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[DunDunDunpachi]

Arcades and consoles were better known for their platformers/sidescrollers, and the ones from the early 90s are still enshrined as examples of their genre.

But PC had a few, too. I played most of them as a kid because shareware was cheaper than NES and Genesis rentals. Any favorites? Any of them still hold up? I played Commander Keen recently and while the graphics and sounds were nostalgic, the jumping physics were...

Below are some of the better known ones in case memories need to be jogged.

Jill of the Jungle (1992)

Jazz Jackrabbit (1994)

Halloween Harry (Alien Carnage; 1993)

Duke Nukem (1991)

Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure (1992)

Commander Keen (1990)

Realms of Chaos (1995)

And a few more that missed the window by a few years:

Abuse (1996)

Prince of Persia (1989)

Stealth Apogee thread?

 

[Airola]

Isn't that Duke Nukem picture from 2 and not from 1?

I like Duke Nukem 1 more than 2, which was surprisingly cumbersome to play when I tried it the last time. The first game held up better.

Games like Secret Agent and Crystal Caves hold still up. They were as good as they were back then when I played through both a few years ago. Super fun games still. I find the more "graphically involved" games not be that good anymore when compared to the simpler looking games.

Monuments of Mars... Arctic Adventure... Still amazingly fun games!

 

[Space Runaway]

Prince of Persia still holds up otherwise...not really.

I'll always remember Halloween Harry though. Bought the shareware disk from Radioshack for like $2 and got my first ever virus. =P

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Crystal Caves was amazing! Totally forgot about it. Never tried Secret Agent, Monuments of Mars, or Arctic Adventure.

And yeah that's probably from the second one, good eye! I was pulling screenshots via search to dress up the OP and didn't check closer. Oh well

 

[Zambatoh]

I think Jazz Jackrabbit still holds up pretty well today.

 

[Alexios]

Maybe cinematic platformers like Another World and Flashback (and Prince of Persia) etc.

 

[JLB]

You are missing Risky Woods on that list OP

 

[Hawks Eclipse]

I never played Abuse to the end but I have a great impression of it with the mouselook 360 degrees aiming (maybe Flinthook was inspired by that), the mostly dark, atmospheric levels and fearsome enemy designs coupled with sound effects that fit perfectly.

I'm not sure if it'd hold up graphically on today's monitors but I'm fairly certain it still looks great on CRTs with that interlacing. Those chunky pixels, phew.

Now that I think of it, it's not on GOG yet.

BTW you might wanna edit Blackthorne in, I only played the demo back then but it's one of Tim Rogers' top games of 1994. It had a more cartoony look but the animation and handling were on point.

Edit: Fixed missing apostrophe and grammar.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

I never played Abuse to the end but I have a great impression of it with the mouselook 360 degrees aiming (maybe Flinthook was inspired by that), the mostly dark, atmospheric levels and fearsome enemy designs coupled with sound effects that fit perfectly.

I'm not sure if it'd hold up graphically on today's monitors but I'm fairly certain it still looks great on CRTs with that interlacing. Those chunky pixels, phew.

Now that I think of it, it's not on GOG yet.

BTW you might wanna edit Blackthorne in, I only played the demo back then but its one of Tim Rogers' top games of 1994. It had a more cartoony look but the animation and handling was on point.

Pretty sure Abuse is a freebie now.

I played Blackthorne on SNES and didn't think of it. Very cool game with a cover system that I wish more sidescrollers would've copied. I excluded Earthworm Jim too even though it was on PC.

 

[BigBooper]

I played Duke Nukem 1 a couple of years ago again and I enjoyed it a lot. The problem ones were mostly dos games though. I still like Bruce Lee on the C64 too.

 

[Karma Jawa]

Not really.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Generally speaking, no. Though, I'd apply that to like... 95% of PC games from that era, so take that with a grain of salt.

Old PC games are ugly as shit. EGA and CGA are garish and awful, but the art styles in these games are just... unpleasant to look at. The bigger problem, though, is that the games tend to run at a pretty low frame rate, and just feel really choppy. It's unpleasant.

