What are your favorite pre-2000 computer games?
I'm setting up my MiSTer FPGA and want to prioritize a bit. I currently have DOS and Win 95 running, but plan to setup Macintosh and any other worthwhile computer platforms. Any computer platform welcome (I already have the consoles figured out). What are your "must try" game suggestions?
Edit: I just got back to this post and am pleasantly surprised by the response. I'll probably be adding most if not all of these to test since I have the space. Thank you to everyone who commented.
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Baldur's Gate
Lords of the Realm 2
Descent (1, 2, and 3)
Sim City 2000
Reticulating splines.
I still play it now and then, while I like the newer editions this is the one that aged better in comparison.
God I love Lords of the Realm 2. I bought it on GoG and go back and play that every few years for a spell. Rarely see others mention in and it was one of my favorite games of that era.
Yeah, it's one of the games I consistently return to regularly. Was very disappointed in the sequel.
Half Life. While I am too young to have played it when it released, it still was an astounding game for its time.
Obligatory shout-out for any Bullfrog games of that era, especially Dungeon Keeper 1 & 2. Lionhead's Black & White is 1 year out of your window, but such a good game.
Also:
Syndicate Wars
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Grim Fandango
Rollercoaster Tycoon
Descent
Grand Theft Auto
...I'm in my late forties, so pre-2000 was my peak gaming time. As a result the list could go on and on and on....
Parasite Eve was a great game, but it never released for DOS/Windows 95. It was PlayStation exclusive (and still is).
Whoops. My mistake. I completely skipped reading the "computer" part of the sentence and started listing off games in general.
Parasite Eve, now here is a man who knows his SquareSoft games
Underrated. I'd be all over a remake.
OP said pre-2000, Starcraft wasn't released until....
checks Wikipedia
Damn.
Yeah, I know. I felt it too.
Syndicate was for me the precursor of GTA, I think I spent more time messing around than actually finishing missions. (In part because it was pretty hard)
Total Annihilation
Starcraft
Ooo I used to love Total Annihilation. Forgot all about that game! I used to spam build hundreds of tiny fighter planes and swarm the enemy.
Duke Nukem 3d
Hail to the King, baby!
Holy shit
You're an inspiration for birth control!
Hehehe what a mess
Those pixelated stripper titties filled a whole bunch of gym socks in my youth.
Civilization II
Settlers
X-COM: UFO defence
Monkey Island
Pharaoh !
Age of empires II
My highlight in Civ II was losing against a mega empire and then half of it seceded and started a war, so I eventually got the upperhand.
For X-COM, I remember the sheer terror of boarding a ship with my puny squad.
One time, in Civ I, I was living my best life as Rome on a big island until the Chinese sent a battleship to my shores and started destroying my triremes. Somehow, I used a diplomat to take over one of their cities and production was stuck on mobile infantry (must have been a bug), which gave me the ability to make units that could defend against their tech. Then I sent more diplomats to steal tech. The list of tech ran off the screen, but it allowed me to still select tech I couldn't see. So I started scrolling beyond the visible point and blindly stealing tech. When I accidentally stole nuclear weapons, I built one, loaded it on a trireme, and sent it to Beijing. Their empire instantly split, and I was able to survive. It's still my best memory from any Civilization game.
Some of my favorites in a variety of genre:
Also one of Sierra's adventure games. A popular one is King's Quest VI.
I remember the difference between xwing and tie fighter. How tight where the missions and the campaign... If there's a remake to make that's the one for me.
For sure. Kinda surprised one never got made, really.
Late and I cannot possibly read everything here, but I'll come back to it as well.
And just to do some due diligence:
Very space- and RTS-themed, but that's what got my attention at the time. And they were having their golden age. Also I was very young in the 90s, so that's all I have.
Out of This World - 1991
Ultima VII - 1992
Doom - 1993
Magic Carpet - 1994
Myth: The Fallen Lords - 1997
Ultima Online - 1997
Die by the Sword - 1998
Quake 3 Arena - 1999 and Quake 3 Weapons Factory Arena
Everquest - 1999
I was a fan of Midtown madness, both 1 and 2.
I had LAN parties with my friends by booting the game, then ejecting the CD and passing it along.
Sadly the third one wasn't on PC.
My childhood
Tie-fighter was a good one.
And StarCraft like someone mentioned and Warcraft.
