Top 10 PC Games (DOS)

[kitsunebi]

All these "top 10" lists for every console under the sun, but no love for the PC - such is life here at Retromags, where the console gamers rule the roost.  I enjoyed bopping cute little creatures on the head as much as the next kid with an NES, but even if this thread doesn't get a single reply, I feel it's my duty to show some love for some of the other games I enjoyed as a kid - the ones that give a much clearer picture of what western game developers were up to during the late 80s and early 90s when console releases were almost exclusively of Japanese origin.

I'm limiting this list to games released for DOS, since it would be a little unfair to have to choose only 10 titles from every PC game released in the last 35 years.  Also, as you'll see, my gaming preference leans a bit heavily on a couple of genres, but that's one of the great things about PC games - the genres were far more specific and varied than they were on consoles.  The best flight sim ever made isn't going to appeal to someone who doesn't want to have to learn all of the nuances of control contained in the included 300 page manual, after all, but by not having to cater to everyone, PC games were able to really focus on pleasing very specific audiences in ways that modern game designers are almost never allowed to do.

Anyway, in chronological order, the top 10 DOS PC games I enjoyed the most as a kid:

1. Rogue (1984)

The game that launched an entire genre, Rogue certainly isn't going to win any awards for fancy graphics.  But no matter how many times you die in the randomly-generated levels of this permadeath-RPG (and you will...a lot), you always feel that drive to try one more time.  That's the mark of addiction that makes it still relevant today.

2. Pool of Radiance (1988)

The first of SSI's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons RPGs (commonly referred to as "Gold Box games" due to their distinctive packaging), this game was light years ahead of anything happening on the console RPG front.  You control a party of up to 8 characters in a non-linear quest where your actions have actual permanent ramifications upon the game world.  Of particular note is its wonderfully tactical combat system that makes every encounter in the game engaging, challenging, and most importantly, fun.

3. Hero's Quest (aka Quest For Glory I: So You Want To Be A Hero) (1989)

If there's one great injustice to this list, it's that I can't populate it with tons of Sierra graphic adventures.  I lived and breathed Sierra's games as a kid, and anything with the word "Quest" in the title set my little heart tingling.  On any given day I might choose a different game to fill this spot (King's Quest III?  Space Quest III?  Gabriel Knight 2? the super-quirky Manhunter: New York?).  But for now I'll go with Hero's Quest, or as it was later re-titled due to copyright issues, Quest For Glory.  This game combines the traditional Sierra text-parser adventure gameplay with role-playing and action elements, and comes out all the better for it.

4. Loom (1990)

An early title from LucasArts, this is the first adventure game that moves beyond simple storytelling and inventory-based puzzles into what might be considered "art."  A truly original take on magical fantasy with a revolutionary interface based on casting spells using musical notes.

 

5. The Secret of Monkey Island (1990)

A classic start to a classic series with sooo many classic lines of dialogue.  I would include the first 3 Monkey Island games in any "best of" list, but I'll just stick to the first one here for the sake of variety.  Like Sierra, LucasArts could do no wrong in my eyes back then, and this was the cream of the crop with a killer musical theme.

6. Wing Commander II (1991)

Another series where choosing just one is nigh impossible for me...so in this case, I won't. I will skip over the first game in lieu of this one, however.  As much as I love the original Wing Commander and its two expansion packs, Wing Commander II took everything in those games and made it better.  The combat is smoother, and the between mission storytelling was much more epic and involving.

7. Star Trek: The 25th Anniversary (1992)

If you consider yourself a Star Trek fan and haven't played both this game and its sequel, Star Trek: Judgement Rites, then I hereby revoke your self-proclaimed fan status.  Each game is broken down into multiple chapters, with each chapter playing out exactly like a heretofore unknown episode of the original series.  The stories are top notch, and the character dialogue is so spot on you can almost hear the original actors speaking...no, wait a minute, you actually can hear them speaking if you get the CD-ROM versions, in which the original cast reprise their roles to great effect.

