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The Unsung Heroes of PC Gaming History
An anonymous reader writes "The history of PC gaming is littered with many well-known and highly regarded titles, but what about the titles you mightn't have heard of? This list of the top games in the history of the PC includes the usual suspects, such as Half-Life and Doom, but also some often overlooked PC games including such classics as Elite, the space trading RPG developed in 1984 by two college friends from Cambridge for the Acorn and BB Micro systems. The game used a truly elegant programming hack to create over 200 different worlds to explore while using 32kb of memory, all with 3D wireframes. Also in the list is Robot War, which required players to actually code the participants, and one of the first online multiplayer RPGs, Neverwinter Nights, which introduced many of the developer and user behaviors, such as custom guilds, that have made modern RPGs so popular."
What's your favorite classic game that always gets overlooked in these kinds of lists? My vote goes for Star Control 2.
Of course Elite became Eve Online, exactly the same game only with better graphics, multiplayer and millions of options designed to suck out your lifespan through your wallet.
I played Elite a lot as a kid, which is why I couldn't see the Eve Online screen for the deja vu
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Tyrone calls you up, you know, in the game, and he says, "I can dig more clams than you, stupid!" And you've got to say, "Nuh-uh, boy!" And then y'all gotta race down to the beach with your buckets and your shovels. And the object of the game is to find parking.
The games that have kept me occupied for the most time would be the various Microprose sims. F-19 Stealth Fighter, M1 Tank Platoon, Falcon 4.0. Admittedly, it may have been the manual that kept me occupied. Good times...
I would also make an honourable mention for Sir Geoff Crammond and his Formula 1 Grand Prix series.
"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jnr.
... was garbage.
A list of great games which were commercial failures were:
-Freespace 2
-Planescape torment.
Even mentioning the name neverwinter should send chills down any RPG'ers spine. Neverwinter nights tried to do too much with too little budget, their idea's about tools were awesome but the main single player game suffered because of it. Doing a toolset is hard while doing a game at the sametime, truthfully some days I wish bioware had infinite money to have really made NWN shine, good ideas but the development time and resources for something like that to make it good would be like a decade.
It wasn't until mass effect/dragon age that Bioware really got back on track to making good games again. NWN could not hold a candle to bioware's previous RPG's and NWN couldn't decide if it wanted to be diablo'ish action RPG or a more party based RPG where the battle mechanics were abstracted from the player.
A big issue for me was that there was not enough NPC's in your party to have the sole focus entirely on your character. I kept wishing it played more like diablo because there wasn't enough to keep you busy before you were left doing nothing. It was one of the most boring games I had ever played on the PC. The pacing was slow just like MMO's where travel time was severely slow/gimped.
It's one of the things about MMO's that I hate the most is that they really ruined more actiony-rpg elements of older single player games when game companies went mad copying MMO's.
The problem was is putting boring crap from MMO's in in your single player RPG is bad, MMO's do it just to keep you from finishing the content too fast, but that kills the pacing of the game. A singleplayer game should always have good mechanics and pacing of battles / story but NWN had none of that, the only thing that tentatively saved it (years later) were the mods players made, and even then it was still god awfully boring because the main game was so unfinished.
Iain Thomson: Minesweeper has probably cost more time in lost productivity in the office than anything else, including human resources meetings.
The game was bundled in with Windows 3.11 and all subsequent versions and is simplicity itself.
It Came out in Windows 3.1 (possibly earlier), not Windows 3.11 for workgroups.
World of Warcraft Should not even be on the list, Warcraft maybe, Starcraft maybe, Diablo maybe, but not WoW.
Duke Nukem Forever should be (as well as Starcraft Ghost) for having names that are ironically fitting.
MMOs are so popular these days, but MUDs, the text-based progenitors of MMOs started it all off, and are still quite active, with literally decades of their content built-up and still being added.
I spent a while earlier this year exploring a new MUD, picked it out of a list of hundreds.e
Don't let them get in the way of a good article.
"Escape Velocity is a precursor to Elite in many ways"
Yes, I can see how a 1996 release is a precursor to a 1984 one.
"In addition to a rich storyline, [Elite] used 3D wireframe graphics."
Rich storyline? You mean the fact that the game was packaged with a story that bore at least a passing resemblance to the gameplay? That's not what we mean these days when we say a game has a storyline.
"For a start it used a truly elegant programming hack to create over 200 different worlds to explore while using 32kb of memory"
(1) IIRC, there were 1024 worlds in Elite.
(2) Not particularly elegant or innovative, if you ask me, using a PRNG to generate random worlds. Things very much like it had been done time and time before. We've largely stopped doing it this way, but only because we don't have to any more...
My vote definitely goes for the turnbased strategy/RPG King of Dragon Pass by A-Sharp.
No moving graphics, but hand-drawn still-pictures and beautiful music. Plus the entire game has a really cool story and since it consists of loads of random events it is eminently suitable for several playthroughs. This is a game where you are rewarded for thinking.
