Have you ever played a DOS game? If so, what was your favorite game?

At 1/14/16 11:16 PM, DoctorStrongbad wrote: Have you ever played a DOS game? If so, what was your favorite game?

If by DOS game you mean DOS exclusive (as in, no Windows version made for that game) then my all time favorite would have to be Realm of the Haunting.

DOOM

What's a DOS game?

At 1/15/16 08:37 AM, wolfe wrote: What's a DOS game?

DOS was a widely popular command-line opperated OS and the predecessor to Windows. Basically most PC games released from the early-mid 80s to around 1995 would have been released for DOS

At 1/15/16 01:27 PM, Jackho wrote:

At 1/15/16 08:37 AM, wolfe wrote: What's a DOS game?

DOS was a widely popular command-line opperated OS and the predecessor to Windows. Basically most PC games released from the early-mid 80s to around 1995 would have been released for DOS

This makes no fucking sense to me, but cheers anyway :)

At 1/15/16 02:05 PM, wolfe wrote: This makes no fucking sense to me, but cheers anyway :)

Alright, you understand how we've gone from Windows Vista to Windows 7, 8, and now 10? And that software developed for an older version might not necessarily work on the newer one? DOS is what Microsoft developed before Windows. It was so rudimentary that instead of a user interface with a mouse pointer you just had a command line and controlled the computer through convoluted text commands. If you're on a PC or mac try opening the command prompt/terminal and using the computer through that, it is still possible.

What makes some parts of DOS gaming so unique and memorable is how the unfriendly UI filtered out all the non-nerds leaving only the biggest melvins to dominate the gaming market. DOS gaming is full of super hard-core RPGs, unforgiving sims and brutal shooters, generally stuff that today's mainstream market wouldn't tolerate, not without a major accessibility overhaul.

You can play the MS dos games on the Internet archives Here

At 1/15/16 05:29 PM, Cordyceps wrote:

At 1/15/16 02:05 PM, wolfe wrote:

At 1/15/16 08:37 AM, wolfe wrote: What's a DOS game?

This makes no fucking sense to me, but cheers anyway :)

this is the world that we live in now

do you know what this is, son?

A floppy disk?

At 1/15/16 04:02 AM, Sword-of-Kings wrote: DOOM

What this guy said.

At 1/15/16 05:29 PM, Cordyceps wrote: do you know what this is, son?

A hard disk. Because it is more rigid than the larger and flimsier floppy disk.

At 1/14/16 11:16 PM, DoctorStrongbad wrote: Have you ever played a DOS game? If so, what was your favorite game?

Once in a while, I'll plug in Scorched Earth any day.

There's so many good DOS games it's hard to pick just one. Even Hi-Tech Expressions, who was known for making absolutely terrible NES games, made some quite good DOS games (sometimes even the same game which was decent under DOS and sucked on the NES). Of course their DOS games were pretty hit-and-miss.

Sierra made most of the well-known Adventure Game genre DOS games, and LucasArts made most of the rest.

id Software is and just always was amazing, of course, pioneering the FPS genre and also making some quite good platformers. You might find some of their games under Apogee, which also is worth looking into, even for non-id titles.

There's also some excellent boot-off-a-floppy games (not technically DOS games since they were self-contained and you didn't even need any OS to run them -- they run themselves) which were released for machines back in DOS days. Thunder Mountain made a lot of these.

A favorite DOS game is really hard to choose among Bugs Bunny's Hare-Brained Adventure, Beetlejuice: Skeletons in the Closet, Bubble Bobble (The DOS version of Bubble Bobble was amazing), Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja (Totally makes the SNES Joe & Mac look shitty by comparison), Trog, Heaven & Earth, and Where in the US is Carmen Sandiego? Scorched Earth is really good but I wouldn't place it among the very best. King's Quest series is also really good, but being Adventure Game genre those are really games you play through once and then that's it, so extremely little replay value. If you prefer text-only Adventure Game genre games, there's always the Zork trilogy (just Zork on other older systems, but split into three games for DOS).

Go download DOSBox and play any of these great games.

Descent is also amazing, but you'll need a fairly "new" DOS machine to play that and it doesn't work well under DOSBox at all because the timing is about impossible to get right (Either too slow or too fast and nothing that "feels right" like how it'd actually play). If you have an old Windows 98 machine I strongly recommend using that machine to play Descent, choosing the reboot into DOS mode available on those computers.

