Hi all! I have a new series looking more in-depth at DOS games genre by genre, and it's better quality than this old thing. Have a look if you're interested... th-cam.com/video/OFNGmYg5FYU/w-d-xo.html
@@swiftcrawl2828 Yeah, definitely. A lot of them I played on Amiga first (and nothing beats the Amiga). I have an A1200 with hard drive (filled with every game) and RAM accelerator, so I still play a lot of Amiga.
You're right! The dos games had GORGEOUS packaging and art! Sometimes the packaging was more interesting than its contents. That was fun, looking at boxed game software in the 90s.
The manuals and add-ons in the package were great too. I still remember the "Space Piston" newspaper that came along with Space Quest 4. Even in that small items a lot of work was put.
I remember going to Kay bee toy stores in the 90s and buying super street fighter 2, and NBA Tournament Edition both for 10 dollars each. The boxes were big and had really cool artwork.
The later double-density disks did, but the original 3.5" floppies held 360k for single-sided disks and 720k for doubles. To put that in perspective, my first laptop had a 40mb hard drive, which was more than the OS could address without partitioning it. A 30mb partition for all of my apps and data, 10mb for all of the games I downloaded from a whole world full of BBS's, and I never did fill it up.
They never held 1.44 megs, unless you count a meg as 1000 x 1024 which is silly. 1024 is already silly for a kilo (which means 1000) but 1000 x 1024 is where madness lies.
Umm, they were always sold as 1.44mb, 1024 was (and is) the base used in storage calcs, and back in those days when storage was expensive all mgfrs fudged between 1000 and 1024 as it suited their marketing needs, just like automakers routinely fudge engine displacement numbers. images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41KEtNIe8ML._SY355_.jpg
I know the entire intro to this day. I think it was the first game intro, along with Prince of Persia 2, which had so much voice. It was just technically awesome. Genesis and SNES did not have voices. "The planet Arrakis... known... as Dune. Land of sand. Home of the spice... melaaaange"
I highly recommend it. If you played the newer one, then you played a dumbed down version of the first. It's on Steam for 5 bucks. I don't know if it works on win10, but it did work on win7. I can take a look though.
The list: D/Generation (1991) Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995) Syndicate (1993) The Secret of Monkey Island (1990) & Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (1991) Doom (1993) Command & Conquer (1995) Star Wars: TIE Fighter (1994) Cannon Fodder (1993) Druglord/Dopewars (?) Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters (1989) The Lost Vikings (1992) Day of the Tentacle, CD version (1993) Dune II (1992) Pang (1990) Speedball 2 (1990) I've played all except Druglord - the most on my friend's Amiga.
Ultima Underworld is arguably the king of all DOS games and is the precedent for all future 1st person games as it allowed full 3D movement. One modern day critic described it as virtual reality on a keyboard.
Yeah not sure when the UK DOS release was, think my Dad bought it around 1993/4. Colonization & Doom 2 are the only one's I've gone back to a few years ago, Doom 2 is epic after a couple of beers as you can absolutely boss it playing without caution, although I could never complete the final level without the cheat codes. Colonization is the most addictive game I've ever played by a mile, but once you learn some of the algorithms you can pretty much win every battle which is as good as cheating I guess. Still a great game though I used to love to pick one foreign power & just bully them relentlessly into submission ha ha ha! Fun times.
I remember playing Colonization, singing along to the new Megadeth Youthanasia CD playing in the CD player on the GIANT tower we had. Pentium P-90 for $2,000? WHAT A DEAL!
@Sword Thanks, glad you liked it! A couple of those I mention in the follow-up, but man there are so many great DOS games it's hard to mention them all.
Darklands had a great manual - for anyone who doesn't know replacement docs has many old manuals - I downloaded about 200 from there, almost all dos with some old console stuff as well.
I can appreciate your comment on the books that came with the games. I played Aces of the Pacific and later Aces of Europe in the early 90's. I actually used the book that came with Aces of the Pacific as a reference to write a paper about WW2 aircraft in high school. Got an A on it. The books that came with the flight simulators were quite detailed.
Space Quest really didn't age well in my opinion. It provides many of the worst moments of "fuck you, player", AKA Sierra point & click adventure dead man walking syndrome. The absolute worst offender was the 4th game. Add to that loads of arcade elements, half of the puzzles being based around copy protection and easily missed items (even near the start of the game) that only become necessary to have at the very end and you get a game that got mostly panned even in that time. The 3rd one would have played ok (I liked the spaceship interface, if only they'd expanded those parts with some more exploration, some basic combat or trading etc.), but it was really badly written self-insertion wank with a really poor excuse for a story. The fifth one was mostly okay, I guess, especially because of the spaceship captaining thing.
Dávid B They were among some of the first games I ever played, I guess that's why I love them so much and continue to do so. The fourth was riddled with bugs and 'modern' computers of the time were too powerful for it, hence all the timing issues in the infamous 'skate o rama sequence'. The sixth was the best for me.
Yeah, I didn't really get on with Sierra's adventure games. Certainly not as much as LucasArts' adventures. Perhaps because Sierra's were so unforgiving, sometimes brutally.
Thank you for making this! Each subsequent game you chose surprised me in that, apart from a few, these were all classics from my gaming days too! My first Commodore Amiga 500 came bundled with Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters!
Hey Jim! Wow, that's awesome. Good times indeed; the best. Sadly I sold off everything from my childhood, so have had to re-buy everything. My A1200 is my pride and joy now.
Syndicate is an all time fave, not sure if anyone caught it on steam but Satellite Reign is the perfect contemporary love letter to that game. Plays exactly the same but with beautiful graphics and environment designs. This whole list is brilliant. Of course there could be extras added but there was a lot of good games back then. Transport Tycoon, Microprose GP...... Monster Truck Madness even! I'd love to see point and click adventures make a comeback.
I was about to suggest a new drinking game based on what you're talking about. I'm sure it would be really, really, really great fun and would make a lot of people really, really happy.
My favorite DOS game was ( and in so many ways it still is ), Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, (1985) a great strategy game which takes place during the Han Dynasty. Brilliant game, lots of fun.
I never played any on your list but i might check out Lost Viking and the point n click adventures soon. The 4 games i mentioned, pretty sure they were all MS Dos and distributed by Apogee. Maybe Apogee was never big in the UK for some reason? For my part, Mystic Towers is highly recommended. Good n tough labyrinth game with monsters, and made in Australia.
What a difficult task to pick only 10! Your choices are spot on. Some runner-ups that are near and dear to my heart: Commandos Lemmings The Summoning Space Quest
Generally good list, though I believe it's incorrect saying that Doom was the grandfather of FPS games. That title actually goes to Wolfenstein which came out the year before I believe. There were many good games in that era, I would have probably included on the list: Star Control 3 Ultima IV - IX were all pretty good. Battle of Britain was what got me started playing PC games in the 80's. Hero's Quest I - Sierra (Later changed name to Quest for Glory due to copyright issues) Ultima Underworld Space Quest - Time Rippers Some of the forgotten realms RPG games were decent. I wish I could remember the names.
Yeah, I said "some consider it to be" the father, I would agree with Wolfenstein 3D, although some argue that wasn't either. Not played any on your list though!
No one else wasted thousands of hours playing Carmageddon? Had them all and the Splat Packs. Pretty sick though and the cursing comments by the driver are a bit strong for pre teens I think.
Id go as far as to say day of the tenctacle may be the greatest DOS game ever made. The art direction was amazing for the time, and the humour was great.
@@dosirus8072 3.5" disks (for PC) were 720k, 1.44MB, and 2.88MB (though the last one never really took off and I've never even seen one in person). 5.25" disks were 160k, 180k, 320k, 360k and finally 1.2MB depending on whether they were single or double sided. 360k became the most common, the smaller sizes before that were only in the original IBM 5150 and were short-lived. Apple computers and other non-IBM systems had all sorts of different sizes and formats.
I see many good and worthy games mentioned in the comment, so lets add some more as inspiration : Civilization Colonization Sim City 2000 Railroad Tycoon Populous Theme Park Theme Hospital Archemedian Dynasty Need for Speed Under a Killing Moon Pod (the racing game) One Must Fall 2097 Quake Quarentine Spot Kings Bounty Might & Magic 1 to 5 Heroes of Might & Magic : A Strategic Quest
I tried playing Quarentine on a DOS box, and it hasn't fared well ... some of the thing were based off of your clock frequency ... like, jumping ... I had a 486-66 dx2, with a turbo button back in the days, and you could jump higher with the car if you pushed the turbo button "off" ... which was kinda funny. Doesn't work so well with a 4Ghz i7 CPU. >_< It's one of those games I would like to see remastered though. The same with Archemedian Dynasty .. what an awesome game, but it's so pixelated now, it hurts my eyes. It actually had a voxel based minimap, which is kinda crazy when you think about it.
