Retro Games Worth Playing

[Ginger Piglet]

Okay, not sure that this counts, but if you have an Atari STE and a Jaguar joypad or similar 15 pin controller, you may want to check out r0x Zero. Released last year at the SillyVenture Atari scene party in Poland and written by a bunch of German demosceners, it's a vertical shmup where you have to blast through waves of enemy mooks. Your score is based on keeping up a multiplier by chaining shots and so forth. It is also random in that the patterns that the enemy come in are different every game though from predetermined patterns. Add to this some truly awesome chiptunes and butter smooth gameplay and this is the sort of thing we could have been playing in 1989 had Atari not totally failed to market the STE leading developers to simply assume that everyone had a standard ST and not to bother coding for the STE's extra bits like hardware scroller, blitter, stereo sampled sound, etc.

 

[Rand /pol/]

Harvester

 

[Spasticus Autisticus]

Kickle Cubicle is incredibly fun and difficult to tear to yourself away from. It's a terrible injustice that it wasn't a big splash.

Oh man you just brought up some memories.

Haven't seen Alpha Centauri get mentioned yet. Calling it Civilization on an alien planet wouldn't be doing it justice. It's 20 years old but still outshines newer Civs in gameplay. There is an active modding scene on alphacentauri2.info. I suggest getting the PRACX patch for high res and windowed support, and then a gameplay mod. Yitzi's is the most popular gameplay mod, and the AI Growth Mod is promising, especially if you enjoy huge maps.

 

[XYZpdq]

Galaga

 

[TrippinKahlua]

I plan on starting a project to refurbish my NES next week. It's gonna be tough, and it's something I have been apprehensive about, but it's not like there is nothing to lose.

I got a Game Genie this year, and the original console works best with it.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

Here's another Atari ST game that I had back in the day but which I still get out from time to time. Deuteros: The Next Millennium.

Deuteros is, at heart, a spreadsheet. But you wouldn't know it to think it. It is probably the most atmospheric spreadsheet ever devised.

It is also a rare post-post apocalyptic game in that there was an apocalypse (asteroid strike) then another apocalypse (invasion by abhumans), and then you come in. The first thing you do is turn on the lights in the ruins of the last Earth city, and then you recruit survivors to go to work mining, flying shuttles, researching, and rebuilding. It also has a difficulty cliff as opposed to a difficulty curve; as soon as you build a 6th space station the Methanoids (abhumans who live in the outer solar system) come after you in serious force. However, the muddy, dirty, twisted graphics and the soundtrack of things being built and tons of rocks being mined and crushed and grinding machinery and the sound of industries being coaxed back to life after centuries of disuse really makes it.

 

[Basic Bleach]

Gauntlet Dark Legacy

My go-to for when I need mindless destruction.
I remember really liking Gauntlet Seven Sorrows for the brief time I got to play it...at least I think it was Seven Sorrows. It had a first-person view option, does anyone remember that?

Dungeon Keeper

YES.
I broke a mouse and sprained my hand slapping minions back in the day.

Secret of Mana

First played this on Bleemcast, which for whatever reason slowed the music down but not the actual gameplay. Still a favorite as far as SNES games go.


Legend of Legaia on PS1 was a fun one. Sims classic, if only because they hadn't introduced consequences for murdering all your neighbors yet. Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.
Also kind of an indie PC one I ran across randomly years and years ago (it was available for free at the time iirc)... Blades of Avernum, if only because I can run it anywhere off of a thumbdrive.

 

[Billy_Sama]

Kickle Cubicle is incredibly fun and difficult to tear to yourself away from. It's a terrible injustice that it wasn't a big splash.

That is one of my favorite NES games, a fun puzzle game where you are a cute snowman with the powers of Sub-Zero who ends up being the king and getting dips on the princess. A true video game chad.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.
Also kind of an indie PC one I ran across randomly years and years ago (it was available for free at the time iirc)

Not an indie game, it was Troika(think Obsidian/eXile before indie, then many Troika people went to those companies).
The game was leaked like 6-9 months before release - from pressing! It was buggy as hell but Troika assured everyone it was an old build and the CD-rom release wouldn't be like that, malicious parties were doing them harm etc... but the cd-rom release was byte identical to the old version. Through all that time they did not even have a patch ready for the exact same problems pirates had beta-tested for them.

