Good games that run on Windows XP?

[Edmond Dantes]

I just built a Windows XP gaming comp. Its a 2.80ghz Pentium 4 (so single core), 512 ram (though the motherboard can be upgraded to 2gig), with a Geforce 4 ti4200 and a Soundblaster Audigy 2. In other words, a comp I would've considered a powerhouse at the time, but it can only run Doom 3 on medium settings.

But ya know... got new hardware, wondering what games to run on it.

Games I already own are Doom 3, but also the Myst series (I got all of them in a box last year) and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. But this was the period where I basically stopped paying attention to PCs so I'm not sure if there's any underappreciated XP gems to look out for.

(EDIT: It just occured to me that in my "list" I forgot to mention Windows 98 games that also have XP compatibility, so I probably have more than I think I do).

So, suggestions?

[YoshiM]

I just built a Windows XP gaming comp. Its a 2.80ghz Pentium 4 (so single core), 512 ram (though the motherboard can be upgraded to 2gig), with a Geforce 4 ti4200 and a Soundblaster Audigy 2. In other words, a comp I would've considered a powerhouse at the time, but it can only run Doom 3 on medium settings.

But ya know... got new hardware, wondering what games to run on it.

Games I already own are Doom 3, but also the Myst series (I got all of them in a box last year) and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. But this was the period where I basically stopped paying attention to PCs so I'm not sure if there's any underappreciated XP gems to look out for.

(EDIT: It just occured to me that in my "list" I forgot to mention Windows 98 games that also have XP compatibility, so I probably have more than I think I do).

So, suggestions?

Well, I guess the question is: whaddayawanna play? I'm assuming FPS games and visual puzzlers by what you have on there now.

While I didn't game a ton on PC, here's what I can think of:


Freedom Force
Star Trek:Elite Force
Tron 2.0
Elder Scrolls: Morrowind
Pirates Gold might work
Civilization 2 or 3

[Edmond Dantes]

I'm not really picky about genre--FPSes just happen to be a good go-to for testing hardware, and I really do like adventure games (exploring beautiful mysterious landscapes is part of gaming's joy), but I'm just having trouble remembering what all I've wanted to play before that is now open to me.

One I just thought of... Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. I need to see if that'll run on this rig (IIRC I'm well over the recommended specs).

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

[Cornelius]

I keep thinking of games that were just before Windows XP, but maybe that'll work since they should run well:

System Shock 2 (maybe check the rebirth(?) mod)
Deus Ex
American McGee's Alice
Baldur's Gate
Grim Fandango (There are remastered versions now, though)

[YoshiM]

I'm not really picky about genre--FPSes just happen to be a good go-to for testing hardware, and I really do like adventure games (exploring beautiful mysterious landscapes is part of gaming's joy), but I'm just having trouble remembering what all I've wanted to play before that is now open to me.

One I just thought of... Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. I need to see if that'll run on this rig (IIRC I'm well over the recommended specs).

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

I'm pretty sure it was. There's Gold and Gold Plus. It's been years since I played it (I have Gold) but I remember it running in Windows. From what I can tell, Plus runs in Windows.

I'll have to dig it out and try. It's been since the late 90's since I tried it.

[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...

[Cornelius]

Posts here got me to pull some boxes off the shelf and damn if I didn't find another way to feel old. You know the small-box form factor? Yeah, all of those that I have list windows 98 as an option. I would have thought those were squarely in the XP. Although if having 98 on the box rules it out as a "XP game", then you'd have to do the same for games that came out on XP and Windows 7. So some games like Mass Effect 3 have both of those listed. Same with Fallout 4.

So some I'm looking at that have 98 on the box, but I'd still consider XP are Max Payne, SW Republic Commander, Black & White, Doom 3, KOTOR II, and Beyond Good & Evil. Hell, even HL2 has 98 on the box. Of course, I think most of those were on consoles, too, so not exactly perfect for the list.

[Edmond Dantes]

Although if having 98 on the box rules it out as a "XP game",

It doesn't. I realized this would be silly.

So some I'm looking at that have 98 on the box, but I'd still consider XP are Max Payne, SW Republic Commander, Black & White, Doom 3, KOTOR II, and Beyond Good & Evil. Hell, even HL2 has 98 on the box. Of course, I think most of those were on consoles, too, so not exactly perfect for the list.

And add KOTOR to the list of "games I keep thinking are more recent than they really are."

LGR did a video about Big Box games (I think he did more than one). Apparently for awhile some games were released in both big-box and small-box format because some retailers preferred one over the other.

[Scream And Fly]

Don’t forget Serious Sam! My personal favorite is Unreal with the expansion, and of course UT.

[Edmond Dantes]

Heh, its funny but I was actually addicted to Unreal Tournament a month ago.

See, I started out playing Unreal, but I found the main campaign boring, so wound up loading up a botmatch... and was like "Wow, this is awesome," and so installed Unreal Tournament since it was basically that, but better.

This on a PC that had no internet access whatsoever.

So now I wonder if I should load up Quake III Arena (which yes I do own--a friend just dumped it along with other PC games on me when he went off to college and never asked it to be returned. It's the "Gold" release which includes Team Arena).

Perhap I should build another PC and invite people out so we can have classic LAN parties.

[Scream And Fly]

Oh man, UT and LAN parties! So much fun. Many years ago we would get together 10 friends or so and meet up at one of our houses for an all-night frag-fest. Somebody brings the network switch and everybody brings their own Cat5 cable. Such good times. All night of Unreal Tournament, Counter-Strike, Half-Life deathmatch, Quake III, and Team Fortress Classic. I miss those days.

[Cornelius]

Did anyone play Master of Orion 3? I played a lot of MoO2, but never the sequel. I think the buzz was pretty negative when it came out.

[Edmond Dantes]

I recall reading about MoO3 in an issue of PC Gamer but I never played any of the games in the series.

Speaking of PC Gamer, last month I bought some old issues on ebay (circa 1995-2001, most near the 1995-6 point) and well...

Reading those is a trip and a half. Among the highlights include:

* Predictions about how going online will radically change the face of gaming (yup).

* A long letter (and response from PC Gamer's editor) which talked about the possibility of PCs playing console games (they specifically cited the original--and at the time, only--Playstation), possibly with enhancements, but both sides seemed to think this was just a pipe dream that would never come to fruition. Kinda got a chuckle out of that one.

* There was a brief mention in the 2001 issue that the editor had gotten heat for saying bad things about Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. My, how times have changed...

* One recurring advertiser in the back of the 1995-6 issues was a company that specialized in... pornography on CD-ROM? Like, some of it was literally said to be just CDs full of JPEGs, but some sounded like they were some sort of interactive. I especially wonder what "Vampire's Kiss" is. Also, apparently the anime Urotsukidoji was sold this way (I'm guessing it was a hyper-compressed quicktime movie on CD-ROM or something), and it wasn't the only one, though I didn't recognize most of the other titles. Seriously, I should scan this page.

[jb143]

Just out of curiosity (and because I have several of these games on my backlog), is there anything that keeps these from running on a Windows 10 system? Most of my older software runs just fine so I never gave it too much thought. I know you have to install any DirectX components that aren't included anymore but that's not too big of a deal. Is there any gaming reason to keep an XP system around? Other than maybe hardware issues, such as old controllers not working anymore.