game nostalgia - Top 5 list

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

c-64 games:

Impossible Mission:  No really, it probably is next to impossible to beat, but one of the first games on the c-64 I played, and to this day 'Ah, another visitor...Stay awhile...Stay forever!' stands out as one of the most cool beginnings to a game ever.

Maniac Mansion:  The game that brought together quirky humor and a b-movie sci-fi plot to keep me playing for hours. 

Elvira:  While not as good visually as the Amiga version it was still fun!

Pinball Construction Set:  Buggy but fun to play with.

Defender of the Crown:  The jousting matches always made me angry, so I would get even during a raid.

Rocket Ranger:  Aside from the painful takeoffs I found this to be really great.

Barbarian:  Hacking heads off has rarely been so fun.

Little Computer People:  I spent hours and hours on this.


Amiga games aplenty!

Nitro- Awesome racing game where you can be a cyborg Clint Eastwood, a Robotic Rambo or a cybernetically improved James Bond!

Pinball Fantasies/Dreams/Illusions:  Simply the best pinball games ever made, and with catchy tunes too!

The Black Crypt:  Fantastic classic style Dungeon romp with typical Amiga amped up to hell difficulty.  'Ogreblade is cursed.'

Elvira:  Now when I was growning up, Elvira had a tv show and she was hot.  Her pixelated boobies were no less appealing, and an exploration/adventure game with a massive inventory and tons of weird enemies and gruesome deaths just made it all the more fun.

It Came From the Desert 1/2:  While the first one was undeniably superior, both games had that b-movie sci-fi thing going for them and fun minigames like escaping the hospital.

X-Com 1/2:  Really, really awesome games even if you don't like realtime strategy!  The sectoid death scream is classic.

Frontier:  Elite 2:  I probably spent more time playing this game than anything aside from X-Com and First Encounters.  There was just so much to do!

The Secret of Monkey Island 1/2:  Maniac Mansion encouraged me to try these and I was not disappointed.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis:  Previous Lucasarts titles led me to think this would be another good one.  It was, though the voice of Indy in the talkie version was trying too hard.

Armorgeddon: a fun war sim where you can choose from one of many land or air vehicles and blow things up...In actual 3d!

Fables and Fiends Book 1:  The Legend of Kyrandia:  It simply had the nicest visuals of any adventure game I'd played up to that point, and the game was enjoyable to play.

Hero Quest/Quest for Glory 2: The only Sierra series I ever liked much, and the combat and puzzle solving combined with ingenious save game carry over kept me hooked until part 5 came out and ruined the series.

Moonstone:  Great but intensely difficult fantasy adventure sim.  I still haven't beaten it because the enemies just kill me so easily.

Ambermoon:  Another fun adventure game I never played through, with inspiring visuals.

The Adventures of Willy Beamish:  For some reason I have a high nostalgia factor whenever I think of this game, mainly because the themes in it are so 80's:  toxic waste, pizza and pop, videogame tournaments and just look at Willy's clothes!

Megaball AGA:  Awesome arkanoid clone.

Beneath A Steel Sky:  Great sci-fi adventure game.

Dreamweb AGA:  I'm not sure why some people say the graphics don't look good.  Perhaps they're playing something else.  It's a fun and twisted game.

Lionheart:  Wonderful graphics and interesting locations make this a must have platformer.

And a few NES games:

Blaster Master:  I love the concept behind this game, a four-wheel drive tank that gets upgrades, and your quest is to rescue your frog from mutants living at the center of the Earth?  Count me in!

Goonies:  Completely unlike the arcade or c-64 version, and that's a good thing!

Batman:  Sunsoft's second really big hit was a fun platformer starring Batman

Castlevania 1/2/3:  All three of them are great fun, especially the first one.

Mike Tyson's Punch-Out:  I have fond memories of knocking out Tyson.

Ninja Gaiden 1/2:  You are a ninja.  You kill bad guys.  Doesn't get much better than that.

River City Ransom:  Fun beat-em-up with a more open-ended play style than most fighting games of the time.  BARF!

RC Pro-Am:  Great little racing game by Nintendo

[ManicMatt]

"Barbarian:  Hacking heads off has rarely been so fun."

Indeed!

"Little Computer People:  I spent hours and hours on this."

Me too!

The pinball games.. you DID play Slamtilt right? That was great!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I played Slamtilt and I stand by what I said .

