I’ve been on an old game kick lately. XCOM, Dragon Wars, Command HQ, stuff like that. Try http://www.theunderdogs.com. It’s a very good site, that only offers old games which the publishers don’t mind being available. So you don’t have to have any moral qualms about it. 
Not *really *old-school, but at least dated games:[ul][li]Duke Nukem 1-5 (not the 3D ones but the pixelicious side-scrollers)[/li][li]X-Wing (aww man this game was sweet, so was TIE Fighter)[/li][li]Sim City 2000 (Nyah nyah nyah, I got 50 arcologies and you don’t!)[/li][/ul]- Rob
I remember playing “Wumpus” on my employer’s ‘mid-size’ computer (smaller than an IBM 360 mainframe, no PCs then). This was a search-for-the-monster-or-be-eaten-in-a-maze text game.
I wish I remembered some of my Tandy ColorComputer cartridge or tape games. One was, I think, “Pharohs Tomb” or some such, a text adventure “Look rock” “Take sword” etc.
A friend of mine has a copy of Lunar Lander on his computer. I think it said it was from 1978. It’s about as primitive as you can get for graphics, so I shudder to think what games in the early seventies must have been like.
Anyone remember The Black Cauldron game? That was one of the weirdest games I’ve ever come across (“BXMF”, anyone?).
I still spend too much time playing X-Com. I wish they’d release an X-Com game that was based on the engine/design of the original, but with spiffy music/sound/graphics. I don’t need an X-Com flight simulator or Quake clone, thankyouverymuch.
TRS-80. A staggering 64K of RAM.
Dungeons of Daggorath.
I’ll never forget finally finding the Blob, and typing A <space> L <enter> (“attack left”) just as fast as my fourth-grade fingers could muster.
Dr. J
I was one of those people with a VIC-20 (which I still have in working order) but I also played on a Binatone wood-panel effect games console.
I still remember Blue Meanies and Amok (VIC-20).
More recently, I adore http:/www.theunderdogs.org for abandonware like Rock Star, Panzer General and so on.
The Underdogs is a very good abandonware site, and they are very prompt to pull games if a publisher complains, and they provide links to purchase online if a game is found to still be sold somewhere.
However, even if a publisher does not complain, abandonware is still illegal. Allow me to quote from Stephen Granade’s about.com article on the legality of abandonware.
I doubt that the moderators will crack down as stringently on this as they have on previous incidents of illegality, but still. Maybe they’re all fans of abandonware, but there’s no reason to toe the line.
Commander Keen! I wish I could get it to work on my computer now. That was my absolute favorite when I was a kid. Oddly enough, I enjoyed the first few, more primitive games more than the later versions. There were seven Keen games, I believe.
Did anyone else ever play Night Fire? The idea was similar to that of Chas.E’s MOONWAR. Two to six players had a little tank icon on some random hills. You had to destroy each other player’s tank by factoring in velocity, trajectory, wind, and angle. Pretty tough for the little kid that I was.
I’ve got a bunch of the hold infocom-zork games stashed up in my folks attic, but I’m afraid to go up there and get them cuz I would probably get eaten by a grue.
Favorite games, all on an Apple IIe or IIgs:
Hard Hat Mack
Loadrunner
Conan
Super Mario Bros.
Summer Olympics
Kings Quest I, II, and III
and another one, the name of which I cannot recall but it consisted of a karate guy running left to right acros the screen who used the exact same moves and fought the exact same people over and over until finally when you get to the princess and run toward her she gives you a high-chop in the kisser and you have to start all over again. Anyone ?
You’re probably thinking of Karateka.
‘Radar Rat Race’, Commodore 64. Sadly it was never ported to the Amiga (or anything else I am aware of).
Indeed I was, LNO - thanks for the tip, I thought I’d remember the name by this morning but no such luck !
Oh sure, Wolf 3D was great and all, but come on guys! You have to go back to the days of the glorious Com64! I only scaned through, but I do believe its only Urban who said anything. Remeber some of the classics like Buck Rodgers, Congo Bongo? ZAXXON FOR HEAVENS SAKE! Up N Down, Donkey Kong, Super Mario Brothers, Skool Daze, Oh dear, what was that game? LAZY JONES! thats it! Ohhh the memories. I remeber some Dragon game where you were on a raft and had to go down this river and avoid rocks…THE MEMORIES I TELL YOU…that was my psychotic moment of the day, but really, I loved that comp…
I loved Stunt Island!!!
My computer needed to be a little more powerful to take advantage of the whole thing but I would love to play it now.
Back when I was in college a roomate of mine had a Commodore 64 and I used to play a WWII submarine game on it that was really fun. I have no idea what the title was though.
Played Wumpus and Trek on a print only time share in high school (God I feel old…)
My first computer was a TRS-80 with 4K of memory! Paid $600 for it in 1980! Played the text adverture Haunted House on it a lot (“Plugh!”). Dancing Demon was cool, though not really a game. Played (and still have, somewhere) subLogic’s original Flight Simulator on it.
Sold it, bought a car, and forgot about computers in the 80s, though I did play the original King’s Quest on a friend’s PCjr. Very cool early combination third person/text adventure game.
Bought a Gateway 2000 386 in 1991 (paid, gulp, $2000 for it!!) Played Commander Keen a lot, as well as Cosmo and Duke Nukem (2D!) Then, I got a copy of Wolfenstein 3D with no description or instructions. Loaded it, game started, I moved the mouse, and was absolutely floored to see the whole scene move in real time with the mouse!! No kidding, it was religious. Spent a lot more time playing Doom and the Quakes, but you never forget your first FPS…
Re: Jazz Jackrabbit. Not too hard to find. I’d link, but the Angry Gods of Moderation would strike me down.
Good luck getting it to run on a modern pc though–IIRC, the speed throttling code has real problems dealing with anything above 500 mhz or so.
I still occasionally go back and play Bard’s Tale I. Beautiful game.