I'd consider most of these games to be relatively recent.
I'm old, aren't I?
Top Ten Retro PC Games
Have you ever considered the qualities a game needs to feature on your own favourites list or any top ten gaming list for that matter? Opinions vary for sure, but for me it really must be like nothing you have ever seen before or at least innovate in such a way as to be stand-alone phenomenon in its genre. Many alcohol-fuelled …
-
Monday 1st November 2010 09:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
KOTOR!!
Probably one of the best examples of a game that had such a huge hit, followed by such a dismal disaster.
And no mention of Neverwinter Nights? One of the longer lasting community-enhanced multi-players that's been out almost a decade and still going strong (up until last year within the top 3 of GameSpy's list, occasionally beating Unreal and other new FPS games for top spots)
Funny story.. Obsidian is behind killing both franchises (NWN2 and KOTOR2) due to their inept programming and crappy quality controls.
-
-
Tuesday 2nd November 2010 22:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
Dungeon Master
Tom 38 u r my man... DUNGEON MASTER, my first real pc & rpg game, given up many nights on that one. This is some retro S*%£ or I don t know what I m talking about. Addictive, deep gameplay, amazing graphs 'when it came out). DM rules!
What about warcraft II ??? Honestly.
Starcraft is no retro, it was still played last year (and is still played) before SCII came out. And it s dad is Warcraft II (not even I) countless lan parties on this one. (and isn t the most played and bankable game today today one of it s offspring??). "Yes my loard", griffon rush and xploding dwarves. Seriously?
RTS speaking, it was far more played than C&C, came before (if I remember well) and the grandfather is warcraft I which could also be played LAN. And, C&C seems to me like a copy of Dune, innovative RTS game that built the foudations of this modern kind (3 races does it ring abell?). Good game, good memories.
Thx for the selections, reminded some fun times.
-
Monday 1st November 2010 09:47 GMT dephormation.org.uk
ZX81 anyone?
Imagine a 3D first person game... but running in 16Kbytes, on an 8bit CPU, with no hard disk, and no 3D graphics card?
'3D Monster Maze' (J.K.Greye/Malcolm Evans) was an incredible achievement for its time, and the limited capability of the ZX81 platform... and the precursor to all other 3D games like Wolfenstein, Doom, Half Life, Unreal.
-
Monday 1st November 2010 09:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Missing the point much guys?
This is Lucy's Top Ten Retro Games, not YOUR top 10, what's retro to one person may not be for others, depending how old you are and when you started playing games. It will always be subjective.
If you want to do your own Top 10 why not blog it and link it in comments? :)
Some great games there, actually a couple I know the names of but had never played, always nice to have a trip down memory lane from time to time.
-
-
Monday 1st November 2010 13:44 GMT Andrew Baines
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
LOL - I thought I was the only fan. Just loved the terraforming and ability to create own units. The different factions were genuinely different too.
Got a feeling everyone's retro top 10 depends upon their age - past 40, I'm thinking Elite, Manic Miner, Wolfenstein 3D, Pacman
-
Monday 1st November 2010 15:35 GMT TakeTheSkyRoad
Re : Andrew
Elite I played on the Amiga so discounted it lol
Alpha Centauri was one of those games I kept coming back to over the years which in my mind makes a classic. The likes of Black & White are great groundbreaking stuff & with awards but if it's not sill being played years later then isn't not in the list !
Honory mention for Magic Carpet :)
-
Tuesday 2nd November 2010 22:37 GMT ArmanX
Yes! Alpha Centauri! I loved that game!
I've always wanted an RTS like that; my favorite tactic was to terraform a mountain just beside an enemy... the change in landscape meant they would starve. Well, that and I could easily make a land bridge.
Adding a terraform unit to a game like Age of Empires (or a modern equivalent) would be beyond awesome.
-
-
-
-
Monday 1st November 2010 10:42 GMT Peter Kay
PoP was pretty good
You can download updated PoP levels for hardcore players, even now. Additionally there's a remake of the first game on XBox Live.
I think I'm going to have to disagree with other people including Elite, though, even if it did have a PC version. Don't get me wrong, Elite was good in 1985, but it was light on plot, difficult to get started (the joy of docking, amongst other things) and had a huge amount of grinding to reach Deadly, never mind Elite. Instead, I'd highlight the 1993 Privateer. There's a proper plot, greatly improved graphics and sound, yet still the ability to go off and do your own thing. There's also a free remake, although the number of enemy ships can currently be a bit overwhelming.
-
-
Monday 1st November 2010 10:21 GMT Imsimil Berati-Lahn
Old, not retro.
?...Retro...?
How do we define this term?
OCED says:
Retro: adj.
Contemporary creation imitative of a style from the recent past.
The works of Charles Dickens are old, not retro.
My recent (rather poor) novel written in a Dickensian style could be consisdered retro.
These games may be dated. Retro, they are not.
-
Monday 1st November 2010 10:21 GMT Peter Kay
That's mostly a good list, but..
I can't disagree with most of that, even if it doesn't fit my own taste in games. Does Black and White really fit the criteria, though? It starts well, but I found it to lack variety once about the fourth world had been reached, and the pet was always a bit of a problem.
Personally I'd substitute Day of the Tentacle for SoMI and as I'm not a fan of online FPSes, I'd throw in the only ten years old but completely awesome Planescape:Torment.
Duke Nukem 3D was a good FPS, and lives on with the eDuke32 engine, but is vastly inferior to Jedi Knight released a year later. JK takes full advantage of the Star Wars franchise, it has CD audio music, inventive (if difficult) level design and the light sabre actually generates light (it doesn't in the sequel). There's high resolution models that can be patched into it now, and a DirectX dll that ensures it works on Vista/7. It remains tremendous fun, even now.