The second place probably goes to Emperor of the Fading Suns. A pretty cool space strategy game spanning multiple hex-based planets a la civilization connected by wormholes. The problem was that it was riddled with bugs that made the entire game unbalanced. Several mods have corrected this and made the game what it was meant to be: a universe based on Dune with interplanetary conquests and a bad-ass church going after heretics.
Some noteworthy mentions are probably from that old genre of 1st person RPG/strategy games which includes Dune, Alien Legacy and others.
Some Star Control 2 love! My goodness have that game been too often neglected. Such a shame.
Personally I'd like to see Caesar III and The Neverhood among these lists more often. Also vastly underrated games. I still play my fair share of Caesar III, such a shame no one has thought of making an open source clone.
Clicked pie.
There was a shift in the FPS genre from wacky off-the-wall concepts towards gritty bullet-based shooters. It started off with the SWAT mod for Quake1 which really introduced location-based damage, which led to the work of the Actionquake2 team, from which Gooseman went on to develop Counterstrike!
Suddenly, there were bullet-based games everywhere. The confluence of location-based damage, and hit-scan bullets, led to a branching of FPS skills. By this time, most FPS player honed their skills on games designed around a wide variety explosive chaotic weaponry, the most prominent being the Rocket Launcher, the staple of FPS games of the time.
Now, players had to learn to land headshots on the target, rather than trying to detonate rockets at the target's feet. It was a distinct branching in playstyle. Think about how many FPS are all fundamentally about landing headshots now. Today you see a great deal of these semi-realistic/realistic shooters. But it wasn't always so.
Darklands. Freakin' great game. RPG, set in a medieval Germany where everything people at the time believed to exist does, in fact, exist. Very free form, but with two or three "main" quests you can go on (or not)--I won't say what they are, since discovering them is part of the fun. Pain-in-the-ass manual-based copy protection, so be sure to grab a PDF of the manual if you download it from an abandonware site or something.
The Commander Keen series (especially 4-6), Duke Nukem (especially 2--I'm not talking about the 3-D Dukes here) and Hunter Hunted all need more love than they get. They're not better than the best console platform games, but they're at least in the same league.
Tachyon: The Fringe was one of the last good space fighter "sim" games. Doesn't come up nearly as often as X-Wing, Tie Fighter, etc.
STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl is the only really good FPS game I've played in quite a damn while that wasn't developed by Valve, but either no one else who played it thought so or not nearly enough people played it.
No mention of the BBS games of yore ? When I think of unsung heroes I think of Seth Robinson, creator of Legend of the Red Dragon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Red_Dragon
had the opportunity to experience on a computer. im not even saying 'game', mind that, im saying 'the best shit'.
it was SO good that in a good 1-2 weeks of the 1 month duration i played it for the first time, i really lost the track of space/time continuum. when i got off the game at times to drink, or eat, and saw my family members, it felt like i was not there and i was in a dream instead.
it was SO good.
fortunate for you people who didnt catch up with it in 1992, that they made it open source http://sc2.sourceforge.net/
note - while playing do NOT turn on voice acting at any point. it will kill your experience. the aliens, cultures pack much more punch when you do dialogues in text.
maaaaan. i wish i could really forget the game and play it all over again.
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For having transformed a country's generation with celebrity nerds with APM that even the trading firms would choose to hire, Starcraft should probably be in that list also.
Thats a simple one,
Dwarf Fortress!
This is one of the best games which has been in development by a single programmer for quite some time now. He works fulltime on the game living on donations from a very dedicated fanbase. The game revolves around creating and guiding (controlling would be too big of a word) a settlement of dwarfs, however the detail in the game in staggering. An insane amount of bodyparts are tracked for each dwarf, there is gravity, magma, water, and ofcourse.. lots of mining! The game offers almost an unlimited amount of fun and it is really up to the user to push the boundries of code!
If i this got your attention be sure to have a look at it: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
PS. Dont let the graphics fool you:
- http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Stonesense_%28visualizer%29
- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d3/Mayday-tileset.gif
How is this possible that no Sierra titles have been included?
Kings Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Leisure suit Larry!
Black Cauldron!
Zork, Ultima 3-7 and Ultima Underworld and the original System Shock, maybe as well the Pinball Construction Set which was the first game with an in place graphical editor.
The 50 or so citations on the wikipedia article tend to indicate what most older gamers probably already know - that Elite has been a touchpoint for space games for the last 20 years or more. Who in the world can forget the damn game when it comes up constantly in game reviews and top X games lists?
Ugh-lympics still stands as the funniest game I've ever played, the "mate toss" event was also an early example of political incorrectness in a PC game. The mate toss event was similar to a hammer throw except instead of a hammer you swung your cave girl around by the hair and tossed her down the field.
The first truly addictive game I encoutered was Sopwith
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
While they do appear on some niche top ten lists sometimes, they are often forgotten. Thief was a radical departure from the traditional shooting game, making shooting the last (and usually deadly) option you should consider, a shift few games have made since. System Shock was one of the first fully 3D games and its sequel one of the first true RPG/FPS hybrids, paving the way for Deus Ex.
