Retro games, abandonware, freeware and classic games for PC and Mac
Author: GN Team - Published: 20 October 2023, 5:08 pm
Moebius: The Orb of Celestial Harmony is a role-playing game initially created by Origin Systems for the Apple II and published in 1985. The game was designed and programmed by Greg Malone. In 1987-88, DOS, Atari ST, and Amiga versions were released. In 1989, Origin published a sequel called Windwalker.
Moebius strongly reflects its 8-bit origins and is reminiscent of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, another title from Origin to which it is clearly inspired. Like in Ultima, you'll have to explore a large world (actually, four different worlds) from a top-down perspective in search of the infamous Orb of Celestial Harmony. However, what sets Moebius apart is its combination of RPG mechanics with side-view beat 'em up-style combat.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 15 October 2023, 9:32 pm
Twintris is a Tetris clone developed by Svein Berge for the Amiga in 1990 and published by Digital Marketing. The following year, it was also released under the name Super Twintris as a cover disk for the Amiga Power and Amiga Action magazines.
While falling into the category of amateur games, Twintris has nothing to envy when compared to commercial games. In fact, it is the perfect example of how, during the Amiga era, a passionate developer could create a game of exceptionally high quality by fully utilizing the hardware's capabilities. Often, this didn't happen, and it disadvantaged Amiga games that suffered from the classic "multiplatform effect," also known as "lowest common denominator" – games that were developed for less powerful computers and then converted without improvements to speed up release times in order to be available on multiple platforms. This was somewhat the misfortune of the Amiga, as many of its games were primarily ports from the Atari ST version. Original Amiga titles like Ambermoon and Lionheart are the exception.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 8 October 2023, 1:28 am
Transport Tycoon is a simulation game created by Chris Sawyer and published by MicroProse in 1994 for PC MS-DOS.
Chris Sawyer, who had started his career by converting Elite Plus and Frontier: Elite II to MS-DOS, had a great passion for Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon. He came up with the idea of improving the famous strategy game by adding an isometric view for a more immersive experience. He also wanted to introduce new means of transportation, which is how the development of Transport Tycoon began.
Regarding the visual aspect, Sawyer did much more than introduce isometric graphics. Firstly, he chose to adopt an SVGA resolution of 800x600, which was much sharper than the classic VGA resolution of 320x200. Additionally, to manage all the game elements, he developed a button and window interface, a kind of Windows-like operating system specifically written for this game, which ran on MS-DOS. Every window could be moved, and all were updated in real-time. Compared to other games released in 1994, Transport Tycoon seems (and indeed is) light years ahead.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 19 September 2023, 1:44 pm
Homeworld is a sci-fi real-time strategy/simulation game created by Relic Entertainment and published by Sierra in 1999 for Windows PC.
The game concept is very straightforward: take the classic mechanics of a real-time strategy game like Age of Empires and bring them into space in a fully 3D environment. Of course, there are differences: for example, you don't have to gather different types of resources, only RU (resource units) that are extracted from asteroids. Moreover, there are no buildings to construct, only various types of spacecraft, much like in the classic Space Empires series. To build increasingly advanced ships, you'll need to research the technologies that become available over time.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 15 September 2023, 8:58 pm
Windwalker is an action RPG created by ORIGIN Systems and initially released for Commodore 64 and Apple II in 1989. In 1990, it saw releases on Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, and Macintosh. Windwalker serves as the sequel to Moebius: The Orb of Celestial Harmony, an original RPG that combined top-down exploration with beat 'em-up-style action scenes. Moebius, released in 1985 for Apple II, followed in the footsteps of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, another title born on Apple's home computer. However, its 8-bit origins were evident with simple graphics and rather limited audio, which didn't improve significantly even with the transition to 16-bit. The Amiga conversion, in particular, faced criticism for its graphics and animations. In this regard, Windwalker sets itself apart from its predecessor with a definitely improved audiovisual presentation, though still not at an excellent level. Notably, the choice of a 16-color palette remains consistent across versions on Atari ST, MS-DOS, Apple IIgs, and Amiga. Considering this was in 1990, more could have been achieved, especially on the Amiga and VGA PC. The music, or rather the absence of it, and the lackluster sound effects would disappoint even on the Commodore 64.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 11 September 2023, 1:38 pm
Front Page Sports: Football Pro is a sports simulation game developed by Dynamix and published by Sierra On-Line. It was released in 1993 for MS-DOS. It's the sequel to Front Page Sports: Football, the first sports simulation game released by Sierra On-Line in 1992.
FPS: Football was praised for its realism and attention to detail. It allowed players to control every aspect of their team's performance, from drafting and trading players to designing plays and calling strategies during games. The game offered a comprehensive set of features, including:
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