What is the oldest PC game you still play?

[Forward Observer]

I'm not including DOS based games that may have been re-issued for Windows, but games that were created for the Windows platform.

1. The oldest I think I have loaded is the original Panzer Commander, which was developed and published back in mid 1998 by the now defunct Strategic Simulations

When I bought my new rig last year, I kept my old WinME based rig with an older ATI card to maintain as a legacy rig just to run these old games. I have also purposely not upgraded the graphic drivers for this older rig in over two years just to help avoid graphics anomalies that can happen with these older games.

The resolution for this game is fixed at 640 by 480, so the terrain and structures are pretty simplistic, but it still plays well and all the German tanks are just as much fun as i remember to operate.

2. I also loaded up an old EA game called RECOIL from 1999. It's a sci-fi tank shooter by Zipper Interactive (they also did the first Crimson Skies for Microsoft). The cut scenes are live action videos shot real fuzzy with lots of static to make them look like some sort of strange transmissions from underground rebels.

As you progress through the game your tank gets upgraded to also operate as a hover craft, an air boat, and a submarine.

3. Next I have the above mentioned Crimson Skies that came out in 2000 loaded and play through the levels occasionally. IMHO it is still one of the most fun and entertaining arcade flight games ever made.

4. Another that I have loaded that came out in 2000 is the original SeaDogs by Akella. It was one of the first and in my opinion still the best attempt to take the original Sid Meiers "Pirates" style game to full 3D with campaigns for each of the colonial powers and outstanding "age of sail" pirate naval battles.

I also play it off and on with a neat mod that adds several new campaigns, quests, and other features to the game.

5. Finally, I just loaded up Freespace 2 by Interactive, also from 1999on my new rig. It was a bit more sophisticated in the graphics area for the time and it seems to run with no poblems on my new rig.

I have never finished the entire campaign, but I have vowed to do it this time. It is still consider by many be one of the best, if not the best, space sims ever made. Original copies of the game are scarce and used to sell for $100 and up on E-Bay. I think the code was finally made open source, and it may be available as freeware now.

So--what's your oldest PC game that you play on a regular basis?

[Martok]

1.) Command & Conquer: Red Alert (1995)
2.) Lords of the Realm II (1997)
3.) Descent 2 (1998)
4.) Birth of the Federation (1999)
5.) Shogun Total War (2000)


I won't claim I play the first 3 games very often, but every once in a while I get nostalgic and pop one of them in for an hour or two. I actually still play BotF and Shoggy at least a couple hours a week, although that's not as often as I used to. (Medieval Total War is still the game that occupies most of my time.)

[Mount Suribachi]

Panzer General 2

Its available as freeware on the web, and I play it on my wifes ancient work PC

[Androo]

Combat Flight Simulator 2 (from 2000, I believe). I find the graphics still look quite good relative to Combat Flight Simulator 3 and LoMAC.

I keep thinking about taking Combat Flight Simulator (1) for a spin. It was my first game and sort of the culmination of a dream I had had since 1970, (yes, I am that old), when I first saw the film The Battle of Britain. The feeling I had when I slowly opened the throttle and my spitfire began to accelerate down the grass strip, every bump transmitted by my sidewinder force feedback joystick- incredible! Pure joy! I suppose I have been chasing that moment in my gaming ever since. *wistful sigh*

Edit:Martok posted while I was writing the above- I had forgotten STW was from 2000. Definitely still play that. The first time I loaded it, waiting for something stupid and gamey to happen and it didn't and I realized that somebody had actually made a (mostly) realistic tactical game- another great moment.

[Sjakihata]

Star Craft
Caesar III

[Samurai Waki]

Operation Flashpoint. with mods O' course.

[doc_bean]

Total Annihilation ('97)

Recently reinstalled it.

[GoreBag]

Eye of the Beholder (1991). If I was running an Apple, I'd be playing MacNinja and that other game where you drop a guy out of a helicopter into a haywagon.

[The_Mark]

Operation Flashpoint. with mods O' course.

Same here. I'd probably start Baldur's Gate (1) again if I had the time, though.

