Classic Games (Or Retro Games if you don't think Classic applies)

[Jer-oh-me]

Hi everybody. I got out my N64 today and started playing some of my old favourites, and I was wondering, what are your favourite classic/retro games? I sorta started with the 64 cause of various things so I'll start with my list.

-Zelda: Ocarina of Time
-Pilotwings 64
-StarFox 64
-Zelda: Majora's Mask
-007 Goldeneye

I want to hear what you guys remember playing fondly and would even dig out and play some more to play. My 64's in nearly manufacture condition, and most of the controllers are too.(I don't like the wording of mint conditionti because only money is minted, in my opinion)

Right now as I post this I'm playing Pilotwings.

Thanks for moving this.

[Tapewolf]

I don't play Spectrum games as much as I used to, but I still play these fairly regularly:

Alchemist
http://www.mobygames.com/game/zx-spectrum/alchemist

Monty on the Run
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_on_the_Run
(The score on the C64 port is utterly awesome.  It has also been adapted for rock trio, and there was also at least one rendition for chamber quartet.

Screenshots and stuff can be found here:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/zx-spectrum/monty-on-the-run

Project Future
I don't think I've ever actually played this to completion, but it made quite an impression on me.

http://www.crashonline.org.uk/14/projfut.htm

Terminus
This was quite enjoyable.  Basically it was a prison breakout.  You have four characters, each of which has a completely different set of characteristics that are needed at certain points throughout the game.
Two of them have jetpacks, one of them can climb up walls but not fly, one can only bounce, etc etc.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/zx-spectrum/terminus-the-prison-planet

I've completed it at least three times.  I'll have to give it another go soon...

**EDIT**
It is worth mentioning that if any one character ran out of energy, they died and you couldn't swap to them anymore.  I remember many exploration sessions where I gradually lost each member of the team until I was left with the bouncing-ball guy, who was very difficult to control.

JSW

Oh how many years I wasted on this game as a kid:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_Set_Willy

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Pogo Joe.

[Jairus]

My favorite retro game is Banjo-Tooie. One of the few sequels that actually improved on the original, and still a lot of fun to play. It was also the first video game that I bought with my money, so it's got that extra little bit of nostalgia factor.

[VSMIT]

I don't know if they count as retro, but they're classic in my opinion.

"Battlezone" and its sequel, "Battlezone II: Combat Commander."

And if anyone else on these forums has played this game, I will be very surprised.

[Ryudo Lee]

I love retro-gaming.

I recently got some parts from a place online to repair and clean my old NES.  Now it runs like new.  In fact over the weekend I ran through Super Mario Bros. 2.  I've got a drawer full of old NES games that we've collected over the years.

On my SNES though, I've been playing EarthBound a lot.  With the upcoming patch for Mother 3, I gotta do something to fill the void until it arrives.  I've also gotten through the (emulated) prototype english version of the original Mother.  There's also a bunch of old SNES games that I've bought over the years.

When Metroid Prime 3 was about to hit shelves, I spent a weekend playing the original Metroid on the NES, Metroid 2 on the GameBoy, Super Metroid on the SNES, Metroid Fusion, and Metroid Zero Mission on the GBA, all with the original cartridges.

And speaking of the GameBoy, I've got all my old GB and GBC cartridges.  I even still have a Super GameBoy for the SNES.  And it still works.

I've even got a Virtual Boy.

And since I got DOSBox to finally work on my computers, I've been breaking out the old DOS games, like:
Stonekeep
Biomenace
Bioforge
System Shock
Warcraft Orcs and Humans
Warcraft II
Companions of Xanth
Jazz Jackrabbit
Xenon 2
The Elder Scrolls - The Arena (the first game in the series)
Raptor Call of the Shadows
Blood (which is One Unit Whole Blood, including Cryptic Shadows)
Innocent Until Caught
Innocent Until Caught 2: Presumed Guilty

And then there's all the SCUMM games I've got running under ScummVM.
Beneath a Steel Sky
Broken Sword 1: The Shadow of the Templars
Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror
Day of the Tentacle
Flight of the Amazon Queen
Full Throttle
Gobliiins
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb (a great furry game!)
Loom
Maniac Mansion
Sam & Max Hit the Road
Simon the Sorcerer
Simon the Sorcerer 2 The Lion, The Wizard, and the Wardrobe
The Dig
The Secret of Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island 2 LeChuck's Revenge
Zap McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders

I should also mention that I've also got most all of the Duke Nukem 3D expansions.  And I've got the full Doom, Heretic, and Hexen suite running under ZDL.