Mechanically, these older platformers haven't aged well, either. Hitting stuff feels flimsy. Shooting stuff feels limp. Movement tends to lack any nuance -- there's usually no momentum, little control over jumping, etc. These games also have waaaaaay too much reliance on maze-like level designs, which I really can't stand. There's no sense of pacing, and searching aimlessly for secret areas is the most boring shit, because you know that all it's going to yield is some boring-ass treasure or something.

These games were frankly kind of shit compared to what consoles were doing at the time, and time has done absolutely nothing to aid them.

Edit: The notable exception are the Prince of Persia-style platformers. Those games had way better mechanics and level design. And aesthetics, too.

 

[Hawks Eclipse]

Pretty sure Abuse is a freebie now.

I played Blackthorne on SNES and didn't think of it. Very cool game with a cover system that I wish more sidescrollers would've copied. I excluded Earthworm Jim too even though it was on PC.

OK, I did a bit of googling about Abuse (searchbots please don't take this out of context) and I see why it's not GOGed.

Blackthorne always stuck in my mind as a PC game and I believe it was my first exposure to Blizzard. Never did play Lost Vikings.

Because you mentioned Earthworm Jim, I'm remembering Zool and James Pond. And Cool Spot (I had to Google to get the name right, was gonna say Red Spot).

 

[Touch fuzZy. get BizZay]

I liked em at the time...I don't think they would have aged well.

 

[Strife In a Teacup]

BTW you might wanna edit Blackthorne in, I only played the demo back then but its one of Tim Rogers' top games of 1994. It had a more cartoony look but the animation and handling was on point.

Game was awesome:

 

[Hawks Eclipse]

Game was awesome:

Maybe it's nostalgia speaking but it still looks awesome in this gif. Thanks for posting it man.

 

[nkarafo]

Early 90's PC graphics cards couldn't handle scrolling as good as 16bit consoles. Even 8bit consoles were better at this. By the time PCs were able to do good scrolling, 2D games were becoming obsolete and things like DOOM were the new deal.

 

[theclaw135]

Early 90's PC graphics cards couldn't handle scrolling as good as 16bit consoles. Even 8bit consoles were better at this. By the time PCs were able to do good scrolling, 2D games were becoming obsolete and things like DOOM were the new deal.

Didn't consoles back then also have color palettes and sound chips that were more gaming oriented?

 

[00_Zer0]

There is an obscure port of Turrican 2 The Final Fight on MS DOS CD. I just picked it up on eBay so I can play it on my PC. I guess I will find out soon enough if it is any good.




There's also a fan game based on this version for PC that is called T2002 which has a lot of fan created level mod packs to change the game up and to keep it fresh.

 

[existensmaximum]

No, not really. I loved Jill of the Jungle, Commander Keen and Jazz Jackrabbit when I was a kid, but mostly because it felt like a novelty to play sides rollers that weren't on Nintendo, and that had amazing graphics in comparison.

Amiga games were often better in my opinion, with better support for controllers. It was often a nightmare to configure everything with these PC games.

Anyway, I tried them a few years ago and they have not aged well unfortunately.

 

[Holammer]

Most of them haven't aged well at all, you need a hearty scoop of nostalgia to be able to swallow that.
Prince of Persia saw release on Apple II first and the PC version was just another port among many. With the SNES version being especially impressive.

 

[Mildudon]

So do some don't. Every platformer is not created equally. For example for the most Jill does not hold up. On the other hand commander keen 4 secret of the oracle very much holds up today. But at the end of the day the enjoyment you get from them is the factor to which hold up or not.

 

[nkarafo]

Didn't consoles back then also have color palettes and sound chips that were more gaming oriented?

PCs got gaming sound cards pretty early on in the late 80's. Though not all games supported them, most games in the early 90's and above did.