And of course classics like Duke Nukem, Wolfenstein 3D, Commander Keen (several games in this series)

And if you have QBasic on the particular DOS machine in question, you can play GORILLAS.BAS or NIBBLES.BAS, which though not the best games ever made, are somewhat fun nostalgia. And GORILLAS.BAS is where most "physics" games got their start. GORILLAS.BAS is improved upon by games like Scorched Earth which is copied by games like Worms which inspires games like Crush the Castle which is completely ripped off by games like Angry Birds.

And if you find you have problems using DOS even for playing video games, just learn up a few of the commands, and read up on how to set various configuration files -- sometimes you'd need to set special memory subsystems for EMS or XMS (but never both at the same time and only if needed) which was mostly all done by editing CONFIG.SYS and rebooting DOS.

cd -- move around the directories (what Windows folks know as folders)
help -- get help on commands
/? -- (Put this after a command and press Enter to get help on that exact command)
del -- delete a file
move -- move a file
copy -- copy a file
edit -- text editor (depends on version of DOS if you have this -- easy to use)
edlin -- less friendly line-based text editor (use only if you don't have edit on your version of DOS)

And if you're using something like DOSBox, you'll need to map the drives first before you do anything else and also probably go edit the DOSBox configuration files.

There ya go -- basic primer and excellent gaming suggestions.

At 1/15/16 02:13 AM, Painbringer wrote: If by DOS game you mean DOS exclusive (as in, no Windows version made for that game) then my all time favorite would have to be Realm of the Haunting.

Do you have a link? That way we can all check it out.

At 1/16/16 05:16 PM, DCXME01 wrote:

At 1/14/16 11:16 PM, DoctorStrongbad wrote: Have you ever played a DOS game? If so, what was your favorite game?

Once in a while, I'll plug in Scorched Earth any day.

Ah good memories of Scorched Earth, definitely a good artillery strategy game with some funny aspects to it also.

I grew up with an Amiga 1200 and a less used 600 so it's hard to really pick favourites since I played countless due to games being fucking easy to get copies of back then in the UK. Most would be shit by todays standards for sure but some still lived up.

Anyone who used D-Paint? Back when EA was Electronic Arts and actually made good stuff? Now D-Paint worked with many games like Worms Directors Cut and Zombie Apocalypse where you could make levels in D-Paint and use them in the games. Which for Worms was amazing since one colour usually pink was used for empty space where you could move and shoot and all other colours could be used to make a level however the hell you wanted to make it with the creative tool. It beats most "level editor" tools you get with stuff now for sure, since there was literally no restrictions on making the scenery how you wanted it (unless you also wanted to use pink, and why wouldn't you?)

Would always recommend Simon the Sorcerer for a Monkey Island like game which has a great atmosphere and appearance and puzzles and most importantly humour. Sadly the second game went downhill from there.

At 1/16/16 08:18 PM, DoctorStrongbad wrote: Do you have a link? That way we can all check it out.

http://www.gog.com/game/realms_of_the_haunting

And I originally meant to say "Realms" not "Realm."

The game is also available on Steam.

At 1/15/16 02:05 PM, wolfe wrote:

At 1/15/16 01:27 PM, Jackho wrote:

At 1/15/16 08:37 AM, wolfe wrote: What's a DOS game?

DOS was a widely popular command-line opperated OS and the predecessor to Windows. Basically most PC games released from the early-mid 80s to around 1995 would have been released for DOS

This makes no fucking sense to me, but cheers anyway :)

And I bet people you know consider you a "computer nerd" and "techy"

*cringes hard*

I went through a retro phase and beat all the King's Quest games, and played DOOM and DOOM 2, but via Brutal Doom, which old school pretentious nerds hate but is actually just an all around improvement.

They were similar enough to their DOS predecessors that they count as well.

I loved King's Quest. I beat 1 and 2 in one sitting late into the night without any help.

I was stuck in 3 for a long time until I found out that part of the copyright protection was the spell book. So I found that online as well as the copyright stuff for the other games and ravaged them all over the following two days.

Star Wars: Dark Forces remains my favorite.

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders

At 1/15/16 04:02 AM, Sword-of-Kings wrote: DOOM

That game will always be good.