Also, there's Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny.  I'm also trying to locate the Commander Keen games too.

[Janus Whitefurr]

Out of all the games I've seen growing up, from the C64 to the Amiga to beginning of the IBM PC.... though I never did figure it out as a child, seeing the term retro games has given me a sudden urge to somehow magically find and replay Carrier Command.

[Jer-oh-me]

Wow, I'm really glad I started this thread. This is exactly what I was hoping would happen. It's nice to see the different generations of gaming that each of us started with, Jay and I must be pretty close together in age, although I think I mostly depended on birthdays and Christmas for my games, my dad liked playing them with us so he'd just get them sometimes though he doesn't care for FPSs.

For games older than N64's generation I have to go back a little further, though not a whole lot.

-Commander Keen 4 "Secrets of the Oracle"
-Commander Keen 5 "The Armageddon Machine"
-The Secret of Monkey Island
-LOOM

[Eibborn]

Um, lemme think.

I'm with you for Starfox 64 and for Ocarina of Time, for sure. Final Fantasy IX is a favourite. I've been failing dismally at trying to play the classic Mega Man games, and I'm really liking them. Uh, Pokemon R/B/Y counts, yes? That's my favourite set out of them all. Is the first Super Smash Bros. retro enough?

I can't believe I nearly forgot Chrono Trigger, which is the sexiest game ever.

There's got to be more, but I can't bring them to mind. Hm.

[Azlan]

All you kiddies are making me feel old.  Props to Janus for C64s and Amigas, I remember a time when I could write my own games in Turbo Pascal... things were simpler once and disturbingly fun.

My favorite game of all time is only goes back to the 90s, Master of Magic (Microprose).  Other wise there is the old Zork Games, Forbidden Forest... M.U.L.E., Mail Order Monsters... original Gauntlet... Archon... Racing Destruction Set...

Arrgh!!  *Goes looking for ROMs*

[Jer-oh-me]

Excellent, and I think old enough is prior to PS2, Xbox and GCN. Mostly because of the rate at which games are becoming more complicated.

[Janus Whitefurr]

All you kiddies are making me feel old.  Props to Janus for C64s and Amigas, I remember a time when I could write my own games in Turbo Pascal... things were simpler once and disturbingly fun.

The most obvious thing I always remember about my days with the Commodore Amiga is the fact the number of copied games going around far outweighed the legitimate. We had disk boxes FULL of copied games and programs. No one cared about enforcing copyright back then, at least in the land down under.

[Jer-oh-me]

All you kiddies are making me feel old.  Props to Janus for C64s and Amigas, I remember a time when I could write my own games in Turbo Pascal... things were simpler once and disturbingly fun.

The most obvious thing I always remember about my days with the Commodore Amiga is the fact the number of copied games going around far outweighed the legitimate. We had disk boxes FULL of copied games and programs. No one cared about enforcing copyright back then, at least in the land down under.

I don't really have any idea, but I think that it was also highly prevelant here in the states and yay another Aussie I have met online, sorta!

[King Of Hearts]

what a coincidence...

I was just playing the NES megaman games...

6 is definitely under rated... love its music.

[Angel]

Well, I don't know why I'm thinking of them, but way back when I was a kid and we had a crappy little windows (the kind you needed to type in F2 and a game title to play anything on), my brother and I had two games we really liked: 3-D Dinosaur Adventure and Undersea Adventure. We also really loved the Lemmings game. But these are from way, way back.

On our old SNES (which we still have and which still works), I always loved watching my brother play Mega Man X, Starfox, and Super Metroid. My favorites were the Aladdin game, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Zombies Ate My Neighbors (though it did freak me out a little) and Kirby Super Star.

N64... Super Mario 64, Pokemon Snap, Wave Race, Chameleon Twist, Silicon Valley, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Starfox 64, Starcraft 64, Pokemon Stadium, Mario Party, Kirby 64, and Super Smash Brothers.

Sega Genesis 3 - Sonic the Hedgehog. My favorite Mini-Game = Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine.

And lastly, Playstation ... Spyro the Dragon and the Sly Cooper series.

A plus here is that we never throw out any of our old systems (except the Playstation. I think we still have the Sega Genesis 3 somewhere). We still play a bunch of those games, but the computer ones got too old and scratchy.

