DOS Games Extravaganza

[Frindis]

Update:

Poll game nr 1: My experience with Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity

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Greetings Community!

Time for this old fart to play some old DOS games. Here is how we do it:

I want you to recommend me (multiple ones If you like) some DOS games I can try out. The game can be horrible bad, violent, cozy, frustrating, good, funny, scary, laughable, you name it.

When we have a nice amount of DOS games to choose from, I'll make a poll and then I'll start playing the one with the most votes, then the one with the second most votes, and so forth.

I'll add a couple of clips from playing, some info about the game, and the company who made it. I'll also throw in some box art, manual info, and other tidbits I can find.

Let's get started with those recommendations and may lord DOS have mercy on my soul!

Here is the Strawpoll, vote as much as you want!

Dos Game Extravaganza - StrawPoll.com

What is your opinion? Vote now: Lemmings, Monkey island 1, Monkey island 2, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max Hit the Road, Beneath a Steel Sky, Bladerunner, 11th hour, Toonstruck, Do

strawpoll.com

 

[Brian Boru]

Lemmings—your choice of any of the dozens—hundreds?—of versions of it

Do we get multiple suggestions? If so, my 2nd choice is:

Prince of Persia—the original.

 

[Frindis]

Lemmings—your choice of any of the dozens—hundreds?—of versions of it

Much obliged

Do we get multiple suggestions? If so, my 2nd choice is:

Absolutely. I added it in, so if anyone else wants to recommend more than one game, feel free

Prince of Persia—the original.

Awesome! I remember playing it back in the 80s on an IBM machine. It was frustratingly difficult for a wee boy!

 

[Johnway]

My Dos experience is almost exclusively point and click adventures. pretty much lucas arts, revolution and a few others. TLDR would be, get scummvm and play all the lucas arts adventure games like monkey island 1, 2, Day of the tentacle, sam and max hit the road, beneath a steel sky, broken sword. Bladerunner as well.

I did play 7th guest but never 11th hour. Seen the long play and had wanted to play the fan sequel or the VR one but taken a while.

Toonstruck, is under appreciated.

there is of course riven and myst, but there have been remakes and whether they worth your time i don't know.

but what about sierra? Honestly, me and my brother never played any of them back in the day and the horrors of dead man walking syndrome is a dick move to have.

As for non point and click adventures? Doom 1 and doom 2. Anything else? perhap duke nukem 3d but i never played it.

A couple of other games that peak my interest now are waxworks, hired guns and dungeon master. So dungeon crawlers/blobers.

 

[Pifanjr]

Here's a list of games I remember playing on MS-DOS:

Hocus Pocus
Duke Nukem
Raptor: Call of the Shadows
Wolfenstein 3D
Mystic Towers
Wacky Wheels
Jazz Jackrabbit
Earthworm Jim
Commander Keen
The Secret of Monkey Island (though technically I played it on DOSBox after playing the third game).

 

[Hveðrungr]

Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity

Star Trek: The Next Generation - "A Final Unity"

Remember Star Trek: The Next Generation - "A Final Unity", an old video game from 1995? Download it and play again on MyAbandonware.

www.myabandonware.com

The best Star Trek game I've played.

 

[Frindis]

@BeardyHat @ZedClampet You want to add some? I know Zed was looking at some naughty DOS game for me to try out

 

[Hveðrungr]

I know Zed was looking at some naughty DOS game for me to try out

I hear there's this thing called the interweb nowadays where you can find multiple pictures of attractive people in various states of undress. Sometimes even videos. You should check it out.

 

[ZedClampet]

@BeardyHat @ZedClampet You want to add some? I know Zed was looking at some naughty DOS game for me to try out

I had Apple computers until some time after Windows came out, so I don't know any DOS games, but I think Castle Wolfenstein came out on DOS at some point in the early 80's, and I wouldn't mind seeing that again. Spy vs Spy III came out on DOS in '88, but I don't think it's singleplayer.

