Retro games, abandonware, freeware and classic games for PC and Mac
Author: GN Team - Published: 10 May 2025, 12:10 am
Shadow of the Beast is a side-scrolling brawler created by Reflections for the Amiga and published by Psygnosis in 1989. It is often remembered as one of the most visually striking and technically ambitious games of its era. Designed by Martin Edmondson and Paul Howarth, it was an audiovisual showcase meant to push the limits of the Amiga hardware—and it succeeded.
At its core, Shadow of the Beast is a side-scrolling action platformer with elements of progressive beat-em-up. You play as Aarbron, a man transformed into a monstrous creature by the evil beast lord Maletoth. As memories of his human past begin to resurface, Aarbron sets out on a brutal journey of revenge. The story is told with minimal dialogue, relying instead on atmosphere, haunting landscapes, and otherworldly enemies to immerse the player in a dark fantasy world. You can find a few similarities with the SEGA arcade Altered Beast (not just the title).
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Author: GN Team - Published: 9 May 2025, 5:41 pm
Arkanoid: Doh It Again, released for the SNES in 1997, is a modern reinterpretation of the classic arcade game Arkanoid. The original game, released in 1986, was itself an evolution of Atari’s legendary Breakout. It was released 10 years after Arkanoid: Revenge of DOH, the sequel to the original coin-op. Developed by Taito, this installment brings the iconic block-breaking gameplay to home consoles with updated visuals, refined mechanics, and an impressive amount of content.
The core gameplay remains unchanged: the player controls the Vaus, a small paddle-like spaceship that must bounce a ball to break all the blocks on the screen. Some blocks release power-ups such as lasers, extended paddles, multiballs, or the ability to catch the ball. In this version, power-ups are more varied, and the difficulty curve is better balanced than in the arcade original.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 8 May 2025, 11:14 pm
Seven Cities of Gold by Ozark Softscape, is often considered one of the most groundbreaking strategy and exploration games of its era. Designed by Dan Bunten (later Danielle Bunten Berry), this title stood out for its ambition to simulate the experience of 16th-century European exploration of the New World — decades before "open world" became a genre term. The game was released in 1984 by Electronic Arts.
At its core, the game tasks the player with taking on the role of a Spanish conquistador sent to explore, colonize, and claim vast territories in the name of the Spanish crown. Starting from a port city, players must assemble supplies, recruit men, and sail into the unknown. As they reach the Americas, they are faced with the challenge of navigating uncharted terrain, interacting with native populations (peacefully or aggressively), establishing missions and forts, and returning with treasure.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 8 May 2025, 8:15 pm
Space Quest V: The Next Mutation is a humorous graphic adventure released in 1993 for PC.
The game marked a significant shift in the beloved sci-fi parody series originally created by Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy — the “Two Guys from Andromeda.” By this point in the franchise, the creative duo had split ways: Crowe remained with Dynamix (a Sierra subsidiary), while Murphy moved on to other projects. As a result, this fifth entry was led solely by Crowe, giving the game a more personal and streamlined direction, though still rooted in the absurd humor and pop culture satire that fans loved.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 8 May 2025, 1:25 am
Castlevania, released in 1987 in North America for the NES, marked the beginning of one of Konami’s most iconic franchises. Designed by Hitoshi Akamatsu (as later confirmed through interviews and credits), the game combined action-platforming mechanics with gothic horror themes, setting a new tone for side-scrolling games on the 8-bit console.
You play as Simon Belmont, a vampire hunter armed with a whip, making your way through Dracula’s castle to defeat the infamous vampire. The journey is divided into six main stages, each packed with dangerous enemies, sub-bosses, and a climactic boss fight at the end. The level design is linear but cleverly constructed, with tight platforming challenges and strategic placement of items and enemies. Players can collect sub-weapons like the axe, holy water, or boomerang, each consuming limited hearts that you gather throughout the level.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 7 May 2025, 8:04 pm
Akalabeth: World of Doom is often considered the first stepping stone in the evolution of Western computer role-playing games. Developed in 1980 by Richard Garriott, who was still a high school student at the time, Akalabeth was created initially as a personal experiment in computer game design. It was written in BASIC for the Apple II and drew inspiration from Garriott’s love for Dungeons & Dragons, a game he played regularly under the nickname "Lord British," which would become his pseudonym in later game credits.
The earliest version of Akalabeth was not designed with commercial intent. Garriott developed it simply to entertain himself and his friends. The game, however, caught the attention of California Pacific Computer Company after Garriott decided to sell copies of it in Ziploc bags at a local computer store in Houston, Texas. The company offered to publish it, and Akalabeth ended up selling around 30,000 copies — a remarkable number for the time (not all sources agree on this number).
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