Topic: The DOS games thread

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!

Commander Keen = <3

I remember playing a lot of DOS games when I was a little boy without a console and I still play those sometimes. Doom is an awesome game and I have Commander Keen on my phone
There are many games that I used to play when I was a child but I'm so sleepy at the moment so I'm just going to get to the bed now.

CK was probably my favourite game as a kid, even though I wasn't very good at it.

Some forgotten gems that are still enjoyable today:

Monkey Island Series
Indiana Jones Series
King's Quest Series
Any other Lucas Arts/ Lucasfilm Games or Sierra Point 'n Click Adventure
Duke Nukem
Civilisation 2
Sim City 2000
Sim Ant
Battle Bugs
Theme Park
Dungeon Keeper
Battle Chess
Micro Machines
The Incredible Machine
Lemmings
the Settlers 2
X-Wing vs. Tie-Fighter
Dune 2
Command&Conqour

I mean this is just the tip of the ice, there are more epic games, but I had so many good hours playing those games and other...

How could I forget to mention The Incredible Machine and Monkey Island. And Duke Nukem! Fans have waited more than a decade for the new game but I heard it actually is rather dissapointing.

The only time I played DOS games was in school and that was stuff like Oregon Trail, Number Munchers, and Carmen Sandiego. My parents wouldnt get a computer instead they just got me video game consoles like NES and the Genesis. Thankfully those games have been released several times so I dont have to look for any of the questionable ways of getting them, which suits me since I am very nervous about using those questionable ways.

What about "Return to Zork" or "Crime Patrol"?

Anything by SSI. Best damned retro developer ever.

Amen brother. I spent many an hour on all the D&D games.

That reminds me, I have a few DOS games that I should install and play, specifically Mechwarrior 2 and it's Mercenaries expansion, King's Quest V, and Age of Empires 1. I have a few others, but unless I NEED to play Lamborghini: American Challenge I think I'll focus on the previous ones first.

age of empires 1 is so hard! even on easy! computer civs advence super fast, and the 75 population cap sucked. i love me some aoe 2 or 3 though

I've posted this in other threads before, but GOG is a digital store that sells old games (including many DOS games) for very low prices, without DRM and updated to work flawlessly on machines running Windows XP/Vista/7. You should take a look through their catalogue.

They have Zorks, Master of Orions, Master of Magic, Might & Magics, The Incredible Machines, The Last Express, Crusader: No Remorse and a lot more. They recently released Dungeon Keeper and Magic Carpet - both Bullfrog DOS games - which hopefully means they'll release Theme Park and Theme Hospital in the future too.

Besides GOG.com I can also recommend glassicdosgames.com. What this site does is go into some research on wether or not these old games are still commercial, which can be quite vague in certain cases. Another thing the guy who runs this site does is urging developers to release old games they don't technically sell anymore as freeware. With the internet allowing you to download many of these games without too much trouble, there can be some confusion on the legality of some of these downloads. A main issue is that of what gamers often refer to as "abandonware". This is a term to refer to those games that nobody really makes any money of anymore. Those games are often distributed freely on classic gaming sites without the original creators actually giving permission. If you want to refrain from engaging in potential piracy, steer clear from any of those sites and do some research on wether or not the game is freeware. Classicdosgames.com is a very helpful site in that case.

Man, all these DOS games... I grew up as a DOS gamer and these are my favorite games from childhood.
I hate the term "Point & Click" games. We used to call them Quests (probably because of Sierra). And Adventure Games are nice too, but point&click don't do them justice. First of all, they're not point&click historically - it was all text based. "Open Door" that sort of thing. Second, there's more interaction than just pointing at the screen even when they did introduce the mouse into the picture. Many Windows games, whether RPG'S or RTS's are all pointing and clicking - who came up with that stupid term?

Besides the many many quests from Sierra and LucasArts, and some others, I totally agree about TIE Fighter (the best game ever), and I remember fondly games like WC Privateer, WC4, Dungeon Keeper, basically all of Bullfrog games though from Syndicate to Theme Park, and of course the Command and Conquer games. I agree about Commander Keen and the original Duke Nukems, and even the FPS's like Wolfenstein and Doom. Other favorites of mine (from the 1990's) are ULTIMATE DOMAIN and The Horde. The 1980's had their classics... Karateka and Archon

I really miss the RTS's but don't have the energy to get into PC gaming again. For the Wii there are only a couple of RTS's it seems although it could have been a perfect fit. Perhaps some more will come with Wii U one day. With the Adventure Games, I think it can't really be re-created. Telltale games are fine, but the excitment of big budget major releases of the time from Sierra and LucasArts won't really happen again it seems. The market switched too much to COD's and Halo's.

I still remember my characters from Eye of the Beholder. I had a character named Big Mama who kicked ass Also played Darksun. Fun times.

GOG.com is now having a sale on Interplay games. Go support them to help get Descent released on WiiWare.

Doom <3

Ascendancy is on iPad, and is brilliant.

I still remember my characters from Eye of the Beholder. I had a character named Big Mama who kicked ass Also played Darksun. Fun times.

There was a two-three year period where I played the Dark Sun games over and over and over again. I think I would still be able to map the games out step by step.