Well, you know me! I love to talk about games!

As fun as it is to stomp on enemies, run and shoot or drive around, the fondest memories I have are of games that take it slow and make you think and the ones I´m gonna talk about are Zelda: Links Awakening to the Game Boy and Shadowgate to the NES.

Zelda: Link´s Awakening

I loved this game to death back in the days, it was so epic! It starts out semi-sandbox and in order to unlock new areas you have to get new tools. It could be a power bracelet in order to remove heavy rocks or a feather that lets you jump holes and every time you got a new tool you couldn´t wait to get back to obstacles you couldn´t do anything about before, but now suddenly you could!
I also love the puzzles in this game. Naturally as the game progresses, the castles get trickier and trickier, and in one of the last castles you have to throw a big marble on pillars in order to break them so the roof comes crashing down and lets you reach the last area. It gets real tricky as the pillars are scattered all around and you can´t carry the marble around with you everywhere. There are different walls within a screen here and there which let you throw it over to another part of the screen but you can´t jump over it which makes you find out another way to get there so you can pick up the marble again and throw it at the pillar.

It also has the 'pick up an item and trade it for another item' thingy going on, and figuring out who wants what can also be quite fun.

Shadowgate

Another epic game though in the style of point and click. You´re a nameless hero who is sent to defeat an evil warlock who´s about to summon a behemoth with the intent on spreading chaos and fear!

You start at the gates of the castle Shadowgate and have to work your way through hazards, traps and different monsters. Along the way you have to collect many items and solve many puzzles not only to survive, but also to collect pieces of a staff which is the only weapon that´s powerful enough to slay the demon. Figuring out what all the items do and where to use them can be quite tricky and at one point you have to backtrack almost to the very start of the castle with a potion that lets you fly over a gap to reach a room which has one of the staff pieces. But that´s not enough, in that room is another puzzle to solve before you get the piece.

This game was actually too much for my Buffy-esque attention span when I was a kid so I never got through it without help from a friend. Much later I did do it on my own and it was the most epic journey I´d had to that day, almost even to this day!


So there they are, my two most epic old-school games. Hope you enjoyed reading about them and perhaps you have a similar old-school game to talk about? Try not to include games that are too modern, but I won´t go as far as to forbid it. I realise not many have had these old games

Are original Xbox games too modern? Just wondering

No, the first Xbox is old enough now I guess, seeing as they are on the third generation. Same with the first Playstation which btw is now on its fourth

Then Darkwatch is a good original Xbox game. It's about a vampire hunter who ends up getting turned into a vampire, and is trying to hunt down the vampire who turned him down and kill him. He only has a limited time before he turns completely, and can't ever be human again, so he's trying to kill this vampire that turned him so he can become human again before time runs out.

[Nostalgia]
Ahh... Link's Awakening... Now that takes me back...
[/Nostalgia]

As to epic old-school games:

BALDUR'S GATE

A classic of the genre, a party based RPG, built on the old AD&D ruleset (2nd Edition). A damn good story, full of memorable characters, allowing a party of six including your character. Sidequests all over the place, freedom to explore for the most part, even to places where the critters would tear you to pieces, and a damn good story too. And party members could die. Generally you could just gather up thier gear and find a cleric in a temple to revive them (if you didn't get their gear it was lost), but their were some things like critical hits that could perma-kill them. Damn good game. That I've yet to get around to completing. In all honesty I've yet to actually make it to the city of Baldr's Gate

Edit:

@Mirocu: Then that includes the N64, as well as any of the consoles of that era, right? Because I can think of a couple to add from back then.

Thanks for your input, guys! Baldur´s Gate is definitely one of the big old-school names


Oh, yes. The N64, Game Cube, Sega Genesis and Master etc. And you can definitely add your Pong console if you have a game epic enough for it

Castlevania 1 and 4. Great difficulty, great fun.

Well if N64 games are allowed, then one needs to mentioned:

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

The classic. The yard-stick against which all Zelda games to follow were measured. A game also distributed on a promotional disc for the Gamecube (which I have ), and was remade for the 3DS. Does everything Link's Awakening did, only much more so. And is home to one of the most hellish dungeons ever found in a videogame: The Water Temple.

Dante actually wrote of it, it was so hellish: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here without a guide"

Broken into two sections: Child Link and Adult Link, you get some time-travelling going on as you once more seek to thwart Ganaondorf's plans.

For those wondering, my definition of old-school is any game that was released pre-2000. This one was released in 1999, so it qualifies.

This is the game that defined Real-Time Strategy for years to come.

Graphical style is isometric.

