What old games have you dredged up recently and why?

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I've been stuck at work a lot lately, with not really anything to do, the company is pretty heavy with banning inappropriate websites, but I'm pretty much allowed to do what I want on my local machine provided whatever work in need of doing is out of the way.

The only problem with this is that the systems we have a pretty archaic so whatever I try to run has to be pretty basic. Often I'll try and get a game from the early 90's going through dosbox and the computer just won't be able to handle it on top of the proprietary software that has to be left running.

Today being a Sunday I had a six hour shift with about one hours work. so I fired up Sid Meier's Colonisation. I had forgotten how good it was, and with it's tighter focus I'd just about put it ahead of Civilization. On my 30 minute walk home from work I spent my time thinking about Colonisation and navel gazing. Now that I'm home I'm probably going to install it here and spend the afternoon looking past the dated graphics and unrefined (by today's standards) control system and sink some time in a classic

In my love of Navel gazing what old games have the goodjers dredged up recently, any recommendations?

This won't help you, but I pulled out Metal Gear Solid 2 today, loaded up an old save near the end, and watched the incredibly long ending sequences. I did this so the events and lunacy would be fresh in my mind going into MGS4. It was pretty nice, not having to play through the whole since the majority of the events in the game are actually completely unimportant to the overall Metal Gear storyline.

Usually, when I feel nostalgic I'll fire up X-Wing or Tie Fighter. Just doesn't get any better.

Since you're already into Sid Meier I won't mention any more of his games, but have you considered the original Age of Wonders? Fun game, easy requirements. I fire up Age of Wonders 3: Shadow Magic on a regular basis because it has a 'wonder'ful campaign generator, reminiscent of Master of Magic -another classic you can get working in DOS.

I recently completed Super Mario RPG. The last time I played this game was back in 1996. I had updated my emulators and finally got this game to run well. After that, there was no stopping me. I played it all the way through and touched nothing else. It was a little easier than I remember but still highly enjoyable.

Occasionally, I'll go back to classics like Super Metroid, Sonic the Hedgehog, Yoshi's Island, Mega Man, etc. if I'm in the mood. And once in a while I'll beat Phantasy Star IV again.

I've been playing the first X-Com recently and an old Sid Meir spy game called Covert Action. I also love an old SSI game called Roadwar 2000 that allows you to manage a biker gang after the apocalypse. On the console front I've been playing Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction simply because the movie trailers have put me in the mood for it and I don't have high hopes for the game based on the movie (because it will be a game based on a movie and I generally know how those turn out).

I hate to say it, but I dragged out Earthworm Jim when they announced that Interplay was going to remake the series. I still love to play any of the old Final Fantasy's and I haven't taken FF III out of my DS for quite some time now.

Ikaruga on the Dreamcast! I just wanted to finish the game. A couple of weeks ago I fired up the Freecol Colonization clone, but that fad has passed since then.

I just digged up San Fransisco Rush 2049 on e-bay, also for Dreamcast. This is going to be a blast with my friends!

I hate leaving campaign games unresolved, but due to other things in life, I had left my Parthian game in Rome: Total War alone for over a year. It's daunting jumping back into the middle of something like that after so long; fortunately, being turn-based, I did nothing for the first half hour but identify all my armies, cities, generals, etc.

Why Rome now? I'm reading and only half way through Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, and have 300 fresh in my mind.

Egypt had long ago become mine, and I was nearly done taking over Turkey. Being the Parthians, I had limitless money from trade, so I had been funneling 1000 gold per turn to anyone who would fight the Romans. By this time, only the Brittons and Carthage were of any consequence, though. Rome had well expanded into Germania and Scythia, and Spain, well, they're never relevant in RTW.

For just a few days, I was able to put serious time into the game. Once I consolidated my position in Turkey, it was time to streamline my army production, I so told my capital region--Damascas, Jerusalem, Aleppo--to produce elephants, Parthian cavalry, and cataphrach without pause. Since there was now no buffer between the Roman factions and me, the empire finally decided to take me seriously, despite my massive army and wealth for some time. As I was loading boatloads and boatloads of armies in southwest Turkey--I was planning on largely skipping Greece and sailing directly for Italy--they began to invade Egypt, where I was not well defended, so had to divert one of my largest armies down there to play cleanup. My main force I split between classical Greece and continuing to Italy.

I currently have Sparta and Athens under seige with huge armies, but forgot to bring spies and don't have infantry so I have to wait for them to run out of supplies! The other half of my main army is just landing in Italy. I've not decided yet what to do with those cities once the seiges are complete. Since they're roman, I'll probably exterminate the population and raze all their buildings.

Starcraft for about the billionth time.

Seems like a good time to bring up this thread - even if you don't use the high-def mods, Baldur's Gate 1&2, Planescape:Torment, and Icewind Dale 1&2 are still tons o' fun. I've got the Baldur's Gate Trilogy mod set up (allows you to play BG1 using the BG2 engine) and am currently playing through BG1.

