MS-DOS game recommendation thread

[mindlord]

There is not a game recommendation thread for DOS games yet, so I started this one. If there is an interpreter for the game mentioned you might want to point it out, otherwise we will assume you mean it's playable in DOSBox.


Certainly not an exhaustive list, but some stand out DOS titles for me were:


Stunts: Driving game where you could perform outrageous stunts on pre-built or custom designed tracks. It included a track editor, which made for hours of fun designing your own stunts.


Starflight II: Trade Route of the Cloud Nebula: Sandbox space adventure where you explore a vast region of space, trade or do battle with dozens of aliens, and solve a mystery to save the good honest capitalistic races of the region from slavery at the hands of the vile, and idiotic Spemin.


Dungeon Hack: A rogue-like built upon the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset. It's a true dungeon crawl / hack and slash with random dungeon generation and enough sliders and controls to tailor the experience to best suit your style of gameplay. It has very nice graphics and features point and click controls. Honestly, still my favorite rogue-like.

 

[Prometheus]

I did not grow up with MS-DOS, myself, as x86-based machines were largely irrelevant in most of the UK market until around 1996 or so. Regardless, I do have a couple of recommendations to share.


Jazz Jackrabbit - Platform game starring a gun-toting, green-furred rabbit who travels from planet to planet in order to rescue a bunny princess from an evil turtle. It needs some overclocking and some tweaking of both the DOSBox and in-game settings in order to run well on a Pandora, but it's well worth the few minutes it takes to do this. (The engine recreation, OpenJazz, is also available for this game, but to my knowledge it does not yet support all of the game's features, so DOSBox offers a more accurate experience at this point in time.)


Pharaoh's Tomb - Another platform game, where you must guide Nevada Smith through a trap-laden pyramid in search of hidden treasure. This game runs excellently on a Pandora, and is legally available for download, free of charge. (If you like this, you will probably also enjoy its sequel, Arctic Adventure, and also Monuments of Mars, which was by a different author, but is based on the same game engine.)


(I haven't recommended any Mega Man titles in this thread, as the MS-DOS offerings in the series are not fantastic. "Mega Man" and "Mega Man 3" are just bizarre, and the MS-DOS version of Mega Man X is a cut-down version of a better SNES game.)

 

[WizardStan]

Might and Magic 4 and 5, collectively known as World of Xeen. An isometric psuedo 3d first person RPG. Quite possibly my favourite game ever. Incredibly open, the main story just kind of unfolds as you complete subquests and gain experience. No complete reimplementation of the engine exists... yet


But it plays pretty well in DOSBox with overclocking.

 

[Grench]

Ultima I-VI


Space Quest I-IV


Leisure Suit Larry I-III


Master of Magic


Populous


X-COM UFO Defense


One Must Fall


Zork, Adventure, etc... (Scott Adams games)


Tomb Raider

 

[wermy]

I'm glad to see this thread - I was just wondering the other day why there wasn't one!


X-Wing - In my opinion, the best space-fighting flight sim game ever. It might run a bit slow, but there have been a couple videos showing it running in DosBox and it seemed to run alright.


Commander Keen (ALL of them) - Fantastic side-scrolling games from the early days of Id (I've always wondered why they abandoned this franchise...)


Duke Nukem 1&2 - No, not Duke Nukem 3D. This is another great side-scrolling game.


I'll add more as I think of them.

 

[Schmoo]

X-wing / Tie Fighter - Will LucasArts PLEASE remake these with updated graphics.....


Out of this World - Other than the X-wing/Tie Fighter series, my favorite game in DOS


Wing Commander


Anything by INFOCOM - I used to love those text adventures.

 

[Link]

Scorched Earth which we already have for the Pandora.


Wasteland anyone?


Mechwarrior

 

[skeezix]

For text adventures, its better to run a native interpreter such as Frotz or Gargoyle; I ported over Gargoyle (see app-store and dl.open) which supports Infocom (zmachine type games including all the modern still being made games!), TADS, Magnetic Scrolls, etc. Theres also my Kronos project which I need to work on, since it supports Magnetic Scrolls as well, but also Scott Adams games...


Master of Magic is very good, like Civilization 1 but with spell casting akin to Magic the Gathering collectible card game.


Civilization 1 is a classic (and playable in DosBox, but also via Atari ST, SNES and Amiga emulation.)


Colonozation of course


Wing Commander for space combat sims


Eye of the Beholder 1 and 2 - akin to World of Xeen etc. (Remember, this family of RPGs are all descended from Atari ST classic 'Dungeon Master', so go play that too!)


