Some Pre 2000 PC game recommendations

Ravenbom

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Kyrian007 said:
Also, get a usb flightstick... and any flight sim or space/starfighter game just destroys flight games that are on console. And most are pre 2000.
Actually, pre-2001. Something happened in September 2001 that stymied the most of the development and market for flight sims. It was mostly a quiet self-censorship, but a lot of retail stores (because it was all retail back then) didn't want to stock any "terrorist simulators" after that.
It's easy to forget that the news made a big deal for a while that the terrorists trained on Microsoft Flight Simulator for the 9/11 attacks.


I mean, there's other reasons flight sims went down in flames: space sims were all boring black backgrounds with dots instead of vibrant colors and textures, voice acting and mo-cap became important as well as characters and plot, home consoles took off with mostly standardized controllers, GTA3 had an open-world on the ground so you didn't need Wing Commander Privateer... etc.

@ OP - Wing Commander Privateer was the Elite Dangerous of the 90's.
 

Vanilla ISIS

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The original Shadow Warrior - it's free on GOG, check it out.
Redneck Rampage - I might be the only person who remembers that game. FPS where you play as a redneck who's town has been invaded by aliens.
Sanitarium - point and click horror game, pretty good.
MDK - fun weird shooter.
Toonstruck - a point and click game where you play as Christopher Lloyd who's been transported into a cartoon.
 

KayeFaye

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Some of my favs:

Blood
System Shock 2
Theme Hospital
StarCraft
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear
Fallout 1 & 2
Baldur's Gate
Syndicate
Jedi Knight
Sam & Max Hit the Road
 

Tanis

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Master of Orion 2:
One of the best 4X games.

Galactic Civilizations 2 - Endless Universe:
I think it's a bit better than MOO2, but some my disagree.
 

Rangaman

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Arnoxthe1 said:
Rangaman said:
-Baldur's Gate (You can only buy the Enhanced Edition these days)
I know it came out in 2002 but Neverwinter Nights really does make BG obsolete in pretty much every way. Also, THAC0 is awful.
"Pre-2000". That's why I didn't bring up stuff like Bladur's Gate II or Neverwinter Nights.
 

Kyrian007

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Hawki said:
Kyrian007 said:
Because you can't wrangle affordable backwards compatibility out of console like you can with PC, making it the platform of choice for retrogaming.
If I want to play a game from the 90s, I can get any 90s console I own, boot it up, and play. If I wanted to do the same for the PC, I'd have to jump through hula hoops due to compatability issues. That list of games I made above? Good luck getting Marathon, Diablo, or Warcraft II to work on a modern day PC, because you'll need it.
Yeah anyone can do that, just go to the local pawn shop and see if they have a used console you can buy... plus the cartridge or cd you need. And hopefully a working or mostly working several hundred pound pre HD tv that still has RCA cable av hookup. If not you then get to try and find a radio shack (good luck) or mom and pop electronics store that can sell you the proper adaptor so you can hook up the console to your current tv. Then you have to dig out your old and broken and gunked up controllers... and pray they work otherwise its back off to the pawnshop to hope they have a controller in better shape otherwise you are stuck ordering on ebay and waiting a week or so for delivery.

Or you can boot up your pc, fiddle with compatibility settings for a couple of minutes, and start retrogaming. And I don't know about marathon or Warcraft II, but I have installed Diablo on my Win 10 machine. It wasn't particularly difficult.

Now, I'm like you. I have an old tv I keep for retrogaming. I do still have my old consoles in working order. And I routinely clean and repair my controllers when they need it. But when that console (like say for instance a PS1) finally breaks. Your local gamestop won't have one. You will have to jump through a lot of hoops to play that PS1 game you are jonesing for. It's just less hassle on PC.
 

sXeth

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Ultima 4-7 (maybe 8. 9 is the horrible mess one, and 1-3 are sort of dully glossed over even by their sequels). 7 is probably the best assembled on a narrative structure, though 6 has a better gameplay design to it, without some of the issues that were kind of obnoxious in 4 and 5 (minus a fetch quest that is almost as long as the rest of the main storyline, and turns out to be entirely skippable by simple exploration)

Heroes of Might and Magic. 3 would the recommendation, its a good hop on point for storyline, such as it is, being a bit of a soft reboot on the series. Though its also interwoven with Might & Magic 7 somewhat to get the full story (which should also go on this list).

Dungeon Keeper 2. There's not really a storyline through the two, and the second is by and large more polished, though also a little more bent towards silly humor.

Quest for Glory.
 

Hawki

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Kyrian007 said:
Yeah anyone can do that, just go to the local pawn shop and see if they have a used console you can buy... plus the cartridge or cd you need. And hopefully a working or mostly working several hundred pound pre HD tv that still has RCA cable av hookup. If not you then get to try and find a radio shack (good luck) or mom and pop electronics store that can sell you the proper adaptor so you can hook up the console to your current tv. Then you have to dig out your old and broken and gunked up controllers... and pray they work otherwise its back off to the pawnshop to hope they have a controller in better shape otherwise you are stuck ordering on ebay and waiting a week or so for delivery.
Few points:

-A lot of the above can be circumvented via electronic versions of games. If I download a retro game for a modern console, the game is pretty much guaranteed to work.

