Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Nemesis6 on October 07, 2010, 07:32:27 pm
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I was about five or six years old when I was presented with the world of gaming. Granted, it was on what was either a 286, a 386, or a 486. Although way above my head, I found the game "Protostar: War on the Frontier" fascinating. It's an old game by some former employees of Sierra. It's apparently an unofficial sequel to the space exploration game series "Starflight". Basically, you fly around a galaxy, acquire minerals, metals, whatever on planets, all along you have to support Earth financially because they're engaged in a conflict with a reptile-like species called the Skeetch. So you keep sending money, you buy fuel for traveling around the galaxy, trying to find allies to fight the Skeetch, along with crewmen for your ship, each manning a specific station like tactical, engineering, etc.
I'd watch my parents play it, but the technical aspects of it were too complex for me, plus I didn't speak English at the time. Recently, I got a hold of it, and now, being slightly more able to comprehend the concepts of the game, like trading and all that, I started playing it again with Dosbox. Lo and behold, it was still awesome.
You can find it here: http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/536/Protostar+-+War+on+the+Frontier.html
So what's your favorite DOS game? Link if you can find it, legally of course.
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Tyrian should go without saying.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~vannevar/tyrian/
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Red Baron (http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/309/Red+Baron.html), though the description on that page is... misleading at places and misguiding at others.
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Descent, of course. That, along with Super Mario Bros, was my gateway into games. Not that I was very good at Descent when I was 5, but I was definitely a huge fan even then.
Marathon (http://trilogyrelease.bungie.org/) isn't, strictly speaking, DOS, but it was of the same era, and it's still awesome.
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I found that Master of Orion is quite enjoyable, and I'd recommend it wholly.
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Xcom - UFO Defense.
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Terminal Velocity yo
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Descent was just about it for me, pretty much, though I never did manage to beat the original as a young'un. I also played the hell out of NASCAR Racing 2...soooo many crashes.
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Terminal Velocity yo
hell yeah, qft
EDIT: and just so this post isn't meaningless, Commander Keen 4 is pretty cool, too.
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+1 to Terminal Velocity if it didn't keep crashing on one of the forest-looking stages half the time. Fury series I never got to play, well you can't have everything. :sigh: I only got into Descent years later and from the second game onward. Well the premise was just like TV so I figured why not... :nervous:
Incidentally the first game I ever played on DOS might've been Grand Prix II but I was too young to understand anything about suspension adjustment (and I stayed well away from Grand Prix mode not knowing what it was :lol:). Nascar Racing II... I know I had it, but I don't remember if I even played it :wtf:
Where oh where can I find Xcar: Xperimental racing, that game was really technical and a major turn-off but somehow I miss that one...
For games that I attempted to "play properly", not much other than the Crusader series (and I played No Regret first so I was already lost on the plot by the first stage), and Syndicate Wars. Also the first R&T: Need for Speed but sound was borked and I tried all manner of things to little effect.
DOS was nearly at its end at the time.
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TIE Fighter
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Master of Magic!
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Terminal Velocity yo
Win forever.
Raptor, Stargunner, and Descent.
GOG really needs to put Stargunner in their list.
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Well there are always the totally unplayable like Wing Commander. I used to keep an old 486 machine around just to play games like that.
Xcom is really the only one I've tried to play in years. If it worked under windows I didn't consider it a DOS game so that rules out quite a few things that would work under Win 3.1 or Win9x as well as DOS.
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carmageddon
elite
descent 1/2
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You are all wrong! best games in DOS:
-Prince of persia
-Carmen san diego
-Colonization
There... I said it.
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Well there are always the totally unplayable like Wing Commander. I used to keep an old 486 machine around just to play games like that.
Even under DOSBox? With a modern system and the most recent version of DOSBox (Anything from .72 or onwards, from memory. Or maybe it's .7x in general? I remember there being a significant performance jump in some time ago, but I forget exactly when. It's also worth nothing that DOSBox is what GoG use to wrap DOS games when you buy them there.) you should be able to get decent performance and compatibility with it these days.