8. X-Wing (1993)

There's a strong argument that the sequel to this game (Tie Fighter), is the better of the two, but I logged way more hours with this one, so it goes on my list.  While Wing Commander was always about quick, almost arcade-y dogfighting missions interspersed between story segments featuring dozens of fully realized characters, the X-Wing series dumped the storytelling by the wayside for the most part and focused on the flying.  This game (much moreso than Tie Fighter), is a challenge.  Some of these missions are seriously hard.  And these aren't just quick in and out dogfights, either.  Missions are often quite long and complicated requiring far more varied objectives than "blast everything in sight."  But even failing an objective 45 minutes into a mission and having to start over is preferable to dying, since the game automatically saves your pilot's death.  You can still access the missions you've already played, but you'll have to do so with a new pilot devoid of any rank or citations you had earned.  Harsh.  But incredibly fun once you've pushed past the learning curve. 

9. Wing Commander III (1994)

I know I already have Wing Commander II on this list, but this one is important to me in so many ways I can't leave it off.  This is the first Wing Commander game to use actual 3D polygons and the combat is all the more immersive for it.  Furthermore, this is one of the very few games of the multimedia era to hire professional actors for its FMV cutscenes that aren't a complete embarrassment, and they work very well to tell a compelling storyline with multiple branches.  This game is on my top 10 Playstation games list as well - the PS1 port is terrible, since the system simply wasn't powerful enough to handle 3D graphics from even a PC game made in 1994 - but I spent hours upon hours playing it anyway so I could meticulously record all of the story segments onto a couple of VHS tapes.

 

10. Heroes of Might and Magic II (1996)

This is the most recent game on my list, and straddles the line of when PC gaming was switching from DOS to Windows, but there was a DOS release of this title, so I'm in the clear.  This game really improves upon the already addictive formula of its predecessor.  I was never much of a fan of RTS (though I played my share of Warcraft and Command & Conquer), but this is turn-based town/castle/army-building strategy at its finest.  There are more complicated games, sure, but the pick-up-and-go simplicity of HoMM games are their biggest strength, I feel.

 

I won't go into honorable mentions since there are too many to count, but I hope to hear from others about the PC games you liked from the 80s/early 90s.  As I said before, whereas everyone's console lists tend to look very similar due to the broad appeal of all console titles, PC lists are apt to be quite different.  I tend to favor adventures and space shooters, but someone who likes strategy and wargames, or RPGs and puzzle games for example, could have a list of completely different but equally outstanding games, so I look forward to seeing them!

[Areala]

Wow, nobody else has replied to this yet? Damn...better fix that. Mine aren't in any particular order, not even chronological, because this is all off-the-cuff for me. Let's see what happens.

#1: Duke Nukem 3D (1996)

"Hail to the king, baby!" Doom may have come first, and Quake might have been full 3D, but no FPS of the DOS era managed to so successfully merge attitude and style as Duke Nukem did in his third outing. Boasting iconic level design, an awesome selection of weaponry, one of the earliest online networks for co-op and deathmatch play, tons of satire, sophomoric humor, and a protagonist who thinks the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is a convenience store, 3D Realms delivered a game with such a devoted following that modders and programmers still work on it to this day with new levels, high-res texture packs, source ports, total conversions, and other assorted madness. It's the reason we look at Duke Nukem Forever and weep for what should have been.

#2: Zork I: The Great Underground Empire (198?)

One of the earliest games I ever played on a computer was Colossal Cave Adventure, or simply ADVENT as it was known at the time. As the owner of a TRS-80 Color Computer, my gaming choices were severely limited when I was growing up, but one of the first and finest games we had that the whole family could enjoy was this Infocom text adventure. With treasures to collect, puzzles to solve, enemies to fight, and not a single graphic to be seen, this is old school adventuring at its best. Zork taught me to be willing to try almost anything when it came to gaming, encouraged outside-the-box thinking, and rewarded even the dumbest actions with a humourous description of the outcome. It also instilled a healthy respect of saving my game frequently. I actually like "The Lurking Horror" and "Moonmist" more than Zork, but Zork was the gateway drug.

