For me, it was the game Rocket Jockey released by Sega Soft in '96. It was perfect. The game featured a surf rock soundtrack by Dick Dale. The entire premise of the game was to ride around on rockets and using long cables to yank your opponents off theirs. Referees were also fair play. I don’t think I’ve met anyone else who has played the game, so if you have, let me know!
Jazz Jackrabbit, and all of its versions and the sequel. Banging soundtrack too
Jazz is the DOS Game Club game of the month in August, which is exciting! Been waiting for them to cover it ever since it launched.
Also monster bash
I was a big LucasArts graphic adventure game fan. Maniac mansion, Zak McKracken, Indiana Jones, Loom, Monkey Island Then all the Sierra games: leisure Suits Larry, Police Quest, King’s Quest, Camelot…. Good times.
ahem you forgot to mention full throttle ;)
Whenever I smell asphalt, I think of Maureen.
- one must fall
- anything from apogee
- Ultima underworld
- wolf 3d / doom
Doom, total classic. In that same vein, did you ever play Hexen? I recall it being a pretty cool medieval/ magic Doom.
And of course, unreal tournament. Although that was later. It had a Linux port which is why I played it.
Excellent list
Loved all of these, great list. I’d add:
- syndicate
- XCOM UFO
- Ultima VII (a real masterpiece both as a game and as software)
I really loved Tie Fighter from 1994. The music was pretty cool because it changed based on the state of the mission you were on and star wars music was a cheat code to my feelings.
I also thought it was so cool when you’d complete secret objectives and they’d bring you in to the emperor’s secret order and tattoo your arm. I thought that was just fucking great. Those cut scenes were so cool.
Also thanks to all of you who posted cool older games im going to try some of these. I’m thinking about trying fallout I’ve never played any in that series.
Lucas arts was so strong at that time. I loved dark forces(?) the FPS
Wait, you forgot to mention that he tattoes your arm with FORCE LIGHTNING.
Honestly Lucasarts of the early-90’s to mid 2000’s had such a high batting average.
Tie Fighter really captured the feel of the original trilogy that only a few games have actually done, Dark Forces and Jedi Knight both did the same.
Star Control 2 is the one I still come back to every now and then.
Fallout. Astonishing bit of work. I wish there were more isometric RPGs of that style.
Loved the older fallout series but wow that gameplay was unforgiving. I remember dying constantly, though I was probably just bad.
Yeah, the unfortunate downside to the Fallout games is that it gives you a wide variety of potential character builds, but unless you’re somewhat proficient in combat, your odds of survival are slim. Which, I suppose, would be accurate to a real-life post-apocalypse scenario
Theme Hospital I still go back to on occasion. I’ve seen Two Point but it’s not the same.
Have you tried corsix th? It lets you play the original theme hospital on modern systems.
Oh this looks amazing. Thank you!
The Commander Keen series.
ID games of course (Keen/Wolf3d/Doom), Sim City series. Raptor, Warcraft I&II, LucasArts games.
Raptor and tyrian, 2 great tastes that taste better together.
Unreal Tournament '99!
Scorched Earth Worms UT2K Quake 3 Arena Tribes Descent Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries You Don’t Know Jack Where in the World is Carmen San Diego
MechWarrior 3 was where I got into the franchise. Those were awesome games.
When you load into a mission and the mech boots up… titanfall really scratched that itch
Oh yeah, absolutely loved Titanfall. I’m still praying for a sequel. The multiplayer in that game was incredible.
It’s a travesty they didn’t already get TF2 done with the continued sales of the first game and huge success of Apex.
I always go back to Castle Adventure as my warm-fuzzy nostalga hit. Was the first game I played on PC, and yes, I know I’m old.
I played the shit out of Rocket Jockey. We only played it once together at a Lan party because I kept tying my friends together. Fun for me, not for them!
Never got to play LAN, I bet it was a blast though. That gameplay was made to torment your friends!
X-COM UFO Defense
So good!
The Moraff adventure games. Moraffs World and Moraffs Dungeons of the Unforgiven.
Also Castle of the Winds.
It’s either tough or impossible to get purchased copies of any of them now, but that means there are sites willing to host the full unlocked versions of them now. As far as I know, the creators of both are still alive though. So I suppose if you tried really hard you might still be able to get money to them.
In both cases they were games I played when I was a kid and they stood out as games I wanted to come back to when I was less bad at stuff. And in both cases I did, and little me was right.
I remember the death messages of Castle of the Winds: RIP Killed by Huge Ogre or RIP Killed by Kobold. I had never seen or heard of an Ogre before and thought it was “org” so I pronounced it that way too for the longest time. Until Shrek was released.
I vaguely remember the death message said “another one bites the dust” and I had no idea what that meant.
I recently played through Castle of the Winds again, works great in DOSbox with Win98. Still a great game.
I played one of the Moraff games (I think Dungeons of the Unforgiven) and remember it being like an acid trip. In retrospect I probably didn’t have the colors set up right.
