Top 5 Retro Game Websites

Retro Games

Searching for your Childhood

The other day, my wife asked me the name of a game she remembered from her childhood. She had been searching for it but had been unsuccessful so far. She thought it was a game from 1980’s or 1990’s and was for a PC (she didn’t have a console). She remembered the premise of the game; a hero fought monsters in search of spaceship parts. While she thought the name of the game was Duke Nukem, none of the images nor the summary from the original Duke Nukem was correct, so she was searching by randomly looking at pictures of games from that era. She’d already found other retro games (Scorched Earth, Battle Chess, Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall and Duke Nukem), but no luck so far.

So, Super-Jason to the rescue. After a little Q&A, I discovered that most of her childhood games were DOS-based (remember those days?) and shareware. Now, most of you might not remember shareware as we do, but it was the forerunner to the current type of Trial Version. You could get a game and if you liked it, you could send money to the creators and tell your friends about the new game. As you can imagine, it didn’t work too well– the developers didn’t receive many donations. Yes, shareware still exists, but back in our day it was much cooler.

Now that we have a little bit more information on my wife’s game search, I started looking for websites for retro games which might lead me to the game she was seeking. I was finally successful in locating Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons (1990), the game my wifey had been looking for, and started thinking– if she is looking to play some of these old games online, maybe others are looking for retro games, too. Not only DOS-based games, but even others like NES, SNES, APPLE (Oregon Trail…yes, let us not die from dysentery– this was the Dark Souls of my youth) and of course, Atari 2600. So, as I always do, I set out to find the best places you can play these retro games and many others. Here are the top 5 picks that I think you all will get a kick out of.

Top 5 Retro Gaming Sites

1. Classic Reload

This is probably my favorite place to play some old retro games. Mostly because DOS is where my love of gaming began. This website has everyone of the games my wife was looking for and more. You must check this one out.

2. Classic Games Arcade

Has some great games to play and breaks the games up into categories (Action, puzzles, Space ship shooters, and many others). Not as many games as some, but still worth the look.

3. Virtual Apple 2

There are some Apple 2 games I do miss like Oregon Trail. That was the game to be playing at school back in the day. Of course, I never could beat that game. I either starved to death or died of dysentery. The only annoying thing about this site is you need to install a browser extension. Google Chrome did not install as easily as it did on Firefox. The Firefox browser was the easiest and I was playing within two minutes.

4. Retro Games Online

Now, this site has a really nice search box on the top-right. Just type in the game you are looking for and if they have it, it will pop up. Out of all the sites, for some reason, this search worked best. Take a look.

5. Emulator Online

The last one on this list is Emulator and it is worth taking a look at. They make it easy by breaking down which console  you want to find a game on. Make sure to click on the More option at the top since they have some game systems I did not know of or at least never played.

Most of these sites require you to allow Flash to play. One even needs you to install an extension (Virtual Apple 2) to work. Overall, I found these to be the websites to get your childhood gaming on. Plus, now my wife is happy and as we all know, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

Which games do you have fond memories of?

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