I like computer games, or I liked them that is. Since discovering Photoshop however many years ago now they have been pushed to the sidelines to the extent that I don't really have time for them any more. Which is a shame as given the advances in technology they are probably pretty fantastic these days. Once I would have killed to be able to play on the sort of system I have now, now the only games I play are stupid Flash based ones when I'm bored that probably use about 1% of the computer's power.

Anyway I felt like reminiscing a bit about some old games that I liked, to see if anyone else there remembers/played them and what you liked. I've just chosen a few games that stick out in my mind. I've tried to select slightly more obscure ones rather than the more obvious stuff that everyone will know. I'd love to hear what other people remember (if any) from their youth as enjoying, the more obscure and old the better!

1) Voodoo Nightmare


Now this is a really obscure one, back in the days of the Amiga when upgrading to 1MB of RAM was a big deal. All I remember of the game was that is was absolutely huge. You could spend forever exploring the world which was something quite rare for games back then.

It involved jumping around on spiders and helping monkies find bananas and that sort of bollocks. I seem to remember it was said noone had ever completed it, it was so big, I certainly never got anywhere near.

2) Speedball 2


This is a classic, and I'm sure that everyone who played it will remember it well. From the Amiga again, it was a futuristic sports game that took heavy influence from Rollerball. Except for Sensible Soccer, I never knew a sports game that was anywhere as intuitive or as fun to play, and with only one control that did everything it was incredibly easy to pick up.

You get the idea of the sort of game it was if I tell you you scored as many points for critically injuring an enemy player as you did for scoring a goal. Brutal.

3) Crusader no remorse (and the sequel no regret)

A bit more obscure this one, it was an isometric action/adventure for the PC. You went through missions, performing objectives (usually blowing stuff up) killing everyone and everything in your parth with successively more obscene and violent guns.

Its adventure elements were rather weak, usually involving needing a code to get through a door. Luckily it was pretty much always the case that some dick had left the code up on his computer screen right next to the door. I seem to remember the 'ultra-violet' gun as being patricularly ridiculous with its flesh melting properties.

4) Little Big Adventure (and LBA2)



A French isometric adventure game for the PC, easily one of my favourite games ever. Amazing graphics for the time, a huge world and clever story line. Great voice acting and an immersive environment. The sequel was just as good, although suffered from the usual sequel thing of not being quite as suprising as you've seen a lot of it before and expect a lot (Half-life 2 suffered from the same thing).

5) Total annihilation



This was the best RTS (real time strategy) game of all time. While the boys were messing about with Starcraft and its cartoony nonsense the men were trying to control up to 1000 units at a time in TA and blowing eachother up on a scale not seen before. The problem was that it was so ahead of its time that it brought any pc at the time to its knees trying to run it. The storyline was also pants, but the multiplayer unparallelled.

6) TFC



Definitely a more known one, at the time I think it was the 2nd most popular online game only losing out to counter-strike. It was a remake of Quake World team fortress for Quake, and went on eventually to be remade into TF2.

I wasted a huge amount of time on this before I eventually quit (around the time I discovered Photoshop, hmmm) playing in several online teams. Possibly the most fun I ever had in a game, playing in a team online really takes it into a different realm, it makes me wish I had loads of spare time now to online game. Some things I think you can never go back to though, they will only disappoint you...

Honourable mentions go to: Cannon Fodder, Syndicate, Ascendancy, Monkey island, C&C, Street fighter 2, Mariokart, Gauntlet, Populus, Shadow of the Beast, and loads of other old games I've forgotten in my dotage.