old adventure games?

back when my family got our first computer in 1992, it came with a game called "the curse of monkey island".
it was an old dos adventure game, where you used your wit and intellegence to figure things out and rescue the mayor of melee island from the evil undead pirate lechuck.
it took me about 2 years to finally beat that game, but it's still my favorite game. funnier than heck and very challenging.
they have 4 of them now, all of which i have played and beat.

i also used to play kings quest. i prefer the older ones, but even up to number 6 were great. i haven't played 7, and the final one doesn't seem to be in the same catagory, though i may be mistaken.

"loom" is another game, by the creators of monkey island. i aquired it recently, and was able to beat it in one day. it was darn fun, but just too easy /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

does anyone know of these games, and if there are any games similar to them?
i'm really not much of a gamer. i've played some of the current and recent popular games like command and conquer, rainbow six, diablo, unreal tournament, and similar, but none of them appealed to me in the way the old dos adventure geames did. maybe it's because my first computer game was monkey island, or maybe because i just like them, i'm not really sure /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

I just bought my son a new Game Cube with the Zelda game pack. I just bought it 'cuz it was on his Christmas list. What he and I both didn't know was that the Zelda game pack is every Zelda Game all on one disc. I loved the first one... the original Legend of Zelda for Super NES. I was the first one in the family to beat it... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif ... I played the second one on the Nintendo 64... I beat that one too. But then I never seemed to find time for the third and fourth ones... and now there's a fifth?!?! ... Anyway, my son has been tempting me to play the whole series on the Game Cube... even hooked it up on the big screen for me. I'm tempted... very tempted... so if you don't see me for several days... you'll know that I gave in to temptation... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinser2.gif

@Rothrandir: If you want to play the old style games once again, just do a search in google for "abandonware". There are web sites out there that are dedicated to preserving the old DOS games and you can even download the old games on some of the sites.

Not all of the old DOS games are in the public domain but most of the companies that put out the old DOS games are long out of business and so there really isn't much fuss about the copyrights on games that are so old that they will likely never go back into print ever again. Just so long as you aren't trying to make money off of the old games, they will usually turn a blind eye toward the whole copyright issue. That's how these game preservation web sites are still in existence today without being shut down.

There are also programs out there that will slow down your computer enough to play the old DOS games to because many of the old games were dependent on your processor speed for their timing. Thankfully that practice has, for the most part, been abandoned over time. You will usually also find the programs necessary to slow down your computer on the same game preservation sites that you will find the old DOS games on. Also, there are sound emulators out there to that emulate the old Sound Blaster sound card that nearly all old DOS games were dependant on.

That should help to get you well on your way to enjoying all of those old DOS games that you have fond memories of. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

thanks cal! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

i couldn't get the sound working on loom /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
what's worse, is that loom is almost entirely dependant on sound! luckily there were visual clues also! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

sasha, i've never really played zelda. i remember i rented the ocarina of time once for my n64 (when i still had it), but other than that i've had no experience with zelda...

*edit* i've been looking through these abandonware sites, but not really sure what titles would appeal to me.
anything along the lines of the 3 games i mentioned in my first post that you can suggest?

Rothrandir, I agree that many of today's games do not have the same appeal as the older games. I remember the days as a child, glued to the screen playing the NES (I still do... NES rules!) as well as some memorable DOS titles. Perhaps it's nostalgia, or perhaps today's games place too much emphasis on the graphics. We don't see any side scroller, single screen, or top down games anymore. The 2D world is slowly disappearing. The exception would be the Game Boy Advance, although some of its games are in the form of unfaithful rereleases of some classic titles, similar to the colorization of black and white movies or modification to a classic.

One of the reasons that I refuse to uprade my Windows 98 to a more recent OS was so that it retain its backward compatibility with the older games. I have an older computer with Windows 95 just in case I need to step back even further. X-CalBRB, do you know of any program that can allow me to run DOS games that will otherwise not run in the "Win 98 DOS"? Apparently, the DOS that Win 98 runs on is different than the older DOS.

Sasha, I believe the original Legend of Zelda was for the NES... I have it right here. The cartridge is all golden and shiny. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

Roth,

From the games you're talking about, I'd guess you'd like Wasteland.

@Catapult: I know what you mean about the different versions of DOS and the inherent problems with them. There are quite a few tweakes that you can perform to help improve compatibility, but even then, it's just a matter of luck getting some of the old DOS games to run properly under 98 and it is next to impossible to get them to work in the crappy version of DOS that comes with XP. That is one reason that I hardly ever play the old DOS games anymore. I'm forced to run XP because my motherboard is so new that it won't work with an older OS and XP DOS sucks.

