View Full Version : The Official Gaming Sites in 1995-2005 Topic
Enigmus
08-02-2009, 04:25 PM
http://web.archive.org/web/19961222145127/http://www.nintendo.com/
Anyone here remember this or not?
http://web.archive.org/web/19961219232819/http://www.sega.com/
My, it still has most of the images! And Sega actually looked good back then!
Okay, on to the point: anyone ever used Archive.org to recapture memories of old gaming websites? I'm looking for a link to the archived page for the official site for Mario Sunshine. I have good visual memory of that, but it'd be good to see it again.
MetalFRO
08-02-2009, 04:37 PM
Man, I remember the SEGA website looking like that, though I don't remember being graced by the "SEGA!" yell upon visiting. Makes me feel old :P
Cloud121
08-02-2009, 07:45 PM
I was a huge Sega arcade junkie as a kid in the mid nineties. I remember the good ol' days of going to the Sega site and drooling over owning a Saturn so I could have Virtua Fighter 2. Didn't get my Saturn until Sunday August 19, 2000. But that's a whole other thread I have in mind for the future.
I still go back to the whole site from time to time just to bring back those memories.
Steve W
08-03-2009, 01:37 AM
I always liked the Atari website back then, when they were barely trying to put out the word about the Jaguar. I guess they had just given up by 1996. And I remember Apple's eWorld online service had a crappy browser that made it hard to surf the web after around a dozen web pages. I also remember seeing the site in 640 by 480 with 256 colors rather than the glorious 1280 by 854 with millions of colors I use on my laptop.
http://web.archive.org/web/19961029111031/http://www.atari.com/
My site, Zap! (http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/8717/) went up around January, 1997 via Geocities and STILL up.
In January of 2009, for the first time in 10 years, I updated it and moved it to www.zaponline.org, adding forums.
Haoie
08-03-2009, 05:47 AM
How many people even had internet back then?
Time sure flies.
snes_collector
08-03-2009, 07:47 AM
Wow, thanks for the links. Since I didn't have a computer at this point, it's my first time seeing these pages. It's crazy how websites were so much simplier back then. Very cool.
jb143
08-03-2009, 10:13 AM
My site, Zap! (http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/8717/) went up around January, 1997 via Geocities and STILL up.
In January of 2009, for the first time in 10 years, I updated it and moved it to www.zaponline.org, adding forums.
Speaking of Geocities...It's going away this October. Just think of all that old, not updated in ages stuff just dissapearing. A piece of internet history just going *poof*. Sure it was mainly flashing animated gifs but there's still some good stuff on there too.
Speaking of Geocities...It's going away this October. Just think of all that old, not updated in ages stuff just dissapearing. A piece of internet history just going *poof*. Sure it was mainly flashing animated gifs but there's still some good stuff on there too.
What, I didn't hear of this! So my old site will be forever gone? :(
Enigmus
08-03-2009, 02:09 PM
http://web.archive.org/web/20010702144750/http://www.xbox.com/
Xbox in 2002. Crazy.
http://web.archive.org/web/19981203134416/http://digitpress.com/
Well, lookie what I found! :p
http://web.archive.org/web/19981212031412/http://www.nintendo.com/
Nintendo in 1998.
Also, some of the old shockwave games on the Sega site STILL WORK. After 12 YEARS.:o
Also, White Knight, better archive your site, and Archive.org better archive the ENTIRE Geocities site, and fast!
jb143
08-03-2009, 02:14 PM
What, I didn't hear of this! So my old site will be forever gone? :(
Yup...though they will let you transfer it to a non-free yahoo account:rolleyes:
Enigmus
08-03-2009, 02:19 PM
Yup...though they will let you transfer it to a non-free yahoo account:rolleyes:
Remember when Geocities actually consisted of city-like webpage areas? 8-)
jb143
08-03-2009, 02:26 PM
Also, White Knight, better archive your site, and Archive.org better archive the ENTIRE Geocities site, and fast!
That's what I'm thinking too...There's plenty of late 90's gaming sites on there all set to self destruct. And Yahoo isn't doing much to let people know. I got an email last week that I almost missed but that was it.
Enigmus
08-03-2009, 02:37 PM
http://www.geocities.com/nintendogandw/
Found a G&W site on the first search.
http://www.geocities.com/nintendopes/index.html?20093
Last updated September 16 2001. Classic.
http://www.geocities.com/snappa_fcw/sega.html
2002. Also an example of old web design.
http://www.geocities.com/mario64sss/index.htm
Ancient Mario 64 guide.