-
Monday 1st November 2010 10:21 GMT Alex C
Diversity rules
It seems Elite is the most chosen (from the comments above) missing link. Also I agree it is a little FPS-centric for my particular taste.
CIV & SimCity are definitely there, (though they eventually lost the plot and became more complicated than is fun).
Elite & NetHack were also fantastic games of their type.
Fallout was one of the most original takes on an RPG ever, surely.
Games I still play every so often - and so pass the test of still being playable after all these years.
Wizardry 8 (currently at Mt Gigas) Sadly I can't make it work on win 7 though...
Arcanum
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Sid Meier's Pirates!
Heroes of Might and Magic 3
But then I'm sad and those are to my taste.
Now, who's up for a nice game of Global Thermonuclear War?
-
-
Monday 1st November 2010 10:21 GMT Avatar of They
good list
I would add final fantasy 7. Lets be honest, how many of you grew a gold chokobo? Come on seriously, about 80 hours of breeding and racing to get a gold chokobo JUST so you could run up a mountain and get the power of the 'knights of the round table'. Every casting has about 12 knights laying the smack dab.
But as a list, you seem to have chosen the genre defining or the biggest selling, Which is a good list, though Duke nukem set the tone for comedy where most games didn't, and should be included. total annihilation for an RTS with "see how many units you can get on screen at the same time" Mortal combat for console based beat 'em ups, spawing a new phrase for gamers and helped fuel consoles back in the day of the mega drive etc.
Dune 2, that started the RTS which C&C just added FMV to. (And which plays nicely on my N900)
-
Monday 1st November 2010 10:44 GMT Gavin McMenemy
KOTOR??
While undeniably a good game KOTOR is not one of the best "retro" titles..
Half life should be up there (because of it's impact). Deus EX too but...
Here's the caveat...
The one PC (yes PC) game that isn't mentioned, and should, is System Shock 2. Half Life (Deus Ex) are the progeny of that game. Without it you wouldn't have HL and, for the console gamers, HALO. And if you've never played it... trust me when I say that it is a genuinely creepy, scary game. With a complex story compellingly told. There are people out there STILL maintaining it so that you can keep playing it.
I also thought that to count as retro (in gaming terms) a title had to be a minimum of 10 years old?
I'd also settle for System Shock but it didn't get everything quite a right as it's successor.
-
Monday 1st November 2010 12:26 GMT Jerome 0
Half Life / SS2
Half Life is the progeny of System Shock 2, a game that was released almost a year later than it?
SS2 and Deus Ex were both stunning games, never equalled since in terms of sheer innovation. The combination of FPS and role-playing elements in both titles made them my favourite games ever. It took a decade, until Fallout 3, for anyone to come close to anything as compelling.
But the original System Shock must surely be the game that started the whole thing off, and really deserves its place in this list. It predated Half Life by a good five years, and while not quite as polished a title, it was in many ways far more innovative.
-
Monday 1st November 2010 13:44 GMT Gavin McMenemy
hm
I seem to remember SS2 being out well before either HL or DE. Maybe I AM thinking of SS1.
Okay. Mentally edit my post to say SS1. And remove all entries to do with SS2.
Bizarre. The old noggin is obviously not what it used to be.
I also remember that SS2 had a co-op patch well before Co-Op became fashionable.
-
-
-
Monday 1st November 2010 12:10 GMT TCTCTC
Let's give it a shot...
Trip down memory lane to when I still had time to (seriously) play games. I think these are all pre-2000 which is retro enough for me. In order of preference:
1) TIE Fighter (by miles and given by other comments *the* missing game in TheReg list)
2) Baldur's Gate (sequel was even better though still wouldn't put it above TIE)
3) Half-Life (still remember the total sense of amazement playing this the first time)
4) Civilization 2
5) Diablo
6) DOOM
7) SimCity 2000
8) Alpha Centauri
9) Dune 2 (totally deserves it's place in the top 10 instead of C&C)
10) Carmageddon
Just not in the list: Shogun Total War (not pre-2000) and Jagged Alliance (relatively unknown it seems?).
-
Monday 1st November 2010 12:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
Drive the cyarrrr
Some excellent choices there, though an emphasis on RPGs and FPSs.
I wouldn't quite class that Star Wars game as retro, more the kind of game I might pick up for a £5 on a bargain game stand and fire on my newly built phenom (as I did Serious Sam).
Some motorsport games for the car geeks amongst us from my younger days wasted on a 486:
- Geoff Crammond's F1 - Vector graphics that worked well on a low spec machine, fantastic F1 simulation that wasn't bettered for years.
- Indycar racing - (and the similar Nascar variety) from Papyrus - US based open wheeled racing, similar to Crammond's F1 but slightly better graphics and a tremendous sense of speed on the larger ovals (Michigan on Indy, Talladega on the stock cars). Nascar and Indy2 even included a paint shop to make your own custom liveries, something we now take for granted on the likes of Forza.
- Toca (and the later Toca2) - Although better known as PS1 titles, the PC versions were excellent saloon car racing games combined with a wheel. Always had a real sense of racing from the moment you picked up the game, no need to work for weeks at the back of the field, nor the other way where after a day you find yourself continually at the front of the field, just a nice balance between the two.
- Micro machines 2 - Fun top down game with a custom course editor
- GTA - While it looked like a micro machines game, the open world and missions were a revelation at the time, and spawned a whole series and genre.
- Destruction Derby - Banger racing game, just about ran on an SX processor manually installing and rebuilding the directory structure.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
