Topic: The DOS games thread

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Back in the 1990s, there were often two types of gamer kids: those who played mostly console games and the PC gamers. I did not own any video game systems back then, so I was a member of the latter group.

At that time Windows wasn't the main gaming platform for PC gamers it is today, particularly before Windows 95. PC's in the 80's and early 90's were not powerful enough to make technically advanced games runnable under Windows. Instead, you had to make sure Windows wasn't active and use the text based MS-DOS, on top of which Windows ran at the time.

DOS was much less demanding allowing for many games performing much better on just DOS. Many games would not even run under Windows. As a result, most of the great classics of that age would be played under DOS.

DOS has been left to die in the 21st century (although it still lingers on somewhat in the command prompt in Windows 7). The old favourites can't run under Windows because there is no underlying DOS anymore. Thankfully, there are ways to make them playable on your computer nowadays, easily found via Google if you're interested.

Some of my personal favourites of the time:

Commander Keen

This classic series was one of the first platform games on the PC with smooth-scrolling graphics that could match those of console systems. Eventually there would be at least seven games in the series. Another one was planned, but never saw the light of day due to the developers moving on to the development of the massive project that was Doom. Commander Keen was one of those games that used the shareware model: One episode is free but if you buy the whole thing you get all the episodes. While the first trilogy looks rather simplistic nowadays, the later games in the series are still impressive to look at. Graphically they were a vast improvement over the first three episodes. It is still amazing how much detail the creators could squeeze out of the very limited 16-colour EGA graphics by making good use of dithering effects. You can still buy the first five games with a pre-made DOSBox wrapper from the 3D Realms website or via sites such as GOG.com and Steam.

Stunts!/4D Sports Driving

Kids nowadays have Modnation Racers or Trackmania. In the 1990's, however, there was Stunts!, also known as 4D Sports Driving here in Europe. While it did not sell that great at first, it did become somewhat of a cult classic over the years. The whole point of this game is driving across a track as fast as possible and, most importantly, survive it. The tracks in this game are littered with obstacles such as loops, corkscrews, ramps, dirt and ice roads, slalom roads and much more. Besides racing against the clock you can race against CPU opponents, but they have the AI of a petrock and even the most skilled ones are easily beaten. Unfortunately, this game did not have a multiplayer mode, perhaps due to technical limitations. For its time, this game looked great after all. It is one of the first PC games with polygonal 3D graphics. The biggest attraction, though, was the track editor. You could make your own tracks right from scratch, which was awesome. another great feature was the ability to save replays. You could fiddle with the camera positions and record your most glorious victories (or most hilarious crashes). After all that you could share your best tracks, times and replays with your friends and let them beat them. This game is freeware as far as I know, but if you want to download it, avoid the 4D Sports Driving version because it freezes after ten minutes for some reason, making very long tracks impossible to finish. Oh, and pressing shift+F1 in the track editor opens a secret tileset that allows you to alter the terrain and water.

Wolfenstein 3D

A quick look at this game, one of the most influential ever, gives an idea of how far first-person shooters have evolved to the million-sellers they are today. While it is simple now, it was a marvel back in 1992 and it popularized the first-person shooter genre. This game was also highly controversial for its violence and its many nazi symbols. At the end of the game, you would have a boss battle against Mecha-Hitler, how cool is that. To this day, this game may not be sold in Germany. This is probably where the whole, "do kids turn violent because of video games" debate started.

Doom

Perhaps even more controversial than Wolfenstein 3D, Doom greatly expanded upon what we had already seen in that game. It was far more advanced and was more than just a maze of walls, floors and ceilings, While you could not yet look up and down like in later FPS's this game actually had much more 3D rather than just horizontally en vertically aligned objects based on a square grid. With staircases, platforms, rivers, pits, ledges and so on, this was probably the most technically advanced game ever made at the time. The game was controversial for its violence, which exceeded that of Wolfenstein 3D, and its satanic imagery, making it much-hated among conservative christian groups. Some people accused this game of promoting devil-worship. I think none of those people actually played the game, because you're constantly killing demonic creatures. Where's the worship in killing them?

Zool

Granted, with its empty backgrounds, this was not nearly as good as the Amiga edition, but still an enjoyable platformer nonetheless. You control Zool, a typical 90's platformer mascot who is both an insect and a ninja. Yeah, don't ask, he's just kind of a cool dude anyway.This game had a Chupa Chups endorsement so the first world is a candy world. The worlds were pretty imaginative back then, with a candy world, a music world, an area full of vegetables and fruits as your foes, a workshop, a toy world, and finally a fairground. There were also a few secret bonus levels that had you controlling a submarine in the bloodstream. How cool is that?

So what were your favourites? Are there any DOS games that still hold up incredibly well today? Share your thoughts!