Xcom is really the only one I've tried to play in years. If it worked under windows I didn't consider it a DOS game so that rules out quite a few things that would work under Win 3.1 or Win9x as well as DOS.
Apologies for nitpicking, but how exactly do you define this? Quite a few DOS games worked under Windows 3.1 (I myself have fond memories of playing networked Descent in school computer labs under Windows 3.1 back in the day), but they were still DOS games in so much as they'd work even when Windows wasn't loaded (Windows programs would throw a message saying "This program requires Microsoft Windows" or something). If you bring compatibility with Windows 95 in to the equation, that pretty much disqualifies *ever* DOS game as being a DOS game by your definition. It just seems a bit silly, no?
That aside, +1 to the previous nominations for Descent 1/2, Terminal Velocity, Raptor (never have been much of a shmup fan, but I loved this for some reason) and Commander Keen 4 (Best thing to ever come out of id, tbh. Dopefish Lives!).
I also want to add Warcraft 2, Beneath a Steel Sky (which started life on the Amiga I think, but was ported to DOS - as well as everything else now, even the iPhone - which is where I played it and where my memories of are from so it counts. Also interesting, and something that didn't fully register for me until quite recently, is the artwork in BaSS is by Dave Gibbons of, among other thigns, Watchmen fame), Jazz Jackrabbit, Wacky Wheels (at a time when Mario Kart was all lovey dovey with it's "play fair or be punished" message, being able to knock players about with all kinds of ridiculous weaponry was awesome), SimCity/2000, Duke Nukem 3D (I can't believe no one's mentioned this yet...) and Epic Pinball.
The list goes on, but they start getting increasingly obscure from here. I will however call special attention to SkyRoads. It's sort of a driving puzzle game where the goal is to get from one end of a road to the other before your oxygen runs out while contending with obstacles such as variable gravity, tiles that slow you up and speed you down, tiles that affect your "handling" and even tiles that make your ship explode on contact. The real highlight though, at least to me, is the music. It was only AdLib, but the tunes were better than anything I've ever heard in a game with the possible exception of Terminal Velocity. The best part though is that it was released as freeware by the developers, an Estonian outfit called Bluemoon software, a while back: http://www.bluemoon.ee/history/skyroads/ To be honest though, if I was in any position to do so at the time, I probably would have paid for it.
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Descent (duh)
Ascendancy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascendancy_%28computer_game%29/)
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I have some 40 odd games in my Dosbox folder. I load up something or another from there pretty often. The best one is probably Descent, but for that I just use D2X-XL instead of playing the original version. At a glance, some of the other highlights are Raptor, Chex Quest, Jazz Jackrabbit 1, Dune 2, Master of Orion 2, Mission Critical, Megarace, Time Commando, Scorched Earth and Lemmings 3D. There are also numerous adventure games that were originally DOS releases, but which I use ScummVM for today.
Raptor, Stargunner, and Descent.
GOG really needs to put Stargunner in their list.
Stargunner was weaker than Raptor IMO. The graphics were worse even though it came out two years later, and the reduced movement speed of your ship made the game feel slow paced in comparison.
I will however call special attention to SkyRoads.
This was a fun game. I beat the original but never managed to complete all the levels in the Xmas version.
Many of those DOS games had very memorable music, even though most of them were just midis. You can record them to files directly through Dosbox.
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Many of those DOS games had very memorable music, even though most of them were just midis. You can record them to files directly through Dosbox.
True, but SkyRoads stood out because the tunes were not only brilliant, but like Terminal Velocity, still sounded great even though the majority of people at the time on had FM synthesisers for MIDI. Even later on, when just about everybody had half-decent wavetable synths, the MIDI tunes still lacked the same punch.
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Xcom is really the only one I've tried to play in years. If it worked under windows I didn't consider it a DOS game so that rules out quite a few things that would work under Win 3.1 or Win9x as well as DOS.