Tie fighter is one of the best games ever, my dad pirated a ton of games from a guy he didn’t like just to get those games for me and my siblings.. I bought a flight control stick, I still love the game nothing has come close to the fun
I still remember the "match speed" control but haven't found any game with it since.
The dig. The game is inspired by an idea originally created for Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories series.
Rollercoaster Tycoon is an obvious must-play. And Zeus: Master of Olympus came out in 2000 but runs on Windows 95. It's a Sierra city builder, and I have thousands of hours in it.
My top of the pops are:
Honorable mentions:
I unforgivingly forgot:
And by law any PC running DOS is mandated to have a copy of Tyrian 2000 installed in it.
As a personal favorite, if you don't mind reading, Timequest was a blast.
Maniac Mansion. I never got far, but it's a silly little point and click game.
*your
Doom (1 then 2) Dune 2
Command & conquer: Red alert
Quake 2 & 3 Unreal tournament
Rise of the triad
Heretic
Hexen
Space Quest 4
Quest for Glory series
Simcity 2000
Leisure Suit Larry 6
Grand Theft Auto (top down)
Command and Conquer: Tiberium Sun
Tomb Raider
Mortal Kombat 3
Streets of Rage
Metal Gear Solid
Duke Nukem 3D
Metal Slug
Anything by Blizzard
Anything by id
Most things by Maxis
Half Life
Deus Ex bends the rule a bit, being 2000, but I can't not mention it
Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy. I still own this series on steam and play it when I get nostalgic.
Bruh, you just made my fucking MONTH with the knowledge that this is on Steam! I never even thought to look for it there.
Holy nostalgia. I spent so many hours as a child trying to beat this game!
Just bought the complete pack for $2. Thank you for this!
Yeah. You can buy the complete collection on steam and I was ecstatic when I found out too.
Definitely go and find Marathon and it's sequels, preferably in their original form on the Mac. But you don't need to go through all that trouble necessarily, Bungie released all the source some time ago and it is all freely available for new hardware now.
Marathon had though some nightmarish level design. But the lore is amazingly detailed for a FPS.
Quake 1, UT99
Total Annihilation. It was released in 1997 and brought inspiration to games like Supreme Commander and Planetary Annihilation.
Also, mother fuckin' Cap'N Crunch's Crunchling Adventure. I don't have to explain that one.
I spent hours playing Transport Tycoon.
The fact that nobody has said Warcraft II yet saddens me.
I'm not that kind of Orc.
Transport Tycoon
If you're not aware, there's a reboot of it that came out in 2014 on iOS. It's an atrocious port that no longer even works, but they redid the soundtrack, which is on YouTube and you might enjoy.
Been a while since I played but there is OpenTTD which is my go to when i feel like playing it again :) Still developed.
OpenTTD is fantastic. Among the most polished open source games out there.
Most of my 80s/90s gaming was console games, but here's a bunch of computer games that I liked back then :
Lemmings 1 and 2 (the tribes). You can try 3 if you're curious, it's kind of its own thing, different scale and some think it's kind of not the same game anymore. 3D is interesting, but not easy on the eyes.
Lands of Lore. Very good real time maze dungeon-crawler with many obscure secrets, and full voice acting (that blew my mind back then. And there's Patrick Stewart in the cast).
Lands of Lore 2 is a very ambitious sequel in 3D, with FMV incorporated directly into the 3D world. It's quite hard and weird, very creepy at times, moreso if you're the kind who stray off the path.
Creatures. Life simulation with a bunch of furry things you can make hatch and take care of. You teach them to speak, make them breed, watch them interact with the world, reinforce their behaviour with friendly scratches or slaps, and hopefully make them smarter (or miserable, it's your choice). The game simulates their neural system, internal chemistry, immune system, DNA, it's kind of crazy. Requires typing to speak. 3 is the most complete version but requires a bit of tinkering for it to work.
Quake, Doom, Half-Life, One Must Fall 2097, Microsoft Encarta's Mind Maze
When I was. Small child in the early 90s, my dad was a network engineer and he setup our family computer with DOS and lots of games. I don't remember all of them but I do remember the following:
Anyway, I guess Commander Keen is my only real suggestion here and I do believe it's a great game. Just wish I could remember some other games he had installed on the DOS system for us that weren't baby games like Mickey's ABCs and 123s.
That's what the turbo button was for.
I wasted hours playing with After Dark as a kid. I recreated the Starry Skyline one with Python a few years back. So much nostalgia from just watching these little screensaver modules do their thing.