At 1/18/16 01:46 PM, mysticvortex13 wrote: warcraft 2

Eh... I consider Warcraft II to be more of Windows 95 game than a DOS game.

Sure, it runs natively in DOS, but it also runs natively on all modern Windows computers: Including 64-bit versions.

If you want a true Warcraft DOS game, try playing Warcraft: Orcs and Humans.

At 1/18/16 06:00 PM, mysticvortex13 wrote: nonsense. i find plenty of replay value in adventure games. in a text adventure, there's thousands of hilarious ways to game over. there was this star wars one i forgot the name of awhile back... there's a stormtrooper in a room with a big mac. i chose to give the big mac to the stormtrooper and he placed me under arrest as thanks for the meal because i was with the rebellion and not properly disguised as a stormtrooper myself.

But once you already know what's going to happen you ... already know what's going to happen. You can replay for nostalgia but unless you forgot stuff, you're never really playing the game "proper" ever again. (And even if you did forget a little, still likely you'll remember stuff as you go) No, it doesn't have what most people would think of as replay value. Not that Adventure Game genre games are bad -- there are some I quite like -- but honestly once you've beaten the game there is no further challenge.

action adventure like legend of zelda: oracle of seasons/ages has even more replayability than that.

Action-Adventure Game Genre is not Adventure Game genre. See that Action part? Yeah, that's what gives it replay value. Not really the same kind of game at all. King's Quest? Once you know what to do you can't ever lose. Zelda games? Knowing what to do is no guarantee of success as you still have to pull it off.

i have a 98 but i dont like games involving mazes such as descent. flying an aircraft underground is never a good idea. i prefer open skies in my shmups unless the entirety of the stage is destructible and i happen to be flying through the interior of a mothership.

I wouldn't class Descent as a SHMUP though. It's more like 3D Air Fortress, minus the SHMUP parts of Air Fortress (so, just the once you're already inside the fortress parts, and not the outside parts). The mazes are what makes the game fun. And in both games the idea is get through huge confusing mazes, find the core, destroy it, then find the exit before the whole thing blows. Difference is Air Fortress is 2D and for the NES and also includes a SHMUP portion before each fortress part, whereas Descent is 3D and you're already inside the huge crafts. You are flying through huge motherships the entire game but why would you expect all parts of the insides to be destroyable? Only the core is. Don't make the game too easy now. It's fine as it is.

crush the castle is glitchy as fuck. the string always snaps and the projectile falls back onto the catapult that attempted to launch it, regardless of how weak or strong you angle the shot.

Still, point is Angry Birds is just a Crush the Castle ripoff and not original in any way.

sort of like those abominations such as tetris or dr. robotnik's mean bean machine or columns or dr. mario. i don't see why they became so popular except maybe earworms. those soundtracks are killer.

Tetris is a good game which has versions/ports on just about everything and is even valid for this thread because there are even DOS versions. The point is last as long as you can and get the highest score you can -- so pretty much the same exact point as to arcade games (in fact there even exists Tetris as an arcade game). That would be the point of Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (actually just a Puyo Puyo clone as are several other games), Dr. Mario, and Columns as well. The appeal is they become progressively more difficult until you're guaranteed to lose at some point. You WILL lose. How many points can you get before you lose? That's the appeal.

And if you're using something like DOSBox, you'll need to map the drives first before you do anything else and also probably go edit the DOSBox configuration files.

nah. just run your dosbox inside dfend reloaded and save yourself the trouble. it's so convenient. nobody has time to learn what the hell we're talking about anymore so this program is perfect for them. and me for that matter.

I'm not sure what this dfend reloaded thing you mention is (I've never heard of it and it's certainly nothing that's necessary to run DOS games under modern OSes), but you're still going to need to map drives (What directory/folder path do you want it to treat as your C drive?) and you're still going to need to deal with config files (Does your game need EMS? Does it need XMS? What sort of sound card do you want to emulate? Should games run fullscreen or windowed? etc...)

we all just wanna cut straight to the fun. download, open folder, double click on the .exe file, and run the game instantly.