Thank you for making this video - educating the youngsters on the classics while entertaining us with some nostalgia at the same time. A tip with your videos - squish them horizontally a bit so they look right. Case in point - Tie Fighter at 12:50, the radar things in the top left and right should be circles - currently they're ovals. Those DOS games didn't have "square" pixels, they were actually thinner and taller than squares. The videos should be a ratio of 4:3. If you do that, then everything won't look so stocky and wide.
I enjoyed Descent 1 by Interplay, originally bought it way back to run on my 486. It's a 3D game set in space where you sit in the cockpit of a fighter known as a Pyro with damn good graphics for the day. The purpose of the games is that a mining corporation has deliberately infected all the mining robots in the solar system and you have to destroy the reactor in each mine after rescuing hostages, while along the way fighting robots with increasing difficulty. At the time I was blown away by the robot's AI. There was then Descent 2 also on Dos but later re-issued to run on win95. Later came Descent 3 and Descent 4 Mercenary to run on win 98-XP. I loved each version, you needed piloting skills, strategic skills and a head for three dimensional travel within mine shafts and chambers. I still have my old Win 95 computer just so I can keep playing Descent 1 and 2.
I loved Descent too, it was such a great game/concept. Some people have said they got motion sickness from that game, but thankfully I never suffered from that.
I have it too..I don't remember wich version I payed it in windows 98 ME and I still have the computer and I'm quite sure the cd too! At first I didn't get the drone would guide me trought the base and I used to shut at it! :)
When I played Syndicate, I just left the Persuadertron switched on all the time. Ended up with a huge human shield that could sweep up enemy cyborgs. Lots of fun!
GameHammer Classic Gaming Key targets immune to avoid game breaking in assassination missions? In persuade mission you could brainwash every single person in town. Handy as you got extra credits based on the number of persuaded people surviving at the end of the mission. 1000 per enemy agent and 100 for every other person, if I recall correctly. The system for persuading enemies is as follows: Four civilians persuaded before being able to persuade a guard, eight for a police officer, and thirty-two for an enemy agent. These numbers are lowered by the quality of the brain implants of the agent with the Persuadertron.
you have to! this game is a must, it is like the best macro management war, heartless strat, turnbased overpower kind of game... you just know that when you land with your big airplane, you set your rookies in the front as alien bullet meat just to trigger their overwatch... you will loose a few each battle then they gain ranks and you can put them more in the back and hire new "meat".... the new xcom... you can go through the game without loosing anyone.... the bullets... you have to manage them, the weight... ALL! The new game has graphic and a bit more story and tutorial... other than this it is empty compared to what it used to be ;) still Firaxis did a great job, it hard to give proper tribute to x-com Ufo defence ( don't play the 2nd or the other shitty one after ;) )
Great list, but X-com was just too good to ignore. It still plays brilliantly and you can find remastered versions around. The original won't run well due to timing issues. I played most of those games on the Amiga. Great times!
I don't think you'd go through the new UFO game's Iron Man mode without losing a single guy (well, spoiler alert, you lose at least one in the final mission anyway). You could save scum during missions in the original one too, so technically you can finish that flawlessly as well. It'd take some reloading, though. I really liked that game but honestly, I prefer the new ones because they got rid of some of the more insane levels of micro-management. The second game, Terror from the Deep I thought was even more interesting with its Lovecraftian horror themes, but the difficulty was a right bastard. I read somewhere that people had complained about the first game having been too easy (because due to a bug, regardless of what setting you chose, you got the beginner), and the devs, not knowing about the aforementioned bug, deliberately made the second one a downright motherfucker to appease these fans.
World Class Leader Board! Best thing about this golf game was you didn't need a sound card -- it played announcers, golf clap, birds, stroke sounds, etc., thru the little POST beep speaker. We had a group that played every day at lunch on a company 386. "Ooh, can't be too happy about THAT shot!"
I remember the awesome days of big box PC games. Some of them got really creative and it really added to the whole experience of browsing and buying. The booklets maps and other cool stuff inside them also made it more memorable. Then I remember the point when they announced that all PC games would come in the same box. They tried to make it sound like a good thing but we all knew. So many things in life never should have changed. Now these days people pay hundreds extra for special edition games in packages that used to be everywhere.
Yes, it was a sad day when they did that. I loved all the gubbins we'd get in the big boxes, like huge instruction manuals for flight sims like it was a real plane LOL. I remember being in the car driving home from the software shop, and excitedly looking through the paperwork. Good times.
Another one too... A good portion of the gold box SSI Advanced Dungeons and Dragons games as well: Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, etc. They were some of the first RPGs that I got into
@@onaretrotip You should definitely get a copy and download free openxcom to get modern resolution and few other tweaks that can enhance experience. If you happen to like turnbased strategy games, it's still one of the best games ever made. Modern xcoms feel really dumbed down games after playing original. If I'd have to vote the best dos game ever made, I'd be really tempted to vote it. Heck I've put insane amounts of hours into it and have just began to play it again with openxcom. It's something that everyone liking strategy games have to at least try.
After speaking to you yesterday about this vid I thought I would check it out, fella you shouldn't put yourself down this video was great really enjoyed it especially the druglord game lol and it's made me want to play a few of them
This are few of my favorite games in '90 1. Master of Orion (1993, MicroProse) 2. Master of Magic (1994, MicroProse) 3. Civilization & Civilization II (1991, 1996, MicroProse) 4. UFO: Enemy Unknown (1994, MicroProse) 5. SimCity 2000 (1993, Maxis) 6. Star Control II (1992, Accolade)
@@onaretrotip You poor, poor soul. And I'm not kidding. To miss out on that list of games is a genuine tragedy. I've been on a mission to show my kids this 'golden' era of gaming. They've honestly been blown away and actually got them moaning about lack of depth in todays games afterwards, wishing they grew up when I did haha.
Dont forget *Crystal Caves* That was one of my faves back then, and still I could play it now! also the *ultimate machine* was another amazing game! Also any of the other scumm games, indiana jones fate of atlantis, was my favourite along with broken sword etc etc... Great list btw ;)
Great video ! That Tie Fighter box really brought me back.. so great and fun. Uses 100s of hour on it..and before that X-Wing and the expansion packs like B-Fighter
Games in the Video: D/Generation Dark Forces Syndicate Monkey Island Monkey Island 2 Doom Command and Conquer Tie Fighter Cannon Fodder Dope Wars (Happy Hacker Foundation) / Drug Wars (John E. Dell) / Druglord Escape from the planet of the Robot Monsters The Lost Vikings Day of the Tentacle Dune II Pang Speedball 2
Some of my favorite DOS games were the Commander Keen series, Might & Magic series, Wolfenstein 3D, Sierra Games, Sim City, Red Baron, Air Warrior, Scorched Earth, Starflight, Descent, Doom, Darklands, and Warlords.
I never really got on with Sierra's adventure games, and I'm certainly not as fond of them as I am the LucasArts graphic adventures. I did love Leisure Suit Larry, but not so sure I'd recommend it today.
People nowadays seem to hate the old text parser adventure games. Except that without them, the genre never would have started. They are certainly a part of the core of 80's DOS gaming. The 90's took the preferable PnC and "you can't die approach" which opened it up to more casual players. But damnit Leisure Suit Larry was just friggin' hilarious! Al Lowe (the writer, designer, owner). For adult themed adventure it really stole the spotlight and properly so. And what's sad is in 1997 with Leisure Suit Larry 7 "Love for Sail" with full speech it REALLY is just like playing Curse of Monkey Island 3 (considered as one of if not THE best interfaces and art styles for adventure games). #7 has such a great wit that is hard to match in other games (and of coursem text parsing long gone). I HIGHLY recommend anyone who enjoys adventure games to get Leisure Suit Larry 7. It's an absoluye gem and very easy to get into. Full voice acting and the narrator is a wonferful comedic edition witu great 4th wall breaking.
onaretrotip Ok, shows what I know. I remember the shareware going around on 3.5" floppies back in the day. I played it to the end where Hitler attacks you in a powered armor suit, and after you kill him you get the "Death Cam" replay. Great fun. I used to dream about blue brick walls from playing too much.
Did you ever find those 3.5 floppies with the bright orange label usually with demos or shareware on them ? There was an adventure dungeon crawler I've been trying to find for years I use to have on one of those.
I think I know which you mean, but can't be sure. I thought it was a Windows game (not DOS) but I could be remembering wrong, but it was shareware I first discovered on one of those multi-game shareware CDs. Is it 'Castles Of The Wind'? th-cam.com/video/EQO2KhJVrnQ/w-d-xo.html
Hahaha YES, Henrik! Alley cat was the first ever PC game I played. I was about five or six and went to work with my Dad, and that was the only game on one of their computers. Remember that like it was yesterday, even over thirty years later.