I don't know what it was about that program that was so entertaining as a child. Maybe it was just easy to tinker with all the knobs and sliders and discover what would happen. The one I remember wasting the most hours on was the pins and marbles. A ball would pop out the top of the screen and fall down and hit the pins. But every now and then a smiley face would fall out and would make a little "meep" sound every time it hit something. And me and my brother and sister would watch it go until a smiley face popped out and we'd all shout "a smiley face!!!" and giggle to ourselves. My parents probably thought we were nuts.
What I spent ages on:
Jazz Jackrabbit Epic Pinball Elder Scrolls Daggerfall Monkey Island 1, 2 and 3 Heretic and Hexen
ZZT is number one for sure
Sierra's Quest for Glory series
Heroes of Might and Magic
Warcraft 2 slapped. Was WC3 also in the 90's?
2002 for Warcraft III. Always blows my mind how that game spawned both World of Warcraft and the whole MOBA genre.
Kings Quest 5, 6, & 7
Jill of the Jungle trilogy (free on GOG!)
Woodruff and the Schnibble of Azimuth
Torin's Passage
... Can you tell my dad was a Sierra Online fan? ^^'
Back then, who wasnt? Half life, Homeworld, and tons of other quality games.
Pc games I really loved masters of orion 2
Bubble Bobble
That's just the best game ever!
There are tons. The game that I considered my first "proper" game was World of Xeen. It's phenomenal. And it's actually two games. Might and Magic IV: Clouds of Xeen and Might and Magic V: Darkside of Xeen. When you combined them you could travel between the two sides of the flat world and had more quests to solve and an ultimate end.
It was always hard to make space for them even though we had a gigantic 250 MB hard drive. Each game took up 20-30 MB.
Edit: Other must haves: Jazz Jackrabbit, Commander Keen, Doom, Quake, Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Blood (1997) Pretty much the best OG build engine game IMO.
Die Hard Trilogy
Homeworld
Kharak is burning
C64: Elite. the game is my personal number one as I played only Elite constantly for a long time, despite all other games available for C64.
Amiga: Chaos Engine, Transarctica.
486: Elite Frontier, Descent, Descent II.
Gex
Mario Teaches Typing
All of the ‘Blaster Learning System’ games like Math Blasters: In Search of Spot
I was pretty young still so those educational ones were hella fun and my parents would let me play as much as I wanted
So how was your typing and such after playing them? Did they actually work?
Yeah they worked amazingly. I went into classes already knowing a lot of the math and science material and the teachers lessons taught principles instead of just formulas. I would say they are still beneficial for todays kids although there may be better ones now. There’s nothing like saving your little video game buddy to force you to memorize things haha
For the typing yeah it trained me not to look at the keyboard and type things very quickly. One trick my typing teacher in school used was to put cardboard over the keyboard so you can’t see. I think that would probably pair nicely with the game.
Starcraft!
StarCraft Diablo1 MechWarrior 2 Need for speed 2
My mom got us this “Kids Cube” game collection in CompUSA when I was a kid and there were some gems in there. I’ve been looking for years to try and find the list of games but it’s one of those cheap dollar bin software collections. Anywho, some of the games I loved from that included:
Battle Bugs Jetpack Mice Movers Loader Larry
Non Kids Cube games: Doom (duh) Hero’s of might and Magic 3 Kings Quest VI Return to Zork Raptor: Call of the Shadows Battle Chess Jazz Jackrabbit Prince of Persia (the classic DOS 2D) Duke Nukem 2D
Did a quick search and thank you Archive! Found the Kids Cube! There’s a lot of weird stuff on there but I would spend hours just trying stuff out. https://archive.org/details/aztech_kids_cube
Jetpack was tight, yo
Oh what a wonderful chance to share.
Princess Maker 2. Great life sim game where you raise a girl and try to make her into a princess. (Includes optional final fantasy combat and exploration)
SimCity. If you don't know what that is you need to experience it.
Tank Wars, great turn based shooter.
You might wanna consider getting qbasic going on it. There's a large collection of homebrew games for it. http://www.petesqbsite.com/sections/topten/topten.shtml
Terranigma. Still my favorite RPG to this day and one of my favorite games to this day, but it's hard to gush about this game without any spoilers and its written in a way that requires a bit of attention from the player. You do need to either have an EU / PAL SNES or emulate it though, because it never released in the Americas due to publisher drama.