The gameplay is extremely simple and easy to learn, but because of the real-time mechanic and the need to multitask, it is VERY hard to master. The game itself is also extremely well balanced, and no to games will be exactly the same. How will you build your economy? Your army? What is your enemy doing? How will you counter him? Am I prepared to be rushed?

A lot to think about. And very satisfying to get it right and gain the edge.

I´ve heard so much about this game but never played it. Though it seems to be yet another truly epic Zelda game

@Thomas - Another game I´ve heard lots about but never played. Tell me, is there an option to slow down and speed up time like in Star Wars: Rebellion?

I like your games before 2000 limit btw What if we tried to stick to games before that point in time in general. Though I think the original Xbox is still ok and the original Playstation of course since it came out in 1994

Empire Earth:Gold is great!



There's no option to slow down or speed up time because it's an RTS.

Ok, thanks Impsnob

With all this talk I had to play Shadowgate today!

It took less than half an hour and I made one (unnecessary) save and died once in the slime because I wanted to try something.
Playing it through that fast isn´t recommended because it takes away big parts of the epicness. But it was still AWESOOOOMMMMEEEE!!! when in the final room I raised the powerful staff and fired energy at the behemoth, causing it great damage so it fell down into the abyss and in the fall grabbed Lord Warlock and took him with him!!


Then of course I got my triumphic return to the king´s castle where I was greeted as the hero I am and got a kingdom of my own and the king´s beautiful daughter

Actually, there is. In single-player you can change the game speed between slow, normal, and fast and during multiplayer the host of the game can change those settings as well (though normally in MP they stay on normal).

For a long time I've been a fan of point-and-click adventure games that allow exploration. Myst was one of the first games I brought for the Mac. But it was this one that really sucked me in for hours on end:
Qin: Tomb of the Middle Kingdom It had a fine mixture of my favorite elements: archaeology, history, imaginative environments, and puzzles.

I still retain a particular fondness for Star Wars: Dark Forces. This was back when LucasArts was still making games for the Mac.

I also loved playing Wing Commander III and IV. They were fun, challenging, and if I made a mistake in my choices, I could end up flying forever into the Great Beyond. I also liked that the choices you make in the game influence the direction of the plot. They were more interactive novels than linear shooters. It didn't hurt that Mark Hamill plays the lead and happens to be one of the main actors in one of my favorite film trilogies of all time.

Callidus Thorn had mentioned Baldur's Gate. Man, I LOVED that game. It was my introduction to RPGs, and ultimately led me to buy Morrowind.

But way before that, when my computer was a Commodore Amiga (with a then whopping 8 MB of RAM), I had a game called Zork! No graphics at all, just text. You had to type in commands and the game typed back what happened. I spent hours on end with that one, drawing my little maps on graph paper while all of the scenery was in my head.

Arx Fatalis was pretty good, had an interesting setting, and unfortunately was missed by nearly everyone because it was overshadowed by Morrowind.

I´ve heard of both Zork and Arx Fatalis but haven´t played either. I did however play the beta version of Reign of Grelok!

the original crash bandicoot is the first game I ever played from start to finish

Another oldie but goodie. Sid Meier's Civilization II. The Civilization series is up to Civilization V now. I will still play some Civ III from time to time, but Civ II will always be a fav of mine.

Some of the old stuff is getting a second life: e.g. Lemmings - which was a DOS game on a floppy the first time round, and now a browser game.

My brother used to play Lemmings 3D

Mechwarrior 3 is by far my favorite Mechwarrior game. Released in 1999, it squeaks in just before the 2000 limit.

Oh I wish it worked on a modern computer... /sigh

How about Hexen. I think I may be the only person on the planet who played and loved it. I still have the artifact locations memorized to this day.

I liked Hexen. I loved using the Wraithverge.

I remember reading about Hexen but I´ve never played it. It had touch-based magic if I´m not mistaken.

There is another whole subset of these. The ones that I used to spend countless dollars worth of quarters on at a place called Funland in Panama City Beach, Florida when I was a teenager.

Space Invaders, Asteroids, Defender, Pac Man, Galaxian, and so many more...

Talk about classics!

In the early 90's, I enjoyed some of the following:

Castle in the Winds
Dark Reign
Stronghold
Lords of the Realm
Might and Magic VI
Baldur's Gate I

Then I spent about a decade with Baldur's Gate II and Diablo II before settling into Oblivion (for the last six years).

What game will ever pull you away from Oblivion?

Perhaps one that begins by interviewing the player and asking what they want. Then the game responds to create such a game - that it can also adjust in progress to suit your taste. Perhaps a game where you can choose the game's venue/level of magicks/technology and mechanics. Where there are quests and events, but they don't necessarily involve your character.

Sand box spoiled? Yup.

Skyrim already has...