To complicate things a bit more, some titles absolutely will not run on a 64-bit operating system. When I was installing SimTower the other day, I had to ensure that it was running as “Windows XP compatible”. With some titles you’ll have to install in Compatibility Mode to get them to work on Windows 7. It’s not all fun and games though – this software isn’t always a piece of cake to get working on modern computers. If you’re looking for titles including the original Grand Theft Auto, Wolfenstein 3D, Age of Empires (1 and 2), and Duke Nukem (1 through 3D), you’re in luck.

Two of my favorite places on the internet are RGB Classic Games and Liberated Games, which are sites devoted to the free legal distribution of retro games from DOS, Windows, and even a few from OS/2. Praise the Lord for basement-dwelling nerds that love their retro gaming.

There are a few ways you can once again enjoy these classic games, so dust off that Power Glove and your favorite Zubaz, things are about to get retro.

Final Fantasy, Tetris, SimTower, StarFox! I want them back! I miss those days, sitting in my basement with my brother playing our NES and SNES, trying to get past that ridiculous ‘speeder’ level in Battle Toads (seriously, I’ve never played a game that went from ‘easy’ to ‘impossible’ as quickly as Battle Toads). Heck, the original Prince of Persia (1989) was developed by a single guy, Jordan Mechner, who carefully crafted a game that required a keen sense of timing, problem-solving ability, and patience…because approximately 0% of this game was passable on the first attempt. MC Hammer was lighting up MTV with inflatable pants, Compuserve 3.25″ diskettes were confusing households across the US, and my family’s 66 MHz Pentium PC was a $3500 fiery hellbeast that made the Pentagon as nervous as current-day Wikileaks.īefore the gaming behemoths swallowed up the industry during the console wars, many games were developed by small groups of programmers that emphasized gameplay and challenging puzzles over graphics. Mechner used video of his little brother to help create his animations in Prince of Persia.īack in the early ’90s things were different and, in some ways, better.

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