For me, it was the game Rocket Jockey released by Sega Soft in '96. It was perfect. The game featured a surf rock soundtrack by Dick Dale. The entire premise of the game was to ride around on rockets and using long cables to yank your opponents off theirs. Referees were also fair play. I don’t think I’ve met anyone else who has played the game, so if you have, let me know!
Jazz Jackrabbit, and all of its versions and the sequel. Banging soundtrack too
Also monster bash
Jazz is the DOS Game Club game of the month in August, which is exciting! Been waiting for them to cover it ever since it launched.
I was a big LucasArts graphic adventure game fan. Maniac mansion, Zak McKracken, Indiana Jones, Loom, Monkey Island Then all the Sierra games: leisure Suits Larry, Police Quest, King’s Quest, Camelot…. Good times.
ahem you forgot to mention full throttle ;)
Whenever I smell asphalt, I think of Maureen.
- one must fall
- anything from apogee
- Ultima underworld
- wolf 3d / doom
Doom, total classic. In that same vein, did you ever play Hexen? I recall it being a pretty cool medieval/ magic Doom.
And of course, unreal tournament. Although that was later. It had a Linux port which is why I played it.
Excellent list
Loved all of these, great list. I’d add:
- syndicate
- XCOM UFO
- Ultima VII (a real masterpiece both as a game and as software)
I really loved Tie Fighter from 1994. The music was pretty cool because it changed based on the state of the mission you were on and star wars music was a cheat code to my feelings.
I also thought it was so cool when you’d complete secret objectives and they’d bring you in to the emperor’s secret order and tattoo your arm. I thought that was just fucking great. Those cut scenes were so cool.
Also thanks to all of you who posted cool older games im going to try some of these. I’m thinking about trying fallout I’ve never played any in that series.
Lucas arts was so strong at that time. I loved dark forces(?) the FPS
Honestly Lucasarts of the early-90’s to mid 2000’s had such a high batting average.
Tie Fighter really captured the feel of the original trilogy that only a few games have actually done, Dark Forces and Jedi Knight both did the same.
Wait, you forgot to mention that he tattoes your arm with FORCE LIGHTNING.
Star Control 2 is the one I still come back to every now and then.
ID games of course (Keen/Wolf3d/Doom), Sim City series. Raptor, Warcraft I&II, LucasArts games.
Raptor and tyrian, 2 great tastes that taste better together.
Fallout. Astonishing bit of work. I wish there were more isometric RPGs of that style.
Loved the older fallout series but wow that gameplay was unforgiving. I remember dying constantly, though I was probably just bad.
Yeah, the unfortunate downside to the Fallout games is that it gives you a wide variety of potential character builds, but unless you’re somewhat proficient in combat, your odds of survival are slim. Which, I suppose, would be accurate to a real-life post-apocalypse scenario
Theme Hospital I still go back to on occasion. I’ve seen Two Point but it’s not the same.
Have you tried corsix th? It lets you play the original theme hospital on modern systems.
Oh this looks amazing. Thank you!
The Commander Keen series.
I always go back to Castle Adventure as my warm-fuzzy nostalga hit. Was the first game I played on PC, and yes, I know I’m old.
Scorched Earth Worms UT2K Quake 3 Arena Tribes Descent Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries You Don’t Know Jack Where in the World is Carmen San Diego
MechWarrior 3 was where I got into the franchise. Those were awesome games.
When you load into a mission and the mech boots up… titanfall really scratched that itch
Oh yeah, absolutely loved Titanfall. I’m still praying for a sequel. The multiplayer in that game was incredible.
It’s a travesty they didn’t already get TF2 done with the continued sales of the first game and huge success of Apex.
Unreal Tournament '99!
Star Control 2 Starflight Civilization Railroad Tycoon SimCity Pirates! King’s Quest Space Quest Telengard Lemmings
My childhood! :-)
I loved Lemmings but man, oh man did I send a lot of those poor things to their death by mistake.
Only by accident? :-) I recall setting up the lemmings in a pattern that would produce pretty confetti/fireworks from the nuke button was half the fun of the game. Or at least it was after I got very frustrated with a particular level!
There may have been some crimes against humanity rained down on those poor creatures, haha.
I played the shit out of Rocket Jockey. We only played it once together at a Lan party because I kept tying my friends together. Fun for me, not for them!
Never got to play LAN, I bet it was a blast though. That gameplay was made to torment your friends!
I keep playing Total Annihilation. I play it at least once a day.
Sometimes that’s me an Supreme commander: forged alliance.
You’d think I’d be better by now.
I’ve tried both Supreme Commander and Planetary Annihilation.
I think what mostly bothers me about updated versions of the concept is that there are too many “this type of unit counters that type of unit” pairs. You’ll start a campaign level, build yourself a nice mixed bag of versatile units, and then an enemy will show up with a horde of some specific unit X that completely overwhelms you, because you didn’t have enough Z artillery which is like the only effective thing against X.
I rarely had that problem in the original TA. Generally, all units are vulnerable to all other units, so you have to use geography and consistent resource-denial strategy to your advantage.
I recall getting stomped online by guys that would amass 3-400 little flyers and just rain hell on you before air defense could knock them out in TA.
Oh heck yeah, nothing beats the original Total Annihilation. My dad would play LAN against each other and online. We would absolutely destroyed cause we sucked, but it was fun! The best feeling was picking off the enemy commander with a Big Bertha behind fog of war!
