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showing 28 games

name	publisher(developer)	year	description
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar	Origin (Origin Systems)	1985	Comes on two 5.25' disks. In 1997 the full version of this game was 'made available for free download' at selected sites by Origin. However, it remains proprietary and not defined as "freeware" or "public domain" (these downloads can disappear or the priced raised at any time at Electronic Art's option). Several homebrew upgrades exist for this game that add features such as VGA graphics and Midi sound. The xu4 project allows this game to run on Windows, Linux, Mac OS 8, Mac OS X, and other operating systems. xu4 Also allows extensive modding of the graphics, enemies, items, and certain game logic. The Ultima series continued to innovate with the release of each game in the series. With the 4th game released for Apple ][ and then ported to IBM-PC, the genre was taken to bran new places. There is no evil big bad enemy to defeat, and the point of the game is not to take advantage of people to get stuff to go defeat the enemy. Rather, the point of the game is for the main character to become a champion of virtue. The goals are literally honesty, humility, honor, spirituality, valor, justice, compassion, sacrifice, courage, truth, and love. Actions, inactions, even words can have less than apparent unhelpful or helpful consequences. Yes, there are still monsters to fight and treasures to find, but this makes up less than 1/8th of the game and the care and purpose in handling these things is more important than the end result. [Zerothis]
Swords of Glass	Keypunch Software	1986
Knight Games	Mastertronic (English Software)	1988	Fight an human or computer opponent in Sword Fight 1, Sword Fight 2, Quarterstaff, Pikestaff, Ball and chain, or Axeman (Axe) as knights in one-on-one combat in the well known fighting game style. Take turns in Archery (Bow) or Crossbow shooting at targets using a cursor. Each player can choose is keyboard or joystick control independently. 'Difficulty' consists of choosing 4, 6, or 8 minute rounds. Players have hit points that can be exhausted for a score bonus to the winner. Hits score points. Score is not cumulative between game nor recorded. The fighting is in the context of jousting matches. However the famous horse and lance matches are not present making it more of the general hastilude type games. [Zerothis]
Barbarian II: The Dungeon of Drax	Palace Software	1989
Tiger Road	U.S. Gold;Erbe Software	1989
The Dark Heart of Uukrul	Brøderbund (Digital Studios)	1990	[49]*This game has some interactive fiction, adventure and not yet defined elements. Players can visually search the room or listen find secrets, to get descriptions of the room, find riddles that hint at solutions to puzzles, and/or find clues to events in the nearby area. These are returned as text as the game has no sound whatsoever. Advancement must be confirmed by player actions. Crosses are not just symbols in this game, they are apparently melee weapons. Equipment can require a minimum level of experience and/or a minimum character attribute. Clerics must pray to cast spells (all one action). The petitioned god can grant the cast, not answer, or punish the character. These random responses seem to be based on the character's previous actions but the mechanism is unclear. The game is automatically saved much the same way as typical rogue-likes but a bit less often. Simply walking from one place to the next does not prompt a save, but reading a clue or resolving an encounter does. There is also a game "backup" save system. When a player is in a "sanctuary" they may manually create a second save. Experience is shared but most of it distributed unequally based on a character's participation. The mechanism is unclear. Killing blows and attacks delivering significant damage have the most reward. Other actions are rewarded as well no mater what the result. Every character still gets something even if they did not interact with the battle at all. For example, if the first move of a battle is the player's fighter killing a single foe with a single blow, all other party members will get at least 1 XP or more for a stronger enemey.If a character sacrifices their life to save their fellows, they lose piety. Dying is heresy, how [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oran_of_Iona]Oran[/url]ic¡ [63]* [52]*** [37]
Eye of the Beholder	SSI (Westwood Studios)	1991	[22]* [63]* [52]* [37]*You control a party of four heroes tasked by the lords of Waterdeep to investigate some foul stuff going on by entering the vast sewer system below the city. Saved games can be loaded into a new game in the sequel ([game=#40320]EOB2[/game]); minus the special items. [Zerothis]
Golden Axe	Sega	1991	The unpatched game will indeed run in Hercules graphics mode but will not run on a Hercules card. The game checks for a CGA card when loading and goes crazy when it doesn't find it. A patch will fix it.* [52]* [37]*The game leaves an unused black band on the screen's right edge, this is likely an artifact of very basic platform conversion.For 1-2 players simultaneously (cooperative or versus).Supports EGA, 4 color CGA/MCGA/Tandy, Hercules, 16 color Tandy and VGA GPUs.*This has nearly picture-perfect graphics that are nearly on a par with those of the Genesis, but suffers from some slowdowns at times. Its sound is also limited to blips and chirps from the PC speaker and so music is not an option. The year is either 1990 or 1991 as records vary. [b]Trivia[/b] from Mame.dk Golden Axe page 'The kanji [Japanese character] on the title screen actually reads 'Senpu', meaning 'Fighting Axe'. This is an example of 'gikun', where Japanese artists use the phonetic value of a character to determine the game's name, and not the meaning of the character itself.' [Garrett]
