Print
Sid Meier's Pirates!
Developer: Firaxis Games
Publisher: Atari
Why It Rocked: Time for some word association: we say “Sid Meier,” you say... Civilization? Alpha Centauri? Railroad Tycoon? Well, the gaming legend also tried his hand at pirates long before Johnny Depp even thought about globbing on guyliner, and it was glorious. Pirates was brilliantly open-ended, allowing you to sail the seas, amass a crew, and duke it out with whomever crossed your peg-legged path on land or sea.
Why It Flopped: This is another game that – while not quite a flop – gets depressingly little recognition given how much fun it is.
Where to Buy It: Steam
Temple of Elemental Evil
Developer: Troika
Publisher: Atari
Why It Rocked: Temple of Elemental Evil was Dungeons and Dragons distilled down to its core. You had a dungeon. Inside it? Probably some dragons. And that was pretty much it. The game was hardcore dungeon-crawling at its purest. No smoke-and-mirrors or bells-and-whistles.
Why It Flopped: Two reasons: 1) The game expected you to already know your way around a 20-sided die, and you'd die pretty darn quickly if you didn't. 2) “Troika Games, you say? Didn't they make that one game? With all the glitches?” Yep.
Where to Buy It: Good Old Games
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Developer: Troika
Publisher: Activision
Why It Rocked: Bloodlines boldly crossed the divide between shooters and RPGs with style and maturity rarely seen outside Deus Ex. As with its cybernetic pseudo-cousin, Bloodlines prided itself on letting you sink your fangs into a situation from almost any angle. Guns, stealth, hacking, intimidation, seduction – you name it. The game's classes (or Clans), meanwhile, were more than mere stat sheets, providing you with a reputation, disposition, and more. Oh, it was also brilliantly written. As in, one of the best stories gaming's ever seen.
Why It Flopped: In addition to having a title so massive and winding that lesser readers physically fell into it, never to see the light of day again, Bloodlines launched as a buggy, glitch-ridden mess. To make matters worse, its developer then proceeded to kick the bucket, leaving the game horrifically half-baked. However, this story has a happy ending, as a nurturing community took Bloodlines in and created a series of unofficial patches, which put a stop to the game's larger issues and even reassembled scrapped files into playable content.
Where to Buy It: Steam
Warzone 2100
Developer: Pumpkin Studios
Publisher: Eidos
Why It Rocked: Warzone 2100 was a little RTS with some big ideas. For one, the game downplayed resource collection to the point of nearly making it a non-factor. Also – perhaps more interestingly – it eschewed the idea of preset unit types altogether, instead allowing you to construct units from whatever parts you'd researched. The possibilities, then, weren't quite endless, but still totaled out to – according to leading professionals – “a whole damn lot.”
Why It Flopped: Warzone's developer stopped supporting it shortly after release. Unfortunately for the Vile Forces of Cruel Fate, they hadn't taken into account the fact that PC gamers rock. Before long, a dedicated community resurrected the game, added all kinds of new features, and even convinced Eidos to make the whole thing open source and freely available for all to enjoy.
Where to Buy It: It's free! You can download it here.
Comments are closed on this article
Atech66
April 18, 2011 at 6:17am
I played 75% of these games but i think gamers are not mainline folks.
We rely heavily on word of mouth ( forums) and some on reviews.
How many kick ass games got crap reviews yet user rated 80+.
A few titles i did not recognize but deff looked playable.
I am currently going through Fallout 1, 2, Tactics and 3 before i play New Vegas with the nexr DLC.
Old school graphics don't matter when you have a kick ass game.
POMF2K
April 05, 2011 at 10:56pm
Thumbs up for Obsidian and Vampire. I would definitely play that game again.
Omicron: The Nomad Soul should be on this and everyone's list. Seriously if you can get past the shitty graphics, play it. Play it now, love it forever, demand a sequel. I'm not kidding. Amazing game.
And then there's Myth. . . NO! I'm seriously thinking this guy is a closet console gamer. Myth was strategy for console gamers way back in the day. Dumbed down to extreme. It deserves no note in the history of PC gaming. Period.
Lipman42
March 28, 2011 at 1:46pm
Thanks for the link for Vampire- Masquerade. But if you go here http://www.patches-scrolls.de/vampire_bloodlines.php it has the most recent patch which was late Jan this year version 7.3! It has better Graphics settings and looks and plays great! I am replying it with this patch (the Plus Version so you get more cool stuff) and having a blast!
Thanks for reminding me of this and letting me know about the Unoffical patches!
trgz
March 28, 2011 at 1:38am
Good article. Finished The Longest Journey, Grim Fandango, MDK and Kill Switch - started about 50% of the rest but I gave up on for pretty much the reasons listed. Boiling Point is what Far Cry 2 ought to have been - discuss. Also played a few of those that other's have mentioned (Nox, Chaser) and I'm just about to buy a copy of Armed & Dangerous - thanks to Caboose for reminding me of that one.
