November 5, 2007
Download Need for Speed 2
This game is not abandonware but I’ve managed to find a rapidshare link where you can get NFS2 for free:
Click here to download The Need For Speed 2! - (43995 KB).
Mirror 1 - (41.96 Mb)
Overview
The Need for Speed 2 is the follow-up to perhaps the best arcade racing game to come along in several years. In order to fully understand this review, you must separate in your mind arcade racers like this one from racing simulations. Racing sims are aiming to provide the most realistic driving experience imaginable. Some — like Papyrus’ NASCAR 2 — are so detailed that you may spend as much time configuring your car as racing. Not so with the Need for Speed games. The main point here is to drive … and win. The true test of this sequel, then, will be a direct comparison to its predecessor. And trying to improve upon great old games is a daunting task indeed.
Download and read the review of Need For Speed 2
October 3, 2007
Overview
So, you think you know how to play Age of Empires? This addition changes all you know. Rome is back and stronger than ever. This could also be titled "Take the Best Overall Old Game of 1997 and Make It Better." There are 19 new campaigns and four new civilizations: Carthaginian, Macedonian, Palmyran and Roman. Carthaginian transports are 30 percent faster, fire galley (New Unit) are +25 percent attack, and academy units and all elephants units are +25 percent hit points. Macedonian academy units have +2 piercing armor, hand-to-hand +2 line of sight, siege workshop units cost 50 percent less, and units are four times more resistant to conversion. The Palmyran civilization has free tribute, double gold per trade trip, villagers have armor, and work 20 percent faster (but cost 50 percent more), and camel riders (New Unit) are 25 percent faster. Roman buildings cost 15 percent less (except towers, walls and wonders), towers cost 50 percent less, and swordsmen attack 33 percent faster.
Read the whole review of AOE: Rise of Rome
October 3, 2007
Download Ace Ventura
This old game can be downloaded via BitTorrent from Mininova.org. Details of Ace Ventura download:
- Added on: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 21:25:03 +0100
- Last updated: Fri, 02 Mar 2007 10:03:27 +0100
- Contents of download: Ace.ventura.rar (267.47 megabyte)
Overview
Ace Ventura touts itself in the old adventure games from 7th Level Interactive. Unfortunately, as anyone who plays this title for even a short time will discover, there isn’t much here that could be described as new and there isn’t much that’s fun in this game.
The game is presented in the second-person perspective — you see Ace and his sidekick, Spike the Monkey, on your screen at all times and you steer them through the puzzles they encounter. A number of elements in the game combine to make it more like the movie. This is the first of them. You may be in control of where Ace moves within a particular scene, but the fact remains that it’s still a scene, scripted; the outcome is non-negotiable. Unlike many adventure games wherein your choices throughout can take the game in any one of several possible directions, in Ace Ventura there is generally only one right answer and until you find it the game grinds to a boring halt.
Continue reading the review of the Ace Ventura Game
October 3, 2007
Download
A-10 Cuba can still be bought from Amazon for $10, thus it’s not abandonware. You can download the demo version from Download.com. I am so happy to announce that I have found a working version of the full A-10 Cuba game you can download for free. Download A-10 Cuba!. Enter:
Username: gamegoldies
Password: gamegoldies
in the login form on the right. Please send us feedback if this is not working for you. Enjoy!
Overview
The good news is, if the aliens ever really attack like they did in Independence Day, there will be a whole bunch of old computer gamers with the requisite flying skills to pilot the mothership-destroying F-16s. The bad news is, they will have these skills only because they have been forced to acquire them to get any enjoyment out of the ever-more-realistic flight combat sims on the market today.
Now maybe you’re the type who really honest-to-God wants to know what it’s like to fly an A-10 Warthog and don’t want to bother with joining the Air Force, going through all the haircuts, funny hazing pranks, etc. If so, go to your nearest computer software retailer posthaste and pick up a copy of A-10 Cuba! you will not be disappointed.
If, on the other hand, you’re like me and you don’t want to repeatedly get killed because you forget to put your flaps up, or because you didn’t quite make a four-point landing, even though you managed to kill 4 enemy planes, then you’ll find A-10 Cuba! a lot on the technical side. Remember: it is billed as an "ultra-realistic flight simulation."
Read the whole review of A-10 Cuba!
October 1, 2007
Overview
World War Three has come and gone with the attendant nuclear holocaust, and life is rough. Stop me if you’ve heard this before … anyway, a generation or two has passed with everyone living in underground vaults when a crisis strikes your particular vault; the water purification system has broken down and they need someone — nudge, nudge — to go find a replacement. Assuming that the radioactive world outside your door does not contain a friendly Wal-Mart, you pack up a gun, a knife, some flares, and head out to Mad Max your way to finding salvation for your friends and family back in Vault #13.
While good old Fallout certainly offers almost nothing novel in terms of storyline, it does have some interesting points. Unfortunately, being turn-based and rather short, it falls somewhere in the "OK, but nothing to write home about" category. It fails to live up to the graphical sophistication of the Crusader series, which predates Fallout by two years, and it fails to capture the excitement of Diablo’s real-time combat, or Ultima Online’s role playing possibilities.