@@theyamo7219 Yeah, because no one had any fun in the preceding decades on those monochrome games. Every single one was bad. END OF SARCASM I feel sorry that you never got any joy out of Alley Cat, Striker, Q-Bert, Elite, etc.
@Brian G there was a cheat in privateer 1: engage the superthrusters and alternate flying up and down, like a wave. You will be faster than the enemies and your superthuster won't run out! (Not sure if they fixed that.) Also a joystick is almost a necessity in dogfights. Good luck!
You have superb taste in DOS games! Most lists like this have glaring omissions, but I think you've managed to hit all of the must-haves that I could think of. I would have considered adding Raptor: Call of the Shadows, but I can't say that it necessarily beats any of the games that you included.
My personal favorites: Myst, Outpost, Masters of Orion, X-Wing Collectors Edition, Stonekeep, Conquest of the Long Bow, Full Throttle, Sam and Max, and Cyberia (both 1 and 2), and lastly...my all time favorite...The Dig!
Other classics worth trying are "UFO: Enemy Unknown" aka "UFO Defense" and its first sequel, "X-COM: Terror from the Deep". these days are best played through openXcom, a free Windows (and others) port. Basically you have to manage Earth's defense against an alien invasion, in a fashion reminiscent of both "SimCity" (base creation and management) and "Jagged Alliance" (the action bits). They're the kind of games that can get you fired from your job or abandoned by your SO. They're THAT addictive.
Those games are definitely the most recommended here in the comments, Neville. I need to play them, they sound like my kind of game! RIP my life I guess.
Enjoyed this, Pete. Missed it at the time but a suggested video that i'm glad I watched. Been meaning to play some of my old favourites via dosbox. Maybe one day room permitting set up a dedicated old PC. Almost feel guilty leaving a message here 😂 Can't imagine how much time it's taken you to respond to each and every one of the 3000-odd messages on this video, respect to you for doing so. Hope you have a smashing 2022 mate.
Thanks, James. It's an absolutely terrible video, so it's a shame this is my most viewed. I've been playing so much DOS the last few months since I got that new Windows 98 PC. Love it. Haha yeah, there are a lot of comments, but I like replying to everyone who takes the time to comment on my channel (bar a few weirdos). Happy New Year!
The Pentium was the first true Intel CPU in terms of being affordable and distinguishable from generic IBM based computer and this was also the first time pc fanboys laughed at apple for being garbage.
My first computer was pentium (75) megahertz. I remember at the time you needed all that power for the games that were out then and for a few years after.
I miss the days of Sierra games that came on more than a dozen 5 1/4 inch floppy disks. This was before I had a computer with a 3 1/2 inch drive (that would be in 1992). My first PC-type system was a Tandy 1000EX from 1987. Jesus I can't believe it's been almost 30 years. And before that I owned a Commodore VIC-20. I remember being 5 years old and typing out BASIC programs from books and magazines. I was such a bloody geek. :D
Family Computing and COMPUTE! taught me more about computers than any college ever could. Of course it wasn't for everyone, but I find it somewhat sad that young kids can't get that same kind of experience of learning the joys of programming these days. At least you had Tandy graphics. I was stuck with a CGA adapter on an RGB monitor for an eternity. Imagine playing those Sierra games in 4 colors (blue, yellow, red, and green). Blech!
Thank you for the very genuine, in depth exploration. This is by far the best game review I have seen, for finding games that went the extra mile to be amazing.
Can't forget one of the key games that drove a generation of computer users to upgrade their PC's to CD-Rom's. "The Seventh Guest". And the sequel "The 11th hour......" Both knocked it out of the park for being light years ahead of their time.
If you've never tried it check out Fantasy Empires. It's my personal favorite DOS game of all time. You can't play it on modern hardware or even in dosbox since the combat is tied to CPU speed.. but if you have original hardware it can't be beat!
Very interesting list. I haven't heard of many of them. Here's my list: 1. Empire Deluxe 2. Space Quest 3. King's Quest 4 Commander Keen 5. Captain Comic 6. Battle Chess 7. Scorched Earth 8. Prince of Persia 9. Blockout 10. F-19 Stealth fighter 11. Star Wars: Dark Forces 12. Kingdom of Kroz 13. Caveman Olympics 14. Dark Ages 15. Mixed up Mother Goose It's hard to only pic 15! :-D honorable mentions go to: LHX: Attack Chopper DND (R O Software) Maniac Mansion Stonedale Castle (Legends of Murder Vol. 1)
Oh, impossible picking fifteen. Just to be clear, the video isn't my top fifteen DOS games, it's just fifteen I think are still fun to play. Also did a follow-up of another fifteen. Good list, a few I haven't played, but love Battle Chess, Prince of Persia, and Dark Forces!
I understand, I did the same thing. Only, I forgot Pirates! Empire deluxe is my favorite and I still play it often (a few times a year). I have the whole list installed in Dosbox on my modern system, and play through them on occasion. I shared my list because I noticed your list was more 90's era, where as mine is more late 80s era. Happy gaming!
This is (sadly) so true. There's so much emphasis on graphics and realism today (and cashing in) that often the gameplay and mechanics get overlooked. Fancy graphics alone do not make a great game.
Before you get out your walking stick and start yelling at the damn young whippersnappers to keep it down, don't forget that back then innovation was really not as scary as it is today. The market was much less saturated, and dev teams were generally smaller too. If it's innovation you're after, you may have better luck at the indie market, however that area has been getting real fucking cynical lately.
I could give up all the graphics for games as in depth as they used to be. To an extent. I don't know if i can handle an ASCII game but with today's tech you could top that and have a good UI without much trouble.
Yes. Those are interesting games. By cynical I meant that a lot of devs unashamedly copy successful games. Not steal from, but copy. Cf. Limbo's clones just off the top of my head.
I loved Sierra games in late 80s early 90s. Space, kings, police quest were all great. KQV was probably my favorite. KQIV was fun, but the text commands were so tedious, made it very frustrating.
Hey do you remember this game: you're this pixelated grey guy with a white gun and shoots white little bullets. The layouts of the stages, were kind of similar to donkey Kong, with I think maybe office building stuff like desks. If this sounds even remotely familiar please let me know! I've been searching for it for a decade
Hi! Sound like Impossible Mission. I loved that on the BBC Micro, but it was released on most home computers. But maybe not as not sure you had a gun in that.
you mention dune 2, dune 1 is totally worth checking out. In fact allow me a suggestion of possible game you might consider. Dune 1 Legend of kyrandia (with voice acting) Gobliiins, gobliins 2, goblins 3 (really funny) Theme park
Yes, you can! I put some links in the description to sites where you can download or play them. DOSBox is great, but sites like abandonia self-boot so those are great.
@666 bit Using VMWare to get MS DOS 6.22 running is indeed better. DOSBox uses DOS 5, however I don't know if there are games that only work in DOS 6(.22).
Yeah, and when yo consider that in 1992 Ultima Underworld 1 was realease before Castle Wolfenstien and was superior in every way to it. It was even superior to Doom in 1993 in most ways, the primary thing being having a real storyline, inventory and leveling. Though admittedly it doesn't holdup as well. But for the 2D stuff, Ultima 3 & especially 4 were great! no selecting conversation points here, you type your question - you had to find stuff out and write it down. Not easy, but way cool.
Ultima 7 basically led to my whole career in computers. Took so much work to get it to run well on a lower powered machine. That coupled with just being an amazing, large game and then the hacking via hex editors... man what a good time.
The Incredible Machine by sierra... use physics principles to solve puzzles so frustrating even today, but it still holds up... there was a second one too which added extra levels and a few more tools to create your own, there were a few other versions that were made for windows but theyre not as good I've literally lost several days at a time over the years trying to play descent 1... i still cant get past level 7... been stuck there for 21 years Doom Heretic, Hexen Hocus Pocus all great games also Police Quest 1 (the text based original, not the VGA remake) - I can still win today completely from memory... and I can get more than the supposed maximum points available
Yeah, TIM is awesome! Featured that on my recent DOS puzzle games video. I'm not sure how far I ever got with Descent now that you mention it, but I don't recall completing it. I never played the Police Quests series, but something about it always interested me.
Hi all! I have a new series looking more in-depth at DOS games genre by genre, and it's better quality than this old thing. Have a look if you're interested...
th-cam.com/video/OFNGmYg5FYU/w-d-xo.html
onaretrotip have you ever played NFL Challenge by XOR Software. We played that game a lot at Kent State University in the late 80’s/early 90’s.
