LOPcagney

The "Let's Get Nostalgic About Games" Thread

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Let's talk about old/obscure games we remember and love.

To start, does anyone remember Power Peter? I had it on my old Power PC. I LOVED that game, and played up until the last two levels when I discovered that they were somehow unaccessible (probably because I was playing on the easiest difficulty) and sadly my computer got thrown out. ;( If I ever own a mac I'll buy it in an instant, but sadly it was never released for PC, and I don't think I have the time to figure out PearPC.

Another one I loved (and still play from time to time) is Lode Runner: The Legend Returns (which you can now grab for free as part of Lode Runner Online). I went crazy with the level editor, of course making the obligatory world-entirely-made-of-timed-bombs.

This was all before I really knew what gaming was, so I played whatever came with the second-hand PowerPC we got from a friend (or whatever my friends had). I also (fondly) remember Prince of Persia, Spectre Supreme, Riven, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 2, Scorched Earth and more educational games than I care to mention (Thinking Things, Legend of the Zoombinis, Treasure Mountain). Ahhhhhh. :yep: That felt good.

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Hmm, how about that Carmen San Diego game (late 80's/ early 90's), it might have been "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego". I can't really remember many specifics but I know it had something to do with gathering information to build a case against criminals by questioning locals and gathering evidence. It might have been the first adventure-type game I ever played.

I've never played a Phoenix Wright game, (I will eventually, they sound awesome) but it seems to be very close in spirit to the aforementioned detective game.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I also think it had a robot sidekick who would phone you from HQ. Man, I loved those edutainment games.

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Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

The game that gives me the most nostalgia is Oregon Trail. My aunt was a teacher (she retired this year) in Rochester, Minnesota. The MECC developed educational software and she had the original version of the game for her classroom (before they actually sold it to the public) that I would play obsessively as a kid (in the late 70's/early 80's) whenever we visited. I loved that game. :)

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From what I remember about Carmen Sandiego, it was more visiting a geographic location, asking the locals about where the thief fled to, then using those clues to find the next location in the trail. Not really like Phoenix Wright at all, although it is like what you hoped it would be like. Zoombinis, Oregon Trail, and Carmen Sandiego kicked ass. So did Math Blaster. I also have fond memories of Reader/Math Rabbit.

Random kid's games I have fond memories of (not including the lucasarts adventure games, which kicked ass as a whole and defined my childhood, and since most of you know about them here anyway):

Museum Madness - Explore a broken down museum with a robot, fixing exhibits that broke down from a virus. It included an almost creepy puzzle involving how to load an American Revolution rifle step-by-step. I thought it was cool as a kid, and will thus refrain from playing it again in order to preserve those memories.

Tiny Toons: ACME All-Stars - A surprisingly fun kid's sports game for the Genesis. It included both soccer (Euro football) and basketball. What's surprising is that fouling was an important part of the game. Any character could body-check another to stun them, even goalies. What was cool was that all the characters had special moves to turn the tide, like a Mario Strikers long before the 3d revolution. Seeing Buster Bunny do a slam dunk with his ears made the younger me happy.

Pepper's Adventures in Time - Sierra adventure game about a young girl who travels back in time to prevent Ben Franklin from becoming a hippie. Seriously. Even though it was a kid's game, it still kept that frustrating Sierra ethos of random player death.

Pushover - An ant must topple all the dominos in each level with a single push. Damn fun puzzle game. The link goes to the faithful remake.

My writing style has turned to crap this late, so I'll stop. Might continue later.

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Nothing says obscure like a game with a story like "You're transformed into a ball by an evil scientist. Now you must roll your way through various mazes if you hope to survive.". Rollin is simply a great puzzle game.

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I still remember getting killed again and again in Hugo's House of Horrors when I was 4 and didn't realize that it was possible to actually get past the opening 15 minutes of a game. Is it sad that one of my earliest memories is of a pixelated werewolf eating a guy in pink pants?

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Ooo! That reminded me. I forgot all the old Apogee games like Secret Agent and Commander Keen. I recently bought Secret Agent online somehow (I might have called customer service?). Apogee knew how to make a platformer.

I was terrible at Oregon Trail by the way, as fun as it was. Everyone in my party died of scurvy. ;(

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There are so many awesome memories I have of Atari and Amiga games that I played with my dad when I was, like, three. But I remember none of the names (most likely never knew them). :(

GODS and Magic Pockets are two I remember fondly, though. All the Dizzy games too. There was a platform game where you play as a baby I liked, as well as all your New Zealand Storys and Rainbow Islands.

None of these are particularly obscure, of course. I just enjoy mentioning them as they get me nostalgic. :yep:

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Spilt screen Supercars 2 on the Amiga with my brother.

The truly cheesy intro video there is worth watching. A pirated version of Harrison Ford + "Just look at these super car super scores" :)

(The little bit of orchestral music was also used at the start of the Fully Ramblomatic review of Fable).

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a game called colorado where you had to kill indians while wearing a davy crockett hat, hammerfist that was great! you had to kill plants! kid gloves 2, dgeneration, rainbow island, boulderdash, alley cats, blood money,sigh......where did good writing go?

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My very first gaming memory is Penetrator on our then-new ZX Spectrum 48k Plus. My Dad bought the computer on the proviso that he'd be able to do something vaguely business-related with it. Instead, lots of my parent's friends all quickly seemed to get them and the inevitable tape-trading happened.