Apologies for nitpicking, but how exactly do you define this? Quite a few DOS games worked under Windows 3.1 (I myself have fond memories of playing networked Descent in school computer labs under Windows 3.1 back in the day), but they were still DOS games in so much as they'd work even when Windows wasn't loaded (Windows programs would throw a message saying "This program requires Microsoft Windows" or something). If you bring compatibility with Windows 95 in to the equation, that pretty much disqualifies *ever* DOS game as being a DOS game by your definition. It just seems a bit silly, no?
Basically I draw the line if it came with instructions, shotcuts or ini's for windows.
Another good series was Ultima. It was great up until they got too technical. Can't remember which one but it had all the mushrooms and darkness. From that one on sucked.
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VGA Planets 3
I'm still playing it on a daily basis, albeit, the Windows 3.1 version. But the game is functionally identical to the DOS version, only the client is different.
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Beneath a Steel Sky (which started life on the Amiga I think, but was ported to DOS - as well as everything else now, even the iPhone - which is where I played it and where my memories of are from so it counts. Also interesting, and something that didn't fully register for me until quite recently, is the artwork in BaSS is by Dave Gibbons of, among other thigns, Watchmen fame)
Awesomely enough, Beneath a Steel Sky seems to be a permanent freebie title on GOG (http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/beneath_a_steel_sky). I'd never heard of it before I grabbed it there, but I definitely have to play it one of these days.
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Tankwars! The original from 1990 of course!
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Awesomely enough, Beneath a Steel Sky seems to be a permanent freebie title on GOG (http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/beneath_a_steel_sky). I'd never heard of it before I grabbed it there, but I definitely have to play it one of these days.
Thanks for reminding me, I completely forgot about that. Yeah, they released the game (or at least the data file) as a freebie a while back (before GoG iirc), it just completely slipped my mind.
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Wikipedia says it was freewared back in 2003. ISTR grabbing it from the ScummVM site.
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Wikipedia says it was freewared back in 2003. ISTR grabbing it from the ScummVM site.
That sounds about right. I remember being reminded about it back when I still ran Gentoo, which was around that time. I had the CD version though so it was more convenient to get the file that way than it was to download it.
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Terminal Velocity yo
+1
adding carmaggedon
and descent 2 (never got the chance to play descent 1)
to my list
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Frontier: Elite 2
Wing Commanders
C&C
Red Alert
Worms
Sopwith 2
Prince of Persia
Day of the tentacle
Monkey Islands
Toonstruck
Carmageddon
Gta1
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Terminal Velocity yo
My god, other people remember this game.
It was awesome and I completely agree.
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(http://i56.tinypic.com/2nvrv5j.png)
WE, THE THRADDASH OF CULTURE 19 PLAY ONLY STARCONTROL 2! ALL OTHER GAMES ARE INFERIOR! SNORT!
...but seriously, there were other brilliant titles, like:
- Dune 1
- The Lost Vikings
- Warlords 1
- X-Wing and Tie Fighter
- Chuck Yeager's Air Combat
..etc.
Not DOS, it ran on Win95, but still oldie and goldie - Interstate '76
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I never actually got to play SC2 in its native environment, and instead played the freeware UQM remake.
Let's see...
Steel Panthers 3.
Zone 66. (I'd kill to be able to get the music but I can't find it in the game files and it doesn't play consistently in DosBox.)
Terminal Velocity. I'd like Fury3 as well but I haven't seen it, while you can, as far as I know, still order TV from 3DRealms online and download it.
Red Storm Rising, which was the first and will probably be the last submarine simulator I'll ever play, because GATO pisses me off way too much.
Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. It was the last flightsim where you could hop into the gunner positions on a B-17 and fight your way to Berlin. (Or for that matter, even fly a B-17.) I've always missed that ability in the later stuff.
The Aces series. Red Baron, Aces over Europe, Aces of the Pacific, A-10 Tank Killer 2. I still have the CD. Though ground attack is somehow seriously less satisfying than it is in SWOTL in the two actual Aces games.
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Imperium Galactica I !!!!
