'vintage' PC games

shaz112 · 24-02-2010, 16:26

I'm in a nostalgic mood and think I'm gonna have a few weeks of downgraded gameplay

, starting with Dungeon Keeper. Followed by Theme Hospital, Spelling Blizzard and Atomic Bomberman

.

There's another one that's on the tip of my memory... something to do with Beethoven and Einstein I think... If anyone knows what I'm on about I'd appreciate it...

Ghozer · 24-02-2010, 17:47

Good luck getting theme hospital working on anything other than windows 98, it wouldn't even work in XP for me.. Let me know how you get on..

Can't remember the name of the game your thinking of any ways sorry.

shaz112 · 24-02-2010, 18:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ghozer

Good luck getting theme hospital working on anything other than windows 98, it wouldn't even work in XP for me.. Let me know how you get on..

Can't remember the name of the game your thinking of any ways sorry.

There's ways around it, I've got my little bro (resident techno-expert

) on the case. He managed to get Dungeon Keeper and Theme Hospital both working on Vista a few months ago but once he completed them he deleted everything

. He's in the process of downloading everything for me at the moment so fingers crossed.

Weazel2006 · 24-02-2010, 19:14

Watch out for bloaty head syndrome and the squits!!!!

steev · 24-02-2010, 19:46

Last couple of retro binges I've had were courtesy of Virtualbox.

Install Windows 2000 Pro on that with the guest additions & most games of that age are playable. On my last binge I had such great ideas about all the games I was going to play & ended up glued to Populous for a week.

Dungeon Keeper II is very creaky in Virtualbox, no idea what DKI would be like.

Karis · 24-02-2010, 21:04

What's really sad is that I have all of those games in boxes upstairs.

I often play System Shock 2

But I'd love to play Populous again!

MDK.SIE · 24-02-2010, 21:52

used to love the sudden strike on mega drive and micro machins with 4 pals was wiked

shaz112 · 24-02-2010, 21:59

Yeah, micro machines is badass.

Anyway, been at it for nearly an hour and just about given up. My computer is infected with spyware apparently and it just keeps crashing, so I'll have to deal with that first somehow.

You can get the old games working by installing Daemon Tools Lite. I'd be on it right now if my computer didn't have mental issues.

Weazel2006 · 24-02-2010, 22:14

Dosbox works well with a fair few titles, i did wonder how a virtual machine would work and might give it another go myself given the post above, it all comes down to compatability, if it wont work in native xp, give emulation or virtual machine a chance.

stateless · 25-02-2010, 06:05

I used to LOVE worms... FlashBack for the megadrive was pretty nifty too.

Beakerzoid · 25-02-2010, 09:18

I love playing retro games, but over recent years it has become fiddlier and fiddlier to get the games running under modern systems. Even Dosbox struggles on some titles these days, and installing an old OS doesn't always help (the hardware is too new and fast for the game - Magic Carpet became a mess of ultra-high-speed objects flashing past me)

However, gog.com (Good Old Games) have kept my fix for old gaming sorted! For a few measly quid you can obtain a game from their ever expanding library, all tweaked and engineered to run and install in modern systems. No digital rights restrictions either, so install them on any PC you have without limit. They've been running an Activision month for the past few weeks so I obtained Caesar 3, Vampire The Masquerade, and Space Quest 4, 5 and 6.

Dave650 · 25-02-2010, 09:24

original prince of persia
Duke Nukem
Doom
Worms
Lemmings
Lavapipe (?)
Wacky Races

Think I still have some of these on floppy disk.

oldbean · 25-02-2010, 09:28

the old command and conquer games were great, before the improved graphics ruined the gameplay.

Beakerzoid · 25-02-2010, 09:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by oldbean

the old command and conquer games were great, before the improved graphics ruined the gameplay.

Totally agree with you there. Been playing the old PS1 version of Red Alert a fair bit recently and loving it. Tried some of the more recent C&C games but they just don't have the same charm as the old ones had. Far too flashy, and the pretty explosions and such distract from the core gameplay.

Generally I feel the same about any strategy games - give me Civilization when it was simple graphics over the 'Revolution' one of recent years which looked pretty, by played like a mule!

oldbean · 25-02-2010, 09:53

Yeah i've got all 3 ps1 c&c games for ps3, downloaded off playstation network. Got the original ps1 discs but it's nice being able to play off the hard drive without needing the cd. They beat any games i've ever played since, only trouble is they only have a few really good missions per game. The proper big all out war missions with tesla coils, monster tanks and everything.

auto98uk · 25-02-2010, 10:24

DOSBox used to be good, don't think it is still supported

segasonic · 25-02-2010, 11:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by oldbean

the old command and conquer games were great, before the improved graphics ruined the gameplay.

Dune II was even better.

SnailyBoy · 25-02-2010, 11:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by oldbean

the old command and conquer games were great, before the improved graphics ruined the gameplay.

Well prepare for some freeware C&C action

http://www.commandandconquer.com/classic

All the classic C&C games, free of charge.

DeathAxe · 25-02-2010, 12:26

Virtualbox with windows 98SE might be the best idea for those old games. It is a REAL shame then even some of the not so old games like worms world party (best of the worms games) wont run even on XP (lots of patches etc but non worked for me) armageddon does work however, but its not as good :-/ (a few of those patches had spyware in them aswell which thankfully where detected soon as they where downloaded)

All my worms games are original aswell :-/ surly it wouldn't take much for team 17 to release patches for xp and win 7? or are they too busy with the cash cow that is XBLA? (2 worms games on there)

Trouble is with things like virtual box, the actual video drivers in the emulation are VERY basic so alot of games will not actually run in it.

Things like doom and duke nukem have been updated by the community and run on newer hardware, and have 3d graphics packs. They make the games look better, but personally I prefere the old style graphics for those games..

Megadrive wise, get kega (free megadrive emulator by steve snake, ex sega employee) currently the best emulator. Games wise you are going to have to google them. There is a usb device that enables you to use your actual megadrive and snes carts on emulators. Out soon I think. There is also that megadrive collection available for xbox360 and ps3. Superb collection of games, the first one to have all the streets of rage games, golden axe games and all sonics all together in one package.

mrmist · 25-02-2010, 12:34

For some good classic games you can look on the underdogs.