#3: Tomb Raider (1996)

Lara Croft. Early 3D titles were abominations of polygons, hideous-looking even at the time. Even games like Daggerfall and Ultima Underworld, which combined 3D levels with 2D sprites managed to be both cool and off-putting at the same time. You had to "get used to" these games. Even Quake, with its brand new engine, looked like a blocky, crude mess...then came Tomb Raider. I've yet to play the game that blows me away the way Tomb Raider did in 1996. Tomb Raider is bloody beautiful, and while I'm aware I'm deliberately looking at it through extremely rose-coloured lenses, nothing anyone can say will ever change my mind. "The City of Vilcabamba" is pure magic, and I spent hours just playing the demo, looking for new alcoves, new secrets, new ways of getting from Point A to Point B. I fell in love at first sight with Tomb Raider, and it's been such a complicated relationship ever since. Tomb Raider II might be the superior game, but it was only released for Windows, thus disqualifying it for this list.

#4: Blood (1997)

The closest any FPS has ever come to dethroning Duke. Monolith Software took everything 3D Realms did with the Build engine and expanded on it to create the ultimate DOS-based, horror-themed shooter. Caleb's dry wit contrasts beautifully with the machismo actor John St. John infused with Duke's voice. Add a variety of hideous enemies like zombies that may or may not stay dead when you shoot them down, groups of cultists who spout their own evil-sounding gibberish as they attack, gargoyle statues that animate without warning, and some truly memorable and deadly bosses. Season with a variety of levels based on horror icons like The Shining, It, Friday the 13th, the Exorcist, The Evil Dead, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Add unique weapons like a voodoo doll, napalm launcher, and the ever-popular spray-can-and-a-cigarette-lighter. Wrap in an epic tale of an anti-hero out for revenge on a god who wronged him. Pack in the music video for Type O Negative's "Love You to Death" gothic dirge. Stream the level music right off the disc instead of using MIDI synth. Serve at room temperature, with the lights out, and see if you aren't jumping at your own shadow after a couple levels. It's a shame nobody knows what happened to the source code, which is preventing the modding community from source porting this the way they have every other Build game.

#5: Carmageddon (1997)

I hate driving/racing games, but Carmageddon (brought to life by a group of deranged programmers who watched Roger Corman's "Death Race 2000" and decided that was a good idea) is inspired lunacy. A racing game where the actual race is the third-most important part of the game shouldn't work at all, but Stainless Software built such a solid foundation of pedestrian-crunching vehicular manslaughter via absurd forms of locomotion that it's impossible not to have fun. I still pop this one in from time to time to satisfy a particularly bloodthirsty streak.

#6: Three Sisters' Story (1996)

My first foray into the world of visual novels, a game genre almost entirely ignored here in the US, but which runs roughshod over every other type of PC game in Japan. They're like giant choose-your-own-adventures, with hundreds of pages' worth of text to read, dozens of choices to make, and a variety of endings to what winds up being an extraordinarily twisted story of revenge gone wrong. Also, did I mention there are boobs? Because there are. Divi-Dead would appear on this list in its place, but its status as a Windows-only release prevents me from making it official, so like Zork, I'm going with my gateway game into this genre. Honourable Mentions to "Seasons of the Sakura", "Runaway City", and "Isaku".

#7: Pool of Radiance (1986)

Pretty much on my list for the same reason Kitsunebi already said, SSI's first gold box tactical RPG was like nothing else at the time, and it kicked ass. It was literally the next-best-thing to being able to sit down with your gaming group and sling dice for real. The only major downside was its strict adherence to the AD&D rule set, which could leave new players at a disadvantage until they learned how things like Armor Class, Spell-casting, and Race/Class restrictions worked.

#8: Realms of the Haunting (1996)

A strange hybrid of FPS and FMV adventure, Realms of the Haunting casts the player as Adam Randall, inheritor of a mysterious mansion after the death of his father. Using the old trope of a house that locks the protagonist inside until he solves the puzzles, Realms is surprisingly deep for a DOS-based title. Interplay released this one with little fanfare compared to its other vaunted titles like Fallout and their Star Trek licenses, so it never quite became the blockbuster it should have been, but it's still well worth playing. GOG.com has it in their catalog, and it's well worth looking into if you enjoy more cerebral gaming experiences as opposed to blast-fests.

#9: Crawl (198X?)