Kent State Flash No, not played that one. I'd be surprised if we got that in the UK to be honest.
@First Name Last Name I have, but not on DOS.
onaretrotip most of these games were amiga first and better on amiga. I would see exclusive or dos first games
@@swiftcrawl2828 Yeah, definitely. A lot of them I played on Amiga first (and nothing beats the Amiga). I have an A1200 with hard drive (filled with every game) and RAM accelerator, so I still play a lot of Amiga.
X-COM, Worms, Warcraft 2, Wing Commander, and Lemmings.
Sadly many of those passed me by, but love Worms and Lemmings (although I played them first on my Amiga).
« While you sleep, they'll be waiting ! »
One must fall 2097, reunion
I see a man of culture
Warcraft 1
LucasArts had so many absolute bangers back in the day, really talented people developing games there
Yes, just pumping out absolute bangers.
Grim fandango is way up there with monkey island. And MI have had some remakes as well. So 1 and 2 are now with speech and far better graphics.
I like your style. Not shouting, not cursing, just serious and to the point. Cool video, brings back memories.
Ah, thank you very much. Glad you enjoyed it and it stirred up some fond memories.
The cutscenes from C&C and Red Alert were WAY ahead of their time. Amazing. Still play RA today.
Absolutely! So good. I picked up a big box Red Alert at a gaming market last weekend as it happens. Only five quid!
he who controls the past commands the future, he who commands the future conquers the past.. miss those days
You're right! The dos games had GORGEOUS packaging and art! Sometimes the packaging was more interesting than its contents. That was fun, looking at boxed game software in the 90s.
Definitely, Donald! I do love collecting the big box PC and Amiga games, but they take up a lot of room so I don't buy many. Can't beat the artwork.
The manuals and add-ons in the package were great too. I still remember the "Space Piston" newspaper that came along with Space Quest 4. Even in that small items a lot of work was put.
Truth
I remember going to Kay bee toy stores in the 90s and buying super street fighter 2, and NBA Tournament Edition both for 10 dollars each. The boxes were big and had really cool artwork.
Those floppy disks held 1.44 megs. not 3
The later double-density disks did, but the original 3.5" floppies held 360k for single-sided disks and 720k for doubles. To put that in perspective, my first laptop had a 40mb hard drive, which was more than the OS could address without partitioning it. A 30mb partition for all of my apps and data, 10mb for all of the games I downloaded from a whole world full of BBS's, and I never did fill it up.
Indeed. I misspoke in the video, perhaps I was thinking of 3.5"? God knows. I did add an annotation correcting myself, but it only shows on desktop.
They never held 1.44 megs, unless you count a meg as 1000 x 1024 which is silly. 1024 is already silly for a kilo (which means 1000) but 1000 x 1024 is where madness lies.
Umm, they were always sold as 1.44mb, 1024 was (and is) the base used in storage calcs, and back in those days when storage was expensive all mgfrs fudged between 1000 and 1024 as it suited their marketing needs, just like automakers routinely fudge engine displacement numbers.
images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41KEtNIe8ML._SY355_.jpg
good old dos 3.0 fat limits :D
He who controls the spice, controls the universe................
Ha, indeed!
i almost felt like a teacher for a second :D 'universe, bloody universe it is!' i shouted in my head :)
I always enjoyed playing as house harconan with their super heavy nuclear tanks.
I know the entire intro to this day. I think it was the first game intro, along with Prince of Persia 2, which had so much voice. It was just technically awesome. Genesis and SNES did not have voices.
"The planet Arrakis... known... as Dune. Land of sand. Home of the spice... melaaaange"
"Arrakis" Sounds like Battle of the irakis, anyone notice?
Commander Keen, Scorched Earth, and Wolfenstien 3D were my favs growing up.
I loved Wolfenstein 3D. Never played Scorched Earth sadly but have been meaning to.
Scorched Earth was the best of a whole genre, the 2D artillery sim.
Oh man...LOVED Commander Keen.
Yeah, can't believed he missed these. Think we all played them because they were popular on the bbs sites. Dangerous dave was another one.
Wolfenstein 3d was one of my favourite games...😄😄😄
The original X-Com UFO Defense from 1993 will always remain one of my favorite games of all time.
I need to play that!!!
I highly recommend it. If you played the newer one, then you played a dumbed down version of the first. It's on Steam for 5 bucks. I don't know if it works on win10, but it did work on win7. I can take a look though.
I'll check! Thanks.
SET BLASTER= A220 I7 D1 T1
Nice.
chicken livers yeah irq7 was the printer port, ain't nobody printing when gaming!
Wow almost forgot what it was like to set the IRQ Ports and the DMA channels...
Switch to I5, because the paralell printer port use IRQ 7 and there was no interrupt sharing on the 80486.
Ha ha, this is my SB16 set blaster=a220 i5 d1 h5 p330 t6
The list:
D/Generation (1991)
Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995)
Syndicate (1993)
The Secret of Monkey Island (1990) & Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (1991)
Doom (1993)
Command & Conquer (1995)
Star Wars: TIE Fighter (1994)
Cannon Fodder (1993)
Druglord/Dopewars (?)
Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters (1989)
The Lost Vikings (1992)
Day of the Tentacle, CD version (1993)
Dune II (1992)
Pang (1990)
Speedball 2 (1990)
I've played all except Druglord - the most on my friend's Amiga.
Thank you! I'll pin this comment so that everyone can see it.
Great video and comment. Maybe if you included the start time for each segment that would be really useful too.
but what about Zork!
I love it
whisper012 Thank you! The thought hadn't occurred to me, but it's a great idea for the future. I'm still learning all this ;)
PhunkBustA Zork's great, but would you recommend it to people today? Not sure I would.
I love the fact you mentioned both Dune 2 and C&C (Father and Son). Great channel.
Thank you!
Master of Orion 2 and Master of Magic are still on the short lists for best space and fantasy 4X games.
I'm not sure MOO2 qualifies, as it was also released for Windows. The first one does, though. :)
A lot of recommendations for Master of Orion.
onaretrotip I got Moo1 on my Samsung tab A and it's a blast!
I still play Master of Magic, it's lovely
Same here!
Ultima Underworld is arguably the king of all DOS games and is the precedent for all future 1st person games as it allowed full 3D movement. One modern day critic described it as virtual reality on a keyboard.
👌
Colonization, Dune 2, Cannon Fodder, Soccer Kid, Doom 2, A-Train..... probably about 5000 hours of my childhood right there.
Great choices! Was A-Train also on DOS? I loved that game on my Amiga, I played it for countless hours.
Yeah not sure when the UK DOS release was, think my Dad bought it around 1993/4.
Colonization & Doom 2 are the only one's I've gone back to a few years ago, Doom 2 is epic after a couple of beers as you can absolutely boss it playing without caution, although I could never complete the final level without the cheat codes. Colonization is the most addictive game I've ever played by a mile, but once you learn some of the algorithms you can pretty much win every battle which is as good as cheating I guess. Still a great game though I used to love to pick one foreign power & just bully them relentlessly into submission ha ha ha! Fun times.
Hahaha brilliant! Doom 2 is still so much fun, and is in fact better than most of the FPS drivel that litters the shelves these days.
It is epic, it was pretty damn creepy as well, especially playing it late at night alone.
I remember playing Colonization, singing along to the new Megadeth Youthanasia CD playing in the CD player on the GIANT tower we had. Pentium P-90 for $2,000? WHAT A DEAL!
"It all started as a game of 'Dopewars' officer. I just got carried away and couldn't distinguish fact from fantasy."
True story.
Ahh the memory's. When the quality of a game was reflected in how thick the manual was
Haha, indeed. Good times.
The plural of MEMORY is MEMORIES, not MEMORY'S
@Sword Thanks, glad you liked it! A couple of those I mention in the follow-up, but man there are so many great DOS games it's hard to mention them all.
@First Name Last Name Oh, god, that is terrible. And ridiculous!
Darklands had a great manual - for anyone who doesn't know replacement docs has many old manuals - I downloaded about 200 from there, almost all dos with some old console stuff as well.
I can appreciate your comment on the books that came with the games. I played Aces of the Pacific and later Aces of Europe in the early 90's. I actually used the book that came with Aces of the Pacific as a reference to write a paper about WW2 aircraft in high school. Got an A on it. The books that came with the flight simulators were quite detailed.
Yeah, the flight sim booklets were absolutely enormous, and so detailed. Ah, good times.
Jagged Alliance (1994) I still enjoy playing today!
I've not played that one, but it's been mentioned a few times.
Amen brother.
JA2 v1.13 - - still my favourite game
Yash! And Jagged alliance 2
I cry every time I finish JA2...because it's so beautiful. 😭
Damn dude you tossed me right back into the annals of my gaming memory. I miss the dos games era of gaming
Glad to hear it! I miss those days too.
