<insert entire Apogee, Microprose, Westwood, Interplay, Blizzard, Sierra, Id, LucasArts, Origin and Epic catalog>

typical 'best must have dos' thread done.

Come now, I want to have it all in one place. Besides, not ALL of those can fall into the "best" category I'm looking for, which is basically "the kind of quality game that makes you think 'wow, how did this happen? Super-intelligent aliens must have come down from the sky and dropped the graphics and code into their laps.' " Anyway, I don't know what all those catalogs have in them regardless. Come on, give the ignorant newbie a chance. (EDIT: that seems kind of rude. I really do consider myself ignorant on this subject; that's why I'm asking here) 😊

flight sims: f19 stealth fighter, battle hawks 1942/their finest hour, chuck yeager's air combat, a-10 tank killer, falcon 3.0, gunship 2000, f15 strike eagle ii, aces of the pacific/over europe, red baron, air duel: 80 years of dogfighting, dawn patrol, wings of glory, I'm sure I'm missing some.

I put star wars xwing etc. in a separate space sims category.

As far as EGA platformers go, I defintely agree with the Keen games. I also have special fondness for Captain Comic and Captain Comic II (mind you, they aren't as good as Keen).

Other recommendations from my collection:

Arcade:
Tempest 2000 is a great arcade shooter with very nice CD audio.

I've been playing a lot of Uncharted Waters: New Horizons lately. Not sure what category that belongs to. It' s a lot like Sid Meier's Pirates, with some JRPGness thrown in. Strategy, I guess? And as far as space themed exploration/trading games go, GameTek's Nomad is a good one, though that one's more on the adventure side.

Adventure:
The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel (not many puzzles, but lots of dialogue and well written).
TimeQuest (text adventure with some graphics)

3D Action/Adventure
Twinsen's Odyssey (controls aren't so great, but otherwise very charming)

Turn based strategy:
UFO: Enemy Unknown (and XCOM2, XCOM3)
Jagged Alliance
Heroes of Might and Magic 1&2

Real time strategy:
Command & Conquer series
Dune 2

You left out some of the best DOS games to ever exist.

Real-time Strategy: Warcraft 2
Role Playing Game: Ultima 7
Graphic Adventure: Monkey Island
Space Combat Simm: Wing Commander 2

Please remove Jazz Jackrabbit from your top ten list:-P

Categories in 8+3 style like I named them on every PC/MAC

ADVENT = Adventures (Sierra, Lucas ...)
FLIGHT = Flight-Simulations (F16-Falcon, ...)
FIGHTN = Fighting (e.g. MK-Series, Bodyblows...)
2DSHOT = 2D Shooter (Tyrian, ...)
3DSHOT = 3D Shooter (Wolf3d, ...)
ACTION = Action (Biomanace, ...)
ARCADE = Arcade (DynaBlaster, ...)
STRATE = Strategy (e.g. Dune2, ...)
ROLEPL = Roleplaying (Ultima-Series, ...)

Long-term goal is to difference between the gfx-standards and the machines!
Which means, same structure as above but for:

XT-MDA/CGA
AT-EGA/VGA
386-486/VGA
PENTIUM/VGA-SVGA

Impossible to get a definitive "top 10" list as it's purely down to opinion. The most objective method is probably a review aggregator like gamerankings.com, but their coverage for early-mid 90's games is maybe a little spotty.

What's more interesting to me is people just talking about what they like and why, especially if it's not just the usual suspects.

My collection has a lot of the usuals and I do love the US greats like id/Westwood/Blizzard/LucasArts/Dynamix etc etc. But I also have a lot of affection for games that come from the UK and France. Nearly everything that came out of Bullfrog in the earlier days was gold. Just down the road from me is Team17 who put out Worms and Alien Breed. Across the channel our Gallic friends made games that had a unique feel to them. Cryo and Delphine rarely put out anything rooted in the real world, that would have been far too boring! Check this out from the Dune manual:

Just added Syndicate Wars to my Bullfrog collection:

Well my must haves are:

For 3D:
Ultimate Doom
Doom II
Doom II TNT
Doom II Plutonia
Wolfenstein 3D
Spear of Destiny
Blake Stone AOG
Blake Stone PS
Duke Nukem 3D
Strife

For Strategy:
Warcraft 2 BTDP
CnC
Red Alert

And i really like Jazz Jackrabbit, ok, it has its shortcomings, but music and graphics are superb!

