Old School Games

Are they just better because we're older?

[Murdoch]

I was reading the Gizmo Quiz [webmasterworld.com] that httpwebwitch had posted and while passing by Jecasc's reference to Commander Keen my mind wandered back to the days when a simple but clever side scrolling adventure game could keep my attention for hours, even days. Even to this day, when I find myself on Gametap, instead of the huge multi-gigabyte first person shooters I'm usually involved in a session of Darkside of Xeen or X-Com UFO Defense, which were DOS-based games.

Don't get me wrong though. I'm a real sucker for some of the new games like Guitar Hero and Katamari Damacy, but they just don't seem to grasp me like the ones I played as a kid.

So what were your favorite games growing up?

[lawman]

Old BDW will be sixty in November this year young feller

Makes me feel like a youngster. I'll only turn 58. :)

FWIW, about a week ago Mrs. lawdude told me that I haven't matured one bit during the 15 years that we've been together. I'm not sure, but I don't think she meant that as a compliment.

[LifeinAsia]

FWIW, about a week ago Mrs. lawdude told me that I haven't matured one bit during the 15 years that we've been together. I'm not sure, but I don't think she meant that as a compliment.

I would. My wife keeps asking mew when I'm going to grow up. My automatic response: NEVER!

Hmmm...how about:
Space Invaders
Asteroids
Moon Walk
Super Hangon (On Atari ST1000)
Boulderdash

I liked Phoenix also, but the music started driving me crazy. I nearly lost it years later when I lived in Korea for many years- the Phoenix theme song is one of the most popular doorbell chimes in the country!

[edited by: LifeinAsia at 3:44 pm (utc) on Aug. 4, 2008]

[httpwebwitch]

We had the original Pong. My brother still has it - with the original "paddles", avant-garde controllers with a potentiometer knob...

Besides Pong, the earliest on-screen games I remember were for the IBM PC

One was called "PC Olympics" which had me competing in an ascii-art decathlon by "running" on the K and L keys, pressing Space to jump. It didn't come on disk, rather it was source code published in BASICA that had to be keyed in manually before you could play the game. It's bizarre to think of the weeks I spent after school typing in page after page of GOSUB and DATA commands

There was also a learning game called "Archy and Mehitabel" for the PC, I think it was written by an IBM employee. It had math games and some spelling stuff, and the player was rewarded for correct answers by watching Archy the cockroach do a "cucaracha" dance, peppered with odd quotations and dialog between Archy and Mehitabel. I didn't know at the time that Archy and Mehitabel were characters from the 1920s. I'd like to see that game again but I suspect it is lost forever.

My favourite at the arcade was always Centipede

[httpwebwitch]

Lemmings

Lode Runner

MYST

oh, and in more modern era, I really enjoyed "Krusty's Super Fun House". even though I deplore the Simpsons, the game was fantastic