UT99. To this day one of the best shooters. Can’t play it like I used to, since I don’t have anyone who’d play it with me. Also, only LAN parties are the real deal for games like that.

Descent - really loved the immersive 3D world and gameplay.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_(video_game)

But I must have my CH Flightstick Pro to get the most out of the manuverability of the ships.

200-503 CH Products Flightstick Pro USB 4-Button Joystick 8-Way Hatswitch https://a.co/d/4DzrpAv

Of course I haven’t played it in 30 years so I might be a tad rusty now even if I have all the gaming upgrades. 😁

Maniac Mansion, Commander Keen, Out of this World, Battle Toads, Time Traveller.

Some because I remember them being funny or having really cool styles, others just because I’m old/lazy and tracking down emulators and making time is too much.

Hardwar is something I wanted to play but didn’t think I’d get a chance to, but it’s up on steam now (so I just bought it)

I want to play baldurs gate 1 and 2 to completion but I just don’t have time for it

I never did play through Final Fantasy 7, and it’s a chonker of a game to play through

I’ve played through the later Final Fantasy Tactics Advance games, but I never got very far into Final Fantasy Tactics.

I own all 5, but my main focus in life has been my little guy.

And as a bonus… I kinda want to have game of civ… one more turn!!!

Carrier Command was utterly brilliant. I first had this on my ZX Spectrum ( it only played on 128k models)

The graphics were clear wireframe and moved so slowly but the tactical game was awesome.

Then I later got my first 16bit computer, the Atari ST and it came with…Carrier Command.

Now the graphics were in colour and the vehicles were made of solid geometric shapes and everything moved so fluidly in comparison to the previous version.

Loved the game all over again.

I know there’s an (unofficial?) Sequel on PC but I haven’t looked into it yet.

I really wish there was a better modern version of Mac Syndicate.

There is a PC remake but it misses the spirit of what was so great about the original game, which was that your agents were largely autonomous (or at least could be) by idk, 1994 standards. It didn’t add anything to their autonomy.

As a kid it felt like you were working with your agents as if they were intelligent to accomplish the missions. investing in their upgrades made them make better decisions.

I’d love a remake or reimagining where you are literally training AI agents do so these missions, maybe go against other players AIs, copy and sell your own. It could be super cool.

You Don’t Know Jack — the German editions. Loved those games. Unfortunately the new ones didn’t get translated as far as I see, and while I speak English quite well, I miss the cultural context for many questions. And the old ones are somewhat outdated for a lot of questions.

But I loved the attention to detail in those games.

Duke 3d

Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

Marathon. Not the extraction shooter that Bungie recently announced, but a remake of the original with a modern graphics engine.

1. SimAnt. I spent way too long guiding my ant colony to the kitchen. SimEarth gets an honorable mention here, although I don’t remember playing it for nearly as long.

2. M.U.L.E. , it’s funny how much time I spent playing a economics game.

3. Lords of Conquest, it was an 80s strategy game that was kind of RISK jr.

4. Impossible Mission, I had a hacked copy and didn’t have any instructions so I just guessed at what to do

5. Project Space Station on the C64. I remember playing that and thinking how far away the 2000’s seemed. I thought we’d have more space stations by the 2020s. It turns out all we have is more memes.

Sheesh, now I need to find a good C64 emulator

Edited to add: OG Railroad Tycoon was 1990 and RRT 2 was 1998, those were a lot of fun, too. I think I bought RRT2 from GOG at one point for the nostalgia

Assuming it’s ok to include arcade games (and at the risk of dating myself)….

Pong Simple yet challenging and you could carry on a conversation while playing it.

Zork Puzzles and world building were engaging. Imagining the world from the text descriptions was like getting lost in a book.

Battle Zone This was the first FPS that I played. Loved the immersion.

Missile Command Just a fun save-the-world game that ate all my quarters.

Myst Great worlds, great story, great puzzles. Amazing considering that it ran in HyperCard.

Tongue of the fat man.

Robocop.

Death race.

Ivan Stewart’s super off road.

Hard drivin

Thexder

Turrican 2

Shadow of the beast

Strider (arcade)

Snow brothers (arcade)

Gauntlet (arcade)

Double Dragon (arcade)

Summer Games

Bubble Bobble

Wonder Boy

Rastan Saga

The Space, Kings, and Hero Quests.

Etc, etc

I’m pretty sure you can play my entire list now, but frankly nearly every game worth playing is playable. My list are games that are better than modern games.

Master of Magic - Civ with magic that hasn’t been done as well since. I haven’t checked out the recent remake, but this game was miles ahead of the competition and still stands up as better than most fantasy civ games.

Dune 2000 - basically a Command and conquer reskin, but the factions felt different and balanced.

Dragon Warrior (quest) III and IV - the best RPGs on the NES. III was the finale of a trilogy of games, very customisable and satisfying. IV changed your perspective repeatedly across the story, and I had never seen that in a game before.

SimCity 2000 - probably the best city builder. Newer games looks nicer, have more systems and are generally more nuanced and detailed. However those newer games tend to get bogged down in details and it becomes more difficult to get into them. For me this hit the right balance between complexity and ease.

Shingen the Ruler - for some reason I am convinced that it was called shingen the conquerer, but can find no evidence of this. A sengoku period grand strategy game on the NES. I always want the total war games to be more like this game, but instead the real time battles feel far less satisfying and tactical that a turn based version.

Quake III Arena. It came out in the 20th century, which sounds crazy to me. It was about 10 years ago I last played it or its remakes.

I got into Q3 a few years late, but there was still a fairly healthy local community for it back then. Quake 4 came out and then Quake Live, which I played for a while, but the local community was missing by then.

Sure I could still play it, but I’m guessing there aren’t even enough people to fill a 5v5 capture the flag match anymore, Q3 or QL… a shame. But at least I have good memories of it.

1. Half Life
2. Sim Copter
3. Carmageddon
4. Quarantine
5. Descent
6. SiN

So much magic wrapped up in these games. I’m aware of the sequels and what not but I’d love to go back to them completely fresh.

Honourable mention to Deus Ex and Need for Speed Porsche 2000 which missed the cut by months.