So out of a whim, I pull out my Freelancer CD and installed into it on my brand new computer with Windows 7 RC. I was quite expecting glitches, graphics anomalies and to be bored within an hour, but the game has aged surprisingly well. Better than Tachyon The Fringe, or the more recent Darkstar One.
What other old games do you find still work now and that you still enjoy?
All the Monkey Island games work fine for me and their humor has stayed funny.
However, I guess some people need ScummVM to play Monkey 1 and 2.
NetHack/Angband/roguelikes in general. Sad that they’ve been forgotten from a development standpoint, but the old ones are still fun to drag out every so often.
Total Annihilation holds up well.
So long as people continue to maintain ScummVM, those old LucasArts games will live forever.
Fallout 1+2 work just fine for me. I could also run Baldur’s Gate with no trouble, though I use mods to take advantage of modern resolutions.
I saw a ‘re-mastered’ version of Monkey Islands 1 and 2 on Steam.
Only 1 has been re-done so far.
There is, however, a new Monkey Island game out.
X-Com, Master of Orion, and Master of Magic. There is still no equal for these IMO.
Angband has an active maintainer and has actually seen a lot of changes lately.
Tetris is still fun
Did you try Supreme Commander? The Interface alone is worth the game.
Games released under XP like Freelancer probably aren’t going to have any trouble under Vista or Windows 7. In my experience it’s the ones released around the Windows 98 period that are the problem; all too often they used something (and not always the same thing) that has become unsupported as part of their graphics system which breaks the whole thing. Thief the Dark Project, for example, used a video codec for movie players that stopped being supported by its creator and at the same time is still patented. And that’s on top of some direct optimizations for features that some video card manufacturers had at the time which no longer behave the same way.
And if your standard is 2003 then I just bought one and am currently playing it: Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne. In my view that’s far too recent; it’s recent enough that games from that point are on my “I should get around to playing it sometime” list. A few years older and you at least move out of the console generation/most commonly used OS and I still have Alpha Centauri installed on my computer. And if we allow modern engine reworks like SCUMMVM then Ultima 7 deserves a mention…
XCom 2, Civilization, Master of Orion 2 and Sim City 2000. I have an old Dell L100R that mostly collects dust but works perfectly well for those games (Well, not so much Civilization, but it’s only slightly more time consuming).
I sometimes miss my parents first computer back in the day. Secret of Monkey Island, Doom 2, Civ, MOO and a billion little DOS games that a neighborhood kid loaded on their for us when he installed a DOSShell. Good times.
I’ll see your Freelancer, and raise you Independence War 2. A bit later, released in 01, but better than any space shooter released since. Its graphics are still surprisingly decent, despite its age(though space games tend to look much better due to how simple their environments are).
I’m constantly amazed at just how well all of Blizzard’s RTS games hold up today, Warcraft I is a bit shaky, but if you did nothing but give it a graphical overhaul, and maybe a couple UI changes you could probably still release it today without issue.
I still play Civ 2 on a daily basis.
Doom, 16 years old and still going strong. I recently started playing it again with a modern source port (GZDoom), and became addicted once more. The playability is just wondrous, and the thriving Doom community insures that there are always new wads to conquer.
Right, I’m off to teach a few cacodemons the error of their ways.
As mentioned earlier, Blizzard goes a nice job; IMHO Diablo II and Warcraft III are both ancient engines that still look fantastic today. Graphical endurance tends to come down more to art direction than polygon counts.
I still occasionally open up Escape Velocity and Half-Life 1 to revel in some nostalgic fun.
Master of Orion 2, Star Control 2 aka “The Ur-Quan Masters” both hold up very well.
I’ve read this thread and so far, I have heard of Tetris, Doom, and Doom 2. Even games people consider old are too new for me.
I’d start Blizzard’s list with WCII - the graphics are the least of I’s issues, IMO. I couldn’t even sit through more than one mission when I got it around when II came out. (Battlechest, yay!)
A MAJOR UI overhaul would be needed… Graphics and sound could survive on some minor tweaks.
Sadly, I can’t remember the issues I had, but it was a chore to play, so I haven’t even bothered installing it since then. (And I just recently reinstalled II, though, not having the Battlenet edition, I needed to futz with DOSBox to make it work.) I think not being able to select multiple units was one…