Abuse , a 1996 DOS sidescroller, continues to rank high on my list of all-time favorites, for three reasons:
1. The gameplay was some of the fastest and most addictive in its day, with frightening sound effects, amazing art direction, interactive and destructible levels, and dynamic lighting that changed depending on the player's and enemy's actions.
2. The player control system, using both the keyboard (movement and object interaction) and the mouse (aiming and shooting), had little to no equal in my DOS games library. I could run forward and shoot plasma rounds behind me, or fly in any direction and drop grenades in any independent trajectory.
2. The level editor, with its intuitive link-based object system, taught me about binary triggers, logic gates, and AI long before I picked up my first computer engineering textbook. Extraordinarily-complicated systems could be created in short order with just a little practice. I still edit and play custom levels using DOSBox to this day just because of the editor.
It's a shame that Crack dot Com, Abuse's parent company, fell off the face of the earth shortly after (even despite Bungie taking up the Mac version). Fansites still exist, and there used to be much talk about Abuse 2, but this game has largely been relegated to the history books in lieu of today's keyboard-mouse FPS games.
1. Marathon ;)
2. Diablo
3. Duke Nukem
4. Quake 2
5. Warcraft 2
They don't get enough credit for their innovation in which we all still receive the fruits of their labors in one way or another today. Everyone has their own list of games like this who grew up during that time. I wouldn't expect nor hope that all lists are like mine because it would mean there would be no competition then and no innovation.
I think that Dune 2 had a big impact on Strategy games. The title was the first to really lay down the foundations for games like C&C (and don't we all wish Westwood was still making C&C?!). All the modern games that stem from that style are around today, mostly because of the success of Dune 2. imho.
I still am amazed what can be accomplished on two 360K Floppy CDs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight
I have a Tandy TX (80286 on a XT motherboard) just so I can have access to this game. The sequel Starflight II was almost as good as the original and introduced a race whose appearance and actions changed based on their planet's solar cycle. Lots of science fiction goodies for the geek, like an encounter with an obvious Enterprise star ship.
Worlds that were unique through ingenious programming and even noted which you visited and gathered resources from so if you went back you had to land elsewhere, even Earth looked right from space using this system.
All and all an impressive game done on those 2 360k discs that many have not surpassed using DVD
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Just to point out the article linked is actually top "computer games of all time" and uses a more broader version of "computer" as Tetris is on the list.
An oft side-stepped (tho not always unfortunately *shudders at the failed sequel*) is Deus Ex. The first installment is by far one of the best FPS games i've played, bar none. Intensely rich and engaging story-telling, coupled with one of the first WELL-EXECUTED user-choice-based-story-progression, not to mention the seamlessly implemented affordability for the user to complete missions/goals user a wide variety of techniques (lethal, non-lethal, etc.) made its initial impression a lasting one as well as afforded for long long hours of further replayability.
On a less serious, but just as nostalgic note: Whacky-Wheels! I only really played the demo but hell if i've not lost an entire month of my life (over the span of a few years) on that game :P.
A mix of tactics and arcade shooting, graphics way ahead of its time (including proper animated 3D star fields) and a novel level system not directly related to points make this a standout game. In many ways, the Elite for the Atari 8bits inasmuch as people bought Atari 800's to play it. Amazingly, it all fits in an 8K cartridge. Even more amazingly, the guy who wrote it did 60-70% of the code based on the chip specs (he designed one of them) as no complete machines existed. When he finally got an assembler and final hardware, it more or less compiled/ran first time.
As an aside, it's depressing how the Atari 8bits are so often airbrushed out of history. Many games that are always cited as C64 originals were actually inferior ports from the Atari 800 originals although to be fair the inferiority was mainly due to games back then being designed around the hardware's strengths and limitations. C64 games that were ported to the Atari 800 generally sucked pretty badly too as the C64 had better sprite handling.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
M.A.X . . . I've wasted hours playing this great game.
Dying for a drink, Graham?
That should have been mentioned, it was the RTS that started it all.
Stars! was a very complete space diplomacy/conquest game, with tools to play by email and so on. I was waiting on Stars! Supernova, but it will never be. Actually an opensource projet called "Thousand Parsec" seems to try doing a new version
Wizard of Wor (1981), a game that basically looks like a Pacman style labyrinth meets space marines. What makes this game brilliant is the pacing, you start out with a large number of small moving targets, then go to a faster moving, but smaller number of targets. The enemies abilities improve too, the last one can teleport, other can get invisible. The game also features COOP gameplay (or VS if you like, as you can shoot your buddy) and music that very effectively underlines the pacing. From all the really old games out there, this one really stands out for me, as its still fun to play for its gameplay, not just for nostalgia.
EF2000 (1995) is what I consider the best flight simulation ever. It might not be quite as realistic as Falcon4.0, but its a lot more accessible. It is also the first game I have seen that simulated a complete dynamic campaign and persistant world. Instead of just having self standing missions, everything was generated dynamically and your action did have actual impact on how the war advanced. To bad that the concept of a dynamic campaign seems to have been lost in time, as it is nowhere to be seen in todays console games.
