DOS games that still totally hold up today.

[The White Hunter]

Doom
Doom 2
Star Wars: Dark Forces
(Hey, I like what I like)
XCom: UFO Defense is definitely still one of the best tactics games.

Ironically, I don't think Wolfenstein3D holds up too well because it's a very slow pace compared to the Doom series, with less weapon variety and more bland level design.

There are certainly others, but these games come up whenever I think of "Great" games anyway, so they certainly hold up despite their age.

I agree, Wolfenstein 3D does not hold up today, it's just too archaic and limited for what it is. It's valuable and interesting as the start of a genrew, but otherwise it's skippable.

I'll echo the Doom games and throw out Duke Nukem 3D, that's still a great shooter.

Rise of the Triad is pretty rad to, Shadow Warrior is pretty fun to. There's a horror themed one thats good to but I can't remember the name right now. I think they were DOS games, or at least DOS compatible. I didn't really have a DOS PC so my experience is limited.

 

[RicoADF]

The original Command and Conquer and Red Alert. Although they were ported to windows they started in DOS. My personal favourite series and its sad what EA did to it. Also second vote for Wing Commander

 

[WindKnight]

I'll echo the Doom games and throw out Duke Nukem 3D, that's still a great shooter.

Definatel;y gor for Doom. Mixed feelings on Duke Nukem, the gameplay is still pretty neat, but a lot of the humour hasn;t aged well and had me cringing.

I'll be another to mention System Shock, as well as its Mech related cousin, Terra Nova, though outoide of the GoG re-release you may struggle to get it running.

 

[Cette]

The Quest for Glory series largely holds up. Of course how much that is true is somewhat dependent on how you feel about games killing you in ways you don't see coming and then mocking you for it.

 

[mizushinzui]

I'll echo the Doom games and throw out Duke Nukem 3D, that's still a great shooter.

Definatel;y gor for Doom. Mixed feelings on Duke Nukem, the gameplay is still pretty neat, but a lot of the humour hasn;t aged well and had me cringing.

I'll be another to mention System Shock, as well as its Mech related cousin, Terra Nova, though outoide of the GoG re-release you may struggle to get it running.

Yeah the 'jokes' in Duke 3D were sort of made sour by the times, not to mention Duke Nukem forever. That game somehow retroactively made duke nukem 3D seem worse.

The problem with a lot of adventure games from that period is that they do have sort of insane puzzles.

That sort of depends on your ability, doesn't it? I could say that the problem with most of today's game is they have insane action sequences, but that's only because I suck at them. I'm sure most people would be able to tackle adventure game logic if they had a bit more experience with it, just like my action-itis.

I'm not sure that it does depend on your ability so much as how much brute force puzzle solving you're willing to do.

I've played tons of 90s adventure games and beyond and there are lots that have mostly logical puzzles that feel like they have a natural solution. Some games are just like 'oh so I was supposed to use the fish on the mantle piece so that the cat would jump up to eat it and break the mantlepiece so I could use the wooden plank from it to give to that angry ogre living in me shed'

Most adventure games from the time period are fine, it's just some of the more insane moments that can trip newer players up.

 

[dohnut king]

So many great games already mentioned, here are a few others.

Railroad Tycoon. Slap some new paint on it and this would be a top game in any year.
Sid Meier's Pirates, which was updated into one of the best games for the Xbox.
SimCity 2000. So much better than the recent iterations.
Wing Commander was an absolute blast. Someone should make a nice and simple reboot of the game, or something like it if the rights to the original can't be secured. Don't add extra features or graft any other game genres to it.

 

[Weaver]

For me it's Raptor: Call of the Shadows. I love that game and it's still super fun and satisfying to play!

 

[Nimcha]

Grand Prix 2!

 

[Meximagician]

I tried playing The Lost Vikings a couple of years ago when Blizzard re-released it for free on their store. It's still a great puzzle game, and the 2D graphics haven't aged so badly.

I'd be up for a sequel. Trine is the closest thing to it that I've come across (also a great series).

Good thing there was! Norse by Norse West: The Return of the Lost Vikings

OT: I'll occasionally play a few rounds of Dangerous Dave 2 while waiting for something to download. I really want to get into Colony, but nobody seems to have a version where the cursor is visible. Also, how did we get this far without mentioning Zork?

 

[F-I-D-O]

Doom
Doom 2
Star Wars: Dark Forces
(Hey, I like what I like)
XCom: UFO Defense is definitely still one of the best tactics games.

Ironically, I don't think Wolfenstein3D holds up too well because it's a very slow pace compared to the Doom series, with less weapon variety and more bland level design.

There are certainly others, but these games come up whenever I think of "Great" games anyway, so they certainly hold up despite their age.

I agree, Wolfenstein 3D does not hold up today, it's just too archaic and limited for what it is. It's valuable and interesting as the start of a genrew, but otherwise it's skippable.

I'll echo the Doom games and throw out Duke Nukem 3D, that's still a great shooter.

Rise of the Triad is pretty rad to, Shadow Warrior is pretty fun to. There's a horror themed one thats good to but I can't remember the name right now. I think they were DOS games, or at least DOS compatible. I didn't really have a DOS PC so my experience is limited.

You're probably thinking of either Blood or Hexen. Blood uses more of the Duke Nukem/Shadow Warrior pattern, and is pretty good. That train level is still fun.

