Best Old School PC Games - Page 2

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Planescape: Torment and Ultima IV were wonderful RPG morality tales, exciting and cerebral. (Fallout 1/2)

Descent and Elite and Tie Fighter gave you fantastic space-ship experiences, each in their own subtle ways.

Serious Sam and Unreal and Doom and Duke Nukem showed you how to make an FPS.

System Shock and Deus Ex scared you poopless and let you skulk about as you wished, very relaxing ironically.

Last but not least, Star Control, an underrated overly-brilliant and disarmingly charming space opera that plays a lot like Elite and Pac Man!

Ultima IV and Star Control II have been revived and updated for modern PCs, so you have no reason to miss out on these classics!

@Facelifter

Yeah - those gold box games were great. I almost got kicked out of high school for skipping school to play them. I had my priorities back in the day....

And BF2gameplaya - yeah Ultima IV ranks as one of the most intense gaming experiences of my life.

And as long as we're all just recalling the good old days: Ultima Underworld.

Quick edit - has anyone mentioned Master of Magic?

Yep. Me. See page 1 posts.

I miss the way old games were designed.
For instance, in doom, there were no objectives, no nav points, no indicators on screen to tell you where to go. You had to figure things out. You had to think.
That's what I think today's games lack. You and the AI need to collectively agree on what to do - I'm sick of the game telling you where to go. In doom, you had to figure out when and where to do A and B, or else you might not get to do C. That's what I think new games lack - they are far too guided. There needs to be flexibility, and alternate routes.
And secret levels! They were in EVERY game I remember - from wolfenstien to monster bash! What happened to secrets?
For instance: playing call of duty 4, I noted myself thinking this during the portion where you're attacking a highway in the distance...it's fairly early in the game, I don't remember specifically.
The game told me to blow up the tanks on the highway ahead with a missile launcher. I stopped and said "why? why not just take out the highway? one concrete column gone and those tanks couldn't get near me. And i'd be able to walk away with a bunch of rockets."

Why do games have to be so dumb? Let me think about how I want to play the game, and let me play it that way. If it's a bad plan, well, then I guess I'll figure that out when I die.

And, although they're unrealistic, I do miss the portions in doom and wolf when you entered a room with about a bajillion enemies in it, and you just ran in, guns blazing, shooting everything in sight. And the little face at the bottom of the screen put on a big, evil smirk. Along with a bloody nose.

How old school PC do you want? How about Beach Head (Commodore 64) or maybe Translyvania (Apple IIe). Ah, those were(n't) the days.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned Syndicate Wars I remember spending many a day spending most of it’s hours playing through this game again and again. I liked how it was completely open to how you wanted to play it, you could complete it in any way you chose and do anything you could thing of. Everything in the game was destructible as well, you could blow up any building and any bridge to any car or vehicle.

Blood,Blood 2: The chosen, Shogo Mobile Armor Division, great oldschool games I play around with on my Vista Box.

Baldur's Gate / Baldur's Gate II + Throne of Bhaal. Or are those not oldschool enough?

As other people have mentioned, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, & X vs TIE.

My first game was Revenant and it kept me entertained for weeks.

After seeing the Monkey Island games talked about I finally decided to order them. can't wait till they get here. I hope that I can add them to my list of favorite old games

Maniac Mansion, Thief 1-2, Bards Tale and the ENTIRE TSR Gold Box series just because of the memories of seeing the sun rise up for the first time while gaming.

I remember playing Thief in my first apt and my pager went off. I was so focused on the burrucks (sp?) that I knocked my soda over when I jumped.

Depends on what you consider old school. I mean with the advancements in technology, a game that is 4+ years old seems ancient now when graphics are considered. So I give you, my list...

Sim City 2000
Wing Commander III
Starcraft
Warcraft II
Diablo I & II
Baldur's Gate
NBA Live 97 (maybe personal, but of all the sports games released on the PC, I think this ranks in the top 3)
High Heat 2004 (the last year of the franchise before 3DO died, but this was the year they finally started to get it right...)
America's Army
Doom II
Half-Life
Everquest
Fallout
The Sims
Pong

I'm sure there are more that I'm not thinking of right now, but this was a quick list of what I think are classic old school games that are 4 or more years old.

Don't forget about:

Ultima Online: The Second Age
The 7th Guest
Diablo
Heretic and Hexen


As others mentioned:
Warcraft (archers ruled) and Warcraft2 (Paladins ruled)
Doom and Doom2
Ultima 8 (loved the opening scene wiht the dude getting his head chopped off)
Mechwarrior 2 and Mechwarrior 2 Expansion
Wolfenstien 3D
Descent
Full Throttle

I remember I always had to go to the dos prompt to play most of the above. My computer was a 486DX2-66mhz (when on turbo, otherwise 8mhz), 8mb Ram. Funny, I had a 512kb Western Digital video card too.
For some of the games you actually had to know the compter settings and enter them into the game setup or else you would be sound or the game simply wouldn't run.

Ah, 7th Guest, totally forgot about that! Used to have it on the CD-i and picked it and 11th Hour up on PC a few years back. 7th Guest is still one of my favourite games, but what the hell was up with 11th hour? Terrible game!

lol

My biggest game is COD.. was playing UO until 4 came out.. single player was way too short, but I am enjoying multiplayer alot.. some of the maps are too small for 30 people but hey

Freespace 1 and 2, freelancer, starlancer, xwing and tie fighter, mechwarrior 4, thexdar(a comodore 64 game), battlechess(amiga 500) BLADES OF DARKNESS, wingcommanderder 1,2,and 3, buck rogers(yeah i really did like it)

I'm not sure many of the games that people are mentioning can be considered Old School. Deus Ex was great, but it isn't O.S.