Man, Geocities is a museum. OLD.8-)
Also, anyone who still has links to their or their friends' old Geocities pages, post some links. So there's a chance someone whill make archive copies.
Blanka789
08-03-2009, 05:38 PM
There are tons of these sites that I used to visit and have searched out time and time again, but with no luck in finding them.
Hopefully they won't be lost completely.
badinsults
08-03-2009, 06:34 PM
http://web.archive.org/web/20010602042803/snes.topcities.com/main/setup.html
A very early incarnation of my website. Oh how things have changed! Hard to believe back then how much frames were in use.
BydoEmpire
08-03-2009, 07:58 PM
Hah, wow, I used to have a geocities site. Seems like ages ago.
DailyRadar.com was my big "mainstream" site back then.
Greg2600
08-03-2009, 09:27 PM
Most of the official sites back then were pretty pointless. Using the Internet Archive is great, but with geocities, lycos, xoom, aol, netscape, etc. sites long deleted, it's difficult. They often had addresses that were impossible to remember. For the most part, I think the only game sites I visited in the late 90's and early 2000's were to download roms.
Gentlegamer
08-03-2009, 09:57 PM
For the most part, I think the only game sites I visited in the late 90's and early 2000's were to download roms.Ditto. Emulation Excitement and The Dump were my favs (long since deactivated).
joshnickerson
08-03-2009, 10:05 PM
Lord, I made all kinds of sites in Geocities back in the late 90's. I remember they had a really shitty and limited upload program that didn't work half the time, and there were stupid pop-ups, but dang it, we all loved it! Animated GIFS, MIDIs playing relentlessly in the background... those were the days.
And holy crap, I actually found my old site using WayBack... been years since I even THOUGHT about it...
http://web.archive.org/web/20040404025245/www.echosoftware.com/ofnstudios/
Sonicwolf
08-03-2009, 10:09 PM
I wonder how many instances of the "Under Construction" animated gif will pop up in this thread alone.
jb143
08-03-2009, 11:47 PM
I had never been to the old Sega site before. I never realized they had playable PC version demo's you could download. The files are still there on the archive site too!
sebastiankirchoff
08-04-2009, 12:38 AM
I remember printing a Final Fantasy Guide off of one of those old sites back in 99 or 2000. It helped me alot, even though I was only 6 or 7 years old and barely understood the concept of RPG's.
orangest
08-04-2009, 01:03 AM
The ol' RGVCers certainly remember Mr. Michael J. Novak-
http://web.archive.org/web/19970114163012/http://www.io.com/~vga2000/
Nice to see TSR's NES archive is still functioning-
http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/
I feel like I'm should be using a different browser (http://browser.netscape.com/releases) somehow...
Nirvana
08-04-2009, 01:04 AM
DON'T GO TO THE FINAL FANTASY WEBSITE I'M ABOUT TO POST, ALL THE LINKS TRY TO ATTACK YOUR COMPUTER WITH A VIRUS
But ffgurus.net used to have awesome information on FFVII and FFVIII, and it was an insanely popular forum from late 1999-2000. It continued to be popular, but it slowly died down. It just recently closed down, as the guy who owned the domain or whatever forgot to pay for the site. It's a shame, I lost contact with pretty much all those guys.
Also, gamesages.com was the site I used to go to for video games; it used to be affiliated with gamefaqs. Excellent site. I miss it. GameFaQs pretty much won the battle between all video game websites.
Dire 51
08-04-2009, 02:16 AM
So who remembers the OPCFG (b. 1998, d. 2006, r. 2008)? Good times, good times.
Haoie
08-04-2009, 06:18 AM
With the end of Geocities: What a total waste!
Famidrive-16
08-04-2009, 06:55 AM
I'm still surprised World of Nintendo is still up:
http://world-of-nintendo.com/
Although a shortcut in Mario 64 I sent in there when I was 10 is no longer up, sigh...
Breakpack
08-05-2009, 08:32 AM
I remember the first emulation site I visited was Hitman games back in late '97.It had a 'Sail Away' midi playing in the background,lol!Dave's Arcade and Emuchrist were among other emu sites.I used to think Dave was Dr. Dave from Gamepro :)
DragonMaster Sam
08-05-2009, 10:26 AM
I remember the first emulation site I visited was Hitman games back in late '97.It had a 'Sail Away' midi playing in the background,lol!Dave's Arcade and Emuchrist were among other emu sites.I used to think Dave was Dr. Dave from Gamepro :)
I used to remember alot of emulator/rom sites back in the day, like Emurater.
And speaking of old sites, there's one I used to visit called NintendoLand. The site is still up, but it hasn't been updated in about 8 years.