The Last Express (1997) is an adventure game, but not just your average adventure game, this one happens in (almost) realtime. Unlike other games this one doesn't sit around till the player takes action, but instead all the other characters in the game world actually act on their own. This makes the game world feel much more alive then basically every other game. I still haven't seen anything quite like it and its ironic how even todays "action" games allow you to basically sit around and twiddle your thumbs, you have to walk to the action, the action doesn't come to you.
Honorable Mention (but not really that obscure): Another World (Ico and SotC got a lot of inspiration from this), The Longest Journey (adventure with the best storytelling ever), Operation Flashpoint (best tactic shooter/warsim around), Syndicate (kind of realtime XCom:UFO), Strike Commander (storyline meets flightsim), Mech Warrior 2 and 3 (mech sim, not watered down mech action game).
A true classic and precursor to the Halo series. The first shooter with a truly deep story!
so little time and space to remember them.
Yes, Elite was probably one of the first large scale space exploration/combat games. And for all its simplicity, quite unique and addictive.
But many games exist that fits this bill in other genres:
Eye of the beholder, one of the first D&D dungeon hacks, certainly one of the more popular
Tiger mission, the first shoot 'em up. The previous ones were shoot 'em sideways, mainly
Zaxxon, the first shoot 'em sideways that tried to use 3D effects and movements
Ghost'n'Goblins, the original platform game
Maniac Mansion, an original graphical horror adventure game
Paperboy, one of the first arcadegames that had more than a joystick (joysticks today, you can't even find in an arcade hall)
Mines of Titan, among the first D&D style games with a strategic combat system
Arkanoid, for all its originality, never duplicated sucessfully.
Star wars rebellion, just for the fact that I still play that game today, more than 10 years since its original release.
Being the nerdy, gamer, looser type that I am, I could probably go on for a LONG time, and still not have gotten to the 1990'ies. ;)
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
I generally consider Starsiege: Tribes a very influential game in the FPS genre. Up until that point for the most part FPS games were rather cramped and multiplayer was rather limited in size. Tribes introduced wide open terrain, seamless transition between interior and exterior portions of a map, vehicles, and cooperative team play on an extremely large scale[1]. Games after, notably the Battlefield series picked up on this and really popularized these concepts. Even Halo was inspired partly by Tribes[2]. Today most games support these basic features, but in 1998 it was extremely impressive. I can't say for sure whether Tribes was the first to do any of this, I'm sure someone did before, but it was popular enough to grab the attention of other developers. Unfortunately it wasn't popular enough to establish a stable sub-genre which is generally called the FPS+Z genre[3]; most likely this was due to the gameplay complexity that was introduced by this game. Still, this game should make it to more top game lists.
Another game which may belong on this list in a few years is Achron which is a time traveling based RTS. I doubt this game will become largely popular, however the concept is simply fantastic and shows a lot of thought towards mixing the genre up a bit. Perhaps it shouldn't be labeled a Real Time Strategy game, perhaps Meta Time Strategy game would be more accurate.
[1]I think the max server size was 64 upon release in 1998, although it could have been 128. It's been a long time.
[2]I'd have to find the commentary. I don't remember if it was on a web site, in a magazine, or what.
[3]Tribes had a jet pack and by "skiing" players could attain incredible speeds.
From the article:
"With an impressive arsenal of game and physics engines and exquisitely crafted visuals, Half Life had all the eye candy you could want."
"Iain Thomson: Half Life took the first person shooter (FPS) format and made it so much better by adding a physics engine that really worked. It was also key to the development of multiplayer gaming in the mainstream."
I must be losing my marbles, because I could swear there was NO physics engine in Half-Life. In fact, one of the big selling points of Half-Life 2 was the addition of a physics engine. When Half-Life : Source was released critics noted it added little more than a physics engine. Tell me I'm not crazy....
I was thinking exactly the same thing while reading the summary. Who on earth would call himself a gamer and not know the awesomeness that was Elite.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
"Nuclear Destruction" multi-player PBM off of a 16 bit DG mini (NOVA?)
+1 vote King's Quest, or Quest For Glory (although it came later). I sat down and played through all Q4G games a few years ago. *sigh* the fun
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Syndicate put you in control of an amoral conglomerate in a hard-core cyberpunk setting - with cyborgs, mind control devices and gauss guns at your disposal. I loved every minute of it.
Halflife didn't have physics! And where the hell did my comment go? I think I AM going crazy
No Sierra. Bad.
No Pac-Man? I realise that this is a home gaming list, but c'mon pacman should be there.
Zork? precursor to NW.
Bard's Tale? set the trend for 1st person RPGs for years to come.
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I'm always amazed at how games like Doom and Half-Life get regarded as all-time greats, but people somehow always gloss over the title that put multiplayer gaming on the map.
Where do you all think concepts like Rocket Arena and Team Fortress came from? What about classic map designs like 2fort5 and McKinley Base?
