/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.10163414]

I haven't played a lot of computer games. I was thinking I would start at the beginning and work forward. A couple of questions:

1) are there many games for terminals that are still accessible and playable on modern machines in some respect (either an emulator, or a faithful remake, etc.)?

2) what were the most significant computers for games in the 70s and 80s? My existing knowledge suggests Atari 800 and C64 for America, the Speccy for Britain, the MSX for Japan, and then I draw a blank, I suppose fill in with IBM-PC though I didn't think it really became significant until the 90s. Am I wrong about that? Or, is there another machine I should consider? Apple, Amstrad, Fujitsu, Sharp? BBC Micro even?

3) I am aware of some big computer games of the era, as well as ones on specific systems. I am most aware of games I want to try on the MSX, the Spectrum, and the C64. With that said, what are some important standout games to check out from PCs in the 70s and 80s? My short list so far:

>elite
>school daze
>lords of midnight
>MULE
>star raiders
>ultima series
>wizardry series
>project firestarter
>dragon slayer series
>hydlide
>various MSX games from konami, T&E, others

What are some notable exceptions that I am missing? I am sure there must be some since I haven't really even begun to dig into releases from companies like Rare or Sierra or Activision. Any help to offer here?

tl;dr please recommend key hardware and software to explore for someone new to 70s and 80s computer games

please disregard all arcades and consoles and handhelds. I already know a great deal about these. I am only trying to address my computer blind spot.

inb4 >there aren't any

[Anonymous No.10163628]

>>10163414
The Apple II was pretty important too since a lot of American games were developed for it, but then got (often better) ports on other systems. The Amstrad CPC was quite big in some parts of Europe, but not as big as the C64 or Speccy. Japan also had the PC-88 and PC-98.

When it comes to 70s/80s games I'd add The Oregon Trail, Advent, Infocom's text-adventure games, King's Quest, The Seven Cities of Gold, Bard’s Tale, Mercenary, Impossible Mission, Chaos, The Sentinel, Sid Meier's Pirates, Laser Squad, Prince of Persia. But there's really too many to list, it depends on what genres you like.

[Anonymous No.10163815]

>>10163414
You're on the right track OP. Personally I really like the Japanese computers, MSX series, PC-88, PC-98, Sharp X68000, and FM Towns. There's also Sharp X1 but it's another basic 8-bit machine. PC-98 has Touhou series, Rusty, Marble Cooking, Queen of Duellist, Variable Geo, Valkyrie: The Power Beauties, Steam-Hearts, and several other eroge fighting games and shmups.

The Euro computers are a different beast entirely, I wouldn't say they are bad but just keep in mind they are very different from the Japanese computers and consoles, at least from my experience. Maybe check out the Turrican and Dizzy games on the Amiga. Speccy and C64 also have tons of homebrew but those are two computers I've never really played or gotten into. Let us know how it goes OP

[Anonymous No.10163831]

>>10163628
Smart poster who knows things and recommends good games,
>>10163815
Hmmm…..extreme weabooo recommendations. Seems biased.

[Anonymous No.10163848]

>>10163831
Dizzy and Turrican are not weeaboo games

[Anonymous No.10163851]

>>10163848
Indeed they are not but let’s take a look at that post to establish some things.
> MSX series, PC-88, PC-98, Sharp X68000, and FM Towns. There's also Sharp X1 but it's another basic 8-bit machine. PC-98 has Touhou series, Rusty, Marble Cooking, Queen of Duellist, Variable Geo, Valkyrie: The Power Beauties, Steam-Hearts, and several other eroge fighting games and shmups.
That’s a lot of weeaboo.
But wait!
> Maybe check out the Turrican and Dizzy games on the Amiga.
Wow! Well that’s not exactly a recommendation is it. You cherry picked a throwaway comment in a sea of weeaboo there.

[Anonymous No.10163854]

>>10163831
Nothing wrong with preferring Japanese games and computers.

[Anonymous No.10163856]

Alley Cat won GOTY that year.

[Anonymous No.10163874]

>>10163414
if you want to play all the classic arcade games of the 1980s then MAME emulator has them all, its a gold mine.

