Best vintage computer games

justincredible Honorable Admin

37,969 posts 250 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 11:41 AM

I recently took possession of an old Sony Vaio desktop running Windows XP that was sitting idle at my mom's place because I wanted to play Sim City 2000. I don't think it had been turned on since about 2007 or so.

Anyway, got it up and running and it works great. Now I want to add some more games to my collection.

What computer games were you playing in the 80s/90s/00s that I should check out?

A few that I know I want to get my hands on:

Wolfenstein 3D
Doom (all of them)
Quake

If you've got any old cd rom or 3.5" disk games taking up space you'd like to get rid of, let me know.

justincredible Honorable Admin

37,969 posts 250 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 11:44 AM

brutus161 The Navy Guy

1,688 posts 25 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 12:22 PM

justincredible Honorable Admin

37,969 posts 250 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 12:28 PM

I definitely dabbled a bit with the original C&C as a kid. Probably worth trying to find a copy.

justincredible Honorable Admin

37,969 posts 250 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 12:31 PM

I kind of want to get my hands on an old 486 machine with 5.25" and 3.5" drives.

Ironman92 Administrator

56,729 posts 168 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 12:34 PM

Bloody Penguin

Devils Advocate Brudda o da bomber

4,899 posts 101 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 12:36 PM

posted by justincredible
I kind of want to get my hands on an old 486 machine with 5.25" and 3.5" drives.

I’ve got one w/2 5.25’s

Heretic Son of the Sun

20,517 posts 204 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 12:41 PM

If you're going for the Doom series, might as well snag Duke Nukem 3-D and/or Star Wards: Dark Forces. Two of the better Doom clones from that era. And with the Doom files on your computer, that also gives you access to all sorts of fan-made .wads where they took the source code to make their own levels for the game, including full games. A few of them, like the two Memento Mori games, Requiem and Alien Vendetta, are very good. Tougher and more complex levels than Doom 2.

Automatik Senior Member

15,737 posts 98 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 12:57 PM

Age of Empires.

justincredible Honorable Admin

37,969 posts 250 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 1:34 PM

posted by Ironman92
Bloody Penguin

Is that the one where you hit a penguin with a club to see how far it would go?

justincredible Honorable Admin

37,969 posts 250 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 1:35 PM

posted by Heretic
If you're going for the Doom series, might as well snag Duke Nukem 3-D and/or Star Wards: Dark Forces. Two of the better Doom clones from that era. And with the Doom files on your computer, that also gives you access to all sorts of fan-made .wads where they took the source code to make their own levels for the game, including full games. A few of them, like the two Memento Mori games, Requiem and Alien Vendetta, are very good. Tougher and more complex levels than Doom 2.

I forgot about Duke Nukem.

Devils Advocate Brudda o da bomber

4,899 posts 101 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 2:07 PM

The original will run on just macOS

CenterBHSFan 333 - I'm only half evil

7,259 posts 55 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 2:20 PM

I still have my SNES with several of the games for it like Illusion of Gaia and Zelda:LttP. Not getting rid of any of them.

I also still have my old Myst games, though it's been decades since I've played them.

Ironman92 Administrator

56,729 posts 168 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 2:33 PM

posted by justincredible
Is that the one where you hit a penguin with a club to see how far it would go?

Lol yeah….I got hooked and finally hit one where the penguin skidded off of about 25 bombs and put up a score I didn’t think was possible

That was my final swing ever.

MontyBrunswick Senior Member

1,065 posts 17 reps Joined Mar 2015

Tue, May 7, 2024 2:48 PM

archive.org has a section dedicated to software. You can find ISOs for just about everything.

I recently went down the retro computer path and now I have three: a 486 (windows 3.11), a Pentium II (windows 98) and an Athlon XP (win XP)

I got a cheap KVM to toggle between them all. It even does sound switching.

I'm willing to bet if you cracked the case open you'll find faulty capacitors

justincredible Honorable Admin

37,969 posts 250 reps Joined Nov 2009

Tue, May 7, 2024 3:23 PM

It seems to run fine, what would faulty capacitors cause?

MontyBrunswick Senior Member

1,065 posts 17 reps Joined Mar 2015

Tue, May 7, 2024 5:10 PM

posted by justincredible
It seems to run fine, what would faulty capacitors cause?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague?wprov=sfla1

Complete failure of the board, strange behavior, smoke/fire, etc.

Also if you liked Sim City 2000 you'd probably like 3000. And if you like 3000 you'd probably like Cities: Skylines.

Also surprised nobody mentioned The Sims yet.

TedSheckler Emporium Entrepreneur

4,023 posts 48 reps Joined Nov 2009

Wed, May 8, 2024 7:23 AM

Half-Life 2

Battlefield 2

justincredible Honorable Admin

37,969 posts 250 reps Joined Nov 2009

Thu, May 9, 2024 10:43 PM

posted by MontyBrunswick
archive.org has a section dedicated to software. You can find ISOs for just about everything.

So much porn, browsing is almost useless. I wish it had better filtering, but it's pretty good if you know what you're searching for.

gut Senior Member

18,369 posts 117 reps Joined Nov 2009

Thu, May 9, 2024 11:24 PM

GOG(?) sells vintage PC games. I've actually run several on Windows 11. You can get entire series of classics for like $10-$20.

My favorite was probably Hero's Quest. I replayed several a few years ago, and they hold up. Didn't even mind the graphics.

And, of course, Doom. Never gets old. Probably play a few levels every 3-4 months. For that I'm using an emulator called Chocolate Doom. Couldn't get into Doom 3 though

MontyBrunswick Senior Member

1,065 posts 17 reps Joined Mar 2015

Fri, May 10, 2024 8:57 AM

posted by justincredible
So much porn, browsing is almost useless. I wish it had better filtering, but it's pretty good if you know what you're searching for.

I don't think I've ever stumbled across porn on there. Make sure you're in the software section and then just run a search for whatever.

https://archive.org/details/software

I'd suggest sorting the results by views as it tends to push the stuff you're actually searching for towards the top.

If you're just browsing for shit, you might do what gut suggested and skim GOG for ideas and then go fetch the original iso from archive. The GOG games are usually packed up in a way so they work on modern OS's (but won't run at all on older OS's)

Best vintage computer games

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