Retro Games
Searching for your Childhood
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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Some may remember the Plato system developed by the University of Illinois and Control data corporation and all the games and learning opportunities it contain on terminals attached to big super computers. I remember Plato games like Tank Wars, Avatar, Journey, Fractions, Moria, Empire, and many more.
Many of these can still be accessed through Cyber1.org and Javatar.org. If you really like retro games, explore these.
Thanks Mike for the suggestion. I will have to go check that out. Always love finding more retro games to check out.