When I think of O.S., I think of Might & Magic I, II or III, the early Ultima's like IV (very early) to VIII (the end of O.S. perhaps) as well as Ultima Underworld (II being the best). Ultima VII or VIII and Might & Magic III were my favourites of all of these, M&MIII being the absolute winner. Of course M&M IV and V are still considered O.S., but Part II really started it for me. Those were the days, the days when it wasn't so much about graphics. I think the graphics of Might & Magic III were about as good as I wanted. I was more interested in the story being told and the world that I could explore.

During those days, I also played Power Monger, Leisure Suit Larry, Sim City, Civilization, King's Quest (started at IV I think), Maniac Mansion Day of the Tentacle, The Legend of Kyrandia, Quest for Glory, Space Quest, Buck Rogers, Wolfenstein, and Cyberwar (I wonder how many of you remember that game? I don't think it was very popular). Oh, and Oregon Trail

There are a couple more in here that I just can't remember their names. Like some annoying yet awesome game that came on six of those 5.25" disks that you had to keep changing in the middle of battle so the damn thing could load. You were a knight of some kind and after every battle you had to fix your armour. Awesome, but incredibly slow and annoying with the disks. Anyone know the name for this game?

I started playing online FPS games a LOOOnnng time ago... over dialup modem... I ran a BBS at the time and when I discovered this game I would atke the BBS offline for hours at a time to game online.

The game was called SHADOW WARRIOR... I played the demo, which was amazing at the time.

It would keep track of ALL your stats and display them in the browser channels. Kills/Deaths ,world ranking of all the players in the game. The game had a huge following for this exact reason and I remember for years after no other games did this. I was shocked, as it was an AWESOME feature and I was addicted to getting my killcount at least 2x my deathcount.. and that was all in the DEMO!!!!

I played the full version of it too, but always ended going back to the demo as that is where all the players were. They took the stats feature out of DEMO version near the end though, as there was no reason to buy the retail version because they made the demo THAT good. The only difference was more maps, which in turn had some better weapons in it in the retail over the demo.

I have searched the web for a copy of this game, demo version with no success.

If anyone still has a copy on an old HD or knows where to find one on the web please contact me as I would love to get a copy of it again. I don't recall how the servers worked, but if I could get the server files that would be awesome too, and i'd be willing to put up a server to run it.

ohh man, the good old days... i can't even picture how horrible the graphics would be compared to now hahaha...

Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 need to be mentioned in this thread (it may have... I only made it through the first page).

Anyone remember Syndicate? That was a pretty sweet game.

Other standards:
Doom 1 & 2

Duke Nukem (2D and 3D)

All the old SSI AD&D games were a huge timesink for me, specifically Dark Sun. Also the Dragonlance series.

Dungeon Hack was pretty cool at the time, though on a replay it was really boring. But it had random maps that you could specify what you wanted in it. The Gfx at the time were pretty killer too.

Warcraft 1 (and 2&3 of course) but #1 was really awesome for the time.

Thief (I only played #1) was really innovative.

Not as old as the others, but Age of Wonders was a pretty cool game.

Heroes of Might & Magic

Lemmings

The Incredible Machine

Anyone ever play a game called Megarace (I think). It was in the first slew of games that came out when CD drives first made it into homes. It was a 3D racing game that used FMV of 3D rendered tracks. It was pretty cool when I was about 10 years old. I couldn't believe I was seeing those graphics on my home PC. Now, obviously, it is crap.

Memories...

Wow. How could I have forgotten such a game. I actually bought it from the company website years ago. The damned thing did not come in until 3 months later. I literally was surprised when it came in since I just about forgotten it. Funny to find out not to long after I actually received the game, the company/dev I think it was went under. Either way hands down the best most in depth RTS campaign of all time. Beware NEXUS!

Strange, works great on Vista, and according to most XP users it then would have to work on XP. Did the download version work for you?

The original Settlers from 1996! soldiers had morale, gold makes them happy and better fighters, winning batles makes them happier collectively, yet losing battles makes them sad and not fight as well as they should. That applies to the cpu opponents too, making strategy really interesting: "throw in my troops now to take the mines on the hillside but risk a big defeat and having shiity troops to repulse a cpu counter?" they did away with that in the sequels and that really spoiled it i thought.

Hmm I remember having that game, I'm guessing 2160 didn't do so well, I really looked forward to it being big.

dude! lords of the realm 2, the mechwarrior series. Awsome. I was only 10 when i got lords o the realm 2. heheh i beat everyone. to bad there was no multiplayer. anyone remember earthseige? awsome game. lost the disc

Some Robot told me that b3n's favorite PC game is actually Fatty Bears' Birthday Surprise.

It's ok b3n... we all understand.

Really.

Descent 1
Descent 2 Probably my favorite of the 3
Descent 3
Descent:Freespace
Descent:Freespace 2 (I liked the Descent series if you can't tell)
Starcraft
Half-Life

Those were the games that took most of my time back in the day, mostly Descent 1 and 2. I remember how badass I felt when I learned to TriChord in Descent 2, and playing with my friend over Direct Dialup. Those were the days.