Enigmus
08-05-2009, 10:34 AM
And speaking of old sites, there's one I used to visit called NintendoLand. The site is still up, but it hasn't been updated in about 8 years.
On the contrary. They've announced they're going to rehaul the site after years of abandonment. Last updated August 4. 8-)
And I searched OPCFG, and Google said it might harm my computer. Dang.
PentiumMMX
08-05-2009, 12:40 PM
One I liked was NES Worldwide (Not to be confused with the more well-known site, NES World). It was one of very few (read: about 3 or 4) NES sites that actually talked about the NES and it's games instead of mindlessly bashing the N64 and\or Gamestop.
Probably the best part of the site was a section called Game Genie WeirdNES, where people would submit Game Genie codes that caused all kinds of weird and sometimes cool effects on various games. I always had such fun playing around with the codes they had; seeing what all they'd do.
Oddly enough, the site was shut down a few months after the owner of the site joked about shutting it down on April Fool's Day back in 2003; evidently joking about closing your site is just as good as seriously telling people you're going to close it.
I'm still surprised World of Nintendo is still up:
http://world-of-nintendo.com/
I loved that site as a kid for the Worst Nintendo Experiences people would submit. I have a backup of all the stories they used to have saved on my flash drive in a basic text file, because I enjoyed reading them so much as a kid.
YoshiM
08-05-2009, 02:37 PM
I'm still surprised World of Nintendo is still up:
http://world-of-nintendo.com/
Although a shortcut in Mario 64 I sent in there when I was 10 is no longer up, sigh...
Oh man! I totally forgot about that site. I had written a couple reviews like WWF Warzone for the N64. Unfortunately a login is required to read it.
Anyone remember the old Happy Puppy (http://web.archive.org/web/19981201062846/http://www.happypuppy.com/index.html) site? I used to go there often back in the late 90's to find PC game demos.
This is probably one of the first gaming sites I visited regularly after I got an N64: the aptly named N64.com (http://web.archive.org/web/19961221020752/www.n64.com/n64_ext_stan.html) , waay back before IGN was the huge media site it is today.
Or how about the old Gamespot (http://web.archive.org/web/19961105034129/http://www.gamespot.com/), another first for gaming news for me. Hey look, they even have a "low band" version for faster surfing!
Dang, I'm getting all nostalgic here.
Baloo
08-05-2009, 03:17 PM
http://web.archive.org/web/20010702144750/http://www.xbox.com/
Xbox in 2002. Crazy.
http://web.archive.org/web/19981203134416/http://digitpress.com/
Well, lookie what I found! :p
http://web.archive.org/web/19981212031412/http://www.nintendo.com/
Nintendo in 1998.
Also, some of the old shockwave games on the Sega site STILL WORK. After 12 YEARS.:o
Also, White Knight, better archive your site, and Archive.org better archive the ENTIRE Geocities site, and fast!
Watch out, don't play those games, they may work but they just tried to give my computer the Bladerunner virus through Shockwave Adobe shit. Luckily Spybot stopped it.
Watch out! Although it's cool that the sites are still up.
rbudrick
08-05-2009, 03:42 PM
Anyone remember VGR's Homepage?
He had a bunch of lists of games for many systems, long before I knew about DP. I still use these lists to this day as checklists. What ever happened to that site, or VGR for that matter?
-Rob
Davesclassics, before it turned into a virus-throwing crapfest of a site.
badinsults
08-06-2009, 07:47 AM
Anyone remember the site Gamers Intelligence Agency? I have no idea what the URL was, but this was a pretty good site. It shut down because they could not pay for hosting.
Breetai
08-06-2009, 08:39 AM
I remember the first emulation site I visited was Hitman games back in late '97.It had a 'Sail Away' midi playing in the background...Hey, I remember that!
I used to always download stuff from "The Dump." Great site for Genesis and Turbographx-16 stuff. I wasn't too concerned with SNES roms since my Pentium 75 didn't handle them too well. Genesis and TG-16 games were a breeze, though.
Enigmus
08-06-2009, 09:51 AM
Watch out, don't play those games, they may work but they just tried to give my computer the Bladerunner virus through Shockwave Adobe shit. Luckily Spybot stopped it.
Watch out! Although it's cool that the sites are still up.
I need no worries about the games. I have Kaspersky. That thing blocks EVERYTHING. Hell, when I open Kega, it sometimes thinks the keyboard support is a keylogger.:-D
Enigmus
08-06-2009, 11:34 AM
Sorry about double post, but anyone ever seen one of the first wikipedias?
http://web.archive.org/web/20021130190725/www.wikipedia.org/
Dire 51
08-06-2009, 01:22 PM
And I searched OPCFG, and Google said it might harm my computer. Dang.