I have this game, but it's pretty much impossible for me to find anything about it on the Internet, so I've no idea when it was developed, except to say it post-dates Rogue. It's a rogue-like for the CP/M, which uses ASCII graphics to stand for the player, monsters, treasure, and such. The player starts on the first level of a dungeon, just below a 7-11 Store, with enough gold to buy weapons and equipment. The goal is to descend to the bottom of the dungeon, find all three pieces of the Super Weapon, and destroy the Mega Monster at the end. You can buy some weapons from the 7-11, others are only found by fighting and defeating other enemies, and every enemy in the game is weak to at least one item. Usually these are logical (for instance: the Klingon is obviously from Star Trek, so it's weakness is the Phaser, and the Salt Vampire is obviously repulsed by Pepper), but sometimes it requires trial-and-error, and if you don't have the right weapon, you have to hope your luck holds out. Among the goodies you can find are Elf and Robot companions, who reveal more of the dungeon around you as you travel. Such a simple premise, and so endlessly frustrating and amusing at the same time. I've spent tons of hours trying to best this game, and I've yet to succeed.

#10: Epic Pinball (1993)

The best pinball game ever made is twenty-three years old. It's pinball. I really can't explain it more than this.

*huggles*
Areala

[KiwiArcader]

I just hadn't replied to this due to time zone differences. Anyways , my fave DOS games in no particular order were:

• Duke Nukem 3D - nothing more need be said
• Command and Conquer - yep, the first one was DOS based. Still great even today....
• Dune II - man those sand worms .....
• Jane's Advanced Tactical Fighters - made even my Pentium 90 groan. I bought the P90 because it killed by 486 DX-100
• Chuck Yeager's Air Combat ... McDonnell Douglas Phantom vs ME-109's anyone? 
• Quake - made me purchase a Rendition 3D video card just to play this
• Ultima Underworld II - Stygian Abyss (I can't believe this didn't make Areala's list)
• UFO - Enemy Unknown - Turn based strategy game excellence 

[RetroDefense]

This discussion has given me an overwhelming urge to visit GOG.com.

[MisterXiado]

Had a list, but the board programming made the browser cough up its intestines and then whined about character formatting.

[kitsunebi]

I've been on too many message boards in my life to even dream of typing up a lengthy post from within the browser.  Hell, I typed the OP in Word and pasted it here.  Better safe than sorry.

[Kain]

Little surprised some of these didn't get a mention. Prince Of Persia, does it get any better than that. The Gabriel Knight series was fantastic, MYST, haven't played it in years but it does bring back great memories.  As a sport game junkie i have to give a shout to Sensible Soccer, way ahead of it's time, so much fun the series in general was amazing. Then again there are so  many titles to keep adding, Ultima, Civilization SimCity, Doom, Wolfenstein, Command and Conquer, Warcraft and so on, So many titles.

[kitsunebi]

Looking at PC Gamer's list of the Top 40 Games of All Time (published in the August 1994 issue), there isn't a lot of overlap with the lists above.  Granted, some of the games in our lists hadn't been released yet, but overall I feel their list is kind of crap in some places, and I'm sure a lot of those games never showed up again in future "top ___ " lists they published.

40. Beat the House  - I don't care if it's the best casino game ever, I don't think it should be included

39. Pirates! Gold - I've never played Pirates!, but I hear this Sid Meier guy is an OK game designer 

38. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (CD-ROM version) - a pretty good choice.  This graphic adventure had multiple paths and puzzle solutions, giving it replayability that other games in the genre lacked

37. Leisure Suit Larry III - who owned a computer in the 80s and didn't play at least one of the Larry games at some point?

36. Harpoon - Submarine simulators aren't my thing

35. Empire Deluxe - neither are wargames

34. Wolfpack (Cd-Rom) - ahem, I said, SUBMARINE SIMULATORS AREN'T MY THING!

33. Pinball Fantasies - pinball games have never interested me.  They're fun, but I like games that can be finished.

32. D/Generation - dunno, never played it

31. Betrayal At Krondor - I played this RPG as a kid but never gave it the attention it deserved.  I'd like to try it again someday.

30. Lemmings - I will allow it

29. LHX Attack Chopper - this is one of those games that seemed pretty good at the time but is really hard to play now due to the extremely primitive polygon graphics.

28. Quest For Glory III - I chose the first game in this series for my list, but the technological improvements and mouse-driven interface of the third game probably make it more approachable to a modern audience.