Secret of Mana is great too, or if you already played that, Seiken Densetsu 3, which is the sequel title that never got released in the West, but got fan translated roms out there. Seiken Densetsu 2 being SoM, and the original Seiken Densetsu 1 was released as Final Fantasy Adventures and sort of a side story to the Final Fantasy franchise, which got dropped and became its own franchise with the second game. SD3 (or "Secret of Mana 2") is a significant step up to the first game in many aspects and even has multiple characters & branching endings based on your character selections.
On the PC definitely the Command & Conquer's Tiberian series, starting with the first game and a GDI campaign run, followed by a NOD campaign run. It got those cheesy but amazingly entertaining little clips between the missions that actually get you immersed into the story and it has a killer soundtrack too. It's one of the many great franchises ruined by EA, but I heard the remastered version is actually decent (I still won't buy because I still boycott them). The already suggested Red Alert is a spin-off series with some references to the Tiberian series, so I would not start with that one until you played the Tiberian one.
Jagged Alliance 1 and 2
Blue Byte's "Albion" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion_(video_game)
I discovered Albion very late through gog, and I'm glad I did. It made me experience again the same feeling of traveling through a strange land that I felt before in Morrowind.
Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain (1997 on Windows, 1998 on Mac), a real time 4X game set in space.
This game is one of my all-time favourite.
I was just trying to remember that game. That would be a fun one to revisit.
Starquest v
Oregon trail II
Widget workshop
That drawing program with the programmable turtle
Logo
I don't know any game called starquest 5, do you mean Space Quest 5?
If so, yes, OP play this and also Space Quest 6 after it. They're quite funny and accessible as far as Sierra point and click go.
Older Space Quests are... rough. The kind that punishes you in late game for missing the smallest item at the beginning and forces you to save all the time because everything kills you (sometimes in funny ways).
5 and 6 still kill you a lot, but not nearly as much and they let you rewind before the stupid move. Much more enjoyable IMO. Narration in those games is hilarious.
That's definitely what I was talking about, it's been 30ish years since I played it on a mac
Xwing, day of the tentacle, Sam and Max hit the road, terminal velocity, half-life, journeyman project, Myst, that weird Encarta cdrom trivia game, counterstrike, EverQuest, you don't know Jack, Spiderman cartoon maker, master of Orion, monkey Island, Commander keen, and DOOM
The descent games someone else already mentioned were fantastic. Starcraft was outstanding. Also, it just barely made the cut but I even still play it, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 is phenomenal.
Little Fighter 2
I don't know how popular it was since none of my friends remember it but I loved Phantasmagoria. Its a point and click horror mystery game with video captured graphics.
My family’s first PC was hand-me-down Amiga 2000; so these games helped shape me growing up:
Dune 2: Battle for Arrakis T-Rex Warrior* Cannon Fodder Sensible Soccer** The Settlers After the War
** Namely, the demo disk version which was set in 1945 and replaced the ball with a bomb that would periodically explode, killing nearby players and removing them from the match.
Carmageddon is a game that I loved at the time, and am very hesitant to revisit... I suspect it hasn't aged well!
Lode Runner for Apple II. Still remarkably playable. You could also go for The Legend Returns on PlayStation / Saturn.
Oh, yes. And you could make your own levels!
Gothic I from '98
It's an awesome game, but from 2001.
Edit: oh shit. Wikipedia claims 2001 indeed... Now makes me want to check what exactly we played or whether I manufactured that memory....
~~Nope. G1 is from 98, G2 is from 01.
I played them in Germany in German back in the day maybe the English release was later?~~
Where did you get that info? Checked Mobygames after Wikipedia. They also date G1 to 2001. G2 is from 2002. I was sure about the date, because I heard the Gothic episode from the amazing german podcast Stay Forever a few days ago and am now playing the first game. 😁
Edit: worldofgothic also lists the 15.03.01 as the release date for the german version.
Edit 2: my Lemmy app doesn't show the strikethrough and I am a bit too hungover to understand your edit without reading it four times.
Killer Instinct
The Last Express - really great story
Pizza Tycoon - this was such a fantastic management sim, I spent ages playing it back in the day
Heavy Gear? Monster truck madness? Age of Empires?
I loved the Harpoon series of naval warfare simulation games. I haven’t played since the late 90s but they were a lot of fun.
Wolfenstein and Hover.
Star Control 2
All challengers can GTFO 🧐
Campers who disagree are silly cows and we will have to dance with them.
