Good games that run on Windows XP?

[jb143]

Pirates... Gold? Isn't that a DOS game? (I have the Sega Genesis version personally)

In 2004 they released an updated version called "Sid Meier's Pirates! Live the Life" at least that's what it says on the box I've got right beside me here. It's basically the same game with updated graphics and potentially more to do...I don't really remember what all the differences were. I had quite a bit of fun with it back then though.

[Edmond Dantes]

So did most people just stop PC Gaming around WinXP or something? Online most of the games I hear about are either A) Win98 games that just happen to still work in XP or else B) Windows 7 or later games that just happen to still work in XP. It's like the XP era itself is a black hole.

From my own collection I only have found the following:

Doom 3
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
Echo (an adventure game that I think takes place in prehistoric times)
the Myst series--I think Myst IV and V require XP
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Warcraft III

I'm not sure how many of those are "actually made for XP" vs "Just happen to work in XP."

[jb143]

I think a lot of games were just compatible with multiple versions and not just XP... but to sort of answer your question more broadly, I thinks it's because that's when Steam started to take over on PC.

[Cornelius]

I think a lot of games were just compatible with multiple versions and not just XP... but to sort of answer your question more broadly, I thinks it's because that's when Steam started to take over on PC.

I agree. When did Half Life 2 come out? 2004, I looked it up. That'd be one to add to your list for XP. And bringing up a Valve game, I can't believe I didn't mention Portal! It is one of my all-time favorites. (portal 2 is great, too).

I also think a lot of people, like me, were clicking away in Diablo 2 and its expansion. StarCraft and Warcraft were still huge, and I think the Battle.net edition of the latter came during XP. But I thought you were looking for a little more obscure stuff, and these were huge. Other big ones I'd consider XP for would be Fallout 3 and Oblivion IV, both on console also, but really PC games IMO. KOTOR 1 and 2 are excellent. Other good Star Wars were Jedi Outcast and Academy and ... I think there's more. Was Dark Forces XP?

Vampire Bloodlines was a good one that went a little under the radar. Far Cry was pretty amazing.

So I don't have to look them up again for this thread:
Windows XP released Oct 2001
Windows 7 Oct 2009 (we won't count Vista in 2007 )

[Edmond Dantes]

Was Dark Forces XP?

The original Dark Forces was an MS-DOS game. Then there was Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (which ran on a modified Quake engine so yeah) which started a weird Rambo-like thing where the series completely changed titles (the next game was called Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, and then the final one was Jedi Academy). I THINK Academy might be an XP game.

I never even beat the first Dark Forces tho (to be honest while I find a lot of Star Wars media competent and well-made its never been my cuppa java, the assertion that I'm not interested in the mainstream stuff is pretty accurate).

Vampire Bloodlines was a good one that went a little under the radar. Far Cry was pretty amazing.

So I don't have to look them up again for this thread:
Windows XP released Oct 2001
Windows 7 Oct 2009 (we won't count Vista in 2007 )

I'll admit, I was shocked when someone on Vogons mentioned that the original Far Cry could technically run on 98SE.

I say "technically" because a lot of really late 98SE games required Direct X9, which while you can install that on 98se.... chances are, it'll break something, so anything that says "requires Direct X9" might as well just say "requires Windows XP." I ran headfirst into this with Warcraft III, which claimed Win98SE compatibility but then kept crashing no matter what I did.

But the thing is, it just made me realize how freaking old I was... and how old the Far Cry franchise is. I keep thinking of it as a franchise that began just like five years ago but if it was around long enough to have seen Windows 98se, that's just... I need to get dentures and a walking cane.

[jb143]

But the thing is, it just made me realize how freaking old I was... and how old the Far Cry franchise is. I keep thinking of it as a franchise that began just like five years ago but if it was around long enough to have seen Windows 98se, that's just... I need to get dentures and a walking cane.

Ha... yeah, that's how I feel about most of the games on this list. I bought Half Life 2 back in the day and still haven't gotten around to playing it. It still feels like a new game to me. The original Half Life feels like an "old" game though. I think the cut off for me is college. Anything during or after college (mostly) still feels new, even though that's starting to push 20 years now.

[Edmond Dantes]

A psychological side-effect of that, related to this topic even, is I keep thinking games like HL2 would require an ultra-modern 16-core machine with gobs of RAM to run. So I keep thinking none of my PCs can run it.

Even though technically the one I just built is probably what it was designed for...