-Don't know what TVs your using, but there isn't a single TV in my house that doesn't have an AV port (and an HDMI one for that matter). I had to get an AV cable for a Sega Megadrive I bought awhile back, but that was to save me the inconvinience of using its original cable on the TV that could use it.

-As far as old games go, while it would be hard to get some, PC games can easily become vapourware. And again, the compatability issues.

Kyrian007 said:
Or you can boot up your pc, fiddle with compatibility settings for a couple of minutes, and start retrogaming.
Yep. "A couple of minutes."

Maybe you're lucky, maybe you're a tech whizz, but in my experience, that's an insanely conservative estimate. Replace minutes with "hours" or "days," and then we're getting closer to reality.

Kyrian007 said:
And I don't know about marathon or Warcraft II, but I have installed Diablo on my Win 10 machine. It wasn't particularly difficult.
For me, it was a nightmare getting Diablo to run on XP. I actually couldn't do it on my PC, and had to use a laptop that's since joined the giant trash heap in the sky.
 

Kyrian007

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Hawki said:
Few points:

-A lot of the above can be circumvented via electronic versions of games. If I download a retro game for a modern console, the game is pretty much guaranteed to work.
Which is of course provided the game you happen to want can be legally downloaded on a modern console... leaving you completely at the mercy of the storefront.
Hawki said:
-Don't know what TVs your using, but there isn't a single TV in my house that doesn't have an AV port (and an HDMI one for that matter). I had to get an AV cable for a Sega Megadrive I bought awhile back, but that was to save me the inconvinience of using its original cable on the TV that could use it.
The last time I saw a new tv with AV hookups it only had one HDMI port, and also a set of the 5-cable 720p resolution cables (I don't even see those on TV's anymore, let alone AV hookups.) Now all I see is multiple HDMI hookups.
Hawki said:
-As far as old games go, while it would be hard to get some, PC games can easily become vapourware. And again, the compatability issues.
Maybe I'm an exception but I've never really had a problem with it I couldn't find a workaround.
Kyrian007 said:
Or you can boot up your pc, fiddle with compatibility settings for a couple of minutes, and start retrogaming.
Hawki said:
Yep. "A couple of minutes."

Maybe you're lucky, maybe you're a tech whizz, but in my experience, that's an insanely conservative estimate. Replace minutes with "hours" or "days," and then we're getting closer to reality.
It doesn't take me long to google "x" game + Win 10 (or whatever your OS is) and then follow the instructions found on whatever forum somebody posted the instructions on. Its never double digits in minutes for me.

Kyrian007 said:
And I don't know about marathon or Warcraft II, but I have installed Diablo on my Win 10 machine. It wasn't particularly difficult.
Hawki said:
For me, it was a nightmare getting Diablo to run on XP. I actually couldn't do it on my PC, and had to use a laptop that's since joined the giant trash heap in the sky.
That is odd, the Diablo CD I used was functional on XP as is, and installing it on my current pc had me set it to XP compatibility to get it to work (changing compatibility settings on an application takes about 30 seconds.)
 

Vendor-Lazarus

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It was a bit harder than I thought to assemble a list of pre-2000 games.
It seems many of mine are from 2000-2003. Just on the cusp of your cut-off.
Some gems still remain though;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcast_%28video_game%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_Centauri

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperium_Galactica_II%3A_Alliances

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Wonders

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Keeper_2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoh_%28video_game%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Settlers_II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsairs%3A_Conquest_at_Sea

I'm sure there are more, but that's all I can remember for now.
 

CaitSeith

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Vendor-Lazarus said:
It was a bit harder than I thought to assemble a list of pre-2000 games.
It seems many of mine are from 2000-2003. Just on the cusp of your cut-off.
Some gems still remain though;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcast_%28video_game%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_Centauri

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperium_Galactica_II%3A_Alliances

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Wonders

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Keeper_2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoh_%28video_game%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Settlers_II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsairs%3A_Conquest_at_Sea

I'm sure there are more, but that's all I can remember for now.
If we include year 2000, then I suggest Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 in the RTS category.


You can play the campaign as either the Allies or the Russians.
Speaking of strategy games, it seems year 2000 was a good year for them.
 

demoman_chaos

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Doom, Doom 2, Ultimate Doom. Always go for Doom.

ADnD Pool of Radiance is a fantastic CRPG and about as close as you can get to a true DnD experience without friends (I hope you like horde battles, because PoR's "DM" is DESPERATELY IN LOVE AND ADORATION with dude-spam).
 

dscross

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KayeFaye said:
Some of my favs:

Blood
System Shock 2
Theme Hospital
StarCraft
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear
Fallout 1 & 2
Baldur's Gate
Syndicate
Jedi Knight
Sam & Max Hit the Road
I never see any love for theme hospital. Good shout,. Haven't played that in long time. I remember it getting really hard towards the end with the amount of earthquakes and epidemics.