Geekshow

Even More Computer Games of Yore

I played a lot of computer games growing up, including a bunch of titles best forgotten. These games, however, do not fall into that category. These are some more games from my childhood that I remember having fun with.

Terminal Velocity

Terminal Velocity is an arcade flight-combat game with science fiction trappings. You can fly really slowly without falling from the sky and turn your ship instantly, so Terminal Velocity isn’t worried about realistic physics. As the name implies, the game sets out to provide high speed thrills and lots of action. You have to fight enemies in the air and on the ground while tracking down and destroying specific targets.

Raptor: Call of the Shadows

Raptor is a vertically-scrolling shooter in which you fight waves of enemies. What makes it special though is the large amount of destructible structures on the ground, lots of cool enemy types, plenty of weapon power-ups, and a large life bar. Your ship can take quite a bit of punishment, but once you die, it’s game over. Everything you destroy nets you some cash to spend between levels upgrading your ship.

Myst

The island of Myst lives up to its name by presenting an adventure with tons of difficult puzzles that could sometimes be described as “mysterious”. In Myst, you use several magical books to travel to different worlds in an effort to free one of two brothers, each trapped in a different book. Each claims that the other brother murdered their father, and it is your job to uncover the truth and decide who is telling the truth and who is misleading you. Myst has several different endings, depending on your actions in the game. There have been several sequels to Myst, but the original still feels special to me as it is an intriguing adventure that often left me stumped while I was playing it.

Solar Winds

Solar Winds is kind of a hybrid between a space shooter and an RPG. In the game, you control a small ship, flying around the galaxy in order to unearth several conspiracies. Along the way you make some enemies and have to engage in battle with other ships. You can fly your ship in any direction that you choose, and you have to choose from several attributes on your ship to upgrade such as weapons, shields, or hyperdrive.

Laura Bow 2: Dagger of Amon Ra

When you think of adventure games made by Sierra, the different “Quest” series are what first comes to mind. However, Sierra made many other great adventures, including a couple of games featuring a female lead character named Laura Bow. Laura is a young newspaper reporter tasked with writing a story about a benefit party at a museum. Things quickly go wrong as someone gets murdered at the party and everyone gets locked in with the killer. The game has a lot of great characters that are brought to life by excellent voice acting. There is one character from the game that I still remember in particular for a particular line of dialogue. When clicked with the “touch” icon, the Chinese laundromat owner, Lo Fat, says, “Please not to touch me! My wife, very jealous woman. No hanky-panky in store, okay?” For some reason, that line has stuck with me long after I played the game.

Rebel Assault II

Playing as the illustrious character of “Rookie One”, you will take on the Empire and uncover a hidden plot involving mysterious “ghost ships” that are reeking havoc on the Rebel Alliance. Rebel Assault II is set soon after the destruction of the first Death Star. The game lets you fly several different ships from the Star Wars universe, and even some created especially for the game, such as the Phantom TIE Fighter. There are also several ground-based levels in which you must infiltrate Empire bases. Rebel Assault II has a ton of easter eggs throughout the game, including a hidden cutscene with dancing stormtroopers.

Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold

Blake Stone is basically a sci-fi version of Wolfenstein 3D. The game runs on the same engine, and shares similar features including sprite-based graphics. The titular Blake Stone is sent by British Intelligence to take down a mad scientist bent on enslaving the Earth with an army of mutant aliens. The evil scientist, Dr. Goldfire, periodically shows up to hassle Blake Stone, but he is always able to escape using a teleporter in his watch. Each level has several non-hostile scientists in addition to regular enemies.

Epic Pinball

The company that would later bring Gears of War into the world published a pinball game back in 1993. The shareware version of the game only had the Android table, but the full version had several tables with many different themes. The game has a great soundtrack, and the sound effects for every table fit very well with each particular theme. Tables included the underwater themed Deep Sea, Excalibur, Jungle Pinball, Enigma, and Toy Factory among others.

Worms

Who wouldn’t want to control militant worms as they destroy their enemies using various wacky weapons? That must have been the question running through the minds of the creators of this game. Your crack squad of worms has a huge arsenal of different attacks and power-ups to help you destroy the opposing team of worms. If you ever wanted to lob an exploding old lady at your enemies, this is the game for you.