 

[DXCHASE]

You should play the DOS versions of Mortal Kombat 1-4 and see how different they are to the arcade counterpart. These DOS games were the closest thing to an arcade port back in the 90s.

I also dabbled in Duke Nukem 3D and others listed, but wanted to stick to a game not mentioned yet.

 

[BeardyHat]

Beneath a Steel Sky

Beneath a Steel Sky on Steam

After being abducted by brutal soldiers and his kinfolk butchered, Robert Foster finds himself in Union City - a vast metropolis under the tyranny of a fascist AI. Alone, save for the circuit board of his best friend, Foster must discover the sinister truth - and why they specifically came for him.

store.steampowered.com

This one is right on the line, but: Archimedean Dynasty

Archimedean Dynasty

The all consuming darkness has you battle-scarred submarine in a vice-like grip. As you n

www.gog.com

Betrayal at Krondor

Betrayal at Krondor Pack

Betrayal at Krondor: Midkemia – a realm of enchantment and ancient magic where elves, dwa

www.gog.com

Blood (Technically a rerelease here)

Blood™ Fresh Supply on Steam

Battle an army of sycophantic cultists, zombies, gargoyles, hellhounds, and an insatiable host of horrors in your quest to defeat the evil Tchernobog. Squirm through 42 loathesome levels filled with more atmosphere than a Lovecraftian mausoleum.

store.steampowered.com

Capitalism

Capitalism Plus

Play the strategy game of money, power and wealth. Monitor your business performance agai

www.gog.com

Heroes of Might and Magic 2 (Though, I'd recommend fHeroes2 if you're not playing on original hardware. It's a bit different, adding many QoL features from the third game)

Heroes of Might and Magic® 2: Gold

Lord Ironfist is dead and the Kingdom is plunged into a vicious civil war by his feuding

www.gog.com

Monster Bash

Monster Bash on Steam

Johnny Dash's bash 'em and smash 'em adventure takes him into the evil Under World of Count Chuck. The story starts when Johnny's dog Tex is kidnapped by the Count, along with hundreds of other pet dogs and cats.

store.steampowered.com

Little Big Adventure

Twinsen's Little Big Adventure Classic on Steam

Twinsen's Little Big Adventure is a retro action-adventure game originally released in 1994. Equipped with your Magicball, you will have to face the evil Dr. Funfrock to save your girlfriend and the world of Twinsun.

store.steampowered.com

Warcraft 2 (Technically this is an update of the Windows 95 version, but still originally released on DOS)

Warcraft II Battle.net Edition

Battle.net® multiplayer requires you to configure the Router and Firewall Ports, details

www.gog.com

I can keep going

 

[Frindis]

Thank you very much, guys! A nice and varied list with some nice gems and a few I have not heard of so that will be very interesting to play. I'll throw up a poll soon, so stay tuned for that.

 

[Colif]

Zork: The Great Underground Empire game at DOSGames.com

Zork: The Great Underground Empire is a seminal interactive fiction game, and the first in a series of influential text adventure games from Infocom. ...

dosgames.com

 

[Frindis]

@Colif I can dig it, I can dig it I believe I tried it a bit some eons ago, so will be fun to polish them words fu.

 

[Colif]

careful of the grue

Grue

The Grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth with insatiable appetite. Its favorite diet ranges from adventurers to enchanters. Its appetite is only tempered by its fear of light. They are famous for their horrible fear of light: No grues have ever been seen by the...

zork.fandom.com

I don't know if I ever played it myself. Its a legend... or was

 

[Frindis]

The poll is made, it is time for voting guys! You can vote on multiple ones if you like.

Dos Game Extravaganza - StrawPoll.com

What is your opinion? Vote now: Lemmings, Monkey island 1, Monkey island 2, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max Hit the Road, Beneath a Steel Sky, Bladerunner, 11th hour, Toonstruck, Do

strawpoll.com

 

[Frindis]

I'll let the poll stay up for a couple more days, vote if you have not, and I look forward to seeing what you guys have cooked up for me.