That's not how DOS works. That's never how DOS worked. How DOS worked is you edit whatever config files you need, reboot DOS if needed, then you run your game and hope it works (and if not figure out how to make it work and/or maybe it just won't work on your computer because you don't have the hardware it needs). Not all DOS games work on all DOS machines. The same is true with emulation -- most DOS games that don't work under DOSBox ... actually were quite finicky under actual DOS machines as well, working on some, not working on others, depending on exact picky things like what exact processor you had, sometimes. There's some older DOS games which require you have an 8086 or 8088 *exactly* and nothing else, or they won't work. Got an 80286 or 80386 actual DOS machine? Game won't work.

no installation or configuration or anything required regardless of how big the file is or what it was designed for.

DOS doesn't work like that. Sorry.

At 1/19/16 02:00 AM, mysticvortex13 wrote: considering that such games are usually so enormous it's practically impossible to memorize the layout without drawing a physical map, it's easy to take wrong turns. the only descriptions of exits are compass directions.

I guess you're under-estimating the mental mapping abilities of some people. Maybe it's why you don't like Descent. But to put it short, the lack of an in-game map *is* the appeal. The possibility to get lost *is* the appeal to mazey games. But not all Adventure Game genre games are very mazey so I'm not sure why you'd conclude they are. Most Adventure Game genre games involve using the right items in the right places and interacting with the right characters at the right times, with bare minimal, if any, maze aspect. Puzzle aspect, yes. Maze aspect, rarely. Text Adventures *maybe* but still. If it's mazey, that's a challenge aspect of the game.

do i? zelda seems pretty hard to fuck up on even if i'm half-asleep.

Okay, original Legend of Zelda, do both quests back-to-back, in one sitting, never die. Also you must succeed the very first time you try after having read this sentence. A single failure makes this task permanently impossible to complete. Also use no maps or guides other than what is provided in-game. Okay, go.

what's easy about it if you add extra enemy turrets and security doors and such? think ikaruga or aegis wing only in 3d instead of 2.5d. well, except you wouldnt have played aegis wing... you dont own an xbox 360...

have you at least tried ikaruga or radiant silvergun? even if it's just the dreamcast or gamecube versions...

Because Descent isn't a SHMUP. And it's basically 3D Air Fortress minus the SHMUP parts of Air Fortress. But okay consider this. SHMUPs tend to autoscroll with a possible exception of during boss battles. Does Descent autoscroll? No. It doesn't. It's an exploration game, not a SHMUP. Turning Descent into a bullethell would literally be ruining the game. The whole point of the game *is* the maze aspect. The whole point of the game *is* conserving ammo, which has more in common with FPS games than SHMUPS. The whole point of the game *is* efficiently get to the core (trial-and-error if you have to), blow the core, and efficiently get to the exit in a very short time. Rinse, repeat. Just because you don't like mazey games doesn't mean mazey games are bad.

You WILL lose. How many points can you get before you lose? That's the appeal.

if that were the attraction, missile command, centipede, and tempest would be better examples than the puzzle variety to be worth playing. i can lose to those AND watch my cannons explode in a blaze of glory to boot.

Yes and those are all excellent arcade games. Tetris, Columns, and such, like it or not, also have that arcade appeal and yes actually exist as arcade machines too. That's the appeal of most arcade games is you're not supposed to be able to beat them. Of course there are some arcade games which are beatable.

reminds me of blast corps where if you find there's no way to stop the nuclear truck, you can just plow into it and trigger the apocalypse yourself, only the truck gets faster each time and there's no end to the stages.

Awesome game. Full platinums on that by the way. I doubt it can be properly completed on anything except an actual N64 with an official Nintendo N64 controller considering the timings necessary on some of those platinums. Not sure what this has to do with DOS, however...

or final fight 3 where i get to masturbate to lucia morgan's game over screen as the spiked celing drew nearer. unfortunate there wasnt any bloody end though, just a flash of white light.

Bad example because Final Fight 3 is the easiest of the Final Fight games, and easily beaten on hardest difficulty with any of the characters without continuing. Certainly far from "arcade hard". Also nothing to do with DOS.

the games i mentioned (duke nukem 2, jazz jackrabbit, hocus pocus) all work fine on my setup in the manner i described. anything that doesnt, i figure isnt worth my time.

Some DOS games can work "out of the box" just by running the executable. Many require game-specific setup first though, which easily is figured out by reading whatever README.TXT or similar came with the game. Typically if a game uses things other than just PC-speaker, if it uses special graphics effects, or if it's just all-around more involved than simpler games may need some special setup.