Penetrator was, I think, not only my earliest gaming memory, but also the very first game we got for the machine too. At the age of 3 I learnt where to find the game tape, how to put it into the separate cassette deck, check the volume level, turn the computer on, enter LOAD "" at the prompt and then press 'Play' on the tape deck.

And then I was a space fighter pilot, soaring over an alien world, raining down bombs on the enemy radar dishes waiting below. Well, for about 12 seconds anyway, until I was promptly shot down in a heavily pixelated fireball. Still, great fun.

As of my next birthday I will have been playing video games as my main hobby for more than a quarter of a century. Which is a little odd to think about when put like that... :oldman:

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As of my next birthday I will have been playing video games as my main hobby for more than a quarter of a century. Which is a little odd to think about when put like that... :oldman:

i'd love to scan your brain. as a neuroscientist, not a strange-type.

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i'd love to scan your brain. as a neuroscientist, not a strange-type.

Trust me, there's no need for complex science -- an average multiplayer session proves it's all been for shit. :hmph:

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Ah, Math Blasters. I almost exclusively played it for the awesome Road Runner animations when you cleared a level.

Speaking of Oregon Trail, this comic made me laugh. The shooting segment was probably my least favorite part of the game, 'cause it felt horribly unbalanced. I mean, shooting the insanely fast animals was harder but gave you less meat (if I remember correctly) so I just ended up shooting a hundred buffalos.

Ahh, the classics I used to play on my Mac Plus..

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Crystal Caves and Secret Agent, which were basically the same game in different settings. Weren't there more than two of these? It feels like Apogee made at least four exactly like them. Maybe I made them up.

Also from Apogee, Paganitzu, which I played to death and I've never seen anybody mention it ever. :tdown:

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Ah, Apogee. Many a fond memory of when I first really got into PC gaming on a friend's 386. If you want to really wallow in shareware nostalgia, Alien Carnage (also known as Halloween Harry) is now freeware. :gaming:

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I laughed a little when reading

And Harry's jet pack takes him to spots on a level that normal heroes could not reach.
But then it hit me that it's not much different from for example Bioshock's environmental damage stuff.

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Lessee...

Totally agree about Pepper's, that game was excellent. Taught me quite a bit about American History and Ben Franklin too, considering I knew nothing about it prior because of the whole...you know, living in Australia thing. I loved that there was a "Truth" icon that allowed you to check the historical accuracy of every item in the game - very cool, going to that amount of detail. Lost Secret of the Rainforest (aka EcoQuest 2) was also a very good game. I liked both of these educational games along with the original Carmen Sandiego because although the player was learning something, it was in an entertaining fashion. It wasn't "Hey, 2 plus 2 equals....SHOOT THE ANSWER!".

From Apogee, I remember Arctic Adventure being great fun. Of course, I only had episode one and could thus only play through that, but I remember it being a lot of fun.

Jetpack is a great little single screen platformer where the goal is to grab all the gems, then head to the exit. 100 different levels of play - sounds pretty basic, but it's very good for a freeware game and even allows you to construct your own levels.

Digger is seriously one of my favourite games of all time. Very basic, but a lot of fun - grab all the gems within the level before you can move onto the next one. It's been described as a rip off of Mr. Do!, but having never playing it and not really being interested in playing a game where the main character is a clown, I don't particularly care.

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Almost anything by Ambrosia Software was gold for Mac users. Especially Escape Velocity. Man.. that and Duke Nukem 3D are the first games I ever tried mod'ing.

I also vaguely remember a fun Bomberman-clone called BooM, with an appropriate reskinning of all the characters. Not sure if it was only for Mac or not.

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I just remembered I used to play a whole lot of Shufflepuck Cafe for Mac when I was a kid. Just looking at the title screen brings back memories... I think I played it in black and white though. Anyway, it was a great little game where you basically faced off against the computer in fierce rounds of air hockey. Sounds pretty dull, but all the character had different personalities and playing styles. The difficulty was very high so you could keep playing for long stretches of time just to beat that one character that bugged you. Not sure if I ever beat it.

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Hugo's House of Horros was great! Although I ended up using the hints, as I do in every adventure game.

Let's see, what else was there on my old 386? Some kind of primitive platformer called Dangerous Dave, I think. There was a also a less primitive one..which I remember almost nothing of. Some sort of puzzle game with a title that was a parody of Guns 'n Roses....Or was it a play off of Romancing the Stone? Man, I can't even remember. There was also Zany Golf, which totally ruled, I think.

Anyone remember Bubsy the Bobcat for SNES?

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The problem I have with obscure games is that I never consider any game obscure if I've heard of it...

I know and have either played or owned most of the games mentioned here, but what makes them obscure? Because a new gamer doesn't know them? Most new gamers don't know Lemmings, Ghost N' Goblins or even Pac-Man!

I think my definition of obscure is messed up... :erm:

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The problem I have with obscure games is that I never consider any game obscure if I've heard of it...

I know and have either played or owned most of the games mentioned here, but what makes them obscure? Because a new gamer doesn't know them? Most new gamers don't know Lemmings, Ghost N' Goblins or even Pac-Man!

I think my definition of obscure is messed up... :erm:

Well. I wouldn't call Lemmings obscure at all, since it was a huge hit when it came out. I'd judge a game's obscurity relative to the splash it made when it was released. For example, indie games now like Eets or Gibbage or ever freeware games like Cave Story and Knytt are obscure games.

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