Civilization, Colonization, Prince of Persia, Sim City 2000, so many good ones...
I know, right. The list goes on and on.
One Must Fall 2097, F16 Fighting Falcon, Transport Tycoon, Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix and Sierra's Space Quest series.
Space Quest really didn't age well in my opinion. It provides many of the worst moments of "fuck you, player", AKA Sierra point & click adventure dead man walking syndrome. The absolute worst offender was the 4th game. Add to that loads of arcade elements, half of the puzzles being based around copy protection and easily missed items (even near the start of the game) that only become necessary to have at the very end and you get a game that got mostly panned even in that time. The 3rd one would have played ok (I liked the spaceship interface, if only they'd expanded those parts with some more exploration, some basic combat or trading etc.), but it was really badly written self-insertion wank with a really poor excuse for a story.
The fifth one was mostly okay, I guess, especially because of the spaceship captaining thing.
Dávid B
They were among some of the first games I ever played, I guess that's why I love them so much and continue to do so. The fourth was riddled with bugs and 'modern' computers of the time were too powerful for it, hence all the timing issues in the infamous 'skate o rama sequence'. The sixth was the best for me.
Yeah, I didn't really get on with Sierra's adventure games. Certainly not as much as LucasArts' adventures. Perhaps because Sierra's were so unforgiving, sometimes brutally.
onaretrotip
Grim Fandango is the game I measure all adventure games against.
***** Great game! Did you play Double Fine's remaster? They have a Full Throttle remaster coming in 2017 too.
I really loved Crusader: No Regret. Futuristic game with a good mix of puzzle and action.
Not played it, but a few have recommended that as a great game.
Still got both games somewhere ... No Remorse as well as No Regret. I think I even kept the manuals, even though I'm no collector
Yeah Crusader No Remorse and Crusaded No Regret, excellent games.
loved does games ^^ the was going to start work on crusader no mercy…. but dont know what happen… Think origin when to the grave...
I also have add to everything mentioned that it has probably the best soundtrack of all the games in 90's.
Dope wars! Wow. I forgot all about that game. Used to play it non stop
So addictive.
It was so much more magical to pick up a game back in the 90s. I miss that atmosphere.
It sure was, Martin.
Thank you for making this! Each subsequent game you chose surprised me in that, apart from a few, these were all classics from my gaming days too! My first Commodore Amiga 500 came bundled with Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters!
Thank you. So glad you enjoyed it! I absolutely loved EFTPOTRM on Amiga. That music!
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness > C&C, IMHO.
Yeah, people have been singing Warcraft II's praises. I need to play it!
When warcraft was warcraft what a game
One of the best co-op and head to head games to come out. Could ass Star Craft too.
Found a game on android "Cartoon Craft". Plays just like the rts greats. Check it out.
Still have it!!! the first watcraft too
I spent so much time playing syndicate wars. So many fond memories in this video. Thanks.
Glad it could stir up some nice memories, Richard! :)
Impressive collection. You give me hope in a human race... I'm just kidding. You're a rare earth gem- one in a million. Thank you for this.
Hahaha thanks.
Wow..a blast from the past....I still have most of these games in storage along with my old amiga 2000.....and old pc games.....good times....Jim
Hey Jim! Wow, that's awesome. Good times indeed; the best. Sadly I sold off everything from my childhood, so have had to re-buy everything. My A1200 is my pride and joy now.
Add Dungeon Keeper to your list. One of the best DOS games ever!
That's one that's always passed me by and I never actually played. I will if I get the chance though, thanks.
its free on origin now :)
586 and 686 say hello
onaretrotip also you could add theme hospital and theme park
Alberto de Tena Rojas Theme Hospital I never played, but I loved Theme Park!
I've never played either Syndicate game, but I recognized the music right off the bat as it was sampled by Skrillex for the reboot(?) theme.
Yes!
Syndicate is an all time fave, not sure if anyone caught it on steam but Satellite Reign is the perfect contemporary love letter to that game. Plays exactly the same but with beautiful graphics and environment designs. This whole list is brilliant. Of course there could be extras added but there was a lot of good games back then. Transport Tycoon, Microprose GP...... Monster Truck Madness even! I'd love to see point and click adventures make a comeback.
Played through Syndicate to completion recently on my DOS PC. Still fantastic!
I really really can't believe you missed a really really good game - Worms. Really really good fun
I was about to suggest a new drinking game based on what you're talking about. I'm sure it would be really, really, really great fun and would make a lot of people really, really happy.
LMAO
Some more great games were:
Civilization
Sim City 2000
Castle Wolfenstein
Great choices, Peter, although I've not played the original Civ.
You forgot about DOOM
Nice video dude. Happy gaming. ♡
Thanks! You too.
My favorite DOS game was ( and in so many ways it still is ), Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, (1985) a great strategy game which takes place during the Han Dynasty. Brilliant game, lots of fun.
Not played it, I'll check it out!
Have you ever played any of the following: Commander Keen 4 - 6, Raptor Call of the Shadows, Mystic Towers, Wacky Wheels?
I've played Commander Keen and Raptor more recently, but not the other two.
I never played any on your list but i might check out Lost Viking and the point n click adventures soon. The 4 games i mentioned, pretty sure they were all MS Dos and distributed by Apogee. Maybe Apogee was never big in the UK for some reason? For my part, Mystic Towers is highly recommended. Good n tough labyrinth game with monsters, and made in Australia.
**apogee fanfare**
**Bio Menace** **Wacky Wheels**
No, Apogee were huge over here too!
Holy crap my dude! You have my dream collection in the background!!!! :D ❤
LOL
What a difficult task to pick only 10! Your choices are spot on.
Some runner-ups that are near and dear to my heart:
Commandos
Lemmings
The Summoning
Space Quest
Yes, it was hard choosing, but there are so many great DOS games out there!
Generally good list, though I believe it's incorrect saying that Doom was the grandfather of FPS games. That title actually goes to Wolfenstein which came out the year before I believe.
There were many good games in that era, I would have probably included on the list:
Star Control 3
Ultima IV - IX were all pretty good.
Battle of Britain was what got me started playing PC games in the 80's.
Hero's Quest I - Sierra (Later changed name to Quest for Glory due to copyright issues)
Ultima Underworld
Space Quest - Time Rippers
Some of the forgotten realms RPG games were decent. I wish I could remember the names.
Yeah, I said "some consider it to be" the father, I would agree with Wolfenstein 3D, although some argue that wasn't either. Not played any on your list though!
please add Elite.
@barutaji disagree. Wolfenstein 3D all the way. It was amazing and pre-dates Doom - all "maturity" aside.
No one else wasted thousands of hours playing Carmageddon? Had them all and the Splat Packs. Pretty sick though and the cursing comments by the driver are a bit strong for pre teens I think.
Haha hell yes!
They banned it in Australia I think. But not after we bought it. Couldn't you kill cows?
David Graham dude carmageddon was the shit
Haha yes, my copy was the censored one with green blood and robots I think. Had to buy it again for the real thing.
Yeah, there's a modified DOSBox version which can emulate 3dfx/Glide but FPS is not smooth, at least in my experience.
AMD made 486 processors, as well. 486DX still fills me with nostalgia.
Me too :)
Quite a few of them I had played and were my favourites too back in the day.
Thanks for sharing. 😉👌🏻
Thanks for watching!
Id go as far as to say day of the tenctacle may be the greatest DOS game ever made. The art direction was amazing for the time, and the humour was great.
It's certainly up there for me. A masterpiece.
Day of the tentacle is one of my favorites
The install disk/s files were compressed so a 1.44MB floppy could hold almost twice it's capacity so 3MB is not too far off. :)
Thanks, James. I was probably thinking of 3.5" to be honest.
3.5" floppy disk had 1.44MB and 5.25" had 120, 640, 720 kB
@@dosirus8072 3.5" disks (for PC) were 720k, 1.44MB, and 2.88MB (though the last one never really took off and I've never even seen one in person). 5.25" disks were 160k, 180k, 320k, 360k and finally 1.2MB depending on whether they were single or double sided. 360k became the most common, the smaller sizes before that were only in the original IBM 5150 and were short-lived. Apple computers and other non-IBM systems had all sorts of different sizes and formats.
I see many good and worthy games mentioned in the comment, so lets add some more as inspiration :
Civilization
Colonization
Sim City 2000
Railroad Tycoon
Populous
Theme Park
Theme Hospital
Archemedian Dynasty
Need for Speed
Under a Killing Moon
Pod (the racing game)
One Must Fall 2097
Quake
Quarentine
Spot
Kings Bounty
Might & Magic 1 to 5
Heroes of Might & Magic : A Strategic Quest
Quite a few I've never played, but loved Sim City 2000, Theme Park, and (especially) Quarantine.
