Old Game Classics Recommendations

[factotum]

Someone mentioned Baldur's Gate, but no one so far has mentioned one of the greatest games (not just greatest RPGs) of all time:

Planescape: Torment.

Whoops, my bad--I definitely included that in my list at one point but I must have lost it in an edit somewhere. PS:T unquestionably has the most compelling story and setting of any CRPG I've played, although I really wish it had been based on something other than the original D&D ruleset, which I despise.

[Rodin]

Quest for Glory series: Sierra's better point-and-click adventure series (except for II, which was awful) which featured a lot less moon logic than its other one...

I'm a bit surprised at picking II for the weakest game in the series, I would have said III myself. And they're all good. If I had to pick one game to play out of all of them, it would definitely be IV. John Rhys-Davies was the perfect choice to voice the narrator, it has some of the best combat in the series, and the plot is superb.

Did you play the recently-released spiritual successor Heroine's Quest? I'm mentioning it because it's really good and completely free to play on Steam.

I tried to get into that one, but failed. It had a very slow start and I remember there being something about the dialogue that put me off. Still: Free.

For a proper spiritual successor, take a look at Hero U: Rogue to Redemption. It's an adventure game in the same style developed by the Coles. Immensely enjoyable.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Stunts (1990). Still active year round world championship series here. Incomplete but pretty good list of mods like new cars here.

Age of Empires (1997) and Age of Empires 2 (1999) are classics as well. Part 2 is about to get yet another rerelease, and much of the new material, like a whole bunch of recently released civilizations (factions), is not half bad itself.

Battle Bugs (1994) is certainly worth a playthrough for the strategy fan as well.

Getting back to racing, Carmageddon (1997) is great too.

The original Grand Theft Auto (1997) is pretty fun as well, both it, part 2 of the same franchise (1999, which introduced gangs that will hunt you down in addition to the police) and Wild Metal Country (1999) were released for free by Rockstar as classics.

And then there's Tomb Raider (1996), Worms 2 (1997), Doom (1993), Wolfenstein 3D (1992).

And there are newer games that have that older feel, made by smaller teams and such. Knytt (2006) comes to mind, as does The Atomic Butcher (2004).

Not to sound jaded (I went through a bit of an old games phase, and that phase itself was long enough ago that it counts as part of my history at this point), but most of these don't even really register as old games to me. Maybe just old enough to be cool but dated, where something like Halo (2001) or Unreal Tournament 2004 (take a wild guess) doesn't even really register as that much. The late 90's are to me when many games got good enough that further technical innovation didn't necessarily result in better experiences anymore. They went from going plain old to becoming more like classics, similar to movies starting from roughly the 1930's (but for many movies closer to the 1960's). As a particularly strong example that also manages to be a counter-example, late 90's RTS games in particular typically are way better than early 2000's titles, because they were not trying to be fully 3D, instead opting for things like an isometric view, leading to much lower numbers of units and at the same time less clear visuals for the newer titles. This is one of the reasons why late 80's and early 90's DOS games have slipped into being abandonware en masse, free for the taking for those interested in gaming history, while many intellectual properties from the late 90's and early 2000's are still being actively managed two decades later.

I'm sure more titles will enter my head, but let's leave it at this for now. And if I have anything here that was mentioned before consider it a seconding.

[Hunter Noventa]

Sim City 2000 is still one of the best city builders ever made, I only wish it had bigger maps.

Sim Tower is still a fascinating experiment, and attempts to recapture it have fallen short.

[LansXero]

Let's have an honourable mention here for Transport Tycoon, which you can obtain for the majestic price of free in the form of OpenTTD.

Rollercoaster Tycoon is a great game and definitely deserves far more attention than it gets. Zoo Tycoon was pretty cool too, and endearing in a way.

[Gnoman]

Right now I am trying to get Command & Conquer to work on my computer because I actually only played the first two or three levels of it back in the day.

