If I am not mistaken, before there was the #Civilization franchise, there was “Empire”. It was a fun game. There is #EmpireDeluxe available on #Steam, but I miss the DOS version that I played a lot.
Modern games today are usually limited to certain themes. If it's flight, it's flight. If it's tank, it's tank. If it's strategy, that's it. Carrier Command have it all.
I know, we can still play this today, however, what I miss with this game is the 2 player mode.
You just play with your friend and blast each other to friendly matches and laughter.
Being able to play 2P mode, face-to-face, is something that we have taken for granted, and now we're all just virtual avatars in online games (even online multiplayer games).
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So, how about you?
Q: What are the five (5) video games from the 20th Century that you want to be able to play again today? And why?
UT99. To this day one of the best shooters. Can't play it like I used to, since I don't have anyone who'd play it with me. Also, only LAN parties are the real deal for games like that.
Agreed. I also loved UT2004 and there are still servers up if you play online. Loved the custom sniping maps with low gravity or the giant team vehicle race maps.
Honestly there are no games like these nowadays. The closest being fortnight? But that game doesn’t have any modding and being 3rd person changes the gameplay from 1st person.
It really captures the fun parts without the drudgery. And IMHO the controls with an ordinary gamepad blow away any of the fancy controllers I tried using back in the day.
Maniac Mansion, Commander Keen, Out of this World, Battle Toads, Time Traveller.
Some because I remember them being funny or having really cool styles, others just because I’m old/lazy and tracking down emulators and making time is too much.
Did you mean Time Commando by any chance? That was one of my favorites back in the day. Controls probably wouldn’t hold up these days but the time traveling aspect was super fun!
I like that one but this was a bizarre arcade machine that projected a « hologram » of the game. I was broke and terrible so lord knows how the game ends:
Oh, one thing I can't really do anymore (for now at least) is some old school multiplayer gaming in doom, duke3d, quake, all those old games. That was my childhood, but not playing online -- playing where I can look over to my little brother and shit talk him for that kill or whatever.
At least Civ has had sequels. I have no nostalgia to play the original Civ because I find the new ones objectively better.
I had a hacked copy of Civ I at first, too, and ended up hand copying a bunch of the Civilopedia entries by hand to learn how to play. I was sure to pick up a copy later when I had my own computer.
I really wish there was a better modern version of Mac Syndicate.
There is a PC remake but it misses the spirit of what was so great about the original game, which was that your agents were largely autonomous (or at least could be) by idk, 1994 standards. It didn't add anything to their autonomy.
As a kid it felt like you were working with your agents as if they were intelligent to accomplish the missions. investing in their upgrades made them make better decisions.
I'd love a remake or reimagining where you are literally training AI agents do so these missions, maybe go against other players AIs, copy and sell your own. It could be super cool.
You Don’t Know Jack — the German editions.
Loved those games.
Unfortunately the new ones didn’t get translated as far as I see, and while I speak English quite well, I miss the cultural context for many questions.
And the old ones are somewhat outdated for a lot of questions.
But I loved the attention to detail in those games.
Carrier Command was utterly brilliant. I first had this on my ZX Spectrum ( it only played on 128k models)
The graphics were clear wireframe and moved so slowly but the tactical game was awesome.
Then I later got my first 16bit computer, the Atari ST and it came with...Carrier Command.
Now the graphics were in colour and the vehicles were made of solid geometric shapes and everything moved so fluidly in comparison to the previous version.
Loved the game all over again.
I know there's an (unofficial?) Sequel on PC but I haven't looked into it yet.
SimAnt. I spent way too long guiding my ant colony to the kitchen. SimEarth gets an honorable mention here, although I don't remember playing it for nearly as long.
M.U.L.E. , it's funny how much time I spent playing a economics game.
Lords of Conquest, it was an 80s strategy game that was kind of RISK jr.
Impossible Mission, I had a hacked copy and didn't have any instructions so I just guessed at what to do
Project Space Station on the C64. I remember playing that and thinking how far away the 2000's seemed. I thought we'd have more space stations by the 2020s. It turns out all we have is more memes.
Sheesh, now I need to find a good C64 emulator
Edited to add: OG Railroad Tycoon was 1990 and RRT 2 was 1998, those were a lot of fun, too. I think I bought RRT2 from GOG at one point for the nostalgia
I'm pretty sure you can play my entire list now, but frankly nearly every game worth playing is playable. My list are games that are better than modern games.