[drone]

Master Of Orion 2
Birth of the Federation
Medieval TW

[econ21]

I'm not including DOS based games that may have been re-issued for Windows,

I wish you were, then I could mention X-Com1, 1994, (akka UFO: Enemy Unknown). Played it quite a bit recently and amazingly it still holds up as a great game in both its gripping gameplay - rather like Total War in having both great tactical combat and a compelling strategic layer - and also its remarkable atmosphere.

I've also recently re-played Might and Magic VII, 1999. I'd like to get MM6, 1998, to work on Windows XP but it doesn't. Both games provide that classic RPG hook of continually getting experience and stuff (right up to level 100 or so), and both have enormous worlds that still feel more engaging than the curiously dead worlds of some modern RPGs such as Morrowind.

Lately, I've been getting a hankering to revisit Pacific General 1997, and Baldur's Gate 1, 1998. The former allows you to run Japanese bicycle infantry units from victory right from China in 1937 to the mid-West of America in 1945. The latter is like immersing yourself in a gorgeous bath of DnD goodness and staying in there for several months. I'm in need of an RPG fix and although I've had Oblivion on pre-order for months, I am sure it won't come near to rivalling BG1 when it finally comes out.

[Ciaran]

The oldest Windows-only game, that could well be Jagged Alliance II (1998), at least that´s what comes to my mind. Other old games include the DOS classics, like Command & Conquer Tiberium Conflict, Master of Magic, UFO and X-Com, Jagged Alliance I, Panzer General...

[lancelot]

Birth of the Federation, if Im really bored...

[TinCow]

I've been replaying some old games lately, including Magic: The Gathering (1997) and Battle Isle 2 (1994). However, easily the oldest game I play regularly is the original Castles by Interplay (1991). Now, regularly for this game means off and on for a month or so every year and half... but I still love it.

[Lemur]

I'm midway through a nostalgic replay of Fallout. If you've never played it, you don't know what you're missing. Ah, the RPG heyday of 1997.

[screwtype]

I've also recently re-played Might and Magic VII, 1999. I'd like to get MM6, 1998, to work on Windows XP but it doesn't. Both games provide that classic RPG hook of continually getting experience and stuff (right up to level 100 or so), and both have enormous worlds that still feel more engaging than the curiously dead worlds of some modern RPGs such as Morrowind.

I've still got M&M8, it's the first game I bought for the PC. I had a lot of fun with that game but sadly it had a bug in it that prevented me getting beyond a certain point (hmmm...now that it occurs to me, I have a new PC and OS now...)

Yeah I love that mindless hack 'n' slash stuff. I especially liked beating up the ghouls and vampires in the wilderness area, the ranged fire is pretty powerful in that game and it's great fun letting 'em have it from afar :)

Lately, I've been getting a hankering to revisit Pacific General 1997, and Baldur's Gate 1, 1998. The former allows you to run Japanese bicycle infantry units from victory right from China in 1937 to the mid-West of America in 1945. The latter is like immersing yourself in a gorgeous bath of DnD goodness and staying in there for several months. I'm in need of an RPG fix and although I've had Oblivion on pre-order for months, I am sure it won't come near to rivalling BG1 when it finally comes out.

BG1 - yuck. Just thinking about that game causes me to start growing sleepy.

Although when I think about it, it's true I did enjoy it when I first started playing it, on my brother's PC. But when I took it back to my place and finally got around to installing it and getting back to where I'd been weeks before, all the thrill was gone. Completely. And it's never returned.

I still have my trusty old Amiga 1200 sitting here in a box. If I ever get it up and running again (it needs some fine soldering work done to the mobo) I'll go right back to playing Lords of the Realm II again, which hails from about 1994. The Amiga version of that game is WAY better than the PC version.

[econ21]

I'd like to get MM6, 1998, to work on Windows XP but it doesn't.

Just a footnote to say I've figured out how to get it to work. A fan has made a "patch" (1.3) that among other things gets it going in Windows XP.

[Ser Clegane]

You don't happen to still have the link to that patch?

Please?

Pretty please??

[Crazed Rabbit]

I still have my trusty old Amiga 1200 sitting here in a box. If I ever get it up and running again (it needs some fine soldering work done to the mobo) I'll go right back to playing Lords of the Realm II again, which hails from about 1994. The Amiga version of that game is WAY better than the PC version.