If you haven't yet (or maybe even if you have) succeeded in this task, there's a freeware engine called OpenRA that runs the original Command and Conquer (renamed Tiberian Dawn to reduce confusion), Red Alert 1, and Dune 2. It rips the core assets from the game disc, and I believe that the campaigns are completeable. By default, it makes some changes to modernize the interface and address balance issues, but most of those can be turned off. It isn't a perfect rendition - besides deliberate changes to support higher resolution and such, there are some changes to unit behavior and things like pathfinding that they're trying to fix. It is, however, pretty close.



As for the core question, you might try Anacreon: Reconstruction 4021, which is a very early space 4X game. It branched differently than other 4x games, and has a completely different focus from something like Master Of Orion.

[Cheesegear]

Did you play the recently-released spiritual successor Heroine's Quest? I'm mentioning it because it's really good and completely free to play on Steam.

If it's cheap-as-free you've already convinced me to download it.

I'm a bit surprised at picking II for the weakest game in the series, I would have said III myself.

IIRC, QfG 2 introduced text boxes...Jesus no. QfG 1 didn't have text boxes, and neither did 3, 4 or 5.

The worst part about '80s and '90s games was how a lot of the 'puzzles' in games required reading an IRL manual and quoting the fifth word of the second paragraph on page 39.
King's Quest and Space Quest both did it. QfG, didn't. And that's why it's better.

[Grif]

The worst part about '80s and '90s games was how a lot of the 'puzzles' in games required reading an IRL manual and quoting the fifth word of the second paragraph on page 39.
King's Quest and Space Quest both did it. QfG, didn't. And that's why it's better.

It's basically the DRM of those days, since it's unlikely you'd have the manual on hand if you got a bootleg copy.

If you haven't yet (or maybe even if you have) succeeded in this task, there's a freeware engine called OpenRA that runs the original Command and Conquer (renamed Tiberian Dawn to reduce confusion), Red Alert 1, and Dune 2. It rips the core assets from the game disc, and I believe that the campaigns are completeable. By default, it makes some changes to modernize the interface and address balance issues, but most of those can be turned off. It isn't a perfect rendition - besides deliberate changes to support higher resolution and such, there are some changes to unit behavior and things like pathfinding that they're trying to fix. It is, however, pretty close.

A more faithful rendition can be found here: Portable RA

[Yora]

If you haven't yet (or maybe even if you have) succeeded in this task, there's a freeware engine called OpenRA that runs the original Command and Conquer (renamed Tiberian Dawn to reduce confusion), Red Alert 1, and Dune 2.

I have OpenRA, but the current version doesn't have a save function yet. The latest beta does have it, but the only installer for linux that I got to work on my computer doesn't let you manually change versions. So I am waiting for the next official update.

[snowblizz]

Settlers 2

Pizza Tycoon/Connection (it was realeased under different names). The original not the ealry 2000s? remake.

Dungeon Keeper.

X-Com Terror From the Deep (I think superior to the earlier Xcom)

Much as I hate having another of them besides Steam and then Uplay forced on me, GoG, is quite handy for old games. I have taken to waiting for classics to hit sales and at like 2-5€ it doesn't feel like that bad. Since old games can be finicky it adds a layer of someone else fixing problems and or refunding when it doens't work.

Am gonna second Theme Hospital and the Commander Keen (the latter I had to special order from the US by mail. On floppy disks. Imagine that today.).
I've tried Two Point Hospital (it does hit veeeery close to Theme Hospital, though patients have yet to be asked to be patient) and got it on my Steam watchlist but they keep adding DLC and I don't quite like that model.

OH! Now I remember.

Syndicate.

The original, there were remakes, again in the early 2000s that sucked. It's almost like a trend.

[factotum]

Much as I hate having another of them besides Steam and then Uplay forced on me, GoG, is quite handy for old games.

GoG doesn't force you to use GOG Galaxy, you can just download standalone installers for the games if you like.

[heronbpv]

Master of Magic, still my favorite 4x to this day, and unrivaled in terms of magic system and fantasy theme. It is, of course, a fantasy 4x game, where you play as an mage. The magical system resembles Magic: The Gathering a little, with it's colors and themes.

