Retro games, abandonware, freeware and classic games for PC and Mac
Author: GN Team - Published: 15 June 2020, 12:04 pm
NASCAR Racing 2 is a racing sim created by Papyrus Design and published by Sierra On-Line for PC in 1996. Now available with the new wrapper of NASCAR 2 with 3Dfx nGlide!
It was the second game in the popular series of NASCAR Racing, started in 1994 and ended with NASCAR 2003.
Developed and designed by John Wheeler, the new game represented a big step ahead of its predecessor. NASCAR 2 introduced several changes and improvements, including a new game engine. It was also the first game of the series to support 3D acceleration; the DOS version was compatible with the 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics card.
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Author: Gustavo - Published: 14 June 2020, 6:12 pm
Twisted Metal is a vehicular combat/racing game developed by SingleTrac and published by Sony Computer Entertainment initially for Playstation in 1995. A Windows95 version of the game was released in 1996, it was one of the first games using the graphics acceleration provided by NVIDIA chips.
The North American developer that was located in Salta Lake City is also known for the Jet Moto series and WarHawk, although Twisted Metal was its most significant achievement.
The main idea of the Twisted Metal developers was to produce a game that would combine Michael Bay's action movies with Mad Max's combat vehicles. After the programmers at the Utah headquarters modified the entry to a pizza delivery simulator, Sony decided to revert the changes to its original concept. This way, with twelve months of development and created together with Warhawk, Twisted Metal came to light on November 5, 1995.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 14 June 2020, 2:40 pm
Knightmare is a role-playing game created by Mindscape in 1991, released for Amiga and Atari ST. It's based on the TV show with the same name.
The title was developed by Antony Crowther and designed by the same Crowther with his brother Chris. The two guys previously worked on another Amiga RPG called Captive. Knightmare, in fact, uses the same engine of Captive.
In the TV show, created by Tim Child (who also contributed to the design of the game), four kids need to complete a quest in a virtual fantasy world. It was one of the earliest examples of virtual reality. Crowther was in charge of translating the concept into a videogame. Not for the first time since there is also a "Knightmare" videogame created by Activision in 1987.
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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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