[CMonkey]

First adventure game I played was Kings Quest 2 back in the late 80's on a 286 without a hard drive, it was on 2 low density 5"1/4' floppies . I couldn't save the game because I didn't have a spare disk, so had to play the game through from start to finish without dying. It really sucked being caught by the witch. Back then it was called a 3D adventure because you could walk in 4 directions. When I finally got a 20mb hard drive I managed to come across a copy of Space Quest 2, by far superiour to Kings Quest 2, though I still played it on a floppy, I love the sound of a disk loading when you walk between screens. It's funny when I think back, I never played the first versions of games till after I had completed their sequels.  From there I played Space Quest 1, and was so excited to finally score a copy of Space Quest 3, it took me months to track down. Then to the kings quests, police quests, and finally on to the best ever, Monkey Island 1. I was lucky that I had friends that I could borrow these games off as I wasn't actually able to afford to buy a game until about 1996, previously, even if I did have any money I never seemed to ever be anywhere where these games were sold, I didn't even think to ask my parents to take me somewhere to get a game, because I could just get on my bike to a friends and rummage around in their disk box and see what they had. The first game I bought was a copy of Kings Quest V, then after that the Heroes Quest Collectors edition with episodes 1 - 4 (which unfortunately now has gone missing).

Back in those days, before a walkthrough was easily found on the internet adventure games would take weeks, even months to complete. I would hog our computer in the living room for hours when I got a new game while I tried to completed it in one sitting , then giving it over to my younger brother for a chance to play when i got stuck. We would agree that I would have the first few slots, and he could have the last few. Space quest 2 was left uncompleted for about 6 months. The massive breakthrough was when I found that you could get through the brain maze to the bush to pick the berries, then rubbing them on your body you were able to get past the swamp monster. The sheer elation of this moment, and waiting in anticipation for the disk to load a brand new screen is hard to describe. I called to my brother "I've gotten past the swamp!", and he ran in going "No way! How did you do it!". And we then sat glued to the screen until we got stuck again at the part when you have to tell the little man to move by "saying the word". I would make up adventure games on paper for my brother to complete, sometimes leaving clues around our house. I wish I had AGS when I was 12, I really do.

I also remember the dismay, after I had rode my bike all the way to my friends house half an hour away to copy the latest game (lets say, legend of kyrandia), only to find out that the last disk had a bad crc, i would try that last disk about 100 times.

Before this of course I had the C64, the best games on this were wizball and head over heals. the main reason I liked these games was because they would load up almost every time on the tape drive. The games that were the hardest to load were the ones that started part way through the tape. I used to have the numbers written down for all these games in the sleeve of the tape case so I could fast forward to that position to try and load it. Of course I'd have to leave the room while this was happening, because that would help it. I think I ended up selling my C64 and all the games for about $20 at a garage sale, probably one of the worst thing I ever did, but $20 was lot of money to me back then.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Back in those days, before a walkthrough was easily found on the internet adventure games would take weeks, even months to complete.

Or you called the Lucasarts hint line, a mistake my friend and I made when we got stuck in Monkey Island two and got treated to a $4 a minute rape job.  When they said hint line they meant it, to the point of just not telling me where the one thing I called for in the first place was.

[ManicMatt]

Or how about writing into a magazine about being stuck on an adventure game, but finding out the solution anyway waaaay before the magazine gets printed? (That's why I never bothered just for the record)

[Totoro]

That reminds me that you actually had to call the LucasArts Hotline in Monkey Island 2. What a brilliant idea that wa 

[alimpo83]

Here's my list:

1. Outcast (The first game I played which transported me to a true 3D world, with different cultures, sounds, places...excellent in every aspect, especially the soundtrack!)
2. Monkey Island 2(I learnt english with it! Simply one of the best games ever! The humour has yet to be surpassed by other gaming series)
3. Civilization(until 6 am playing with my brother, when I was 10-11)
4. Back to School(It's for the Zx Spectrum, for those who don't know it)
5. Zelda(nes)

And many others, who come right after my favourite 5:

North and South (hilarious!), Monkey Island 3, Indiana Jones: Fate of Atlantis, Final Fantasy VIII, Prince of Persia I (and recently the new series, which are great), Bomb Jack (Zx spectrum), ...

[lemmy101]

an, reading this thread brought back a few memories...

Monkey Island I / II (Mainly II to be honest)
North & South (fantastic! I'd buy that now)
Little Computer People!!! (I would never of thought of it unless someone posted)
Skool Daze (heheh)
UFO: Enemy Unknown aka XCom (genius)
Frontier:  Elite 2 - Always prefered this to original. Others usually disagree

Also some others...