I always, and still love this game, and I have ever waited for something similar to come up. Empire at war was close, but the missing part of building your own colony to your liking and the missing make it not equal. I still play if from time to time and have fun in setting up fleets and conquer nur planets. Only the spacebattles against the darkslan are annoying ;) It's possible to defeat their fleet so they don't conquer your planet, but it always take time and start to get annoying :)
Also there are some really nice models, it would even be worth for a FS conversion :)
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X-Com is pretty much it.
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Imperium Galactica I !!!!
I always, and still love this game, and I have ever waited for something similar to come up. Empire at war was close, but the missing part of building your own colony to your liking and the missing make it not equal. I still play if from time to time and have fun in setting up fleets and conquer nur planets. Only the spacebattles against the darkslan are annoying ;) It's possible to defeat their fleet so they don't conquer your planet, but it always take time and start to get annoying :)
Also there are some really nice models, it would even be worth for a FS conversion :)
I think IG2 is better. But there's one flaw: The biggest fleet wins. If you have a smaller fleet than the computer, then you'll can be sure to be conquered. There's not such thing like diplomacy. I mean... it's there, but it's useless unless your fleet is the biggest :D But I really liked the campaigns, oh and upgrading my ships :p
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X-com's a given with me.
Also
+1 for Terminal Velocity. That mission where you're fighting through the battleship and leave it at the end and can fly backwards looking at the SCALE of it. My memory's fuzzy but It's fond fuzz.
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X-Com's not really a DOS game anymore, though the version that comes on Steam runs in a Dosbox environment. There was also a version that could run under windows up to at least XP.
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Doesn't matter, really - it came out in the DOS era and ran on DOS originally, and we're remembering games we loved from that time. Whether or not it's on steam now makes little difference imo.
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Oh **** people, Doom 2 anyone?
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Oh. For some reason I thought this was the DOS-games-you-sometimes-return-to thread. In which case, Yeah, Aces of the Pacific gets a slot, and...I guess Carmageddon does too, but I think that was one of those DOS/w95 things. Whatever. Imperium Galactica, certainly.
Warcraft II, because duh.
Heroes of Might and Magic II, because duh.
Wing Commander III/IV, because duh.
X-Wing/TIE Fighter, because duh
While I no longer have any time for the C&C games, I did quite like C&C/RA when they were released. Even if I did have no talent for them.
Close Combat I/II, because holy ****, they almost made me into a wargamer. Almost. Damn fine tactical RTS, regardless.
The Jane's games, because jets, helicopters, missiles, bombs, explosions.
Various other titles I can't recall at the moment
Also, Mr. Mayor, I regret to inform you that you're clearly insane. B-17 Flying Fortress II came out well after SWOTOL and, as you might imagine, let you fly a B-17. Unless you meant SWOTOL was the last DOS sim that let you do that, I guess. In which case you're still crazy, but for totally unrelated reasons. Or something.
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Wolf3D
Castles II
Loom
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I started gaming at the very, very end of the DOS era and was far away from mainstream, but here are some titles that hold my neverending love:
- Slipstream 5000
- Blood
- Wolfenstein 3D
- Carmageddon
- Rings of the Magi
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I'd like to add +1 to X-COM, X-Wing, Star Control 2, Command & Conquers, Ascendency(!), and I'd like to also add X-COM Terror From the Deep, and X-COM Apocalypse (technically ran in DOS).
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Let's see:
Earth 2140 which is a pain to get it working on Dosbox
Crusader No Regret and No Remorse
Doom 1 and 2
C&C
C&C Red alert
and thats what I remember for now.
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no particular order and still play a good number of them
Dune
Dune 2
Command & Conquer
Wolfenstine 3D
Blakestone
Doom 1/U + 2 + Final (Ultimate Doom on 4 player IPX, Co-op, Nightmare difficulty = Total Awsome kick ass when I was 12)
Epic Pinball
Pinball Illusions
Transport Tycoon (1,1.5,DX were all good)
Tyrian/2000
X-Com series (even apoc)
X-Wing / TIE Fighter
Terminal Velocity
Raptor - Call of the shadows
One Must Fall 2097
Wipeout 2097
Warcraft II
Decent
Wing Commander 1,2,3,Privateer
Heroes of Might and Magic
Master Of Orion 2 (It was a dos based game with an additional win 95 compatible exe)
Prince of persia
Colonisation
Civilisation
Jazz Jackrabbit (this is an unsung legend)
Duke Nukem 3D
Worms
Maniac Mansion, never played day of the tentacle though.
