showing 18 games

namepublisher(developer)year arrow_downwarddescription
Dune II: The Battle for Arrakis  Virgin Games (Westwood Studios)1992Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty is a real-time strategy Dune video game developed by Westwood Studios and released by Virgin Games in December 1992. It is based upon David Lynch's 1984 movie Dune, an adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel of the same name.***
[22]***
[52]***
[37]***[media=youtube]EiJLOjeyDxs[/media]
labelimagesubject
Monopoly Deluxe Virgin Games1992Should not be confused with the original released 1989 with support for much older hardware. labelminimizeminimize
Tetris Classic Spectrum Holobyte;Mirrosoft (Spectrum Holobyte)1992 labelminimizeminimize
3D Dinosaur Adventure  Knowledge Adventure1993 labelminimizeminimize
GateWorld  Homebrew Software1993 labelimageminimize
Return to Zork Activision1993Sixth part in the famous "Zork"-series. "Return to Zork" is the first one in the serious which is not a "text-adventure", but features video-sequences and a "point-and-click"-interface. labelimageminimize
Rallo Gump Just Softworks (Edge Creations;Homebrew Software)1994 labelminimizeminimize
Rise of the Triad: Dark War  Apogee1994Dark War and The HUNT Begins support a different set of sound hardware.***CD-ROM version.
[22]***You are part of an elite group of operatives called HUNT (High-risk United Nations Taskforce), and you must stop a maniac cult leader from killing millions of people. While scouting a remote island, you are suddenly surrounded by enemy troops with guns blaring. In the distance you see your boat--your only chance to escape--explode into matchsticks. In front of you is a huge fortress monastery, and your only chance to stop the madness. You are e quipped with awesome, high-tech weaponry like heat-seeking missiles, split missiles, and the Flamewall cannon, which leaves a trail of charred skeletons in its wake. You'll also find magical instruments and weapons so incredible they defy description.

FEATURES

* Super huge levels - up to one million sq. feet, and up to 16 stories high!
* Ten unique, real digitized enemies (actual Apogee employees!)
* Thirteen hardcore weapons, including magical weapons.
* Nearly every object can be destroyed - even mark walls with bullet holes!
* Modem and network playable, up to 11 players via an IPX compatible network.
* Adjustable violence/gore levels, from none (for children) to "excessive"!
* 20 Megabytes of explosive graphics, animations, music and digitized sounds!
* Play one of five players, each with unique attributes and abilities.
* In modem or network play, each player can can select what they want to look like.
* Look both up and down, up to 45 degrees, to see what is above and below.
* Ten unique, digitized enemies in the game, plus four multi-stage bosses!
* 15 incredible game hazards, like Spinblades, gun bunkers, huge boulders, Firejets, pits, Firechutes, Lavawalls, gas grates, and more.
* Special effects galore: Fog, lightning with properly delayed thunder, parallaxing skies, real lights that illuminate walls (you can shoot the lights and the room gets darker), ricocheting bullets, wind sounds, and more.
* Jump pads will spring you up into the air to jump over obstacles, walls, other players, (great in multiplayer games) and even to reach new weapons.
* Many useful objects and power-ups, like a fireproof vest, gas mask, Mercury mode (enables the player to fly!), and even a special "god" and "dog" modes, both making the player invincible for a short time (with hilarious side effects).
* 32 page full color game manual.

MULTIPLAYER FEATURES

* Supports modem, serial cable, and network multiplayer games with more specialized options than any game previously released.
* Network games up to 11 players!
* Each player can select one of the five unique characters, plus each player can choose from one of 11 uniform colors. (In team games, each team has the same uniform color.)
* Nine unique Comm-bat games, such as Eluder, Capture the Triad, and Hunter.
* RemoteRidicule allows players to send digitized voice messages to other players (an industry first!)
* With a microphone, a player can even speak directly to the other players in network games! Great for team play or taunting others.
* Play Comm-bat games in the normal game levels, OR use the special Comm-bat levels, which are specifically designed for fun multiplayer games.
[Apogee]***Dark War was the commercial full version published in 1995, The Hunt Begins was the Shareware version published in 1994. I've never met anyone who knows the game with the full name, just Rise of the Triad or ROTT, never anything about Dark War or The Hunt Beginning..

Source code was released in Dec 2002 and is available at 3D Realm's website.
[Sanguine]
labelimagesubject
The Settlers  Blue Byte1994A strategy game with cartoony graphics and an innocent line in humour. At the start of the level you choose a starting point, the intention being to get lots of flat land as well as resources to mine and ideally existing sources of trees, stones and water (for fish). Your people are vying for supremacy with up to 3 others.

The gameplay focuses on resource management. Each building requires a certain amount of wood (and stones for some of them) to be constructed and requires particular resources to perform its function successfully. Food must be produced (either fish, bread (requiring a windmill, grain-farmer and baker) or pork (requiring a pig-farmer and butcher as well as the grain-farm) to feed the people working in mines to produce the iron, coal and gold (as well as additional stones).