KKND 2 Crossfire, an RTS akin to Command and Conquer, including the awesome soundtrack tradition of that series (albeit short, with only three themes per faction). It's a game where you lead one of three surviving factions of a nuclear holocaust to total dominance. One is a bunch of military that survived in bunkers (aptly named Survivors), another is the people who managed to survive while in the surface suffering terrible mutations, the Evolved, and ended up rejecting technology as the source of the armageddon (but hilariously can sacrifice it's own troops to summon demons, lol!), and the crazy farmer robots, the Series 9, who just wanted to farm, but got annoyed by both factions duking it out and decided it was better to exterminate the pests. There's some sense of humor going on, and the action is good, just the way I like it!

[LibraryOgre]

The Quest for Glory series mostly happened in the 90s (the first was released in '89). They're relatively quick, by today's standards, but they're still some of my favorites.

[Silverraptor]

Hunter Hunted is a game I got a lot out of. Reach for the Stars is also a good sci-fi game. It was like Stellaris a couple decades before Stellaris.

[danzibr]

Lords of Magic. Another great one. Choose an “element” and hero class. Explore, build alliances, combat. Get the other factions’ lords to join you. Good times.

Early 90s, Shining Force and Shining Force II. SRPGs.

[Hunter Noventa]

Lords of Magic. Another great one. Choose an “element” and hero class. Explore, build alliances, combat. Get the other factions’ lords to join you. Good times.

Early 90s, Shining Force and Shining Force II. SRPGs.

I rented SF1 and 2 so many times back when I had a Genesis, good stuff.

Does PS1 count as classic old games? If so Suikoden 1 and 2 are some of Konami's best work, back when they made games.

[Leecros]

The worst part about '80s and '90s games was how a lot of the 'puzzles' in games required reading an IRL manual and quoting the fifth word of the second paragraph on page 39.
King's Quest and Space Quest both did it.

This was also how Sierra made a fair amount of money back in the day. They often made segments of the game fairly difficult, obnoxious, or weirdly logic'd in order to get people to call their "Hotline" where for a "small fee" they can help you get past whatever point that you're stuck on.

Lords of Magic. Another great one. Choose an “element” and hero class. Explore, build alliances, combat. Get the other factions’ lords to join you. Good times.

Lords of Magic is a game that I still load up every now and then and play. I don't think it has aged particularly well, but I enjoy the concept, I enjoy the lore, and It's just fun in its own way.

[Douglas]

Star Control 2 is one of my favorite classics, and it has a free open source version now.

[Rodin]

IIRC, QfG 2 introduced text boxes...Jesus no. QfG 1 didn't have text boxes, and neither did 3, 4 or 5.

...No? QFG1 (a.k.a. Hero's Quest before copyright issues made them change the name) was text boxes, as were most other Sierra Adventure games at the time. The move away from text boxes was a change in game making design to try and get away from the text-adventure parser style.

You may be thinking of the QFG1 remake, which was actually released AFTER Quest For Glory 3.

Personally, I liked the text parser. There was a lot of humor possible from incorrect responses that were lost when they moved to pure icon based. It allowed you to do stuff like try and buy the random crap the merchant was hawking but weren't actually for sale, or make pop-culture based wisecracks that the game would be ready for.

[GloatingSwine]

The worst part about '80s and '90s games was how a lot of the 'puzzles' in games required reading an IRL manual and quoting the fifth word of the second paragraph on page 39.
King's Quest and Space Quest both did it. QfG, didn't. And that's why it's better.

DRM: Making games more annoying since the 1980s!

[Lvl 2 Expert]

DRM: Making games more annoying since the 1980s!

I still start my every Stunts session with a message telling me who proudly hacked it, nearly 30 years after the game's release, long after it was confirmed to now be abandon/freeware and with the full list of words they could ask for now published online. That sure was a super annoying idea of security they had back then.

[Yora]

I'm basically only playing console games for the last decade or so, unless I am replaying really old PC games. I think the most recent PC game I played was Portal when it came out in 2007.

