naive. What I loved of Icewind Dale, was that ...