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LEGACY GAMES


LostInSpace
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Well I guess you can figure out by the topic title what it's all about for the games of the past that were damn good (and still are even as time passes) or were damn good and slipped past out attention and never got the recognition they deserved and have come and gone without a whimper.

I'll start off with this little gem I found yesterday on the-underdogs.orq and downloaded and played a little of it called Hardwar 1998. It's actually really cool. HARDWAR. The OS the site states for this game is DOS but it's not it's for windows. The developer The Software Refinery is outa buisness and the publisher Gremlin was bought up by Interplay. But the game is still with us . The only thing your missing from the downloaded version is the FMV and the MUSIC.

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I found new life for my old Apple //e games. They were pretty good for their time, and they run just fine with an emulator on my IPAQ PDA.

Currently loaded on my PDA:

o Crush, Crumble, and Chomp

o Blue Powder, Grey Smoke

o Knights Of Legend

o SSG Series (Carriers At War, Battlefront, Decisive Battles of the American Civil War

o Roadwar 2000

o Six Gun Shootout

o Earl Weaver Baseball

o Balance Of Power

There are loads more available that I have the original disks/docs for. At the time, the copy protection was a decoder ring. Some games didn't have them.

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quote:

Originally posted by Steve Schacher:

I found new life for my old Apple //e games. They were pretty good for their time, and they run just fine with an emulator on my IPAQ PDA.

Currently loaded on my PDA:

o Crush, Crumble, and Chomp

o Blue Powder, Grey Smoke

o Knights Of Legend

o SSG Series (Carriers At War, Battlefront, Decisive Battles of the American Civil War

o Roadwar 2000

o Six Gun Shootout

o Earl Weaver Baseball

o Balance Of Power

There are loads more available that I have the original disks/docs for. At the time, the copy protection was a decoder ring. Some games didn't have them.

You know what I still have the Earl Weaver Baseball and Knights of Legend for the PC. Box and all. Yeah they were good in their day.

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Just discovered this program that works like a dream when it comes to running older games. It's called VMWare Workstation. It's essentially a computer emulator for your computer. You start up the program under WinXP and you then install any operating system that you have onto this 'virtual machine.' So any time you want to run that old Win95/DOS game you just start up the program and then pick the appropriate 'virtual machine' to start up. It's actually meant to help developers with quality assurance on multiple platforms with a single server so it's not cheap ($299 for the registered retail version). There's a 30-day trial available from their website if you want to check it out, however. Still $300 isn't bad for an unlimmited number of 'Legacy' machines all running on your desktop under WindowsXP.

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Ah yes, Hardwar.

Alot of BCM players would like Hardwar. It's not as detailed, admittedly, but the combat is great fun and it's got the mercantile thing going on, too.

If you want to see the game with videos Captain Zedo can get you in touch with people willing to burn a copy of the game for you. Since it's Abandonware and any company associated with it has long since been dissolved, there's really nobody to give you a hard time about it.

That said, I prefer playing the game entirely in freeform mode, without getting involved in the plot at all. And frankly unless you want to get involved in the plot the videos are no great loss.

Unfortunately the game's economic engine gets screwed up if you start playing in the real plot. Hence why I prefer remaining uninvolved.

Captain Zedo's page will give you a veritable treasure trove of hints and playing strategies. But I will tell you this one for free - forget the Hawk. It sucks.

Go with the Moon Moth if you like to dogfight or the Neo Tiger if you prefer to run away.

Me? I'm a craven coward thank you very much. I've got too much riches to bother fighting every no-good pilot who wants a piece of them. I'm fond of using Trojans just to teach those looting low-lives a lesson. If I ever get in trouble it's just a matter of hitting the afterburners and enjoying the Gs.

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quote:

Originally posted by Korgmeister:

Ah yes, Hardwar.

Alot of BCM players would like Hardwar. It's not as detailed, admittedly, but the combat is great fun and it's got the mercantile thing going on, too.


Yes, my thoughts exactly about BCM players. They should feel right at home with this game. Although, with a simple fligh model and it's not a micro-managing game the trading amd manufacturing system should keep the players more than occupied. Thanks for the link and for the tip about playing the plot.

quote:

Originally posted by Scrivener:

Just discovered this program that works like a dream when it comes to running older games. It's called VMWare Workstation. It's essentially a computer emulator for your computer.

I still use windows 98 for now but if I go for the newer OS's I'll keep that program in mind.

quote:

Originally posted by Dreada:

To sum it up, this was one of those games just lightyears ahead of its time!!.

I agree. I don't know how this one slipped past me.

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I think that the closest game in scope to BC3K that was out during the development days of BC3K was Rules Of Engagement 2 and its companion Breach 3. ROE was a space fleet simulator where you had a series of missions to accomplish (as part of a scripted storyline), a roster of officers and ships to assign, and many commands that you can issue to your officers to carry out separate components of the overall mission. Your commanders had their own personalities (from an advanced character generator) and didn't always follow your orders, and the distance between your ships caused a lag in communications. Breach was an interlocking system that allowed you to fight man-to-man battles from an overhead perspective. They never finished the interlocking aspect before Omnitrend got out of the gaming business.

The game also had a game builder system where you can script your own stories and missions.

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I used to play tradewars on the old BBS system, that is how I ran across BC3K, because I was looking for a game as detailed as Tradewars was, except BC3K had much better graphics, LOL.

I have an original buggy Take 2 copy, and 2 unopened CD's of BC3K, as well as 1 unopened copy of Battlecruiser millenium.