Master of Magic - Civ with magic that hasn't been done as well since. I haven't checked out the recent remake, but this game was miles ahead of the competition and still stands up as better than most fantasy civ games.
Dune 2000 - basically a Command and conquer reskin, but the factions felt different and balanced.
Dragon Warrior (quest) III and IV - the best RPGs on the NES. III was the finale of a trilogy of games, very customisable and satisfying. IV changed your perspective repeatedly across the story, and I had never seen that in a game before.
SimCity 2000 - probably the best city builder. Newer games looks nicer, have more systems and are generally more nuanced and detailed. However those newer games tend to get bogged down in details and it becomes more difficult to get into them. For me this hit the right balance between complexity and ease.
Shingen the Ruler - for some reason I am convinced that it was called shingen the conquerer, but can find no evidence of this. A sengoku period grand strategy game on the NES. I always want the total war games to be more like this game, but instead the real time battles feel far less satisfying and tactical that a turn based version.
Came out in 1998 a month or so before Half Life and came with a patch cd in the box 🤣
Interesting take on the fps genre with branching routes/alternate levels that change things in the story deepening on your success. It's a bit janky now but still a decent game.
I can name one - The Last Express. Still absolute quest masterpiece. Real time, a lot of different endings, pre-wwi setting where every person speaks their own language. Graphics also keeps up.
I'm pretty sure it's available on GOG. I bought it some years back because it looked interesting but I never got around to actually playing it. I'll have to give it a go.
Quake III Arena. It came out in the 20th century, which sounds crazy to me. It was about 10 years ago I last played it or its remakes.
I got into Q3 a few years late, but there was still a fairly healthy local community for it back then. Quake 4 came out and then Quake Live, which I played for a while, but the local community was missing by then.
Sure I could still play it, but I'm guessing there aren't even enough people to fill a 5v5 capture the flag match anymore, Q3 or QL... a shame. But at least I have good memories of it.
SimFarm was so much fun! I had a system using oranges that got me huge profitable farms but I haven’t played in quite a while so I don’t remember the specifics
SimAnt, which I borrowed on 3.5” floppy and managed to “win,” which felt like an accomplishment.
SimCity 2000 had such satisfying graphics and I loved building beautiful utopias with infinite money. Still do this with Cities: Skylines!
SimCopter. I spent hundreds of hours flying around cities I built in SimCity 2000.
I can still play these games today, but just don't have the time:
Dangerous Dave, John Romero's first "popular" game, predating Keen/Wolf/Doom. Three decades later, and I still haven't managed to beat this game (without using cheats or save states that is).
Bio Menace, An action platformer by Apogee, made using the same engine as Keen. You are Snake Logan, a CIA operative who needs to save Metro City, which has been invaded by mutants. A very fun game with good controls and smooth movements.
The Skunny series, A bunch of platformers featuring Skunny the squirrel, made by Copysoft. Save our Pizzas in particular was pretty memorable, where Skunny travels back in time to ancient Rome because an evil chef wants to destroy the invention of pizza so that he can make his own imitation. Very whacky and cartoony, kid me loved this game.
SkyRoads, A fun space runner. Think Temple Run, except you're in a spaceship that's... not flying and is on a road, in space, and it can also hop! In hindsight, it sounds weird, but trust me, it's fun.
Definitely the ones that simply aren't available. If I ever get my PC upgraded, I know I can download emulators, but in the meantime, several incredible games are simply not playable. Since I was an Xbox kid I am currently revisiting:
Jet Set Radio Future
Ninja Garden Black
GTA: San Andreas (the original, far-superior one. It didn't add visual/gameplay glitches and all the amazing songs are still in it, unlike the "Definitive" Edition)
The thing is, my old consoles still work. It's the controllers that are bad. I have dozens of original Xbox, 360, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One controllers that drift, are flat-out broken, or a button is just wonky. My solution? An adapter that lets modern controllers work with old consoles! I use the Brooks Wingman XB2, but there are others. My favorite controller ever is the Xbox Elite Series 2. It is not just customizable, but sturdy and has outlasted many of my other controllers. So now I can play retro games, wirelessly, with zero latency, with turbo functionally!
To be perfectly clear, I have no affiliation with either company and gain zero benefit if they double in profits, or die out and close up shop. I'm just a fan...