[rt]

We also really loved the Lemmings game. But these are from way, way back.

Way, way  back? .. two ways  Way to make those of us who played Ataris and C64s, even before our Amigas, feel even older (I guess lemmings was PC too).

First i'll lift up my cane and give a woo-hoo Amiga back to Janus and Alzan.

Now I'll list some classic games from the coin op / atari age: Joust, DigDug, SpaceInvaders, Centipede, Frogger, Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Q-Bert.

'Zork' was mentioned, I see your Zork and up you the Infocom text adventure library (Zork, Spellbreaker ect.)

And yeh Lemmings.

Now go back to your 'old' playstation games yah wippersnappers and git off mah lawn!

[Angel]

Now I'll list some classic games from the coin op / atari age: Joust, DigDug, SpaceInvaders, Centipede, Frogger, Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Q-Bert.

Hey now. Don't think I don't appreciate truly old-school games. My uncle had an Atari in his office while he was in college, we played it whenever we went to my Nana's house. I liked Frogger and Asteroid best, and I stunk at Centipede.

Now go back to your 'old' playstation games yah wippersnappers and git off mah lawn!

Peh. Have some pity for us, Gramps; we've been forced to sit back and watch as our games age too fast for anyone to comprehend.  I can vividly remember a Game Boy Pocket commercial, how excited all of us were when Game Boy Color came out... and the first time I went to Blockbuster and discovered that they'd stopped renting out SNES and N64 games. 

Now I need to play American McGee's Alice to feel better.

[Jer-oh-me]

Peh. Have some pity for us, Gramps; we've been forced to sit back and watch as our games age too fast for anyone to comprehend.  I can vividly remember a Game Boy Pocket commercial, how excited all of us were when Game Boy Color came out... and the first time I went to Blockbuster and discovered that they'd stopped renting out SNES and N64 games. 

Agreed, thanks to Moore's law games just get more and more complex and push the old stuff further back faster and faster thanks to the breakneck pace at which the tech advances. Not that I'm assuming our friends who were old enough to remember the C64 or Atari 2600 as a fond childhood memory aren't aware of this, though their being the same age as my dad puts another spin on how I look at this, though my dad's pretty young for how old I am.

[Jairus]

Peh. Have some pity for us, Gramps; we've been forced to sit back and watch as our games age too fast for anyone to comprehend.  I can vividly remember a Game Boy Pocket commercial, how excited all of us were when Game Boy Color came out... and the first time I went to Blockbuster and discovered that they'd stopped renting out SNES and N64 games. 

For me, the moment was when I saw a sign in a Gamestop saying that they were no longer accepting N64 cartridges... I may only be 20 years old, but that was a kind of sad moment. The N64 still has some of my favorite games on it.

[rt]

  Sorry I had to go all "grandpa" after seeing "way way" back as if the game was in the time of dinosaurs.

While the games are getting more and more complex, and purdier and purdier. I do find the some of the retro systems still look quite good for there 'computing age'. Some amazingly good. Though I guess those who grow up with PS2/XBox will think they look terrible. [Can't resist the .. "if they were old enough to post" comment]

Now back to the listing of the games. "Retro" games i'm playing now (cause I didn't have the Nintendo systems)

Final Fantasy. Up to number 6 right now and loving them.
Zelda. They were a bit easy, but I liked the top down 'link to the past' and 'links awakening' more than Orceana so far.
Also trying the various Mario games.

Going to have to look for more soon.

[Jack McSlay]

<big list of oldschool PC games>

this reminds me how much I miss the time when PC gaming didn't sum up with hiding behind crates and shooting dudes with an sniper rifle or pointing where your army is supposed to go.

Man, those were REAL games, not this current overload of FPS and RTS games that play the same. (yeah there's good stuff like WOW, but that's minority  )

btw, you can get old Id Software games on their steam page:
http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=find&developer=id%20Software

[Ryudo Lee]

Yeah, I bought the id pack.  It's a nice collection.  It's missing Heretic 2 though, but I don't think that was made by id.

[Jer-oh-me]

Sorry I had to go all "grandpa" after seeing "way way" back as if the game was in the time of dinosaurs.

While the games are getting more and more complex, and purdier and purdier. I do find the some of the retro systems still look quite good for there 'computing age'. Some amazingly good. Though I guess those who grow up with PS2/XBox will think they look terrible. [Can't resist the .. "if they were old enough to post" comment]

Now back to the listing of the games. "Retro" games i'm playing now (cause I didn't have the Nintendo systems)

Final Fantasy. Up to number 6 right now and loving them.
Zelda. They were a bit easy, but I liked the top down 'link to the past' and 'links awakening' more than Orceana so far.
Also trying the various Mario games.