Masters of Orion 3 had a similar story.


Lionheart is a game people forget about, it's a Black Isle RPG built around the Infinity engine set in a steam punk europe.

 

[Billy_Sama]

Spelunker, the one I play I one the NES at least, is one of my favorites that I like still to pop into my Nintendo. With the iffy controls and short fall distance that kills you, it makes a fun game to see how far you can go with the challenge. Even though it was a Western PC game, it got really big in Japan on the Famicom with a odd sequel on the Famicom and future releases.

 

[XYZpdq]

Spelunker, the one I play I one the NES at least, is one of my favorites that I like still to pop into my Nintendo. With the iffy controls and short fall distance that kills you, it makes a fun game to see how far you can go with the challenge. Even though it was a Western PC game, it got really big in Japan on the Famicom with a odd sequel on the Famicom and future releases.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=eOtIZJMTYIs

Wasn't that a dank meme on the Japanese retro scene in the 2000s?

 

[Someone in a Tree]

Yoshi's Island was probably the culmination of everything Nintendo EAD had been working towards up until that point. It utilized the FX2 chip to pretty much throw in every magic trick the 16 bit generation of hardware was capable of pulling off. I'd even go so far as to say that very few 2D games that Nintendo has made since have better art direction than this game.

 

[Bussy Catalog]

Spelunker, the one I play I one the NES at least, is one of my favorites that I like still to pop into my Nintendo. With the iffy controls and short fall distance that kills you, it makes a fun game to see how far you can go with the challenge. Even though it was a Western PC game, it got really big in Japan on the Famicom with a odd sequel on the Famicom and future releases.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=eOtIZJMTYIs

I used to play the shit out of this on my Atari 8-bit computer. That version was a lot more primitive (slower, no music, single color sprites) but it was still a ton of fun. I only managed to get to the second level a few times because that stupid ghost kept getting me on the ladders.

 

[Voltaire]

I barely even play games anymore I just watch other people play them.

 

[LazarusOwenhart]

Did I chime in here yet? Ace Combat, like all of them are amazing. Also just... yeah all the retro, everything retro. This isn't the thread for me because I'm far too biased. Basically, play old games.

 

[TheJelqster]

I didn't see a mention yet for Descent/Forsaken, so I'm recommending those 2. The creator's of Descent actually created a new game recently called overload, and that's a good game right there.

 

[Plunkie]

I didn't see a mention yet for Descent/Forsaken, so I'm recommending those 2. The creator's of Descent actually created a new game recently called overload, and that's a good game right there.

I remember playing a magazine demo disc for a Descent game (3, I think?). Fuck, that was a good time.

 

[LazarusOwenhart]

I didn't see a mention yet for Descent/Forsaken, so I'm recommending those 2. The creator's of Descent actually created a new game recently called overload, and that's a good game right there.

If you liked Descent and haven't played Hellbender you're doing yourself a disservice.

 

[Basic Bleach]

Not an indie game, it was Troika(think Obsidian/eXile before indie, then many Troika people went to those companies).
The game was leaked like 6-9 months before release - from pressing! It was buggy as hell but Troika assured everyone it was an old build and the CD-rom release wouldn't be like that, malicious parties were doing them harm etc... but the cd-rom release was byte identical to the old version. Through all that time they did not even have a patch ready for the exact same problems pirates had beta-tested for them.

Failure to properly sentence on my part, I think. The indie bit was about the game mentioned after Arcanum =p

I knew it was by Troika and needed various patches to run properly even back when it was new, but the extent of the problem is kind of surprising. Then again with performance like that, no wonder they didn't really last.

The game just has a special place in my heart for being one of the first real open-world ones I ever actually got to play and finish.

 

[Billy_Sama]

My favorite early CD format series is the YS series on the TG16/PC Engine CD. The music and presentation is still very enjoyable today and there is a fan translation of IV with dubbing just as bad like other early video game voice recording of the time.