Here is a list of games software that has been significant to me over the years. I did waste a lot of my life playing games. I don’t play them anymore.
You can play old Apple games here: www.scullinsteel.com
Play Asteroids, Jetpac and more here: https://freeasteroids.org/
Arcade
Asteroids
Apple 2
Chop Lifter
Sabotage
Wilderness Campain
Trolls Gold
Lemonade
Spectrum
F15 Strike Eagle
Atic Atac
Manic Minor
Hungry Horace
Jetpac
Planetoids
Amiga
Civilisation 1, 2
Sim City 2000
Settlers 1
PC
Roller Coaster Tycoon 1, 2
Sims 2, 3
Civilisation 1,2,3,4
Sim City 2000
Sim City 3000
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
Playstation 1, 2
Gran Turismo 1,2,3,4
Medieval 1 & 2
Spyro the Dragon 1, 2, 3, 4…
Grand Theft Auto Vice City
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
Toca 2 Touring Cars
Fluid (not really a game, more like music software)
Sims 2
Android
Real Racing 3
My favourites were:
Arcade: Asteroids
Of course I liked Space Invaders as a kid, put your pocket money in a machine and die in 3 seconds. Those kids who could play for hours on one coin had put a lot of money in them to get to that point. Anyway, I was in a pub with my parents one day and I spied a new tabletop arcade game: Asteroids. They had cracked gravity effects in this. I liked the wireframe style, Asteroids rebooted with fancy effects isn’t the same. The tabletop game had the explosion and engine noises ramped up to make up for the display of your wireframe triangle spaceship. Later I got Planetoids on the Spectrum, I did like it, but not as much as Asteroids.
Apple: Chop Lifter
I just used to adore flying a helicopter, even if it was with paddles on the Apple 2, spent hours being killed on this game. It was stupid hard though, the not being killed curve was a sharp one, especially when the little aliens come after you. It was very hard to fly around them using Apple paddles.
Spectrum: Jetpac
Who doesn’t want to have a Jetpac? I totally got into this as a kid, even dreaming of flying my Jetpac with recurring dreams of it. Jetpac was hard though, especially on a Spectrum keyboard. I seem to remember the game didn’t work with a joystick.
Amiga: Civilisation
God game extreme, ruin the planet through time! 1 and 2 were great but 3 and 4 are terrible. Civ 1 on the Amiga was a bit of a nightmare before I got a hard disk for it as you needed to swap the floppy disks a lot. I have had a go at 1 on DOSBOX emulator not long ago, it is still a great game but I don’t enjoy the entire effect anymore. 4 is voiced by Dr Spock but that doesn’t help it become a good game.
PC: Roller Coaster Tycoon 1
Hooked is the only word to describe how I was with this game. Sooo many hours in theme park land have been lost. I did enjoy making some very awesome theme parks. Once I played it solidly for a day and went out to find myself in roller coaster land as a little person running about, no joke. In the end I had to tell myself that I must never play it again, like an alcoholic who can never touch a drop again without going back on the wagon. It is the most fiendishly addictive game.
PS1: MediEvil 1
I adore this game. Such a clever game indeed. Spyro 1 is close but this one is better, a joy to play with an amazing replay value. It has a “Nightmare Before Christmas” kind of theme to it. You start off quite weak and at the end you get the Big Sword, and you become quite powerful. One of the voice artists was Paul Darrow (Avon in Blakes 7). MediEvil 2 had some nice moments but it wasn’t as good as 1, there was also a boxing level I didn’t ever manage to do without cheat codes.
PS1: Spyro the Dragon 1
What a super game this is. The sequels were pretty bad, but number 1 was a very well-crafted game. The fact that you can play it beginning to end but then go back and tidy up 100% after (collecting all the gems and dragons) is very clever. So you don’t need to solve all the puzzles to move on. Later you come back to work on the level again until you find all the secrets. The music is by Stuart Copeland too (The Police drummer). Really is an awesome game.
Simcity 2000
Like Rollercoaster Tycoon, I must not play this game anymore. So much time wasted. I loved making cites. Though, there is a problem with the open ended nature of the game. You ruin a bit of green field land with a smelly city and you can just go on and on. Then the Arcologies, where you build these tower things that have no character but lots of people inside. It’s a crap ending to enjoying making a city. Seems you launch them into space and then thats good somehow, I did it once I think but the concusion wasn’t the fun of the game, I did have 3000, 4000 versions but 2000 was the best.
PS1: Toca2 Touring Cars
A superb game. Actually drives better than Gran Turismo. The circuits were all English ones that I had been to when my dad had a racing car. This game was the best racing game by far.
Awful:
Android: Real Racing 3
This game is awful. It is designed to make you spend loads of money, and for what? Buy a Lamborghini Countach that doesn’t drive any different to the other cars and that you need to drive on a tablet or phone. I quite liked Gran Turismo on the PS2 as the cars did drive differently to each other, also, not on a silly small screen. This “free” game was simply designed for you to spend loads of money to complete the sections and get cars. The Lamborghini Miura could only be bought for real money. This game ends up expensive and its not fun.
PC: Sims 3
Why? Why? I did like the PS2 version of the Sims 2 as it wasn’t completely anal. What I liked about Sims 2 on PS2 was making a cool house, I never was that much into having a real-life scenario on a computer. The PC Sims3 sims themselves are rather annoying, needing careers, food, shower and a pee. Sims 2 PS2 sims were just dolls to run about your cool house. The game just does your head in.
The best:
So which was the best? Roller Coaster Tycoon 1. It is simply the best game ever.