old PC games seem like they're being forgotten

[Pissmaster]

That sounds like you're describing "NES-on-a-chip" technology, which was a customized chip created in the 1990s and basically hidden under a blob of epoxy, and used in cheap "Famiclones" well into the 2000s. It was cheap to produce but compatibility was terrible and basically had what that list showed, if it came out after 1985, it had issues, with games running incorrectly (bad colors, sound, etc.) or not at all.

You're on the right track. The list of games I posted are games that don't need a special mapper to run in an emulator, as they're pretty much designed around running on the NES as-is. The iNES format considers them Mapper 0 games, because they don't need a mapper at all. If you'd like to see some code that makes up the mappers themselves, here's Mesen's.

and I don't think any licensed NES games had special equipment in them beyond batteries (for saving).

A number of games have unique chips and layouts. Family Basic has some special, large-for-the-time program ROMs. Videomation, a very primitive drawing program, is the only cartridge to use iNES 2.0 Mapper 13.

The funny thing about DOS and Mac games when it came to the mid-1990s was that DOS games had all sorts of configurations and all that, while Mac games just worked, yet nowadays its almost always easier to get the DOS version up and running than to screw around with Mac emulation.

Mac emulation is niche, and more or less limited to BasiliskII and Sheepshaver. They're both very buggy and have limited compatibility, but still run a good swath of software. Apple's backwards compatibility on their own machines via Rosetta was spotless until they just discontinued it because they're Apple, and Apple couldn't give a rat's ass about anything they make over a few years old.

 

[Pissmaster]

So recently I was reminded of another nostalgic PC gaming aspect....

Magazines.

.... Actually, should discussing classic gaming magazines be its own topic? I just know recently I looked at some 1997 PC Gamer magazines and they got me teary-eyed, but thinking back on it, the same happened when I looked at some early-90s Nintendo Power magazines too. Which probably tells you a bit about where I was as a gamer during those years.

I read through a few old Nintendo Powers last year. They're very lively, the visual layouts are nice, and the writing has a nice clean corny style to it, very representative of its era. They really added a certain something to games of the time that's totally lost in the internet age. Memes and internet discussion fill the void that magazines left, but they're just not quite as fun. Probably because we're relying on anonymous soyjaks and spergs instead of pre-Clown World boomers in their 30s in the magazine industry.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

rocket jockey

That was a fantastic LAN game, the kind where you had to take a break because you were laughing too hard. It could be compared to Rocket League I guess.
And hey, what's this that was released three days ago...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2471120/Rocket_Jockey/

I've heard that most did--something called a memory mapper I think? Which apparently basically every mid-to-late-era NES game used because it was necessary for things like multidirectional scrolling.

Without mappers the NES could only scroll along one axis at the time. Think of original Metroid, the environments are always single screen left to right or up and down. A lot of games didn't use any mappers because putting a special chip on a floppy(Famicom Disk System) obviously didn't work.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

I've heard that most did--something called a memory mapper I think? Which apparently basically every mid-to-late-era NES game used because it was necessary for things like multidirectional scrolling.

When it comes to NES emulation, I remember for a long time Startropics would not run in emulators, or would be a glitchy mess if it did. I never learned why though.

So I did look into it—that would be the Memory management controller chip series, which allowed for additional memory and features for save games. I would guess that the first NES emulators allowed support for CNROM, UNROM, MMC1, MMC2, and MMC3, which would allow for compatibility to almost all major titles. StarTropics and its sequel used the rare MMC6 (and were the only games to do so), explaining its incompatibility with older emulators. MMC4 and MMC5 weren't used in mainstream games...Wikipedia says MMC4 was only used with Fire Emblem and its sequel, as well as Famicom Wars, but no one was playing those games back in the 1990s. MMC5 was used with Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse and a bunch of other obscure games, most of which were never brought over to the West. (I would guess early NES emulators would also have issues with Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse as well).

 

[Overwritten Tapes]

That was a fantastic LAN game, the kind where you had to take a break because you were laughing too hard. It could be compared to Rocket League I guess.
And hey, what's this that was released three days ago...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2471120/Rocket_Jockey/

Without mappers the NES could only scroll along one axis at the time. Think of original Metroid, the environments are always single screen left to right or up and down. A lot of games didn't use any mappers because putting a special chip on a floppy(Famicom Disk System) obviously didn't work.