[Anonymous No.10163990]

>>10163414
I assume you don't know Japanese which is why you pick MSX as it has more competent "consoleesque" games where reading isn't important. If so, don't bother with Dragon Slayer as Sorcerian is probably the most interesting of the bunch before it went full RPG and that really benefits from all the extra scenario disks that none of the English versions have (Additional Scenario volumes 1-3, Visitor from Outer Space, Gilgamesh, Selected Sorcerians volumes 1-5). The easiest way to get those is on PC98. I know the MSX got some of the scenario disks, but I don't recall if it has all and they weren't translated to English anyway.
The console ports are the same game for the most part, but some have unique scenarios alongside the regular ones and I think one console port had an entirely different selection but I honestly forgot.
If all you really care about is playing the base game, that's fine too as it's not like the actual gameplay systems change or is at all complex enough to require you to play such a huge amount fo scenarios, but I liked the idea of it being a modular adventure and those expansions added to that feel. Kinda like advanced D&D and it's stream of games and Neverwinter Nights and its modules..

[Anonymous No.10164143]

>>10163414
>>10163628
Pretty good lists.
You can also include Burgertime, Cauldron 1&2, Rick Dangerous 1&2, Exolon, Gauntlet, Ikari Warriors I-III, International Karate+, Moon Patrol and Renegade I-III.

[Anonymous No.10164153]

>>10164143
Also a great list. Except renegade 3. That was a terrible entry.

[Anonymous No.10164156]

>>10163856
The original cat KINO before Stray

[Anonymous No.10164197]

>>10163414
C64 is probably the most representative library of the 80s with the best of American, British and European games available. It had good versions of the best RPGs, nearly all infocom, level9, magnetic scrolls and goofy indie adventure games. Early games like HERO and late stuff like Mayhem. It also has a totally accurate emulator called Vice, and there's the c64 maxi if you can get one.

Recommend sample of games:
Paradroid
UltimaIV gold
Below the root
Turrican2
Magic candle
HERO
Monty on the run
Buggy boy
Gemstone warrior
Fred
Frantic Freddy
Mr do
Sentinel
IK+
Wizball
Tetris
Bionic commando
Zorro
Ultimate wizard
Portal
Defender of the crown
Master of magic
Hero of the golden talisman
Wasteland
Maniac mansion
Kayleth>>10163414

[Anonymous No.10164858]

you're missing PC-98 and BBS door games. after all that you listed jump to DOS, then W95, W98, XP

[Anonymous No.10165292]

A few landmark games I didn't see mentioned

Sim City
Dungeon Master
Populous
Lemmings
Virus
Carrier Command
Manic Miner
Jet Set Willy
Stunt Car Racer
Midwinter

[Anonymous No.10165508]

>>10163414
>2) what were the most significant computers for games in the 70s and 80s? My existing knowledge suggests Atari 800 and C64 for America, the Speccy for Britain, the MSX for Japan, and then I draw a blank, I suppose fill in with IBM-PC though I didn't think it really became significant until the 90s. Am I wrong about that? Or, is there another machine I should consider? Apple, Amstrad, Fujitsu, Sharp? BBC Micro even?
BBc Micro
Amstrad CPC
Sprectrum 48 and 128K
Amiga
Atari ST
Atari 400/800xl
Vic 20 (these are limited in ability)
Xz81 (limited in ability)
TRS80
Acorn Archimedes

Dragon 32/64/Acorn Election/ Orac/ Jupiter ace/etc (some nice machines but small or poor libraries)
Apple IIe

Populous
Civilisation
Sim City
Knight Lore
Fairlight
R Type
The Hobbit
The Boggit
Valhalla
Stonkers/Chaos Wizzards/Arhnem/Desert rats/space crusade/Heads and Tails/ Alien 8/ Jet set willy and maniac miner/ Ant attack/Jet Pac/Rampage,Dues Ex Machina (make sure to get the audio tape!), way of the exploding fist
All the Atari classic arcades on the 800
Populous/midwinter
Check out these publishers on the spectrum, Domark(Became Eidos), CCS, Ultimate, ,Beyond Software, Imagine

PC
Doom/Quake/Hexen/Heritic/Skyroads/Wofstein
Zork, Gunship, Colossal cave, Red baron, Dawn patrol, freelancer/starlancer, X Wing.

[Anonymous No.10165523]

>>10165508
samefag
Check out the Hitchhikers guide from Infocom (you are bridging the DOS/CPM/MPM era there) a text adventure on the PC also Lost Eden, Myst and the first dune game (with the weird music!)

[Anonymous No.10166115]

>>10163414
>games for terminals
Do you truly mean terminals or just vintage PCs?
There were plenty of games written for pure terminals and a study of them probably entails understanding non-computer gaming themes from which they arose and how they changed that gameplay.

Can't remember specific titles but remember playing space trading and simulation games the illustrated the scenario with text character printouts.

Action became downright nail-biting when one was trying a difficult maneuver and the computer would spit out a line every 10 seconds or so detailing your health, fuel, position, etc while waiting for you to input your next command.