Saboteur I/II
Rampage!
Hunter
Lords of Midnight
Ghostbusters
Creatures
Kickstart I/II
Rockstar Ate My Hamster
The Hobbit
Bloodwych (no one seems to remember this)
Flashback
Midwinter I/II
Lemmings
Bubble Bobble
Mario All Stars

ahh... we'll never see days like those again.

[G]

This is my list of games makes my feel nostalgic

Alone in the Dark (The beginning of the Survival Horror)
Command & Conquer (I used to love those pixels that were suposed to be soldiers)
Day of the Tentacle
Flashback
Imperium Galactica (I've conquered the universe!)
Indiana Jones: The Fate of Atlantis
Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
Monkey Island I & II
Sam & Max Hit the road
Simon the Sorcerer II (Oh yeah!)
Stunts (The first race game I played)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
UFO: Enemy Unknown (I got addict to strategy thanks to this)
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
X-Com: Terror from the Deep (The UFO related myths mixed up with the Cthulhu Mythos)

And I'll stop because I'm getting too much nostalgic.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Bloodwych (no one seems to remember this)

I remember this game and I have it on my build of AIAB.

[LimpingFish]

I was thinking about the weird european games I used to play on my Atari ST.

Captain Blood (Infogrammes)
Crash Garrett (Infogrammes)
Colorado (Silmarils)
Manhattan Dealers (Silmarils)
Boston Bomb Club (Silmarils)

...I wish I could remember more

[thewalrus]

     How about a super old school adventure game............ Z O R K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thewalrus

Goo, goo, ga, joob!!!!!

[Domino]

This is one game i played when i was in my early teens that i really, really loved....



It was called Below The Root, and i played it on my friends C-64 and then on the Tandy 1000.

This is one game i cannot forget, and can't believe i didn't think of it before.

[gypsysnail]

Mine would have to be:
Colecovision (similar to nes)
- Qubert (my nbr 1 fav! Still play it today - on pc)
- Ventura
- Smurf
- Gorf
- mickey mouse the wizard
- mouse trap

Commodor 64 games (all of em!!!!)

PC:
- Larry 1 (played it when I was 7 and thats what got me hooked to adventure games  )
- Kings Quest 3
- Colonel's Bequest
- Black Cat
- Crystal Caves 1 & 2

[dsg_charly]

Best old ones with star note (max *****) ones:
Styx - ****
Boulder Dash - *****
Arkanoid - *****
World Games - *****
Tennis (it's the name of the game, obvious) - ****
Digger - ***
Skweek - ***
Bumpy - ****
Double Dragon - ****
Wild Street - ****
Indy 3 - *****
Barbarian 2 - ****
Game Over 2 - *****
Fsram - *****
Archery - **

And the ones which sucked:
Cobra
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles
Double Dragon 2

[NachtPoet]

I made my first experiences with the English Language with all this old sierra stuff, mainly Space Quest, but also Larry and Kings Quest.
I still love this stuff, and just some month ago I had a funny experience: I re-played SQ III, wich I havent played for 12 or more years, but was still able to play it in a amazing short time of about 7 hours...
:o :o

[timlump]

I'm too young to be Nostalgic with anything other that METAL GEAR SOLID,
Although I have or have had a large amount of key 2nd to 5th generation consoles.
The ATARI 2600 (which i got when a certain influencial irish radio station  in the 80's closed down) although I still was minus 8 years old at the time, my favourite game by far was PITFALL and FATAL RUN.

PITFALL CAME with the atari and I bought FATAL RUN from a shop in 1998, six years after the collapse of ATARI.

The Commodore VIC 20 which I broke in a freak repair accident, I got that in 1999.

  The Commodore AMIGA which I bought for 3 EURO in fair at a local school in 2004.

  The SNES which has since been sold.
 
  ETC.....

But unlike you guy's I look more fondly on games such as HALF LIFE 1 (which I played first in 2003) and FALLOUT (which I only first played last year).

Personally although I am a member of this brilliant community I really never got into ADVENTURE games since at the time of my conception they already were on the way out and CATACOMB ABYSS was already being released.

[thewalrus]

     OMG!!! Not in to adventure games!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (thewalrus faints)

[timlump]

dont get me wrong I really like the games produced here but the original games i never was to fond of,
and to be honest i do love action/multiplayer games,
I even have an online clan The JF clan with 17 members.