Old DOS games that you never thought would last this long in your collection

fury

Administrator
Staff member
For me, it's Tyrian. It's an upward-scrolling, space flyer shooter game.

The main attraction I have to the game is the endless possibilities for destruction. You have a wide selection of weapons (several different types for each of a front gun, rear gun, and left and right sidekick weapons or ships). The front and rear specifically have 11 levels of power. Some sidekicks require ammo (these are usually the more destructive kind), others have a theoretically limitless supply of shots. Even your ship's power generator and shields can be upgraded.

Each level may depend on a certain goal of destroying an enemy within a certain time limit, or (in most cases) simply surviving the level to the end. Some ships, or some game modes will allow you to perform special moves to do anything from spitting out a unique weapon blast, to deflecting enemy fire, all the way to regenerating new armor on your ship. The music is distinctly 70s and 80s inspired Techno, and the sound effects were quite good for its time.

I bought the game for the full $40 about 10 years ago, lo and behold it's now Abandonware and is available for complete & free download at http://www.classic-gaming.net/

But before that happened, it was entirely worth the $40 I'd spent. I got more play time out of that game than any game ever since.

On the quicker machines of today, I have to run it inside a utility called DOSbox, which, as it turns out, is quite good at replicating the original experience (with an SB16 sound & FM music driver, like I had on the Pentium 133 I first played the game on!).

Got any old DOS games you still have around that you want to play? Play 'em http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/ - and then post about it. :beerbang:
 

Professur

Mushroom at large
Odd this thread appears wen I just pulled out my old copy of Cannon Fodder. Having a bitch of a time finding a comp old enough to run it on.
 

HomeLAN

Bumbling Idiot
Staff member
X-com UFO Defense
Master of Orion (1)
Vikings
Warcraft (1)

As most of you know, I keep a P-90 in good condition just to run these. I started a new game of X-Com a couple days ago.
 

HomeLAN

Bumbling Idiot
Staff member
I also located an abandonware copy of Sword of Aragon (original 1993 version) a couple months back. Unc and I used to play that in his old man's basement way back then.
 

Inkara1

New Member
Odd this thread appears wen I just pulled out my old copy of Cannon Fodder. Having a bitch of a time finding a comp old enough to run it on.

Is that the one with the .mod file theme song...

Never been so much fun
Never been so much fun
Never been so much fun
Never been so much fun
Go up to your brother, kill him with your gun
Leave him lying in his uniform dying in the sun

?
 

Professur

Mushroom at large
Dunno, Ink. I don't have a sound card old enough to work with it. My AdLib card went out with my 486.
 

HomeLAN

Bumbling Idiot
Staff member
Need one? I probably still have a Soundblaster compatible ISA around someplace. If you're interested, I'll go look and test it out if it's still there.
 

Inkara1

New Member
I finally threw out the SoundBlaster 16 ISA that was sitting in my car's trunk just over a year ago. That, along with an Intel 486SX2-50 chip.
 

Professur

Mushroom at large
Thanks, but I don't have any ISA sockets anymore either.

I've got a SB card buried somewhere that i bought and never used. It should be able to cover it. Doesn't fit well in a laptop, tho.
 

HomeLAN

Bumbling Idiot
Staff member
Well, there's yer problem, alright. No ISA sockets? System's too new.

Want me to send a barebones P-II 233?
 

Professur

Mushroom at large
I've got a .99C bid on a Pii400 HP Brio with monitor. If I get it, I should be good to go.

The big problem is getting a video card that Cannon Fodder can acutally use. When I stepped up to my 1M Vesa local card, I got better images than what I'm getting with a 16M AGP now.

Actually, I'm sure if I dug about, I could find a P200 somewhere. Jsut getting old, fat and lazy, I guess.
 
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