 

[Frindis]

The poll is finished, thank you for participating There is a lot of good variety, so this will be fun! Apology beforehand if I suck in some of them. I'm only human after all. I'll start with the first on the list and go down from there. When I have finished or died trying the first game, I'll post some clips, manual info, background about the game, pictures, and other tidbits I can find. I'll try to get through them all in a reasonable time.

 

[Brian Boru]

Apology beforehand if I suck

If your gameplay is as good as your piecharting, you'll breeze thru 'em! Ears flapping wildly in said breeze, of course

Noble endeavor, have fun with it.

 

[Frindis]

If your gameplay is as good as your piecharting, you'll breeze thru 'em! Ears flapping wildly in said breeze, of course

Noble endeavor, have fun with it.

*tips hat*

 

[Frindis]

Edit: I'll have it finished by the end of August instead so I have some more time to complete the game. What I can say as of writing this though is that the game so far is very good!

---

Just a quick update: I will start with Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity this weekend and have things ready by the end of next week. "Make it so!" -Picard.

 

[Hveðrungr]

 

[LtPidgeon]

Beneath a Steel Sky

Beneath a Steel Sky on Steam

After being abducted by brutal soldiers and his kinfolk butchered, Robert Foster finds himself in Union City - a vast metropolis under the tyranny of a fascist AI. Alone, save for the circuit board of his best friend, Foster must discover the sinister truth - and why they specifically came for him.

store.steampowered.com

This one is right on the line, but: Archimedean Dynasty

Archimedean Dynasty

The all consuming darkness has you battle-scarred submarine in a vice-like grip. As you n

www.gog.com

Betrayal at Krondor

Betrayal at Krondor Pack

Betrayal at Krondor: Midkemia – a realm of enchantment and ancient magic where elves, dwa

www.gog.com

Blood (Technically a rerelease here)

Blood™ Fresh Supply on Steam

Battle an army of sycophantic cultists, zombies, gargoyles, hellhounds, and an insatiable host of horrors in your quest to defeat the evil Tchernobog. Squirm through 42 loathesome levels filled with more atmosphere than a Lovecraftian mausoleum.

store.steampowered.com

Capitalism

Capitalism Plus

Play the strategy game of money, power and wealth. Monitor your business performance agai

www.gog.com

Heroes of Might and Magic 2 (Though, I'd recommend fHeroes2 if you're not playing on original hardware. It's a bit different, adding many QoL features from the third game)

Heroes of Might and Magic® 2: Gold

Lord Ironfist is dead and the Kingdom is plunged into a vicious civil war by his feuding

www.gog.com

Monster Bash

Monster Bash on Steam

Johnny Dash's bash 'em and smash 'em adventure takes him into the evil Under World of Count Chuck. The story starts when Johnny's dog Tex is kidnapped by the Count, along with hundreds of other pet dogs and cats.

store.steampowered.com

Little Big Adventure

Twinsen's Little Big Adventure Classic on Steam

Twinsen's Little Big Adventure is a retro action-adventure game originally released in 1994. Equipped with your Magicball, you will have to face the evil Dr. Funfrock to save your girlfriend and the world of Twinsun.

store.steampowered.com

Warcraft 2 (Technically this is an update of the Windows 95 version, but still originally released on DOS)

Warcraft II Battle.net Edition

Battle.net® multiplayer requires you to configure the Router and Firewall Ports, details

www.gog.com

I can keep going

Little Big Adventure was a fantastic game with superb characterization.

Another great DOS game worth sampling is Descent.

 

[Frindis]

My experience with Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity:

Developed by Spectrum HoloByte and released in 1995 for DOS A Final Unity is an adventure game voiced by some of the main actors from Star Trek: The Next Generation series.