Your DOSBox frontend doesn't stop you having to set those things. In fact your DOSBox frontend isn't really necessary at all as it's easy enough just to edit a few files and that's all it's doing anyway. It's just more cruft in the way.

DOS doesn't work like that. Sorry.

are you saying i have software that's demonically possessed?

No. I'm saying there's still things you need to do setup-wise and no frontend gets around that. You still need to map drives. You still need to change various options (if the game needs it). Whether you do that through a frontend or by editing files makes little difference. The frontend doesn't help you and is completely unnecessary.

You are literally better off just doing it the DOSBox way. You would use an actual command prompt under DOS anyway. And it's not really that hard to use a few commands. Yeah, you'll need to know a few. Once you know the name of a command, just /? on the end of it to get the help screen for it. (So cd would do the cd command but cd/? would be help for the cd command)

Look up the following -- cd del move copy edit mkdir rmdir
Pretty much all you need to do most basic stuff.

Here is how you map drives in DOSBox http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/MOUNT

Map your game directory to the C drive

Also all you gotta do is edit this file in whatever you prefer http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Dosbox.conf

From there, just use regular DOS commands and treat it like it's DOS, cd into the directory with the game, and run the game, typically.

Example ... let's say you want to play FUNGAME.EXE and that's stored in C:\Bunchacrap\Games\ on your Windows computer and let's say it needs XMS. Let's say it also has a README.TXT that tells you to setup a FUNGAME.INI

So you'd edit dosbox.conf, go to the [dos] section, xms=true, save the file
You'd edit FUNGAME.INI and change whatever was needed there, save the file

Start up DOSBox and from the command prompt it gives you ...

mount c c:\bunchacrap\games
c:
fungame

or etc.... No need for a frontend.

At 1/19/16 12:28 PM, mysticvortex13 wrote: all remaining adventure games in the modern age on the other hand are action adventure.

You are literally ignorant of the vast majority of Adventure Game genre games that exist? You know, not the Text Adventures, but the usually point-and-click style (although some of the older ones aren't point-and-click nor text) where you collect items, interact with people, and it's basically interactive fiction?

King's Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, Broken Sword, Maniac Mansion, Leisure Suit Larry, so on and so forth to infinity and beyond? There's even tons of Adventure Game genre games on Newgrounds, some of them good, most of them not.

There may be some timing elements, but typically you're not having to use video game skills to progress, but moreso just figuring out what it is you need to do, and when. These type of games are best playable when you've never played them before and before consulting any walkthroughs. Once you've played them or seen a walkthrough, all challenge is gone, hence the lack of replayability factor unless you fancy a trip down nostalgia lane.

Okay, original Legend of Zelda, do both quests back-to-back, in one sitting, never die. Also you must succeed the very first time you try after having read this sentence. A single failure makes this task permanently impossible to complete. Also use no maps or guides other than what is provided in-game. Okay, go.

how am i supposed to share my victory with you when i win?

Just tell me you've accomplished it and I'll take you on your word, simple as that. I don't expect you to film your gameplay. Also no save-stating or anything of that nature. If the original NES couldn't do it, it's not allowed. And no Game Genies. You're in the most danger near the start of 2nd quest. If you ever die you have permanently failed so think of it as a one-time-only try. Not only no continues but no starting the game over again either.

at any rate, descent just doesnt have business existing. needs more destruction. even something along the lines of f-zero or rockman battle n chase would be fine.

No. Descent is amazing and it sounds like you just suck at mazes. Descent has plenty of business existing. It's a quite difficult and challenging game. You do have to conserve ammo. You do have to try to be efficient with stuff. And you better try to figure out the quickest way out prior to blowing the core. Plan ahead and all that.

Descent isn't a SHMUP because not every space vehicle game needs to be a SHMUP. Descent isn't a racing game because that also has absolutely nothing to do with Descent at all, even less than SHMUPs. F-Zero is a good game, but it's absolutely not the same or even remotely similar kind of game to Descent. You're just throwing arbitrary games out there at this point.

they dont. do you see exploding guns in tetris? no, you see blocks vanishing inexplicably. in columns? no, you see jewels crumbling inexplicably. there's no action. you dont fire anything, nothing shoots at you. they may as well make a shitty idle game. even puzzle bobble clones are better than tetris if you're neither on a road trip nor passing time on the toilet.

