Reminiscing - Old PC Games

Ahhhh, It's summertime. Time to relax. But it's too hot outside in the day and there are too many blood-sucking skeeters at night. When I'm feeling more cooped up than during a winter blizzard, I like to break out the old computer games!

I just recently re-discovered Battlezone I and Battlezone II (1998-1999, Activision and Pandemic Studios). Wow this game is a blast! It is a combination of Real-Time Strategy and First-Person Shooter. You roam around in a hover tank, tell other units to build structures, and then have the structures build more tanks to fight alongside you as wingmen. It is a planet-hopping adventure as you fend off the bad guys and try to control the all important resource "bio-metal"! Based on the original 80's Atari game (green tanks shooting green blocks at each other), these remakes have all the bells and whistles! Great gameplay, graphics, sounds, and storyline!

I was blessed to grow up in 90's and 2000's, which I think was arguably the heyday for PC gaming. Consoles have since taken over. Somehow I kept finding really great games that didn't quite make it to mainstream. Many of these can now be found on abandonware sites. Here is a list of great games, some popular, some obscure, that I would love to go back in time to play again!

Mainstream
Starcraft
Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun
Half-Life
Myst
Mechwarrior
Age of Empires

Less Well-Known (to the best of my knowledge)
Earth 2150
Descent (not the Freespace one, though that is great too!)
Megarace
Clusterball
Tribes
POD

There are plenty more I could add, but I don't want to bore you. Do any of these spark some memories for you? Are there any that you simply can NOT believe I left off the list?! Admittedly, I did not go all the way back to the DOS era. Was that a mistake? Go ahead, I can handle it. Let's hear your stories!

Tribes 1 is the best game that ever was and ever will be. Even the recent remake just couldn't quite recapture the magic. Modern day warfare games just can't compare: they're pretty visually but the gameplay and extensibility just isn't there. Deployable, attackable, repairable defense makes Tribes tactics/strategy so deep that you never get tired of it. Also the jet packs make it amazing (skiing!). Not to mention the huge, wide open terrain and massive multi-floor indoor bases that you could easily get lost in. I usually played Shifter mod and wracked up so many thousands of playing hours it's ridiculous. Of course I was in a clan, I usually alternated between offensive flag capturing (super fast light armor with a big-ass boomstick and a shield booster pack that allowed me to fall far distances and survive) and defensive engineer work (medium armor) / sniper, usually doing sneaky things like setting up high floating inventory bases with teleport pads over the enemy base in order to launch a huge surprise attack. Then there was "chameleon" armor that let you use the enemy's teleport pads. If the enemy was inexperienced and set up a "convenient" teleport pad in their flag room without sufficient shielding/turrets, they'd lose the game before they knew what had happened. Ah those were the days.

Edit: about the same time: Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight (the first JK game). I played through countless times as both the light and dark side, getting every secret on every level. The multi-user deathmatch mode was not very interesting but the single-player game was astounding: huge levels, sneaky secrets, totally immersing.

Of course: the Dooms and the Quakes, and Unreal was pretty interesting. Also the early Terminator game was really spooky and immersing. Showed you that it didn't take a 2015 graphics card to make a game that was *fun*! Games today are beautiful to see but boring.

Yeah I really miss Quake TeamFortress and being able to bunnyhop like mad! In case you didn't know bunnyhopping is where you keep clicking space bar to jump while strafing and you gain more and more speed. Every game since quake TF has tried to take out bunnyhopping to some degree. I remember actually being there when bunnyhopping was first discovered in quake. People in the server stopped shooting each other and instead practicing bunnyhopping. I miss it so much!

I also hate the fact that today's FPS games use aim-down-sights. I loved the skill it took with hip-fire, for example in return to castle wolfenstein. There was no such thing as aim down sights and the skill came in as how well you could keep your cursor pointed at someone's head while moving. Today it is much different, and I hate the 1 second delay it takes in COD for example to bring up the scope. They also couple that now with decreased movement speed so basically you have to stand still first, bring up the scope, then shoot. It's no longer fast paced skill based action it's something entirely different that I've had a hard time adjusting to. Probably explains my switch from FPS to MMO's.

Either of you ever heard of Rise of Nations. I was addicted to that game in the 4th/5th grade. A solid RTS to say the least?

Never was into RTS: Only 3-4 game (genres) have grabbed my attention over time:

+ rogue and rogue-alikes: larn, omega, hack, angband (I still run some characters in angband vanilla once every few years, just won with a human mage and lost with a hobbit rogue this last week) [not even a PC game, a UNIX game!]

+ doom, quake: played all the way through doom I and doom II, played tons of quake deathmatches I was pretty good

+ Tribes I (especiallly shifter mod): it's not a game, it's a lifestyle

+ xwing/tie-fighter/dark forces II: Jedi Knight: because Star Wars

maybe these arent all too old but i still had crazy amounts of fun playing them by myself and with friends

counter strike source
company of heroes
battlefield 2/142
day of defeat source
home world 2
star wars battlefront 1&2
kotor II
g mod 9
morrowind/oblivion
halo: custom edition
runescape 2

hmm... everything else is too recent i guess

Deus Ex, one of my favorite games ever. Stood the test of time like no other.
Hitman: Codename 47
Return to Castle Wolfenstein - used to watch my dad play it because I was too scared to play it myself :D
Colobot - a less known game but I was having the time of my life cause I was so interested in astronomy as a kid

just off the top of my head

Hmmm time for a walk down memory lane...
-Tale of Imerion, a great little turn based strategy game that is really quite difficult, and I just love it haha
-The dark legions/age of empires 3, both similar RTS games, both great
-Return to castle wolfenstein when I was really young and found it too scary and hard to play haha
-Good old rollercoaster tycoon 1/2, mainly 2, so much fun playing them.
-Crayola make a masterpiece... don't judge I loved that game to bits when I was about 6-7
Gotta love the original pokemon and final fantasy games.
-Tortuga pirates of the new world, fantastic game.
I'm sure there's more I just can't remember

My name is based off a character from Myth, the fallen lords.