Yo I appreciate that link! I'm going to buy the game over the weekend just for old times sake.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

I dont quite remember the glory days in their entirety but I remember a time when PC was the big experimental place for foreign indies. The PC market practically exploded in 98 99 with a ton of games which were ripoffs of popular pc genres like rts and crpg from fucking russia and balkans and whatnot. It still amazes me browsing gog archives and myabandonware finding properly developed games which were quite buggy but werent asset flips from weirdo fucking places. And they didnt predominantly copy nontendo crap from the 90s or were the smug pretentious indie games of today, even if they were largely clones of AOE or Ultima/TES. Besides that you had the flash arcade and online arcade markets, companies like alawar, bigfishgames and the like who are most famous for farm frenzy which is the best time management game and the proto live service along with facebooks farmville. But they also made stuff like escape the museum which is pretty great for a hidden object game and the snowy the bear franchise which I also liked as a kid.

 

[Merowinger]

WarBreeds from 1998 from Red Orb Entertainment

A real time strategy game with a dark atmosphere where you take basic alien creatures and add new limbs with weapons for close or range combat to custom build your army.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarBreeds :

"The game is set in a far off galaxy where the humanoid amphibian race called the Yedda have died out due to famine, disease and civil war, leaving their four former servitor races to fight for supremacy for their planet. WarBreeds features the ability to fully customise the warriors with many types of weapons which provide over 35,000 unique combinations. The central theme and mechanic of the game is genetic engineering."

Here is some gameplay(without commentary)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMTSRyA3nDA

Oh, it's get a reRelease this month! (obviously I bet you can find it online somewhere)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2464660/WarBreeds/

https://www.gog.com/de/game/warbreeds

 

[Fuck It We'll Do It Live]

Warcraft 2's manual also has histories on the different clans, kingdoms, races, and regions.

With Warcraft 2 currently on sale on GOG, the fact the manual comes with it is feels like a valid reason alone for me to buy it, as I was a fan of Starcraft's (and Brood War's) manuals. I couldn't read the lore as the copy of the game I had was in a foreign language unfamiliar to me at the time but the artwork had that same gritty feel of old Warhammer 40K (up to 3rd edition). It's quite the departure to the later neon colors and cartoony aesthetic of World of Warcraft.

I felt like I missed out with the revolutionary PC games that came out in the mid to late 90s, such as Diablo 1 and Warcraft 2 (not to mention FPS classics such as Quake), not really engaging with PC gaming until a bit later, largely due to the price of a PC at the time (as many of you have already pointed out throughout this thread), not to mention how quickly PC hardware became obsolete even within a year or two; my first PC of my own was something someone else wanted to get rid off after having bought a new one; it could at least play Starcraft.

 

[Scarthew]

less people had pcs in those eras and unlike classic console games its very difficult to play old pc games, emulating old windows versions is a nightmare and often doesnt work, compatibility doesnt work, drm is lost to time, they dont run even at 1080 resolution, sound issues due to hardware changes. Getting old pc games to work is a chore. So their audience hasnt expanded amd it was niche even back then. And since the market was small, most of those companies went bankrupt, even the games people love overwhelmingly like interplay or trilobyte so re-releases are more unlikely as well.

 

[skykiii]

even the games people love overwhelmingly like interplay or trilobyte so re-releases are more unlikely as well.

... Trilobyte's The 7th Guest recently came to the Switch, FWIW.

 

[Scarthew]

yea and a fan game came out. Was a bad one to list since they did come back but the company did go bankrupt.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1107230/The_13th_Doll_A_Fan_Game_of_The_7th_Guest/

Haven't played it yet but the few that did seem to like it.

 

[gurfan]

Nox was a MOBA game that was about 10 years too early. The singleplayer got added as an afterthought, the real fun is in multi.

how to crash a nox server

trick discovered by me .

also lets not forget diablo is a cheap copy of nox. but ea killed westwood and hacker namer BURNER hacked the ladder servers and the official servers were closed but Morden Trall coded a dll that permitts us to continue to play online.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

Don't know where else to put this
@GunCar Gary

It seems the LBA remake has found a publisher and is headed towards consoles/PC this fall

 

[skykiii]

Don't know where else to put this
@GunCar Gary

It seems the LBA remake has found a publisher and is headed towards consoles/PC this fall

I'm not familiar with the original, but I just want to show that thumbnail to modern kids and LOL any time one of them says "this looks like an ATLA ripoff."