I tried playing Quarentine on a DOS box, and it hasn't fared well ... some of the thing were based off of your clock frequency ... like, jumping ... I had a 486-66 dx2, with a turbo button back in the days, and you could jump higher with the car if you pushed the turbo button "off" ... which was kinda funny.
Doesn't work so well with a 4Ghz i7 CPU. >_<
It's one of those games I would like to see remastered though.
The same with Archemedian Dynasty .. what an awesome game, but it's so pixelated now, it hurts my eyes.
It actually had a voxel based minimap, which is kinda crazy when you think about it.
Haha I bet.
I forgot about the Mech Warrior game .. that was pretty awesome too.
Mec warrior was pretty awesome too. Loved heroes of might and magic. A lot of hours on that game
Thank you for making this video - educating the youngsters on the classics while entertaining us with some nostalgia at the same time. A tip with your videos - squish them horizontally a bit so they look right. Case in point - Tie Fighter at 12:50, the radar things in the top left and right should be circles - currently they're ovals. Those DOS games didn't have "square" pixels, they were actually thinner and taller than squares. The videos should be a ratio of 4:3. If you do that, then everything won't look so stocky and wide.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! I don't record my own gameplay footage, but agree with what you're saying.
I enjoyed Descent 1 by Interplay, originally bought it way back to run on my 486. It's a 3D game set in space where you sit in the cockpit of a fighter known as a Pyro with damn good graphics for the day.
The purpose of the games is that a mining corporation has deliberately infected all the mining robots in the solar system and you have to destroy the reactor in each mine after rescuing hostages, while along the way fighting robots with increasing difficulty.
At the time I was blown away by the robot's AI.
There was then Descent 2 also on Dos but later re-issued to run on win95.
Later came Descent 3 and Descent 4 Mercenary to run on win 98-XP.
I loved each version, you needed piloting skills, strategic skills and a head for three dimensional travel within mine shafts and chambers.
I still have my old Win 95 computer just so I can keep playing Descent 1 and 2.
I loved Descent too, it was such a great game/concept. Some people have said they got motion sickness from that game, but thankfully I never suffered from that.
I have it too..I don't remember wich version I payed it in windows 98 ME and I still have the computer and I'm quite sure the cd too! At first I didn't get the drone would guide me trought the base and I used to shut at it! :)
That was a great game.
you don't need to keep that old computer around. google descent rebirth or dxx rebirth.
I can play any of the games on a modern PC, and most of the 50+ consoles I have, but nothing beats having the original hardware.
When I played Syndicate, I just left the Persuadertron switched on all the time. Ended up with a huge human shield that could sweep up enemy cyborgs. Lots of fun!
Hahaha same here. Massive human shield. Also, I believe the more people you had persuaded affected who you could persuade (security and rival agents).
onaretrotip absolutely. I seem to recall there were some high-level guys it was almost impossible to turn even if you had a big crowd though?
GameHammer Classic Gaming Key targets immune to avoid game breaking in assassination missions? In persuade mission you could brainwash every single person in town. Handy as you got extra credits based on the number of persuaded people surviving at the end of the mission. 1000 per enemy agent and 100 for every other person, if I recall correctly.
The system for persuading enemies is as follows: Four civilians persuaded before being able to persuade a guard, eight for a police officer, and thirty-two for an enemy agent. These numbers are lowered by the quality of the brain implants of the agent with the Persuadertron.
GameHammer Classic Gaming yah I do the same thing way back
did you skipped X-Com... the first one!!! omg! best single game ever created!
X-COM is definitely the most recommended game here in the comments, and one I've never played. I'll certainly be getting it to try now.
you have to! this game is a must, it is like the best macro management war, heartless strat, turnbased overpower kind of game... you just know that when you land with your big airplane, you set your rookies in the front as alien bullet meat just to trigger their overwatch... you will loose a few each battle then they gain ranks and you can put them more in the back and hire new "meat".... the new xcom... you can go through the game without loosing anyone.... the bullets... you have to manage them, the weight... ALL! The new game has graphic and a bit more story and tutorial... other than this it is empty compared to what it used to be ;) still Firaxis did a great job, it hard to give proper tribute to x-com Ufo defence ( don't play the 2nd or the other shitty one after ;) )
Great list, but X-com was just too good to ignore. It still plays brilliantly and you can find remastered versions around. The original won't run well due to timing issues.
I played most of those games on the Amiga. Great times!
Jose A. Ramos Thanks. I'll definitely try X-COM soon. I played many of them on Amiga first as well. Good times!
I don't think you'd go through the new UFO game's Iron Man mode without losing a single guy (well, spoiler alert, you lose at least one in the final mission anyway). You could save scum during missions in the original one too, so technically you can finish that flawlessly as well. It'd take some reloading, though.
I really liked that game but honestly, I prefer the new ones because they got rid of some of the more insane levels of micro-management.
The second game, Terror from the Deep I thought was even more interesting with its Lovecraftian horror themes, but the difficulty was a right bastard. I read somewhere that people had complained about the first game having been too easy (because due to a bug, regardless of what setting you chose, you got the beginner), and the devs, not knowing about the aforementioned bug, deliberately made the second one a downright motherfucker to appease these fans.
World Class Leader Board! Best thing about this golf game was you didn't need a sound card -- it played announcers, golf clap, birds, stroke sounds, etc., thru the little POST beep speaker. We had a group that played every day at lunch on a company 386. "Ooh, can't be too happy about THAT shot!"
Haha good times.
I remember the awesome days of big box PC games. Some of them got really creative and it really added to the whole experience of browsing and buying. The booklets maps and other cool stuff inside them also made it more memorable.
Then I remember the point when they announced that all PC games would come in the same box. They tried to make it sound like a good thing but we all knew.
So many things in life never should have changed. Now these days people pay hundreds extra for special edition games in packages that used to be everywhere.
Yes, it was a sad day when they did that. I loved all the gubbins we'd get in the big boxes, like huge instruction manuals for flight sims like it was a real plane LOL. I remember being in the car driving home from the software shop, and excitedly looking through the paperwork. Good times.
Crusader, Warcraft 2, Ultima Series, Might and Magic, Jagged Alliance, Commandos, Falcon 4.0, Wing Commander, Privateer... so many good games! :D
I know, right! Too many great DOS games to list.
Covered most of what I was going to comment! Let's not forget King's Quest(series) or Arena/Daggerfall!
Another one too...
A good portion of the gold box SSI Advanced Dungeons and Dragons games as well: Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, etc. They were some of the first RPGs that I got into
If you like point and click games, don't forget about the adventures of Willy beamish, heart of china, and rise of the dragon.
"UFO - Enemy Unknown" is still amazing.
Shamefully I've still not played that series.
@@onaretrotip You should definitely get a copy and download free openxcom to get modern resolution and few other tweaks that can enhance experience. If you happen to like turnbased strategy games, it's still one of the best games ever made. Modern xcoms feel really dumbed down games after playing original. If I'd have to vote the best dos game ever made, I'd be really tempted to vote it. Heck I've put insane amounts of hours into it and have just began to play it again with openxcom. It's something that everyone liking strategy games have to at least try.
Gold.
@@onaretrotip Do not miss it! Simple amazing.
After speaking to you yesterday about this vid I thought I would check it out, fella you shouldn't put yourself down this video was great really enjoyed it especially the druglord game lol and it's made me want to play a few of them
Thanks mate, you clearly have terrible taste! LMAO
This are few of my favorite games in '90
1. Master of Orion (1993, MicroProse)
2. Master of Magic (1994, MicroProse)
3. Civilization & Civilization II (1991, 1996, MicroProse)
4. UFO: Enemy Unknown (1994, MicroProse)
5. SimCity 2000 (1993, Maxis)
6. Star Control II (1992, Accolade)
A lot of those I haven't played, shamefully.
@@onaretrotip You poor, poor soul. And I'm not kidding. To miss out on that list of games is a genuine tragedy.
I've been on a mission to show my kids this 'golden' era of gaming. They've honestly been blown away and actually got them moaning about lack of depth in todays games afterwards, wishing they grew up when I did haha.
and Pizza Tycoon
Descent 1 and 2 were my favorite games of that area
So good, I absolutely loved those games.
i had one hell of a joystick controller to kick ass at those ones. my favourite!
damn, i forgot about descent. joystick on a com port ftw! 286 jumper settings ftf!
CHECK OUT "FORSAKEN REMASTERED"!!
They rebooted/jacked Decent!
Wingman Extream
Dont forget *Crystal Caves* That was one of my faves back then, and still I could play it now! also the *ultimate machine* was another amazing game! Also any of the other scumm games, indiana jones fate of atlantis, was my favourite along with broken sword etc etc... Great list btw ;)
Not played those two. Yes, and SCUMM game is excellent, and love Broken Sword.
crystal caves was the shiz!