Don't forget that before there was Fatal1ty and his sponsorships, there was D11-Thresh and John Carmack's Ferrari.
and only a random few will ever reach high popularity and posterity.
You couldn't have Fallout 3 without Fallout, and you couldn't have Fallout without X-Com. As far as I know the concept of a turn-based squad tactical simulation started here. And the comic book graphics made all 256 of those colors SHINE.
I think this list tried to sound like: "Hey, look how cool we are for showing off this old-ass games instead of newer ones"
However, they missed the whole RTS genre and some classics. Say whatever you will, but whenever you come up with a top games of all time list, you must include these titles:
FPS: Doom, Quake, Half-Life
MMORPG: Ultima Online, World of Warcraft
RTS: Starcraft
RPG: Diablo, your favorite Ultima, NetHack
Specifically, I find it unforgivable to miss Quake and Starcraft. Quake basically defined the initial 3D FPS genre, made the concept of game mods much more relevant and was generally responsible for kickstarting multiplayer over the internet in FPS games. Hell, a lot of titles still have a console where you can type "bind x action" and stick to the +attack, -attack, etc, syntax.
My own picks, in no particular order:
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
Probably the best and most complex adventure Lucas Arts ever did. It was the first game I had the certainty that video games could be a big art as cinema or literature. And it was in 3D. Great!!
How is this possible that no Sierra titles have been included?
Because the question is "What's your favorite classic game that always gets overlooked in these kinds of lists?". Obviously, nobody in their right mind would ever forget the many quality Quest-games by Sierra in any list about PC gaming history.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
I used to play this game along with Shadow Keep back in the day. We even had Marathon 2 and Infinity on the School network and would have LAN matches. Good times! I remember one time I was playing Marathon on my Powerbook 1400cs at night with headphones in and no lights on. Because of the ambient sounds etc and the intense story i caught myself being tense, slightly scared and waiting what was gonna happen around the corner like a horror movie. My heart rate was fast and I was on edge cause my life was low and It was like I thought I was going to die in real life haha! Marathon = 3D style shooter with intense story line, awesome multiplayer and map making tools. All back in 1992-96 :D
For those interested in the game it was opensourced by the makers (Bungie Software!) and has been actively developed since then. check out http://source.bungie.org/index.php/Main_Page
before all of them there was Dune 2. it is the rts that started it all, despite there has been proto rts before that.
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http://fukung.net/v/450/afrodot.jpg
As a note to myself. I want to yell "dupe" and link it the day a relevant story publishes.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
That was a true classic: an open-ended survival game of which I haven't seen the likes before or since. Neither do I know of any game that matches the punishing difficulty of RR, which kept me from ever completing it.
possibly the best game when released in 1982. huge universe to explore and great game play. Uhleks Ho!
First person real time dungeon crawl on a TRS-80 with sound! At least five years ahead of its time in 1982, which is like a lifetime in the gaming industry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_of_Daggorath
Two old classics for me
SRAM on Amstrad CPC used a dictionnary to interpret the sentences you typed and perform the corresponding actions, and it was doing it right, even when i tried to be a fool.
The Incredible Machine by Sierra on MS-DOS was a so awesome physics game that I'm still looking for a game using the same principles without being 1000x less fun.
Just to mention a true PC RPG classic that no one else cared to remember.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayal_at_Krondor
The original fallout game.
Also, under the so broken and yet so silly horrible mention category, the original MTG video game (Shandalar).
Might'n'Magic 4+5 The World of Xeen. Man those were fun days!
"INCONCEIVABLE! The royal pyramid besieged! I must contact the queen...... Queen Kalindra?"
"My pharaoh, I'm a prisoner! ALL IS LOST "
"Without the proper key to this tower... you may not pass... mortals."
And remember folks, DON'T FEED SCRAPS =P
It's a real shame there are only 10 here and the focus seems to be on a game feature rather than possible depth. Games like Gothic and Birth of the Federation also hold distinction in my mind. In their time their technology was nothing special, but they had the pinnacle skill of the greatest games, re-playability..
A really good game for it's age and quite unknown. It's a 3rd-person shooter with incredibly sharp graphics (for a 1995 DOS game), nice music (not midi!) and lots of video cutscenes with good actors. The story is very deep and immersive. I like it so much I'm still playing it (in a DOS box).
Sword of the Samurai. I still play it today, thanks to DOSBox.
Also from Sierra Online - Alien Legacy. It was ahead of its time with excellent (for the day) graphics, a wonderful storyline, challenging, thoughtful game-play and excellent music.
Airbucks - Impressions. I still play it today, despite the bugs.
Castles 2, a fun and witty game.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
AFAIK The first game to introduce the Heroes of Might and Magic style turn based map control + combat. Sophisticated mana and xp system for each unit, and you have to chase down on the map and kill on the battlefield the one enemy Hero while keeping your Hero safe. Majestic intro and great atmosphere throughout the game. 1991 - Ubisoft http://www.lemonamiga.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php%3Fid%3D245
https://dalgamotor.wordpress.com/ - Elektronik beyinlere ozgurluk asisi (Turkish)
...Hyperblade? Sanitarium? Eradicator? Hunter Hunted? Die by the Sword? Crusader: No Remorse/No Regret? Time Commando? ROBOT FREAKIN' CITY???