You don't need explosions to make a good game. That's just eye candy. The action is the gameplay, not the eye candy. If you require eye candy so much, I'm surprised you don't gravitate more to the newer consoles since they focus on that more.

analogical reference to get you to see what a good game actually looks like. considering my knowledge of dos titles is sorely limited, i have to make do with what i have under my belt. i have only played platformer and real time strategy games on dos. nothing else.

Okay so basically you're saying you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to DOS gaming. Got it. Well play some of those games I mentioned. They're excellent. You will need to change some configuration for a few of them though.

i played mole's quest but it's not a good game at all.

Yeah there's a lot of crappy DOS games as well. Reason being that there's TONS of DOS games out there anyway. It's like Newgrounds. You have to be picky and have an eye for the actually good games or you'll just be playing dress-up doll games and Pong clones all day and wondering why those games aren't very good.

and that is an example of what a proper game over/continue screen looks like for genres similar to the one in question. nothing to do with gameplay mechanics, nor dos. it's just an analogical standard reference for all games regardless of platform to look to.

So okay you're focused mostly on eye candy. Then you might actually enjoy modern consoles/modern gaming more than retro gaming. I prefer the gameplay. The eye candy is just ... it can exist or not and I don't care. Heck I'm fine with playing those games whose "graphics" was just various Extended-ASCII and you have like the default smiley faces and stuff.

You are literally better off just doing it the DOSBox way. You would use an actual command prompt under DOS anyway.
And it's not really that hard to use a few commands. Yeah, you'll need to know a few.

no, i don't. i'm telling you what i'm observing. the games do not boot up a command prompt of any kind when i use dfend.

they just cut to the fullscreen game.

dosbox itself does require that nonsense you describe, dfend bypasses the need.

Facepalm, man. Facepalm.
@dem0lecule just getting a witness on this.

Anyway, you still need to do all that stuff. And it's not easier to do things through a GUI, and it adds more cruft. I've even easily broken it down for you in this very thread, if you'll just follow some extremely simple instructions even a child could do it. For someone to want to play DOS games who is that adamant about not wanting to even skim the very basic DOS commands is just ... facepalm man ... I have no further words to say about that.

Enjoy not being able to play all games because not everything will use whatever "defaults" your GUI frontend assumes.

At 1/19/16 09:46 PM, mysticvortex13 wrote:

At 1/19/16 07:59 PM, NeonSpider wrote: King's Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, Broken Sword, Maniac Mansion, Leisure Suit Larry, so on and so forth to infinity and beyond? There's even tons of Adventure Game genre games on Newgrounds, some of them good, most of them not.

heard of leisure suit larry, space quest, and king's quest, never played either. played sam and max though, i presume that's what you're describing. i'd call that " point and click".

Yes from what I'm aware, Sam and Max would count though I've not played it. Point-and-click is common for Adventure Game genre games, but not a requirement. They also can use typing or binding to particular keys instead and yet have the primarily visual component to the game.

so i'm fine if i use the gba port? or do i need to emulate the nes version?

Original NES version, no cheating, no save stating, no glitching, all in one sitting, no continues, and if you ever game-over that's it and you can't try again, both quests back-to-back. You do not have to collect all items or find all secrets, if that helps at all. I don't think it's quite as easy as you're thinking it is. Sure, I could do it, but put on the spot like that and it must be the very next time you play? Even I don't have a flawless play every time. It's easy to die in that game even if you know what you're doing.

i'm fine with mazes, bad with maneuvering around corners but not bad enough to make it the sole basis of a formal complaint.

Then why do you hate on maze-based games? The maziness and intentional confusion is part of the challenge. It's intended.

is there a way of figting back against your enemies? yes? is there flying involved? yes? then it's a shmup.

Not every game that has flying and fighting is a SHMUP. Descent isn't a SHMUP. If you want an example of a 3D SHMUP, StarFox is. Is Descent like StarFox? No. There's no autoscrolling and there is much exploration. It's a maze/exploration type game, not a SHMUP type game.

you have to turn around corners at fast speeds to rescue hostages. there is pressure on you to find something. (in racing games, the most efficient route to the finish is what you're seeking rather than the exits to the maze) there is destruction. ergo, there is strong similarity involved.