27. Ultima Underworld II - the first game to be mentioned that also made one of our lists above.

26. Return To Zork - The Zork series is a classic, but this has got to be the worst Zork game ever.  Why is this here?

25. Might and Magic III - I was actually thinking of installing this the other day, having never played it but always wanting to

24. Speedball 2 - futuristic sports game - never played it

23. Wing Commander (CD-ROM) - Yay! I didn't include the first game on my list, but yay, anyway.  This is the 2nd game I bought when I got a computer that had a CD-ROM drive (the first being King's Quest VI)

22. Stunts - never played this, but it looks like the sort of game that would have nothing to offer that a more modern game couldn't do a million times better

21. Star Control II - This always looked interesting to me, but intimidating at the same time.  I could be wrong, but I suspect there is a steep learning curve before this game's charms are fully known.

20. Indy Car Racing - I don't like any game where the primary activity is driving a car

19. FrontPage Sports: Football Pro - Back then, computer sports titles were more about management and simulating games moreso than actually playing the games

18. Arena: the Elder Scrolls - the first Elder Scrolls title

17. Red Baron - one of the only traditional flight sims I enjoyed (probably because it wasn't as realistic/complicated as most)

16. Syndicate - never played it

15. Falcon 3.0 - anything that comes with a 400 page manual is not for me, thanks.

14. V For Victory: Utah Beach - another wargame.  Not my thing

13. Ultima VII Part II - A completely new game, but not called Ultima VIII since it used the same engine as Ultima VII. 

12. Aces of the Pacific - never played this flight sim

11. NHL Hockey - I'm sure most people played this on the Genesis

10. Alone in the Dark - Super-blocky polygons!  Ponderous tank-style controls!  Why do I like this game anyway?

9. Chuck Yeager's Air Combat - pretty enjoyable for a game not in my area of interest

8. Sam & Max Hit the Road (CD-Rom) - more classic Lucasarts adventures are never a bad thing

7. Sim City 2000 - I admit I never owned this despite playing the hell out of Sim City on the SNES

6. Links 386 Pro - Well, I guess if you like golf...

5. X-Wing - The only game this list has in common with my own

4. Railroad Tycoon - Oh look, it's that Sid Meier guy again

3. Populous - I know this started on computers but I always think of it as a console title

2. Civilization - Oh hai, Sid Meier.  So nice to see you.  Again.

1. Doom  - Yikes.  Despite the fact that I've beaten every level of every commercially published iteration of the original (pre-Doom III) Doom games, let me tell you - I don't really like them.  If I want to play old school, no-story FPS, I'd rather play Wolfenstein.  But honestly, I prefer FPS games that give you things to do other than find a key to exit the level.  Doom to me is fun for a level or two, but after that it's just an exercise in monotony.

[KiwiArcader]

I got two on that list 

• Chuck Yeager's Air Combat @ #9 on the list
• Ultima Underworld II @ #22

I agree with your comments on Doom though. I found the lack of story hampered any desire to continue playing it, especially when you felt like Duke Nukem 3D had a purpose to work towards. Plus it allowed co-op single player which was a first for FPS games as I recall. I can't believe it isn't on that list. The mod Alien Doom however, was brilliant ...

[kitsunebi]

10 minutes ago, KiwiArcader said:

I agree with your comments on Doom though. I found the lack of story hampered any desire to continue playing it, especially when you felt like Duke Nukem 3D had a purpose to work towards. Plus it allowed co-op single player which was a first for FPS games as I recall. I can't believe it isn't on that list.

That list was made 2 years before Duke Nukem 3D was released.

[KiwiArcader]

I didn't realise Duke Nukem 3D was released after the introduction of Windows 95. I was co-op single player'ing over 56k modem with my mate as there was no TCP/IP built in so maybe that's why I didn't think it was released so late!!! 

[kitsunebi]

21 minutes ago, KiwiArcader said:

I didn't realise Duke Nukem 3D was released after the introduction of Windows 95. I was co-op single player'ing over 56k modem with my mate as there was no TCP/IP built in so maybe that's why I didn't think it was released so late!!! 