Going to have to look for more soon.

You want bad?

Supposedly there was this twelve year old, probably thirteen now, who reviewed Goldeneye. He said the graphics sucked and that the story seemed like it was written by a second grader and tacked on. After hearing that I wanted to take a bat to the little ass. But I know my sister, same age, would pull the same crap pretty much which stayed my impotent rath. After all, I didn't have the tween in question to pummel mercilessly. Then there's the whole taboo about hitting children and basically my anger petered off, eventually ending with, 'Meh, stupid kid, what does he know, he's used to this flashy stuff now.' and it made me feel old. Me! I'm only friggin 20! Gah, I hate that.

[Cvstos]

You know, I never much cared for Goldeneye either.  Being a PC gamer, I was used to the mouse and keyboard controls of PC shooters when I first picked up Goldeneye.

I hated the game right away, more due to the awful N64 controller than anything else.  The rest seemed well-balanced and decently made for what could be done with the N64's limited hardware, but that controller ruined the game for me. 

[Yugo]

Uh....
Star Control 2
Jazz Jackrabbit
Fantasy Empires
Golden Axe (all of them)
The Lost Vikings
Metal Slug
Battletoads
Chrono Trigger
Blackthorne
Adventures of Dr. Brain
Worms
Burger Time (Our vision, your vision)
Bubble Bobble
Legend of Zelda
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past


Those all just randomly came to mind. I'll let you know if anything else.
For me, SNES is "retro" because of my age. It was the saddest day of my life when I asked my friend Cam if he wanted to play Golden Axe later while I was at Gamestop, and the 13 year olds next to us asked us if that was some new game for the PS2.

[Rakala]

Seventh Cross Evolution
Sonic the Hedgehog 1
Mario Bros.
Star Wars Demolition
Phantasy Star Online
Shining Force


SEGA ROCKS!
CURSE THE OTHER SYSTEMS FOR OUTDOING THE DREAMCAST AND STEALING THEIR IDEAS! If you look, Dreamcast came first in that specific shape that you see in controllers nowadays. That's the thing with Nintendo and Sega, everybody steals their ideas. The N64 was the first system with a joystick. Dreamcast, as I said, had the shape of controllers nowadays.

[Ryudo Lee]

I've been playing the original NES Legend of Zelda a bit over the past couple of days.  And then I found out about a Windows port of the original.  www.zeldaclassic.com  And there are custom quests too.  It's a pretty nifty spin on an NES classic.

[Tapewolf]

Having gone to all the trouble of getting these screenshots, I have to nominate this as a classic game.  Imogen, 1986.  Probably one of the more twisted adventure games out there.

The wiki entry is here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imogen_(video_game)

...in short, the player has to solve a set of puzzles in a map made of about 3-6 interconnected rooms, in order to get a teleport crystal which will take them to the next map.  When all 16 maps are completed, the game is won.
The player is able to transform from a wizard (who can use objects) to a monkey (which can climb ropes) or a cat (which can jump far).  There is a limited number of transformations for the entire game, after which you're stuck.  It is not possible for the player to die.

What the wiki doesn't mention is the nature of the puzzles.  In order to win the player gives Destania a run for her money.  I can't quite remember how many babies have to be disposed of, but there are at least three.  The win32 remake from a couple of years ago watered it down considerably, turning the babies into jelly babies and so forth.

Here are some screenshots from the raw, non-politically-correct BBC Micro original.


We need that balloon.  How do we get it?


Murder is never the answer

And now, to avoid flooding the thread with images, I will just link to the other screenshots, from 'Hamster Jam'.

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k216/tapewolf/games/imogen4.png
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k216/tapewolf/games/imogen5.png
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k216/tapewolf/games/imogen6.png

Also, Keaton found someone playing through that very level:
http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=OHDLBRaugLM

[Rakala]

Okay, question, has anybody ever even heard of the game that's first on my list? I seem to be one in one people who know about it.

[Jairus]

Okay, question, has anybody ever even heard of the game that's first on my list? I seem to be one in one people who know about it.

Sorry, never heard of it. Then again, I'm not exactly a "hardcore" gamer (the only thing I'm hardcore for are a handful of series, and that's it), so I probably would never have heard of it.