Crystal caves was awesome. I play it and it's still fun today.
Great video ! That Tie Fighter box really brought me back.. so great and fun. Uses 100s of hour on it..and before that X-Wing and the expansion packs like B-Fighter
Thank you, Jonas! I absolutely loved the X-WIng series, and I'm hoping that they'll reboot it one day.
I had bought dark forces and the collectors CD ROM version of Tie fighter and enjoyed it quite a bit.
Games in the Video:
D/Generation
Dark Forces
Syndicate
Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2
Doom
Command and Conquer
Tie Fighter
Cannon Fodder
Dope Wars (Happy Hacker Foundation) / Drug Wars (John E. Dell) / Druglord
Escape from the planet of the Robot Monsters
The Lost Vikings
Day of the Tentacle
Dune II
Pang
Speedball 2
👊
Some of my favorite DOS games were the Commander Keen series, Might & Magic series, Wolfenstein 3D, Sierra Games, Sim City, Red Baron, Air Warrior, Scorched Earth, Starflight, Descent, Doom, Darklands, and Warlords.
Quite a few I've not played there. I loved Sim City, Wolfenstein 3D, Red Baron, Descent, and Doom.
where's Kings quest???? or leisure suit Larry???
Police Quest? Space Quest?
I never really got on with Sierra's adventure games, and I'm certainly not as fond of them as I am the LucasArts graphic adventures. I did love Leisure Suit Larry, but not so sure I'd recommend it today.
People nowadays seem to hate the old text parser adventure games.
Except that without them, the genre never would have started. They are certainly a part of the core of 80's DOS gaming.
The 90's took the preferable PnC and "you can't die approach" which opened it up to more casual players.
But damnit Leisure Suit Larry was just friggin' hilarious! Al Lowe (the writer, designer, owner). For adult themed adventure it really stole the spotlight and properly so.
And what's sad is in 1997 with Leisure Suit Larry 7 "Love for Sail" with full speech it REALLY is just like playing Curse of Monkey Island 3 (considered as one of if not THE best interfaces and art styles for adventure games).
#7 has such a great wit that is hard to match in other games (and of coursem text parsing long gone). I HIGHLY recommend anyone who enjoys adventure games to get Leisure Suit Larry 7. It's an absoluye gem and very easy to get into. Full voice acting and the narrator is a wonferful comedic edition witu great 4th wall breaking.
The first parts of these games would be interesting to see nowadays.. :)
I could never get anywhere in those games, but damn if I didn't love Battle Bugs, another Sierra game.
Ooooh mate u took me back to memory lane! We never had orbital games! In Jeddah we used to have these copier shops shops! My god!!!
Thanks! Glad I could stir up some memories. Hahaha my mate grew up in Iran, and they had the copy shops too.
I agree 200% on Syndicate... damn I loved this one !!!
One of my all-time favourite games on any system! It's still so good, I play it quite often to this day.
I played it one year ago on emulation.... great time !
***** :)
many games you show here are also my favorites
***** Hope it brought back some fond memories.
Castle Wolfenstein is the father of Doom.
More like grandfather of Doom >_>
You mean Wolfenstein 3D?
onaretrotip Yes, that's the one. Forgot the name. Castle Wolfenstein was the setting of the maps I think.
Helium Road Castle Wolfenstein was a different game, released much earlier. Hence the comment above "more like the grandfather".
onaretrotip Ok, shows what I know. I remember the shareware going around on 3.5" floppies back in the day. I played it to the end where Hitler attacks you in a powered armor suit, and after you kill him you get the "Death Cam" replay. Great fun. I used to dream about blue brick walls from playing too much.
My two favorite dos games were Elite Plus and Scorched Earth, both small in size but provided me with 1000s of hours of entertainment.
Nice, I never played those two. Played Elite on the BBC though.
Elite plus was great....Ever make Elite status on it and get the goofy reward screen? I was so proud lololo
Did you ever find those 3.5 floppies with the bright orange label usually with demos or shareware on them ? There was an adventure dungeon crawler I've been trying to find for years I use to have on one of those.
Doesn't ring a bell, no.
Dungeon Hack?
I think I know which you mean, but can't be sure. I thought it was a Windows game (not DOS) but I could be remembering wrong, but it was shareware I first discovered on one of those multi-game shareware CDs. Is it 'Castles Of The Wind'? th-cam.com/video/EQO2KhJVrnQ/w-d-xo.html
Talengard?
Alley Cat (1984) IBM
!!!!
Hahaha YES, Henrik! Alley cat was the first ever PC game I played. I was about five or six and went to work with my Dad, and that was the only game on one of their computers. Remember that like it was yesterday, even over thirty years later.
I still have it (not original, but still....)
Playing it from time to time with DosBox, bloody hard game! :P
Oh yeah I remember that game. Addictive as hell and very difficult gameplay. The music was/is very catchy. Used to dance on it when I was a kid
Sorry
Anything that has CGA (crappy graphics adapter) graphics, sucks. Even the ZX Spectrum had better graphics than CGA for fuck sake
@@theyamo7219 Yeah, because no one had any fun in the preceding decades on those monochrome games. Every single one was bad.
END OF SARCASM
I feel sorry that you never got any joy out of Alley Cat, Striker, Q-Bert, Elite, etc.
Wing Commander.... :-)
Can't believe I missed out on that, it looks like my kind of game.
Also try Privateer, the mercenary simulation in the Wing Commander universe.
Played a lot of Privateer
@Brian G there was a cheat in privateer 1: engage the superthrusters and alternate flying up and down, like a wave. You will be faster than the enemies and your superthuster won't run out! (Not sure if they fixed that.) Also a joystick is almost a necessity in dogfights. Good luck!
Don't forget wc3, which had porn star ginger Lynn in it . . .
I remember playing Syndicate all the time, it was so hard I never really got that far in it.
Yeah really tough, but rewards perseverance.
Yes mate!
You have superb taste in DOS games! Most lists like this have glaring omissions, but I think you've managed to hit all of the must-haves that I could think of. I would have considered adding Raptor: Call of the Shadows, but I can't say that it necessarily beats any of the games that you included.
Thank you very much! It's hard as there are just so many great DOS games.
My personal favorites: Myst, Outpost, Masters of Orion, X-Wing Collectors Edition, Stonekeep, Conquest of the Long Bow, Full Throttle, Sam and Max, and Cyberia (both 1 and 2), and lastly...my all time favorite...The Dig!
To me the best is Master of Orion II
Some great picks! Love the Dig (and any LucasArts adventure games).
Oh man outpost sucked so bad, I sure played the crap out of it......though.
The original Myst won't play in DOS. You play it in windows 3.11. I have dosbox bundled with windows 3.11 and Myst.
"these tiny little floppy disks"
*holds up a waffle*
😂
Other classics worth trying are "UFO: Enemy Unknown" aka "UFO Defense" and its first sequel, "X-COM: Terror from the Deep". these days are best played through openXcom, a free Windows (and others) port. Basically you have to manage Earth's defense against an alien invasion, in a fashion reminiscent of both "SimCity" (base creation and management) and "Jagged Alliance" (the action bits).
They're the kind of games that can get you fired from your job or abandoned by your SO. They're THAT addictive.
Those games are definitely the most recommended here in the comments, Neville. I need to play them, they sound like my kind of game! RIP my life I guess.
Enjoyed this, Pete.
Missed it at the time but a suggested video that i'm glad I watched.
Been meaning to play some of my old favourites via dosbox. Maybe one day room permitting set up a dedicated old PC.
Almost feel guilty leaving a message here 😂 Can't imagine how much time it's taken you to respond to each and every one of the 3000-odd messages on this video, respect to you for doing so.
Hope you have a smashing 2022 mate.
Thanks, James. It's an absolutely terrible video, so it's a shame this is my most viewed. I've been playing so much DOS the last few months since I got that new Windows 98 PC. Love it.
Haha yeah, there are a lot of comments, but I like replying to everyone who takes the time to comment on my channel (bar a few weirdos).
Happy New Year!
The Pentium was the first true Intel CPU in terms of being affordable and distinguishable from generic IBM based computer and this was also the first time pc fanboys laughed at apple for being garbage.
Yeah, everything was "IBM-PC before that"!
"And thus began the Age of Fire"
My first computer was pentium (75) megahertz. I remember at the time you needed all that power for the games that were out then and for a few years after.
I still shudder at the thought of the Atlantic Accelerator mission in Syndicate.
Balls hard.
Thousands of hours squandered on many of these. Also Wasteland (the progenitor of Fallout), Civ I, and Descent.