 

[marvlouslie]

Here's an obscure one no one really talks about anymore. NFL Challenge. One of the GREATEST (at the time, anyway) football sim games ever made.

 

[Rock hard as a Flintstone]

The high point of PC gaming for me was being handed a virus infected 3.5" floppy with Stunts on it that had gone around all the kids in the neighborhood so it was absolutely filled with trackbuilder concoctions.

Scorched Earth and Dune II were a lot of fun too (the latter was about the inflection point where uppity Amiga owners became peasants).

 

[GunCar Gary]

Don't know where else to put this
@GunCar Gary

It seems the LBA remake has found a publisher and is headed towards consoles/PC this fall

thanks for the heads up, i'm looking forward to playing it. i played the demo they released a year ago and i thought they did a pretty good job overall, although the graphics style still looks a little wonky to me

as much as i'm looking forward to the game i don't think it's going to go very well commercially. what they had in the demo feels like a lot of other remakes and modern reimaginings where they miss why the game was good in the first place and slather current year funk all over it. the demo felt very stiff and lifeless compared to the old game...but then again, it was a demo for finding a publisher more than anything

we'll see how it goes come launch time

 

[BatterHomes&Gardens]

Exile Escape From The Pit

Started my love for dungeon crawlers. Not really into some weirdo nerds story about a fantasy land, I was 13ish at the time and just wanted to sling spells and shoot arrows.

Then came Ultima Online

UO was the fucking best. I was 14 year old latch key kid when UO came out and I spent summers lost in that world. For you UO guys I was playing on Pacific, had an L shaped house on fire island illegally placed (recall rune trick) with trees growing through it and my sister fucking deleted the character that owned the house and it fell. I was filthy rich because of the bank note dupe trick. I was one of the guys that didn't get banned because I didn't dupe 100,000,000 gold. I think I squeaked through the ban with 8 million gold. As I became an adult and had some pocket money I started a freeshard with some friends that was pretty popular for a while. Also you can't forget the Imanewbie comic.

For the record UO is the gayest game now. It's got Ninjas in it? Like this game is old enough to rent a car, they still charge monthly for it. Let it fucking die EA.

 

[Town Drunk]

Exile Escape From The Pit

View attachment 6149122

Started my love for dungeon crawlers. Not really into some weirdo nerds story about a fantasy land, I was 13ish at the time and just wanted to sling spells and shoot arrows.

Then came Ultima Online

View attachment 6149137

UO was the fucking best. I was 14 year old latch key kid when UO came out and I spent summers lost in that world. For you UO guys I was playing on Pacific, had an L shaped house on fire island illegally placed (recall rune trick) with trees growing through it and my sister fucking deleted the character that owned the house and it fell. I was filthy rich because of the bank note dupe trick. I was one of the guys that didn't get banned because I didn't dupe 100,000,000 gold. I think I squeaked through the ban with 8 million gold. As I became an adult and had some pocket money I started a freeshard with some friends that was pretty popular for a while. Also you can't forget the Imanewbie comic.

For the record UO is the gayest game now. It's got Ninjas in it? Like this game is old enough to rent a car, they still charge monthly for it. Let it fucking die EA.

Back in the day. Do you play EQ or UO? I was too young to be good at it, but was my first MMO game. After that came Anarchy Online, which I would love to make a private server to get mod powers to explore, because damn that game is hard without being an autist/rich to manage imps, PUGS are terrible, you get locked out of instances if you are too high level, and the player base is dead. Still some of my my favorite memories in gaming, with Classic WoW coming in third.

 

[BatterHomes&Gardens]

Back in the day. Do you play EQ or UO? I was too young to be good at it, but was my first MMO game. After that came Anarchy Online, which I would love to make a private server to get mod powers to explore, because damn that game is hard without being an autist/rich to manage imps, PUGS are terrible, you get locked out of instances if you are too high level, and the player base is dead. Still some of my my favorite memories in gaming, with Classic WoW coming in third.

I tried EQ, just wasn't my thing. I don't know why I couldn't get into it. I moved over to WoW right before The Burning Crusade came out and pretty much had a on again off again relationship with WoW until I had kids over a decade later. I've tried Classic WoW I just don't have the time for it anymore. I look forward to the nursing home years of vidya. When everyones retried or can't work full time because their body has broken down and we can get the squad back together of whoever is still alive.