Imperium Galactica I
Sam and Max hit the road
simon the Sorcerer
edit
Quake - (Thanks nuke)
there is a ton more but I cant remember it at the moment
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Castle Wolfenstein the original (pre MS-DOS). Apple it was t to throw grenades but if you played on an Atari PC you had to use 2 joysticks and could aim and move different directions so it was basically a 2 player control one guy thing.
Of course Beyond and 3D as well.
I have no idea what it was called but you flew dragons in combat. Came out in about 88.
Wasteland (Apple ][ GS so not really DOS)
Bards tale series (Apple ][ GS so not really DOS)
Eye of the Beholder (think this was one of the very first AD&D PC games)
Strike Commander
Links386 (golf)
Hexen (Doom spinoff)
Rise of the Triad (Wolf3d spinoff)
Xargon
Some shareware ones:
Commander Keen(sp)
Lemmings
Scorched Earth
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im supprised nobody mentioned quake.
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im supprised nobody mentioned quake.
Well I thought about adding it to my list, as well as WC4, but I think I already mentionned somewhere that I still enjoyed playing them.
(I try not to repeat myself as much as possible)
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My are
- Doom 1,2 and the Final DOOM
- C&C red alert
- Terminal Verlocity
- Fury 3
- Blood
- Duke 3d
- Realms of the Haunting(How come none has mentioned this awesome epic game?)
- Warcraft 1,2
- dune 2
- wolf3d
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I would say I feel old now but some of the people in here talking about dos games are older than me...
How has Keen, Hitch, Space Goose, Xenon and other such *real* dos, not "too lazy to port to win95" DOS games not been mentioned :<?
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Just about any space sim possible (I still can find some old registered versions of shareware titles, like gamma wing, recently preserved from 1994).
However, aside from the big guys (the wing commanders and xwing saga), those I also hugely like are:
EPIC (digital image design), a true wing commander contestant and doing a very good job at storytelling, AND mixing for the very first time space and atmospheric missions in one game (some say that WC3 will have used the idea from there).
INFERNO: the odyssey continues. sequel to epic: a true work of art I couldn't even describe! Try googling it or better still secure a copy.
And other oddities (I very much like psygnosis productions) like pyrotechnica, darker, or even a very fun tank game called assault rigs.
Of course terminal velocity along with their spiritual sequels (even though not dos based): fury3, it's add on f-zone (I could never figure out how the level editor included worked as my copy came without instructions), and hellbender.
and many others I couldn't even begin to list (including a lot of rarities very few persons have seen).
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Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom
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Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom
awesome space invaders clone :yes:
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im supprised nobody mentioned quake.
I don't remember Quake being DoS.
Otherwise, yeah that game is win too.
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im supprised nobody mentioned quake.
I don't remember Quake being DoS.
Otherwise, yeah that game is win too.
dos with an additional win95 optimised exe if i remember right
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Red Storm Rising, Silent Service II and Harpoon. Admittedly i played all these on my Amiga 500 back in the day but i believe these were available on DOS as well
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Castles II
:nod:
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INFERNO: the odyssey continues. sequel to epic: a true work of art I couldn't even describe! Try googling it or better still secure a copy.
I got this from a bargain bin at some point but have never played it. It might be worth trying out. It does have some nice soundtracks on the CD.
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Supaplex
Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure
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Dark Forces
Devolution (another Apple ][ one)
Eradicator
Armored Fist
Now for some DOS based Multiplayer (ran a BBS back in the dark ages before internet became popular)
Solar Realms Elite
Baron Realms
Trade Wars 2002
Exodus
LORD
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Epic Pinball
How could I forget that!
