Abandonware DOS retro gaming news

When I talk about abandoned games I usually think about games published at the end of the eighies and through the nineties. There are some "ancient" games that deserve the definition of "classic". Everyone knows them: Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Defender, Donkey Kong.To be honest, I don't think they can be defined as abandoned games in the strict sense. In ...

The Aethra Chronicles is not a well know RPG, but it deserves some praise. It was developed by only one person (Micheal Lawrence) and, as the title implies, was intented to be the first volume of a saga. Unforunately, volume two and three were never made. For a shareware game, Aethra was pretty solid and is still loved by the ...

I just added a bunch of car-racing games, including a couple of top-down fixed-screen ones that I always liked. It seems there were a lot of racing games being published back in the nineties that I couldn't remember, but I've never been interested in cars anyway. Actually, one of them is not really a car racing game, but more of ...

Black Friday comes once a year, like Christmas sales, autumn sales, spring sales... ok, ok, there are far too many excuses to buy games. This time it's Black Friday on GOG, and I'm about to get one or two RPGs, or strategy games, or maybe a good old adventure, or... anything. I'm still undecided...  Pillars of Eternity? Maybe. Divinity ...

InfoComics was an engine developed by Infocom, used for a series of games that today would be defined as visual novels (very similar to almost non-interactive comics). InfoComics weren't much popular and, apparently, were one of the causes that lead to Infocom demise.

1991 was the year of a few peculiar games.SimEarth was an unusual new addition to the Sim brand (thank you Maxis). I loved SimCity and SimAnts but I could never get into SimEarth.King's Quest V was the last chapter of the popular King's Quest series. I have to admit that I never played a King's Quest game... shame ...

Sierra 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 Sierra franchises, but many fans remember those point & click ...

It'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 it is still the same: a database of free games. ...

Pure 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 also a strange kind of video game that we can ...

Every 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 games published for MS DOS.  Fantastic Dizzy adventure 1994Bubble ...

Top down RPG is one of the most beloved genres by old gamers like myself. I think I added to Abandonware DOS the vast majority of top down RPGs ever published for DOS. If I'm mistaken, tell me and I'll fix it. You, dear readers, rated every single one of them: this is the list of the highest rated top ...

GOG 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 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 of pinball games on Abandonware DOS. Pinball Fantasies action 1994Pinball ...

Chess was a niche genre in video gaming. There were lots of chess simulations: black and white very old games, licensed games from chess champions, etc. No one ever attempted to broaden the audience until Interplay published Battle Chess. I'm a chess fan (I barely remember the rules), but I played Battle Chess just to see every animation the game ...

The Game Critics Awards are annual awards held after the very popular E3 video game conference since 1998. As you can see, 1998 saw the birth of great classics for every kind of gamer: Half-Life for shooter lovers, Homeworld for RTS gamers, Grim Fandango for adventure addicts and Alpha Centauri for the ones who can't wait for the next Sid Meier game.1998...

Text 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 you already thought about interactive fiction. With this update I ...

I 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 Zone action 1995Pharaoh's Tomb action 1990Forgotten Worlds shooter 1991James Pond 2: ...

Xenon was good, Xenon 2 was far better. Compared to today standards Xenon 2 is perhaps a mediocre shoot 'em up, but at the time every shooter fan loved it. Plus, it was developed by Bitmap Brothers (you can recognize the Bitmap Brothers graphics style just looking at the screenshots.

The name of the site is Abandonware DOS, but some of the games hosted here are games for Windows. I'm talking about old and abandoned games for Windows, not easy to make them run properly if you're not using a Virtual Machine.I don't usually add many Windows games but it seems that you folks like them a lot, so ...

I 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 hooked at the TV.I was in my room, watching ...