What was your favorite shareware game?
What was your favorite shareware game?
I'm pretty sure Doom will be the most popular (and my pick too), but I'll throw a shout-out to Epic Pinball; that Android table was the best one in the game anyway.
It's a simple choice, really, considering how many hours I managed to invest as a kid:
Probably Rise of the Triad.
Pretty sure I even bought the full game and never ended up getting very far. I also remember spending a little chunk of time on Hugo 3: Jungle of Doom, but could never figure it out enough to progress very far.
Edit: Another one I was trying to recall, the name was H.U.R.L.
Commander Keen!
Jumping around with the pogo stick in Keen 6 was so much fun. I recently found the full game. Was surprised how hard that factory level was. But the music was still how I remembered it.
To me, it was Raptor Call of Shadows, a very nice shmup where you could buy new weapons between missions
Jesus, that's a deep cut.
Quake was awesome, especially since you could play the online multiplayer from the free version.
Jazz Jackrabbit, Jetpack, and Combat Tanks.
A couple of people have mentioned Raptor: Call of the shadows, which was an absolute favorite of mine. Skyforce Reloaded is pretty close in terms of gameplay. I wish there were more games out there like Raptor
Scorched Earth
Commander Keen is probably the one that I liked the most that is also well known.
My personal favorite was Bass Class, which is weird because I've zero interest in real-life fishing, then or now.
Raptor: Call of the Shadows
"Stars!" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars!
A 4X game for Win 3.11 that was set up for multi-player by email and ftp turbo.
Fantastically ergonomic use of early GUI features.
You could design your own alien race and ships, the default races were well balanced, but all played very differently.
Colobot - don't think it was "shareware" but it absolutely came as a demo on ceebot.com (still hosted there today I believe). Literally THE game that got me into computer programming and whatnot.
Otherwise for actual shareware, I loved Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Crazy Gravity and The Worm (found it!)
I really wanted to play a couple shareware games called Jetpack Joyride, and Hot Chix n Gear Stix as a kid, but neither of them would play on my Windows XP netbook as they had a hard check for if you were on either Windows 95 or 98, even with compatibility mode.
I've been playing some Jazz Jackrabbit and Duke Nukem 1, they are both great. I think I prefer the design of DOS games to the design of console games.
We had to be memory experts back then. QEMM FTW!
Might be pushing the limits of shareware, but the demo of Quake 1 on cd for a buck. A simple console command unlocked the full version.
Tyrian
My first FPS and an excellent one. Sooo many hidden rooms and insane enemies.
Apogee was on fire during that whole era
Wolfenstein 3d, and commander Keen
I spent a lot of time playing Raptor: Call of the Shadows, a vertically-scrolling shooter with an upgrade system.
There was also Rise of the Triad, a pretty decent Doom-clone
I spent so many hours as a kid on my dad's Thinkpad playing Gravity Well. It came on one of those "50 Great Games" CDs or something like that. The goal is to claim all the planets in the system, which you do by simply landing on them, then building defenses against your opponents. It's so much fun because your ship has pretty realistic inertia and the planets have actual gravity wells. The AI opponents can be quite difficult and aggressive. Challenging and fun, with great sound effects for the time!
This screenshot is from an Internet Archive page for the game, but I'm pretty sure it's only the shareware version. I gotta check again when I get off work!
Edit: I'm 99% certain it's from this exact CD for anyone interested. I've never been able to find a full version unfortunately...
Mordor 1 The Depths of Dejenol
still available from Decklins DemiseIts the game that got me into dungeon crawlers particularly Demise: Rise of the Ku'Tan, and the epxansions Ascension and Revenge of the Tavern Keeper
Pinball Fantasies, Raptor, Heretic
Doom, Wolf3d, Diablo, and Castle of the Winds
brave dwarves 1
I played a lot of TetriNET and Subspace Continuum with my old online community. Great times.
More detail edit: TetriNET walked so Tetris 99 could run. Version 1 does not install on Windows anymore (but has a Linux version). Version 2 works, complete with its archaic user registration that asks for too many details.
Continuum is a large PvP arena Asteroids-like 2D space shooter. It's on Steam now. Starts tough to control and with a high skill ceiling, so be wary of the veterans. The Death Star Battle map is a blast with a big group. It feels like trying to speed through a narrow maze on bumper boats during a huge battle.
Comanche: Maximum Overkill, the very first game to use VOXELS, the FUTURE of PC GAMING!
Monster Bash! It was one of the better-playing platformers on the PC back in the day and I loved the halloween aesthetic.
Don't remember the name of it but it was a Geometry Wars style shooter where the playing field would tilt as you moved. Played a ton of that game.
Who want-a some Wang?!