It's sometimes easy to forget that it took Windows 95 quite some time to gain traction in the gaming market.  Windows 3.1 was completely useless when it came to games, so game developers and gamers were reluctant to switch to Windows as a gaming platform for a while.  I have vivid memories of booting up my computer into Windows and then immediately exiting into DOS so I could play games, and that went on for years.  Most games being released up until 1997 or so were still primarily played in DOS.  But yeah, Duke was technologically a generation ahead of the likes of Doom and allowed for better level designs where rooms could be placed directly above or below other rooms.

[Areala]

Daggerfall really should be on my list somewhere. I can't count the number of hours I poured into that addiction. I can't remember the website anymore for the life of me, but in the late 90s I submitted some info to a site that was attempting to compile, index, and document pretty much everything there was to know about every province. It was an absurd level of catalogue/index data that went beyond just "town name and what buildings are there" down into "Town name, complete breakdown of all shops/guilds/services offered (by name), indication of quality level of business (based on description you got upon entering each shop, where a mention of 'rats' meant the lowest-tier shop and a mention of 'incense' meant the cream of the crop), how many houses were for sale in a given city and their prices, plus any stand-out features like the presence of a Daedra Summoner at a certain guildhouse, presence of a Witches Coven, directions for finding it and when the summoning date(s) were, even whether or not a town/city was walled and when the gates opened/closed if it was" territory.

This was probably around 1997-ish, and it was all information that had to be compiled by hand because not even Bethesda had it to give the guy who wrote the freaking strategy guide. I'm pretty sure this was how the community discovered the Rusty Ogre exploit, where the only building in a tavern location (green dot on the map) called the Rusty Ogre Lodge within the province of Daggerfall was found to load an enormous number of Daedric weaponry, holy relics, and other expensive goodies in the footlockers upstairs. Looting them always brought the guards running, but because of the way the building was designed with a hairpin turn staircase leading up to the attic, the guards couldn't actually reach you so you could steal to your heart's content. Then, because that wasn't an abusive enough exploit, if you saved your game in the room with the footlockers, then loaded that saved game, the loot replenished itself! Take a wagon. *LOL*

If you had a Mark set somewhere else (like, say, back in the city of Daggerfall in one of the pawn shops), you could go loot the Rusty Ogre, Recall away, and have enough high-level loot to fence that you could easily wind up with a ridiculous amount of gold before you earned your first level.

*huggles*
Areala

[Sky10w10w]

DOS games, huh? Here are 10 favorites that come to mind:

1. Alley Cat

2. Doom

3. Heretic

4. Strife: Quest for the Sigil

5. Harvester

6. Descent

7. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (The Point-&-Click Adventure Game)

8. Duke Nukem 3D

9. Sid & Al's Incredible Toons

10. Quake

[twiztor]

not much of a PC gamer, but Diablo II is either #1 or #2 for favorite game of all time. Legend of Zelda (the original) is its main competitor, and my preference changes daily.

The first time i played on a LAN was a Warcraft 2 mega battle that we all felt was pretty damn epic. Wouldn't trade that for the world.

Played a lot of Doom in jr. high/high school.

honestly, outside of that, i've always been a console gamer. Definitely some good stuff here, although the vast majority i haven't played firsthand.     wait, does Minesweeper/Solitaire count? because i've sunk countless hours into both of those.  I'm kidding. Please don't lynch me, PC fans.....

[Sky10w10w]

22 hours ago, twiztor said:

not much of a PC gamer, but Diablo II is either #1 or #2 for favorite game of all time. Legend of Zelda (the original) is its main competitor, and my preference changes daily.

The first time i played on a LAN was a Warcraft 2 mega battle that we all felt was pretty damn epic. Wouldn't trade that for the world.

Played a lot of Doom in jr. high/high school.

honestly, outside of that, i've always been a console gamer. Definitely some good stuff here, although the vast majority i haven't played firsthand.     wait, does Minesweeper/Solitaire count? because i've sunk countless hours into both of those.  I'm kidding. Please don't lynch me, PC fans.....

Diablo was designed for Windows 95...

[twiztor]

like i said, not much of a PC gamer. 

[kitsunebi]

I didn't make this, but it's really cool.

https://s14.postimg.org/6wltdovyn/list_of_worthwhile_dos_games.jpg