Domain: theunderdogs.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to theunderdogs.org.
Comments · 35
-
Re:Hmmm....
Plus, trees get knocked over quite often; hurricanes, theunderstorms, gales, snow, etc.
Are "theunderstorms" linked to theunderdogs in any way?
;) -
Classic PC games.
Sure brings back memories. I've never seen the ads before but the thrill of borrowing a cartridge and running back home from school to check it out was simply amazing.
The underdogs web site lists a lot of "classic" PC games which bring back similar memories. -
Ultimate Search
This is completely contradictory to what the UDRP has done for Hong Kong-based company "Ultimate Search, Inc."
Case 1: Poetry site.
Case 2: PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Case 3: WBW
Case 4: Home of the Underdogs.
And you'd better believe there are lots more cases in which these cybersquatters have taken over sites without retribution. -
And don't forget...
ZZT!
Yeah, so I was in elementary school when it was made and I just found out about it. But it's fun! -
AbandonwarezGeez, why don't game companies release the source to the old games too? id does a pretty good job. I remember Rise of the Triad was an awesome game!
Good stuff:- For old dos games, you might need Bochs
- Abandonware: Classic Trash
- ,
- theunderdogs.org, abandonware.universal.av7.net,
- arcade emulation: mame.net, mame.dk, mamefans.metropoliglobal.com
- To code new games that run on DOS/Win32/*nx/BeOS, use allegro.
NGO's that suck: -
Re:Metric SystemWe're talking 8 foot damned scorpion, here.
Reminds me of Daggerfall.
-
Re:How is Command HQ NOT the first?
Command HQ was preceeded by Modem Wars in 1988, also by Ozark Softscape, that was an overhead view real-time head-to-head (modem or serial cable) strategy game that felt an awful lot like WarCraft does now. There may have been little on the building side, but this was *the* head to head game to spawn them all.
The expertise of Modem Wars was used to create Command HQ, which Microprose collaborated on. The eventual result was the 1992 Global Conquest, which was the first four-player network game released by a major publisher"
So say thank you to Dani Bunten for them all, that's where the interface really started :) -
the true RTS pioneer
The true RTS pioneer was Dan Bunten. I was absoultly astounded after reading the article on gamespot that Dan Bunten's games Modem Wars (1986), Command HQ (1988), and Global Conquest (1990) were not even mentioned. Dan Bunten was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Internation Game Developers Association in 1998.
Tragically Dan Bunten abandoned the field and changed his pronoun to her (and his name from Dan to Danielle) in 1991. Dani Bunten passed away in 1998 of metastatic lung cancer at the young age of 49.
A good history of Dani Bunten's accomplishments is available from The Underdogs. Also here in Google cache
-
The best RTS I remember I have played...
The best RTS I remember I have played is Super Dune 2 <http://www.theunderdogs.org/game.php?name=Supe r+Dune+2>. It has everything I wanted, including diffuculty, it is somewhat of a challenge where as Dune 2 was children's play.
-
Alpha Waves?
Cool game - Any connection between you and the people who made Alpha Waves back in 1990?
-
Re:A portable PS/2 emulator already exists
How do u get [bochs] to emulate ps2???
First of all, it won't work with PS2 titles released in 2000 or later because those titles are designed for a different platform: Sony PlayStation 2. Bochs emulates IBM Personal System 2; many PS/2 titles released before 1994 work in Bochs. However, there are still thousands of titles on abandonware sites such as this that run on IBM PS/2.
Once you know you have an IBM title and not a Sony title, just read the Bochs manual to learn how to install DR DOS or FreeDOS and then read the game's manual to learn how to install it to Bochs's virtual drive.
-
Who are *YOU* spending Christmas with?
> I hope you all have the ability to spend the holidays with the ones who mean the most to you:
> even if those are friends like Solid Snake or Rikku
Hmm. Does a bowl of Jell-O, a copy of *Divi Dead*, and a DVD of *Virtual Porn Sex with Asia* count? Hehe.
No, no sulking alone with masturbatory foods and computer games today. :-) I'm about to leave to get together with the family, as most of us are, but I thought I'd give a big "Merry Non-Denominational Winter Vacation" to the whole /. community first.
That said, who here saw the Christmas episode of *Futurama* on Sunday, the one which the execs at Fox refused to air last year? Pretty hilarious. Pity what dicks the executives were in not showing it in the first place. :-(
Merry Christmas! -
It's a nice game
It's a very nice game, with sleek graphics though there is nothing more than a few pictures at best.
the game isn't realistic at all (not opengl style cracking like the movie 'hackers' , but not real either)
Though the game gets pretty repetitive, it does have an external plot, and is very nice.