I'm surprised that MDK was listed especially as MDK2 was released.
Two missed? both Last Express and Psychonauts have both been listed as failures elsewhere - both great games (I've played Last Express 3 times at least)
nikldan
March 27, 2011 at 1:33pm
Great article. MDK was hugely inventive and a huge game. I still miss it.
And yes, another thumbs up for Chaser. I still have the cd and might give it another go.
I liked the original Turok which I got a copy of for free with a Voodoo card way back when.
KingofMadCows
March 26, 2011 at 3:30am
What about the Might and Magic and Wizardry series? They were kind of popular but only among the RPG fans.
Heroes of Might and Magic is great too. It's much more popular than the other games on the list but not nearly as popular as it should be. That includes Heroes 4, which like some of games on the list, had a lot of problems because it was released unfinished.
Nyarlathotep
March 28, 2011 at 11:55am
Might & Magic 7, 8, & 9 were great RPG's. I still go back and play them every couple years. The only Wizardry game I tried was 8 and I've gone back and played it a couple times over the years too. I could never get into the Heroes of M&M though...
I think you can still buy the Might and Magic complete series in one package for cheap on places like Amazon.
igoka
March 26, 2011 at 2:08am
Youre link where to buy " Obsidian " is for 103.99$ . Really ???? " Grim Fandango " - 55 - 89$ When you put links have you even checked it ?
Scatter
March 26, 2011 at 9:14am
Well to be fair most of the games aren't being published any more unless it's in downloadable form. Classics cost a lot when they're only available in limited supply.
Caboose
March 25, 2011 at 10:35pm
Anyone remember the game Armed and Dangerous? It came out of the LucasArts factory. It was like a monty python game. Very funny, and fun to play!
r6srider
March 25, 2011 at 6:33pm
I would like to add redline (the shooter not the racing game), and descent, one of the most disorienting games I have ever played.
RUSENSITIVESWEETNESS
March 22, 2011 at 10:01am
Just about anything that had to do with flying a spaceship died off after the '90s. I remember when Wing Commander was the shizzle; now, on one will touch the genre with a ten-foot pole. I think the complexity of sim games became their undoing as publishers began targeting the less sophisticated mass market. People who played computer games were pretty smart. But any moron can push a console stick, and there are more morons than smart people, so the money is made marketing to morons....
The Freelancer series was great. And now there are mods to bump up the graphics (even the Wing Commander series have those graphics mods). I seem to remember a Starlancer game coming out a little later, and it must have been the very last commercial space sim released outside MMOs.
I remember buying and playing Anachronox, for maybe half an hour. It was a bad game. Arx Fatalis was buggy, and it took a LONG time to get some of the bugs ironed out. I think a lot of these bad games bombed out because of unresolved bugs. The industry was slow to catch on to the fact that people talked about their buggy games.
Crimson Skies puzzles me. I remember buying it a long time ago, but the graphics were bad, the story was lame, and I gave up. The screen shot in this article looks like a modern version of what I played, but I've not found any references to versions other than the 2000 release I know I played and discarded.
One of the best PC games that was ever made, but which didn't do as well as deserved: Dungeon Keeper 2 from Bullfrog. Should have been on this list. Other developers have flat-out copied it at least three times that I know of, but nothing is as good as the original.
stradric
March 22, 2011 at 8:08am
Great list. I'd like to add Nox and Freelancer though I'm not sure if they were flops or not. I know they were really fun games with awesome mouse controls that still are fun to play.
poee
March 23, 2011 at 12:49am
I still play (modded) Freelancer now and then. And Pirates. And I've played through as every clan in Bloodlines. (My favorite is Tremere, I think.) You can see it's influence in so many newer games.
JoBlo
March 22, 2011 at 5:28am
The best way to run older games, esp the really old ones (10+ years) is to simply run a VM with the OS it was desinged for. Modern PC's can cope with the preformace loss through running a VM configured to run an older os, with older software/games. The most general way to get almost anything to run on a current PC.
You can always do some homework on specific titles, and see what others have come up with. Sad how everyone expects answeres to be given to them, regardless if it was implied that it would be to begin with.
Stever
March 22, 2011 at 6:43pm
"You can always do some homework on specific titles, and see what others have come up with. Sad how everyone expects answeres to be given to them, regardless if it was implied that it would be to begin with."
People come to this site looking for answers. For you to suggest that it's somehow "sad" for people to expect that the answers completely implied in the subject line weren't included is beyond crap.
I know full well I can Google my arse off to find out how to run older games on a modern OS, but 1) it's not always successful and 2) maybe... just MAYBE the amazing people at MaxPC might have resources I don't and could provide some previously unseen link or suggestion that might get me running with a particular game.
Oh, and anyone who knows anything about virtual machines will tell you they suck for graphics acceleration. While the overall performance of the game might not suffer, it'll look like crap compared to how it would run with graphics acceleration. So you're idea of "simply" running an older game in a VM isn't exactly helpful.