That was on the old archive at Hardcore Gaming 101. I have no idea why it would be doing that. It shouldn't do that anymore, as I've merged the archive with the new OPCFG and have been systematically removing links, old Guestbook links that go nowhere and other such stuff.
The New OPCFG: http://opcfg.kontek.net and the OPCFG Archive: http://opcfg.kontek.net/archive
It shouldn't set off any alarms now. I've been running it through Google and it's not displaying the same message. If it does for you, let me know ASAP.
Enigmus
08-06-2009, 09:41 PM
Man, I just remembered this vivid memory of a Zelda site I used to go to. Man, I can barely remember that. That, and I can remember at one point in time when Sonic hacks weren't flooding the internet like mice. And back when Ask had Jeeves (the flat 2D one), when Yahoo! looked like 4th grade crap, and when Youtube didn't whore itself out. It's hard to believe that Tim Berners Lee made the WWW for information, but as shown by today, a lot of that's really retarded information. It'd be fun to use a time machine to scare Lee in 1993 by showing him a furry website. @_@ God, the internet's warped itself so many times.
Oh, and the new OPCFG is fine with my Kaspersky.
cityside75
08-06-2009, 10:27 PM
Davesclassics, before it turned into a virus-throwing crapfest of a site.
Seconded. Dave's Classics was my go-to site for years. Anyone remember why they shut down? Wasn't there an issue with them hosting roms or something?
LiquidPolicenaut
08-06-2009, 10:31 PM
Speaking of old school, I originally started my Policenauts and Snatcher site on my good ol' webtv....and this month is my 10 year anniversary! I think it's finally time to take it down....
Enigmus
08-06-2009, 10:57 PM
Speaking of old school, I originally started my Policenauts and Snatcher site on my good ol' webtv....and this month is my 10 year anniversary! I think it's finally time to take it down....
More like archive it so it can be used for an idea of mine: a book describing the history of gaming communities on the internet. I think it should be called 56k.
Anyone remember the site Gamers Intelligence Agency? I have no idea what the URL was, but this was a pretty good site. It shut down because they could not pay for hosting.
Thegia.com? I'm not sure about that one though.
Seconded. Dave's Classics was my go-to site for years. Anyone remember why they shut down? Wasn't there an issue with them hosting roms or something?
I think so. They had tons of roms and were quiet prominent, i.e. they even featured in gaming magazines. So I guess they were an ideal target to go for...
Enigmus
08-07-2009, 09:52 AM
Man, I need to see if the Internet Archive has any archivings of these places...
Enigmus
08-07-2009, 11:53 PM
Also, anyone ever seen TMK in the past using archive.org? It actually looks BETTER.
Dire 51
08-08-2009, 09:59 AM
Oh, and the new OPCFG is fine with my Kaspersky.
Cool, thanks for the update.
Enigmus
08-08-2009, 10:39 AM
Cool, thanks for the update.
Yeah. I can't also believe how viruses have evolved with the internet. It started as computer crashing, but then went keyogging and money stealing after they realized there's no point in crashing other computers.
Aussie2B
08-08-2009, 02:14 PM
That 1996 Nintendo site looks familiar, but I know I was never on it. Must've seen it in a Nintendo Power screen shot or something. I didn't get on the site until 1998, so that's how I remember it. It's also the site that really got me going on the internet too. I got my first computer in 1998, and for the first few months, I barely turned it on except to research and write stuff for school. But eventually I decided to go to nintendo.com, and I got hooked, especially once I registered on the BBS (with this same user name, so my 15-year-old self is still tormenting me). By 1999, I was on the computer, particularly message boards, all the time.
I've had a web site myself in some shape or form since 2000 or 2001. I used Homestead and Geocities in the past, maybe others too, who knows. Geocities died for me a long time ago since I ran out of space with them in 2003, and from that point on, I've been hosted by a friend who has his own domain and generously gives me basically unlimited storage and bandwidth. If I ever have any problems with that, my boyfriend has a domain now too, so I'm set. It's interesting looking through my update archive, though. I still have updates saved from as far back as June 2001. I even have an update I made a few days after 9/11. I've never been big on the whole social networking and blog movements, so I always used my web site updates as a place to both write about my site work and a little about what's going on in my life and the world.