Crash Bandicoot 2
Age of empires Star wars galactic battlegrounds Deus ex (I think that was pre 2000) Cossacks European wars
Where do I even start ?
I always go back to the original Age of Empires as a classic.
Ocarina of time Red Alert .. yeah probably just those two would do me
Might and might 3 F19 stealth jet Doom Wolfenstein Red alert Warcraft 3
Star Flight
Fairy Tale Adventure
Both from the 80s
Hot damn, I love me some Star Flight!
Myst is an all-time classic. I'd just wander around exploring the world.
I tried so hard to get anywhere in Magic Carpet but our home computer ran the game too fast. I needed the "turbo button" to slow the game down but we didn't have one.
Also had the PC version of Garfield Caught in the Act (just called Garfield on PC). Played through it over and over again. The Genesis game with improved graphics, an exclusive level and one of the most underrated soundtracks in gaming. Seriously, look up the soundtrack to the PC version, the entire thing jams.
EDIT: Also, Age of Wonders. I actually spent more time in the level editor than in the game itself, building Middle Earth as a map and placing cities, factions and leaders on it as something of an "old school" (for the time) Battle for Middle Earth.
Speedball 2 Brutal Deluxe and Cannon Fodder are must try (there are both Amiga and dos versions for both).
Lemmings is really good. Original Worms. Lost Vikings. Syndicate.
dear fucking god this was a frustrating game.
My guy, we have the technology. You can edit that title to fix the horrible grammar lol.
"What are your favorite pre-2000 video games?"
Whoops! I didn't realize I could edit titles lol. Fixed :)
Amiga:
ZX Spectrum:
Quarantine
X-Com - UFO Defense and Terror from the Deep (I remember hacking my demo copy of UFO Defense and bypassing the shareware check. Still my all time favorite strategy game)
Doom
Duke Nukem 1, 2, and 3D
Wolfenstein 3D
Jetpack
Commander Keen
Raptor: Call of the Shadows
Rise of the Triad
Monster Bash (Just pretty much anything 3D Realms or Apogee related was gold)
Moraff's Dungeons of the Unforgiven(Only ever had the shareware version as a kid, but I played it over and over)
Boy that is tough. There are a few just after 2000 but I was not doing much in the late nineties. I can't think of anything after xwing series that was not after 2k. Doom2. I honestly cannot remember what I was doing computer game wise in the late 90's.
Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator
Ore Truck Simulator '96
I'm old so a lot but I always mention SSI DnD games like Pool of Radiance. I think the games would be a bit of slog for most people today. All the Ultimas besides 9.
Right on Y2K was NFS Porsche Unleashed aka Porsche 2000. As long as you play the PC version it's an amazing game and there are a few graphics enhancing mods too.
Infantry. My first online multiplayer game. Somehow I made it into a squad that got 2nd place in the seasonal tournament and also had arguably the best player in the whole game. I didn't play in the matches but I was in the squad!
Ganja Farmer...
Chips Challenge for Windows, Sim City 3000, Age of Empires 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 (Technically not pre-2000 because it was released in 2000.)
Squarez Deluxe (which is now Freeware!)
It's a thinking man's Tetris and about 100x more rewarding to play
Lords of the Realm 2, the OG X-Com trilogy, Total Annihilation, Dark Reign, Civ II Test of Time
There was this older 90's (I think?) game I loved but I can't figure out the name or find it, despite some googling. You played the part of someone piloting a drone on a space station that had a viral outbreak. The virus alerted the DNA of the victims that the automated security system could no longer identify them as friendlies and so went on a killing spree. You're trying to find video clips from the inhabitants, collecting DNA samples, very point and click adventure with neat animated scenes with FMV. If this rings a bell or if anyone knows it, let me know!
amiga wings of fury
atari 1040ST outrun (the audio on atari!!!)
c64 zak mckraken
Myst and Obsidian
Myth The Fallen Lords and Myth 2 on the Macintosh. This was my favorite multiplayer game I’ve ever played by far.
Other great Mac games from my youth: The Odyssey (1994) by David Larkin Sim City and Sim City 2000 Rogue Sim Ant Prince of Persia The Scarab of Ra Realmz Path Ways into Darkness and Marathon
And my favorites on BBS were Major Mud and Legend of the Red Dragon.
I didn't have a PC, but when I went to friend’s houses I would play the shit out of Doom.
SSI gold box D&D titles and Dungeon master, though both are better on Amiga
Fate of Atlantis is pretty good