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Little Big Adventure :D
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im supprised nobody mentioned quake.
I don't remember Quake being DoS.
Otherwise, yeah that game is win too.
dos with an additional win95 optimised exe if i remember right
i still have my original quake cd. it comes with a dos exe, but a batch file to run the game under windows with networking support. it was still loading the dos exe, but also loading a network interface driver simultaneously. winquake and gl quake came out later, which were windows exes.
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I have that CD :D my favourite track's are 1 and 4.
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Fox. :)
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Can't remember any specific games, but I can remember playing dos games when I was REALLY little.
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lol SimLife (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimLife)
I actually went to the length of making terrans, vasudans, and shivans in it a while ago. Sadly, the terrans couldn't reproduce fast enough and got wiped out by the competition. The shivans got STD's, and the vasudans took over everything. :(
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Castle Wolfenstein the original (pre MS-DOS). Apple it was t to throw grenades but if you played on an Atari PC you had to use 2 joysticks and could aim and move different directions so it was basically a 2 player control one guy thing.
Of course Beyond and 3D as well.
Yeah that game was cool. Pick a crate for 2 minutes looking for the plans, only to find saurekraut instead. And those SS guys were pretty fearsome.
I have no idea what it was called but you flew dragons in combat. Came out in about 88.
Joust?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joust_%28video_game%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joust_%28video_game%29)
Oh another one of my favourites, Ultima IV Quest of the Avatar. Not exactly a Dos game, at least when I played it. But it was awesome.
Oh another game from the Apple II era I loved was Rescue Raiders. Too bad our copy of the game was buggered and would crash out on stage 4 or 5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_Raiders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_Raiders)
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I actually went to the length of making terrans, vasudans, and shivans in it a while ago. Sadly, the terrans couldn't reproduce fast enough and got wiped out by the competition. The shivans got STD's, and the vasudans took over everything. :(
There's a delicious irony buried in there somewhere. :D
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Zod Scum will never achieve that goal in reality. I'd rather catch shivan aids.
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^ Zod-hating noob, zods pwn terrans b/c fishes
Anyway... Nethack. Awesome little ASCII game, and one of the best roguelike games. Think D&D, with a random generator as the GM.
Also Descent, Quake II, Doom, a number of assorted text games (Star Trek ones are awesome)... DOS games pwn. But Nethack is what I'm really into (besides FS) right now.
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Wing Commander, Descent and Silent Hunter.
Unfortunately, I can't get D2 to play movies on DOG (that thing which allows to easly run old games on DOSBox).
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Wing Commander, Descent and Silent Hunter.
Unfortunately, I can't get D2 to play movies on DOG (that thing which allows to easly run old games on DOSBox).
I find D-fend reloaded works well mos of the tiime
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I have no idea what it was called but you flew dragons in combat. Came out in about 88.
Joust?
Definitely wasn't joust. Joust came out way before this. This was a 3d flight sim but instead of flying planes you flew a dragon and used your breath and claws as weapons.
Found it. Was newer then I thought. 1990. DragonStrike.
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Tyrian should go without saying.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~vannevar/tyrian/
Haha hell yeah Tyrian for sure ;)
My list
-Doom
-Duke Nukem 3D
-Crusader series
-Stuns
-Rise of the Triad
-Ultima
-Mystic Towers
-Many more that have yet to spring to mind :P
Bear in mind, I still play all these games =D
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Master of Orion 1
Duke Nukem 3d
Doom 1&2
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what about that tyrian 2 fan project? what became of it?
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Descent 1/2
Doom
The Elder Scrolls
Quake
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throwing in my list here
K240
Moonstone
MicroMachines
Centurion
GoldenAxe
Lemmlings 1/2
Dune 2
Cannon Fodder
Doom 1/2
Civilization 2
just to name a few... :p
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descent 1/2
This.
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Descent 1/2, Raptor, SimCity 2000, DOOM.
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Star Trek: A Final Unity!
Epic game...
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DOOM.
I usually type like that.
A famous First-Person Shooter, ever.