[Anonymous No.10166184]

>>10164858
>BBS door games
+1 on this
There are quite a few DOS BBSes on the web that one can telnet into. Probably fewer 8-bit BBSes but would also be worth looking into if only to understand how they used their character set to create text based graphics.

The "BBS Documentary" video covers some of this and may provide enough info to satisfy curiosity.

The documentary film 'Get Lamp' covers the evolution of 'text adventure' games and may include content on BBS doors.

How much time are you planning for all this?

[Anonymous No.10166212]

>>10164197
is there anything different about ultima 4 gold compare to regular ultima 4 ?

[Anonymous No.10166385]

>>10166212
It runs better off less disks, they also did a good U3gold There's a cart image as well and the same team did remastered graphics version.

[Anonymous No.10168132]

OP here, bumping while I prepare a reply

[Anonymous No.10168150]

>>10168132
Hey OP. I had an MPM (multi user CPM) machine with too serially attached dub terminals with serial keyboards that would echo to the terminals. They had Zork. You should be able to connect to any of these style machines easily enough with any terminal software that can access a virtual serial port and configure your terminal emulation type like VT52, VT100 or whatever and your start and stop bits and BPS sending receiving from memory many were 1200/75. They were mainly used for limited flat file databases and word processing, maybe payroll printing and the main game variety for them was text adventures. Zork being the classic example.

[Anonymous No.10168303]

>>10168150
>with too serially attached dub terminals
lmfao at this 20yo boomer who was two dub to turn on the subtiles on the youtube he learned abut this from.

[Anonymous No.10169486]

>>10166115
A lot of those games were in BASIC and were later adapted for microcomputer BASIC dialects. I had the book "More BASIC Computer Games" with listings for Hunt the Wumpus and other mainframe classics.

> Action became downright nail-biting when one was trying a difficult maneuver and the computer would spit out a line every 10 seconds or so detailing your health, fuel, position, etc while waiting for you to input your next command.
I remember there was a noticeable delay in some text adventure games that I had typed in from magazines. That did add something to the experience, like you said.

[Anonymous No.10169550]

>>10169486
>I remember...
That was youtube buffering faggot

[Anonymous No.10169606]

Duke Nukum 2D? Duke Nukum 2D.

[Anonymous No.10169610]

>>10169550
Nah, I'm older than you and probably even your dad.

[Anonymous No.10169650]

>>10169610
>wah wah me old fag
larp harder kiddo

[Anonymous No.10169671]

>>10169550
>>10169650
>/v/eddit shit
Go be insufferable elsewhere, unfunny tryhard.

[Anonymous No.10169725]

>>10163414
>I am aware of some big computer games of the era -- what are some important standout games to check from the 70's and 80's?

Depends on what genre and what system you're looking at. For the C64 alone, you've got plenty of different titles to look at which may or may not interest you.

The most difficult thing about PC gaming from that era would be finding the best version of a port, since almost every game released on some other console. If it came out on the C64, it likely came out on the Spectrum and BBC Micro. If it came out on the Apple 2, it likely also came out on the Atari 8-bit. If it came out on the Amiga, it likely also came out on the Atari ST and DOS.

And the port version DOES matter. Some games have different controls, have better framerates, some even have entirely different graphics, or gameplay mechanics. Temple of Apshai is a good example, since the DOS version completely screws up the balance, making the game far easier than it originally was. Enemies barely hurt you, you get HUNDREDS of silver very easily, very early on allowing you to buy all the best items almost immediately, and they removed experience points entirely.

[Anonymous No.10170405]

>>10169725
Most of the games aren't going to last you hundreds of hours so might as well just check every version of a game that interests you.

[Anonymous No.10171517]

>>10170405
indeed, this is part of my plans. I intend to compare ports so that I can suss out information about them. I think it is important to recognize how varied the platforms were, and how this lead to differences in user experience. Some may only warrant a short play, but at the very least I want to boot them up for a bit. Not to mention, one of the games that really fascinates me of late reading is Daiva, because it had 7 ports that were all different games, each made specifically around the target platform and its strengths. On the other hand, I don't see myself playing every single version of jack nicklaus golf, as an example, for more than a few minutes.

>>10166115
>>10169486
interesting. Possible my terminology use was poor. I do know machines had games and entertainment pretty much as soon as they had bored programmers looking to have some fun. Spacewar is the obvious testament to that fact, but I have reason to believe there are more. I just haven't read a lot about computers that aren't home commercial products. If anyone has expertise and could share with me, then I would value their input.