[Thomas Cardew]

...No? QFG1 (a.k.a. Hero's Quest before copyright issues made them change the name) was text boxes, as were most other Sierra Adventure games at the time. The move away from text boxes was a change in game making design to try and get away from the text-adventure parser style.

You may be thinking of the QFG1 remake, which was actually released AFTER Quest For Glory 3.

Personally, I liked the text parser. There was a lot of humor possible from incorrect responses that were lost when they moved to pure icon based. It allowed you to do stuff like try and buy the random crap the merchant was hawking but weren't actually for sale, or make pop-culture based wisecracks that the game would be ready for.

100% agree. I like the text parser, it allowed me to say exactly what I wanted to do. I still don't care for the icon based click on screen approach. And yes, I realize how the text parser was limited to inputs the design crew had thought of, but I never had a more than a passing problem with it.

For the thread, I still love Lords of the Realm 2. You fight to take over the kingdom after the old kings death. Manage your counties population, food, resources, weapons, build castles, raise armies, and fight other nobles. It even had a rudimentary diplomacy system.

[LibraryOgre]

The worst part about '80s and '90s games was how a lot of the 'puzzles' in games required reading an IRL manual and quoting the fifth word of the second paragraph on page 39.
King's Quest and Space Quest both did it. QfG, didn't. And that's why it's better.

That's the copy protection. That's not a "puzzle" that's "Did you buy this game, or download it off a BBS"?

[Keltest]

Jedi Outcast (full title: Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast) is actually releasing on Switch here in a couple days. I heartily recommend it.

That's the copy protection. That's not a "puzzle" that's "Did you buy this game, or download it off a BBS"?

There were at least a few games that required you to go to a website or, on at least one occasion, call a phone number IRL, so I believe that they genuinely thought they were being clever by including interaction with non-game materials. That it ended up combining well with some copy protection methods is, I think, something of a coincidence.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

There were at least a few games that required you to go to a website or, on at least one occasion, call a phone number IRL,

I played a "not really a board game but not a computer game anyway"-game recently that did this.

It's a nice gimmick. Not the best for longevity past the point of where the game is supported maybe, but it can be a very fun surprise.

Of course, in the era of old adventuring games where there were no walkthroughs online and even the official guide books were sometimes like "you should definitely throw your asterball at a Tentacruel or a Fearow", any puzzle where the solution is surprising could also be extremely frustrating, but that's a problem for past people now.

[Grif]

Just to add to these suggestions: Army Men

Yes, the game about plastic soldiers fighting each other in an anachronistic version of WW2 and re-enacting them in your backyard.

Spawned an ungodly amount of spinoffs and sequels, but the classic trilogy are Army Men, Army Men II and Army Men: Toys in Space. Notable mentions to Sarge's Heroes, 3D and PSX spinoffs, Air Attack and Army Men RTS.

Some were even ported to Steam in the past year, and to my delight.

[The Glyphstone]

Descent and Descent II are still amazingly fun shooter-sims.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Oh, I totally forgot about Lemmings (1991). It's a bit of a realtime puzzle game, pretty fun too.

And I spend years not knowing the full title of Raptor: Call of the Shadows (1994). I was looking for it because it had this music I remembered and I kind of like top down scrolling shooters anyway, and I found it again eventually, or rather, it found me. And... it's okay. It could really use some way to grind. As it stands you only gain resources from levels you complete and there's no real way to reply levels, so the difficulty is very fixed, where I would enjoy a bit more "just let me shoot things up I'm doing this for fun". Tyrian (1995, re-released with a handful of improvements in 1999 as Tyrian 2000) was another fun one in the genre. That's one of those games I learned about later during my old games period, so there's less nostalgia goggles there and I still got quite a ways into the game. This game in the higher upgrade stages basically let's you fill the screen with bullets. Not enemy bullets, your own.

[Thomas Cardew]

Oh, I totally forgot about Lemmings (1991). It's a bit of a realtime puzzle game, pretty fun too.

How the heck did I forget about Lemmings too? And how has no one mentioned Worms: Armageddon (1999) yet?