Enigmus
08-08-2009, 03:39 PM
That 1996 Nintendo site looks familiar, but I know I was never on it. Must've seen it in a Nintendo Power screen shot or something. I didn't get on the site until 1998, so that's how I remember it. It's also the site that really got me going on the internet too. I got my first computer in 1998, and for the first few months, I barely turned it on except to research and write stuff for school. But eventually I decided to go to nintendo.com, and I got hooked, especially once I registered on the BBS (with this same user name, so my 15-year-old self is still tormenting me). By 1999, I was on the computer, particularly message boards, all the time.
I've had a web site myself in some shape or form since 2000 or 2001. I used Homestead and Geocities in the past, maybe others too, who knows. Geocities died for me a long time ago since I ran out of space with them in 2003, and from that point on, I've been hosted by a friend who has his own domain and generously gives me basically unlimited storage and bandwidth. If I ever have any problems with that, my boyfriend has a domain now too, so I'm set. It's interesting looking through my update archive, though. I still have updates saved from as far back as June 2001. I even have an update I made a few days after 9/11. I've never been big on the whole social networking and blog movements, so I always used my web site updates as a place to both write about my site work and a little about what's going on in my life and the world.
See, people? This is how I meant the topic to go! Remembering old gamings sites by going on monologues!
Famidrive-16
08-09-2009, 06:07 AM
Also, anyone ever seen TMK in the past using archive.org? It actually looks BETTER.
Maybe it's just the url I'm using, but it's too bad that it only goes back to 2005.
Enigmus
08-09-2009, 12:25 PM
Maybe it's just the url I'm using, but it's too bad that it only goes back to 2005.
It's the URL. You need www.classicgaming.com/tmk when going. It's TMK from 1999-2004.
tsr's NES archive (http://atarihq.com/tsr/) was a favorite of mine way back in '96. Amazingly, it's still up.
Enigmus
12-03-2009, 05:32 PM
tsr's NES archive (http://atarihq.com/tsr/) was a favorite of mine way back in '96. Amazingly, it's still up.
I went there a lot in 2007 out of boredom. Helps a guy understand his NES more. :D
EDIT: 4 month bump. Sweetness.
Baloo
12-03-2009, 06:22 PM
Ahhh, I love that old Sega.com site from '96 to '97. I've spent a lot of time digging through that site, there's actually a lot of info and downloads on there to be had.
Very nice site.
NE146
12-03-2009, 06:55 PM
I'll do you all one better.. I actually SAVED some sites back then and still have them. I dunno why LOL
Someone mentioned Daves Classics.. well how about this :) 1996 Daves Videogame Classics (http://www.users.uswest.net/%7Euserid946/Dave%27s%20Video%20Game%20Classics.htm) I don't think even webarchive has info on this site that far back since since that's when it was located on the California State University edu sites.
Enigmus
12-03-2009, 10:23 PM
I'll do you all one better.. I actually SAVED some sites back then and still have them. I dunno why LOL
Someone mentioned Daves Classics.. well how about this :) 1996 Daves Videogame Classics (http://www.users.uswest.net/%7Euserid946/Dave%27s%20Video%20Game%20Classics.htm) I don't think even webarchive has info on this site that far back since since that's when it was located on the California State University edu sites.
This thread needs that- fan archivings.
I'll do you all one better.. I actually SAVED some sites back then and still have them. I dunno why LOL
Someone mentioned Daves Classics.. well how about this :) 1996 Daves Videogame Classics (http://www.users.uswest.net/%7Euserid946/Dave%27s%20Video%20Game%20Classics.htm) I don't think even webarchive has info on this site that far back since since that's when it was located on the California State University edu sites.
OMG, I remember that site! Wow, blast from the past, I loved that place. Call me crazy, but I also love the "look" and "feel" of sites back then. So simple and retro!
Enigmus
12-04-2009, 05:40 PM
Any archivings of the Nintendo website before 1996? Anyone? ANYONE? :p
Enigmus
06-05-2010, 07:17 PM
Sorry for a revival here, but I found some things on my computer (PC, 2001, no internet connection):
I've located a few flash files for advertisments for DK King of Swing, Dynasty Warriors Advanced and- ugh- Pokemon XD.
Now, these may not be that old, but considering I have a LOT of files to dig into in my temp folder going back to 2003, there'll be a LOT of archived websites to dig up, and they're still gaming materials.
I've got them on a USB flash drive, and when my laptops get repaired, I'll put up a few links to the files, with ad links disabled.
Also, I've located the Mario Party 4 website:
I'm-a the party star. (http://www.marioparty4.com)
There'll be a lot more, trust me. There's over 5000-10,000 files in there, just waiting to be found.
EDIT: Located the Super Mario Advance 3 website:
Well, this is boring. (http://www.gameboy.com/yoshi)