Abandonware DOS retro gaming spotlight

Hail Caesar! For the second time

Caesar 2 is many things: a simulation set in ancient roman times, a city builder, a wonderful strategy game. Caesar 2 is all of this and more: it's one of the early games developed by Impressions that set the gameplay and quality standards later implemented in old strategy games like Zeus and ...

Retro game spotlight: Fantasy General by SSI

Fantasy General is a hex-based turn-based strategy fantasy wargame set in a D&D world. The player can duel either against a computer or a human opponent or even take part in a longer campaign. There are two sides to chose from, one good and one evil (no neutral!), ...

Jones in the Fast Lane: board game meets life simulation

Jones in the Fast Lane is the kind of game that you don't see often these days. It's a mix between a digital board game and a modern day life simulation. The goal of the game is to live the life of Jones, making choices about school, work, your home, ...

Cadaver and Cadaver: The Payoff

Cadaver (and the expansion Cadaver: The Payoff) is a blend of adventure and platform game developed by Bitmap Brothers. The gameplay reminds me of the glorious Head over Heels with a few differences: a fantasy setting, an inventory and the fact that you can die... and I died a lot ...

Heretic and Hexen: fantasy FPS

Wolfenstein 3D made the FPS genre known to the world, Doom raised the quality bar and the popularity of First Person Shooters. Then came Heretic, a fantasy version of Doom with the addition of an inventory. Heretic was one of the few FPS I actually finished (and loved). I never ...

A classic RPG for Windows: Castle of the Winds

Castle of the Winds is a perfect example of an atypical roguelike (no ASCII, runs in Windows) turned into a liberated game. Surprisingly, Castle of the Winds is still very playable to this day, if you can make it run under recent Windows editions.Genres: RPG, dungeon crawl, roguelike ...

Transport Tycoon: planes, trains, trucks

Transport Tycoon is a business simulation game that puts the player at the head of a transport company to compete against rival companies. The player can build stations, airports, railroads to transport passengers, mail and various goods using trucks, trains and planes. The game became a cult and a few ...

Cruise for a Corpse: crime and mystery on a ship

Cruise for a Corpse is a point and click adventure game developed by Delphine Software, the same guys behind Flashback, Operation Stealth and Future Wars.Cruise for a Corpse borrows heavily from Agatha Christie style and it's entirely set on a single cruise ship. If you like detective stories, go ...

SimTower: build your own skyscraper

SimTower is an old Windows 3.x (1994) building and business simulation game where the player is tasked with the management of a skyscraper nonetheless. Raise floors, build apartments, shops, offices and try to avoid bankruptcy if you can.SimTower spawned some similar games for mobile devices, most notably the wonderful Tiny ...

Stunt Car Racer: falling off the track

I'm not a big fan of racing games, this one though catched my attention. I owned the original big box game for C64 and to this day I can't remember why I bought it. Anyway, I found Stunt Car Racer very engaging (and very difficult). The suspended tracks and the ...

A classic brawler: One Must Fall 2097

There was a time when brawlers on PC weren't that common. Not that today it's different, but finding a good brawler "versus" fighting game was really difficult. One Must Fall was one of those games: a perfect blend of everything a brawler needs to be. I finished One Must Fall ...

Utopia: The Creation of a Nation (1992)

I bet not many of you remember Utopia: The Creation of a Nation. It's a single-player strategy game with strong city building elements set in the future. In Utopia your goal is to build and manage a planetary colony in an open-ended gameplay.ACE magazine review "Seems a little daunting ...

Retro game spotlight: Legend of Kyrandia (1992)

Legend of Kyrandia is the first installment of the series of the same name. Kyrandia is a classic point & click adventure game set in a fantasy world; it was developed by Westwood Studios and published by Virgin in 1992.There are different versions of the original Legend of Kyrandia. One ...

Developer spotlight: Magnetic Scrolls

Magnetic Scrolls was a British video game company active between 1984 and 1992. It was one of the most acclaimed interactive fiction developers of the 1980s and developed games such as The Pawn, Fish!, Guild of Thieves.Based In: United Kingdom United Kingdom Founded By: Anita Sinclair, Ken Gordon, Hugh Steers Established ...

The all time 100 best video games at Time.com

TIME magazine compiled a comprehensive list of the 100 best video games of all time for every platform that ever existed, according to them.Take a look and judge for yourself. Did you play most of them? Are you too young to know what Asteroid is?1970sAdventureAsteroidsBreakoutHunt the WumpusPongSpace InvadersThe ...

Abandonware classic: Captain Blood

Exxos released Captain Blood for PC, Amiga and Atari ST in 1988. Captain Blood is a peculiar science fiction game developed by french ERE Informatique which defies genres: it's part adventure, part space exploration, part simulation."It's very slickly presented, with excellent sound and graphics but it's a bit... ...

Retro game spotlight: Ultima 7 part 2 - Serpent Isle

After the well received Ultima 7 The Black Gate, Origin decided that the new Ultima engine could be used for one more game.Enter Serpent Isle.This time the Avatar travels to a whole new land, far away from the usual Britannia. Personally, I prefer The Black Gate, but Serpent Isle ...

1994 in retro gaming: The Elder Scrolls: Arena

The Elder Scrolls: Arena is the first chapter in the popular fantasy RPG series "The Elder Scrolls" developed by Bethesda Softworks. Like the other games in the series, Arena takes place in the continent of Tamriel and allows the player to roam freely in an open world scenario.The Elder ...

Play Qix online on Abandonware DOS

Qix is a classic arcade games that every vintage game conoisseur should know. The original version hit the arcades in 1981 and was an instant success. The gameplay is really simple: draw squares and rectangles to captures areas of the screen without dyiing. When you manage to claim the majority of ...

1986 in retro gaming: Archon, Karateka, Space Quest

30 years ago, computer gaming was growing slowly. Computers like the C64 and the Spectrum were the main source of digital amusement among Home Computer owners. Finally after a few disappointing years, in 1986 a handful of interesting games began to conquer the PC public:Archon was an hybrid between an ...