FREAKIN' TIE FIGHTER????????
Seriously...how were these games missed by you folks?
Living With a Nerd
We had this on our school computers when I was younger. I wasn't really a big fan of educational games then (or now for that matter) but this one really stood out and a lot of people I know have fond memories of it. Broderbund made some other ones but this the one I'd recognize first. Speaking of 'edutainment', did anybody play "Cross Country Canada"? Definitely my favourite but not as popular as Carmen Sandiego.
Beware! I near! Run Coward! RUN! RUN! RUN!
("Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING."? Yeah, well, sometimes I got my REASONS, ya f'n filter!)
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
The longest continuously developed game, Nethack, deserves #0 on that list. And really, Doom is better than Tetris? Get real. Tetris is one of the best-selling games of all time.
In the late fall of 1965 I trudged over to where the PDP-1 or 6, can't remember, was located. Down in some basement. There was an open demo of Spacewar and the room was packed. I stayed until the wee hours of the morning and finally got a chance to play for 5 or 10 minutes. I was fascinated. Fast forward to 2008 and Sins of a Solar Empire came out. Playing it, I had to chuckle a bit. It made me remember Spacewar. Gravity wells, hyperspace, ships firing torpedoes and other mayhem. Brought back old memories.
I kind of miss Master of Orion on the list. A truly great game that I even like to play in 2010 from time to time.
> StarCrap. Nuff said.
Not a PHP-1 as the article would have you believe 0_o
Ultima IV tops any list for me.
This list is missing Dungeon Keeper II.
"Your dungeon is damp, install central heating."
There is a war going on for your mind.
Commander Keen!
It seems odd that they never listed Myst! It set quite a few benchmarks for story and visual quality.
No, it was Dune 2.
Back in the days of VT100, when windows were something you looked through, when Apple was selling the awesomeness of the Apple ][, there were two games to play that I spent untold number of days playing: Nethack (then just "Hack") and the original Adventure. It is safe to say these games were the genesis of pretty much everything, I believe I remember reading somewhere that the head developer of Diablo got a lot of inspiration from Nethack, and Adventure spawned pretty much the entire adventure game industry.
Sigh. Now get off my lawn!
Games like King's Quest and its descendants were absolutely astounding for their time, and took adventure gaming away from nerds typing "xyzzy" or "plugh" to a much wider audience. They were also critical in getting women interested in video games. In some ways, it created the audience for Myst and its relatives as well.
I am officially gone from
one of the first online multiplayer RPGs, Neverwinter Nights, which introduced many of the developer and user behaviors, such as custom guilds
I was annoyed by this statement enough to write that text-based MUDs (Multi-User dungeons) were doing massive multiplayer RPGs long before Neverwinter nights.. and they had customizable guilds as well!
If you're going to write an article about unsung game heroes at least sing about the actual heroes!
Stunt Island was a n awesome game as a kid. Nowadays it would never be let out the gates but back then, it was a playground. You could let your imagination run wild as a kid. It had similar value to playing with legos. I wouldn't mind seeing a new version with pretty graphics.
Balderdash!
Probably one of the earliest examples I can remember of a game with 'mouse look'. A well made first person RPG, completely non-linear with tons of quests, various factions to befriend or go up against. Even had some decent physics for '92, objects could bounce and roll, also had some limited dynamic lighting.
The whole thing was far more advanced than Doom which came out a year later.
LORD should make the list. My friends and I racked up countless hours playing LORD on a few different BBS's in our area. Next to that was Exitilus, which I thought at one time someone was making an updated web version. As far as PC games go, I really enjoyed Battledrome. It was a 1st person mech game that had quite a bit of customization to it. The single player campaign consisted of battles where you would wager on the outcome. It was interesting in that you could even wager restrictions on the weapon sets for the battle. I only played the multiplayer version over the modem and it worked fairly well for a 28.8 baud connection.
http://www.simonprice.org/tomb.html
This is the first graphics/text adventure game I played on the PC. You can download it at no charge from the author at the above link.
Review at http://www.socuteurl.com/pandafairyflop
I also liked "Time to Die" aka "Borrowed Time" a hard-boiled detective adventure at http://www.socuteurl.com/pineapplemonkey
That also links to a great site for old games.
Then I got Doom and Carmageddon and those types of games have been my preference ever since (plus Postal2, COD, MOH).
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
From SegaSoft. Good god, that game was the civilization that existed right before the Fallout in Fallout.
The people behind it should revise and release the damn thing for the Wii. Including the Dick Dale soundtrack.
Here is where one made a plea for it. And yes, I know about the fan remakes that have come and gone.
Tradewars, a BBS doors game.