THIS.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiQAqwFrVmHrn3jX07EhQAw

Lots of nice stuff shown here.

"Must have" indicates one should actually OWN these games. Many late 80's EGA games are nearly impossible to find these days, or the prices for them are absurdly high. Then again, if you bought/downloaded everything from GOG etc. you don't really own anything if you lack the physical media, manual and box for the game. 😵 So should we talk about games that people need in their collection to make it substantial, or just games that warrant a place in a top-10 list no matter how you obtain it? It would be an interesting challenge to actually own most of the games in these lists. 😀

Lot of the Bitmap Bros catalog like Gods, Magic Pockets, Xenon2.. Canon Fodder, Risky Woods, Links386, Supaplex, Metal Mutant, Flashback, Another World, Lemmings, Elf (elf never gets much love, I always thought it a good game on msdos, better on amiga tho). classics like jill of the jungle, zool, jazz jackrabit, prehistorik, moonstone, bubble bobble, rastan saga, blues brothers..

gee I didnt even start on rpgs or adventures yet 😜

I'd like to add "Z" from Bitmap Brothers to the category of best RTS games. Man that game is fast and fun and later maps are quite demanding.
I love it!

To all who don't know Z: It's not a Command&Conquer style clone-game, it brought a whole new concept to the genre: One had to control sectors on a map to gain control over production of units and the more sectors you control the quicker the units get produced. You win the map when you destroy the oponent HQ.

Runs smoothly on a DX2/66 in VGA and is playable on a DX4/100 in SVGA (Pentium recommended though - Pentium 66 / 75 is fine).

-2D EGA platformers: no idea.
-2D VGA platformers: no idea.
-3D FPS games: System Shock.
-Flight simulators / flight games: Their Finest Hour, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, TIE Fighter Collector CD, Jane's Advanced Tactical Fighters, F-16 Combat Pilot, F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0, Gunship 2000, Wing Commander.
-Point and Click: no idea.
- RPG: Space Rogue, Ultima VI, Ultima VII, Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed, Buck Rogers: Countdown To Doomsday, Privateer, Privateer 2: The Darkening, Star Control II, Quest for Glory I-IV.
- Strategy: Air Force Commander, Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon, War of the Lance, Armor Alley, Red Storm Rising. Syndicate, Warlords II with scenario builder.

I see three different categories of "must have" games. 😀
1) Must have because the game is a classic, is extremely fun and has lots of replay value.
2) Must have because of its nostalgic value, even if it's not as fun today as it was back then.
3) Must have because of its critical acclaim, even if it's in a genre that you're not really into.

For me, category 1 must haves include System Shock, the Wing Commander series, Duke Nukem 3D, Ultima Underworld 1 and 2, Descent 1 and 2, Ultima 7 series, Wings of Glory, Gabriel Knight, Quake I, and Tie Fighter CD.

Category 2 must haves are Doom 1 and 2, Ultimas 2-6, Aces of the Pacific, Aces Over Europe, Red Baron, Lost Treasures of Infocom, and Inca.

Category 3 must haves include all the Sierra and LucasArts classic adventure games. I never could get into point and click adventure games (other than Gabriel Knight) back in the day, but I recognize their greatness and enjoy owning them. I also will keep trying them with the intention of falling in love with them they way I did with category 1 must haves.

keenmaster486 wrote:

so this is partly a quest to fill my hard drive with the best DOS games in existence

There are popular, well-known games. "Best" is too subjective.

GL1zdA wrote:

THIS.

Not one Space Quest entry 🙁. Great list though. I'll forgive that oversight seeing there is more than 1 Sierra title represented.

Nice list indeed, the screenshots help a lot.

You can also download a Computer Gaming World issue as PDF, like the June 1996 issue for example:
http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php? … 96&pub=2&id=143
On the page 202 there is the Hall of Fame (prior to 1989 and 1989-1996) and on page 206 there is the Poll with the Top 10 in each category. On page 208 there is the general Top 100 of that month.