What is the oldest PC game you still play?

[TinCow]

I tried Homm3 and Homm4; people say Homm2 was very good and I'm a bit sceptical about Homm5.

Homm3 is a very good game, if you like that kind of thing. Personally, I think it's a little too "gamey" in the way that RTSs are - the tactics and strategy you use have no relation to what it is intuitive. But I played it a lot with my young son and enjoy soloing one or two of the epic scenarios (esp. a Lord of the Rings one and a Might and Magic VI one). Graphically, I still think it is very attractive, the AI is pretty good (better than TWs IMO) and it is a very polished product.

Homm4 I consider broken in the way that Call to Power 2 was. The strategic AI is lobotomised and does not fight. You end up fighting the map (wandering monsters) and seeing the occaisional corpse of the AI's heroes. It's just sad, as graphically it is cute and it has a superb system for levelling up your heroes.

Homm5 promises to go back to Homm3 style gameplay but I won't hold my breath.

HOMM2 actually was the best and it's considered so by most fans. It was perfectly balanced and had fabulous campaigns, a difficult AI and the best music in any game for its time. HOMM3 added to everyone's favorite aspects of HOMM2, but that totally threw the play balance out of whack with some castles and creatures being completely superior to others with little to no weaknesses. HOMM4 was just horrid for the reasons you mentioned and more. They pretty much just sequelled the games into the ground.

A great deal of the hope for HOMM5 comes from the fact that the original dev and producers have gone under. The game is being made by a completely new team who are going back to the very best elements of the series. Of course, we won't know how it will turn out until it has been released, but hopefully new blood will give this series a second life.

[Bob the Insane]

Easy, various Close Combat versions...

Still no game has manage to recapture the confusion, surprizes and brutality and tactical elements of battles (in WW2) as well this 2D, sprite based game... Your troops moave at realistic paces, the weaposn seem as effective as they should be and the way morale was implimented has still not been improved upon...

Oh and I occasionally dig out Fallout and Fallout 2...

[C-F]

[Blodrast]

must be Panzer General (the first one), the two X-Com games, and Wolfenstein-3D (I even found a windows version of it... ;) ).

[BelgradeWar]

Fallout I. Along with Fallout II, it's the best game duo (I&II) I ever played. And I played a lot of games...hell, FO II is THE best game I ever played...

[ShadesWolf]

No particular order

Sid Meier's Colonisation - (my fav game of all time)
MTW
Birth of the Federation
Cival war generals 2 - (when I fancy a good battle)
Jelly Monsters (Vic20 emulator - version of pacman)
Bubble Bobble

I remember back to the old C64 days, I had a couple of great war games by US Gold, one was called Normandy but I cant remeber the other. They kept me playing for years. Pity we have no games of that type now.