Was playing a bit of Stunt Car Racer for the Amiga this week, from 1989, and wondered how far back people are going!
I guess the oldest would be Asteroids using emulation via MAME. If you’re talking about original hardware I would say Pitfall on the Atari 2600.
Has no one here played Super Mario Bros? 1985… or donkey Kong? 1981. Pac-Man? 1980. Space invaders? 1978. So many classics, all playable today with MAME or even still working systems or perfect emulation!
I definitely played SMB this year. I may have played Pac-Man.
But I also played mancala which is 8,000 years old.
In 2024? No.
I’m moving house this week and unearthed my galaxy invader 1000 handheld. Had to play a couple rounds on the spot! Apparently from 1980.
I’ve been messing with SMB 1, 3, and World hacks lately
Pssshhhh!!! Only because you have good taste!
I see you all over lol. If you like retro games and professional wrestling you’re ok in my book
Well if you’re ever in Cleveland, then we can have a beer…or 20.
If I ever visit my dad in Ohio I might have to track you down. Haven’t tasted alcohol in over 10 years (for good reason) but I’ll smoke out. I appreciate the sentiment regardless, and I enjoy seeing you and your stories all over the place
DOOM, 1993. Finally went through and beat it. Also recently sat down and learned how to edit wads as well as picking up ACS for advanced map scripting. Still a great game.
Same, but it was because Steam updated it with new graphics modes and I wanted to replay it. Doing Doom 2 now.
Fallout 1997
Collassal Cave Adventure, 1976
Was going to post this as well. Just replayed it again, never gets old!
There is a threatening little dwarf in the room with you
Same here
Oldest game I’ve actually played this year would probably be a bit of Ultima IV: Quest for the Avatar, 1985.
I found that game borderline impossible. Tried my little ass off but could only get one rune or whatever it was. If you got poisoned without being able to deal with it you were done
Yeah it absolutely does not hold your hand at all. It really helps to have the supplemental stuff that originally came with it like the big cloth map. They’re included digitally with things like gog but not everyone knows that. It definitely doesn’t have some of the quality of life we’ve gotten used to in the years since release. It was also intentionally unique in how it was presenting the story in that just killing things that attack you isn’t always the right answer in combat.
I can totally see how a lot of people would bounce off of it. I am sure some of it for me is nostalgia, though if you get into it there’s a lot there.
If the story of it interests you and you just wanna watch a retrospective about it there’s a great series majuular is doing on youtube. https://youtu.be/hkfBiIyJd7E
Please don’t misunderstand- I still have the magic book that came with it (I lost the Kyle the Younger book), and when my mom passed away a few years ago and I had to clean out her house, I sold the cloth map on ebay (I got like 60€ I think). I was annoyed I couldn’t find that little ankh that came w/ the game…
I used to read the magic spells book over and over. I was probably 9 or 10. Y(up) and Z(down) … god those dungeons were tricky. I was always scared to drink from fountains (blech, poisoned?) Its been a while.
So I know all about it, the mantras… those portals w/ the phases of the moon… anyway, I was young. I think I got one of the virtues, but I felt like to get the Valor one you had to kill like 20 guards and it was never gonna happen. I did show every friend who came over the tarot card scene at the beginning to choose your character class, though.
I tried to see if I could finally make it about 5 years ago and downloaded some kinda emulator, but I think I had trouble “changing discs” and lost progress and gave up.
What emulator are you using? i played it on Apple IIc, and I’d want to use that same exact everything if I was to give it a go.
Oh I didn’t mean it to sound derogatory. I played it back on commodore64 back when it first came out in that same age range… so yeah I get it… it’s obtuse game for sure. Great if you get into it, tons of content, but definitely a lot.
Last time I tried it was on the pc version, which is free fwiw. https://www.gog.com/en/game/ultima_4
I’ve never tried it on apple II so I couldn’t really say for emulation on that one.
Side note, if you want to play something that was heavily inspired by the classic Ultima games check out Moonring. It was made by one of the original devs of Fable and he outright says Ultima inspired it and the game wears that lineage on it’s sleeve. It’s got a lot of nice modern QoL and it was released for free and is still in active development. It’s just a passion project for him.
thanks for the shout, I’ll look into that
I’ll look at that version of ultima IV, for me, its kind of unfinished business… gotta get on that druid shit
This week it’s been Megaman II (1988).
I feel like games before that era had a lot of coin-op focus. Not much content, but hard enough that you’ll be pouring more credits into the machine. That said, I’ve been itching to play Alley Cat (1983), but I don’t have a good setup for MS-DOS games at the moment. I’ll have to see if my Miyoo mini is up for the task.
I played countless hours of Cave Noire this year. It’s a coffee break roguelite that released in 1991 on Gameboy.
I fuck around with old games a lot but there are not that many games I get really into these days. Cave Noire is similar to Desktop Dungeons where every attempt is a short puzzle so it fits pick up and play nature of Gameboy. Can’t recommend it enough if you’re into this kind of stuff.
I am very much into this kind of stuff.
Gonna download (my totally legal backup copy) now and check it out
Edit: is it accessible without knowing much Japanese?
Edit: is it accessible without knowing much Japanese?
It is, if you look a few things up, but there’s also a readily available translated “backup copy” floating around.
Awesome, thanks for the tip!
Edit: the patch is still available on romhacking.net for the time being. I don’t know when the official shutdown for file hosting is
Of the games I can think of, probably Super Mario Land.
Recently got a cheap Gamecube and now I‘m playing through Windwaker and some Double Dash every now and then. It’s insane how good the games still look that support progressive mode through the digital port.
I’m currently playing through WW and thought the same thing. I’m doing it emulated, though, which is neat cause I can do the weird GBA feature without wasting batteries. Why not have Tingle whereever you go?
Does a remake of the first Wipeout count? It was technically made very recently, as the source code was leaked in 2022 and a couple of projects re-built the game based on that, but the original came out in 1995
If that doesn’t count then it’s Battle Engine Aquila from 2003
Aquilla is a really cool game. I think I came across it by chance on a warez site back in the day. I had never heard about it. Honestly, I think this is the first time since that I’ve seen any mention of it. Might have to dig up a copy. Thanks for reminding me!
I was honestly surprised by how well it held up. The battles still feel impressively huge. Have fun with it!
Missile Command is a 1980 shoot 'em up arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. and later licensed to Sega for Japanese and European releases.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Command
On the actual arcade machine as well, with the huge ball “mouse”.
Felt challenging, but also how it would be kinda trivial with a mouse and keyboard.
Probably the ancient pong machine my grandfather had.
Commander Keen (1990) on Steam
Warms my heart to know that game has been brought along into the future, that was such an awesome game for my brother and i to discover as kids
I remember as a kid that the main thing I liked about the game was that there was a pogo stick in it. Me and my brothers played it a lot. It was only in the last years I learned that it was also a technical masterpiece.
Day of the Tentacle (1993). Admittedly, it was the remastered version from 2016 which has more modern controls, but the game is exactly the same as the old one.
It was fascinating to look at it again with more mature eyes: besides the fact that it feels a bit dated as a whole, it was funny to me to notice how much humanity loves time travel stories.
It’s not that this game is doing anything different in that regard, it’s just that I thought about how much media exists on the subject (and has been very successful).
Anyhow, although dated, the game is brilliant and wholesome and made me wonder which are the best (and recent) graphic adventure games