>>10166184
I expect to spend at least a few years on this project. I feel confident with where I am in my knowledge of classic games in other fields, but embarrassingly ignorant of home computers, so I don't mind dedicating a few years ahead to exploring this in detail.

[Anonymous No.10171934]

>>10170405
>aren't going to last you hundreds of hours
That's true of many games today.

What I listed in my screencap are just the RPG's I've specifically selected for the C64. I reckon that list is at least 300, maybe 400 hours worth. Wizardry 5 is listed at over 30 hours, and that's just for the main story.

[Anonymous No.10171968]

>>10163628
I was about to bring up the irony of how the Apple II was pivotal in the development of videos games but now Apple is like a distant 3rd as far as gaming platforms go. The Macintosh was even a gaming powerhouse and it had legitimate competition in terms of gaming computers. The minute the 90's hit though that was it for a very long time. Developers just kind of gave up on Apple platforms.

[Anonymous No.10172001]

>>10171517
>I expect to spend at least a few years
Good luck. It will be a great adventure.
The majority of the enthusiast press from the era is easily available via library access or hobbyist websites. Additionally, Usenet archives will have a wealth of information in the appropriate newsgroups

[Anonymous No.10172197]

>>10169671
>more wah wah
babies. lol.

[Anonymous No.10172628]

>>10171968
It's jobs's fault; He never liked games and always spurned them in every product apple ever made. Carmack had multiple run-ins with him about this; The first was when they wanted to put the NEXT logo on the doom title sequence, but were turned down. The second was when Carmack insisted that they needed 3rd party applications on iphone, and steve basically told him to fuck off (to which Carmack claims he thought about the same in response). The irony is that Jobs was wrong in both cases; They were sore once they saw doom become the biggest computer game ever, and steve's later iphone capitulation resulted in the app store, still the most important thing to happen to the iphone, and as you may recall, one of the biggest spectacle apps at one point was a version of id's rage.

[Anonymous No.10172739]

>>10171517
>Spacewar is the obvious testament to that fact, but I have reason to believe there are more. I just haven't read a lot about computers that aren't home commercial products.
Speaking of these super early games, a prominent one is Empire, an early TBS which was originally made by some guy for the PDP-10 mainframe in the 1970s.
It got commercialized versions later for home computers, notably Empire: Wargame of the Century (1987) and Empire Deluxe(1993)
This should be on your list.

[Anonymous No.10173182]

Very interesting project.

Are you looking for, you know, actually FUN games? Or historically interesting ones?
Or some combination of the two?

[Anonymous No.10173195]

>>10163815
>Recommends Dizzy and Turrican - the quintessential Speccy and C64 games
>Not interested in Speccy or C64 games
Odd post

[Anonymous No.10173210]

>>10164197
The problem with this is that a lot of these C64 ports run like crap compared to their original version due to the C64's crap processor

These days you can easily play anything on any of these systems because emulation is so simple it can happen in a browser window.
No excuse to play weak ports

[Anonymous No.10173264]

Castle Wolfenstein for the Apple II

The original stealth game.

Wolfenstein 3D was originally just supposed to be an updated version of this, until it was decided relatively late in testing that just shooting like a maniac was more fun than creeping around in primitive 3D

[Anonymous No.10173279]

Mystery House for the Apple II

Is it a bit crap? God, yes - but it's also the forerunner of all graphic adventure games, and directly lead to the creation of Sierra

[Anonymous No.10173282]

Lode Runner for the Apple II

It's just really fun

[Anonymous No.10173295]

Exile for the BBC Micro

The BBC Micro is a hugely underrated system - it was never very popular and only had a tiny 32k of RAM, but it was very popular with weirdo nerds who did amazing things with it.

Case in point: this MASSIVE procedurally generated 2D world with a realistic physics simulation and non-linear gameplay.

[Anonymous No.10173348]

The Sentinel for the BBC Micro (among many other systems - the Atari ST version might run the best)

Or this: another unbelievably massive procedurally generated game. This one 3D and weird beyond the telling

[Anonymous No.10174313]

>>10173295
>>10173348
fascinating

[Anonymous No.10176228]

>>10174313
bump, hoping I can get some more info before thread dies

>>10163990
Actually, I am studying Japanese, with the intent of playing some games on J-PC that are famous at the very least (JESUS, オランダ妻 for example). I have been holding off just because I am a beginner, and games more complex than the first final fantasy are tough for me to get through. Many of those games combine kana-only text and super-dense dialogue, so I need more practice and study of vocab before I feel ready for that. If you have Japanese-dependent suggestions, however, then please let me know of them. I have a JIS keyboard as well, so I should be able to do any weird input stuff that might exist.