When this game opens, you find yourself prisoner in a Turkish mental hospital on the eve lobotomy surgery. Sure, the graphics and gameplay are outmoded, but the game was ahead of its time with international settings, uh, interesting characters (e.g., Rachel Akure, Mossad agent), a duplicitous girlfriend, and a plot line that would intrigue any 9-11 conspiracy theorist. All from 1990! Alas, getting this to run properly on Windows 7 x64 or even Windows Vista has proved to be a chore. The program can't always find its DOS mouse driver and sound board without crashing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_(video_game)
Spent many lost hours on BBS's playing Tradewars. The only thing that kept me from playing all day long, was running out of Turns. Of course, a couple bucks in the donation cup to the Sys Admin, and few extra turns could be purchased. SSHHH, kept that secret all these years.
Except that the article was called "Top 10 computer games of all time". It had nothing to do with favorite games that get overlooked.
and tic-tac-toe
nuff sed
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
A nethack-style game where you conquered the _UNIVERSE_ _ITSELF_!!! (Sorry. I get excited when I think about it :^)
Slashdot's name? When my compiler sees
That should have been mentioned, it was the RTS that started it all.
Actually Stonkers from 1982 is considered one of the precursors to the RTS genre. But the first seminal RTS to set the standards that are still used by modern RTS games was Dune 2 in 1992. This was 6 years before Starcraft came out.
So?
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Sorry, Dune 2 predates Command & Conquer.
The point is that at least one of those games deserves mention in a "Top 10 games of all time" list as the GGGGP was saying. You know, the article which was the whole topic of this submission?
Hell even Warcraft predates Command & Conquer.
Countless hours spent on GEnie or Delphi playing a multiplayer, realtime flyer. With real physics. Emphasis on the real physics. No flying through things, no bouncing off things, no impossible maneuvers, crashing and dying if you landed too fast or forgot your gear was up, and best of all, gloating while watching your opponents burn on the way down. Of course, spending 15 minutes gaining altitude at $10 an hour was annoying, but if you had the money it was all worthwhile.
I am apparently the only one to play this game; although there does seem to be other players about. It is very basic in terms of graphics, but I can't think of any other game as packed with features. Lots of maps, lots of character races, stats etc etc. It is not the easiest games to get going in, but I find it grows on you. It is free, BTW and networked, of course:
http://crossfire.real-time.com/
It is the only game I have kept coming back to over the years.
Pong.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Was a awesome game. It' was one of the best jobs at moving that text base games and puzzles into a graphic world. I would say it was a perfect mesh of the two.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_the_unready
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rainbow wooorllllddds .....
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Grim Fandango is seriously missing from both this list, and these comments.
Best game of all time.
Anyone remember this? I played it on the Atari but I'm pretty sure it started out on the Apple II. really good strategy game and quite unlike anything I'd played before (or after to be honest).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytron_Masters/
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I haven't heard of Stonkers but The Ancient Art of War (and the Ancient Art of War at Sea was the first RTS game I remember from 1984. You conquered cities which produced units of types you devised while also moving your armies in real time against an opponent. There were no resources besides cities to manage but the game was probably pushing what computers could handle at the time anyway.
herzog zwei http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herzog_Zwei , a little title that hit in 1990 and eventually evolved into games like dune, command and conquer, and starcraft.
funny, the ai used for rts games to date all seem to maintain the same basic flaws of pathing and bunching/straggling without ever really getting better.
I don't know how you can beat Civ 2 in 5 hours. The only I can think of is spending 3 hours to get Gunpowder unlocking Leo's Workshop. If you don't beat it in a quick sweep after your warriors have been upgraded to Musketeers you are looking at a long strung out game. Please enlighten me if there is another way. Playing on a small map is for pussies so that doesn't count:|
The Wonderful World of Eamon!
This is the game that taught me how to hack -- by making my own dungeons, monsters, and weapons. The last one is where I got my nick, by making a magic wand which progressed in power from the Snarl, the Super Snarl, the Ultra Snarl, and finally the Atomic Snarl!
There is a black rat, a brown rat, and a tan rat....
Pacifist paratroopers yell, "Ghandi!" when they jump.
http://www.forgottenworld.com/
http://goldchest.sourceforge.net/
http://uaf.sourceforge.net/
Anyone? I loved Might & Magic 4&5, still some of my all-time favorites. Once Darkside of Xeen was released, and you installed it together on your hard drive with Clouds of Xeen, they became World (using your same party, items and experience). It was an amazing experience, and what a massive game. I remember playing them until I uncovered all map blocks on both sides of the world, including all dungeons and towers. Still have my save files in a .zip file to this day! Ahh, good times.
Written in '81 and released in '83 by Mattel for Intellivision. It was a first-person perspective "action" RPG. It was likely inspired by Rogue, but provided a unique 3D perspective that provided the game with an immersive quality. Opening a door to find a deadly wraith or the dreaded Minotaur was genuinely spooky. Due to the 3D perspective and the quiet, exploratory nature of the game where you look about levels by roaming hallways and opening doors; It was one of the first games to provide me with sweats, shocks and scares. The sound effects really ratcheted up the tension during "turn-based" battles. My brother and I played this game for months and became addicted to "phat" lootz like platinum shields and weapons. We're surprised it's never mentioned during a discussion of "classic" games from the Atari-age.
