The "Old games I still like to play" thread

[Chocofreak13]

what's it about? :3

hmm, i should start playing theme hospital again :3

[Pitkin]

Arcanum takes place in a world where industrial revolution is threatening - or considered to be threatening - the old balance in society where magic users have lived strong. Short-living humans have finally a method to achieve quick results using technology during their lifetime compared to decades or centuries of magickal studies by elves. Player can either dive deep into technology or magic or balance in between, and at the same time use her skills and abilities to society's good or not.

Practically fantasy races and RPG and magic meet 19th-century technology. Steampunk~ ^.^

[Nichi]

@Pit: That game sounds cool

Anyway, one older game I still play would be Ancient Empires, for the PC. It's an edutainment game, but it has the one thing that so few games in the genre can get right; the fun factor. The game has you exploring various caverns around the eastern world; solving puzzles, avoiding the giant spiders and other creatures that have made themselves at home, and trying to find all the pieces of an ancient artifact to reassemble it. In a way, it's kind of like what Zelda II would be like if it had more of an emphasis on puzzle solving like the later Zelda games to.

Of all the educational games I played as a kid, I not only still play it from time to time, but still have my original copy of it.

[Chocofreak13]

@pitkin: sounds cool. link or something?
@pentium: reminds me of Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego. <3 that, combined with Oregon Trail 3, were some of me and my sister's favourite educational computer games (there was one more but i can't remember the name). i also loved math blaster workshop. >:3 (bowling, fireworks, AND fraction jukebox!!)

a couple old computer games me and my sister loved included Theme Hosptal, Roller Coaster Tycoon (which i'm looking to replace since my sister gave away my disk.... >:[ she always had a bad habit of giving away my stuff when we were younger), mind maze, treasure cove, the sims, sim safari, sim copter (i liked this one more :3), sim city, streets of sim city (it was mainly me that played that one), and occasionally sim tower.
we also had a game (that she got for her birthday) called Catz 3d. it was made for windows 95/98, and even though it was old-style 3D i still teared up whenever out cat on there died. ;^;
i also discovered my love of classical and ragtime music through that game. :3

another game worth mention that my sister kicked ass at was tetris. i always failed miserably, but she RULED that game. >:3

[Pitkin]

SimCity, Theme Hospital and Rollercoaster Tycoon~ <3

Link to purchasing Arcanum (includes screenshots <3): http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/arcanum_of_steamworks_and_magick_obscura - $4.19 - if you'd prefer to find it even cheaper, I cannot really help >.>

Arcanum's biggest drawback was always the technical difficulties: the game used to crash, corrupt savegames and have very big performance issues back in the day. The gog's release of the game is patched and has at least improved performance, but I haven't tried it out long enough to see if the savegames are still at risk. ><

[Nichi]

@Choco: You have Treasure Cove? I faintly remember playing that once ages ago, but we lost our copy of it (I do have it's counterpart, Treasure Mountain, both MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 versions; the former being my favorite of the two since I grew up on it)

[Chocofreak13]

@pitkin: aw, i thought i could get it for free. ;^;
and it's nice to know that someone else played theme hospital. i'm used to stuff i like being obscure. :3

@pentium: i'm not sure where we got it. think someone gave it to my sister. and i wanted to play the counterpart, but never got the chance. if i ever learn how to copy the disk, maybe we can trade. :3

[Nichi]

@Choco: If you have an external floppy drive, it's not too hard; you just dump all the information from the disk into a zip file (Although, if it's more than one disk, it's best to install it and then make a zip file of the folder you installed it in; which is what I did to make a backup of the MS-DOS version of Treasure Mountain a few years back). Speaking of external floppy drives, I should really get one of those for 2k-tan the Desktop; in case I stumble onto any older games I want to backup, without having to setup the Yeti.

Anyway, another old game I still play is Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It doesn't matter if it's the original 1994 Sega Genesis releases (With the soundtrack as it was meant to be heard, as well as the game being split onto two cartridges), the 1997 PC release (With the MIDI music that ranges from decent to mediocre),, or any other port they've done over the years; I love it all the same. In fact, after years of being a diehard Nintendo fanboy, this was the game that showed me that it was possible for a game to kick ass on a system that wasn't made by Nintendo.

[Chocofreak13]

i only have one working floppy disk. there's a cereal bowl sitting on it right now. :\

i've always wanted a copy of animal crossing and hamtaro: ham-hams unite!, only because i have the bookmarks for them. :3 but in terms of animal crossing, i'd need a gamecube first. :\

[Pitkin]

@pitkin: aw, i thought i could get it for free. ;^;
and it's nice to know that someone else played theme hospital. i'm used to stuff i like being obscure. :3

I never thought about it back in time, but if I remember correctly, now I feel the game was quite... morbid in humour: Elvis syndrome is solved by having a psychologist telling the patient he looks stupid, bloated head is stung by a needle, and living patients are sent to the room that's called "auto autopsy" or something like that. ._.; It's been absolutely ages since I saw that game last, I think I was 13 years old or so... o.o

[Nichi]

@Choco: I have several disks still working; including two sets of Windows for Workgroups 3.11 installation disks, the original 5.25-inch disks for Ancient Empires and Treasure Mountain (The 3.5-inch disks for both died ages ago), and many more.

Anyway, another older game I still play from time to time is Lego Racers. I remember spending long Sunday afternoons at my grandma's house playing this game; building elaborate cars, trying to get further into the Grand Prix mode, and occasionally challenging my sister to a few races. Sadly, when I finally got to play the sequel years later, it failed to meet my expectations; they made so many changes to the core gameplay that it just didn't feel right at all anymore (Also, I was letdown by the inability to import my characters and cars from the first game; forcing me to start from scratch).

[Chocofreak13]

@pentium: i remember having a pack of lego games, but only one really appealed to me. i can't remember the name now, though. :\
@pitkin: yeah, it was a pretty morbid game. fun, though. :3 but i never made it past the teaching hospital level. :\
you ever put a receptionist in the bathroom? then you can put all your doctors and nurses in there too, and herd them all in one place, lol. xD

[Nichi]

@Choco: I have 4 Lego games, although the first Racers is still my favorite of the bunch; with Island being in 2nd (Although it doesn't draw me back to it quite like Racers does)

Another old game I still occasionally play is Treasure Mountain. It may not draw me back quite like Ancient Empires does, although I still have fun playing it from time to time. I have both the original MS-DOS and the updated Windows 3.1 versions (The latter having enhanced graphics and a different soundtrack), although when I want to play it, I tend to lean more toward the DOS version; since it's easier to setup, is more nostalgic for me since it's the version I played as a kid, and has what I feel is the better soundtrack.

[Chocofreak13]

lol. you're making me miss treasure cove. :3

is it weird that jezzball (from like, 1995) is making my computer's processor overwork? :\

[Nichi]

is it weird that jezzball (from like, 1995) is making my computer's processor overwork? :\

That's when I ran into with Chip's Challenge, back on TARDIS. Perhaps it's extra overhead brought on by XP and newer trying to understand the ancient coding designed with 3.1 in mind?