For a nice review check out the home of the underdogs' review
Another game that is being exclusivly published over the net is pontifex, better known as bridge builder 2, which is an awesome and very addictive game. -
It's a nice game
It's a very nice game, with sleek graphics though there is nothing more than a few pictures at best.
the game isn't realistic at all (not opengl style cracking like the movie 'hackers' , but not real either)
Though the game gets pretty repetitive, it does have an external plot, and is very nice.
For a nice review check out the home of the underdogs' review
Another game that is being exclusivly published over the net is pontifex, better known as bridge builder 2, which is an awesome and very addictive game. -
Avalon Hill
Avalon hill was dying, and hasbro bought them out. As is usual with hasbro, they can't decide whether to kill them off, or keep them around. For a while they just let them sell back stock, but lately I have been seeing more and more of their old games on the market. The cry in shame is that Avalon Hill can sell the expansion to Civilization (Advanced Civilization) but not the original board game. Presumably, this is because of a dispute with Sid Meyer, or Activision, or whoever held the rights to the civilization computer game at the time.
BTW, at The Underdogs you can still get the Advanced Civilization computer game, there are some bugs, but also patches to fix most of them. Not to far from the board game. -
Re:I asked for UplinkIf you like Neuromancer-esque freelancer hacking games, I would advise you to check out Shadowrun for the Genesis (not the SNES version). It has an entertaining reproduction of the Shadowrun matrix rules and can be extremely fun at times. It lacks the depth of Neuromancer, but gives you more freedom. That game has to be, overall, one of the first and the best examples of a freelance game ever developed for a console system.
Oh and of course, if you haven't played it, go to home of the underdogs and pick up Wing Commander: Privateer, which is probably the best freelancing game ever made. Truly a delight.
-
BAD URL
Rather, This one
-
Re:Make 16-Bit games again!?
I think that you may enjoy reading the scratchware manifesto, which urges a return to the gameplay we loved in the older games...
-
Re:OT: FPS for toddlers?
> At 04:00 PM 9/28/01 -0400, William Adams wrote:
> A long while ago, Chex did a Doom clone where the weapon was a teleporter or some such and one was rounding up stray serial bits (I got the CD with a box of cereal my wife brought home, but've ever played it
> (moderating this thread, so couldn't post)
> William
Thanks!
A quick trip to Google reveals this: http://www.theunderdogs.org/game.php?name=Chex+Que st
I'm downloading it right now.
-
many great games, but loderunner ownz my heart.
Personally I am in love with lode runner. I have never played lode runner 3d for the n64, but I have a copy of the mad monks revenge, which I originally played under windows 95. I played and beat it under win95, and twice under win98 (I ran 98 for a long time, and that OS made it through two or three of my main machines). ANYTHING by lucasarts is fair game (day of the tentacle and indiana jones and the fate of atlantis are two that I own and have played frequently). The original warcraft and then warcraft two got more play from me than starcraft plus every FPS I ever played. I just reinstalled warcraft II on my machine yesterday, actually.
Check out some of these truly excellent abandonware sites for some good games:
The Underdogs
BumbleB
The Abandonware Ring -
Rocket Jockey
I can't load the pages up, but I'm willing to bet they never included Rocket Jockey.
This game is just amazing... it's one of the few where it's actually fun to try for a high score after you've finished it.
More people need to play this. ('Cause I *need* a sequal... ;)
Check it out: http://www.theunderdogs.org/game.php?name=Rocket+J ockey , tho it's not quite the same without the soundtrack. :) -
Cosmology of Kyoto
This will be lost in the 600+ message shuffle, but Cosmology of Kyoto is an awesome "game" that is really more of an experience. Not challenging, but pretty. Check the underdogs for it.
-
Disch is an extraordinary intellectual...
although I actually prefer his "horror" novels (the supernatural Minnesota books) over his science fiction novels. His sci-fi always seemed a little drab to me, but when his books are ground in a contemporary setting, everything seems much more live and extraordinary.
This is a link to a very comprehensive Disch site, and here is one to Amnesia, an Infocom-style text adventure that he wrote back in the mid-'80s (and cites in Dreams).
- - - - - -
Original Rendezvous with Rama for PC...Until recently, the old CGA "Rendezvous" was the only "ancient" PC game I owned that I hadn't beaten. Most of the things in the game are red herrings, but it's a fascinating, fascinating game--a thousand times better than the partial-birth-abortion-of-a-game produced in later years by Sierra.