Yeah, I like to support the SC when I can afford it!! LOL

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quote:

Originally posted by Jaguar:

I used to play tradewars on the old BBS system, that is how I ran across BC3K, because I was looking for a game as detailed as Tradewars was, except BC3K had much better graphics, LOL.

I have an original buggy Take 2 copy, and 2 unopened CD's of BC3K, as well as 1 unopened copy of Battlecruiser millenium.

Yeah, I like to support the SC when I can afford it!! LOL

What unsigned!!! You should have SC sign them they become alot more collectible that way.

I wonder if it's that's the BBS game I've played. There was a BBS OS called Galacticom if I remember correctly and the selling point for that pay per month BBS was a space fighting/trade game text only but I can't remember the name of the game.

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Oy vey, three posts in a row... Common guys help me out here so I can at least have one space between my posts .

Anyway, got my hands on another little gem that I came across on the old trusty site theunderdogs. Star Trek TNG:A Final Unity. Wow, this is a major blast from the past. Reminds me of all the hours I spent playing Space Quest and ST:Judgement Rites. Believe it or not this trek game is actually quite good the only draw back is the SVGA graphics (yes I know I got spoiled). But I'm in the process of playing it now and I keep saying to myself "why can't they make games this good again but in true 3d". There is Bridge Commander but that game just was okay. Oh yeah, it's a dos game. check it out

STTNG:Final Unity site 1

STTNG:Final Unity site 2

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Alright then, Hostile Waters by Rage. Anyone remember Carrier Command? Well, Hostile Waters is like a massively updated version of it. You had your base carrier which had a Creation Engine - an onboard facility that could create any vessel you had the blueprints for from scrap metal that you salvaged, by way of nanotechnology. So what you would do is battle for control of islands in an archipelago by harvesting scrap metal and building a load of planes, helicopters, tanks etc.

The beauty of the game is that you could play the whole thing as a pilot, or play it all the way through as the commander, or switch between everything at will, it was completely up to you. The game had a very dark, adult vibe to it, too. Your pilots (all dead, but whose personalities were stored on chips a la Rogue Trooper) would constantly argue and swear at each other in the middle of intense firefights, it was funny as hell.

Sadly, despite everyone and his grandma remembering and loving Carrier Command, for some reason nobody bought Hostile Waters (except me ) so Rage went under. I consider HW to be a true underrated classic and I still install it every other month or so.

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quote:

Originally posted by Huwie:

Alright then, Hostile Waters by Rage. Anyone remember Carrier Command? Well, Hostile Waters is like a massively updated version of it.

Yea I have Hostile Waters - fun game but Carrier Command was much better as you had full control of your carrier.

I'm just waiting now for the Naval units in UC - gonna have some fun then

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just came from an EB to get a copy of Call of Duty and there in the used area, was a boxed copy of Hardwar. It complemented my CoD purchase nicely because its $0.49 price tag brought my CoD purchase (incl tax) to an even $53.

It never would have caught my eye if I hadn't read this thread. Sooo, thanks!

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quote:

Originally posted by Spindoktor:

there in the used area, was a boxed copy of Hardwar.

It never would have caught my eye if I hadn't read this thread. Sooo, thanks!

Cool, Lucky you finding a copy of Hardwar. hmmm no EB's here in the city though. Well actually I do have the full game from the download just not the FMV's.

We are glad to be of some help....

P.S. If you need some help or whatever for hardwar here's an excellent link HARDWAR

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  • 5 weeks later...

Did any of you guys play Starflight? Binary Systems was the creator.

I still have it on a 3 1/2 inch dikette!! LOL

Can't play it on my Win2000 system out of the box so to speak, and BCM to keep me going on that score, but it was a fun game for it's time.

A little wheel for the copywrite protection, and a wallmap of the universe is what I got with it, and still have.

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quote:

Originally posted by Jaguar:

Did any of you guys play Starflight? Binary Systems was the creator.

I still have it on a 3 1/2 inch dikette!! LOL

Can't play it on my Win2000 system out of the box so to speak, and BCM to keep me going on that score, but it was a fun game for it's time.

A little wheel for the copywrite protection, and a wallmap of the universe is what I got with it, and still have.

The answer to the first quesion is YES!!! And I too still have the entire package. I had to dload a fresh copy from Home of the Underdogs because my floppy disks gone bad.

I have mentioned before in some other posts. Call me crazy but the graphics may be a bit dated but the game is still fun because it has great content. I just played it again a few months ago. There is also an SVGA patch for it so you will not have to suffer the CGA 3 color scheme. The reason for this is because when the game was released the only state of the art video cards were 3 color cga with 16 color composite output for TV hookup thru rca jacks. So if you hooked it up to a TV like I did, you got to see the game in all it's pre-EGA card 16 colors. As for running the game today, I use a windows98 dos boot disk and play it straight thru dos the way it was meant to be played. So I would assume, if you do this too, the game will run fine just a tad fast.

I don't remember if I tried running the game thru the windows DOS box. Anyway, That wheel was the only thing I found annoying about the game a low tech copy protection. If you are interested, check this out (which I've mentioned before also) StarFlight 3. Check out the screen shots.

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quote:


Did any of you guys play Starflight? Binary Systems was the creator.

Now THAT was THE game back in the day. I remember spending many a night drinking Old Milwaukee whilst playing that. I have many fond memories playing that!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I Joined out of curiosity when I saw my site stats (www.hardwar.info) included a link from this board. Looking forward to finding the time to see what battlecruiser is all about and spreading the word amoungst the hardwar community.

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