Finally, before someone snidely suggests it, I also know full well that I can dual-boot with XP to run older games and I've done that in the past. While it works, it's a pain in the arse. Again, the topic of this article implied there would be instructions on "how to run them now" and there was zero information included. That's what bothers me about this article. Had that not been implied, I would have simply enjoyed the list of 'classic' games and been on my way.
gonzAllex
March 22, 2011 at 2:38am
Chaser was one of the best games i've played on pc. Didn't had many sales though , shame. Extraordinary game for it's time. You ppl should definitely give it a go if you haven't.The story , the gameplay , soundtrack , hell ... even the graphics were spectacular and still seem to have something that make'em stand out even today.
It's on Steam for 5 bucks.
JohnP
March 22, 2011 at 12:47am
Nah, there was a reason why these games did not do well. I played pretty much half of them. Beyond good and evil had bad control issues which left me just plain frustrated. Freedom Force just wasn't fun to play, let alone a sequel. Crisom skies was good but no IL-2. Grim fandango? talk, talk, talk. Longest Jouney was so buggy, it was unplayable. Myth? again control issues. Rise of legends was just too dang complicated.
Stockislander
March 21, 2011 at 9:22pm
Anachronox and Grim Fandango... two games I really shouldn't have lent to friends. Ah well, probably wouldn't be able to play them on modern PCs anyhow....
boodiespost
March 21, 2011 at 9:18pm
First, I appreciate the article. Second, whoever laid out this page did a really crappy job. After, "WHERE TO BUY IT" Should be multiple spaces and the image of the next game should start with the Title of it. Very very confusing layout. Seriously, what were they thinking... basic typographical rules.
Stever
March 21, 2011 at 6:33pm
What happened to the "and how to play them now" part of the article title? Linking where to buy each game is not the same as instructing how to play them on Win7. Very disappinting and misleading.
TheKhaos24
March 21, 2011 at 6:23pm
Oh my god, Citizen Kabuto I remember this game from my childhood, I think I had it on a PCgamer or Computer Gaming World demo disk and I loved it, but I forgot what it was called, all I remember is gathering some weird animal meat, and when I saw the image I instantly recognized this game. Thank you so much.
TheKhaos
Nyarlathotep
March 22, 2011 at 7:48am
I had the exact same reaction. I forgot the name but fond memories came flooding back when I saw the screenshot. It really did have a quirky sense of humor that I loved.
TheKhaos24
March 25, 2011 at 5:37pm
I just started playing this game, and it does have a quirky sense of humor, I am so glad that I am finally able to play it :)
CaptainFabulous
March 21, 2011 at 5:02pm
Planescape: Torment is easily one of the best games ever made. It's right up there with System Shock 2 in my opinion.
MattyMattMatt
March 21, 2011 at 4:11pm
I was hoping for instructions on how to get the games to run, because I have some older titles that simply won't, at least not properly.
phanboy4
March 21, 2011 at 4:03pm
Excellent list! Kudos for including overlooked classics like MDK and Obsidian. I've wanted to get ahold of and play Obsidian for ages.
The main hosting site for the VtMB patches is now patches-scrolls, which also has the latest versions, unlike the SI link: http://www.patches-scrolls.de/vampire_bloodlines.php
I would also note that Arx Fatalis, Beyond Good & Evil, Freedom Force, TLJ are also available DRM free on GOG.com
Also, since I just played and finished Grim Fandango for the first time, let me link this: http://quick.mixnmojo.com/grim-fandango-setup
That utility will let you install the game from the CD on 64-bit machines, which you can't do normally since the CD installer is 16-bit. Game works well in Win 7 64 when set to Win 98 compatibility mode.
nmanguy
March 21, 2011 at 3:31pm
Man, I loved Freedom Force when it came out, but never bought the sequel. I finally got around to buying both on Steam for like $3 in 2009, figuiring I'd play the sequel, but I still haven't.
Also, Planescape is easily the best game I never finished. I've played it twice, loved every minute, got deep into the story, went to the Sensate and Brothel of Slacking Intellectual Lusts and breathed in the 40 amazing stories (The story of the old guy who greedily hid his memory, and Morte's story of the guy saying a third wish were truly awesome)... and then just stop. I think the problem is that the game is so old that I just can't take the 640x480 graphics, so I get tired of reading the text and distinguishing things. I rarely pay more than $10 for a game anymore, but I would glady pay $50 on launch for a fully remade yet identical-gameplay/story-wise version of Planescape.
ssbowers
March 21, 2011 at 3:15pm
Man do I loveVampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines - I think I've gone through as half the vampires so far.
Can I also put a plug in for Chaser? That is what shooter should be - 30 hours of crazy.
joeking
March 21, 2011 at 2:10pm
this brings back so many memories from the earlier days of pc gaming. geforce 256 anyone?
anyways, great article, enjoyed reading.