@Roth: Concerning your sound problems, here is one of the groups that are working on a DOS sound emulator. Here is another one that should be even better than the first, though I've not had a chance to try it yet. With WinXP, I've pretty well given up on my old DOS games anyway since the compatibility stinks so badly.

@Rothrandir: From the games that you mentioned, I believe that you would really enjoy the King's Quest series and perhaps even the Quest for Glory series. Those were a couple of my favorites from back in those days. If I recall correctly, the last couple of games in the Kings Quest series and the Quest for Glory series were actually Windows games so you might not have all of the compatibility problems with those games. You might also enjoy The Legend of Kyrandia as well, it was a great old adventure game to. I used to have the whole box set of them, but I ended up selling them off years ago and now I regret parting with them.

The last 'puter game I enjoyed was, wait for it, Adventure.

(1980 vintage - came with all UNIX systems up through SVR4, I believe.)

Zork was the eventual copy of it for Apple and IBM Compatible machines.

The coding in that game was fascinating (the 'source' came with it).



<font color="blue"> You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

$
</font>

space quest anyone? that game rocked!

I have all the Space Quests on CD. Legal and everything. Awesome games. They play EXCELLENT on my Mac running VirtualPC running Windows 98. I'm sure I could dig them up for Mac but as I already have the PC versions and VPC does such a good job of playing these oldies-but-goodies...

If you're really in for an adventure, to play an adventure, get on the web and find a 68k Mac emulator (Hmm...like maybe Basilisk[/ur]) and then a 68k Mac rom (Wonder who might have one if you eMailed them...) and then last but not least get yourself a copy of [url=http://mac.the-underdogs.org/index.php?show=game&id=2]3 in three. If you want to get really technical on me it's more of a puzzle game, but still an excellent one at that (and one, I might add, I have yet to finish). Basically you're a "3" that a computer refuses to accept as a "3" so you're stuck in the computer and...oh great fun!

Should I be worried? I'm on OS X and my computer just asked me to go outside to replace the AE35 unit ...

cal, yes i did like kings quest...i mentioned them in my first post /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

thanks for all the suggestions guys. i'll see what i can do about aquiring them /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Only if your computer controls your doorlocks Tomas /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I used to love 'mines of Moria' on my first PC, an old 286. Anyone help me to find it? I look periodically for it but no luck yet.

Ross

mines of moria?

now that sounds interesting /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

other names could be:
the black chasm
the tunnels of khazad-dum

of course, most people might not get that /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

2nd or 3rd link on google:

http://www.lysator.liu.se/tolkien-games/entry/mom.html
[ QUOTE ]

Mines of Moria

Produced by: Ketchup Games
Author: Adam Roberts
Year: 1999
System: Windows 3.x
Type: Platform game
Distribution: Freeware
Availability: Downloadable (see below)
Licensed: No

The first game in a trilogy, this game is about a fellow named Feagwaith who enters Moria in search of Mithril. It was developed with Klik & Play.

Note that there is another game, The Mines of Moria with a nearly identical title.

Personal evaluation: Buggy, simple, stupid and nearly impossible to control the character. Klik & Play at its worst.

Screen shot



So this is Moria, eh? I never would have guessed... Click on image to see original size.

Net resources

Download the game



[/ QUOTE ]


[ QUOTE ]
Ross said:
I used to love 'mines of Moria' on my first PC, an old 286. Anyone help me to find it? I look periodically for it but no luck yet.

Ross

[/ QUOTE ]

I have a copy of Moria for DOS in my archives. It runs in Protected Mode, and it uses text characters for the graphics. Talk about old! I think I also have Omega, which is another text character graphics program.

I also have the SSI Gold Box AD&D games, which are fun. Corridor 7 (scifi) is another DOS game and it is quite good.

Hack, which is now Nethack, a derivative of Rogue, is also good (still maintained and improved even today). I have Nethack Falcon's Eye, which uses full isometric view graphics, and has a windows binary (compiled) and the source you can compile for other platforms.

I am going with XP Pro, probably, for my primary system. However I am going to have a Win98SE system for these older games. I need my fix occasionally. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

ahhhh loom,,, geeeez, i played that,, loooooooooong time ago.

You guys are making me feel old. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

Here is the URL for the freeware game NetHack that Charles mentioned earlier. It is a really fun game that a lot of people enjoy.