abandonware games sorted by popularity

By 1994, digging had evolved from arcade twitch action to full-on economic warfare. Diggers on DOS turned mining into a cutthroat competition between quirky alien races, each with ...

If Lorna were a comic book, it would be the kind your parents warned you about. Based on the Spanish sci-fi heroine by Alfonso Azpiri, this 1990 action-platformer on DOS is a cockt...

Micheal Jordan in Flight takes basketball away from the court and into the sky, creating an unusual arcade experience centered around the legendary player. The concept is gloriousl...

Arkanoid: Doh It Again revisits the classic brick-breaking formula with the familiar paddle, ball and increasingly fragile-looking collection of blocks. The objective remains wonde...

The Cycles is a motorcycle racing game that focuses on the speed, danger, and slightly terrifying sensation of throwing a bike around a track at considerable velocity. The player r...

The Crack of Doom is an old-school adventure with a title that sounds considerably more dramatic than the average Tuesday afternoon, and the game does its best to live up to it. Ex...

Heimdall 2: Into the Hall of Worlds expands on the original with more content and a broader scope, as if the developers decided one world was simply not enough. The gameplay remain...

Batalia (1986) is what happens when war games and spreadsheet programs fall in love. This early DOS strategy title throws you into tactical battles with graphics that would struggl...

As its title boldly suggests, Late Night Sexy TV Show arrived in 1994 as an adult-themed trivia and quiz game that relies more on playful humor than genuine scandal. Players answer...

Atlantis: The Lost Tales is a graphic adventure game developed by Cryo Interactive and released in 1997. It is the first in a series of games set around the legendary lost city of ...

Panza Kick Boxing is a 1991 sports simulation that takes the brutal world of kickboxing seriously enough to reward technique while still remaining accessible to determined newcomer...

Ogre is a 1986 strategy game based on the classic science-fiction board game concept of a gigantic automated tank facing conventional military forces. The premise is wonderfully si...

One Must Fall: 2097 is a fighting game released in 1994 by Epic MegaGames. Set in a futuristic world, the game features giant humanoid robots known as HARs (Human-Assisted Robots) ...

From the people who brought you Dungeons & Dragons, here's Blood & Magic (1996), the RTS that nobody remembers but definitely deserves a second glance. You summon golems fr...

If Tetris and a Rubik’s Cube had a weird love child, it’d be Brix. This 1992 brain-snapper is a tile-sliding puzzle game where every move counts and logic is your only ...

A text adventure with just enough graphics to remind you what year it is, The Pawn (1986, DOS) wraps you in a fantasy world where the puzzles are clever and the parser occasionally...

Strip Poker Deluxe presents poker with an unmistakably adult twist, building its appeal around the familiar combination of card-game strategy and risqué rewards. The rules are str...

Ugh! answers the eternal question: what if a stone-age delivery service were the basis for an entire video game? You play as a caveman whose main skills include grunting, flying a ...

Stronghold is a medieval strategy game that puts you in charge of castles, armies, and enough political trouble to make a peaceful life in the countryside seem terribly overrated. ...

Hexxagon takes a simple concept and turns it into something surprisingly engaging. The rules are easy to grasp, but mastering them requires a bit more finesse, especially when faci...

Moraff's World offers a colorful fantasy role-playing adventure where players explore a large world, battle monsters, gather treasure, and gradually develop a powerful character. T...

Dig Dug is a classic maze arcade action game that was first released by Namco in 1982 as a coin-op and later for a number of other systems. The gameplay of Dig Dug involves digging...

Storm is a strategy game built around the classic idea that controlling an entire world is much easier when nobody can complain about your management style. The game challenges you...

Based on the famously chaotic 1995 movie, Waterworld (1997, DOS) somehow manages to be more confusing than the film itself—and that’s saying something. This action-adve...

Released in 1995, Lemmings 3D boldly transported the beloved puzzle series into a fully three-dimensional world. The familiar objective remains unchanged, but rotating the camera a...

Ah, Apache Strike (1989), the game where you're the lone helicopter pilot flying through blocky cities that look like they were made of leftover Lego bricks. Your mission? Blow up ...

Autodesk Animator Pro was a serious animation package for DOS at a time when creating computer animation required considerably more patience than it does today. It provided tools f...

Welcome aboard, Captain! Advanced Destroyer Simulator throws you into the high seas with all the firepower and radar beeps a '90s DOS machine can handle. Manage torpedoes, dodge de...

Italicized title: Jack Nicklaus' Unlimited Golf & Course Design. More than a sports simulation, this title became a toolbox for golf fans eager to build and share their dream c...

Secret of the Silver Blades is a 1990 computer role-playing game from the Forgotten Realms series, continuing the tradition of party-based adventures built around the Advanced Dung...