J.R.R. Tolkien's Riders of Rohan	Mirrorsoft;Konami (Beam Software;Papyrus)	1991	Are you hero enough to ride with Gandalf, Aragorn and the other Fellowship characters against the armies of the traitorous wizard Saruman? Then experience Riders of Rohan, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, the greatest epic fantasy ever written. Riders of Rohan represents the most faithful re-creation of Tolkien's work yet developed for the microcomputer. Command the elite cavalry of Rohan as the Riders battle to save their land from the wicked forces of darkness. Destiny lies in your hands as you race with Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli while they attempt to save the captured Hobbits from a fate worse than death. Rohan's lush green grassland, soft rolling hills, and peaceful meadows blend with enchanting music to form a beautiful, inviting environment... a stark contrast to the clashing swords, thundering horses, and piercing battle cries that fill a land at war. See Tolkien's world unfold before your eyes in this masterful blend of fantasy role-playing, arcade action, and tactical wargaming. Riders of Rohan is a game that will both challenge and entertain you -- a timeless addition to any software collection! • Lead the elite cavalry of Rohan as they battle across realistic 3-D terrain using the sophisticated wargame system, or let the computer fight "quick" combat. • Fight spectacular one-on-one duels with the evil Orcs and Dunlendings. • Test your reflexes with the fully animated arcade sequences. • Live out the traditional story line or build your own saga in true Tolkien flavor. • Converse with characters who bring Tolkien's magical prose to life. • View dazzling, detailed graphics in MCGA/VGA, EGA, and Tandy modes. • Enjoy easy-to-use mouse or keyboard interface, with multiple levels of play. • Includes a complete illustrated guidebook to the people and places of Middle Earth.* [159]* [22]* [22]* [37]
Metal Mutant	Silmarils	1991
The Summoning	SSI;Softgold Computerspiele (Event Horizon Software)	1992	Yes, the character has limited capacity _and_ the game world has limited supplies _and_ there is no back tracking. Forcing players to choose very carefully which items they want to carry to the next level and exactly when to use said items or not. Failure to have the right items can put the game in an unwinnable state. Magic regen is extremely slow. There is a cheat patch for this game that does nothing except speed up Magic regen. Many consider this game to be near unbeatable (even with the regen cheat) yet magic regen is the only cheat anybody has bothered to create.* [22]* [52]*** [37]
The UnReal World	Enormous Elk	1992	Development was moved to Windows at some point. Project originally started in 1990 but first public release was in 1992.
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss	Origin (Blue Sky Productions)	1992	Historical note: This game was the first, first person 3D game (it preceded Wolfenstein 3D by two months). Also the engine is much more advanced than the Wolfenstein 3D engine was. Not just in the RPG elements but the 3D environment, dynamic lighting, curved surfaces, real bridges and tunnels, texture resolution and variation, and vertical variation in the terrain. However, the system requirements of UW are higher than Wolf 3D. [Zerothis]
Ultima VII: The Black Gate	Origin	1992	Review for the French version of the game. [22]* [22]French version [37] [37]Came with six 3.5' disks. The original release included a demo of Ultima Underworld on a 5.25' disk. U7 was rerealsed both by Origin and Electronic Arts in many packages that included the sequels/add-ins for U7 (Forge of Virtue, Serpent Isle, The Silver Seed) Tags: The 7th canonical game in the Ultima series and the first game in Ultima's Age of Armageddon. The player and party can use crossbows and bows. Ingredients can be mixed to bake bread and other things. Cheese is available as food. A variety of items can be crafted into other items. There are pumpkin fields in the game, from which pumpkins can be harvested. Flight of the Bumblebee is played at one point, Rule Britannia is overplayed. There are several prisoners in the game and its this plays into the plot more than once. An addictive medicine in the game is abused by characters and can be abused by the player's character and party, with consequences. Unicorns are mentioned in in-game books and by characters[spoiler=and;and]one can be found by the player also.[/spoiler] Origin once again attempted to create a game engine as they had done before with Ultima IV and Ultima VI. Arthurian Legends was the game they would attempt to create using the U7 Engine. AL was not completed and the source code of the Ultima VII games was later lost. A game engine called Exult allows the game to run on a wide variety of platforms [Zerothis]**Still one of the best RPG's ever made IMO. The Forge of Virtue was a small expansion released with some packages. Ever wondered how to get this baby to run on Windows? Check here: [url=http://exult.sourceforge.net]exult.sourceforge.net[/url] [cjlee001]
Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor	SSI	1993	Saved games from the prequel ([game=#40320]EOB2[/game]) can be loaded into this game when starting; minus the special items. [Zerothis]
Heirs to Skull Crag	SSI (MicroMagic;SSI)	1993	Heirs to Skull Crag is the game, exclusively available in no other package game, real game, actual game, existing game, playable game, completable that comes the the Unlimited Adventures game creator which is in every other videogam database with tools to create AD&D based adventures, or even other types of adventures based on the Gold Box Engine. The executable is "FRUA.EXE" and the letters stand for "Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures". But UA is by no means limited to the Forgotten Realms setting. Materials from other settings are included and players are free to create their own or download UGC from the aforementioned site.
Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos	Virgin Interactive (Westwood Studios)	1993	[59]*CD-ROM version [37]Floppy disk version [37][media=youtube]DKdBs7Pc1JE[/media]Latest version: 1.23 (as of 1994-04?), 1.02 for CD release White Label CD release is pre-patched to "1.02D".*[b]Minimum:[/b] 386SX / 25 MHz CPU * 4 MB RAM * VGA or MCGA GPU * 5 MB free HD space For voices: Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, AdLib Gold, or AdLib Gold Standard. For music: Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, AdLib Gold, AdLib Gold, Roland MT-32/LAPC-1 or General MIDI. The CD-ROM (White Label) version mentions Win3.1, but this is only for compatibility info.*1993 original floppy release 1994 CD-ROM - full speech and additional narrative history of the lands by Patrick Stewart 1996 CD-ROM - "special" white label European release. No idea what's so special about it, even though I have this. Doesn't appear any different from the '94 release, except maybe the box art.*A Legend has been born...Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos is a fantasy, role playing adventure like no other. "Scotia, the hideous hag wants it all... power... riches...lland...THE WORLD! Can she be stopped? The truth stone must be found before her evil can be defated" The sheer scale, superb art animation and incredible special effects, will transport you through over thirty unique areas. As one of the seven characters that you can choose from, you will face over fifty intelligent and believable monsters in mortal combat. Fantasy and reality become one, in lands where the only law is survival. [Box blurb]
Red Crystal	Quantum Quality Productions	1993	Successfulness of an attack depends on the player knowing the height of the enemy. Two players can complete a playthrough cooperatively using horizontal split-screen. The players can be local with non-shared keyboard and mouse or via modem. During character creation, random stats can be re-rolled until, hopefully, a nearly perfect set is achived. This is almost required to play the game. A character can use any spell or weapon with some degree of effectiveness. But specific weapon types or spells can be used more effectivly by certian character classes. Likewise, enemy types are strong or weak to certian spells or weapon types. Charaters may carry up to 30 items. Items may be used, bought, sold, dropped, and picked-up. Equippable items are equiped when "USE"d. Plot items are carried and not useable (and occupy an inventory slot). Dropped items will remain where dropped for a limited time. 'the per-game look-up copy protection took Alen to Page 8, Line 1, Word 1: "bored"' - Petra Schlunk (Computer Gaming World Number 117, Page 66)
The Elder Scrolls: Arena	Bethesda Softworks	1994	[b]Minimum:[/b] * DOS 5.0 * 25 MHz 386 CPU * 4 MB RAM * 25 MB HD space * VGA display * mouse***The game was formerly commercial, but was released as freeware at some point.
Anvil of Dawn	New World Computing (DreamForge Intertainment)	1995	[b]Minimum[/b] * DOS 5.0 or greater * 486/33 CPU * 4 MB RAM * 5 MB free HD space * 2X CD-ROM drive * Mouse [b]Recommended:[/b] * 486/66 CPU * 30 MB free HD space*The game's unusual in the manner that although you select one of the five heroes to play as in the beginning, you get to meet the other four in your travels. The choice of hero mostly affects the voice-overs (and dialog with it) and appearance, attributes are freely customizable if you so desire.*The game was apparently re-released in 2007/01 with Windows XP support. Unable to verify this currently, though.
