I found a box of CD-Roms and floppy disks in my mum’s basement and damnit, I want to play them! I could use emulators, DosBox or VMs but it’s never quite the same as having the real thing, so between an eBay mobo and a box of old parts I managed to build my new gaming rig to cover 1990-2005.

Its running a P3 at 1GHz, 512MB of ram, and an ATI Xpert98 with 8MB of memory. As I didn’t want to run an old IDE drive with a million hours on it, I tried an SATA-IDE adapter, it caused some issues during the install but that just felt like the standard Windows experience.

Though unpopular, I went with ME for 2 reasons, the first was Dos support, the second is that I went from W95 to ME as a kid, 98 wouldn’t have felt the same. The install bricked twice with video drivers but I finally got it up and running with the default drivers and an 18" Samsung flat CRT (runs up to 1600x1200 at a nauseating 60hz).

So what were your favorite games from the 90’s and early 2000s?

  • MeanEYE@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    Original, and in my opinion best, Fallouts 1 and 2. M.A.X. which doesn’t get as mentioned as it should. Good old Blizzard games back before they turned evil. Sanitarium, awesome game from a studio who released it and promptly died after.

  • PraiseTheSoup@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago
    • Jazz Jackrabbit
    • Descent
    • Need for Speed 2
    • Witchaven 2: Blood Vengeance
    • Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness

    These are the games I remember best on our win95 IBM PC. My personal favorite of this era is Hexen: Beyond Heretic but that has been mentioned a few times already.

    • Nik282000@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      4·
      2 months ago

      Jazz Jackrabbit

      Epic game music, up there with Sonic for getting stuck in your head.

      • PraiseTheSoup@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        Epic game music

        Not sure if the wordplay was intentional, but I chuckled a bit. Agreed though, the music was awesome.

  • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    alone in the dark, any of the sierra games (but especially kq 5,6, and 7), lands of lore 1+2, master of orion 1+2, sam n max, sim town, myst, ultima underworld, sim ant…

  • Yuri addict@ani.socialEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    i remember my dad used to have a samsung syncmaster CRT would probably preferred it over my more modern but crappier TN display

    • Nik282000@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      As long as it wasn’t stuck at 60Hz, CRTs had the better picture up until at least 2010. I get why they went out of favour but if someone made an 80lb, 16:9 4K CRT I would buy it.

      • Yuri addict@ani.socialEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        i would still prefered that samsung crt over the TN 1366x768 display panel im using on my desktop cause the colors are just so dogcrap

    • Nik282000@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      UT GOTY was one of my main reasons for this project. I played the hell out of that game!

  • 9point6@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    ME is a bold choice regardless—those installs always seem to destroy themselves before long in my experience (admittedly from quite a while ago now)

    As for games (in no particular order):

    • Command & Conquer (basically all of them up to including RA2)
    • Diablo 2
    • Warcraft 3
    • Dungeon Keeper
    • Theme Hospital
    • Rollercoaster Tycoon (and RCT2)
    • Unreal Tournament 99
    • Fury 3/Terminal Velocity
    • Z
    • Age of Empires 1 & 2
    • Pharaoh & Caesar 3
    • MechWarrior 3
    • Serious Sam
    • Sim City 3000
    • Quake 2 & 3
    • Half Life
    • Deus Ex

    I’m definitely forgetting some

    • Nik282000@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      When I had ME the first time around I do remember there being some stability issues but I never had it totally brick, even with the assload of sus softeware that came from Kazaa and Morpheus.

      • Pacmanlives@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        From what I remember hardware support was weird with ME. If you had the right hardware you were golden. Also last release of MSDOS

        • DarthBueller@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          I had an entirely different experience with Windows ME than seemingly everyone else. In my experience windows Me fixed a ton of hardware issues. I preferred it over 98 SE back in the day.

    • Donut@leminal.spaceEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Great list, pretty much my childhood. I’ll add some more:

      • Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1/2
      • Empire Earth 1/2
      • Civilization II
      • Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines
      • Theme Park (World?)
      • Populous: The Beginning
      • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        Great list, I’ll add some more

        • Alpha Centauri (Alien Crossfire Expansion optional but encouraged)
        • Bladerunner
        • MechCommander 1
        • MechCommander 2
        • Civilization: Call to Power ( Often Neglected Cousin of the Civ games, but I always enjoyed it)