Slashdot Mirror

Nah, they just discovered that "Crime and Punishment" is now abandonware

This is exactly what independent developers have been wishing for, and as the editor says, it has been a long time coming. Personally, I've almost totally abandoned games by major developers, and gone with indie games instead. They tend to have more replayability, cost less and are all in all more enjoyable. I can't remember the last time I looked through the reviews section of a magazine and wanted to try or buy EVERY game listed in it. That's what this magazine did; it almost makes me want to re-read the Scratchware Manifesto again. No more scouring Google for new and exciting indie games. Hooray for Game Tunnel!
Direct link to the publication for the lazier among us.

This is a wonderful idea. While slightly off-topic, there is a similar idea for computer games and software called The Scratchware Manifesto.

Personal experience. I've seen it get over 700MB in a matter of minutes while browsing Home of the Underdogs's Hall of Belated Fame. This was while I had two tabs open, the other was looking at this weird site I found called /.

So, yeah, memory problems.

You seek Tapper.

+1

Loving the fact that this has been mentioned - still the scariest game I've ever played, and actually scarier than most (if not all) horror films I've seen. You just never felt safe *anywhere*... and those screaming monkeys... and SHODAN's sneering voice following you wherever you went... and the the first time one of the ghosts appeared... man, I nearly filled my pants. I remember only being able to play it for about an hour at a time because I found atmosphere so oppressive. Truth be told, it still scares me, even today.

Incidentally, if there's anyone out there who hasn't played it and wants to, you can get the whole thing from here:

http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?gameid=3924

I imagine I'll be flamed for posting this link, but the game isn't on sale any more (some dispute over who owns the rights to it IIRC - apparently this is why Bioshock is its 'spiritual successor' rather than a sequel), and it really does deserve to be played.

"Kill Microsoft, and games with be available on multiple platforms again (as they were in the Amiga/C64/ST/Console days."

That sounds ALOT like Lennin before the Bolshevik Revolution. LOL. Like bashing open a pinata. They got what they fought for, I guess, but it wasn't really what they wanted.

Like it or not (and chicken and egg or not), it's gonna take games to hoist the other operating systems into anything remotely mainstream, let alone "competetive" with MS, although I consider COMPETING with ms to be a moot point. Getting linux into mainstream should be a "blind" goal, with regard to MS. Why? For starters, Jesus said LOVE your enemy. Well? Love your enemy. Why kill em? No need. You like linux? Cool. Coexist. There's room for all. But if you want widespread linux adoption, get those games running. No excuses. Just get em running.

As for market share and chicken or egg, well, I'm an "easy" linux switchover. As many other people that I know, I have an old red hat 7.1 cd just waiting for the day that it's worth installing again. I love linux. Just show me the linux games and I'll reinstall the OS.

But for now I don't have anything to run on linux, so i dont' bother installing it. Windows 2000 suits most of my needs, 98 meets the rest, and installing linux onto my already dual boot system just doesn't "call out to me" as a must-do.

Anyhow, for the sake of nostalgia, here's a site that has some of the older dos/windows games free:
(that you can still download: http://www.the-underdogs.info/)

In case anybody wants to help them, they are looking for a volunteer php developer. =)

http://www.the-underdogs.info/ has a patch to the game for on win32 systems and a download of the game itself. It works well on XP for me.

Many of the chose your own adventure books are here as abandonware
http://www.the-underdogs.info/gamebook.php

and a few joe dever lone wolf stuff here

http://www.projectaon.org/

And yes I used to read ahead and see which way was interesting.

Check out Demian's gamebook site http://www.gamebooks.org/ and the pdf scans at the Home of the Underdogs http://www.the-underdogs.info/gamebook.php if you're feeling nostalgic.

"""The nature of comedy is such that it gets old quickly, and innovation is everything. Racing games and FPS's don't suffer from these problems."""

It is obvious you have you never played the Indy 500 racing game. Driving around in a fricking circle for however many hours it took on a 286 to do it? Now *that* gets old quickly. :^)

--Robert

You are forced to fight a bull and chasing you around the arena is thirsty work. Your inventory contains a bottle of laxative. Ah yes but the really fun part was the sound. In an era when sound was rare hearing that gurgling sound was hilarious.

Sure it ain't sophisticated and proper humor and all but Monty Python never minded some underwear humor and it is a lot better then shooting peoples faces.

By all means bring the funny adventure back. Hell any adventure. They ain't dead yet.

But I guess comedy is not just the hardest genre in movies, books and stage.

Try playing System Shock 2, then get back to me. I think your opinion might change. :D

Populous (though they have beat that one to death) it was orig for the time.
Caveman uglymipics
The Immortal
Starflight
Syndicate
System Shock 2

These are some fairly decent games from EA. They have always been hit or miss. But they do innovate once and awhile. Though it tends to be at the smaller game houses that EA owns.

http://www.the-underdogs.info/company.php?offset=0 &id=149&sort=name

There are also a bunch I skipped that others think are even better.

DOS Version: http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=2159

DOS Version: http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=2159

DOS Version: http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=2159

http://www.the-underdogs.info/ seems to be working now.

http://www.archive.org/ has plenty of music and video to fill your hard disk with.

One might argue that http://www.animemusicvideos.org/ is piracy, but they haven't been shut down by the RIAA yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_of_the_Underdogs may or may not be down currently, but only over a domain name problem. http://www.the-underdogs.info/ seems to work at the moment.

http://digihosters.com/~cdosorg/ more.

...though the requisite agencies are perfectly capable of shutting down abandonware sites regarding piracy.

http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/ Rockstar makes available older games for free.

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3148013&did=1 101 best free games.