Just no. Not the same thing at all. Not remotely similar at all. You may as well say two games are similar because you use some sort of input device to play them. Yes, you are timed in a sense. Ditto for tons of games. Are you going to say platformers and FPS games are all racing games now too simply because many of them have timing aspects? That's really stretching definitions thin if you do that.

the action is how the gameplay integrates with the eye candy, it doesnt exist on it's own.

No, the action is the gameplay. Period. If you're not satisfied with just gameplay then you prefer games with eye candy, but don't say you're in it for the gameplay if this is the case.

so basically what i'm saying is that i know what i see and am skeptical of what i don't. kind of like you and playstation stuff. you dont see playstations that can stay intact after doing whatever the hell it is that made yours melt. i do.

Okay I never said my playstation2 melted. I said the joysticks on their controllers tend to decompose and turn to a sticky mush over time. Reason being they probably use extremely cheap rubber. I've not had that problem with any Nintendo products.

i have never seen a playstation undergo spontaneous combustion. you say you have. i am skeptic of you, and you are skeptic of me.

Neither have I. But it very well could explode or smoke or start a fire if it got hot enough. I'm not sure where you go from my claim that PS2 controllers tend to be shit to ... PS2s themselves exploding though since I've never said mine did that. I just wish they'd use better rubber in those joysticks .. or just don't use rubber at all and stick with plastic like an N64 joystick in an N64 controller. It worked well enough and no melting.

that should be fairly obvious. however, given that none are sold and i have zero incentive to look for new ones right now on emulation sites, not much opportunity there.

Or, you know, there's literally tons of opportunity. You're just lazy.

the reason i wont play the hypothetical games you claim exist that dont work on my setup would be the same reason you dont play unity games here. first, they dont work. second, they're not worth trying to make work because fuck the content creators for making a dick move like that in the first place.

No, and you're just wrong. First off, the DOS games I listed are not "hypothetical games". Second off, if you can run DOSBox you can try them out for yourself although some will need some tweaking in configuration. Thirdly, Unity browser games literally don't work under Linux ... at all ... because there's no plugin for it. Whereas using DOSBox under Windows you can play most DOS games, with very few exceptions. Fourthly, it's definitely worth it to get it to work because there are some great games under DOS. And fifthly you have ridiculous expectations that everything should "just work out of the box" especially for ancient games developed for ancient systems. I mean ho-ly shit!

that is provided said games exist. i havent encountered them yet and i likely never will given how rarely i look.

Of course they exist. You "haven't encountered them yet" because you're too damn lazy to even do a simple google search when presented with the exact names of the games.

i'm focused on compatibility mostly as far as hardware goes.

No. You're focused on one-click setup. Well lots of stuff needs a bit of configuration first. Get used to it -- it's really not that difficult.

compatibility not so big a deal with software as it is with hardware.

??? Do you use actual old hardware? No? Then the compatibility you seek is entirely that of software. Unless you're literally using 5 1/4" floppy drives in your Windows computer. Somehow I doubt you do that.

Enjoy not being able to play all games because not everything will use whatever "defaults" your GUI frontend assumes.

great. in the meantime i have all the games i deem to be worth my time. they are indeed compatible.

If your metric for if a game is worthwhile or not is "it works by default with zero setup" then yeah. Enjoy not playing majority of the best games though. They tended to use advanced features (for the time) which tended to require more setup beforehand on your part.

At 1/15/16 08:37 AM, wolfe wrote: What's a DOS game?

A great way to play a computer game back in the day.

I started with Sierra games then iD games like Wolf3D and Doom. I still have a Windows 98SE machine that I play my DOS games on.

At 1/15/16 01:27 PM, Jackho wrote: DOS was a widely popular command-line opperated OS and the predecessor to Windows. Basically most PC games released from the early-mid 80s to around 1995 would have been released for DOS

If it wasn't DOS, than it wasn't quality back then. I remember playing Heroes of Might and Magic 1 on DOS.

At 1/19/16 09:36 AM, dem0lecule wrote: Why none of you mentioned Red Alert? It's easily the best game on DOS ever.

Are you kidding? The DOS version of Red Alert is clearly inferior to its Windows 95 counterpart. All because of its shitty, pixelated 320x200 resolution, which limits your view area and puts you at a disadvantage to Windows 95 players.

The difference between the DOS and Windows 95 version of RA is like comparing a modern console game to a 4K reality mod PC port.