Huts and Watch-Towers are built to expand your territory, sometimes at the expense of an enemy's land (clever play involves targeting an area where your opponent has a crucial building, thus compromising his production).

To finally win the level, you must defeat your opponents. Combat is fought one-at-a-time by the little soldiers and a victory results in all surrounding buildings being lost.

The game features 30 preset missions. 6 tutorials missions will help beginners to learn the game mechanics. The game also offers the possibility to play semi-randomly (based on a 16-number key) generated maps. The map size varies from small maps, for quick matches, to large maps to, depending on how much RAM is available, huge maps, for very long matches as the fact that the in-game statistics can be displayed on a 50-hour scale illustrates. These semi-random maps can be played in single-player mode but can also be played by 2 players on one system, if you have 2 mice, in which case the screen is vertically split.***
[22]***Reviewed on a special folder about "god games".
[22]***
[37]
labelimagesubject
Undersea Adventure Knowledge Adventure;Edusoft (Knowledge Adventure)1994 labelminimizeminimize
Wacky Wheels Apogee Software (Beavis Soft)1994 labelimageminimize
The Bard's Quest: Dungeons of the Unknown  VisionSoft1994[i]The Bards Quest I: The Legend of Isil Thania[/i] was a freely redistributable demo "shareware", that advertised parts 2 and 3 (registered/full versions). However, [i]Legend of Isil Thania[/i] was nearly identical to [i]The Star Light Festival[/i] which was the sample game that was included with [i]The Bard's Tale Construction Set[/i]. This [i]might[/i] have been a violation of the licensing agreement for the Construction Set (Interplay did nothing against the game regardless). Many fan complained of plagiarism.

The Bard's Quest II: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (registered episode available individually)

The Bard's Quest III: Dungeons of Darkness (registered episode available individually)
labelminimizeminimize
Hocus Pocus Apogee (Moonlite Software)1994Terexin, leader of the Council of Wizards, is sending the young sorcerer, Hocus, on a special mission to prove his worthiness. This mission will take Hocus to 16 unique realms, each filled with unique dangers and enemies. Few have survived Terexin's final test--for many it's a one-way trip.

Along the way Hocus will encounter dragons, imps, ghosts and 30 more unique creatures, demons and enemies. Survive, and Hocus becomes a full-fledged, card carrying Wizard. The other option is not so favorable. Awesome and beautiful 256-color VGA graphics. After every two levels of play the level graphics, background and enemies completely change, giving this game unparalleled variety. Hocus Pocus is a action platform game, with exciting puzzles built into each level's structure.

Hocus is armed with a standard magic spell (he's not yet a full Wizard, after all), but he can find several potions that give him a temporary boost of magical energy. There are potions that give Hocus the ability to shoot rapidly, jump higher, teleport and fire a devastating energy blast, among others.

COOL FEATURES
* Smooth 360 degree scrolling, with a parallax background.
* Over SIX MEGS of 256-color VGA animated graphics.
* Four episodes with 36 huge levels!
* Over 30 different monsters, plus four huge bosses!
* Save/restore options, selectable skill levels, four cheat passwords!

Hocus Pocus is an addictive, action-packed, entertaining game that's comparable, or better than, anything found on the home cartridge systems.
[3D Realms]
labelimagesubject
CyberBykes: Shadow Racer VR Gametek1995 labelimageminimize
Powerslave Official Beta Version  Playmates (Lobotomy Software)1995This is effectively a 'shareware' demo of the final game. But this version supports a much wider array of hardware and options. I suspect there were some angry customers of the full version. For instance, this version works on Tandy 1000 where the final version did not. labelminimizesubject
The Gene Machine Vic Tokai (Divide by Zero)1996The Gene Machine is a point-and-click 2D adventure game with background images that give the perspective of 3D.

The story begins in the 1880s in London. British gentleman Piers Featherstonehaugh (pronounced "fanshaw") and his faithful servant, Mossop, arrive back home to discover a talking cat on their doorstep. The cat tells them of an outlandish plot concerning genetic mutations gone haywire. It then becomes Fanshaw's goal to stop this ghastly activity and to catch the fiends behind it.

Players step into the shoes of Piers as he and Mossop travel around the globe... and beyond. He will meet many unusual characters and talk with them during his quest .. including talking animals as well as people.

Exploration is in 3rd person perspective and most puzzles involve the multitude of inventory items that can be found while exploring.***
[84]
labelimagesubject
Duke Nukem 3D  Apogee Software (3D Realms)1996About tech / gameplay innovation, to quote TV Tropes:
[quote]First Person Shooters prior to Duke 3d didn't feature "realistic" real world locations. Things that Duke 3d did first include: televisions that show different programmes; closed circuit security cameras that let you see other areas of the level than the bit you're in; working subway trains that take you across "town"; strip bars/clubs; breakable glass/destroyable furniture/mirrors that you can see your own reflection in; triggered set pieces such as earthquakes that can destroy the architecture around the player; and working toilets that you can use to gain extra health. These things were quite revolutionary at the time, and the level design in later games of the genre (such as Half Life, Deus Ex, Soldier Of Fortune, and even aspects of Doom 3) show signs of its ground breaking influence. It could be argued that this organic approach to level design would have come about anyway as a direct result of increasingly better technology... but nevertheless, Duke 3d was there first.[/quote]***The source code for the 1.5 version was released under GPL license on 2003-04-01.***"Complete Version", the one I have, came on single CD-ROM. I'm pretty sure some older releases came on several 3½ disks.***[b]Minimum:[/b]
* 486 CPU
* 8 MB RAM
* VGA GPU
* 30 MB free HD space