Really? How so? I remember playing LOTR II a lot back in the day.

Currently, the oldest game I play is Tribes 2. 2001ish.

Crazed Rabbit

[screwtype]

Really? How so? I remember playing LOTR II a lot back in the day.

You mean, how is the Amiga version of LOTRII better than the PC version?

The Amiga version clearly benefited from its PC predecessors. First of all, the Amiga version is a LOT prettier (though not up to the standard of modern PC games of course).

Secondly, when I finally got around to the PC version, I was really annoyed at the very clumsy method of assigning peasants to different jobs. You have this little window filled with sprites in fields and you have to "rope" the sprites by drawing a square around them with the mouse and then dropping them on a different field. It's finicky, and you can never tell exactly how many sprites you picked up until you actually drop them somewhere else, meaning often multiple trips back and forth before you get the assignment just the way you want it. And because it's such an important part of the game, this aspect quickly becomes really tedius.

With the Amiga version, ALL your peasant assignments are simply done with sliders. Not only is it instant, but you can always see exactly what you're doing and how many peasants are assigned to what. Makes a huge difference to gameplay.

Third, with the PC version you just get a bunch of "pre-digested" castles to build. In the Amiga version, you can design every aspect of your castle, and go on redesigning and/or upgrading your castle right throughout the game. It's a fun part of the game, and quite an important part of strategy. For instance, you can add more grain warehouses to a castle, meaning the troops in it can hold out longer. Every addition to a castle obviously costs money and resources, though.

Fourth, the combat system is more fun and better balanced. For example, your soldiers (except the peasants) maintain a formation, even in combat. And the better the soldier type the more disciplined they are. In the PC version, they are all basically just a rabble.

Fifth, the gameplay seems to be better balanced in every aspect. I find the Amiga version just plain more exciting and challenging to play.

To give you just one example that occurs to me as I write, in the PC version you have virtually this constant stream of trader wagons visiting your provinces. So a province is almost never without access to any goodies it needs from the traders.

In the Amiga version, traders only come around once a year at most and even then they sometimes they don't get to every province. The end result is that you can be really hanging out for a trader wagon to come around so you can sell your wool for vital cash, get that critical happy boost from beer, or buy that much needed extra grain, and so on.

Also, in the Amiga version traders don't carry every type of good all the time. So even if a trader comes around, he may not have the item or items you need.

Same thing with mercenaries. In the PC version, they wander around from province to province so you always have the opportunity to pick some up. In the Amiga version, they only appear in a handful of port provinces so if you haven't conquered one of those provinces, tough cookies.

Probably the only aspect of the Amiga version that might be considered not as good as the PC version is that castle assaults are more abstracted. You have this funny little system where you assign soldiers to different activities in different parts of the castle, like you might assign some to filling in the moat by the east wall, while you assign others to bombard the eastern towers with catapults. At the end of every turn, you are just told how many soldiers got killed during these little actions and how many of the enemy etc.

But again, it's a very carefully balanced subgame and quite fun to play. I actually prefer it to the rather simple and chaotic RTS style castle battles in the PC version. You have to plan your castle taking strategy in the Amiga version, and it usually takes you several turns to implement it, with soldiers on both sides getting killed each step of the way and refinements to your strategy or suspension of proceedings sometimes necessary. So even though the combat itself is abstracted, it's made up for by the extra strategy you have to employ.

I'd like to post you some screenshots of the Amiga version but unfortunately as I said my 'miggy is out of order right now...

[econ21]

You don't happen to still have the link to that patch?

Please?

Pretty please??

I found the patch and link by searching one of the best MM forums:

http://telp.org/mm6/tavern/mm6tavern.html

The patch is here:

http://strony.aster.pl/mokmtg/mm6_eng_patch.exe

[Zalmoxis]

I think the oldest game I still play X-Wing, and the sister game Tie-Fighter.

[Ser Clegane]

I found the patch and link by searching one of the best MM forums:

http://telp.org/mm6/tavern/mm6tavern.html

The patch is here:

http://strony.aster.pl/mokmtg/mm6_eng_patch.exe

Thanks