Headline: "Gamer gets snarky about other people not knowing as much about games as him." Congratulations, you're a stereotype!
I grew up in the 80s, played a fair amount of video games back then (albeit console, Atari 800, and Mac), and never heard of Elite.
I am pleasantly surprised that a programming game made the list. Or that it is on any kind of list - period!
For those so interested, Robowar lives! RoboWar, which per the TFA is the decendant of RobotWar is now open source. See:
http://robowar.sourceforge.net/RoboWar5/index.html
Near as I can tell, the latest incarnation is highly compatible with the older Mac-only shareware version from days gone by.
Bard's Tale, especially the Thief of Fate, was my introduction to first person party dungeon crawls.
Wizardry, plus the Might and Magic series, went a long way toward solidifying my addiction.
Frayed Knights, by Rampant Games, is under development with a tongue-in-cheek approach to high fantasy in the same vein. I can't wait.
Another game left off the list was AutoDuel. Maybe it didn't set any new trends in computer gaming but it was one of the best games back in it's day. I have an emulated copy on my computer that I play every once in a while. I keep hoping someone makes a good redo of the game.
Bolo, the networked tank game which Stuart Cheshire wrote on the BBC and migrated to the Mac
http://www.lgm.com/bolo/intro/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_(computer_game)
(after checking the article title to make sure we're talking about "PC Games", not "PC Video Games")
Tom Disch's "Amnesia" was an amazing text-based game. You wake up, broke and stark naked, in a NYC hotel room. The rest of the game involves getting clothed and fed, avoiding the police (you're wanted for a murder you're pretty certain you didn't commit), and recovering the secret of your past. There were several possible outcomes. One involved Ol' Sparky (after you get extradited to Texas to stand trial for that murder). In another, you escape to a ranch in Australia and spend the rest of your life there, without ever solving the riddle of your past. I never did "win" the game, but I chewed up a lot of hours trying.
One of the more interesting aspects was that it wasn't "turn-based" -- if you didn't do anything, time would pass just the same.
Outpost
The sequel was a really shitty cross between Starcraft and Alpha Centauri, but the first was a sort of ultra-bleak, punishingly difficult version of Sim City.
It's like Sim City for fans of games where you always or almost always lose, like Dwarf Fortress or Nethack.
Hell, it's possible (likely, even) to insta-lose the game by picking the wrong star system at the beginning. You'll go through all your planning for your colony ship, launch, and arrive at your new home star system only to discover that there are no terrestrial planets. Finding one that's merely as inhospitable as Mars is practically a miracle; more often you're stuck with some barren-ass frozen wasteland or a planet only slightly better than Mercury.
I'm a bit amazed that nobody has mentioned Oregon Trail. I know that throughout grade school in my generation (I'm 30), many kids experienced playing this game at school on the Apple II. Not only did it entertain (albeit a small amount), but it was also useful for reading, math, and reasoning skills. I was already into gaming by then, but I think it could have created some gamers.
You might be interested to hear that there has been a VGA remake of QFG.
I don't think this series gets the accolades it should get. It was one of the earliest and best crossings of adventure and RPG gameplay. Games like KOTOR and Fable really owe a lot to it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I can't cant even count the number of disputes this game induced and settled between my brother and I. There is something special about sharing a keyboard with your adversary.
Winkey shortcut mapping for 64bit windows. WinKeyPlus
http://www.mobygames.com/game/adventures-of-willy-beamish This is first game where I felt like I was playing a cartoon I'd watch on Saturday mornings... (besides Dragon's Lair).
"The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we live." - M.J. A
They missed a few! TradeWars? Interactive lit (or MUDs like retromud etc)? Marathon and its remarkable sequels?
I LOVED Descent and Descent II... 360 degrees of rotation and movement... And the 3DFX Voodoo enhanced version of Descent II worked GREAT with the 3DFX card card I had at that time... :) Pairing those up with Jay Cotton's Kali (www.kali.net) shortly after it came out in the mid to late 90's??? Well, no wonder I have bouts with carpal tunnel issues and such. :) Spent way too many hours on those games... :::sigh:::
Headline: AC fails at reading. Congratulations, you're in the dictionary next to the word fail.
I loved the fact the you there wasn't a fixed horizon; or up or down in this game...
"Leisure Suited Larry in the land of the Lounge Lizards" made me buy my first PC after having Commadors and ZX's, etc.
The best.
It has a travel scene that cuts to a 2.5D fight scene that rivals WarCraft, but it isn't the graphics that are the lest impressive but the immersive storyline that carries the count of German lore as how clans endured through the medieval periods of enlightened chemistry and druidism that chelated the then Catholic Church that slowly began reverse-planting it's influences in a free Germany that prior expelled it.