Retro gaming

[Johnnytheboy]

Anyone had the chance to revisit old games after a long period?

For reasons that need not distract us, I got my old PC out of retirement last week, and intend to use it as my gaming machine for another week.

It's a 2004 machine running XP - it was very good at the time, but retired in 2013.

So I'm playing all the games I've missed as they won't work on Windows 10.

So far:

Red Alert 2 - Still the best C&C game, but it turns out I can remember how to beat the AI very easily, so after a couple of run-throughs I was done.

Sid Meier's Gettysburg - forgot how much I enjoy this game. For those that don't know it, it's sort of Total American Civil War.

Alpha Centauri - aka Civilization 2 in Space. Have to say I found it far less immersive than I remembered, and it became very unstable as the game progressed (see below).

Combat Flight Simuator 3 - graphics nowhere near as good as I remember and woefully unstable. This and my experience with Alpha Centauri make me think something on my PC has deteriorated over the last seven years as neither gave me any bother before.

Tie Fighter - Started playing this last night. My god, how did I remember so many controls?

Funnily enough I thought I would enjoy this more than I have done; a lot of the games I haven't started up, I just looked at the icon and thought "meh".

I thought I would be loathe to put the old PC back in to retirement, but I think I will be ready. Apart from Gettysburg!

Again, anyone else done this? i.e. not keep playing old games but revisit them after a long hiatus?

[Zetec-S]

Wouldn't mind another crack at Red Alert 2, although for me it's C&C Tiberium Sun which is my favourite. I think I still have the disc somewhere, unfortunately not the hardware to run it any more.

Over the past couple of years I have fired up Civ 2, but similarly found it hard to recapture the feeling from years ago.

One game I have enjoyed is The Settlers, being able to run on my modern laptop using Dosbox was a big plus, I've found running through the missions enjoyable although I'm finding it easier than I did back as a teenager in the 90's. Not sure if that's just because I'm "better" at gaming now, or if it's because compared to modern stuff its comparatively simple.

[anonymous-user]

Johnnytheboy said:

I thought I would be loathe to put the old PC back in to retirement, but I think I will be ready. Apart from Gettysburg!

Again, anyone else done this? i.e. not keep playing old games but revisit them after a long hiatus?

Once a decade or so I have an overwhelming desire to replay the games of my youth. The first time I did this in the early 2000's I actually went to the trouble of buying an original Commodore 64 and Amiga. My favourite game on the Amiga was FA/18 Interceptor, I had visions of me playing this for hours like I used to. I loaded up the game and somehow the lifelike graphics I remembered were updating at around ten frames per second.

I probably used them both for an hour each and they were then sold on eBay.

Now I just use emulators, they are good enough for 5 minutes before I realise how rubbish the games are now days. The thing was, back in the day there was no internet, no tablets, no smartphones, no downloads, no Netflix, no Sky and just four channels of TV. No wonder the games held my attention, there was little else to do.

I tend not to even play the games anymore, I usually just watch a few videos of the walkthrough on YouTube or just listen to the theme tune. That is enough for that shot of nostalgia for me.

Unfortunately I think the memories are best left alone.

[Wadeski]

I bought a disc version of Quake last winter and played through it (well, modern source port, just needed the serial really!) on my MacBook. It is still really, really fun. I wish ID would revisit the Quake 1 aesthetic and universe. No real story but its like a rendering demo that happens to play really, really well.

[Zetec-S]

Wadeski said:

I bought a disc version of Quake last winter and played through it (well, modern source port, just needed the serial really!) on my MacBook. It is still really, really fun. I wish ID would revisit the Quake 1 aesthetic and universe. No real story but its like a rendering demo that happens to play really, really well.

Good call, that reminds me I bought Quake II back in the early days of lockdown on Steam for 99p, played all the way through it and thought it stood the test of time pretty well. I've also got Quake III to play at some point, along with Tomb Raider (remastered).

[Johnnytheboy]

Wadeski said:

I bought a disc version of Quake last winter and played through it (well, modern source port, just needed the serial really!) on my MacBook. It is still really, really fun. I wish ID would revisit the Quake 1 aesthetic and universe. No real story but its like a rendering demo that happens to play really, really well.

You see I never liked Quake after Doom II (which I still play now and again).

Latest efforts:

Colin McRae Rally 4 - CD flatly refused to announce itself as being in the drive (was a cheap copy back along).

Colin McRae Rally 2 - found it oddly easy and seemed to be beating old stage records on my first try, maybe a much bigger monitor helps. But got bored quite rapidly.

Ghost Recon - bugger me it's hard, even on novice. I used to play this for pleasure? I remember it was tough back then...

[imperium]

I’m intending on revisiting Age of Empires 2. Loved that game. I wasn’t especially good at it but had some fun online.

[ferrisbueller]

Sensible Soccer (SWOS, in particular) is still greatly missed.

[Hoofy]

Regularly go back to Diablo 2.

[Johnnytheboy]

Hoofy said:

Regularly go back to Diablo 2.

I bought that soon before retiring this PC but I didn't really bond with it.

[Gandahar]

Lemmings is always fun to go back to. Tried Unreal again a while back and found the graphics too bad to play it. At the time it blew me away....

[alorotom]

Played through these in lockdown:
Sega Rally (was so so easy and didn’t hold my attention long)
Doom (really enjoyable and remembered so much!)
Wolfenstein 3D (struggled with the really poor graphics but was a nice flashback)
Day of the Triads (got a bit bored about halfway through)

Also, I regularly revisit Day of the Tentacle put on my iPad - I really love it.

I’d like to play Age of Empires again but there isn’t a port for my 2019 mac and I don’t run a side version of windows

[Zetec-S]

I'd also like to give the Alone in the Dark series another go. I remember when the original came out the graphics blew me away, and it also scared the crap out of me.

(I suspect things might have changed since )

[Hoofy]

Johnnytheboy said:

Hoofy said:

Regularly go back to Diablo 2.

I bought that soon before retiring this PC but I didn't really bond with it.

Graphics too poor?

The fun bit comes in creating different characters and sub-characters eg Trapsassin (assassin only using traps).

[A Winner Is You]

I'm replaying Final Fantasy 7 for the 500th time. Admittedly some bits have aged, but the environments in particular were incredible at the time and still look good today. The fact the PS4.XB1 versions include shortcuts also removes a lot of the grind.

Still play Doom 1&2 as well as their countless WADs and mods regularly. The gunplay and enemies are just so damn good it never stops being fun. Plus I can always return to my holy trinity - Super Mario World, Super Metroid and Zelda 3, which to this day are the closest things I've played to perfect games.

[james_TW]

Not on a PC, but I recently completed Doom 2 on my Xbox - I haven't gelled with later versions of Doom at all, but Doom 2 is my always go to. Icon of Sin is utterly maddening, simply because you have to shoot a rocket at just the right time - I'd forgotten that you have to do it 3 times too... It has also forced me to play the whole game without cheat codes too

Original Command and Conquer and Red Alert 2 is something I also love, memories of all weekend LAN parties - I am a little ashamed to admit I did those

A proper retro game though - I love playing either Manic Miner or the impossible to complete Jet Set Willy

For the full Retro Gaming experience, there's an arcade place near me (Retrodome in Barnsley) that has old school arcade machines which includes Outrun, Pacman, etc - Love it there