Retro games, abandonware, freeware and classic games for PC and Mac
Author: GN Team - Published: 13 June 2020, 5:14 pm
Chronomaster is a graphic adventure developed by DreamForge and published by Capstone in 1995 for PC.
The game was written by famous novelist Roger Zelazny, known for winning several times the Hugo and Nebula Awards with his science fiction novels. Zelazny was in charge of the game design with his friend Jane Lindskold. Unfortunately, the writer died while he was still working on the game, so he could not finish it. The game was completed without him; only his story was left intact.
The genius of Zelazny is immediately visible when the game starts. You discover that you are in a world where the creation of "pocket universes" is possible, and you are, in fact, one of the most renowned creators. You will be asked to investigate to solve a mystery: apparently, a theft is stealing time from pocket universes, and some of them are left "in stasis," with all the people inside them frozen in time. To travel inside them and discover what happened, you can use "bottle time." Consuming the bottle will allow you to restart time long enough to enter these tiny universes (actually, they are star systems with different planets rather than universes) and investigate—a typical example of Zelazny's capacity to re-inventing the rules of physics.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 12 June 2020, 8:15 pm
Questron 2 is the sequel to Questron, a fantasy RPG created by Strategic Simulations Inc in 1984 for the Commodore 64, Apple II, and Atari 8-bit. Four years later, the sequel was published, and this time it was also ported to Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS.
Questron represented for SSI the first attempt to launch a fantasy RPG. At that time, the studio that became famous for the official D&D licensed games (like Eye of the Beholder) didn't have the right to use this brand. So only "generic" fantasy games were possible. The inspiration for the two brothers that designed the title, Charles and John Dougherty, was clearly the Ultima saga. The visuals are quite similar: you have a top-down view during the exploration of the world, with excellent colorful backgrounds and detailed sprites. There is also some kind of isometric effect for the buildings, which is definitely better than the one used in Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar.
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Author: Gustavo - Published: 10 June 2020, 11:07 pm
Spear of Destiny is a first-person shooter developed by id Software in 1992 for DOS. Since this title was not released as shareware, id Software gave the publishing rights to FormGen.
The title was designed by id Software, one of the most influential video game companies known for creating classics such as Doom and Quake. Spear of Destiny is a direct prequel to Wolfenstein 3D, which was developed a few months earlier. The creation of this game counted with Tom Hall and John Romero as directors and designers, two of the company's co-founders, and also responsible for the previous release.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 9 June 2020, 3:09 pm
Indianapolis 500: The Simulation is a racing sim created by Papyrus Design and published by Electronic Arts at the end of 1989 for PC and Amiga.
The game was designed and programmed by David Kaemmer. At the time of its release, it represented state-of-the-art 3D racing simulations. It adopts 3D polygon graphics (simple polygons, so no texture-map) and features realistic behavior of the vehicles, especially for the crashes, and replays with different camera angles. It has only one circuit (the famous Indianapolis one), but this didn't prevent the game from becoming extremely popular. Amiga users had to buy an accelerator to have decent FPS, but the game was playable even on an Amiga 500. For the first time, many users had the chance to drive their cars in 3D, change the settings of the vehicles, and see them responding realistically. It was also amusing to generate massive crashes and watch the replays.
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Author: Gustavo - Published: 7 June 2020, 10:41 pm
Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars is a tactical turn-based strategy game developed by New World Computing. It was published by The 3DO Company in 1996. Although the title was initially intended for DOS, it also had its versions in Windows and Mac OS.
The person in charge of bringing this game to life was the American director, designer, and producer Jon Van Caneghem, who also founded the company. The game is the sequel to Heroes of Might and Magic and, despite being unrelated, it is set in the same universe as the Might and Magic saga.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 7 June 2020, 2:05 pm
No One Lives Forever 2 is a first-person shooter with stealth elements created by Monolith and published by Sierra in 2002 for PC and Macintosh.
As you may imagine, NOLF2 is the sequel to No One Lives Forever, which was released 2 years before. For the ones that don't know what I'm talking about, it's an action-shooter set during the cold war, with a sexy and smart Scottish spy called Cate Archer as the hero. The title designed by Craig Hubbard takes inspiration from 007 films, but also from Austin Powers, with its humor, vivacious colors, and '60s music. But Cate is a real hero, like Lara Croft, and this time she will have to face ninjas in Japan and a squad of super soldiers in Siberia and Antarctica, plus of course a lot of Russian spies. At her disposal, she will have a lot of different weapons and disguised gadgets, as you can expect from a 007 movie.
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