Read Fallout’s review or download the game
October 1, 2007
Overview
Let’s face it, a racing game is nothing new. I’ve been spinning around the hairpin turns of video race courses since my friend Joe got his first Atari set in 1979; racing is a natural for the old video game format. So what would prompt Pioneer Productions and Electronic Arts to give us yet another racing game in Road and Track Presents The Need for Speed? Simple: the need to meet the challenge of producing the best video racing game yet. So, how’d they do?
Interface/Controls
The Need for Speed offers plenty of options for controlling the car, the camera views and the other elements of the game. Steer with a joystick, with the keyboard or simply by moving the mouse left or right; it’s up to you. Use the keyboard to shift gears (or let the computer shift, if you like), to brake, to blow your horn. There’s plenty you can do while you’re racing. There’s so much you can do, in fact, that I found it all a little overwhelming to keep track of and finally just concentrated on driving. In its control options, The Need for Speed goes beyond a mere racing game and becomes almost a driving simulation. Some people like that kind of thing. Me, I just wanted to race. I give Electronic Arts (EA) credit for creating a product that can appeal to both the simulation fan and the hey-I-just-want-to-drive-dammit player.
Download or read the review for Need For Speed One
October 1, 2007
Overview
Aliens invaded the earth, but fortunately for the rest of humanity you happened to be on an extended "holiday," floating through space with your eccentric inventor father and a six armed, bio-engineered, super-intelligent dog. You personally had been bored and in need of some excitement, having been along on this sabbatical not entirely of your own free will (as kids often are), so it would seem a perfect opportunity for the earth to be saved.
The aliens ride across the surface of the planet, pillaging Earth’s natural resources and destroying populations in their gigantic, city-sized mining machines. Of course, as is usually the case when the earth is invaded, you are our only hope against this terrible thing. Dad is inventing some weapons and building you a keen black suit of space armor, which (he’s sorta sure) should protect you as you dive through space and into the mine-crawler to destroy the invaders. There’s a firearm (and in this case that’s a literal term) built into the suit which is mostly adequate, but you’ll need more. He’ll parachute supplies down to you as soon as he can invent and build them.
Continue reading the review of MDK
September 30, 2007
If you just want to download Virtual Pool and not read the review, just scroll down at the bottom of the page for links.
Overview
Virtual Pool is the definitive pool simulation game — from teaching novice players the rudiments of the old games to improving the skills of the seasoned pool shark. Interplay worked with a team of physicists and professional pool players to bring Virtual Pool to life and provide the highest degree of accuracy. Balls roll, skid, collide and move on a beautifully rendered pool table that mirrors reality.
Players can "walk" around the table to check out their next shot, take a close-up look, zoom out for the overall picture and line up the shot as they would in a real game with a real table. Virtual Pool also allows players to view the shot from overhead, something unavailable in a real pool game.
World Champion pool player "Machine Gun" Lou Butera is available to teach new players the tricks of the game. In addition to the library of lessons, there are over 30 video clips that show famous trick shots the player can practice. This top-notch pool simulation is so good that Interplay guarantees it will improve your old pool game — or your money back.
Read the review or Download Virtual Pool
September 30, 2007
Note: Some of you may want to skip reading the review and just download Age of Empires by following the instructions at the bottom of this page. If you like this game you may also be interrested in Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome.
Overview
It’s rapidly becoming apparent that there are fewer and fewer truly well-designed games on the market, especially in the real-time strategy category. This genre seems to have fallen prey over the last year to the get-rich-quick mentality that has produced a whole host of mediocre Command and Conquer wannabes, but few real winners. With the high standards getting ever higher, the arrival of an RTS game from a company best known for such pulse-pounding titles as DOS 5.0 and Visual C++ might lead you to dismiss Microsoft’s Age of Empires without a second look. That would be your loss. This is an absolutely stellar old game — our leading contender for Strategy Game of the Year by a good distance, even over the impressive recent releases of Total Annihilation and Dark Reign.
What makes Age of Empires great? A lot of things. Most importantly, it is incredibly fun and addictive. We’ve had the beta for going on three months and we’ve been hard pressed to stop playing it long enough to review other games. Add to the great gameplay absolutely superb graphics, the most balanced and intelligent economic model we’ve yet seen, and a truly innovative tech tree that builds on the best of Civilization, and you’ve got yourself a really amazing game.
Download and Read the whole Age of Empires review
September 24, 2007
Overview
Are you looking for fast-and-furious arcade-style fighting? Do you like bloodshed? Need to let out some serious aggression? Do you get a kick out of multiple flying dismembered limbs? Do you like bloodshed? Enjoy frustration? Well, step right up: we’ve got the game for you. Did I mention bloodshed?
This game, like all others in the series, is really not about the storyline, as any Mortal Kombat fan will tell you. This appears to me to be a translation of Mortal Kombat 3 Ultimate from the arcade. It contains virtually everything from the first three old games in the series plus some new surprises. There are thirty-two immediately playable characters, including the boss characters, and five hidden ones. A new “Aggressor” mode allows your character to become even stronger and fiercer. There are also lots of new moves that are not available in the arcade version.
Continue reading the Mortal Kombat review