Thin_J wrote:

Starcraft for about the billionth time.

Saves me some typing....

Loaded up BG1 aswell (had to look around for half an hour to find my dvd)

I'm playing through a bunch of the old fire emblem games. I love 'em, but I can only play so much at a time, so it takes a while.

One of my favourite games from that time is Dungeon Keeper 2, just pure genious. Still is one of my top 10 games ever played.

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

I'm playing Asteroids on my shiny new XBox.

A little OT, but why, why why, did I not get an XBox sooner? It's so much fun!!

I started up Front Mission 4 after playing the DS game thinking "God I wish I could play a better version." Well now I am and I am already past my last save spot from 2004. God I love this game!

Count me in as another one inspired by the Baldur's Gate thread to spend an hour hunting down all the discs and installing it on my laptop. I too installed the Baldur's Gate Trilogy mod to play the entire trilogy as one unbroken story; I had only ever finished the first in the series and now I'm hoping this will let me finally get through the whole thing, even if it takes me a year to do (so much content!).

Broke out Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 in order to finish the expansions, which I've had for years but hadn't played.

Some nice Ideas in there. At the moment on the work computer I have colonization, covert action, Xcom 1 and 2, chaos overlords, yoot tower... and maybe some others I'm forgetting installed. The trend is basically it has to be something I can run in Dosbox on an older system and it has to be turn based (in case pesky work interrupts).

As for some of the other suggestions to come out of the thread, I read the original thread about the various Baldur's Gate mods back when it was first posted and thought hey that sounds cool, and I still think that, but at the moment it seems too much of a time sink for me. The majority of my gaming at home consists of stuff I can run on my secondary monitor with no sound while I watch movies or shows on the big screen with my fiancée. I really should get on the pile of shame thread but I never seem to have the time. Pretty funny considering the thread started as a way to kill time at work.

Just reinstalled Battlefield 1942 and all of the expansions, still a fun game.

I was fiddling around with NES Contra & Contra Force. Man, I forgot how bad Contra Force is.

What: Grim Fandango.

Why: Because I found a copy for $5 on Saturday, and hadn't played it before.

Recommendation: So far, it's awesome. I'd forgotten how much fun adventure games could be.

Bonus: Brilliant concept and art direction.

Those goddamn Shivans. It's about time for another romp through Freespace 2.

A couple of months ago I fired up Zork: Grand Inquisitor. Mainly for the laughs. For those of you unfamiliar, it is very much like Myst in gameplay.

What astonished me was that I finished the thing in a little under two hours. I can remember laboring over that game when I got it for several DAYS and being hopelessly stuck so much that I would quit and cool down first. I remembered so much about how to solve those puzzles that I sped through it in one sitting. I remembered the game being so much richer than that.

If you could call it old, I've fired up Oblivion again just in the last few days, started with a new character. I may finish the main storyline, but I think that's all that I can take from it. I have yet to play Shivering Isles, so I may do that once I finish this again.

Those are the oldest games outside of my normal rotation that I've been playing.

I rebuilt the computer specifically for AoC. The only other game on here currently is RTW: Total Realism. Working my Egyptian Mojo. Have from 11 to 6 o'clock of the fertile crescent under my sandal. May not play another turn until some of the AoC luster oxidizes. I sympathize with you. In Total Realism mod - the Macedonian 'Black Death' spreads fast and far. We are trading cities back and forth. If you haven't tried any mods, Kiethustus - check out http://www.twcenter.net - of particular interest are Europa Barbarorum, RTRealism and SPQR. Read the docs!

Bullseye wrote:

One of my favourite games from that time is Dungeon Keeper 2, just pure genious. Still is one of my top 10 games ever played.

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

That is such an amazing game, I should play it again soon

Thanks for the idea

divorced wrote:

Usually, when I feel nostalgic I'll fire up X-Wing or Tie Fighter. Just doesn't get any better.

I've been playing Tie Fighter lately as well, with a mix of Freespace 2 and Painkiller. This is because work has been stressful and few games give me the visceral thrill that these do.

Seeing all the gametap Deus Ex thing, it made me pull out my CD's. I installed it and am in the middle of playing it through for the 6th time.

Deus Ex is my all time favorite game.

I recently picked up a collection of Fallout for 20 bucks. I ran through 1, loved it. Anyone who liked STALKER, anything from Black Isle or Bioware, System Shock, Deus Ex, or Bioshock owes it to themselves to see the game that influenced entire genres. Also, a 10+ year old game has real choice that ammounts to more than filling your good-evil meter(Glaring at Bioware).

I've talked myself out of re-subbing to PlanetSide about 3 times in the last week. It's still one of the more fun gaming experiences I've ever had.

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