Wizardry series (specifically Wiz 6 and 7, specifically 7 if you try only 1.) Wizardry is one of the oldest RPG families (along with Ultima and pre-Ultima), and Wiz 7 is a long grueling awesome old school RPG. Really good.


jeff

 

[WizardStan]

Ultima I-VI


Space Quest I-IV


Leisure Suit Larry I-III


Zork, Adventure, etc... (Scott Adams games)

for Ultima VI, there's the Nuvie engine, and for Ultima VII there's Exult. I don't think either of these have been ported to the Pandora yet, but they should be. For Ultima I-V I'm not aware of any engine remakes, so DOSBox is probably the only way.


For Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry (and a huge array of other point and click adventures) look no further than Scummvm, which has already been ported!


Zork, Adventure, and many other text adventure games should all run excellently through Gargoyle.

Commander Keen (ALL of them) - Fantastic side-scrolling games from the early days of Id (I've always wondered why they abandoned this franchise...)

Commander Keen (at least 1-3, don't know about 4 and 5) should play in CGenius, also already ported.

 

[sold]

I'm hanging out to play these when I get my Pandora


Dark Sun I+II


Dune (CD version with FMV).


Solar Winds I+II


The Incredible Machine


Super Tetris


One Must Fall 2097


Frenetic Plus

 

[Weevil]

Slicks n Slide - Crazy pixelracer that still gets me hooked every few years!

It has been continued in a freeware game,GeneRally. I like the pixelversion though


Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty - Granddaddy of RTS games and once again pretty addictive.

Several community/open source projects exist:


http://sourceforge.net/projects/dunelegacy/


http://drackbolt.blogspot.com/


http://dune2themaker.fundynamic.com/


Also, for Keen there exists the open version CloneKeen which does require data from the original games.

 

[ManlyStump]

Alone in the Dark

SimCity (Classic/2000)

And Theme Park!

 

[second exodous]

Let's Explore the Airport With Buzzy!

Um, for the 'Lost Luggage' game

Also to see how lax airport security used to be before people staring using planes as missiles. I got this with my first PC! Now that is nostalgic!

 

[moz]

Let's Explore the Airport With Buzzy!


<SNIP>

I used to love that game as a kid, i might have to play that again soon.

 

[may88]

I rather liked the original Dune. One of the few games I've play right though.


The Fremen would moan "It's been days..." when you finally got round to visiting them.


I can imagine ED must hear the same every time he posts some news.

 

[mindlord]

SimCity (Classic/2000)

I did not know there was a SimCity 2000 version for DOS. Very interesting. Don't get my wrong, I like Lincity and all, but it's just not the same.

 

[kwh2010]

Commander Keen (ALL of them) - Fantastic side-scrolling games from the early days of Id (I've always wondered why they abandoned this franchise...)


Duke Nukem 1&2 - No, not Duke Nukem 3D. This is another great side-scrolling game.

I remember playing these back in the days when the first few levels of some PC games were released as shareware. I recall playing Crystal Caves (also by Apogee) which was a bit like the Duke Nukem platformers.


I was addicted to Wacky Wheels for a bit as well which is like Mario Kart.

 

[Caine]

Lands of Lore


<edit>Some more


Stuntcar racer


Epic Pinball


Lost Vikings


Blackthorne


Prince of Persia


Red Baron


Supaplex


Ultima Underworld


</edit>

 

[Asiyura]

Elder Scroll 2: Daggerfall is one of my favorite DOS RPG.


The world is amazing and the crafting/magic system is really powerful.


I don't know if it's a good game, but I have fond memories of Jurassic Park.


It was my first PC game that looked like an Amiga game

And it was really fun.

 

[second exodous]

Elder Scroll 2: Daggerfall is one of my favorite DOS RPG.
The world is amazing and the crafting/magic system is really powerful.

I don't know if you're seen DaggerXL yet, it seems like a pretty cool project

This website is for the project DaggerXL – A Modern Daggerfall Engine Recreation for current Operating Systems and hardware – essentially it is a remake in the spirit of a port. It will ultimately fully emulate the game of Daggerfall and then optionally enhance it by refining existing features and adding new gameplay elements that were originally intended. The game will make use of hardware acceleration providing higher resolutions, color depth, greatly improved visibility, better texture filtering, enhanced performance and more.

DaggerXL is be just an engine, you need the original game data to play. I will not distribute any Daggerfall assets or knowingly provide information on obtaining free copies of the game – other then the version provided by Bethesda themselves. This is a legal project, I do not intent to step on Bethesda’s toes or violate their copyrights.