“Please insert floppy disc 8.” If this was the case nowadays we would spend our entire day swapping out Floppy Discs in order to install our games. A High-Density Floppy Disc held up to 1.44MB of storage space. That would mean that Evolve, weighing in at 35GB, would need 25000 discs to install.
While we’re grateful that we now have Blu-Ray discs and high density DVD discs, there are so many memories of games that used Floppy Discs to install the games we called MS DOS games. I am here to bring back all those memories of us as younger gamers, installing those great games.
Do you remember these MS DOS games?
3D Pinball Space Cadet
This might not be as old as the other titles on this list, but do not deny that this was the first title you opened after installing Windows XP.
Dune
Before Command and Conquer we had a game called Dune. Managing spice extraction while driving the Harkonnen off the planet was the main goal of the game. The economic and military strategy gameplay was a mix of what we know today from titles like Command and Conquer, and EVE.
Blood – 1997
I could go on about Duke Nukem 3D all day, but there were so many first person shooters on MS-DOS that it is hard to choose the best one. Blood was another jewel of its day. Released in 1997, Blood was zombie slaying FPS title, armed with a pitch fork as a primary weapon and a classic revolver, you would go around killing off zombies and other enemies of the dark. The game had some great sound effects that would still freak me out today.
Commander Keen – 1990
ID Software might be known today for their Wolfenstein: The New Order, but back then it was about Commander Keen, a platformer that everyone and their cat played. You played as Billy Blaze, an 8-year old boy who travels through space and pretends to be Commander Keen. The game was praised for its smooth platforming and managed to rival that of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros.
Star Wars: X-Wing – 1993
Voice acting in a DOS game? Yes that happened! So was Star Wars: X-Wing, one of the games that outshone quite a number DOS games back in the day thanks to its visual appeal and great voice acting. Most games had moan or a scream every now and then, even the sound effects were compressed and came out sounding like a taxi hooter, but not Star Wars: X-Wing.
Ghostbuster
Who you gonna call? Remember those levels on Contra where you would control the character at the bottom of the screen while firing at the enemies at the top? Well Ghostbuster II’s entire gameplay experience was that.
Operation Wolf
Operation Wolf was my first ever game that I played on Windows 95. I remember waking up really early the day after my parents bought the PC to make sure I played it before they woke up. Even though the PC took forever to boot up, I was lucky enough to get some game time in.
Operation Wolf was the beginning of the Point Blank era, where using your mouse was the key to shooting countless enemies and using nukes to clear the screen when you were overwhelmed.
God of Thunder
Top down Zelda inspired game, God of Thunder, was the ultimate treasure hunting, hammer throwing adventure game. Some might say “Zelda rip off”, but I say genre defining. You play as Thor, son of Odin through Midgar as you try and reclaim it for your father. Guess who stole it from Odin? That’s right, Loki.
Hexen
Think Duke Nukem but with magic and bad ass gauntlets. Hexen, the sequel to Heretic, was the complete opposite of Duke Nukem. Even though Hexen matched Duke Nukem’s visual style, the game still managed to be highly successful thanks to its great arsenal of weapons and freaky enemies.
Quake
Every other game on this list is irrelevant now that Quake has made its mark.