I have a tendency to forget what games were DOS. Shadow Warrior, Duke 3D, and Triad didn't even come up in my head.

 

[Xeros]

System Shock, anyone? Not only a fantastic game in its own right, but Night Dive Studios, the ones responsible for it and its sequel's being compatible with your fancy-pants rig, have acquired the rights and have started development on a remake to bring this gem into the modern age.

Being the studio that brought it back to the surface, I'd hope they would understand better than anyone what made it such a beloved series and will do it proper justice.

Doesn't the fact that they just remade it entail that it doesn't hold up? Nothing against SS of course, as it's my favorite Shock game.

Not necessarily. Half-Life still holds up very well, but I adored Black Mesa. The original may hold up well, but there's little I wouldn't give to see it realized on today's tech. Figured it'd be some good news to anyone who's a fan. =D

Plus it'd be nice to see a return to form for FPSRPG's.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

The problem with a lot of adventure games from that period is that they do have sort of insane puzzles.

That sort of depends on your ability, doesn't it? I could say that the problem with most of today's game is they have insane action sequences, but that's only because I suck at them. I'm sure most people would be able to tackle adventure game logic if they had a bit more experience with it, just like my action-itis.

I'm not sure that it does depend on your ability so much as how much brute force puzzle solving you're willing to do.

I've played tons of 90s adventure games and beyond and there are lots that have mostly logical puzzles that feel like they have a natural solution. Some games are just like 'oh so I was supposed to use the fish on the mantle piece so that the cat would jump up to eat it and break the mantlepiece so I could use the wooden plank from it to give to that angry ogre living in me shed'

Most adventure games from the time period are fine, it's just some of the more insane moments that can trip newer players up.

Yeah...If you've got a fish in your inventory chances are it's going to be used on a cat. I mean how many things can you do with a fish? (Toonstruck being an exception) This is pretty much Adventuring 101. That example isn't really that out of the ordinary.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I play Dooms using the Weapons of Saturn mod, and the Demon Steele mod.

The Summoning still holds up, if you are a total masochist.

 

[mizushinzui]

The problem with a lot of adventure games from that period is that they do have sort of insane puzzles.

That sort of depends on your ability, doesn't it? I could say that the problem with most of today's game is they have insane action sequences, but that's only because I suck at them. I'm sure most people would be able to tackle adventure game logic if they had a bit more experience with it, just like my action-itis.

I'm not sure that it does depend on your ability so much as how much brute force puzzle solving you're willing to do.

I've played tons of 90s adventure games and beyond and there are lots that have mostly logical puzzles that feel like they have a natural solution. Some games are just like 'oh so I was supposed to use the fish on the mantle piece so that the cat would jump up to eat it and break the mantlepiece so I could use the wooden plank from it to give to that angry ogre living in me shed'

Most adventure games from the time period are fine, it's just some of the more insane moments that can trip newer players up.

Yeah...If you've got a fish in your inventory chances are it's going to be used on a cat. I mean how many things can you do with a fish? (Toonstruck being an exception) This is pretty much Adventuring 101. That example isn't really that out of the ordinary.

The fish/cat thing totally makes sense, and that's the sort of thing that I would say constitutes a good puzzle, it's the arbitrary nature of the rest of it that doesn't make sense. Yeah I might be able to guess that I am supposed to put the fish near the cat, but in some games the cat wouldn't be on screen until after you place the fish, so you wouldn't know why you had the fish or what you were supposed to do with it because there's no clue to it's use.

I'm saying this is the case in bad adventure games for the most part, but even some classics have puzzles that don't make sense every so often. I'm basically saying it's the difference between a game like curse of enchantia and a game like monkey island or loom.

I mean in curse of enchantia you have to give a fish to an eskimo so he gives you his fishing rod so you can smash the fishing rod in half to set a fire. That's completely nut-butters considering there are like 20 other more suitable wooden objects you have in your inventory at any one given time.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Quest for Glory is still the best point-n-click rpg hybrid I've ever played.

In fact, I'd even dare to say they're Sierra's best series.

I'm always surprised I don't hear more people talking about the Quest for Glory series. Instead its kings quest that gets all the praise when it should have been Quest for Glory since its fuckawesome.

Same here. I played nearly all the Sierras and QFG remains the favorite, and the only one I've replayed recently. Space Quest was the funniest, Kings Quest the most touching and nicely crafted, Police Quest was cool but got boring. QFG was the only one with RPG elements that made each character type so different in each playthrough.

My fav's for this list other than Sierra are:
-Doom
-Quake
-Blood/Hexen
-XCOM
-Warcraft II
-Carmageddon
-Grand Theft Auto
-Wing Commander
-Dark Forces
-Descent
-Raptor (the top-down flying shooter)
-Eye of the Beholder

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

Doom

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Doom doesn't hold up at all. I mean, running around like a headless chicken killing things is fun for half an hour or so, but now that games have stories (and did well before 1993) I expect more than "demons from hell are invading - kill them all". It's kind of like the development of books. First there were scratchings on cave walls, then words and then novels. Would anyone buy a novel nowadays containing a few stick figures killing a bull? That is Doom compared with more developed titles (many of which came before it).

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I sank hours in to Commander Keen. Well, the mini game on his wrist computer anyway.