What abandonware game are you playing?

Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, and lovin' it!

Seriously, nobody?

What's abandonware?

I was thinking of playing some Master of Magic, but last time I tried I couldn't get the sound to work in XP.

Abandonware is computer software which is no longer being sold or supported by its copyright holder. Sometimes, it is used as a blanket category for any software over a certain age, usually five years.

The term has no legal meaning. This means that labeling any kind of software 'abandonware' does not make it legal to distribute it. Unless the author puts the software in the public domain, any and all abandonware remains covered under copyright law until its copyright term expires.

Alternatively, the term is also used for software which is still available, but on which further support and development have been intentionally discontinued.
(Wikipedia)

^^ damn, I was about to do the same thing!
I'm playing half life at the mo, my pc is always too slow to play the latest stuff.
If it was 1998 my pc would be awesome!

ha ha I'd love to have a 286 or something to be able to play old games on.

I'd love to play 'Maelstorm' an old Mac game. It was like Asteroids on steroids. It was freeware back in '94. I haven't been able to find it plus the newer Mac OS probably wouldn't run it.

Tell me about it, xp won't let me run Doom, although I'm sure there is a way to do it, I'm just crap with computers.
At least I have my C64 emulator to keep me going!

ive been trying to find this old turnbased world domination game with support for multiple players. we used to run it on an old windows 3.1 box.

i still play mech commander and starcraft sometimes...

Mutant Space Bats is soooo much fun. I highly recommend it.



Can anyone recommend a really good graphical adventure game to me?

There are several engine ports that will not only allow you to run Doom natively on XP, but soup it up with enhanced resolution textures, better bit-rate music, etc etc etc. And play it online in a modern protocol. (all optional, of course. If all you want is the traditional, unmodified Doom experience, you can do that too.)

zDoom and Doom Legacy are the ones I can think of offhand.

More generally, you could use DOSBox (though it's even harder to setup than DOS was, and must be done on a per-game basis. There are frontends that help, but..).

Circle of Blood, otherwise known as Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars. (I suppose, since you're an Aussie, you'd probably be more likely to find it under the latter name.).

Beneath a Steel Sky has been reported to me as really good, though I never got to play it.

And, of course, pretty nearly anything from Sierra or LucasArts would qualify as at least passable.

Noted! Retro Gaming ahoy!
For any seasoned gamers, I'm at the point in half life where I've defeated that 3 claw tentacle beast, and now I'm at the bit with the radioactive pool and the barrels - do I have to jump on one of those barrels to get on the pipes to the exit? Its bloody difficult!

Thanks to kimberleyfantasy I searched a little harder and found it.

Now there's even a PC version and Army of Darkness sound effects.

Thanks but I think I have played almost every Sierra and LucasArts adventure game in existence! I played Broken Sword earlier in the year (was really good) and I know I have Beneath a Steel Sky somewhere but haven't gotten around to playing it.

malkav11, if you are interested you can get Beneath a Steel Sky
here. Just go to the adventure games section.

[Edited on May 23, 2006 by kimberleyfantasy]

Trust me, I know HOTU.

I just haven't gotten around to playing most of the games there. I mean, I love abandonware games and all, but on the whole I love new games more.

Ah no worries . It's a great site. I know what you mean though, I am very visually oriented and the graphics of today's games are just mind blowing. But they just don't make graphical adventure games like they used to which is why I seek out the classics. There must not be a great market for them nowadays.

I think there is a reasonably significant market, but it's niche enough that no one bothers to make them. Except The Adventure Company, and their games are virtually all mediocre-to-poor Myst clones. I like the worldbuilding and prettiness of Myst, but I don't like the gameplay, so I hope I'll be excused if I don't play cheap knockoffs. ;P

(Unless they have intriguing premises, like Dark Fall.)

I think the last traditional style adventure game to be remotely successful was the Longest Journey, and that was a good 7 years ago. (And the sequel, beautiful and well told as it is, is barely an adventure game of any sort. Hell, barely a game at all.) Syberia did all right, but even though I did kind of like it, it lacked many of the qualities I liked in old school adventure games, like snarky interactions on practically everything. The sequel seemed even blander. (B. Sokal is quite the visual conceptualist, but the games...eh.)

I'd keep an eye on the DS, it seems poised to possibly bring a renewal of the genre, and the touch screen and stylus are eminently well suited for it. Phoenix Wright is BRILLIANT.

That said, I've tended to wind up playing other things, as another characteristic of old adventure games is being brutally hard. I'm used, at this point, to being able to muddle through with careful perusal of the scene and some prodding of my inventory, and that is not always so with the older games. Broken Sword is the only one I've finished in ages. (Only one I've played, really.) Such a good game.

Oh, if you haven't played Sanitarium: do. It's wonderful. (It's not in quite the same category as the others, so I didn't previously mention it.). And if you enjoyed Callahan's Crosstime Saloon as much as I did (my sides hurt for days after playing that game), you should also investigate Legend Entertainment's other games. CCS is, imho, the pinnacle of their product, but some of the others are excellent also. Gateway, Death Gate. Mission Critical. (Be warned, it's impossible to complete the HOTU rip that I originally played. It cut out the videos and there's a scene very late in the game that uses a video as part of the scene in such a fashion that you cannot perform the action you need to perform without the video's presence. I eventually found a legit copy, and HOTU may have made a working version upload since then, I do not know.)

Snap, I am in the middle of playing Sanitarium right now also! I haven't left the hospital yet though! I tend to have a few games going at once (seriously short attention span). I've got Death Gate too but haven't looked at it yet.

Which game was impossible to complete from the HOTU rip, Mission Critical? As that is where I get nearly all my games from.

I didn't like MYST at all. I played it for a few days and got bored.

I hated the last Leisure Suit Larry game! The original was a million times better!

I don't want to seem ignorant (but I'm gonna), what is the DS?

I'm going to go and see if I can find Longest Journey. Thanks for the tips!

Mission Critical, yeah. But it was a while ago, and I e-mailed them about it, so they may have fixed it.

The Nintendo DS. Their new dual-screen handheld with touch screen, stylus, microphone.

LSL: Magna Cum Laude was not an adventure game in the slightest. That said, I thought it was frequently funny in a very random sort of way, more so than the actual proper LSL games which tended to rely on cringeworthy innuendo. Of course, since the gameplay sucked...eh.

The Longest Journey is on sale from the makers: www.funcom.com. Probably other places too.

I tried to find The Island of Doctor Brain today but I can't.

I did, however, find Hero's Quest 1: So You Want to Be a Hero.

no wayyyyy! i just started playing Commander Keen again dor the first time since i was about 12. i had to go find "bouncing babies" the other day, too, for some reason! rock!

edited to add: i am so cheesy

[Edited on May 23, 2006 by strangekitty]

Orion Burger. Greatest Game ever.