The The game can be located at The Home of the Underdogs . I'm also aware of an Apple ][ version, but I couldn't say where to find it.
-
Downloadable collection of best underrated games
The Underdogs provides downloads and reviews of the best underrated games for PCs and other platforms. Particularly relevant is their Hall of Belated Fame.
-
Downloadable collection of best underrated games
The Underdogs provides downloads and reviews of the best underrated games for PCs and other platforms. Particularly relevant is their Hall of Belated Fame.
-
Re:Yes, the curse of the forgotten games...
Oh no oh no oh no.
Thanks for the link to the Underdogs. I can't believe I never found it before. Also, thanks for causing me to lose my free time for the next three years or so. -
This would have been a plug four years ago...
There is repository of Infocom walkthroughs at the Infocom Walkthrough Archive.
I used to maintain it before I went off to college, but I handed it down quite a few years ago.
Additionally, the Underdogs have a company profile posted at the Infocom Profile.
.... One world, one web, one program - Bill Gates -
Some excellent abandonware sites
-
Are the IDSA in the wrong here?
Isn't it OK to copy games that are no longer distributed in the stores or commercially exploited?
No, the current availability of a game in stores is irrelevant to its copyright status. Unlike trademarks, copyrights are not considered abandoned if they are no longer enforced. Copyrights do not enter the public domain just because they are no longer commercially exploited or widely available. Therefore, the copyrights of games are valid even if the games are not found on store shelves, and copying or distributing those games is a copyright infringement. (From http://www.idsa.com/piracy.html)
What exactly are the IDSA doing wrong here? People should write to the member companies and ask them to change their corporate policies, not flame the ISDA. The companies signed up because they didn't want their IP put on the web for download.. you're allowed to complain to them but you can't just ignore them because you don't like what they have to say. The ISDA are doing what they're paid to do. They hit high profile sites because it is easy, low risk (they clearly have legal right whatever the moral viewpoint) and sends a message. If they let these high profile sites go it whould imply acceptace of copyright devalument after, say, 6 years or so. The members don't want that.
I know people here get very worked up about GPL violations, well these guys appear to be engaged in wholesale licence violation. Its not as if these companies aren't trading anymore or that these games have no value. Companies like Namco still make good money from 20yr old games being sold today. Maybe EA want to put Gunship in thier next flight sim as a secret sub-game in the air traffic control system computer (Day of the tenticle anyone?). These guys were giving Gunship away, which devalues such a promotion.
Am I missing something or is this whole "Abandonware" tag being abused. Who says these games are Abandoned? Doesn't that happen when the Publisher/whoever formally Abandons it, or changes the licence or the copyright expires? Maybe if they go bankrupt (although such rights usually find a buyer even then). There are examples of companies releasing old IP because they don't need it, think its good PR, had a fit of humanity etc.. but this site doesn't look like a repository of that to me.
I don't see the IDSA overstepping any marks here. This one of the roles they exist to carry out. Complaining to the members makes sense. If you alert them to a market for old games them may make them a $1 dload...
-
Attitudes like this are the solution
I have a hard time taking a self-proclaimed "troll" seriously, but....
Just because something *can* be done, doesn't mean it's right
It doesn't mean it's "wrong" (by whose definition? The lawmakers who were paid off by Big Money?), either. Learn some logic before you try arguing.
It'll just encourage companies to crack down on even the semi-legit sites like The Underdogs
There is no such thing as "semi-legit". The Home of the Underdogs is "illegal". Does that make it wrong? I think not. If a game is no longer sold, how are you hurting the company by downloading it? If for example, you downloaded Ultima 7 (my previous example), you might like enough to buy Origin's current offerings: Ultima 9 or Ultima Online. Your argument sounds suspiciously like the RIAA whining about Napster users not buying CDs when the exact opposite is true.
Abandonware helps users and companies! It's not a zero-sum game.
-- Floyd -
Obligatory LinksHere are some of my favorite classic gaming resources on the web:
- The Home of the Underdogs - The best archive of x86 games that didn't get the fame they deserved.
- Some amazing Atari 800 emulators, and a ton of games for them, and a FAQ
-
For older games that were good...
and suffered from a lack of marketing check out http://www.theunderdogs.org
Vermifax -
Classic gamesToo many excellent games never make it big. I couldn't let this discussion go by without a link to the best archive of games that never got the recognition they deserved:
It's a killer site. Though it doesn't have any ROMs of old arcade games (making this post slightly off-topic), it has all the lost and forgotten classics. Check it out.
-
Obligatory link