Yeah, so many great DOS games! The list is endless.
Speedball! Been ages since I have thought of that game. Thanks for the memory!
You're very welcome!
I miss the days of Sierra games that came on more than a dozen 5 1/4 inch floppy disks. This was before I had a computer with a 3 1/2 inch drive (that would be in 1992). My first PC-type system was a Tandy 1000EX from 1987. Jesus I can't believe it's been almost 30 years. And before that I owned a Commodore VIC-20. I remember being 5 years old and typing out BASIC programs from books and magazines. I was such a bloody geek. :D
Great memories. Time really flies, I can't believe how long it's been since the days I used to play BBC Micro and Commodore 64.
Family Computing and COMPUTE! taught me more about computers than any college ever could. Of course it wasn't for everyone, but I find it somewhat sad that young kids can't get that same kind of experience of learning the joys of programming these days.
At least you had Tandy graphics. I was stuck with a CGA adapter on an RGB monitor for an eternity. Imagine playing those Sierra games in 4 colors (blue, yellow, red, and green). Blech!
Dune II was my game. I loved that game so much! (Except those pesky sandworms harrasing my harvesters!)
Me too! So good.
For The Baron.....
A couple of years ago there was an excellent android port available on the play store, but it disappeared when I got a new phone. It was perfect.
Thank you for the very genuine, in depth exploration. This is by far the best game review I have seen, for finding games that went the extra mile to be amazing.
Thank you very much, Alex.
Can't forget one of the key games that drove a generation of computer users to upgrade their PC's to CD-Rom's. "The Seventh Guest". And the sequel "The 11th hour......" Both knocked it out of the park for being light years ahead of their time.
Ah, I used to play the hell out of 7th Guest at my mate's house!
Don't forget about Myst running on store pcs back then to get you to buy a computer with a CD rom
If you've never tried it check out Fantasy Empires. It's my personal favorite DOS game of all time. You can't play it on modern hardware or even in dosbox since the combat is tied to CPU speed.. but if you have original hardware it can't be beat!
Nice! Just built a PIII desktop, so I'll check it out.
You can adjust emulated CPU speed in DOSBox
Very interesting list. I haven't heard of many of them. Here's my list:
1. Empire Deluxe
2. Space Quest
3. King's Quest
4 Commander Keen
5. Captain Comic
6. Battle Chess
7. Scorched Earth
8. Prince of Persia
9. Blockout
10. F-19 Stealth fighter
11. Star Wars: Dark Forces
12. Kingdom of Kroz
13. Caveman Olympics
14. Dark Ages
15. Mixed up Mother Goose
It's hard to only pic 15! :-D honorable mentions go to:
LHX: Attack Chopper
DND (R O Software)
Maniac Mansion
Stonedale Castle (Legends of Murder Vol. 1)
Oh, impossible picking fifteen. Just to be clear, the video isn't my top fifteen DOS games, it's just fifteen I think are still fun to play. Also did a follow-up of another fifteen. Good list, a few I haven't played, but love Battle Chess, Prince of Persia, and Dark Forces!
I understand, I did the same thing. Only, I forgot Pirates! Empire deluxe is my favorite and I still play it often (a few times a year). I have the whole list installed in Dosbox on my modern system, and play through them on occasion. I shared my list because I noticed your list was more 90's era, where as mine is more late 80s era. Happy gaming!
Yeah, I got my Amiga in 1990 so many of these games are from those days, and we got a PC later. You too!
Its funny how most of the games today are not as interesting as these shown here. Games trully are not about newest shader and billions of pollygons.
This is (sadly) so true. There's so much emphasis on graphics and realism today (and cashing in) that often the gameplay and mechanics get overlooked. Fancy graphics alone do not make a great game.
Before you get out your walking stick and start yelling at the damn young whippersnappers to keep it down, don't forget that back then innovation was really not as scary as it is today. The market was much less saturated, and dev teams were generally smaller too.
If it's innovation you're after, you may have better luck at the indie market, however that area has been getting real fucking cynical lately.
I could give up all the graphics for games as in depth as they used to be. To an extent. I don't know if i can handle an ASCII game but with today's tech you could top that and have a good UI without much trouble.
Dávid B Some of my favourite games in recent years have been indie games, like Shovel Knight and Hotline Miami.
Yes. Those are interesting games. By cynical I meant that a lot of devs unashamedly copy successful games. Not steal from, but copy. Cf. Limbo's clones just off the top of my head.
How did you manage to record the screen in that system?
I didn't!
Dune II should be on every gamer's bucket list.
It certainly should!
I remember Drug Lord as the reason we had all our TI-82's confiscated in high school.
Great game. Great game.
Hahaha. Still a really fun game!
I loved Sierra games in late 80s early 90s. Space, kings, police quest were all great. KQV was probably my favorite. KQIV was fun, but the text commands were so tedious, made it very frustrating.
Yes, it was so much better when the verb interfaces (like SCUMM) came in.
Hey do you remember this game: you're this pixelated grey guy with a white gun and shoots white little bullets. The layouts of the stages, were kind of similar to donkey Kong, with I think maybe office building stuff like desks. If this sounds even remotely familiar please let me know! I've been searching for it for a decade
Hi! Sound like Impossible Mission. I loved that on the BBC Micro, but it was released on most home computers. But maybe not as not sure you had a gun in that.
Elevator Action?
you mention dune 2, dune 1 is totally worth checking out. In fact allow me a suggestion of possible game you might consider.
Dune 1
Legend of kyrandia (with voice acting)
Gobliiins, gobliins 2, goblins 3 (really funny)
Theme park
Chris Roze Dune 1 totally worth it.
it took me so long to get into dune 1 (it being english and me being a 11 year old german) but when i figured it out after years i loved it
Thanks for the suggestions. The only one of those I've played is Theme Park.
Also Commander Keen!
Dune is my all time favourite game ever, until the Emperor kills me for late spice shipments.
Nobody said "One Must Fall" and "Worms"? Those were really great games. Worms spawned several sequels even in recent years.
Loads of recommendations for One Must Fall, but I've not played it. Worms is an all-time classic, but I associate it more with the Amiga.
Can I use an emulator to play MS DOS games???
Yes, you can! I put some links in the description to sites where you can download or play them. DOSBox is great, but sites like abandonia self-boot so those are great.
onaretrotip Oh good! Thanks a lot, I appreciate the help and the links, I'll have to download the emulator! ^.^!
You're very welcome, Jonah. Enjoy!
@666 bit Using VMWare to get MS DOS 6.22 running is indeed better. DOSBox uses DOS 5, however I don't know if there are games that only work in DOS 6(.22).
Have you played TIM (The Incredible Machine)? That was a go to for me also in the day. It’s a nice relaxing puzzle game.
Yes, brilliant game!
No Ultima games? 6 should run on a 486
7 and 8 should run on it, too. I was able to run them on a 486 33 and 66 respectively. He doesn't seem to be much of an RPG fan.
I've never played that series, but a lot of people are suggesting it.
Ultima is one of the greatest games...of all time. 7 was the best
Yeah, and when yo consider that in 1992 Ultima Underworld 1 was realease before Castle Wolfenstien and was superior in every way to it. It was even superior to Doom in 1993 in most ways, the primary thing being having a real storyline, inventory and leveling. Though admittedly it doesn't holdup as well. But for the 2D stuff, Ultima 3 & especially 4 were great! no selecting conversation points here, you type your question - you had to find stuff out and write it down. Not easy, but way cool.
Ultima 7 basically led to my whole career in computers. Took so much work to get it to run well on a lower powered machine. That coupled with just being an amazing, large game and then the hacking via hex editors... man what a good time.
Legend! Lost Viking is the shit, used to play it when I was like 9 and have never heard of it again till now!
Ah, glad I could remind you, Daniel! Great game.
I'm really glad to see Lost Vikings mentioned. It seems to be quite forgotten gem indeed. The music track especially on Amiga is amazing.
The Incredible Machine by sierra... use physics principles to solve puzzles so frustrating even today, but it still holds up... there was a second one too which added extra levels and a few more tools to create your own, there were a few other versions that were made for windows but theyre not as good
I've literally lost several days at a time over the years trying to play descent 1... i still cant get past level 7... been stuck there for 21 years
Doom Heretic, Hexen Hocus Pocus all great games also
Police Quest 1 (the text based original, not the VGA remake) - I can still win today completely from memory... and I can get more than the supposed maximum points available
Yeah, TIM is awesome! Featured that on my recent DOS puzzle games video. I'm not sure how far I ever got with Descent now that you mention it, but I don't recall completing it. I never played the Police Quests series, but something about it always interested me.
I have Tim 1 and Tim 2. Tim 2 the CD version has a awesome soundtrack.