Abandonware DOS retro gaming spotlight

Abandonware DOS favorite games from the 1990s

Throughout my history with video games, many titles could claim the spot of “the best,” or at least my personal favorite at one point or another.Creating a definitive ranking is nearly impossible—and this list certainly doesn’t pretend to be one. Some of these ...

Jet Set Willy: a remake worthy of the original

Jet Set Willy is a classic platform video game released for various home computers in the 1980s. It was developed by Matthew Smith and published by Software Projects for the ZX Spectrum in 1984. The game is the sequel to Manic Miner, another popular title created by Smith. The ...

Gauntlet: warrior, wizard, valkyrie, elf

In Gauntlet, four brave souls (or just you with an overworked space bar) hack, slash, and gobble food like medieval Pac-Men. This 1986 dungeon crawler is basically a family reunion gone wrong: everyone wants treasure, no one shares health potions, and someone inevitably shouts, “Wizard needs food, badly!” at ...

It Came From The Desert: giant ants from the 50s

It Came from the Desert is an abandonware action-adventure game developed by Cinemaware and released in 1990 for PC (DOS) and Amiga. It Came From the Desert is an action-adventure game with a peculiar flavor: it's set in the 50s, in the USA, and it's based on those old monster movies ...

1996 in retro gaming: from Diablo to Daggerfall

Thirty years ago — yes, 1996, the year we all discovered that 3D graphics could both amaze us and instantly melt our PCs — computer gaming had finally learned to walk, run, and occasionally trip over its own polygons. The DOS era was still hanging on, Windows 95 was flexing its new ...

From the arcades: Turbo OutRun

Zero Magazine: "On the ol' addictiveness and playability front, Turbo Outrun is absolutely brilliant. The little extras, like the turbo, make the game different from the usual racey ones and hitting turbo just as a police car reaches you, is fab. Okay, it's yet another drivey game. But it's ...

The Typing of the Dead: kill them with your keyboard

The Typing of the Dead is a distinctive video game, essentially a typing adaptation of the classic rail shooter arcade game, The House of the Dead. Initially debuting in 1999 as an arcade machine, it later became available on other platforms as well. In The Typing of the Dead, players wield ...

Bundesliga Manager Professional: German football

Before Football Manager made spreadsheets cool, there was Bundesliga Manager Professional, a game where managing a German football team involved more math than actual football. You buy players, tweak tactics, balance budgets, and occasionally scream at your 386 PC because SC Freiburg blew a 2-0 lead again.

One Must Fall 2097 soundtrack added

One Must Fall: 2097 is a fighting game released in 1994 by Epic MegaGames. Set in a futuristic world, the game features giant humanoid robots known as HARs (Human-Assisted Robots) controlled by human pilots. The storyline revolves around a tournament organized by the multinational corporation WAR (World Aeronautics and Robotics), where pilots ...

Castlevania converted for DOS

Castlevania, originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986, was developed and published by Konami. The game was known in Japan as Akumajo Dracula (Devil's Castle Dracula) and was later renamed Castlevania for its North American release. In Castlevania, players take on the role of Simon Belmont, a vampire hunter ...

Ski or Die soundtrack added

Ski or Die is a winter sports-themed video game that was originally released in 1990 for various platforms, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, and MS-DOS. The game was developed by Electronic Arts and was a follow-up to their earlier title, "California Games". Ski or Die features a collection of winter sports events: ...

Robocop: the original video game

Robocop is an abandoned beat 'em up / run and gun shooter game developed and released by Data East in 1989 for a number of platforms, including DOS. Robocop is a conversion from an arcade game released by Data East in 1988 and it was based on the movie of the same name, ...

The Best DOS Platformers: Beyond Jazz Jackrabbit and Commander Keen

When people talk about DOS platformers, the same two names almost always pop up: Jazz Jackrabbit, the green rabbit with more charisma than most human protagonists, and Commander Keen, the boy genius with a stun gun and a space helmet. But the DOS platformer world of the ’90s was ...

Battle Arena Toshinden: fight in 3D!

Battle Arena Toshinden was the first game in the Toshinden series and was originally released for the Sony PlayStation in 1995 and later for DOS. Battle Arena Toshinden introduced 3D graphics to the fighting game genre, allowing characters to move in a three-dimensional space. The game featured a diverse roster of ...

Micro Machines: a little racing game

Computer and Video Games review (1994): "I loved Micro Machines on Amiga and well, it's a shame the PC version can't match it. I've been looking forward to this for some time but the scrolling is jerky, the sound is sub-standard and the whole shebang is so slow it's like the ...