DOS Gameplay

October 22, 2008

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If you’ve ever had an XT, or a *86 series PC sometime back operating on DOS or MS-DOS, you’ll know how it was when it came to playing DOS Games. Do you remember Pac Man ? Have you tried playing it on your XP only to find that all these good DOS Games are virtually unplayable these days on machines designed to supposedly to keep you productive in Social Networking platforms.

If you reminisce games from say … Apogee, Bitmap Brothers, Monolith, and iD Software you’ll appreciate having maintained your old DOS Machine instead of recycling it for your PS2 or some cartridges that went stale after several hours of good play with the neighbour’s cat! Do you know there’s a way for you to relive those good old DOS Games on your XP?

With DOSBox installed your XP will emulate CPU 286/386 realmode/protected mode, Directory FileSystem/XMS/EMS, Tandy/Hercules/CGA/EGA/VGA/VESA graphics, and SoundBlaster/Gravis Ultra Sound card for excellent sound compatibility with older games. I’ve managed to play PacMan and quite a few others … it beats playing FreeCell or Spider Solitaire once in a while.

Remember Carmen, Covert Action, King’s Quest, KGB, SIM Farm and the green little men ? Check out these old time favs of mine…

Remember DOOM? Chosen by Computer Gaming World as part of their ‘Hall of Fame’ DOOM has been one of the most played computer games of the past few years. {Chuckle}

GODS – Oh yeah I used to play this for one week at a stretch beating all the gamer friends – every action, like picking something up, a coin falling down on the floor, or shooting an enemy down, will produce its own unique sound. Superb Gameplay! GODS can be downloaded here.

Duke uses the “Build” engine, which is still similar to the old Wolf3D engine in that there are no rooms on top of other rooms, but it’s been tweaked and pushed to the max. Lots of fun! {It has been rumored there are rooms on top of other rooms}

One of my uber-most fav game of that era … the game that started it all, and helped to define what is now one of the most popular computer game genres! Wolfenstein 3D

Descent by Interplay is another good game – think of Doom crossed with Wing Commander and you’ll have a fairly good picture of what this game’s about.

Published by Brøderbund Software, my other favourite is Prince of Persia. Sound is awesome, and the graphics better than most games in those days. Click here to download the Prince, and save your princess before the mean Sultan.

Relevant

• Who says you can’t have the cherry and eat it too? DOSBox is available for the XP, BeOS, Linux, and MacOS X amongst others. Check out its site, for more information or click here to check its WIKI!
• Check out the list of DOS games now available as freeware at Wikipedia!
• Abandonia Games {Directory of all the DOS Games available for download}