The DOS manual had 84 pages of info about the game and its size was more typical back in the DOS days and something you rarely see nowadays. Following the manual, you'll be quite set to understand different aspects of the game. Starting the game without reading the manual is no problem, but there are a couple of obstacles you might run into not knowing how some of the mechanics work. One of the most important things you learn in the manual is Hold Shift for running! Without using shift the game would feel like a slog and you would have had a miserable experience because of how slow the characters walk.

If you wanted more info about the game, you could back in 1995, get a hold of a strategy guide written by Brady Games. The book had 356 pages with not only hints and tricks for playing but also interviews with a couple of the actors voicing the game, something I thought was pretty cool.

The plot is your typical TNG plot with the crew being put on a diplomatic mission and then something happens. Not before long, you'll be hailing Romulan and Klingon ships while figuring out why everyone seems interested in some ancient artifact. You'll later find out that this artifact has the power to destroy all within its range. This is obviously something you don't want getting in the wrong hands and it will be up to you and your crew to gather information and solve this problem as fast as possible.

The game looks very nice for its age and I was especially impressed with the animations and how the planets you visit look so vastly different. The game has over 15.000 3D frames and around 15 frames had to be created for each second of animation, so you can understand the work that went into perfecting the images and effects.

One particular area of the game that impressed me was at the road of an intersection where there was this plant that exploded into small seeds that eventually as you played turned into small moving bubbles. The game has a lot of small animations like this and makes each place you visit feel alive and functioning.

The voice and text for the game are quite good and you will be hearing the voices of Patrick Stewart (Picard), Brent Spinder (Data) Jonathan Frakes (Riker) ), Gates McFadden (Crusher) LeVar Burton (La Forge), Martina Sirtis (Troi), and Michael Dorn (Worf), which is the crew you will be using on your missions. The text is easy to read and you can toggle it on/off.

The UI for the game looks good and it also has an impressive amount of different options to choose from, everything from switching between the characters for doing tasks and using and combining different objects you find throughout the game. The UI also comes with a different menu when you are on your ship where you'll find out more about planets, starship construction, analysis of quest items and so forth. There is also an option to manually take over the starship at battles and control ship shields and thruster. You can even find an interactive star map in which you can plot courses to warp too. It is impressive and something you don't see much of even with the more advanced game UI's today.

The visual and audio for the game brings you into the Star Trek environment with everything from the sounds of the phasers to how the transporter beam sounds. It feels like you are in your own Star Trek episode. Even the save menu looks like it belong in the game and it even has its own distinct StarTrek sound when you save a file.

The puzzles in the game are for the most part quite intuitive and you shouldn't have to think too hard on how to solve them. One of the more interesting part of solving the puzzles is that different crew members might give you different dialogues on how you can investigate further. For me, Data was the main character I controlled because he would often share a more detailed observation than for example Worf would.

Another thing I found interesting is how invested the actors were in the game. Michael Dorn who voiced the character Worf would make minor changes to the script removing contractions. He explained in an interview with Brady Games that Worf would not say "doesn't or Isn't", but instead say "does not or is not"

To sum it up, I had an enjoyable experience with Final Unity and I can understand why some people have this game as one of their favorites. I have no problem rating this game a 10/10. It is a game that has stood the test of time and a game that I hope more people will have the luxury of playing.

 

[Frindis]

I have started playing Heroes of Might and Magic 2 and must say I am surprised by how deep it seems to be. A wide range of creatures to choose from, spells, heroes, and ways to build the different towns. I had a lot of fun with my first run and I quickly found out that is was a good idea to have some defence at the castle. I basically lost my castle, but went on a quest with my only hero left who conquered two towns. I got some harpies in my team and they did some serious damage.

I never managed to build up my castle forces so I just winged it and went with exploring more, hoping that I could get more enemies/random soldiers to join me through diplomacy and then conquer the rest of the heroes. What eventually killed me was not a castle or a large group of enemies, it was a strange monster inside a cave. It gave me two options: Either you fight my servants or I'll eat you. I tried to call his bluff, but the monster was not lying and gobbled up my hero and I lost the game.