The EGA graphics card was also as good as any 8bit console and the VGA was as good as the SNES in how many colors it could show on screen. I don't think PCs had issues with colors, it's just that most people ended up with the ugly CGA because most PCs came with that as default (some even had monochrome cards) and the EGA/VGA were considered the expensive solutions for the majority of their lifespan. Not to mention how PCs were extremely expensive in general back then so you probably needed to make some cuts.

The only thing you couldn't solve via a hardware upgrade on PCs was the smoothness of 2D scrolling. All consoles had hardware specifically made for that but PCs were mostly about nice looking static images for point & click adventure games.

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

Can Another World / Out of this World and Flashback be included?

 

[Elektro Demon]

Comandeer Keen still holds up today.

 

[DGrayson]

Looking at this list makes me vividly remember digging through a crate of shareware/demos at my local PC shop.

 

[lock2k]

Loved Jazz Jackrabbit. Sweet game.

 

[Psychotic_Mantis]

These games bring back so many memories from my childhood. I used to go to those PC shows and grab a bunch of shareware discs. I remember Halloween Harry, Hocus Pocus, Raptor, Duke Nukem, Xargon, Jill of the Jungle and so many more. I have a few on Steam/GOG but haven't really tried them yet.

Any idea where to get Duke or Halloween Harry now? They are listed on steam but you can't buy them.

 

[Psychotic_Mantis]

Also remember a game called Skunny which was junk. Then they came out with a new one that tried to look like Donkey Kong Country graphics...and that was also trash. Hated those games yet played them constantly.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

These games bring back so many memories from my childhood. I used to go to those PC shows and grab a bunch of shareware discs. I remember Halloween Harry, Hocus Pocus, Raptor, Duke Nukem, Xargon, Jill of the Jungle and so many more. I have a few on Steam/GOG but haven't really tried them yet.

Any idea where to get Duke or Halloween Harry now? They are listed on steam but you can't buy them.

I think they took down the older compilation due to Gearbox having the rights to Duke now (thanks, Randy), but this is still available: https://3drealms.com/catalog/3d-realms-arcade-collection_55/

Which has Alien Carnage/Halloween Harry. But no Duke Nukem.

 

[stranno]

 

[gela94]

I tried to replay Jill of the jungle and my answer is NO, just horrible.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

Jazz Jackrabbit is a great game. probably better than most console platformers.

Commander Keen was pretty dope. a little floaty but still a lot of fun. Secret Agent was cool too. the Apogee games had the best platforming, before those guys did DOOM.

Secret Agent, looking a lot uglier than i remember

i had Abuse. that was pretty cool too but not that great. it came with a level designer, which made it super rad.

2D platforming on PC was indeed a tricky proposition. i owned the TMNT game that had the game breaking bug making you unable to get past level 3.

 

[V4skunk]

Turrican2 is the best.
Everything else was pretty crap.

 

[EightBit Man]

I think all of them do, but especially Jazz Jackrabbit, the Commander Keen games, and Duke Nukem 1 and 2.

I'm very fond of Jill of the Jungle and Halloween Harry as well.

Most of these games had great music as well.

 

[Froschi]

There is an obscure port of Turrican 2 The Final Fight on MS DOS CD. I just picked it up on eBay so I can play it on my PC. I guess I will find out soon enough if it is any good.

It's not obscure at all. To me it's actually the best Turrican 2 version of them all: Speed, handling and music of the Amiga version, only now with 256 colors instead of 32. Bought it back it 95, played and loved it to death, still got the big box at home.

 

[B_Boss]

I swear man... Prince of Persia for SNES is pure brilliance, making EVERY version after it poor in comparison lol. Don't even get me started on DKC. These two mentioned still look and play unreal today.

 

[Guardian's Light]

Wow, op, you gave me chills, God only knows how much I played some of the one you listed, expecially Duke, PoP, and Halloween Harry

There were countless of great sidescrolling tho

 

[Guardian's Light]

Dangerous Dave is among the ones I loved and love, is very, very old

 

[SleepySlippy]

I remember Jazz Jackrabbit 2 but not Jazz Jackrabbit. How does it hold up vs the 2?