Hexen	id Software;GT Interactive (Raven Software)	1995	Re-edited version with addons included [84]* [22]1999-01-11 source code released under a restrictive license. 2008-09-04 source code was released under GPL compatible license*Has rather unique difficulty levels, the number of enemies gets inflated as is to be expected, but better weapons are located later on, forcing you to fight with old and "less efficient" ones much longer. But since each character has only 4 weapons total, including the starting weapon, this isn't such a big thing but does prove additional challenge early on. There are some differences in encountered enemies between the characters, too (or they're randomized, but I haven't verified that). There are only two types of "ammo" (mana, really), where the second weapon consumes blue, third weapon green, and fourth weapon both. Unlike some other games of the time, magic was not simply dispensed from some magical weapons, but the character actually seemed to have proficiency in magical arts, as witnessed by the mage classes use of lightning and ice and cleric's use of fire. Hexen is also one of the first (if not [i]the[/i] first) first-person games to implement jumping, as well as falling damage which is ignored in great many games even today. [spoiler=Show weapons;Hide weapons]Baratus (Warrior): Spiked Gauntlets * Timon's Axe * Hammer of Retribution * Quietus Parias (Cleric): * Mace of Contrition * Serpent Staff * Firestorm * Wraithverge Daedolon (Mage): * Sapphire Wand * Frost Shards * Arc of Death (Lightning) * Bloodscourge[/spoiler]*Raven Software's HeXen actually began development as an expansion for Heretic that was originally slated to hit the shelves as "Heretic II." However, the game design so expanded beyond the original game that this proposed the expansion of the Heretic universe took on a bold new identity of its own...HeXen: Beyond Heretic. HeXen was developed over a period of 8 months, published by Id Software and distributed by GT Interactive in 1995. The game introduced the 3-D gaming world to the "hub system" of level progression, rotating polygonal brushes and multiple character classes that were available in both single player and multiplayer. All of this combined to help HeXen raise the bar for the first-person shooter genre. HeXen pushed Id Software's DooM engine to its absolute limits and surpassed Heretic as Raven Software's most popular, highly acclaimed title. The success of HeXen prompted a mission pack, Deathkings of the Dark Citadel, and several ports to home console gaming systems including the Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64 and the Sony PlayStation. HeXen also became the first Raven Software game made available for the Macintosh. [Raven][b]System requirements:[/b] 486 33 MHz CPU or better * MS-DOS 5.0 or higher. * 25 MB free HD space * 8 MB RAM * VGA graphics card * Sound Blaster or 100% compatible sound card Supports joystick and mouse.*~ Represeting a quantum leap in realism, bursting at the seams with playability and bulging interactivity, Hexen is a spellbinding and terrifying epic that pits its players as one of the three classes of hero and sets them on a nightmarish knife-edge quest to destroy the evil rulers who once controlled them. Every part of this colossal battle between horrific creatures is waged with one of the 12 death dealing weapons, either alone or in 'co-operative' or 'Deathmatch' networked play. Pretenders to the throne beware: - id Software and Raven have joined forces again to create this masterpiece of the 3D dynasty. [Box blurb]While you were battling the evil forces of D'Sparil, the other Serpent Riders were busy sowing the seeds of destruction in other dimensions. One such dimension is the decaying world where Hexen takes place. A world littered with the mangled corpses of nonbelievers and inhabited by the undead followers that executed them. Only three humans - a warrior, a mage and a cleric - have escaped the leaders' vicious spell. Now these brave souls have sworn to crush the evil regime that threatens to destroy the world forever. Separated upon entering the mystical portal, the three are forced to attempt on their own what they had hoped to do together: find Korax's stronghold, destroy him and restore order in the physical world. [id Software]**A sort of sequel of Heretic, Hexen takes you to a new world to take the place of one of three heroes (A Fighter, a Cleric and a Mage) to stop the second of the Serpent Riders. The use of a "hub" system to travel back and forth through the levels is a very innovative idea. This is one of my all time favorite games, however some are turned away by the running around, collecting of puzzle pieces.
Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel	id Software (Raven Software)	1996	Apparently the first expansion Raven Software ever did.
Quake	Activision (id Software)	1996	[b]Minimum:[/b] * MS-DOS 5.0 * Pentium CPU (w/ math co-processor) * 8 MB RAM * 80 MB HD space [b]Recommended:[/b] * 16 MB RAM*[b]Episodes:[/b] 1) [i]Dimension of the Doomed[/i] : "The mystical past comes alive" 2) [i]The Realm of Black Magic[/i] : "Ancient castles and strange beasts ahead" 3) [i]The Netherworld[/i] : "Primal fear in a strange dimension" 4) [i]The Elder World[/i] : "Your worst nightmare come true"Re-released as GLQuake which used OpenGL for rendering rather than software, Windows port of the game was based on GLQuake rather than the original software version.This game was developed on a several platforms running NeXTSTEP. [Zerothis]Partially influenced by H.P.Lovecraft's works.**Excellent game for the time. When I first saw the purple moving clouds in the skies of the game on the free demo I remember I rushed to the store to buy it!! I can remember I played night after night just to finish the game and had sleepy eyes on the office the day after. In the end of the game there was some kind of a monster on a small island which you could jump on to finish it off.. No doubt about it: In its genre, one of the best games ever. [Roland]
Aleshar: The World of Ice	Hypothermia	1997	Originally shareware, but made freeware at some point.
Descent To Undermountain	Interplay (Dragon Play)	1997	Latest version: 1.3 (as of ?)
Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny	Virgin Interactive (Westwood Studios)	1997	Latest version: 1.30 (as of 1998-02?)***Comes on 4 CDs.
Avalon	MiG Designs (MiG Outpost)	1998
Baldur's Gate: Edition spéciale	Interplay Productions	1998

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