[b]Recommended:[/b]
* 486DX2 / 66 MHz CPU (Pentium for SVGA modes)
* 16 MB RAM
* VESA-compliant VGA or SVGA GPU

[b]Supported sound cards:[/b]
For music: Gravis UltraSound, Sound Blaster (all of them), SoundMan16, Pro Audio Spectrum, SoundScape, Waveblaster, Sound Canvas, Adlib, and General MIDI.
For sound: Sound Blaster (all of them), Gravis UltraSound, SoundMan16, Pro Audio Spectrum, SoundScape, Disney/Tandy Sound Sources.***The third chapter in the series, and the first with a 3D perspective (the original Duke Nukem and the sequel, Duke Nukem II, are side scrolling platform games). This game, set sometime in the early 21st century, begins in a ravaged LA, which was overtaken by aliens while you were abducted during Duke Nukem II. Duke, upon returning to Earth, finds himself with another mess to clean up, and another alien race that needs exterminating. Duke is a can-do hero who realizes that sometimes innocent people have to die in order to save Earth, so accuracy of gun fire is not a real concern to him. :)

This game has a long list of cool things that haven't been attempted in 3D action games, yet. The weapons, for example, kick-butt:

* There's a mine that can be placed on any wall and sends out a laser trip beam-- perfect for multiplayer games.
* There's also a shrinker ray that reduces an opponent to the size of a G.I. Joe, at which point they are foot fodder--watch them splat!
* As in Shadow Warrior, you can swim under water, and even shoot players who are standing outside the water, or vice versa.
[3D Realms]
labelimagesubject
Daggerfall  Bethesda Softworks1996The various demo various support sound hardware that the final version does not.***
[84]***[b]Minimum:[/b]
* DOS 6.0
* 66 MHz 486DX2 CPU
* 8 MB RAM
* 50 MB HD space
* mouse

[b]Recommended:[/b]
* 450 MB HD space

[b]Soundcards:[/b]
*Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster 16, AWE 32
* Pro Audio Spectrum
* Ensoniq Soundscape
* Gravis Ultrasound***2009-07-09 made temporarily available for free, on the 15th anniversary of the Elder Scrolls series.***Latest version: 1.07.213 (as of ?)***The control system for Daggerfall was surprisingly advanced for its time (in DOS game, anyway), I think. You could easily have mouse look in and practically use similar-ish control mechanism to what's in modern games (e.g. in Dark Messiah) to control which way or how you swung your weapons. The only difference was that instead of swinging in the direction you moved, it swung in the direction you dragged the mouse, which in effect prevented you from turning around with the mouse as long as you had the attack button pressed. The controls were also quite customizable, since you could easily configure them to resemble something similar to that time's control system. The game was also quite unique that you could scale any straight wall almost indefinitely, defying any laws of sensibility by dragging yourself across to heights that made no sense. Lack of this ability was one of the most disappointing factors in the sequels, I think (though I have to really blame the blatantly lighter mood of the other games for _really_ disappointing me.. honestly, the story description of both Morrowind and Oblivion is much darker, yet I feel like I'm playing in some kind of [[link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletubbies Teletubby]] land).***The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall is the second chapter in the highly acclaimed Elder Scrolls role-playing series. Its predecessor, TES: Arena, won over twenty Best Role Playing Game of the Year awards and set a new level for computer role plating. TES: Daggerfall is the most ambitious CRPG ever created and surpasses the high standard set in Arena.

Daggerfall offers you an opportunity to adventure in total freedom within a world where your destiny is of your own making and consequence evolves from your decisions. A world of love and darkness, magic and sorcery. Whether you choose to follow a quest or to venture out alone, you will interact with thousands of people as you travel across an expansive land in a time of fantasy and imagination.

* The largest world ever created for a computer role-playing game. Adventure through thousands of cities, villages, dungeons, graveyards, ruins, castles, shrines and farms.
* Interact with thousands of characters, both in dialogue and action.
* Involve yourself in a complex world of constantly evolving political intrigue.
* Own property and ships, participate in the politics of guilds and other organisations and trade goods and services.
* Customise your character or even create a unique character class.
* Participate in numerous large-scale, complex quests or venture off on your own.
* A multiple path story, with several different endings. You decide how the game is played and won.
[Box blurb]***Daggerfall is the sequel to Arena. The world is HUGE, with litterally thousands of NPC's, hundreds of towns and dungeons, and a nearly infinate number of choices that can be made. You can spend time on side quests, or attempt your main goal of saving Daggerfall from the spirit of it's dead king.
labelimagesubject
permalink