The Windows 95 Era: Suggestions on exclusives

[Tanooki]

Good selection of titles, and it reminds me too, I'm sad my Heretic disc went missing years ago in some move I think. I bought it when it came out, then went and got the fuller version with the Serpent Riders. Miss it, sure I could just go get the WAD files but I don't. I'm surprised GoG hasn't thrown that up there yet unless there's some contract deal maybe with Raven? I know Raven had their name on Hexen, but not Heretic.


Also CIV3 came out in 2001 and was for win98/98/me/2000. It was developed just before XP so it wasn't on the box as native to it. It'll work.

[Guntz]

I'd like to toss in a vote for everything made by LucasArts (especially Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II), both Age of Empires 1 and 2 + expansions and Serious Sam First and Second Encounters. Also the original Half-Life if you haven't played it yet.

What's nice about the original Serious Sam is although it was quite advanced for its time, it was not very demanding on hardware. It was sort of like a reverse FarCry or Crysis. You can run Serious Sam Second Encounter on Windows 95 OSR2. If you liked Doom or Quake at all, you should try Serious Sam.

[calthaer]

The main reason I consider Warcraft II "clunky" is because - unless I don't recall correctly (and I know there was a Battle.net edition that might have changed this) - it doesn't have a feature that has since become a staple of the RTS genre: the ability to create "units" by pressing CTRL-#. You could select 12 at a time, and then send them into battle, but recalling them if you run into something unexpected was exceptionally tedious. Makes it hard to send out the brawlers, retreat when they hit ranged, then send in fast units to take out ranged, retreat when the enemy sends out brawlers, and so forth.

[Edmond Dantes]

The main reason I consider Warcraft II "clunky" is because - unless I don't recall correctly (and I know there was a Battle.net edition that might have changed this) - it doesn't have a feature that has since become a staple of the RTS genre: the ability to create "units" by pressing CTRL-#. You could select 12 at a time, and then send them into battle, but recalling them if you run into something unexpected was exceptionally tedious. Makes it hard to send out the brawlers, retreat when they hit ranged, then send in fast units to take out ranged, retreat when the enemy sends out brawlers, and so forth.

If you're talking about grouping (IE pressing Ctrl+1 makes the current selection "group one" and then pressing 1 autoselects that entire group) then yeah, Warcraft II has always had that.

If you're talking about something else tho, then I'm not really sure. Not a huge RTS player myself... I actually find the genre irritating and Warcraft II is one of the few I can stand.

[calthaer]

A quick update on one of my replies here:

Recently installed and started playing EverQuest on the "Project 1999" server. I have to say...it's pretty amazing. The game is dated and the interface can be clunky, but it's still really magical - and totally worth playing.

[Tanooki]

I'd like to toss in a vote for everything made by LucasArts (especially Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II), both Age of Empires 1 and 2 + expansions and Serious Sam First and Second Encounters. Also the original Half-Life if you haven't played it yet.

What's nice about the original Serious Sam is although it was quite advanced for its time, it was not very demanding on hardware. It was sort of like a reverse FarCry or Crysis. You can run Serious Sam Second Encounter on Windows 95 OSR2. If you liked Doom or Quake at all, you should try Serious Sam.

I've always thought of Serious Sam not as FarCry as it has it's own slant and some problems, never touched Crysis. To me it was the DOOM 3 we never got. It was like if iD had used their Quake 2 engine, beefed it up a bit, then threw the overkill nutso amount of firepower, health and armor pick ups, and a relentless wall of enemies and crap being thrown at you both in open and close quarters combat. It became a guilty pleasure playing SS FE and SE. I do agree it's a must as are those Lucasarts games. Now I know it was a console game overkill on releases, but there was a solid release of Earthworm Jim that basically only works on Win95/98 due to some pre-DirectX garbage (WinG/Win32) they used.

[Niku-Sama]

I'd like to toss in a vote for everything made by LucasArts (especially Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II), both Age of Empires 1 and 2 + expansions and Serious Sam First and Second Encounters. Also the original Half-Life if you haven't played it yet.

What's nice about the original Serious Sam is although it was quite advanced for its time, it was not very demanding on hardware. It was sort of like a reverse FarCry or Crysis. You can run Serious Sam Second Encounter on Windows 95 OSR2. If you liked Doom or Quake at all, you should try Serious Sam.

I always thought the same about serious sam. TONS of stuff going on and not much, if any, slow downs. huge areas too

any way as far as suggestions I would say any thing MechWarrior except the strategy games, they blew

[Tanooki]

I'm backing that post up about Serious Sam. That crytek group before they got into making bloated engines knew how to make an amazingly powerful yet lean engine that could cough up an insane amount of large areas and things moving in them independently within the confines of fairly weak hardware at that time -- it scaled well and the loss for it wasn't a kick in the teeth either. Serious Sam to me for years was the DOOM we never got, kind of still is since D3 was awful and that new one is more of a hyperactive ragefest without a moment to slow down while the old Doom had that stuff but it was compartmentalized too and you could employ some slower tactics and strategy.

[Guntz]

That crytek group before they got into making bloated engines knew how to make an amazingly powerful yet lean engine that could cough up an insane amount of large areas and things moving in them independently within the confines of fairly weak hardware at that time -- it scaled well and the loss for it wasn't a kick in the teeth either.

Serious Sam was made by Croteam, not Crytek. I haven't played Next Encounter, Serious Sam II or BFE yet. I don't play much for new games, but I am happy to see Croteam didn't erode nearly as much as Crytek or 3DRealms.

[Edmond Dantes]

Love how very few of the games being discussed are actually from the Windows 95 era.

That actually is starting to worry me. Its like PC gamers know DOS, then they know Windows 98 or XP, but between them is just a huge black space.

First person to suggest that Win95 didn't have that many memorable games gets a pie to the face because I know I loved it when I had it, its just for some reason when we're asked to narrow down it becomes a tough proposition. In my case its also because I like to have played games recently before I go spouting off. I mean I could say that Microsoft's Hover was a good game but its been so long since I played it I really don't know.

Funny thing, King's Quest VII apparently was originally a Windos 95 exclusive.

[calthaer]

Yeah but we weren't quite given the stipulation that the games had to be for Windows 95 - the stipulation was 1995-2002. I have to admit that I enjoyed 1998-2000 more than I enjoyed 1995-1997 (when the actual W95 OS was in vogue), but this is largely a matter of personal taste.

Also: I did try to play Serious Sam within the past two years or so. I actually didn't find it all that fun...but maybe that's because I don't find mindless shooters quite as fun any more. It's hard to say whether I would have loved it "back in the day."